od wants us to be filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit? How can we be filled with faith? How can we know for sure what we believe about God and Jesus and the resurrection? People who have studied the resurrection intently, even trying to disprove it, have been won over to believing it and becoming people of great faith. Keep seeking the Lord, and you will find Him.

How to Become "Faith Full" - Full Version

by Eric Elder

How to Become “Faith Full”

by Eric Elder

Good morning! Happy Easter to all of you!

For those of you who may not know me, my name is Eric Elder and I’m an elder here at Central Church. I also run an Internet ministry called The Ranch at www.theranch.org.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a woman who visited our website and I’d like to share a portion of it with you. She wrote:

I’ve just come across your website and am hoping that someone there might be able to assist me...I am experiencing something of a personal crisis.

I do not know how to believe in God and have been consumed by the fear of death - the fear of ceasing to exist and being without my loved ones. It has opened my eyes to appreciate the fact that we are on this earth for mere moments in the grand scheme of things. I am absolutely paralyzed by this realization and have nothing to comfort me.

I WANT TO BELIEVE. I NEED TO BELIEVE. I just find it terribly difficult. ...How could God exist? How do we KNOW that there is a heaven? ...I feel like I am an anxious mess right now and I cannot live my life to the fullest with this fear looming in the back of my mind constantly. ... Thank you for your help, your guidance, and for putting a place on the web where people like me who are in despair might seek help.

With many, many thanks, (and she signs her name)

Wow. How do you answer a letter like that? How can you help someone go from doubt to faith?

As I was thinking about her email that day, I was also working on this message for today. I was looking at the description of a man in the Bible named Stephen that captivated me. In Acts chapter 6 verse 5 it said that Stephen was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). When I read that, I thought, “That’s what I want to be...a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.” And that’s what I think God wants each of you to be as well...men and women who are full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. So full of faith that it overflows from within you and pours out on everyone around you.

Acts 6 goes on to say in verse 8 that Stephen was so full of God’s grace and power that he “did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.” In verse 10 it says that no one could “stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke.” And verse 15, it says that when the people looked at Stephen, they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

Stephen went on to give one of the most eloquent speeches about the history of God’s people, from Abraham to Jesus. At the end of his speech, the only way his opponents could silence him was to stone him to death. But his speech wasn’t in vain. There was a young man listening to him that day named Saul, who at the time approved of killing Stephen, but who later became so convicted by the the Spirit of God that he himself became a Christian. Jesus renamed him Paul, and he went on to write much of the rest of the New Testament.

Stephen’s faith was so full that it overflowed to those around him.

As I read that, I thought about how different these two situations were. On the one hand, you’ve got someone who’s full of doubt and everything that goes with it, and on the other hand, you’ve got someone who’s full of faith, and everything that goes with that. I tried to think, how can you help someone go from here to there? How can you help someone go from doubt to faith, from unbelief to belief, from questioning God to believing God and loving Him with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength?

The good news is that there is an answer. There’s a way to pass from doubt to faith, and it comes in a moment that is one of the sweetest in life.

I want to show you what a moment like that can be like in a scene from the movie, The Chronicles of Narnia. In this movie, a young girl named Lucy discovers a world she never knew existed before called Narnia. She comes back to tell her brothers and sister about it, but they don’t believe her. They laugh at her, make fun of her, and get mad at her. But one day they stumble into Narnia themselves, when they try to hide in a very old wardrobe. Take a look.

[EDMUND] C'mon! (Edmund motions the others to hide in the wardrobe.)
[SUSAN] You've got to be joking.
(All four of them run into the wardrobe and tumble out the other side into Narnia.)
[SUSAN] Impossible!
[LUCY] I'm sure it's just your imagination.
[PETER] I don't suppose that saying we're sorry would quite cover it.
[LUCY] No. It wouldn't. (Lucy smiles and throws a snowball at Peter) But that might!

I love to see moments like that, to see people go from doubt to faith, to see them become so filled with faith that they become “Faith Full.”

Now you know what happens when you sing a country song backwards, right? You get your dog back, you get your car back, you get your wife back.

Well today, I want to talk about how to get your faith back. How to get it back if you’ve lost it, how to find it if you’ve never found it before, and how to help others find it when they ask. It may seem overwhelming, and like Susan said, “Impossible!” But it’s actually not as hard as you might think.

