Mark 11:20-26 PJ Garton 11/24/24

[Music] are we going this way or we're going up here Gra for e c g a e not do l I'm got very nous [Music] good morning morning morning so good to see you all this morning on this brisk fall morning Lord willing by the time we get going with worship the temperature will be coming up with us so we appreciate your patience with that I have some announcements in the Next Room here immediately to your right there's a Family Resource Center with some books and material it is there for you to take advantage of all we ask is that there you take advantage of the signup sheet there's a or sign out sheet if you borrow something to read just put your name down and contact information and take advantage of those resources they're there for you and to encourage you in your walk with the Lord December 1st at 2 o'cl 12 o'clock women on Mission will have their December meeting Children and Youth Ministry Ministries volunteer Christmas banquet December 6th if okay there's a misprint December 2nd for women on Mission The Children and Youth Christmas banquet is on December 6th if you've not already signed up please do so on Church Center or see Thomas for that December 15th at 10:30 the children will be making their Christmas presentation here in the worship service at

10:30 our L Moon Christmas offering in gathering will also be on December 15th our goal this year is $7,500 and I fully expect that we will easily do that so between now and then please make that a matter of prayer and come prepared with your sacrificial gift on that morning finally tomorrow is the last day if you need to if you have someone could benefit from a Deacon's food basket tomorrow morning is the last that'll be that sign up will be closing and the deacons will be preparing to distribute those baskets here in the near future one other announcement I almost forgot I have a star here for the Christmas Joy group party that's coming up on December 3rd also if you've not signed up already on Church Center please do so or sign up in the church office so that we can make sure we have enough food in front of you there's a card that looks like this it's our way of connecting with you if you have a prayer request or if you're a firsttime visitor with us please also take advantage of that resource so now as we prepare for worship let me pray father God I thank you and I praise you that we get to be here together with our brothers and sisters this morning thank you for this facility that we are stewards of and Lord just for the opportunity to gather together I pray that as we take advantage of all these different acts of worship through music through GI through the message of your word that Lord we would leave here lifted encouraged and equipped for the week ahead we ask this in your name amen stand with us and sing this morning as we praise our Lord [Music] sing to the king who is coming to rain glory to Jesus the lamb that was

Slain life and salvation is temp shall bring and joy to the nation when Jesus is King come let us sing a song a song declaring we belong to Jesus he all we need lift up a heart of praise sing now with voices to Jesus sing to the king for his returning we watch and we pray we will be ready the dawn of that day we'll join in singing with all the redeem the Satan is vanish and Jesus is King let us sing a song a song declaring we belong to Jesus he all we need lift up heart of Praise sing now with voices praise to Jesus sing to the [Music] king come let us sing a s a s declaring we belong to Jesus he's all we need lift up heart of Praise sing now with voices rais to Jesus Sing To The King [Music] Standing on the Promises of Christ my king through Eternal ages let his Praises Ring glory in the highest I will shout and sing stand on the Promises of God standing standing Standing on the Promises of God my Savior stand stand I'm Standing on the Promises of God Standing on the Promises that cannot fail When theing Storms of doubt and fear by The Living Word of God shall Prevail Standing on the Promises of God standing on the pris Standing on the Promises Standing on the Promises of God [Music] myoring Standing on the Promises of God Standing on the Promises of Christ

The Lord to him eternally by love cord overing daily by the spirit sword Standing on the Promises of God standing on Standing on the Promises of God myi Standing on the Promises Standing on the Promises of God Standing on the Promises I cannot falling every moment to the call resting in my saor as My All In All stand on the Promises of God standing on the standing on the Standing on the Promises of God myi standing standing I'm Standing on the Promises of God [Music] let us pray oh Lord prais is due to you oh God in Zion and to you shall vows be performed oh you who hear prayer to you shall All Flesh come when iniquities Prevail against us you atone for our transgression blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house and the Holiness of your temple Lord you have blessed us so much with our with our lives and with the Salvation you have given us in turn Lord we would like to bless you with our offerings and we thank you and praise you for your mercy and your grace amen [Music] Wonderful Merciful s avior precious Redeemer and friend who would have thought that resue the soul of oh you rescue The Souls of men you are the one that we praise you are the one we adore you give the healing and Grace hearts always H oh our hearts so always hunger counsel

