Things get tough sometimes. And at those times, We all know that we need faith. We all want to have faith. Yet all too often, right when we need it, it eludes us. we become downcast and afraid.

Starting At The End

You know something? I’m really excited today because today on the programme we are kicking off a four-week series on faith. I’ve called it Having Faith that Moves Mountains. Jesus once said to His disciples:

Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but you believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. (Mark 11: 22-24).

Now, if you take Him at His Word and I am one of those crazies who absolutely does, then this is an outrageous statement, right? Does He really mean that for you and for me? I mean, I for one have believed until I burst, for something and I didn’t get it. And I have seen people who take this whole ‘faith’ thing way too far, believing for outrageously selfish things. And yet this God who sent us His Son, He talks a lot about faith and the only sort of faith He seems to talk about is the sort of faith that moves mountains. I have spent a lot of time thinking about that, so if you are up for it, let’s kick off a few weeks, just chatting and exploring and let’s see what that comes up with.

I visited an elderly man recently who is in the last few weeks of his life. He was dying of cancer. I’d spoken to him on the phone a few weeks before and this is what he said. “Well, I have believed in Jesus almost all of my life but I’m not sure where I am going when I die.” Well, what an amazing time that was. I frankly felt a little uncertain about visiting him – this whole pastoral thing isn’t really my strong point. I was telling myself that as I pressed the doorbell. He showed me into his lounge room. He sat in his favourite chair over in that corner, me in a dining chair over on this side.

As we began talking, I looked down at his feet – he was wearing a pair of slippers, both of which had holes in the toes. And you know, my immediate thought was, “Oh, he needs some new slippers. But then it struck me, at this point in his life, the very last thing he needed was a new pair of slippers. As the time passed I felt more and more at ease with this man.

Whereas before, I had been wondering what, if anything useful, I could share with him, (you can tell I’m a preacher). As the moments ticked by, I was overwhelmed with a sense of deep privilege of being allowed to be in this place with him. It was such a special time and you know, the last thing he said to me as we shook hands on the front porch in the bright sunlight was a confident, “You know we’ll meet again but not here.”

Sometimes it’s just the little encouragement that we need to discover that seed of faith that God’s planted in our hearts has in fact, grown into a mighty tree. That’s exactly what he needed – not sage words of advice or a sermon on faith, just the quiet assurance that comes when we rediscover the faith within – a faith that had become clouded by the deep cares of the present. Because that’s what happened to him – he’d been walking all his life with Jesus – as long as he could remember, he told me – but with cancer ready to take his body, all of a sudden the realities of his circumstances started to take over.

I wonder how you and I will feel when, one day, we don’t need new slippers anymore. I wonder how we will confront the greatest reality of all – that one day we will breathe our last breath on this earth. How healthy will our faith be on that day? The things that we struggled so hard for; the things that we always took for granted; the things that somehow, we duped ourselves into believing would be forever, don’t matter anymore. Ever wondered why we need faith? For me, beginning at the end like this brings that into sharper focus.

It’s not just death that we have to confront one day, all of us, but life – today, tomorrow, the next day, next year – everyday life. And in that life that you and I lead, we know all too well that there are things that happen that are bigger than us – things that overwhelm us; things that are outside our control – everyday we face challenges – everyday. Things happen that can rob us of the confidence to live life.

And it seems to me, the central reality that demands faith is this: that there are things out there, outside our circle of control or influence; things that sometimes we can’t even see and don’t even understand, that can impact negatively on our interests – on our health, our wellbeing, our finances, our career, our relationships, on our very lives. You name it – any hope, any dream, any desire and there is something lurking out there that can rob us of the good things that in our heart of hearts, we have planned for ourselves.

And they don’t have to be particularly selfish or self-centred – just ordinary everyday very reasonable things. Sometimes they are really good things – the dreams we have in our hearts to serve God – the deep desire we have to be part of His plan for this world. It doesn’t matter what it is, there are things out there that can rob us of what we have planned.

And those things, they show up in a number of different ways. They can show up as fears and worries – we brood over things; we worry about them and the more we worry, the more fear grips and immobilises us. They can show up as insurmountable obstacles or barriers – things we just can’t overcome – doubts sneak under our guard. They can show up as challenges that we would love to meet but we can’t. Have you ever had that sense of, “WOW, I should be able to do this, but…” They can show up as a deep sense of inadequacy.

The man addicted to pornography who try as he may, simply can’t break his cycle of shame, so he lives in his secret shame – the woman who deep within the fibre of her very being, knows that she simply isn’t good enough and what’s more, she never will be.

They can show up as deep regrets from the past. So many people allow the past to destroy their present and rob them of their future. And here’s what I know: for each one of us there are one or two of those things on that list that resonate deeply and as we each examine our hearts and look into those darker recesses – that we try not to look into often – there’s an ache. “If only… if only I could be set free from these things.” “If only those things out there, outside my control; those things I’m afraid of; those things that can rob me of the good hopes and dreams and plans of my heart – if only I could get rid of them, how wonderful my life would be.”

