Well, good morning. Good morning. If you would, turn in your Bibles
with me to Mark chapter 11. I believe I have a lesson this
morning that will be very helpful that may explain a statement
in scripture that's caused us all some time feeling bad about
ourselves. And this might be very helpful.
I pray that it will. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, we humbly bow before
your throne of grace. Father, we bow humbly, knowing
that in and of ourselves, there's no way that we can come before
your throne accepted. But Father, how thankful we are
that we could come boldly confidently knowing that will be accepted
and heard if we come in Christ. Father, how we thank you for
him, how we thank you for his obedience, which is our only
righteousness, how we thank you for his precious blood, which
is the only claim of redemption, the only hope of redemption that
we have. Father, we're so thankful and I pray that his name would
be exalted and magnified here this morning, Father, that your
people may be totally taken up with the Lord Jesus Christ, that
we might be enabled by your spirit, by your mercy and your grace
to see him, to believe him, to cling to him, to rest in him.
Help us exalt his name, Father, I pray. I pray that you'd be
with the preacher, his stumbling and bumbling and weakness, Father,
that you would bless your word, enable me to rightly divide the
word of truth, and that you would be with your weak and needy people,
that you would enable us to hear, that you enable us to worship.
And what we pray for ourselves, Father, we pray especially for
our children's class, and also, Father, for your people, wherever
they're meeting together this morning, Father, bless for your
great namesake, we pray, our constant Hearts desires that
you would show us your glory, your redemptive glory in the
person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, it's in his name,
for his sake and his glory we pray, amen. Now I've titled the
lesson this morning, Have the Faith of God. And you'll see
why I titled that in just a moment, but our lesson begins in verse
20. And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree
dried up from the roots, And Peter, calling to remembrance,
saith unto him, Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursed
is wither away. And Jesus answering, saith unto
them, have faith in God. Now the Lord here is talking
about our need to be given faith, faith in Christ. And what he's
telling Peter and telling all of us is Peter, don't get so
caught up, if you want to call it a miracle. Remember the Lord
cursed that fig tree, that leaves, but no fruit on it. And the Lord
cursed it. And the next day it's withered
and dead. And Lord's telling, don't get all caught up in this
miracle. Don't get so caught up in the
show of religion. The thing that is most important
to us is to seek faith in Christ. Seek faith, ask God to give us
faith in him. Because unless God gives us faith
in Christ, we'll be destroyed. This is easily as the Lord destroyed
that fig leaf, he'll destroy us if we don't have faith in
Christ. This matter of faith in Christ
is so vital. There's no spiritual life without
faith in Christ. There's no salvation without
faith in Christ. There's no righteousness. Paul
wrote a whole letter to the Church of Rome to tell us that righteousness
does not come by the works of the law, but through faith in
Christ. The just shall live by faith. Without faith, we'll never please
God. Without faith, it's impossible
to please Him. And it's true faith. It's not
a show of religion. It's not an outward reformation.
It's true faith in Christ that separates a believer from a religious
hypocrite. A religious hypocrite is just
going through the motions, and they may have a good outward
show, but there's no faith. And this matter of salvation
and knowing God is not outward. It's a heart work, isn't it?
It's faith in the heart. So what the Lord is telling us
here is beg God. to give you faith in Christ and
don't get so caught up in all these religious shenanigans and
religious goings on. And I tell you, if you want God
to give you faith in Christ, awful good idea is to use the
means that God's given us to receive faith in Christ. It's
gospel preaching. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. One of the great miracles of
God's power and how he works in his people is he uses the
preaching of Christ to give dead sinners faith in Christ, to give
them life. If God's gonna give you faith
in Christ, I mean, you think about the miracle of this. Only
God could do this. You're gonna have to hear the
gospel. You're gonna have to hear of Christ from the sinful
lips of a sinful man. Now, he's been saved by grace.
God's taught him the gospel. He showed him Christ. He's given
some ability to communicate that gospel, but he's a sinful man. You're not gonna hear it from
an angel. You're not gonna hear it from God speaking audibly.
It's from the lips of another sinful man, just as sinful as
you are, just as rotten as you are. And God uses that preaching
of Christ from that wheat vessel to give his people faith in Christ.
