Force Multiplier – Ridiculous Faith

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Let's get to work today.

We are in part three of a series called Force Multiplier.

If you missed any of the series, let me catch you up very quickly.

A force multiplier is something that dramatically increases one's impact.

That's what we said week one.

It's like a hammer and a nail.

You can eventually, if you were to use your hand, you could eventually try to nail a nail into a piece of wood, but the hammer dramatically increases your impact, your ability to do the job.

So we said on week one that in the life of a believer, faith is the force multiplier.

We said week one that faith is not effort, it's not trying harder.

Faith is learning to see, but it's seeing from God's point of view, learning to see from God's point of view.

Last week we had a guest, Pastor Jason Warman, brought an incredible message called the Gospel of Permission, which is God's desire is to say yes to his children when we ask.

He is able and he's willing to say yes.

Today I've got a whole different message on faith that here's my hope.

A lot of messages I hope to challenge you intellectually.

Today, if you write nothing down, my hope is that you leave having so felt and encountered the presence of God that you walk out different because of what's gonna happen in this place.

I woke up super early this morning with some of you on my heart, and I believe the healing power of Jesus is here.

And if we'll have faith, some of you are gonna walk out different than you walked in.

Can I get a good amen from anybody up in here?

11 and a half years ago, my brother Mike was turning 26 years old.

And for his 26th birthday, he got this crazy idea.

He said, I want to do 26 things that I've always wanted to do in the 26 days leading up to my birthday.

So we did all kinds of weird stuff, but on the last day, he said, Bro, you gotta go with me.

And I just said, Yes, what are we doing?

He said, We are gonna go skydiving.

Has anybody in the room skydived, skydiving, skydive before skydove?

I don't know.

Anything skydived before some of you?

So it was incredible.

Now I I told this idea to my wife, and she's like, Are you really?

Like we have two kids.

Are you sure you want to do this?

I'm like, babe, I got this.

I got this, it's gonna be great.

I have a big life insurance policy.

She says, just go have fun, you know?

And so I uh I go.

Up to this point in my life, I'd only ever stayed in planes, I never jumped out of them, but this was my moment.

I was excited.

I was excited, but to be honest, my wife was quite nervous.

She she was very nervous.

In fact, I could tell she was nervous because all morning she was texting me.

Like every three to four seconds, she was texting me just to check in, see how I was doing, see how I was feeling.

And we text back and forth, how's it going?

It's going great.

What's the latest?

They got us strapped in.

How's it going?

I'm like, it's fine.

Everything's still fine.

How's it going?

Read last text, you know what I mean?

Like it's the same as it was 37 seconds ago, it's fine.

And so we go up into the plane, and I'll be honest, I wasn't nervous until the moment we get into the plane, but I get strapped up to the flight instructor.

He goes, Are you nervous?

And I said, Yeah, I'm a little nervous.

He goes, Me too.

And I'm like, What?

He goes, He goes, Is it your first time?

I said, Yes.

And he goes, me too.

And I said, What?

And to make it worse, this man reeked of granola and weed, you know what I'm saying?

Like it was just rough.

Whatever.

And so, so before we go up, though, I've been texting with my wife over and over again.

And the and the flight instructor comes in here, he goes, Everybody, come on, the plane's ready.

Drop your phones, let's go.

So, being the obedient man I am, I just dropped my phone and I just took off.

So we go, we get in the plane, we jump out of the plane.

For those of you who are warriors, I made it out alive, everybody, you know, we're good.

Okay.

So I get back to my phone, it's this incredible experience.

I'm like on cloud nine.

I go back to my phone, and I have like 7,000 missed texts from Liz.

It starts off in this enough.

How's it going?

Question mark.

What's going on?

Question mark, question mark.

Babe, five question marks.

Hello, 12 question marks.

Then one text that's just a lot of question marks.

And then after about 30 texts like that, it gets incredibly dark all of a sudden.

Are you dead?

You're dead.

Why are you dead?

Why did you do this to me?

You left me as a single mom.

We have two young children.

What is wrong with you?

And I come back to my phone to all these text messages, and how do you respond to that?

I just wrote back, hi.

Like, what do you do in the moment?

And I had this realization after that moment.

That was fun, it was daring, it was weird, it was wild, it was crazy.

But I had this realization, like I probably, I probably need to be a little more careful.

