These are notes on the sermon, The Key To Robust Faith, preached by Pastor Joseph Prince on Sunday, 23 September 2018, at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore. We hope these sermon notes will be an encouragement to you!Be sure to sign up to get updates on the latest sermon notes by Team JP.
Have you ever wondered what it really means to have great faith?
We hope these notes will help you understand:
In this sermon, Pastor Prince shares how when we look to the Lord first and foremost, we can have robust faith that unlocks His blessings in our lives to the full—as seen through true stories of people in the Bible.
Pastor Prince shares how the grace revolution is happening all over the world, and as believers, we’re all part of it.
Grace isn’t something new, it’s something being restored to the body of Christ.
The gospel of grace is not just something to get souls saved by. It’s everything to us.
Christ is God’s greatest gift to all of us (Rom. 8:32).
If God holds back provision and healing from you, then He’s saying that these blessings are more precious than Jesus.
No, friend. When God gave up Jesus, He gave us healing, provision, the abundant life, favor, eternal life. The church needs to come back to the simplicity of trusting God’s goodness and grace.
The One who wasn’t spared was the One whom God loved: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17)
You’ll never know how much God loves you until you know how much God loves Jesus.
That’s why it’s important that we study the names of Jesus. In finding Him, we find ourselves.
The greatest knowledge of all: that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent (John 17:3 KJV)
Today, if you’re a believer, God is not dealing with you according to your sins, but according to the glorious Man (Jesus) at His right hand.
What Jesus deserves, you get. Just as at the cross, when Jesus became sin for us, He suffered the consequences of sin (e.g. sickness)—so that we who had sinned against God might be made the righteousness of God in Him, with all its blessings.
Pastor Prince ministers to precious people in the congregation who are unwell and prays for those who have:
Pastor spoke Proverbs 3:25 over the church member with the blood clot in her brain, “Do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes…” and assured her not to be afraid of sudden death.
Pastor declares that God made man with perfect memory. Adam could name all the animals, and we have the mind of Christ. Just because one grows old doesn’t mean that we’ve to surrender to natural forces. Moses could recite everything in the wilderness and all the laws of God when he was nearly 120 years old.
Pastor reminded them that God gives His beloved sleep. (Ps. 127:2)
Pastor Prince tells them to see themselves in the TV of their mind—that they’ll run and not be weary, walk and not faint (Isa. 40:31). He encourages them to thank the Lord for healing and they’ll see it explode in their bodies.
Pastor invites congregation members to pray for their fellow members.
Sometimes God gives us feelings to help us realize He’s doing something.
Pastor shares that healing is a grace gift that we can receive regardless of how good we are.
Pastor Prince also addresses people whose conditions weren’t called out and assures them that the Lord knows their conditions, and they’re not alone in this fight.
“Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.”
—Psalm 78:41
We limit God because of what other people say, false doctrines that’ve crept into the church, natural experience.
And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.”
—Matt. 9:28–30
Notice Jesus didn’t say, “Do you believe that you can see”, but “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
Our faith is not in our faith. Our faith is in Him.
Pastor Prince shares about a father in the Bible whose son was possessed by a spirit from childhood. The father said, “…if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
And Jesus replied, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:22–23)
Here, Jesus isn’t putting the responsibility on the man to believe—in the Young’s Literal Translation (YLT), the verse says, “…all things are possible to the one that is believing”, which is Himself.
Jesus is saying, “Hook up your little faith to Me. It’s not about your faith but who your faith is in. All I want you to believe is that all things are possible for Me, and I am always full of faith.” As the Apostle Paul said, “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20 KJV)
So when you look at a situation, don’t ask if you can believe God for this but if Jesus can believe God for this!
“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect…”
— Rom. 4:13-14
Let’s say you’re believing God for healing for your child, but a voice tells you, “You haven’t prayed enough. Read your Bible enough. You’re not good enough. Remember what you did the other day?”
You start assessing yourself based on what you’ve done/not done, instead of the Lord’s goodness and what He’s done at the cross.
Instead of putting your eyes on Jesus, you put your eyes on yourself, and that’s effectively putting yourself under law.
The moment you put yourself under law, faith cannot operate.
Pastor shares about how none of the Israelites died during their journey from Egypt to Sinai—a picture of pure grace.
God didn’t bring them out of Egypt because of their faithfulness but because of His faithfulness, an unconditional covenant that He made with Abraham before the law even existed.
The law is about our behavior, but the amazing thing is that when we live by faith, it purifies our hearts which affects our conduct.
When we try to be good, though, we end up being bad (see Rom. 7).
Only 2 people in the Gospels are said to have great faith: The Roman Centurion whose servant was sick, and the Syrophoenician woman.
Even though they were so different (in gender, in occupation, where they lived), they had a common denominator: Both were Gentiles, so they didn’t know the law but they knew Jesus.
The law always tells you, “Wait a minute, you haven’t done enough.” God gave the law for man to be conscious of sin, not to produce moral excellence. It was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.
Now that faith has come we are no longer under the schoolmaster of law. We don’t have to be sin-conscious, and let the law deprive us of believing God with robust faith.
The only commandment for the believer: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and love one another. And one way of doing that is by praying for one another.
Job got set free from one year of captivity when he prayed for his friends.
The first time healing is mentioned in the Bible is where Abraham prayed and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so they could have children again. Here, Abraham had just lied that his wife Sarah was his sister (see Gen. 20:1-17).
