In His World No.1 That's Faith

We come before the Living God tonight, and without His Spirit, then we are frankly wasting our time. It's our prayer that the Spirit of the Living God will fall afresh on us. Now, as I near the end of my term at college, we look back on some of the highlights of the two years, and one of these is the Great Awakening, when the Spirit of God moved on England, and men like Whitefield and Wesley stomped the country with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, You Must Be Born Again, Justification by Faith.

That would be our prayer, that we see something like that again in our nation today, and it will only come when individuals have the Spirit of the Living God working afresh in them. And revival nationally starts when revival personally begins to be a reality in prayer. Let's stand and let's sing this song to the Lord, asking Him for the Spirit of the Living God to fall afresh on me.

That the Spirit on the men and women who declare Jesus Christ to be Savior and Lord, that the Spirit Himself would blow throughout this nation, and that men and women would bow the knee, that we would see a church revived and Holy Spirit power moving throughout our land. Father, we are sorry, sorry for all these sins that we commit, sorry for our weaknesses, but Lord God, we know we can come before a forgiving God, a God who longs to forgive His people and to lift them up, to brush them down, to kiss them, to encourage them, and to send them on the way as disciples of the Living God. So Father this evening, please tell us more of Jesus, teach us more how we can be disciples of God, how you can use us to take this glorious message out into these hurting people in the homes throughout Worthing and this area.

Father, help us to know more of Jesus. I pray even now for you who came tonight, who don't know Jesus as Savior and Lord, but you're searching, you know there's something not right in your life, well you're in the right place at the right time. Our prayer is that you find Him this evening, that this is your night where your life can be changed forever.

May you look back on that night in Worthing Tabernacle when you met the Living God. We ask all of this in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. If you remain standing, hymn number 166 in Hymns of Faith is, O where is he that trod the sea? O where is he that spake? And demons from their victims flee, the dead their slumber break.

O where is he that trod the sea? O where is he that spake? Chapter 8, verse 1. Matthew chapter 8 at verse 1. When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

I am willing, he said. Be clean. Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.

Then Jesus said to him, see that you don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded as a testimony to them. When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help. Lord, he said, my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.

Jesus said to him, I will go and heal him. The centurion replied, Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me.

I tell this one go, and he goes, and that one come, and he comes. I say to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into darkness where they will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then Jesus said to the centurion, go, it will be done just as you believed it would.

And his servant was healed at that very hour. Amen. We will ask God to bless his word to us this evening.

There was a connection between that first song and that first hymn which we're going to draw together by turning to another song which speaks about those who wait on the Lord, renewing their strength. It's 44 in the White Supplement. The first song spoke of the Spirit of God.

It was a prayer that the Spirit of the Lord might infill each one of us. And then we went to that old historic hymn. I hope you concentrated on every verse because each one was just crammed full of meaning.

It asked the question, oh, where is he who walked the sea? Where is he who spoke to the demons? And cured people who were distracted as a result of demonic force. Where is he who healed the sick? The answer is he's here. He's here through his church.

He makes his presence felt by the incoming of the Spirit. We're not terribly liturgical here at the tab as far as following the church calendar is concerned. And I know that this is Pentecost Sunday.

But there is a sense in which every Sunday has to be Pentecost Sunday. There is a sense in which every Sunday has to be Easter Sunday. There is a sense in which every Sunday is a time when we must remember the death, the resurrection, the effulgence of the Spirit of our Lord Jesus.

They that wait upon the Lord, they shall renew their strength. Marvel not that I say unto you, you must be born again, though your sins as scarlet be. If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.

Lord, make the experience of the song and the hymn that we've just uttered before you real to us. We could well have called the address this evening, How Do You Please God? There's a verse in Hebrews that says, without faith it is impossible to please God. The most important thing in life is for you to win God's approval.

Did you hear that? The most important thing in life is for you to win the approval of God. Well, how do you begin to respond to that particular challenge? Some of you have been coming along here on a Sunday morning prior to this new series of addresses that Tim commenced and I commenced over at Maybridge. We worked our way during those weeks through the Sermon on the Mount.

You remember this setting? There were many hundreds of people, numbering up to 5,000 men. Let's double it because of the women folk and perhaps even triple it with the number of kids who'd have been present. What was Jesus doing on the Sermon on the Mount? Well, some people think of him as a king and he was setting up the terms of his kingdom.

