Easter Passion — Jim Cymbala

I feel very much at home here tonight, not just because the music is so familiar to me, but just from the first time I visited here, and my friendship with the late Crawford Moody, too. And I actually visited here once before Pastor Mack had become senior pastor here.

And then we came back after he had just been here a few weeks. And my wife and I feel a great love and affection for this church and for the Christians that are here in this great city of Dallas. I want to talk to you about something that I trust will challenge you, challenge us.

You know, during Holy Week and our services, our every, it's 12 o 'clock noon, right, every day this week. As you remember what our Lord did for us, you want to show your love and your devotion more to Him.

You feel like you, at least I do, like, oh, Jesus, I want to do more for you. I want to display my love for you in a greater way. I want to please you more. How many love the Lord Jesus tonight and want to love Him more and show Him that?

Could you just lift your hand? Yeah, that's how you feel. Because as you remember, Calvary and what He did for us on the cross. Well, one of the great things, the primary thing that the Lord wants from our lives is what I want to talk to you about tonight, which is faith.

Faith as the Means of Pleasing God

That's not something that we think of in that term. We think of it, we're justified by faith, we're saved by grace through faith. But faith, the Bible tells us, has an effect on our Lord, makes Him so happy, and the Bible says that without faith it's, what, impossible to what?

Please, God. Imagine that. You could come to this altar tonight and cry a river of tears. Or the choir could sing beautifully. By the way, choir, I never heard you better. Great choir, wonderful, beautiful, orchestra too.

But unless you have faith when you do these things, it loses its importance to God. For without faith, it's impossible to please God. There's something about faith, about depending on God, trusting God, that touches God like nothing else.

God doesn't want us to climb mountains for Him and beat our bodies like Martin Luther did before he understood the grace of God. He doesn't want us to do penance and all those other things. What God is looking for is, He doesn't want us to have church.

In the traditional sense of praise God, we're going to have church. You know, a little of that goes a long way. What He wants us to have is faith. He wants us to trust Him and lean on Him when there's nothing else to depend on but His Word.

There's something about trusting God, I'm learning more and more, that is just so vital to our walk with Him. For the Bible says, the just shall live by what? By faith. Not get saved by faith. Live by faith.

Not only start by faith, but the just shall live by faith. As Paul says in another place, we walk not by sight, but we walk by how? By faith. We walk by faith. So when you get saved, you go in a school.

You're in a school right now if you're a Christian. It's called the school of faith. And if you get left back, He'll just make you do the year over again. But God has His hand on my life and Carol's life.

And He wants, He's going to teach us to trust Him. He's going to bring us through valleys and over mountains. He's going to knock out props from us. But He will teach us to have faith. Because without faith, it's impossible to please Him.

Now the Lord laid down as a first principle, that according to your faith, so be it unto you. Great faith, great experience of God. Little faith, little experience of God. Isn't that amazing? According to your faith, so be it unto you.

When people talk about, oh well, God's going to do what He's going to do. That's not... where would you find that in the Bible? According to your faith, so be it unto you. Jesus went to His own hometown.

And the Bible tells us He could not do many miracles there. Not because the demons were too strong or the sicknesses too complex. No, of course not. He was hindered because of their unbelief. There was no faith.

Imagine that. Jesus, the Son of the living God, had, as it were, His hands tied by their unbelief. That's how critical faith is. And you can go to church and have faith, or you can go to church and not have faith.

Just be sitting there and be part of the American church, Protestant culture. White culture, black culture. But without faith, there's no vibrancy. Without faith, it's not pleasing to God. Since we moved into a new facility about a year ago, year in May it'll be.

Oh my, has our faith been tested? Not only because God led us into a project in New York City involving dozens of millions of dollars. We don't have any. Trying to do some good in the hood. When you're down in the hood, there's not a lot of money in the hood.

And since we've gone there, this is a building that was built in 1918, a theater seating 4 ,100 seats, largest theater in North America when it was built. Since we've gone down there, we have services at 9, 12, and 4.

