Faith in The Midst of Famine
Missions Devotional April 28, 2001 To God be the Glory Sermon Russ Ewell Faith in the Midst of Famine Next to God, sin is talked about most in the Bible. Sin, challenges, and expectations become a burden when you don't have relationships in the Kingdom. NIV Romans 14:17-18 17. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18. because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. It is essential that we feel like the Kingdom of God is an enjoyable experience. "I know I'm doing it right, so why isn't it enjoyable?" If you don't know joy, then YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Sin is a burden. Drugs, alcohol, rape, abortion, those are real burdens. The KOG is not a burden. NIV Galatians 4:15-16 15. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? It's easy to be joyful when you're doing well spiritually. If you're not joyful, you've got to ask yourself, what sin am I in? The KOG should be about faith, fun, family and fruit. IF you feel some other F's - fearful and frustrated, then you're doing it wrong. You've got to have the faith to not quit. Fun - Enjoying being with God's people. It isn't being on a roller coaster of emotions - it is building true relationships. Family - You put a priority on building relationships. When you've got the relationships on right, you want to be with people, and you want to be at church because that is where all your friends are. Fruit - You understand that the blessings of God should be shared. God's goal is to make disciples, not for us just to "share our faith." You need to share the blessings you have with them. You also need to change your heart and your life. Don't be sharing out of a guilty conscience - that won't do you any good. If you're sharing just to get a leader off your back, you're doing it the wrong way. Instead, you need to mold and shape peoples' minds and characters. Blessings - bestow on others what you have been given. If there is one certain thing in the world - non-Christians SUFFER at the hands of Satan. 1) Faith in the Midst of Famine Famine was a form of punishment by God in the Old Testament. NIV 2 Kings 6:24-33 24. Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25. There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey's head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels. 26. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, "Help me, my lord the king!" 27. The king replied, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?" 28. Then he asked her, "What's the matter?" She answered, "This woman said to me, `Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.' 29. So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, `Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him." 30. When the king heard the woman's words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body. 31. He said, "May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!" 32. Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, "Don't you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master's footsteps behind him?" 33. While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him. And [the king] said, "This disaster is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?" The idea of sackcloth underneath the Kings garments shows us the King was deeply troubled by the famine, but that he didn't want to show that to his people. Basically, the King was trying to show the people that the famine wasn't affecting him. Hence, he was laid low by God. In v. 31, he also wanted to kill the messenger of bad tidings. In the Kingdom right now, we have a famine in our relationships. Many of us don't have too many people we are close to. The best relationship building ministries we have are the CR and spiritual resouces ministries. One person visiting the SR ministry remarked, "I've never seen people care about me like that." Many of us are simply too busy to build relationships. We're always thinking of the next activity, instead of enjoying the one we're doing. Faliure in relationships produces great doubt. NIV 2 Kings 7:1-2 1. Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the LORD says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria." 2. The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, "Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?" "You will see it with your own eyes," answered Elisha, "but you will not eat any of it!" The prophets of the OT didn't hold back. They just let it fly when God spoke to them. In a famine, things get so bad you don't think they will ever change. Famine is just God's discipline. You need to start building relationships to get through it. NIV 2 Kings 7:3-11 3. Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, "Why stay here until we die? 4. If we say, `We'll go into the city'--the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die." 5. At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, 6. for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!" 7. So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. 8. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. 9. Then they said to each other, "We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace." 10. So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, "We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there--not a sound of anyone--only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were." 11. The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace. The lepers banded together because misery loves company. They figured they had nothing to lose, so why not find out what was going on. They were fired up just to have a crazy idea! We are the lepers of the world because we arent' close to others in the kingdom. Just like them, our first temptation is to keep things to ourselves, and not tell others of the good news we have. 2) Faith in the midst of Failure NIV Isaiah 26:1-21 1. In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. 2. Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. 3. You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. 4. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal. 5. He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. 6. Feet trample it down-- the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor. 7. The path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth. 8. Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. 9. My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. 10. Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the LORD. 11. O LORD, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them. 12. LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. 