Trusting God

Could it be that there are some people here with mountains that won't move because God can't get us to move? Dr. Tony Evans talks about how to get more of that mountain moving faith. Don't go after more faith, go after more God. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of The Urban Alternative. People often say you can do anything if you have enough faith. But Dr. Evans says that's not true unless you have the right kind of faith.

Let's join him as he explains. The Bible speaks of mountains literally, but it also speaks of mountains figuratively. Something that is immobile. Something that holds you so hostage that it looks like it is a hopeless situation. Life can get that way sometimes, where there are no answers.

The people who you thought had the answers don't have them either. You find yourself stuck at the base of Mount Everest. A mountain that you cannot climb, a situation you can't get over, a pain you cannot dull, a struggle you cannot win. That's why I want to call your attention to Mark chapter 11. And let me start by reading verse 23. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.

I want to talk to you for a few moments about what it means to trust God at the base of a mountain. That is, you're in an insurmountable situation. It may be insurmountable personally. It may be insurmountable professionally. It may be insurmountable relationally. It may be insurmountable circumstantially. The one common theme is, I can't get over.

It's too high, too wide, too thick, too difficult. And even if you're not in the middle of a mountain, you probably know somebody else that is. And even if you're not in the middle of a mountain, and even if you don't know somebody else who is, keep walking and you will run into a mountain. The mountains are there. The context for this statement about mountains really goes back a few verses to verses 12 through 14.

Let's look at it. On the next day when they had left Bethany, Jesus became hungry, seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf. He went to see it.

Perhaps he would find anything on it. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples were listening.

Here we have only one of two times that I know of in the Bible when Jesus prophesies a curse on something. Jesus Christ is hungry. It says he looks for some food. He happens to notice a fig tree with leaves on it. Now the leaves means that it is entering into fig season because the leaves come out first, then the figs. He sees the leaves, so he looks to see if there's some figs for him to eat. He goes over to the tree and there are no figs on the tree.

And then he does an astounding thing. He says, may no one ever eat from you again. And Jesus was hungry. He couldn't eat because the figs had not yet come.

He pronounces a curse. Now at the end of verse 14, there is a very important statement made. It says the disciples were listening.

That is what leads us to our story. Because in verse 20, when they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up, being reminded, Peter said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered. Now this is less than 24 hours, the morning of the next day. They come by the fig tree that they had just seen the day before. It says Peter being reminded, remembering what happened the day before, said, Master, Jesus, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you spoke about yesterday when you said, may no one ever eat from you again, that fig tree has withered and it has withered completely. That fig tree has withered from the root up. Now the root is the source of life for a fig tree. It's where you start. The life comes from the root when the root gets the nourishment from the ground and begins to grow and produces branches and leaves and figs.

So if the root is destroyed, then that fig tree is never going to produce figs ever again. Now, what is shocking about this? Why is Peter mesmerized? Why is he overwhelmed by what he sees? Well, I'll tell you why he's overwhelmed. He's overwhelmed because in less than 24 hours, the morning of the next day, what Jesus Christ declared had come true. In other words, what's shocking Peter and the rest of the disciples is how quick the change occurred. It's overnight. We went from healthy-looking, vibrant, full of leaves to never being able to do anything ever again. And it all happened overnight.

Look master, the tree which you cursed yesterday is not only dead today, it's dead today from the root up and it's visible because it's withered. But now he says that thing is gone overnight. Now, the reason why this is important is that's not natural. What they observed overnight was not normal. That was not something that you would expect to happen.

That was not something that you would have looked for, that quick turnaround. Now, why did Jesus do this? Remember now, in the Gospels, Jesus took his disciples through various scenarios to teach them spiritual lessons.

I have to understand that. He took them through various physical things like seeing a tree wither because he was trying to teach them a spiritual lesson and he was preparing them to teach us because they would become the apostles who would write the New Testament. So their job was to teach us, so he would teach them by giving them something visible and physical to teach something invisible and spiritual so that they could teach us a principle.

