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Perhaps you didn't realize it, but the night before last was a monumental night in my life. As most of you know, I have a dog, named "Nebuchadnezzar." I've preached about him several times and I guess you could say that my training is coming just fine, because each day he teaches me new tricks. A few weeks ago, I decided that it was time for "Nebby" to learn some tricks and a little obedience and discipline. He's learned to catch a tennis ball in the air and we are working on the Frisbee. The other day I was in a bookstore and I picked up a book on "how to train your dog." It was written in common language that was easy to understand, so I began to read how to teach the most basic commands. The book made a statement that sort of stuck with me and clicked with something that I had been studying in the Bible. It made mention that there are lots of dogs that are ordinary, but what makes a dog great is it's ability to interact with humans and to learn obedience to commands. It then began to give guidelines on what the most basic and essential commands that a dog must learn are: sit, heel, stay, come, and fetch. So the past few nights I decided to give it a try. Following the steps in the book, I began two nights ago to teach Nebby to "sit." (Now don't all of you go yell "sit" at him when you see him because that will mess up the training) We've got a long way to go, but I was amazed -- actually astonished -- that after about 5 times, Nebby learned to sit down in order to get a treat and he did it 5 times in a row! Now I know that this has not changed your life any, and I know that I will have to keep doing this many nights for him to really get it ingrained in his little dog head what it means "to sit." But if you know my dog, you realize that this was a great achievement! As I mentioned before, it was a monumental event in my life!

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I'm not here to preach on doggy obedience, but to preach on our "faith" in Jesus Christ and in His Word. Let me take a few moments to remind you of what faith is, and how important it is. The writer of Hebrews defined faith for us in what is called the "Hall of Fame of Faith." It is Hebrews chapter 11 and it begins with:

Maybe the New International Version makes it a little clearer:

Most people who call themselves "Christians" today don't have a clue what "Godly faith" is. Faith is not positive thinking. It is not repeating something to yourself over and over in a chant. Faith is not hoping something will happen. Faith is when you are sure and act in that sureness of things that are yet to happen and when you are certain of things that you cannot see happening yet. To pray in faith is to pray sure that God can and will answer that prayer. Of course, all of our prayers are subject to the will of God, but that is not for us to figure out: our job is to pray in faith. Faith is continuing to pay your tithes even when you don't see an immediate difference in your finances. Faith is continuing to pray and fast and have a good attitude toward your lost family members even though you may not be seeing or hearing any sign of them drawing closer to God. Faith is truly repenting and deciding to get baptized in Jesus' name, even before you receive the Holy Ghost or have God work any of your situation out, because you are sure -- convinced -- that His Word is truer than what you see right now. Faith is not a mental thought, but a conviction that grips your soul that you refuse to look at anything else in a situation but what the Word of God says and you hold on to that with everything that you have! Sometimes when you first step out on God's Word, God will purposefully wait a while to fulfill His end of the bargain to see if you will continue in obedience even if you don't get immediate results. He wants to see if you have true faith, or not. Faith does not have the attitude of "prove it to me," but rather has the attitude "I believe it and will obey it regardless of what happens!"

That is why the writer of Hebrews went on to define faith in verse 6 of the same chapter:

Living for God is all about faith. You must have first have faith that God exists even though you've never actually seen Him. You then must believe that God will reward you if you diligently seek Him! In other words, you must believe in God's Word so much that you are willing to continue to be faithful to truth even if you don't see immediate results. How important is it to have Godly faith? The Bible says no less than four times:

The "just," those who are in good standing with God, shall live by faith. If you ever stop living by faith, then God will no longer be pleased with you and you will no longer be in good standing with Him! Living for God is a faith thing. You will never reach a place in God where you have everything perfect on this earth, because if you did, you wouldn't have to trust God for anything and you wouldn't be living by faith!

Since we are here, let's finish our "Faith 101" class. Everybody has the ability to have faith. The scriptures say:

So everyone starts out with some faith. And every man has been given a "measure" of it. Literally in the Greek, "a certain portion." We all start out life with the same amount of faith. People are not born with great faith or larger faith. We all start out with the same amount. If someone has more faith than you do, that means that they did something to "grow their faith." The scripture describes various things that increase our faith. The following help to grow our faith:

1. Receiving the Holy Ghost - When you receive the Spirit of God, you then are given the ability to operate in the Gifts of the Spirit, one of which is the "gift of faith" (1 Corinthians 12:9). Receiving the Holy Spirit, takes "the ceiling" off of how far your faith can grow.

2. Praying in the Holy Ghost - Praying in other tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance after you receive the Holy Spirit. Jude said:

When you pray in a heavenly language, your spirit man communes with God as it was created originally to do. The result of a strengthened spiritual man is a greater faith in the Word and promises of God!

