Sermon Central
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Mountain Moving Faith
Contributed by Zachary Woods on Jun 30, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: Is your faith enough to move mountains?
MOUNTAIN MOVING FAITH
22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever the saith.
24Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Introduction: Webster dictionary defines “faith” as: “Trust; belief; belief without proof; promise; loyalty.” In our everyday Christian language, we use the word “faith” and every Christian at one time or other said something about faith. How many of us have the kind of “faith” Jesus spoke about, the kind that would move mountains? This sounds like an awful lot of faith, so let’s consider the kind of “faith” most of us have.
I. WHAT KIND OF FAITH DOES IT TAKE TO MOVE MOUNTAINS?
1. Matthew 17:20 states that only the amount of the size of a grain of mustard seed is enough.
- The mustard seed was the smallest seed of all in the time of Jesus.
- When the mustard seed was fully grown, it would be tall enough for a bird to build its nest in its branches.
2. God expects all of us to have at least a "speck" of faith and a speck is all that is needed to move mountains.
- With only the speck of faith attached to the belief in Jesus, we can do anything we want to for God.
3. It doesn't take a great man or woman of God to have this kind of faith.
- The Syrophonecian woman's daughter had a devil in her and was healed. (Mark 7:25-30)
- The Centurion whose servant was sick, was healed. (Matthew 8:5-14)
- The ten lepers were healed. (Luke 17:11-19)
- The man let down through the roof was healed. (Mark 2:3-5)
- The woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment in the street was healed. (Luke 8:40-48)
- The lame, blind and the insane were all healed.
- All of these nameless people were not great followers of Jesus, not all were regular worship attendees, nor upright, respectable citizens, but all exercised that little speck of faith and were healed.
4. A tiny speck of faith can and will grow like the mustard plant, but it, unlike the mustard plant must be cultivated and cared for and it will grow to gigantic height.
II. WHY DON'T MORE HAVE THAT KIND OF FAITH?
1. Matthew 17:14-20 is the main reason. The very same reason the disciples could not heal the man's son.....unbelief.
- We don't believe that God really hears our prayers.
- We don't believe that God will even answer our prayers.
- We don't believe in what we ask God to do for us enough.
2. We are like the Pharisees of the days of Jesus in lots of ways.
- We don't need God's help except in emergencies.
- We don't have a spirit of charity.
- We don't have love for our fellow man, only for a few carefully chosen friends.
- We don't have a burning heart for the lost and for the cold Christian brother/sister.
- We don't have a prayer life at all.
- We don't read our Bible at all.
- We simply don't care for spiritual things except when we are in trouble, etc.
3. We try to bring God down to our human limitations.
- We are limited in knowledge, reasoning and understanding, but it is in truth a self-limitation.
- Because of this we try to place God under the same limitations, the same possibilities and impossibilities.
- Whatever limits us, whatever we cannot understand, whatever we cannot do, we place upon God these same limitations.
4. This is where all of us go wrong.
- This is why we worry about our finances.
- This is why we worry about our attendance.
- This is why we worry about this and that.
- We are limiting God and have no faith that He is different.
III. HOW CAN WE GET THE KIND OF FAITH JESUS SPEAKS ABOUT?
1. The first step is to become as little children.
- We must submit ourselves to God's commands.
- We must completely abandon all thought of self.
- We must trust only in God, exactly as little children trust in their parents.
