Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham. A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's devotional, Moments in the Word. But first, here's the message, Believing Prayer. Let's talk about mountain moving faith.
The kind of faith that prays and believes and sees God do great and mighty things. Faith to move mountains. Now, can I say that faith is the most powerful force in the universe. The most powerful force on earth.
Because faith moves. The omnipotence of God. When we pray, our prayers touch and move the omnipotence of God. And so I say it's the most powerful force on earth because it enables us to link with the power of God. It's the key to everything. It's the key to joy. It's the key to open doors of blessing upon our lives. It is the key to victory over sin, sorrow, and death. This is the victory that overcomes the world. Our faith. Faith is the victory. And God is looking for men and women, boys and girls, students of faith.
People who believe and trust in him. And that's never more vivid than in the passage that we have in Mark chapter 11. We're going to begin reading in verse 22. Whatever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes 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. Prayer is a lot of things. But prayer at the bottom line is asking and receiving. It is believing and receiving from the heart and the hand of God all that he desires to give. And we see here, if you're taking notes, the first thing is a simple command. A very simple command. Because Jesus says in verse 22, have faith in God.
Very simple. In fact, just four words, but so powerful. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. Faith is only as valid as the object of our faith. Faith is substance and faith is evidence. It is real and it is reasonable. You don't have to close your mind to reality to believe and trust in God. Faith is reasonable.
The evidence is in. And it is not only possible, it is certain that we should believe. It is a command that we believe. And this faith, when it says our faith, but Jesus said, have faith in God. We're talking about the God of the universe, the creator and sustainer of the universe, this God. We're not talking about praying to the quote man upstairs. We're praying to almighty God, the great I am.
The covenant name of God is I am. And I've told you before, if you want to know who the I am is and what he can do, just say fill in the blank. I am whatever you need. You fill in the blank.
I am. He is available and through prayer he is accessible to us. And that same creator God who is so awesome and up there and out there has come to us in the person of Christ and made us his children and therefore we can know him and we have a relationship. So the creator God is our father God. And we can pray to him not only as sovereign but with the sympathy of a father who hears us and who loves us. So if God is your father and God is your creator, you can come to him with the simple words of faith.
Have faith in God. Faith, as I said, is the most dynamic force on earth because it accesses the omnipotent power of God. You say, well, my faith is small. It's not so much great faith that you need but faith in a great God that you need.
And we'll say more about that in just a moment. But in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, Scripture says without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So faith is reasonable, faith is real and faith is rewarded according to Hebrews chapter 11. God honors faith because faith honors God. God honors faith because faith honors God and when you honor him with your faith in every way, every day, then he will reward you openly. God wants you to know him, love him and serve him by faith. He doesn't make us or manipulate us like puppets but he gives us the awesome choice of choosing faith and trust in him and have a relationship with him through faith. That's saving faith, trusting in Christ and following him. But once you are a believer, once you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ, there's so much more to believe because the faith that saves is the faith that secures and strengthens and satisfies and sustains. I love Psalm 81 in verse 10, the last part of that verse, someone called this the motto of every dentist. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Jeremiah 33, 3, call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know or you have not known.
I love that. God says just call unto me, ask me, cry out to me and I will show you and do mighty things in your life which you could not even imagine. Ask God for what you need and God says I will meet you at the point of your need.
Have faith in God. Philippians 4, 19 says my God, my God will supply all of your needs, not all of your greeds but all of your needs according to his riches and glory in Jesus Christ. I'm so glad it says according to his riches and glory. God meets your needs according to his riches and glory. For example, if you ask me for a loan or maybe you needed money and you said pastor, I can't pay my bills, will you help me? So I reach into my pocket and I shuffle through the money in my pocket and I find a quarter and I give you a quarter and say God bless you, you might say thanks and go on but that would be giving out of my wealth. But suppose you asked me for help and I gave you my debit card and the pin number and said here it is, whatever you need, it's yours. Now that would be giving not out of my riches but according to my riches.
You see that? God says not out of my riches. He doesn't just tip us or give us a little bit but according to his riches and glory in Jesus Christ. And if God gives you a debit card, you can cash it at the bank of heaven for all of its worth. And God said I will meet your needs not just a little bit but according to my riches and glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful promise.
It's a simple command. Don't limit God because God is limitless and so often our prayers are too small because our God is too small. Have faith in God who is great and gracious. Our prayers are too small because our God is too small.
Here's what I say. Nothing lies outside the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God for your life. Don't shut God out. Don't sell God short. Have faith in God.
So let me just ask you, just pull up a chair real close, me, you and a cup of coffee. What are you believing God to do in your life? How are you trusting him right now? Are you praying?
Are you asking? Are you believing God to do great and mighty things in your life? Or are you settling? Too many Christians are settling for less than God's best in their lives.