We have more, I would say thousands of more people coming, but poor and with problems like you can't believe. HIV positive, crack addicts. Three weeks ago, a transvestite cross-dresser got saved in the service.

Listen, before he came forward to receive Christ, he wanted to use the ladies room, and we said, no way, you're going in that ladies room. What is that about? You're not going in that ladies room. We don't care you got a dress on.

You're not going in that ladies room, friend. Who would have dreamt it? Isn't Jesus wonderful? But boy, do you need faith. You can't see things the way they are, you have to see things the way they can be.

You can't just do the same old same old, as you'll see in a moment. Now, Peter says it this way. Christians are kept by the power of God through faith. What keeps us every day victoriously? The power of God.

What activates the power of God in our life? Faith. Who are kept by the power of God through faith. What happens when people backslide? They lose their faith in Christ. They start to drift and they lose sight of him.

They get caught up with other things. And you start seeing them slipping and sliding into all kinds of things. Because as you lose your grip on faith, you lose your grip on the power of God working in your life.

Jesus was never amazed at anything but faith. You never see anywhere in the Gospels, do you, choir, where Jesus stopped and said, You see this man over here? This is the holiest man I've ever seen. Or this is the most righteous man.

You'll never see that one time in the Bible. You'll never see him be impressed by somebody's smarts or wisdom. He never said, Boy, look at Matthew. Boy, that guy is good with numbers. We want him on our team.

No, no, no. But remember when the centurion came to him and said, Would you come and heal my servant who's in my hole? And Jesus said, I'll go. And he said, Oh no, you don't have to go. I know who you are.

You just speak the word. You don't have to take a trip to my house. Just say the word, because I know I have power, authority. I tell people to go, they go and come, they come. Just speak the word. And Jesus said to his disciples, I've never seen faith like this in all of Israel.

You know what the Lord is looking for in this building? The eyes of the Lord are right now running through this whole building right now. He's just looking on whose behalf he can show himself strong. What is he looking for?

Faith. Faith. He's looking for faith. What made Luther stand out and be the great reformer he was? Or Moody made Moody Moody? Or Finney Finney? Or all these great men and women of God who have served General Booth and his wife?

Faith. Go into the East End of London and start preaching, as General Booth did and his wife, and found the Salvation Army. Faith. Where's the money to do it? No money. We're just going to trust God. Faith.

Little faith, little expression of God. Big faith, big expression of God. The Lord said when he comes back to earth, will he find faith? Where is your faith? Look through the Bible, go home and get your concordance and look up the word faith.

See every place it's used and start to analyze its context. It's an incredible study. How God is looking to get his people to believe. The just shall live by faith. Well, what is faith? Don't now don't go by what maybe you heard growing up in church or I heard growing up, because otherwise we'll never learn anything.

To learn, you have to be open to the Word of God, which we're going to read right now. But what is faith? Some people think it's the conviction in your mind and mental ascent to certain truths about God.

That's what they think faith is. I believe in God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I believe he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised on the third day, etc. But the devil believes that. Not only believes it, he knows it, he was there.

So if to say mental affirmation of certain truths about God is faith, then that wouldn't separate us from the demons who believe and tremble at the name of Jesus. So what is faith? How does faith come?

What is this thing that God wants to develop in Jim Simbel and my wife Carol and the church called the Brooklyn Tabernacle and First Baptist Dallas and every other church? What is it that He's after in us?

What is He trying to develop? How does it happen? What are the characteristics of real faith? Not go-to-church-on-Sunday faith. That's not something that's mentioned in the Bible. We're talking now about the real deal.

In other words, where's the beef? Where's the faith? What does it look like? If you saw it, what would it look like? Well, to know about faith, I want you to go back to the very beginning. It's so interesting that yesterday a conference was held in Iraq to try to put the country back on its feet on democratic principles.

And the conference that was held in Iraq of returnees, Iraqis who had left the country and then some who had been in the country during the war and had survived the rule of Saddam Hussein. The conference was held in Ur.

