Hello and welcome to the Arise Church Podcast.
We are so glad you're here and want to thank you for joining us
today for the audio version of our Sunday morning message.
We want to invite you to join us in person at our Sunday morning
celebration every Sunday at 10 AM.
We are located on Old Jenks Rd. in Apex, NC.
Amen. If you have your Bible, why
don't you grab it and go to Mark Chapter 11?
And I'm just going to warn you up front, this one's going to be
one that moves your cheese. It causes you to get fired up
and ready to do some things for God.
So Are you ready? If you don't want to do anything
for God, this is your chance to exit because by the time you
leave here, you are going to want to do some significant
things in this Kingdom and the Kingdom of God.
I'm going to start in Mark Chapter 11 and we're going to
find Jesus here and real interesting set of circumstances
and Jesus talk to a tree. Most of you if you talk to
yourself or see someone talking to yourself, you think they're a
little crazy. In fact, have you ever pulled up
like at an intersection and you're just singing and you're
just letting her RIP and you look over and the person next to
you is looking at you and you're like, or maybe you're that
person looking at your neighbor next door and you see, wow,
they're really going for it. And nowadays with the earbuds,
people are on the phone. You can't tell.
Are they talking to themselves or are they on the phone?
Well, here Jesus is talking to a tree.
Let's look at it. Mark, Chapter 11, verse 12.
He says now the next day when they had come out of Bethany, he
was hungry and seeing from afar A fig tree having leaves.
He went to see if perhaps he would find something on it.
And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was
not the season for figs. In response, Jesus said to it,
notice he talked to this tree. He said to it, let no one eat
fruit from you ever again. If you skip down a few verses
into verse 20, we pick it back up by the same tree.
It says now in the morning as they pass by.
So this was the next day as they pass by, they saw the fig tree
dried up from the roots. And Peter, Peter was one of
Jesus disciples. He he was generally the
loudmouth. If you're a loudmouth in the
room, take comfort because Jesus, the loud disciples that
followed him that were loudmouths, he said, Rabbi,
look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered away.
Peter was astonished. I think maybe he thought well
you know Jesus is just talking again, but the Peter was
astonished. Look that with the the tree that
you cursed has withered away. But look at Jesus's response to
this verse 22. This is what I want to get to.
So Jesus answered and said to them, all the disciples that
were around have faith in God. For assuredly I say to you,
whoever says to this mountain be removed and be cast into the sea
and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things
he says will be done. He will have whatever he says.
Now I want as I'm reading this, remember this is the Lord Jesus
Christ teaching this. This is not a modern day
preacher. This is not a televangelist.
This is not even just me. This is the Lord Jesus Christ in
red letters. If you got one of those Bibles
as read the letters, he will have whatever he says.
Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you
pray, believe that you receive them and you what will have
them. Let's read it again, and let's
allow just some pregnant pauses to help us emphasize what Jesus
is trying to teach us. His disciples are coming and
they're asking Him basically, how come this tree withered up
when you talk to it, They were shocked.
They weren't expecting it. Have you ever prayed prayers
that you really didn't expect to get answered?
You don't want to say yes, but every single person in this room
has prayed a prayer where it was more of a wish, like a wishing
well at Disneyland, than it was a real prayer full of faith.
And sometimes it's just good to name it and say, you know what?
I think that was probably more of a wish than it was a prayer.
But Jesus says no, when you pray, believe.
So let's read it again. Jesus said have faith in God.
Listen, if I just stop right there, I could preach from that.
This whole message, every single one of us, that's what Jesus is
saying to you. Have faith in God.
Have faith in whom? In God.
I love our church. I love Arise Church, but don't
have faith in Arise Church. I love our leadership team.
I love our pastors but don't have faith in them.
Have faith in God, I hope you love me, but if you, even if you
don't love me or if you do love me, don't have faith in me.
Why? Because I'm not God.
Amen. Jesus said have faith in God.
And then he says for assuredly, assuredly, for sure, for sure.
In other words, do you think Jesus said, well, sometimes this
applies every once in a while this is true.
Of course, he wouldn't say this, but if the stars align just the
right way. By the way, I hear Christians
talk about stars sometimes I'm like, we don't believe that
certain people are like we don't.
No, we don't. Don't you get into astrology and
all that nonsense for assuredly I say to you, whoever says to
this mountain, are you breathing this morning?
Oh no, three people are. Are you breathing this morning?
You're whoever, praise the Lord, you count, you made it in.
You're in the whoever, whoever says to this mountain, it
doesn't say the pastors. If the pastors pray this prayer,
then it's going to happen. It doesn't say if you've been
through enough discipleship, this applies to you.
It doesn't say If you have your degree in bibliology and
hermeneutics and biblical studies, then this applies to
you. This applies to you if this is
your first time in church ever in your whole life.
It applies to every human being that has faith in who and God.
