 Okay. Okay. So we have just started the recording of our second hour. Are there any questions from the first hour discussion and interaction? I know it's a difficult topic as we address which we have addressed in the earlier lecture on failures that we face or challenges we face there, exercising faith in God. Any follow-up questions? All right. So let's move forward now to our next chapter 18. I think it is on talking about collective faith, the power of collective faith. So till now in this course we have been focusing on individual faith. That means you having faith in God personally for various things. But now we want to spend a little time talking on collective faith and we find this in many places in scripture where two or more of us can agree together. And the most well-known verses of scripture of course are Matthew chapter 18 verses 18 and 19. Could somebody read that out for us please? Matthew 18 18 to 19. Matthew 18 18 to 19 verse 18. I'm sure when I say to you whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you lose on earth will be loose in heaven. Number 19. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask it will be done for them by my father in heaven. Amen. Thank you. So these these two verses are very very well known where Jesus says if two of you agree on earth, two of you agree on earth and then you ask for something it'll be done for my father by my father who is in heaven right. So this is where we're talking about collective faith. Two or more of us coming into agreement. Now that word agree there just to just as an interesting fact is it's the word that means harmonious or to be in a chord or symphonize something like a symphony or a harmony right. So that means we are together yeah we are in harmony or in symphony just together agreeing on earth on on a certain matter right concerning anything that that we are praying about asking about right. So there is this place of agreement in prayer agreement in faith that we as believers can come into whether it's just two people or whether it's a you know a prayer group or whether it's a local church of several you know maybe tens of people hundreds of people all coming into agreement. Jesus taught us that it's a place of power it's a place where we could see things happen and God will respond to that collective faith of those people who are in agreement and asking about something. Now we know that there is power when we are together the Old Testament Ecclesiastes tells us you're two are better than one they have a good reward for the labor that means they can achieve things together and they can make things happen. There's this tremendous reward when they are working together in agreement. So we know that and this is also true spiritually. So in the Bible we see several examples of collective faith in action that means you know we can see examples where two or more people came together they prayed together they believed God together and then they saw the result and I've just put down a few from the New Testament you see this in both Old and New Testaments. So there is the time when the Apostles this is an Acts chapter 4 they were you know facing difficulty they were being persecuted in Acts chapter 4 and they were being told not to preach they were being threatened they would be told not to preach in the name of Jesus so they were being threatened for that and so after they were you know they received all the threats from people they went back to their companions that means to their own group of people and they shared with them look this is what the chief priests and elders have said you know they have threatened us they have told us not to preach in the name of Jesus and all of that. So what did they do when they heard this they raised their voice to God with one accord so that means they were in agreement and so you know we don't know how many of them were there they're probably could be maybe whether this companions are referring to just the 12 apostles or whether it's referring to 100 or 200 300 people but it seems like there was this big group of people who lifted up their voice to God with one accord that means they joined the hearts in faith and they said God you know they acknowledge the greatness of God and they said Lord you know look at their threats but they prayed together that they with all boldness they will speak the word and that God would heal and do signs and wonders in the name of Jesus so they prayed together like this they have an agreement that regardless of the threats of the people they were going to go ahead and preach the word and they were going to believe God for miracles and it says when they when they had prayed there was a place was shaken so there was like God giving them assurance yeah I've heard your prayer and they spoke the word of God boldness and eventually you know you in chapter 4 and chapter 5 we see mighty things happening in response to the prayer they prayed you know there was great power with which the apostles gave witness there was a couple and an eyes and so far their sin was exposed and many signs and wonders were done and the sick were healed by Peter's shadow great numbers of people came from other cities bringing sick people and an angel of the Lord also brought Peter out of prison many many things happened when they prayed and said Lord we want to see signs and wonders in the name of your son Jesus so we see an example collective faith another interesting example is when Peter was in prison this was Herod he you know this was another time and King Herod put Peter into prison but it says here constant prayer was offered by God for him offered to God for him by the church that means there were these the group of believers got together they prayed together for Peter's release and supernaturally an angel goes in and brings Peter out of prison and Peter shows up out of the house at the house of