Jentezen Franklin - Transferable Faith
I want to talk to you about transferable faith. In 2 Timothy 1:5, "When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, I am persuaded," this is Paul speaking to Timothy, "it's in you". Everybody say it's in you. It's in you also. "Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind".
Transferable faith. When you talk about faith, you have to really define what that means biblically because there's a lot of people if you ask them are you a person of faith, they would say, "oh, yes, I'm a person of faith. I'm not an atheist. I believe in a god somewhere out there. I don't really buy into the Bible stuff, but I believe there is a God. I do believe that. I don't think that it matters how you get to Him", a lot of times people say. They have abstract faith. A faith that it really has no definition. It has no manifestation. It's just He's out there. They call Him the Man Upstairs. Let's not limit Him to Jesus and let's not limit Him to, there are many gods, potentially, and however you worship.
You get to the real God through any religion or vehicle that you try to take, and they believe in a faith. They believe in something out there somewhere like spiritualists, people who use New Age crystals and things, burn incense to statues, and they believe in a God out there like psychics. They have abstract faith. They believe there is a spirit being that comes and empowers them to tell the fortune. Yeah, there's a spirit being, all right, and tarot cards and fortune tellers and all of that. That's a faith they believe not in the God of the Bible, nor are they being led or given their directions by the God of the Bible, but they believe there is some spirit out there.
So, that's an abstract faith. And then there's one that's a little bit closer to where it needs to be, and that's like a structured faith. By that I mean a ceremonial faith. They believe because they were raised in church, so they believe in the church. They believe in the ceremonies of the church. They're not anti-Christ. They're not anti-Virgin Birth. They come at Christmas. They come at Easter. They come every once in a while. You know, it's a ceremonial. It's more about the ceremony. They want a Christian wedding. When I get married, I want a Christian wedding, they say, and when I get children I want a Christian dedication. I want to dedicate the babies to Jesus. They mean that. They mean that, but it's not something really that they have that they nurture that they feed in their own life. It's what mama raised them in. It's what the church, you know.
We went to the Baptist church or the Catholic church or the Methodist church or the Pentecostal church and that's how I was raised, and I believe in that stuff. Ceremony. It's like water baptism. You can get in the baptism tank, and you can be a dry sinner and go down a dry sinner and come up a wet sinner. The water is just water. It's not going to change anything unless there is real faith in you. Not the church's faith. Not ceremony faith. Not abstract faith. And then there's transferable faith. That's what we get to in my text because he says, Timothy, the faith that I see in you that is sincere, that is very real. It's in you. He said I saw it first in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and I'm persuaded it's in you. Somewhere your grandmother got it, and she transferred it because it was personal because the only kind of faith that is transferable is personal.
You can't have a distant relationship with God and transfer it to your children. You cannot have a lukewarm relationship with Jesus and pass red hot fire passion for Jesus to your children. The only faith according to this text that can be transferred is faith that is personal first with grandma, and when grandma gets it, then daughter can't go off grandma. Daughter has to get her own personal faith, and then she passes what she is. She has a praise life. She doesn't go to church and, she has a praise life, and it gets transferred and the children have a praise life. She has a prayer life. The children have a prayer life. She has a consecration and standards and lives this thing and reads her Bible and loves God and loves people, and it's transferred.
Only can you transfer not what you profess. Not what you believe, the church's write, and what they believe. You can't pass any of that on to your children or your children's children. That's why we're fasting because we're saying I need a personal faith that is transferable not just to me but to people all around me. This is really weighed on me as a pastor and a preacher. I can only transfer to you what I am. What I have in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And even more troublesome is that I can only transfer my personal faith and relationship with Jesus. That is the part of me that I will transfer to my children and my children's children.
So, I've got to have it. It's got to be personal. It can't be out there abstract. Some God out there. It can't be the church, and boy, when I really need prayer, I go find Granny Sue, and she gets her little bunch of women together, and they pray for me. No, you've got to get your own. Nothing of that will ever be transferred to your children or children's children. When you get alone with Jesus and you've been with Him, it gets transferred. You fast and pray for 21 days. It gets transferred even if you don't feel God. Even if you hadn't had no big angels and no glory cloud. Neither have I. I'm with you. But I'm going to tell you something.
