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Contagious Faith Heb. 11:32
Judges 4:1-24

In all seriousness, it was about five summers ago when the picture was taken. While preaching a camp meeting in the state of West Virginia another preacher and I decided to go golfing one afternoon. Levi who went along for the ride in the golf cart snapped a few pictures with my camera.

For years I had been praying literally for God to help me find a way to loose weight. At 268 pounds I needed to loose weight and I needed to loose it bad. Everything I tried seemed to only make me feel as though I was starving.

His name was Howard Taylor and at the time he was a consultant from California who flew in once a month to spend the day with me teaching me about the work of Development. As he talked about this new diet called the Atkins diet I began to sense that this might be something that would work for me. At the same time, my brother began to talk to me about the same diet.

After consulting my doctor and learning that it would be a lifestyle change and I would have to do it for life, I began to live the carb free life. It was the answer to my prayers and if it had not been for Howard Taylor and my brother who started the diet about the same time I would not have ventured to try it. Their stories were contagious. They were using statements like, “You can watch the pounds disappear.” “You will loose at least a couple of pounds a week.”

While we are not here to promote the Atkins diet, I am here to talk to you about being contagious. If you are excited enough about something you will influence other people.

Influence is a critical and dangerous thing. You are influencing people everyday for better or worse.

A little three-year-old boy had been learning the game of golf by watching his grandfather play. "The boy was so enthused, I bought him his own set of clubs," said Grandpa. The following week the entire family had a cookout and the little boy who had learned to golf by watching Grandpa announced, "Watch me play golf!" and then he said a bad word and threw his golf club into the pear tree.

Contagious faith is all about influence. The word contagious means, “communicable by contact.” It is also defined as, “exciting similar emotions or conduct in others.”

His name was Barak. I am quite sure that most of us in this room would be hard pressed to remember what he did that would have landed him in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.

This is the fourth message in this series based on the stories of the people listed in Hebrews 11. We have learned about the faith of Joshua, Rahab and Gideon, and now we come to this guy by the name of Barak.

This really is a stunning story to find in the Bible. On many different levels I think you will find this story fascinating. The story is really not about Barak although he received the honor of having his name listed in the who’s who list of Hebrews 11.

Let me try to set up the story. I know this will surprise you but Israel is back in trouble with God again. Because of their wayward and drifting ways they are being once again harassed by an enemy army that God is using to try to teach them a lesson.

I think Israel being in trouble with God is probably one of the most reoccurring themes of the Bible! Once again, God chooses someone to lead His people only this time He chooses to lead through the influence and contagious faith of a woman named Deborah.

Deborah inspired Barak into a great adventure for God.

There are five principles about contagious faith that I want to share with you from this story this morning.

1. A strong faith will be a contagious faith.

Judges 4:4-7 “Deborah a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. . . she sent for Barak . . . and said to him, ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: Go and take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor. I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

Anyone who is full of a disease is far more likely to infect others with that disease than someone who is suffering from only a slight attack.

Christ followers who are strong in faith are far more likely to influence others for the Lord than one who is weak in their faith.

All of us have had someone in our lives whose faith encouraged and inspired us. We all have a story.

The question we need to ask ourselves today is simply how contagious is our faith?
Are you and I passing along the faith that God has given us.
Are we strong in the area of believing even when our world falls a part?

I don’t know about you but I want to be a strong Christian.
I don’t want to be weak. I don’t want it to just be a Sunday thing that doesn’t affect the rest of my life.

2. Contagious faith is not about being strong.

God is not looking for steroid enhanced people who will intimidate the enemy. Too often we are quick to equate faith with strength but that is certainly not what God is looking for. In the culture we live in we put a really big emphasis on being popular, or cool, or with it. We love to make celebrities out of people.
In God’s kingdom there are no celebrities. The people God uses are the weak who recognize that they cannot do it without God’s help.

I.Cor. 1:26-29, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before Him.”

Don’t feel discouraged because of your lack of courage. Ask God to help your faith to be strong and then don’t be afraid to tackle what He gives you to do.

3. Sharing your faith is part of the process.

Deborah knew what God wanted done but there is no way that she could do it alone. She was not a soldier. She was not versed in war and war strategy. The only thing she could possibly do was share her faith and infect someone else with the same passion and belief that she possessed.

Judges 4:8-9 “Barak said to her, ‘If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.’ ‘Very well,’ said Deborah, ‘I will go with you.’”

She had the faith and Barak had the feet to do the work. It is obvious that he did not have as much faith as Deborah but he responded to her call.

The reason you and I are to be strong in our faith is to share it with others. We are moving to the idea of team ministry in this church. No one should be a lone ranger. In fact even the Lone Range had a team!

Sharing in ministry is the only way to be effective. God is not calling you to be a one woman or one man show. Two are always more effective than one.

