The Way To Astonishing Faith — Zac Poonen

There are two places in the Gospels where it says Jesus was astonished. It's the same word in the original Greek that is used on the day of Pentecost when people heard them speaking in tongues and it says in Acts 2 .7 they were amazed and astonished.

How is it these Galileans are, we are hearing in our own language. I mean if I was speaking here in English and all of you heard in your own mother tongue what I was saying you'd be absolutely astonished.

Jesus Astonished by Unbelief and Faith

What is it that astonished Jesus? One would think he would never be astonished but two places, only two places in the Gospels it says Jesus was marveled and amazed and astonished. I want to show them to you.

One is in Mark chapter 6. You know he came to his hometown Mark chapter 6 and he went into the synagogue. It was Nazareth and the people despised him. We knew him as a carpenter here for so many years.

Son of Mary verse 3, brother of James, Judas Simon, his sisters also here, they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown and among his own relatives.

It has been true throughout history that a prophet is not usually appreciated by his own relatives and therefore he could not do any miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them and he was astonished at their unbelief.

He was astonished. How can people be so unbelieving after all that they have seen just because they are prejudiced? That's not what I want to see. I want you to see the other place where Jesus was astonished.

That's in Matthew chapter 8, where we read of a centurion. Matthew 8 verse 5, came to Jesus and implored him saying, Lord my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented. And Jesus said, I will come to him and heal him.

And the centurion said, Lord I am not worthy for you to come under my roof but just say the word, my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I say to this one go and he goes, to another come and he comes, to my slave do that and he does it.

What he's saying is I know that if you just speak the word he'll be healed. When Jesus heard this he was astonished. Same word. As in Acts chapter 2, they were astonished. Jesus was astonished. This time he was astonished at this man's faith.

In Mark 6 he was astonished at these people with whom he had grown up for 30 years. He was astonished at their unbelief. And now he's astonished at the faith of a man who has never read the Bible, never gone to synagogue, worshipped some heathen god, gone into the military and killed so many people.

A military captain. His faith. Jesus was astonished and said to all those who were around him, I say to you truly, I have not found such great faith with all of you Bible studying, Bible knowing Israelites.

That challenges me. There were only two things that astonished Jesus. Unbelief and faith. He's astonished when he sees unbelief among his people today. After all that we read in the scriptures, after all that we have heard of Christian testimony from so many people, and after all that the Lord has done in your life in past years, you come into a difficult situation and you're in a panic.

What will happen? Will God care for me? And Jesus, he's the same yesterday, today and forever. He is astonished at your unbelief. Have you forgotten all that he did for you in the past? Do you think he will carry you halfway across the river and dump you and say, I'm fed up, I didn't know you were that bad.

He's astonished. And equally, he's astonished when he can see faith in somebody. And I'll tell you that this, that faith is not necessarily found in the people who know the Bible the best, or the people who have studied the scriptures.

It can be in some heathen person who trusts in Jesus, whose knowledge of the Bible is very little. How much did the centurion know? I want to ask you, my brothers, when I read this, what comes to my heart is this.

I say, Lord, in years past, I have astonished you by my unbelief in numerous situations. I'm ashamed of it. I want to now try and astonish you a few times by my faith. Isn't that a good goal to have? Lord Jesus, I want to try and astonish you by my faith.

Trust you for great things. It's possible for all of us. It's amazing what God can do if we trust Him, and what He cannot do when we don't trust Him. We can say unbelief ties the hands of Almighty God.

He wants to do something for you, but He can't. It's so important. God places so much value on faith that it says, without faith, it is impossible to please God, no matter what else you may do. Everything must come out of faith.

If it doesn't come out of faith, it's worthless. That helpless dependence upon God, that is faith. The total confidence in God. He will not let me down. He can do it. Confidence and dependence. So let's look at the reason why this man had this faith.

Humility and the Recognition of Unworthiness

I want you to see this. First of all, he said, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. He had such a tremendous respect for the Lord Jesus that when Jesus said, I will come and heal him, he said, no, Lord.

I mean, we would think it's such an honor if Jesus said, I will come to your house. But he says, Lord, I'm not worthy that such a great person like you should come to my house. You see there his humility.

