Well, good morning. Good to be together. Amen. If you'll open up to Matthew chapter eight. Let me pray. Lord, what a privilege it is to gather in this place. We ask and we need the work of the Spirit in this place, in this hour. We need our affections changed. We need strength for the weary. We need hope for the discouraged. Lord, you are the bread of life. You are the river of living water. You are the light of the world. You are the way, the truth, and the life. and you give faith. We need our hearts and our minds and our affections bent into Christ and away from self. So Lord, I ask that you'll take these broken words from a weak man and glorify Jesus. In your name we pray, amen. So Matthew chapter 8, starting verse 5. When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant is healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes, and to the other, come, and he comes. And to my servants, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he marveled. and said to those following him, truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. This is God's word, his precious word, his holy word. May it bless us this day. J.C. Ryle said this, I know a few questions more important than the one which arises, do you have faith? Do you believe? He goes on to say, that question often in religious circles is easy just to thrust aside and say, of course I have faith. He writes, true faith, true belief is no such matter of, of course. He says, I think it's impossible to overrate the immense importance of that question because life and death hinge on that question. Do I have faith? He says, an empty faith can neither satisfy, sanctify, or save. Listen to those three words. An empty faith can neither satisfy, sanctify, or save. Faith is one of these great Christian concepts. It's massively important. Christian life hinges on faith. So our goal today is very simple, to deepen and encourage you in your faith. So what is biblical faith? I'll be using the word faith, but I'm implying biblical faith when I say that this morning. So is faith a one-time thing when you were 12 years old that you raised your hand in a church and it was a once and done kind of thing? Is that biblical faith? No. Surely you've heard the term, you just need more faith. You just need more faith, as if there's a high watermark And then God will what? Hear our prayers and maybe heal our disease, our cancers, our sickness. Is that what faith is? That's not it. In this church, we use terms like saving faith, and walking by faith, and faith without works. We know the Hebrews 11.1 passage about faith. These are good terms, good ideas. The word faith, I looked it up, is all through Scripture. 274 times in the New Testament in the ESV. So this idea of faith runs deep. And then the concept of faith is all throughout Scripture. Everywhere in Scripture you see faith. So to try to hone in on this morning, what are we going to be talking about? We're going to be talking about believers' faith. Believers' faith. And we'll do that in two parts this morning. So here we are, part one will be four interconnected principles about faith seen in the Gospels. So this will kind of be a high level about faith. And then part two will be four characteristics that that passage in Matthew 8 helps us see about faith of this centurion. So we'll start with a high level, four principles, how faith is interconnected one to another. So here's principle number one, if you like to take notes. Number one is biblical faith is life changing. Biblical faith is life-changing, right? So genuine faith changes lives. Genuine faith changes decisions. It changes priorities. It changes the way we live. We see that clearly in the Gospels, don't we? We see this commitment, especially the disciples. They committed to Christ. Their lives were changed. They were fishermen, literally, and then they became what? Fishers of men. I used to walk this way. Is this your testimony? I used to walk this way, but now my life has changed and I walk this way. In the verses right after our passage, Jesus will talk about the cost of following. There is a cost. There is a cost. But believer, it is worth the cost, is it not? The kingdom of God is like a treasure, what? Hidden in the field. And with discouragement, with pain and suffering, he goes and looks for that treasure. How does he go look for that treasure? With joy. With joy he looks for that treasure because this is faith. It is glorious. In your bulletin, Chris printed up some definitions of faith. We won't go through all of these, but I wanted to highlight the first one by James Montgomery Boyce. I really ask you to take these home and read through them, but number one, true faith is not merely knowing that Jesus is the Son of God and believing that he can save you from their sins, but it's actually committing ourselves to him. Did you hear the three components there? Sometimes theologians say these are the three elements of faith. Understanding about Jesus, agreeing that it's true, but there's a third component missing, is there not? There's a third component missing. I can be in an airport terminal and say, that's an airplane. I can understand the aerodynamics of how it flies. But when I'm standing in the terminal, that's not faith in that airplane, is it? It's not faith. I was recently at a friend, Mark, a friend of mine from another church. I went over there to pray with