 Okay, recording is on. Welcome back everyone. I'm going to go ahead and share the lecture notes. Okay, so what we were doing was looking at the ministry of Jesus and just learning from his ministry as he worked with people how, what he taught about faith and what we can take away from that. So here are a few more thoughts. Number nine, people came in faith on behalf of others and received for them. So that means you and I can go in faith on behalf of other people and pray for them. We can intercede for them. Now remember during COVID times, during the COVID time, this was, I think, not the 2020, not the first day, but the second time there was 2021. Of course, there were so many people who were falling ill and so on and so forth. But in one particular case, there was one person in our church who was in a very, very serious condition, very bad. And he was, I would say, like he's a close friend, meaning we were doing things together. So we had a small team of people who were working on a particular project and so we were all working together. So we got really close because for several years we've been working on that project. And so when he felt sick, I remember that two, I think it was two or three week period, maybe two weeks when he was, when he was a bit in the hospital, all of that. I took that, I took it up very personally because he was a close friend. And every day in the afternoon, I would do a Zoom call with his wife and children just to encourage them in their faith. Because now he was in the hospital, they couldn't go and see him for many days, you know, like they're not allowed to go there. And so on one side just to keep them all encouraged in the faith. And then the same time, every day, you know, I would spend time just praying and interceding for him. Some days it may be an hour, some days two hours, some days three hours. To just say, God, I will not let this person die because he was so close to death, you know, at that point. Some days the news from the doctors would be not very encouraging. And doctors to oxygen levels are down, lungs are affected is that so many other things. But that was one example. I mean, it's just sharing it somewhere. I just stood before God and I said, God, I will not let this person die. I'm not going to let. So just some days it was like hour, two hours, three hours just, you know, speaking God's word over him. Of course, he was in the hospital. I was here. But just speaking God's word. And I'm sure a lot of people are praying. I'm not saying I'm the only one praying. Lots of people are praying. But I'm just saying what I did from my side. I'm so many people all over the world. I mean, all of us friends with you for praying. But the point is this, that because we see in the Bible where people came on behalf of others in faith and they received for them, like the Roman sanctuary came on behalf of the servant. We don't know if the servant had faith or not. We don't know. The candidate woman came on behalf of her daughter. We don't know if that daughter believed or not. But we know the woman believed. The Roman sanctuary believed or the noble man believed with the father came on behalf of the son with noble man. So based on those examples, we know that we can go before God in faith on behalf of somebody else. And our faith can cause the work of God to come into their lives. So we can do that. So we learned that from the ministry of Jesus. Number 10. Okay, so Charisma referred to this. Jesus rebuked his disciples for being of little faith. He did rebuk his disciples for being of little faith. He rebuked all his disciples in Matthew 8. He said, oh, you of little faith. He rebuked Peter. Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? There was another time after Jesus had multiplied the loaves and fish to feed 5,000. There was another time when the disciples were wondering, oh, we have so many people. Better we're going to give them bread. And this was the second time. So Jesus again rebuked them. Matthew 16. Oh, you of little faith. Okay, they already saw one miracle. Second time they doubted it. They rebuked them. Oh, you of little faith, faith. Another situation and they couldn't cast the demon out. The problem he pointed was because of your unbelief, right? Because of your unbelief. And he rebuked them. Oh, faithless and perverse generation. He rebuked his own disciples concerning that. So the point that I want to take away, I want us to take away is this, that we need to continue to grow in faith. And we will see in the next chapter that there is no faith. There's little faith and there's great faith. So maybe, you know, we all start up with no faith. We may come in the place of little faith, but we need to move into and be in a place of great faith in God. Okay, so if we are of little faith, then we can expect the Lord to rebuk us. Hey, come on. Why you of little faith? I just come on, believe, believe. So we need to encourage ourselves, get out of that place of little faith, get into that place of full faith or great faith in God. Two more things here in this chapter. We see the ministry of Jesus that unbelief limited Jesus from doing mighty works. And this is quite, you know, in one way shocking, but it shows us that when people choose not to believe, they question. And this is what happened in Jesus' own hometown of Nazareth. Both Matthew and Mark record the same situation. But it's not that they had little faith, they chose not to have faith. And that's a different thing. See, if I'm trying to have faith, that's one thing. But I'm choosing not to have faith, that's unbelief. So in Jesus' own hometown, these people chose not to believe. Why? Hey, we