The Switch Of Faith 3

Let's just get our Bibles out and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I've tuned in on purpose tonight because I'm hungry for more, more of the Word of God, more of the Holy Spirit revelation on that Word, so that my faith will grow and the results and the victory will increase in my life in Jesus' day, amen.

Let's look at Mark, chapter two tonight, and read these verses, verse one, mark, chapter two.

And again, he, that is Jesus, entered into Capernaum after some days and it was noise that he was in the house.

And straightway many were gathered together in so much that there was no room to receive Him no, not so much as about the door.

And he preached the Word unto them.

And they come unto Him bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four I like what brother Mark says four crazy friends.

You know, everybody needs four crazy friends.

And when they could not come near unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was.

Well, first of all they had to get up on the roof.

You know, wouldn't you love to see a video of that?

And they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

But there were certain of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts why does this man thus speak?

Blasphemies, who can forgive sins?

But God only?

And immediately, when Jesus perceived in His Spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them why reason ye these things in your hearts?

Whether it is the easier to say to the sick of the palsy, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say arise and take up thy bed and walk, but that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.

He saith to the sick of the palsy I say unto thee, arise and take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house.

And immediately he arose, took up the bed and went forth before them all, in so much that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying we never saw it on this fashion.

And so the switch of faith.

Tonight we want to continue along this line.

See some keys here tonight in this powerful testimony.

Faith is a switch.

It turns on the power of God.

It's not so much the size of your faith, it's whether you apply your faith.

You've got to turn the switch of faith on so that the power can flow to change your circumstances.

So the first week we talked about the woman with the issue of blood and we talked about the ways that she turned on her switch of faith.

She kept on saying I shall be whole and she journeyed.

She took a journey, she didn't just sit where she was, and then she received that power when she touched the hem of his garment.

She didn't let the crowd stop her, and then she told everything that happened, she testified.

So those four wonderful keys to your switch of faith being turned on.

Then last week we talked about the Roman centurion who had a servant that was grievously tormented or grievously afflicted with a palsy, a similar disease.

A palsy means they were paralyzed and generally it was a terminal disease that was just, you know, had inflicted a lot of suffering.

And Jesus offered to come and said I will come and heal him.

And he said oh, no, no, you know.

Basically he said this he said I've got faith in the authority of your word alone.

Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed Because I'm a man under authority and I'm my authority works.

You obviously are a man under authority, your authority works.

All you've got to do is speak the word.

And Jesus was.

He marveled at the faith of the centurion and so he said go your way and as you have believed, so be it under thee, as you have believed.

And so he turned on the switch of faith by coming to begin with and then by going back, with no evidence, I mean he just on the evidence of Jesus word.

He did go your way, your faith, your faith is as you have believed, so it be it under thee.

So he was healed.

You know that self same hour.

So this week we have the paralyzed man, again with the palsy, and again you have a journey of faith.

He came and he overcame, this time with the help of his friends, four friends and says that when Jesus saw their faith, so your faith has got to have action, it has to have corresponding action.

James 2, 20 in the Weymouth translation faith without corresponding action is dead.

So here we see again the importance of acting your faith.

You know when you're believing God for something, when you're believing God to intervene in a situation that you're facing, whether it's health or whatever it is, there needs to be some sort of core besides your initial action of words.

You've got to speak, no question about it, but you also need to act.

Like the Bible is true, you need to have an action.

And so, when I've done all you know, when my faith walk is, I often pray this prayer, lord, how do I act on my faith?

What?

What is an action that I need to take?

Many times it's sowing a seed, you know, writing a check, you know, and not that I'm buying his favor, not that I'm buying you know anything, but I'm sowing a seed in in to let God know that I believe his word.

Sometimes it's just some, some other action of faith.

It's giving somebody a call, talking to somebody.

So you know, your actions speak louder than words.

I, you know when you're, you know when you're when you're saying something.

One you know you're saying a good thing and you're acting like it's not true.

See, that's not faith.

So their, their actions spoke to Jesus and showed them the faith that they had.

And so what did Jesus do that he did?

He knew the man was sick.

Well, what did he do?

First, he needed to get rid of the problem.

Sin was the problem.

Sin was the problem.

He forgave the man of his sin.

Of course, that raised all kinds of questions among the scribes and they doubted who does he think he is?

They were thinking it.

They didn't say it, they were not, they didn't have enough courage to say it out loud.

So they thought it.

But Jesus perceived what they were thinking.

He said well, how you don't think I can do this?

What's harder, forgiving a sin or healing this man?

Let me tell you something I'm gonna heal this man, so you'll never doubt that I've got power on earth to forgive sin.

And he did it.

Rise, take up your head bed and not just walk right here in this house.

He told him to go home.

Just think about that, the journey that the four men it took to carry him there.

We don't know how far it was, was it a mile?

Was it two miles?

Was it five miles?

Was it, you know, 200 feet?

We don't know how far his house was from the house where all these people were gathered, but we just know that he didn't get there in his own power, those four being carried him on a stretcher.

And he rose up and he went back home, take up your bed.

So he had to carry something.

