Calvary Faith 1979

I'd like to start by reading a few verses from the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John, verses 7, 8, 9, 10, and 16. Then after this, he said to the disciples, Let us go into Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and you are going there again.

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night and stumbles because the light is not in him, Thomas called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. And that journey back to Galilee, or rather back to Judea, to Jerusalem, to Bethany, that whole region there from the east side of the Jordan, was the last journey into Judea that Jesus made in flesh and blood.

It was the beginning of his journey to the cross. Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble. And to walk in the day is to walk in the light that God has already given you, even if that light directs you to your own calvary.

To walk in the night is to walk in fear, to turn away from what you know to be God's will, because it may be costly or dangerous. You say you're walking by faith. What kind of faith? Faith that believes God will cure your warts and heal your sinuses, but is afraid to follow Jesus to the cross.

Or is it a faith that will continue to trust God, even if you get killed doing what is clearly for you his will? We have had a tendency to confuse childlike faith with infantile faith. Now, childlike faith continues as long as we follow Jesus and really increases as we walk with him, no matter how long we've been going with the Lord. We wake up every morning trusting him, singing his praise, doing his will.

And when he takes us by the hand and leads us through a valley of darkness, we continue to trust him. That's childlike faith. But then there is infantile faith, which forever wants to remain at the stage where we trust God for the goodies.

Give me this, give me that. I'm trusting the Lord for this and that. A faith which delights to know Jesus in the power of his resurrection, but dreads even the thought of knowing Jesus in the fellowship of his sufferings and in conformity to his death.

Granted, we all begin with what could be called infantile faith. Our Lord began to impart faith to the disciples by teaching them to trust God for their daily needs. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Give us this day our daily bread. You're going to have enough bread. The boat's not going to sink.

Where is your faith? But then Jesus begins to teach them things that lead them beyond infantile faith. He begins to teach them to believe God also for power to set the captives free, to heal the sick. Lord, why couldn't we cast out that demon? Because of your unbelief.

Have faith. But all these exercises in faith he takes them through are to bring them beyond the point where they trust God for their food, or for their protection, or even for power for doing God's will. He is bringing them to what could be called Calvary faith, faith which continues to trust God even when it looks into the face of its own death.

Let not your heart be troubled. He's not talking to people who are sitting in the funeral parlor, necessarily. He's talking to people who are looking at their own death coming right at them.

Neither let your heart be afraid. Jesus wants to bring these people to the point where they can see him hanging on the cross and still trust God. And if they have a hard time with that, and he gets them over that as he does, what he's really after beyond that is that one day these men and women as his disciples will go to their own causes.

The hour is coming indeed, he says, when whoever kills you will think he's doing service to God. They will deliver you up to tribulation and to death. Then the issue of faith is no longer will we have bread tomorrow? Is the boat going to sink? Now the issue of faith is will I trust God even when every prop is pulled out from under me, all the lights go out? I then absolutely have to move out of infantile faith into Calvary faith.

But American Christendom strongly encourages us to freeze our concept of faith at the infantile level. I'm trusting God for a thousand dollars. Hallelujah.

Now, there's nothing wrong with trusting God for a thousand dollars if you need the thousand dollars and provided you don't send that bold statement. Faith out in your prayer letter, calculating that if you get it out to a thousand people, it will come back on the average of a buck a head. You say that's cynical.

We it's necessary that we in terms of ourselves, as well as the things that are going on, our wisest servants, as well as innocent as God. Sure, we are to trust God for our daily needs, for our protection, for power to do his will. And in terms of our ministry, setting people free.

But we also need to follow Jesus beyond. He died on that cross and shed his blood in order that we might come to the place where we will do God's will, even if it costs us everything we have, including our own life. From the book of Esther.

Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces to destroy, to slay and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children in one day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar and to plunder their goods. When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the midst of the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry. He went up to the entrance of the king's gate for no one might enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth.

When Esther's maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed and she sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathak, one of the king's eunuchs who had been appointed to attend her and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was. Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate.

And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show Esther and explain it to her and charge her to go to the king and make supplication to him and entreat him for her people. And Hathak went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.

Then Esther spoke to Hathak and gave him a message from Mordecai saying, all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law. All alike are to be put to death except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live. And I have not been called to come in to the king these 30 days.

