We turn to Romans chapter 12,
of course. Romans chapter 12. I will reread what I've read the
past couple weeks, but I'm only going through verse three. Romans
12, verse one. I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. And be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. For I say, through the grace
given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man, the measure of faith. My subject, and it will be my
title of course, is taken directly from Paul's words, the measure
of faith. Now everything that we have as
believers, whether it's physical or spiritual. And I'll just divide
it just in those two realms. Whether it's physical or spiritual,
everything we that believers have is a gift of God. Everything. If we don't have
something, it's a gift of God. Because if we don't have it,
we don't need it. We don't need it. So again, everything
that we have, physical or spiritual, is a gift wrought by God's mercies
in Christ. As a matter of fact, let me go
so far as everything that every individual that's ever lived
on the face of this world comes because of the mercy of God in
Christ. If it wasn't for God's redemption in Christ, he would
have destroyed humanity long ago. Long ago. Now this is certainly
true of the gift of faith. And I'm not going into a lot
of that. Faith is a gift. And I may re-mention
this, we sing a song, and we haven't sang it for a while,
but it's a good song, I'm not criticizing the song. But it
says this, let me make sure I'm on the right one, yes. It says,
I know not how the spirit moves convincing men of sin, revealing
Jesus through the word, and then the next one is just not right.
It says creating faith in him. God doesn't create faith, he
gives faith. The only place, now I'm not being
angry with the person that wrote that song, but it's just, it's
not right. It's not doctrinally correct
because God doesn't create faith. Faith is the fruit of God. Faith
is a characteristic that resides intrinsically only in God. And he gives this faith to those
he gives it to. He doesn't create it. He gives
it. But to us, he gives it in measure. In measure. Now, having said
that, I mean, look, having said that, everything we have is a
gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And faith is certainly
included in that. True, God-given faith promotes
humility in those that receive it. For I say, through the grace
given unto me, to every man among you, now that is believers, he's
talking to believers, to every man among you, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think. And Paul is not trying
to leave a little wiggle room that you could think a little
bit highly of yourself. You have nothing to think highly
of yourself about. What have we that we have not
received? And why do we boast as if we have not received it?
And that's receiving in the manner of God just gives it. Now there's
a receiving to where you lay hold of it, but this receiving,
God does give it to you. God give it to you. Not to think
of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think
soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man, the measure
of faith. Six thoughts this morning about
the measure of faith. Now there's a lot more, there's
a lot more, but I don't have time to cover them all, and I
probably don't even have the ability. I'm sure I would leave
something out. But let's just think of six thoughts this morning
concerning the measure of faith. A few of them will come directly
from our text, and others will come from other places in the
scripture, but they're all equally important and apply to the text,
because all truth goes together. There's not truths, there's truth.
There might be a lot of doctrines, but there's only one truth. Okay,
number one, God dealt us this faith. You see it? God dealt
us this faith. Not like a random card game,
but like, there, here, here, here. And he knows exactly what
that measure is. So again, that's the first thing,
God dealt us this faith. Faith is not something created,
it's certainly not something we come up with. People talk
about coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ, but that in
itself is not really accurate, it's not right. It's coming to
Christ in saving faith. Because you don't come to saving
faith, God has to deal saving faith to you. Not, as I said,
not like a random card game, but according to his sovereign
pleasure. You know this, and you don't
have to turn to it, but Ephesians chapter one. When I get there,
I will just read it. Ephesians chapter one in just
one verse. In whom we have obtained an inheritance, and that inheritance
included F-A-I-T-H, faith. In whom we have obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things. all things after the counsel
of his own will. Election, predestination, faith,
all of it. It's not because God looked into
the future and seen what we would do or have. God ordained, purposed
what he would give, what he would deal out. Secondly, Faith is
one of several key initial gifts of God's gracious mercy. It's
one of several key. We certainly have life from God.
That is when God in a sovereign act breathes spiritual life into
an individual, a dead alien sinner. God breathes, that's an initial
gift. There is repentance, it's an
initial gift. But faith is also an initial gift. He don't save
you and then years later give you some faith. He deals faith
right up front. It's right up front. So again,
second thing about this measure of faith, faith is one of several
key initial gifts of God's gracious mercy. Now let me just read a
few passages. Look at chapter 14 of our book here, chapter
14, verse 23. And he that doubteth, now Paul's
talking about a subject of meat and that kind of thing, but it's
still applicable to faith. And he that doubteth is damned
if he eat. because he eateth it not of faith. For whatsoever
is not of faith is sin. No matter how good of a thing
it might be. If it's not because of a God-given faith, it's what?
