Lord, Increase Our Faith!

Lord, Increase Our Faith

In the book of Luke, chapter 17, verse 5, there's an encouraging thing that happens there. That is, the disciples give a command to Jesus, which, by the way, we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't command Jesus.

We have no right to command our king. But in Luke 17, 5, there's an encouragement there because this is what the disciples say to Jesus. Increase our faith. And I believe that this is a request that our Lord delights to hear.

And it's encouraging to me because think.

About it for just a moment.

We're going to be in Ephesians 6.

But think about it for just a moment,.

That passage there in Luther. The disciples are standing right in front of Jesus. They see him face to face. And yet, even then, they ask for more faith.

I don't know about you at this point,.

But I believe if you're honest, you're a lot like me. And that is, you can relate to needing more faith. Jesus' response is also encouraging to me because Jesus doesn't say to them that they need great faith to enter the kingdom.

He says even small faith is powerful. Even faith the size of a mustard seed.

There is something about the essential nature of faith itself that is powerful. And so that brings us to Ephesians chapter 6. We've been examining this shield of faith in verse 16. This is our third week considering the shield of faith.

And perhaps you think about that shield and you think, you remember me saying it's that representative of that four foot, two foot, four foot by two foot Roman shield that Paul is referencing, that big shield.

And you think, that's a big shield. That faith is too big. I don't know if I have faith that big. But if you're thinking that this morning, you misunderstand the analogy. This isn't the shield of big faith.

Nor is it the shield of small faith. It is simply the shield of faith, period. Because true faith is a tremendous fortress. Because genuine faith derives its potency from its object.

Christ.

I want to stress that the Lord Jesus is our ultimate shield. And yet, if you're like me, the desire remains, does it not? Within all true believers, the desire remains to pray like these disciples. Lord, increase our faith.

It's not that I need a bigger or stronger shield. What God has granted is enough. But I personally, I'm too often running to other shields. Or I'm not using this shield well enough in battle. Or my eyes are focused on my circumstances.

Or I'm thinking, boy, we've got a low number this week, or a high number this week. Or I'm worried about the financial situation in the economy. Or I'm concerned about the, we look at our circumstances and we take our eyes off the Lord Jesus.

And so we say this morning, it should be our prayer. Lord, increase our faith. Is this a prayer that you have? And is this a prayer that God is willing to answer? I believe it is. But what we're going to look at this week and next week is the Lord increases our faith, not by a formula.

So some of you know that Gunner and I have started doing a little weight lifting. You probably could already tell. But Gunner and I have started doing a little weight lifting. But faith is not like that.

There's no faith muscle that you say, hey guys, let's just exercise that a little bit and we can see it grow stronger. But in His sovereign goodness, God has granted to the church various means of grace in order that the church's faith would be fed and nourished and strengthened and increased.

Listen, your faith didn't come from you. It's a gift of God. And your increase of your faith won't come from you. It's a gift of God. We need God to do it. But the message this week and next week, we want to look at seven ways that the Lord does increase the faith of His people.

This is what we want, right? This is what you want. We're event driven. We want a big moment where God shows up, comes down and gives all of us a 43 increase in our faith. But this is not, not that God can't do that, but in His love and wisdom, this is not how God ordinarily operates.

He ordinarily operates through means. Long, drawn out, consistent, regular means are what He uses to strengthen the faith of His saints. An analogy came to mind. Just like with weightlifting, you can say, Lord, make me physically stronger.

God may be pleased to answer that prayer, but most likely, He's going to be pleased to answer that prayer through means. That is, most likely, if you say, Lord, make me physically stronger, He's not just going to say, okay, poof, you're physically stronger now.

Rather, as you eat right and exercise and lift weights, the Lord may be pleased to answer such a prayer. Well, similarly, not the same, but very similarly, Lord, increase our faith. God is going to use various means to do that.

So let's say with the disciples this morning, Lord, increase our faith. Let's stand and read our text. So here we are, Ephesians 6, the armor of God is our context. And Paul tells us in Ephesians 6, verse 16, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Father, we thank You for Your goodness, Your mercy. Help us to understand the nature of faith. Help us to increase our faith. We pray that You would obviously be the one that would increase our faith and help us to quench the fiery arrows of doubt and temptation and fear and anxiety.