Mary with the mother of John Mark and you know that's that was where these people were gathered together pray and many of them so we don't know how many but there was must have been a good group of people praying for Peter and you see the result you know how God intervened as they collectively believed God for Peter's deliverance and protection so this again and another example of collective faith collective prayer people agreeing together another example we see is that of Paul how he was supernaturally healed this is very interesting I mean when Paul had come to Lister so this was on his first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas they were traveling through which today would be modern day Turkey they went through Antioch and Iconium and they came to Derby and sorry they came to Iconium and there from my career they came to Lister actually this happened at Lister and but there were people from Antioch and Iconium Jews who came over to Lister and they stoned Paul they stoned him they dragged him out of the city leaving him for dead you know so you can imagine how that must be meaning they stoned him dragged him out of the city leaving him outside the city as supposing him to be dead but see what happens the disciples gathered around him so it means this group of disciples we don't know how many but just imagine maybe 15 people gathering around Paul's body that had been stoned and left for dead the disciples gathered around him what happened says he rose up and went into the city and that's a miracle a man who had been stoned his body must have been terribly bleeding wounded it's left for dead but something powerful happened then the disciples gathered around him they must have obviously prayed asked God to heal when you see the result he rose up went into the city and the next day he went on his journey now that's impossible for a man who's been stoned right if a man had been stoned he probably spent the next six months maybe even eight months in the hospital bed recovering but here Paul gets up he walks into the city and the next day he continues on his journey to preach the gospel you know so this was a miracle but what do we see it says the disciples gathered so that means these people must have collectively joined together and prayed and God did some a powerful miracle that a man who was stoned and left for dead got up and walked to the city and the next day he goes on his journey to go preach and that's amazing but that shows us the power of collective faith when people join together and pray so like this we see many examples and we've only shared three examples from scripture we see many examples both in the old and new testament of believers collectively having faith and then seeing God do some amazing things another interesting thing is this that our collective faith presents a solid front it's like a wall of defense could somebody read collusion chapter two was four and five for us please collusion chapter two was four and five now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words for though I am absent in the flesh yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ thank you so I just want to highlight something here Paul is writing to the Colossians the believers at Colosse and you know they are faced with a lot of attacks or intrusions from people who are trying to deceive them and say all the wrong things you know and so there's this there's a lot of things try to come in to this group of this church this church of belief family group of believers but then he says I'm seeing something I'm seeing your good order and steadfastness of your faith your faith in Christ now it's very interesting when you look at the Greek that word good order and steadfastness the word order good order really is a picture of um the military both are military words it's a picture of people who are in line they are in unbroken line good order so you can imagine a line of soldiers everybody in place in position unbroken line and then the word steadfastness is talking about firmness it's like a an impregnable wall of defense that's being put up by this unbroken line of soldiers so what he's telling us is that your faith is like this impregnable wall of defense a solid front this unbroken line of defense that is protecting the community it's a beautiful picture actually when you when you when you think of it so here's a group of believers and there are a lot of you know things that are trying to improve deceive deception and people that are do these different things but these believers in their faith they have put up an impregnable solid wall and line of defense and nobody can penetrate that community because of their collective faith so this is not one person's faith this is all of them together their collective faith is a wall of defense and it's uh it's wonderful to you know to just kind of read this on the amplified he says though i'm away from you and body you're with you in spirit delighted at the sight of your standing shoulder to shoulder in such an orderly array so it's like this military they're all in order and the firmness of the solid front instead fastness of your faith in christ so he says you know you're standing shoulder to shoulder and it's he's describing that their faith their collective faith in christ is like that it's that solid front defense so here's another thing we see that when we have collective faith we can actually together protect the church community or the community of believers against demonic intrusion against intrusion from deception wrong things evil things you know that through collective faith we protect the community of believers from such things so that's another way we can exercise collective faith so we see collective faith being exercised for miracles we see collective faith being exercised for deliverance we see collective faith being exercised for resurrection healing