Sin. That's how important faith is.
That's why it's a key initial gift. Anything that we do, even
God, let me put it this way, God doesn't move us to do anything
by His Spirit apart from the gift of faith. that measure of
faith that he dealt us. Here's another passage. I'll
just quote that. Hebrews 11 and six, but without
faith, it is impossible to please God. That's why it's key, and
that's why it's one of those initial gifts. Another one, Romans
chapter four, verses one through eight, but I'll sum it all up.
A man that believes, a woman that believes, God will not impute
sin to them. That's how important faith is.
Sounds pretty important. Because if I've been dealt the
measure of faith, God says, he promises me in his word that
he will not impute my sin unto me. That's a comforting thought. And that doesn't make me want
to go sin more. I try to sin less, but usually
I find out that when I really try not to sin, I end up sinning. It's just when I live my day
just believing God and trusting God, things go a lot better than
when I try to do what's right. Do you have the same experience?
Well, I'm not gonna do that anymore. That's the one thing I end up
usually doing. I'm not gonna lose my temper like that again.
It pops right up. Pops right up. Titus chapter
one, verses one and two, that God promised eternal life. before
the world began. But he talks there, he has a
phrase, according, now he doesn't promise eternal life according,
I'm going back now. He said, but the fact is he promised
eternal life before the world began, somebody's gonna have
it. If he promised it, somebody's gonna have it. But he has this
also, according to the faith of God's people. God deals this
measure of faith to every single one of his elect. I'm not gonna
deal with this. Some people may have more faith
than others, but that's God's business. And that's because
God is equipping each person for the specific task and journey
in which he has you in this world. But we all, as God's elect, are
given at God's time the measure Okay, so that's two things. Here's number three. The measure
of faith constrains believers to low thoughts of self. Verse
three. If you really have faith, if
you really have, if God's dealt to you the measure of faith,
when you begin to think highly of yourself, it will not be long
that God will crush that into powder before your eyes. Now,
we ought to crush it into powder when we first start to think
highly of ourselves, but oftentimes we don't. But that faith that
God dealt to us, it'll start to crush. When we hear this word,
God keeps reminding us over and over that we are, even our righteousnesses,
and that's a tough one to swallow. Even our righteousnesses are
as menses cloths in God's sight. That's hard to comprehend. This
measure of faith constrains believers to low thoughts of self. And
according to Romans 10, what we've already read, I'm not gonna
read it, but Romans 10 verses eight and nine, this measure
of faith that God deals to every one of his people causes us to
have lofty thoughts of Christ. Hmm? Yeah. We confess him as
what? The Lord Jesus Christ. And almost, not always, but it
seemed like almost every time I hear that now, I remember Henry
Mahan quoting Rolfe Barnard. And Rolfe was, they were holding
a meeting and Rolfe got up and everybody sang, Jesus saves,
Jesus saves, and then Rolfe got up to preach and he said, now
that song we just sang, Jesus saves? He said, it ain't so.
And he said, people's mouths just dropped. He said it's the
Lord Jesus that saves. And that's true. That's true. Lofty thoughts of Christ. Consider
this. The measure, the measure, though never faith in its fullness,
faith in its fullness resides only where? In God. In God. Faith, the measure of faith,
though not in its fullest. Think about it. It grasps as
God enables, because when God gives you the measure of faith,
all this don't come in like a mighty Russian wind and it's all over
in a few seconds, okay? So again, the measure of faith,
though not faith in its fullest, nevertheless, it grasps as God
enables the majesty of Christ and the corruption of our flesh.
And it don't take long for God to teach you that lesson. And
that measure of faith that he gave you, I don't care how small
it, I don't know what that measure is. But there is the measure
that he gives everybody, right? That's clearly what this says.
I don't know how much that is, but that's not the point. I don't
care if it's smaller than a grain of mustard seed. It's still grasping. And like I said, don't grasp
it all at once. But it's still grasping the truth
of the majesty of Jesus Christ. and it grasps the truth of our
inner corruption in and of ourselves. Now talking about mountains being
moved, ain't that a mountain being moved? That's a mountain
because by nature, we do not see the loftiness of Christ.
By nature, we see how, well, we're created in God's image.