Help us to stand strong against the evil one during these dark days. And we pray, Lord, that You would be pleased to give us more faith, that we could be a people that shine all the more brightly for the Lord Jesus in our community.

I'm pleading with You this morning for Your grace as I preach and help me to preach Your word rightly. And I pray that You would give us ears to hear this message and we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

You know, Friday was Groundhog's Day. I forget about that holiday, if you will, sometimes. But apparently the groundhog did not see its shadow, I think. And so that means we're gonna have an early spring.

Or whatever it means.

But I did see this meme. And it said, the pastor has seen his shadow. There'll be six more weeks left of the sermon series. So I thought, you know what? It's a good time to remind us. I don't know if there'll be six more weeks or not, but it's a good time to remind us that we're very, very close to the end of Ephesians.

I know maybe it doesn't feel like it. We're right here in the armor of God and you think to yourself, are we ever gonna get through this book? Yes, we are. The light is at the end of the tunnel and we've almost made it.

It's been about maybe three and a half years, but we're almost there. And so we'll prepare ourselves. Let's finish well as we think through these remaining verses in this great letter. Now, as we go to our text this morning, I have two questions.

First, is a sermon like this warranted from our text? And secondly, is a sermon like this needed from our text? So first, does the Bible give us warrant to preach a sermon like this from the text? Because at our church, Providence Baptist Church, we have 10 distinctives.

One of those distinctives is biblical preaching. So in this distinctive, our church says this. We believe the mainstay of our preaching is to be expository sermons through books of the Bible. We believe the biblical text itself must drive the sermon.

So I have a question. Am I being faithful to that this morning? Does this text drive the sermon? In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Well, I believe that it does, of course, in this regard. Notice that the text says this. Paul tells the church to take up the shield of faith. This implies, does it not imply, that there are times that we leave this shield unused, unwielded, lying dormant on the ground, not fighting with it like we should.

This text encourages us this morning to pick up this shield and to use it in battle. So why do we not use it more often? Why are we so often succumbing to temptation or doubts or division? Why does this happen?

And that brings me to the second question. Is a sermon like this needed from our text? And the answer, of course, I believe is yes, because we're far too often struck. If we're honest with ourselves, these fiery arrows strike us more than we like to admit.

We've mentioned examples of these arrows over the last couple of sermons. But I have another example that I wanna mention here, and that's something I struggle with myself, and that is fear. The text says, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Do you know one of the flaming darts of the evil one that he shoots at the church is fear? Because fear immobilizes us. In the Bible, there are over 100 commands to God's people to fear not, or do not fear, or do not be anxious, or do not be afraid.

In fact, let's look at one real quick. The first time is Genesis 15. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis 15. The first time we see a command like this, Genesis chapter 15. Genesis 15, verse one. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. It's interesting to me that there is a connection here in this verse between fear and a shield. And the idea for Abram is, if God is our shield, what is it that we have to fear?

If God is our shield, this shield is big enough, then, to assuage all fears. Seven times in the Gospel narratives, Jesus tells his disciples, do not be anxious. I'm convinced this morning, and I know this from my own life, that anxiety and fear often keep churches from pressing onward in the mission of Christ.

Whether it's fear of the culture, or fear of man, or even sometimes even fear of what other Christians might say. You understand that today, we've turned anxiety in our society not into a sin, but into a condition.

We have sought to treat anxiety in the world today with medicine and with therapy, when the Scriptures actually give us the antidote. And that is, when our faith is small, our fears are big. That is, we do not need the shield of modern medicine to battle sinful anxiety.

What we need is the shield of faith. Lord, increase our faith. Now, what I'm trying to give you is an example here of the fiery arrow that Satan shoots at us. One of the fiery arrows. So is a sermon like this needed from our text?

Absolutely. Because too often, I'm afraid of man. I should share the Gospel with this person. I should give them a track. I should start a conversation. I should ask them about their soul, and then I back off because I'm nervous about what they might say.