What we're doing, ladies and gentlemen, is saying I don't want a distant faith. I don't want a distracted faith. I don't want one that's out there. I don't want to go through the routine of church every blessed Sunday. I want a personal fire down in my soul that so moves me that my kids get hungry for the Holy Ghost. My grand kids want the power of God more Faith is transferable when it's personal. They took note of them they had been with the Lord. Faith, listen now, is the essential ingredient. This is not some take it or leave it option. If you don't have what I'm preaching right now, you don't have anything in God because faith is the essential ingredient. You can't have this without faith. You can't have John 3:16. You can't have healing. You can't have provision. You can't have any of this book without faith.
Let me just give you a line in Scripture. Hebrews 11:6 says this, "But without faith," everybody say it's essential. "But without faith it is impossible to please God. For He who comes to God must believe that He is," watch this, "and that He", That sounds like a church that's on a 21-day fast can get ready for some reward. He didn't say if you catch me. He didn't say if you touch me if you have an angelic visitation. You'll end up in places. I'll open doors. I'll bless you. I'll make a way for you. I know the enemy wants to wipe you out, but when you diligently seek me, The kingdom of God is not based upon welfare. It's based upon a reward system.
Salvation is free. Nobody has to earn it. It's a free gift. Everything else from there is warfare. You have to take off your spiritual P.J.s and put on the whole armor of God, and you have to say, now listen here. This is a war, and this is a battle, and I'm suiting up because I know that my God is real. I know that it's impossible to please Him without faith, and I just decree that I am going to seek Him diligently until I find Him. The kingdom of God is not a handout. It is a reward system. Inside of your Bible is what your life is supposed to look like, and the essential ingredient to make that happen is faith. Faith is the currency of heaven.
In London, if you want to buy something, you have to have pounds, and they will trade you. That's what they call their monetary system. Pounds. You pay in pounds. In Germany, francs. In America dollar bills. In heaven, faith. You want something from the warehouse of heaven? Bring your faith because faith In the kingdom of God, you don't get what you want. You get what you believe for. It's personal faith. It's not limited by what others are limited by. It's personal faith. It doesn't matter if others have died of it or others believed in something and they didn't get it.
It's personal faith. It's personal faith that leads to transferable faith, and to prove this, I want to take you to Luke 4, and here is the setting of Luke 4. Jesus is going to Nazareth, His home town, to do miracles, and the Bible said He couldn't do many mighty miracles there because of their unbelief because they were so familiar with Him. They said it's not this Joseph's son, and He, the Son of God could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief, and in Luke 4, Jesus then turns, and He says I want to teach you something about faith because He had just healed people in the city before He got there, and He would leave, and the Scripture would say in the next city in the next chapter that He healed them all, but only a few people got something in His home town because they got too familiar. Been around it all their life. Became ceremonial faith. Became abstract faith.
Well, God can heal, but you know. God can move mountains, but let's keep a level head. I believe in theory in miracles. But watch. Jesus said, and He uses two illustrations. He says in the days of Elijah there was a famine in the land, and He said there were many widows. Notice that. Everybody say many widows. He said I'm telling you there were many widows in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up for three years that were starving to death in a famine. And then He goes on to say, but only one of them. One of them. One to whom He was sent.
One woman got, they all had the same needs. Many needed it. Many needed it. Everybody shout many. Many needed it which is so important. He said many needed it, but only one got it and what happened is the prophet came to her and the prophet said thus sayeth the Lord make a cake for me. She said all I have is enough to eat for me and my child and die. This is our last meal. And the prophet said I'm just telling you what the Lord told me to do. Make a cake and give it to me. A pancake. And she looks at him and in that moment, boom, because she was hearing a word from the Lord, faith arose in her heart, and she gave that prophet her last meal, and when she did, the Bible said God multiplied her food for three and a half years for her and her son. It was a transfer of faith from the word into her that changed her circumstances.