You see his humility in the fact that he was willing to travel all the way from wherever he was to Capernaum for the sake of his servant. I mean, if you have a maid servant working in your house, how many miles will you travel to go and get some healing for her from some doctor?

And it says he implored Jesus and plead with the doctor and say, I have a maid servant at home. Will you please come and heal her? I don't know how many of you would do that for your servant. I say, that's lower caste.

I don't have to care for them. This man was the ruler. Rome was the ruler of the world. He was a centurion, a captain of a hundred people of the biggest superpower in the world of that time. But he cared for his servant.

He was a humble man, had low thoughts about himself. One would think that people who are in the military and all that are usually pretty proud. Well, most of them are, but this man was not. He said, Lord, I'm not worthy.

It's that respectful reverence for Jesus and the recognition that I'm nothing, I don't deserve God's goodness. That is the first step to genuine faith. And it's because we don't have that, that we don't have faith.

We have to start with humility. We heard that earlier today. John 5, how can you believe when you receive honor from men? When you seek glory from men, how can you have faith? I wonder if that is the position we take when we come to the Lord Jesus.

I want to tell you, my dear brothers and sisters, that we are living in a day when reverence for God is going down. There is not the reverence for God today, even among Christians, that there should be.

Today's Christians are musicians and workers, but not worshipers. Worship is a rare thing. Very few people know what it is to worship God in reverence. Very few know what it is today to fall with their face down before God, like Job fell down and worshipped, like Abraham fell down on his face down and worshipped, like John the Apostle fell down before God and worshipped.

Do you ever do that? It's a wonderful thing to do. I love it sometimes just to lie flat on my bed before God and worship Him, my face down. That is such a rare thing to see nowadays. And very few preachers are worshippers.

And that's the reason why there's so much shallowness in Christendom. If you're not a worshipper, you can't serve God aright. And the worshipper is one who recognizes, I'm not worthy. Lord, Thou alone art worthy.

I don't deserve that you should do all this for me. It's not that we have low self-esteem. Some people think humility means, I think I'm good for nothing, I'm useless. No. The humblest man that walked on this earth was Jesus Christ.

And he never went around saying, Oh, I'm rotten, I'm useless, I'm good for nothing. That is not humility. That is stupidity. Did Jesus ever say, I'm rotten, I'm good for nothing, I'm useless? No. And I don't say that either.

I say, Lord, I'm not worthy of your mercies. I'm a child of God. I believe I'm a son of the King of Kings. I don't have any low self-esteem. But when I come before God, my face is down on the dust before Him.

That reverence is unfortunately not there. And you can see that in the type of hymns being written nowadays by people compared to the hymns written in the olden days by God-fearing people. There's a spirit of reverence in some of those old hymns.

A lot of today's hymns lack that. Maybe very musical and sounds nice and repeat the same line ten times, etc. But that spirit of reverence is not there. And most Christians can't even detect that because they don't have the spirit of reverence themselves.

The sentimental, frothy, love for Jesus type of thing. It doesn't change lives. Look at your own defeated life despite singing all these wonderful hymns and songs. It cannot be like that if there was genuine reverence.

Reverence of the Lord brings wisdom. Brings freedom from sin. That is wisdom. It's the beginning of wisdom. And I love to sing some of the old hymns. And I sing it often to myself when I'm alone. Some hymns that are not ever sung in any churches.

Hymns of reverence to God. And among the well-known authors, I think the last one I've ever read who knew anything about worship was Tozer. And he died about 50 years ago. All the others talk about evangelism and healing and this, that, and the other.

Hardly anybody knows what worship is. And Jesus made it very clear. You must worship, thou shalt worship, and thou shalt serve the Lord thy God. Matthew 4 .10. And that is the spirit of this centurion.

Reverence for Christ in Worship and Daily Life

A respect. Jesus stands out as different from all the others. I was thinking of this the other day when I was reading John 21. It says in John 21 that the disciples were fishing. It's the last chapter and the last miracle that Jesus did.

And they were fishing and they didn't catch anything. And when it was daybreak, John 21 .4, Jesus stood on the beach. And the disciples did not know it was Jesus. They saw a man standing on the beach.