and resurrection that was of paul being raised from the dead now we are seeing collective faith being used for divine protection for the community protecting the whole community and this collective faith and the the faith of the community can keep growing right so we have referenced this worse before where paul says you know he's writing to the believers and he says your faith grows exceedingly and your love for each other increases so through that group of believers he's saying look your faith is growing your faith is growing so of course that implies that every individual is growing in faith but that results in the collective faith of people as a community they are growing and they are walking in love towards each other so we need to encourage that in our communities in our churches that as a community as a group of people we will grow in faith whether it's a small prayer group or whether it's a church community this can happen people can grow in faith but at the same time we got to be careful about things that destroy collective faith you know because many times while we know that collective faith can produce wonderful results wonderful results sadly when people come together there are problems that happen and then that actually destroys or ruins and the collective faith that we could have and do wonderful things and so we need to guard against those things some of the things that we can think about you know are murmuring and complaining when we start murmuring and talking about each other and complaining about each other then we're actually weakening ourselves we're actually destroying collective faith when we get into competition and strife with each other you know we're trying to outdo each other we're trying to you know be better than each other then we're actually giving room for the enemy to come and do evil work and then it will just dissipate any effort or collective faith you know and what's interesting is even among the 12 disciples of Jesus there was a point when there was competition you know and you saw if you may remember this in Matthew 20 where the mother of James and John she came to Jesus and said I have a request can you make sure that when you become king my two sons James and John will sit one on either side now she's immediately trying to book the spot and for her sons and of course that caused a lot of problems there among the rest of the disciples and Jesus had to teach them about being servants and just serving people without desiring a place of recognition and honor so the strife competition can destroy collective faith and like that you know there are other things we need to be careful of self pride jealousy at least things disturb the dynamic within the community within the group of believers with its murmuring complaining competitions drive jealousy pride self selfish interests I mean it disturbs the dynamic then it's difficult to get them to agree together and have collective faith and we lose out on the power of collective faith so we need to guard the group and guard the people on that now of course when we as a group or as a community as a team we have collective faith you know we can go out and minister as a team and that's exactly what Jesus did when he sent his 12 disciples out he sent them out two by two in teams of two and so they as the minister in teams of two they saw the mighty works of God and we see this in Mark chapter six uh verse seven twelve and thirteen he got the 12 disciples and he sent them out two by two so there was there were teams of two and they went out and they preached and they saw mighty things these demons were cast out people the sick were healed as they went out two by two and again looked and the energy is called another 70 people he did the same thing with them he sent them out two by two and they returned and said even the demons are subject to us in your name so you can imagine these were two people at a time and remember what the verse we began with in Matthew 18 Jesus said if two of you shall agree if two of you shall agree so here you can see Jesus intensely sending them two by two both of you go but then each group of two or each team of two the people had to be in agreement they had to float together they had to be in symphony they had to be together as they ministered and then they would see all these wonderful results people were healed demons were cast out and wonderful things took place and so it's a good thing to practice this you know that you could have people who will float together and minister together whether in groups of two or or more right so i just want to all kind of speed up that okay all right okay so let me just go back here so in where we are in our you know where we are in our church in our prayer groups in our communities it's it's good for us to try and practice this where you know we could minister as teams whether it's teams or two or more you know you could have three people four people it doesn't matter but two or more people are like how Jesus sent his disciples out and you could you know you could try to develop that team ministry that whole concept of team ministry because you and we understand the power of collective faith two or more so it doesn't have to be a huge group two or more if you have collective faith you can see things right but then to we need to nurture this whole sense of team ministry people are very comfortable ministering individually but how about ministering as a team two or more right and when even as a team we must learn to be in agreement perfect agreement and harmony that's important avoid any kind of competition strife or pride which we had mentioned earlier and when one person is ministering the other person must back up back up the one who is ministering so hundred percent support them spiritually like yeah yeah be in agreement so even if one person is doing the ministry doing the praying you