Your Crisis of Belief

Making Sense Out of Life - Week 5

Heavenly Father, as we gather here we thank You for Your grace and mercy. We thank You for Your forgiveness and we thank You for speaking to us in our Bibles. Anytime we open our Bibles, You are there speaking to us and we thank You and praise You for that. And, as we read Your word, we ask that You make Your concepts clear to us about Your invitation and the crisis of belief that we face when You invite us to join You in Your work. We ask that the power of the Holy Spirit give us wisdom and understanding.  And we pray this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

The principle from Experiencing God we are going to talk about this week is that God’s invitation for you and me to join Him in His work always leads to a crisis of belief that requires faith and requires action. That implies that God is going to ask us to do some pretty crazy things at times and we are going to see examples in our readings this morning. The woman in our Old Testament lesson is dirt poor and in debt and God asked her to do something really crazy that required faith and action. It was a crisis of belief for her.  

Old Testament – 2 Kings 4:1-7  The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.” Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a little oil.” Elisha said “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for a just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.” She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the Man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay for debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

God invited Noah to join Him in His work which brought about a crisis of belief for him. God asked Noah to do something really crazy; He asked him to build an ark because it was going to rain. Of course at that point in the earth’s history, it had never rained before and building a big ship seemed really crazy. God’s invitation to Abraham also brought about a crisis of belief. God wanted Abraham to join Him in His work and become a great nation through which the Messiah, who would pay for our sins, would come. The crisis of belief for Abraham and Sarah was that they were too old to have kids. And God told Abraham that He was going to give him land for his inheritance but when Abraham asked where it was, God said, “It doesn’t matter, just pack up and go, I’ll show you eventually” – another crisis of belief requiring faith and action.

Epistle – Hebrews 11:1, 7-10  Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lives in tents, and did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.     

This same concept is illustrated in our Gospel lesson. It’s not hard to find examples of the principle we’re talking about today, they are all over the Bible.  

Gospel – Luke 5:1-11  One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken; and so were James and John the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on the shore, left everything and followed him.  

Sermon –

Say, for example, you needed a loaf of bread. There are two things we could do: I could give you a couple of dollars and you could run over to Hannaford’s and buy what you need. That makes sense; we do it all the time. Or I could take this empty paper bag and say to you, “Reach your hand in this bag and pull out a loaf of bread.” That makes no sense at all; that’s not going to work! But the question is, when God invites us to join Him in His work, which scenario would He use? Would He use the solution that is logical and makes sense, or would He use the crazy solution?

He would use the crazy solution every time! And why is that? Because if you put your hand in this bag and pulled out a loaf of bread, you would know you had witnessed a miracle - God is the only One who could have enabled you to pull a loaf of bread out of this bag. And that’s what God wants to do in our lives time and time again.

But if we don’t understand that, life is going to look pretty crazy at times, we are not going to understand what God is doing, and life is not going to make sense. But if we understand the principle that God wants  to do miracles and He wants to do them in the craziest way possible to show that there is no way that a human being could have done it, it had to be a God thing, He is going to ask you to do something crazy. And that brings us to the principle were are talking about in our sermon series, Making Sense Out of Life.

Principle five is:

GOD INVITATION TO JOIN HIM IN HIS WORK ALWAYS LEADS US TO A CRISIS OF BELIEF THAT REQUIRES FAITH AND ACTION

So let’s take a look at that statement. If I want to reveal God to people, should I take my paper bag and stand in the parking lot of Price Chopper and say, “Need a loaf of bread? Don’t go in and buy it, just reach in my paper bag and pull out a loaf!” That’s not going to work because it would be my invitation for God to follow me in what I am doing; we don’t do that unless God specifically tells us to stand in the parking lot at Price Chopper. Remember it’s not our invitation for God to work with us in what we are doing; it’s always God’s invitation for us to work with Him - always His invitation.

And when He invites you to do something it leads to a crisis of belief. If God leads me to say to you, “Pull a loaf of bread out of this paper bag”, that’s a crisis of belief because if it doesn’t work, I’m going to look really stupid. And it takes a crisis of belief for you because if you put your hand in there and a loaf of bread doesn’t come out, you’re going to look really gullible - crisis of belief for both of us. When God calls us to do it, it requires faith that what He has said is actually going to work and that faith plays itself out in action; actions are a sign of faith.

And that’s what we saw as we were reading the Bible lessons. The major point that both the Old Testament and the New Testament always refer back to is the Exodus; it is the key example that we, as God’s people are supposed to hang our lives on. God invited the Israelites, who were in slavery in Egypt, to join Him in the Promised Land. It was God’s invitation, and it required a crisis of belief for the Israelites because they were going to have to leave Egypt where they had food and water and go out into a desert for forty years where there was no food and no water. If they survived, it would be an act of God. What a crisis of belief! God was testing them, it was their crisis of belief, and that’s why some of them said to Moses, “Let’s turn around and go back, this is crazy!”

