The following teaching is a second of two entitled, How Do You Develop Such a Faith? Presented by the Reverend John W. Howe. This teaching was presented at the Friday Night Prayer and Praise Service held on July 9, 1982. The scripture reference is Mark chapter 4, verses 1 through 32. 

We'll look at Mark chapter 4. Some of you were here last week and we were looking at the last paragraph of Mark chapter 4. where Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves, you remember, and then he turned around to his disciples and he said, Why are you afraid?

Have you no faith? And I suggested to you that perhaps he wasn't simply saying, Didn't you trust me? Which is the way we usually read this.

But perhaps he was saying, If you had had faith, You could have done what I've just done. If you had begun to learn the lesson of faith, you could have been those who spoke that word to still the storm. You could have been those who brought peace into turmoil.

Have you learned the lesson of faith? Have you begun to learn that lesson? Well, we're starting at the end, and I want to go back to the beginning.

Because that comes at the end of a long day of teaching, And Mark 4, in particular, I think encapsulates four principles that would help us to develop that kind of faith that Jesus is speaking about. I don't think any of it is unfamiliar, but sometimes it's helpful to put it all together. You know, we take things out of context and we look at one particular passage and we may get involved in that tree and we miss the forest.

You know what I'm saying? it seems to me that the episode in the middle of the lake in the middle of the storm comes at the end of a day of teaching on a particular subject and the subject is faith and in a very real sense it's sort of the test of everything that's gone on that day of everything that Jesus has been saying so how do you develop the kind of faith that still storms and brings peace how do you develop that well go back to the beginning of the chapter Mark chapter 4 it says Jesus began to teach beside the sea and a very large crowd gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea he pulled a little bit away from the shore so that people could see him and hear him and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land and he taught them many things in parables and in his teaching he said to them Listen. And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

The parable of the sower. We're very familiar with it. But I suggest that that encapsulates for us the first principle.

And the principle is, be receptive to the word of God. How do you develop the kind of faith that gives you the confidence not to be shaken in the midst of storm, to speak a word of peace that stills the waves and the wind? Number one, be receptive to the word of God.

Faith comes by hearing, says Romans 10. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. How do you develop faith?

By listening to the word of God. It's no big mystery. How do you develop faith?

By filling yourself with the Word of God. Faith is our response to what God has said. If you don't know what God has said, you can't exercise biblical faith.

We are not interested in faith in faith. Faith in itself. Faith in faith.

We're not interested in that. What we're interested in is biblical faith, which is putting confidence in what God has said. The first principle is be receptive to the Word of God.

it's interesting what transpires immediately following this it says when he was alone those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables and he said to them to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God but for those outside everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive they may indeed hear but not understand lest they should turn again and be forgiven And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? Do you hear what he's saying?

The parable of the sower is the key to understanding all the other parables. You want to get some kind of a handle on this. to people who are just hearing this who are not responding to the love and the call of God is just nonsense.

It's interesting little stories and it doesn't make any sense. And to an awful lot of folks who come to churches they have a very superficial understanding of all this. Do you want to know what it's all about?

This one is the key to the others, says Jesus. If you don't understand the parable of the sower how will you understand any of the others? So let's analyze this parable very quickly.

The sower sows the word, and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown, where they hear. Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which is sown in them. And these in like manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy, but they have no root in themselves, they endure for a while.

then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word immediately they fall away and others are the ones sown among thorns they are those who hear the word but the cares of the world and the delight in riches and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful but those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold Well, it seems a fairly complicated story with a lot of different things happening in it. But if you follow what Jesus has said, there are really only three issues there. Satan comes and snatches it away.

That's number one. Satan comes and snatches it away. Number two, tribulation chokes it.

And number three, the cares of this world give it no room. That translates into a very familiar phrase to Anglicans. The world, the flesh, and the devil.

Satan comes and snatches it away. The cares of this world, crowding upon it, and the desires of the flesh. Tribulation, you know, our response, our fleshly response to difficult circumstance.

The world, the flesh, and the devil are the three enemies. Be on guard against them. They will attack what God is doing in your life.

There is absolutely no doubt about it. Wherever God wants to sow His word, those three enemies are at work to try to prevent His word from taking root in your life. So once you see that that's the enemy, you're forewarned and you can fight the battle.

You follow me? Resist Satan and he will flee from you, says James chapter 4. Satan will come.

There's absolutely no doubt about it. He will come to harass and to try to divert. But you resist him and he'll flee from you.

Ready yourself for tribulation. I think that the greatest heresy in the church today is that Christians are supposed to escape tribulation. I find nothing to support that.

Christians are to be ready to go through tribulation victoriously. And Jesus said, it must needs come. And those folks who think that Christians are going to escape tribulation are the ones over whom Jesus himself cried, when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth?

Because if you think you're going to escape it and you go through it, you may not have anything when you come out the other end. So get ready for it. It's part of the package.

Jesus said, if they hated me, they will surely hate you. If they persecuted me, they will surely persecute you. Be ready for it. It is part of the package.

Number three, renounce the world and the things of this world and the cares of this world and other things. The world, the flesh, and the devil. Those are the enemies.

If we've got our armor on against the enemies, if we resist the world, the flesh, and the devil, then the word of God can take root. in our soil. It's just that simple.

Principle number one, be receptive to the word of God and be resistant to the enemies of the word of God. Okay? That's number one.

