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[00:00:00] We are back. This is session number four. In walking in radical faith. And today’s topic is that faith is rooted in love. Just real quick, since I haven’t promoted my book recently, especially for those on the Listening, My Nuggets of Faith, which is a great compilation of amazing revelation, you can use it as a devotional study guide and I highly encourage you to get a copy of it. You can get it at Amazon and just search under my name. Beatty Carmichael and you’ll see nuggets of faith. Highly recommend it. And with that, also, just a real quick announcement for those who are the podcast listeners listening to this on audio. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel if you haven’t already, and be sure if you like this message down at the bottom of your podcast player, there is a share button. Please share it and send it out and let other people hear it. And finally, since we had lasagna tonight, this is a good opportunity to talk about lasagna. It’s always better the next day. So once you hear this, come back the next day, listen to it again. And let me encourage our audio listeners that if you can come back to our website, whichever channel you’re on, get radical faith or get sellers calling you and watch the video because you’ll be able to get a lot more out of just the live, live part of it. So with that said, let’s go into what we’ve been talking about.

[00:01:30] We have been talking on this thing called radical faith. And the last time we were talking about going through trials and we gave just a real quick definition of radical faith and faith in its truest essence is where you’re acting on God’s word to such a degree that failure is certain. Unless God intervenes and does what he says he will do, and the greater the faith, the greater the risk it takes no faith to walk across the room. It takes a lot of faith to walk on water, right? So the greater the risk, the greater the faith. And last time we talked about trials of faith and we touched on two primary passages, the first one, James, one verses two through four, where it says to count it all joy when you fall into various trials. And what’s interesting is we’re to count it as joy and not only count it as joy, but we’re actually to take God at his word and rejoice in our trials because it says that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result in making you perfect and complete. And so what we find is that these trials that we go through are for the purpose of testing our faith, testing our faith. So like, if I were to take a chair and I was going to test it, what I would do is I’d jump up and down on it and see if it actually hold me.

[00:03:04] How sturdy is it? I’m going to put it to the test if it falls apart. It didn’t you know, it wasn’t well, it wasn’t well made right. As we test our faith, our faith grows stronger As you exercise and you put your muscles to the test, they grow stronger. And that’s what the Lord does. He takes us through trials. Trials are those things that we don’t like that either he coordinated or he allowed us to go through for the purpose of building up our faith. Do we believe God’s Word and are we willing to walk by it? And in it I was talking to a friend of mine last night. He’s homeless. He’s out on the streets down in Florida, and he just got out of jail because he was doing great until he took a drink, got some beer, and then he became belligerent. Then there was a battery charge. So now he’s out of jail but with a bondsman and he owes $240 or he goes back to jail and he’s all upset. And I said, Well, first off, you need to do what the Lord has called you to do. He says, Count it all, joy, and do greatly rejoice because this is a trial. And the first trial is, will you believe him enough that he’s guiding you, that you can count it, Joy, knowing that your father is guiding you through this process? For the express purpose of testing your faith.

[00:04:38] And helping you grow in faith, because anything we do of eternal value can only be done through faith. And if we don’t have enough faith to do it, we don’t get the eternal value from it. So the Lord is constantly teaching us and training us and testing us on faith. In fact, he even said, when the son of man returns, will he find faith on Earth? He said, I’m praying for you that your faith may not fail. And so he’s constantly testing us. The last verse we looked at, or at least one of the other verses is first Peter, one, six and seven. This is the very same message, a little bit different. It says in this You greatly rejoice, though. Now for a little while you have been grieved by various trials. Various trials are pretty tough things. There are things that you don’t know how you’re going to make it through. It’s like all life is falling down around you. And the Lord says to greatly rejoice. How in the world can I rejoice when I go through grievous trials? The Lord commanded you. That’s how I remember. I teach over at a women’s addiction recovery facility here in town, and the first time I taught it was a year ago. I was teaching on spiritual warfare and I was teaching on unforgiveness. And how do you forgive someone? The first step in forgiving someone is you have to open your heart to them and you have to look at them with love and compassion.

[00:06:10] And this woman raised her hand and she said. I was raped by four men. How do I have love and compassion on those guys? Well, not by your own strength, but greatly rejoice because the Lord will carry you through it. And as you go through it, your faith will be strengthened. And in first Peter, one, six and seven, it says to greatly rejoice when you are going through these grievous trials so that the genuineness of your faith may be found. To praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In other words, he’s saying when Jesus returns. Because the genuineness of your faith has been tested and proven. Jesus himself will praise, glory and honor you. That’s pretty powerful. Trials are never fun, but they do encourage us and strengthen us. And then the last thing we talked about last time is we looked at some passages, not as many as I would love to, but as you go through, you’ll find that God hates complaining. And in the wilderness. When the Israelites were coming through the wilderness, every time they complained, God destroyed them. Okay. He. He punished them by destroying them. Bits and pieces. Group after group. Now, what he did in the Old Testament, he did as teaching examples he had. There’s a lot more grace in our lives today. But the message that we get out of this is God does not tolerate complaining. Because complaining he takes it personally because he is the one who is behind our tests.

[00:08:04] Every single test that the children of Israel went through in the wilderness, God purposely designed to test them, every single one. Nothing was outside of his control nor outside of his knowledge. And in that case, he actually coordinated every single test. In our lives. It’s a little bit different. He doesn’t coordinate every test, but he authorizes them. And as those tests come along, he coordinates parts of it that allows you to be tested that your faith may be proven genuine. The question is, are you going to pass the test or fail it? Guess what happens if you pass the test? Should you promote through that one and that test is over? Well, you’ll go through now another set of tests. But what happens if you fail the test? Have to redo it. You got to repeat the whole test. And it keeps coming back and it keeps coming back and it keeps coming back, waiting for you to wisen up and say, Oh, I’m being tested. My faith is being tested. It’s what’s being tested is what do I believe? Do I really believe God? Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Do you believe God’s word? As you go through that test. Or not. Here’s a real easy way to determine if you really believe it. Do you greatly rejoice because you’re in that test? If you don’t greatly rejoice, you don’t fully believe God’s word.