It's a simple command. And if you have a bold, daring faith, you must pray. And if you will pray, you will have a bold and daring faith. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, Believing Prayer.
When you set aside daily time to connect with God, he'll give you the ability to live a godly life and fulfill his plans for you in the coming year. And we'd like to help you walk even more closely with the Lord in the year ahead by sending you Pastor Graham's one hundred and eighty day devotional Moments in the Word. It's our way to thank you for your gift today to help proclaim the gospel to more people around the world through PowerPoint. So call now to get your copy of Moments in the Word when you give. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131.
Text PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham dot o r g where you can shop our store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our Web site again is Jack Graham dot o r g. Now let's get back to today's message, Believing Prayer. But then we see a superlative example. And I call verse 23 a superlative example because Jesus gives us in hyperbole, in an illustration, an example of faith.
Look at it again with me. Verse 23 of Mark chapter 11. 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 believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Now, of course, throwing a mountain into the sea is humanly impossible. It's not talking about physical mountains here but spiritual mountains, anything that is an obstacle standing in our way spiritually. It could be a broken relationship, a mountain of a failed marriage. It could be a financial mountain, the bills that you cannot pay. You got a mountain of bills.
We even use language like this. I got a mountain of bills to pay. It could be a mountain, an obstacle that is holding you back spiritually in some way, some bondage in your life that stands in the way of what God really wants to do in your life. You're thinking, I really want God to work.
I really want God to answer my prayers. I really want God to do something in my life but God, what about that mountain? Jesus is saying in a superlative way, in a supernatural way, if you pray and say to the mountain, be thrown into the sea and do not doubt, you will have what you ask. In Matthew's version of this story, Matthew tells us that Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to the mountain, be removed and it shall be removed. You say, well, my faith is not all that big.
It's not all that great. What Jesus is saying here that the least amount of faith, you know a mustard seed is very small. It's about the size of a fleck of pepper on your eggs this morning. It's that small, just a little thing but it's not pepper. It's a seed and there's life in the seed. It's not static. Faith lives.
It's active. You plant a seed and it grows. And so what Jesus is telling us here in hyperbole, in exaggeration if you will, on the mountainside, that the least amount of your faith is bigger, greater than the most difficult object that you face in life. And so you say to the mountain and do not doubt, this is planting your faith and watching your faith produced. Now, if you want faith to move mountains, let me give you several simple things, I got four of them, as to how to grow your faith and help your faith to increase. You say, I need to grow my faith. My faith has been stagnant and static. I want my faith to be vibrant and victorious.
How do I do that? Number one, God's word. Saturate your heart and your mind with God's word. This book, the Bible, is a faith book.
The inerrant, inspired word of God. And I guarantee you if you will commit your life to saturating your mind and your soul, your spirit with God's word, faith will build. Don't stand around and say, okay, God hit me with faith. God zapped me.
Come on, Lord. No, commit to God's word and his promises and his precepts and the principles of God's word will build a living, vibrant faith in your life. That's why we start with little children, teaching them God's word and growing them up in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and so on.
So a lot more I can say about that, but if you want to believe, start with your Bible. Have a quiet time every day, a devotional time, whatever you want to call it. Then you open God's word and allow God's word to speak to you. Come to worship each week and learn the word of God.
Get in a small group. It's the Bible, the Bible, the Bible that will help you to believe, believe, believe. Secondly, prayer. Faith is a gift from God and therefore you can ask him in prayer and pray and ask God for your faith.
And when your faith is small and when you're struggling, you can be like that man in the New Testament who came to Jesus and said, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. We all have doubts and fears.
We all have questions that we cannot answer. There are things that I don't understand. But when I pray and believe God's word, then I doubt my doubts and I believe my beliefs. And I don't exchange what I don't know for what I know because now I know the word of God. But when we pray, we are believing. If you're not praying, you're not believing. Believing expresses itself in asking and receiving. Thirdly, the fellowship of God's church.
Romans chapter 1 and verse 12. That is that we may mutually be encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. We are encouraged and equipped by the faith of others. When you get around me and I get around you as God's church in a community of faith, our faith is increased. And maybe I'm running on low.
Maybe I'm coming in here today like some of you on empty. And you get around people of faith and people pray for you or pray with you. Or you see or hear a testimony or sing a song of faith and you're in the community. You're in the covenant of the church and together you're a family.
And so you see how that works. Aren't you encouraged today already? Just in the worship of Christ and in the witness of the gospel and the teaching of God's word and seeing friends in the hallway and being together. That mutually builds our faith. I tell you, if you get all separated and isolated in the world, you can even lose your faith or abandon your faith.
So that's why we keep showing up and why we keep worshipping and why we stay in the church. And when crisis comes, especially when crisis comes and you're hurting and you can't even take another step, people are there to hold you up and lift you up. There are three kinds of people in the world.