Or I'm concerned about the world's opinion. Or we think about other things. The economy, the state of our country, what's going on in Texas. Whatever the case may be, I too often succumb to sinful fear.

And the reality is, you do too. And the way the church is going to battle these arrows of fear, or these other things that we've talked about, doubt, division, discontentment, temptation, the way that we're going to stand strong against these fiery arrows is not mustering something within ourselves.

The way we're going to stand strong against these arrows is by the shield of faith. And so it is warranted, beloved, to ask the Lord this morning, seriously, to increase our faith. And so I want to consider how it is exactly that He does increase the faith of His churches.

And so I have seven points. We're going to cover three this morning, and then we'll pick up the last four next week. Lord, increase our faith. How does God do this in His people? Some of you, you'll be a little disappointed because you're going to hear these things,.

And you're going to be like,.

Well, I already knew that, right?

Like, that doesn't really,.

That doesn't shock me. But it's amazing to realize that God uses ordinary things to do extraordinary things. So let's consider. Number one, how does God increase our faith? Number one, the Word of God.

Now, verse 17 is just around the corner. We will get to that. It'll be a few weeks now. But verse 17, Paul says, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Word of God is a mighty offensive weapon for the church, but it's also a defensive weapon too.

The Word of God also is how God increases our faith. Chapter 14 of the 1689 says it this way, our confession, by faith, Christians believe to be true everything revealed in the Word, recognizing it as the authority of God Himself.

They also perceive that the Word is more excellent than every other writing and everything else in the world, because it displays the glory of God in His attributes, the excellence of Christ in His nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit in His activities and operations.

So they are enabled to entrust their souls to the truth believed. They respond differently according to the content of each particular passage, obeying the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and the one to come.

So here is the disposition of the believer toward the Word of God. They see it as excellent. They see it as trustworthy. They see the Scriptures. The believer sees the Scriptures as their food, as pointing them to God, as pointing them to Christ, the greatness of who He is.

It is from the Word of God that we see who Jesus is, that He is truly God and truly man. It is from the Word of God that we see what He has done, that He is our representative. He has fulfilled the law and all righteousness.

He has become our sin-bearer. That He has died on the cross and rose again from the dead. This is the Gospel. We see the Gospel from the Scriptures. God uses our time in His Word. Listen, church. God uses our time in His Word to increase our faith.

Let's go back to Genesis again. Genesis 46. If you read the Bible, what you learn is there are no great men in the Bible, except one. It's Christ. You can kind of grow up and kind of think, man, I want to be like these other great men.

But this is the kind of stuff God says to these men. Genesis 46. So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel, that is Jacob, in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob.

And he said, here am I. Then He said, I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt and I will bring you up again and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.

Now why did God say this to Jacob? God said this to Jacob because Jacob was a weak man. And Jacob needed a reminder of the goodness and promises of God. Let me tell you something, saints. Unbelief is not, you can't excuse it.

Lack of faith, you cannot excuse it. And I'm not excusing it. But what I am saying to us this morning is our God is so compassionate with His people. And so what He does to His people is He speaks to us repeatedly His promises.

I'm going to be with you. I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to forsake you. The promised land is better. The glory is better. Your sins are forgiven. These are the things God continually speaks to His people in the Scriptures, in His Word.

Why? So that we'll believe Him.

So that we'll trust Him. So that our faith will be increased.

Friends, the Word of God.

Is full of precious promises for the believer that we're to take to heart. That we're to believe. So that our faith may be strengthened. One of the promises that some of you need to hear this morning, whether you're an adult, whether you've been baptized, whether you're a child, you need to be reminded of this.

Christ receives sinful men. That's a promise of the Bible. You see, one of the works of Satan today is that he'll convince sinners that they are too sinful, or too far gone, or too hypocritical, for Jesus to take them in.

This is a lie. The Bible says, to Daryl and resurrection for sinners is enough to show us that He takes sinners unto Himself. He will save them. He will forgive them. He will wash them clean. The question is, will you believe this?

