0:00 When we think of words that are found in the New Testament that are never found in the Old Testament, those 0:19 are words that we should take seriously because that's what makes the difference between grace and law. under the law there was there were a number of good 0:36 things but it could not lift man to where God wanted man to live. So one of those words is faith. [Music] 0:54 And whenever Jesus was on earth and he saw faith, he was always he always marveled at it. And you didn't have to know so much of scripture to have faith. Let me show you one example of it. In Matthew chapter 1:20 8, we read here about a Roman centurion who had a servant who was sick and he came to Jesus in Matthew chapter 8 and said, "Lord, verse 9, my servant is lying paralyzed at home suffering in great pain." 1:43 And Jesus said, 'I'll come and heal him.' But the centurion answered and said,"Lord, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof, but say just say the word and my servant will be healed because I'm also a man under 2:02 authority with soldiers under me." And I say to one, "Go and he goes." Say to another, "Come, he comes." To another, he I say, "Do this." And he does it. When Jesus heard this, he [Music] marveled. That's always struck 2:18 me for Jesus to be surprised. That's amazing. I mean, if I thought if could I do something that could surprise Jesus that he marvels. You don't find that so often. He marveled and he said to those who were 2:37 following, "Truly I say to you, I've not seen found such great faith with anyone in [Music] Israel." Now, it's very interesting that in Israel, everybody knew the scriptures. The centurion 2:55 had never studied the scriptures. So how did he have faith? He'd obviously heard about Jesus. So I see that his faith was not in a written 3:12 word but in a person. And we have today so many charismatics who say we must claim this word and claim that word and believe this word and believe that word and confess it'll be true. There's partial 3:32 truth in it. But ultimately faith is in a person not just in a word of scripture. And you see that clearly that Jesus marveled at his faith. And I see also a close connection 3:51 here between faith and humility. See this man was a very humble man. And the first example of that I see the centurion is a like a captain in the Roman army. And for him to go such a long distance 4:10 to meet Jesus, just to heal his slave at home, you got to be really humble to travel somewhere to get your slave cured because in those 4:27 days people didn't care much for slaves. They just neglected them. But he was concerned enough to want him to be healed. And the second thing you see there is when Jesus said, "I'll come to your house." He said, 4:46 "Lord, no, I'm not worthy that you should come to my house." He had such a low estimate of himself compared to Jesus. Now remember, Jesus was in the eyes of others just a carpenter's son. 5:04 And uh but somehow he recognized that this is someone who is not just an ordinary person. So I see here his humility and his faith. 5:22 I wonder if we have understood that many of times if we lack faith for a particular situation, the real reason behind it could be that we lack humility, the certain amount of pride in us which prevents us from really 5:41 trusting God in a certain situation. And if you read the Old Testament um book of Habacook, there's a statement in Habacook which is repeated at least three times in the New Testament. The just shall the righteous 6:00 will live by faith. That's mentioned in Hebrews. It's mentioned in Galatians. It's mentioned in Romans. And that's a quotation from Habacook. And in Habacook, you read here in 6:19 chapter 2, Chabakok 2. This is where that quotation comes from. You would have definitely read it in the New Testament. The last part of verse four, the righteous will live by his faith. Habacook 2 verse4. 6:38 And as I said, that's quoted three times in the New Testament in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. But what I want you to see here is it says, "But the righteous will live by his faith." It's contrasting this righteous 6:56 man with somebody else. And the someone else is not one who is unbelieving. You would think that the opposite of faith is one who doesn't have faith, an unbeliever. But notice the contrast here. The contrast is between the proud 7:14 person, verse four, his soul is not right with him, but the righteous will live by faith. So the contrast is between not one one who is unbelieving and one who has faith, but one who is proud and one who has faith. That's the contrast. 7:34 So that teaches me something. You know, very often we say, "I don't have faith for this. I don't have faith to believe that the Lord will baptize me in the Holy Spirit. I don't have faith that the Lord will take me through this 7:48 situation." We got to be honest and say, "I'm too proud. That's why I don't have faith." But it's very difficult to say that because most of us think we are quite humble, right? I don't think there's any proud person here. We all think we're quite humble, 8:06 but we're not. And the test of it is our faith. The more humble we are, the more we will have faith. And so when we lack faith, it's not because we are uh say we don't trust the lord enough. 