Here is the principle. It's stated in verse 22. And Jesus answered saying to them, saying to them about what?

Look at what happened so quick. And he says, have faith in God. He uses this tree that they observed and the supernatural overnight turnaround to the negative that occurred with the tree to teach one of the most powerful lessons that you will ever learn as a Christian and that is trusting God to turn things around on a dime. Trusting God to turn things around on a dime, watch this, even if they're mountainous.

Because this is going to lead to a discussion about mountains and impossible situations. What they were saying about the tree is, that's impossible. How could that happen so quick? And how could it happen so deep so quick? I mean, the root was fine yesterday because the leaves were out. The leaves are withered today because the root is gone.

How do we go from healthy and well to dead and withered in less than 24 hours? How do we go there? Jesus answers, have faith in God. Because what you need to know about God is he can turn things on a dime. Have faith in God.

Please notice what he doesn't say. Have faith. That's not enough information. You regularly hear athletes on TV say, you got to believe, you got to believe, you got to believe.

That's not enough information. Faith as a word dangling by itself is a meaningless concept. What many people try to do is get more faith. They want to increase their faith. You do not increase your faith by finding a faith pump and pumping.

You know, like you blow up a football or blow up a basketball. Let me pump me some more faith because obviously I don't have enough of it. More faith is usually not your problem or my problem.

Our problem is the object into which faith is being placed. That's why he doesn't simply say have faith. He says have faith in God. Faith is confidence in the integrity of God based on his word.

It is believing something not seen as though it already were true because the object is worthy of your confidence. Jesus spoke to the tree and when he spoke to the tree, he said, may no one ever eat of you again. He makes a prophetic statement based on, watch this, confidence in his own word. The reason why Jesus never worried about anything is because he had confidence in his own word.

Because, of course, his word was always congruent with God's word. He uses that now, have faith in God, and applies it to a mountainous scenario. Truly, I say unto you, whoever says to this mountain, let's talk about this mountain. This mountain, when referred to in the Gospels, refers to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is full of olive trees. Olive trees grow all along the mountain of olives.

I've stood on the Mount of Olives on numbers of occasions and you can see all the grows of the olive trees from which a lot of great things olives are used for. And he says, you will be able to say to this mountain, this Mount of Olives, what will you be able to say to it? Be taken up and cast into the sea. Now, that may not mean much to you, but it meant everything to the disciples because if you stand on the Mount of Olives and look south, 4,000 feet below is the Dead Sea. So when he says cast into the sea, they know exactly what he's talking about. They're talking about the Dead Sea, 4,000 feet south. So he's standing on the Mount of Olives. They are looking at the Dead Sea and he says, you will be able to speak to this mountain.

Now, why should that grab our attention? Because Jesus is going from the lesser to the greater. Jesus spoke to what? One tree.

One tree and the tree withered from the root. Well, guess what Jesus said? He said, you can speak to this whole mountain of trees. I spoke to one tree, but if you have faith in God, we can lift up this whole mountain and it will cast itself into the sea. In other words, he told the disciples you can do something bigger than you just saw me do. I just took care of one tree. You can handle the whole mountain. What you just saw me do looked impossible.

How much bigger will it be when you've got to handle the whole mountain? Dr. Evans says there are people who have plenty of faith, just not in God. He'll talk about that when he continues this lesson from his series, Freedom Through Forgiveness. It starts by helping you understand the pardon you receive from God and shows you how to pass on that kind of forgiveness to people who hurt you and even how to forgive yourself. Right now, we'd like to send you a copy of Freedom Through Forgiveness as our gift when you make a donation to help support the work of the Urban Alternative here on the air and around the world. This offer is only available through tomorrow, but if we hear from you right away, we'll include a special bonus, Tony's companion book for this series, 30 Days to Victory Through Forgiveness, which explains that the person who benefits most from your forgiving heart is you. Visit us today at tonyevans.org for details or call our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Tony will come back with more of today's lesson after this. With the new Lois Evans Legacy Bible Study, Seasons of a Woman's Life, Crystal Hurst, and Priscilla Shire take their Mother's Classic book and expand it into a life-changing Bible study and DVD series to help you through the varying seasons of every woman's life, including times of growth. Knowing that often our growth is going to require us to be uncomfortable, it's going to require us to do things we haven't done before, that we're going to be stretched beyond our own capacity, and to be open to that because that's a part of how God takes us from one season to another. Ask for your copy when you give to the Urban Alternative today. You can find out more about Seasons of a Woman's Life at tonyevans.org.