 

Faith Brings Freedom

It turns out that when we apply faith to something we are concerned about; something that we have been worrying about, well, faith brings freedom. That’s where we were earlier but let’s unpack that together for a moment. Freedom is a commodity that many of us take for granted but if we stop to consider it, we would realise just how highly we value it. Freedom! But are we really, really free? That’s the question!

Jesus once had this to say on the subject:

If you continue in My Word you are truly My disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You see, they answered Him – they said, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying to us, ‘You will be made free?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’ (John 8:31-36).

Isn’t it fascinating? Jesus said to those who believed in Him, ‘I will set you free,’ and instead of thanking Him or shouting ‘Halleluiah’, they took umbrage with what He said. ‘We don’t need setting free. We’re not slaves.’ Isn’t that the case with us too? So many people living their lives following hard after the success that this world offers, imaging somehow that we are free, when all the time, actually, we are slaves – slaves to this world.

We think that we’re citizens of this world – we behave as though this world is forever. Deep down we know that’s not true but we behave as though it is. We live as though it is – we make our financial decisions as though it is. We make our career decisions as though it is. We treat people as though it is because we want to believe that this lie is true. Oh no, really? Let me ask you about the last major financial decision you made – the last time you splurged on something for yourself – the last time… How much did the eternal consequences of those decisions weigh on your mind?

We are here for a time but “it’s not our permanent home. Our citizenship is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Philippians chapter 3, verse 20. The reason so many people are slaves is because they have bought into the citizenship of this earth.

There’s a new term that has crept into the English language – it’s called “short-termism”. It describes the reality that so many people spend so much of their lives thinking about the next plasma TV and worrying about the debt they’re in, that they have forgotten how to be free. We have forgotten how to dream, how to live, how to hope.

I have a beautiful park that I go walking in often. See, I love the exercise and this park has trees and fields and lakes and swans and flowers – it is one of the most beautiful places you would ever want to go walking. And I realised after a while, that I was walking, looking down, concentrating on my stride, looking at the pavement instead of God’s beautiful creation. What a waste, don’t you think?

So why is it so many people are living their lives like that – in slavery rather than freedom? Now what does this have to do with faith? It’s not a bad question – we do seem to have digressed a little, but if that’s the question you have rolling around in your mind just at the moment, here’s my answer – everything, absolutely everything because if the truth be known, this is how most people live their lives – as slaves to the here and now. As short-termists who can barely see the ends of their noses.

Conditioned by the advertising industry to react to this music and those images and that colour and this smell that they pump through the store to induce us to buy into a world where we really don’t belong. And then, here it is… here’s the link – then we reduce faith to being something that gets us out of the debt we are in so that we can spend some more money. We bring God down to our level instead of lifting up our eyes to His. And then we wonder why this faith thing isn’t working so well. Hello!!

I have heard faith reduced down to ‘name it and claim it’, “blab it and grab it”. Isn’t that what Jesus meant when He said:

Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, if you say to this mountain be lifted up and thrown into the sea, if you do not doubt in your heart but you believe that what you have said will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

What did Jesus mean by that? Did He mean we get anything our little heart’s desire? I don’t think so, if fact, I know that’s not what He meant because this very same Jesus said:

Whoever comes to Me and doesn’t hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow Me, cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14: 26, 27)

In fact, the more you read of what Jesus said the more you realise that either He needed a better spin doctor to help Him get His message out or He never really intended to fit into our twenty-first-century consumerist short-termism. Now let me think, which one of those statements is true? And if Jesus wanted to plug neatly in our c ontemporary consumerism mindset then it would seem to me, the thing about believing and receiving on the one hand and losing our life on the other hand, was a contradiction. Either that or He never intended to pander to us in the first place and therefore, He meant something quite different.

Time To Raise Your Gaze

The more selfish we become, the more faith yields nothing. I learned that the hard way. “Oh God, please give me that latest flashy, shiny, new car.” So He doesn’t! And then we go, “Well, that didn’t work, did it? Faith, pah! So if you were hoping for me to put some nice safe spin on this whole “faith” thing; the sort of spin that will pander to your every desire; the sort that will encourage you with the assurance that you can indeed have anything that your little consumer’s heart desires for itself if you just believe – I’m sorry, but you are going to be disappointed.

On the other hand, if what you are looking for is to discover the truth about a faith so deep and so mighty that it can move mountains – if you hunger to experience the power of Christ Himself, working in you and through you to achieve mighty things… things that you are afraid even to dream about, then our programs over these next few weeks are definitely for you.

See, the last time I checked, when Jesus was brutally nailed to a cross, He didn’t have a BMW parked in the driveway of His mansion, nor was He wearing a Rolex watch – in fact, they even stole the clothes off His back. Because fortunately for us, He didn’t set His sights as low as that – He was after something so much more; so much better. Jesus wasn’t chasing the glory of this world – it was the glory of God that He focused on. There was a much bigger, eternal, glorious picture that His eyes were set on and in order to realise that picture, He sacrificed His life in the short-term – and what a sacrifice!