Yes, we were, but we fail, right? Yes, we were. but we fail, and
to compare God to us now, Romans chapter one, Paul's clear about
that, be careful, because that's when you fall into idolatry,
because then you begin to make God out to be like man, or creeping
beasts, or four-footed things, or fish, or snakes. Oh, my brothers
and sisters, how we I don't know the right word. I didn't look
for what I would think would be a really great word here,
but how often we just don't consider the magnitude of this measure
of faith that God gave us. We see things that this world
cannot see. We see Christ in his true light,
and again, not all at once. But we see Christ in his true
light, and there are people that I guarantee you, they read the
Bible more and probably study the Bible more than I do. But
I see Christ by God's gift of faith, and they don't. He's just
another part of the puzzle, you might say. They're caught up
with everything else, the church and how it should operate. I
mean, I've even got caught up here about the Lord's table,
exactly how we ought to do it. I realized that, that don't matter.
That wasn't faith, that's self. That's self. The measure of faith. Here's number four. Every believer,
again, has the measure of faith. Now, something to maybe help
us out a little with that, turn to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1, I wanna
read something. And again, Peter, what I'm gonna
read from Peter, he's not dealing directly with the subject of
the measure of faith, but he does deal with faith here, but
I wanna point out something about it. 1 Peter 1, and let's just
read the first few verses. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father through sanctification of the Spirit and unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ's grace unto you
in peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively or a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible.
Remember, Paul talked about an inheritance, predestinated to
an inheritance. To an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you. Now, we don't see that because
it's where? Where's it reserved at? Up there. because who's in heaven that
makes this reservation secure? Our forerunner. He's already
there. Reserved in heaven for you who
are kept by the power of God through faith. It's not just
some sovereign fiat here in and of itself, it's through faith,
that measure of faith, the measure of faith. Through faith unto
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. wherein ye
greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye be in
heaviness through many manifold temptations, that the trial of
your faith be much more precious than of gold that perishes. Do
you see that? Now it's not the trial that's
precious, it's the faith that's being tried is precious. And
here's the thing, when trouble comes, does it run you to Christ
or run you away from Christ? There's what manifests whether
you have the measure of faith. Not if you fail. Usually trials
come. Not always, but usually trials
come because we already failed. We've already messed up, Jack.
The trial comes. What happens? Do we get angry
at God? Do we run from God? Some people
have. Some people who've made professions of faith turn from
God and leave. too much. I don't like this,
can't handle this. But if God's dealt to you the
measure of faith, you know what that trial does? Continually forces
you to run to Jesus Christ. Now, I think it's 2 Peter, let
me look, yeah, 2 Peter, 2 Peter, Chapter one, again, Peter's gonna
mention faith here. Now he's not, he won't, he's
not gonna talk about the measure of faith, but remember, according
as God hath dealt to every man, the measure. So we all as God's
elect, when God converts us, he gives us the measure of faith.
He deals that to us. Simon Peter, second Peter one,
a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained
like precious faith with us, through how? Not through will.
not through endeavor, not through repentance, not through prayers,
but through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. He, God in Christ, is our benefactor. He's the dealer of these things. And he deals these things to
men severally as he will. Let's go on now. Grace and peace
be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God And here's
it, and our Lord Jesus Christ. You never know God apart from
Jesus Christ the Lord. Okay, but look. According, as
his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called
us to glory and virtue, whereby are given to us exceedingly great
and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of
the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the
world through lust, and besides this, giving all diligence, add
to your faith virtue, virtue, knowledge, knowledge, temperance,
temperance, patience, patience, godliness, godliness, brotherly
kindness, right? But Nody starts with what? Faith. We can, by his grace, and we
do, add to our faith these other things, but we don't add to our
faith itself. Now you see what I'm trying to
point out here? That's the point. You don't, it doesn't say add
more faith to your faith. It just starts with what? The
measure of faith. What God gave you. What God gave
you. And then you add to that because
you don't add to your faith. Even, and I think the disciples
were a little mistuned when they asked the question, but the question
itself is not wrong. When they talked, when they realized
they needed more faith, what did they cry out? Lord, increase
our faith. Not Lord, show me how to increase
it, but Lord, increase our faith. If there is an increase, and
I'm not saying there can't be, that's God's sovereign pleasure.