3. Hearing the Word of God preached and taught - Paul wrote to the church in Rome:

And in context, he also said:

So hearing the Word of God preached and taught in services and Bible Studies increases and brings fresh and larger faith!

That's why if you take two people (you should never compare yourself with other Christians, but let's look at it from God's viewpoint in a hypothetical situation) that come to church and one has the Holy Ghost and the other does not think they need it, the one who has the Holy Ghost will have more faith and eventually please God more in every area of their life than the one who doesn't think they need the Holy Ghost. That's why if you take two people that have the Holy Ghost and one learns to pray "in the Holy Ghost" and makes coming to church and/or Bible Studies a habit and the other only comes every once in a while, the first one's faith will grow way beyond the other's and eventually their life will be much more pleasing to God.

It's all about faith! And a person who "builds" their faith will experience more anointing and more power and more blessings from God than those who don't! That's why we must always emphasize the importance of receiving the Holy Ghost, or spiritual prayer, and of faithfulness to hearing the Word of God because to please God, we must have faith and we must do something with it! What I am teaching you is very basic but very essential. There's no way around it. We meet together three times a week not just for fellowship, but to hear the Word of God. Show me someone who never learns to obey all of God's Word and who is always up one moment and down the next, and I'll show you someone who has never learned to be faithful to the house of God and to hearing a steady diet of preaching and teaching. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God and how can they hear without a preacher?

Jesus said in what has to be one of the most mis-preached and misunderstood scriptures parables in the Bible:

Despite what most people preach, Jesus did NOT say "if you have faith the SIZE of a grain of mustard seed." He said "if you have faith AS a grain of mustard seed." The emphasis is not on size but on the ability to grow. Inside a mustard seed is the ability to grow an entire tree if it is planted. We all are given a measure of faith. The disciples had faith, but when you read on, Jesus was talking about their lack of prayer and fasting. The question is whether or not your faith is AS a grain of mustard seed. Do you have the ability to allow it to develop and grow beyond what it looks like! It's not enough that God has given you a measure of faith, what are you going to do with it? Do you have faith AS a grain of mustard seed? Will you do the things that will cause your faith to grow?!! It is those who receive the Holy Ghost and allow it to control their lives, who learn to pray and fast, and who make a consistent habit of coming to the house of God for preaching and teaching of God's Word that will see the "mountains" removed in their life! You can't leave your faith limited to the "measure" but you must do something with it!

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Beyond all that I've preached to you thus far, there is yet another level to attain. Some Christians not only grow their faith beyond the initial "measure" but they reach a place where they have "great faith." That's the level that I want my faith to get to one day. I want to, and hopefully you desire also, to have "great faith!"

Amazingly, the only time the phrase "great faith" is used in scripture is in the story that we read as our text. Both Matthew and Luke describe this story in detail. We read Matthew's account as our text (cf. Luke 7:9). And this is certainly remarkable story to teach the concept of "great faith." Had I been "God" I would have likely marked the story of the three Hebrew children trusting God despite the fiery furnace with this phrase "great faith." And they did have "great faith." But yet it wasn't that story or many of the other great "faith" stories that Jesus used to teach us about "great faith." Instead, He chose to use a man with a sick servant that came to Jesus wanting the servant to be healed of palsy as an example. And to make this story even more remarkable, it was Gentile, Roman soldier, a "centurion" that was the one with "great faith."

We've read the story and I'm not going to take you through each minute detail. The centurion came to Jesus and asked Him to heal his servant by just speaking the Word. And Jesus responded by saying "this is the greatest faith I've ever found, even of all the people in Israel." What I want to you to focus on is "what was it about this man and this miracle that caused him to have great faith?" The word for "great" here in the Greek comes from the root word: tosou'/to" (tosoutos), which means "pertaining to an amount vastly above normal." It means "much larger than even large." So what was it about this particular man and this particular miracle that showed Jesus "faith vastly beyond the norm?"

This man did NOT have great faith because he was a Gentile approaching Jesus. I know that we have the recorded incidence of the Syra-Phonecian woman who came to Jesus, the one that He called "a dog" and He told her "great is thy faith!" But in the Greek the word there is different from our text. In the Syra-Phonecian woman's story, the word for "great" is mega;lh (megalee) which just means "large" (Matthew 15:28). The word used in our text for "great" faith indicates something higher and greater than what the Syra-Phonecian woman possessed.

This centurion man of our text did not have faith because he believed that Jesus could heal from a distance. There are several other situations where Jesus healed from a distance and He did not say that their faith was "great" or greatly above normal! Neither, do I believe, like I've heard some say, that it was the fact that he was approaching Jesus for somebody else that made his faith "great." All of these points are certainly things that need to be copied and emulated in our lives, but yet we must admit that they are not the unique criteria that caused Jesus to be amazed and pronounce this man as having "great faith."