Like I have people who depend on me.

I've got a wife who depends on me, I've got kids who depend on me, I've got a church full of people who depend on me.

I've got lots of people in my life that get to work with me that depend on me.

People depend on me.

And so I had this thought, like, I need to pay attention here.

I need to play it safe.

Like it would be irresponsible of me to keep doing risky daredevil stuff.

I need to play it safe.

And maybe at some point in your life, this is good advice.

Maybe when you have little kids at home, you should be more careful.

But let me say to some of you, you need to hear this.

When it comes to the area of faith in your relationship with God, don't you dare settle for playing it safe.

Don't you dare.

God's looking for people who won't play it safe, but who will say, God, I'm all in with whatever you ask me to do.

To kind of frame this message, there's this interesting moment.

Many people know or know of the story of David and Goliath.

People who were raised going to church know the story.

Even people who don't have any church experience have at least heard the story of David and Goliath as an analogy.

If one big sports team is playing one tiny or terrible sports team, they'll say, This is a colossal, colossal match of David versus Goliath.

So we understand it.

But before the story, there's this moment.

David is a shepherd boy tending to his father's sheep.

One day his dad says to him, David, your brothers are out fighting in the war versus the Philistines.

Would you bring them some food?

So David loads up an ancient charcuterie board, basically.

It says it's meat and cheese.

And he brings it to his brothers, and when he gets there, all the men in the army are standing around watching as this giant, this man, Goliath of Gath, is challenging them to a fight and he's mocking their God.

David says to his brothers, Why won't anyone fight him?

They're like, Have you seen him and have you seen us?

And it says that David goes to King, King Saul, and here's what he says.

1 Samuel chapter 17.

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

He says, Don't you worry about this Philistine, David told Saul.

I'll go fight him.

Now let me ask you a question.

If you were the king and a teenage boy comes up to you, when all of your trained soldiers and all of your trained warriors are scared of him, but a boy comes to you, what would you say?

Here's what King Saul said.

He said, Don't be ridiculous.

Don't be ridiculous.

Saul replied, There's no way you can fight this Philistine and possibly win.

You're only a boy, and he's been a man of war since his youth.

He says, Don't be ridiculous.

When it comes to the issues of faith, here's my observation.

The people that God seems to use are the people who have the courage to be ridiculous.

So the question you have to ask is when it comes to matters of faith, am I reasonable or ridiculous?

Am I reasonable or am I ridiculous?

You see, somewhere along the way for a lot of us, we trust in God.

We put our faith in God, and if God doesn't answer the way that we think he should, it hurts.

We feel let down.

We feel like he was asleep at the wheel and he missed it when it comes to our story.

And over time, instead of trusting God, we retreat to little simple prayers.

Little prayers that are so vague that if God answered, we we wouldn't even know to give him credit.

Instead of praying big prayers like, God, would you heal my body?

We pray things like, God, just give me the strength to endure.

We pray little simple prayers.

And today I want to challenge you to never settle for reasonable when God has called us to ridiculous kinds of faith.

Remember, today I'm not going after your head, today I'm going after your heart.

To do this, I want to take you to an interesting story.

Acts chapter 3, Jesus has left, the Holy Spirit has come, and there's this moment when Peter and John are on their way to church.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

Here's what it says Acts chapter 3, verse 1.

Acts 3:1

Peter and John went to the temple, to the church, one afternoon to take part in the three o'clock prayer service.

As they approached the temple, a man lame from birth, and this is important for you to understand, Acts chapter 4 says he was over 40 years old.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

A man lame from birth, a congenital disorder, never ambulatory, never able to walk in his own strength.

A man lame from birth was being carried in each day.

This is important, each day he was put beside the temple gate, the one called Beautiful Gate, so that he could beg from the people going in to the temple.

When Peter and John were about to enter, he asked them for some money.

Now, this is important for you to understand.

There's a man, and it says that he's lame from birth.

His whole life, into his forties, he's never been able to walk, so his whole life is dependent upon his friends to bring him and set him outside of a gate or a door to a church.

Now, here's what we know, first of all.

This gate was called the gate beautiful.

Extra-biblical writers, meaning people who were historians but not like in the Bible, have written about this door that it was beautiful and massive.

Some say that the gate was over 50 feet tall.

It was made of Corinthian brass.

