The Reality of Faith

I want to read a few verses from the passage that was sandwiched in with and including the epistle that Al read to us a few minutes ago. From Hebrews 11, starting at verse 6, And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he is the rewarder of those who seek him.

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness, which comes by faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was to go.

By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. We just sang that hymn over a closer walk, and there are moments in our lives when we become very conscious of the need to draw close to him.

And if we're serious about drawing near to God, we must be careful not to confuse having faith with being religious. If you want to be religious, all you really have to do is add a group of religious things to your life, and your life will be really the same down underneath, although the only one who will see that, of course, is God and you maybe. Read your Bible once in a while, go to church once in a while, say a prayer occasionally, say you believe in God, or you can take the route of the scribes and Pharisees and many today, get yourself active in some religious movement or some church, become an expert, become a heavy, you know all the answers, you know upside down and backwards what needs to be said, you monopolize every conversation, you take charge of every situation, you're religious.

But to have faith is a very different thing. To have faith involves a great deal more than adding some kind of religious icing to the outside of your life. It involves rather the total letting go of your life and the taking hold of life which comes directly from God.

Abraham let go of the land where he was dwelling, it was his homeland, launched out into the unknown and took hold with his heart of a land he never saw when he left. Peter let go of his fishing boat, his fishing business, everything that was familiar to him, took hold of Jesus, launched out with him into unfamiliar water to become a fisher of men. Jesus said to them, don't be afraid, from now on you're going to be fishers of men, I'm going to make you fishers of men.

And when they brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him, left everything. Every man, woman, child of faith who has ever lived has reached the point where they learned to do this, to let go joyfully of the treasure of this world in order to take hold of the treasure of God. And that thing is repeated day after day after day in their lives until it's their second nature until finally the only treasure they know or love is the treasure of God.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. And you say, well, why does he have to sell all that he has to buy the field to get the treasure? Why doesn't he just take the treasure and go? Because the treasure is not in some little cellophane wrapped box underneath the dirt.

All he has to do is pick it up and run. But the treasure is in the form of ore. It's going to have to be dug out of that field.

And in order to get at that ore and do the job that needs to be done to get that treasure, he's going to have to buy the field and to buy the field, he's going to have to sell everything he has. So does this throw him into a quandary? Is he a nervous wreck when he goes home for supper that night? What's the matter, honey? You're not eating your bean soup. Oh, well, I'm nervous.

I'm all upset. I'm depressed today. I ran across the most magnificent treasure I've ever seen worth more than we can imagine.

And I want that treasure. But in order to get it, I'm going to have to buy the field where it was. And in order to get that field, I'm going to have to sell everything we have.

And I'm just sick because I can't make up my mind. That's not how it was. Jesus says in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and buys the field.

No question, no conflict. Glad to do it. Then in his joy, he mines that ore out of that field or whatever it is, gets it.

If it takes days, if it takes years, glad to do it until he has the treasure in the form that has to be to do him some good. And until you and I get to the place where we forget all this religious nonsense and all our heavy religious reputations that sometimes we develop and settle for relinquishing everything we have in order to have the treasure of God, glad to give up our old life in order to have this. I say until we get to the point where we're willing to do that, we have not yet seen the treasure.

We may be religious, but we do not know yet what it means to have faith. God help us today to get a vision of that treasure so bright and so clear that we will be glad to sell all that we have to buy the field. The treasure is simply a relationship with the true and living God that is real so that you walk with God and talk with God and move in his will, live in his love, find him in your supreme joy.

Jesus died on that cross in order to make that treasure available to us. That was the meaning of his death. And he says, I am the way to the father, the truth of the father, the life of the father, come to me and I'll bring you to the father.

What do you think it was that attracted men like Peter to this Jesus, they hardly knew yet. They knew in their bones one thing, and that's all they needed to know, that this man, Jesus, is going to get them to God. And anybody who begins to get a glimpse of who Jesus really is begins to know that.

Moreover, Jesus not only opens the way so that we can get to God, not only so that we can eventually get to heaven, as they say, but he also pours out upon us here in this world of flesh and blood, the gift of the Holy Spirit so that heaven comes down to us where we are and enables us to walk the way of God, even in the middle of this mess. Jesus opens the door to the father, pours out upon us the spirit of the father, even now, but there is one thing we have to do, can't be done for us. We have to do it.

We have to have faith, not just be religious, but have faith. Now, to have faith means several specific things. It means, first of all, that we will dare to believe that God is there.

For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Believe that he exists, not just in the abstract or in the theoretical, but in the concrete, that he's really here to help me, to speak to me, to show me the way. People say, oh, I wish I had that faith.

I envy other people who have it, but I just can't seem to believe maybe I'm not dumb enough to believe like that. If you want to have that faith, the first thing to do, even if you don't have an ounce of faith as far as you can see, is to start looking at Jesus. Just look at him.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Look unto him and be saved. All the ends of the earth.

Look at him. Look at him. You having trouble believing that there is a God or that he is there or what he is like.

Look at Jesus healing the sick and see God. Look at Jesus forgiving the sinner and you'll see God. Look at him feeding the hungry and you'll see what God is like.