This is a question to which the answer is so simple and yet I'd never noticed it before this week. In context in both Matthew and Luke's account of this story, Jesus is amazed and pronounces that the man has "great faith" after the man tells him this:

Did you notice verse 10? "When Jesus heard it, he marvelled." When He heard what? What was it that caused Jesus to realize that this man had GREAT faith? It was what the man had just said. And in both Matthew and Luke, the man's words are the same. He told Jesus that he understood and properly applied three commands: "Go," "Come," and "Do this." The fact that not once but twice we have recorded these words of this centurion shows us that there is something important here to understand in the spiritual. Remember the dog training book? That the difference between a common dog and a great dog, was the ability of the dog to understand and obey and separate some basic commands? The difference between ordinary faith and GREAT faith is that great faith understands the scriptural commands of "Go," "Come," and "Do this." And not only do people with great faith understand and obey those commands, but they are able to distinguish between the three. In every person in the Bible who had great faith -- indeed in every life of every person mentioned in the "hall of fame of faith" in Hebrews chapter 11 -- you will find that they all learned to understand, obey, and distinguish the commands of "Go," "Come," and "Do this."

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Let me give you one example that perfectly applies this principle and shows us how it relates to our own lives. Take Noah for example. He's the guy in Genesis that was the only one whom God found righteous on the earth. To protect Noah from the coming Flood, God commanded him to build a large, three-level barge called the "ark" and preach to the sinful people of the world that if they wanted to be "saved" from the judgment of God, they had better get on the ark!

Noah definitely had great faith. In Hebrews 11, it states:

Why? Because within his story we find that he understood the three basic commands mentioned by the centurion thousands of years later.

God told Noah to build an ark. It sounded crazy. It didn't make sense. He was miles from any ocean or lake and it had never rained. It would take 120 years of hard labor and back-breaking work to build it and besides all of the ridicule that Noah was going to receive, it meant that whatever plans that he had for his future would be permanently changed. But despite all of the inconvenience. Despite how hard he would have to work to obey, Noah understood that if God said to "do this," then only "doing this" would lead to his salvation! And so Noah did exactly what God required. And he did it without hearing another word from God until AFTER the boat was built! Noah understood that if God said "do this" then He meant "do this." And so Noah did it without needing someone to coax him or to encourage him or to hold his hand!

If you want to be someone who has "great faith" that amazes even God, then we must get out of this trap of only obeying God's Word if it is convenient. Some people will obey some of God's Word, but only if it really doesn't cost them anything. If obeying part of God's Word would mean persecution, or hard work, or money, or effort, or persistence, then they somehow justify their disobedience by saying "I don't know if that's necessary." And sometimes they will eventually, grudgingly obey IF God speaks to them directly and "convicts their heart" or after they have heard it preached on 47 times.

Where is that in the Bible? Somebody needs to get a revelation of one of the most basic commands of scripture. If God's Word says "do this" then you'd better "do this." He shouldn't have to come and remind you of it through causing the preacher to preach on it repeatedly. If God's written Word says "do this," then where in the Bible does it give you the right to wait until "God speaks to you and convicts you personally?" God may never personally convict you of every thing the Bible commands because He wants to see if you have faith and He wants to give you the opportunity to have GREAT faith. And if you are to have GREAT faith, then if God's Word says "do this" then you will "do it." Even if it means sacrifice. Even if it means persecution. Even if it means the rearranging of the plans for your entire life. You'll obey it, even if you think that God's command doesn't make sense. Even if you think that the Bible is stupid for requiring such a thing. And furthermore, Noah's story teaches us that the ONLY way that you will be saved is if when God says "do this" you simply "do it." What was true for Noah's time is still true for our time and if you want too make it to heaven and escape the coming judgment of this world, you'd better get a grasp on this simple principle: if God's Word says "do this" then I must obey. Forget all of the other things that might enter into the equation. I must obey! And in doing so, I will show God that I have GREAT faith! And when you are building an ark of safety, the smallest detail in the blueprint counts! No matter how significant or insignificant a command of scripture may seem, it will end up being important when the judgment comes! Learn to obey God when He says "do this."

