Reaching for Faith

A woman had decided to go to bed early that night. She was awakened at 12am that morning. In the middle of the night something or someone inside of her had told her. "I want you to go on the internet, go to so-n-so website. Click on these sermons. I want you to hear something." The woman did what she was told. Thing was she wasn't prepared for the message. In the middle of listening to these sermons, a voice inside kept repeating the word "faith". As one of the sermon came to an end she stopped what she was playing. A loud voice spoke to her and said, "Where is your faith?"

Let's take a trip back to the past, back to the days of when the word faith was used consistently.

There is a woman that comes to mind. Oh, how she had suffered for 12 years diseased with an issue of blood. Back in those days the Rabbi's went beyond the Old Testament teaching on the issue of blood. They referred having menstrual or periods as unclean. In Mark 5: 25-34, a certain woman which had an issue of blood said to herself. If I touch the hem of His garment, I will become whole. What a bold statement. It goes on; she did touch the hem of His garment. Jesus then turned to her and said, "Daughter, be of good comfort thy faith hath made you whole." Let me repeat those words. Thy faith hath made you whole. What an example of faith.

Luke 7: 36 – 50 tells of another woman. A Pharisee had invited Jesus to have dinner with him. As Jesus reclined at the table, a woman in that town who was sinful learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house. So she went there. She stood behind Jesus' feet and began to weep. As the story goes on she began to wet Jesus feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair and poured alabaster oil on them. We know the story, towards the end Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." She had faith to go and weep on Jesus feet and poured alabaster oil and by doing just that her faith saved her.

Let's return to the present. Let's look at our modern day world using the word faith but in the context of faith in people or human beings.

There is a Pastor. We meet under unusual circumstances. We don't meet on a regular basis. It is always at odd times. I would call her my angel at the hour of need. She shows up when I am going through difficult times not any other time. When I look at her and her faith, her faith in a human being is very strong. Her faith shows her when she is needed. I had emailed her one day and asked her a question regarding her pastoral role. And the question was, has she ever taken off her hat as a pastor and humbled herself as a human being in the front of her congregation. I was in awe, as she answered my question in the front of her congregation the following Sunday morning I had visited her church. What struck me that Sunday morning was she wrestled with God that week on a verse in the bible for her sermon, she kept trying to avoid it, and it was too hard on her. She had told her congregation of how she had wrestled with God. To me that was total faith, to let the human being be shown to other human beings. Faith in this situation requires total trust in the congregation. Sometimes, we think that God’s messengers have total faith. We need to open ourselves to others and show each other who God created versus the masks we wear everyday to hide our ourselves, when what God is actually seeing is the beauty He created.

Let me continue on with the story of the woman who was awakened at 12a.m. The next morning she gathered her belonging to go on a retreat that week. That morning of her retreat she thought she was getting away from the chaos and garbage of her life and getting away from everyone. As she entered the retreat site, it was huge. It was as if she had entered a kingdom. She looked at this place saying “this place is too good for me.” She did not deserve to be in a beautiful kingdom. For a few days she had been processing where she had lost faith and she came up with the answer of where she found faith. She had pieces of email a year and a half ago. Of what faith people had in her, I began to see, see what was written. I began to hear, hear what God and the people in my life were saying to me. The question I had asked people in my life was, what kind of faith did they have in me? Because I sure didn’t have faith in myself, these were some of their replies: You have faith in humanity and you are part of humanity. You are a human being with a big heart who is trying to live honestly and with integrity. You can do anything. Faith is to surrender. To give up claim or to give up one's self to the word faith. It is not an easy thing to do. I have been there so many times. I would lose faith and wished I was there back in those days when Jesus walked this earth. To be there to touch the hem of his garment to be healed or to weep on Jesus’ feet to restore my faith, faith that had been lost because I was busy with the chaos of my life. As we traveled to the past and looked at 2 women of the bible, examples of how much pain, sickness and sin they went through and for them to have faith, they were healed and saved. To look at how faith is used today to have lost faith in one's self but God had used a person to show that faith to another human being. And to have faith in God, we are reaching for faith.

A month ago, I went on another weekend retreat. And as I started to write this sermon, at 12am, once again I heard a softer voice and it said "Where is your faith?" It was the same voice to remind me of faith.

See sometimes we have been so busy with so many things; the question is what are you willing to give up Jessie? What are you willing to give up church? For me I surrender me and grab a hold of faith as if it was the last thing I have on earth. Have faith in human beings who love you and care for you. But most of all have faith in our Lord Jesus who has been there the whole time and acknowledging that He was there all the time with us. Where is our faith? In Jesus name, Amen.

"Freedom, from what?"