And he said to them, Children, do you have any fish? Do you? They said no. He said, cast the net on the right hand and you'll get a catch. And they cast and it was so heavy because of the great number of fish.

Then John, the apostle, turned to Peter and said, It is the Lord. And Simon Peter, this is the passage I really like. When he heard it, he put on his shirt because he had taken off his shirt because he was working as a fisherman.

All those fishermen were without their shirts, bare chested. And he said, I cannot go and meet the Lord like this. I have to put on my shirt. I can be with John and Thomas and all bare chested but not before Jesus.

Why not? There's something there which strikes me. He put on his shirt before he went to meet Jesus. He respected him. You know, the clothes we wear show our respect for the people we are going to meet in those clothes.

He put on his clothes and then jumped into the sea. I say, Lord, I want to have that spirit. I don't want to treat you like some old buddy of mine whom I can just put my arm around and say, Hi, Jesus.

Like a lot of Christians today think that they are being friendly. It's because of a total lack of reverence. No wonder we don't have faith. This Roman centurion had more of that. Lord, I'm not worthy.

I don't deserve anything from you. I wonder whether we realize this. Jesus told us there was a title that we could get. You know, people love titles. Especially in Christendom today, somebody calls himself reverent and somebody calls themselves right reverent.

And then when there are so many right reverents around and somebody has to show that he's even higher than them, he'll call himself right reverent doctor. His grace. His excellency. These are all Christian titles.

Here's another title Jesus said we could have. Luke 17, verse 10. Luke 17, verse 10. When you have done every single thing that I have commanded you, and that will take some time. When you have done every single thing that I have commanded you, then you can take this title, I am an unworthy slave.

I am an unprofitable servant. Do you want that title? How many people want that title? In the midst of all the reverents and right reverents and doctors? This title is not so easy to get. You have to do everything that Jesus has commanded you.

And when you have done every single commandment that I have given you, then you get this title, I am an unworthy slave. I have only done what I should have done. I have not done anything extra. I tell you my brothers and sisters, we need that spirit back in Christendom.

And we need that spirit in our churches. There's too much of shallowness in our young people and in the older people. Where is that sense of reverence and respect among our elder brothers? I hope there is.

I don't know all of your lives. But I tell you, we have lost everything if we have lost reverence for God. I don't care if I lose my gift of preaching, I lose my voice. I've often said, Lord, if you take away my voice, that I can never speak again, I take away my health, I have to lie down paralyzed in bed.

There's one thing I can still do, which is the main thing I want to do in any case. I can worship you. So I won't be discouraged. I will not be discouraged because if I'm locked up in some prison for preaching the gospel, I can be a worshiper.

Who in the world can stop me from being a worshiper? Nobody. And if that is what you long for, I'll tell you, I'm just trying to get acclimatized to heaven because that's what I'm going to do for all eternity.

I'm not going to be preaching there. I'm not even going to pray. I'm going to worship for all eternity. So I want to get acclimatized to my home, my future home. And they sing one song there, Thou alone art worthy, O Lord.

Many times I picture this. I use my imagination to picture this crowd of millions of people in heaven. And I'm just lost in the middle of those millions somewhere, one little dot in the middle, and everybody's saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord.

Thou art worthy, O Lamb. Nobody's special. Zach Funin is not special in heaven. He's a nobody. Paul is not special. Dear brothers and sisters, use your imagination. It's not pretense. It's actually going to happen.

I long to be in that place where I'll be a nobody worshiping the Savior who alone deserves all honor and praise. Always take the position this Roman centurion took. I am not worthy. I'm not worthy of the least of Thy mercies.

You know, when you come to that place, I'll tell you something. All grumbling, murmuring, complaining will be eliminated from your life permanently. You wonder why you cannot get rid of those sins? It's because you think you deserve something.

Come to the place where you recognize you deserve nothing. If I ask God to give me what I deserve, it's hell. Don't ever ask God to give you what you deserve. It's dangerous. Hell! Lord, give me what I don't deserve.

I'm not worthy. I believe it's the worshipers who have the maximum faith. And to help us to come to this place, all you need to do is remember your past life. I do that frequently, I'll tell you honestly.