How do you enter into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus? Well, he spent such a long time explaining it, telling us a great deal about the wonder of the Father and his love for everyone who was prepared to submit to King Jesus. But I could imagine that when people spent time listening to the Lord in his day, it might well have been the case that some would have thought, well, it's all right for those people who were present on that occasion. But does he really mean that anyone can become a member of his kingdom? What if you were a diseased person? If your medical report was such that most people would pass you by because you got the equivalent of AIDS, would King Jesus still receive you? Or what if racially you weren't of the same group as our Lord was born into? Could you still become a member of his kingdom? You know that the Holy Spirit is a wonderful person.

Not only does he indwell the hearts of men and women, but he is basically responsible for the composition of the Bible. The Bible didn't just fall down from heaven like Muslims believe the Koran did. The Bible was a compilation of writings brought about by the Holy Spirit as he played upon the mental faculties of men and women over the generations.

And four of the writers of the Bible, at least of the books of the Bible, we call the gospelers. And the first gospel, Matthew, when he finished reporting Jesus' address on the Sermon on the Mount, deliberately followed it by two narratives. And the narratives spell out the tale of a man who was diseased, whose medical certificate wasn't very good, and a man who was a displaced person, whose passport would not bring him popularity amongst the Jews.

Verse one, when Jesus came down from the mountainside, when? After he'd been teaching the Sermon on the Mount. When he did that, verse two, a man with leprosy came and knelt before him. There were many diseases in the ancient world, but none more awful than leprosy.

You never hear of a man being healed of leprosy, do you, in Scripture? And immediately you say, he's blown it. Twenty years, pinched him off. Of course you read of people healed of leprosy in Scripture.

What's he on about? You don't. You hear of people being cleansed of leprosy. Of all the sicknesses, there was something so foul about leprosy that when the Bible records people being made whole from that terrible disease, it uses the word cleansed.

You get it in the tenth chapter and the eighth verse. Now, will Jesus have anything to do with this man who moves towards him? Will the king allow the gate of the kingdom swinging on the oiled hinge to open in order to let a leper in? If the answer is yes, then the possibility is that it's not just some sort of spiritual elite in northern Galilee. It's not just some people who were alive at the time when Jesus was physically with us who might enter into the kingdom.

But all those who are diseased, whether their disease be a physical ailment or whether it be an ailment of sin. Sometimes in the Old Testament, leprosy is used as an illustration of sin. Jesus, verse three, reaches out his hand.

You don't normally do that. Because if you read Leviticus, you'll discover in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters quarantine regulations that indicate that if you touch a man with leprosy, then you yourself are ceremonially unclean. The mission of Jesus and the demands of love will take precedence over Old Testament laws of cleanliness.

And Jesus stretches out. Sometimes he just touches people. But here the action is that much more deliberate.

He stretches out and publicly touches this man. You see, he must have had a modicum of faith, this man, must he not? Because here he was with the equivalent of AIDS. Yet he moves towards Jesus.

I'm not suggesting that he knew as much about Jesus as you and I know. In fact, I'm denying that. But what I am saying is that he has this little bit, this teeny weeny fragment of faith that causes him to believe that Jesus is more than any other rabbi.

Sometimes these men who wrote the Gospels would improve, if you like, clarify, just lift to a higher level of meaning some of the incidents in the experiences of our Lord Jesus when he contacted ordinary people. Occasionally you'll find that Mark says of a man that he used the word Master when he speaks to Jesus. Matthew, however, suggests that he uses the term Lord or Sir.

As though Matthew has been able to think more about the incident and he has diagnosed that on the part of the person who was receiving help from the Lord there was some appreciation that Jesus is more than just an ordinary man. So the leper moves towards Jesus. A teeny weeny little bit of faith.

And he expresses his need. Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus says, in effect, he is willing.

