From Fear to Faith [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Sometimes I may not have the capacity to believe for great things, but my heart is set on Jesus.

If you know that He's the answer, you may have little faith, but you have the real faith. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Life of Peter, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this special offer available today. Contact us at PastorAlan.org.

That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. So if he says you have little faith and calls you little faith, it's not an insult to you. It is a blessing to you because the whole oak tree is contained in the little acorn and a whole blazing forest fire was contained in the initial spark.

The spark is just as much fire as is the blazing furnace and the acorn is just as much tree as is the giant oak. I met a man in California many years ago when I had gone out to learn from the famous Saddleback Church and Rick Warren as he was teaching so much about doing church on purpose. And several of us went out to learn from them. And I learned a lot, but I might have learned the most having lunch one afternoon and just talking to a man who was an original member, a charter member of that church.

And this man must have been about 70 years old. And I was just talking to him at lunch and I asked him what he did in the church and what he liked to do in life. And he said, well, the main thing that he did was he liked to lead people to Christ. And I said, oh, that's fantastic. And I and I talked to him. I realized he'd had some success. Finally, I just said, well, how many people have you think you've led? And it was some number in the hundreds of people that he had led to faith in Christ. And I was like, this is an amazing man. I want to hear a little bit more.

How do you do this? And he said, well, years ago, he said, I changed the way that I was appealing to people to make decisions for Christ. He said, because oftentimes we think that being saved is all about knowing everything there is to know about Jesus and being fully aware of all the things the Bible teaches and so forth, and then being able to say yes so that you know that your life is dramatically changed.

He said, but, you know, really, that's not the way that it is. Everybody's actually on some sort of area of a continuum of a journey and faith. And some people don't even have God on their mind. And some are fully devoted disciples of Christ.

And everybody else is somewhere in between this thing. He said, I started realizing that. The way that you lead somebody to the Lord is not come to them and say, can you this day affirm all the principles of the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed? And could you review the Institutes of Religion by Calvin and make sure that you can form the essentials of all Reformed faith so that you can fully articulate the Incarnation and the Trinity and explain some of the deeper revelations of the Book of Revelation so that we have your eschatology correct. And once you understand all of this, be sure and certain that your life will change in an instant and you will be fully redeemed and healed and understand your new position in the cosmos. Are you ready to say yes to Jesus?

What? And so what he started doing was he would just say to people, after he talked to them about Jesus for a little bit, and he'd say, in as much as you do understand about Jesus, in as much as you do understand the love of God for where you are right now, could you say yes to that? Yeah, I could. I don't know everything yet. I can say yes to that. It's built on this idea that any faith is real faith.

Any faith, little faith, is real faith. Look at it this way. Two guys got to go to a business meeting in Dallas. One of the guys is a regular traveler, flies several times a week, million mile club, gets on the planes without even thinking about it, does it over and over in his life. The other guy has a terrible fear of flying, never gets on a plane. Been on a plane one time in his life, was terrified, vowed never to get back on, but he's absolutely got to get on this flight or else he loses his job.

Both men are going to get on the flight. First man, we'll call him Sam, and Sam's secure. Sam gets on to the plane.

Sam is relaxed and thinking about enjoying a little bit of conversation with people around him. And then he's going to get out his laptop, he's going to get some work done. He's going to have a little snack.

He's going to take a little brief nap so he'll be fresh for his business meetings that day. And then there's Joe who comes in and sits down next to him, and Joe's a nervous wreck. His palms are sweaty. He's got beads of sweat running down his brow.

He can't even talk. He's looking for it the whole time. The lady gets up there and starts giving the thing about all the thing will come down for oxygen and where you can get your flotation device. And he's poring over the things in the plane like he's studying for a final exam. And the plane takes off, and he's a nervous wreck, a little bit of turbulence. His knuckles are white. He's about to throw up. He's so afraid the whole way.

Doesn't say a word. The other man has a wonderful flight. And then they land, and they both get off in Dallas, Texas.

Let me ask you a question. Is Joe, who was so scared, any less in Texas than Sam is? They're both there. Now, little faith might not have enjoyed the ride as much as great faith, but they both got to Texas. I heard a preacher put it this way. Imagine a lady, she's walking along a precipice, and she's enjoying the vista, and then her foot slips, and she falls off a cliff. And as she's falling down, she notices out of the corner of her eye that there is a twig, a branch that seems to be sticking out from the side. And it looks like it's just a flimsy branch. It looks like it's nothing more than just a long twig, but it's all that she sees. And so she grabs hold of it, not knowing that it's actually a strong branch connected to a strong oak tree that is standing firm and will definitely hold her weight. And she grabs hold of it, and she is able to secure herself, and she's saved. Now, let's say that as she was reaching out for that branch, and it looked so flimsy to her, and she didn't understand the grandeur that was behind it. Let's just say that she only had 10% confidence that it would save her.

But it did. Is she only 10% saved? If you have faith of a mustard seed, you can be saved. What greater miracle is there than that?