This is the upside-down perspective on faith that I believe He calls us to – not a “me” centred faith but a “Christ” centred faith and if we truly, truly, truly want to lay hold of the huge faith; the mighty faith; the powerful faith that Jesus spoke of, we can only do it one way – on His terms and not on ours. See, anything else is but a cheap imitation. It may delight us for a short while but then it will come down to earth with a mighty thud. It always does!

If we would lay hold of a mighty mountain–moving faith… the faith of which Jesus spoke – if that’s truly what we want, it’s time in our life to lift up our eyes. It’s time to raise our gaze. And I know no better way to do that than to take the God of the Bible at His Word. To take it that what He says in His Word, the Bible, He actually means – I mean, actually. Not academically; not at a distance; not in a safe little Bible study group hedging around God’s Word kind of way – “Oh, I think it means this!” “I think, well, I actually think it means that.” “That’s nice. We had a pleasant evening. Would you like tea and coffee?” “Oh, that’s good, let’s go home.”

No, that’s not what I mean! I mean that when we read something in God’s Word and it says it actually works, that we take this to mean that if we wrap our hearts around it and apply it in our lives and live it, that it will actually work in our lives. That’s what I mean! And that’s exactly what I would ask you to do with this beautiful and powerful Psalm – Psalm 121. If you have a Bible, open it up, go to Psalm 121 – have a read with me:

I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord; the Lord who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and evermore.

Have you ever been at a complete loss at what to do? A curveball comes at you right out of nowhere at a hundred miles an hour… now what? What am I going to do? Where can I turn?’ And what do we do? My hunch is we’ve all done this… is that we tend to look off in the distance – to the furthest point that you can see on the horizon – and you can just see the writer of this Psalm going through one of those things in his life that knocks the stuffing out of him; casting his eyes up to the hills, wondering where his help is going to come from.

Remember back then, false God’s, false idols – their temples were up on hilltops. Where will my help come from? The hilltops? The things of this world that I can touch and see and feel? No, because I know that when the chips are really down, they don’t have the power to help me. How many of us stop there, at the hilltops; wondering, worrying? That’s the place of fear, but the Psalmist, he doesn’t stop there – he goes further, much further. “My help,” he says, “My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

The hills – why they’re nothing! No, no, my help comes from the Lord; the God who made the hills and not just them, the whole earth – every mountain, every valley, every ocean and not just the earth, but the heavens too – the vastness of the universe. That’s where my help comes from – the God who made the whole shooting match – the eternal, powerful, mighty God. How stupid would it be just to stop at the hills?

Do you hear something? Do you hear the Spirit of God crying out to us through this Psalm? Lift up your eyes! This is a cry to those caught up in short termism. This is a cry to those who are stumbling around in the dark, looking down at their feet; down in that miry swamp of…of self. We have even forgotten that we can lift up our eyes to the One who has the power and the love and the desire and the faithfulness to make a difference. Not just the power, you see, but the will.

Read the rest of that Psalm again, doesn’t it speak of a faithful God; a loving God; a God who remains so rock solid when everything else is crumbling, including us. A God who is awake and at work when we are asleep. A God who will keep us – you and me – for ever more. A God with both the will and the way. A God whose faithfulness is deserving of our faith.

Let me ask you this – where does your help come from? When one of those great big ugly things blocks your way and grips your heart with fear, where do you expect your help to come from? See, this is crunch time for faith – we can go through all the wonderful, good things in life and say, ‘Yes, I have faith!’ But it’s when there is a dirty great mountain in our road; when our finances collapse; when the world markets collapse; when our health collapses; when a relationship collapses; when there’s an obstacle we just can’t seem to get through – Jesus said, “You know what – all you need is just faith the size of a little mustard seed. “If you believe in your heart that what you say will come to pass, you can say to this mountain,’Get up, move over there and jump in the lake’, and it will be done for you.”

Do you notice something? Jesus doesn’t demand huge faith – He just demands faith the size of a mustard seed; an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, little bit of faith and a huge, massive, powerful, omnipresent, all-knowing God.

That’s what faith is about!

When the going starts getting tough in life – you know what we often do – we look to other people to help. People more experienced than us. But what if they’ve lost the plot too.  Then what?

You know, most of us, when we hear about the sort of faith that moves mountains, most of us expect to move the mountains we want to move.  We expect to see the results, to benefit from them, to revel in them.  But that’s not always the way.

Well What Did You Expect? 

It’s great to be back with you again this week – and if you had a chance to join me over the last couple of weeks, you’ll know that we’ve been taking a look at faith – the sort of faith that moves mountains. And we’ve had a good look at a couple of real life stories – the story of Abraham and Sarah – man, they definitely needed faith and yet they made so many boo boos along the way. And then, the story of an incompetent king and these four lepers – that was last week on the program. And both of those stories – well they weren’t what perhaps you may have expected.

Abraham and Sarah were so imperfect in their faith. And then the story of the siege and God’s blessing – none of God’s people showed any faith at all, and then these four lepers with really no other alternative stumble out into God’s blessings. I wonder in a series called, “Having Faith that Moves Mountains” – what sort of stories did you expected? Stories about characters and people who’d shown this mighty faith? Stories of people, real people – who had such a mighty faith that they could single-handedly cast a mountain into the sea?

And when you and I – when we look at our own lives and our own situations, what do we expect of ourselves? What sort of faith, what sort of journey do we expect?

I’ll tell you what I expected when I gave my life to Jesus a decade and a half ago. I expected an easy ride. I expected that despite what the Bible said, despite what the preacher up the front said on Sunday mornings (and I was blessed with a really good teacher) and despite what happened to Jesus – I would have an easy ride of it.

That I’d crash through brick walls. That the problems would go away. That everything that I touched would turn to gold. And yet the more that I got myself into understanding God in His Word, and the more I discovered fantastic promises like:

In the world you will face tribulation (John 16:33).

I found those things and yet I still wanted to cling onto this notion that I would have an easy ride of it. That I was somehow special and different this tribulation thing was for the rest of you could go and travel your difficult roads, but not me.

The only direction for me was up. That’s it. I’m not accepting anything else. And as I look back on those years since I gave my life over to Jesus as my Saviour and my Lord, there are some fantastic stories to tell. He’s done such amazing things in me and around me. He’s involved me in things that I could never have dreamed up for myself.

But there have been long and winding roads. There have been storms. There have been times when I felt completely alone. There were times when I would not have dared dream up a title for a bunch of radio programs like “Having Faith that Moves Mountains.”

And those times just didn’t fit with my plan. Because my plan was so much like the world’s plan. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. Success. Success is about bigger, better, faster, richer. Success is about other people looking at our lives and saying, “Oooh, he’s truly blessed.” And at some point it dawned on me – I can’t remember exactly when – that my plan wasn’t God’s plan. (It’s tragic, but it’s true).

Even though I’d laid my life down at His feet as completely and as utterly as I was able, I still had a plan for “success.” For a long time, my plan and God’s plan were tearing me apart. But the problem was I couldn’t have described it as neatly as I just have to you now. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was but something wasn’t right.

I wanted to do great things for God – but it was on my terms and not His. I wanted to work hard and succeed at being a Christian. I wanted to make a difference in this world for Him. But there was something, something that had to give.

It’s that something that I want to talk about in this week. To put it under a magnifying glass. To hold it up and look at it from this angle and from that. So that together we can identify it and name it.

What exactly are we missing – could it be that our template of success – yours and mine – isn’t the same as God’s. Could it be that the pattern that you and I are carrying around in our heads and in our hearts – the glasses through which we see things – are kind of distorting our view – that we’re chasing after something that really isn’t there? Something that really doesn’t work?

One thing that I’ve discovered in life is that something that works well over here in this situation can be a complete failure over there in that situation. I worked as a consultant in the IT industry for many years. That took me into well over 200 organisations around the world. And it just never ceased to amaze me that whilst my experience and knowledge grew with each project and consulting assignment, it wasn’t possible to take the approach that we used for company X last year and use it for company Y this year.

Why? Because the context and culture were invariably different. Each organisation had its own unique blend of rules and relationships. This one was flexible and entrepreneurial. That one was more structured. This one was risk averse, that one was more open to risk taking.

This one had had a bad project two years ago that everyone remembered. Whilst this new one hadn’t. And so what I discovered after a few years of doing this, and with the benefit of a very wise mentor, is that the template for success was different in each organisation. In each circumstance. The most important thing to do was to figure out what success looked like for each client organisation, in order that we could shape a project and an outcome that was successful for them.

And after a while, I figured out that the template for success in the kingdom of this world, is different – I mean radically different – from the template of success in the Kingdom of God. And the tension that was going on inside me as I was striving so hard to succeed in this new Kingdom, God’s Kingdom was because I was striving for the wrong things. Things that in God’s eyes didn’t constitute success.

See, my context and the culture had changed. And I was still trying to be successful in the old way, the world’s way. In a way that was never going to be successful in God’s kingdom. As I said earlier, my model of success was base on the “onwards and upwards” idea. Always going forward. Never taking a step back. And to be honest, you see a lot of that brand of success is floating around the church of God today. It’s the world’s approach and not God’s.

It turns out that God’s template for success is based on something that I’d never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams thought would be related to success. A word that I’d never used in the same sentence as “success”. That word, is … vulnerability. And that – that’s what we’re going to talk about after this short break.

The Substance Of Things Unseen

Now here’s a scary thought – if I say I love God, if I say that actually, actually Jesus isn’t just the Son of God who saved me by dying on the cross – but He’s also the LORD of my life – if that’s what I hold out there as what I believe – well, what if I start hurling my faith at mountains that He doesn’t want moved? What if I’m pulling in one direction – and He’s pulling in the other. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who’s going to win that little tussle do you.

And that’s the thing with faith – I see so many people exhausting themselves because – well, We want what We want and the Bible says I can have anything I want if I have enough faith – and so we kind of – well we abuse this whole faith thing – and I have to tell you from my own experience – it’s utterly exhausting pulling against God.

Where as when I’m going with Him – there’s a real holy ease about it. Doesn’t mean that things are always easy, but what it means is that it flows. Even when there are challenges and obstacles and mountains – it just… flows.