Now watch. And he said and Jesus is doing this teaching. He said there were many other widows who were starving with their babies, but only one got the miracle because she saw it. She got it. And she activated personal faith and when she did, God met her at the point of her need with a miracle. And then He gives another equal illustration. He says in the days of Elijah there were many lepers. Many lepers. Many people who had leprosy. Many people who had an awful, awful disease. Many, many, many. None of them were cleansed except Naaman.
What happened to Naaman? Well, let me give you some hope if you feel like, well, I just don't have enough faith like that woman. I don't have it. I don't have it. Well, number one, let me show you what Jesus is trying to teach us here. Only one. There were many who needed healing, but only one got it, and what happened to him? The Bible said that when the prophet said to him go wash yourself and dip seven times in the Jordan River. He puffed all up. He was a big shot. He was a big politician, a general, and he said that's too low for me, and I'm better than that, and that's a filthy river and how dare you, and I'm insulted. I came all the way from Syria, and I'll forget you, prophet.
And the Bible said he didn't have personal faith but watch this. He got around somebody who did because just when he was about to turn around and walk away and die a death like many were going to die, a servant spoke up, a humble servant, and said, had he asked you to do something great and grand that would have gotten huge attention, you would've done it, but because he told you to do that thing that is low in your mind, you are going to forfeit you miracle, and when he said that, faith was sparked not because he had personal faith.
That's why it's so good you're in church today because even if you don't have faith, there's people all around you that have faith. Even if you don't believe, we believe, and I'm here to tell you that we can bind together during this fast, and we can believe for miracles. I want to say it like I want to say it. God wants to give us transferable faith to our sons and our daughters Notice what happened. Notice what happened. The Bible said he dipped seven times. Six times nothing happened. Seven times he came up. And when he came up, the Bible said his skin was like the skin of a newborn baby. What a picture of water baptism, by the way. You go in the water. You get baptized. You come up. You're born again.
And here's the point that I want to close with. Paul said. Paul said to Timothy two times in that verse in Verse 5, it's in you. It's in you. Faith of your grandmother. Faith of your mother. It's in you. I hate to tell some of you this, but it's in you. That's why you can't enjoy what everybody else enjoys and you can't live like everybody else lives, and you can't do what everybody Somebody in your family transferred some stuff on you. Somebody transferred some anointing on you. Somebody transferred some faith into you. Their faith got in you and when you are in your...
And Paul said, number one, I want you to know it's in you. Everybody shout it's in me. Shout again it's in me. And then he said something powerful. He said it's in you, but you can't stop there. Then he gives them an instruction, so stir up the gift that is in you. That's what this fast is doing. It's stirring up the anointing. It's stirring up personal faith. I can't afford to have ceremonial faith. I can't afford to just come to church and let singers do my praising and let people live for God and let the preacher bring me a word every once in a while. I have to get some personal faith, and it's in me, but I've got to feed it, and it gets activated when I get around other people who have faith.
So, I need to make God's house a priority, and I need to pray, and I need to read the Bible. It's in me, but I've got to feed it. I've got to have personal faith. Why? Because only personal faith is transferred faith. If you're not growing personally in your faith, you're not transferring So, he said you've got to know number one and be reminded that it's in you. And then he said secondly, you've got to stir it up. Boy, I'm praying today for that kind of stirring. I feel it in my heart. I know when I go home, I'm stirred. I don't know about you ‘cause this is personal. Sometimes a preacher can't talk you into it. Sometimes you've got to stir it up, the gift, the gift of tongues. The gift of Holy Ghost. The gift of anointing. The gift of faith. The gift that moves mountains. The gift that causes miracles to come your way.
You have to stir it up and say I can't live another year by just doing ceremonial faith. I need some personal passion and powerful faith activated in my life, and I hate to tell you this, but you're in an atmosphere that is happening all around you. Turn to somebody and say I'm the official praise leader of this road and when I praise God, it's going to transfer all the way down this road. I didn't come to church for a normal service. I didn't come to church to play church. I can't have ceremonial faith. I need a personal powerful touch of God on this fast because I only transfer what is personal.