The Truth About Faith

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham. The Bible is filled with examples of faith. In fact, the Bible is a book of faith. From cover to cover it describes what it is like to know God by faith.

And one after another we meet individuals in the Scripture because so much of the Bible is biography in that the Bible is a book not only to be learned but it is a book to be lived. So faith is put into practice in the lives of men like Abraham who by faith went out following the will of God for his life, determined to know and to do exactly what God asked him to do and formed a great nation by faith. It is the faith of men like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who facing a fiery furnace if they would not bow down to the king said let us let you know king that we're not going to bow down to your idol because our God is able to deliver us but if not we still will not bow down to the image oh king. That's faith. It's faith in the fire. And what about Job who faced the loss of most everything that he possessed and yet he cried out Lord even if you slay me yet will I trust in you. It's the faith of a man like Peter who got out of the boat and walked on the water at the command of Christ.

It's the faith of the apostle Paul, a Jewish rabbi converted by the risen redeemer Jesus himself who was transformed from a murderer to a missionary and by faith took the message of the gospel around the world. Over and over I could mention the men and women who lived by faith. In fact the Bible says the just shall live by faith. So God wants every one of us to experience faith and to express faith. A living vibrant confident faith. The kind of faith that even moves mountains. Now we know according to the scripture that without faith it is impossible to please God. And I could also add without faith we cannot prove God. It is faith that proves our trust in God daily. And therefore God rewards faith. And we have been given faith not to put in our pocket but to plant like a seed. To invest in order that it may be developed and grow and be exercised and just as an athlete runs and lifts to get stronger to run faster and develop his athletic skills so are we to take the faith that God has given us.

The faith that we have given back to him and grow it and exercise it developing it. Mark chapter 9 verse 23 says all things are possible if you believe. All things are possible. Now not much of anything is possible if you don't believe. But if you believe anything is possible. Jesus said all things are possible to them who believe.

God is able to do anything and everything he chooses to do and when you believe you begin releasing the power of God in your life. Now if there was ever a time when we needed faith it is now. We live in a world of devils filled. A world full of uncertainty, fear, anxiety, terrorism is now becoming an almost daily occurrence in our world and fear can grip the bravest of hearts. And so this is not a time for doubt but this is a time for a vital victorious faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is so powerful. Faith is so important that I don't believe it is possible for me to overstate the importance of faith, this kind of faith in your life.

Not a fringe faith but a full throttle faith in Jesus Christ. And when you live in faith your life will be filled with radiant joy and certain hope and abiding peace and constant grace. And when you realize that faith is so wonderful because it counteracts every negative emotion in our life whether it is anxiety, what is worry? Worry is the sin of not trusting God for what God has promised to do and to take care of us in our lives. And it helps us to overcome fear in our life because the antidote to fear is faith. If you are guilt, if you are ridden with guilt because of past sins, past failures, past mistakes, it is faith that helps us to receive God's grace and God's forgiveness in our lives.

It is by faith that we live. So today I want you to see this lesson on faith in the story that takes place in Matthew chapter 17 as a desperate father comes to Jesus in behalf of his son beginning at verse 14. And when they come to the multitude, a man came to him kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son for he is an epileptic and suffers severely for he often falls into the fire and into the water. So I brought him to your disciples but they could not cure him. And then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?

Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him and the child was cured from that very hour. And then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, and here's the lesson on faith, because of your unbelief, for assuredly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.

However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. Today we're going to look at the demand for faith. We're going to see the dynamic of faith and then we will discover the development of faith, how to grow our faith.

First of all, the demand for faith. Peter, James and John were given a profound experience, a privileged experience and that was to walk with Jesus up to a mountaintop and there an amazing event transpired known as the Transfiguration of Christ. There Peter, James and John experienced what no other has ever experienced and that is the very presence of the Shekinah glory of God as expressed in Jesus. They saw their Moses and Elijah who appeared from heaven and their Jesus transfigured before them. To be transfigured means that Jesus revealed what was in him and everything that Jesus was on the inside was manifested on the outside. And as Jesus in all of his radiant, resplendent glory is standing there on the mountaintop, Moses representing the law, Elijah representing the prophets, in effect we have a prelude to the coming kingdom of God. It is a kind of advanced check-in of the second coming of Christ. And there as they're watching this, they heard thundering from heaven the voice of God the Father who spoke and said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him. These three disciples fell on their faces in fear and Jesus said, get up.

Don't be afraid. And they experienced there after that only Jesus. For the script just says they saw only Jesus.

Those two words summarize the answer to every human problem. Jesus only. Because Jesus only is Savior and Lord.

Jesus only is the answer to the questions of mankind. It was a momentous, mountaintop experience. Now it's great to have experiences like these with God. None of us have experienced this of course. But we've had wonderful worship experiences. We've had times when we have met God and experienced His presence powerfully in our lives.

And at those times we just want to stay there. In fact, Peter said, Lord, this is wonderful. Peter always willing to say something even if it wasn't appropriate. Said, Lord, let's build three tabernacles here on this mountain. One for you. One for Moses.