And to do that, we have to redefine what we mean by success. If we want to pull in the same direction as God – we need to figure out what success means for Him and go with that, don’t we?? The most power packed chapter on faith in the Bible would have to be Hebrews Chapter 11, but the only two verses people ever seem to quote are these:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 1:1)

And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

And to be sure these are mighty Scripture verses. But my hunch is that the reason we like to pluck these two out of Chapter 11 all on their own is that they fit kind of nicely with the world’s template of success. At least they don’t contradict it.

But let’s take a look at the rest of this chapter. It’s about faith, but maybe not quite the sort that we really want to hear about.

It goes on to list a whole number of Old Testament Bible Characters: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel and the prophets. Great men of faith

… who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. (Hebrews 11:33,34)

Now that is certainly the sort of faith that you and I are looking for, isn’t it? But look at what it says in the very next breath about these men:

Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:35-40)

Seems we would be quite happy to receive the first part of that equation – the accolades reserved for the heroes thus named. But which one of us – which win I ask, would be happy to be numbered amongst “the others”. Those other men and women of faith not named.

I mean which one of us kind of reads that passage and shouts – Hallelujah! No – we want to be on the Bible A List – like Abraham. We want to receive the mighty promises of God – and not in 20 years time, not next year – not even next week – we want it now – delivered like a hamburger through the shoot at the fast food outlet – don’t we?

Yet even Abraham one of the named heroes here didn’t receive all that was promised him. He never saw the great and mighty nation nor the Promised Land filled with his descendents.

These “others” were prepared for a template of success quite different to that which the world has dropped on our heads. A template based on complete vulnerability in the hands of God. Complete and glad surrender to His will, no matter where it may lead. Some, some tasted success. Some were called to conquer kingdoms, administer justice, obtain promises, shut the mouths of lions, quench raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, win strength out of weakness, become mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. And “others”, others were called to be tortured, suffer mocking and flogging. These were called to chains and imprisonment, to be stoned to death, to be sawn in two, to be killed by the sword; to go about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented.

Listen to me – even the biblical “A-list” – Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets, the Disciples, Paul the Apostle – were hounded, rejected, suffered hardship and yet, they achieved mighty things in faith that glorified not them but God. Do you see how different God’s template of success is to our own?

And as I read Hebrews Chapter 11 and let God do His work in my heart by His Word and His Spirit, as I read of many of these men and women in the Bible who sacrificed their all for their God, I can only come to the conclusion that faith, faith is this: embracing the journey that God has set before us no matter what the cost, no matter what we may lose, so that He would be glorified in all the earth.

Do me a favour – take some time to read the Lord’s prayer in the next day or so. Because as we explore that simple prayer, what we discover that Jesus is teaching us is that the key that unlocks the power of prayer is the glad submission of the prayer to the will of God.

Complete vulnerability in the hands of God, complete submission to His will, a desire to see His name lifted up above all things – that’s what I discover the definition of faith to be as I read Hebrews Chapter 11. That’s the sort of faith that moves mountains. In fact, it’s the only sort of faith that moves mountains.

Embracing The Journey 

Let’s face it – we want life to be comfortable. Who doesn’t? In fact, people go into debt to have more to be comfortable and then, when the economy takes a massive nosedive – as it inevitably does – they lose everything because of their debt, and their world is shattered. That’s our instinct. It’s who we are. Very few people on planet earth ever learn to be content with who they are and what they have. And here it is, very few people ever embrace the journey that God’s got them on – with all it’s ups and downs.

You know why I think that is, because deep down, we’re still living our lives for us – thinking that’s where we’ll find satisfaction, rather than for God – which is actually where true joy and true satisfaction are to be found.

At some point in our lives, we need to wake up to the fact that living a life of faith is about living a life for God and not for us.

And it’s at that point that that sense that something’s not quite right goes away. It’s when we ditch the worldly template of success and embrace wholeheartedly, with every fibre of our being the template of success of the One who taught:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? (Mark 8:34‑36)

I was listening to a man the other day, Tim, telling the story of the last decade or so of his life. In his early twenties he finally gave his life over to Jesus. With all his heart. And he set out on a journey of starting and growing a business with the intention of not only providing a living for himself and his business partners, but also for using the wealth and expertise of the business quite specifically and intentionally for the glory of God.

The business went from bad to worse. It didn’t make sense. He had a house to sell, but it just wouldn’t sell. It came to the point where they were relying on food parcels to get by. Tim spoke of having “dark nights of the soul” every night of the week. And in the middle of all that, as he was wondering what for the love of God was going on, he felt God say to him:

Tim – do you have the faith to live a life that doesn’t matter?

The question came at the point when he couldn’t take it anymore. He struggled with the question and he answer: Yes. It was the beginning of change. It was the point at which his business slowly started to turn around, little by little. And not long after, the call of God on both Tim and his business became clear.

Strangely, as he was sharing his story with me and a group of other men, he used that same word that had been going around in my mind in putting together this series of programs. Tim talked about being forever vulnerable in God’s hands and adopting a spirit of vulnerability. Here’s the bottom line – Tim embraced his journey.

So many people are struggling with the journey that they’re on because they’re applying the world’s template of success rather than God’s. And that’s something that tears us apart on the inside. Even if we can’t quite put our finger on it. It’s not until we understand that the journey is handmade for us that we can let go and be vulnerable. Listen to how the Psalmist puts it:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them – they are more than the sand; I come to the end – I am still with you. (Psalm 139:13-18)

Here’s someone puts the two together. He realises that not only is he who God made Him to be but every step of his journey was planned even before any of them ever existed. Before time began. And in that knowledge, the Psalmist stands in complete awe of God. Who he is, fits perfectly with the journey God’s got him on – even if it doesn’t always seem that way. Listen to me – please listen…

It is time to embrace the journey. The particular journey that God has us on. You, yours. And me, mine. Faith isn’t about fighting that journey. It’s not about wrestling with God and commanding mountains to fall in the ocean that God planned all along should be there for a time. No doubt there are things in our lives that the Master would change. But first and foremost, He would have us forever vulnerable in his hands. As the Apostle Paul puts it:

… a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

Paul discovered that no amount of faith will undo God’s plans – however uncomfortable they might be. It is one such as this who is ready for a faith that can move mountains. Because it is one such as this who’s heart is to move only the mountains that God wants moved. The faith that Jesus spoke of is not a faith that wrestles with God’s often incomprehensible plans. It’s one that cooperates fully with the plans and purposes of God, no matter what it ay cost. And what a mighty life that will be.

Listen up: The world has dropped a template of success into our minds that’s all about achieving things that the world values. Fame. Fortune. Recognition. But God’s template of success is all about vulnerability. It’s about a life laid down at His feet to do His bidding no matter what the cost.

Until we lay down the world’s plan and take up His, we’ll be torn inside. Faith isn’t given to us to work against God’s plans. It is given to achieve the plans of God. A life thus surrendered is ready for the sort of faith that moves mountains.

It seems that over and over again, the world teaches us to be self–reliant.  Life’s about succeeding and success is about who we are and what we do and in this day and age, surely we can be and do whatever we want.  Oh really?

A Part For God To Play 

I was sitting down with a group of businessmen recently for a breakfast that we’d organised and I was about to share a message called “The Battle Belongs to the Lord” with this group. It was interesting to listen to the discussion around the table as people drank their coffee and munched on a muffin.

Being men in business, the discussion was around the economic climate and it’s impact on their businesses. And as we chatted, it became pretty clear to me how self-reliant this group of men had been programmed to be.

They are after all, businessmen. They have businesses to run. They’re meant to succeed. And when the economy turns sour, it’s almost as though they are the failures because their businesses are struggling. In fact, during the economic crisis, I sat with a wise, older man and he was sharing with me how much of his time was being taken up counselling other men in his sector – financial services – who were contemplating suicide because they were facing ruin.

Whatever we do, whoever we are, it seems that society is programming us to be self-reliant. We have to rely on our wits and our abilities to succeed and if we don’t we’re failures. Never mind that some adversity that we could never control has swept in like a storm off the ocean. No – we’re meant to succeed. But here’s the thing – if we’re so self-reliant, what happens when the storm is so ferocious, we can’t deal with it? What happens when the mountain is so big, we can’t budge it? Then what? It’s scary. Really scary.

The hardest thing I think in overcoming fear in life is actually getting to that point where we have a high level of confidence in God. Who God is. What He’s done. His might and His power and His sovereignty. It all sounds great in theory. But what about in practice? What about when the rubber hits the road? Then what?

I used to think that it was up to me. And I guess in part it is, but not completely. That’s just as well, because you and I, we’re human. We can’t just conjure up confidence. We can’t take this theory about who God is and let the theory wipe away the fear.

Because fear is real. No, I need something more than that. I need something more than promises on paper. And fortunately, that’s exactly what God had planned to do. He didn’t want to leave it all up to us. Wants us to actually experience His peace – not our strength, but a peace and strength that come from Him. Let’s pick up the rest of what He had to say, beginning again at verse 28 of Isaiah Chapter 40:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28)

Great, there’s the theory again but watch now for what comes next.

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31

Do you see the point? Where do the power and the strength come from? Do you or I conjure them up. No! They come from the Lord. And we need that, because even youths will faint and be weary and the young and the strong will fall exhausted. BUT – and here’s the BUT – the glorious, wondrous, powerful BUT:

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

He gives those things to us when we wait expectantly on Him. And that’s literally what that word “wait” means. Not waiting grumbling and complaining. Not waiting with our hearts and our eyes downcast. Not trembling paralysed with fear. No, it means waiting expectantly. Waiting on God with the expectation that He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He is going to do.

Looking up at Him and just expecting strength and assurance and comfort from Him. Right there in the middle of our fear. With our emotions on a rollercoaster ride, with our enemies around us, with disaster looming – but with an expectation somewhere deep inside that God is going to act.

And that what will happen is exactly what He has planned. Do you know what we’re doing when we’re doing that sort of waiting. We’re having faith that moves mountains! We’re living it right then and there.