Look at Jesus opening the eyes of the blind and you see what God is like. Total, absolute, perfect goodness. Nobody writing fiction has ever been able to depict a man like this.

And you look at him, get your eyes off yourself and your own religiosity, get it on him. And you will begin to know that God is there waiting for you to draw near. To have faith is to expect God to manifest himself as we pursue him.

For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him, not just the blessings, but God himself. A lot of people chase after the blessings, but they're not interested in God. Look for him.

Seek him. Jesus tells us this. All you have to do is seek.

Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find, not that it shall be open to you. Everyone who asks receives no exception.

And he who seeks finds no exceptions. To everyone who asks, it is open. There is no such thing as seeking God and finding nothing.

No such thing. You may be way out in left field. You may have a warped conception of what God is like.

But if you begin to pursue him, humble yourself, become poor in spirit, admit how little you know and begin to pursue God, God will begin to manifest himself. Speak to your heart, touch your mind, open your eye. But there must be a pursuit.

Don't just lie back and just expect something to happen. Seek. Are you willing, for instance, to get up earlier and pray? Even if you say, I don't know how to pray, go into your room, shut your door and tell God, I don't even know how to pray.

Help me. He will. To follow whatever glimmer of light you see now to pursue that.

To draw near to any human being that you truly believe will be able to tell you something or do something for you that will draw you nearer to God. Pursue him, and this pursuit is not only for those who are on the outside of the kingdom looking in, it's also for those who are in the kingdom, the pursuit never ends. It gets better all the time.

Oh, God, thou art my God, says Psalm 63. He already is in the kingdom. He knows God early.

Will I seek thee? My soul thirsts for thee, my flesh longs for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. We're moving through a world where there is no sense of God at all. And most of religion, even so-called Christian religion of every form conceivable, still has no sense of God.

But you pursue God and you begin to say. Can you imagine Paul finally arriving at the place where he says, well, I know everything now there is to know, I'm just going to relax, I'm going to retire spiritually. Or Peter.

These men pursued God all the way through, through the door of death and on into glory. They pursued God. When thou said seeking my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek? And as you do this, you begin more and more to realize that this pursuit is the only pursuit on earth worth the effort.

Having faith also means getting rid of the distractions. God is going to weed your little garden for you. You're going to weed it.

Fear not, little flock, it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell your possessions and give alms, provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And as we begin to find God, we begin to realize why we've been so blind for so long. The reason we've been so blind for so long is that our heart has been in the wrong treasure or putting it another way, our treasure has been in the wrong place and that we have allowed our hearts to get attached to things that have really distracted us from God.

Those are not necessarily material things. They may be, quote, spiritual things, but they're not God. And now comes the process of getting rid of that stuff.

Clearing the debt, simplifying our lives, eliminating the clutter. Joyfully, we sell all that we have to buy the field, we give alms and develop for ourselves purses that won't grow old, a treasure in the heavens that will not fail. No man, no man can tell you what you have to dump next and beware of any woman or man who tries to tell you what you have to get rid of now to develop your spiritual life.

Oh, how come you're driving that car? It still has four wheels on it. You're not a true disciple unless you drive one with three. God will show you what to get rid of and when and only God.

And as you follow the lead of the spirit of God, you will discover. That the elimination of the clutter in your life is one of the most painless things that God calls you to do. It won't make you a nervous wreck.

Oh, I don't know if I can afford to buy the field. But every new distraction that you dump will bring you new relief and new joy in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. No sweat.

There are a lot of things that are a sweat, but not that. Final. To have faith is something you do and nobody can do it for you.

But at midnight, there was a cry, behold, the bridegroom come out to meet him. Then all those maidens arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out.

But the wise replied, not so. Let there be not enough for us to do, but rather go to those who sell and buy for yourself. This oil can't be transferred.

So don't depend on some preacher or teacher to pump up your faith every three weeks. Don't depend on some magazine to give you what you need or some TV program or some good friend to develop your faith every time you stand. And don't wait for your husband or your wife or your child to get in the mood to seek God.

Oh, I don't want to do it. I don't want to go to heaven without my husband. Or my wife or my child.

This is something you do by yourself. The call of God is on your life now. Maybe it's on your mate's life, too.

But it's on your life now and the door to the kingdom is open to you now. Now you behold the treasure hidden in the field. And it's up to you to decide whether now you're willing to sell all that you have to buy the field.

And so the spirit of God speaks to each of our hearts right now. Right now, each one asking us, it's up to us, are you willing to let go of your old self-centered, vain, unsatisfying. Empty life.

To take hold of the life that I offer you now, never mind what everybody else is doing, never mind what anybody else is doing. Are you willing? To do it. Now, fear not little father, it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Sell what you have and give alms, provide yourselves with purses which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroyed. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Granted, we have to make this decision moment by moment, day by day.

But it's also true that that in some of our lives there is something particular to be done right now. And that's between you and God. But as we go to prayer now, if the spirit of the Lord is stirring on your heart, do business with it.

If you feel the need to come down here, do that. If you want to do it where you're sitting, fine. But answer the cry, answer the call, make that transition by the field today.

Let's pray.