I have always wondered what my answer would be. I had begun to run away as an adult. For 2 years I had thought running away from myself would set me free. I had gotten on that airplane to who knows where. And then when I felt that tug the kind that would tell me “hey your feelings are about to re-emerge”. It told me when I needed to go buy a plane ticket. It would always be a one way ticket. 2 years of running from me is harder that I could have imagined. Always came up with an excuse why I had to leave after staying a few weeks here and there. All the lies I had to come up with. The lies started with small ones then it became outrages. I came to Washington thinking ok, this family of mine would be an ok one. Instead of it being an ok one, it became an abusive one. I never thought about it, to come up with a lie and get on an airplane to who knows where. Somehow, this wasn’t the plan I had thought it was supposed to be. Recently, I looked at freedom as a way to be rid of a family that I grew up with that did not love or accept me. Love growing up had become just things that were done to me. Not good things such as nurturing, caring, belonging, it had become a destructive love. I had to close my heart it was more of locking it with a thick chain and padlock that no one could get through. I remember about 2 years ago when people in my life would say “I love you Jessie”. I answered them by saying “Go across the street and yell to me I love you and it will go my hand”. I repeated is so many times. I didn’t understand why people where loving me. Why did I need anyone to love me or why did I need to need anyone? I didn’t need love nor did I need my needs to be met. I eventually accept it but not quite fully. Not completely. A part of my head knew but not my heart, it wasn’t easy because I walked around on this earth thinking I was in a dream. I live in a dream world where everything is not real. Love and all.

In my head I had a thought; I want to be set free from my family. How do I do it? My mind went on a rampage of thoughts. All I wanted to do was I want to get out. I wanted out from this dysfunctional family. I was still in an abusive relationship with my mother. I would forgive my mom and something always happened. I had tried so hard to be a daughter to her, but no such luck. As I recall growing up my parents never told me to my face that they were proud of me. I had become a youth leader at church for a couple of years and there no words that were spoken to me. I had become pathfinder leader even gotten to the highest ranking still no words. Just about a year ago I had gone to see my mother and I finally told her what she was doing to me. It was just what needed to do. On a Wednesday night I went to church when I was in Hawaii. I didn’t realize God had a message for me. The person who had given the sermon that evening was my little cousin. The message was God uses those who are broken or have total brokenness. But it was more of the message I was hearing in my own heart. As my cousin mentioned the story of Job and of Joseph, it hit me hard. It was time to be set free. Free from what? It was my own heart. It was time for me to unlock my heart. To free my heart to let the people in my life into my heart, to come in and be close to me, and to know they love, I never dream it would happen to me. I didn’t pray about this dream world to be free from. I didn’t pray for my heart to be open for anyone.

Let’s take a look at the story of Job. There was a deal that was going on with God and Satan. God told Satan “you can do anything to Job, the only thing you can’t do is take away Job's right to choose”. Satan did everything to the point that Job’s wife did not love him anymore. She wanted him to give in. He was ridiculed, physically torn but Job’s faith in God was very strong. Job never gave up. Even when he was at the lowest, to the point of brokenness, he maintained his strong faithfulness to God.

Joseph a young boy, one of his father’s favorite. If you remember the story, Joseph always went out to the field to go give his brothers food. And what had happened, all but one brother were jealous of him and they sold him to the Egyptians. He then became the right man to the king.

Freedom, what freedom am I reaching for? I ask myself now. Freedom from self, freedom from things that get in the way, freedom is 1st Corinthians 13 verses 1 & 2. It says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. A though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” I am nothing if I don’t have love. It says in verse 13, “And now abideth in faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
Freedom is charity.

“Where Do We Go When Life Struggles Hit?”

