Half-Hearted Faith

4 SERVICES & WHAT’S NEXT

(4 Services Slide)

Good morning! My name is David Sorn and I’m the Lead Pastor here at Renovation Church.

Before we get into the message this morning, I want to remind you that we will be going back to 4 services in 2 weeks on September 7th (once summer ends and everybody is back from their cabins, vacations, and school starts)

Our service times will be 8:00, 9:10, 10:20, & 11:30

If you normally attend the 9:00 service, we’d love for you to come at 8:00 to make room for all of those coming to hear about Christ at our other services.

We’re looking to move 500 people to this service. Not 50. 500.

So I can’t ask you enough to start attending that service.

Plus, there will be FREE, I repeat, FREE coffee before that service.

If you normally come to 10:15, that is our busiest time. It’s going to overflow.

We have room for you at 11:30.

Opening up seats this Fall will make a huge difference in letting more people hear about Christ.

And I know….that this all begs another question for most of you.

Most of you are thinking, we JUST had the Grand Opening of Phase 2 of this building last August (only 12 months ago), and we’re already at 4 services, and filling up so fast.

So the question that I get asked about every 11 seconds is:

(What’s Next Slide)

“What’s Next?”

What are we going to do? What’s the long-term plan as we quickly max out even our phase 2 expansion?

In many ways, that’s almost all I’ve thought about this past year and a half, and I am going to answer all of those questions for you…in just 2 weeks, on September 7th…

…when we reveal our future plans for our church.

So, whatever you do, do not miss that Sunday.

If you want to be in the know, and you want to know before everybody else does…you just gotta come at 8am that day 😊

THE PASSAGE

Okay, let’s jump into our passage.

2 Kings 13:14-21

Page 260

We are on our final week of our Life of Elisha series.

I’m sad to have come to the end, but we have indeed come to the end of our series and Elisha’s ministry.

In fact, there is 40-year gap or so between last week’s message and this week’s message.

So by the time we get to today’s passage, Elisha is quite “advanced in age & wisdom.” Probably almost 80.

And Jehu, who was the king we met last week that brought judgment upon Ahab & Jezebel’s family…

…King Jehu has now died, as has his son, and so Jehu’s grandson, Jehoash, is now the King of Israel.

Let’s read together:

(2 Kings 13:14-21) – NIV

14 Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

15 Elisha said, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so. 16 “Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel. When he had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.

17 “Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it. “Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot. “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!” Elisha declared. “You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.”

18 Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them. Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.” He struck it three times and stopped. 19 The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.”

20 Elisha died and was buried.

Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. 21 Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

(LIFE OF ELISHA slide)

What a way to end our readings about Elisha!

A subtle reminder that your faith can have an impact on others even after you’re gone!

So what’s happening in this broader passage today?

Jehu’s grandson, King Jehoash, heads down to see the elderly and dying Elisha.

And the King says, (verse 14), “My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

Which, fascinatingly enough, is the exact same thing Elisha said to his mentor, Elijah, in Elijah’s last moments.

But what does that phrase mean: “The chariots and horsemen of Israel?”

It’s a way of acknowledging that Israel’s true strength was in the power of God, often seen through the prophets.

…not just in her actual army.

I mean, think about it, we read stories this summer where Elisha either singlehandedly saved the army or even stopped an invasion force!

SO this phrase about Elisha being the “Chariots and horsemen” is true!

And so King Jehoash is wondering, “Will Elisha’s death bring an end to God’s power coming to Israel?”

But Elisha wants to show the king that God can still move.

It’s about God after all, not about Elisha.

So Elisha has King Jehoash shoot an arrow out the East Window (toward their enemy, the Arameans, who’ve been invading them again).

And Elisha shouts, “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!”

So this is the clue right here: King Jehoash should know that he’s now engaging in important prophetic symbolism

…which should be understood anyway when you’re having a conversation with a famous prophet!

But then, when Elisha tells the king to grab some arrows and strike the ground, King Jehoash, kind of half-heartedly hits the ground 3 times.

And you can picture this 80-year old Elisha getting all bent out of shape about this!

And he basically says, “If you just would’ve hit the ground 5 or 6 times (like bring some passion to your life), you would’ve destroyed the enemy Arameans, but now you’ll only defeat them 3 times.”

Now, King Jehoash is a classic example in the Bible of a half-hearted faith.

(Half-Hearted Faith)

He has faith.

He went down to talk to Elisha the prophet for goodness sakes

But he just doesn’t have a lot of it.

There’s no passion.

Imagine someone like a King David or the Apostle Paul in his place…just smacking the ground with those arrows until Elisha was like, “Wow, that’s enough, just stop already.”