Is that a trip or what? Ur. And Ur, of course, is the birthplace of Abraham. And to know about faith, what we want to do now is just go back and see how did the father of everyone who believes get faith and what was his faith like?

Forget what you and I saw growing up again. What did Abraham's faith look like? Because the Bible, although Jesus said, don't call anybody father in that sense, Paul calls Abraham, Father Abraham, because he's the father not only of the Jewish people, but he is the father of everybody who believes.

He's Jew and Gentile. Because of Abraham it said, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. What was counted to him for righteousness? His faith, not his good works. Read the life of Abraham.

He lied like a rug sometimes. Sold his wife down the river to Pharaoh. It was a mess at times. So Abraham wasn't justified because of the way he lived or else he would never have been justified. Did some very sad things there in the Bible.

But he was justified and counted righteous by his faith. Well, how did he get this faith? We read in Genesis, the 12th chapter, just a few verses. If you have your Bibles, turn with me. Long introduction, but just a few verses because I want to get right to it.

Abraham’s Faith Begins with God’s Call

Genesis 12. And we return to that part of southern Iraq and we read in Genesis 12, the Lord had said to Abraham, verse 1, Genesis 12, the Lord had said to Abraham, leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

Now look at all these promises. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And whoever curses you, I will curse.

And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abraham left as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him. Abraham was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. Alright, this is the beginning of the whole deal.

This is the beginning of the covenant that God made that the law never superseded. The law was added 400 years later, but it never was added to help anybody except to see our sins. Paul says in Romans and Galatians that the covenant that saves us is the original covenant that God made with Abraham.

In other words, trust me, have faith in me. Where did this faith come from? What were the characteristics of it? Do we have it? Is it around us? How would we know if we're growing in faith? Which Paul says, I'm so happy to the Thessalonians, that you're growing both in love and in faith.

How do you know if you're growing in faith? Well, first of all, I just want to give you three characteristics of the real faith. The faith that God loves, that pleases Him. Number one, faith comes from a living word from the living God.

Faith Comes Through a Living Word

How did faith begin with Father Abraham? The Bible says,. And the Lord said unto Abram... That's how the whole thing began. Abraham was uncircumcised. I'm going to call him Abraham for the rest of the evening.

We know his name changed halfway through his life there. It was recorded in the Scripture. Abraham was uncircumcised, was a pagan. And the Lord said something to him. And that's how faith began. For faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word.

But brothers and sisters, they had no Bibles then. They had no Bibles. Abraham couldn't study the books of the law because they hadn't been written. Moses hadn't been born yet. So we know that Abraham got some spirit communication from God.

The Holy Spirit, God, spoke to him. And that's what generated faith. Now, for us that are living today post-Abraham, post-Calvary, in the New Testament era, the Word of God is contained in the 66 books of this Bible.

This is our only rule of faith. Our only rule of doctrine and morals. Anybody preaches from this pulpit, including the speaker, or anybody who sings, anybody says anything, the minute you hear someone speak, you should be taught and we should all be ready to judge it according to the Word of God.

Is it in the Bible? Because if it ain't in the Bible, get out of here. If you go home tonight and an angel comes in your room, just flies right in there, don't get too excited, let him talk first. Because if he says something that's not in the Bible, kick him out of your room and out of your house and say, Hey angel, you are not a true angel from God because you've said something contrary to the Word of God.

This is the only rule that we have of faith. No manifestation, no purported work of the Holy Spirit can come from God if it can't be judged by the Word of God. How can I judge something and test something if it's not in the Word of God?

People are doing all kinds of weird, bizarre things that are not in Scripture. Isn't there enough in the Scripture to aim for? I mean, if you're going to get excited, why don't you raise a few dead people or heal a few sick people if you're going to do something.

But don't be howling like a lion or crawling around or running into walls or whatever they're doing now. There's a lot of wonderful things in the Bible, but the Bible is our perimeter. That's what tells us where we're going.

