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"Transformed Understanding Faith" Joshua 3:9-4:18

1st of 3 part series on Transformation: Faith, Hope and Love.

by Clancy Nixon

October 9, 2005

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.holyspiritdulles.org

I want to be like Jesus. Do you want to be like Jesus? Imagine what would it be

like, if we were all so transformed into the image of Christ, and believed that His power

is in us, that we lived more like Jesus and his apostles. It would be like Jesus were here;

like the days of the early church. Life would be rather more exciting, I think. Picnics

would be fun you wouldn't have to bring much food, and everyone would eat!

Weddings could party down for days with the best wine! We would visit those in prison,

and give real help to the poor. If we had faith like Jesus, we wouldn't go fishing so

much as we'd go catching. We would be more kind to strangers, and so angels would

attend us. The sick would be healed, the lost would be found, and God's Kingdom would

be come in us and through us.

The Apostle Paul said, "Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be

transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2) That sounds great, but how

does it happen in practice? How do we walk in the power of the Spirit like Jesus did?

How do we grow in faith?

The book of Joshua gives us some clues. I love the story of the Israelites finally

coming into the Promised Land and taking Jericho. Seven hundred years earlier, in 2100

B.C., God promised to Abraham that his descendants would possess all the land between

the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates River, from the desert in the south to Lebanon

in the North. Now about 1400 B.C., after their exodus from slavery in Egypt, and forty

years of wandering in the desert, God tells Joshua to lead the Israelites to take the

Promised Land. Problem was, other nations already lived there: the Canaanites, Hivites,

Hittites, Perrizites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. The Israelites needed faith to

enter in.

New Testament believers are the spiritual seed of Abraham, and we share the

inheritance of the promises made to Abraham. (Hebrews 11) Paul says we are more than

conquerors! God has a Promised Land for you and me, too it may or may not involve

real estate. Your Promised Land may be freedom from fear. You need faith to enter in;

bold faith. Remember this: your Promised Land, whatever it is, will always involve

conquest. If you are to enter it, you can't just wait for God to do it all for you; you must

fight for it. Your Promised Land is also a Place of Victory over your enemy, Satan. The

enemy comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. Your promised land is also a Place of

Possession. In John 15, we are told to possess Christ's words. "He who has my words,

who keeps my commands, he will remain, or abide, in my love." So faith involves

conquest, victory over Satan, and possession of your Promised Land.

The Lord tells Joshua to tell the Levitical priests who carry the Ark of the

Covenant to lead the army of the Israelites to the Jordan River, and then to wade into it.

When they do, he tells them that the water will stop flowing downstream and instead

stand up in a heap. (Joshua 3:13) Imagine the state of mind of these priests as they stand

at the edge of the water. A miracle like this may have happened 40 years ago at the Red

Sea, but not in their lifetime. The Jordan River is at flood stage, and is moving very high

and fast. As long as they wait by the rushing river, it will not stop flowing. It requires

bold faith for them to step into the rushing river. They will have to trust both God and

God's man Joshua more than they trust their eyes right now. As they wade out, when all

the priests are in the water, suddenly the river stops in a wall of water; so the army

crosses safely by. After all have passed, as soon as the priests step out on the far bank of

the river, the river rushes by again. (Joshua 4:18)

Many of us are afraid to step into our Promised Land, because we trust our eyes

more than the word of God. Who are you going to believe? The priests did have two

advantages that we often don't have: first, they knew they were part of an army, so they

had no choice but to obey; and second, they could rely on each other to bolster their faith,

while we often face our problems alone. Friends, there is a spiritual war on today; don't

ignore the war! Your adversary Satan still seeks your ill. You are part of an army, too

God's army. You have a call in that army and a job to do no less than the Levitical

Priests at the Jordan. Your life could depend on obeying God and sticking close to your

buddies.

Every one of us needs a safe place to share our spiritual journeys and get the

support we need. That's what church is for. On Sunday morning, we are committed to

being a safe place where people can be real. A place where we can laugh or cry, silently

pray or dance for joy. We need each other. An "Army of One" is pretty ineffective,

really. Most often, Sunday morning is not enough. Do you have a prayer partner? A

small group? A mentor? A clearly defined role in God's army? If you do, thank God, for

you have what you need to take your Promised Land. If not, ask Ginger or me, and we

will do what we can to get you one. The good news is, God's army wins this war.

Amen?

I want you to know that as I was preparing this message, I have been praying for

a miracle for you on your journey of faith to your Promised Land, wherever that is for

you. Many of us have unfulfilled dreams that we still believe really were from God;

others have had a prophetic word spoken over you that has not yet come to pass.

Sometimes we need to judge that word, and shake it off, because it was not from God.

Other times, it was indeed God who promised you something in the past, and He wants

you to recover His promise, not to give up on it. If you want to receive that blessing,

you'll need faith, you'll need to believe God for your Promised Land. I'd like you to take

a minute to call to mind that dream, something that you have been praying and hoping for

that only God can do, which has not yet come to pass. Maybe it's something you've let

go of, that God wants you to recover. I encourage you to write that thing down. [silence]

Ideas have consequences; the way we behave is a result of what we believe. If we

seek life transformation, we must first seek the transformation of our mind. For the

Christian, a transformed mind starts with faith. Let's say together Hebrews 11:6 -

"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." This verse

speaks of two kinds of faith. The first half of the verse speaks of faith as intellectual

assent. That kind of faith is where you believe that God is who He said he is. Intellectual

assent is where you can say, I believe that God exists, that what the Bible says about him

is true. That is orthodoxy, and it's a good first step, but it is not necessarily relationship.

