We Go: Faith - Great Expectations
Focus Statement: To have great faith is to have great expectations of what God can do when we go out in faith to the lost.
Setting the Scene:
We are continuing our “We Go” series today and focusing on the subject of faith, or what it means to “go in faith.” Naturally, if we are to “go” we want to go in great faith but first it is apt to consider what faith is in the first place! So today we are going to look at what faith is, what it means to have great vs. little faith, what it looks like to apply that, and consider examples from scripture and Christian history that demonstrate going out in the mission field in faith.
What is Faith?
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
In the context of this verse, assurance is knowing things that are yet to happen and conviction is knowing things or drawing conclusions based on things that have already happened. For the Christian, it is an all-in-bet of our eternity on the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To place our faith in Christ is ostensibly to bet our souls on Him, but it’s not a foolhardy gamble, but rather a decision based on conviction and assurance.
For example, if you could bet $10 billion that Lebron James could make an open layup you might think twice - that’s too much money that none of us have even if it is a high-probability event. But, if you could make that same bet and give Lebron 100 chances in an open gym at the prime of his career, you would be silly not to take it. I would! I have assurance (a looking forward to) that Lebron can make that shot. I have conviction (a conclusion made on past events) that he’s the GOAT and he’s gonna drop at least one in the bread basket, though I haven’t seen it happen yet in that specific scenario.
That is how I view my faith in Christ, though the stakes are much higher. It is because of the facts:
Fact: Jesus Christ was a historical figure who lived 2,000 years ago.
Fact: Jesus Christ died on a cross and was buried in a tomb.
Fact: The tomb of Jesus Christ was found to be empty.
Fact: Over 500 people claimed to have seen Jesus alive after his crucifixion. Many of those people were brutally murdered for holding to that claim, though tempted to escape pain and death with a simple renouncement of it.
Fact: The body of Jesus Christ has never been unearthed.
You don’t need faith to believe those things - they have been verified by a mountain of historical, scholarly, and biblical evidence. Where faith steps in is within the most important question every person needs to answer: Why was the tomb of Jesus Christ empty?
The Christian’s conviction is that Jesus did not simply faint on the cross, though He was beaten beyond recognition and pronounced dead (and stabbed) by a Roman soldier who was trained in the art of death. Jesus did not then wake up in a tomb, roll a boulder out of the way, fight off more soldiers, somehow heal to the point of recognition, and then reveal Himself to 500 people. That’s not a good bet.
The Christian’s conviction is not that the disciples, who were so afraid that they ran away during Jesus’ trial and execution, suddenly gathered courage and strength to steal His body and then die horrible deaths based on a lie that Christ resurrected. That’s not a good bet.
Our conviction is that the tomb of Jesus Christ was empty because what Jesus said about Himself is true - He is God and He rose again from the dead to defeat death for all who believe in His saving power. There is no other explanation that makes sense, that is what we bet our eternity on.
That is our faith. It is the first step of faith that every Christian makes.
But What is Great Faith?
In Matthew 8 we read two stories in which Jesus comments on someone’s faith - the faith of the Roman Centurion and the faith of His very own disciples. One is great, one is little.
Matthew 8:5-13
When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” 7 And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.
Matthew 8:23-27
23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” 26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
What was the difference between these faiths? The answer lies in how both subjects reacted to Jesus. The centurion recognized who Jesus was and what Jesus could do. Thus, his reaction to Jesus offering to come to his home was that Jesus didn’t need to do that; Jesus had authority over the ailment of the centurion’s servant, so he simply asked Jesus to say the word and his servant would be healed. The disciples, on the other hand, did not understand who Jesus was and thus reacted in great amazement that Jesus had authority over the wind and the waves. Their expectations were far lesser than that of the centurion.
But we as Christians cannot simply choose how we react to Jesus. It is something we develop through experience, practice, and increasing our understanding of the God we serve.
For example, when you sit down in a chair you are not constantly surprised that it holds your weight, that it does what it’s supposed to do. You understand what a chair is and what it does and very likely, you’ve had a lot of experience sitting in chairs. Thus, when you approach a chair you don’t hold your breath and pensively sit down in it. Through your life experience, you know it is something that can be trusted! In a similar but far more profound way, when Jesus moves in our lives we should be appropriately amazed at His power and goodness, but not surprised that He, the God of the Universe, can move in such powerful ways.
What Does Great Faith Look Like Practically?
Hebrews 11:8-12
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
Martin Luther captures the bold nature of Abraham’s faith when he said,
“This is the glory of faith, namely, not to know where you are going, what you are doing, what you are suffering, and, after taking everything captive – perception and understanding, strength and will – to follow the bare voice of God. Abraham was prepared to take God at his word because he knew it was a word of unrivaled authority, immense power, and complete reliability.”
When we “go” to our family, neighborhood, city, and the nations, we can have great faith and great expectation that God will do wondrous things through that calling - just like Abraham and Sarah demonstrated.
Boniface in the 8th century was called to Germany where paganism ran rampant. He and his companions went and chopped down a tree called “Thor’s Oak” that was dedicated to the God of Thunder. Despite curses and threats of Thor’s wrath, the tree came down and the pagans were dealt a humbling blow, leading many to repentance and faith in Christ.