him. He has a brother that is sadly going through a marital crisis. And I said, Mark, tell me about your brother's faith. And without using these words, without using this language, he said, my brother understands about Jesus. He believes that Jesus is this. And then Mark ducked his head down and he shook his head. And he said, with a very sad face, he says, there's a huge disconnect in his life. There's a huge disconnect. So in love, I ask you, is there a disconnect in your life? You understand the first two elements, but he hasn't changed your life. He hasn't changed your life. If that's you today, I say, call out on the name of Jesus. Repent. Believe. And you will be saved. Amen? That is the gospel. You will be saved. So that's number one. Biblical faith changes lives. Number two. Jesus is the assessor of faith, assessor of faith. The word faith 12 times in Matthew, in the ESV, 12 times in Matthew is the word faith. About half faith is presented as praiseworthy, and about half faith is presented as an admonishment, right? Who is teaching, who is assessing that faith? Every one of those passages, who is it? Jesus. Jesus is assessing faith. Individuals are not assessing other individuals' faith. We tend to do that a little too quickly, don't we? Jesus is the assessor in the gospels of faith. This lines up perfectly to Hebrews 12, right? Because Jesus said to do two things related to faith there. Hebrews 12, what? He is the author and perfecter. So He's the author. He's the giver. By right, He is then the assessor of faith, right? He's the author of faith. He gives faith. You have a growing faith. He sees it. You have a declining Or, sadly, a dead faith? He sees it. He knows it. He reads our hearts. There's no masks. We have masks about our faith to one another. There's no masks in front of Jesus. There's no masks. So right away we can see that faith can be seen. And then Jesus is said to be our perfecter. My faith is weak. What do I do? What do I do with weak faith? I go to the one who's wise. I go to the one who is what? The perfecter of my faith. See, faith doesn't live in a vacuum. Praise God, faith is not in a vacuum. If my faith lives in a vacuum, in a closet, in a cave, that's a dangerous place. God gives us what? His Word. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He gives us the church to do what? To build up and grow my weak faith. All of these are available to us. Oh, please, would we pour into these things to help grow our faith? So that's number two. Number three. little faith lead up sorry scratch little trust leads to little faith little trust leads to little faith all right so in Matthew in case you've fallen asleep from point two to this point Matthew four times he says ye of little faith four times So in case you've fallen asleep, who is assessing that ye of little faith? Jesus. This is very interesting to me, but who is he directing that statement to? Who is the recipients of that, those four times? The disciples. Maybe one time to the crowd, but we're not sure about that. Four times, Jesus says, Little faith, why? Why to the disciples? We'll come back to that. Do you remember the context of these four? Let me go through them very quickly, but listen for the common theme, because this is helpful to us. Matthew 6, God cares for the birds, God cares for the lilies, ye of little faith. What is the underpinning idea of that chapter? Worry. Matthew 8, look down just a few pages, few verses down. Disciples are in a boat. There's a furious storm. Ye of little faith. What's going on there? Fear. So we got worry, we got fear. Third time, Matthew 14, Peter's walking on water. He's about to sink. Remember? Ye of little faith. What happened there? Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and looked at the circumstances. Number four, Matthew 16. Disciples forgot some bread. Kind of interesting passage. They forgot some bread. Ye of little faith. Jesus says, don't you remember the five loaves and the 5,000? Ye of little faith. So what are these four ye of little faith passages have in common? What's the root? Is it a failure to act? Is it a failure to obey? Is it a failure to do good works? Is it a failure in some egregious sin? No. Here it is. Could it be a failure to trust in the sovereign hand of our God? Could that be it? Ye of little faith. So it seems to me that Jesus' admonishment is Not an outward thing, but an inward heart thing. He's admonishing us in faith regarding our heart. Ye of little faith, the Greek, if I can pronounce it, the Greek word here is oligopolis. I pronounced that wrong. But it's made up of two Greek words. Oligo, which is little in number, and then pistos, which is faith. Two words, little, faith. Leon Morris says this. This is really interesting. He says, this word was not found in any pre-Christian writing. Therefore, it has been attributed by some to the early New Testament church. Interesting. If that be true, doesn't this strike you? It strikes me that in love, Jesus is using a new word to his closest friends. Why? Why is he using a new word? Because he's pressing this point that strong, trusting, firm faith is so important. Yes, we hear the rebuke, which we're easily seeing and drawn, but it's cushioned with care and tenderness. And in a way, this gives me hope. Does this not give you hope? I hope it does. It gives me hope that my little faith is in the hands of a big God. who