Intro: would it shock you if I said, God is limited, His Word is limited, Jesus is limited, and the Holy Spirit is limited. Would it shock you more if I told you it wasn’t the devil, it wasn’t atheists and it wasn’t false religion that was holding the blessings of God off the people of God. But it was you and me that could be the greatest obstacle to God doing great things for our lives.
Today, I want you to see the value of faith, and see where faith moved God, and how great faith operated in people throughout scripture.
A Faith That Moves God
Hebrews 11:6
Here are some examples of faith that moved God. We must learn how to operate in this faith, just like we learned to operate a car, we must learn how to operate in great faith.
1. Matthew 8:2—you can do this—a leper came and worshipped him saying, Lord you can make me clean. Here is our first picture of someone operating in faith, it is called the can do spirit.
What are the enemies of faith—doubt, fear and unbelief. These all limit God’s ability in our lives. But the can do faith, is the faith that will move God.
If you read scripture there are many times a strong can’t do it spirit is in the air. This is battled by great faith, you must change the atmosphere. Joshua and Caleb had a different spirit, we are well able to win.
2. Matthew 8:8—if I can get your Word on it.. just speak the word-
a. If I can get your Word on it, it is enough.
b. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God
c. Study to show thyself approved, a workman that needeth not be ashamed. If we will be diligent to study the Word, we will find God’s Word on it for our present situations.
You have got to get God in your present tense. Jesus the same, yesterday, today and forever.
3. He needs your yes Lord—Matthew 9;28—it isn’t that he needs to believe he can do it, it isn’t that you believe it could be done. But your yes Lord means, I believe you can do it, I believe it can be done, and yes Lord, it will be done for me.
Great faith must be personalized. Not just that he can do it for Benny Hinn or Oral Roberts, or people in South America, or Missionaries to Africa. Jesus can do it for me.
4. Matthew 14:35-36—there are three faith’s operating in this story, and all three are important. ( a reaching out faith)
a. the people that took knowledge of him—they are the ones that said, there is something special about this Jesus. He is so powerful, that we need to get people to him.
b. The next group of faith are those who got the diseased people to be lined down the streets where he would pass by—some of them probably said, I don’t want to go, it will be a waste of time, but these that had great faith, persuaded them of the blessings in Jesus Christ.
c. The last group are those who reached out as he passed by—now if you look closely, it didn’t say everybody got healed. It says that those who reached out, and touched—they were healed. I want a faith that makes me reach out when Jesus comes by—in every service, every time I sense His presence, I want the faith, to reach out and receive my blessing from the Lord.
5. Matthew 15:27—just the crumbs will do—I think of all the statements of faith in the scripture, this one blesses me the most and here is why.
a. this lady is saying, I don’t need all of your power or all of your blessings to receive this healing for my daughter, If I can just get one drop, one crumb, just anything to fall off that big table, my daughter will be healed.
b. If you can walk on water, if you can calm the sea, if you can hang the stars, if you can stop the sun in place, than there is nothing too hard or difficult for you.
c. I’d rather be a dog at the foot of the table, next to the master’s chair, then to be on the outside only looking in..
If I am in the house, that is enough. There’s blessings in the house, there’s healing in the house, there’s favor in the house.
Close: without faith we limit God.
Ill) years ago a big rugged lumberjack came into a hardware store to buy a new axe. The salesman told him that instead of his axe there was a new way of cutting trees, a chain saw. He explained how you could cut down trees 50 times faster, so the lumberjack bought one. A while later the lumberjack came in for a new axe. The salesman asked why ? He said, I couldn’t cut down even one tree with that chainsaw, I barely could even make a dent in the bark. Can you imagine how surprised he was when the salesman showed him how to gas it up, oil it down, and cut down great trees in a matter of minutes. Today it is the same thing, we are operating in such a small faith, that it takes a long time to move one obstacle, but God wants to put a great faith in our lives to move every obstacle for us.
Today, let’s say
Lord, you can do this, let’s say, Lord we have your Word on it,
We can say, yes lord—we can have a reaching out faith, and finally we can say, just the crumbs will do.