So if you want faith in Christ, my advice to you is avail yourself
to the means. Here's much gospel preaching
as you can hear. And then look what the Lord says
in verse 23. He says, have faith in God. And
then verse 23, for verily I say unto you, the 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 he saith. What just went through your mind
when I read that verse? You know, false prophets have
used this verse and twisted the scripture and twisted the meaning
of this verse to put a burden on people. probably ever since
it's been recorded, and people could read it. This is what they
say. You'll have everything you want.
Whatever it is you want from God, God will give it to you.
You'll have it if your faith is just strong enough. And if
you don't have it, well, it must mean that your faith is not strong
enough. Because whatever you ask, if
you really believe it, God will give it to you. Now that's foolishness. That's complete and utter foolishness. But yet, it still makes us feel
bad about ourselves, doesn't it? We pray and there's a genuine
need or a genuine desire or whatever, and we pray, and the Lord just
doesn't give it. And we feel bad about ourselves.
Well, my faith must not be strong enough, and so we feel bad about
ourselves. That's the wrong way to look at this. And I'll show
you that here in just one second. But what the Lord is saying here
is not a blanket promise that we're going to get everything
that we want. And isn't that a good thing? I mean, now that's
a good thing. Honestly, we pray selfishly and
we pray foolishly all the time. I mean, there is, there is many
things that I wish I had that I don't have. And quite honestly,
Some of them I can see, some I cannot see, but usually I can
see. Now, I really do desire this,
but if I had it, it'd be bad for me. I'd abuse it or it'd
make me puffed up. Having a need, being needy before
God. I mean, none of us wants to be
needy, right? We just want all of our needs to be met, but you
know, if we're kept needy, will keep being found at the feet
of Christ. It wouldn't be good for me to just have no needs,
because God gave me everything that I wanted. That's not what
the Lord's saying here at all. I don't know why the translators
chose, in verse 22, to translate this this way, have faith in
God. When you read, have faith in
God, and if you just have faith in God, you could move mountains
and cast a mountain into the sea, It's putting pressure on
you. It puts pressure on us to feel
like I've got to have the right amount of faith. I've got to
have the right strength of faith. If my faith is not strong enough,
it's up to me to strengthen it. It makes it sound like there's
something I can do to make my faith stronger. I mean, doesn't
it feel that way to you? You feel kind of bad. Well, I
can't move mountains. The Lord said in another place,
if you just had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could
move mountains. Mustard seeds is the smallest
herb that they have. I don't have the smallest amount
of faith. I can't do these things. Well,
thankfully, that's not what the Lord's saying. He is not saying
that at all. And here's what really blessed
me and what gave me what I feel like is the real meaning of what
the Lord's saying here. My center reference says that
have faith in God should be translated Have the faith of God. Have the
faith of God. And I looked that up in Strong's.
That's what those words say. I looked it up in Young's literal
translation, and that's what it says. Have the faith of God. Now that's another matter altogether,
isn't it? To have the faith of God. It means trust God's faith. Whatever it is that God believes,
you believe the same thing. That's what the Lord's saying
here. The faith of God is the things that God believes, that
God knows to be true. He believes them because he knows
these things to be true. And the faith that God gives
all of his people is the faith to believe the same things that
God believes. Now, the Lord enables some of
us to believe, you know, more strongly or whatever, you know,
than others. But when God gives faith in Christ, it's faith that
believes the same thing that God believes. And I wanna give
you three descriptions of that faith from our text this morning.
These are three things that God believes, that God, he believes
them because he knows them to be true. Number one, the faith
of God is saving faith. In this matter of salvation,
you think, where did salvation start? We all know it started
before creation in the mind and purpose of God, don't we? So
in this matter of creation, or salvation, God trusts God. God trusts God. He trusts God
to do all of the saving. Look at Ephesians 1. God the
Father trusts God the Son. He has faith in God the Son. The Father is the first one who
ever trusted in Christ. Ephesians 1 verse 12. that ye should be to the praise
of his glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom you also trusted. See, the ones we trusted, we
come second, we come last. Somebody first trusted in Christ,
in whom we also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now, who is
it that first trusted in Christ? It's the Father. It's the father,
he first trusted in Christ, then we trusted in Christ. We were
given that same faith of God to trust Christ after that we
heard the word of truth, after we heard the gospel preached.