If you have little faith, God can take it and mix it with His great faith and work a miracle. If you can pray a prayer of petition that at least has a little bit of faith, what happens is that God, through Christ your intercessor, joins it in partnership with the righteousness of Jesus that is imputed to you, and your prayer is received in some glorious manner with the name of Christ on it. Spurgeon said that a good woman, I'll read his words, a good woman wanted me to send in a petition to a certain government office concerning her husband who was dead, and for whose sake she wanted to get some help. So here's a lady, she's appealing to a government agency, probably about some death benefit or something like that. And she drew up the petition and brought it to me.

Spurgeon said about one word in 10 was spelt correctly, and the whole composition was unfit to send. She wanted me to add my name to it and post it for her. She had come just saying, would you put your name on it so it would give it some credibility, and then you mail it. I did so, he wrote, but I first rewrote the whole petition, keeping the subject matter as she put it, but altering the form and wording of it. He took the letter and rewrote it, the Prince of Preachers, one of the most eloquent men in all of London in his day, who had one of the best names and was well thought of throughout the entire big city.

And he rewrote it the way he would like to have said it in all of the beautiful King's English and signed his name alongside of her name, and then he put it in the mail, and that what was sent in as the petition. I wonder if when you utter your most simple childlike little prayer of little faith, it is rewritten by the Messiah in his blood and put his name upon it as it approaches the Father. This is why little faith is so powerful and can move mountains.

And little faith not only means that it's real faith and that therefore it gets you there, but it also means to say you're little faith, it means you've got a long way to grow, and that's a wonderful thing. When I was little Al and I was playing football in the neighborhood with the older kids, I had to take my little legs and make them run faster just to keep up with them so it taught me how to run quick. I played basketball with the bigger guys, and so I had to learn to shoot with a higher arc and shoot it quickly. I was Steph Curry, baby.

And I played tennis, and I was the little one, and so I'd have to put a lot of topspin on it so it would loop over the net and then bounce really high on the other side. I was learning some things because if you're little Al, you've got to be able to do some things to keep up with the big boys. And there's a sense in which if you're little faith, it just reminds you that you've got a wonderful, wonderful way that you can keep growing and it stretches you. There was a seminary student one time who would go around telling everybody, I will go far in the ministry, I will go far in the ministry, I will go far in the ministry. And finally, one of his friends came to him and said, listen, brother, are you just arrogant?

I mean, do you really have some sense of God's going to do something special through you? Why do you say this all the time? And he said, well, I'm just saying what my professors say.

All of them tell me the same thing. They say, I've got a long way to go. So it's just a fine line between I've got a long way to go and I will go far. Little faith is going to go far. Little faith is going to go far.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like the pressure is always on? Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

With the world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. When the angel of the Lord came to Elijah at Mount Carmel after he defeated the 450 prophets of Baal and then Jezebel was chasing him, he was so worn out that he just got depressed.

Isn't that amazing? You can have such a huge victory and then they've got this one evil woman that's chasing him down and he's just like, I'm done. I'm no better than my fathers.

I've failed. And he's just depressed to the point of death. And an angel of the Lord comes to him, gives him a hot cake and a jar of water and I love what the angel said. He said, Arise and eat for the journey is too great for you. Yeah, too great for you but not too great for God. And to say that the journey is too great for you is to say that there's a great journey in front of you. To say your little faith means that there's a lot of room for you to grow into big faith.

It means that you've got a long way to go. And little faith is wonderful faith because he's moving towards the Lord. He's moving towards Jesus. In his first steps, he's moving to Jesus. But then as he sinks, he's moving to Jesus and he's reaching out to Jesus. It's an irony of this but when Peter is sinking down in that storm and he calls out and Jesus grabs hold of him, he's closer to Jesus while he's sinking than the disciples are while they're sitting in the boat. Spurgeon said, The Lord Jesus always acknowledges a faith which comes towards him.

However lame it may be. If you have a faith which looks to yourself, a curse rests upon it. If you have a faith which looks to priests, it is superstition. If you have a faith which looks to ceremonies, creeds, prayers and feelings, it will fail you when you most need help. But if you have a faith whose eyes are on Jesus, whose longings are for Jesus, whose hopes are all centered in Jesus, whose steps all head to Jesus, then you have a faith upon which Jesus sets his seal. And though he calls it little, yet he calls it faith.

I take solace in that. And sometimes I may not have the capacity to believe for great things, but my heart is set on Jesus. If you know that he's the answer, you may have little faith, but you have the real thing.

And little faith can make you become more and more like Christ. Spurgeon made the observation of all of the artist's great renderings of this scene from Scripture, that you can find great paintings by great artists that picture the big storm and Jesus walking on the water. There are even paintings of Peter walking on the water. And there are plenty of paintings of Peter sinking in the water and Jesus reaching down his hand to grab hold of him.

But the one painting you can't find is the one that Spurgeon said, I wish someone would paint. And that is, I'd like to see Jesus and Peter going back to the boat together. How'd they get there? Did Jesus carry him?