8:25 It's because there's a pride in us that prevents us from having faith. The proud person, his soul is not right. But the one who has got faith will live by faith. And so we saw that also in the story of 8:43 the Roman centurion. He didn't have Bible knowledge, but he had humility. And that humility made him have more faith than anybody in Israel. So it's not so much through Bible knowledge that we come to 9:01 faith. It's humility helps us to see Jesus more clearly and helps us to have faith. The only other place where we read that Jesus wondered or marveled. You know you read that. I hope you noticed 9:18 that in Matthew 8 it says Jesus marveled at his faith. That means he was surprised. Now the other place where it says he wondered or marveled is Mark 6. In Mark chapter 6 and verse 9:38 5 it says Jesus could not do any miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. It doesn't say he didn't want to do any 9:57 miracles. He could not do. It's almost as though his hands were tied and he could not do. And again it says he marveled. Verse six. But this time he marveled at their unbelief. So there only two places I see 10:16 in the scriptures where Jesus was surprised or marveled. once where he saw faith and once where he saw unbelief. So we see that something very important there and it's very closely connected with humility. Turn with me again also to 10:34 Matthew chapter [Music] 15. Matthew 15 and verse [Music] 21. Here Jesus went to the district of Ty and Siden and a Canaanite 10:54 woman came and said again, "My daughter is demonpossessed. Please come and heal her." And Jesus did not even reply. Now, sometimes when you read words like 11:10 this, it looks as if he's ignoring her. He didn't answer a word. Matthew 15:23. And the disciples came to Jesus and kept asking him, "Send her away because she is shouting after 11:29 us, saying, my daughter is demonp possessed. Come and heal." And then he answered again something to sort of push her away. I was not sent. I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she wouldn't give 11:48 up. She began to bow down before him saying, "Lord, help me." And again, he tried to push her away, saying, "It is not good to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs." You know, people sometimes 12:11 ask, "How can Jesus ever call a human being a dog? that it it looks like that he's saying that I can't take this children's bread and throw it, not even give it, throw it to the dogs. Sounds like a very insulting way 12:29 to talk to somebody. But Jesus was testing her humility and she said, "Yes, Lord, I agree. I am willing to take the place of a dog. I don't deserve what the children 12:48 which is God's people are from Abraham and Israel only. I'm not in that family. So, I'm an outsider. I'm a dog. I don't deserve it. But don't you think the dogs can feed on the crumbs that fall from the master's table? 13:07 What you see there is her humility in not being insulted, feeling insulted that she was called a dog. She said, "That's okay. Just give me a crumb that falls from the table. And if I take that crumb that falls from the table, I know my demon, my 13:24 demonpossessed daughter will be healed." Imagine that. She had faith that a little crumb is enough to heal my daughter. I don't need the full bread. And Jesus said,"Woman, your faith is great." One was a Roman 13:43 centurion, and this was a Canaanite woman. Verse 22. The Canaanites were all supposed to be killed by the Israelites 1500 years earlier. But they didn't kill all of them. This is one of those Canaanites that escaped. one of 13:59 those despised and she just took that place of a dog and said okay. So the two people I see that to whom Jesus said your faith is great were people who not they were not Jews they didn't know the 14:18 Bible but their humility was so great that they had faith you you link that with what we saw in Habakuk one is the proud and the other who have faith so I see in all these verses if you study them there's a very close connection 14:36 between humility and faith. So if we understand that very when we say I don't have faith for that, you got to be honest and say I'm too proud. That's the real truth. I'm too proud. I don't have faith that God will fill me with the Holy Spirit. Be honest, 14:53 brother. Say you're too proud. I'm too proud so God will not fill me with the Holy Spirit. We must be convinced about this. There's a close connection between pride and unbelief. close connection between humility and faith. You know, we 15:08 you know, when we say I don't have faith, it doesn't look so bad, right? I mean, I'm just saying I'm not so strong. But it's more difficult to say I'm a very proud man. That we are hesitant to say that cuz that's humiliating. But 15:25 that is the truth. And