tenderly loves us and cares for us. So that's number three. Number four is increase our faith. Increase our faith. This comes from Luke 17. Increase our faith. So the apostles in that verse says to the Lord, increase our faith. The verses just prior to that are kind of interesting. Jesus is, once again, speaking to the disciples about two topics. He's talking about temptation, and he's talking about forgiveness. And he uses this phrase in verse 3 of Luke 17. He says, so pay close attention to yourself. And then the apostles' disciples say, increase my faith. Now, we don't know from the context how that's exactly related, those two passages. But we certainly see this great big idea of increase my faith. Is that a prayer of yours? Lord, today increase my faith. As I'm at work, increase my faith. As I drive, increase my faith. As I deal with struggles, increase my faith today, Lord, today. It seems that the disciples kind of made this connection between the struggles of life, forgiveness, prayer, because they went to this idea, Lord, increase my faith. So they seem like they made this connection. We give them a hard time, but maybe they made this connection here. And it gets better. It gets so much better. How did Jesus respond to the apostles in this passage? We know this, right? He answered with the parable of the Mustard seed, right? So before we even know what the parable of the mustard seed is all about, Jesus has taught us something. I kind of see this as a parable inside of a parable. It's as if Jesus is saying, you want to increase your faith? You want to increase your love for the kingdom of God? Listen. Pay attention to my word that I'm about to give you. Isn't that interesting? He uses words to respond to the question, how do I increase my faith? He uses the Word of God. So yes, faith can be strengthened. Yes, our faith can increase. So let me try to tie these four principles up together, because they do connect. So we have doubts. We have pressures in life. We're tested. Things are pushing at us. It results in ye of little faith. But that faith is not nullified. It's not canceled out. But it does highlight that we need to what? Strengthen. We need to grow our faith. Increase our faith. That's what they asked for. So how? How do we increase our faith? We go to the perfecter of our faith. We go to the perfecter of our faith, and then by grace, our lives are changed. We used to walk this way, and now I walk a different way. Louis prayed yesterday, or spoke yesterday, when we were men praying together, he said this. He said, when I am weak, God's strength is seen even more. And that's coming from a man six years struggling, fighting for faith. When I am weak, God's strength is seen even more. So that's part one. So part two, from our Matthew 8 passage about the centurion. The highlight to me is verse 10, truly I tell you with no one in Israel have I found such faith." Your version might say, great faith. Stop for a minute, try to clear your head. Imagine those words being spoken to you by a believer, by a friend. Imagine those words being spoken to you by the sovereign God, the Messiah of the universe. Imagine. Was your heart not what? Just overjoyed. Oh, thank you. And then you would do what? You would cast your crowns back at his feet, because anything good in us is from where? It's from above. We absolutely would. Let me briefly summarize this passage, this story, and then we'll get into the four characteristics. This is a great passage. I love this passage. So Jesus is in Capernaum. So Capernaum, I like maps, is at the north of the Sea of Galilee, right? And so there's this trade route that goes from the north, goes from the north, to the right where Damascus is, and it goes to the top, the Sea of Galilee, then it cuts to the left all the way down to Egypt. So this is a main trade route. A lot is happening in Capernaum. The population I read was estimated to be about 1,500 people in this time period in Capernaum. So what do we know about the centurion? We know quite a bit, actually. So he was assigned by the Roman government to protect and rule their interests. They had interests there, right? So they were going to protect it with a centurion. The centurion likely had 80 to 100 individuals under his command. He was a leader, for sure. He was strong in character. He was a warrior. He was fit and capable. He had a slave, a servant, so he was wealthy. New Testament scholar says, centurions were the backbone of the army. Discipline and effectiveness of the league depended upon them. And then from the Luke 7 passage, we learn a few other things, and these are actually quite important. We learn that he had a good relationship with the Jewish elders. He actually helped build the synagogue in Capernaum. So we know he is well respected, he's well known, both in the Roman circles and the Jewish circles. So that's who we're talking about. But you know what? None of that could solve this man's problem. None of that could solve this man's problem. This problem was too big for him. Lord, my servant is lying home, paralyzed. There are problems in our life that are too big for us, are there not? They're too big for an easy answer, too big for a mindless fix, but we do that, don't we? We go through our day with a lot of mindless, prayerless answers, decisions that we don't even seek before the Lord, but not this one. This one was too big for