I’d like to give you three ideas today for how to increase your faith, whether you’re trying to increase your own, or whether you’re trying to help someone else increase theirs. If you’re taking notes today, I’ve made them short enough so you can write them down and easy enough so you can remember.

Here they are:

Number 1) Read your Bible.

Number 2) Ask your questions.

And Number 3) Come to church.

I’d like to spend the rest of our time together today unpacking each of these three ideas, starting with the first one, Read your Bible.

Why’s it so important to read your Bible? Because the Bible contains story after story of people who have put their faith in God and become “faith full” as a result. When you read their stories, it will help to increase your faith as well.

The Apostle John said that the reason he wrote down the stories he did was precisely to help you increase your faith ... to go from doubt to faith. Near the end of the book of John, John said, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30-31).

When you read your Bible, you’re reading about people who have put their faith in Christ for everything in their lives, and it can give you faith to do the same.

If you have your Bibles with you, or if you’d like to look in the pew Bible in front of you, I’d like you to show you what I mean about how the stories in the Bible can strengthen your faith. I’d like you to turn with me to John chapter 20, and my wife Lana is going to come and read to you from verses 1-31. You’ll see in this passage three sets of people who go from what may have been their greatest moments of despair, to their greatest moments of faith.

Lana?

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!”

3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

10 Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don't know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Wow. Here you’ve got three sets of people who experienced that moment of going from despair to faith!

What a blessing it must have been for Mary when Jesus said her name, and in that moment her world that was upside down turned right side up again.

What a blessing it must have been for the disciples, who had locked themselves away in a room, hiding from the people who had just killed Jesus, when all of a sudden Jesus shows up again inside their locked door, alive and so real they could see him and hear him and touch him.

What a blessing that must have been for Thomas, to have Jesus do just what he had hoped He would do, and let Thomas see the nail marks in his hands and put his finger where the nails were, and put his hand into his side.

But they weren’t the only ones who were blessed. Jesus said in verse 29: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29). Jesus said you and I are blessed, because we have believed, even though we have not seen.

This is why it’s so important to read your Bible, and keep reading your Bible, because reading it can increase your faith.

So first, Read your Bible. Second, Ask your questions.

If you’ve got questions that are keeping you from fully believing what God has said in His Word, take time to get your questions answered so you can move forward in your faith. God wants you to find Him, and He’s glad to help answer your questions, to remove any barriers that are keeping you from putting your faith in Him. Like the woman who wrote to me on the Internet, I’m proud of her for doing a hard thing and confessing her doubt, and because of that, I think she’s closer to becoming a believer than ever before.

If you have questions about things like the resurrection, pick up a book about it, like this one by Lee Strobel called The Case for Easter. Lee Strobel was the legal editor at the Chicago Tribune for years. He also was a skeptic and atheist who thought Christians were blinded by their faith. But then, he says in his book, “the unthinkable happened--my wife became a Christian.” He decided to use his journalism and legal training to thoroughly investigate Christianity, in his words, hoping to “liberate his wife from this cult!”

But his plan backfired! The more he looked into it, the more evidence he found that supported the resurrection.

Some of his questions had very simple answers, like why did Jesus say He would be in the heart of the earth when He died for three days and three nights, when it was really only part of Friday, all of Saturday, part of Sunday, and only two nights? Lee got his answer when he found out that according to Jewish time-reckoning, any part of a day counted as the whole of it. It’s like renting a car at the airport...if you rent it on Friday and return it on Sunday, you’re charged for three days, even if it’s only part of two of them. Lee found that this wasn’t something that was just made up as a convenient workaround after the fact, but that in a book written by the tenth descendent of Ezra, who’s mentioned in the Bible, it says very specifically that “a day and a night are an Onah [“a portion of time”] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it.” So any portion of a day is considered the same as the whole of it. It was simply the normal way they talked about what a day was.

That’s just one of dozens of questions Lee had that he was able to get answered when he actually took the time to look into it. Josh McDowell, C.S. Lewis and many others followed the same path, going from doubt to faith, when they actually did the research to find the Truth.

Whatever barriers you or your friends might have to putting your full faith and trust in Christ, whether it’s about the resurrection, or the problem of suffering or anything else, ask your questions to those around you, do whatever research you have to do to get those questions answered and remove those barriers.