so we rather say I don't have faith because that sounds so pious. I don't have faith. So you stop saying that and say I'm a proud person that's why I don't have faith. Whenever you ask God for something I don't have faith for 15:40 it. Okay just say I'm proud Lord I'm too proud here. I just can't trust you to do this. I can't believe that you can give me victory over anger. You can't believe it. See be honest. Say I'm too proud Lord. That's why I can't believe it. 15:54 Please humble me first of all and uh then I'll have faith. So when you see that, you know, people sometimes ask this question, why did Jesus call a person a dog? I said, just see the whole picture. If you turn back, it says here that 16:12 Jesus was in Galilee and verse 21, he went into the district of Ty and Sidon. The way I have studied the Bible is by being curious. 16:30 Many human beings are curious about other people's lives. I've tried my best not to be curious about other people's lives. That doesn't help me. That'll pollute me. But I've tried to be curious about the Bible. So when I read something like 16:46 this, I don't want to be lazy. Many people are lazy. I don't want to be lazy. I see Jesus withdrew to the district of Ty and Sidon. You know what I do? I turn to the back of my Bible and look at a map. Palestine in the time of 17:04 Christ and I see where Galilee is and I see where Ty is. And I say, "Boy, that's about 60 kilometers at 17:20 least from Galilee to Ty. 60 kilometers up, 60 kilometers down because it says here in Matthew 15 and verse 29, as soon as he finished talking to this woman, he went back to 17:38 Galilee. So I learned something. You learn a lot when you're curious. If you're lazy, you learn nothing. I said, "Lord, you walked." And remember, he didn't have a chariot or horses or anything. It was walking. He walked 60 17:56 kilometers and 60 km back to help one person. Would you walk 120 km to help one person walk? Would anybody have a doubt that 18:15 you love that person? If you walked 120 km to help that person, Jesus really loved. He was led by the Holy Spirit. He didn't know there was someone like that. Remember Jesus lived on earth as a man. He lived by the prompting of the 18:32 Holy Spirit. And one day he felt a prompting of the Holy Spirit. Go to Ty. So he went there and helped this one non-Israeli Canaanite woman delivered her daughter from a demon and came back. 18:51 What love that proves that he didn't despise her when he called her a dog. He was not despising her. You wouldn't go 120 km to meet somebody to call her a dog. That was to help her to take that low place and to teach his disciples something. 19:10 You see there this person who has no understanding of the Bible but because she was willing to humble herself and not be offended she had faith. Woman great is your faith. The Lord said and you know what you have wanted is 19:27 done for you and her demon and her daughter was healed at once. So in all these instances I see humility is very closely connected with faith. Everywhere I see that and I believe that's the one thing 19:46 that Jesus taught us to learn from him. In many churches, the important thing is to learn how to sing well. And those who are in the ministry, they want to learn how to preach well. And they envy those who can preach 20:05 well. And very often they say, "Oh boy, I wish I could preach like that. because they're seeking honor. Most people when they admire a preacher and want to preach like him, it's 100% for honor. It's not because they want to 20:22 glorify God. Boy, if I could preach like that, I'd be very popular or very famous. Um, but Jesus taught us not to learn how to preach or how to sing from him. 20:38 And that's why in our church we don't emphasize wonderful singing or you know a lot of excited singing. A lot of people think you know I've heard that also people say this we must be very excited when we sing and clap and shout 20:54 and all that. That's fine. I'm not against it. But that's got a lot to do with personality. It doesn't have anything to do with spirituality. Some people's personality is such that they like to sing loud and clap and shout. They're not 21:12 spiritual. So that's why we don't place so much emphasis on if you want to do it, do it. If you want to clap your hands, clap. If you want to be excited and shout, do it. But don't think that makes you spiritual. In fact, you're not 21:24 spiritual. You're not spiritual. If you clap and shout and sing like that and you despise the other person who doesn't do it like you, then you're definitely not spiritual. And if you think that you're spiritual because you clap and shout and 21:38 sing and dance and you're not. So Jesus, there is something he told us to learn from him. Turn to Matthew 11 and verse 25, sorry, verse 29. 