Matthew chapter 21, we're going to read verse number 17 to 22.
The Bible says here in Matthew 21, And He left them and went out of the city into Bethany, and He lodged there. Now on the morning as He returned into the city, He hungered, and when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it and found nothing thereon but leaves only. And He said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig tree withered away. When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away?
Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If you have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." Father, we are so thankful to have the Word of God with us today, and with joy we assemble together in honor of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead and is even seated at the right hand of the throne of God. We thank You that in a world that's in chaos and fear and doubt, we can come to a God of peace and we can trust You. And we pray that today our hearts would be fixed upon the truth of Your Word. I pray that our lives would be conformed to it. And if anyone today doesn't know Christ, that they would trust in the only Savior, our Lord Jesus. And we ask this in Christ's name, and God's people said, Amen.
You may be seated today. Well, Matthew chapter 21 is really an incredible time in the life and ministry of our Lord and Savior. It is the last week of His life. Monday He rode into Jerusalem in a triumph, in what we call the triumphal entry of Jesus. He rode in on the full of a donkey, and that would be a sign of a king bringing peace and offering and extending peace.
And in this case, the King of Kings was offering peace to the citizens of Israel. But they would end up rejecting Him and crucifying Him by that Friday. That Monday evening, as He would enter into Jerusalem in that triumphal entry, as they load down their clothes and palm leaves and coats in front of Him and as a sign of their honor of Him, as He entered Jerusalem, He went into the temple that evening, looked around about, and then He would end up going back to Bethany without saying really anything or teaching or confronting anything that Monday evening.
Tuesday morning, He goes to the temple because He is going to confront the extortion that is going on. They had turned the house of God into a den of thieves, as Matthew 21 verse 13 says. They were taking people who were coming from a long way away, and there was really millions of foreigners who would have come at that time to worship in Jerusalem, and they would have to bring an offering, and they were saying, your offering's not acceptable, you have to buy one of our animals here, and they were selling those animals in the court of the temple, and they were selling them for about ten times higher than what they would typically be sold for. They had an exchange rate there. You would have to exchange your currency to the currency of Tyrian coin or a local currency to get a coin that did not bear the image of Caesar or some other pagan thing, so they would put a 25% tariff, or I mean exchange rate, on that.
Seems like they even had tariffs back then, right? And so instead of worshipping God, what was so sad in that day was the religious leaders really became the block between the people who came to worship God and God Himself, because they turned the temple into a place of extortion. And it was so tragic, and Jesus comes that Tuesday morning to confront it. While He's journeying in that Tuesday, He comes by a fig tree, and the fig tree has some leaves on it, and any time a fig tree had leaves, that was a testimony that it should have fruit, because fruit always came before the leaves would show. So if you saw a fig tree with leaves on it, you should be able to find some fruit. But the Bible says, when He came to the fig tree, there was no fruit on it, but leaves only.
It had a profession of being fruitful, but possessed no fruit. And as a result, Jesus curses the fig tree, and it dries up. And the Bible tells us that that morning, according to Mark's account, in Matthew's account, it's not in chronological order. You have the cleansing of the temple and then this whole event. But in Mark's account, in Mark 11, he actually curses the fig tree, cleanses the temple, and the next morning, they find that fig tree has withered away.
He's not so concerned about the chronology, he's just focused on the event of the withering of the fig tree. But that is a sign of the judgment of God upon the nation of Israel. Jesus expected to come to Jerusalem and find spiritual fruit as they would respond to the gospel, but instead, all He saw was religious leaves. All He saw was a good show, but no reality.
External performance, but no real substance. And all they had was hypocritical religion. And so this judgment upon the fig tree was simply a sign and symbol of the judgment of God that would come upon the nation of Israel. And its withering away would really be a sign of Rome, who put the hammer down upon Jerusalem.
1.1 million Jews were killed in 70 AD, and they would end up burning that temple to the ground in that year. This is also a warning to us, because the Bible tells us our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. And Jesus Christ, when He comes to our life, expects to find fruit. And the question is, what does the fruit of your life really say about the faith of your life?
Do you just have a good show of leaves on the outside, or do you have a reality of spiritual fruit in your life? Now the disciples respond to the withering of the fig tree in verse 20 with amazement. It says, And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon has the fig tree withered away? But they did not yet understand the significance of the fig tree withering away.
They did not understand what it truly meant. And Jesus takes this miracle of a fig tree to teach them about the power of faith when it's joined to the purpose of God. Jesus would cleanse the temple later that week, be rejected and crucified, and they would have to live out their lives without seeing Jesus physically with them. How important would it be for them, then, to live with a strong faith, to launch the church in Acts 2 and see it grow in the midst of great opposition and persecution? You talk about faith that needs to move mountains. They were needing to have a strong faith. And so the negative cursing of the fig tree is now balanced with the positive power of faith.
Just as the fruitless life leads to judgment, so the faithful life leads to God's blessings. As Hebrews 11 says, So this morning I want to look at a message I've entitled Faith That Moves Mountains. And the first thing we find here is in verse 21, faith and doubt.
