PART 10

 

LIFESTYLE LEADERSHIP

Inner Lifestyle III

FAITH

"NOW FAITH IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR, THE EVIDENCE OF

THINGS UNSEEN" (Hebrews 11:1).

"Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh

to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that

diligently seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6).

We are constantly beseiged by new believers about faith. What is

it? What is involved? We will, in this session, discuss the leader

and faith in four aspects.

First, faith means that we believe that God will provide. "For

we walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7) - "But my God

shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ

Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). Do we trust that our God is our Father? Many

people comment that they have been put to the test by God giving them

cancer to learn a lesson - or that God took a young wife to heaven

just to teach the husband a lesson. Would you, as a parent teach your

child by this method? Why would you think that a loving Father in

heaven would do such an act to one of His children? Jesus Christ told

us about the care that God has for all living things and that He knows

the number of hairs on our head. Why, then, can anyone think that our

loving Father would bring on horrors to teach a lesson? Horrors occur

on earth because we are on earth. God promises to provide for our

needs! Our needs, not our wants. Our needs as He sees them in the

eternal picture of life, and not in our finite frame of reference.

The second meaning of faith is that we believe that what we do

for God will prosper. "And he shall be like a tree planted by the

rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf

also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" (Psalm

1:3).

We are forever under His constant watch and care. We are

surrounded by the rivers of His love, mercy and grace. The psalmist

stresses this point time and time again. "He will not suffer thy foot

to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that

keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy

keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand" (Psalm 121:3-5).

Faith also means believing that God is absolutely trustworthy.

How many times do we have our children say, "whatever you think is

best, Dad(or Mom)" when we have them looking for some clothes or a

bike? We lose sight of the fact that God is ALMIGHTY. God's

attributes include three that man will never have - OMNIPOTENCE -

OMNIPRESENCE - and OMNISCIENCENT. ALL POWERFUL - EVERYWHERE AT ALL

TIMES - and ALL KNOWING. Can you picture the effect of asking God

anything? God can respond with an immediate answer to ANYTHING! No

matter where we may go, we KNOW that God is ALWAYS THERE! Whenever we

are in need or trouble, we know that God can SOLVE EVERYTHING!

"Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and upright are Thy judgements. Thy

testimonies that Thou has commanded are righteous and very faithful"

(Psalms 119:137,138). God has never done a single thing wrong! What

He calls upon us to believe and do is absolutely right. Everything

that He has said is trustworthy. What He decides, where He leads, and

what He says is ALWAYS right. His promises are sure. His will is

good, acceptable and PERFECT!

I find that the story of the father that took his child to Jesus

to see if he could be helped as related in Mark 9 is of value to those

of us that need to know about faith in God. This is the story that

has the father arriving at the camp of Jesus when Jesus was at the

mount where He had been transfigured. When Jesus returned to the

camp, He saw that the father had besought the disciples for help, but

they had been unable to help. Jesus then asked the father how long

the child had suffered. In verse 21, the father relates the horrors

that the child had been going through, and that he was at the end of

his rope. The father asked for ANYTHING and Jesus responds in verse

23 with ALL THINGS. The father said "if Thou canst do" while Jesus

responds "if thou canst believe."

The problem is never, repeat NEVER, what or how much Jesus can

do. The problem is what we can believe that He can do. Matthew 9:29

confirms this.

THE INNER LIFE OF THE LEADER WILL MAKE OR BREAK HIM. If the

leader forsakes the cultivation and practice of purity, humility and

faith - if the leader fails to "purpose in his heart to not defile

himself" then the leader will be removed by God from the position of

leadership. If the leader does purpose in his heart to seek FIRST the

kingdom of God, then that leader can be used by God in a mighty way.

To make leadership a lifestyle, each of us must do as Paul instructs

us - "Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which ye shall be

able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked" (Ephesians 6:16).

"But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the

breastplate of faith and love ..." (I Thessalonians 5:8).