21:56 Matthew 11:29, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." And what did he tell us to learn from him? He told us to learn gentleness and humility because our Adamic nature is 22:20 hard and proud. When we say something to someone whom we don't like too much, we say it hard. We even speak to our children hard. To learn to be gentle is not part 22:39 of the nature of Adam. And it's hardness and pride that characterizes the race of Adam. The children of Adam can shout and sing loudly. You go to these rock concerts, they boy they can beat any Christian that to sing loud is not a 22:58 spiritual thing and to sing softly is not a unspiritual thing. We have to see what is true. True spirituality is not shouting and raising your voice when you sing or shouting and raising your voice when uh you preach or saying numerous 23:17 hallelujah. It's I remember a question answered time in some place they asked me brother Zach why don't you keep why don't you say hallelujah now and then when you preach like so many other I said because I usually preach for so 23:32 long that if I keep saying hallelujah in between it'll take two hours so I want to leave out these unnecessary words and I said a lot of people when they are saying allelujah in the middle of the message because he's trying to think 23:44 what should I say next it's a it's like a filler filler for time. I I don't have time to say all that. And the greatest example is I said I never see Jesus saying that. He didn't say blessed are the poor in spirit. Hallelujah. For theirs is the 24:00 kingdom of heaven. Hallelujah. He never said that. I never see Jesus using the word even once. And I wanted always wanted to preach like Jesus. So I I never see him using that word once in his whole life. Why should I say it? Just because some crazy 24:17 Pentecostal guy says it, I'm not. He's not my example. My example is Jesus. So he Jesus told me what to learn from him. Gentleness and humility. That's what I want to learn because a lot of these other 24:36 things are to impress people. you know shouting and yelling and saying hallelujah and clapping raising all these things anything you do in order to impress people it's evil it's absolutely evil many people 24:54 don't see it like that I see it like that particularly in spiritual things in the house of God the only person I must seek to impress is almighty God himself. That's all. Nobody else. It doesn't matter what 25:13 other people think about you. So, but he Jesus told us to learn something and that is gentleness and humility. I'm sure you've all read that verse, but I don't know how many of you have really said, "Lord, I want to learn 25:31 that. I want to look at your look at the your life in the gospels and study your humility and gentleness. You see his gentleness and the way he dealt with the adulterous woman or the five times divorced Samaritan 25:51 woman. There was a gentleness about him. He was he never wanted to embarrass others in any way. And that's something we can learn from Jesus that we must never say anything that will embarrass a person or make him feel 26:10 awkward. It's not just good manners, it's Christlikeness. So let's just look at these two things. Gentleness and humility. Because faith, as I told you, comes through humility. We saw that already. So if Jesus had tremendous 26:26 faith, it's because he had tremendous humility. And so if I can learn humility from him, maybe my faith will increase. When I started my Christian life, I have to say that faith was very little. I mean, I believe that Christ 26:45 died for my sins and objective faith that he died for my sins. I believed it and I believed his word that when I confessed my sins and received him, he had forgiven me. That's about all. It was the ABC lesson in faith. And I 27:01 remained in the kindergarten of faith for years and years and years. And I said, "How to have more faith?" Because I know that everything in the New Testament we get by faith. The righteous shall live by faith. In the Old Testament, faith was not 27:18 emphasized. And here I see that faith is closely connected with humility. So if I can learn humility from Jesus and I was speaking about gentleness. Let me show you John chapter 4. John's gospel chapter 4. We read Jesus speaking to 27:37 this woman of Samaria. Again we see Jesus being led by the Holy Spirit. You know they were uh let's turn to John chapter 4. See this verse three. He left Judea and 28:02 departed to go into Galilee. If you look look at a map again, sometimes it's good to look at a map. You learn something. So I I look at a map and I see Judea and [Music] 28:19 Galilee and it's a straight road all the way about a 100 kilometers at least. But the Jews would never take that straight road because the straight road went through 28:37 Samaria. And they treated the Samaritans like these lowass. You know how the brahinss look down on lowass people. They want don't want to go anywhere through a slum area, through a lowcast village area. They don't want to 28:57 go that way. So they would even though the straight road was through Samaria they would take a roundabout route avoiding Samaria to go to Galilee. That was a normal route even if it's 20 30 km more we'll 29:14 go that way because they despised the Samaritans. But here it says, it's interesting, you know, John chapter 4 verse4, he had to pass through Samaria. Why does it say 29:31 that? Because Jesus lived by the leading of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit said, "You're going to go through Samaria." And very often when the Holy Spirit led Jesus like that, there's always because there some needy person is there. 