This sermon focuses on the virtue of faith, a bedrock of Christian life. In modern day society, faith is not regarded as a necessity for day to day living. However, as followers of Christ, faith is meant to be part and parcel of our spiritual walk. It is a lifestyle and not an event. 

This is reaffirmed in the book of Hebrews Ch. 10 vs. 35- 39:  “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised….back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved”

The scripture clearly explains that God’s righteous ones are those who live and act by faith. He does not take pleasure in those who sink back and retreat. So, given this clear explanation of what faith is, how can we clearly distinguish whether we are or are not living and acting by faith?

The Book of Hebrews 11 vs. 1 explains: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Faith is not blind optimism, a positive confession, or a one-time feeling. It is a continuous way of living that does not dissipate based on situation or circumstance. Once we have clarity of this, we can adopt faith in our understanding of its importance to our lives and our encounters with Christ. Namely”

• A Life of Faith Pleases God

If God has said it, then surely it will happen. God fulfils His word and promise over our lives. His very nature is faithfulness. If He has the power to create the universe then surely He can fulfil His promises to us. This grounding principle convicts us to act as we have the confidence in the word spoken over us. Faith convicts us even when we have not been delivered from our circumstances as we are grounded in God’s promise. Without faith, we run the risk of not letting God answer our prayers as we have not shown Him the faith that He requires to act. Without faith, we are challenging God’s integrity and expressing doubt over His capability and character.

1. We Need Faith In Order to Experience God

We cannot be saved without faith, nor is it possible for us to experience God without faith. As shown in the book of Matthew 13: 58, Jesus did not perform certain miracles because of a lack of faith in Him. If we don’t believe in His power, then He won’t provide. 

Ever the cunning actor, the enemy always plants seeds of doubts in our hearts to make us doubt God and His goodness and steer us away from being God’s servants. For the enemy is aware that with faith we gain courage, move mountains, become more tenacious, rebuke hell, keep believing, and keep going.  Faith enables us to have breakthroughs and God honors those who have faith in Him. Thus, for the enemy, targeting our faith is the surest way of pulling us away from Christ. 

So if you’re living a life without faith but would like to change direction, how can you accomplish this?

Faith comes by hearing and learning about the word of God.  If you yearn to grow in faith, learn and grow in the word of God. Through the word, we are able to learn more about God’s character. It is hard to pray to someone we do not know. For this very reason, we must seek God through His word so that we may know Him more.

Faith comes through community. Through interacting with other believers, we learn about how God moved in other people’s lives and are thus able to grow in our belief and optimism that He can perform similar works in our lives too.  Ultimately, the effectiveness of our faith depends entirely on what it is pointed towards. If we choose to believe and trust in Him, then He will do mighty things.