INCREASING FAITH

LIVING IN AN INCREASING FAITH

TEXT: Mark 5:25-34, Mark 2:1-12, John 6:1-14
A person is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8).
A Christian is sanctified by faith (Acts 26:18)
and serves others by this same faith (1 Peter 4:8–11).
A Christ-follower lives and walks by faith every day (Hebrews 3:10).
Following God’s ways can be difficult and counter-cultural. Jesus demonstrated this all the time.
But He also demonstrated what ultimate obedience and victory look like—they look like eternal life in heaven!
They look like Kingdom living on earth and in heaven.
It is not easy, but it does result in tremendous blessing and fulfillment.

I. LIVE A GOD-CENTERED LIFE (Mark 5:27-28,34)

27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because
she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has
healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
How can we live a God-centered life?
 Learn to listen to Him - “When she heard about Jesus…”
- The Lord is speaking to each of us individually—just as He did with Abraham. But if we do not learn
to listen to Him, how will we ever have a relationship with Him? How will our faith increase?
- The first question we should ask is, “How does the Father communicate with us?” He does so
primarily through His Word and prayer.
- As we read the Bible daily, He shows us how to handle the issues that concern us. However, He
may also communicate through other people, sermons, Christian books, songs, and circumstances.
- In fact, He will move heaven and earth to show us His will when we seek His face. The key is to
begin each day by praying, “Father, if You have anything to say to me, please speak—I’m listening.”
- Though there may be times when God’s directions do not make sense to us, be assured that He
would never tell us to do anything that contradicts Scripture.
 Learn depend on Him
- The more closely we walk with the Father, the more we understand how perfectly He leads us.
- This is why God will sometimes only show us where to go one step at a time—so we will rely upon
Him completely. When this happens, we may become frustrated or impatient with our progress
and begin to doubt. However, when we do so, we show that we don’t truly trust and depend on
God.
- As a result, we begin to feel we must handle things on our own and pull away from Him. This is
always a mistake. Instead, we must constantly remain in complete dependence upon the Father,
which is the position of ultimate safety.
 Learn to obey Him
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 - In fact, once we hear the Lord’s direction, our best course of action is to submit to His commands
fully and immediately—no matter what it costs us—because obedience to God always brings
blessings.
- As we mature, we also discover that when we attempt to take shortcuts or circumvent God’s plan,
we get ourselves into trouble. This is because partial obedience is disobedience, which always
brings terrible consequences.
ILLUSTRATION:
APPLICATION:

II. LIVE AN EXTRA-ORDINARY LIFE (Mark 2:3-5,11-12)

3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4 And when they could not get near
him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening,
they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. 5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the
paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— 11 “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”
12 And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all
amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

A. WALL BREAKING FAITH

When Joseph brothers were cruel to him by throwing him into a pit and sold him as slave, he could
have built a wall of bitterness towards his brothers. Instead, of building a wall that would keep his
brothers out, he built a wall around his heart that kept them in. “See to it that no one falls short of the
grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many (Heb. 12:15).” His wall
was built with compassion, grace, hope, love and forgiveness. God is mighty and mighty in battle. He
has the power to tear down the walls you and I build around our hearts.

God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword and can tear down and penetrate any type of brick.
In Ephesians 4:32, God said, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as
in Christ God forgave you.” Whatever your reasons are for finding yourselves going into hiding behind
your wall, ask God to give you the strength to tear down each brick of disappointments of guilt, shame,
fear, unforgiveness and hopelessness. If your wall is filled with bricks of guilt and shame Jesus said, “Let
us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb. 10:22).”

Bricks of fear can be can be replaced with “Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident (Psalm 27:3).” I want to encourage you
to replace your bricks of unforgiveness with Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive one
another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” God is the

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“Master Wall Breaker” of what we have constructed in our minds to keep people out and He builds
new walls to bring those same people back through our Faith in Him.
B. DOUBT BREAKING FAITH
“Do not disbelieve, but believe.” (John 20:27)

In the race of faith that Jesus has called you to run (Hebrews 12:1), doubt is a weight you simply can’t
keep running with. You’ve got to drop it. Today.

But first, let me explain what I mean by doubt. Doubt is not synonymous with unbelief in the Bible — at
least not complete unbelief. The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus were full unbelievers (John 10:26).
But the man who cried out “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24) was not a full unbeliever, but a
doubter.

Peter gives us a picture of doubt when he walks on the water with Jesus and then begins to sink. Jesus
says to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31).

So doubt is not the complete absence of faith. It’s faith laden with weights of unbelief, which threaten
to sink us. This is why Jesus responded to doubters like the man in Mark 9 or Peter in the water or
Thomas after the resurrection (John 20:27) with firm but gentle rebukes calling them to stop
disbelieving, while issuing blistering rebukes to the Jewish leaders (Matthew 23:33).