Wolfi and Ali Eckleben felt called to London from South Africa to establish a church and Bible school. One year later they had a handful of participants, no school, and a return ticket home. Every logical reason from the world was telling them to return back to South Africa, but they had been called by God, so they tore up their tickets home and pressed on. Their ministry eventually expanded to over a thousand graduates from their Bible school in the first decade, fifty vocational ministers sent out from London, six additional church plants, and they played crucial roles in planting churches in over 6 other countries.
But with great faith and expectation, sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned or hoped for…
In 2016 the Pals family was weeks away from uprooting their family of five from their home in America to join a Christian mission in Japan. Jamison, the father, had prayed, waited, and worked for years, seeking an opportunity to serve in Japan. His wife, Kathryne, had waited faithfully along with him, enduring the delivery of a third child and cancer surgery during their preparations to begin service. They had just finished raising support and were on their way to Colorado for their last required training before Japan — finally. They hoped for a long tenure of service. Sitting in traffic, a semi-truck crashed into their car and Jamison, Kathryne, Ezra, Violet, and Calvin were killed.
What do we do with this? The Pals family had great faith and expectation that they would be used to reach Japan. But just weeks before they were to set foot in that country, their lives were ended.
However, in the aftermath of this great loss, their great faith and expectation was not in vain. Brett Rayl, a pastor in Nagoya, Japan wrote this in a blog 10 years after the event:
The Pals family did not pass from this world unnoticed. Their story deeply impacted many, and God has used it to establish a legacy of ministry over the past decade. New missionaries were motivated and mobilized after hearing their story. Many mission-goers and mission-senders have been blessed reading the thoughtful reflections on missions that Jamison wrote on their blog, “Joy of Japan.” The blog has been translated into Japanese, inspiring believers from other cultures. A new ministry for church planting and revitalization — the Joy of Japan Center for Church Planting and Development — was founded in Japan in their honor. The center serves to train new church planters and strengthen existing pastors across Japan.
What was the Pals’ faith in? What was their great expectation? They no doubt wanted to be physically on the mission field in Japan, but their greater faith was gaining more of Christ by responding to His call. Jamison captures this in a “second proposal” that he wrote to Kathryne, inviting her to pursue missions in Japan together,
Kathryne, I am asking you to go with me. Let’s go . . . or at least let us do everything in our power to go. The Lord may see fit to keep us here, but if he does not, let’s go. It may cost us much, but would you have it any other way? Whatever we lose will be worth it if we gain more of Christ.
It did cost them much. Some might argue that they lost it all, their family’s lives. But was it worth it? Did they gain more of Christ? Absolutely. And then some. To die was to gain, they are in glory now and the Joy of Japan has expanded far past what they likely ever dreamed it would.
There is a thing about faith that Christians like me are too quick to forget. I opened this sermon by describing a Christian’s first act of faith, a total all-in bet of our souls into the hands of the savior. Yet I fall into the trap of thinking that type of faith is reserved for my salvation, and everything else I do is up to my power and perseverance.
In reality, the same faith that we have when we come to Christ is the same faith we ought to have when we do anything else, the same faith we need to implement when we go.
It’s not up to us how our lives will turn out or who we will help turn to Christ. That’s God’s territory. There is a great relief in realizing that as we go in faith to the lost, we can put every effort and every encounter at the foot of the cross – an all-in bet to the one who is in charge of the fruit of our labor.
So should we go? Is it worth it? Samuel Rutherford writes,
How soon will some few years pass away, and then when the day is ended, and this life’s lease expired, what have men of the world’s glory, but dreams and thoughts? O happy soul forevermore, who can rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life to come, and can balance the weighty glory of the one with the light golden vanity of the other.
Brett Rayle continues in his blog about the Pals family,
Meanwhile, [God] has reminded me that amid the mystery there are “precious and very great promises” we do get to know (2 Peter 1:4), and he rejoices to proclaim them to us through his word. He delivers new mercies every morning that demonstrate his steadfast love and faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22–23); he assures us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). But the details of our particular sufferings and his particular mercies are not for us to choose. In the mystery, I am both kindly invited and firmly reminded to take God at his word — to trust.
And I’ll add: to have faith. To have a great expectation that God will move, that He will change us and those around us if we simply respond to the call to go, and go.
Go and Be Changed.
Mark 5:21-34
21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
What was it about the woman that caused power to go out of Jesus? Why did He recognize that she touched Him when everyone around Him was pressing in on all sides? The difference is that the woman came to Jesus with an expectation to be changed, and changed she was. No one else in this story received power from Jesus, yet the woman did because she came in faith and expectation.
My challenge to you is this – if you have not yet placed your faith in Christ, do you want to be changed? If you do, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
If you have placed your faith in Christ already, respond to His call to go. Don’t just mindlessly bump into Jesus throughout your walk, but instead approach him in every instance, every day, and proverbially touch even just his garment with that great faith, that great expectation that you will be changed and in so doing, others around you will as well.
That should be our faith, that should be our assurance, that should be our conviction. So let’s go, place every effort in the hands of Jesus our Savior, and watch as we and the nations are changed in His name.