Father in Heaven, Lord we humbly come before you today to thank you for all that you provide in our daily lives. You give us all that is good and wholesome for our edification and growth, and Father we ask for your forgiveness of our many lapses, as we ask you to teach us how to forgive and move on from the past in others. Please grow us to be more like you Lord. In your Heavenly Name, Amen!
Today, I am excited to get a chance to talk with you about faith, as it applies to our relationship in and with our Lord, and how it grows as a result. As alluded to in today’s message reading, our Faith in our God in key to our growth, obedience, and even better understanding of who God is, and what we are not. And I think it all begins with us establishing and then reaffirming our relationship in and with the Lord.
There are a couple of commercials on TV these days, one of them with Franklin Graham, that instruct us to pray to God; “Lord I am a sinner, I’m am sorry, please forgive me, I want your son Jesus Christ to be a part of my life… If you said that prayer, call the number on your screen…”
You see that most excellent advice and loving service our friends on the TV are providing people is a beginning with God, as in all of our development. All of us, all of us, need to be in prayer thanking God that there are people out there willing to share the Good News in creative ways, and then come to the realization that all of us, need to keep coming to the Lord, even after our relationship with Him has begun. And if nothing seems to be happening, keep plugging away. Knock and the door will be opened.
Even in the midst of adversity and great disappointment in our lives, our God wants us to cling to Him for our very survival, growth, and edification. That’s when we need God ever more for our faith in Him. Reminding me of King David one of my heroes of Old Testament scripture. No matter how bad things got, how bad David’s actions were, how much challenge and adversity he faced, scripture shows David coming back to God, over and over again. Let me read to you from Psalm 37:1-11; A Psalm Of David.
1 Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For those who are evil will be destroyed,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.
10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
11 But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy peace and prosperity.
It’s as if David is sharing the Good News in his day, like Franklin Graham and others like us are sharing God’s Good News today, about a life that works. A faith that is rooted in and with the Lord, leads to hope, and genuine love in our lives. David seems to understand that when our trust is in our Lord, our challenges, our afflictions, and all of those people whom we struggle with are all put into a new perspective in time.
For me, that’s when I begin to understand what is important in life, and how essential our faith is to begin to trust in our Lord. To build upon that relationship in and with a God who is there, and sees us for who we are, in our good and bad moments.
I guess that’s why I love to dive into the Book of Psalms, and read about our relationships with God, and other people. For, we know from our Lord’s instruction in the Gospel of Matthew 26: 37-40, and I’ll paraphrase that we are to love God with all we have and are, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Well, the book of Psalms shows us what happens in our relationships with God and other people, when we hold faith to that premise of love, and faith, or what happens when we don’t.
The book of Psalms in the Bible stands out for me (regardless of if David or someone else wrote the particular Psalm), as a microscope looking at the human condition. A person will find humanity soaring with the Angels, and sinking to the depths of the demons of despair. Reminding me of today’s Call to Worship reading, that Angelique provided us this morning. This time, I am going to read the entire Psalm in order for us to see the whole range of what we people are capable of expressing, for better and worse. Reading again, Psalm 137;
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
*I need to interrupt David’s Psalm to say; How sad! You can almost feel the sorrow and pain of those who have been taken into captivity, and now long for the days of their youth when they lived and took for granted all the blessings God provided in His children’s lives. And yet the very reason the children of Israel were taken into captivity, into Babylon, was because they were faithless in their lives with God as a people.
The sorrow that you can feel that is enmeshed in the written word spanning 25 centuries of time, are the murmurs of self-inflicted wounds. This is what happens when we lack the faith of the tiniest of seeds. When we choose to leave our Lord out of our lives, bedlam, mayhem, and anarchy become the reality in place of growth, achievement, and clarity of purpose. There is no doubting the sorrow of our Psalmist.
But now, I want to read the rest of this Psalm, what I was afraid for you to hear at the beginning of our service today, because I was afraid, I might loose you before we got started. So now, the darker side of humanity beginning at verse 7;
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Wow, and where to begin? The first question out of the gate might be; Why would God let these horrible words be included in His Scripture. How is that edifying, and I quote; “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks”, and what are we to make of this violence of thought in the extreme?
Israel, became every bit as vile as her traditional enemies were, or even worse. And they can’t even control themselves when angered their language betrays where their hearts really are.
What we see here is what happens when any people, even God’s children (you and me) go down the road of resentment looking for revenge, and being filled with malice, hatred, and evil. The vessel that carries that putrid, fetid, puss of malevolence, will corrode and corrupt into the very pile of trash we self-righteously condemn in others on autopilot.
So why does God include those horrible thoughts in His Psalm? Because scripture exists to teach us in every generation, how to and how not to, carry on in our day-to-day relationships, and lives. The Apostle Paul, undoubtedly knew his Bible, and knew what had happened to his ancestors who were deported into Babylonian exile.
Paul instructed his students to remain strong in faith through self-discipline, and seeking God’s grace. Here are Paul’s instruction to Timothy as Paul seeks to strengthen his disciple endurance by holding on to the Holy Spirit. Reading from 2 Timothy 1:6-14;
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.
13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Make no doubt about it, our faithwalk requires work on our part, to remain in faith. But it can not be without the active participation of our Lord, and His Holy Spirit who lives in us. Sanctifies us, justifies us, and sustains us. Even in our weakness. With God, all things are possible, including being thrown in prison as Paul was, enduring suffering and hardship as Paul, Timothy along with countless disciples then and now, and our own Lord Jesus’ sacrifice for you and me! Making me want to shout out to the Lord to please strengthen my faith.
The very request the apostles made to the Lord all those years ago. Reading again today’s message reading from Luke 17:5-10;
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
*Let me interrupt here to say; yeah but. Why is it, when I ask for stuff, it don’t happen? Let’s break this down quickly;
- If I have real faith, I am asking for things that are in accord with my master JC.
- Real faith, understands that all questions are rooted in God’s will, for God’s glory, and not mine.
- When real faith comes, I will be able to demonstrate that I know how to use the tools God provides me and he will grow me as I am able to mature.
If anything, my friends, we are getting a glimpse of what might lay in store for our future. Continuing now at verse 7;
7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
So now after giving the disciples an idea of what lies in their future, our Lord now, brings the group and you and me along in the process, back down to earth by instructing us on the following thoughts;
- My thoughts must be on my master, Jesus Christ who I am slave to!
- After we have accomplished something new in our faithwalk in the Lord, we need to recognize, there is no time for self-boasting.
- God deserves all credit in this walk of ours
- If we are doing things for accolades and praise, we are doing things for the wrong reasons.
- We require constant reminding of who God is and what we are not in this life of ours!
- When people or churches start taking the credit that belongs to the Lord, they are headed down the path of Jonestown or Waco Texas. Both cases ended in disaster because the focus was not the Lord.
Living the good life with our Lord and His family, the Body of Christ, our brothers and sisters is about joy, not loss. When we finally begin to understand our real potential in eternity, our faith may well indeed begin to be as much as a small mustard seed that can do wonders in bringing glory to our incredible God!
Then we will be able to identify with; Faith as a Seed, and Life Supernal. My hope and prayer for all of you this week, a week that our Jewish brothers and sisters observe High Holidays Rosh-hoshana leading to Yom Kippur, or 10 days of awe (the creation of the universe) leading to the day of atonement. That you will also reflect on your faithwalk and contemplate where your faith is right now. That will give you an idea of what to pray to the Lord for, in the beautiful lives that you are building with Him.
Amen!