Every disease has symptoms and every disease has a root cause or pathogen.
- Flu: symptoms: achiness, weakness, sore throat, runny nose, and sometimes worse.
- The pathogen/ root cause of the flu is a virus…teeny molecule that invades and infects a cell, destroys the cell and multiplies… destroying many other cells in our body
The same is true of the disease of Spiritual drift. It has symptoms but it also has a root cause…a pathogen so to speak.
We’ve covered the symptoms a lot over the past 4 weeks but if you missed it here they are again:
10 Signs of spiritual drift:
1. Your communion with God is waning or non-existent.
2. Your prayers have become, at best, a “laundry list” of wants.
3. When you read the Bible it is dull and meaningless.
4. Your church engagement is sporadic and lifeless.
5. You’ve faded away from your small group.
6. You’ve lost accountability.
7. Relationships, in general, have become shallow and uninspiring.
8. Your anxiety level is on the rise.
9. Your morality is slipping or tanked.
10. You are hurtling through life without meaning.
But what is the pathogen…the root cause…the origin of this drift? It is the demise or loss of faith.
· if you are experiencing Drift = a slow continuous movement away from God it’s because somewhere along the way you stopped believing.
· if you find yourself some distance from where you used to be in your relationship with God it’s because this pathogen…this molecule of doubt dug into your soul and started reproducing until you now find yourself with only a limp version of the faith you once embraced.
You’ve drifted because you’ve lost faith in God.
What exactly is faith? Is it recoverable? Can faith be restored? Good questions. Right questions. Today I’m going to try to answer them.
To end your drift you must increase your faith. But, to increase your faith, you will have to take some bold steps.
To get at this, of course we turn to the scriptures: Hebrews 11 page 1016
Let’s begin with the most basic and crucial of questions - What is faith?
1Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1
3 By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Hebrews 11:3
6 And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. Hebrews 11:6
What is faith?
1. Faith is the confidence that God exists. Vs. 6 Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists
· He is not a figment of our imagination - He is a real being
· He exists in real time
· He’s not some extension or personification of my desires.
· He is not a psychological crutch.
· And based on what we read in the Bible – if we did see him we’d likely barely survive.
2. Faith is the confidence that God is the originator of all things. V 3 - By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
· He is the ultimate cause agent
· We exist and move and breath and have our being because he says so.
· In ways I'll never wrap my head around, He inhabits and sustains sovereignly the entire cosmos from deep space to the microcosmic.
3. Faith is the confidence that God is actively engaged in our lives.
· This is an important distinction for it flies in the face of deism…the theology du jour
· V 6 - and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
· We seek…he responds
· There is give and take with the Divine.
· He is paying attention constantly to us and ready to react.
4. Faith is the confidence that God wants the best for us.V 1 - Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen;
· God wants to fulfill our hopes.
· This is why the Bible is full of promises that God wants us to believe in. He goes out of his way to actually create hopes and dreams.
· wants to bless us, wants to give us life, he is for us
5. Faith is the assurance that there’s more going on than our senses allow. V 1 - it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
· When we have faith we know we walk at the intersection of two worlds…the physical and the “heavenlies”
· Stuff both wonderful and terrible swirl around us.
THIS. Is faith. Do you possess it?
Imagine yourself with that level of faith when you wake up tomorrow morning:
· how does that have an impact on your whole life outlook?
Ø you feel loved and cared for
Ø there are less coincidences – stuff feels purposeful
Ø you start to pay attention
Ø you do not feel alone in your pain or tragedy
Ø you actually have hope!
Ø life feels doable
Ø you feel drawn to others experiencing the same thing
Ø people start to feel drawn to YOU!
Faith is the biggest of game changers. You see now…don’t you?... that… To end your drift you must increase your faith.
But…you might not like what it will take. Or at least you are about to see that what it will take is…strenuous.
To end your drift you must increase your faith. But, to increase your faith you will have to take some bold steps.
Before we go on in this story I want to take you back to week 2 in this series and remind you what Barry said…
What if I told you the Holy Spirit is inviting you to take a step along a different path? …The path of trust. Of faith. The Path of Yes.
The Path of Yes says, Enough. I’m going to take God at his word and let him guide my steps wherever they lead. Barry Rodriguez
· You are going to have to take some bold “yes” steps.
· You are going to have to strike out from where you are…you need to make a move…or several moves in order to restore your faith which is waning.
Now, I know what you're thinking…wait…
· I need to take a step of faith yet I don't have adequate faith. Yep.
· Even though I'm not sure what I feel about God you're saying I need to act like I believe. Yes, I am.
It feels like a chicken and egg thing. Which comes first…faith or acts of faith? But you'll see from the stories that follow…that bold steps almost always precede strong faith.
· look at some very famous people who took some bold …even outrageous steps. And in so doing experienced a surge in their faith.
V 4 - It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith. It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God without faith.
· Able - When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the LORD. 4 Abel also brought a gift—the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The LORD accepted Abel and his gift, Genesis 4:3-4
· Enoch – Gen 5:24 – Enoch walked in close fellowship with God (sought to please God)
· They both lived to please God.
Some bold steps that will increase your faith:
Ø Seek to please the God you can’t see. Live with God in mind. Live as if he walked with you every day. Live with the notion that God is your friend that you desire to please and give him your best..even though you cannot see him!
V 7 -9 It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith. It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents.
· Noah was told by God to do a very weird thing. Not just build a boat but make a very unpopular statement among others. Can you imagine what people thought?
· Abraham, similarly was told by God to do the unthinkable. Eventually traveled thousands of miles and relocated his family.
Some bold steps that will increase your faith:
Ø Do the thing that makes no sense.
o in obedience, react to the call of God on your life that might not make much sense to anybody else
V 17 – 19 It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.
Some bold steps that will increase your faith:
Ø Lay down the thing to which you are clinging.
o live palms up
o give up control - Enough. I’m done trying to fix my own life. I’m done being in control. It just doesn’t work.”
§ health, fixing your marriage, job, career, pain
V 24 - It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible. It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover and to sprinkle blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons.
Some bold steps that will increase your faith:
Ø Stand against conventional wisdom.
o conventional wisdom says take the money and run (own the treasures of Egypt)
o conventional wisdom says stay in your lane (Moses, you can’t do this)
o conventional wisdom says give it up (the Red Sea is un-crossable and Pharaohs’ armies are invincible)
V 13 - All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it.
V 39 - All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.
Some bold steps that will increase your faith:
Ø Persist when there is no answer in sight.
o When people look at you and say “where is your God…you say I don’t know…but even if he slays me still will I worship him
o When the door of heaven feels locked and bolted…you keep pounding away.
o When the fog still hangs over the road ahead…you walk with confidence
o When the world says end it…you wait…and hope.
You see..you have it backwards…you think that if somehow you could increase your faith then you’ll be able to do the hard thing…if you could just have confidence in God…well, THEN you can scale mountains and ford streams.
If God would just write on the wall, or send an angel, or give you a pillar of fire, THEN you will return to him…your drift will end and you will live happily ever after.
But you got the chicken and the egg all confused…you got the cart before the horse…
To end your drift you must increase your faith. But, to increase your faith you will have to take some bold steps.
· Seek to please the God you can’t see.
· Do the thing that makes no sense.
· Lay down the thing to which you are clinging
· Stand against conventional wisdom.
· Persist when there is no answer in sight.
Take those steps of yes…and your faith with surge…and your drift will end.