know whatever they're in as the administering the other person stands you know in agreement with them so that you know we can have faith and have a collective faith right now sometimes sometimes you know I just I'm just making this comment because I've observed some of this and that's why I'm I'm intentionally making this comment where what I've seen is sometimes there is you know some people feel superior to the others when it comes to doing ministry and they leave other believers out saying oh oh their unbelief is going to affect our faith and so I just wanted to address that you know will be an unbelief of so let's say you have a group of eight people or ten people let's say two are very strong believers and you've got six of them who are maybe not very strong the question I want to address is will the lesser faith of six people hinder the strong faith of two people because you know what sometimes we see happen is these two people will just go off so okay let's leave the six out but they don't have that great faith we will go administer otherwise their unbelief will hinder our faith but you know that is not true no that's not true yeah look at some biblical examples examples in the New Testament you know think about Jesus in the and his 12 disciples in the boat so you had 12 people who didn't believe 12 people were so fearful and there was one person in faith what happened well the boat didn't sink the one person who was in faith Jesus calm the storm the unbelief of the 12 the fear and unbelief of the 12 didn't hinder the faith of one think about when there was this this this boy who was lunatic brought to Jesus disciples the and you know so you can imagine there are nine disciples who have just failed they couldn't help the boy then and Jesus pointed out was because of their unbelief here comes Jesus with the other three so even if he said nine were an unbelief nine were an unbelief could not hinder the faith of Jesus in delivering the boy right so this theory or this idea that oh the unbelief of others will hinder my faith doesn't seem to hold when you look at these examples um there are many other times you find Jesus uh moving out in faith when he's right somebody okay all right um okay there were times when when Jesus and uh his disciples uh were ministering uh uh yeah so uh yeah I see Elisha's comment where he talks about Josh when Caleb you know they went forward even though others uh were in unbelief uh now in that case God had to leave the people and believe out and let the people had faith enter in you know so uh so I what I just want to say is yeah we see other examples where where uh Jesus moved in faith and uh you know there were the unbelief of his disciples didn't hold him back case of Peter Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus and uh you know the rest of the disciples were in the boat they were fearful but Peter still walked on the water the final example that many or the example that many people quote is when Jesus went into the house of Jairus he only took in three Peter James and John he told all the others to stay out now you know stay away and so people said look Jesus only took Peter James and John with him into the house he didn't take the others uh that's a example where you know you don't want the faith the unbelief of others to enter your faith but that's not stated in scripture that's an assumption that's made but then you can also look at the whole picture you know there was a big crowd of people or following Jesus and if Jesus told nine people to stay out it's possible that he told them to stay and minister to the crowd while he went and attended to the request from Jairus so uh just as people can assume try and assume that he told disciples stay out to because of the he didn't want their unbelief that's not stated but what is more likely is he probably told them to stay and minister to the crowd which they always did well he went out to uh went to meet Jairus and go into south so he just took three of them three closest disciples Peter James and John and he went in and then of course maybe there wasn't enough room in the house so he got rid of all the others and he went in with Peter James and John to minister right and uh we don't see that Jesus was afraid of uh that uh you know his team members would uh weaken his faith right so I'm just putting that out there just to look at it from a different perspective let's not operate from an air of superiority or I've got greater faith than you so you don't come close to me because your unbelief might hinder my faith I think that's just a wrong notion you have faith in God and you lift others up rather than putting them down right um now another thing I've faced as a leader is that there are times when we exercise collective faith but then you know we don't see it happen and then people are looking at you as a leader saying hey what do you have to say and this has happened at times you know when we've had faith I've led groups of people here when we had to pray for resurrection and believe you know God to raise someone from the dead and uh so you know we've been in faith we've been praying together collectively for for that and uh it didn't happen and so obviously people are going to ask you you're the leader hey what happened why didn't our collective faith produce a result and uh here's you know so I've been through that and this is how I've tried to handle that situation those situations when there's a failure in collective faith now it is a lot of pressure you know because you're the leader you're the one who led the group into trying to extend collective faith in God uh for a particular situation it didn't happen so everybody's looking to you for an answer and it's not a nice not a nice place to be what do you do well here's what I've tried to do one is I've tried to be dead to self-reputation that is look it's not about my