Jesus told the woman in John
8 that nobody was left to condemn her and neither did he. He sent her on her way saying go and sin no
more.
No more sin! Do you hear me? No more sin!
In Luke
17, Jesus said, You are going to stumble here and there. You will sin. He goes on to say that if you are the
instigator of sin, you will wish that you weren’t, especially if you are leading
children in the wrong direction.
Then he tells them to forgive each
other. If your brother sins against you
and then comes to you seeking forgiveness, then forgive him. If it happens again and he comes in
repentance, then forgive him again.
That’s enough though, right?
No.
Forgiveness must continue so long as there is repentance. Elsewhere we might read that we forgive our
brother seventy times or even seven times seventy times.
That’s pretty staggering. It’s no wonder that the disciples thought
that they needed more faith.
I can forgive once, maybe twice, but
seven times is really pushing it. I’m
going to need some superpowers to keep on forgiving.
I’m sure the disciples were thinking
about other directions given by their Lord. Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Render unto Caesar. The list of things that challenged the
disciples just kept on going.
How could they do all of these
things? Jesus was going to have to give
them more faith. That’s all there was to
it.
God’s chosen people left Egypt with great
possessions, flocks, and even some folks that did not come from the bloodline
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They left
slavery behind them. They said goodbye
to bondage.
Then some started wishing they were
slaves again. At least they would know
where their next meal would come from—eaten in slavery but guaranteed
nonetheless.
Some started longing for the days of
bondage again. At least they were not
thirsty as slaves.
God provided water and manna and meat
to his people. They were never going to
starve or die of thirst, but the people could only see what they didn’t have
right now.
The disciples could only see that what
Jesus had been asking them to do was more that they believed they could
do. They needed something more. They needed more faith.
While we are told to approach God’s
throne of grace with confidence; sometimes our requests can be somewhat
irreverent.
Why did you lead me here to this place
with no water?
Why don’t we have anything to eat?
How can you expect me to obey your
commands with this little bit of faith that you gave me?
So, Jesus puts his disciples in the
shoes of being the master. Your servant
comes in from a long days work in the field.
Do you:
a. Tell him to sit down and take a load off. Bring him the remote and tell him you will
make his supper.
b. Thank the servant for doing what is expected.
c. Tell him to make supper. I’m hungry.
That’s your job.
Jesus said you just need to do your
duty. You just need to do your job. Quit complaining. Quit whining. Do what you are supposed to do.
So how do we in 2019 relate?
If you would just take the faith that
you do have and do the things that Jesus told you to do, you would be amazed at
the results.
We need to stop asking Jesus to
increase our faith and start demanding more of ourselves. Jesus gave us life when we were sentenced to
death. This gift of salvation that we
call grace came by faith.
Will that same faith not take us to
greater things? Jesus has taken our
burdens. The battle belongs to him. Can we not step out in obedience to him with
the faith that we have?
Jesus has promised to forgive every
sin that we confess. Can we not step out
in faith knowing that when we try and fall short, we are confident of his
forgiveness? We never really fail for he
will put us right back in the race with the pardon that he promised.
What if I used my faith to do the
things I know to do?
Would I still have enough time in the
day if I read my Bible for a full half hour every day?
Would I still have enough to pay my
bills if I trusted God with the first 10%?
Would I still be able to accomplish
all that I want to accomplish if I used my Spiritual Gifts more each week?
Would I still be okay if I worked at
everything as if I as working for God and not for men?
Would I still enjoy my life if my
prayer truly was thy will be done?
God loves to give us good gifts, but
how do you think he feels when we think what he has given us is not
enough? How do you think he feels when
we say gimmie, gimmie, gimmie?
He has given us all a measure of
faith. What if instead of asking for
more faith, we put more of our faith in action.
What if we did what we knew to do with the faith we have?
Think of the woman In John 8
again. She was brought before Jesus to
be stoned. Jesus told the mob, let he
who is without sin throw the first stone.
Slowly from the oldest to the youngest, the stones fell and the crowd
disbursed.
So he asked the woman, who is there
to condemn you?
None sir, she answered.
Then neither do
I. Now, go and sin no more.
Now what if she had continued the
conversation? What if she said, that was
a neat trick how you got rid of the crowd?
Thanks for that but if you are serious about this go and sin no more,
I’m going to need some more self-discipline or a better husband or something
that I don’t have now.
She might have received the same
lecture from Jesus about the servant coming in from working in the field.
What about us? Having received salvation that we didn’t
deserve—let’s call that grace—and promised eternity, how would Jesus feel about
us saying that we need some extra faith to live the way you want us to live?
I think he would tell us that we are
beneficiaries of a wonderful gift called grace.
It was a gift that was not earned.
It was a gift of the Father that came by Jesus and was received by
faith.
I think he would tell us to take the
same faith by which we received this gift and put it to work.
Instead of granting our request to
increase our faith, I think he would say increase what you do with the faith
that you have.
Do your duty.
If 20 years ago, someone had dropped
half a million dollars in the collection plate, I don’t think we would have
enjoyed the same journey of faith that took place in this congregation as we
stepped out with little in our bank account but full of faith as we acquired,
reconfigured, and paid for this building.
If just over a decade ago, someone on
the session would have said, we’ve never done that before, we likely
would have never stepped out in local evangelism that we call Walk A Block for
Jesus. We had zero experience but had
the faith to do our duty.
If after a season of serving meals on
Tuesdays with few in attendance, we would have thrown in the towel, Chewy
Tuesdays would have been a flash in the pan. While our first efforts fed few with much,
our faith prompted us to change the model and take meals and love to kids and
some shut-ins in our community.
If when you leave this place, you find
a place to quietly dispose of the cards you were given, you will likely never
know the joy of fulfilling your commission.
But if you did your duty and talked with at least three people each week,
you will find that when the cards run out, your desire to share the good news
and invite people to come into the covenant community was still going strong.
Your faith will help you fulfill your
commission.
We have the faith that we need to do
the things that we have been told to do.
We don’t need God to increase our
faith. We need to increase what we do
with the faith God has already given us.
Let’s work on our prayers. Instead of asking God for more faith, ask him
to help us put what faith we have to work.
Lord, help me increase my response to
your great love by putting my faith to work.
Lord, help me to do my duty.
Lord, help me to forgive and love and
share your good news with the faith that is already within me.
Lord, help me do more with the faith
that I have.
Amen.