[00:09:49] Because that’s exactly what his word says. So that was less session this session. I want to take it another step. And what we’re doing in this whole series is what is faith? So we did I did a whole series called Faith Like Jesus understanding what faith Is. This series is How do you walk in that faith? And how do you make it simple so that you can have faith to move a mountain? Because that’s a pretty amazing thing. So that’s what we’re going to move to this time and the next two times and start looking at some things. So turn real quickly. We’re going to look at Matthew 15 and we’re going to go to verses 26 through 28. Matthew 1526 through 28. As you’re turning there, the backstory on this is Jesus has taken an excursion outside of Israel. He’s gone to Tire and Sidon. There’s a Canaanite woman there, not part of Abraham’s family, right? Not part of the Jewish culture. And she has a daughter who is severely oppressed by a demon. It’s interesting. They understood demon oppression and torment more than we do. Right? She knew it was a demon and she comes to Jesus and says, Heal my daughter and Jesus totally ignores her. And she asks again and Jesus says, I only came for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And she kneels before him and begs again. And says, Lord, help me. And this is where we’re going to pick up on this passage.

[00:11:34] Matthew 15, starting in verse 26. And he answered, It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. She said, Yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus answered her O woman Great is your faith. Be it done for you as your as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. So here’s the interesting thing. It was the woman’s faith. That was responsible for her daughter being healed, but only after Jesus authorized it to be done. We start to see lots of glimpses throughout Scripture of faith and what it does. Okay. But if you look at this, Jesus says, Great is your faith. He’s always looking for great faith. It’s rare that he says someone’s faith was great. I remember only one other time with a centurion. I have not found such great faith in all of Israel. And he was a non-Jew. And now we have this Canaanite woman who’s a non-Jew, and he says, Great is your faith. And then he says, be it done for you as you desire. He in other words, he authorizes her daughter’s healing because of her faith. Okay. And so there are two things we can kind of pull out of this. Number one is that she had great faith. And then number two, it was that great faith that caused Jesus to authorize her healing. Who did the healing?

[00:13:29] Jesus. Nope. Nope.

[00:13:33] Thank God.

[00:13:35] Lord God. Which part of God? No Spirit. Spirit. Spirit. Let’s turn real quickly to Acts 1038. Let me just show this to you. Who was brooding over the waters in Genesis? Ah, the spirit. We find that the spirit is usually the one that actually performs the work. Strip. Acts 1038 Let’s look at this real quickly. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. So God anoints Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power. And he went about doing good and healing. All who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. This is saying that it was the Lord, the Holy Spirit, that which he was anointed that was actually doing the work. So Jesus authorizes the daughter to be healed and then the Holy Spirit heals. It so heals her. So here’s the sequence, and this is the thing I want to start to show you on this. It was her faith. That moved Jesus to authorize. Authorize. I can’t spell. Authorize. And then the daughter was healed. Do you see that sequence? So what we see is it was in her faith that contained the power to heal. That’s not what happened. All her faith did is moved the Lord to then authorize the healing. Right. Because remember, Jesus says all things are possible to him who believes? If you have faith, the grain of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, be taken up and cast in the sea. And if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe, then it will happen, right? How much faith does it take to move a mountain? We talked about this in faith like Jesus series, and we started to say, is this really at face value? Is he really talking about a mountain? Can a man really have enough faith to actually move an entire mountain? And the answer is yes.

[00:16:10] But we don’t understand faith. We’re starting to see it in this passage with the Canaanite woman when it was her faith. That move. Jesus. Jesus then authorized her healing. Be it done for you as you desire. And then the Holy Spirit. Acts on that authorization and performs that for which the faith desired. Do you see this pattern? So here’s a question. If it was her faith that moved Jesus. Then what was the object of her faith? In other words, in what? Did she have faith? Okay. Let me throw out some examples. I’m going to get a little bit analytical on you. On this real quickly, because this is important, because if we’re going to walk by faith, we have to understand what we’re really doing. Okay. So the question is, what was the object of her faith? And I’ve got three possible answers for you. Number one, the object was. That her daughter would be healed. That’s number one. Number two. Is that Jesus would heal her daughter. And then enter number three. Is that her faith was in God to heal her daughter.

[00:18:02] Through Jesus.

[00:18:03] What do you think is the object of her faith? Or let me ask if you were in this position. And you’re coming to Jesus. What is the object? If you have faith, you have faith in what? In number two, that Jesus would heal through Jesus.

[00:18:26] She says, Lord, help me, right?

[00:18:28] Lord, help me. All right.

[00:18:34] I lean toward three.

[00:18:36] Okay, so you lean towards three. All right. Anyone else? Other numbers or anything? Lean towards two. Okay.

[00:18:45] Well, like, what do you mean by object? I mean, what is the. You mean the fulfillment or what is.

[00:18:51] She resting her faith on?

[00:18:53] Oh, what she’s basing it on.

[00:18:55] Right. That’s the object. She has faith in something. And what is the faith in desire.

[00:19:01] Right.

[00:19:02] All right. See.

[00:19:04] God would. Wants her daughter to be healed.

[00:19:09] That God would want her daughter to be healed. Good. So here’s the point I’m making, and I think this is important to look at it this way. So often we think that faith. Emanates some sort of power from within us that causes something supernatural to happen. If that’s the case, then her faith, the object of her faith would be, number one, that her daughter would be healed, that simply because she believes so strong. The daughter is going to be healed. This is the name it and claim it ground. As long as if you just believe it will happen. But that’s wrong. Once we start to see it broken out, what is the object? We start to realize that the object isn’t that her daughter would be healed. It’s either that Jesus would heal her daughter or her faith was in God to heal her daughter through Jesus. But in both cases, the object is somewhere in the Godhead. And not in her head. Does that make sense? Okay. So let’s see what Jesus says in answer to this question.

[00:20:21] So really what you’re saying. So the object of is to get Jesus or God to move. That’s it.

[00:20:29] Actually, no, no, no, no. But yes, that’s close to it because.

[00:20:34] Well, because they’ve got the power.

[00:20:36] That’s it. They’ve got the.

[00:20:37] Power to do.

[00:20:38] It. Right. So think about this with faith, all things are possible. Right? But is that really true? Because you know how much pushback I had teaching faith like Jesus when we got to that section. And the thing is, no, that’s preposterous. That would be impossible. You can’t do that. That can’t mean all things are possible. But watch this. Are all things possible with God? And if our faith is in God to do what we’ve asked then by faith, are all things possible? Yes, because it’s no longer resting on the power of our faith, that somehow there’s something in my faith that’s welling up, that’s causing something to happen. All my faith does. Is it moves. Jesus. Is this making sense? If you think about a car, we’re going to talk about this next session a little bit more. But if you think about a car. I’ve got a little key. And that little key. Can accelerate me that car and a couple of tons, 0 to 60. Boom. Just like that. But it’s not the key that’s doing it all. The key does is it gets the engine and the engine provides the power. It ignites it. It ignites it.

[00:22:01] Right. So let’s turn to let’s see what how Jesus answers this question. What’s the object of our faith? This is going to be, Mark 1122 through 24 the big faith passage that. The ream of folks love. And if you don’t know what I just said, then you’re not part of that crowd. Mark 1122 through 24. Thank you. And Jesus answered them, Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believe that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. So there’s a whole nother teaching about believing that you’ve already received what you’ve asked for, which is past tense. And then it will be yours, which is future tense. We won’t touch on that today, but I want to touch on the other parts of this. Notice what Jesus says. He first says, Have faith in God, right? And then what will happen? If you have faith in God, what happens?

[00:23:29] Then you can say things.

[00:23:31] And it will be done. Watch this. For you, it will be done for you. Have faith in God and then it will be done for you. Who’s doing it. God is. Does it take any effort from you? Know why? Because you’re not doing it. God’s doing it. Takes no effort. And because it takes no effort. Are all things possible to him? Who has faith? Yes. Put a little caveat. We’re going to hit it again later. But while we’re on this topic, where does faith come from?

[00:24:23] No faith comes from.

[00:24:27] Hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Who assigns a measure of faith to each person? All right, let’s look at this. Let’s look in Romans 12 three, I believe it is, because I was just showing this yesterday.

[00:24:43] Romans 12 three.

[00:24:47] For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. In other words, just because you do something great. Through faith. Don’t think of don’t think highly of yourself, or even if it’s not faith, but it’s through some anything you do, it’ll be eternal value is faith. Don’t think more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Who gives faith? God. Where does faith come from? God. Watch this. If faith comes from God, then can you have faith in anything that is not God’s will? No. So therefore, all things are possible. By one who has faith. Because by definition, if you have faith, it is God’s will. Because it only comes from God. You cannot do something that’s contrary to God’s will.

[00:25:58] With faith.

[00:25:59] So it’s interesting so far. So what we’ve come to the conclusion so far is this Faith is not faith in ourselves. It’s not faith. In our ability to believe that something’s going to get done because we believe it’s going to get done. That’s something that it’s our faith that is producing the power. What we find here is that it will be done for you indicates this whole thing, that it will be done for you. It indicates this is not something that we do, but it’s something that God does. It’s not something that we do. It’s something that God does. This is the simplicity of faith. God’s the one doing it. Oh, my faith is doing is moving him to do it.

[00:27:03] And he said, God has dealt it to you.

[00:27:06] God has dealt it to you.

[00:27:08] To every man. The measure. So there’s just one measure. Yeah, right. Correct. They measure. They measure. They measure. So he’s dealt it to everybody, to every man.

[00:27:21] We might talk on this later, but if not, I’ll share it now. I was asking the Lord about faith. And faith is we’ve talked about this a number of times, that it’s a conduit. Right. So let me just draw this up real quick, because the Lord has dealt every one a measure of faith. Notice that every time the apostles and the disciples asked Jesus, increase our faith. He never does.

[00:27:51] Say that one more time.

[00:27:53] Every time the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, he never does.

[00:27:59] It’s already given them the name.

[00:28:00] He’s given them the measure. So watch this. This is the heavenly realm. This is where all of our blessings and promises reside. And then we have the earthly realm. And this is where we and our body resides. And what faith is. Faith is the conduit. You’ve heard me say this term, faith is the conduit. That connects the heavenly realm to the earthly realm. And all of our.

[00:28:36] Blessings travel.

[00:28:38] Through this conduit or conduit is like a big pipe, right? All of our blessings and promises that we have are spiritual blessings and promises. They travel through this conduit into the earthly realm. So faith is a conduit. Is this making sense so far? But belief. So faith is a kind of it is a black and white. It’s like I shared with the other time. Faith is like faith is like being pregnant. You’re either pregnant or you’re not. Sometimes you’re real big pregnant, sometimes you’re not real big, but you’re either pregnant or not. That’s faith. Faith is either true or false, but it’s your belief.

[00:29:32] That changes the size.

[00:29:35] So if you think about this pipe, it could be a small garden pipe, garden hose type pipe, and only a little bit of blessings and promises can trickle through from the heavenly realm to the earthly realm. But then what happens if I change that out to a large 6 or 8 inch PVC pipe? Now a lot more stuff can flow through it. What if I transfer that out to a three foot wide drainage pipe even more? In other words, we all are given a measure of faith. The question is how large our belief is that determines how much of our heavenly blessings we receive in the earthly realm. Is this making some sense?

[00:30:23] Yeah, it is really like the belief is in the grace how big God is to you. Yes. I mean, you know. Right.

[00:30:31] And that’s where we’re headed in just a few more minutes. I’ve got more than a few minutes before I get to the main point for our teaching. So we’re just building this up. So it’s time for Caroline’s little cameo. Or a shout out. She texted me an excerpt from a book by Ian Clayton a few weeks back, and Ian makes a really insightful comment. This is what he says to raise the dead. You don’t have faith in yourself to raise the dead. You have faith in God to do it for you. That was such an insightful comment. That’s what I’m trying to show you here. With everything we’re doing over here. It’s the faith that moves the Lord to authorize what we request. And then the Lord does it right. So the object of our faith is not ourselves. This is the key. It’s not that we have faith in my ability to believe enough. The object of our faith is in the Lord to do that for which we’ve asked. And what faith is. It’s not walking in your faith. That causes something to happen. It’s walking in faith that the Lord will do what you’ve asked him to do. This is why, if you ever pray, Lord, please do this, if it be your will. There is absolutely zero faith in that prayer because. You cannot pray in faith if you do not know God’s will. We cover this last time with Dave first or second session about David and Goliath. David knew God’s will and therefore he could confidently go against Goliath and declare, I’m going to kill you.

[00:32:33] And God’s going to root your whole army and we’re going to be victorious. And all he had was a sling and a few stones. So. Any time we have. And I’m not trying to jump on this, but so many well-meaning believers believe. Well, let me be. Let me really pray a good prayer and be really righteous on this. Lord, please do this if it be your will. But the Lord doesn’t ask us to try to be righteous in our own effort. He says, I want you to walk by faith. I want you to know my word. Believe my word. And step out boldly on my word and do what my word has told you to do. Whether it’s my word in the Bible or whether it’s something I’ve revealed to you or told you, and you know it’s me talking to you. No my will and then act on it. And if you don’t know my will, then it’s a petition. I’m not saying don’t pray if you don’t know God’s will. All I’m saying is you cannot pray by faith if you do not know God’s will. You can petition all day long. A lot of times we do that all the time. And the Lord loves petitions. That’s what all the incense that is in the temple and the tabernacle is all about. Those are the prayers of the saints, right? But we walk by faith when we know his will. And we believe that he is faithful and true to carry out that will. So the picture in all of this is the authority.

[00:34:14] Okay. It’s not us doing it. Jesus has the authority. Our faith that God, the Father will authorize it, that they will make this happen. So if we go back to the passage in Mark 11, this is the one Jesus says, Have faith in God, right? The faith to move a mountain or to receive anything for which you ask. Is your faith in God that he will do what you’ve asked? It’s your faith in God that he will do what you’ve asked. It’s not your faith that it will be done. The Canaanite woman did not have the faith that her daughter will be healed. She had faith in Jesus to heal the daughter or faith in God to heal the daughter through Jesus. That’s why she came to Jesus. He was the key. To get her daughter healed. And he is the key for us as well. Here’s the simple takeaway. This is our initial little over half way point takeaway on this is that. Faith is believing things in our heart. And that is true. But it’s only a partial truth. It’s a little bit more. Were to believe in our heart and not doubt. But faith is not believing in our heart that it will happen. Faith is not believing in our heart that I’ve got the power through my faith to cause us to happen. I remember when I started praying for people and I would get kind of intense, like someone with a bad name, and I’d put my hand on their knee and say, knee be healed.

[00:36:06] And I was just looking at it with these penetrating eyes, thinking that the more I focused on it, the greater the healing. Right? No, it’s just the opposite. Because your mind. Has no impact with faith. It can cause doubt and it can minimize your faith, but it cannot increase it. In fact, from that note, one of the things that I was taught and it is so effective is if you’re praying by faith. You don’t concentrate on it. You. You look somewhere else. You get your mind off of what? The heart. So you pray through your heart, but not through your mind. So, like, if I’m praying for someone’s knee, I would. I would look around, maybe watch a bird fly and I say, in Jesus name, knee be healed. All the pain go out right? And I’m not even concentrating on it because concentration destroys your faith. Faith is of the heart is not of your eyes. It is. And this is why I’ll keep going back to Peter all the time. As long as Peter stopped concentrating on what’s going on, he kept his eyes on the Word of God on Jesus. He walked on water. But then he chose to think about what’s going on and to concentrate on it. And he lost it. He doubted, and he sunk. So our faith is not that our belief creates the power to do something. Our faith is in God to do it. So faith is in God to do it. And why is he going to do it? Because of one thing. What is that?

[00:38:00] It will. No.

[00:38:03] Lots of things are his will that he never does. This is why the Lord’s Prayer says, Lord, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why are we praying for it if it’s if his will is always so, It’s not as he doesn’t do it because it’s his will. Our faith is in God to do it.

[00:38:22] Because he said it.

[00:38:23] We ask because we asked him. There you go. Because we ask. If you don’t ask, you shall not get. I mean, that’s a simplistic. Do you see this Is it? Ask in faith. Ask believing that you’ve received and then it’ll be granted you. My Father in heaven already knows what you want before you even ask. So why doesn’t he give it to you? Because he wants you to ask. And he wants you to ask with faith, believing that you’ve already received it. You remember Blind Bartimaeus? We did this at the beginning of faith. Like Jesus. Blind Bartimaeus. This crowd goes by with Jesus. He says, Who is that? Is Jesus? He starts screaming out, Jesus, son of God help me. Right? And so Jesus calls him up to him. Here, this blind man is obviously blind, has all the all the trappings of being blind that beggars have and whatever. And he comes up to Jesus. You know what Jesus’s first words were at that point? What do you want me to do for you? Yeah. What do you want me to do?

[00:39:33] So obvious.

[00:39:34] Very obvious. But he wanted to ask. The application of faith is that you ask the Lord to do something for you. So here’s a question. If faith is believing God will do something because we have asked him to do it. Then what is the foundation of that faith? In other words, why do we believe that he will do it? Does that make sense? If our faith is in God to do what we ask him to do, what’s the foundation of our belief that he will do it?

[00:40:13] His faithfulness.

[00:40:14] The word.