know who this is. We saw him playing marbles. We saw him running around like a little boy. We know he's Joseph's son. Happen to son. What can he teach us about God? What can he teach us about the Kingdom of God? You know, so they chose not to believe. And that's different from when somebody is trying to believe and has doubts. So in that case, for example, the man who brought his son was demon possessed. He said, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. So that is different from these people in the hometown of Jesus. They chose not to believe. Why should we believe? He's a carpenter's son. Why should they chose not? So that's different. And in that condition, and people choose not to believe, it says he could not do many mighty works. Okay, so unbelief, this kind of unbelief prevents God from working. In the environment, when people chose not to believe, we don't believe Jesus can do miracles. We don't believe in the path of Holy Spirit. We don't believe in all these things. In that kind of environment, they're not going to see the power of God. So we must guard against this kind of unbelief. Sorry, this is the last point. Okay, any questions here on these 11 points? This summary summarized here. So if we just review these 11 points here from the ministry of Jesus concerning faith. Number one, Jesus recognized and responded to faith in those who came to him. And he does the same thing today. He recognizes faith. He'll respond to the faith in our hearts. Number two, these are people if they had faith in order to receive. So he wants to see us having faith in order to receive. Number three, he encouraged faith in hopeless situations. So even if we find ourselves in hopeless situations, we still have faith, believe God. Number four, he encouraged people to act their faith. So we must also act our faith in line with the Word of God. Number five, our faith can affect nature. So we can have faith in God over natural situations, circumstances and nature. Number six, he accommodated people outside of God's agenda in response to faith. Number seven, Jesus helped people when they struggled in faith. Number eight, there were times when Jesus healed and worked miracles independent of the individual's faith. Number nine, people came in faith on behalf of others and received for them. Number 10, Jesus rebuked his disciples for being of little faith. And number 11, unbelief limited Jesus from doing mighty works. Okay, so these are things we can summarize from the ministry of Jesus concerning faith. In chapter four, it's very similar to what we did in chapter three, but now we're going to go specifically and look at what he taught concerning faith, his teaching. What did he teach us concerning faith? The previous chapter was what he did, how he worked with people in relation to faith. In this chapter, we're going to talk specifically on what he taught concerning faith. Before I go forward, let me just pause a moment to see if there are any questions in the live chat. Okay, Sauray P. Kamara. Okay, Sauray has a question. I hope I pronounced your name right. If I didn't, please forgive me. Can unbelief stop God from doing what he wants to do? So to answer your questions, Sauray, we need to look at two aspects. One is the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign. So there will be times when he works independent of faith or unbelief. It doesn't matter. He's just going to do it because he's a sovereign God. Like we saw from Matthew 13 and Mark 6, as far as about God working in our lives personally, unbelief can stop God from working in our lives. So God is sovereign. He will still do what he wants, especially concerning his plans, his purposes. He will still fulfill it. But unbelief becomes a roadblock. It becomes a barrier. It becomes an hindrance to God's work in our lives or through our lives at a personal level, like we saw from Matthew 13 and Mark 6. Okay, and then the other scriptures as well on that. Okay. Any other questions from those of you online? Oh, I pronounced your name correctly. Okay. Thank you, Sauray. Good. We're going to go forward. I'm going to go ahead and share this notes. We'll go forward. All right. Chapter 4, Jesus' teaching on faith. Everyone's with me so far? Okay. So now I want to just make a statement here on truth versus fact. So God's word is truth. God's word is what we are facing in our life situation is fact. Facts can change, but truth cannot change. Truth is eternal. Facts can be changed. So for example, if a person is sick in their body, for example, that's a fact. They are sick. They go to a doctor. The doctor does all the checks. Oh yeah, you got this. This is sickness. This problem. Okay. It's a fact. The truth says, by his stripes, we were healed. That truth will not change. It will always remain the same. By his stripes, we were healed. The fact about my body contains. Okay. The doctor says today I'm sick or this problem is there. But through faith in the words, my body contains. The fact can change to align itself to the truth. The truth is by whose stripes I have been healed. So there is truth and there is fact. The fact can be changed to come aligned to the truth. We are not denying the fact. But by faith, we can change the facts. We can modify the fact. We can alter. We can change it. And we can cause the fact of what we're going through in our situations to come aligned to the truth of the word of God. Are you all with me? Again, on the other hand, the flip side is we shouldn't modify the truth to accommodate the fact. Right. The truth cannot be changed. I shouldn't change the truth to try to accommodate the fact. But work on the fact to