Whoever says to this mountain be removed and be cast into the sea
and does not down in his heart does not doubt in his heart will
address doubt and unbelief in a second.
But Jesus basically uses to me what could be most one of the
most extreme versions of what it would look like to have faith in
God and he says this mountain right here.
If you talk to it, it said get in the mountain.
It would be just like the fig tree that I just cursed.
It will do whatever you told it to do.
Now, some of us that stretches us right there, think about
Black Mountain or Mount Mitchell or you know, any of the
mountains in North Carolina. I don't know.
You go over there and you say go into the sea. 1 You might make
some enemies if they got a house on that mountain.
But to Jesus is saying, listen, this is a faith issue.
This is a faith issue. We don't get any indication that
he was really telling his disciples to go around talking
to mountains to move. But how many of you may not have
a literal mountain in your life that needs to go, but you have
some real figurative mountains that need to go?
That's what he's teaching us about.
He's teaching us have faith in God.
Whoever says to this mountain, he's, he's talking about a
literal mountain there. But how about we just apply it
to your life? If you have that faith in God,
when you start to talk to that mountain and you tell it what to
do and you do not doubt in your heart Jesus is teaching, it has
to do what you told it to do. And immediately I just know it.
Every time I read it, it has to confront unbelief in my own
heart. And you know where unbelief
usually comes from? Disappointment.
I tried that once. It didn't work for me.
I prayed before. My prayers aren't answered.
And so we have. Every person in this room has an
example of an unanswered prayer. And yet Jesus still taught it.
He still taught it. He still was preaching to his
disciples, saying whoever says to this mountain be removed and
be cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but
believes that those things he says will be done.
He will have whatever he says. He will have whatever he says,
therefore I say to you, so he brings it back home to them and
he says, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray,
believe that you receive them and you will have them.
Everybody say we'll have them. Will is a very important word
because it didn't say you will have them right now, Amazon
Prime, two hours, they're going to deliver it between 4:00 AM
and 7:00 AM. It doesn't say that, but you
will have them. Some of you are in the will part
of your prayers, but if you're not careful, the fact that
there's that gap, unbelief will try to creep in and then you
lose the faith to receive it. I really felt as, as I was
praying about where to go in this first season of the year,
in this first few months of the year, I really felt like coming
out of teaching on hope for the month of December that it was
time to preach on faith and it's not time to preach on faith
because I got some grandiose thing that I want to rally you
all around. I just know when I talk to
individuals both in our church, outside of our church, that most
people where their real fight is, is for faith.
You know what, when you become under discouragement, what
discouragement is really trying to steal is your faith.
Because if you let go of your faith or your belief, then you
won't receive. You won't receive.
And so your prayers are ineffective because you're,
you're double minded. You got 1 foot in and 1 foot
out. And none of us here want that.
If I went around to say, do you want your prayers to not be
answered? Of course you'd say, no, I want
my prayers to be answered. So everyone of us, we're on the
same page that we want answered prayers.
We have big things we're believing God for.
And then the more you get in this Kingdom, the less selfish
your prayers get. They get more actually about
other people than for you. So when I'm preaching this and
I'm meditating on this, I'm not thinking about selfish needs
that my wife and I have. I'm thinking about other people.
I'm thinking about the inheritance that our church has
and that you as individuals have.
So for me, I'm not thinking about, oh, if I just, you know,
name it and claim it, I'll have that airplane.
That's so foolish. Come on, say Amen to that.
And many people will discount this whole message because
people have abused it. Don't discount Jesus's teaching.
He taught it. So let's just get back to what
he taught about it and let's stick to it.
Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you
pray, believe that you receive them and you what you will have
them. So not only is will mean that
it's not necessarily immediate, though sometimes it is for Jesus
when he cursed the fig tree, what his prayer was answered
overnight. By the time he came back the
next morning, boom answered prayer.
But it's it's not only that, that, OK, it will be answered,
it will happen, but it is, it's an absolute word.
He did not say it might happen. He didn't say it may happen.
He said what it will happen. It will happen.
What?
When you ask and when you believe it will happen.
When you ask and you believe it will happen, thank God for the
word because most of us this is too good to be true.
And it sounds weird even when certain preachers preach it,
because it just sounds like I don't know about all that.
And then we, we, we will begin to think of every reason why
Jesus was misinformed. He was confused.
Was he confused? I don't think he was.
And there are plenty of other teacher teachings.
And in the coming weeks we'll talk about praying the will of
God, getting the mind of the Lord, getting your desires from
his desires. And as all that starts to
happen, you'll, you'll begin to see answered prayers like crazy
because you'll start to weed out just some of the nonsense.
And when you tap into his his will for your life and you start
praying will of prayers according to his will, man,
you're going to start seeing answered prayer.