reputation as a pastor or as a spiritual leader you know we are dead to it we are beyond that we're not here to protect our name or our reputation or our faith none of that secondly we're not here to defend God God doesn't need any defense in fact God is our defender we are not his defenders so we just say God I know you are God and you don't need any man to defend you so I'm not going to try and defend God and try to give an explanation for God or you know why this didn't happen no God doesn't need a defense thirdly what I've tried to do is never fault others you know never do that and don't try to give an explanation saying oh you know in our group there were three people who didn't have faith or four people who were living in sin or that's why it didn't happen don't never do that never fault others you know because we don't know who are we to you know point fingers at others yeah so never do that instead you know what we do is encourage say hey it's going back to what we said earlier in the previous lecture encourage people to keep their eyes on God and his word say look I know what we prayed didn't happen but God hasn't changed his word hasn't changed and we know any failure would be on our side not not on God's side but we are not here to fault any person or anything we are going to continue to encourage ourselves in God and we're going to continue to press on we're going to continue to believe God and should another occasion arise like this of course we're going to step in faith and walk believe God for it we're not going to you know we're not going to quit so this is kind of what I've tried to do you know when when we've faced failure collectively which we have on more than one occasion and you know just okay look this is not about me and this about the kingdom of God and we are learning how collectively to exercise faith to see miracles or to see something happen I don't know how to defend God God is big enough to take care of himself I don't I'm not going to fault any person that's just plain wrong to do and going to encourage people and we are going to continue press on to believe God for what's in his word right so this lesson is simply a lesson on collective faith to to let us know that you know there is there is power in collective faith which we must tap into we must learn to engage in us and try to journey into it and and I'm saying that you know we can learn to minister in collective faith okay let's take some questions on this um so now Elisha mentions numbers 13 Joshua and Caleb Elisha you want to say something on that yes that's that um what you are serving on the collective faith and how um sometimes we we seem to think that the majority's unbelief is likely to affect our the minority's faith and that will cause God not to work miracles among us I want to share a practical experience in a prayer meeting in my local church sometime ago the prayer leader had a had a call to suck some people from the prayer meeting because in his assumption he thought they didn't have faith and one of those that he sat and had fallen into sin and he said that he was not he was not a good member to be in the team at that moment so he sat the person and this one brings to my what we just said about the collective faith house sometimes we wrongly assume that when there's a majority of the people not in agreement with us God cannot work anything among his children I think we should learn that the minority's faith the minority plus God the minority's faith is always dominant and that is uh rarely what played out in the case of Joshua and Caleb two against the the others and the others successfully had even all the Israelites behind them so it was God Joshua and Caleb and few others against the the the many people that went to spy with the Israelites who have come to join them but God was able to do what he had promised to do for the people of Israel so I want to thank you for sharing this with us God bless you very much thank you thank you for sharing nice thank you um I see another comment there from Divya but why then did he not perform many miracles in this hometown yeah Matthew 13 58 that's true so in in the case here in his own hometown it was the unbelief of the people who were being ministered to right so that means they were reluctant even to receive from him so their unbelief kept them from even coming to receive so that's a different scenario from what what we are talking about we're talking about our team right so let's say like you said suppose we have a team of 10 believers uh who are praying now maybe you know three or four are pretty strong in faith uh the remaining six or seven may not be a strong in faith maybe they are young etc so amongst us we shouldn't feel that just because we've got you know just because there are three or four who are strong they should go out separately and minister now we can minister together so that's the scenario we're addressing but uh Matthew 13 is a different scenario where it's the crowd who are unwilling to come and receive from Jesus because uh you know they they're looking at Jesus saying hey he he grew up here this is our hometown he was a carpenter's boy and how can he be the Messiah how can he be the anointed one we're not going to go listen to him and receive from him and so Jesus didn't do many miracles there because of their unbelief their unbelief kept them from coming to receive Christ the scenario is uh uh a little different okay thank you thank you minister i have one more question can i ask yeah go ahead go ahead yeah this is uh a little different uh like suppose we are in a group where you know uh like our faith is being challenged even within the group or is it it is um threat to our own faith uh in such cases uh you know what is the right course of action thank you okay so here okay so if that means these people are not in agreement right so so from what you've said