And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told him to return and answer to Esther. Think not that in the king's palace he will escape any more than all the other Jews.

For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another quarter. But you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, go gather all the Jews to be found in Susa and hold a fast on my behalf and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. And I and my maids will hold fast also as you do. Then I will go to the king though it is against the law.

And if I perish, I perish. No, Esther did not say I will go to the king though it is against the law. And I know that it will hone out the golden scepter.

Hallelujah. No, she said, I will go to the king though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.

Now that's Calvary faith, not infantile faith. So the only assurance she has, the only thing she knows is that it is God's will for her to go to the king on behalf of her people. She knows that.

Calvary faith offers no promise of smooth circumstances. In fact, it basically holds out a picture of pain, danger, loneliness, and possible death. The only absolute guarantee that Calvary faith offers is that God will be with us no matter what happens.

His light will continue to burn in these hearts no matter what we have to go through. That's the only assurance. Now, most of us arrive at Calvary faith the way Esther did.

We're sailing along, happy as little bugs, perhaps, thanking God for all the good things that are happening to us and trying as much as possible not to see the bad things that are happening to other people. After all, what can I do? Can I help it that those people are poor? What can I do for those prisoners? What can I do for the sick in the hospitals and the convalescent homes? What can I do? For these children who have no mother, what can I do for these women who have no husband? Then one day, God reveals an opportunity specifically for us in which we can do something. But with the opportunity also comes the danger that if I take that step, if I make that change in my routine, my life might be disrupted forever.

See, now the question is not, will I trust God to provide for my needs or will I trust God to keep me healthy? Now the question is, will I trust God if the doing of God's will involves the destruction of my life as I now know it? That's what happened with Esther. You know, Esther didn't even consider the possibility that she could do anything for her fellow Jews. After all, that's the way it is.

I'm in the palace and my brothers and sisters in Israel are out there in the cities exposed to the dangers. It's tragic. I feel bad.

Sometimes I wake up and worry about it at night, but what can I do? You can go to the king, Esther. Nobody can go to the king unless the king calls. And I've been called for these 30 days.

Go to the king, Esther. Wait a minute. Don't you know that if I go to the king, I'm dead? Unless the king holds out his scepter to me.

You can't expect me to do that. But God does expect you to do that, Esther. Perhaps this is why you came to where you are.

Plunge in and do what you know to be God's will. All right, fast for me, pray for me, and I'll go to the king. And if I perish, I perish.

That's what's involved in the step of faith in every man or woman of God that you can find in scripture. For instance, when Moses left the burning bush to go to Pharaoh, Moses' days of tranquility are over. His life is not his own anymore.

He's plunging into 40 years of thankless work, heartache, disappointment, loneliness, misunderstanding. But Moses, while he may not know all that, he does know that if he doesn't do this, his soul within him is going to shrivel to the size of a dried pea. When Peter forsook all to follow Jesus, when Saul of Tarsus gave up his career as a religious man, when Mary offered her body in obedience to God, every one of these people understood that in a way they were perishing.

Life will never be the same again. But they also understood that not to do this will mean that their souls will wither inside. Calvary faith begins for us the minute we decide that it's better to perish doing what we know to be the will of God and to shrivel up inside playing it safe.

So we do that thing. We make that change. We turn from that false security and if we perish, we perish.

Then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go into Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you and you are going there again. Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world.

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. To walk in the day is when I see when God has turned on the light inside me and given me clear vision of at least 10 steps ahead or maybe only one step ahead or maybe only a half a step. But I know which way I have to go.

And as I look at that, I can see that it's going to involve work, loneliness, tribulation, and at the end, a cross. Calvary faith is to walk in that light and let the consequences be what they will. Esther walked in the light, laid her life down at the feet of the king and received it back again along with the lives of all her Jewish brothers and sisters.

Our Lord Jesus walked in that light, laid his life down at the feet of the father and received it back on the third day along with the life of all of us. May God help us also to walk in that light and lay down our lives in whatever way, time, or place God shows us and he will. That we may receive them back in that great multitude, which no man could number of every people and kindred and tribe and time who have come through great tribulation and have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the lamb.

Let's just stand up and wait on God. I pray for the liberty of your spirit, Heavenly Father and that your spirit will make clear personally to each of us what this means and where we start from where we are at this moment.