So we'll get to that, but I just want to stick in what Jesus
taught his disciples who were wondering how in the world would
a fig tree listen to you? And what does a fig tree have to
do with anything? Well, it was the will of God
that that fig tree to dry up. Well, apparently it was that
day. But would you and I have
discerned that that fig tree mattered at all?
Not me. The Bible says the fig tree
shouldn't have had figs on it. It wasn't even the season.
But something got tweaked in Jesus and he was like, I wanted
a fig and you didn't produce figs so you're dead.
This. Is that how you read it?
That's how I read it. Well, if you just pick it apart
in the Greek, it means something different.
No it doesn't. I checked.
No, I do my homework. I make it plain when I teach,
but I do my homework. I studied the word of God.
I studied the original text. I go in to make sure that I'm
not making up stuff that's convenient for me or for you or
to tickle your ears. We got to go in and say, no,
this is really what it said. This is really what it meant.
And there was something about Jesus that was tweaked that
says, you know, the trees that I look on, they should be bearing
fruit all the time. So for him, he's thinking about
Psalm, one that says you know that you'll produce fruit in
your season whose leaf will not wither and whatever he does will
prosper. He's thinking about Ezekiel,
where it says in the that that it'll produce fruit in every
season. These trees will produce fruit
in every season and its leaves will be healing to the nation's.
So Jesus has given an example to his disciples who are following
him wondering, and they're like you and I, they're seeing
everything through the natural. They're interpreting just like I
do when I read it. And I'm like, Jesus, you're just
that hungry, you hangry Jesus. So the the fig tree wasn't
supposed to have fruit, but Jesus is like, no, my trees
should have fruit all the time. Glory to God.
So Jesus is communicating on multiple levels, but he's
teaching them a message of faith.
Have faith in God, have faith in God, have faith in God.
Speaking of reading into the Greek, this word, whatever means
this, so that whatever you ask when you pray, whatever you ask,
when you pray, whatever you ask when you pray, means this as
much as as great or to the degree.
So whatever you ask means as much as you ask for, as great as
you ask for to the degree that you ask for, when you pray, you
will receive and you will have that.
That's literally what the Greek means to the degree that you
ask. So that word whatever is not
like whatever. If you ask for a bowl of soup,
it means it's talking about quantity.
What whatever you ask for as much as you ask for.
When you pray and you believe, you'll have as much as what as
you asked for. So if you ask for pennies, then
guess how much you're going to get if you believe.
If you believe, guess how much you're going to get pennies.
Jesus is teaching and he's saying as much as or as great as
you asked for. When you pray and you believe,
you will have as much as you asked for.
For some of us, that's good news.
For some of us, that means, oh, I've been praying small prayers
and I've been getting my small prayers answered and Jesus is
coming and saying you could ask for some more things.
He's using all the way to the example of if you, if you ask
for a mountain to be removed, it'll be removed.
For some of us, we see the mountain, we see it right in
front of us. You got a huge challenge in your
workplace or in your job. Maybe you've got something going
on in the your health or in your finances.
You, you name it, whatever it could be and you see it.
But some of us have stopped asking for it to go anywhere.
We've just worked around it. We play on it, we've enabled it.
Maybe we may have heaped it on so it gets bigger.
But Jesus says you don't have to tolerate it if you don't want to
as much as you asked for. That'll be answered in Jesus
name. Hebrews says this verse one of
Hebrews 11 look up on the screen if you don't have your your
Bible with you. It says this.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen for by it the elders obtained a good
testimony. I love Hebrews 11.
If you get a chance this week, just read Hebrews 11 because
it's by faith. This person did this by faith.
This person did that by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.
Now the faith is the substance of things hoped for.
This is not, you know, many times when people in our culture
talk about faith, they're talking about an innocuous set
of beliefs that they hope don't offend anybody.
But they're my personal beliefs. And so it's just, it's kind of
like ineffective to anybody, including yourself.
That's not how the Bible talks about faith.
The Bible talks about faith, that faith is a substance.
Faith is a substance. And it goes on to say that
substance helped people subdue kingdoms, to see people raised
from dead to life. That faith called it to rain
when it was in drought and called it to be a drought when
it had been rainy. I mean, it's by faith, by faith,
by faith, by faith, by faith. And it was a substance.
It's not just some sort of ethereal like, yeah, I have
faith as our culture has made it to be.
We hear politicians who use faith as a bud buzzword so that
they'll get up to half the vote. But you have to hear through
that and say, all right, if you have faith, tell me what you
believe. Come on, say Amen to this.
Tell me what you believe. What's the substance of your
faith? Let's do a faith check.
Because we ought not be foolish enough nor gullible enough to
just let somebody slide by to say, oh, yeah, I have faith.
Well, Satan has faith. He has a certain amount of
belief. But I want to check in and say,
well, what's the substance of your faith?
What's the substance of your faith?
The Bible says that is by faith. We are saved through grace.
Your very salvation, if you've made Jesus Lord of your life, is
by faith. If it wasn't for the power of
faith, you wouldn't be saved by faith.