29:48 I I really long to see that type of, you know, that's the way we're supposed to live. Jesus, you know, would walk through a road and as he was going through the road, the Holy Spirit would say, "Stop. Look up into the tree. There's 30:01 somebody sitting there." And he'd look up and there was Zakius sitting there. What a wonderful way to live. And don't say because he was God. He was a man filled with the Holy Spirit. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God leads you in 30:18 amazing ways to bring you in touch with needy people. If you keep on listening to his prompings, it's one of the most important things that we need to develop in our life is to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And if you 30:34 start when you're young, of course, you'll make a lot of mistakes. It doesn't matter. Everything in life, we learn by mistakes. We learned addition, subtraction, division all by making mistakes. But finally, we learned it. So 30:45 don't be afraid if you make mistakes. But say, Lord, I want to listen to be be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. And here the Holy Spirit said, you got to go through Samaria today. So they go through Samaria. And uh when they came 31:01 there to a city called Saikar verse 5 [Music] uh he told his disciples you know when you travel together in a long journey like that you're hungry it's lunchtime and you want to go somewhere 31:19 to some restaurant or something to eat food and always we'd go together but the Holy Spirit prompted Jesus to say no don't go with them. Let them go and have their lunch. You sit here. And so he sent his disciples to, it says in verse 8, the disciples went 31:37 away to buy food. Why didn't he go with them? He sat there by the well. The Holy Spirit said, "Sit here." And then then came this woman of Samaria and Jesus began to speak to her and through her led the whole city of 31:55 Samaria to come and hear the gospel. But what type of woman was she? She was a five times divorced woman. Jesus said to her, "You've had five husbands and now you're sleeping with somebody who's not even your husband." First I see there 32:12 his humility and his love for people who are divorced five times. You know we would despise somebody who's divorced five times. Oh divorced once itself is bad enough. Imagine being divorced five times. You must be a terrible 32:27 woman. No. He saw her as a needy person and uh loved her and brought her into the kingdom. Doesn't God love people who are divorced five times and now not only divorced but now sleeping around with the person without getting 32:45 married? Sometimes we don't have the compassion of Jesus and that's why we are not able to serve him more or bring more people to him or build his church. It's compassion that we need first of all and then what I wanted to show you 33:00 was his gentleness. uh as soon as he he said that she knew that her private life has been exposed and he said you're a prophet and she changed the 33:16 subject from her married life to worship and said hey Lord can we change the subject a bit can we now talk about worship and the average person said hey hang on we got to settle this matter about your why you sleeping with 33:33 somebody who is not your husband. He never touched that subject again. There I see his gentleness. These are the areas where we got to see the life of Jesus and say Lord make me like that. Don't let me 33:52 embarrass a person when you touch a point which is a bit sore point. I'm not going to go there again. I just leave it. Let's change it. She says, "Change the subject. I'll change the subject." And Jesus changed the subject. Jesus 34:05 says, "Learn from me, for I am gentle." Our service for the Lord will be far more effective if we learn gentleness. Even in married life, husband and wife, if you say something, you suddenly 34:24 discover that's a bit of a sore point for your husband or wife. It'll make them feel a bit embarrassed. Drop it. Learn to be gentle. You'll have a much happier marriage. Ignore it. A lot of things you just got to ignore. Forget 34:42 it. Gentleness and humility. And of course the humility of Jesus we can see in many many areas in his life where he never felt offended that people you know called him bad names or 35:00 despised him or ignored his needs. One of the classic examples which I like to quote off that is I mean if you've probably heard me say this before but let me repeat 35:18 it. Jesus traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem once for a feast in John chapter 7 and preached the gospel there the whole of that day the last day of the feast. He must have been quite tired by the end of the day. And it says at the end of the 35:37 day, John 7, last verse, everyone went to his own home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. That's the next verse. Chapter 8 verse one. Now my I feel that he went to the mount 36:01 of olives because nobody invited him saying Lord come home with us. Where are you staying tonight? Here's a preacher who's come all the way from 100 kilometers away and you've been tremendously blessed by his preaching. And all of them were so 36:20 thoughtless that they didn't even bother to ask where are you staying tonight? And Jesus was not offended. He said okay that's fine. I can go sleep the mount of olives tonight out in the open under the trees. 