And the man is instantaneously cleansed of that wretched disease. And our Lord Jesus, because he was under the discipline of the Jewish church, so to speak, although from time to time he would breach regulations which were not necessary in applying to himself like reaching out and touching the man who was a leper, now tells this man to go back to the priest, the equivalent of the doctor in those days, and get a clean bill of health so that all will recognize that not only has this man been cleansed of his leprosy but Jesus speaks under the authority and sometimes he will sharpen up the teaching of Moses whom the Lord Jesus recognized as a prophet from the Lord. And here in this incident is also a fulfillment of a prophecy concerning our Lord Jesus that he would take upon himself the sicknesses of men and women.

That's faith. The door of the kingdom, the gate of the kingdom, will swing on the oil of faith and a man excluded from going to the synagogue and into the temple because of his disease is allowed to have free intercourse with Jesus. When he came down from the mountainside, then he addressed the man who would naturally have been excluded from anything to do with God were it not the fact that there was a better representative of God than the priests in the world.

There was the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. A man excluded by disease? Ah, yes. But what about a man whose passport doesn't have the right stamp? A man whose credentials as far as his birthrights are concerned are not equivalent to those in Judaism.

Well, verse 5 Jesus returns to Capernaum where he now lives and a centurion, an ordinary soldier under the employment, at least under the command of Herod Antipas comes to him and he asks for help and now again we're not presuming this man had too great a knowledge of Jesus but you remember what I said about a teeny weeny little bit of faith? Why did I use that tautology? Teeny weeny little well I want to pile up the words because the Lord Jesus teaches us, the scriptures tell us that if you just have that little bit of faith it could move a mountain To enter into the kingdom doesn't mean that you've got to do a crash course in theology. To enter into the kingdom doesn't mean that you've got to have read the four gospels and fully understood the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection and come to grips with terms like justification and sanctification and so on and so forth. All that's very wonderful but that's in the future You can come to Jesus just by recognizing for starters that he's a little different from everyone else as does this centurion.

Lord my servant lies at home paralysed and is in terrible suffering Now verse 7 is an interesting one because you could translate it in a different way than the way it's been put in the NIV version of the Bible. You see it's an extraordinary thing for a Roman soldier to seek out a Jewish rabbi and Jesus plays on this social unusual event. Your servant's ill.

Do you really expect me, a rabbi to enter your house? Actually there's no reference in the whole of the gospels that Jesus ever went into the home of a Gentile. There's no reference that he ever touched a Gentile and healed him apart from at a distance Are you telling me this, says Jesus, the inference is in his response in verse 7 so that I go to your house and heal him? Now this centurion stands out as do most of the Roman soldiers whose stories are recorded in the gospel as being a man with a degree of common sense and logical insight perhaps in excess, most definitely in this case in excess of most of the Jews And in verse 8 he brushes aside the racial problem and the cultural problem. Lord I don't deserve to have you come under my roof.