We are made righteous. The Bible says that we are the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, but that happens by
faith. Because did you wake up this
morning feeling like the righteousness of God in Christ
Jesus? I don't know about you, but I
woke up this morning feeling like, what time is it?
What day is it? Where am I right?
But I wake up and I start moving by faith.
I start moving by faith, believing that though I don't
feel that righteous this morning, that holy, I don't feel
that pastoral this morning. You know, I don't wake up with
the angels singing over me, at least that I've seen.
You know, some people wake up and they're like, good morning,
Lord. I wake up and I'm like, good
Lord, it's morning, right? So what do you do?
You start moving. You get out of bed and you start
moving and you're by faith, I'm the righteousness of God by
Christ Jesus, by faith, I and we obtain the promises of God.
They don't just fall in my lap. They're not just, you know, the
sovereign will of God. He is sovereign and He
sovereignly chose to make promises to you that He in fully
intends to keep. But you receive them by faith
because life circumstances many times don't look like those
promises are going to happen. But something in you has to snap
in and have faith in God. And I've watched that people who
have faith in God tend to see promises fulfilled in their life
from God. And I usually find that people
who are the Eors of the church don't see the promises
fulfilled. And it's not because God loves
them any less. What do I mean by Eors?
I don't know. Does God love us?
I think so. Are the promises of God real?
Maybe. It's kind of cloudy.
You know, it's and honestly, we all have those days, but that's
why we need the anointed teaching of God's word.
We need the Word of God to build our faith so that we can shake
ourselves to remember, oh, he's real.
His promises are real. And by faith, I will obtain that
promise and I will operate in faith until I see it.
Because the Bible says if you receive it, if you have it, then
it's not faith anymore. So unless I receive it, I don't
need the faith for that anymore. I move on to the next thing that
I need faith for. Some of these things, by the
way, when I talk about promises, for some of you, these are very
personal. For some, you're believing that
your children be saved, your receipt.
You're praying that your children come back to the Lord.
For some it's your spouse, For some it's a brother or a sister.
We told you about my brother-in-law and his wife
who've got radically saved in the last two years, all to the
way to the point now where they're pursuing their pastoral
license. They're teaching us things.
I mean, they're radically saved, but that was 20 plus years of a
family praying for him. So guess what?
We don't have to buy faith. Pray for that anymore.
It's already done, but for 20 plus years it was by faith
because he was a mean old atheist.
He was. And he tell you that he was.
He was. He did not like our faith.
It was offensive to him. But by faith we obtained that
promise. By faith we are healed.
This is a very sensitive one
because we all have stories of when someone wasn't healed, but
we have to go back to faith, we have to go back to what God said
and we have to be OK. That sometimes you don't have
all the information to know what was going on with that person
and sometimes it doesn't mean that that person was bad, wrong
or did something wrong. Sometimes life just be happening
and some things we won't know till we reach eternity.
And when you reach eternity you won't care anymore.
So this is a good deal. Amen.
You won't. Everybody's like, I'm going to
ask the Lord, No, you're not. You'll be flat on your face
worshipping him. It will not matter to you once
you reach there. You'll just be glad you made it
in praise the Lord. But on this earth, while we're
still here, it does matter. And so we we but by faith, we
are healed. By faith we are redeemed.
I talked about redemption about a month ago.
We are redeemed. We're bought back into the
family of God. By faith we move mountains.
By faith, we do the impossible. Our faith is so powerful that
first John 54 says that it is our faith that overcomes the
world. You can see it up on the screen.
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is
the victory that has overcome the world.
Our faith, our faith, our belief in God, what we believe in God,
what we believe about what He said, what we believe about His
promises. So when you start to feel just,
if you would thank you so much for keeping that scripture up.
When you feel overwhelmed, remember that your faith will
overcome. When you feel like it's
impossible, it's not going to move.
Everybody around you thinks you're crazy.
Sometimes you think you're crazy.
You just lay hold of it. You stay hold of it.
You remind yourself that it's this faith.
It's this not belief in myself, not belief that I'm that good,
not belief that my degrees will get me there or my knowledge
will get me there, or that my wisdom will get me there.
No, but my faith in God will overcome the world because first
John chapter 5 says that. And so I lay hold of that and
I'm like today I feel crummy. Today I feel overwhelmed.
Today I feel defeated. But all of those are not true.
What is true is that this is the victory that we have that
overcomes the world, our faith. So when any person in this room,
when you lay hold of faith in God, you are laying hold of
victory. You're laying hold on victory in
your life. And guess what?
No one on this planet can take it from you.
You can only give it away. No one can take you.
No politician, no government structure, no war, no law, no,
no family member, no one can take your faith.
You can just give it. You can give up the ghost on
that one. You can give it up, but once you
lay hold of it, keep it. That's why the Bible talks many,
many times, and it's the apostle Paul who talks about it.