the centurion. So what's he do? There's this great urgency. You can see it in the text. You can feel it. There's this great urgency. So he goes to Jesus. What a great start. May that be our urgency. Right off the bat, may we go to Jesus in the urgent things, but also in the non-urgent things. Go quickly. Go often. Go hourly. Go daily. Pray without. Ceasing. Why? Why do we do this? Because faith is tested under what? Faith is tested under pressure sometimes, is it not? It's shaken. But Hebrews 6 says this, we have a sure and steady anchor for the soul. Do you have that? Do you have a sure and steady anchor for your soul? So I ask you today, what is urgent in your life today? What is urgent in your life today what is God dealing with in you today. That is too big. You know Jesus deals in these things doesn't he deals in the big and deals in the messy. He actually wars in the heavenlies does he not. He wars in the heavenly against forces that are unseen. But he also does deep heart work. Messy lives, hurt lives, struggling lives. Go to him quickly, often, regularly. There's hope there. There's hope when we do. So verse seven, Jesus responds, I shall come and heal him. Notice Jesus did not say, well, oh, by the way, you're part of the opposing force, so I'm gonna go in a different direction. Right? He didn't say that. Jesus takes life, takes the gospel, to where? To the opposition, to those that are unfamiliar to him, to those he doesn't even really know. I want to be more thankful for missionaries, tent makers who are modeling this. They're going to countries and modeling this. They're going to the opposition. in real time, and they're representing Jesus faithfully. So let's pray for that. So upon hearing this, what does this man do? What does this man do? Jesus has just answered exactly what your request is. You've gotten what you've come for, right? You should be thrilled. Do you read a huge thank you? Do you read this buffet? Oh, come to me, here are gifts, oh Jesus, thank you. Do you see that? It really gets amazing here. This is where I just love this, verse 8. See, Jesus is about to go from performing a healing to something that is wonderful, something that's so much more. He's going to go from a healing to now a faith lesson, to now a trust lesson, to a who-do-you-say-that-I-am kind of lesson. So I ask that of me and of you, who do you say this Jesus is. That's where he's about to go. So here are the four characteristics of faith that we see that maybe cause Jesus to marvel. Here are the four. Number one, unworthy. Unworthy, number one. The centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. But in Luke 7, the elders specifically said, he is worthy, Jesus, he is worthy of you to go. This ensuring says, no, I am not worthy of Jesus coming. This man had a unique sense of his own unworthiness. And you know what? That honors God, does it not? That honors God. John the Baptist, I am not worthy to carry the sandals. Prodigal son, I'm not worthy to be your son. Blessed are the poor in spirit. These are the ones who realize what? We are not worthy. What's the rest of that beatitude? Blessed are the poor in spirit. kingdom of God. This kingdom that's hidden in a treasure, are we going to go after that kingdom? That's what we're talking about here. This kingdom of God, the Beatitude says, blessed are those who go after that kingdom. So somehow this man knew that. We want this kind of unworthy heart, do we not? We want a church filled with unworthy hearts. If someone blesses you and recognizes you in some way, do you say, I am unworthy? I really am. Bill Suplee, those of you who remember, you go up to Bill Suplee before he passed away, you go up to Bill Suplee and you say, Bill, that was beautiful music. And he would just go like this. That was Bill Suplee's mark on me. He would point to Jesus because Bill was unworthy of any credit. Or do we have this? version of ourself that we don't publicly say, but it's about time somebody recognized me. Do we do that? Some of you may know, I'm going to tear up. Today is my 34th wedding anniversary. And I stood right here and married my bride right here, 34 days today. all can depart. Honey, I am unworthy of your love. You have loved me so many ways. Thank you. Okay, you can come back. Faith says we're unworthy. Faith realizes We are unworthy. Okay, so that's number one if you're taking outline points. So the number two attribute is Lord, L-O-R-D, Lord. Did you notice twice the centurion addresses Jesus as Lord. Now scholars have different positions on this. The text doesn't directly say that Lord is referring to His deity, okay? It doesn't directly say that, but we can assume that it's much more than the casual wording of the day, which sometimes they address people as Lord or Sir. Your version might say Sir. But we know it's more than that because he comes with the phrase, you can just say the word. And he also said, and also by Jesus's response, we know that this Lord is more than just a casual reference to a sir. If you're a Roman centurion, who did you swear allegiance to? Caesar. It would seem that this centurion violated that. It would seem. Sinclair Ferguson says this. Were not New Testament believers martyred for refusing to declare Caesar as Lord? Were they not publicly called to deny Christ? There's kind of a chilling parallel here that I thought of. How many Christian martyrs heard these