Will you turn from sin and be healed? Remember, the very origin of faith is God's grace. But He uses the Scriptures, His own Word, to bring it. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.

As the Gospel is preached according to the Scriptures, God actually brings about faith. So the question is this morning, for some of you, will you believe this good news? Repent and trust Christ for your salvation.

And then for believers, what I'm reminding you in this point is, if God begins our faith through the preaching of His Word, how much more do we continually need the Word? We need the promises of God from the Scriptures pressed down deeply into our hearts.

You are afraid of the silliest things sometimes. And so am I. Whether it's an increase in inflation, whether it's a storm, whether it's an animal, whether it's a, whatever the case may be, whether it's things that we invent in our mind, it's because we don't believe the promises of God.

We need to grow. And in order to believe the promises of God, we need to continually expose ourselves to the promises of God in His Word. So friends, I'm saying in this point, one of the ways that God increases the faith of His people is that we would be people of the Book.

Let me just give you three ways that should happen. One, individually. You need to be in the Bible every day. I'm not trying to make that a law. I'm not trying to say, if you're not in the Bible every day, you're not even a Christian.

I'm not trying to say that. But you tell me, if on the days you don't spend in the Bible, it was because from the very moment you woke up to the very moment you went to bed, you were doing absolutely nothing but the essentials to keep you and your family alive.

For the most part, for the most part, that's not true of us in here. For the most part, as a general rule, you have time to be in the Bible every day. And if you don't, it's because of misprioritization.

You need to make time. Individually, read the Bible every day. We've been memorizing Psalm 1, the blessed man meditates on God's word day and night. That is, he doesn't just read the Bible every day, but he thinks about it.

He thinks about these promises. Can I tell you something this morning? The Bible is better for our faith than signs or wonders. How do I know that? Because God is pleased not to give us signs and wonders today, but his scriptures.

I'm not saying that God can't do miracles, that's great. Amen, absolutely he can. But for the regular increase of the faith of God's people, he has given us his word. That is, what is better than God opening up this place right now, descending and speaking to you audibly, is for your increase in faith, is the scriptures.

Now you say, how can that be? I don't know all the ins and outs of that, but I do know that in Luke 16, when you have the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man says to Abraham, if you'll send someone back from the dead, my family will believe.

My father and my brothers will believe. And we might think, if God would just send someone back from the dead to walk along the streets of Perryville, then the whole town would believe. But Abraham says to the rich man, they ain't gonna believe.

That's my own translation. They're not gonna believe if they don't believe Moses and the prophets. They have Moses and the prophets. They have the scriptures. This is amazing. In 2 Peter 1, Peter talks about, we've seen, talking about the transfiguration, it's like we've seen the glory of Christ, but we have a more sure standing in the prophetic word revealed.

That is, the scriptures. Friends, I'm saying to us, we need the scriptures daily for the increase of our faith. And we have a sufficient and good Bible. Let me move on from that. We need the Bible individually.

We need the Bible in groups. You need to be in God's word regularly with others, with your family and family devotions. Men need time in the Bible with other men, women with women, but you need time to discuss and ruminate on particular applications and thoughts that our faith may be strengthened.

And of course, let me say this, corporately, individually, in groups, and corporately. And what I mean here is, you need to be in the Bible with the church. You need to sit under the preaching and teaching of God's word.

The preaching and teaching of God's word under the authority of the church, it actually, God actually uses that to increase our faith. And in all of these ways, the Lord strengthens the faith of His people.

Do you long this morning to be less afraid? Do you long to be stronger against temptation? Do you desire to fight doubt and discontentment? Then submit yourselves to the word of God. God is using the word to strengthen our faith.

And faith, the text says, is a shield. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith. Therefore, we want it to be stronger. Secondly, the wonder of God. So how does God increase the faith of His people?

Number one, the word of God. Number two, the wonder of God. I'm gonna skip ahead to verse 18 in the text, where Paul encourages the church, commands the church, I should say, stronger than encouragement.

That the church is to pray at all times, in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication. Now, how does God increase our faith? Through His word. Secondly, through prayer. Now, I'm not trying to be cute here with the wonder of God in the alliteration, so much as I want to evoke this idea in your mind.