get it in line with the truth. Okay. Francis, are you with me? All of you with me? Okay. Good. Okay. Number one. Don't worry about Sunday, May 22. That's from sermon notes. All right. I don't know how that made it through. Okay. Number one, what can we learn from the teachings of Jesus? Jesus taught us, number one, that all things are possible through faith. He taught all things are. Right. Example, Matthew 1720. He said, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. So how must you and I think? You and I must think in line with Jesus teaching. Jesus taught, nothing will be impossible for you. So I must think like that. I must think that nothing will be impossible for me. I must think in those lines. I must think a line to the teachings of Jesus. Or in Mark 923, you put it like this, all things are possible to him who believes. All things are possible to him who believes. So when people come, when you're praying for people, when you're ministering to people, people will come and sometimes the problems they share, the situations they share, it's like, oh God, this is too much. It's like you feel what can be done. It seems overwhelming and it seems overwhelming. But at that time, you must always remind yourself of what Jesus taught. Jesus said, all things are possible to him who believes. Jesus said, nothing will be impossible. If you have faith, nothing will be impossible. So when people come, of course they're going to tell you their problems. They're going to tell you, look, this is happening, this is going on. This is a challenge. But you must always pray from a place of faith. And when you pray from faith, from a place of faith, it is, if you have faith, nothing will be impossible to you. That's how you pray for the impossible to happen. You pray for mountains to be moved. You pray for the impossible. So that's the first thing. Next, I don't know why I put that Monday. Oh, I understand why. So sorry about that. I should have deleted it from the notes. I put it there for... So this Monday, May 20th, is all recording for TV. So that's why it's there. I should have taken it off. Anyway, number two, we will receive according to our faith. What did Jesus teach us? He said, if you have faith, you will receive according to your faith. Notice what he said in Matthew 8.13. He told the Sancturian, as you have believed, so let it be done for you. As you have believed, let it be done. Or to the two blind men, he said, according to your faith, let it be to you. According to your faith, let it be to you. So that's the second thing you must be convinced about when it comes to faith. That you will receive according to your faith. Nothing can stop you from receiving by faith. No man, no devil can stop you from receiving from God through faith. You must be convinced about it. No man, no devil can stop you from receiving from God through faith. Because Jesus said, according to your faith, it will be done. As you have believed, so let it be done. So you've got to be sure in your heart, no man, no devil is going to stop me from receiving from God by faith. That's the law of faith. The law of faith is according to your faith, let it be done for you. So first, there's nothing impossible. Second, you will receive according to your faith. Nobody can stop it. That's the law of faith. So we need to be convinced about these things in your heart, because Jesus taught this. If he was here teaching this course on faith, he would tell you the same thing. According to your faith, it will be done for you. Then you'll all say, yes Jesus. He'll tell us the same thing according to your faith. It will be done for you. He'll not tell us anything different today. Next, in the exercise of faith, our will and desire is involved. Our will and our desire is involved in the exercise of faith. You see, faith is not something like you sit down and God will believe through you. No, faith is something you decide to do. You must decide, I am going to receive this from God. You must make up your mind and you must put your desire and your will combined with your faith and say, I desire and I purpose to receive this from God. So our desire and our will is involved when you want to exercise faith. So faith is not something like, oh it'll happen. If it happens to some people think incorrectly, faith is Lord, if it be, I will let it happen. If it doesn't happen, it's okay, I will still come to heaven. Then that's not faith. That is passivity. That means you're not taking responsibility. You're just being casual. But faith says, God, I will not take no for an answer because you have promised it. And that's not being arrogant. That's being completely dependent on the Word of God. God, you said it. It's 100% true. So I believe it. That's it. Nothing else. No discussion on that matter. Because God said, God spoke first. And he invited you and me to believe. So why should there be any more discussion on the matter? Right? So faith operates like that. You can see examples. In Matthew 15, verse 28, here was this Kenanite woman. I'm with us for a few minutes on this. So think about this. She was a Kenanite woman. That means she was not a Jew. She didn't grow up in the synagogue. She was a foreigner now. But she heard about all the miracles Jesus was doing. She must have got all the news. The blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing. All people are being healed. Demons are being cast out. And then she's like, wow, this is amazing. But I am not a Jew. I've never been to a synagogue. But it's okay. Maybe I'll just give it a try. And I guess she wouldn't have said, I'll give it a try. I'll go and get my check. My daughter is being troubled