In Gen. 21:1-2, Sarah conceived and bore Isaac.
It was an undeserving man praying for an undeserving man. Abraham prayed for others’ wombs to be open, and God opened his own wife’s womb.
So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron.
—Judges 1:19
If the Lord was with them, the chariots of iron may as well have been made of tissue. This is the Lord who knocked down the giant Goliath with a single stone by David, who had faith in Him.
Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, “Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?” And the Lord said, “Judah shall go up. Indeed I have delivered the land into his hand.” So Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me to my allotted territory, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory.” And Simeon went with him. Then Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand; and they killed ten thousand men at Bezek.
— Judges 1:1-4
Judah means praise. In all your challenges, the first thing that must go up to the Lord is praise. In good times, praise the Lord, in bad times (e.g. you’re stuck in a traffic jam), praise the Lord anyway.
The Lord wanted to deliver the land into Judah’s hand alone, but he wanted to bring Simeon along.
We all want support of the flesh. Moses in the Bible also said he wasn’t eloquent, and in the end God had to make Aaron his spokesman (Exo. 4:10-17).
But when God calls you, He will equip you. When you limit God, your victory is limited. It will show up where you don’t trust God.
Ask counsel from God before you ask from man, no matter how godly he is. Don’t run to the doctor first, because they can make mistakes and your life is too precious for that.
Seek the Lord first, He can give you peace and arrange circumstances (e.g. bring the right doctor for you). But now, your trust is in the Lord, not the doctor, because you prayed to Him.
For those believing for children, the Lord can also lead you to do in-vitro fertilization (IVF). There’s no shame in that—for every good and perfect gift (that medical treatments are part of) is from above. But seek Him first.
There’s no insignificant detail in the Bible. Every word is inspired.
“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions…”
— Hebrews 11:32-33
Chronologically speaking, Barak came before Gideon, Jephthah before Samson, and Samuel before David. But the mentions of their names are reversed, because Gideon, Samson and David had more excellent faith than their counterparts.
Barak told Deborah, who was judge of Israel then (Judg. 4:3-4), “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go (and destroy Sisera, the commander of King Jabin’s army)!” (Judg. 4:8).
In the end, it was a woman, Jael, who killed Sisera (Judg. 4:9).
But Gideon’s eyes were on the Lord (even though he did ask the Lord about the fleeces). Barak was looking to a woman.
And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi (exaltation of the jawbone). And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.
— Judges 15:15-19 KJV
“Found a new jawbone of an ass” — Under law, Samson would have failed, because he was under a Nazarite vow that stated he couldn’t touch dead bodies, it wasn’t the time of the Gentiles yet.
But faith transcends time and space. And the Lord wrought the victory for him.
When Samson was sore athirst, he called on the Lord. And he gave God the glory—“Thou hast given this great deliverance…”
Jephthah, on the other hand resorted to a barter with the Lord, showing a weakness of faith because he had no relationship with God. — “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”
— Judges 11:30-31
In the end, it was Jephthah’s daughter who came out. Although Jephthah didn’t have to kill her (the Lord didn’t accept human offerings), she had to stay unmarried for her entire life.
Now it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel. But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.
— 1 Sam 8:1-3
Although David loved his sons, he never put them in positions of authority, unlike Prophet Samuel. It was David’s son Absalom who tried to usurp his throne. David had faith in God’s decision.
While Prophet Samuel’s character was amazing, David had faith that the Lord approved of.
Even ordinary people can walk in excellency of faith.
This is seen in how the prophets are mentioned last in Hebrews 11:32. All the people mentioned in this verse are also ordinary people, except for David (king).
Abraham and Sarah laughed when God told them they would be parents. And their son Isaac means laughter.
When Sarah heard she’d have a baby, she laughed and said, “Shall I have pleasure?” Not “Shall I have a baby?” So she was saying, “If I enjoy my lord, the baby will come.”
Christianity is about the joy of the Lord. It’s not “You gotta be joyful, man”—that’s a law. It’s knowing that the Lord rejoices over you with singing.
If you trust your abilities to be morally excellent, you are limited. But if you trust the Lord as your holiness, redemption, wisdom—the result will be supernatural.
The Lord is not limited. We limit Him.
When He fed the 5,000, He gave them as much as they would (imperfect active tense in John 6:11). As long as the people kept eating, the supply kept flowing.
Don’t hear this sermon and say, “I just need faith in God. God and I are enough.” That is the independence of the flesh.
Have the independence of faith instead—your eye is on the Lord, but follow His leading when He tells you to invite someone to church, or to go to a leader/counsellor for advice.
Psalm 1:1 — “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly” (not wicked!) so seek the Lord first, then follow His leading.
Pastor Prince speaks Deut. 33:25 over the people and says, the world says you’ll get weaker as you grow older, but God says the older you are, the stronger you are.
When you trust the Lord, an inexhaustible reservoir of His supply is opened to you. In all our reasonings, never leave God out of the calculations.
Pastor Prince prays God’s protection, favor, shalom, health and well-being over the congregation.
We hope these sermon notes blessed you! If they did, we encourage you to get the sermon and allow the Lord to speak to you personally as you watch or listen to it.
© Copyright JosephPrince.com 2018
These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.
Sign Up for Latest Sermon Notes Updates
SubscribeTo complete the subscription process, please click on the confirmation link in the email we just sent you.
You're already in our mailing list. Thank You!
