Our name | Mission | Vision | Leaders Ministries | Schedule | Directions | Contact Home   Gateway Church gathers for worship Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Location: 6425 Jefferson Rd. (Hwy. 129) in Athens, Georgia. For directions, click here. Ministry of the Word: Recent sermons Our quarterly e-magazine Gateway Today For the Gateway family Pastor Jerry's Weekly E-Mail A GATEWAY SERMON SUMMARY AUDIO Mighty faith: Key attitudes (eighth and last in the series, 'Mighty Faith') Jerry Varnado, pastor Gateway Church, Athens GA September 18, 2005 Main Scripture text: Luke 7:1-10. Today I want to talk with you about attitudes of the heart essential to living lives of "mighty faith." Our text from Luke 7 clearly illumines two of those and strongly implies the third. 1) The attitude of humility. The centurion in the story is a man of considerable influence and authority. And yet he he felt unworthy to be in Jesus' presence. When we pray, we enter into the very throne room of God. We should be humbled by the awesome thought of such thing. 2) Respect for Jesus' authority. In Luke's account of the events preceding this text, Jesus had cast out evil spirits, healed diseases, and even had dared defy the ways the Jewish religious leaders had distorted the law of Moses. Jesus had demonstrated His authority over both the physical and the spiritual realms. The Centurion's recognized that authority and it became the basis for his request. "Just speak the word and my servant will be healed." His faith was linked to His understanding of Jesus' authority, and Jesus commended it at "great faith." 3) An attitude of expectancy. The text implies that the centurion expected something to happen. Spiritually, results are often limited by our low expectations, because our expectations reflect our level of faith. In Matthew 13, we read that Jesus did not do many miracles in Nazareth "because of their unbelief" -- their lack of faith. In Beth Moore's Believing God study, which we have just begun on Wednesday nights, she says her goal is to see us reach "the place where our theology merges with our reality" -- we begin to experience what we say we believe. As a church and as individuals, we need to be challenged -- regularly -- to believe God. Are you believing God for anything right now? Are you expecting God to to do something in your life? Come to Him in humility, recognizing His authority -- and come with a sense of expectation. Remember these words of Jesus in Matthew 9:29: "According to your faith will it be done to you." Supporting texts: Matthew 13:58 | Matthew 9:27-29 A mp3 audio file of this sermon is here (33:00). (Download to a PC by right clicking on the link and choosing "Save Target As." Mac users: click, hold, and choose "Download Link to Disk." Depending on your connection speed, the file may take several minutes to download.) An audio tape of the sermon summarized above is available free of charge (U.S. requests only). Request a tape by calling or writing the Gateway Church office. Please specify tape number 050918a: Mighty Faith: Key Attitudes. © 2005 Gerald R. Varnado To the Gateway Church home page How to contact us