It was God at work, God’s invitation to join Him which led to a crisis of belief for the Israelites - were they going to have enough faith to leave Egypt and go out into the desert, trusting that God would provide for their needs? That was the crisis of belief and it required both faith and action. They actually had to go out in the desert and follow God’s direction. Did God provide? Yes He did, they saw their miracle, they saw their bread appear out of no place!

That’s the key example and all the other examples in the Bible hang off of it. Our Old Testament reading, for example, is the same thought. God wanted to prove to Elisha and the people in the village that He is the same God who delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. So He put a widow in need and invited Elisha and the widow to work with Him so that people actually experienced God in their lives. She was poor and her sons were close to being thrown into slavery to pay for her bills and then God acted. God invited Elisha and the widow to work with Him and what was the crazy thing God told them to do? They were to collect empty jars and take the little bit of oil they had and start pouring. She poured and poured and poured and the jar she had with just a little bit of oil in it filled all the empty jars they had collected.   That’s crazy! God’s invitation always requires a crisis of belief. God’s invitation always requires us to do something crazy that shouldn’t work. But when it does, we know that God did it.

These examples are all through the Bible so when you read the Bible, read it with these things in mind. Repetition is the mother of knowledge and God basically gives us the same example and principle over and over because He doesn’t want to confuse us with a lot of stuff, we are about as confused as we can get! God keeps things very simple.

So, do you want to experience your miracle now? You have an opportunity to experience God! How many of you want to see bread pulled out of a paper bag? How many of you want to experience the same thing that widow experienced? How many of you want to experience something like that great catch of fish? You have an opportunity to experience God’s miracles on a weekly basis. All you have to do is see where God has invited you to work with Him.

Do you know where God has invited you to work with Him? Do you see it? Look at the lower left hand corner of your bulletin.   You are looking at God’s invitation to work with Him that is going to lead to a crisis of belief requiring faith and action so that you actually experience God, experience bread coming out of a paper bag, experience oil that never runs dry, experience manna in the wilderness. In the lower left hand corner of your bulletin is our Financial Review showing a $60,000 deficit.

What God invited us to do has given us this deficit. God wanted a Christian school in this community because He knows how important it is for the next generation to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. He could have invited the Assembly of God Church to do it, but He invited them to do something else. He could have invited the Church of the Nazarene to do it, but He invited us. God’s invitation has resulted in a crisis of belief because the school needs money for ministry. And where is that money going to come from? From your checking account and my checking account; that’s our invitation to join Him in His work.

And what does God promise?   He says, “Do something crazy. Give your ten percent and your offerings.” And this is the crisis of belief, He promises that if we do, He will open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so many blessings for your family that your checking will not miss it - read Malachi 3:10-12. That is our crisis of belief and the testimony I have always had from the people in this congregation is that when they are hit with that crisis of belief, they have not missed the money they have given back to the Lord for the Lord’s work. Why? Because He pulls bread out of empty paper bags, He gives you a great catch of fish, and He lets oil flow endlessly from the pitcher until all the jars are full and the debts are paid off. Do you get the connection with the Bible and what God is doing in our lives today? A crisis of belief that requires us to actually believe Him, requires faith and action and, when we do that, the checking account does not run dry.

And He may not just be pumping money in your checking account, but providing in other ways as well. God gave me this illustration this week. The lease on my car expires next week so I am looking at my options. I found that I can lease a brand new 2010 Honda with lots of nice options for $40 less than I pay now, no money down. Take that $40 and multiply it out over the three years of the lease and it’s almost $1500! Amazing!

So when you walk in here on Sunday morning and look at the Financial Review do you say, “Oh, no! I can’t believe it! When is this ever going to stop? I hope they don’t have another ice cream social and ask for pledges!” Or do you open you bulletin and say, “God invited us to join Him in His work. This Financial Review is my crisis of belief. It requires faith and action and when I do it I’m going to see bread coming out of empty paper bags, I’m going to see oil coming out of jars, and I’m going to see fish where there are no fish. I’m going to experience a miracle; I’m going to experience God!” That is what God wants. He wants you and me to experience Him.

Now, people have two reactions to a sermon like this. One is, “Wow! I get it! We are Israel in the wilderness, we’re the lady with the jars, we’re the disciples with the fish. This is great! God is still doing miracles.” Or the reaction can be, “I wish he would quit talking about this.” If we say that, we still haven’t understood God’s invitation to work with Him, we still haven’t really grasped the crisis of belief, we haven’t really grasped what faith is and how faith is lived out in action. So we probably need to pray on this…

Prayer -  

Heavenly Father, may Your Holy Spirit lead us to understand these concepts. And we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.