let's say there's a group of 10 people three people want to believe God and believe his word and his miracles and and then there are seven who say no no no we don't want to we don't want to believe God that's not the way to you know so that means there is no agreement then what but you know then you have to make a choice where the three who are in agreement go and believe God and make their journey with God you know and the seven may not come along on that spiritual journey but the three will have to move forward in faith okay okay thank you thank you buster yeah okay uh let's take the last two questions here there's one from elijah uh what is the effect of reason in common sense on faith that's a good question and i think uh one of our last chapters deals with this faith and reason so this is also an area where many feel or find it very difficult so let me just give you a gist right now and we will then have go into the chapter there is faith there is reason and then there is presumption and we need to understand the difference reason is see God created our mind so God gave us the ability to reason our mind is not evil by itself our mind was designed by God and we need our mind to engage with the natural world and most of the time we are using our mind our common sense you know when you this when we go about our everyday life we're using our mind and we have to because we're living in a natural world so we must use our mind and let me put it like this don't use your faith to do the things you have to do as a natural person that means oh let me put it like this everything we do we do by faith in God but what you have to do in the natural you have to do in the natural so example if you're crossing the street it is my responsibility to look left and right make sure there's no child car vehicles going and cross the road now i have faith that i am divinely protected by God he has given his angels charge over me to keep me in all my ways so that's my faith all the time every time but when i'm crossing the road i have to look left and right and then cross the street but it's safe i can't close my eyes and say i walk by faith and not by sight and God will give his angels charge over me i don't care if any car comes or any vehicle comes they will stop angels are there they can't get past the angel and i can't close my eyes and go no that that's that is presumption or literally that's foolishness that's not even common sense it's presumption foolishness so i have faith that God protects me all the time but in what i have to do naturally i have to use my reason meaning what God has given me right i can't put faith here and say i will walk by faith and all the cars will stop i can't do that and that's wrong and God is not obligated to fulfill his word in that kind of a situation but i am not walking according to like common sense or reason that God has given right so we have to balance we have to understand there is faith but God has given me a response but he's given me a mind to use to take care of this day to day things of life right so faith does not do away with playing common sense or good reason and we have to be careful of presumption or foolishness which we will talk about okay we'll get into details on that a little later last one maybe the people but to come with Jesus and missed on many works of God yeah Ruslan yeah so these people they looked at Jesus as like yeah we know him you know he grew up here how can he be anointed by God and so they missed out on what God wanted to do okay it's time for us to wrap up today so we covered two chapters one is failure how we handle it because we all would have faced it and we must learn how to handle it correctly we talked about collective faith and we also talked about some of the wrong ideas people have you know how to handle that and how to handle even if we face failures collectively you know the point is we must keep going forward God is good God is for us we are the ones who are learning right we are the ones who are learning to grow our faith it's going to take time it's not a thing that we all grow into overnight and so we need to make the journey we need to get up that's the dirt of our knees and keep going and zen in with God and at the same time I just want to leave with us leave us with this thought that in this course we're dealing with faith but there are many other ways that God works the supernatural which we are going to learn in another course there is the aspect of the anointing there's the aspect of the presence of God the glory of God the gifts of the spirit all of those things so a miracle can come into our lives through more than one way and what we are learning now is faith in God something that we can have all of us can have in our journey at the same time we must be open to God working through other ways causing his supernatural things to take place okay so let's pause here I'd like somebody to pray with us as a class and dismiss us we'll continue this next week can somebody just pray and dismiss us please we are praying please go ahead we come before you and we thank you for this morning and the lessons that we have shared on faith we thank you for the beautiful inspiration is that you are going to our heart stone pastaches father we pray in the name of Jesus if you know enough if you know enough of us is having issues with this faith father we pray and we come before your we come before you that Lord help our unbelief in the name of Jesus father we pray Lord God that you will cause us at any time that we need to exercise faith in you father of course i have to exercise faith in you in the name so at any time we continue to be with us and guide our steps be the light on our path and shine on our way in Jesus mighty name we pray amen amen thank you everyone uh and so the rest of the day have a nice weekend enjoy your time of worship God bless you see you on again