36:38 And he came back the next morning verse 8:2 early in the morning. And he came and sat in the temple. And again he began to teach them. Again nobody asks him Lord where were you last night? By the way 36:56 we will deal with people like this who appear to be totally thoughtless about our needs. There you learn humility. accept it as the will of God and have no if you have a complaint against 37:14 somebody because he's not thoughtful about your need. I believe it's part of pride. Why why should I think that I'm such an important person that everybody should come and ask me where am I sleeping and am I taken care of? 37:30 No. Jesus said I'm a servant of my father. If he provides me, I'll never tell my needs to anybody. Not even my need of a bed to sleep in tonight. I will not tell anyone. There was his humility. And maybe the father doesn't 37:49 want me to go to some house. Maybe I should be in the Mount of Olives tonight and just spend a little time in prayer. No complaints. A humble man never never has a complaint against anyone. And even when he comes the next morning, 38:06 he doesn't try [Music] to hint that nobody cared for me last night. There are many things like this we can learn for ourselves. And if we learn humility from Jesus, our faith will 38:23 increase. And when faith increases, there are many things we can accomplish in our life. Because in the Christian life everything is dependent on faith. That's why you know I see that when I study the gospels I found that Jesus 38:39 rebuked his disciples seven times for unbelief more than for sin or anything. He rebuked his disciples. Why is it you couldn't believe? Oh you of little faith. That was his most common expression. Why couldn't you believe? 38:58 Why couldn't you believe? There was only one reason. Those disciples were proud. So I say, Lord, I don't want you to ever say to me, "Why couldn't you believe me there? Why couldn't you trust me there? Why were you in a panic? Why did 39:15 you get anxious? Why you get worried? Don't you think I could take care of you? Don't you believe what I've said that the hairs on your head are numbered? Don't you believe what I've said that I care more for you than the birds of the 39:31 field? Why? So when we see the close connection between humility and faith, we see different situations in our life where our reaction is one of pride. Pride like I said, why isn't somebody thoughtful 39:50 about my need? Why should they be? Who do you think you are? I often say that to myself. Who do I think I am that somebody should be thoughtful about my need? I'm not a great king or something. I'm just a very small person. 40:11 So if we learn this from the Lord in the different situations we face even in our home sometimes a husband or wife either could be very thoughtless about the other person don't get offended 40:28 say say Lord I'm just a nobody who said I'm not a somebody just one more verse and then we close Galatians chapter 6 it says here. Galatians 6. This is a great verse. Galatians 40:51 6:3. If anyone thinks he's a somebody when he's really a nobody, he's deceiving himself. If anyone thinks he's a somebody when he's just a nobody, he's deceiving himself. So I say, Lord, I want to live all my 41:09 life recognizing I'm a nobody. Life is very peaceful and relaxed. And I learned that from Jesus. He always lived as a nobody. You didn't have to provide a bed for him to sleep at night. You could 41:26 call him prince of devils. You could treat him like rubbish. He was never offended because he he decided I'm I'm here to be nothing just to please my father on earth and that's why he had 41:44 such tremendous faith to accomplish great things for God. I want to say to all of you brothers and sisters that if you want in your one life to really accomplish God's purpose and do great things for God, you need faith. And faith is very closely linked 42:03 to humility. So take that word of Jesus seriously. Learn from me for I am humble in heart. So next time you read the gospels, read it slowly. And when you come to the life of Jesus, different different situations, you say, "Lord, 42:22 can I learn some humility there from you?" May God help us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please help us to apply these truths in our daily 42:38 life. We humbly ask in Jesus name. Amen.