Jesus answered and said unto them, after they're amazed by this physical miracle of Christ, So the first statement on this verse is what I want to initially look at. He said, So faith is what launches our Christian life, and faith is what will conclude it. And our life is to be defined by faith. In Mark's account of this story in Matthew 21, Mark 11, 22, Jesus told them, So what is faith? If I were to ask you to take a pen and paper and write down a definition of faith, what would you say it is? It's important to know that faith is not some abstract idea that floats around. It is not some kind of subjective, wishful thinking based on people's feelings and hope. Rather, faith is built upon the objective truth and rock of God's Word. Faith can be defined as the absolute persuasion, belief, and conviction that what God said He will do. It is belief that is built directly and fastened to the Word of God. God told Noah there will be a worldwide flood.
You need to build an ark to the saving of your house. Noah believed the Word of God and built the ark. God told Abraham to leave his homeland to a promised land, and he believed God went to a land that he did not know of, and he was blessed and became the father of faith. Gideon believed God, who said, You with 300 men can defeat the Midianite army who has 135,000 soldiers. He believed God, and he was victorious. The stories go on and on in the Bible.
Naaman came to the prophet Elijah, and he says, Go down and wash seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman at first struggled to believe it, but when he did believe the Word of God through the prophet, he went down and washed, and his childlike faith in the Word of God produced a childlike body that got rid of his leprosy. Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward is you will see what you believed.
The Great Hall of Faith defines all the great heroes of faith who lived incredible lives in acts of faith that were all attached to the Word of God. Their belief was not based on what they thought. It was based on what God says. Sometimes people say, Well, I just believe. Well, you can just believe, but you can just have faith in faith, and faith in faith is nothing. Faith in faith can ultimately be idolatry because it could just be I believe in what I believe, and faith is not attached to what you think.
That has no power in it. Faith is based upon the Word of God. There must be truth from Scripture that your faith is attached to. So when we talk about faith, it is not a feeling. It is not wishful thought. It is connected to a thus they is the Lord.
Let me give you an example of this. Sometimes somebody will say to me something like this, You know, I know that I'm saved. I know I'm a Christian, but sometimes I just struggle to know if my sins are forgiven. I think back to my past, and I know the things I've done, and sometimes I just feel so weighed down by guilt. Sometimes I just feel so weighed down by the false sins and failures of my past. Has anybody ever felt like that in your life? So hold them up real high for just a moment. I just want you to know that is a common struggle.
Let me give you a little bit of an answer for this. So I will ask people, let me ask you, have you trusted in Jesus Christ death for your sins, burial and resurrection, that He died for you, rose again, and do you believe in Him as your Lord and Savior? Have you repented and trusted in Him?
And they'll say, yes, yes, I've done that. I've trusted in Christ. And so my question then is, is your forgiveness based on how you feel, or is it based on what God says? Is forgiveness subjective, or is it objective?
In other words, is faith that you are forgiven, validated by good feelings, or is your forgiveness based upon the truth of God's Word? Listen to what 1 John 1 8 and 9 says, and I'll have somebody read it. I'm not asking you to read it, but let's actually all read it together. So, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth... Now let's hold that verse for just a moment, let's go back there. Notice he's not talking in first person or second person, right? He's talking in third person. The author is including himself. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive the truth, deceive ourselves.
Four third person pronouns, and the truth is not in us. Now he goes on in verse 9, If we confess our sins, and you can read this with me, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So, what does he say here? He is saying that if you say you never sin, then you're deceiving yourself. Even after you're saved, you're going to struggle with the flesh, you're going to have battles with sin, nobody's perfect. But if you confess your sins, what does the Bible say? That he will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
He will forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. So, if God has forgiven you, then instead of feeling bad about your past sins that God forgave you of, would it not be better to worship God for the forgiveness that he's given to you? Do you think that you can rob God of worship because we are not building our faith on God's word, rather we're building it upon our feelings? Truth is not based on what I think or feel, truth is based upon what God says. Faith is not built upon the subjective, sandy foundations of man's feelings, but on the objective standard of God's word.
So, when Jesus talks about faith and have faith in God, it is faith built upon the word of God. So, if you feel pressed down about your past sins, go to the Bible and say, yeah, but what does God's word say about it? I'm more concerned about what God says about my sins than I am about what my feelings say about them. I'm not going to heaven based on my feelings, I'm going to heaven based on God's truth. I don't need a feeling when I have a verse. Therefore, our feelings need to be submitted to the truth of God's word. The problem is, if we don't know the Bible, we will be deceived by our feelings.
And I can tell you, your feelings can turn all of us in circles. Our feelings can do that, and we have to understand the truth of God's word, and Jesus said it very clearly in John 8, didn't he, when he said, the truth is what will set you free. So, when Jesus talks about faith or have faith in God, it is faith that is built upon the rock of God's word. A house is only as stable as the foundation upon which it is built, and the house of your faith is only as stable as the rock that you're building it upon.
And if you're building it upon the sandy foundations of subjective feelings, you will have a faith that wobbles all over, but if your faith is built upon the rock of God's word, you will build a solid house of faith in your life. Now, one thing that assaults faith in Jesus is the antonym of faith, which he uses here in this verse, and it is doubt. It is doubt. He says, if you have faith and doubt not. The word doubt not comes from a Greek word that means to be divided in your mind, to waver. It is the opposite of faith. One man said, faith and doubt are bitter enemies, and that's true. Doubt will put a question mark where faith puts a period. God's word says, what is, and doubt says, but what if. And let me say, doubt is powerful.
