Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · July 19, 2009

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Prayer of the Day

Gracious God, we praise you with shouts of joy for this day. We thank you for the promises you have made to us, for the many gifts you grant us for the living of these days. Help us to worship you, to realize your presence with us now, and to believe that you will change our life and our world. Come alive in us through the power and love of Christ’s Spirit. Amen.

Scripture

Matthew 9:27-31

James 1:5-18

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, crying loudly, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you.” And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly ordered them, “See that no one knows of this.” But they went away and spread the news about him throughout that district.

But if any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and the rich in being brought low, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.

Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when tempted should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my beloved.

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation of shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Message

It Is Done Unto You As You Believe

Larry Gallamore

Have you ever wondered why some people are generally happy while others are generally “down in the dumps”?  I’m going to tell you why, and, if you really understand, it will alter your life completely.  Good luck will just seem to be attracted to you.  The things you need will just fall in line.

Here is the key to being generally happy: believe that you were created to be happy.  Life comes to you in hours, days, and years filled with what you believe.  As Henry Ford once said, “You are about as happy as you make up your mind to be.”

Listen carefully to what Jesus says in this short passage of scripture from Matthew 9:27-31. He says to two blind men, “According to your faith, let it be done unto you.”  Do you understand what he is saying?  He is saying their healing is a direct result of their belief.

What you believe is what you receive.  This universal principle was not only taught by Jesus, it’s taught in all the major religions of the world.  In fact, since the beginning of time, this all-important principle has been taught by the world’s greatest teachers, philosophers, prophets, and leaders.  Great leaders have disagreed on many points, but upon this principle they are all in complete agreement.  We become what we believe.  It is done unto you as you believe.

Marcus Aurelius, a great Roman emperor, said, “A man’s life is what his thoughts make it.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A man is what he thinks about all day long.”  The Bible is perfectly clear, “All things are possible to him that believes” (Mark 9:23).  To believe something is to suppose something, to think of something as being true and honest.

No doubt you are asking how this works.  Let me illustrate how powerful your thoughts are.  In Russia a few years ago, a railway worker accidentally locked himself in a refrigerator car.  Unable to escape or to attract attention, he resigned himself to his fate.  As he felt his body becoming numb, he took a pencil out of his pocket and recorded the story of his approaching death.  He scribbled on the walls of the car: “I am becoming colder…still colder…. I am slowly freezing…half asleep…these may be my last words.”  When the car was opened, the man was found dead, but the temperature of the car was about 56 degrees.  Officials found that the freezing mechanism was out of order and that there was plenty of fresh air available.  Although there was no physical reason that they could find, the man had died.  It was concluded that he had died because he believed that he would die.

What you believe affects you to the core of your being.  It shapes you and makes you who you are.  It determines your destiny.  What you believe either blesses you because it opens you up to the power of God, or it afflicts you because it blinds you to what you could be and what God is trying to do with you.  What you believe makes you happy or it makes you sad.  Some people go through life unaware of how their beliefs influence their life.

The human mind is the last great unexplored continent on this planet.  It contains riches beyond your wildest dreams.  Do you realize that once you make a decision to believe something is possible, the universe conspires to make it happen?  Do you realize that Christ’s power works in your life only to the degree that you consciously believe it works?  Do you know that Jesus is the perfect example of believing?  He drew upon his inner power to produce wine for a wedding feast; bread and fish to feed 5,000 followers, restore life to Lazarus, health to the infirm, sight to the blind, and money to pay taxes from the mouth of a fish!  And do you know Jesus taught us his secret: “All things are possible to those who believe”?  Jesus reiterated this teaching over and over again.  “All things are possible to those who believe.”

We Christians are called on again and again to believe.  We are urged to trust God, to accept the reality of God’s power that brings goodness out of evil, life out of death, and hope out of despair.  We are taught in church to trust and believe in this way.  We can live our lives to the fullest and be a blessing to others, or we can waste all of our potential by refusing to believe in the power of God.  It is depressing to see someone who has so much potential just ignoring it, just wasting it because they don’t believe they can do certain things.