Now, brothers and sisters, here's the point. Faith, though, does not come by merely intellectually reading the Bible. This Bible has to become a living Word from the living God, just like Father Abraham.

You've got to take time when you read the Bible. You've got to be prayerful when you read the Bible. Could I get a witness here tonight? You've got to lay the Bible out and say, God, talk to me from this Word.

Because just to read it like you read Time Magazine or the Dallas Papers, you'll never get faith. This Word has to become living, or else you'll become a Pharisee. Just remember, the people that crucified Jesus 2 ,000 years ago had the biggest Bibles and knew the most Scriptures.

So Bible knowledge does not equal faith. They crucified the Lord of glory. They plotted His death. And they were quoting verses while they did it. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Our Father is Abraham.

Jesus said, no, your Father is the devil. So when we read the Bible, we've got to come with an open heart and say, God, make this living in my heart, or I'm never going to have the faith that I need to have.

This is why George Mueller, the great man of faith, who had those orphanages over in England, although he was a German himself, he had these orphanages where he fed millions of people. His autobiography and his writings have been a blessing to many generations.

I keep them near me in my study at home because they're just so refreshing to read. He would say in the morning, sometimes my heart couldn't pray because I had no faith. And I knew it's the prayer of faith that heals the sick.

It's the prayer of faith that gets answers. Jesus said, when you pray, believe. Not just pray. What's the sense of praying if you're not going to believe? We just think that by saying prayer, that'll work.

No. Faith works. So Mueller said, I'd have to lay out my Bible and get on my knees and I'd have to look at these scriptures and I'd have to just wait on the Lord and say, God, as I'm reading through this, Holy Spirit, make this alive to me.

Make it a living word from the living God. Give me some promise and make it alive to me. Because that's how faith comes. Faith comes from God making this a living word from His own mouth, His own heart.

How many of you have ever read the Bible and hit a verse that you've read maybe 20 times and suddenly, as you read it again, the Holy Spirit just goes like and it comes alive. How many know what I'm talking about?

Lift your hand. And you go, wow, I never saw that. That's a living word from the living God. You can understand Greek and Hebrew. You can have a master's in divinity. You can be a theologian and not have the faith of a slug.

And you can be a simple dropout from high school and be full of faith. Because faith doesn't come by intellectually dissecting the Word of God. It comes by reading it with a childlike, open heart. God, speak to me through Your Word.

So, faith comes and is birthed by a living word from the living God. And oh, how we need to live in our Bible. How we need to live in our Bible. I hope you all read the Bible every day. You've got to live in your Bible.

Faith Requires Leaving Familiar Patterns

Because this is how faith is born. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Well, the second characteristic of faith is that when you have the faith that Abraham has, you're always leaving what you're used to to go to something better than God has for you.

When you have faith, listen, you are always leaving what you're used to ready to follow God's something better that He has for you. Now, follow me on this. The Lord has shown this to me some years ago.

It really has kind of changed my life and really gotten to some deep areas that needed some getting into. The first word that God ever said to Abraham is leave. The first word that Abraham ever heard from Almighty God was leave your country and your household and your family and your childhood friends and your culture and what you're used to and your food and your neighborhood and your area of the country.

Leave Ur of the Chaldees and go where? I'll show you later. Go to a place that I will show you. Now we're really getting down to faith. People who have faith are always leaving. Not just geographically, although that sometimes happens.

This is how the great missionary movements happened. People were ready to leave what they were used to and the comforts of America especially back in the 1700s, 1800s early 1900s going to parts of the world where disease was so rampant and we didn't have all the drugs we had now and transportation was so different and communication was so backward.

Why did they do that? Why did Hudson Taylor go to China? By faith! Everything that anybody does for God Hebrews 11 says they did it by faith. Noah built the ark by faith. Abraham went out by faith. Moses by faith identified with God's people.

Everybody did it by faith. But Abraham Abraham's first word from God was leave. And he had to pick up and go not knowing where he was going. Think of we live, we're so used to this story think of it brothers and sisters.