Doubt is very powerful. When I was in Chillicothe, where me and my brother started a church 20 years or so ago, the stage there has about a 40-foot wall behind it, and it was time to repaint that. Now, I have been up on heights, I did construction for years, where I'd be up on, you know, high scaffolds and masonry work, or I'd be up setting trusses and walking on two-story walls. I've done that stuff, but when you get up on a 40-foot ladder, there is no ladder in the world that's not wobbly by 40 feet, especially when you're carrying something. So like you're leaning against it, you're going up, and by the time you get about 30 feet, you're like, this thing is really, I am not feeling real good about this right now, you know.
Do we really need to paint this, you know? It's like, you're just a youth pastor, you'll be fine, keep going, you know. So, I can tell you, when you go up really high on a ladder, one thing that people will tell you is, do not do what? Don't look down. And why are you not supposed to look down? Because when you look down, it doesn't enhance anything but fear.
You're like, but you're tempted, aren't you? You get up there, you're like, what does this look like from ooh? And you can really physically get locked up. I don't know if anybody knows of someone who got real high up on something and they just got kind of paralyzed with fear. Anybody ever known somebody that's happened to? Okay, I hate to tell them my dad, my dad's awesome. My dad is one of those guys growing up on a farm, he would go up on those silos, go way up.
I mean, just he can be very brave about some things. But we had a house years ago where there's a part of it that was like, it was a two-story house, but the way it was built, there was a three-story side of it that overhung and looked down on some concrete. And it was the year that my mom wanted to, you know, change out the Christmas lights that were around the top of the house. And he goes up there, and it's about a six-pitch roof or so, and he's up there getting them. For some reason, it was the way the wind was blowing hard, he got out hanging over that, and he got locked up. And I'm telling you, when your body doesn't work right, like your legs, your body, he got stuck on that roof for quite a long time.
Like, I mean, it was like 20, 30 minutes. I said, hey, Dad, are you okay? He's like, I'm all right. You want me to move the ladder on up? Just give me a second. He's like, I don't know if I'm going to have to call the fire department or something.
Just give me some time. I mean, he was locked. He was strapped to that roof, and it just, something got a hold of him.
It was a crazy, crazy thing. And he's like, I don't know how in the world that happened. But that's the power of fear when you begin to think, what if I slip? What if I start sliding? What if I can't stop myself? And your mind starts playing these things, and you can get yourself into a dangerous place.
The point is this. Faith looks up, doubt looks down. And when you begin to look down, you will get paralyzed in your life with fear. And it will begin to control you, and it will grab a hold of your life, and you will find yourself being kept from doing things that God could have done in your life. It's an amazing power. Doubt is an amazing thing.
When Peter was walking on the waves, it was the moment that he began to take his eyes from looking up at Jesus to looking down at the waves that caused him to sink. Now, in Africa, there's an animal called an impala. And not only do we have vehicles like that, but it's named after those things. They can jump, these incredible cats can jump over 10 feet and cover a distance of some 30 feet in a single bound. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure of any zoo with a three-foot wall. And the reason for that, they will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will land. And so even though they have the ability to easily jump over a three-foot wall, I would say most of us could probably do that, or some of us could do that. Maybe not in a single bound.
We landed right in the middle and rolled over. But it's an incredible thing. They're kept because they won't go where their feet—they can't trust it. And I just imagine how many things in our life close us in and keep us bound because we don't trust God for what we cannot see. Instead of walking by faith, we choose to walk by sight. Doubt is also like a dense fog to our faith. According to the Bureau of Standard in Washington, a dense fog covering a seven-city block to a depth of 100 feet is composed of less than one glass of water. That amount of water is divided into about 60 billion tiny droplets. Yet when those minute particles settle over a city of the countryside, it can cause incredible disruption. And again, how much of our lives are held down by the fog of doubt, and we can't see clearly because we've given so much power to such a little amount of fluid?
Think about eight ounces that shut down a seven-city block fog with a dense fog that comes upon it. Incredible thing. 2 Timothy 1.7 says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. You know, doubt is the antonym of faith. It is the opposite of faith.
It requires sight. It does not believe God's Word is enough. When Jesus told the disciples, I will be crucified, three days later rise again, they doubted. After they even saw the risen Christ and told Thomas, Thomas said, unless I see him, I will not believe.
That's what doubt does. And Jesus came to Thomas, and he removed his doubt, and he says, touch my hand, behold the thorn where it was in there, or the spike, the nail prints, and also put your hand into my side, and he says, be not faithless, but believing. Thomas said, my Lord and my God, and Jesus said, because you've seen me, you believe.
He said, blessed are they who have not seen me and believe. Now one thing that challenges faith are the tests, struggles, and hardships of life. Faith is idle when circumstances are right. Only when there are adverse effects to your faith does God exercise your faith. Faith is like a muscle.