There is a wonderful fable making its way around the preaching and lecture circuit that goes like this: Once upon a time a man found the egg of an eagle.  It had been abandoned for some reason by its mother, but as it was still warm the man took it and put it in the nest of one of his backyard chickens along with the other eggs that were there being brooded upon.

After a period of time, the eaglet was hatched, and along with the other chicks from his nest, began to go about the backyard doing what the other chicks did.  He scratched the earth for worms and insects.  He looked for the corn that the man would throw into the yard.  He clucked and cackled as best he could, and as he grew, like the other chickens, he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air.  Years passed and the eagle grew very old.  One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky.  It glided majestically among the powerful wind currents, soaring and swooping, scarcely beating its long golden wings.  The old eagle looked at it in awe and asked the other chickens, “What is that?”

“That is the eagle, the king of the birds,” replied one of his neighbors.  “He belongs to the sky and to the high places.  We belong to the earth.  We are chickens.”  The old eagle knew this was true, and so he lived and died as a chicken, for that is what he believed he was.

Friends, that’s what’s happened to some people.  They’ve stopped believing in God.  They’ve stopped believing in themselves.  They have stopped believing their lives can be filled with peace, harmony, goodness, and plenty.  They’ve accepted limitations, failures, and lack as if that is just the way life is.  You’ll hear them say, “That’s the story of my life.”  

If I’m describing you, I’ve got good news for you.  You can overcome your fears.  You can be transformed and changed.  You can see life for what it really is.  You can believe again.  You can redirect your thinking toward the truth as you envision wholeness, peace, and harmony in your life.  It’s within your power to choose what you believe.  If you’re in a habit of dwelling upon suffering, antagonism, lack of resources, limitations, resentments, and the like, you’ll have a difficult time attracting anything good into your life.  Today you can change everything by believing.

Let’s look at what you need to know to transform your life.  First of all you have to admit there is something missing in your life.  We must admit we have veered off the path.  You have to make room in your mind for the help that will come to you.  You have to start believing life can be better.  Letting go of your old way of living and your old way of thinking isn’t easy, but in the end you’ll find it is well worth your while.  You have to admit that you need to change.  It’s not wise to tell these things in public because the public is so unbelieving.

The next step in establishing a new life is you have to commit yourself to a daily practice of listening to God, believing that God can do anything.  All things are possible to those who believe.

The third step is you must submit your will to the will of your Heavenly Father.  Get yourself and your personality out of the way.  If you are in love with the present man or woman you are, you must be prepared to let go of him or her so another can be born.  Be prepared to pay the price.  Learning to live by believing anything is possible is going to require a personality change.  You have to submit to a higher authority.  The more you trust God and allow God to guide your life, the more results you are going to see.  Every day you are going to encounter situations where you’re going to be called on to believe in the Divine Presence in your life.  The more you trust this Divine Presence, the more you’ll see proof of what God is doing in your life.  You’ll start to grow spiritually.  You are in the process of coming into the Truth.  Hang in there.  It’s only a matter of time before you’re out of the woods.

Your next step in learning how to believe is the final one.  Your next step is to remit, meaning to pardon or forgive.  Forgiveness of yourself and others is probably the single most important thing you can do to grow spiritually toward believing that all things are possible.  When you forgive yourself, you let go of the guilt you feel from holding on to erroneous beliefs.  You release yourself from the guilt knowing that God has forgiven you.  You free yourself from beliefs that have kept you bound to the mire of the earth – beliefs such as this or that is impossible.  You start to affirm that God can and will make you whole.  You’ll begin to see yourself as Godlike.  Have you noticed we are Godlike?  Turn to the person next to you and look at him or her.  They are Godlike.  You hadn’t noticed that, had you?

You begin to see the good that God has already done in your life and in others, and you begin to find the good in every situation instead of looking for the bad.  It naturally follows as Jesus said, “It will be done unto you as you believe.”

So be it. Amen.

Benediction

Generous God, come live in me! Help me to claim my faith, walk your ways, and rest in your joy. Mine is not a spirit of fear, but one of FAITH. Help me timid heart to believe and be completely yours. Amen.