Psalms 23 sometimes referred to as: The Pearl of Psalms, The Nightingale Psalms, or The Shepherd Song about His Shepherd. Psalms 23 also gives us a picture of a tender Shepherd, who leads his flock, protecting them from the perils of the wilderness but also the picture of the Greatest Host.
Psalms 23 has been recited over and over in my life since a child. I remember as a child, I had to memorize this memory verses. At a church I had gone to, there were certain times of the year where we had stood in front of the congregation and recite memory verses in Samoan. Let me just tell you, reciting them in Samoan was lot more difficult, a lot of the times; you didn’t understand what you where saying. Us kids those days, really wasn’t thinking of what we were saying, it was after we had said it, and that was when the excitement started. It was when what goodies, or where our treat was coming from. At times it would be like a game, in what we would call our ultimate destination and it would be like McDonald’s or Jack in the Box. The mega destination if we did the best would be Fun Factory. When it came to learning the verses we were rebels, until the day came to do it, we knew what our big prize would be.
It is when we become older and get in that stuck mode, which is where we revel Psalms 23. When all else failed us, then we turned to the last thing we know, our bibles and we read the Psalm that David wrote when he was a shepherd. I had gone through many trials and tribulations. For me, Psalms 23 wasn’t in sight. I was blind and deaf to God, yet God was doing His work in telling me to listen, and he did it through people that were around me. And then recently I went on vacation because I was going through struggles in my life that I couldn’t handle, all I knew that my heart was full of anger, rage, and hurt. At first my anger was towards people, then I began to have rage, but rage in a different manner, I had made an excuse that I was starting to get angry toward the people who was treating God invisibly. Well, in all these trials, I decide to go away. What surprised me was God knew exactly where I needed to be. In a room full of books, a library, and that is where my room was. God worked to the point that I did a 360 turn that I was now waking up in the morning and my schedule look this. Between 7am and 2pm that is the time God allotted me to be in His presence, He told me, come and sit here, I said ok, then He told me, you see all these books, well they are yours so you would have time for me. I will take you away from this world, and where I take you, you will feel my peace and presence, you will take time to know me. And I did. Well, so, I did what God wanted me to do. In between my time with God, I had emailed a pastor and asked him for a sermon writing assignment. He said to write a sermon on Psalms 23. I have not written a sermon on Psalms 23 before. I took up the challenge. Then as I began to research Psalms 23, it was as if Jesus said, Jessie, I am your Psalms 23 and I am shepherding you at this moment. What are you going to give up for me Jessie? I told Jesus this, I will give up hours for you, so I could know you intimately and my heart is longing to be in your presence. Psalms 23 is quite simple. God is my shepherd, my teacher, my guide, my source of hope and peace, my rest, who replenishes my life. Everything I need for my daily life and the answer to my struggles in life. When I had come back from my trip I had another interesting short talk with another pastor, and I told her, Psalms 23 is a revolving cycle every day. It is a continual cycle that revives us every day. As I reflect upon Psalms 23, it fully opens and awakens the words for me as I am in the presence of God, at the time I had given all to him. I have also seen it where when I am in the presence of God, I have no fear, I have no worries, I have no troubles. In Psalms 23:3 says, “You let me rest in fields of green grass, you lead me to streams of peaceful water and you refresh my life.” What powerful words these are? They are true in my own experience; Psalms 23 is repeating itself as I open my bible, and studying his words, and as I open myself to be Shepherd by God.
“There was once a Shakespearean actor who was known everywhere for his one-man shows of readings and recitations from the classics. He would always end his performance with a dramatic reading of Psalm 23. Each night, without exception, as the actor began his recitation - "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want"...The crowd would listen attentively. And then, at the conclusion of the Psalm, they would rise in thunderous applause in appreciation of the actor's incredible ability to bring the verse to life. But one night, just before the actor was to offer his customary recital of Psalm 23, a young man from the audience spoke up. "Sir, do you mind if tonight I recite Psalm 23?" The actor was quite taken back by this unusual request, but he allowed the young man to come forward and stand front and center on the stage to recite the Psalm, knowing that the ability of this unskilled youth would be no match for his own talent. With a soft voice, the young man began to recite the words of the Psalm. When he was finished, there was no applause. There was no standing ovation as on other nights. All that could be heard was the sound of weeping. The audience had been so moved by the young man's recitation that every eye was full of tears. Amazed by what he had heard, the actor said to the youth, "I don't understand. I have been performing Psalm 23 for years. I have a lifetime of experience and training - but I have never been able to move an audience as you have tonight. Tell me, what is your secret?" The young man quietly replied, "Well sir, you know the Psalm... I know the Shepherd."”