Going back to the metaphor of Hebrews 12:1, are you running with the weights of doubt?

The longer we carry these doubt-weights the stronger their power over us becomes. We are often
tempted to think that carrying the weights is a more “real” and intellectually respectable way to run.
But carried long enough, they get heavier to the point that we wonder if the whole race is worth it or
is, in fact, real after all.

If that’s you, don’t fool around with them any more. Drop them!
But how does one lay aside doubt-weights?

The first thing we do is repent. Doubt must be dealt with like lust or any other unbelief that infects our
faith. Jesus’s word to us is “repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Don’t be content to just tell
Jesus how you’re struggling. Repent! Call doubt what it is: a distrust of God. Repentance has amazing
power to break the spell of a sin weight.

The second thing we do (which Jesus says in the verse above) is believe. Remember what Jesus said to
Thomas? “Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).

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 Believing is a simpler thing than we often want to make it. I’ve just re-realized this truth. After
tolerating certain lingering doubts for a while, putting them in the category of struggling against sin, I
let go of them (i.e. laid them aside). And I was surprised (again) by how simple it was. It was not a
rigorous intellectual exercise. It was simply obeying Proverbs 3:5–6.
III. GENEROUS LIFE (John 6:5-9)
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we
buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what
he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages[a] to buy
enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small
barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down
(about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to
those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

Why do we give generously?

 It is the motivation of Genuine Love
 It brings pleasure to God
 Strengthens unity in the body
 Lay-up treasures in heaven
 God multiplies

A. Multiplication often requires trust.

At some point, the boy had to release the food he possessed. At some point, he had to settle in his
heart and mind that the food was not his to hold. At some point, he had to determine that he was not
the one who dictated how the food was to be used. Was the boy hungry in that moment? Possibly. Did
the boy have doubts whether his food could be helpful? Probably. Did the boy wonder whether his
needs would be met? It is likely. But he released the food, nonetheless.

Why would we release the possessions we hold? Trust. Giving and holding possessions loosely requires
trust. Trust that God will use the resources for his purposes; trust that God will care for our needs. The
boy with the meal saw the few fish and loaves he once held multiply in a miraculous way. In Jesus’s
hands the small meal became great. But it took an act of trust to get the meal into Jesus’s hands.
Multiplication often requires trust. The boy learned this on that day.

B. Multiplication often requires sacrifice.

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 The boy made a great sacrifice. Much like the widow who gave two coins in the temple treasury, the
boy gave all that was in his possession. The act was likely a painful one, maybe not physically painful,
but mentally and, possibly, emotionally. The boy went from comfortable, having sustenance, to
uncomfortable, having no sustenance.

That is how sacrifice works. Sacrifice drives out comfort. Sacrifice is uncomfortable. But sacrificial giving
is what we find celebrated in Scripture. God looked favorably on Abel’s offering because he sacrificed
his best. God blessed Abraham because he was willing to sacrifice his son. Jesus pointed out the widow
with two coins because she gave all she had. Biblical giving is sacrificial. And God uses the sacrifice to
shape the giver’s heart and advance His Kingdom. Multiplication often requires sacrifice. The boy
learned this on that day.

C. Multiplication is God’s work, not our work.

The boy handed over his meal. This was certainly an act of trust and sacrifice. But the boy did not feed
the five thousand. Nor did the disciples feed the five thousand. The boy and the disciples were simply
participants. The people were fed by Jesus. Stomachs were full because an act of God took place. Apart
from this act, the people would have remained hungry. His act allowed the boy to participate in God’s
work.
The same is true for us. God wants us to trust him with our possessions and work to advance his
Kingdom. But ultimately, it is not our possessions or work that will cause the multiplication. We give
and work, knowing that it is God who is in control, and it is His work that causes multiplication. While
we eagerly participate in His mission, He multiplies the bread and fish. Multiplication is a result of
God’s work, not our work. The boy learned this on that day.
The boy with two fish and five loaves learned a lot that day. He learned God is in control, and that He is
about multiplication. He learn that multiplication often starts with an act of trust and sacrifice. And he
learned that while we certainly get to participate, it is ultimately God who brings about the
multiplication.
So, if you feel you have little, look to the boy with two fish and five loaves. Remember what he learned
that day. Trust God with your resources, and let him multiply those resources in ways you could have
never imagined.

AREAS OF GENEROSITY
A. 3T’S
B. To the man of God (Illustration: ngayo kag iring Pastor?)
C. To the ministry
ILLUSTRATION:
APPLICATION:
CONCLUSION: