Amazing Faith: Examining the Details of Our Faith

You're listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org. Help with our prayer lives. A warning about idols that are a substitute for God.

An idol is anyone or anything that takes the place of the true and living God in your life. That's why we can bring our prayer life to a halt. Prayer is a privilege. God invites us to pray with boldness. He invites us to seek, ask, and knock. But sometimes our prayers can be derailed. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us investigate those factors that can keep our prayers from reaching God's throne. We're in a practical series of lessons in the Gospel of Mark titled, The Gospel for Busy People. And today we'll see how to undergird our prayers with faith and with a proper attitude and respect for our God.

I have a message for you with the title, Amazing Faith, and we're in Mark chapter 7. This woman had a problem. Her daughter was possessed by demons and she needed to get to Jesus. And hell or high water would not stop her.

She was the mother who would not give up. Let's read now from Mark chapter 7. I'm going to read verses 24 to 29. And by the way, I'm reading from the New Living Translation.

She was a Gentile born in Syrian Phoenicia. Jesus told her, first I should feed the children, my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. She said, well, that's true, Lord.

But even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps that fall from the children's plates. I love the response of Jesus. Good answer, he said. Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter. And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed and the demon was gone. Jesus knows this woman has amazing faith. Jesus wants to draw this faith out and he wants to put it on display so we can all learn from it. So he sort of puts up a hurdle, if you will, but he knows this woman can easily clear this hurdle.

He knew she's going to be able to pass this test with flying colors. But sometimes it seems like God isn't listening to us. He always is. And he's not paying attention, but he is paying attention. I know the hardest response to accept is no response at all. But there may be something going on behind the scenes. In other words, when you pray and you pray for something over and over again and you wonder why your prayer is not answered in the affirmative, you ask, why is that?

Well, here's one option. Maybe there's a spiritual battle raging that you know nothing about. Let me say that again. Your prayer may not be answered because there's a spiritual battle raging that you know nothing about. There's a fascinating story in Daniel chapter 10 where a mighty angel appears before the prophet Daniel. The angel says to Daniel, hey, your prayer has been heard by God.

In fact, it was heard 21 days ago. And I was dispatched from heaven with the answer to your prayer, but I was tripped up by a more powerful angel, fallen angel, in this case described as the prince of Persia. So the Lord had to send reinforcements and Michael, the archangel, came to my rescue. And here's the answer to your prayer.

You ever think about that? You prayed a prayer. It was heard in heaven. An answer was sent and there's a spiritual battle among angels raging behind the scenes.

Remember this. God's delays are not necessarily his denials. Keep praying. Another reason your prayer may not be answered in the affirmative is because there is unconfessed sin in your life. Psalm 66 18 says, if I had not confessed this sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

In Isaiah 59, we read these words. Listen. The Lord is not too weak. He can't save you. Nor is he becoming dead, so he can't hear you. Here's the problem. Your sins have cut you off from God because of your sin. He's turned away and will not listen anymore. It may be a sin in your past that has remained unconfessed and undealt with.

Listen to this. God cannot forgive the sin you will not confess. Maybe it's a sin in your life right now you don't think is a sin.

You've somehow rationalized it. I think it's a good idea for all believers to pray what the Psalmist prayed in Psalm 139 when he said, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Have you just paused before the Lord in prayer recently and said, Lord, if there is anything in my life that is displeasing to you, if there is any relationship I'm engaged in that dishonors you, if there is any pursuit I'm engaged in that is outside of your will, would you show that to me? I don't want any sin separating me from you. I think the Lord will hear that prayer. Another thing that may keep your prayers from being answered in the affirmative is you have an idol in your heart. An idol in your heart. Idols in our hearts cause God to refuse to listen to our prayers. Ezekiel 14 3 says, Son of man, these leaders have set up idols in their hearts. They have embraced things that lead them into sin.

Why should I let them ask me anything? We think, wait, an idol? What do you mean an idol? We think of an idol as a little carved image and it, of course, is that.

But it can be something else. An idol can be something you drive. An idol can be something you hold. An idol can be some passion you have in life that's more important to you than God.

Listen to this. An idol, or a God with a small g, is anyone or anything that takes the place of the true and living God in your life. That's why we read in 1 John, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Years ago I was leading a tour to Israel and we went in the footsteps of Paul. So we went to modern day Turkey where the biblical Ephesus is.

And we saw that amazing city. And so the people of Ephesus worshiped the goddess Diana. A little carved image.

It was a big deal to the people there. So as I was getting ready to give my message I saw a little souvenir stand and they were actually selling these little Diana statues that the people used to worship. So I bought one because I was going to use it as an illustration. So as I'm giving my message I'm saying this is what the people worshiped and how ridiculous this is.

And I threw it to the ground and afterwards I threw it in my backpack and thought nothing of it. And then we got on a cruise ship because this cruise ship would take us from port to port for the footsteps of Paul. And I had two of my granddaughters with me Lucy and Stella. And I'm sitting in my cabin with them and I see they're playing with the little idol. The little goddess Diana.

And she's like a doll and they have her talking. I'm like that's like an idol. Why do I have an idol in my room? And why are my granddaughters playing with an idol? So I said girls give that to me.

I left the room and went to the side of the boat and I threw it over into the ocean. Because I don't even want a technical idol in my life. But if we allow these other things to crowd out God it can bring our prayer life to a halt. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. I want you to know tonight one thing. God loves you.

In a new book on the life of Billy Graham, Pastor Greg Laurie brings us a deeper appreciation for the man and his message. No matter what you've done. No matter how you've lived. No matter what the color of your skin. No matter what your racial background.

No matter what language you speak. God loves you. And He wants to come into your life.

He wants to give you a new beginning. Billy built bridges to people and he always shared the gospel and he always emulated Christ. And I think we can learn from his example. So I write about that and a lot more in this new book I've written called Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. It's an evangelist's book at the life of history's greatest evangelists. Get your copy of the new biography Billy Graham, The Man I Knew.

Go to Harvest.org. Well we're discussing prayer today on a new beginning. As Pastor Greg provides some insight on why our prayers are answered and sometimes why they're not.

It's a study based in Mark chapter 7. Here's another reason our prayers are not answered quite yet. Because God wants us to keep praying.

He wants us to keep praying. And clearly that's the situation with this woman. Again she did not erect these barriers to keep her away. But to draw her closer. Let's come back to what Jesus said.

Look at verse 27. Hey she says, Touch my demon possessed daughter. First I need to feed the children.

It is my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. What kind of thing is that to say? Let's understand it contextually. There's two words that could be used for dogs. One describes dirty roaming packs of dogs that live off garbage and dead animals.

And by the way there were a lot of those back in these days in Israel. I remember a number of years ago I was in a third world country. And I went for a run on the beach. That's when I used to run. I don't really run much anymore. I walk briskly. But I went for a run on the beach and all of a sudden a couple of wild dogs started chasing me.

I'll say this. I ran a lot faster. Maybe if I was chased by a wild dog again I would run.

But I ran and crazy wild dogs. That's not the word that Jesus uses. He uses a word that would refer to little puppies or family pets. It's sort of an affectionate way to describe it. I mean we love our dogs. Especially the doodles right. There's a lot of oodles and doodles in dogs today.

There's a labored doodle and then this doodle and then that oodle. But these cute little dogs. And dogs are so much a part of our culture.

There's a new book out now called Pet Nation that talks about how the attitude of Americans has changed toward their pets. In the old days dogs slept outside. Remember doghouses? Remember Snoopy and his doghouse? Sometimes he'd sleep on top of it.

And when you were in trouble what was the expression? Oh he's in the doghouse. Well dogs don't have houses anymore. Dogs live in our house. And sometimes they even live in our bed.

And sometimes they even eat at our table. And now dogs have Instagram accounts. And cats have hotels and gourmet food. And there's luxury fashion for pets. My goodness dogs are even mares. I just read an article that said a dog was elected mayor. I'm not making this up. In the town of Rabbit Hash in Kentucky.

Rabbit Hash. I'm surprised they didn't elect a rabbit to be their mayor. But the article says this dog whose name is Wilbur was elected. And by the way he won 13,000 votes. Mayor Wilbur. Their mayor is a dog. I'm sure when they told him the good news he just rolled over with excitement.

Crazy. But that's sort of our relationship with animals today. And so Jesus is really saying let me paraphrase.

You know it's not right to take the children's food and give it to the little puppies. She could have been offended by that. But I think she knew exactly what was going on. She could see the love in his eyes. She could see the little bit of a smile on his face.

So she comes back with this classic response. Look at verse 28. That's true Lord. But even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children's plate.

Hey Lord even some of your leftover power is more than enough for me. Guess what? That woman just passed the test with flying colors. Look at what Jesus says in verse 29.

He says good answer. Now go home for the demon has left your daughter. I think the disciples jaws must have dropped to the ground. They're thinking yeah get this woman out of here. You don't want to help her. And he makes a statement to her and she responds again.

What is going on here? And then he says good answer. Your prayer is answered. Good answer.

Isn't that great? Why this sudden transformation? He goes from ignoring her to answering her prayer. Answer. Because of her persistence, tenacity, and commitment. The door is shut in her face and she just keeps knocking. She won't give up. She had an amazing faith and she would not go home without an answer.

What an example for us. To remember to keep praying for our children. Maybe I'm talking to somebody right now who has a son or a daughter. Who's taking a prodigal turn. Maybe I'm talking to a prodigal. And I just want you to know that you're breaking your parents hearts. And you need to come back to the Lord again.

Because whatever you're chasing after, you know it's not going to satisfy you. You're going to come to the end of it. And I hope you don't come to the end of it at the end of your life and throw your life away. Come back to Jesus.

And I'll tell you how to do that in a few moments. So listen. Don't give up on your children. Or the devil will whisper in your ear and he'll say, Oh it's too late for your kids. They'll never change. Don't listen to him.

He's a liar and he's a father of lies. Keep praying for them. And by the way you know you're praying according to the will of God when you're praying for someone to come to or come back to the Lord.

You say, how do you know that Greg? Because the Bible says God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. It's the heart of God to see people come to him or come back to him. God loves these people and he wants to reach them.

And he wants to reach them for you. So our message is almost done here. Let's conclude. What did we learn from this story?

Number one. Faith is often found in the most unexpected places. Isn't it? Again faith is found in the most unexpected and unusual places. Listen. It is grace not the place that makes a person a believer.

Let me say that again. It's grace not the place. You know one would not have expected a person with faith like this woman who was in another country.

A country that was filled with the enemies of Israel. A woman who was steeped in pagan idolatry to be someone of great faith. I mean in contrast Simon Peter who was Jewish was told by Jesus he had little faith. Jesus said to him, oh Peter why do you have such little faith? And yet here is this woman a Gentile woman outside of God's covenant and he commends her faith.

Number two. No matter what bring your problems to Jesus. Nothing will shock him. Nothing will surprise him. You might say well Greg I'm just unworthy to approach God.

I hate to break this to you. You were never worthy to approach God. Yeah but what about that day that I went to church twice and I read ten chapters of the Bible and I shared the gospel with someone and I was fasting too. Hey you know what you were not worthy to approach God on that day.

And so this is not about worthiness. This is about the grace of God. Remember the woman said have mercy on me. Thirdly when you pray seek to find the will of God. Align yourself with it and pray with persistence. Again as I said you know you're praying according to the will of God when you're praying for someone to come to or come back to Jesus Christ. So keep praying. Don't give up. Jesus said men are always to pray and not give up.

Let me say this in closing. Jesus went way out of his way to reach this woman. She had an appointment with Jesus. I don't know if it showed up on her calendar that day but it was there. Do you have an appointment with Jesus right now?

Maybe you tuned into this by accident or maybe someone told you to tune in or however you are watching this. You don't have a relationship with God and you don't know how to have a relationship with God. Let me tell you how now. Understand this. God loves you. God wants to forgive you of all of your sin. But there's nothing you can do to make this right. Living a good life. Being a nice person.

Nothing. You're always going to fall short of God in his glory. But here's the good news. Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ came to this earth on a rescue mission to die on the cross. Oh we love to think of Jesus as a little baby there and the manger and that's all true.

But listen to this. The nativity or the birth of Christ or the incarnation happened so there would be the crucifixion. We don't want to think of the baby growing up to be a man and dying on a cross. We almost think of that as an aberration in the beautiful story.

No. It was the whole purpose of the story. This child was born to die that we may live. Christ died on the cross four years in. He took the judgment that should have come upon you and upon me. Upon himself. And he rose again from the dead three days later.

And listen. He stands at the door of your life right now and he knocks and says if you hear his voice and open the door he will come in. Jesus went out of his way to reach this woman. He wants to reach you right now. He wants to forgive you right now. You can come into a relationship with him and have all of your sin forgiven. I mentioned prodigals earlier. Maybe I'm talking to a prodigal.