Comfor keeper Spirit we long to [Music] embrace you offer hope when our [Music] heart hopelessly lost away oh we hopelessly lost the way you are the one that we praise you are the one we adore you give the healing and Grace our hearts always hunger oh our hearts always hunger for Almighty infinite father Faithfully loving your here in our weakness you find us falling before your thr oh we're falling before your thr you are the one that we praise you are the one we adore you give the healing and Grace our hearts always H our hearts always hunger [Music] for you are the one that we [Music] praise you are the one we adore to give the healing and gra are hearts always H for our hearts always [Music] H you may be seated as Jim comes up okay this is the part of the service where we do the catechism and you know that ISM means the theory or the doctrine of so doctrine of cats no that's not what we're doing here catechism comes from the doctrine of oral teaching so the verses for today are 2 Timothy 3:16 And1

17 all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work then Romans 15:4 for whatever was written in the former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope John 2031 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name and then finally 1 Corinthians 10:11 now these things happen to them as an example but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come so these verses together if we were on Jeopardy we would say what are things that are chiefly contained in the Holy Scriptures and those verses would be the answers to that question stand with us as you can as we sing we look to you [Music] deler us from oh Lord we so in a broken world the evil hand give rise to remind us this is not our we look to you we look to you Sovereign king of all the Earth we look to you we look to you in your strength we will endure in your strength we will [Music] Del us from evil Lord our hearts so quickly run astray Temptation crouching at the door to turn us from the narrow way we look to you we look to you Christ the Conquering Son of God we look to you we Look to You Lord complete what youve be Lord complete what you be [Music] Del Us from Evil

Lord the devil seeking to devour with trembling Hearts we hear him Ro but your will crush his we look to you we look to you how this Earthly rain we look to you we look to you why Deliver us we PR we look to you we look to you come my great we look to you we look to you all the Earth will [Music] in Deliver Us from Evil we so in a broken world the evil hands give rise to war remind us this is not our home we look to you we look to you Ser king of all the Earth we look to you we look to you in your strength we will [Music] end strength we will [Music] end dear Lord it's in your strength that we endure we know this is not our world that we are with you as we walk through it though and that her by our side dear Lord we pray that this morning you will anoint PJ as he brings us the sermon dear Lord let us take to heart and to mind everything that he says that you can give it to him dear Lord we love you we are so thankful that we're able to be here to worship together as fellow Believers thank you so much dear Lord amen okay well I'm not uncomfortable speaking in public but the technology gets me so I am praying that the Lord will be kind and help me with all these different things but several months ago we were meeting as elders and Cody had the year plan for the me for the different messages and he told us hey I'm going on vacation and I need somebody to take this place and we were all looking and we chose different weeks when we were not traveling and different things well I chose

Today and this was several months ago and as I began looking at the text and kind of praying over the text and wondering where you know what the Lord was going to do and where he wanted me to go and being true to the text of course but like what would it look like and this morning is not what I thought it would be this year I don't know about you but 2024 has been quite the year a lot has happened a lot of hard things but by God's grace we're getting through them and we're grow we're growing more resilient every day my message this morning is titled power of Biblical faith and when I think of powerful faith that term that I'm using I'm drawn to two favorite two of my favorite Old Testament stories the first one was David and Goliath in first Samuel 17 here we see God used a teenage boy and some unconventional artillery to take out a mouthy giant defeat looked imminent for David but the B and the Bible says he was Ruddy he was the smallest of his brothers Saul's armor they tried it was too big too weighty his sword was unwieldy and yet David stepped out in faith to face this giant and God gave him the victory the second one comes from Daniel 3 where three God-fearing men discovered a fourth person in the furnace with them Shadrach mhach and abedo they refused to bow to a pagan King and were thrown into a furnace they did not cower but stood firm and they chose to trust God it was God himself who met them there and he protected them Ephesians 2:8 says for by Grace have we been saved through faith and that not of ourselves it is the gift of God Romans 12:3 says for by Grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to