Remembering Sin Without Losing Assurance

Very frequently when I'm by myself. I don't know what thoughts you think when you're by yourself. People think all types of thoughts when they're by themselves. When I'm free from other thinking, one of the thoughts I think about is all the wretched things I ever did in my life from as far back as I can remember from my childhood, unconverted days, after conversion.

I remember them, remember them, remember them. Is it right to remember it? I don't feel guilty about any of those things because it is all cleansed in the blood of Jesus Christ. Now if you're not sure that the blood of Jesus has cleansed all your past life, please don't think about it.

It'll make you guilty, it'll make you condemn yourself, you'll get into all types of problems. I'm only speaking to those who believe that they've confessed all their past sins, that every sin has been cleansed in the blood of Christ and who believe that Jesus says, your sins and your iniquities, I will remember no more.

If you're sure of that, then come to this next step. Otherwise don't come there. And the next step is, remember those sins. And it says, I'll tell you why. It says in 2nd Peter chapter 1 and verse 9. I want to paraphrase this verse to you, 2nd Peter chapter 1 and verse 9.

If you forget all your past sins, you will become blind spiritually or short-sighted. Do you want to be blind spiritually? Just never think about your past sins. You'll be the blindest among all the believers.

God has opened my spiritual eyes to see amazing truths in scripture. I'm not blind because I remember my past sins, which have all been cleansed, which God says He will not remember. But I will not forget them.

Because it says if I forget it, I'll be blind. And why do I remember it? So that I can fall on my face before God and say, I'm not worthy. So that I can be saved from spiritual pride. So that I can be saved from thinking that I deserve something from God.

I remember years ago, when I was praying for something, I don't know what it was, something earthly for me or my family or something, I was praying. And I said something like this to God. I said, Father, I have tried selflessly to serve you for so many years.

Can you do this little thing for me or my family? God said no. Won't do it. Because you're coming in your own worthiness. I have done something for you. Then you're coming in your name. That day I understood a little more of what it means to come in the name of Jesus.

So never again do I pray like that. Now I say, Lord, not because of who I am or what I did, but because Jesus died for a sinner like me. Jesus died for a wretch like me. Can you do this for Jesus' sake?

The Lord says sure, I'll do it. Very often, we think God owes us something, because we have done something for Him. And a lot of charismatic Christianity teaches us that. Give your money to God, God will bless you.

As if God owes us something. What am I giving to God? What He gave me. What do you have that you did not receive from God? Are you doing a great favor to God, even if you give 10 of your income? Who gave it to you in the first place?

Who gave you the ability to earn money? Don't any of you think that if you gave a large offering to God, it was a fantastic thing you did? Absolute rubbish. You gave a small teeny-weeny bit of what God gave you?

No, that's not the way. To recognize I deserve nothing. And if I get anything, it's undeserved. Lord, I am not worthy that you should come to my house. I'm not worthy that you should be my friend. I'm not worthy that you should call me your servant.

I'm not worthy of anything. I'm not worthy, Lord. And the more I take that place, faith increases. That is the first step. And as I said, the thing that will help me is to recognize my past sins. You see, because this business of worthiness, feeling worthy is because we compare ourselves with other believers.

I don't know the past sins you committed. I'm sure that some of you committed some terrible things in your younger days, in your past life, which you would absolutely like to run out of this hall if it was portrayed on the screen.

You, who now have a reputation as a holy man, holy woman, and elder brother, all this type of reputation, if your past life was portrayed on the screen, you would have to hide your face and run. Isn't that right?

God doesn't do it. He's so good. He's blotted it out. He says, I will not remember your past sins and I will not reveal it to anybody else either. That's just between you and me. So don't have high thoughts about yourself.

Remember your past sins and recognize how good God is that he doesn't reveal it to other people and learn something from that that you don't go revealing other people's past sins to other people. I'm surprised that people whose own past sins are so terrible and God has covered it up that they so glibly go and reveal other people's sins to other people for no purpose at all.

So and so is like this and so and so did this and so and so said this. Brother, who are you talking so much about the evil of other people? Tell me something about your past life. How did you live in your teenage days?

Tell me what all you were involved in before you find fault with, pick out little specks from people's eyes. Remember your past sins. I would exhort all of you. Don't ever forget what you were purified from.