God who he had never had any contact with spoke a word into his heart and said leave the only world you know and go to. God knows where and Abraham did it. Oh our idea of faith is so wimpy our idea of faith is so churchified so Americanized.

Listen to what pleased God Abraham pleased God. Now he was ready to leave and he left and everyone who walks by faith is always ready to leave. That's why Abraham never settled in a town you know that verse he always lived in tents.

Why? Because he was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. Now what does that mean? Leave. What does it mean that men of faith women of faith are always ready to leave? Let me start by saying this Brother right here, where were you born?

Pennsylvania. Play of strings, right? My brother here was born in Pennsylvania and he's white. Before he was born he had no prior existence where he said I want Pennsylvania and I want to be white. He just woke up screaming like all babies do.

He came out of his mother's womb he was white and he was in Pennsylvania. That was the accident of his birth. Just like you have an accident of your birth. My mother's Polish. She's 88 years old. My late father is Ukrainian.

I woke up screaming in a hospital in Brooklyn to Eastern European parents. Not something I requested. It's just the accident of my birth. To make a big thing about being Polish. To make a big thing about being Ukrainian.

To make a big thing about being white. If I did that would be a sign of two things. My ignorance and my pride. Because it was the accident of my birth. I didn't earn it. I didn't strive for it. I just woke up.

Don't you get it? People born in Nigeria are saying Nigeria. People born in France are saying France. People born in Philippines are saying Philippines. So to make a big thing of your color your blackness your whiteness.

It's a sign of ignorance and pride. Pride because we only exalt what we are. You never hear black people saying how great white folks are. And you don't find white people having marches that black is beautiful.

No, no, no, no. It doesn't happen that way. What it is is because of our egotism and our smallness of mind. We don't see the world the way God sees it. We're locked into these little cultural little cultural prisons where we make a big thing about being from the South or being from Texas or being from the Big Apple.

Don't you get it? It's just because you were born here or you live here. If you were born someplace else you'd be waving that flag. Don't you get it? How many get it? Say Amen. So to be locked into that is very damaging.

You have to be willing if you're going to serve God and walk by faith to leave the strictures of your culture so that God can use you so you can look at the world the way God looks at it. Enough with this white thing.

Enough with this Baptist thing or Pentecostal thing or black thing or Latino thing. Come on, let's put our hands together and affirm God's truth. But let's go further, brothers and sisters because this is critical.

Come on, let's think critically about our country now and about the body of Christ in our country. Two major denominations in our country two of the leading denominations are at zero growth domestically.

Zero growth in our country since 9 -11. They're still not winning more souls than they're losing people. One leading denomination. I talked to their leaders for every two churches they start they close down ten.

The mega churches have given a false impression to the Christian public. They've closed up all the just like CVS and the big drugstore chains. What do you have here big drugstore chains? Walgreens? All of those.

They closed down all the mom and pop drugstores. So the mega churches are closing down the little churches but we're not making converts. We're just moving Christians from building to building. The angels don't rejoice except when the pastor gives the report like he did tonight that people are coming to Christ.

Angels rejoice at water baptisms not when you have membership Sunday. We're in the membership. God's in the salvation. And this is what has built hostility among pastors and ministers because everyone knows the game has stealed someone else's members.

That's the truth. I didn't go to seminary or Bible school. I didn't even know this existed. I grew up playing in basketball. I was a city basketball player in New York and went to college on a basketball scholarship and when you play basketball you have a concept of teamwork.

It doesn't matter who scores or who dishes off the ball for the assist. You just want to win but not in the Christian church. No, we're not rooting for each other. You can be sure of that. But now just like the accident of my birth.

How about the accident of our spiritual birth? When you got saved you found yourself in a church. Yes, you did. Either your mother and dad drug you there as a kid like my mother did by the ear. Or you got converted as an adult and you found yourself in a church a Nazarene church a Baptist church a Charismatic church a Lutheran church a Presbyterian church a Church of Christ.

