Come in, come in, and sit down
O Canada
God will take care of you
I will serve thee
Faith of our brothers
Faithful one
Song for the nations
DVD for the persecuted church
Scripture-Luke 17:1-10
Jesus said to his disciples: things that cause people to sin are found to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.
If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. F he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says I repent forgive him.
The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith!
He replied: If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it will obey you.
Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he came in from the field, Come along now sit down and eat? Would he not rather say, Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink, after that you may eat and drink? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also , when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.
Sermon Title: MoreFaith?
Sermon Notes:
Sometimes people are alarmed that when they become believers that they still are tempted. Temptation is a normal part of a believers life. But temptation is not what WE should bring to others. Those who do so do something that is very wrong. We should not it stumbling blocks in front of our brothers.
I have Christian liberty is what I do. There are things that in good conscience I can do as a believer but for others it is a sin. Those things I should be careful not to do. At least when observed by that weaker brother.
If a person sins against you and repents ... you must forgive them, if necessary over and over and over again. This can be very difficult to do. It is easy to do so once or twice....but more often it is a difficult task we are given to do so more often. Jesus forgives us all the time. Every time we repent, he forgives over and over and never complains about it.
The apostles response to this was to say Lord, increase our faith.
They knew faith was needed, but made the error of thinking the faith they had was insufficient.
People often think they need more faith.
Hmm thought... Should we then pray that people have more faith or more that their faith is strengthened or that they merely continue in the faith?
Jesus says faith doesn't need to be quantified, it just needs to BE.
You either have faith or not. It is not a matter of how much, it is a matter of having just having it. Do I trust God or not? Who do I give the power to?
Knowing that it is a matter of simply having faith means we can look at things differently.
If I sin.. we can ask why am in doing this? How am I showing my lack of faith?
I like this.....the looking at things differently. How do I show my lack of faith in different aspects of my life?
The servant is to serve the master. Our duty is to do what we are supposed to be doing. God doesn't owe us anything. We are to do what he calls for us to do anyways. The question is how much of what God calls us to do do we do anyways? God owes us nothing. Having faith doesn't require to God to act on our behalf like a lapdog.
Jesus says trust me. And that is the question we need to answer: do you trust his love and provision for you in all situations?
How do I trust God?
How do I act like I don't believe or that I don't trust God?
Do we trust that God will open our eyes to things that we need to improve in so we don't cause others to sin?
Do we trust God to forgive us? Do we trust God enough to keep forgiving others?
Trust God. Leave the rest to Christ. Just Trust God. Trust your God and saviour.
Remember our sin shows where we don't have faith.
If we remember that we can trust God in more things.
Help us God to trust you.