The use of a leader, by God, in the world is for his lifetime,

the use of man by God is for an eternity. What we do as leaders has

an immediate implication, but it also means that we have an ETERNAL

result of our actions or lack of action. "The eyes of the lord run to

and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the

behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him" (II Chronicles

16:9).

Here are some observations on the matter of faith and the life of

a leader and the BODY as a whole. I have discovered many counterfeits

of faith that are created by man. Counterfeits such as Enthusiasm,

Piety, Legalism, and others; However, my most impacting observation

was on what faith should mean but seems to have lost in today's

church.

We need today to be reminded that the Kingdom of God does not

consist of rituals, works or any outward observances of any kind or

manner. The Kingdom of God consists of righteousness, peace and joy

in the Holy Spirit. This kingdom, moreover, is a gift of God, not a

human accomplishment. Its foundation is the vicarious atonement of

Jesus Christ on Calvary. It was carried forward by the great

outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

The disciples before Pentecost were only disciples. They tried

to follow Jesus and His teachings as best they could, but they did not

know true faith. It was only at Pentecost that they were truly made

Apostles. At that time, each of them experienced the power of the

resurrection of Jesus Christ. At that time, each of them was

emboldened by the Holy Spirit to bear witness of Christ in public.

Whereas previously they were disciples of the One whom they saw as the

Messiah of Israel, now they were ambassadors and heralds of the risen

Christ. Instead of seeking faith that is a dead work of the law, they

now had the faith that empowers and redeems. Previously they had the

faith of servants, now they had the faith of sons of the Living God.

Previously they were plagued by timidity and fearfulness, now they

were ready to die for the sake of their Master and Savior.

Faith includes intellectual assent, but its essence is a personal

relationship with the Living Savior, Jesus Christ. It consists,

basically, in a living union with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. True

faith means being before doing - being in the favor of God before

doing the will of God. It means being grasped by the Spirit of God.

It is an opening of our inward eyes to the reality of God's

incomparable love poured out for sinners in the sacrificial life and

death of Jesus Christ.

Yet, faith is not an almighty action of the Holy Spirit on the

soul, it is also in our action in the power of the Spirit as we are

sent forth into the world as witnesses and ambassadors of Christ.

Faith entails both radical passivity and radical activity. Luther

once observed: "Faith ... is a living, busy, active, mighty thing ...

so it is impossible for it not to do good works incessantly."

The deficiency found in many churches today is an empty formalism

or barren biblicism, either of which degenerates into an oppressive

legalism. Other churches that seem more vital are plagued by

perfectionistic enthusiasm or frenetic activism that borders on

humanism. What is needed is a recovery - a revival - of the depth and

breadth of Apostolic faith.

A revival must start in the heart of one individual - me. Each

believer, with God, can work the miracle of revival - 'Breaking up the

fallow ground' only in their own heart and life - then God can use

that person to spread His revival to the world!

It is imperative that we bear in mind that Jesus Christ is not

just a moral ideal or prophetic genius - He is a LIVING SAVIOR. He is

not simply the human representative of God, but God Himself in human

flesh. It is not enough to know the historical facts about the life

of Christ, how He lived and died, each person must know that Jesus

died for them personally!

True faith does not consist of imposing our views on others, but

in sharing the light given to us. In our evangelistic task we must

not approach others with any pretension to greater virtue or

intellectual acumen. Instead, we present ourselves as fellow sinners

whose eyes have been opened both to the gravity of the human

predicament and to the reality of God's unconditional grace and love.