by demons. I want my daughter well. I'll go to Jesus. So she comes to Jesus and then the disciples of Jesus are all around him. Please, he had a long day. Don't disturb him. Whatever. They're trying to, you know, keep her away. Then she says, okay. While they are not watching, she makes her way around. She goes straight to Jesus. Somehow she makes her way to Jesus. She bypasses the disciples. She makes her way to Jesus. And the Bible says she comes and worships him. Jesus said, you know, I can't take the children's bread and give it to the dogs. Now that sounds very harsh in English. But basically what he's saying is I can't take what is meant for the people of Israel. I can't give it to the Gentiles. I can't give it to those who are not Jewish people. But she worships him. Meaning she says, I'm willing to accept you as my Lord. You are my Lord. I worship you. And she says, just give me one crumb. Just one crumb. Lord, the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters table. Let me just give me one crumb. And then Matthew 3.28, Jesus tells this woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire. Now notice these words. As you desire. Do you see? There was faith. There was great faith that was connected to her desire or her desire was coupled with her faith. So to have great faith, you must have strong desire. To have great faith, you must have determined desire. That means I will get this. I'm not settling for anything else. Determine desire. To have great faith, you must have determined it. Like this woman. You know how the disciples try to discourage her? She didn't give up. Even Jesus gave a theological statement. I can't take what is belonging to Israel and give it to the Gentiles. She said theology, no theology. I want one piece of bread. I just want it. She didn't mind that. Jesus said, daughter, you have great faith. Be it as you desire. So see, her desire was there. She desired it. It was not like, if Jesus wants, I'll get it. If he doesn't want, I won't get it. That's not her approach. Her approach was, I'm going to get it. I will get it. Nobody will stop me. So I want to emphasize that as well. For us to have faith in God, our desire and our will is involved. You must have determined desire to go after it. Otherwise, you can't exercise great faith. And I think this is where many believers miss it. They take a back seat and say, okay, if it is God's will, it will happen. If it's not God's will, it will not happen. God is looking at you saying, what is your will? Do you want it or you don't want it? Because great faith must come out of determined desire. God, I must have it. Think about another situation. In Mark 10, it's kind of surprising because in Mark 10, there is a blind man. He's calling out to Jesus. He hears that Jesus is going by. He's shouting. What does he shout? Son of David, have mercy on me. So Jesus is going by. Blind man is crying. Son of David, have mercy on me. People say keep quiet. He shouts louder. Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stops. Jesus asks a very interesting question. What do you want me to do for you? What a question. He's blind. He's blind. And Jesus asking him, you're shouting, making a lot of noise. What do you want me to do for you? Think about that. Sometimes we shout to make a lot of noise. Oh God, help me. Oh God, save me. Oh God, please help me. God is saying, okay, what do you want me to help you for? What do you want me to do for you? What do you want to be specific? Because this blind man could maybe want 10 rupees. Maybe, I don't know, maybe a new king to walk and to show people I'm blind. I don't know. But he's asking, what do you want me to do for you? And he's very specific. Lord, that I may receive my sights. See? So the pointer is Jesus is getting him to express his desire and to be very clear about it. Lord, that I may receive my sights. Lord, I'm not asking for some money. Surely he must have been sitting there begging and other people be giving money. But from Jesus, he's not asking for money. He's saying, I want to receive mine. So very clear. Jesus asking him, you tell me, what do you want me to do for you? I mean, it's very clear. Lord, that I may receive my sights. So Jesus tells him, your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you well. But notice, before Jesus could say, your faith has made you well, he got him to say precisely what he wanted. He had faiths. That's why he was crying out, son of David, have mercy on me. He had faith. But Jesus wanted him to say precisely what he wanted. What do you want? So we all have faith in God, but for faith to operate, for faith to be exercised, our will and our desire, and I must be clear. We must say, this is Lord, this is what I want. This is what I want. And it's not wrong. You know, sometimes they say, Lord, I have so great faith in you. You just give me whatever you want. But he's asking, what do you want? Yes, you have faith. But what do you want? We need to go before God. Say, Lord, this is your word. This is what you've said in your word. And this is what I want to receive based on your words. But you want to receive. So your will, your desire is involved in the exercise of faith. It's got to be precise. Right? We'll talk more about Mark 11 and John 15. But notice when Jesus said about prayer, what things you ask when you pray. You ask. In John 15, he said, you will ask what you desire. We'll talk more about this. Let me talk about how you exercise faith in prayer. Ask what you desire is involved. So remember, we said from Hebrews 11 verse 1, faith is the substance of what? Of things, hope. Who's hoping for you? Faith is the substance