Sermon of the Palsy

Once upon a time, there was a man who had never been sick a day in his life. When he felt a little pain, who would think to, why worry about it? It’ll go away. But this time, the pain didn’t go away. In fact, it got worst. So, he finally gave in and went to the doctor. The doctor didn’t waste any time thoroughly checking him out. And the doctor gave him his diagnosis. “I got some bad news and some good news.” The doctor said. The man said, “I will take the bad news first.” “Ok,” the doctor replied and there was a note of sadness in his voice. “You have a terrible disease. In fact, it’s terminal.” “Are you sure doctor, I have never been sick before, Are you sure there is no mistake?” “I’ve never made a mistake in a diagnosis,” the doctor assured him. “But don’t you want to hear the good news?” The man answered, “oh yes, I almost forgot about the good news.” “I have a cure for your disease. I developed it, and this the only place you can get it. It cost me everything I had, but I can give it to you free of charge.” Capernaum city is on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. To the northwest of Carpernaum is Mt. Meron. To the southwest of Capernaum is the village of Cana. Carpernaum was Jesus’ headquarters from which He conducted His Galilean ministry and where He considers His home. There in Capernaum was a man with Palsy. Palsy is a paralytic, the loss of the power of voluntary motion in any part of the body. Jesus had just come back from his ministry. News had spread that Jesus is in Carpernaum. So, everyone gathered there, even scribes who came from the villages of Galilee, Judea, and from Jerusalem. If you can imagine this church being overcrowded and there are people standing outside in the corridors and you are tightly squeezed to each other. Let’s use this century as an example of how this would happen. So, there is just one door, the main entrance, but if you were outside there are still people outside surrounding the church. Here are these four men outside with a paralytic on a gurney, and if I was one of those men, how do I get my friend to see Jesus to be healed. Wow! It must have been tough on them. They don’t see a ladder, the only way they would know is to go to the airport hire a helicopter and reel down the palsy man and his four friends unto the roof. What caught my eye in the story is how they knew exactly where to open the roof where Jesus would be at. And to be lowered down in front of Jesus, that must have been quite a sight. They had faith to even bring their friend to Jesus to be healed. And they knew where their faith would be in exact roof top. Let’s return to the past at that moment. So, they lowered the palsy on a mat in front of Jesus and Jesus says “Son, your sins are forgiven.” He looks at the Palsy’s four friends and their faith as we see in Mark 2:5. It says, When Jesus saw how much faith they had” meaning the four friends. “He said to the cripple man, my friend your sins are forgiven.” What faith these four had with their friend. Sometimes, we help our friends out and sometimes we give up on them. We don’t have the faith for the friends because we are busy struggling with our own faith. We continue on with this miracle that is happening. The scribes who where there, started to think amongst themselves. Why would He say such a thing? He must think he is God. Only God can forgive sins. This is not the first time in the bible of how people are wondering this way. If we remember Luke 7:36-50, the story of the woman who wept on Jesus’ feet and the guests who were their said, “Who is this who even forgives sins,” just as the scribes are thinking it, scribes were the copyist of scriptures and teachers of law. Scribes comes from the name “sepher” and means scripturalists, those who explained and copied the law. I am going to stop for minute. And let’s reflect on the scribes. We know that they are good in scriptures, yet they wonder, why are they wondering, in those days Jesus was on earth, God talked to the prophets. In our day we wonder so aimlessly of a God, of Jesus. We have a book that is given to us to know God, to know Jesus. We are so very near to God. He speaks to us through various ways. We do get caught up with the world. And we lose sight of everything. Our minds are clouded and blinded and we miss out of what God is bestowing to us every single day. I am grateful because at the end of this story in Mark 2:12, they believed and trusted when they saw with their own eyes what had just happened. They even praised God and said, “We have never seen anything like this!” Back to our story of the man and doctor, well, that was good news to the man, and he knew immediately he’d done the right thing going to this doctor. He got excited that started walking towards the door, and the doctor stopped him. “You can get the medicine from my colleague next door (The Holy Spirit). And you’ll need to keep in close touch with me.” This comment brought the man back to reality. He sat down and asked more questions. “Doctor, are you really sure you can keep me from dying and cure me of my disease?” “Absolutely, I’ve never lost a patient.” “Never?” “Never!” The man asked, “Did you say I have to get rid of the disease to keep from dying? Man, are you out of your mind?” The doctor replied in astonishment. “Being well is not a duty, but a privilege!” The man said all right. “Just remember to keep in touch with me and take your medicine, I can give you this assurance, you are not going to die as long as you keep in touch with me.” So, the man left. He felt so good that after awhile he figured he did not need to his medicine quite so faithfully. For few days, he even forgot to take it all. Sure enough the symptoms came back. He went back to the doctor who knew exactly knew that he had not been faithful with his medicine or his calls. “You simply must do as I say in order to continue being well.” “You are still assured of the cure I promised, but in order to be well, you will need to take your medicine and keep in touch with me.” After this, the man didn’t forget his instructions; day by day he took the medicine and he kept call to be sure he was correctly doing what the doctor wanted him to do. At his next visit, although he had been faith to his instructions, the man was visibility troubled. He said, “sometimes I feel I’ve got the disease licked, but other times I am not sure I can faithful enough in my contacts with you and with my to really ever totally free of this problem.” The doctor said, “Listen friend, you have to remember that you haven’t got the disease licked; as you say I do. The cure is mine. Your assurance will never be in your taking the medicine. Your assurance is in me, your doctor, Trust me! It is because of the certainty of the cure you are made well. That fact that you can still, at anytime have a recurrence of the symptoms shouldn’t discourage you but remind you or your need of me. If you lack assurance, it’s because you don’t know and trust me. Remember the work is mine, and I am able. Isn’t that assurance enough?”