same words in a much different context Just say the word, renounce Jesus, and your life will be spared. Just say the word. And they didn't. Praise God. Let's pray for the persecuted church, please. This is going on. This really is going on. So that was number two, that if you're a Christian, Jesus is your Lord, and faith acknowledges that he is your Lord. Number three. The word authority, authority. In Greek, it is exosia. If you look back a few verses to the end of chapter 7, verse 29, same Greek word. For he was teaching them as one who had what? Authority, same Greek word. So this man seemed to have this unusual understanding of who he was talking to, did he not? He clearly recognized Jesus' authority because he said, you, like me, have authority. So when this centurion speaks, he speaks with the authority of whom? He speaks with authority of the Roman army and the emperor. All that authority has been delegated to him. So locals and foot soldiers and slaves are all expected to what? They're expected to obey. So if you're disobeying this centurion, you're also defying the emperor. Everybody knew that. And that's the connection here. Somehow the centurion recognized Jesus having the same authority, even in a realm, get this, that he didn't understand. He wasn't trained. And he gets it, that Jesus has this amazing authority. Is this not an example of Hebrews 11, faith unseen? This is faith unseen. He hadn't seen all of Jesus' authority. But this man somehow knew that when Jesus spoke, He spoke with God's authority. That's the connection here, right? So all evil, all disease, all heavens, Matthew 28, we know Matthew 28, all authority has been given to me, Jesus. I have to pause and I have to say it's either true or not true. There's no gray. All authority has been given to Jesus. True. or not true. So when Jesus speaks, God speaks, as if, right? When you defy Jesus, you are defying God. That's the point of this connection here. So biblical faith humbly submits to the authority of God. That's what this is. Biblical faith humbly submits to the authority of God. And folks, in love, I say, there's no getting around it. There's no other posture. but that's also freeing and relieving because we have a Heavenly Father who loves us. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us and is wise and is good and we submit to Him. So that's number three. Number four is word of His power. Word of His power. Word of His power. So it's important to note here that up until this point in the Gospels, there had been no recorded verbal healing that we know of up till this point. It's possible that the centurion had seen other miracles, but there's no recorded fact. But somehow the centurion knew. He knew because he says what? Just say the word. Just say the word. Jesus's word is his instrument. It's his instrument. Jesus's word is his instrument. And now, by grace, we have what? We have the word. We have the word. Do we believe this morning that Jesus just needs to say the word? Whatever that thing is that you were thinking about earlier, it's on my heart. Do you really believe that Jesus just needs to say the word? The centurion did, did he not? He was a Gentile. He wasn't trained in these things. The kingdom of God is going to advance because the word of his power. The kingdom of God is going to advance because of the word of His power. So think of these things, these categories that we struggle with inside the church, repentance, salvation, forgiveness, conflict, wounds, confusion, chaos, joy, knowing God, abundantly knowing God, these are all completed through what? The word of His power. Hebrews 1.3, you all know this. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. And he does what? He sits casually by, sipping coffee? No. He upholds the universe by what? By the word of his power. Faith believes that. Faith believes that he does this by his power. All right, so we've seen these four. attributes of faith, that I am unworthy, this confession that Jesus is Lord. We trust in His authority because it's a good, loving hand. And we know that His Word is active. We know that His Word is alive. It is not dead. So let me just finish up with a few things here. I have left to the end verse 10. Put your eyes on it, please. Verse 10. When Jesus heard this, he marveled. He marveled. Isn't that interesting? He knows everything. He's the sovereign of the universe. How is Jesus marveling? Your version may say amazing, might have a different word. Well, in his humanity, he's marveling or amazing. But only two places in all of Scripture this word is used, only two places. This is one, and in Mark chapter six. Mark chapter six is where he's basically rebuking his hometown, Nazareth, because they did not welcome him, and he marveled at their unbelief. So here's one, he marveled at belief, he marveled at unbelief. Only two places in Scripture Kevin DeYoung says this, so it would seem that two things made Jesus marvel. First is those who believe when it was not expected that they would believe, and that may be what we have here. You wouldn't expect a centurion to believe, Jesus marveled. And second, Kevin DeYoung writes, those who disbelieve, and they have every reason they should believe, to much is given what much is required. If you live in this country, much is given. You have an abundance opportunity for your faith to grow. Much is required. Jesus marveled