It was so beautiful that they literally named it beautiful.

And every day, this man who was lame from birth, he had no strength in his legs, his any muscles that he would have had have certainly atrophied by now.

And they bring him and they sit him in front of the gate called beautiful.

And every day, what does he do?

He begs for money.

This was a smart place for him to beg for money.

In fact, this was a reasonable place for him to beg for money because it was believed in the ancient Jewish tradition that good Jews would never pass a person in need without doing something to help, even if it was just putting a few coins into the jar as he walked, as they walked by.

This place was a place that people with good will would be coming because they were coming to the temple to pray.

Now there's this man and he's sitting there, and every day he's been begging for money.

I want you to understand something so profound.

He's sitting outside of the temple.

He's sitting outside of the prayer service where the power of God could be to heal him.

And he sits on the outside asking for something reasonable when literally three feet inside was the potential for the power of God to touch him, change him, and heal him in a moment.

Somewhere along the way, this man had settled for reasonable, when literally two feet away was a place in an environment where the ridiculous could happen.

Are you with me on this?

Somewhere along the way, his expectation got so destroyed that instead of trusting God for the thing that could heal him and give him back his strength, he settled for the reasonable.

Now, why does this matter?

Somewhere along the way, this man bought into the lie that God couldn't or wouldn't do a miracle for him.

Somewhere along the way, he probably prayed that God would heal him.

He probably prayed it over and over as a kid when he saw his friends going out to play kickball.

He probably prayed it over and over as a teenager wanting to be able to pursue someone to love.

But instead, every time he prayed, he didn't get the answer he wanted.

And so he lowered his expectation to protect his heart.

But I want you to see this.

Expectation determines experience.

And some of you have lowered your expectation of God because in your mind it's easier to sit outside the environment and to beg.

It's easier to be reasonable than it is to trust, to ask in faith.

It's easier to be reasonable than it is to have ridiculous faith.

So for some of us, sometimes we believe this lie that it's easier to just exist than to expect.

For this man, all he knew was begging.

All he knew was having no power in his legs.

What he didn't know is what could and would happen to him if he was healed.

He had no idea what it was like to walk, he had no idea what it was like to run.

He had no idea what it was like to have a job or to have to earn some sort of reasonable living for himself.

He had no idea.

So instead of having ridiculous faith and trusting God, he stands or sits or is laid on the outside where all he can do is beg.

Let's keep going in the story because it keeps going.

It says this Peter looked straight at him.

In fact, this phrase in Greek literally means to intensely stare him in the eyes, as did John.

Then Peter said, Look at us.

I am the captain now.

Look at us.

So the man gave them his attention.

And what was he expecting?

He wasn't expecting healing.

He was expecting them to give him a little bit of money, just to get something from them.

Then Peter said, Silver or gold, I do not have.

Okay, can we have a moment of honesty?

Anybody have that friend when you go out to eat?

They're like, Oh, I don't have any money with me.

Ever have this friend?

And they do this to the guy, they're like, we don't have any money.

You want money?

Cool, we ain't got any.

But and I want you to see this because this word, this conjunction could be the difference between you settling for reasonable when God has called you too ridiculous.

He says, Silver and gold, I do not have, comma, but a lot of us, somewhere along the way, we've settled for stopping before the comma.

Silver or gold, I do not have.

Well, have a good day.

Let me say this to you.

If you are going to take hold of the gift that God has for you, whether it be healing or a miracle or whatever it is, you might have to let go of that which you expected in the first place.

Silver or gold, I do not have, comma, but what I do have, I give you.

And then he says something audacious.

He says, in the name, we'll come back to this, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Walk.

And then he did something even more audacious.

It'd be one thing to say, in the name of Jesus, be healed, have a good day, and leave, because nobody would know.

But then it says, taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.

Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, is a doctor.

The way this is written in the original language of Greek is like almost more medical, the way it's written.

It's not just saying he got strong in his legs, it's explaining what happened.

The bones that were out of alignment, the muscles that were not firing, the ligaments that were not strong, all of them came back into rightful order and became strong.

It says he jumped to his feet and he began to walk.

Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God.

His heart turns back to gratitude.

When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called beautiful.

They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Let me say this to you.

If we settle for the reasonable, you can control your experience.

If you settle for the reasonable, your heart will never be broken.

