November 12, 2006
Rev. Terry D. Campbell

Growing Your Faith
Matthew 17:14-20

“When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. ¹⁵’Lord, have mercy on my son,’ he said. ‘He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. ¹⁶I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.’

¹⁷’O unbelieving and perverse generation,’ Jesus replied, ‘how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.’ ¹⁸Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.

¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, ‘Why couldn’t we drive it out?’

²⁰He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Give out mustard seeds. Print scripture on the back of card?

Most people have heard the story of the man fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down. He cried out: “Is anyone up there?”

“I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?”

“Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can’t hang on much longer.”

”That’s all right, if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch.”

A moment of pause, then: “Is anyone else up there?”[i]

The disciples asked Jesus, “Why couldn’t we do that? Why couldn’t we overcome?” They were asking how can we grow our faith so that it is practical and useful?

We grow faith through Encounter.

¹⁶I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.’

Faith development begins with the “encounter.” We have an encounter that challenges us whether we can go forward or not.

Handling life’s challenging times—potential growing times (doing new things involving risk on our part). How do we deal with new and scary things? How do we do forgiving when we can’t stop being angry and the other people aren’t helping matters? How do we handle the stress of job down-sizing or being out of work without turning to alcohol or other drugs or some other kind of escape?

Do we face the encounter with God or without God, trusting God or not. It’s our choice. Our response expresses faith or the lack of faith, in God. It reveals the strength of our faith-muscles.

We grow faith through Exposure.

¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, ‘Why couldn’t we drive it out?’

Faith is not merely your holding on to God—it is God holding on to you. He will not let you go![ii] This is something that we need to learn and grow to depend upon.

Think of children not wanting to leave the protection of home and comforting presence of “mom” to go to pre-school or kindergarten or first grade. How different it would be if they knew that mom or dad were going with them. Faith grows as we learn that God is going with us and helping us and holding us through every storm we face. This awareness develops as we feed our faith.

So many times children and adults don’t develop spiritually because we don’t expose them to spiritual teaching. What are you feeding your children? Yourself? The Bible tells us in Romans 10:17-“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” As we read God’s promises to be with us always, as we read accounts of people who trusted the Lord and their faith, with God’s help, brought them through, we get inspired to live that way ourselves.

• What are you reading? It’s fine to read the sports page every day or your hobby magazines, but do you also read articles in spiritual publications that encourage and inspire your faith? Does what you read challenge and encourage you to trust God more and live the faith you say you believe?
• To what do you listen? Is it just music on the radio or talk/argue call in programs? Do you just watch supposed “reality TV” or do you listen to music or discussions that will encourage you to know that God is with you and will bless your faith?
• When talking with your friends, do you just mull over politics or school/ work problems? Does your conversation ever take on a spiritual tone where you discuss how it is going with your “faith development?” Is “faith” a normal part of your life or an add-on, non-essential part of your life?

Ask the Lord to teach you. He will expose you to Bible principles, books written by people who are living in the Faith, help you learn in challenging situations —though never over your head nor above your ability.

We grow faith through Experimentation.

“²⁰He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.”

“A man takes a bottle of medicine from his medicine cabinet. Looking at the instructions on it, he says, ‘I’m sure they’re correct. I have all confidence in the source of the medicine. I know who wrote these directions. I believe everything about it. I know this will relieve my headache, if I just take it.’ But he takes the medicine bottle and puts it back on the shelf. He doesn’t lose his headache. It continues on. Yet he can say I believe that medicine. I believe all about that medicine. But still he won ’t take it. That’s dead faith.”[iii]

Experimentation means we work to put faith-knowledge into practical use. If you don’t use what little faith you have, why should God help you develop more?

I remember in high school in Miss Willis’ speech class, some students were really nervous about giving their speech. They didn’t want to. But they were stretched in their abilities when they “tried.” The same is true with some people and public praying. Without trying, without experimentation, there is not developing, not growth.

We grow faith through Evaluation.

You can do some evaluation on your own, but it is hard to do this. We can easily be too hard on ourselves or too easy. An observer can reflect back to us what they see and offer suggestions for moving forward. (If our pride will allow us open up and ask someone else or to take advice from someone!) But the truth is, it is helpful to have a spiritual mentor, a more experienced Believer to help us in our evaluation.

This is one of the significant values of being a part of a community—a spiritual community. The world can’t do this for you. But we are suppose to be here to help each other. We are going through similar kinds of struggles or understand the difficulties of spiritual growth progress. The Bible tells us to share our lives with one another, not so someone can eavesdrop on our private lives, but so we can be helped and can be of help to others. This is what the disciples did when they went privately to Jesus and asked, “Why couldn ’t we do that?”

We grow faith through Encouragement.

“Nothing will be impossible for you.”

After the evaluation, Jesus was encouraging. He told them that as they learned and used their faith, “Nothing would be impossible for them.” He told them the sky would be the limit when they learned how to live by faith and not by fear.

We, too, are to “Encourage one another,” and that means encouraging faith development as well as other things. Who encourages your faith development? And just as importantly whose faith in Christ do you encourage?

What will you do now?

Someone said, “Little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your soul.” Work with God to develop your faith and heaven will fill your soul with God ’s power. Amen.

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