The Faith of Leap

From a message preached on November 06, 2011, by Pastor Randy Thornton, pictured above

Pastor Randy Thornton said he saw Jordan, a small child, holding his father’s hand. As father and son came to a descending flight of stairs, Jordan boldly negotiated the first step but would have missed the second and stumbled had his father not air-lifted him by the hand and zoomed him to the bottom of the stairs.

That pictured “The Faith of Leap,” said Thornton, senior pastor of Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C. He delivered the following message, “The Faith of Leap,” on Sunday morning, Nov. 6, 2011. Someone said he should call his message “The Leap of Faith,” but he called it “The Faith of Leap.”

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8 NIV).

“Abraham was called from Ur of the Chaldees,” Thornton said. The ancient city of Ur was located in southern Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates River. “He was called from a plush land to go to a barren land. Being able to hear from God is very crucial for our livelihoods and families. Abraham was 75 when he left Ur of the Chaldees. ‘As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.’ If you don’t think you’re smart enough, you probably never will be. Everyone say, ‘I’m God’s favorite child.’ God has greater plans than what we can see.”

Thornton said there are going to be some young “Davids” among the youths of our time and that Paul told Timothy, a young Christian, to set an example for the believers.

“When did David begin to be a giant-killer?” Thornton asked. “David killed a wolf, a bear, a lion. David heard Goliath and believed God. He believed God gave him the victory – not he, himself. God wants to teach us to be giant-killers – young and old.”

Taking a leap of faith depends on the “faith factor.”

“James says show me your faith by your works,” Thornton noted, adding that the necessary step of risk is the faith of leap. “Satan wants to cripple us. Conviction is a gift from God. Condemnation is a gift from Satan. Satan does not want us to take that leap of faith. He wants to cripple us, immobilize us and tell us we’re junk.”

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9). 

  

To exercise faith, one must take a risk, expecting God to do a miracle.

“God wants you to know he loves you and is going to take care of you when you step out in faith. He wants to bless you, so you can bless others,” Thornton said. “Many say they have faith in God – ‘We have entrusted our lives and hopes to a good and powerful God’ – but this faith is usually inward and passive, inwardly focused, comforting, with a sense of security.”

That’s good, Thornton said.

“The other kind of faith is active and is outwardly focused and usually very discomforting,” he said. “Knowing that we are sent and to whom we are sent, we take deliberate risks that put us in complete dependence on God for a miracle.”

Many Christians play the “safe mode.”

“It’s time to kick it up a step,” Thornton said. “The risk key is a purposeful action you take, in spite of discomfort or fear, to exercise your faith during an act of obedience.”

Matthew 17:19-20: Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it [a demon] out?” He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

“How many of you parents know your kids have to learn some things the hard way?” Thornton asked. “How many of you know you are all in fulltime Christian ministry? The amount of our faith is directly related to our understanding that we have heard from God.”

“And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith,” (Matthew 13:58).

“Sometimes those who are going to be the last to believe you’ve heard from God is your own family,” Thornton said. “We must name our unbelief in an all-powerful God – where it lies – and reject it [unbelief]. If we want to pursue the life of the supernatural, we must take action. I’m really glad it doesn’t take a superstar. It just takes you and me.”

Thornton prayed this benediction:

"Father, I thank you, today, that we are your favorite children because of what you’ve done on the cross … God, I pray you’d begin to set your people free in Jesus’ name … Raise up a generation of young people wholly devoted and sold out to you!”