Whatever. Before you got saved you didn't make a prayer one day and say God, I want to get saved one day and when I'm saved I want to be a Baptist. No one does that. No one says when I get saved I want to be a Lutheran.

Nobody does that. You just get saved and you find yourself in a church in a culture. Now just as color and ethnicity has a powerful influence on us and it's very hard to break away from that and really walk by faith and see the world.

God see the world the way God sees it. This other leaving is even harder I'm finding. When most people read the Bible they do not read the Bible to be taught. They're just looking for verses to back up what they already believe.

You know what what most people say this is the prayer I hear around the country and this is what's implied in it. People are praying God do a new thing but I ain't changing. That's what they're praying.

Pastor. I ain't changing. I'm going to go through my black ritual every Sunday. I'm going through my white southern Baptist ritual. I'm going through my Pentecostal ritual. That's the only thing I know.

But God do a new thing but we ain't changing. Well how in the world will that work out? You got to be ready to leave. Tell me. Tell me what church what movement is so full of God and is so sweeping the nation with converts that we should be so proud and say I don't have something to learn.

How many know we all have something to learn. Come on lift up your hand if you know you have something to learn. Yes we do. When I was a kid I went to a church where I learned about Jesus. My mom and dad drugged me to that church.

It was on Quincy Street in Brooklyn. And they talked about Jesus there enough that I could get saved as a little kid get baptized. But they didn't want a black person within a hundred feet of that church.

So what should I do brothers and sisters. Should I follow the traditions of my elders that were passed down to me. Is that what Carol and I should do? Have that mentality of that church where I happen to be born into.

I didn't ask to go there. My mother drugged me there. Trust me. If I had that mentality I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. My wife and I in downtown Brooklyn. I had to leave. And I'm finding that I still have to leave.

I have to come to the Bible and say God save me from what I think I know. And teach me what you want to show me. So that I can be what you want me to be. I don't want to have a Baptist church. I don't want to have a charismatic church.

I want to have. I don't want to have a Christian church preaching the Word and seeing Christ glorified and people's lives changed. Now, whatever it takes to get there. Come on. Let's put our hands together.

Amen. Let's do it. But it's very hard for us to leave the spiritual cultures that we were accidentally born into. People have it very strong. I was born in Nazarene. I'm gonna die in Nazarene. Praise God.

I was born Kojic. I'm gonna die Kojic. Brother, that's. We're gonna have church. Praise God. And it's so predictable. Oh, brothers and sisters. Church gets so predictable when it's cultural. Oh, you know what's gonna happen before it even happens.

And has no effect on the population. And Jesus said You'll know a tree by its fruit. Don't go by what it says. Look for the fruit. Look for the love. Look for the converts. Look for the prayer meetings.

If that ain't there He isn't there. No matter what they say. They can thump the Bible till two in the morning. Jesus said Don't go by that. You'll know a tree by its fruit. It's very hard though to leave.

Very hard to get pastors to leave. Man wrote me a letter from a southern state. I forget. Doesn't matter the denomination. He said Brother I want you to pray for me. I read your book Fresh Wind Fresh Fire.

I got very convicted that our church is prayerless. So I made up my mind. We're gonna have a prayer meeting. This is not ever practiced in our denomination. But it is found in a few pages in the Bible.

Pastor Mack. He went to his elder his deacon board and said We're gonna have a prayer meeting. We're gonna devote a night to just calling on God. There's a lot of promises that if a church calls on God God will do great things.

Split the church. Half the deacons left. 400 people walked out of his church. Why? He didn't want to sell drugs. He didn't want to have bingo night. He wanted the people to pray and deacons were saying Honey.

Tell him. Tell the pastor. This boy is innovating. Do you ever remember in 40 years we've been in this denomination having prayer meetings. No. We never saw that Brother. What are you doing? Is that tragic?

Must make the angels cry. But it's so easy to go by what you're used to instead of leaving. So tonight as we get ready to close We want to ask God for the faith to leave. I need to leave. That doesn't mean being crazy and fanatical and you know force a move.