You'll never experience pain or loss because you will have lowered your expectation so incredibly low.

But I want you to understand something.

If we live with ridiculous faith, it's in the ridiculous that we find the miraculous.

And I just believe for some of you, somewhere along the way, you settled for an outside of the room kind of faith.

When today I believe God's calling some of us to say, God, no, no.

Whatever it takes, I'm going all in.

Today I want to just ask three questions.

And as I asked three these three questions, I want you to ask, what does this mean to me?

Question number one is this whose faith healed this man?

Whose faith healed him?

Let me ask you a question.

Was it the man sitting outside of the gate?

No.

He was asking the reasonable thing.

He said, Give me money.

I just need something to get through another day.

I need something to eke out a little bit more of an existence.

It wasn't his faith that healed him.

It was the faith of Peter and John, who realized that in their own they had limitations.

They didn't have what he wanted, but they had with them that which he needed.

You need to understand something.

The reason you need faith in your life is not just so that you can get something from God.

You might be the walking, talking, praying answer to prayer that someone else has been praying.

Some people are like, I don't really go to church as regularly as I should.

Can I say something to you?

It's not just about you.

Someone else might need that hug that you have to offer, that time of prayer that you can give them, that word of encouragement that you have for them, the faith that you have.

They could use it.

It's not the faith of the man, it's the faith of Peter and John.

I think back to stories like in Mark chapter 2, where Jesus is at his home in Capernaum, and these men literally carry a paralytic friend and they lower him through the roof to get him to Jesus.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

It wasn't even the man's faith that got him well, it was the faith of the friends who just brought him to Jesus.

Sometimes we have to do ridiculous stuff, but it's in the ridiculous that the miraculous happens.

Question two What power was used to heal this man?

And I want you to get this.

When they heal him, they don't say be healed, they say in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.

Acts chapter four, the chapter after the one we just read from.

Peter and John have stirred up so much drama in the city that people want to know what's happening.

It's so bad that they literally get arrested and they get brought before this religious board, this like religious judicial system.

And it says this in Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

It says they brought the two disciples and demanded, by what power, or in whose name have you done this?

Whose authority is it in?

You need to understand in the Bible, names were not just words, names had meaning.

The meanings weren't just word and meanings, they weren't definitions, they had a power and an authority to them.

So when they ask him, in what power or in whose name was this healing done, they're asking a significant question.

Whose power did you tap into for this miracle to happen?

It says this, then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers and elders of our people, are we being questioned today because we've done a good deed for a crippled man?

Do you want to know how he was healed?

Let me be clear.

Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene.

There is power in the name of Jesus.

He's the man you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead.

For Jesus is the one referred to in the scriptures where it says, the stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.

There is salvation in no one else.

God has given no other name.

I want you to get this.

God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.

There is power in the name of Jesus.

So let me say this to you.

In a moment, we're gonna pray for some of you to be healed.

And I want you to know this it's not in the name of Axis Church, it's not in the collective hopes of all the people around us.

We're not praying in our own abilities, in our own strength.

It's not even about how much faith we can muster.

We are gonna pray in the name of Jesus.

Think about sometimes my kids fight with each other.

And when they fight, they'll be like, Stop it, stop doing this.

I'm telling you to stop, and nothing happens.

But if they come to me and I'd say, you tell him to stop.

They say, Dad said to stop, and what happens?

Stop.

Why?

Because there's authority in names, and there is no greater authority than in the name of Jesus.

Final thought.

The man is healed.

Power shoots through his legs, his ligaments come back into alignment, the muscles begin to fire again.

He it says that he runs and he leaps and he praises God.

So here's the question: What was the response?

It was ultimately amazement by everyone, but from him the response was gratitude.

It says he was running and leaping and praising means giving thanks to God.

Can I tell you why God wants you to live ridiculous faith?

Can I tell you why God wants you to stop settling for outside the door, just ask for the lowest level of expectation kind of faith?

It's because when he comes through, he gets the credit.

Some of you, if you were to examine your prayer life, the prayers are so small and they're so vague that even if God came through, you wouldn't even know who to give credit to.

But what if we made this decision?

We will no longer settle for crumb asking, change, begging kind of faith.

We won't sit outside the doors where we're in control and where we set the level of expectation, but we'll reject that and we will step into the place, the environments, under the authority and in the name of Jesus where anything is possible.

