Faith and Hope How to deal with unbelief Part 2

Welcome to episode 98, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 98. I want to continue to dig in on this unbelief topic. This is part 2 of probably a 3-part series. I don't know that we're going to cover everything we need to on unbelief. I think that this is one of the biggest struggles that is facing the church today, and I don't want to be overly dramatic, but if half the church thinks Satan is not real, then we've got a little bit of a problem. And unbelief, I believe, is one of those problems. It is a problem that most people don't even think about because they think— and it— and the disciples were the exact same way. Lord, I need more faith. Help, give me— give us more faith. We're going to go to that scripture right now, and this scripture is found in Matthew 17, and we're going to start in 19. Matthew 17:19. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief. And I want to stop there. He's going to talk about if you had the faith of a mustard seed, and we're going to talk about that here in a minute. But I want to jump to 21, Matthew 17:21, where Jesus is talking about the kind of unbelief. And most people, I believe, misread this scripture They think that the demon is more powerful and you have to have— but let me read it real quick and then we'll talk about it. Matthew 17:21, however, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. And I don't know if you've ever heard this taught. I've heard a lot of preachers, a lot of teachers talk about this kind of demon is just so powerful because the disciples had cast out demons. Remember, they— Jesus sent out 70 and in pairs, and they went out and they healed the sick. He gave them power over unclean spirits. He gave them the ability to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, all of that. And they came back and they were rejoicing, and they were talking about, Master, even the demons are subject to us. And that's where Jesus said, you know, don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but rejoice that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And so the disciples have had some success healing people and casting out demons, and they're wondering what happened. Why couldn't we cast this one out? And then I'm going to keep reading. I'm going to go back and read 20 again. So Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief. For assuredly I say to you, if you have the 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. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. If you read all those scriptures in context, Jesus is not talking about the demon. Jesus is talking about their unbelief, and this kind of unbelief, because if you go back into the story, this little boy was, I think it was like an epileptic seizure, and this demon would manifest itself and it would foam at the mouth and it would shake and it would just cause a scene. And I wasn't there, so I have no idea, but I think the disciples, you know, they started looking with their eyes. Again, I'm going to go back to having the eyes of your heart and the ears of your heart, being able to see without using your eyes and hear without using your ears. Jesus had all of this. Jesus was God walking in the flesh, and he knew what was going on. I think a lot of times when we see some of these manifestations that we go, oh, Wow, this one wouldn't move. Jesus was talking to the Father. If you remember the story, I think we talked about this on a previous episode, but Jesus was talking to the Father and said, well, how long has this been happening? Now the whole time the boy is having an epileptic seizure and Jesus is just calmly having a conversation with the Father. You remember back where it said, where he said, if you can do anything, this is where the Father said, I do believe, help my unbelief. And so the father recognized that he had unbelief. Jesus is telling his disciples, you have unbelief. It's not because you need more faith, it's because you need less unbelief. And that's where I kind of want to go right now. I want to start talking about the unbelief that you and I have. And if you don't think you have unbelief, I'm telling you, go walk on water. Because John 14:12— and I think I told you this in a previous episode, but I wrote a declaration one time that I was gonna— I got tired of watching, looking at this banner in our church. It said, "We will do something so big that unless God intervenes, it's bound to fail." And I looked at that, and I looked at that, and you know that my favorite apostle is Peter. And Peter is the one that is ready, fire, aim. He's the one— I mean, if he— usually when Peter opens his mouth, it's really just to take one foot out and put his other foot in. He's always spouting off, or he was always opening his mouth probably where he shouldn't have. But he was also the one that declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And he was also the one that walked on water. So I got tired of looking at that sign, and instead of saying, we will do something so big that unless God intervenes, it's bound to fail, I put on there, I will do something so big. And then I've thought, what would I— what could I do? And then I put down, I will walk on water. Now, I probably shouldn't have done that, but I wrote it, and I've got a picture of it. It was on April 22nd, 2007, and I can tell you I have gone multiple hundred times and still have not walked on water. So my point, and I've told you multiple times, that we are not to be