One for Elijah. Let's just stay up here and turn this into a shrine of worship. And how often we're tempted to remain on our spiritual high is those moments of great heavenly ecstasy. But you see our faith takes us down off the mountain and into the real world and carries us into the presence of people who need Jesus. That we might fulfill his mission of compassion in people's lives.

No, we don't stay on the mountain because God has called us to go into the valleys of despair. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message. The truth about faith. You have a God given calling to take the gospel to the world. That's why we've put together a special bundle of resources to help you grow in your love of the gospel and share it with others. This evangelism bundle includes three of Pastor Jack Graham's books, The Hope of Easter, Life Book and God's Promises for Doubt Filled Days. This evangelism bundle is our thanks for your gift today. And thanks to a generous matching grant, your gift today will be doubled.

This is the last day to have your gift doubled. So call today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627.

You can also text the word PowerPoint to 59789. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is Jack Graham.org. Now let's get back to today's message, the truth about faith. So Jesus came down and He met face to face a desperate dad, a father who said, Lord Jesus have mercy, have mercy for my son is an epileptic.

He is having seizures. And this boy apparently demonized because Jesus cast a demon out of him. This boy influenced powerfully by the devil needed the grace and the mercy and the love of Jesus Christ. Now standing around were disciples, disciples of Jesus who were now defeated, discouraged disciples because they had tried to help this boy.

They had tried to respond to the request of the father, but they could not deliver. And it seemed that their faith failed. We often find our faith failing just when we need it the most. And we're so often unable to translate our faith from the divine to the day to day. We struggle to make our faith work and to stand up to the challenges of our lives. It's wonderful to worship, to hear God's word, to be moved deeply by the Spirit of God, at times even to touch the grace, the glory of God, to worship God. But then we're unable to take what we've experienced in times of worship to work or to take it home with us or to deal with the problems that seemingly we can't handle in our lives. You see, faith is not just for the mountaintop, but faith is for the struggles that we have every day. And you can worship and worship and lift your hearts and your hands to the Lord and it can be a wonderful experience.

But I like what L.R. Scarborough Southwestern Seminary said one time. He said, you know, it's not how high you jump, but it's how straight you walk when you come down. And we are to walk by faith. And God gives us victories and valleys. Now, I love mountaintops, but did you know that God uses mountaintop experiences to prepare us for the challenges of the valley?

After the mountain comes the tests of the valley. In fact, your faith will be tested. You need to learn that about faith. That faith will be tested at every point. And the faith that can't be tested is a faith that can't be trusted because a tested faith is a strengthened faith and a proven faith. And so God sends trials and difficulties and demands and delays in our lives and seemingly impossible situations that we face, challenges that seemingly overwhelm us at times in order to prove our faith and to push us forward. So these disciples, Peter, James and John join these inept, impotent disciples there at the bottom who were powerless to do anything about the desperate condition of this boy and the request of this dad.

And they met the devil face to face in the demonized spirits of this boy. You know, I've learned in my life through these years that when I have a mountaintop experience with God, to brace myself because an attack is coming. You can just count on it. I've learned to expect it. That valleys follow victories. Tests are on the heels of triumphs. Why?

Why is that? Because God wants to take us higher. God wants to develop your faith.

God wants to deepen your character. But in order for that to happen, God must take your faith into the fight. God must take your faith sometimes into the fire. So the disciples learned this lesson. Their faith was small. Jesus looked at them and said the problem is that you don't have faith, enough faith, oh ye of little faith.

It is because of your unbelief. Jesus took over. They brought the boy to him at his request and he cast the demon out and the boy was healed. That family was blessed by the touch of God. These defeated disciples stood by watching and you can't help but comment at this point that how often are people today disillusioned because men and women who profess faith do not live faith and are unable to express the power of God.

Men may fail you, but God will never fail you. They wanted to know why are we so powerless? Now a year earlier these disciples had been empowered by Christ to go on a missionary journey as it were across Israel and they were preaching and teaching the kingdom of God and they were healing the sick and delivering people from demons and so they're saying what happened?

Where's the power? Could it be that they were resting on their laurels? Could it be that they were relying on past experiences with God?

Could it be that they were now trying to do this in their own strength? I don't know, but Jesus gives us a clue when he says this kind comes only by prayer and fasting. Had they forgotten to pray and to seek God in their lives? Even though they were around Jesus and the things that Jesus was doing, they were slipping spiritually.

And that's possible for us as well. You can be around all the things of Christ and the things of the church and yet be prayerless and be powerless in your life. Jesus said, oh, unbelieving and perverted generation, strong words, a powerful rebuke from our Lord. He speaks not of moral perversion here, but of the spiritual perversion of unbelief because the greatest sin, the greatest perversion of all, the only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin of unbelief.

Jesus died for every kind of sin imaginable, any sin and every sin, but it is the sin of disbelief and unbelief that keeps a man, a woman from knowing God and experiencing forgiveness in their lives. So he says, oh, you of unbelief and spiritual perversion. Jesus said, you are powerless because of your lack of faith. Now, many have saving faith. Most of us in this room today and others listening to me by radio right now, you have saving faith, but you don't have sufficient faith for the challenges and the crisis of life. You don't have a strong faith to stand against the works of the enemy. And so God wants you to have not only a saving faith, but a sufficient faith.