Prayer is encountering the wonder of God because prayer is not a mere duty. It's not a mere drudgery. Okay, it is a duty not to pray. Now, listen to me, church. To not pray is to sin. If you are struggling with prayerlessness, you need to understand that prayerlessness is sinfulness.

So we understand that.

We need to fight that.

We need to kill prayerlessness in our lives. But I'm trying to encourage that in your life by telling you prayer is not merely a duty. It is also a delight. So just consider this with me for just a moment.

I can't use this illustration anymore. But just because, you know, it's difficult nowadays with politicians. And there seems to be very few noteworthy politicians left. But let's just suppose that you had the cell phone number of a great leader.

You could talk to him any time you wanted. You could text him. You could text him a quick text. You could call him on the phone and have a long, like anytime you called, he stopped what he was doing and he would just talk to you.

You could talk to him for an hour, two hours. There he was, ready to talk to you. Now, you would feel kind of privileged by that, wouldn't you?

You know, walk around a little bit.

And you would tell people. One of the first things that you would tell people when you met them is that you had so-and-so's cell phone number and you could call them and talk to them anytime you wanted.

They'd be like, oh yeah, I'll prove it. And you could do it. Now, you understand where I'm going with this analogy, right? What a high and holy privilege it is for the people of God to pray. We don't have access to some corruptible politician.

We have access to a high and holy God, the sovereign king of heaven, the very defender of our faith, the one who knows our needs and our sins and our struggles and our worries and our fears and our doubts.

That God bids the church to come to him, to ask, to seek, to knock. What a high and holy privilege it is, church, to pray. And yet, I'm raising my hand. I'm guilty. I'm not utilizing this privilege as much as I need.

I need to pray, not merely when I have the faith to pray, but also when, and maybe even especially when, I don't have the faith to pray. Because it's calling out to God, talking to him, speaking my words to him.

It's through this means that he is pleased in his grace to strengthen my faith in him. Think about what it says when a professing believer does not pray, or when a church does not pray. I don't need God's wisdom.

I don't need God's provision. I don't need God's protection. I don't need God's blessings. I don't desire sweet communion with my dear and blessed God. Saints, may God increase our faith through our wonder of his glory.

Are you prayerless this morning? Are you lackadaisical in your prayer life? Then repent. But generally speaking, we're too rushed. We move from event to event to event. And when we do have downtime, it's mind numbingness.

So it's like Netflix or video games, or I'm just scrolling social media, or I'm just disconnected in hunting or hobbies or whatever the case may be. And I'm encouraging the church this morning. I'm asking, will you believe this morning that we have a God who not only commands his people to pray, but also desires us to be with him?

And who is a wonder to adore. There's never a time when you pray that you're bugging God. Think about that. Hey, I'm gonna be honest. I can be transparent here. There might be times you call me and you bug me, right?

I'm a man.

I'm fallen.

I'm like, oh man, there's a text. Here's a call.

I'm busy.

I'm trying to do this. That's just because I'm a fallen person and you are too. But it's never that way with God, right? Now, please, I'm not trying to be sacrilegious here. We'll be very, very careful when we use analogies and illustrations like this.

But if you will, you're calling God in prayer. He doesn't look at his cell phone. You've done this. Maybe you've done it to me. He doesn't look at his cell phone and ignore him, put it back in his pocket, right?

He always answers. In fact, I would say this. When we talk to God in prayer, he always answers the prayers of his children. Now, sometimes his answer is no. That's an answer though, isn't it? Sometimes he loves us so much that his answer to our prayer is no, I'm not going to give you that.

But still, he doesn't leave them unanswered. He just always answers them in his sovereign will and goodness. Do you struggle this morning with the fiery arrows of the evil one? Temptation, doubt, failure.

Make prayer a priority and see whether or not the Lord would increase and strengthen your faith by his grace. And let me mention this and then we'll move on. Just like Bible intake should be done personally in groups and corporately, this is true of prayer as well.

You should pray individually, you should pray with your family, you should pray in groups, you should pray, we should pray together corporately and may this church be known as a place of prayer. So how does God increase our faith?