The second half of Romans 12:2 speaks of the second kind of faith: that's faith as

confident trust. That is the kind of faith where you take action based on your knowledge

of a person's trustworthy character. So I know I can trust my wife Ginger, because after

19 years of marriage, she has proven herself trustworthy. As Paul put it, faith that God

will reward you as you earnestly seek him. With this second kind of faith,

you believe that God loves you, and actively works to care for you. J.I. Packer calls these

two kinds of faith the difference between "Knowing about God" and "Knowing God;"

Beth Moore calls it the difference between "Believing in God" and "Believing God."

Nora Lutyk has a story of faith to tell you, so please come forward and share it.

Sometimes God will speak a Rhema word to you, Spirit to spirit, in the still, small voice.

God will speak to you in such a way that you know it was God, and He'll ask you to trust

Him that He will bring it to pass....

Nora's story reminds me of Abraham and Sarah, who believed that God would

fulfill the promise for offspring even though Sarah was beyond her childbearing years.

Why did they believe? Hebrews 11:11 "Abraham considered Him faithful who had

made the promise." We have faith in God because we trust God's character. God keeps

His promises. God is merciful. We have faith in God for miracles because we trust God's

power. God is able to do more than we can imagine.

Just because we trust the character of God does not mean that we always hear him

right, nor that we should expect that He will answer all our prayers with the timing and in

the way we'd like him to. In Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn, a widow told Huck

to pray for what he wanted. So he did. When Huck didn't get it, he figured that God was

not trustworthy. Huck's mind was not transformed to the image of Christ. God is not a

celestial vending machine; he answers our prayers in the way that is best for us.

Sometimes "No" is the best answer. Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife, says that she is

grateful that God did not answer all her prayers with a "Yes," because if He did, she

would have married the wrong man, several times!

There is a mystery about faith while faith is a fruit of the spirit, a virtue that can

be learned, there is an aspect to it that is simply a gift. You can't "work up" faith as a

state of mind, like you can pump yourself up to play football before a high school game.

Even so, you can increase your faith in God.

Listen to what John Stott wrote: "It's no use complaining that you suffer from

chronic unbelief, or envying others, saying "I wish I had your faith," as if our lack of

faith were like our temperament, a congenital condition which cannot be changed. God

gives us the means to increase our faith in Romans 10:7 "Faith comes through hearing

the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." [To grow in faith, we

need to make the time necessary to hear the Word of God. The three best ways to hear

God are in Bible reading, in prayer, and in conversation with other believers.] John Stott

says unbelief is not a misfortune to be pitied, but a sin to be deplored. That's because it

contradicts the word of the one true God and attributes falsehood to him." (from Stott's

book, Authentic Christianity) So confess your unbelief and read the Gospels.

Matthew builds our faith with the story of Jesus giving sight to two blind men.

Now blindness was considered the worst possible malady in the ancient world. Nowhere

in the Bible did blind men ever receive their sight, until Jesus burst on the scene. These

two men were asking Jesus to do something that had never been done before. They

stumbled after him, crying out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" Jesus knew that the

Promised Land for these two was simple sight, even though they were not specific about

what they wanted. Jesus asks them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" When

they say yes, Jesus tells them, "According to your faith it will be done to you." (Matthew

9:29) [pause] "According to your faith, it will be done to you." Both of them must have

had great faith, since both blind men saw. I have faith that our friend Jeremy Hall will

receive his sight, and I still pray for him that he will.

What a spiritual principle this is: Let's say it together: "According to your faith it

will be done to you." The more faith you have in God's ability, the more blessings you

will receive, even the more miracles you will see. It's about God's ability, not ours! It's

about Jesus' power, not ours! At Alpha on Friday night, we talked about Jesus' miracles.

I confessed that I am sad for those who won't admit the possibility of miracles, because

then they won't see any in their lives. They will use words like "unexplained" or

"anomalies" to dismiss real miracles. We need faith to see what God is doing. I have

seen hundreds of miracles in my lifetime, things like the instantaneous healing of James

Berg and Joanne Craft just last month. That is not a matter of my being gullible or

credulous; by temperament, I am quite skeptical. I believe that the reason I see miracles

every month, is because Ginger and I pray for miracles every day! I don't see miracles

most of the time when I pray, but every so often when I pray, God does do miracles! The

more miracles I see, the more often and more boldly I pray for them.

Our God is able to do miracles today. Amen? Our God has not changed. God

still gives us the measure of blessing in our lives according to the measure of our faith.

Don't be paralyzed by unbelief; confess it as sin, and believe God for your Promised

Land. Then pray for more faith, like the father of the epileptic boy in Mark 9:24 who

asked Jesus, "Lord, help me overcome my unbelief!" What would our community look

like if we all prayed that prayer every day? "Lord, help me overcome my unbelief!"

I want to encourage you to believe God for the recovery of that dream of yours

that has been deferred. To believe Him for that word that was spoken over you that has

still not come to pass. The Israelites had to wait 40 years to enter their Promised Land. I

waited seventeen years to receive healing in my foot. God has not changed, his word is

still true.

If you haven't yet written that prayer request down, I encourage you to do that

now. If you wrote it on your response card, our prayer team will pray it confidentially for

you. We're going to pray for your promised land now. If you'd like to pray with

someone, I invite you to go to the back of the gym, where a prayer minister will pray with

you personally.