And that's the reason for a lot of blindness among Christians. Blindness of this lack of spiritual vision. They're not able to see Jesus clearly. They're not able to see the scriptures clearly. Start here.

Lord, I'm not worthy and Jesus will be astonished at your faith one day. I want to astonish Jesus with my faith. Trust him for great things. I want to have a, I don't want to feel that I'm superior to the servant who works in my house.

If I have one. I'm not superior to the lowest level of person from the lowest level of society. I'm equal to him. And like the centurion who would seek to help this man from such who is a slave in his house.

Slaves had no rights in those days. They were not even given a salary. But he cared for him. I say, Lord, because he felt God has been so good to me. I must be good to this poor man. I say, Lord, I always want to be like that.

God has been so good to me and I want to be good to the people around me. I don't want to think that they are beneath me or some believer who is weak or somebody who doesn't, who is young. I want to have a low estimate of myself.

Lord, I'm not worthy. That's the first step. Then the second thing in Matthew chapter 8 verse 9 is I am. One is I am not and the other is I am. Verse 8, I am not worthy. Then what are you? I am. A man under authority.

Faith Through Submission to Authority

That's the second thing that produces faith in us. And that's the second thing that's missing in today's Christianity. To be under authority. A lot of people think that's disgraceful to be under authority.

People in the military don't think so. Every man in the military is under authority. And it's because he's under authority that he has authority. You see the captain is under the colonel, the colonel is under the general and they all have authority over people beneath them.

Because they are under authority over people above them. Do you know the Bible speaks about that type of a chain of authority? The church is an army. And there's a chain of authority. I'm under authority.

Let me show you one scripture. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 it says Paul says in verse 3 I want you to understand this chain of authority. He says I want you people to understand this. It's a very fundamental truth.

That there's a chain of authority here. It starts with God. Verse 3 the last part. God is the head of Christ. You see a general, colonel, captain, lieutenant, soldier. Like that. God. Beneath him Christ.

Beneath him Christ is the head of man. Man is the head of woman. It's exactly like the army. He says I want you to understand this. Every woman who refuses to recognize that God in his great wisdom made her a woman is rebelling against authority.

He says I want to be equal. It's like the captain telling the general, hey who said you're above me? I'm equal to you. You might as well tell God I'm equal to you. Christendom also has not understood what it means to be under authority.

It's a chain of command. And do you know that is the reason why your sisters cover your head? It says here, this chapter is about covering the head. The sister puts a veil on her head to say I accept that authority.

Now you may put the veil over your head and not submit to your husband then you're telling a lie. But that is God's plan. There must be a chain of authority and that is why this whole section of women veiling the head is such a controversial issue in Christendom today.

I'm not surprised. Who do you think has produced that controversy? The devil. Because he knows that if you come under authority you'll have authority over him. He doesn't want you to have authority over him.

I want to have authority over Satan. That's why I want to be under Christ's authority completely myself. The centurion said because I'm under authority, I have authority. When I tell a servant to go, he goes.

When I tell a servant, another one to come, he comes. When I tell my slave do this, he does it. I've often thought about this in casting out demons. I've seen a lot of preachers and pastors casting out demons yelling and screaming and pulling the woman's hair and shouting and yelling and going on for hours and hours and hours and hours.

And then the demon finally fools them. Think that he's left. He hasn't left. And I've thought about that. I said do I ever see Jesus pulling people's hair and shouting and yelling and screaming and never.

I said this is not the godly way. Jesus was under the authority of his father. He'd say to a demon, get out. And he didn't have to say it twice. It's like saying go to servant, go. He'd go. Supposing the centurion rebelled against his boss and was thrown out of the army.

And then one day he sees that soldier and says go. And the soldier says who are you? Why? Because he rebelled against authority and was thrown out of the army. The soldier says I don't want to listen to you now.

But when he was in the army, if he said go, he'd go. Authority is a tremendous thing. You don't have to be strong to have authority. You see that in the places where there's no traffic light. But a policeman in the olden days, we used to have policemen standing in the middle of the crossroads and putting up his arm.

And these huge trucks that can run down anybody would stop. Because one small little man is putting up his hand and saying stop. Isn't that amazing? That one little man can make ten trucks stop. Does he have strength?