It's the great fight of faith. The number one thing Satan wants
to steal from you is faith in God.
So if you feel like everything and the kitchen sink is being
thrown at you, there's a reason for it.
He's after your faith, He's after your faith.
He's after your faith in God because if you give up, he wins.
But as long as you stay in this fight and you say I will keep
believing God until my very last breath, I would rather die
believing God then live a life of unbelief.
Did you hear me? I would rather die believing God
then live in unbelief. And you have to anchor into
that. So the opposite of faith is
unbelief. Let's look at Mark chapter 6.
Are you with me this morning? I pray that if you have been
feeling like your faith has been sucked out of you, that today
you get back in the fight of faith.
Get back in the fight of faith. What you were fighting for is
worth it. What God has spoken to you is
real. It wasn't your imagination, it
wasn't you just in some sort of mental ascension or being
whipped in some to some sort of manipulated frenzy.
God is real and he really is speaking to you and he really
has spoken to you and his word really is true.
And so we're going to get back in the fight of faith in Jesus
name. Mark chapter 6, verse one says,
Then he Jesus went out from there and came to his own
country, and his disciples followed him.
And when the Sabbath had come, he began to teach in the
synagogue. And many hearing him, were
astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things?
And what wisdom is this which is given to him, that such great
and mighty works are performed by his hands?
Is this not the Carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of
James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here
with us? So they were offended at him.
They were offended at him. They didn't understand why.
Why are you getting to do this? Who gave all this to you?
Who are you? So they were offended at him.
But verse 4 But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without
honor in his own country, among his own relatives and in his own
house. Now he could do no mighty work
there. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He could do no. He could do no.
He could do, no, He could not do any mighty work there, except he
laid hands on a few sick people and healed them.
That's fascinating to me. I'll read the next verse in a
second. It's fascinating to me that
Jesus couldn't do a mighty work, but He could heal a few people.
Most of us in the church world today, we've not even seen a
mighty work. We've just seen a few people
healed and unfortunately it's so rare that a few people get
healed that we call that a mighty work.
And in Jesus's ministry, that wasn't even a mighty work.
That was he feel he healed a few people and I'm like, good Lord,
help me to not settle in the few good works.
Lord, when you have a mighty work left to be done.
Hello. Hello.
Are you awake this morning? Yes, some of us, we've settled
in the land of unbelief and we've been tantalized by a few
good things, few answered prayers.
Praise the Lord. Yes, look at what God's doing
and Jesus is like. There's a mighty work that I
could do if I would find belief. He could do no mighty work
there, except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed
them. Verse 6 And he marvelled because
of their unbelief and he went about the villages in a circuit
teaching. He marvelled because of their
unbelief. He marvelled because of their
unbelief. He couldn't do what was in his
heart to do. Not because it was the will, it
wasn't the will of God, it was the will of God.
Not because he wasn't the Son of God, He was the Son of God.
He was anointed. He literally said the Spirit of
the Lord is anointed or has anointed me, has come upon me
for all of these things, and yet in an area of unbelief, it could
not happen. Could it be that what's being
held up in our own life is because of unbelief and Jesus's
answer to unbelief was what teaching what we're doing today
was Jesus's answer to unbelief? It wasn't, well, let me just
keep praying and hopefully at some point something will
happen. No, He had to teach them because
it's through that anointed teaching of the Word of God,
which of course he is the word of God.
That teaching built faith, and as their faith was built up, and
as faith is built up, then you can receive promises because you
receive them by faith. So if you don't have faith,
you're not able to lay hold of it.
Instead, we're operating in unbelief.
And I think many of us, we've tolerated unbelief for far too
long in this church. We've tolerated unbelief for too
long. And I'm not saying I, I'm not
pointing my finger at anybody. I just know in my own life,
anything that I've ever done great for God was by faith.
And every time I've been held up and delayed is because of
unbelief. And so it's healthy to do a
little introspection, a little, you know, map to say, you know,
when you're going somewhere or do you ever gone to the mall or
you're in an amusement park or whatever.
The most important thing on the map is you are here.
The second most important thing is where you're going.
But who cares where you're going if you don't know where you are?
And most people are avoidant. I don't want to know where I am.
I just want to feel good, just want to enjoy the journey.
I just want to enjoy, you know, if you ever gone to Disney
World, have the best corn dogs. So you're just like, I'm just
going to get a corn dog and just enjoy Main Street.
There's a whole other park beyond Main Street if you can
get there. But you got to know you are
here. So some of us it's, it's OK.
Don't avoid the hard truth that I have been playing around with
unbelief. But if I can get back in the
fight of faith, those prayers that have been delayed, those
things that I haven't yet seen happen in my life yet, I will
start seeing them happen because God has been faithful and will
continue to be faithful even when I was faithless.
That's Bible. So when I step back into the
fight of faith, prayers will start being answered again.