It's after the ark is built and it's seven days before the waters are going to come down, that God again speaks to Noah and gives him the first commands of over a century! We read these words as our other text:

Gen 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Notice that God says "Come." God is not standing outside the ark commanding Noah to enter into the unknown by himself, but by saying "come," God is letting Noah know that He is already on the ark and that by coming onto the ark, Noah will be coming closer to the God who will ride out the flood with him! God was calling Noah out of a sinful, unholy, and restless world into an ark of safety, separation, and rest when he said "come." And the call of "come" still applies to us today! If you are going to be a man or woman of great faith, you must learn to answer the call of God to "come." He calls for us to come:

1. In repentance

When we know we have sinned against God and that we have done wrong, the fleshly response is to "go" and hide ourselves like Adam did from the presence of God and the house of God and the altar of God and in so doing the mercy of God. But when we have sinned is when we need to be at the house of God "even the more!" That's when we need to run to Him! But God will not draw nigh unto us, until we draw nigh unto Him! He will not "follow us into sin" but is waiting in holiness and mercy for us to "come to Him." That's why we must truly learn to love "repentance" and never forget that the altar is your greatest friend! Because it is a place where you can answer the call of God to "come and get things right." To "come into the ark of salvation!"

2. In separation.

If you are born again, God is calling you to "come out from among them and be ye separate." He is commanding you to walk, live, act, dress, respond, speak, and think differently than people who live in this world! There must be a separation from this sinful world, because their lifestyle that seems so "natural" to them is going to bring God's judgment upon them. You've got to heed the call of God to "come out and be separate" from them. If you are waiting on a Word of God to change your lifestyle to match the holiness of God, then you need to realize that the invitation has already been given! God has said "come" and now it's up to you. Holiness is a decision. Separation from worldly living is up to you. The "ball's in your court." God will not come and pull you out of your worldliness, you’ve got to be willing to come! He wants a living sacrifice; a willing sacrifice. And He wants that sacrifice "holy," and "acceptable." If you are going to have great faith and power, then you must answer the call of holiness.

3. In need of rest.

When you are feeling down and despondent. When you are feeling mad and frustrated. When you are feeling burdened and stressed. What you DON'T need to do is to go punch something. What you DON'T need to do is have "yell therapy" or to curse. When you need rest and are heavy laden is not the time to GO and do anything. What Jesus said is that you need to COME to Him! You need to come into His presence and talk to Him! You need to spend time and approach the throne of mercy and the only one whom it really matters if we please! When we try to wear the yokes of our own making, they can get very heavy, and that's when it's time to "come unto Him!" Allow His gentle Spirit to bind up the wounds and to soothe your broken heart!

It was after the Flood, and after the rain had stopped and dry ground had appeared again, that God gave Noah the command to "go." He said:

God commanded for Noah to take the animals and His family off the ark and the animals and Noah were to "go forth" and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth! Is it any coincidence that the commands of God to "go" in the New Testament are also commands to reproduce spiritually by winning others to God?! In Matthew 20:4, Jesus said "go ye into the vineyard." In Luke 14:21, He commanded us to "go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." In Luke 14:23, He commanded us to "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." In fact, one of the last things that Jesus told His disciples was:

We are commanded to "go" and reach the lost. We are to "go" and compel or diligently ask people to come to church. You may never have a pulpit ministry, but if you are a follower of Christ, you are commanded to "go and teach" people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ: about repentance, water baptism in THE name, and about the Holy Ghost!

Too many Christians get their basic commands mixed up in this particular area. They keep waiting around for a prodding from God telling them when exactly to witness. They are waiting for God to pick the right person and then go to that person and shine a holy blue light over that person and say "come and witness to this one." But God’s not going to prod you and slap you upside the head to prompt you when to “go!” The command has already been given! He's waiting on you!

Did you ever notice that every time in scripture that someone asked God directly "what do I need to do?" that God ALWAYS sent them to a human being to find out the answer? Remember when God knocked down the blasphemer and horrible sinner Saul and He asked:

Listen carefully. God will not perform for us what He has already commanded us to GO and do! After Jesus Christ gave that commandment to His disciples to GO and teach and show men what they must do, I never find God directly giving salvation instruction or preaching to men again. In Saul's case, at the same time that he told Saul to "go to such and such city," He was also talking to Ananias and commanding him to "go" to such and such place and pray for Saul. God COULD have outlined the plan of salvation for Saul on the road to Damascus, but He has chosen to use a man!

The same thing happened in Acts chapter 10. God only spoke to Cornelius to give him directions to the man of God, Peter. And at the same time God was telling Peter to go witness to Cornelius. What are you trying to say preacher? I'm trying to tell you that there are hungry people in the world that have had an encounter with the light of truth that are searching for someone to tell what they need to do and if we do not "GO," if we do sit around and wait for God to slap us upside the head and lights to shine from heaven over one particular person and to see visions and such, we might miss them! It's our responsibility because God has commanded us: "Go ye!"

The Centurion back in our text explained to Jesus that he understood three basic commands: "Do this, Come, and Go" and Jesus said this is "great faith!" If we are to become men and women of "great faith," then we must learn to obey these three simple commands!