Think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned those two texts the things that we want to remember and take forward with us in the next few minutes is it was the gift of God the faith was the gift of God and it was given to them in measure by God it is not our strength but the Lord's he is the one who equips us to serve him to believe him and to bring glory to his to him through faith in him here we go and that didn't work awesome thank thank you background information it's Tuesday Morning of passion week Jesus and his disciples are on their way back to Jerusalem they've been staying in Bethany at night out and as they were walking along they noticed this withered fig tree that Jesus had cursed the day before and this is symbolic of the powerful judgment that the Son of God will dispense on a dis disobedient Nation Mark 13:2 says and Jesus said to him do you see these great buildings there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down Psalms 90 verse 5 through 9 says you sweep them away as with a flood they're like a dream like grass that is renewed in the morning in the morning it flourishes and it is renewed in the evening it fades and Withers if we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed you have set our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your presence all our days pass away under your wrath we bring our years to an end like a sigh and the next is Hosea 9 vers 16 and 17 Ephraim is stricken their root is

Dried up they shall bear no fruit even though they give birth I will put their beloved children to death my God will reject them because they have not listened to him they shall be Wanderers amongst among the Nations I invite you now to stand as we read our text together okay as they passed by in the morning they saw the Fig Tree withered away to its roots and Peter remembered and said to him Rabbi look the fig tree that you cursed has withered and Jesus answered them have faith in God truly I say to you whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass it will be done for him therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer believe that you have received it and it will be yours and whenever you stand praying forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father also who is in heaven May forgive you your trespasses let's pray father God I thank you and praise you that for your word I pray now Lord as we dive in that you would be the one speaking through this mouth and that Lord you would be glorified and that Lord we would leave here challenged and looking forward to what you have for us ahead we ask this in your name amen I failed to mention when I prayed earlier for those of you that are not aware Cody and Amber and their kids are on vacation in Texas and they left on Friday and they made it as far as Oklahoma when God saw fit for to allow for them to be in an accident their car was I believe total and they waited several hours to get things organized and get another vehicle and they finally made it to their destination in Texas yesterday Yer morning at about

2:00 they are fine no one was injured both their family or the other driver the one thing that they have requested us to pray for and I haven't heard an update but Amber's purse was in the vehicle and they weren't able to get it before it was taken away they went back to look for it and it was gone so please be in prayer for that situation to be resolved the message title was the power of D of Biblical Faith but the very first point that we're going to explore is the purpose of Biblical faith and when I use the term Biblical faith I'm referring to Faith as a verb I believe it's a process where we let God direct Our Lives we let him be God Jesus imperative to have faith in God is simply an invitation to a deep relationship with him that involves many aspects of his character we have seen as we've explored The Book of Mark over these last several weeks and months instances is where the disciples were amazed there was different words to describe and different events that caused their amazement in chapter four we saw the stormy sea where where God calm the sea Mark 6 where Jesus walks on water Mark 10 the Rich Young Ruler all these instances it was described the disciples were described as they were astonished or they were amazed and here in Mark 11 the disciples again were amazed pet it was Peter actually that commented but they were amazed at this withered fig tree and Jesus response was simply have faith in God the parallel passage to this text is ma found in Matthew 21: 18- 22 and Mark divides this Parable in the two days the tree was cursed the day before before Jesus cleansed the temp yeah cleansed the temple and then

They're back the next morning and that's where we're at this morning Matthew presents The Parables happening all at once Mark gives more detail and divides it was a unique miracle in that it was a curse and not a blessing it is considered by some as one of the most difficult stories in the Gospel narrative and of all the messages for this year I had to choose this one U but that's cool if we were to take it literally it does not fit with what with how Jesus performed Miracles we know from his ministry that he never used his divine power for his own sake in the wilderness when he was tempted by Satan to turn the turn the stones into bread when he was hungry he refused so cursing a fig tree just seems out of character for Jesus this whole action seems unreasonable it's Passover season it's probably mid April this fig tree was not even supposed to be bearing fruit at this time that season was to come a little bit later six I think six weeks is what I was gathering later in May early June but looking at this Parable closely I believe there are two meanings that we can glean from it first is Israel had a history of preparing for the Messiah they promised that when he came they would eagerly receive him he came they rejected him and they eventually crucified him another meaning perhaps and probably more easy for us to understand is that it's simp symbolizes faith without fruit some statistics that I found on the internet and I'm just leaving it at that 50% of people who attend church who attended church as a child only 20% of them are still attending church 28% of Believers are Act only 28% of believers in