Those who beat you down, those who pass you by, and those who lift you up. And in the world, people will beat you down. Even in religious circles, people may pass you by, but God's people will pick you up. And that's what faith does.
It enables us to grow. And one final thing, there's the exercise of faith. We exercise our faith. We learned in James chapter 2 verse 17 that faith without works is what? Faith works. Faith is active, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Don't wait on a perfect faith. Just start using the faith you have because faith is like a muscle.
You don't use your muscles, you lose your muscles. And if you don't use your faith, you lose your faith. Maybe not in an eternal sense because we're secure forever in Christ. But in a temporal sense, you just lose your faith. You go down because you're not using the faith that you have.
Start where you are. Develop a growing faith. Exercise your faith. Obedient faith. We have seen that work many times. Notice Jesus said, say to the mountain.
Now that sounds crazy, doesn't it? Talking to a mountain. Jesus is teaching the principle of public profession of faith. Faith, while it is deeply personal, is never private.
It is always public. Jesus said, confess me before men. Call upon me.
That's outward. Don't worry about putting God on the line. You don't have to worry about God's reputation. Trust God and believe God and speak in faith. So you've got a mountain you're facing, a failing marriage or a broken relationship or a mountain of bondage to sin or a mountain of a child going in the wrong direction, whatever mountain, whatever obstacle, a mountain of bills you're cratering financially, you've got a mountain. What are you going to do? Give up?
Give in? Not if you're a believer. Not if you dare to believe. What you're going to do is speak to the mountain and call down victory and cry out to God who can do anything but fail. Jesus said, if you pray like this, you ask me anything.
And that's the spiritual application here. Verse 24, what a promise. Whatever you ask for, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Whatever you ask for, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Note the three tenses here. Present tense, whatever you ask, that's asking. Past tense, you have received it. Ask, whenever you ask, that's present.
Past, that you have received it. And then future, it will be yours. Because sometimes our prayers are illogical and unreasonable and crazy prayers, but the fact is God says you pray in faith and believe and trust in me and do not doubt that in my own time and in my own way I'm going to answer your prayers. Sure there are times that God says no. Aren't you grateful for the times in your life when you prayed something and God said no? You look back, Mrs. Billy Graham, Ruth Graham once said, I thank God for unanswered prayer.
Because if God had answered all my prayers I'd have married the wrong man five times. Sometimes God says no. Sometimes God says slow.
In other words the timing is not right. Another time, another place. Sometimes God says grow when we pray. He's building our patience. He's building our character. He's strengthening our faith. Sometimes God says grow, but when we pray and we are right with God and when the time is right, God will say go.
And then it's on. And God will open the windows of heaven and pour out the answer, the blessing that he gives. And remember this, prayer is not manipulating or twisting God's arm, but laying hold of his highest willingness and desire to bless you.
You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, believing prayer. Looking ahead to a new year can fill you with expectation, but it can also fill you with desperation. What if things get worse?
What if the world gets crazier? What if you don't have the strength to face what comes your way? It's through spending daily time in God's word that we find the strength, peace, and hope we need. And we want to help you do that by sending you Pastor Graham's 180-day devotional, Moments in the Word.
Moments in the Word is our special thanks for your gift this month. So call to request your copy today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. Text PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online, or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.
Our website again is JackGraham.org. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? Faith is a lie. Faith is living like a seed.
And just like a seed, it can grow if it is nurtured, watered, and developed. So there's some very practical spiritual disciplines that will help you water your faith, develop your faith so that it can grow. First saturate your heart and mind with God's word. The longer I live and the more thoroughly I study my Bible, the more I find myself taking God at his word.
I'm believing God more and more because of scripture. So commit to God's word, his promises, his principles, the precepts of God's word. And God will begin building a living, vibrant faith in your life. The scripture says in Romans 10, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
And then of course, pray. Now it may seem out of order, but faith is a gift of God and therefore you can ask him to give you faith through prayer. Ask God for a living faith.
Pray and ask God to give you more faith. We all have questions we can't answer and things we can't understand in life, but through prayer by asking and seeking and knocking, we can express our belief and we can begin taking God at his word. And then God takes that kernel of faith and he multiplies it in our hearts. And then another thing you need to develop your faith is fellowship with unbelievers.
We need each other. I'm talking about the fellowship of God's church. I'm talking about the body of Christ. And as you get engaged with other believers, our faith sparks one another's faith and we can grow together. And then finally, exercise your faith. Faith is like a muscle.
If it's not used, it atrophies. And when faith is not used, it feeds away. So the next time you have a choice to act on faith, act, do it, trust God, and you will be amazed at how God stretches your faith and how your faith will grow. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's 180-day devotional, Moments in the Word, as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 31313. Text PowerPoint to 31313. And join Dr. Graham next time when he brings a message about how you can have a strong faith built upon an unshakable foundation. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.
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