And if you don't know what I mean by that I mean someone that walked with the Lord at one time but now you've walked away from him. And I bet you're pretty empty inside. Now maybe you haven't said it out loud but you are. Because you know how it can be. You know what it's like to wake up in the morning with guilt wracking you or having a hangover. You know what it's like to gather together with God's people and worship the Lord and hear the word of God but you push that all out of your life and you chase after other things and you've already seen the emptiness of it. You can come back to Jesus right now. You might ask well how do I do this? You call out to him. What did this woman do?

She called out to Jesus and the Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. You say but how do I call out to him? Do you have his number?

Can I text him? No, no. You call out in prayer. And in a moment I would like to lead you in a prayer where you would ask Christ to come into your life and forgive you of your sin. So listen if you want Jesus to forgive you of your sin if you want to know that you'll go to heaven when you die if you want to start this new relationship with him or if you're a prodigal son or daughter and you want to come back to the Lord pray this prayer with me. In fact you could even pray it out loud.

Just pray these words if you would. Lord Jesus I know that I'm a sinner but I know that you're the savior. I believe you died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. Now Jesus come into my life.

I choose to follow you from this moment forward. As my savior and Lord. As my God and friend. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. An important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie with those making a change in their relationship with God today. And if you yourself have prayed with Pastor Greg and made a first time decision for the Lord we'd like to help you get started in your new relationship with God. We'd like to send you our New Believers Growth Packet.

It's a collection of resources Pastor Greg has put together to help answer your questions and get you started off right in your walk of faith. And we'll send it without any charge. So just write us at A New Beginning Box 4000 Riverside, CA 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime 24-7.

Again dial that number 1-800-821-3300. Or just go online to harvest.org and click the words Know God. Well Pastor Greg we're making available your new book Billy Graham The Man I Knew. It's a fascinating read and there are so many things I found surprising. One of those surprises was that early on Billy had dreams of becoming a major league baseball player.

That's right. Okay so I'm going to share with you now ten things that will surprise you about the world famous evangelist. But I'm going to announce it again.

I need some echo in this and then a little fanfare. Okay? So here we go. Ten things that will surprise you about the world famous evangelist Billy Graham. All right. Now that we have that taken care of.

Here's number one. Billy Graham had dreams of playing major league baseball. Okay so Billy was a dairyman's son living in North Carolina and he wanted to play major league baseball especially after meeting the babe himself. Babe Ruth came to his town and Billy was able to shake his hand and watch the babe in action and that's what he dreamt of.

That was not meant to be. He was not going to be playing in a stadium. He was going to be preaching in stadiums all around the world. But a lot of people don't know that the dairyman's son known by most as simply Billy Frank wanted to be a pro baseball player. And that's just one of the many things that I bring out in this book called Billy Graham the Man I Knew. I want to tell you about his life. It's a flyover of who he was, where he came from, what he did. There's been many great books written on Billy Graham so I didn't feel like I needed to rewrite one of those books but it's really a book written by an evangelist, that's me, about the greatest evangelist, that's Billy.

And so I bring insights that maybe other books have not really touched on. I also weave in a lot of my personal experiences one-on-one with Billy, things he said to me personally and things I gleaned by watching him. So if you want to learn more about this man that changed the world get your copy of Billy Graham the Man I Knew. Yeah, his life is certainly worth a closer look. He was such a great example for all of us. And Pastor Greg and his co-author Marshall Terrell have done exhaustive research into Billy's life, research that took them all the way back to the Civil War.

So don't miss this opportunity to read about this modern day hero of the faith. And we'll send you a copy to thank you for your investment in making these daily studies possible. It's only through listener support that we can feature Pastor Greg's teachings each day. So send your gift today to A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300.

We can take your call anytime 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and look for Billy Graham the Man I Knew. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here, encouraging you to join us this weekend for what we call Harvest at Home. It's worship. It's a message from the Word of God.

You can watch it with your family in your front room or you can watch it on the go on your tablet, on your phone or your computer. Take it with you. Take the Word of God with you.

And join us for Harvest at Home at harvest.org. Well, next time we'll visit the moment when Jesus asked his disciples, Who do people say that I am? Pastor Greg shows us that how we answer reveals a great deal about us. Join us next time for A New Beginning. This is the day, the day when life begins. Thanks for listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for daily devotions and learn how to become a Harvest Partner at harvest.org.