America are actively involved in discipleship communities meaning they're actively studying the word of God it's more than just showing up the church or just checking the list of what we've done but actively pursuing a relationship with God only 28% of all believers it is estimated 84% of American churches are either plateaued or declined in a state of decline only 16% are seeing grow experiencing growth Matthew 7:16 says you will recognize them by their fruits are grapes gathered from Thorn bushes or figs from thistles Luke 3:8 bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourself we have Abraham as our Father for I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham there's there seems to be a connection here there's another Parable in found in Luke 13 that talks about the fruitless fig tree and different commentators pretty well thinks that these these narratives are connected while Luke does not cover the parable of this withered fig tree he does include the parable of the fruitless one and he told this Parable a man had a fig tree planted in his Vineyard and he said to the Fine dresser look for three years now this tree has done nothing it's taking up space in my Vineyard I want you to remove it and the vine dresser says hey could you please could we just wait a year could could we just give it a little bit more time and the vine dresser agreed the owner of the vineyard agreed to give this tree a second chance chance the people of Israel had their chance but they failed to bear fruit whether or not these two Parables are connected we can conclude that uselessness or the lack of fruit invites

Judgment we can have faith in the person of God if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ Christ you are invited to bring your needs to the father Philippians 46-7 says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving make your request known to God and the peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and Minds through Christ Jesus our Lord Hebrews 4:16 also says let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find Grace to help in time of need okay I'm I'm happy thank you Lord for letting this work faith in the promises of God a man's influence in the world can be gauged not by his eloquence or his Zeal or his Orthodoxy or his energy but by his prayers no man can live a right who does not pray a right to be little with God in prayers to be little for God in service much secret PR prayer means much Public Power that comes from a book in my library that is very well read called the kneeling Christian and the author is an unknown Christian and it was handed down to me by a very Godly man who passed away and gave me his entire Library 1 Peter 5:7 says casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you he promises to hear our prayers in Jeremiah 33:3 he the prophet says call to me and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known he promises to answer our prayers Matthew 77-1 ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be opened unto you for everyone who asks

Receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened which one of you if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish we give him a serpent if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him prayer and Faith are not a means to get what we want but rather an opportunity to demonstrate our confidence in the written word of God we can have faith in the power of God he has the power to keep his promises Matthew 28:18 Jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven and on Earth is given to has been given to me Ephesians 3:20 now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us and then job 422 I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted next H okay I'm missing one there faith in the purposes of God it's important to remember that God has an eternal plan that he's working out we may not understand at this side of Eternity but we can wholeheartedly trust his power to accomplish what he has promised I had mentioned earlier how that 2024 has been referred to some as the year and we have been through a lot of stuff in January we lost our grand our grandson Oliver and since then I've we've lost several others I've been to more funerals this year in celebration of services this year than I have probably in the last 10 it's not been an easy year Isaiah 46:10 says declaring the end from the beginning from ancient times things not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purposes Proverbs 19:21 says many are the plans in the mind of man but it is

The purpose of the Lord that will stand in our praying we must be about aligning our hearts with the father's will often times it may necess necessitate death to a dream or a personal desire Jesus was focused on the father's will as we'll see in a couple weeks where he received that cup of God's Wrath he willingly took it so that we could have for forgiveness of sins he made himself of no reputation but he became obedient unto death even death on cross we have some opportunities to experience and practice Biblical faith and in doing so it helps us or it allows us to believe the impossible they were near the Mount of Olives the Dead was in View and Jesus was leveraging this location to teach the disciples a most powerful lesson in Mark 11:23 he says I Mark Jesus says truly I say to you whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass it will be done for him there was a familiar Jewish proverb that referred to moving a mountain to describe an impossible task Mark correlated the theme of judgment and the theme of faith in these five verses that we're looking at this morning but here in verse 23 he speaks specifically about faith we've seen two Parables of judgment for unbelief the fig tree that Jesus cursed and the cleansing of the Temple Israel has rejected the Messiah and in 3 days they will be crucifying him Jesus is urging the disciples and he's urging us to choose Faith so that they could escape the coming judgment that was going to be happening on Israel the prophet Zechariah in chapter 14 verses 1- 11 says Behold a day is coming for the

Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst for it will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped half of the city shall go into Exile go out into Exile but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city then the Lord will go out and fight against those Nations and when his he fights on a day of battle on that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before jerus Jerusalem to the on the East and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide Valley so that one half of the mount shall be mo shall move northward and the other half Southward and you shall flee to the valley of my Mountains for the Valley of the mountain shall reach to AEL and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him on that day there shall be No Light No cold or Frost but there shall be a unique day which is known to the Lord neither day nor night but as evening time there shall be light on that day Living Waters shall flow out of Jerusalem half of them to the Eastern Sea half to the Western sea it shall continue in summer as in Winter and the Lord will be king over all the Earth on that day the Lord will be one and his name one the whole land shall be turned into a Plaine from GBA to Ron south of Jerusalem but Jerusalem shall remain a loft on its sight from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate to the corner gate and from the Tower of hanel to the King's Wine presses and it shall be inhabited for there shall never again be a decree of utter D destruction Jerusalem shall dwell in security a Biblical Faith allows us to be hopeful when all else is

Hopeless Isaiah 65:24 says it will come to pass that before they call I will answer while they are still speaking I will hear the opportunities for a Biblical Faith also allows us to receive the impossible in Hebrews 11 verse1 it says now Faith is the Assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen that word Assurance speaks of a foundation that which is underneath it's what is built on things are built on top of and in the aspect of faith it is the guarantee that God will come through on his promises the next word conviction the in our vernacular it would be like The Smoking Gun quote unquote we can hold it in our hearts things that have yet to appear a present confidence in a future reality what are some of these unseen things that we hold fast to Christ return Titus 213 waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ another thing that we can receive that might seem impossible to think about but the resurrection of the Dead 1 Peter 1:3 says blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great Mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead what about our future glorification 1 John 3 2 through3 beloved we are God's children now what we will be has not yet appeared but we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure finally we will reign with Jesus probably the one that we look forward to the most 2 Timothy 2:12 if we endure we will also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us there are some roadblocks to this Biblical faith

And when I spoke earlier about how this message was not ending the way that I thought it would here it is U because as I was studying and considering and looking at the word and the text and asking the Lord for wisdom man it became very personal all of a sudden the first roadblock to a Biblical Faith to an active vibrant faith that is contagious is unbelief some examples very beginning of the Bible Genesis 3 Adam and Eve doubting God and believing a lie Exodus Pharaoh's hard heart Mark four the disciples fear U their doubt I believe that was referring to the storm Jesus was asleep at rest because he knew that he was in the father will but yet the disciples didn't have that exact same faith and they were they were afraid for their life Mark 10 the Rich Young Ruler he instead of choosing to forsake his security and his things that were going to burn he chose to hold on to them because of unbelief because of fear doubt can be to find is to be divided in our thinking to hesitate to draw back James 1: 16-7 says but let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord another roadblock that's very obvious is selfishness and pride we must pray according to the will of God 1 John 514 and 15 this is the confidence that we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears Us in whatever we ask we know that we have the requests that we have asked of

Him with the consistency of Scripture this verse has often been misused and taken out of context John is not saying that this is a blank check for whatever we want John 14:14 says if you ask me anything in my name I will do it when we are praying we must remember that we are petitioning God on the basis of his of Christ's righteousness not our own it's about his purposes not ours when we pray selfishly God's word says in James 4:3 you ask you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions the next roadblock that we must be aware of and ask the Lord to eradicate out of our life is unforgiveness like I said got very personal very quick God's forgiveness is not based on our works forgiveness for our sins our Salvation is found only in the work of Christ his blood that's been applied to our sin debt once and for all however our actions as Believers in the body of Christ don't always demonstrate an accurate understanding of God's grace and when I say that I say that very reverently as if there was a mirror right here James 2:14 26 what God what good is it my brothers if someone says he has Faith but does not have Works can that Faith save him if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in Daily food and one of you says to them go in peace be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body what good is that so also Faith by itself if it does not have works it is dead someone will say you have faith and I have Works show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works you believe that God is one you do well even the demons believe that