Number two is proclaim what you hear. Proclaim what you hear. Verse 21.

He said to them, is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel or under a bed and not on a stand? For there is nothing hid except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear. And he said to them, Take heed what you hear.

The measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given to you. For to him who has will more be given, and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Proclaim what you hear.

As God gives you insight, as God gives you His Word, as His Word begins to take root in your life, share it with others. Share it with others. How many of you know that as you teach somebody else, you get it more than you ever had it before yourself?

Every teacher knows that. Secular teachers know that. When you teach somebody else, you get it yourself.

Okay? And that is doubly true in the things of the Spirit. As God shows you something, it's not that you're lording it over somebody else.

You're simply sharing the good things that God has given to you. And it may be that He would have you start a Bible study right in your neighborhood. It may be that some of you would be led of God to start Bible studies in your place of work, whatever that might be.

It may be that just within your family you need to have some kind of a sharing, a Bible study for your family, husbands and wives together, parents and children. Share what God is saying to you. Proclaim what you hear and it will be more your own than it ever was before.

And that moves right into a third principle which I already touched upon. That is act upon what you know. Act upon what you know. Take heed what you hear.

The measure you give will be the measure you get and still more will be given to you. Pat Robertson was talking about that at Shrine Mount, wasn't he? He called it the law of use.

You don't use it, you'll lose it. You don't act upon it and it's going to dissipate. You act upon it and still more will come your way.

So proclaim it, share it with others, but not just in word, in deed. That applies very specifically to the matter of giving, literally giving, giving money, giving things to the cause of Christ. but I think it applies more generally to acting upon what God is saying to us and sharing it with others.

And so those two points go very much together. Giving away to others what God is saying to you. I'd put it to you this way.

That the more truth and insight you give to others, the more you gain yourself. And the more of your life you give over to the Word of God, the more the Word of God will come into your life. Should I say that again?

the more of your life you give over to the Word of God, the more of the Word of God will come into your life. Okay? So number one, be receptive to the Word of God.

Number two, proclaim what you hear. Or if you don't like that, if that's too strong, share what you hear. Number three, act upon what you know.

Act upon it. Don't let it be just in word only, but act upon it. Put it into action.

And number four, trust God for the increase. Trust God for the increase. Verse 26, he said, The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow.

He knows not how. He doesn't know how. The earth produces of itself.

First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear, but when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. And he said, with what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when grown upon the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, and yet when it is grown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

How does it go from being this tiny, almost unimaginably tiny seed into this huge, virtually a tree, it's a huge shrub. Birds make nests in it, it gives shade, it gives refreshment. How does it do that?

When you leave it alone. When you trust God to bring it through the growth process into maturity. The worst possible thing you could do once you plant the mustard seed is dig it up every other day and see how it's doing.

And yet isn't that exactly what we do most of the time? We're continually digging up the seeds in our own life and seeing how we're doing. Taking our own spiritual temperature, right?

Do I have enough faith? You've totally missed the point. If you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed, can you imagine anything tiny?

How much faith does a grain of mustard seed have? If you had that much, you could say to the mountain, be moved into the sea. It's not how much faith you have.

It's where your faith is planted. Okay? It's not that we need to build up mighty faith.

How many sermons have you heard on developing mighty faith? That's not the issue. We don't need mighty faith.

We need a mighty God. And a mustard seed faith. And that's enough.

How does a mustard seed move a mountain into the sea? By growing roots that split the mountain. And it falls into the sea.

When I was a youngster, we moved into a new home, and our backyard was completely overgrown. And my father took me out, and we began to clear the backyard. And out in the middle of the backyard, we didn't even know it was there, in the middle of the backyard, there was this tremendous boulder.

We couldn't see it because the weeds were so thick. But there was this boulder, and I'm told that it was brought down in one of the glaciers from somewhere way, way up north, and it was left in our backyard in Connecticut. it.

And in the middle of the boulder was a little tiny hairline crack. And in the middle of the crack was a little tiny green sprout. I was about to cut it off.

And my father said, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's an oak. And I looked at that, that's an oak? He said, yeah, that's an oak.

Obviously, an acorn somehow got in there. Do you know that 25 years later, that mighty boulder is just pulverized little tiny stones? Because that little acorn was allowed to grow into maturity.

Nobody dug it up. And God did his thing. And that little acorn sent down roots and split apart the boulder.

And that's exactly what happened. the grain of mustard seed, send down roots, split apart the boulder, split apart the mountain, move it into the sea. Let it go from that tiny, tiny seed into the mightiest of shrubs that birds can come and make nests in.

How does it do it? Leave it alone and trust God for the increase. God is able to bring his word into fruition.

Number one, be receptive to the word of God. Be on guard against the enemies. And be receptive to the word of God so that it can fall into your soil.

Cultivate your soil. Grind up the rough places. Level the empty places.

Right? You remember John the Baptist? Every mountain shall be made low.

Every valley shall be filled in. Get your soil ready so that the word of God can come and take root in it. Okay?

Number two, as he shows you new truth, share it with others. Because as you share it with others, it'll be more your own than it ever was. Number three, act upon it.

Put it into action. Not just in word, but in deed. And number four, trust God for the increase.

Trust God for the increase. And when he is allowed to do his thing with his seed in your soil, it'll bring forth 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold. And the next time you find yourself in the midst of a storm, you'll be able to say, peace, be still.

The peace of the Lord be always with you. Thank you.