"Olympic Sized Faith"
Al NeufeldAugust 28, 2005
“Olympic-Sized Faith?”
I am so jazzed about being here, because I have had a great summer. My family went spent some time at Kananaskis, and I have to say, if you ever want to experience God’s glory, spend some time in the mountains. We hiked over 30 km in trails, and we hiked to the top of Mt. Warspike, and to the top of Troll Falls. We also spent some time in Northern Saskatchewan, getting to rest and relaxation. My kids were also busy with camps, hiking, trails rides and they all say the highlight was horseback riding at Shell Lake.
Usually the summer is down time for me, so I get a chance to get caught up on some books that I have wanted to read, but didn’t have the time. I have read a great deal by authors like C.S. Lewis, John Ortberg, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Andrew Murray, Brother Lawrence and Max Lucado. And yes, Harry Potter. As an aside, it occurred to me that it took me a day and a half to read that book, and now I’ve got to wait 2-3 YEARS to find out what happens next? UGH! The reason I am so jazzed is that I want share with you something that I read about in a variety of books this summer, and this has been burning a hole in my mind for quite some time. So I have borrowed a great deal from those authors for this talk, especially John Ortberg, Dallas Willard and Max Lucado. Firstly though, here is a little object lesson…
I have a thimble and a bucket with me. I brought them, because it is a visual way of expressing an old saying: If you bring God a thimble, He’ll probably fill it.
If you bring God a bucket, He’ll probably fill it.
Now, what if you bring God a thimble? You see, a lot of the time we rely on ourselves, our own abilities, knowledge and skills, and sometimes, it works out. If we are truly honest, this is what most of us come to God with. We ask Him for a little peace, a little security, a little comfort, a little protection, enough help to get you through the day, some small items for personal well-being…. So the reality is, if you bring a thimble, He’ll probably fill it.
But…what if you brought a bucket? What if we decide to rely totally on God? What if you ask Him to make your life a daring adventure of faith; ask Him to use you way beyond yourself, or your agenda, or your own talents; ask God to pour out blessings on the people around you—people that you see, people that you carry in your heart—and to make you into a radiant agent of sacrificial Kingdom Love. Bring God a bucket, and He’ll probably fill that.
So the question for us today is: What are you bringing to God in your heart right now? And the challenge is: Go for the Bucket!
I had to the chance to past month to watch the World Aquatic Championships, the World Track and Field Championships and some of the Canada Summer Games in Regina. I watched divers do triple gainers off ledges where I would never climb without a parachute. I watched javelin throwers throw spears over the length of a football field. I watched long-distance runners run great distances, stop and are not even breathing heavy, and I get winded tying my shoes. I saw sprinters run faster than I would ever hope to run, and in some case, faster than some cars I owned.
The thought that occurred to me was this. I admire those people. I’m very impressed by what they do, but I can’t relate to them. I couldn’t ever be what they are. I admire them, but I don’t identify with them. It’s like they belong to another species. They are Olympians.
I was thinking about that because the Bible talks a lot about the power and the importance of what might be called “Olympic-size Faith.” This concept is taught about often. Jesus said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matthew 21; 22) That’s an amazing thought, if you believe it.
James writes: If any of you lacks wisdom (And by the way, could anyone here use a little wisdom today?), he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord. (James 1:5-6)
The New Testament is full of stories about people who are “Bucket-carrying Faith Olympians.” There is a Roman centurion who comes to Jesus and asks Him to heal his servant. Jesus says: All right. I’ll come to your house and do it. And the centurion says: No, you don’t have to do that. I know how authority works. All you have to do is say the word. Just say the word. The text tells us that Jesus marvels at this. “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. Go, it will be done just as you believed it would.” (Matthew 8:10, 13) That’s Olympic-size Faith!
One day, outside Jericho, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus starts screaming:
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” The crowd tries to shut him up, but he won’t shut up, because his faith is so strong. Jesus asks him what he wants, and he says: “I want to see.” Then Jesus says: “Go. Your faith has healed you.” And immediately, it is as he believed. He receives his sight. Olympic Faith.
In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, there is a huge crowd of people surrounding Jesus. They’re pressing in all around Him. There is one woman there in that crowd who has been subject to bleeding for twelve years. Think about what this might do to your faith. The text says: “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had.” The idea here is that she had been through intense frustration. She says to herself: If I could just touch the hem of His garment. If I could just touch His clothes. And she did. When Jesus said, “Who touched me?” The disciples thought: You’ve got to be joking. Dozens of people are pressing Him on all sides, but Jesus knows the touch of faith. She kneels before Him. She is trembling. It is a very moving scene. Jesus says to her: “Daughter (He calls her “daughter.”), Your faith has healed you. Go in peace. Be freed from yourself.” (Mark 6:34)
Scriptures are full of stories of people who are Prayer Olympians—people who bring their buckets to Jesus with unbelievable faith, and He says: Go. With faith like that, you’ve got what you wanted. Maybe you hear stories like this, it pumps you up. You get inspired. Maybe you think about times in your life when you’ve experienced that kind of thing, or stories like that about other people.