Or I like to picture it. He held his hand and they both walked on the water back to the boat. That Peter was starting to get a little glimpse of what it's like to do what Jesus does. To walk with Jesus through storms. To walk with Jesus in miraculous ways. He was being trained. He was being trained that even a little faith will make you become like Christ and we shall be as He is. And as He is now, John says, so are we in this world. And you'll do the things that I've done, Jesus said, and even greater things.

The ESV version puts it really accurately. Jesus took hold of Peter. Be reminded that Christian life, little faith, it isn't so much about you holding on to God as it is about having faith to believe that God can hold on to you. If you're in a very difficult time and you have a hard, hard time envisioning the positive thing that could come and you feel so weak that the idea of holding on to God seems nearly impossible to you, take heart.

God takes hold of you. The question is not can you believe that you'll be strong enough to hold on to Jesus. The question is can you believe that Jesus is strong enough to hold on to you?

If so, you have a little faith. His question to Peter, why did you doubt? I think as an expression not of disdain but of genuine surprise.

I really think of surprise. You know, Jesus at times he as the anointed son of God, as God in the flesh, at times he seemed to know everything. But at other times he's fully human and he would only gain knowledge of something by revelation of the Holy Spirit like you or I would. It's a very interesting mystery. What did he know? What did he not know? But there are sometimes he's generally surprised.

I think this is one of them. Heaven exists by perfect faith. The world is held together by God's perfect faith. Jesus is the word of God and he holds everything together. And all that God has created was created by an act of faith. And so heaven is love and heaven is faith. And so when Jesus comes and he sees how hard it is for human beings in their fallen condition to believe, I think he's genuinely surprised. It's like, man, you were walking, I can't even believe you doubted it.

Wow, I think it's like that. I've told you several times, a pivotal moment in my life, they're odd moments that change your life, aren't they? I was a freshman in college. I was taking the honors section of Religion 29. It was taught by Grant Wacker. It was the history of Christianity in America. It turned out that it would move me towards doing an additional major in religion. And who knows, might have been the thing that whet my appetite to really start studying the word of God and eventually led me to seminary.

Who knows? All that God does through a moment like this. But I had come into college and I was very, looked very sound on the outside, but inside I was still reeling from the shame and brokenness of my family. And I was sitting in that class and I remember feeling like an imposter, like I shouldn't be in the honors section. And I never said anything. It was a discussion.

And I never said anything. I was too afraid and I was too shy and I didn't feel like I had anything to offer. And I got back the second exam from Professor Grant Wacker, who later would become the professor most important to me and would oversee my senior honors thesis. And he wrote me on that paper after giving me a nearly perfect score. And he said, Alan, he said, I don't understand. Anyone who could write an exam like this ought to have more confidence.

Why don't you speak up in class? Changed me. It wasn't a curse when he said, why don't you speak up? It was a blessing because he was saying, I see something in you. When Jesus said, why did you doubt? He wasn't saying you're a doubter doomed to a life of doubt.

He's saying, I see faith in you. There's no reason for you to doubt. Believe.

Believe. Beloved, it is not always God's plan. It is not always His highest and best for a moment that our life be full of tranquil waters.

Jesus sent these disciples out in this boat. He knew a storm was coming. Sometimes it is by God's design that we're besieged by the waves and water and feel them against our skin.

Because God has high aspirations of teaching us and wooing us and loving us. And it was such a moment with Peter. And when Peter went walking, it was a thrill.

And when he went sinking, it was scary. But through it all, what you see is that this little faith one was on his journey to be a great faith one. And that Jesus first calmed Peter and then he calmed the store. The storm was calmed, but what came first was what Peter was learning about the affections of Jesus and about the power of a little bit of faith. As Spurgeon said, he did not break the bruised reed nor disown the infant faith. But he called it faith, answered its prayer, and made it to stand with him in fellowship and power.

Peter was beginning to sink, but he had not sunk. And even as the water was rising up, he called out to Jesus and it was enough. A little faith is real faith. And real faith, real faith, even a little bit, can welcome a miracle. And that's the gospel. Allen Wright, today, hope for you and me in today's teaching from fear to faith. Stay with us. Allen is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. Ever feel like the pressure is always on?

Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Allen Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Allen, for the one listening right now, and they just even caught a couple of phrases there, and they're going to latch onto that.

That's it. Call on to Jesus. When you feel like it's hopeless, but you haven't given up on him, bingo, right? I was thinking, Daniel, back to the story I've told listeners before. My mother, many, many years ago, after my father had left home, and she was feeling like she was sinking down, and she got down on her knees, she said, Lord, if you're really there, then I need you, because I feel like I'm sinking down, and if you don't do something, then I'll probably take these three boys of mine with me. Well, that was just a little faith, wasn't it? She didn't know much.

She didn't know much. Just a little faith. And I really probably sit here today because of that little faith prayer. And I just would say to listeners right now, have you got a little faith? If you do, you have real faith. And with whatever little faith you have, call out to Jesus. A little faith can welcome a huge miracle. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.