He had to carry a load on top of his shoulders and walk back home.

How long had he been paralyzed, how long had he been in that bed no telling how long and yet he had the faith to get up and try to do something.

He acted on Jesus' word, he made an effort, he obeyed the voice of the Lord.

And then the next amazing thing to me when I look at this, is that the ones that were doubting, the ones that were skeptical let me take you back to the very first couple of verses.

It was so crowded in there and there were, you know, in another version of this same one, there were Pharisees and Sadducees and Doctors of the Law present there.

So they were the high muckety mucks I call them.

They were all present and there's no record of any of them getting healed, not one.

Jesus preached the word unto him.

In the Gospel of Luke it says the power of the Lord was present to heal them and not one of them was healed.

Why, do you suppose?

Well, it's because they had doubt and unbelief, and that's evidenced by the fact that they doubted that he had power to forgive the sins In fact he was.

He blasphemed her.

What is he doing?

How dare he do that?

But what was interesting is when this miracle occurred and this man with a palsy, whose sin had just been forgiven, raised up and walked his way out of that house with his bed on his shoulders.

It says that they all glorified God and they said we've never seen anything like this We've.

So just look at the change in the atmosphere.

All of a sudden they're glorifying God.

Just think of that.

I mean, they went from doubting Jesus to glorifying God.

You know, the church must have miracles.

We must have healing miracles specifically.

So I'm talking tonight about turning on the switch of faith, and I see three things here that we need to remind ourselves of, and all these messages are just you know ways for you to check up on your switch of faith and make sure you've got it turned on.

I mean, you know and keep it on.

You know, sometimes we can turn on the switch of faith and then by our inaction or by our wrong thinking or wrong talking, we can turn the switch back off and his power then is interrupted.

No, keep the switch of faith turned on until you see everything change, amen.

And so, anyway, we see three things here tonight.

So the first one I see here is number one turn on the switch of love.

You know love is our first commitment.

You know we would love one another as Christ has loved us, and faith works by love.

The Bible says it's our only commitment and Jesus forgave the lame man of his sins before he was healed.

He needed to be forgiven.

That was the sin in his life was going to block the healing that Jesus had for him.

Now you don't see that a lot, a lot of times people were healed and you know they were sinning their life, but there wasn't really any forgiveness.

But in this case there was trouble.

I'm thinking about the man at the pool of Bethesda.

You know he was healed.

He was sitting there at the edge of the pool waiting for the angel to trouble the water and Jesus said will you be made whole?

He said, sir, I have no man.

He said, no, I'm the man.

And he said rise, take up your bed and walk.

And Jesus healed him.

And then later on, in that same chapter, he says go your way and don't sin anymore, lest a worse thing come unto you.

So he had sin that needed to be dealt with also, but yet Jesus healed him.

So here you know, my point is one of the things that can block your miracle is a lack of love.

If you don't walk in love toward people, if you have unforgiveness, if you have strife and division at home.

You know husbands, the Bible says you know if you fuss with your wife, you know your heirs together.

The grace of life, you know, you can, your prayers can be hindered.

Peter said you know, over the years, you know.

It's three little phrases that I've learned and I like to speak them on a regular basis.

But you know, men especially need to look in the mirror and practice this.

You know.

Say, you know.

Picture your wife there and you've been disagreeing with her about something trivial.

Most of the time she usually doesn't make a hill of beans about much of anything, just say honey, I was wrong, I'm sorry, please forgive me.

See three phrases I was wrong.

See, you're always wrong.

You might as well figure that out.

I was wrong, you know, I'm sorry, please forgive me, see.

Then you clear the air and you own it.

You're the man of the house.

And later on, if your wife realizes that you were right, most of the time most women will admit that you were right all along.

Amen.

God has a way of vindicating you when you just say I was wrong, I'm sorry, please forgive me.

But that's a good rule to have, because Jesus said Mark 11, 11, 11, 23,.

Speak to the mountain, it'll move.

Then you say what things so ever you desire when you pray, believe you receive, and you shall have them 24.

But then in 25 says if you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against any, because if you don't forgive, god will not forgive you your sins.

So we don't like to quote verses 25 and 26, but they're just as important, if not more so, than 23 and 24.

I'm talking about now Turn it.

Keep in the switch of faith turned on.

So keep the switch of love turned on.

We're that's our commandment, we're to walk in love toward people, and so turn on the switch of love.

I think about all the love that was there, those four friends, which brings me to the second thing.

Turn on the switch of fellowship.

Turn on the switch of fellowship.

See, the lame man had four friends that loved him enough to take him to where Jesus was.

It wasn't easy to do.

And then they get there and there's no way into the door, people are thronging the place, it's jam packed.

And so they look up and say, well, we're going to take him up on the roof and knock a hole in the roof.

I mean, did all of that?

That's amazing.

I mean the love they had for this man and trust that he had to have in them, because it was, you know, he had to have some faith too.

I mean he could have fallen out of his stretcher getting up on the roof.

He could have fallen out of the stretcher from the roof down to the floor where Jesus was preaching.

I mean, and so you had that fellowship, you had that love.

Let's look at Hebrews, chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

The switch of fellowship.