It's got nothing to do with the fact I'm a Gentile and you're a Jew. It's got everything to do with the fact that I recognize you're not in the same league as me You're a holy man If you just recognize that about Jesus that he's different because he's a holy man and his holiness is unique, then you're beginning to progress in your understanding of the uniqueness of Jesus Now he's a soldier this man What do you know about being a soldier? Well most of you here, at least the ones in the galleries haven't had the privilege of serving in Her Majesty's forces Before ever you went to university or college or what have you Before ever you got really involved in your career a few years ago you had the privilege of doing two years working for the Queen and King I'm told it was wonderful, I missed it by hairs breadth They stopped conscription within about a few months Maybe the British Army got worried and they decided that I couldn't make it Used to have a little ditty about joining the guards Join the Navy and see the world, join the guards and scrub it because the discipline was so precise What do army men know? What do naval men know? A very dear friend of ours has just died from the Tad family on Friday Lieutenant Commander he was probably most of you didn't know that Member of the British Empire Naval man, he knew what discipline was So did the Centurion Look, when I say something to my soldiers that's what happens, I speak and they jump And he dared to suggest that the uniqueness of Jesus was such that a word from Him could heal this sick man back home That's faith That's faith To believe that Jesus is absent from the scene does not mean Jesus uninvolved in what's causing you concern You don't often find that Jesus is astonished dumbfounded But this soldier, he really got into the heart of our Lord to the extent that one of the greatest accolades Jesus ever makes And that which was once equaled only once or twice in His ministry is now paid When Jesus heard this He was astonished and said to those following Him I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith I think the NIV's there is a bit anemic He was astonished He marveled, that word is only used once And it's in Mark's gospel in the sixth chapter And there Jesus is marveling at the unbelief of His fellow kinsmen But here He marvels that this man believes that when Jesus speaks there is such authority in His word that the poor sick servant back home will be healed You see this fellow's faith is an improvement on the faith of the man with leprosy, isn't it? I wonder where you are in the faith table in the faith league Do you really believe that Jesus intervenes at a distance? I wonder if you'll be praying with some of us a bit later on for Catherine Forsyth, I'll tell you about her when opportunity gives me when the time occurs and there's opportunity after we've had the Lord's table but she's in Ramallah and she's in difficulty in the West Bank Do you really believe that Jesus is involved when He doesn't physically presence Himself? Well, this man had grown in conversation in his conversation with Jesus to this point in his faith And Jesus says in the eleventh verse using language which would have been immediately recognizable to His Jewish audience so perhaps not so easily comprehended by ourselves today I say to you that many will come from the East and the West He's talking about the end of time when God will literally and physically set up His government in the world He uses the language that the Jewish diaspora have always associated in terms of the Jewish return to Palestine and He says from the East and from the West men and women will come, they'll take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob not necessarily, though certainly not excluding Jews and they will come into this blessing because they have exercised a similar faith as this centurion has exercised Now that's incredible He says that the centurion will eat with Father Abraham I wish I could get you all to appreciate the astonishment that that would have been to the kith and kin of Jesus in that day He even dares to suggest that because you're naturally a descendant of Abraham, that doesn't mean that your eternal salvation is secured What ensures a man and a woman having an eternal destiny in the presence of the Lord Jesus and with such august company as Abraham Isaac and Jacob That teeny weeny little bit of faith that Jesus is more than just an ordinary man and our Lord goes so far as to say that people who don't have that faith be they Jew or Gentile using this awful metaphor of weeping and gnashing of teeth they will be outside of eternal bliss So Matthew just squeezes in that little bit of teaching and then brilliantly in the 13th verse takes us to the end of the incident where Jesus says to the centurion What you've asked me will happen just as you believed it would and his servant was healed at that very hour There's only one thing needful to please God What is it? It's faith But you say, Mr. Preacher, I don't have your faith I didn't ask you to have my faith Although my faith needs to expand There are times when it's tested But if you just had, yes again that teeny weeny little bit of faith that Jesus is more than just an ordinary man that there is something distinctive about Jesus that he has an authority like no one else has and that somehow or other as he healed the man from leprosy and healed this poor Roman soldier-servant so on the cross of Calvary he took into his body the consequences of your sin in order that he might grant healing of your iniquities because you're asking him to If the Son will set you free you shall be free indeed Where is he that trod the sea? Where is he that healed the sick? Where is he that taught so beautifully? He's here, this Lord Jesus through the power of his Spirit in the exposition of his word he releases his presence and you can test him as far as his promises are concerned and in line with your eternal security ask him to enter into your heart and to make you his child You're not excluded from the kingdom because of your medical report nor because of your passport The gates of the kingdom swing open as they're oiled by faith and you and I whoever we be can enter in Lord we bless you for your word There are times when I find it so overwhelming as scripture just becomes real in my mind that I want to dance before you with great joy Thank you Lord for such a magnificent gospel tailor made to meet the needs of ordinary folk like us Thank you that even if we haven't got it all together theologically if we just have a recognition that Jesus is your Son that he has authority and power to meet our need and if we cry to him then he'll stretch out and touch us and I'm asking you Lord to do that right now as far as spiritual health and strength is concerned for people here for those who want to know the fullness of your spirit for those who want a touch in their body for those who are concerned about loved ones at home and abroad increase our faith to believe that you will grant us what we ask as we pray it through in your will and in the power of your spirit Amen If I can Holiness Unto the Lord Unto the King Holiness Holiness unto your name I will sing, Holiness unto Jesus, Holiness unto you, Lord. Holiness unto Jesus, Holiness unto you, Lord.

I love you, I love your ways, I love your name. I love you, and all my days I'll proclaim, Holiness unto Jesus, Holiness unto you, Lord. Holiness unto Jesus, Holiness unto you, Lord.

Let's sing that through together. Holiness unto the King, Holiness unto your name I will sing,