perfect. Our goal is not perfection in this Christian walk. Our goal is to imitate Christ. Our goal is mo— not perfection, but reflection. And we are to reflect the glory that God's Son has. It is not about— this kingdom that we're building should not be our kingdom. This kingdom that we're building should be the kingdom of God. And that's why I went into the seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. If you concentrate on the kingdom of God, God's way of doing things, you're going to get everything else. I want you to go back to when Solomon prayed, and you will find this story in 1 Kings chapter 3. I'm not going to read it, but you can go and look it up. And I can't remember, and I need to do a better job of categorizing my episodes, but you know, when you start getting into the triple digits, which I'm about to. It's hard to kind of keep them all together. But Solomon prayed when, when Solomon became king. He realized, he humbled himself before God because he realized, I'm not equipped for this. I don't know what I'm doing. And again, I'm paraphrasing. This is probably based on what Greg Ryan would think if— oh, by the way, in my current state right now, if God came in and handed me the the presidency of the United States or the kingdom of whatever, some huge country with an army and a legal system and all of that stuff and society, you know, and taxes. And if God hand me— and that's what he handed Solomon. Solomon is now the king. King David has died and Solomon is the king of Israel. And God appeared to Solomon in a dream and God said, ask, what shall I give you? Said, I don't know how to go in and come out. I don't know how to lead these people. Solomon, God said, "Ask me one thing," and Solomon asked for wisdom. And God said, "Because you asked for wisdom in order to lead my people, I'm gonna give you all this other stuff." And I just think that is so God-like, that God wants you to take your eyes off of yourself and put 'em on his people. That is why one of the living creatures is the ox. And it's love, it's the servant, it is getting, helping God's people. And that is so important that if we start seeing the needs and start helping, and that's where Solomon was. Solomon humbled himself and said, God, I, there is no way I can lead your people with what I've got in this body. I'm gonna need some help. And he asked for wisdom. And it says in the Bible that Solomon was the wisest that had ever lived. And he was— I think it says in there too, and I'm not prepared to talk about this, is God taking me where I wasn't even prepared to go. But Solomon, I think it said he was the wealthiest that has ever lived. So, you know, you look at Bill Gates, you look at, you know, Elon Musk's— anyway, you look at all these people that have all this money. I'm told that Solomon was the richest person ever to walk. So I believe the Bible. I don't believe what ESPN or CNN or Fox News. I don't care what anybody's saying. I believe what the word of God said. The word of God is the truth, and it said that Solomon's the wealthiest person that's ever lived, so I'm going with it. And he did not ask for a penny. I want you to see that he did not ask for a dime. He asked for wisdom. And it says in Proverbs that wisdom is better than gold and silver. So when you start asking— and we've already talked about this, but If you start asking for wisdom, especially if you're asking for the right reason, if you ask to help God's kids, or if you ask to help other people that you don't really understand how I'm going to help this person, I need some wisdom, that's one of those things that God's going to answer every time. I want to mention one more time before I go to the next episode and sign off and pray for you. I want to go up another verse back to 17:17. When I'm reading the Bible and you think that Jesus was just, man, Man, I just love you guys. And gee, and you know, God is love. But I want you to hear what Jesus says to his disciples. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me. And that's what he said when he come down the mountain when he was transfigured. He came down the mountain and they— this, that's where the Father came up. This is the same story, but he— the Father came up and said, you know, can you cast this demon out of my son? And he said, I bring— I brought him to your disciples and they couldn't do it. And this was Jesus' answer. He just told it like it was. He did it in love. He called people out. And that's what a good teacher— that's what a good coach— he wasn't no attaboy every time. He was showing, hey, you've got a problem here. Let's address this problem. Let's not kick it under the carpet, or let's not kick it to the curb. You've ever seen people, they're always in avoidance. Jesus was never in avoidance. Jesus told you exactly how he felt when he felt it. And tomorrow we're going to talk about how powerful again the word of God is, and we're going to see how God just moves things with one word or just a couple words. It's incredible. And it— and I think part of the unbelief, we just use too many words. Well, let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this episode, and I, I know you know right where they are. I pray in the mighty name of Jesus that you would just pour out your grace and mercy on this person. And Lord, let them have the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. God, I thank you so much. We love you, and we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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