You know, sometimes we just need others.

You know, I know I teach you that God will hear your prayer, and that's true.

But you know, god designed the body of Christ to function as a body.

Hebrews 10, 23,.

It says let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful, who promised.

And let us, number two, consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So what I'm seeing in these verses is that we need to hold fast our profession and sometimes we need help with others encouraging us along those lines.

I mean, you know, it helps to have friends who will tell you oh, you know, you're not talking right about that, brother.

Hey, sister, let's agree for a better confession on what we're just talking about here.

I mean we, you know, iron sharpens iron and sometimes we just when we're going through a trial I've seen this for years people pull away from the church.

They pull away from their good godly brothers and sisters in the Lord.

When we're commanded to assemble ourselves together as puzzle pieces.

One version says we assemble ourselves together as puzzle pieces.

You ever have one of these big old puzzles and you've got one piece that's missing For some reason.

It's gone, it's lost, it's got thrown away, it's hiding under the couch or something under the sofa, somewhere.

You can't find it.

I mean, you know, you've worked all this time and now you've got one piece that's missing.

And it's kind of the way it is with the body of Christ.

We need to get together, we need to be fellowshiping with one to another.

You know the Bible says to draw near to God and he'll draw near to you, and that's vertically, but it's also horizontally.

We ought to draw near to the God and our brothers and sisters, especially those that are members of our church.

You know, that's why we're in this thing together.

We go through a lot of things together.

So instead of pulling away from people in the church, draw near to people in the church.

I don't mean that you gotta have somebody carry you on their back, but sometimes it's just good to have somebody to agree with you and sometimes it's good to have somebody just to be accountable to it.

So turn on the switch of fellowship.

Thank God, that lame man had four crazy friends and it turned out to be the key to his miracle.

Turned out to be the key to his miracle.

Think about that just a moment.

It turned out to be the key to his miracle because without the friends, without the friends, he couldn't have gotten to where Jesus went.

He's paralyzed.

Jesus would have had to somehow come to him and who knows if he would have lasted that long.

So the key to his miracle and in my experience the key to a lot of miracles is the body of Christ.

It's our connection.

That's why every believer needs a church, every believer needs a pastor, and you know you need a vital church body to be part of it.

All right, and then the last one is found here in verse 12,.

When they saw this lame man walk in their presence, they all glorified God and said wow, it doesn't say wow, but I'm saying wow.

I'm sure that's what they said Wow, wow, look at that, wow, look at that man.

They couldn't deny the miracle.

And so let's turn on the switch of praise.

You know, they waited until after they saw the miracle, until they praised.

But we praise God before we see anything change.

We praise God as if it's already happened, because we know it's going to happen, because our faith calls the things that be, not as though they were.

You know, once our faith is involved, it's no longer a mystery, it's no longer, if you know, it's just a matter of when.

And so we just praise God.

Whenever it is, we call it done.

Now, you know, god inhabits the praises of His people, psalm 22-3.

In Acts 16, where Paul and Silas were beaten with many stripes and thrown into the inner prison and they were locked in their cells and their feet and ankles were locked in these stalks and you know their backs were bleeding, they were hurting, and the Bible says that at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises and the other prisoners heard them.

They were so loud in their praying and in their singing that everybody else in that prison heard them and they all knew what had happened to them.

And here they are praying and singing and you know they didn't have to spend the night suffering.

I mean, it wasn't that long until God invaded the earthquake and broke them out of their stalks and broke them out of the prison cells and got them in the presence of the jailer and he was going to kill himself.

And they said oh no, don't hurt yourself this, you know, we're all here, nobody's escaped.

And they prayed with him.

The men in this entire household got saved.

And then he bade their stripes in all kind of ointments and comforted them the rest of the night.

Praise God.

They praised God before anything had changed, before anything had happened in their favor.

And so we need to turn on the switch of praise in the midst of our circumstances, once we've touched it with our faith, once we have spoken, once we've acted.

Like the Bible is true, in fact, really praising God is one of the ways that we act, like the Bible is true.

It's one of the ways that we prove that we believe God is when we dance and shout and praise God for the answer coming to pass even before we see it.

And so turn on the switch of faith and be bold about it.

That's another thing I got out of Sunday's messages is the boldness of the apostles, of the boldness of somebody like Brother Mark and Trinna.

They're bold.

I mean, they're so bold they come into places that are kind of dead and they just take over.

And they're bold with their confessions, bold with their faith, bold to bring a demonstration when they come to this church.

It's almost like so easy.

Why?

Because y'all are also ready for them and they love preaching here.

They kept telling me the whole night that we had fellowship after the service and we had a quick meal before they flew home and they just were so happy about all day and how you responded to their ministry.

It's not that way everywhere they go and so, but we can respond that way to the Lord all the time.

We can turn the switch of praise on and we can turn the switch of fellowship on with God's people and with God himself, and turn on the switch of love and we can watch our circumstances change.

Let's lift our hands and receive the Word of God's, turn on the switch of faith and keep it turned on.

Amen, hallelujah.

Father, thank you for the Word that we've received here tonight.