And they shudder do you want to be shown you foolish person that Faith apart from works is useless I'll just stop there there's there's a few more verses I would invite you to check that out on your own this afternoon unforgiveness is a thief that robs us of the Abundant Life that God intends for us I want to read that again unforgiveness is a thief that robs us of the Abundant Life that God so desperately wants for us to have Hebrews 12:14 to 15 says strive for peace with everyone and for the Holiness without which no one will see the Lord see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God that no root of bitterness Springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled unforgiveness can lead to bitterness and it can open us up so quickly to Satan and it can derail us so rapidly from our walk from a faithful walk with the Lord I'm not going to take the time to read all of this section but another passage is 2 Corinthians 2 5-1 I'll just pick up in verse eight I so I beg you to reaffirm your love for him for this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything anyone whom you forgive I also for forgive indeed what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything has been for your sake in the presence of Christ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan for we are not ignorant of his designs that's Paul talking to the Corin to the Corinthian Church and he's urging them don't Harbor unforgiveness it's going to ruin your opportunity your ability to be a faithful servant now forgiveness does not mean that we act as if nothing has been wrong or that we were treated

Horribly it simply means that we release that person from indebtedness to us we give up the right to seek revenge I had a friend from childhood who often had this saying he said the only right that we have is the right to hell to suffer in Hell For Eternity that's the only right we have it's only by God's grace that we get to have eternal life through his son in extending forgiveness we may also experience challenging circumstances as a result of the sin broken relationships and I'm telling you that is some stuff that is some hard stuff but we have been given complete forgiveness by God and we are to extend that to our neighbor Ephesians 4:32 says be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you so what all that all that we've looked at in these five verses so what do we what do we do with that I have a question to ask you and that is where are you at on this journey on this Faith Journey where are you at is your faith that faith that Jesus is inviting us to where we're all in it might be that Jesus invites us to a storm that we don't really want to be participating in are we all in is our faith vibrant or are we banking our faith on what's been handed down to us through tradition through checklist Christianity I invite you to consider that question very strongly we talked about a foundation is your faith on solid Biblical footing do you have a relationship with Jesus are you just doing what's bare minimum to get by do you have a relationship is your faith contagious are people around around you asking questions like what is it about you what's different about you

Tell me more I want to know are there roadblocks that need to be sorry got ahead of myself do you have mountains that need to be moved that's hyperbole mountains don't just get up and move but in our life when we think when we apply this to our life water are those mountains God may want you to trust him to see them moved are there roadblocks that need to be removed what could be roadblocks in our walk in our faith in our journey with Christ they could be places where we're unwilling to yield and allow him to take total control back several way back several years ago I was in Papa New Guinea on a short-term missions trip and I was introduced to this hymn and it's written by Oscar C Ellison in 1945 and it's called you got any rivers the first verse goes like this be of good courage God spoke up or spoke unto Joshua when over the river God pointed the way Jordan uncrossable things seemed impossible Waters divide as they March and obey the chorus got any rivers you think are uncrossable got any mountains you can't tunnel through God the one we serve specializes in things thought impossible he can do what no others can do second verse battles to win they would meet their obstacles Jericho's walls too must fall to the ground God never failed he stood back of his promises walls had the crumble as they marched around got any rivers that you think are uncrossable got any mountains you can't tunnel through God Specializes in things thought impossible he can do what no one else can do finally the third verse says God is the same and his word is dependable he'll make a way through the waters for you life's situations by him are

Amendable mountains and Hills he will part for you too got any rivers you think are uncrossable got any p mountains you can't tunnel through God Specializes in things thought impossible he can do what no others can do let's pray father thank you thank you for your word thank you that we get to walk this Faith journey together with you with your Holy Spirit and with our brothers sisters I pray that Lord you would take this word that you have delivered and that you would allow it to penetrate our hearts I pray that Lord we would enter 2025 resilient and so eager to see and to experience a deeper walk with you no matter what circumstances you choose to use in our life or to walk beside us with and through Lord we trust you we love you and we look forward to what you are going to accomplish For Your Glory we ask this in your name amen please stand as we sing our [Music] invitation sweet to trust in Jesus just to take him at his word just to rest upon his prise just to know the S the Lord Jesus Jesus how I trust him how I him more and [Music] Jesus preious Jesus for Grace to trust him before I close in prayer I want to hit one more Point real hard and that is this journey of faith that we are called to we're not meant to do it alone and our church our deacons elders we are here to help you there's resources there available but man if you're if you're experiencing things if

You got questions please don't be afraid to ask seek help you're meant to enjoy this journey and I hope that you will take advantage of that let me pray father we thank you for the worship that we got to do today together thank you for each one here and I pray that Lord as we disperse now that Lord we would go rejoicing in the hope that we have in Christ I ask this