at their unbelief. So I've been thinking a lot about this passage. This passage has really gripped me for many weeks, really around what we're talking about, faith and And what would lead Jesus to this grand statement? I have not seen faith in anyone. Imagine, no Jew, no one have I seen faith like this. That has captured my heart these many weeks. So I read many, many commentaries. I can't count how many commentaries. I wanted the answer. I wanted the three steps for this kind of faith. I didn't find three steps for this kind of faith. I didn't find it. D.A. Carson did have one helpful, he had many helpful, I don't mean to imply that, forgive me Mr. Carson, he had this helpful thing to say. He said, this Gentile penetrated more deeply into the nature and the authority of Jesus. He penetrated, great word, penetrated, there's intentionality in that word, penetrated more deeply into the nature and the authority of Jesus. At a men's group, I'll say six months ago, a year ago, we were sharing, and Andy shared something. Thank you, Andy, for being a friend. He was talking about faith, and Andy said something like this. He said, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, my faith is settled. And he said that with humility, and he said that with confidence, and he said that with surety, and he said that with fullness and some strength and completeness. And I was like, wow, Eric, your faith is not settled. My faith is shaky. My faith is struggling, but Andy's faith has been forged over years. May our faith be forged over years as well. So I'm going to wrap up here. This is the last page. I've been convicted on this topic. I have teared up on this topic multiple times. So here are my concluding thoughts. It's kind of heavy. But this is directed at me, what I'm about to say is directed at me, kind of like a journal. It took me maybe multiple weeks to put all what I just did together. It took me three minutes to write what I'm about to read you, because God worked on me. So this is my own takeaway about personal great faith. Could Jesus be helping me see helping me be more alert, helping me be more gracious and more thankful when I see great faith in those who have spiritually less advantages. Likewise, when I see those who have been tried and tested under fire and they persevere, I'm too casual about that when I see faith like that. Maybe in our day, I can liken this to those who have genuine faith in Jesus, but their faith isn't altogether polished. It's not altogether clean in speech, in appearance, in words. It's not altogether put together. Maybe it comes from a broken, sinful past where there's lots of hurts and pains. But it's great faith. They have genuine, believing faith. Could that be great faith? Or could great faith be on display for me alone when I went to visit Bill Roth? Bill was in a rehab unit a while back. Tons of staples in his head. Just came out of a critical care unit. I'd walked in and Bill had fallen asleep. And you know what Bill was holding? Index cards. He wanted to memorize more scripture with staples in his head. And he fell asleep. I'll never forget that. Thank you, Bill. I love you. Or is great faith the widow who's broken hearted and lonely, and she's singing to her heavenly father, trusting that God will take care of her? Or is great faith the parent of the prodigal son, and the parent is nightly begging Jesus to have mercy on their soul? Because without Jesus speaking the word, there seems to be no hope for that person. Is that great faith? Or maybe great faith is the person when they're tempted to sin with a kind of pre-swelling, this growing wave of temptation that seemingly draws their heart so irresistibly to this power, and in that moment, they say no to that sin. By grace, they resist. And they don't even have the full armor of God on, because their faith is struggling. But they, at the core, say, my heart's desire is that no hint of immorality be in me. Is that great faith? And lastly, or is great faith a new believer in Jesus underground in a country you don't even type the name in emails? One who will never see potentially a printed theology volume for the fear of death. And they ache for clarity. They ache at the wonder. They want to know Jesus. They want to know about this trinity, but they can't piece it all together. Is that great faith? I wonder if any of these amaze Jesus. I really do. And this is written for me. I'm pretty certain that my comfortable, casual Sunday morning faith doesn't amaze Jesus. But thank you, church, that we give each other windows of great faith, do we not? We give each other snapshots of great faith, and we help each other grow. So let me pray. Lord you are a good and gracious God. We confess that our heart. Needs to be more turned into you. And we want to honor you. We want our faith to grow. We want to abide in you. We want life because where you are there is life. We thank you that there's forgiveness at the cross, there's hope at the cross, there's life. Help us to see that the things of this world are just like a gnat to flick away because in you there is life, your righteousness stands forever, your truth stands forever, and one day there will be a great banquet where all the peoples from the east and the west will gather and we will glorify the Savior. So until then, Lord, I pray for each one of us. Would you increase our faith? For your glory, we pray. Amen.