Divine Connections: Strengthening Faith Through Relationships

In the first century, when Jesus invited people to follow him, it became very evident that his agenda for his first century followers, and for his 21st century followers, is that they would be people, and we would be people of extraordinary faith. Not the kind of faith that you just keep in your head, but the kind of faith that shows up at home, and shows up at work and shows up at the community. Faith that actually works itself out because of our internal confidence with God. Faith that doesn't change things, and faith that doesn't confront things is really not a very useful faith. [00:03:10]

And this explains, this whole idea of an active gritty in the real world faith is why Jesus, or it explains Jesus' initial invitation to people. His initial invitation it was not believe me or even believe in me. His initial invitation was follow me, it was follow me. In fact and Jesus never changed this invitation, and if you are part of one of our churches or one of our faith communities, we talk about this all the time. That the invitation is actually to step into the real world, and to step into the environments we live in, and work in, and play in and to live our faith out in such a way that people know there's something in our minds in our heads and in our hearts, that perhaps is different. [00:03:54]

And yes, Jesus invited people to believe in him, but he invited them to believe in him so that they would follow him and make a difference in the world that they lived in. And if that wasn't the case, the church would have never survived the first century. But the thing is about believe in me, believe in me is easier, right? Believe in me requires less of us, it's safer demanding, but at believe in me without follow me, is an invitation that basically leaves us exactly where we are, no change is required. But Jesus did not invite people to merely believe things or even believe things about him, because as we know belief all by itself doesn't make a difference. [00:04:38]

It's doing, it's following that makes a difference in our lives, and it's doing and it's following that makes a difference in the world. In fact, belief alone, if it only stays in your head, and never gets into the activity of your life, actually creates a feeble frail and fragile faith. In fact, this may be why you've lost your faith, because it all was all right here. And no one ever taught you what to do with it. Or you never tried to do anything with it. And faith, as we've said is a muscle, you already have the muscle but if you don't exercise it, it gets weaker and weaker and weaker. [00:05:22]

And through the years you've met people, and maybe this is partly story over time, they just lost faith, they don't know how it happened. They don't know when it happened. They just realized one day, I don't think I believe anymore. And one of the reasons that happens, in fact I think the primary reason is we're gonna see today that that happens is, if you don't exercise it, it just goes away. So, Jesus invited us to follow. We're invited to wake up every single day, this is so challenging, some of you have begun doing this to wake up every single day with this question. [00:06:00]

In fact, I would challenge you to begin this if you haven't before, you may wanna take a screenshot or write your own version of this question, to wake up every single day with this question, what would I do, not just what would I believe. What would I do? How would I live? How would I respond? How would I react? What would I attempt? What would I initiate? What would I avoid? How would I respond to her? I know how I have responded, I know how I responded to him, but how would I act? What would I do if I was confident, If I was absolutely confident that God is with me. [00:06:24]

When anyone tells their faith story, and if you were to stand up and tell your faith story, every faith story has this component of, and then I met this girl. Then I met this guy. Then I met this couple. Then we had these new neighbors that moved in and we found out they were Christians, and it kind of freaked us out a little bit, but they were like the nicest, kindest people, then they invited our kids to their church, and without we need to check that out, and then we've become people of faith. And it was, it was like, God dropped them into our lives. [00:10:59]

But the point is this, when you consider your story, and when you consider those people in your story, it's as if God dropped them into your story, right? It's like he dropped them right into your life at just the right time. In the moment you don't know that, but as you look back and you think about what a defining moment that was for you, when you think about the change that happened because of that relationship, you can't help but feel that it was somewhat providential. It was like, it was like, it was divine intervention. In fact, it may have been an intervention, right? [00:11:59]

And as much as you resist it, and as angry as you were because they were sticking their nose in your business, you look back now and you think, you know what you say, those were some of the best friends I ever had. That was providential, God brought them along at just the right time, and I don't know where I would be today if it weren't for those two guys, for those two girls for that group of people. Now, the other side of this is lot of you, many of you, maybe all of you have actually played this role in somebody else's life, but you didn't know it. You were just being a good friend. [00:12:42]

You were just being a good boss. You were just being a good citizen. You were just doing what you knew to do. But when those people tell their story, you're in their story because God brought you in and dropped you into their life at just the right time. But for the person on the other side of your defining moment, you know the person that God dropped into their life, again, we don't know when it's happening, we always know in retrospect, we only know when we're looking back. Now, defining moments, you know what a defining moment is, it's that moment you look back and think, wow, it was defined me for good or bad. [00:13:09]

And all this points to why relationships are critical to growing, and during faith. Put it this way, when we see, this is what happened to us with Tim and Carla. When we see God's faithfulness in somebody else's life, it's easier to trust them with ours. When we see God's sustaining grace. When we see God's sustaining faith. When we see God's activity in someone else's life and someone else's circumstances. When we see it in other people, it is easier to trust him with ours especially when we're walking through a valley, or especially when things aren't working out and things aren't up to the right. [00:28:52]

We actually have a role to play. And that role is simply this, we gotta stay connected. We gotta stay connected, staying connected to a community of faith grows and sustains and builds our faith. And here's the amazing thing. And it positions us to play a role in someone else's faith journey as well. Now, when we started our church 25 years ago, we knew about these five faith callus because of work we had done with students for many, many, many years. So we organized our church around these five. And we organized specifically to providential relationships. [00:29:41]