Who knows – will God give us victory over our enemies or not? I don’t know. More Christians martyred in the twentieth century than in the two thousand years before that combined.

We all die some time. Is He going to heal this cancer or let it take its course? Is He going to give me victory over my enemies, or does He have a different plan? Sometimes, we just don’t know? But this one thing I do know, that …

… those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

God is saying to us through His Word today – indeed He is commanding us – DO NOT BE AFRAID.

And you know why it is that I am not afraid of death? Because I have eternal life through Jesus Christ. Sometimes He gives me victory over circumstances on this earth. Sometimes, He lets me suffer. But come what may – if I am diagnosed with terminal cancer tomorrow – I am going to put my confidence in the God who has given me a life eternal with Him.

Just before He was crucified and when His disciples were trembling in fear, this is what Jesus said to them:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

So far as we know each of those disciples (other than Judas) went on to do mighty things for God … and then, they died for their faith. So often we’re focussed on the here and the now but God’s plan for your life and mine my friend is life eternal. That’s why I put my confidence in Jesus Christ who paid the price in full for my sin on that cross.

God gives us His peace and His strength when we wait expectantly on Him. Doesn’t matter how big, bad or ugly the enemy is. Doesn’t matter how fearful we are. God will take away our fear, when we wait expectantly on Him. That’s the sort of faith that moves mountains.

Your Mind Really Matters 

I want to share with you right now one of the most powerful things that I have ever learned about having the sort of faith that moves mountains.

We spoke the last week about the world’s template of success. The notion that if we would just have positive thoughts, we can have positive outcomes in every aspect of our lives. We can do anything and achieve anything, if only we’ll get a positive mindset. It’s a seductive idea. It’s one that we would love to pull up next to.

In fact, so popular is this notion that a whole school of positive thinking has grown up over recent years. But it doesn’t matter how positively we think, there are going to be things that we can’t overcome. It doesn’t matter how positively I think about life, one day, one way or another, this mortal body will give up its spirit.

And so, many a Christian will reject this notion of thinking positively, because it has been so intrinsically linked to the world’s template of success. Yet, God’s Word is very clear, that what we do with our mind actually matters. That instead of being locked into the patterns of thinking that pervade the world and just don’t work, instead of allowing ourselves to be squeezed into the world’s mould, we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. What we do with our mind matters.

Now, I am a naturally positive person. I just am. Probably my training at the Australian Army Office Academy – the Royal Military College Duntroon helped. But the way that I’m wired inside means that I see the glass as being half full and not half empty. And I guess it’s a great help too that much of my work involves me in studying and preaching God’s Word. I’m constantly listening to Him and hearing from Him. It’s one of the reasons I so love doing what I do.

Every now and then though, I get to feeling a little down or lost. Normally when I’m tired and I have a lot going on in my life. But that’s generally only a now and then sort of thing.

One day, I decided to take notice of my thoughts – a stock-take if you will, of the way in which I used my mind. I was absolutely shocked at the number of negative thoughts that I allow to occupy my mind. I mean really shocked. Because I’d always seen myself as Mr Positive. In fact those who know me well, would tell you that as well.

Here’s how it happens. We race around doing all the things we do in life. Getting the kids off to school. Getting ready for work. The long commute. The pressures at work. Go, go, go. And this intrudes on our schedule. Or that delays us. Or this person says something that annoys us.

And that’s before the guy in the car in front of us changes lanes without using his blinker. And so we honk the horn and we think bad thoughts. “How could that guy do that?!” “Oh no, I’m running late.” “Oh! I forgot to put an apple in Johnnie’s school bag.” “That idiot – how can he come up with that?” “She has absolutely no idea what she’s doing. Who do they think they are?”

Do any of this sound even vaguely familiar to you? And they’re just the tip of the iceberg aren’t they?

The salesman sitting there staring at the phone afraid to pick it up and make an appointment. “They’re never going to buy from me.” The wife who looks at her busy husband and thinks to herself, “He’s never, ever going to understand me.”

In fact, it doesn’t matter who we are, where we live, what walk of life we’re in – these negative thoughts creep in and then we begin to verbalise them. We start speaking them out to ourselves and to other and before you know it we’re wandering through life with a stinking attitude that is going to rob us of the blessings that God has planned for today and for tomorrow and for the next day. That’s exactly what Jesus said:

Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile. (Matthew 15:17-20)

These thoughts and these words begin to shape our reality. The shape how we see the world. And that shaping in turn defines the attitude with which we live our lives. And our attitudes are like the lenses that we see the world through.

That’s why some people are just mean-spirited and nasty and glum and negative. The pathetic character Gollum in the Lord of the Rings if you’ve read the books or seen the movies is a caricature of such a person. Gollum clung onto the one ring that ruled them for so long that in the end, it destroyed him.

And we’re prone to do exactly the same. The problem with all this is that these negative thoughts are insidious. They creep up on us and cloud our vision.