[00:40:16] All right. Our knowledge you.

[00:40:20] So let’s look at this. So we’re going to turn to first Corinthians 1313. First Corinthians 1313.

[00:40:41] And it says.

[00:40:46] So now faith, hope and love abide these three. But the greatest of these is love. So let me show you. This is saying that.

[00:40:58] Faith, hope and love all abide.

[00:41:06] Now abide means eternal existence. They abide eternally. So all of these are in the if you look at the heavenly realm. So you have the earthly realm, right? You have the earthly realm. You have the heavenly realm. The heavenly realm and the earthly realm are all part of creation. And then you have for God exists. God exists outside of creation. Faith, hope and love abide because they abide in God. Outside of creation. Outside of time. This is why, if you go back to faith like Jesus, Session six, I think it was.

[00:41:59] Um.

[00:42:00] We talked about how faith today can actually change events that happen in the past. One of the simple examples is George Mueller from England at the turn of the 1900s, had an orphanage and they were sitting down. At this point, it was just a small orphanage. All the children were at their places to eat breakfast. There was no food anywhere in the house. All their bowls and their plates were empty. And George comes up and says, Children, you know, we must be in time for school. So let’s pray. And he said, Father, we thank you for the food that you’re about to give us to eat. In Jesus name, Amen. Absolutely no doubt that the Lord would provide. What happened is a knock on the door. And it’s the baker. Mr. Mueller. The Lord woke me up at 2:00 this morning, and I was afraid that you didn’t have any bread for the children. So I got up and I baked some bread. Could you all use it? Yes, Thank you. And then as soon as the baker leaves, here comes another knock at the door. And it’s the milkman. He said, Mr. Mueller, my milk cart is broken down right outside of your orphanage. I need to empty it so I can fix it.

[00:43:23] Could you all take my milk? So now they had all their breakfast. But that prayer at that moment actually got those events started long before the prayer ever happened because. Our faith exists outside of time because it is part of God. It’s from God. It’s almost like an umbilical cord between us and God. Right? Okay. It goes out, goes through us from the earthly realm to the heavenly realm, but actually outside of the heavenly realm, into the eternal realm where God is. And that’s our faith. That’s where it comes from. So it impacts past and present simultaneously because there is no time in eternity. Got a little off. Sorry about that. But faith, hope and love abide. Abide means that they are eternal. They’re eternal because they are part of the Lord. But here’s what I want you to see. This is the foundation. You have love as the foundation on top of love is hope. And on top of hope is faith. Okay. Faith. Hope and love abide all three. But the greatest of these is love. Because the foundation of all of it is love. Love makes promises. Right. Hope is the assurance of those promises made by love. And faith is the expectation and the belief of those promises.

[00:45:15] Through hope.

[00:45:18] Faith. Hebrews 11 one. Remember, faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. So faith. Is rooted in hope and love. But the foundation is love. You can draw it up a little bit differently if you want to. You can use three circles for my audio listeners. I’m drawing three circles left to right with a connecting line between the one on the left is Faith. The one in the middle is hope and the one on the right is love. What you see is hope is the connection between faith and love that makes the promises. Love is what does because God is love. His primary attribute is love. Faith. Hope and love. And faith is rooted in the foundation of love. If you know the Lord loves you. Then you can have and will have greater faith that he will do as you have asked. Think about a husband and wife. Pa and I love each other very much. If I were to ask PA, would you please go get me a glass of water? I have absolute faith that she will do it. Why? Because I know how much she loves me. And she will do anything for me because that love is so great. If that’s human love. How much more will your Heavenly Father do for you as well? All of the miraculous that you see in the Old Testament. Old Testament, New Testament and today are all because of God’s love. It’s all because he has promised. And he wants you to have that blessing, but that blessing he has set up, except for his special grace at times to override it. He set up that it’s only given and released through faith. Because when the son of man returns, will he find faith on Earth? This is why he prays that your faith will not fail. It is the key to receiving everything our father has promised us. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. But I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. But yet that spiritual blessing is only received by acting through faith. It’s not given simply because. He promised.

[00:48:16] Is this sinking in a little bit?

[00:48:19] So what we find is this thing that love is really this, this whole foundation of it all. There’s another book out there called Treasures of Darkness. It’s a series of visions that a guy named Joseph Sturgeon had that the Lord took him through and said, Write these down. And in one of those times, Jesus said to him that love is a foundation of faith.

[00:48:47] And this is.

[00:48:48] Just what we see in First Corinthians Foundation of Faith. Love is a foundation of faith. And then he said something really important. And this is the part this is this is the pinnacle, the focal point, the climax of this entire session for today. As you increase in love. And how much you understand the Lord loves you and loves that person that you’re praying for. As you increase in love, you will increase in faith. Because faith is tied directly to love. If. I knew Pierre did not love me, and I asked for a glass of water. I have no confidence that she would go get one. But because I know how much she loves me, I have no doubt that she will. What changed? The only thing that changed is my understanding of her love for me. When we understand how much the Lord loves us.

[00:50:03] Our faith. Is great.

[00:50:07] If we go back to last week’s session or the previous session on trials. How can you count it all, Joy, and greatly rejoice when you go through grievous trials? Because as we saw in a bunch of other passages, we see that it’s the Lord who tests us. And if our loving father is the one that’s testing us. We can believe him. That it’s for our best. Good. How can a woman rejoice when she goes in labor pains because she knows what’s coming out? And the the result is worth the trial in going through it to get it. That’s the way it is with us. We have these trials we’re going through. They’re grievous. The question is, do we complain to God? Why are you doing this to me? When you do that, you have no clue about how much he loves you. But the more you understand how much your father loves you, then when you go through trials, your whole attitude shifts and you go, Praise the Lord. Thank you, Lord, for this trial. I greatly rejoice because I know that you’re involved. You’re guiding. It’s testing my faith. And I want my faith to prove itself genuine. And it does because I know how much you love me.