But maybe not . . . maybe not. I kind of wonder:
- Has anybody in here ever prayed, but it seemed like you didn’t get an answer?
- Has anybody in here ever prayed, but secretly inside you felt like you didn’t think it was going to happen?
- Anybody in here ever gotten discouraged and given up praying about something?
- Anybody in here ever been so overwhelmed, or so full of doubts, that the truth is—secretly—that you didn’t even bother to pray at all?
I’ve done that. And there is a guy in the New Testament that you need to meet if you’re not at the Olympic level of faith yet. To be frank, this is one of the verses that I first read when I let Jesus into my life, and I can relate to him so easily, it’s scary sometimes.
What I want to look at in this message is the question that will come to the minds of thoughtful people as they read the Bible:
- How much faith does it take?
- What does God require in the Belief department?
- What’s the minimal level of certainty I can have and still have my prayer be effective?
I want to look at another story in the New Testament. This man’s not a “Faith-Olympian” by any stretch of the imagination. I want you to think about his life:
A man had a son. He had dreams for his boy, as all fathers do for their sons. And he wanted to raise him to honor God, to love the Torah and probably to work alongside his father, so he could teach him what he knew.
But that wasn’t going to happen with his son. For some reason that we aren’t privy to or understand, his son was the victim of the kind of suffering that we can only imagine. He’s tormented by an evil spirit, and there’s a physical part to this. He would be thrown into convulsions; he would foam at the mouth; his body would go rigid; he would be thrown into fire or water. His life is at risk.
Then, there’s a spiritual dimension to this torment. His father watched as his son was shunned and mocked and feared by all other kids. He would never have a friend. This condition robbed him of his ability to talk. This father never heard his son once say: I love you, Dad. I’m glad you’re my father.
His son would never marry, never have children, never have friends, and never work. His life was at risk every moment, and he told Jesus this had been going on from childhood. The implication is that now, his son is a young adult.
I’ll tell you that this man is a father who tried prayer. Night after night, month after month, year after year . . .. When he went to sleep, he wept and shouted and cried out to God: It’s my son. It’s my son! Do You know? Do You see? Do You hear? Do You care? As a dad, that gets me every time I think about it. Every morning, he went to see if his prayer had been answered. Nothing. Every time a prophet or a new rabbi came to town, he took his son. Nothing.
And then one day, he hears of Jesus. According to Mark 6, Jesus had already sent his disciples out, and they had already been healing and casting out demons. So this man, one more time, allows himself to get his hopes up. When you get your hopes up and get nothing, it hurts you.
He brings his son to Jesus’ disciples. They’re quite confident. They have done this many times before, they tell him, and they know how it works. They place their hands on the boy. They say the words that now have worked for them dozens of times since Jesus has sent them out. This time . . . nothing. Nothing changes. This boy is as wretched as ever, and the disciples don’t understand.
The disciples get into a big argument with some other religious leaders about which of them is more spiritual and whose rabbi is biggest. These are Jesus’ disciples. If they fail, why should the man think that Jesus could do any better? So Jesus comes and asks about the son’s condition, and the father pours his heart out.
Then he makes this prayer to Jesus: If You can do anything, take pity on us and help us. If You can.
Now that’s not a prayer of real strong faith. If You can do anything . . .. That’s not a great compliment to Jesus, is it? That’s not the kind of prayer that is ever going to be turned into a song. You’ll never go to a church service where somebody stands up on the stage and starts the prayer: Heavenly Father. If You can do anything . . .. So people wonder: What is Jesus going to do this time?”
Jesus picks up immediately on the “if You can.” Then he says these staggering words—words that this man - and you and I - can hardly dare to believe:
Everything is possible. Everything is possible. (Mark 9:23) Then he says the words that make this man’s heart break all over again: “. . . for him who believes.”
That’s my problem. For this man, that’s good news and horrible news . . . “for him who believes.” I can’t believe. I like how Mark puts it. He says the man responds immediately—immediately—because it is so close to the surface in this man that it just comes pouring out of him: “I do believe. Help my unbelief!” Help me overcome my unbelief. I believe, but I doubt. I want, but I’m afraid. His faith is a tower of Jell-o.