But the father's the first one to trust Christ. Salvation began
with God's electing love. He chose a people to save. Out of the lump of Adam's fallen
race, he chose wretched, vile sinners to save. And he gave
them to his son. His son was the surety, he gave
them to his son to save, and the father trusted his son to
save them. He's the one who first believed
in Christ. He trusted the son to do what
he promised to do. He trusted the son to take those
sinful people and make them the righteousness of God in him.
The father trusted the son to do that. The father trusted the
son to give all those people faith in him. He trusted the
son to keep those people, to preserve them, And he trusted
the Son to bring all of those people to glory. Now, back in
our text, read verse 23 again. 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 he saith. That's speaking of
God there. Do you know what the Lord Jesus
Christ did at Calvary? He cast the mountain of the sin
of his people into the sea so that it will never be seen again.
The sin, you know, saying it's cast into the sea, you know,
when, when this scripture was being written, nobody could ever
conceive of a submarine going down or divers going down and
finding a, you know, a wreck or something that's been lost
down in the sea. When scripture talks about something being cast
into the depths of the sea, it means it doesn't exist anymore.
The sin of God's people does not exist anymore. The blood
of Christ washed it away. Now let me show you back in Micah
chapter seven. Micah, the book of Micah is between
Jonah and Nahum. Micah chapter seven, if you have
the authorized version, that's page 1158. This was God's promise
and purpose to cast the sin of his people into the depths of
the sea, and the father trusted the son to do it. Micah 7, verse
18. Who is a God like unto thee,
that pardoneth iniquity, that passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever,
because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have
compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities.
and thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. That was a promise that God made
and the father trusted the son to do it. And that's exactly
what he did. You know, you read John 17, our
Lord's great high priestly prayer before he went to the cross.
This is what he prayed that the sin of his people would be gone. And he fully believed in his
heart that it would because of his perfection, because of his
sacrifice. Now, if the father trusts the
son to cast the sin, the mountain of sin of all of his people into
the depths of the sea, if the father trusts the son to do that,
Chris, surely I ought to be able to trust him too, don't you think?
I sure ought to. The father has no doubt, no doubt
that the son will accomplish the salvation of his people.
He shall not fail nor be discouraged. That's what the father said about
him. then I should be able to trust him too, to not fail to
save me. Then God the Son trusts God the
Father. You know, the Father trusted
the Son to save the people that the Father gave him to save,
and the Son said, I'll save them. I'll do whatever it takes to
save them, and the Son came to Earth as a man. He clothed himself
in human flesh And he came to save his people by his perfect
obedience. His obedience to everything that
the father gave him to do. His perfect obedience to his
own law. He came knowing what it would
cost him. Knowing what would happen. He
came to suffer the hatred of men. He came to suffer the humiliation
of being beaten and tortured and being hated by his creatures.
And then he willingly went to the cross. Knowing the depths
of the suffering that he would endure there, he willingly went
to the cross because he trusted his father. That once the sacrifice
was complete, the father would do what he promised to do. The
father told the son, you make these people righteous and I'll
accept them. You put their sin away and I'll accept them. He
trusted that the father would do what he promised to do. So
he went to the cross to offer himself as a sacrifice for the
sin of his people. And by the sacrifice of Christ,
his people are actually literally saved. They're saved from their
sin. Their sin has been put away.
They're made the righteousness of God in him. They're made holy
and spotless and blameless. And one day they will be glorified. They will be because the father's
going to do what he promised to do. The son trusted the father
to do it, to accept his people and one day glorify them together
with Christ. Father, I will that all those
whom thou has given me be with me where I am that they may behold
my glory. Now that's a prayer of the Savior
and it is part of his great high priestly prayer. But there's
not a hint of doubt in him. that his people will not be glorified. They will be, because he's going
to save them from their sin. And he trusted the father to
do what he promised to do. Now, if the son trusts the father
to do what he promised he'd do, I believe I can too, or at least
I sure should. We should trust the father to
do what he promised that he would do. And God the Father, now remember
this is the faith of God. This is what God believes. God
the Father and God the Son, they believe God the Holy Spirit.
They trust God the Holy Spirit to do what he promised to do.