[00:51:45] When you come across someone who’s sick and you want to pray for them. If you understand how much the Lord really loves them. It’s easy. To pray in faith that God will heal. And expect him to heal. Think about this. Let’s say for a moment that. You have a dear friend who’s a doctor and he’s a world. He’s a whiz at doctor. He can heal anyone of anything. He’s just a, you know, one of those amazing doctors and you’re out somewhere and you come across a person who’s sick. And you know that this guy loves just healing everyone. You have no doubt if you say, Hey, Bill, Dr. Bill, my friend, would you take a look at this person and help her out? Of course he will. In fact, you didn’t say, hey, this is, you know, Susie, this is your lucky day. I’m here with my friend Bill, and he loves to heal people, and he can heal you. Let me go get him. I have no doubt that Bill will come over and meet with Susie and that bill will heal. Why do we doubt the Lord to do anything different? Because we don’t understand the level of his love.

[00:53:09] By the way.

[00:53:10] But I’ll tell a short story. So I was on the phone with a friend of mine and I’ve never seen a leg grow out. Lots of healings, lots of knee pain, hip pain, not so many total full restorations. But I was on the phone with Bud and Bud at the time that you and I were talking on this. The Lord had just kind of started reveal this, this understanding of faith, being rooted in his love. And as I was on the phone, I thought. You know, the Lord really loves Bud. I know he’s going to heal Bud right now. And so when he gave you a new hip, it was like, Yeah, that’s exactly what I knew was going to happen. Because how much the father loves you, Bud. And then when you said, I walk with no pain, but I still have a limp, and I asked you, why do you limp? And I was thinking you were going to say, because I’ve always done it that way. But when you said my leg is one inch shorter than my left leg, then I thought, Yeah, we’re on a roll. I know how much Lord loves you. And so sit back down, bud, and let’s just ask the Lord to grow it out. And when you got back up and it was perfectly the same length as your left one, all of that, that was the first time that a leg has grown out. But I knew it was going to happen because the Lord was showing me how much faith is rooted in love. And once you understand how much the Lord loves you and loves that person that you’re ministering to, then you can confidently pray in faith that the Lord will do it and never have to say, Lord, if it be your will, because you know it’s it and it’s not the Lord’s will that does it. It’s your faith that moves Jesus to.

[00:55:04] Authorize that healing.

[00:55:06] Just like with a Canaanite woman, our faith simply moves the Lord to then act. But if we don’t have faith, we doubt the Lord won’t move. Except by a manifold grace, but not on a consistent basis. So the more we understand God’s love for us and we walk in that love. Then the easier it is for us to have the faith that he will do as we have asked him. But we have to walk in that love. How do you do it? First step, I tell you everyone this. It’s fasting and face time. Fasting moves you into the spirit realm, away from the flesh. The more you fast, the less you sin. Those things of sin that always grip at you just fall away as you fast. And then as you face time, get down on your knees and on your face. 30 minutes or more before the Lord. Actively inactive, before the Lord. Not thinking on anything, not trying to praise him, not asking for blessings. Just saying, Lord, I am here and try to see. Even though your eyes are closed, you just try to see into the heavenly realm. I’m not a seer, so I don’t see. Some people will actually see, but over time you’ll start to see more.

[00:56:38] But what you’re doing is you’re being actively engaged in the presence of the Lord, because as you go down on your face and face time, on your knees, face to the ground, what’s happening is your soul, or at least your spirit, is up in the heavenly realm, engaging with the Lord Himself. And as that’s happening, it’s nurturing you. It’s feeding you. It’s the example I use all the time is if you eat a lot of junk food all the time, you’re just going to feel yucky and ugly all the time. And then if you start eating healthy, you eat a healthy meal. You don’t go, Oh my gosh, I feel healthy. It’s so gradual. You don’t you don’t experience it. But bit by bit, you start to get better, feel better, more energy, and you hunger to eat the good stuff and you eat some of that bad stuff you used to eat and you you spit it out because oh my gosh, this is horrible. I can’t believe I enjoyed it because everything shifts when you fast. And when you do face time, what will happen is.

[00:57:45] You start to grow.

[00:57:47] Closer in intimacy to the Lord. And as you do that, your understanding of his love not only for you but for others starts to increase. And when that happens, when love increases, your faith will increase. And all things become even more powerful and more possible. Because now when you pray and ask for something to be done, there is no fear or concern or doubt that the Lord is going to do it. Because you know how much he loves whatever it is that you’re praying for. You know, it’s his will. And therefore you can pray confidently for that. And this is why faith is so much easier to apply. When it’s no longer you having to well up so much belief and conviction that something’s going to happen simply because you prayed for it. But you can’t well up that much belief and conviction because that’s all in your mind.

[00:58:49] When you can simply sit back.

[00:58:51] One of the other statements I made in faith, like Jesus, is that faith takes no effort. Once you understand how much the Lord really loves you. Then your faith that he will do as you have asked him to. Takes no effort. It takes no effort at all because, you know, that’s what he wants to do. He’s just waiting for you to ask and believe that he will. See, if I were to ask PA, would you please go give me a cup of water?

[00:59:25] She knows.

[00:59:27] That. I expect her to do it. And she’s going to go do it because she loves me so much. But what do you think would happen if she knew that? I completely doubt her, that I think she’s a jerk. She doesn’t love me. And I asked for a cup of water and and I have no expectation that she’s going to do it. Is she as likely and as motivated? Go get me that cup of water. No. In the human terms. We have the little saying that people don’t. People do what they know that you’re expecting them to do. Right.

[01:00:00] That’s sort of the way it is with God.

[01:00:03] God’s not human. But when God knows that we expect him to do it. Then he does it. But when we doubt that he’s going to do it. We’re doubting his love. He doesn’t do it.

[01:00:19] That’s what faith is. Okay.

[01:00:21] That’s the idea of faith.

[01:00:24] So back to.

[01:00:25] Kind of the last few things in wrapping this up. Let me clear off the board.