And now, it gets real quiet. By this time, I expect the disciples have stopped arguing, and they’re saying: This is a new approach! We haven’t seen anyone try this before. Wonder what Jesus will do for this “faith-impaired” guy?
Then, Jesus walks to the man’s son, rebukes the demons, heals the boy, takes him by His hand, lifts him to his feet, restores him to his father. The boy can speak, and for the first time in his life, he can turn to his dad and say: “Dad! I love you. Dad, thanks that you never quit taking care of me. Dad, I’m so grateful that you are my father.” It’s the first time these words are ever spoken. And he’ll be well, he’ll love God and he’ll live.
So, how much faith is enough? “If You can . . ..” Not much certainty. It’s kind of a simple thing, really. The bottom line is you just need enough faith to come to Jesus and ask Him. It is not my job to conjure up a feeling of certainty; it is not my job to try to increase my faith that is so important. It’s my job to come to Jesus. It’s His job to increase my faith.
James says, “You don’t have because you don’t ask God.” (James 4:2) So what are you asking God for? Where’s your Bucket?
I mentioned in a talk I gave back in February how God was working in my life and calling me to serve Him and in ways that fit my gifts. One of which was coaching sports. This spring I coached my son’s softball team. To say I know anything about softball would probably amount to one, humungous lie. I know very little about softball, and to be honest, I used to play baseball, and my position rotated between right field, and the bench. Mostly on the bench. So the sport doesn’t hold a lot of appeal to me. But I asked God to use me, use my gifts, to teach these 15 boys how to be men, and specifically God’s men.
I would like to stand here and say God gave us a winning season, which we won the championship and our story will be featured in a movie soon. I would LIKE to say that, but I can’t. We won 2 out of 16 games. Now those that know me well know that I have a bit of a competitive streak, and I like to win as much as the next guy. As the losses mounted for our team, especially against some of our city rivals, I began to think some un-Free-Methodist type thoughts. I was going through Bible verses in my mind, trying to hold myself together:
All things work together for good...
The Lord is my shepherd...
“Vengeance is mine. I will repay,” says the Lord .
I struggled to control some of my competitive instincts, and I asked God for help in that area. Often, I would pray: God, don’t let me do anything that could be an embarrassment to You. Let me show your light.
Anne Lamott says that mostly she just prays two prayers: Help me, help me, help me, help me and Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So mostly throughout the season, I prayed the “Help me, help me” prayer: “God, help me with my attitude if I lose. Probably it would help me honor you if you’d let me win a few games...”
Near the end of the season, we had a game against an opponent that we could have eaten, but we ended up losing to. What bothered me the most was how the boys reacted. They started whining about how they are losers, how they suck and how they should just quit. I had some very loud words over that. I don’t tolerate that talk from anyone, even towards opponents, because one of my main rules over the season was to respect themselves and others. It was a heated talk, but I wanted to get my message across that their value as boys and young men did not rely on the scoreboard, but their character and attitude.
The next day, a parent of one of my players sent me an email about that exchange. She informed me that she appreciated my work with the boys. But also she stated that I was the subject of her son’s essay, “People I admire.” Immediately I started going though the talk in my head. My first thought was: Have I said anything that I need to apologize for? Have I done anything over the course of the season that would harm God’s message? No, I don’t think so. Thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You.
I was so grateful that I hadn’t done anything that would be an embarrassment—or would undo good—during that season. I’m real capable of that. And about the one thing that I got right was that when I started the season I said: God, help me. I just asked. I just asked.
I was reflecting on this afterwards, and I thought: How often does God want to give me help or something, and I don’t ask? How many times do I go through a day with anger, or fear, or joylessness, or selfish preoccupation, because I just don’t ask? I just don’t bring the Bucket?
All this father does is: he asks. He’s not certain. Some of you—I know because I’ve been there—beat yourselves up. I worry too much, I doubt too much; I waiver; I don’t have enough faith. You know what? You have enough faith, if you have enough just to come to Jesus and say: If You can do anything . . .. That’s enough. That’s amazing, isn’t it?
How much faith is enough? Enough faith to be authentic with Jesus. Just to be real.
For me, one of the most striking moments in this story is when Jesus says to the man: Everything is possible to the one who believes.
Now the man’s response is very important. I would have been tempted, at that moment, to fake it and say: Yeah. I know that belief and faith are real important. I have no doubt, Jesus. You’re the man! You can do this! But the man doesn’t do this. He is amazingly transparent with Jesus, and he says: Yeah. That’s my problem. I’m not sure that You can do it.
