Faith #3

To have faith is to be absolutely sure that something is going to happen before it actually happens.  The classic Biblical definition is found in Hebrews 11:1.  "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  If you are assured of something it means that you are certain about it.  It means that you are absolutely confident about it.  It means that you have no doubt about it.  Faith is absolute confidence without any doubts.

Jesus taught us to "have faith in God.  Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him."  (Mark 11:22, 23)  You can see from this that my definition of faith is taken almost word for word from the words of Jesus.  Faith is being absolutely sure that something is going to happen before it actually happens.  Jesus said that the person must believe "that what he says is going to happen." 

Jesus then goes on to violate good grammar.  "All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you."  (Mark 11:24)  "Believe that you have received them" is past tense.  "And they will be granted you" is future tense.  Jesus is saying, "Once you believe with absolute conviction that you are going to receive what you have asked for, it's as good as yours.  From that point on, consider your prayer to have been answered, even though the answer is not visible yet."

Jesus said that the man "who does not doubt in his heart" will see his prayer answered.  His younger brother James says virtually the same thing.  "But he must ask in faith, without any doubting."  (James 1:6)  "The one who doubts … ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord."  (James 1:6, 7) 

One of the real keys to understanding Biblical faith is to see that faith is a heart (spiritual) thing, not a purely mental (intellectual) process.  Jesus said that he "must not doubt in his heart."  You may (or may not) have nagging doubts in your mind, but if in your heart, in the core of your being, you believe without any doubting, then what you are believing will come to pass.

A story is told about a woman who sat in church and heard a sermon on Luke 17:6 where Jesus said, "If you had faith as a mustard seed, you would say to the mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea'; and it would obey you."  This woman had a mature oak tree on the left side of her back yard that provided a beautiful patch of shade  -- to her neighbor's back yard!  For many years she had wished that the tree could be replanted on the right side of her yard so that the shade would fall on her yard instead of her neighbor's, but you can't really move a mature oak tree.  Or so the woman thought until she heard the sermon on Luke 17:6!

So one day, as the woman was doing the dishes and looking out the kitchen window at her back yard, she decided to use faith to move the tree from one side of the yard to the other!  If you could use faith to transplant a mulberry tree from the ground to the sea, why not an oak tree from one side of the yard to the other?  So she closed her eyes and began speaking to the tree.  "Oak tree, move to the other side of the yard!"  Over and over again she said it.  Doubt tried to enter her mind but she blocked it out.  "Oak tree, move to the other side of the yard."  Over and over again.  Using will power she was blocking all doubt from her mind.  Once she was sure that she had blocked all doubt, she said one last time, "Oak tree, move to the other side of the yard!" and opened her eyes.

And there was the oak tree, still stuck in the ground on the wrong side of the yard.  The woman stared at the tree and muttered something under her breath.  What she muttered under her breath came out of her heart.  Everything else that had come out of her mouth had come directly from her brain, but this comment came straight from her heart.  "I knew it wouldn't work!" she muttered. 

Faith isn't something in your head; it's a conviction in your heart.  Let me put it to you this way.  To have the kind of faith that would enable you to move a mountain, or even a tree, would require a miracle.  I call it the pre-miracle miracle.  Unless the Spirit of God does a miracle in your heart you can't believe without any doubting that your mountain will actually move.  More on that next week.

Some concluding observations.

It is possible to "move mountains" by faith.  Jesus wouldn't have told us to do it if it wasn't possible.

It's not as simple as you might think the first time you read Mark 11:22-24 or else everyone would be doing it.

Understanding the difference between believing with your head and believing with your heart is absolutely vital.

Exercising this kind of faith is itself a supernatural thing that can't be done apart from the operation of the Spirit of God.

And last but not least, since it all has to be done in harmony with God, no miracles get done, or mountains moved, apart from His will. 

Faith #2

I have two ideas that I want to get across to you today, two rather simple ideas.  God's wants to answer our prayers.  And God wants to answer our prayers because God is good.

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."  (Matthew 7:7, 8 NASB)  Now if that was the only passage in the Bible that taught us about prayer, and you were a new believer just reading that passage for the first time, you would probably expect every single prayer you offered to be answered.  If you've been a Christian for awhile you know it's not quite that simple; but that shouldn't weaken the message that the Son of God is attempting to communicate in this passage.  Jesus knew exactly what He was saying.  He said it the way He said it for a reason.  He wanted to give us the impression that God wants to answer our prayers.  God intends to answer our prayers.  We should expect God to answer our prayers.

"If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."  (John 15:7 NASB)  In the passage in Matthew we didn't have any conditions mentioned for answers to prayer.  In John 15 Jesus introduces a condition.  We have to abide (live) in Christ and His words need to abide (live) in us.  If we can somehow fulfill this condition we can ask whatever we want and it will be done for us.  I'm not asking you to focus on the condition today.  We'll talk about living in Christ and having His world live in us later.  The emphasis I want to make is that God wants to answer our prayers.  He intends to answer our prayers.  He is telling us that we can get to the point where we can have anything we want ("ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you").

If you don't agree with the underlined sentence then you don't have a problem with my teaching; you have a problem with the teaching of the Lord Jesus.  Just to be clear, a person who lives in Jesus and who has Jesus words living in Him (the condition for getting whatever you want) is going to want different things that the person who does not live in Jesus and have Jesus words living in him.  A person who lives in Jesus is going to be flowing in beautiful harmony with the mind and will of God.  How does you heart respond to the statement underlined in the previous paragraph?  If somewhere deep in your heart you find yourself saying "that simply can't be true," that my friends is unbelief.  And it has to be dealt with.

What is it about God that makes Him so generous?  Both Jesus and His younger brother James direct our attention to the goodness of God when teaching about prayer.  James teaches us that "God … gives to all generously and without  reproach."  (James 1:5  NASB)  Jesus tells us that "if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?"  (Matthew 7:11  NASB) 

As I was meditating on those verses I began to get a sense of the all of the goodness in the heart of God.  God doesn't just want to bless us, He yearns to bless us.  He is very passionate about His desire to do good to us and for us.  The goodness of God is like Niagara Falls.  The force of gravity pushing that water over the falls is tremendous.  God's goodness is like the force of gravity and His blessings are like the water.

But did you know that we can turn Niagara Falls off?  A certain percentage of the water is diverted into a hydro electric power station.  If they want to they can divert all of the flow of the water.  They can turn Niagara Falls off.  I suppose they do this by flipping a switch.  They flip a switch and a door in the bottom of the river bed opens and all of the water flows down the hole and into the power plant.

There is a switch inside of each one of us.  The off position is labeled "unbelief."  The on position is labeled "faith."  As we learn to get the switch moved into the "faith" position we are going to begin to get very, very wet with the blessings of God.  When most people teach about faith they put the emphasis on the switch.  We have to have faith.  We sometimes come perilously close to teaching people to have faith in faith.  But we aren't supposed to have faith in faith; we are supposed to have faith in God.  And our ability to have faith in God is only as great as our sense of who and what God is. 

So this week I would encourage you to begin to let some of God's words live inside of you.  I would choose this simple phrase.  "God gives to all men generously and without reproach."  Write it down.  Say it to yourself over and over again while walking, driving to work, or doing the dishes.  Think about that Niagara Falls illustration and the goodness of God.  Think about the love and goodness of God coming rolling over the falls and splashing down all around you.  And as you think about it, pray and ask God to give you a revelation of His goodness in your heart.

God's wants to answer our prayers.  And God wants to answer our prayers because God is good.