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HopeLives365

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

Mark Finley

01 Reality Check

02 To Know God

03 Pride Versus Humility

04 The Role of the Bible

05 How to Study the Bible

06 Prayer Warriors

07 Practical Prayer

08 Having Faith

Throughout this series, in developing a relationship with God, we've looked at some of the practical aspects of the Christian life.

In this lesson, lesson number 8, we're looking at what does it mean to have faith.

It says, someone once said, faith is like Wi-Fi.

It's invisible, but it has the power to connect you to what you need.

No doubt without faith there would be no relationship with God.

Wi-Fi is invisible I don't see Wi-Fi in this room.

But yet Wi-Fi connects us with the information we need.

So as I pray and believe by faith, that connects me to the power of the living God who can reveal wisdom, strength, who can reveal his will, who can reveal the ability to navigate difficult situations.

So faith may be invisible, but it produces visible results.

Somebody says, well, but Pastor Mark, I don't have much faith.

Somebody says, Pastor Mark, not only do I not have much faith, I don't have any faith at all.

For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each 1 a measure of faith.

God has given to each 1 a measure of faith.

So faith is a gift that God puts in our hearts as we become Christians.

As we surrender our lives to Jesus, faith is a gift that He gives us.

As we exercise the faith that God puts in our hearts, our faith grows.

Remember, Jesus said, if you have faith as the grain of mustard seed.

So a mustard seed is a little tiny seed, little small round seed.

But if that mustard seed is planted in the soil under the right conditions, it'll produce a mighty tree.

And so faith, although it may be small at first, as we exercise faith by trusting God, believing his word, accepting his promises, our faith grows and has incredibly amazing results in our lives.

You remember that often the Jews would come to Jesus, particularly the Pharisees and the religious leaders, and they would say, give us a sign, give us a sign.

And if you'll only give us a sign, then we'd believe.

They watched as Jesus touched the eyes of the blind and they were opened, touched the ears of the deaf and they were unstopped.

They watched as Jesus healed the lame man's arm and caused the lame to leap and run.

They listened to Jesus' moral, ethical teachings.

Many of them heard the Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness.

They beheld his love, his gentleness, his forgiveness.

Many of these Pharisees, some of those religious leaders were there.

When the woman caught in adultery, was cast at Jesus' feet, and Jesus says, go and sin no more.

The signs were all around them, but they were blinded to see those signs.

What is it that enables us to have faith?

Remember what Jesus told Israel in the book of Deuteronomy.

If you go back to Deuteronomy chapter 8, Jesus gives us a key to building our own faith.

In Deuteronomy 8, to a new generation that was coming upon the scene.

And we're gonna look there at verse 2 and 3.

Jesus said this through his prophet Moses, and you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness, and to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

So he humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." What is God saying to Israel here?

Remember how God led you by opening the Red Sea, and you went through, and the Pharaoh's armies were drowned in the sea.

Remember how manna fell in the wilderness.

Remember the cloud that protected you with shade by day, in the pillar of fire that gave you warmth by night.

Look back over your life and see how God has led you." It is written by Ellen White, in fact, "'We have nothing to fear, lest we forget the way the Lord has led us in our past history.

This applies not only to the history of the Advent movement, but our personal history.

So when your faith is waning, think back over your life.

The evidence for faith is all around us, the evidence to believe.

In fact, if you look throughout scripture, there's the evidence of archaeology.

Do you know that more than 100 names of people and places have been discovered through the archaeological discoveries and the archaeologists' spade.

If you think about prophecy and how Daniel's prophecies of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome and the breakup of the Roman Empire, full fulfilled so far.

You see, for example, Greece named years before it ever became a power by name, Daniel chapter 8.

And you look, for example, at Cyrus, named over 150 years before he was born as the leader of the Persian armies.

You look at the changed lives that have taken place as men and women have read the Bible.

I've seen gang leaders come to Christ through the teaching of God's Word.

I've seen immoral men and women change their lives of immorality for purity.

I've seen the dishonest become honest, the angry become gentle, the selfish become unselfish.

As they've come and studied the Bible and seen their lives transformed.

The signs are all around us in archaeology, prophecy, changed lives.

The teachings of Christ are evidence of a divine godliness.

We build our faith by looking back over our lives and seeing how God has led us.

We build our faith by considering the evidences of faith as recorded in God's Word.

Now faith is something not only that's an intellectual belief, but faith is something to be seen.

The question is, compare how Jesus describes his disciples' faith in Mark 4, verse 40 with the faith of the woman in Matthew 15, verse 21 to 28.

Remember, Jesus says to his disciples in Mark chapter 4, verse 40, and we'll take a look at it here.

Mark chapter 4, and we're gonna look at verse 40.

And Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and really it's a gentle, silent rebuke that Christ gives to those disciples where Christ says to them, you remember the story, the background of the story.

The disciples were with Jesus in a boat on the Sea of Galilee.

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Series

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

08 Having Faith

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 Reality Check

20m

02 To Know God

20m

03 Pride Versus Humility

23m

04 The Role of the Bible

23m

05 How to Study the Bible

26m

06 Prayer Warriors

26m

07 Practical Prayer

25m

08 Having Faith

24m

Sound Doctrine