Here's how I want to end today.

In a moment, we're gonna take communion together as a church.

And I want you to Something.

In fact, if you have those cups, get them ready.

If you didn't get one, our ushers will be ready in just a moment.

In fact, if you didn't get one, if you can just raise your hand, our ushers will get you one.

But I want to explain why we're going to do this.

Because for a moment, I want you to believe and I want you to trust that God can heal and that He's able to heal.

And here's what we're going to do.

In a moment, we're going to take communion, but let me take you to scripture.

Some 750 years before Jesus lived and died on the cross, he gathered his disciples for what we call the Last Supper.

And he said, Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to remember my sacrifice.

When we remember it, here's what we're remembering.

The prophet Isaiah prophesied 750 years before this moment.

He says, But he, Jesus, was pierced for our transgressions, the sins we commit.

He was crushed for our iniquities, the sins of our minds and our heart.

The punishment that brought us peace was on him.

The punishment is referring to the crown of thorns pulled over his head, which, by the way, the piercing of the head of Jesus, but healing once and for all in your mind.

Anxiety has to go, depression has to die, suicidal thoughts have to flee in the name of Jesus.

And I want you to get this last part.

All this first part's about our salvation.

The second part's about our healing.

Healing in our minds, peace in our minds, and by his wounds, we are healed.

Not we can be healed.

Not we might be healed.

By his wounds, we are healed.

So today I want to end differently.

In a moment, we're going to take communion together as a church.

And I believe in a moment, as we take the bread and break it, the healing power of Jesus that it is available is going to flow through some of you.

Some of you have issues that you have prayed for for so long, and you've prayed for so long that you've throttled down your faith to reasonable.

Today, in a moment, we're going to ask God to do the ridiculous.

I believe some of you have heart conditions, they're going to be healed.

I believe some of you have cancer in your body and the doctors are going to be amazed.

Some of you have bone and alignment issues in your life, and God's going to heal you and restore.

Some of you have pain in your legs like the man lame from birth, and God's going to heal you.

I just believe that if he did it, then he can and will do it now.

So will you stand up with me all across this room?

In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says that there is an unworthy way to take communion.

And it is to take communion but not being right with God.

So for just a moment, will you bow your head and close your eyes?

Maybe you're here today and you don't know if you're right with God.

If you want to make things right with God, whether that means starting or restarting a relationship with Him, would you pray this with me?

Say, Jesus, today I give you my life.

Would you be the Lord and Savior of my life?

I believe that you can and you will forgive me of my sins.

So, Jesus, from this day forward, I receive your forgiveness and I choose to follow you.

I love you, I give you my life.

And in your name I pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Hey, let's uh let's encounter God together.

Would you take this little wafer?

It represents his body.

And I'm gonna pray for you.

And when you take this, I'm just believing.

I woke up super early this morning.

Something in my heart, some of you are gonna walk out different than you walk in today.

Jesus, we believe that when you died on the cross, when your body was broken for us, it brought our healing.

God, for some of us, we need healing in our bodies.

For some of us, we need healing in our minds.

For some of us, our hearts are so broken by the circumstances of life and relationships that we feel like we can't go on to tomorrow.

Thank you that your body broken bought our healing once and for all.

So, Jesus, we take this and we break it.

Would you break this with me?

And we remember your body broken for us.

And Jesus, here's my prayer.

As we take this bread, would your healing power flow through our bodies?

Say good meet together.

Would you open the juice?

Jesus, we thank you that when we drink this, we drink in remembrance of your blood spilled for us.

It's because of that that our hearts, our souls, our spirits can be made right with you.

Jesus, your blood bought our salvation.

So we drink this and we say thank you.

We remember you.

Would you drink?

I'm gonna pray a blessing over you.

Then we're gonna sing about the name of Jesus because here's why.

It's at the name of Jesus that every other knee must bow.

I want you to listen to me.

That means sickness must bow, disease must bow, lack must bow, depression must bow, anxiety must bow at the name of Jesus.

All across this room, would you bow your heads?

Let's pray.

So, Jesus in this place, we declare that there is no other name greater than yours.

As we sing these words, may it not be words that we sing, but may it be the anthem of our souls.

We declare, Jesus, your name has power, and we declare you are worthy.

Jesus' name.