If there is, the Lord will have to what? Deal it. Deal it, deal
it, deal it. But thank God he's already dealt
to all of us the measure of faith. So that was number four. Here's
number five. Faith to believe. This faith
that we have, turn to Ephesians chapter one. We'll look at that. Ephesians chapter one's where
I'm going. I'm gonna read a part of Paul's prayer that he prayed
for these Ephesians, and of course, it's a prayer for us as well,
though Paul didn't even know us. I'm saying, faith to believe
takes resurrection power. Resurrection power, not to create
faith. Faith's never created, but faith
in us. He gives us faith to believe. Now, believing in faith is the
same thing, but believing is faith in action. Okay, believing
is faith in action. Some have called, wish there
was an English word faithing, which there's nothing wrong with
that, but I don't know whether it's considered a valid word. It don't
matter. They translate it faith, that's
the ability. Believing is that ability in
action. Okay, so anyway, with that being
said, look at Ephesians one. For a little bit of context,
let's start in verse 15. Wherefore, I also, after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus. Somebody says, regeneration precedes
faith. Yes, it certainly does, but you
don't know anybody's regenerated till they believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Don't say. Well, I think they may, it don't
matter what you think. But when they say, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, you can say, I got some
hope for that person that they're born of God. When they say that,
but don't get caught up with regeneration precedes faith and
then start hammering on regeneration precedes faith and miss out this,
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. You can't say anything any earlier
than that. It's dangerous to do so. Okay. After that I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all saints, all
the saints. Cease not to give thanks to you,
making mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of
your understanding being enlightened. See, not just having been, this
is a continual thing. My eyes are enlightened, but
I still don't see it all. Now, we will never see it all
this side of glory, okay? But still yet, our eyes are being
enlightened. Do you see it? Being enlightened
that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what
the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and
what, and look at it, and what is the exceeding greatness. It's like a redundancy, but yet
it's Paul just trying, Paul in himself, he's just trying to
come up with the words. The spirit, of course, is moving him, but
Paul, Inspiration was not some power to go above and beyond,
it was God just using these men and putting in their hearts and
minds what he wanted written for us, okay? Look at it. And
what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward, who believe
according to the working of his mighty power. That's how resplendent
faith is, even though it's just the measure, Jack. The measure. Every time and any time we believe
God, it is God in his power making it happen. But look, what kind
of power? Which he wrought in Christ when
he raised him from the dead. So the phrase that's been coined
by some is true. Beware of this easy believism.
Believing is not easy. It is impossible apart from the
resurrection power of God Almighty. This ain't man coming up with
something for God, this is God dealing to his people, his chosen
loved ones. The measure of faith. Faith sounds like a marvelous
gift. Even if it's smaller than a grain
of mustard seed. But think of the mountains already
that it's moved by God for you. He brought you out of the morass
of darkness into his marvelous light. We've heard that, right?
You see that now, when you could not see it before. And when you
used to say things like, or at least think, well, I'm bad, I'm
a sinner, but there's a lot of people a whole lot worse than
me, that's darkness. Because in us dwells no good
thing. There is one that's good, and
that's God. That's God. So again, faith to
believe takes resurrection power. And this, listen, this can never
be divorced from the gospel. Never be divorced from the gospel.
Because again, I say, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ
is born of God. Yes, the doctrine is. The new
birth, that birth comes first before the believing. But you
never know there's been that spiritual birth until the believing
takes place. So don't misdirect somebody. I think God's working on you.
It ain't up to you, it don't matter what you see. What matters
is when they say, God, I see Christ now. They don't have to
understand election, predestination, and ecclesiastical doctrine,
and revelation, and prophecy. I see Christ now. And oh, God,
I see me. And there's such a vast difference.
And I gotta have him. To whom shall I go? He's got
the words of life. So be careful, why? Because you
can't call on him. Whoever calls on him will be
saved. That's what it says. Now calls on him as he is. Not
as you think. Calls on him as he is. Calls
on the name of the Lord. His name describes who he is.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
But you can't call on him till you believe on him. and you can't
believe on him till you hear about him, and you're not gonna
hear without a preacher. If God hasn't brought you through,
I know this ain't the best word, if God ain't brought you through
those steps, he ain't never brought you anywhere yet. Me included. That's what he does. Because
he's pleased to do it that way. Now, that preacher may just,
you may pick up this Bible, every one of these are Bible messages.
It's preaching. God can use this word. But I
know most of the time what God does is he'll use another sinner
directly talking to another sinner and brings them the truth of
the gospel of Christ. So again, remember, good ground is essential
because good seed don't help at all. As a matter of fact,
it can make things worse if it's not good ground. Remember, some
ground, that seed'll spring up in a moment, anon, immediately.
But when the heat comes out, the trials and the tribulations
and the temptations, that plant dies completely. Well, it was
still good seed. Good soil's essential. But listen
to me, good soil itself ain't worth squat apart from good seed.