The word that we proclaim stands in judgment over our lives as well as

the lives of our hearers. We are beggars telling others where they

can get food. As "fishers of men" we are instrumental in advancing

the Kingdom of God, but it is not through our cleverness that people

are won to Jesus Christ; our task is simply to let down the net of the

Gospel. As the vehicle of the Spirit, the Gospel itself brings in

souls for the kingdom. (Luke 5:2-10)

This is not to imply that Christians should never use apologetic

arguments in defense of the faith, but our purpose in doing so is not

to induce a decision of faith. (Only the Spirit does that through the

preaching of the Word.) Rather, our aim is to intensify the hunger

for faith in the human soul and to help those who already believe to

better understand their own faith. We can show the intellectual

relevance of our faith by argumentation, but faith's concrete

relevance to the human condition can be grasped only by those whose

minds have been touched by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Our witness is not to some "zapping" peak experiences of the

sacred, but to the incursion of the sacred into the secular which we

see in Jesus Christ.

Our appeal is not to external evidences for the faith but to

evidences that faith itself provides:

The empty tomb.

The transformed lives of the disciples.

The interior witness of the Holy Spirit.

In carrying out the evangelistic mandate, we must bear in mind

that Holy Scripture is its own best interpreter, that is to say,

Scripture illumined by the Spirit of God, its author. Holy Scripture

in the hands of Spirit directed believers is sufficient to "demolish

arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the

knowledge of God." (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV)

We should never confuse religion with techniques for cultivating

spirituality or programs of church growth. It is God who gives the

increase, though it is up to us to plant the seed. (1 Corinthians

3:6-7) Our responsibility is to hear the Word and then share the Good

News. We can serve the Kingdom of God, but we cannot build it. The

kingdom is a gift from God that can only be received with thanksgiving

and gratefulness.

There is a difference between believing that Christ is the Savior

of humankind in general and coming to know Him as one's own Savior.

Faith, understood as an interior awakening to the glory and meaning of

the cross, is a gift of God. It is a work of the Holy Spirit within

us. If we do not have this kind of faith, let us seek it. Let us

pray for it as the Apostles did. (Luke 17:5) The key to discipleship

is given by our Lord:

"Ask, and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and

it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7)

True faith is inseparable from the experience of divine holiness

and divine love. Sometimes that experience will take dramatic form,

such as when the apostle Paul was lifted up into the 'third heaven.'

(2 Corinthians 12:2) Yet those who have such experiences do not dwell

on them. People of faith are not spiritual exhibitionists, but

heralds and ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ. Living on a

'religious high' is not serving the glory of God and advancing his

kingdom. John the Baptist furnished the model of true spirituality

and faith when he declared: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

(John 3:30)

Humility such as this is an indispensable mark of authentic

piety. No one can be confronted by the Holy God without having a

poignant sense of one's own creatureliness and sinfulness. (Isaiah

6:1-5) What shows us the depth of our sin and the magnitude of God's

grace is not just an awareness of God as the Holy One, (which all

people have to some degree) but the knowledge of the Holy Love of God

reflected in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Humility is the key

to the love of other human beings for God and for one another. Proud

people cannot love, because love means to be emptied of self and

dedicated to the glory of God and the welfare of his creatures.

The cardinal evidence of true faith is works of self-giving love

which are visible to the world as shown in Matthew 7:20, John 13:35

and other scriptures. Such works, however, are not visible to those

who do them, for the focus of the faithful doer is never on their

deeds (to which they are more likely oblivious) but on Christ and His

great, completed work of Atonement.

The essence of true religion, the righteousness of faith, is

known only to God. True faith will be manifested in fruits, but

before we can bear fruit we must be rooted in Christ, engrafted into

Him. We must be born again from above by the Holy Spirit. (John

1:12-13, 3:5-8, 1 Peter 1:3)

Frank Kafka once wrote: "The fathers of the Church were not

afraid to go out into the desert because they had a richness in their

hearts. But we, with richness all around us, are afraid because the

desert is in our hearts."

Let each and every one of us, today, make the commitment to be

His servant and to seek the knowledge of His Grace and Mercy. Let us

become the vessels of His workings in this world. Let us have the

richness in our hearts. Let us have FAITH that will set us apart from

the world and that will make the world want to know more about our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

Computers for Christ - Chicago


Index of Preacher's Help and Notes

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