But Jehoash is half-hearted

Three strikes were more than enough for him…plus it was kind of awkward just striking the ground, and he had better things to do”

WE ONLY PARTIALLY OBEY

And in many ways my friends, I think we are King Jehoash

How many of us are sold-out passionate, all-in believers for Jesus Christ?

Unfortunately, there are way too many of us that are more like “one foot in, one foot out-believers”

Our faith so easily gets stuck in this half-hearted gear.

And so I want to ask the question of how do we end up like that? And I’ll give you 3 answers today.

And this is a recipe you don’t want to follow. You want to avoid this!

HOW DO WE END UP WITH A HALF-HEARTED FAITH?

#1: We only partially obey

This is our story, isn’t it?

Especially in America.

Now, I have been to parts of the world where the main problem of the church is they just need more Bible teaching and theology.

They’ve heard the gospel, but there isn’t enough training so heresy often grows quickly.

But generally, in America, we have had our fill on Bible studies and classes, but we’re just not that good at putting what we learn into action.

(And listen, I’m all for theology classes…we just had like 500 people in Renovation U!)

But Jesus says in John 14, “Anyone who loves me will OBEY my teaching”

He doesn’t say, “They will learn my teaching, and take good notes…”

He says “OBEY my teaching”

But for too many of us, we have settled for just PARTIAL obedience.

I mean we do obey…sometimes.

Like, when it’s convenient…or easy.

But what about when it’s hard…or countercultural?

Like, what about not living together before marriage when everyone else is doing that?

What about when we know we should honor God with our finances (it’s not like we haven’t heard it), but it’s hard right now

We know we should serve, but boy, that’s tough on our schedule.

Sometimes I think we don’t obey God because so many of us have little to no accountability in our lives.

No other Christians are walking this journey with us.

Which is why it’s so important that you sign up for a House Church when sign-ups start in 2 weeks…

You need the people of God in your life…not just anonymously sitting next to you on a Sunday!

We’re going to have THIRTY house churches this Fall…including 2 Young Adult ones for the first time ever.

Sometimes I think we don’t fully obey simply because it just seems crazy to us.

Maybe God is calling you to something, but it just feels, honestly, kind of crazy, so you’re like, “No, I’m not gonna do that!”

That’s crazy!

I’m sure King Jehoash was like, “You want me to what now? Strike the ground with arrows? Why? Like, what’s the point of that?”

This is also reminiscent of when Elisha told Naaman to dip in the Jordan river 7 times to be healed of his leprosy, and Naaman wouldn’t do it at first because it was just such a weird ask.

And so he chose half-heartedness instead.

He wanted it, but not that bad.

He wasn’t going to do something crazy to get it.

And for a lot of us, this is part of why we’re not seeing more victory in our lives, more passion and more excitement in our faith.

Listen, there are two pathways available to you as a Christian:

One is the pathway of partial obedience and that will lead to more of the same.

More shoulder shrugs about your faith, and more lukewarmness.

But the other pathway is the pathway where you attempt (you won’t do it perfectly), but you attempt full obedience.

And that is the only pathway that leads to vibrancy in your faith…the type of faith where you feel excitement, love, and passion for God.

WE ONLY WANT HIM IN MODERATION

Let me give you a second reason why we end up with a lukewarm, half-hearted faith

HOW DO WE END UP WITH A HALF-HEARTED FAITH?

#1: We only partially obey

#2: We only want God in moderation

Oh, we do want God in our lives

But if I’m really honest, I think most of us just want Him in moderation.

If we looked deep inside our hearts, some of us, truly, don’t want to be the person who’s always talking about God, and serving God, and passionate about God.

We want His blessing, but we’re not so sure about His Lordship.

We want Him to be there when we need Him, but maybe NOT to be around us when we’re trying to impress other people…or when we just want to sin.

What so many of us want is “God in moderation”

In many ways, I think that’s the story of the kings that Elisha interacted with throughout his life.

They all believed in God.

And when crisis hit…

…and they were running out of water in the desert

…or being attacked by their enemy

…guess what? They wanted God!

But when they wanted to pursue power or pleasure, they didn’t want God.

And are we so different?

This is us.

Sure, we’re striking the arrows a few times, we want God to help us out and bless our lives.

But too few of us have chosen the fully surrendered life.

And so we miss out on what God has for us.

I like the promise God gives the Israelites in Jeremiah 29:13 when he says:

(Jeremiah 29:13) – NIV

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with ALL your heart.

That’s how you find God!

WE ONLY PARTIALLY BELIEVE

And there’s one more way I think we find ourselves falling into half-heartedness and it’s this:

HOW DO WE END UP WITH A HALF-HEARTED FAITH?