I'll start to see the God move again and I'll move beyond this.
Well, he healed a few sick people.
You know, I, I'm, I'm prayerful that in our own church, Lord,
may this be a House of healing and not where it's just a few
healings, though again, most of us would be like, man, that'd be
awesome to see. Well, we have seen it.
We've seen a few healings. Oh, but there are way more
diseases and sicknesses that need to be healed.
And it's the will of God to be healed, but he must find faith
here. Matthew chapter 13 verse 58 says
now he did not do many mighty works there because of their
unbelief. It's the same example but just
written about by Matthew instead of Mark.
That word unbelief is literally it has the same root Word of
Faith, but it means now the opposite.
It's the opposite of faith apistia.
It's a PISTIA. It's in the Greek and it means
to not be a believer, to be a non Christian refusing to trust
in doubt and treachery. So when it says he did not do
many works there because of their unbelief, they were not
believers. They refused to trust, they were
in doubt all the way to the point where it's treasonous
treachery. Unbelief will kill the
miraculous in your life. It'll snuff it out.
When you are living in unbelief,
everything you see is what you can do in your own strength.
Let me say it again. When you're living in unbelief.
In other words, I don't know. I don't know if God can do it.
That's all Unbelief. That's the language of unbelief.
I don't know. We'll see.
I hope so. I'm not sure.
Well, you know, it doesn't really mean this.
That's all the language of unbelief.
When you live in the land of unbelief, everything you see is
what you can do in your own strength.
So if you are burned out, you feel burned out, you feel tired,
you feel worn out. Usually it's because you're
doing things in your own strength, which usually comes
from unbelief. Because unbelief says if I don't
do it, it won't happen. Hello.
Unbelief says that. Well, I got to have plan BCDE
and F and I'm going to keep working on all these other plans
and we'll see if God comes through.
That's, that's, that's how unbelief operates.
And the more you operate in unbelief, it's genuinely all
you're seeing right now is what you can do in the natural.
But did you know there's a whole supernatural way to live?
And all you have to do is begin to step by faith.
Go step by step, by faith, and you'll start to see things to
happen in your life that you know for a fact you could never
have done without God. Hello.
You'll know for a fact. You'll know for a fact.
I didn't get that meeting. I didn't get that client.
I'm not smart enough to get that promotion.
You'll know. Well the job, the job
description for that promotion said that this person needed a
doctorate and I have my GED, but for whatever reason they gave me
the job. Well the for whatever reason is
because I took it by faith and I said Lord, you said in your word
that you put down 1 and you put up another.
That's what Psalm says. It says promotion does not come
from the east, West or South. But God is the judge.
He puts up 1 and he puts down another.
Glory to God. So you start operating like that
in business and your Co worker, Co workers better get with it in
faith because otherwise you're going to leapfrog them all day
long. You say, well that's not fair.
That's right, it's not fair. This is Bible.
Hello. No, this is the language of the
Bible. This is the language of faith.
This is the language of what Jesus was trying to teach his
people over and over and over and over and over.
Have faith in God, have faith in God, have faith in God.
They get into a boat. Jesus is he calms the winds in
the wave. They say, Lord, even the waves
in the winds obey you. He says you have little faith.
What was he correcting? Their faith?
You had a little faith. And if you had more faith, you
could have calmed the winds in the the waves in the sea.
Glory to God to to release the power of God, you must have
faith. So how do we increase our faith
and flesh out unbelief? Romans 10/17 says then faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of
God. So then faith comes by hearing,
faith comes by hearing, faith comes by hearing, faith comes by
hearing God, and hearing God comes by the word of God.
That's the way this read Hearing God.
Faith comes by hearing God. When you get a word from God,
game over. If you'll receive it by faith,
and you let hold of it and you hang on to it, no one can take
it from you. No demonic force, no demonic
spirit, no demonic strategy could take it away.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of
God. So when you get into the Word of
God, you get into your Bible. We talked about it a couple
weeks ago that we're reading our Bible every day in 2026.
Not because we're trying to be goody, goody 2 shoes, but
because we are in a fight. And when I get off the Word of
God, my faith drains very quickly.
Have you noticed that for me, I release, I release faith all the
time, whether it's through prayers with many of you,
whether it's through life circumstances, whether it's
through my own personal circumstances.
I'm constantly dealing out faith, faith, faith, faith,
faith. If I don't fill that up with the
Word of God, I get empty real quick.
And an empty tie is not fun to be around.
You'll laugh too much at that, but it's true.
And some of y'all, you've been unfun because your faith has
drained. And the faith only comes from
hearing God and hearing God only comes from the Word of God.
It paves the way in your spirit to hear God.
It's like the clouds open up and you're like, I can hear again.
I can hear him, I can hear his voice.
And when you hear him, faith rises up and you have
confidence. Yes, what God said is true.