And now back to Dr. Evans. Most people have faith in faith. So that's why they keep focusing on the faith part. They don't have faith in God because if you have faith in God, God has to define for you the faith that you ought to have in Him. In other words, you can't create the faith that you want in the God that you create. Much of our faith is faith in an idol we call God. And it's faith in an idol we call God because we do not speak to a matter what God says about the matter. See, unless you're saying what God is saying, it's not faith in God, no matter how much you cry when you say it, how deep you feel about it when you say it, that's not faith in God. Faith in God means that what you are having faith for is what God Himself believes. If it's not what God Himself believes, it's not faith in God. It's faith in what you think about God, what you feel about God. It may be faith in you. It may be faith in faith. But it's not faith in God. In other words, for it to be faith in God, God has to be the definer of what you should be believing.

If God is not the definer of what you should be believing, then you are not believing in God. So many of the mountains we speak to don't move because they're saying, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

Why? Because there's no God backup to the faith we're exercising. You have to have faith in God to deal with, here it is, the impossible situations in your life.

Now here it is, here it is. If it is impossible for you, it is most probable that God wants it to be that way. Which means that God himself will block your attempts to move the mountain on your own. Because God allows impossible situations to let you see there is nothing impossible with God.

Where it may be totally impossible with you. And that would be the closest thing to growing your faith. You know what growing your faith is? Growing your faith simply means seeing God act on a bigger level in your life.

That's growing your faith. You want more faith? Don't go after more faith, go after more God. When you go after more God and you see God work, you get more faith. Don't go faith hunting. Jesus said you don't need a lot of faith. Go God hunting and then you'll get watermelon size faith. You will be able to say this mountain be taken up and cast into the sea.

That's taking the spiritual impossible situation and having it totally removed. And does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says is going to happen, it will be granted. Now he introduces here not doubting in your heart. Now I don't care how many times you say, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I really believe, I really, really, really, really believe. God's looking at what's going on in your heart, not how many times and how fast you can say it.

Because he's looking at whether you have confidence in him. Well, the question is, where am I going to get this confidence that God is going to remove this mountain? Because this thing been big, it's got all these trees on it and have been here a long time. I've been dealing with this for 20 years, 40 years, 15 years, and this mountain ain't moved.

And I done talked to it, prayed about it, going to church, had Bible study over it, laid hands on it. You know, I done done all this stuff and this mountain hasn't moved, this person hasn't changed, these kids aren't any better. I'm still stuck in my same job, my money's still funny, everything, nothing is going right. Where do I get this confidence?

Still single, I'm still married to the same person, it can go any way, you know. Where am I going to get this confidence from? That this impossible situation can be reversed. Let me tell you why he was confident. Because of a statement he makes, he makes it a number of times, one place is John 5. He says, whatever I see my father doing, that is what I do. The reason he could be confident in his earthly life was he was always picking up on the signal of his father. So he could have faith in his father because he knew what his father was doing. That's why Jesus would spend hours with his father and five minutes with people.

We spend five minutes with the father and hours with folk. So we can tell you what people are thinking, we just can't tell you what the father's thinking. Because we have not tuned in, if you will, to what the father is thinking, therefore we don't have confidence in our hearts that God is ready to remove this mountain. When God gives you confidence about what he wants, you then can have confidence about what you speak. He gives you objective confidence by his word. He gives you subjective validation by his spirit.