of things. You hope for it. You desire for it. So keep this in mind. Our desire is involved when we exercise faith. So let me pause here because the next part is a little, I want to kind of deal with this whole aspect of the will of God. So we'll pick up from here next week. But let's quickly review these three things that we are learning when it comes to exercising faith. Number one, all things are possible. Whenever you face any situation, God, I believe it's possible. All things are possible. That's when you operate like that, you're operating from a place of faith. Secondly, we will receive according to our faith. You must be convinced. Nobody can stop you from receiving. No man, no devil can stop you from receiving by faith in God. And thirdly, your will and desire is involved. So your will, your desire. Of course, it's got to be aligned to the Word of God. But for example, God says, I will bless you in all the work of your hands. Okay, but that's a very generic blessing. I will bless you in all the work of your hand. What work you are doing may be different from what work somebody else is doing and what work somebody else is doing. So you have to believe God based on that scripture that God will bless you in what you are doing with your hands, your work. God, I thank you that what I do was blessed. And so that's very specific and you believe God for that. Your will, your desire is involved in the exercise of faith. Okay, we're going to pause here and we will pick up from this section here because it's a little heavy and I'll just keep it for next week. Any questions on what we've covered these three points? Yes, Ren. Okay, so Ren's question is, if we believe God for big things or when we believe God for big things, why does it take so much time for things to happen? Okay, so we will talk about this time aspect, right? But there is the passage of time, the element of time and seeing the fulfilling of God's promises. And here are some reasons we can think about. We'll talk about it more in depth. One is this, that God, the Bible talks about the kairos time, in the perfect time for things to happen. So in the perfect time, God is going to get me ready for that assignment. So I need to be ready, prepared for that assignment. Secondly, God also needs to prepare circumstances and people around us who would be part of seeing that fulfillment. That's another reason why there is a passage of time, right? So I need to be ready. I need to be prepared. But there are other factors, other things that also need to be brought together to see that happen, right? So for both these reasons, many times, God speaks to us in advance about things he wants to do in our lives so that we can start exercising faith for it, believing God for it and also begin our journey of preparation for it. And then he's also going to orchestrate other things. He's going to get people and other things ready. And then at the right time, these come together and then we step into what God has planned for our lives. So that's concerning the things that God wants to do through us. But there will be other things like, you know, maybe it's healing or some provision that God will orchestrate and bring quickly into our lives. That's it. Okay, think about it. We'll talk more. Let me just see. Sauri, sin separates us from God according to our faith. Let me pray God answers us. Can God answer the prayer of a sinner even if he, she has faith? So Sauri's question is, can God answer the prayer of a sinner even if he, she has faith? Okay, so Sauri, we know this, we know that sin separates us from God that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, God will not hear us or we know those scriptures. But we also know that there are times when God will move independent of faith and in spite of a person being in a place of sin. God will do that because he's sovereign. So here again, we talk about what is normative or what is normal and what is exception, meaning God moving sovereignly. The norm is that we, you know, we live righteous. He keeps in our way out of our lives. We have faith in God. We believe his word and then God works and responds to that. That's the norm. But there will always be exceptions because God is sovereign. So we will find a person who is, you know, doing terrible things and then he cries out to God for something and God just moves in grace, mercy and sovereignly and works in that person's life. So we would put that as an exception and but there are and there will be exceptions because God is sovereign. So we should never discredit or disregard a person even if you know they're living in a terrible lives. Hey, as long as they're crying out to God, we know that God can move sovereignly and in his mercy and, you know, work in response to their cry of faith. Is that okay, sovereign? Okay. Any other questions? Okay. So we're going to close. We'll take a moment to pray and then close. Will somebody in the class pray? Oh, but we can't hear you. You can come forward and hold the mic and pray. Okay. We're just going to close in prayer, right? I'm just inviting one of the students here to just come pray and we're close. God, I love you Father. We thank you Jesus for this day and this time we have given us and thank you Lord for teaching us from your word and speaking to us through your servant Lord and help us Lord not to be only hear us but also do us of the word and help us Lord to practice it and have more faith in you Jesus and help us to understand more from your word Lord and feed us throughout this day Lord in Jesus name asking for amen. Thank you. Thank you guys. Let's see you again next week. Thank you. Bye now. Thank you.