The good soil ain't meant to be just good soil itself. It
is made for good seed. So the good seed will bring up
a plant, Jack, and then have fruit on it. And that fruit varies.
It varies. Okay, so that's number five.
Number six, we move along. Faith seeks its own source, kind
of like water seeks its own level. Looking. Hebrews 12, one and
two, looking unto Jesus. That's the key to all of it for
us. It is the key. It's impossible apart from the
resurrection power of God. But looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. So if you find your faith looking
to something or someone else, that's not the measure of faith
God dealt you. That's the faith you worked up
yourself. Even if you're a believer. And that's why we must cry out
with our brother that's recorded in the New Testament. Lord, I
believe. Help thou my unbelief. We sing
another song. My faith is often cold and weak.
I understand what the writer said. Again, I'm not criticizing
the writer or the song, but the measure of faith God dealt you,
and any faith he deals you on top of that if he's so pleased.
It has no fault in it whatsoever. The faith is perfect. It's the
unbelief. I used to say, talk about weak
faith and all that. No, there may be little faith,
but it's still a resplendent faith. It's still a glorious
faith because it's a little characteristic of God taken and dealt out to
us. How often we criticize God's
great gifts by saying, well, it's weak. The problem is our
unbelief's so strong. So again, as I said, let's call
it what, let's call white, white, and black, black. Let's not try
to mix the two by trying to wax doctrinally eloquent. We don't
have to figure all these things out, just believe God. You see,
just believe God. Now, pardon me. I'll try to illustrate all of
this, sum it up. The measure of faith. I read about this, well, I heard
about it, actually. Sometime in the 1940s, I didn't check
to see the exact date, it doesn't matter, but sometime in the 1940s,
and of course, this was right after the 30s, which was the
age of enlightenment, and man was, knowledge and technology
was just abounding. Of course, in our age, we've
just seen it super abound. I have this thing right here,
it's a mini computer that you put in your pocket, you know
what I mean? But in the 1940s, a lot of, several scientists
from France and from the US had gotten together, some scientists,
and psychology and psychiatry were becoming a big thing then,
and working on the psyche of men, you know, your mind and
how the mind operates. So these people all got together,
and they were, the sad part is, they were trying to prove a point,
not scientifically see if the point was so. You understand
what I'm saying? And I don't know if this is when the term
was coined, I don't know, it may have something to do with
it. You've heard the phrase nature or nurture? Which one is it? What they were going to try to
prove was, they were going to try to prove that man inside
himself really has no natural inclination to believe in a God,
you know, a higher being. It has to be nurtured into you,
you have to be taught that. So these scientists and, Psychiatrists
and psychologists all got together and did this experiment and there
were several different steps to it. They tried to lay it out
like so when we prove this is going to be scientifically accurate.
So they finally come to The last experiment, but it was the last
experiment, it ended there. Anyway, I mean, go on. So they
took two young boys, and what I heard is they were like six
or seven years old. They did a lot of checking, make
sure these boys had never been schooled up in religion or nothing.
I mean, these were just kids out there that didn't know anything.
So they did certain tests with them, not tests on them, but
tests with them. The last one, it ended up being the last one,
they took them out in the evening, into a big field to watch a sunset.
And they asked him, oh, what do you think? Describe this to
us. And the first little boy said,
that's beautiful. It's just marvelous. I mean,
it's breathtaking. And other superlatives that he
used to describe it. They asked the second little
boy, little fellas now, never schooled in religion. They asked
him, what do you think about it? And he said, that little
boy had one word. He said, it's sublime. Now in
the archaic, if you look it up on Google, sublime, you will
see it. Now under the archaic, you will see this. Something
divinely inspired. In other words, I heard Tim James
mention this. He said, that little boy was
saying, even though he'd never been schooled in God and religion,
God did that. That's what he was saying. God
did that. And they ended the study because
it didn't prove what they were set out to prove. My brothers
and sisters, The measure of faith that God dealt you is sublime. God did that. Let us thank him for it and be
eternally gratefully for it. Because it's one of those things
that connects us to God and gives us a little hope in this world.
Because if we didn't believe him, It ain't good English, but
we got no hope. Heavenly Father, may your word
constantly encourage us. We need it. We're so faulty,
so sinful. We misread things, we missee things, but Lord, we
know your word is true and your promises are absolute. Help us
to hang our all upon them, in Christ's name, amen.