The word of God, the wonder of God and then thirdly this morning, we'll take this one a little bit more detail. That is the worship of God. We're considering this morning the shield of faith. We're considering this morning that Paul tells the church to take up the shield of faith.

We're considering this morning that so often we feel inadequate in our faith. Our faith feels so pathetic, so weak. So what are some ways that God increases the faith of his people? One of the ways is by his own precious word.

Another of the ways is through prayer and then finally this morning, for this morning, the worship of God. Take up the shield of faith, Paul says. Well, how do I do that? Well, we will be more consistent in taking up this great shield of faith as we submit ourselves to his word, as we call upon him in prayer and as we commit to worshiping him.

God strengthens the faith of his people as we worship him. This is true personally, right? We need times of personal worship to let our hearts dwell on God, to meditate upon his greatness. This is true in groups.

We need regular times of family worship in our homes. Singing to God, praying to God, reading the Bible together. But this is also true corporately. We must worship with the church. The essence of Christianity is lived through and in and with and maybe even in some senses for the local church.

The essence of Christianity is about the church and the center priest of that life is our regular assemblies. So the highest priority in a believer's week ought to be the church's main gathering on Sunday mornings.

This ought to be what our rest of our week revolves around. I was thinking something else just came to my mind and that is someone once said, church ought to be your excuse for missing everything else.

Right, we usually flip that around. Well, I can't come to church today because I have this excuse. Where really the reality is, I can't do these other excuses today because I'm gathering with God's people.

It makes sense. It ought to be our priority. I'm not minimizing Sunday night, by the way. I'm not minimizing Wednesday night. Every time the church comes together to sing, to pray, to sit under the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, God is with us in a special way.

He uses these things to strengthen our faith. But the corporate worship of God with the church is the reason we miss other things. And I need to remind us here that another one of our distinctives is biblical worship.

Let me just read that. This is our church's distinctive. We believe that our trying God alone determines how He is to be worshiped and has expressly set forth in His Word how He would have His local churches worship Him.

We therefore seek to follow the regulative principle of worship. This means that we believe that only what God has expressly commanded His church to do in worship should be done. In other words, we believe the Bible regulative, we believe the Bible regulates our worship because when the Bible regulates our worship, that's God regulating our worship.

I talked to a pastor friend one time, he says, that's too restrictive to have the Bible regulate your worship. I said, well, no, no, no, that's God regulate, you understand? That doesn't leave room for the Holy Spirit.

Yes, it does. The Holy Spirit operates through the way that He has called His church to worship. So worship, I'm just trying to illustrate here that worship is not anything goes. We are to worship God as He has instructed.

And when we worship Him, He is pleased to strengthen our faith. So let me ask you, let me put it to you this way with the text. Paul says, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

So let me ask you this, this morning, do you desire to obey that? Do you want that in your life? Is this the kind of Christianity you want to live? Do you want to live the type of Christianity when Satan shoots an arrow at you, whether it's fear or doubt or temptation to sin, or whether it's division within the body, when he shoots one of those arrows at you, do you want to be the type of Christian that takes the shield of faith, sets it up, and boom, the arrow hits it and dissolves?

That's the kind of Christian I want to be. Okay, then, if I want to be that kind of Christian, then I need to understand ways that God strengthens our faith. And one of those friends is worship. It is a travesty, is it not?

The things that we will use to get out of gathering with the church. Have you ever heard of Monday morning miracle cures? That's when someone feels terrible Sunday, but then miraculously 100 better Monday, right?

Now, listen, I understand there are times, there are times to miss church, I understand that, I get that. But I'm just saying, at times, we would never give our employers the type of excuses that we give the church.

And friends, it ought not be so. In America, and in our own hometown, in our own area of Arkansas, it has been the focus of Christianity that has shifted from the corporate to the individual. You talk to 90 or more, probably a lot higher, of Christians in our world today, they can't even define the church, they don't really even understand the necessity of the church.

A lot of people will still say things like, well, the church is a good idea, the church can help you. The church can help you.

Are you hearing that?