Now what does that mean? Well, you're in Matthew chapter 17. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Three things about faith that leap from this page in this one sentence. Faith is substance. Faith is evidence and faith is hope. Now what is substance?

Substance is something you can stand upon, something underneath you to hold you up. Faith is real. God has given every one of us a capacity to believe, a sixth sense. God has given to everyone the measure, a measure of faith. And faith is not simply closing your eyes and believing things down deep in your heart you don't think are really true, but rather faith is strong. Faith is substantive.

Faith is not just the kind of faith that we're talking about here is not faith in faith or faith in a better day or a better life. Faith is not wishful thinking. In fact, it's the substance of things hoped for. What is hope? Hope is not just well I hope, I hope, I hope. Hope in the Bible is a sure thing.

Hope is anticipation. That's why the second coming of Christ is called the blessed hope because we know that Christ is coming again and that is our blessed hope. Our faith is built upon evidence given to us in the Word of God.

It is not mindless, but rather it is faith in God. Sometimes people say well what you need to do is just believe. Just believe.

Well believe what? Because faith is only as valid as its object. And this place faith can be dangerous.

It can be deadly. There are people in our world today because of misplaced faith who think they're doing God a favor by blowing themselves and others up on buses and terminals and buildings and airlines. We need bonafide genuine faith. Faith that is built upon solid truth. And in our generation what we need to do is feed our faith and starve our doubts. Faith.

Jesus said oh you generation of unbelievers. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen.

Of course there are many things about our faith that we cannot see. Everything can be falling apart in your life. It doesn't seem that you're advancing spiritually or maybe your marriage or is in trouble or maybe your family is in trouble. Maybe your finances are at rock bottom and you've been praying and you've been putting your trust and your faith in God and you can't see it happening and you're wondering God are you really working in my life? God are these prayers really getting through? I'm here to tell you that you can trust God that He is working even when you can't see it.

You keep on watching. You keep on praying and God will keep on working in your life and one day you will see it because all things are possible to those who believe. Trust in God and remember that delays are not denials.

With God timing is always perfect. God can do what we can't do rather than running ahead and taking matters into our own hands and trying to figure things out ourselves. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will bring it to pass.

Put God first in your life and in your heart trust Him. Dare to believe and not to doubt. God does not want you to live in doubt and defeat and discouragement.

He wants you to live in faith. So this is the dynamic of faith. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message the truth about faith. 3.2 billion people in our world still have no access to the good news of Jesus and we must do whatever it takes to reach the lost but the hope of Christ. That's why we're excited to tell you about a matching grant that will double whatever you give today to help reach more people through PowerPoint. Your support will help broadcast the gospel into some of the most spiritually dark corners of the earth. We'll say thanks for your gift by sending you three of Pastor Graham's books to help you share the gospel right where you are.

This evangelism bundle includes the Hope of Easter, Life Book and God's Promises for Doubt Filled Days. This is the last day to have your gift doubled so call today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 59789. That's PowerPoint to 59789. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.

Our website again is Jack Graham.org. Pastor what is your PowerPoint for today? I hope you learned today that faith is not simply to be learned but it must be lived. Over and over in the Bible we meet men and women who faced impossible situations with an incredible faith and they came through their trials victorious. Along with applying our faith to struggles in life the Bible specifically says without faith it is impossible to please God. I don't know about you but more than anything else I want to please God.

I want to delight God. This is another reason why learning and living faith is so vital. Finally one last reason to have a strong faith in the Lord is important because we all go through trials and experience that don't make sense. There will always be questions that are unanswered. The great Christian A. W. Tozer once said, Let faith support us where reason fails.

I believe that is true. Hebrews 11 one says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That is faith gives you something to stand on.

It gives you hope, stability in the midst of emptiness and hopelessness. And it gives you the evidence, all the evidence you need that God is present in your life. If you'd like to trust Christ as your personal Lord and Savior today and know that your sins are forgiven and that you're on your way to heaven, then pray this prayer with me. Lord Jesus, I invite you into my life to be my Lord, my Savior, my Master, and my friend.

Thank you for dying for me, for living again that I might live forever with you. Lord Jesus, thank you for hearing my prayer, coming into my heart and making me your child. Now if you are accepting Christ, I want to be the first to welcome you into the family of God.

You are now a child of the everlasting Father. Please let us know about your decision because we'd like to send you a New Believers Pack to help you get started in your walk with Christ. Today if you prayed that prayer with Dr. Graham and accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, we'd love to hear from you so we can help you begin your new life with Christ. Please call us at 1-800-795-4627.

That's 1-800-795-4627. And join Dr. Graham next time as he brings a message about how to build a faith that moves mountains. That's next time on Power Point with Jack Graham. Power Point with Jack Graham is sponsored by Power Point Ministries.