Faith to Move Mountains

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?

Mark 11 · chapter mention

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

Mark 11 · chapter mention

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.

Mark 11:12

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.

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.

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

1 John 5 · chapter mention

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.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

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,

Mark 6 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 13:58

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.

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

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

one, Matthew Chapter 9 and verse 1.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

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 [email protected] 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.