What difference could it make? For Lee Strobel and many others, it’s made all the difference in their lives here on earth, as well as in eternity.

So first, Read your Bible. Second, Ask your questions. And third, do just what you’re doing today: Come to church and keep coming to church.

The truth is, God doesn’t want you to go it alone. He wants you to come together so you can help each other, to bear each other’s burdens and to sharpen each other like iron sharpens iron.

I know for me, it was when my cousin invited me to her church, and some men there invited me to their weekly Bible study, that I first started reading my Bible as an adult, I finally started getting my questions answered, and I finally put my faith in Christ.

For Lana, it was when some friends invited her to work with the youth at a church in a city where she had just moved. She found out it was lot more fun to live out her faith with others through fun youth activities, retreats, and Bible studies. She had been in church before, but not really gotten connected with the others in her church before.

C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other incredible Christian books, but he was a self-professed atheist when he went away to Oxford College. But then he began to read books by people like George McDonald and G.K. Chesterton, and he realized that these writers that he so much admired and respected also were strong Christians. He went from atheism to theism, believing that there must be a God.

But it was when he began to meet with other men in person, people who helped to challenge his thinking and personalize all that he was learning, that he went from just believing that there was a God, to becoming a Christian. One of those friends was his fellow student, J.R.R. Tolkein, who later wrote The Lord of the Rings. It was after long conversation with Tolkein and another friend named Hugo Dyson that lasted until three in the morning that Lewis finally put his faith in Christ the next day.

I know many of you found your faith in Christ because someone invited you to church, because you got connected with other brothers and sisters in Christ who helped you along in your faith.

Just coming to church can be good, but developing relationships with people there is even better. It makes everything so much more personal. It helps you to get the encouragement you need, and to give others the encouragement they need.

The writer of Hebrews said, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25).

So there they are, three simple ideas to help you or someone you know go from doubt to faith. Read your Bible. Ask your questions. Come to church. They’re not mind-blowing concepts, but they can be life altering.

Since today is Easter, I’d like to show you one more scene from the movie The Chronicles of Narnia. This is a scene that C.S. Lewis wrote to parallel what happened on that first Easter morning when Christ rose from the dead. In this scene, we see the dead body of Aslan, the lion who rules all of Narnia, who has just stepped in to take the punishment of death upon himself for a crime that Lucy’s brother Edmund committed. Aslan died so Edmund could live.

[SUSAN] We should go.
[LUCY] I’m so cold.
(As they walk away, something rumbles and cracks)
[LUCY] Susan! Where’s Aslan?
[SUSAN] What have they done?
(Aslan suddenly appears alive and well, stepping over the rim of the hill behind them)
[LUCY and SUSAN] Aslan!
(Aslan laughs)
[SUSAN] But we saw the knife! The Witch!
[ASLAN] If the witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the Deep Magic differently, that when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor’s stead, the Stone Table will crack and even death itself will turn backwards.
[SUSAN] We sent the news that you were dead. Peter and Edmund will have gone to war.
[LUCY] We have to help them.
[ASLAN] We will, dear one, but not alone. Climb on my back. We have far to go and little time to get there. And you may want to cover your ears. (Aslan roars)

The resurrection is no myth! C.S. Lewis wrote that scene to convey his deep belief in the real resurrection of Christ to people of all ages through his books.

The resurrection that we’re celebrating today isn’t just a big deal. It’s the deal! Theologian Gerald O’Collins has said: “Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without it’s final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.”

It is because Christ has been raised that we can be confident that we will be raised along with Him in the end, if we’ve put our faith in Him.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, “14 ...if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ...16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ... 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead...” (1 Corinthians 15:14-20a).

Jesus Himself said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).

As we come to our time of decision, if you’ve never put your faith in Christ, I invite you to do it today. If you’d like to be make your decision public this morning, or to be baptized, or to join our church, I invite you to come forward as we sing our invitation song. But first, let’s pray.

Father, thank You for all the examples in the Bible and around us today of people who put their faith in Christ after they saw You risen from the dead. Thank You for giving us the faith to believe in Your resurrection even though we weren’t there to see it with our own eyes. And thank You for increasing our faith, so that one day we can be so full of faith that it will overflow from within us to all of those around us. We pray this all in the strong name of Jesus, our Savior, our Lord and Your Son, who we believe and affirm rose on this day almost 2,000 years ago. Amen.