4. Contagious faith is a sanctified faith.

There is no substitute for living a surrendered life. The people with the most contagious faith are those who live their lives to please God and not themselves.

Barak had to learn this lesson. When he couldn’t quite have enough faith on his own he had to accept the fact that he would not receive the honor for doing the battle he was going to win.

Judges 4:9 “But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman.”

How many of us would have been okay with this scenario? First of all this soldier’s soldier is in essence being given orders by a woman. There is no way that most men in the Old Testament culture would have been comfortable with that. Second, now Deborah tells him that he is not going to win any medals or glory. He is just going to do most of the hard work and then a woman is going to make the headlines.

If there is one principle that we must come to believe in this church it has to be that we do what we do in the ministries that God gives us for his honor and not our own.

People who are doing it for themselves get upset when they don’t get recognized.
People who are doing it for themselves are the first ones to cause strife and division among other Christians.

Do you know what people think of you when you try to cause problems? They know that there is spiritual immaturity in your life.

The mature Christ follower is a person who does what they do for God and not the glory of man. Oh may God help us to grasp this principle.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneer's NFL playoff hopes ended January 12, 2002, with a 31-9 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The loss also closed a chapter in the life of the team's coach Tony Dungy. Despite several successful seasons, management fired the coach when their championship hopes were dashed.

At a news conference, Dungy did not complain, he wasn't bitter, and he didn't use harsh words. Instead, he humbly said thanks for fond memories, and said he'd enjoyed his time in Tampa.

The grandson of a Baptist minister had quite an impact on the community of Tampa. Dungy was involved in various projects at his local church, including outreach groups and hosting traveling missionaries. The former coach and father of four actively supported the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and were active in a ministry that strengthens families by reinforcing the role of the father.

When Dungy wasn't busy on the football field, he found time to drive some kids to school in a neighborhood carpool. Mike Merrill, president of an organization Dungy served, told a local paper that he grieved over the firing of Tony Dungy. He said, "Though it might sound a bit dramatic to some, there is really no way to express what Tony Dungy, the man, has meant to our community."

Tony Dungy may not have had the impact in professional football his team had hoped. Yet, he quietly and humbly served in his community where his impact will be felt for years to come.

5. Contagious faith leads to a successful conclusion.

Now I want to delicately tell the conclusion of this story. Barak led them into battle. The enemy was killed. In fact the Bible says that not one man was left.

There was one left and that was Sisera the commander of Jabin’s army.

Tell the story...

Judges 4:23 “On that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites.”Judges 5:3c “Then the land had peace forty years.”

For over one year Martin and Gracia Burnham lived with the nightmare as captives of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, having been kidnapped while celebrating their wedding anniversary at a resort in the Philippines. This missionary pilot and his wife endured life on the run in the jungle and struggled to understand God’s will in all of those torturous days.

If you followed this story at all you would know that Gracia sometimes came close to loosing it. By her own words in her recently published book about their ordeal she admits to sometimes being extremely mad at God. Even in the video interview that were shown here in the States you could sense her frustration and struggling faith. Martin on the other hand always appeared to be a rock of faith and trust in God. When you read her words you see him over and over influencing the other hostages as well as his captors with his unwavering and contagious faith.

In the end Martin Burnham died in the rescue attempt made by the Philippine Army. Even as Gracia describes those moments of terror as she realizes her husband is dead you sense his influence coming into play. As she is being rescued and leaving the body of her husband temporarily in the jungle she writes, “I can’t go to sleep, and I can’t fall apart here, I told myself. I’ve made it this far. I tried to remember Martin’s words from so many times before: ‘You can do this Gracia. You’ve got to go home whole.’”

When she talked to her children for the first time by phone and told them about their father’s death, one of them asked, “Mom are you going to have a nervous breakdown? Everyone is expecting one.” “Oh honey,” I said. “I had my breakdowns in the jungle. Actually, I wasn’t very strong there. But your Dad sure was. I learned so much from him this past year.”

On the first Sunday after returning home and Martin’s funeral, Gracia went to their home church. In her words, “So many Sundays in the jungle I had sat on the ground thinking of the high privilege of gathering with other believers to worship God. To sit in a seat, to sing again, to pray, to listen to the word of God—it was exquisite. Doug Burnham, one of Martin’s brothers led the worship that morning. We began to sing:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus name.

On Christ the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

My mind flashed back to the mangrove swamp on Basilan, where with every step we sank down into the ooze, where I longed for solid ground to walk on. I knew we had survived only by depending on Christ, the solid rock of our faith and hope.”Taken from the book, In the Presence of My Enemies, by Gracia Burnham. Tyndale Press

I believe that God is calling some of you to have contagious faith today. You can have a faith that will move others toward Christ.

I invite you to seek God today for you need.

2003/07/13