13. O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor. 14. They are now dead, they live no more; those departed spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them. 15. You have enlarged the nation, O LORD; you have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders of the land. 16. LORD, they came to you in their distress; when you disciplined them, they could barely whisper a prayer. 17. As a woman with child and about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in your presence, O LORD. 18. We were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world. 19. But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. 20. Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. 21. See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer. When you fail, consider it to be God's training. Don't advertise your failure by moping about. The only thing God considers a failure is for you to miss the glory of Heaven. v.18 When judgement comes on unrightous people, they don't change. These proud people have given birth to the wind. In other words, all their efforts to save themselves have amounted to nothing. v.19 God can raise people from the dead. So why not trust in him instead of your own efforts? Your heart is tested by 3 things: 1) Test of time - not getting what you wanted when you wanted it. 2) Test of Grace - When you get a chance to be a leader over and over, but you turn it down. When you have a multiple opportunities to repent of your sin, but you don't. Those are examples of failing the test of grace. You need to respond to grace by CHANGING. 3) Test of Glory - God alone will get all the glory. The credit you think you have goes to God. Are you ready to give God all the glory? Will you continue to be a Christian even if no one ever notices you? It is painful to see people walk away from the Kingdom. They move into victim mode and a life of bitterness. If you're thinking about doing this, do it quickly so the rest of us don't feel so much pain. However, if you think you've failed, but want to change, DON'T QUIT! Try to change again. Change your life for others. It is a decision, not an emotion. Stop feeling down and getting dejected. Just go along for the ride. 3) Faith in the Midst of Discipling: NIV Hebrews 12:1-7 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6. because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." 7. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? NIV Hebrews 12:11-16 11. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 12. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. 14. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 1) Faith in special contribution: Last year was a year of prosperity for the Bay Area. Special missions came a little easier then. This year, when the chips are down, our hearts will really be tested. Look at special missions as an opportunity, rather than a burden. 2) Personal Evangelism Engine: You've got to have one to have a ministry. It should be an activity you like doing every day. It could be something you do, or something you go to, or a group you belong to. During that activity, you invite people to church. As far as your kids are concerned, maybe they're involved in too many worldly activities. How much time do they spend with disciples? How many activities do they have where other disciples are involved? Do you believe that your kid becoming a disciple is the greatest thing they can do? Many of us are wrapped up in having "our own children." Have you ever considered adoption? The bible talks about taking care of widows and orphans. How 'bout adopting an orphan instead of having your own child? Midweek Service May 1, 2001 Sunday - Church at Fremont Newark Hilton Hotel - Stevenson West Exit May 12th - Walk A THon - Meeting at Lawfyette Reserviore - Pledges are made out to the HUMAN RACE. If we raise over $10k as a church, we get to keep 90% for our church. The Human Race people kick it back in, but we give it to the human race. The key is corporate sponsorships. Special Missions is on July 1st. Tonight is the first victory watch - we used to call it a dry run. Sermon Jay Schmidt The Faith to Forsake the Familiar We need to keep working on our faith - especially to keep trusting in the Lord when things are going badly. Though things are against me I will believe in God's power. Jesus never had a mystical, ecstatic, etherial experiences. He had blood, sweat and tears, fasting, sacrifice, etc. That is a relationship with God. It is taking care of orphans and widows. It isn't a feeling. Jesus didn't feel like laying on the cross. In his prayers, Jay has been worshipping God. It is hard to talk to God about God. He has found out how weak his spiritual muscles are. Try it yourself. Say awesome things about God. NIV Genesis 12:1-4 Genesis 12 1. The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. 2. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." 4. So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. This is faith - especially at 75 years old. His wife is 65 years. They don't have any kids - and Lot is a head case. They head into the great unknown. And God was going to make him into a great nation? He has his first son when he is 100 years. He waited for 25 years. Could you keep your faith at 100 years old, for 25 years, that your descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars? Abraham even turned to another woman and had Ishmael. He had no Bible, no Net Expo, no evangelist. He just had faith. Many of us can't keep up for 3 years. We get so much, and we want more. We need a gimick to get us to evangelize. When you're going through a crisis of faith, think about this. The strongest act of faith that we do is to pray. The strongest prayers you have are when you don't know what else to do. Those are the prayers that move God's heart. God wants you to get to the point where you have no one left but him. Faith kept him from moving back home. He didn't run back home where it was comfortable and safe because he believed in the promise rather than his own emotions. Faith has feelings, but it isn't a feeling. A feeling can be many things. When you don't feel great, don't get into yourself. You need to have the faith to forsake the familiar. When you're feeling bad, you don't go back to smoking, masturbation, pornography, or anything you did before you became a disciple. You've got to changed. Your faith gets crushed otherwise. Then you don't want to be open. Then you start lying to cover it up. NIV Hebrews 11:1-14 1. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2. This is what the ancients were commended for. 3. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. 5. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. 7. 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. 8. 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. 9. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. 13. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14. People who say such thi