[01:00:40] Is this some powerful stuff? Getting a lot out of it. Okay. The simplicity.

[01:00:48] Of faith.

[01:00:55] Here is the summation of the simplicity.

[01:00:59] Of faith. Number one.

[01:01:07] It’s not in our ability to believe. In other words, it’s not in our.

[01:01:22] Ability to believe so strongly that something is going to happen, that it actually happens. That’s name it and claim it.

[01:01:33] That’s false.

[01:01:35] The simplicity of faith is it’s not in our ability to believe it. But it’s in our understanding.

[01:01:48] And this is the key of God’s.

[01:01:54] Willingness to do. You have this great big 200 pound weight.

[01:02:06] There you go. To move. And there’s no way.

[01:02:09] That you can even begin to lift it. You’re not strong enough. So you call in, you have a friend who’s a bodybuilder and you ask him to do it. I’m sure I know he’ll do it. And he’s got the he’s got both the ability and the willingness to do it. I know that I’ll get that 200 pound weight move because he’s picks it up and move it. That’s what it is with God. It’s not our ability to believe something’s going to happen simply because we believe so strong. We’ll never achieve that level of belief because the mind cannot do that, because the mind has no power of its own to cause something to happen. The simplicity of faith is that it’s our understanding that God is willing.

[01:02:58] God’s willingness to do.

[01:03:00] And. We can take this simplicity of faith and move it down to.

[01:03:09] Dissecting.

[01:03:11] Two parts of faith. Okay. Or let’s call it the two processes of faith.

[01:03:24] Process, number one.

[01:03:27] Is believing in God’s willingness to do. And why do we believe in God’s willingness to do?

[01:03:43] Because he loves us. And then the second process.

[01:03:54] Is we know that he will do it. And why will he do it? Because we ask him.

[01:04:11] Is this simplifying it?

[01:04:16] When we pray by faith. We know God is willing to do it because he loves us and that he will do it because we’ve asked him. We can believe God will do it because Jesus has given us his authority. To ask anything we want in his name by faith.

[01:04:39] And then.

[01:04:41] It will be done. And he’s given us his authority. To do what? Make disciples all authority in heaven. And earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, in my authority. Make disciples of all the nations. So anything we do that is focused on disciple building, building someone up, encouraging them, bringing freedom to them, whatever that is. Pray in faith knowing. God’s willingness to do it because he loves them and loves you, and believing that he will do it because you have asked him to do it. I want to show you one glimpse of this and then we’re going to wrap up. So, Matthew, 16, five, three, 11. Jesus tried to teach this all the time to his disciples. They still didn’t quite get it along the way. But Matthew 16 five, 311 And I’ll just show this to you real quickly. It starts like this. Matthew 16, verse five. When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, We brought no bread. But Jesus aware of this, said O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not yet remember the five loaves for the 5000 and how many baskets you gathered or the seven loaves for the 4000 and how many baskets you gathered.

[01:06:23] How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In other words, Jesus is telling them, Don’t you understand that your Father in heaven provides for you? Don’t you understand? You have no lack because he loves you so much and he takes care of all of you. You of little faith for not believing how much he loves you. And because of his love, you never have to worry about your provision. This is what he keeps teaching all the time. Lots of different ways. So the more you understand the depth of God’s love for you, then what we find is faith is simply walking in that understanding. Once you understand the depth of God’s love for you, then faith is simply walking in that understanding, knowing that he is willing to do whatever you have asked him to do.

[01:07:30] Because he loves.

[01:07:31] You.

[01:07:33] That’s it.

[01:07:34] When you doubt the father’s love. That’s when you don’t have faith. The more you understand this love, the greater the faith. Because it’s faith is rooted in love. Pretty cool. Any questions? How about any of our Zoom folks? Any questions here? Beatty.

[01:08:00] I do. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can.

[01:08:03] So, great. Great session. Um, but in the question that you answered, the first question I put in there, but my next question was how do we reconcile deaf? I mean, and I know I don’t know if you know or not, but Rick’s mom passed away last night, and I know there was a ton of people praying for her.

[01:08:27] Believer strong walking in faith, but she passed.

[01:08:31] So how do we reconcile that when we’re dealing with the sickness, you know, terminal illness of of a loved one and we’re praying in faith and we know God loves that person and we know he can heal her or them. How do we reconcile that?

[01:08:49] That’s a great question. I’m going to make a statement that’s going to sound insensitive and it’s not. But I want to preface it that it’s not an insensitive statement. The evidence of faith is the mountain moves.

[01:09:08] Jesus says.

[01:09:09] If you pray by faith, what you pray for will happen. And we use this terminology a lot in our Christian circles. We prayed by faith and it didn’t happen. We prayed in faith. We had faith for it and it didn’t happen. The simple answer is no, you did not have faith for it. Otherwise it would have happened. You cannot pray by faith and God not do it. In fact, one of the visions Beatty Junior had, he was asking the Lord about faith. And he said, and I think it was Beatty in this vision, he said, a faith jumped out of my belly region like a lightning bolt and went straight to the heart of God. It was so powerful that mighty angels would have to jump aside before it would run right through them. And it said as soon as it hits God’s heart, he has bound himself to always do what that faith desired. Always. That’s what his word says. He will always do what we have prayed and asked for by faith. The definition of faith is believing it will actually happen. And by faith. The other definition is it is God’s will.

[01:10:29] A lot of times we.