So I'm going to take the next step and the next step and the
next step. And you have to keep at that
every single day. So how do you increase your
faith? You get into the word of God and
you stay consistent. And you say, well, it didn't
mean anything to me today, that's fine.
Tomorrow, pick it up again. Didn't mean anything today.
OK, Pick it up again tomorrow. And at some point the clouds
will clear and all the sudden it'll be like a breath of fresh
air. I can hear him and you'll
realize it was not that he was silent, it's that you couldn't
hear. And you are doing everything
else but here. And when you hear him, something
inside of you get strengthened. It's like Superman going into
the phone booth and you just like switch gears and you come
out a different person. Some of us, we need to get into
the phone book of faith or phone, phone booth, not phone
book. That's not even a thing anymore.
OK, Neither is the telephone booth.
So if if you're under 50, you know, whatever, watch your
cartoons. That's all I can say.
You got to get in there and you got to allow yourself to be
transformed. And when you come out, people
are going to be like what happened to you?
I heard him. I hurt him.
I hurt him, I hurt him. I heard him.
When was the last time you heard him like you heard him?
He said your name, He gave you instruction, He told you what to
do. He told you go right, don't go
left. He said when you go to this
meeting, be ready for this. He said for that child, don't be
harsh with them. Extend love right now.
When is the last time you heard him?
Because when you hear him, you are altered.
You are changed. You can function in a faith
level that is unusual and uncommon and it is in that place
that mountains move. It is in that place that
mountains move. I remember several years ago,
the church that we were a part of and I was on staff at, we had
been doing 5 services that were all packed out on a weekend and
and we knew we need more room. We need more room, we need more
room. So the leadership of our church
at that time had decided that a building just down the street
from us needed to be converted from a warehouse into a couple
thousand C auditorium. And so we're on a timeline and
all of this stuff. And we had gotten the lease and
even getting a lease in California for that amount of
space was like miraculous. And so the owner didn't want to
give it to us at one time. And I'm not kidding, Frankie, I,
you probably were sitting outside the office.
Frankie was our pastor's assistant at the time.
Sitting outside the office. Our pastor is meeting with the
man telling a basically, like, you'll be blessed if you let us
lease this property from you. And I'm not joking.
There was an earthquake that hit the building while they were
meeting and the man said I got to go because he had to go check
on all of his equipment and we got the lease.
That's a whole other thing. But we were functioning by
faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.
And so pastor, our pastor, stood up one Sunday, he held up the
lease, We got the lease. And then he announced on such
and such date, I think it was March 29th, 22,009.
We're going to have our first service in the sanctuary.
Now, by that time, no construction had started.
He said it in what was it, October, November.
It was like late on Lily and I had gotten married that December
so the first four months of our marriage was a building project.
Praise the Lord. I do not recommend it but I
remember being on staff as a young man and watching my pastor
go by faith and the rest of us rallying around his faith and he
he self-imposed the timeline. He said in Jesus name that
mountain will be moved. What rose up in him?
He he couldn't even tell. He said I just blurted it out.
That's his words. I just blurted out on March
29th, 2009, we'll have our first dedicate.
We'll have our dedication service in the new sanctuary.
Not one thing had happened in the building so far.
So all of you construction people, yes that's like four or
five months to convert a warehouse into a full
functioning several seat 1000 auditorium in California.
The most crazy permit rules and laws and you know, all the
things it came to Saturday. Well, Friday the inspectors came
couple days before the dedication.
All the emails are going out. All those, all the, every, all
the invitations are out there with no permit.
We have no permit. We have no permit.
Friday the, the people come and they're like, you're not ready,
you're not ready. And, and, and then even the
contractor looked at our pastor and said, can we all just agree?
Can we all just agree that this is not happening?
And thank God, in fact, he wasn't even with our pastors,
with a couple other guys, including Frankie's brother.
And they said, no, we don't agree.
They didn't agree, they didn't agree.
So after that they went down to the city and somehow they found,
can somebody please come back tomorrow?
We're going to work all night long, which we did.
We were there till the next morning, early in the morning
for several nights in a row. We worked all night by faith, by
faith. The list, the punch list was way
too long. But we were working, working,
working, working, working. And I'm convinced angels helped
us. I'm not joking.
I'm convinced we had heavenly help to get us through that
process. And somehow somebody convinced
by the favor of God, the inspectors, to come back on a
Saturday, they came back on a Saturday.
And on a Saturday we got our temporary occupancy permit.
And on that Sunday, we had our dedication service with a packed
auditorium, several thousand people that we dedicated on that
day. The only way that happened was
by faith. Any movement off of that and we
would have violated our faith and it would have never
happened. It would never have happened.
Why? Because it was by faith.
It was supernatural and it is a testimony that's still being
told there today and I'm telling it to you today.
Everyone of you need to have your own story and testimonies
of faith. Some of you have some.