It grows strong and supple with exercise. And the only way you know what your faith is able to handle is when the weight of trial is pressed down upon it. Faith is actively trusting God when you don't know why. But you choose to trust God to work all things together for your good and his glory.
I like what the author Marshall Shelley, who suffered the death of his two sons, said when he wrote in leadership. He says, even as a child, he said, I love to read. He said, I quickly learned that I would most likely be confused during the opening chapters of a novel. New characters were introduced.
Desperate, seemingly random events would take place. Subplots were complicated. They didn't seem to make any sense in relation to the main plot of the story. But he said, I learned to keep reading.
And why? Because you know that the author, if that author is good, will weave all of these things together by the end of the book. Eventually, each element will be very meaningful. And at times, such faith has to be a conscious choice. Even when I can't explain why a chromosomal abnormality develops in my son, which prevents him from living on earth more than two minutes, or even when I can't fathom why our daughter has to endure two years of severe, profound retardation and continual seizures, he says, I choose to trust that before the book closes, the author will make all things clear. That's the reality of our life. God is writing a story.
And sometimes we don't understand why chapter 13 or why chapter 8 was written that way and why this happens. But we can say, God, I can trust you with the pen of my life that you are working all things together for good to them that love you, to them who are called according to your purpose. That's what faith believes. Do you trust God today? Doubt is incredibly powerful.
It is an incredible fog that will hinder your life and create fear. Even when we don't understand, trust the author who is the finisher of our faith. Secondly, today we not only see faith and doubt, but faith and the fig tree in verse 21. He says, if you have faith and doubt not, you shall not only do this which was done to the fig tree. Now, what is Jesus' point about the fig tree? Is He saying, listen, if you guys are ever hungry and you come to a fig tree that has leaves and no fruit, you're going to be able to blast that thing with a curse and it will die on the spot. Is that what His point is?
It's not at all what His point is. It is a picture of God's judgment upon the religion of that day that did not repent, that they had no fruits of repentance. Unrepentant religion is hypocrisy.
It parades a great show, but it has no internal reality. External religion without internal reality is hypocrisy. So Jesus is not talking to them about having the ability to one day curse a fruitless fig tree that doesn't provide physical fruit. Rather, friends, He is talking about having the authority of God in your life to discern what is right and what is wrong and to be able to be governed by God's Word. He is not talking about having authority to kill a tree, but having authority to pronounce judgment, God's judgment, upon that which is false and erroneous.
Religion that is covered with leaves and no fruit, having faith without works, would be defined in the Bible as that which is not true and genuine. And when you go through the New Testament, you find them having discernment and pronouncing divine judgment upon those who did not hold to the truth. For example, in Galatians chapter 1, there were those who professed to be believers in Jesus, but they changed who Jesus was. They undeified Him.
They brought Him down to the level of angels and other entities. And what you find is Paul coming and rebuking certain people in that region. And he says in Galatians chapter 1 verse 8 and 9, he says, If you preach any other gospel than what I have preached unto you, let him be accursed. He says, I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel than what I have preached, let him be accursed.
What's he doing? He has discernment to know that what they're preaching is not true. What's he based that on? He bases that on the Scripture. And he has the authority, therefore, to declare that God's judgment will be upon you because of your false teaching.
Does that make sense? This goes on and on through the New Testament, such as in James 2. James 2 verse 14 through 26, James says, Faith without works is dead. If you say you have faith without works, I'm going to tell you your faith is not real. And he declared judgment upon such a workless faith. It's not that works aid your salvation, it's that works evidence your salvation. If your faith is real, your works will be real. Now, faith makes you discerning.
It allows you to see what is true and what is not. 1 John 4, 1 says, Beloved, believe not every spirit. Just because someone says they're a Christian, don't believe it.
And I'm not talking about being cynical, I'm talking about being discerning. So if somebody comes on TV, Hey, you know, we're Christians. And then they go off and it's like, does what they say line up with the truth? And what is the truth? It's not our feelings, it's Scripture.
That's the litmus test, that's the foundation. They say they know Christ, but does what they say and do line up with the gospel? Now, the Bible says, Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God. You test them, because many false prophets are going into the world. If there were a lot of false prophets 2,000 years ago, what do you think is happening today? Do you think there's any false prophets floating around on social media?
Right? Got to be discerning. There's a lot of things that I think Jordan Peterson says right, but when it comes to Christianity, he's got some things that are very wrong.
There are some things he is totally off because he's not basing it upon the Word of God, he's basing it upon some psychological mumbo-jumbo. I don't know how else to say it. Faith, again, I'm not trying to put him down, I'm just saying be discerning. Be discerning.
Know the difference. I'm like, okay, I totally agree with that percent of what he just said, but over here it's important to know that that's not true over here. Faith built on God's Word also allows you to be governed by authority of God. Because you're living under the authority of God's Word, you can say things that would be true because it's what God says.
Let me give you an example. Years ago, I believe it was in 2015, Larry King Live interviewed one of the most well-known spiritual leaders in our country, pastors in our country. A man from Texas has a church of around 30,000 people. And as he was going through that interview, he says, what if somebody doesn't believe the way you do? And he says, well, I don't want to cast judgment on anybody, though the Bible says, judge righteous judgment. And so Larry King says, well, what about an atheist? What if an atheist doesn't—would an atheist go to heaven? And again, this pastor in response says, I don't know.
I don't know. I'm just going to let God be the judge of that. Well, the answer to that is I do know because God's already judged that.
We're not guessing. And people think that that's somehow kind or humble. It's not humble. Going against the Word of God is not humble.
It's actually very arrogant. Because you begin to define truth by what you think and to appeal to people. The Bible is very clear in Revelation 21, 8. It says all unbelievers will have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. The right answer would be, well, the Bible says over here that if you do not believe that you would have your part in the lake of fire. That's what God says and that's what I believe. So you're saying an atheist would end up in hell. Yeah, I agree with God. And as you do such, you have authority to declare what is true. That is true.
That is correct. If I was a doctor and I knew you had stage four cancer, it would not be good for me to say, I don't know if you do. I don't know, but I don't want to hurt your feelings and make you uncomfortable, so I'm just going to leave your health between you and God. No, the nice thing to do would say you have stage four cancer and these are the two options you have. You can go through rapid radiation and chemo. You can go through these treatments or you can do nothing and try to have a good last two or three months of your life and your family.
Those are your options. That's what truth does. Nobody goes to a remedy of Jesus if they think, as an atheist, I could go to heaven.
That's delusional. And so, again, you have to be able to discern those things and that's the point that he's making here with the fig tree. You not only are discerning, but you have authority. When he goes into the temple, what's he do? He's like, that's wrong, that's wrong, get this out, clean this up, no more of that, this is the only way this is going to work.
When Jesus comes in, he cleanses the place, right? He wasn't like, well, you know, maybe you guys should think about selling your animal somewhere else. Maybe you shouldn't rip everybody off and make this a den of thieves. Let's just talk about this.
Could I write a letter? Could we get the whole Sanhedrin together and talk to the 70 leaders of Israel's Jewish system and religious system and maybe we could see how we could clean this up? No. He's like, this is wrong.
That's how it works, right? And we're not those living by guesses. We're not like, hey, Jesus, thank you for a book of opinions. We have a book of truth.
I'm very thankful for that. Where did we come from? We came from God. How did it start? It started, he made everything in six days, rested on the seventh. You believe that?
Yes. Well, do those mean seasons of time or is it a real day? It's a day. It says in the evening, in the morning, we're the first day.
So clear. You just begin to base your life on what is firm and real and established. Let me go to a third truth, faith that moves mountains. Faith that moves mountains in verse 21. So Jesus said, if you have faith and doubt not, and then he talks about the fig tree, and not only you'll be able to do what is done to the fig tree, you'll have discernment, you'll have spiritual authority to recognize and discern what is right and wrong. But also, if you shall say unto the mountain, be thou removed, and be cast into the sea, it shall be done. Now if Jesus is not talking about a literal fig tree, do you think he's talking about literally casting, like say on that situation, the Mount of Olives into the Dead Sea? He's like, you just rip this mountain right off the ground and throw it into the sea. Now listen, that is not what Jesus is talking about.
This is not the only time he talked about removing mountains. Now look over to Matthew 17, you can hold your place here and jump back a few chapters, Matthew chapter number 17. So in Matthew 17, a man comes to Jesus who has a son that's demon-possessed. It is such a horrific case that the demon is casting the boy into fire and into water trying to kill him.
It made the boy suicidal. It was so terrible, the disciples in verse 16, the man said, I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him. Jesus goes on to heal the boy in verse 17 and 18, and the disciples ask Jesus in verse 19 this question.
Then came the disciples to Jesus the part and said, why could we not, why could not we cast him out? Now Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief. The word unbelief there is apistia. Pistia is the Greek word for belief, faith or belief.
When you put the alpha priest fix, which is like the letter A in the Greek alphabet, onto a word, it makes it the antonym of whatever that is, it makes it the opposite. Like a theist is a believer in God, an atheist is a non-believer in God. So pistia is belief, apistia is the word here. It means you don't have belief. Your faith is not good, it's not right. And so in verse 20 he says, for verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove hence and to yonder place, and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible to you. So when he says if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, what is a mustard seed?
Well mustard seed is the smallest of garden seeds. And so is Jesus saying you just have to have a little bit of faith in life. Well, he is talking about if you have a little bit of faith, but that's not the idea.
The idea of a mustard seed is not simply that it is small, but that it grows into something very large. Matthew 13 32, speaking of the mustard seed, he says, which is indeed the smallest of all seeds, or garden seeds, but when it is grown it's the greatest of herbs and becomes a tree. So Jesus did not want them to simply have a little faith. In fact, he constantly rebukes them for having a little faith. Let me give you four times where Jesus refers to the disciples as having a little faith, and he rebukes them for that. In Matthew 6, a little faith resulted in their fear that God would provide for them. He said, wherefore in Matthew 6 30, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow cast into an oven, how much more shall he clothe you, O ye of little faith? So little faith, if you have a little faith, guess what you have a lot of?
You have a lot of doubt. So he doesn't want you to have a little faith. Chapter 8, Matthew 8, a little faith produced fear for protection.
Do you remember when they're out on the boat, and they're afraid the storm is going to kill them, and Jesus wakes up and says, why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Little faith fears for provision, it fears for protection. Thirdly, little faith produces fear for preservation. In Matthew 14 31, Peter sank in the water after he looked at the wave because his little faith caused him to sink.
He didn't feel he could persevere over the storm. In Matthew 16, little faith produced failure to have spiritual perception. In Matthew 16, they forgot to take bread with them when they crossed the sea, and Jesus said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisee. And they're like, oh, does that mean we shouldn't buy bread from like the Pharisees? As though the Pharisees were like bread sellers. They were so dense because their faith was small, they kept making spiritual truths into physical things. One thing that a small faith does is it materializes spiritual truths.
It makes it like physical, and it loses the purpose. It's kind of like John 3 when Jesus said, you must be born again. He's like, should I enter into my mother's womb? In John 4, Jesus says, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but the water that I give, they'll never thirst. He's like, you don't even have a bucket, the well is deep. He's not talking about a physical bird. He's not talking about literal water here. In John 6, he says, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you'll have eternal life.
They're like, he's a cannibal. And today you have people who believe in transubstantiationism that when you eat the bread and drink the cup at the Lord's table, that it actually becomes the literal body and blood of Jesus. I can tell you, that is a wrong conclusion. He's not talking literal. He's talking in a spiritual sense here. I could go on and on through that Gospel and show you things. And so little faith causes people to lack spiritual perception. It causes them to doubt God for protection, for provision.
It also causes you to have little power in your spiritual life as they, in Matthew 17, showed such little power over these obstacles. Now, the disciples had a little faith that needed to grow. And God, listen, provides tests in our life to produce a greater faith in us.
He desires to grow our faith, and he will often work in a great way in the life of a new believer, in incredible ways, in fact, that are very profound because they don't have great faith. Their faith is just infant. And so they're still struggling to truly believe it. They have to see a lot of things. And so a lot of times, a young believer will come to me and say, Preacher, you won't believe what happened. They've only been saved like two weeks. They're like, you know, I was praying for this, and God brought it to pass.
Exactly. You will not. I was needing a job, and I said, God, if you want me to get this job, let the guy come in with blue shirt and yellow shoes. And it happened.
You won't believe it. And some crazy story. And I mean, this happens all the time. And what it seems to me over the years is that God graces young believers with sight things, things that are easy for their faith to say, Hey, I can believe God. But once faith is established, God will test faith to grow it to see if faith can believe God when it can't see it.
Let me give you an example. Matthew chapter number 8. Jesus is in the boat.
They're crossing the six-mile journey from one side to the other on the Sea of Galilee. Big storm comes. Waves are starting to crash in. Nighttime, they're scared, so scared. They're like, Jesus, wake up. Save us. We're going to perish. Jesus says, Why are you fearful, you of little faith? Gets up, rebukes the storm.
Everything is flattened. And the Bible says the disciples began to fear exceedingly. And it was no longer that they feared the storm because for the first time they realized there's more power in the boat than there was out of the boat. Now, fast forward five chapters later. Jesus says, I want you to go across the Sea of Galilee.
This night was calm. They begin to go across. Jesus goes up into a mountain to pray. All of a sudden, a massive storm hits the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is up on the mountain praying, but this time he's not in the boat. Because if he was in the boat, they would say, Hey, big storm, no big deal. Let's wait to see Jesus flatten this one again.
You're going to jump into our boat waves. Jesus is going to lay you out. I mean, they had no fear, no fear. But when they're by themselves, guess what?
They're terrified. Can you imagine hearing them say, Man, if only Jesus was here. Peter, you must have upset him.
He sent us out on our own. But what does Jesus do that night? He walks on the water, comes to them in the middle of the storm. He says, Be not afraid, it is I. And guess what Peter says?
If it's you, Lord, let me come to you. Their fear totally mitigated once they saw him. So much so, the waves they were afraid of, they're now walking on. That's what their sight was allowed.
That's the level of faith their sight now grew their faith to. As he's walking, what's the problem? He's on the ladder, and he begins to do what?
He looks down, and so he went down. Because instead of giving the greatest amount of influence in his life to Jesus and looking forward by faith, he looks down in doubt and he begins to sink. Now what is interesting in that story is in Matthew 14, it says that when he began to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. And verse 31 says, Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him, and said, Why did you doubt you of little faith? Now little faith here is connected to doubt, and that is exactly what seems to have happened to the disciples with the demon-possessed boy. He must have been so much worse than anything that they had seen, and it caused them to doubt. Little faith produces doubt.
It allows the physical to define reality. But what is incredible about this is that even with a little faith, and in a lapse of faith, and I would say even in a failure of faith on Peter's part, Jesus still reaches out and grabs him. Can I remind you today that your salvation is not dependent upon how strong your faith is.
It is dependent upon how strong God's grace is. You are not kept saved because you held on. You are kept saved because he held on. John 10 28, Jesus said, I give to them eternal life, they will never perish. Why?
He says, because no one is able to pluck them out of my hand. Anybody thankful that when you sink in your faith in life that he still reaches out and grabs you? Now God will provide faith builders often and early in your life to sustain you. It can often come in what I call a some kind of a spiritual adrenaline or energy in your life. Like people get saved and they're just like pumped up, like super excited.
There's a lot of strong feelings. You ever notice that excitement early on in your Christian life? Seems like God just injects that into a new believer.
But what happens when the feelings are not so strong? What happens when faith is what you have to live on instead of your feelings? Listen, feelings can come and go, but God's truth never changes. Let me ask, is God worthy to be served based upon his truth even when your feelings are not strong? God is not honored simply because you have a strong feeling.
God is honored when you have a strong faith. Sometimes someone will say, you know, I used to have such a passion to read, a passion to tell others. So God giving you this passion produced some wonderful works in your life. Now I ask you the question, is your faith strong enough to produce those wonderful works? Will a true love and obedience to God produce that in your life? You know, it's like a newlywed. They can have great passion and feelings toward one another, but I can tell you, you don't live for 50, 60 year marriages based on simple feelings. You base that on truth on something that's solid.
Love is a choice, it's a verb, it is action, not some shallow emotion that can come and go as quickly as you feel it. Anyone can do what's right if they are energized by emotions, but who is the one who will serve God when they're energized by faith in God's Word? Let me ask you, when Noah was told by God to build an ark, do you think at first he was energized with some incredible feelings? You know, God came to me, he's gonna flood the whole world, and he told me to build an ark, and you know, this is just amazing. What do you think when like year 50 hit? And he's like, hey guys, you won't believe it, today we're gonna go cut some more trees down.
And then we're 50 years deep, we've got another 70 to go, I am just juiced this morning. Noah was not building the ark based on passionate feelings. His labor for God in building an ark was attached to one thing, a thus saith the Lord. God said it, and it changed his life forever. He woke up and served God daily, not based on the fluttering feelings that he had, but on the solid rock of God's Word. Feelings are subjective, faith is objective. My question to all of us today is this, are we basing our spiritual life on the frail shell of a feeling, or are we basing it upon the glorious command of God's Word? That's why it's so heartbreaking when somebody says, you know, I used to have such a passion to read a passion.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I don't need those feelings. I don't need a feeling when I have a verse.
He is good enough. That's like telling your wife or your husband, you know what, I would love to minister to you, I'd love to just don't have the same feelings for you. That's what it's saying to God.
God, I would read your book, but I just don't feel like that. I can tell you, I have incredible passion and joy and feelings for God at times, and sometimes they're not there. And I think God intentionally wants to remove feelings at times in our life so that we choose to love Him instead of just feeling love Him. Tell me what real love is.
Love is not a feeling, it is a choice. When Jesus went to the cross, He despised the shame of it. Father, let this cup pass from me. Praise God, He loved us to death, not based on His feelings, but based on the glorious command of the Father.
Anybody thankful for that? And Jesus, when I wake up in the morning, I don't have to feel like praying and reading and seeking You and memorizing. I get to do it.
I love to do it. And my love is a choice. Feelings, You can come and go. I don't ride that train anymore.
That roller coaster's over for me. You get all of me, God. Whether feelings are there or not, that is not the choice for me. I can tell you, you want to grow as a Christian, that's how you grow. You want to build an ark? You want to see what Abraham saw? You want to defeat the Midianite army? You want to do what David did against Goliath? You want to see great things in your life? Then you say, God, I'm going to serve you whether I feel like it or not.
You're worthy of all that I am. And God provides these tests. He provides tests that remove the shell of feelings and require you to serve Him by choice.
He requires it. Sometimes the feelings are there and it's so wonderful, isn't it? You're like, oh, it's so great. You're pumped up, man.
Some new insight from the Word of God, you're like, I just want to tell somebody. And they're like, hey, did you see the final four? You're like, I don't even care. Look at this. Nothing wrong with final four. Nothing like that. But I'm just saying that there's things that when they grip your heart, it's like every day in life seems to pause outside of that.
You're just so pumped. But then there's times where the feelings are not as strong. But either way, you serve Him. Now, the phrase, you shall say to this mountain, remove hence, and to yonder place it will be removed. It's important to know that that statement was a common figure of speech among the Jews in that day.
William Barclay is a great historian, scholar. He said, a great teacher who in that day could really expound and interpret Scripture who would explain and resolve difficulties was regularly called an uprooter or even a pulverizer of mountains. To tear up, to uproot, to pulverize mountains were all regular phrases that they were used to. That's why Jesus says it over and over in His ministry. He says Jesus never meant this to be taken physical and literally. What He means was if you have faith enough, all the difficulties can be solved and even the hardest tasks can be accomplished. So, in Matthew 17, what was the mountain in front of the disciples? It was this crazy demon-possessed situation.
You can overcome this if you just have enough faith. When you get to Matthew 21, what is the mountain in front of them? You want me to tell you what the mountain is? It's Wednesday when He tells them this.
What happens by Friday? Jesus is crucified. You think a mountain's in front of them? You think they need to hear about some faith?
Faith that walks by word of God and not by sight of men? They're going to have a massive hurdle and obstacle in front of them. And it's going to come in the form of religion, religious opposition, and persecution. That is the massive mountain laid down in front of them. Jesus comes to the temple that day.
We're going to look at it next week. And the barren fig tree that He cursed will show up in the form of a barren fig Pharisee who comes against Him and spiritual leaders that He squashes with His word. And we're going to see that from verse 22 all the way through verse 46 of this chapter, but that's for next time. So, He's going to face opposition, incredible persecution, He'll be crucified, and the disciples will face this head-on. It's a massive mountain. It's so big that Peter denied even knowing Jesus when the opposition came at first.
I don't even know the man. That's how big of a mountain it was. But their faith increased. When they saw the risen Christ, they took off. They're like, every mountain will be crushed now.
What He said is absolutely true. We believe it. We walk on water. We walk over mountains.
This victory is ours. We live by faith now, not by sight. And they lived and preached to their dying death. Unshakeable was their faith.
They were solid in it. And I can tell you, their feelings, they were beaten, they were persecuted, and they could sing in the prisons at midnight, couldn't they? But when you read through Acts chapter 4 and 5, they faced opposition. They were told by the authorities, stop preaching if you do.
They will beat you, and they would beat them. And they said, whether it's right in the sight of God to listen to you more than God, we'll let you be the judge, but we could only do the things that we have seen and heard. They would go out and preach. They got arrested in Acts 4, put in prison. The angel broke them out and said, go back out there and preach in the temple. They go back out. The religious authorities are like, how did they get out?
And they go back in, arrest them again. They said, didn't we threaten you not to preach anymore? They said, we ought to obey God rather than men. They were about to kill them, and Gamaliel said, listen, guys.
He says, if this work is of God, we cannot stop it, but if it's of men, it will come to nothing. They beat them some more, sent them away, commanded them never to preach again, and they went out from that council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus. And every day they kept preaching and teaching the Word of God. The mountain of religious opposition and persecution was unable to stop them. And that's where it is today.
No matter what we face, we win. Paul said this in his epistles. He says, I may be bound, but the Word of God, the gospel, is not bound.
You cannot bind it. They would put him in a prison cell. He's like, everybody in Caesar's palace and household has now heard about it. They're shackling Roman prisoners to me, or Roman guards to me, and guess what those Roman guards heard all day? Hey, what's your name? You know, you imagine being shackled to the Apostle Paul.
And they had four or six-hour shifts, and a new guy comes in. Hey, it's your turn, man. Jesus is the Lord. You know, he's the Christ, you know, and the next guy's coming in.
And he's like, everybody's hearing about it now. That's the power of the gospel, isn't it? And so, verse 22, he says, in all things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you'll receive.
It's important to know, verse 22, as we wrap up today, is a conditional. Faith is built on the Word of God. So, it's not saying anything you ask, like in the sense of, you can ask whatever you want, like, okay, God, give me a million dollars, you better give it to me.
Well, that's a covetous request, not built on the glory of God and the good of others, but it's based on your fleshly desires, and that violates the Scriptures. He will not answer requests that violate his will, right? And so, 1 John 5.14 says, this is the confidence that we have in him. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. So, faith is not going to God and getting our will done in heaven, but God's will done on earth.
We come to him, Lord, not my will but thine be done. But if you are physically and financially in need and you say, God, if I work hard and I'm faithful with what you've put into my hands, I claim your word that you will take care of me, as Ephesians chapter 4, verse 27 and 8 says, that you will provide all these good things to me and that I can trust you, as Matthew 6 says. Will he take care of you if you work hard and you're faithful with what he's provided for you?
Absolutely. He's going to take care of you. He will take care of you.
You will not go hungry. He will provide for you if you're faithful. Those are promises you can claim.
You can hold on to those things. And so, in verse 22 through 46, we're going to see next time when this lesson comes to a real situation, when Jesus comes to these religious leaders who try to silence him. In conclusion, are you living by faith or doubt today? Doubt will fog up your life and keep you caged in fear.
Doubt looks down the ladder. Instead of looking up at Christ, we look down at the waves. And our life gets defined by fear, worry, and doubt. We saw the faith and the victory that God will give you discernment.
You won't be able to understand truth. You won't be tossed around by the waves of opinion in the world because you're built upon the objective standard of God's Word. And a faith that moves mountains lets us know that there's going to be obstacles that come in your life. There will be things that come into your life that will test you.
I would ask you, what do the tests of your life say about the faith of your life? When the boat of your life is shaken, is your faith steady? When you come to chapters in your life and you're like, I don't understand this, I don't know why God allows this, I don't know what he's doing, can you look to God and say, God, even though I don't know why 2024 was like it was or this year has been like it is, I can trust you as a good author to bring all things to a perfect conclusion that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose.
I don't know where you're at today, but I can tell you this. Have faith in God, believe in him, believe in him, trust in him, have faith in him. When trials come, believe him, hold his word.
Faith is not subjective to feelings, faith is objective to his word. Connect your life to the book. Have a why for every what of your life.
What did you do, but why did you do that? I did that because the Bible says I pray that way because the Bible says I respond that way because the Bible. Connect your life to a thus saith the Lord. And I can tell you're going to live a life that's very victorious, a life that is very fruitful, and you'll one day hear God say to you, well done, thou good and faithful servant, amen. Let's be a people of faith. Let's all stand this morning.