All the way through the Bible, it all boils down to those two things. God will not give you a private audience with his spirit if you do not take seriously the objective revelation of his word. See, a lot of us want this private guidance when we're not willing to seek his objective directive. If you ignore his revealed word, he will never tell you his secret word. He will never give you private guidance if you're not willing to take seriously his public record.

If you ignore his public record, if you don't search out his public record, if you do not seek clarification from his public record, there is no private audience. And that's what many people don't believe. That's why they're not confident that this is God's divine plan and therefore they can't speak to it with authority. He says, therefore, verse 24, I say to you, all things for which you pray.

Now, please notice the connection. He's now connected the mountains in your life that you're supposed to believe God about to pray. All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they will be granted to you. He introduces the subject of prayer. Prayer is relational communication with God whereby he executes his will in history. Or as it's been stated before, prayer is giving earthly permission for heavenly interference. It is giving earthly permission for heavenly interference. In other words, prayer is the verbal or heart mechanism by which we communicate with God and give him the right to intervene in history based on his will. That's what prayer is. It is the execution of the invisible will of God in our visible physical realm. It is the specific communication means that God is given whereby the believer can tap into the purposes of God and his powerful ability to carry them out.

Prayer is your link. It's where you ask, he says, pray and ask God to intervene in this mountain. But it's also where he speaks to your heart about whether that is what in fact he wants to do today.

Because prayer for most people, even most Christians, is not relational communication with God, it's talk. It's rarely ever listening. Now, if you're listening for an audible voice, you're gonna be listening for a long time, okay? Somebody told me one day, a God spoke to me last night. I said, well, what did he say?

And they gave me this long thing. I said, what form did this come? It came, you know, I heard every word out loud and I said, what did you eat before you prayed?

You know, I wanted to know. God fundamentally speaks to us today by his Spirit in the inner man. See, that's how he talks. That means that you must carve out time to hear, which is why one of the many ways you pray is with your Bible open, so that he can lift his truth off the page and what the Bible calls in the New Covenant, write it on your heart. He can literally inscribe his will through the Word, apply to you in the inner man, and you will literally be able to say, I heard God talk. And when you hear God talk, now you can talk.

You can talk with authority and you can talk two mountains. But there's a condition to that promise, and Dr. Tony Evans will come back to tell us about it in just a moment. First, though, don't forget that tomorrow is the last day you can get the full-length version of all six messages in Tony's current sermon series, Freedom Through Forgiveness, bundled along with a copy of his companion book, Thirty Days to Victory Through Forgiveness. As I mentioned earlier, they're yours with our thanks when you make a donation toward Tony's ministry. So visit us today at tonyevans.org to get all the details before time runs out. You can make your contribution and your request online. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222.

A student or employee can complete a first-rate project for their teacher or boss, but they're unlikely to receive credit if what they did was not the assigned task. Next time, Dr. Evans shows how the failures we experience in life may be the result of working on the wrong assignment. Right now, though, he's here with a final comment about our authority as believers. Now, finally, there is a condition. For God to be free to move a mountain, an impossible situation, you must believe on God's terms. You must pray, communicate with God, two-way street so that He can speak to you at the deepest level of where you live. But to move a mountain, he says, there is a condition, verses 25 and 26. Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive your transgression. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions. In order to see God move a mountain, you must be on good terms with Him. You've got a mountain in your life. You want God to supernaturally turn it on a dime.

Flip that thing. He says there's a condition. When you stand praying, you're talking to me, if you have anything against anyone so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. In other words, refusal to forgive another person blocks God's ability to forgive you. Then that means there is no longer any fellowship.

But if there's no longer any fellowship, then guess what? He's not hearing your prayers. And if He's not hearing your prayers, He's not moving your mountains. And He's not moving your mountains because you really don't have faith in Him. Because if you have faith in Him, you're due to forgiving so He can remove your mountains. So the proof you don't have faith is the refusal to forgive so that He doesn't move your mountains. Could it be that there are some people here with mountains that won't move because God can't get us to move?