Some of you need new ones, some of you need first time ones, but
wherever you're at, it's time to have some testimonies of by of
faith, of faith. You know, when I was 18 years
old, I moved cross country from here in North Carolina to go to
school in California. That's how I ended up in
California. I'm a native.
I grew up an hour away from here in Greensboro, but the Lord
called me when I was seven. I was really younger, but at 18
years old drove across the country and I landed in LA
County and I went to school there.
You know that honestly didn't take that much faith.
I was young and dumb. It was easy.
I'm like California school, sign me up.
Like I'm there. You know, that really didn't
take. It took more faith for my
parents, but it didn't take faith for me.
But when God called us back in 2020 to move back across the
country, that took faith because by that time, now I'm married, I
have 3 kids. The job that was offered to me
from our denomination was more than a 50% pay cut.
And so by faith I had to say yes.
This church wasn't on the table at that time.
So I didn't know about y'all. I didn't know about being here.
All I knew is God was saying go. In fact, the scripture he used
with me on the day I was having an interview for the position I
was in my daily reading, which all of you in Jesus name, many
of you are using, many of you are using just this reading
plan. Somebody else put it together,
but the Lord and his grace caused it to be on that day.
I'm reading in the New Testament and it is Peter who's in the
boat and he sees Jesus out in the water and he says, Lord, if
that's you, tell me to come. And as I'm reading it, I hear
God. I hear him come, come.
And in me, faith shot up through me and I never looked back.
Didn't worry about the money, didn't worry about how it was
all going to work out. Didn't have all the pieces put
together. Didn't know.
All I knew is we're moving, baby.
I hadn't even had the interview yet.
Hello. They hadn't even given me the
offer letter. We're still vetting inside.
I already knew it's happening. That's not arrogance.
That's faith. Because I hurt him.
This is our testimony. This is what Jesus has called us
to. Glory to God, glory to God.
I want to end with this passage out of Matthew Chapter 9, verse
one, Matthew Chapter 9 and verse 1.
So when he got into a boat again, Jesus crossed over and
came to his own city. Then behold, they bought,
brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed.
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son,
be of good cheer, your sons are forgiven you.
And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, this man
blasphemes, but Jesus knowing their thoughts says, why do you
think evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say your
sins are forgiven you, or to say, arise and walk, but that
you may know the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins.
Then he said to the paralytic, Arise, take up your bed and go
to your house. And he arose and departed to his
house. Now when the multitude saw it,
they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.
I want you to notice that when his friends, they brought him
this paralytic man, they, they brought him there.
He could not walk. He had no ability to get up on
his own. Jesus saw their faith.
Something clicked into place when they had moved to the point
of if we get him to Jesus, something is going to change
about the situation and Jesus seeing their faith, he said
arise and walk. And I just hear the Lord saying
to literally arise, church, arise and walk and I have some
things to declare over us as a church.
In fact, if you would, let's stand to our feet today.
I'm going to say some things, and then I want you to consider
in your own life. But at Arise Church, we by faith
will see hundreds and even thousands of people saved,
discipled, healed, and set free. And every mountain, every
obstacle, every delay will be moved in the name of Jesus
Christ. At Arise Church by Faith, we
will fulfill the ministry vision that God has given us.
At Arise Church by Faith, we will have all the staff and
leaders that we need for the ministry.
At Arise Church by Faith, we will pay off the building
mortgage and it will be accomplished by faith.
And at Arise Church by Faith, we will see much, much more at the
appointed time. Now here's my question to you.
What will you do with your faith so close your eyes right where
you're at. I just begin to consider what,
what is God putting into your hand to do by faith?
Some of you, He is calling you back into the fight.
No more on the sidelines, no more in the cheap seats.
He wants you back in this fight, the fight of faith, the Lord is
opening your eyes. Some of you, you're hearing him
again in Jesus name and as you're hearing Him, faith is
arising, discouragement is draining, unbelief is draining
and faith is coming back and saying that which I told you
even years ago. Some of you dreams that you had,
visions that you had aspirations that God gave you, they will
come to pass, they will happen, they will happen, they will
happen in Jesus name. Glory to God.
Would you repeat this after me say, Father God, thank you for
speaking to me. I open my ears to you to hear
you so that my faith will take every promise that you have made
to me, my family, and the generations to follow.
By faith, I will step into everything you have for me in
2026. I will not operate in unbelief
any longer. As of today I am a true person
of faith in Jesus name. If you agree what you say, Amen,
let's clap our hands. Amen, Amen and Amen and Amen,
glory to God. We want to thank you again for
joining us for the Arise Church podcast.
We hope you were encouraged by what you heard today.
You can find us.online@arisechurchn-c.com and
on Instagram at Arise Church NC. If you need prayer or support or
are interested in learning more about Arise Church, we encourage
you to connect with us online or in person at our Sunday morning
service. Thank you and God bless.