Power? No. He's got authority. Authority is greater than power. If you were to ask that policeman can you stop that truck physically? No, I don't have that power. But I've got authority. That guy dare not move till I tell him to move.

Yeah. In the world they recognize authority. In the church, unfortunately not. And that's the reason why the church doesn't have so much authority. So many people talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I believe in all of them. But I believe more important is authority. Authority. I believe there's a great need for authority in the pulpit. That when people speak they must speak with authority. Not a human type of authority where you bang the table and try to shout at people.

But a spiritual authority, a quiet authority that God backs up. It says in John chapter 15. It's been a great verse for me as one who preaches God's word. It says in John 15 and verse 26 and 27. When the helper, the Holy Spirit comes who proceeds from the father, he will testify about me and you will testify also.

I like that. That means, I understand it like this. I speak about Jesus and the Holy Spirit backs it up and says, listen to that. That's from me. That's authority. I want that. Whenever I speak, when I counsel people as an elder, when I stand in a pulpit and speak God's word, I want the Holy Spirit to take that word to people's heart and say, listen to that, that's from God.

And those who have ears to hear will recognize that is from God. You can have that. Don't you want that authority? Every believer should have that authority. See what Jesus said in Luke's gospel. Chapter 10.

Luke chapter 10, verse 19. I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions over all the power of the enemy and nothing will injure you. I have given you authority over power. The truck has got power, the policeman's got authority.

The devil's got power, I've got authority. I've got authority over his power. That's what it says here. I've given you authority over all the power of Satan and he cannot touch you, cannot harm you in any way.

Didn't he kill the apostles? Sure. When God's time for them was up and through the death of God's people, many others were converted. The devil got Stephen killed. He got rid of one man. But Paul, seeing that, got convicted and finally got converted.

So the devil didn't win by killing Stephen. He just produced a wholehearted apostle as a result. The devil can never win. God always turns the tables on Satan. He has given us authority over all the power of the enemy but to have that authority, we have to be under authority.

Obedience and Authority in the Home

That's why the Bible says God has given only one commandment for children. He doesn't burden little children with many commandments. He just says, honor your father and mother, children. Obey your parents.

That's it. And that is the one thing that most children don't do. And unfortunately, that's the one thing that many parents don't teach their children to do. We have to teach our children obedience almost from the time they are born.

You have to obey. I never cared if my children broke things in my house. I never valued things. But I did. I was concerned if any of my boys did not obey me. That was serious. Because if I allowed that, they would one day grow up to disobey God.

When they are one year old, they don't know anything about God. But they certainly know that I'm their dad. And I'm there in place of God until they grow up to know God. Do you know that until your children grow up to know God themselves, you are representative of God over there.

And the one thing you have to teach your children is obedience. It doesn't matter if they are not good at mathematics and physics. But they must be good at obedience. Then you would have trained them better.

I have read somewhere that the generation of hippies who rebelled against their parents in the 1960s and 70s in western countries in America grew up because 20 years earlier there was a very popular book in America on bringing up children written by a doctor which is the most popular book on taking care of children in which he taught don't spank your children.

Don't punish them. 20 years later you have a generation of hippies and rebels against their parents. I read that somewhere. And that has spread. What does the Bible say? Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with promise Ephesians 6 verse 2 and 3 so that it may be well with you so that you may live long on the earth.

All those who do not teach their children to obey are saying I don't want it to go well with my children. I don't want them to live long on the earth. Let them die an early death. Let it not go well with them.

I desperately wanted it to go well with all my children. And so I decided I'm going to teach them to obey me. And the obedience is of course external in the beginning. The inward obedience comes a little later.

But it has to begin on the outside. You have to listen to daddy and mommy. The Bible says in Proverbs in chapter 22 Proverbs 22 and verse 15 Foolishness or rebellion is bound up in the heart of a child.

I mean if you believe this is inspired scripture from God I believe it. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline will remove it far from him. Yeah there's a inward connection between the backside and the heart.

And you connect with the backside and it goes up to the heart and the rebellion is driven out. I don't know how it's done but it works. And you know that's why God has given little extra fat in the backside so that children don't get hurt.