The Father and the Son, they trust that the Holy Spirit is
gonna come and give life to all of God's elect. To everyone for
whom Christ died. Now you know what the Lord told
Nicodemus. The Holy Spirit blows where he listeth. wherever he
wants to. Now, you can't tell where he
came from or where he's going. All you know is he's been through
here. He's blown through here because
now there's life where there was none before. The Holy Spirit
moves wherever it is he wills to move, wherever he wills to
move. And the Father and the Son trust
the Holy Spirit to move where God's elect are, to give them
all faith in Christ. Now, if the Father and the Son
Trust the Holy Spirit to give life and faith in Christ. If
they trust the Spirit, I should trust Him too. And yet there's
some evidence. If I really trust God, the Holy
Spirit, to give life, to give faith through the preaching of
the gospel, you're gonna be able to tell it. You know how? By me preaching Christ alone
to you. Preaching Christ alone, not using
any psychological methods or any emotional pulls to try to
get you to do something, try to get you to make a decision
for Jesus. If the preacher's willing to preach Christ to you
and leave you alone with God, he trusts God. That's God trusting
God, trusting God the Holy Spirit to give life to everyone that
God chose to save. And the only one who can be trusted
like this, the only one who can be trusted to save, the only
one who can be trusted to cast the mountain of the sins of his
people into the depths of the sea is God himself. God always
does what he wills. His will cannot fail. It must come to pass. Then what
I should pray for is the faith to believe what God believes
about salvation. to believe that it's all of Him,
the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to believe
Him and trust Him because it's all done perfectly. Now that's
the faith of God. Isn't that a whole lot better
than trying to conjure up enough faith to be able to move Him
out? That's so much better, isn't it? All right, here's the second
thing. There's praying faith. The Lord
says in verse 24, therefore I say unto you, What things soever
ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye
shall have them. Now, you know, it's hard for
us to know what to pray for, isn't it? And it's hard for us
to know what to pray for, because what we all want to do is pray
selfishly. I just, you know, pray about
myself. Now I didn't hear him say this,
Betty Groover told me that Walter said this one time. He said,
I'm not being selfish, I'm just thinking about myself. We just think about ourselves
and pray selfishly. But if you have the faith of
God, if you believe the same things that God believed, you
know how you'll pray? The same way the Savior prayed.
Our Savior was a great man of prayer. I mean, how many times
in the scripture talk about him praying? He would pray all night. He'd go to a place by himself
and pray. Some of his prayers are recorded. And if you read them, those prayers
of the Savior, this is the predominant theme that goes through his prayers,
that God be glorified, that God's will be done so that people see
the glory of God. I can't think of a time that
the Savior ever prayed for himself. That he prayed for his own comfort. He was always praying for his
people. He was always praying that his
father be glorified. He prayed that his father be
glorified by whatever he did. And you know, when he prayed
that way, everything he prayed for came to pass, didn't it?
The Father is glorified by everything the Lord Jesus Christ did as
a man. From all of his life, to his willing substitutionary
death on Calvary's tree, to him laying in the tomb for three
days, to him rising again from the tomb and coming out of the
tomb and ascending back to glory. Everything that the Savior did
glorified the Father. So when I pray, I want to pray
the same way, don't you? I want to pray not selfishly,
but that God's will be done, that God be glorified. I want
to pray for the salvation of God's people. I pray for the
salvation of people here. And the basis of that prayer
is this, that God be glorified, that God be glorified. Now, I
know scripture tells us to pray about all things, and we should.
We should pray about all things, whatever it is that is on your
heart, pray about it. More than likely, the Lord's
the one laid on your heart. So if something's on your heart, pray for it. If
you have a need, pray for it. I mean, whatever it is. You know,
I'm not saying, well, you know, somebody's sick, so we shouldn't
pray for them. No. Now, when I'm sick, I promise
you, I pray the Lord heal me. You know, we have need of our
daily bread. We pray for those things. But
we're to pray and then mean it. Thy will be done. Now this is
my heart's desire, but Father, thy will be done. And not just
thy will be done, but Lord, make me happy about it. Make me happy
about whatever it is that your will is. Look at Romans chapter
eight. This is a very, comforting scripture
to me when I think about prayer, because I truly want to pray
for God's will, not my will. You do too, don't you? No, we
do. We want to pray for God's will. Well, you know what? Ask the Lord to enable you to
do that. Look what he says here, Romans 8, verse 26. Likewise,
the spirit also help with our infirmities, for we know not
what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself
maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered,
and he that searcheth the hearts, he knows what is the mind of
the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according
to the will of God. The Holy Spirit helps our infirmities. We don't know what we should
pray for as we ought, but he moves his people to pray for
the will of God. Now, I can't fully explain this,
but this is so. God has an eternal will, an eternal
purpose, and he's gonna do it. But before he does it, he's gonna
put it in the hearts of his people. By the Holy Spirit, he's gonna
lead them to pray and ask for what God's predetermined he's
gonna do. And after his people pray for it, then he's gonna
do it. That's just the way God's chosen to do things. So this
matter of prayer is very important, isn't it? And if you look at
Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six. I think the best way any of us
can pray is the way that the Savior taught us to pray. Look
what he says here, Matthew 6, verse 9. After this manner, therefore,
pray ye. Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Let's pray that God's name be
glorified, that his name be glorified in everything that's done. And
when I'm praying specifically in my life, Lord, Let your name
be glorified. Let this be not about me, but
about your glory. Verse 10, thy kingdom come, thy
will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Let's pray for God's
kingdom, that God's people that be saved, that they be blessed,
that they be kept. Let's pray that God's will be
done in all things. If we pray, Father, your will
I promise you the Lord will answer that prayer. His will is gonna
be done. Then verse 11, give us this day our daily bread.