And here’s what’s amazing about Jesus. Jesus prefers honesty to certainty. I love that about Him. You don’t have to be sure; you’ve just got to be real. So just come to Him. Don’t try to force yourself to say: Yeah, I can make myself believe this is going to happen. Just be real. I have learned that forced, insincere certainty kills prayer; sincerity, authenticity, being real breathes life into it.
Some people get goofy ideas about prayer. Some people say: The way to get what you want is to just claim it. I’ve actually heard this one taught: Don’t ask God for something twice, because then He’ll know you didn’t really believe Him the first time. Well, if He really is the omniscient God, wouldn’t He know if you had doubts the first time? I mean, it’s not like He’s sitting up there saying: Well, I was going to give you what you asked for, but when you asked a second time, that was a dead giveaway, so I’m not going to give it to you now. Just be real.
Jesus put it like this: “When you pray, don’t keep babbling like the pagans do.”
Don’t let your prayer deteriorate into a series of mindless, pious sounding clichés. Just think. Just be present. Be real.
John Ortberg talks about how this deterioration into inauthenticity and mindlessness can happen at the dinner table. Someone sits in front of a nutritional disaster—a plate full of salt, fat, sugar and grease, fried in oil and covered in butter, and what do they pray? Dear God, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies so that we can do Your will. Is that some kind of a joke? That would take a miracle! At that moment, God’s will would be for you to push back from the table and give the food to the dog, but dogs matter to God too! So, His will is probably for you to give it to the cat . . ..
Just enough faith to come to Jesus. Just enough faith to be real with Him. And then, just enough faith to keep persisting, to keep asking, to keep knocking, to keep coming back.
I love this. At the end of the story, there is a little postscript. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked Him privately “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” This is so human. They want to debrief with Jesus, because things didn’t work out the way that they thought they would, but they don’t want to draw attention to their failure in public.
So they wait to talk about it until they’re indoors, in private. And then they say:
Hey, Jesus. You probably didn’t notice this, but we had a little trouble there “demon-wise” with that kid. So would you mind giving us a few pointers. Did we not yell loud enough? Was our footwork off? What was the problem? What was the technique that we missed out on?
And Jesus says, “This is one of those demons that requires prayer.” Like there’s some other kind of demon. The ironic thing is that the disciples had no doubts; they had faith. If faith were nothing more than feeling certain about something, then the disciples were ready for the Olympics. They had no doubts that they could cast it out. But they didn’t pray. They just tried it on their own strength. They went forward with the thimble. Jesus is not talking about a technique here; He’s not talking about some magic words. What He’s saying is: No. It’s about God.
Other religious leaders didn’t pray. The crowd didn’t pray. Who was the one person in the story that prayed? Who was the one person that asked Jesus for help? It was the father. And in that one knock-kneed, jell-o-like prayer, and in all those years of suffering, he did one thing right: He just kept bringing the Bucket to God - One more time. One more time. One more time. He was no prayer Olympian. But it was enough for Jesus.
How about you? What’s your “if You can” prayer? What is the request that is so big, so beyond your power . . . the one that has broken your heart . . . the one that the truth is, you’re not even sure it could ever happen?
What’s your Bucket? It doesn’t mean that you always get what you want, when you want it. But I’ll tell you one thing that I thought about this week as I was preparing for this topic. Wayne Gretzky (you may have heard of him) is quoted as saying “You will never score on 100% of the shots you don’t take.” I equate that to mean: The only prayer that God cannot answer is the one I never ask. The only prayer God can never answer is the one I never ask.
It’s Bucket time around our church. We are entering a new season here at Lakeview. And these are exciting times. Construction of our new building is continuing, we have exciting services coming up, and our ministries are top-notch. But what I think is real bucket-time here, is that our leaders have set forth a vision and it includes bringing more people here into this church. It includes more people into ministry, and also more efforts to reach out to Saskatoon.
There are a lot of people bringing Buckets:
- God, pour so much love out on this place that there’s nobody lonely . . . everybody’s in community.
- God, pour so much faith on this place that there are no spectators . . . everybody that’s a follower of Jesus finds out how You have gifted them and what their passion is, and they get out of the bleachers and into the game in this community and the community beyond us and the world beyond us.
- God, make Your spirit work here in people who don’t know You.
Wouldn’t it be a cool thing if a lot of people, who are our neighbors and don’t know Jesus, could come to know Him and stand on this stage to be baptized and say: He’s my forgiver; He’s my friend now.
Bring a bucket. Bring God your Bucket. Let’s be a Bucket Church! Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you with our buckets, ready to be filled with your presence. We want to be real with you, and hold nothing back. Help us become Olympians in a way that our only trust is in your power and your glory. There will be times when we are uncertain, and are not sure. We will come to you, and allow you to strengthen our faith. In you name we pray, Amen.