A few years ago, I was fiddling with my glasses over lunch at a friend’s house and they snapped in two. I was so annoyed – this was going to cost me some serious money. So I visited the optometrist to have the vision tests for a new pair. And one of the test that they routinely conduct is to check the eye pressure to test for glaucoma.

It was in that routine test that I was diagnosed with that very disease. It’s insidious because there are no discernible symptoms. The pressure inside the eyeball remains high and slowly damages the optic nerve at the back of the eye. Over a few years, it can send a person blind. By the time they notice that there’s something wrong, they’ve lost much of their sight and the damage cannot be reversed. Fortunately, mine was diagnosed very early and with routine treatment, my eyesight will be fine for many years to come.

This is exactly what happens to us when we allow negative thoughts to rule our lives. Our view of the world becomes clouded and distorted and we don’t even know it. Have a listen again to Jesus on this:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22,23)

If our vision is clear then the light can get in. But if not, we end up in darkness. It robs us of the light. But it’s the very last bit of what Jesus says here that is the most damning: If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?

I Can Do This

Our thoughts can destroy us. Truly they can. We get all caught up in negative “gloom and doom” type thinking and before you know it, that’s what we’re living out. We close off the possibility that God is in this place. We close off the possibility that He loves us. We close off the reality that He can and will step in to help us in ways that we can’t even dream of. And we’re blinded by looking through faithless eyes instead of eyes of faith. Have a listen again to Jesus on this:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22,23)

That’s the problem. We kid ourselves, we think we’re living a good life but in fact it’s a dark life because of our negative thoughts. So what’s the answer. This faith thing isn’t some theory lesson. It’s about God’s grace really making a difference in our lives. Especially when we’re struggling with negative thoughts.

The solution as it turns out is simple. So simple, I’m embarrassed to tell you that it wasn’t entirely obvious to me. I sort of knew, but not in a way that made me aware of my negative thoughts and empowered me to do something about them.

Here it is. Hold on to your hat. Here it comes. Every time we have a negative thought, we consciously and deliberately replace it with a positive one. And the best positive thoughts of all are what God says about us in the Bible. Let me give you just three examples:

Negative Thought Number 1: I can’t possibly put up with my husband for another minute! That could be replaced with:

Positive Thought Number 1: Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands so that, even if some of them do not obey the word they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
(1 Peter 3:1,2)

Solution Number 1: Do you see what just happened here? The negative thought will drive a behaviour of isolation. The negative thought will chill relations further. The negative thought is the pathway to divorce. Now replace it with the positive thought – right from God’s Word. Because it offers a solution. God’s solution. Hen-pecking doesn’t work, but as woman you have the power to change your man’s heart and his behaviour by who you are. When this woman chooses to believe that thought –God’s Word – over her negative one, she is in effect putting her faith in God’s Word. She’s hoping in God’s Word. She quietly, expectantly waits for God to renew her strength. The negative thought would end in destruction. The positive thought opens up the way to the solution. Which one is better do you think?

 

Negative Thought Number 2: How could that guy possibly do that? That could be replaced with:

Positive Thought Number 2: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Solution Number 2: The negative thought will never lead to a solution to the problem. The positive thought calls this man to see and think clearly. What have I done to contribute to this situation? Maybe that other guy as something else going on in his life that’s causing him to behave this way. Now, what can I do to help?

 

Negative Thought Number 3: I can’t make this phone call. I’m not made for selling. These people are never going to buy from me. I’m sick of being rejected. This could be replaced with:

Positive Thought Number 3: Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. (Luke 6:38) Well, I’m a giver. That verse is for me.

Solution Number 3: Fear immobilises. God blesses. And when this salesperson believes that God is in the blessing business, it changes his or her behaviour. It gives them the quiet confidence to believe that God has gone ahead, that God has seen their secret giving and the rest belongs to Him.

 

Do you see what’s going on here? This is about putting faith to work. This is where the rubber hits the road. The moment a negative thought comes to attack our confidence, we replace it with a positive one. And not just something we dreamed up. The Word of God. The Truth. Because when we know the truth, when we put it to work in our lives, it sets us free.

It’s time to wake up to this. Faith is this – faith is choosing to believe God’s Word over and above our circumstances. Irrespective of how daunting, fearful and overwhelming those circumstances may appear. It is a deliberate choice to believe.

And then when we believe, it is about doing God’s Word. Letting God’s Word replace the negative thought and then acting on it. Because there’s one thing for certain. If we retain the negative thought we will act on it. The wife will isolate her husband. The man will beat up on the other guy at work (idiot that he is!). The salesperson will remain immobilised in their fear and not make any sales.

We act on our negative thoughts! Isn’t that a wakeup call?!

Faith has two parts. Believing and doing. Sometimes, that “doing” standing still and letting God do His part. That’s still doing! And unless we act on the faith, it never moves mountains. In fact, faith without works is dead!

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead … But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.’”Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. (James 2:14f)

In other words, what we do is the active demonstration of what we believe. If we believe the negative, destructive thoughts we will live them out and they will ruin our lives. If instead, we believe God’s Word, we will live those out and do it for God’s glory. Faith thus lived out in my life and yours my friend, that’s the sort of faith that moves mountains.