#1: We only partially obey

#2: We only want God in moderation

#3: We only partially believe

Now, I’m not saying that you need to believe with even more fervor if you’re truly going to be saved, or anything like that.

We need to be careful here.

We are not saved and forgiven by the strength of faith, but by the object of our faith.

We’re saved because we believe IN Christ…whether you faith is weak or strong.

Everybody clear on that?

But, that being said…there is this Biblical theme here, that Christians (and even pastors!) are sometimes too afraid to touch because if you don’t say it just right, it can be heresy.

And the Biblical theme is this:

The amount of your faith has an impact on what God will do

That’s what we see in this very text, is it not?

Elisha says to the king (verse 19), “You should have struck the ground 5 or 6 times, then you would’ve defeated Aram!”

In other words, if the king would have had more faith, then the outcome would’ve been different, and they would’ve fully defeated Aram.

We see this theme in the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus

Let me give you 3 examples of this

1) Jesus consistently tells those who are healed that “your faith has healed you”

2) Jesus teaches that GREAT faith often produces GREAT results.

For example, in Matthew 8, Jesus heals the centurion’s servant from far away and says, “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith”

Or, in Matthew 15, Jesus agrees to heal the Canaanite woman’s daughter only BECAUSE of her persistence and great faith

3) Jesus teaches that LITTLE faith often produces LITTLE results

In Matthew 17, Jesus tells the disciples they could not cast out a demon because they have so little faith

Then He says that if they had more faith…and they would just need mustard seed faith (so not a lot), they could move mountains!

In Matthew 13, we’re told that Jesus did not do many miracles in his hometown of Nazareth because of their lack of faith.

They had faith, but not enough faith to produce results.

Now again, we need to tread oh so carefully here.

Look at me, I’m not saying, “If you just believe harder, then what you want will be done”

Christianity is not paganism or witchcraft, it’s not a formula where you just manifest whatever you want by believing more.

We serve a sovereign, personal God.

And yet, we certainly do see a Biblical pattern that an increase of faith often does lead to an increase of results.

A good example is Joshua in the Old Testament.

When they reached the Promised Land, God laid out the boundaries of the Promised Land for Joshua and then said:

(Joshua 1:3) – NIV

I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.

And so this amazing thing was available to Him, but He would have to have the FAITH to walk it out (literally) and go get it.

And similarly in our life, God has promises for you that He’s ready to fulfill, but many of us haven’t had the faith to truly ask for them…so we haven’t received them.

God’s promises don’t get fulfilled simply by us waiting around for them

Now we always balance this here by saying:

“We have to pray the impossible, and we pray with a faith that God can do anything, but believe with the same faith that He’s right even if He chooses to do nothing”

But most of us don’t pray with a fervor, we don’t pray for an increase of faith.

But if we could see what we have available to us, we would keep striking!

We have what we need.

Just like King Jehoash had what He needed.

Elisha himself was in the room.

The text even says Elisha puts his hands on the kings hands

The power is there. It’s available.

And it is to us too.

But we’ve got to believe.

We’ve got to pray with great FAITH again.

We’ve got to increase our faith…because that matters!

HOW DO WE END UP WITH A HALF-HEARTED FAITH?

#1: We only partially obey

#2: We only want God in moderation

#3: We only partially believe

I pray that we would get on our knees as Christians and just stare into the Face of God.

And that He would reveal Himself to us for who He really is.

And then we could turn our half-hearted faith and into whole-hearted devotion.

So I just urge every single person in this church to get on your knees this week.

And just start saying,

“God show me your glory”

“May I truly see you for who you really are!”

And if we could see that, even glimpse it.

Then we can undo that pattern that’s been on the screen.

There were 3 points, but really it’s a progression, isn’t it?

Partial Obedience 🡪 Moderate Experience 🡪 Partial Faith

Because partial obedience really just leads to only wanting God in moderation.

And when you experience God in moderation, you don’t, honestly, have that much faith that he can move.

Partial Obedience 🡪 Moderate Experience 🡪 Partial Faith

Full Obedience 🡪 Passionate Experience 🡪 Greater Faith

But what if we started on a different path?

What if we started on the path of full obedience?

Then everything will change !

Because full obedience…leads to learning that God’s way is actually good, and His Way is Better!

And as we experience that better way, we want Him, not in moderation, but fully!

And as we get Him fully, our faith would not be partial, but fuller and deeper.

And as our faith in Him is deeper, we’ll see even greater things, and that will boost our obedience even more!

Do you see how this cycle works?!

But it starts again, on our knees, saying,

“God, show me your glory!”

And, “I want to live the fully-surrendered life”

Amen? Amen.