See, this is what I told you earlier. Let's pray for our daily
needs. You know, we need food, we need
clothing, we need shelter. You know, the things that we
need for this flesh to continue living. Pray for your daily needs. Who else is gonna give them to
you but God? You know, it's all His. If we're gonna receive it,
He's gonna have to give it to us. Let's pray. and then trust
Him to supply. But notice our Lord says here,
our daily bread, our daily bread. You know, the Lord's more than
likely not gonna give you $100 million. So now you can see,
if Lord gives you $100 million, you can see how everything's
gonna be paid for from here to the end of your life, can't you?
The Lord's not gonna do that. Our daily bread. He's gonna give
us enough for today. And tomorrow, we have to pray
for our daily bread again. And here's the wisdom in that.
If Lord gives us our daily bread, that keeps us constantly, totally
dependent on the Lord, doesn't it? And that's good. It's best for us to be totally
dependent on the Lord because if I realize my total dependence,
where are you going to find me? At the feet of Christ. At the
feet of Christ. Then verse 13, he says, and lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. You know,
let's pray. Pray to be protected from evil,
from Satan, from the evil one. I don't want him to get ahold
of me and sift me like he did Peter. I wanna be delivered from
that. I wanna be delivered from the
temptation to sin. What have you ever been tempted
with that you resisted. What sin? Not one. So Lord, deliver me from that
temptation. Deliver me from the ruling, controlling
power of my sin nature. And then verse 12, and forgive
us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And Lord gives us comment
on that in verse 14. For if you forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if
you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive
your trespasses. All right, now look back in our
text. Here's the third thing. That thing on forgiveness is
gonna bring me to my third point, which is God's faith is forgiving
faith. In verse 25, the Savior says,
and when you stand praying, forgive. If you have ought against any
that your father also, which is in heaven, may forgive you
your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither
will your father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses. Now this is the faith of God.
God knows that he believes this, that the sin of his people is
forgiven. Forgiven because of the blood
of Christ. It delights the father to forgive
the sin of his people. because the blood of his son
is so precious to him. God knows the sin of his people
is forgiven. He's the one that forgave them.
Freely and unconditionally on our part, wasn't it? God forgave
the sin of his people. Now the scripture is not saying,
the Lord is not saying here, that if you forgive others, God
will forgive you. And if you don't forgive others,
God won't forgive, he's not saying that. And aren't you thankful?
Aren't you thankful? But here's what he is saying.
If we've been given the faith of God, to believe the same thing
that God believes, we will be forgiving people. And if I haven't
learned to forgive, then I haven't experienced God's forgiveness.
If God has freely forgiven me, for Christ's sake, how can I
not forgive you? How can I not forgive you? I
know, I know everybody feels like we don't do that very well,
that, well, I need to learn a lot about forgiveness when somebody
wrongs me. Then let's go back to this second
point about praying. You know, you can pray and ask
God to give you growth in this area of forgiveness. You know, we ought to be understanding
when someone offends us, shouldn't we? We ought to be understanding.
Because we got the same nature that they do. And could be if
we pray and ask the Lord to give us a forgiving spirit for His
glory now, He'll give it. He'll give it. All right. I hope
that's a blessing and a help to you.