[01:10:30] Pray God’s will, but we really don’t have faith. We have belief. So much hope. That. What? That we fooled ourselves into believing we have faith. I remember a story. I’m getting to your answer, but I want to give a bigger surrounding framework on this. There are three teenage girls missionaries out on the little short term mission trip, and their pastor had been preaching about faith, about believing that if you just believe, then God will do. So they came to this raging river. It was overflowing. It was flood time. And they wanted to go across and go up into the jungle area to a tribe that’s up there. And they said it’s the Lord’s will that that tribe evangelized. Let’s walk. Let’s act by faith and walk through the river, just like the Israelites did through the raging Jordan. And so by faith, what they thought was faith because they believed it so hard, so much, everything lined up. It’s God’s will, all these things. So they started going across the river. And they found their bodies three days later downstream. All three of them had drowned because that wasn’t faith. That was mental belief. We have another friend. Their daughter was going through some really difficult times with the pregnancy and praying that they wouldn’t lose the pregnancy. And I remember the the mom was saying, but I believed and I prayed and I prayed by faith that God.

[01:12:10] Would.

[01:12:11] Heal that pregnancy. And he didn’t. But notice the intensity. Any time you pray with intensity.

[01:12:22] That’s not faith.

[01:12:24] You never see anyone in the Bible with faith praying with intensity.

[01:12:31] All you see.

[01:12:32] Is praying with full expectation. If I am fully expectant on what God’s will is, I know God’s will and I’m fully expecting that He will do because I’ve asked him. You never see me pleading with intensity. Faith takes no effort. So how do we wrap this back to the death of a loved one? In the general framework of God’s will. It is God’s will for all to be healed. Jesus never turned anyone away. That came to him for healing.

[01:13:10] And Jesus is the.

[01:13:11] Exact imprint of God himself. So we can see God’s will. We see it in Isaiah saying by His stripes you are healed? Matthew talking about he healed everyone to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah that by his stripes you are healed. And then we see in first or second Peter when it says by his stripes, you were healed. Past tense now. So how do we reconcile someone who is sick?

[01:13:39] Who dies.

[01:13:41] The only way I’ve come to understand this, and I don’t have any special word of knowledge on this, but just as I’ve gone through this and a couple of things the Lord has shared with me over time is generally speaking, it’s God’s will to heal. But let’s give two extreme examples. I’ve got a 20 year old with cancer and I’ve got a 105 year old with cancer. Is it really God’s will to heal both of them equally the same. The 105 year old. It might be cancer, might be the process God uses to say, I have numbered your days, I have numbered everyone’s days and your days are now up. It’s time to come home to me. But with the 20 year old, his days aren’t numbered yet. I mean their number. But his time isn’t up yet. So I can pray that God heals and God heals one and not the other. I think I have faith for both of them. But the reality is I only have faith for the 20 year old. But not the 105. And why is that? Because the 105 dies. But the 20 year old gets healed and simply by evidence of the outcome, I can determine which one did I have faith on and which one did I not? Does that mean that I could have believed differently for the 105 year old? I don’t know. The question is, was it God’s will for him to be healed or was it God’s will to bring him on home? Because if it was God’s will to bring him on home, if the time was up, then there’s absolutely no way I could have faith in praying for the 105 year old, because by definition, faith comes from the Lord and has to be the Lord’s will. So if I’m praying that God heals him. And it’s not as well, then I can’t be praying in faith. So that’s kind of a big round loop to come back over to Rick’s mom. I don’t know the facts and the circumstances from God’s perspective. But I do know that.

[01:15:54] If prayer was actually done.

[01:15:56] By faith, then God has promised that he will always answer prayer by faith. And therefore, since he did not answer those prayers by healing his mom. I can come to the conclusive answer that no one prayed by faith.

[01:16:18] They may have prayed with deep desire.

[01:16:21] Deep, authentic belief in their head and believing that it was God’s will. But the reality is we can’t say that it was by faith because the mountain didn’t move. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is there are some people that don’t get healed. When I pray for them, a lot of them to some degree. And the more I grow in this process of understanding how the Lord works is there are some things that you can pray that is God’s will. You know, you can pray because it is God’s will and God will heal.

[01:16:57] But I started to find.

[01:16:59] That there are a lot of sicknesses that we have that may actually have a spiritual root, a spiritual torment because of some sort of legal right somewhere in the spirit world that gives a tormenting spirit, a right to be there. God’s will more than healing is the repentance. And there have been times when I’ve prayed for people like I remember this one lady I think I shared about her maybe on this lesson. I know I did in spiritual warfare. Her name is Lanita and she was over at Walmart and she couldn’t read because her eyes were blurry and her boyfriend, just four feet away, had a cap that said Levi’s two inches high on the letters and she couldn’t read it. So I said, Well, Lord doesn’t want you to not have good eyesight, so let me pray for you. So I prayed for her and the eyesight cleared up just enough so she could read the letters Levi’s. But they’re still blurry, but it wouldn’t go any further. It wouldn’t heal any further. And then I asked the Lord prompted me to ask this. I said, Do you have unforgiveness for anyone? She said, Yes. I led her through unforgiveness. I prayed for her. She instantly, within a few moments, had 20 over 20 vision. And so what happened is even though I was praying by faith, there was something blocking that faith, which was another part of God’s will, and that was for her to forgive her ex-boyfriend. And and therefore I could not have faith to heal her as long as God had a different plan in place. Once she operated by faith and obeyed the Lord, then I could pray for healing and God healed her. So there’s a lot of complexities when we pray for someone. What’s going on? Generally speaking, it’s God’s will. But there are always exceptions. And with God I’ve learned never put him in a box because we never know everything about him. Is that a decent answer for that, bud? Yes. Probably a long winded answer.

[01:19:05] It’s okay. It’s. It’s not. It doesn’t seem like a simple.

[01:19:12] That’s it.

[01:19:13] It’s not as simple as we try to make it right.

[01:19:18] You know, it’s like so many things.

[01:19:20] We have these little doctrines. We think, okay, now we know it completely. And what’s actually happening, if you take like this great big whiteboard, we come up with God’s conclusion. We get this little dot and we say, okay, now we know what God’s will is on this. And yet it’s just one little dot on the big whiteboard and we’ve missed all this other part. There’s so much more to it. A lot of depth and a lot of dimension. Thank you. Yeah. Any final questions? I mean, I thought that was a great question. Because it does answer a lot of things a lot of people question on.

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