Rico Sharp Live Stream

Rico Sharp teaches that faith is a God-given gift requiring active exercise, not passive hope. True faith must be placed solely in God, grounded in Scripture, and mixed with spoken confession and action. Sharp uses the mountain metaphor to show how doubt-free faith overcomes obstacles, and outlines four steps: locate a biblical promise, claim it personally, align your confession, and act on it.
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I can have, I can do, and I can live by the Word of God said so. Take your seats if you will. I want to talk to you tonight on the subject of faith. And I want to talk to you on faith because I really felt impressed since Sunday to take a little more time and add like a part 2 to the message that I preached on Sunday over at the Faith Center. I believe that because faith is my gift, every so often I'm supposed to come full circle and get to faith, particularly 4 times a year. Whatever your gift is, you should teach or elaborate and expound on that more than any other subject, because it's the thing that God has given you. And because he's given it to you, it's what you work— you work what God has given you. Amen. You use what he gives you. So if you'll turn with me to the book of Mark chapter 11. Verse 22. I want to read verse 22, 23, and 24. Mark 11:22-24. Mark 11:22-24. And Jesus answering said unto him, or unto them, have faith in God. Have faith in God. Have faith in who? In God. For verily I say unto you that whosoever shall say Say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but instead shall rather believe that those things which he or she, he or she said. Amen. You got to say something in order to receive something, but you don't say just any old thing. You got to say what you believe, but you can't just believe anything. You got to believe the Word of God. So whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into see, and shall not doubt in his or her heart, but shall believe that those things which he or she said should come to pass, he or she shall have whatsoever he or she says. Verse 24: Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that you receive them. And then you shall have them. I want to talk to you a little bit from the subject, Have Faith in God. And the reason I've chosen this as a topic is because I was thinking the other night, I believe it was on Tuesday night or Monday night, that Faith has to be connected to something. There are a lot of people who have faith. In fact, believe it or not, everyone has faith. Right. But there are a lot of people who has faith who doesn't necessarily have faith in God. Right. And then there are a lot of people who have faith, who have faith in a god, but not necessarily the God of faith. Who can only answer prayer and respond to faith. There are a lot of people who have faith in God that are Christians but only have a limited amount of faith in God. And then there are a lot of people who have faith in God who have faith concerning certain things in certain areas And they can only believe God for small things, or have faith in God for small things, for easy things, for little things, for simple things, but fail to develop their faith to the point where they can have faith in God for big things. And see, in this verse, the Bible talks about mountains. Amen. In verse 23. And a mountain is not a small thing. A mountain is a big thing. A mountain represents big things. A mountain represents things that are so big that you can't just climb it with a skip and a hop. You can't just get around it with navigating a little to the left or to the right. And so what the writer is communicating is that there's a certain level of faith that you can have in God that it doesn't even matter what the problem is, what the circumstance is, what size the giant is or the mountain is, what the sickness is, what your situation is, whether you're fighting with something in your mind and your health. on your job, in your house, on— in, in church, in society, in school. There's a level of faith that you can have in God that will conquer and subdue every mountain that has stood in your way. Do you believe what I'm saying? Do you believe the word of God? Yes. Now, when you look at verse 22, the Bible says, have faith in God. That implies to me that God was on the distributing end, and he came around to every believer, every person who wanted to use faith and understand faith and flow in faith and operate their faith. He came around. As he was distributing, and he said to everyone, here, have some faith. Have some faith. Have some faith. It's as if you walk into a room full of thirsty people and you give them a cold bottle of water. You walk over to them, you see they're thirsty, you see they're sweating, you know it's hot outside. They've been outside running in the hot. And you walk over to them and say, here, have some water. In other words, you are presenting them with an opportunity to do something about their dilemma. And so when the Bible says in Romans 12:3 that God dealt to every man the measure of faith, what God was saying to everybody is, here, have some faith because you're up against giants. You're up against sickness. You're up against unemployment. You're up against recessions. You're up against— You're up against battles in your mind, spiritual warfare. You're up against devils. You're going to be dealing with some things that are not comfortable to deal with. You're going to be dealing with some gigantic things, some monumental things, some things that are so big that you can't take a chisel and chisel your way through, and you can't take a shovel and dig your way under it, and you can't build a bridge and get over it. You, you have to move it, but the only way to do it is with the faith that I want to give you, which is called God kind of faith. And God says to everybody, have some faith here, have some faith. So he dealt to all of us a certain measure of faith, and he's given it to us because he knows that we're going to need it. Have faith. But having faith only works when it is in God. What did I just say? Having faith only works when it is in God. So having faith and yet not having faith in God Yes, it is. In fact, the word faith has been watered down in today's society to represent religion. So there are many people that have different religion, and they're not all Christianity, and they call it faith. Faith. For example, you may walk over to somebody and see them worshiping in the manner that they worship, and the conversation come up and the question is, what, what kind of faith are you? And they will reply whatever their faith is, which could represent Hindu, Buddhism. Buddhism. The faith of the Mormon religion. And the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. So faith is not always categorized to represent a certain belief or persuasion in God. Faith has been diluted so until it now represents I hear you. But God never wanted for us to fall into that category. That's why this verse directs us specifically to whom to have our faith in. Have faith in God. Have faith in who now? Why is it that we have to have faith in God? That's right. Versus just having faith in science? Why is it that we have to have faith in God versus having faith in evolution? Why is it that our faith should be in God versus having faith in the economy? Why is it that our faith should be in God versus having faith in, in the government, the Republican government, the Democratic government? Why is it that our faith must be in God versus in Donald Trump? True. Or Hillary Clinton? Why is it that our faith should be in God versus being in education? Why is it that our faith should be in God versus being in man, in ourselves? Well, since you've asked those series of questions, let me provide an answer for you. Our faith should be in God because God alone changeth not. Everything else changes. That's right. Man changes, time changes, seasons changes, the economy changes, people changes, life changes. Everything changes. The value of a dollar bill changes, the gas price, a barrel of oil, everything changes. The euro, everything changes. The dinero, everything changes. When you put faith in anything other than God, then you are conditioning your life to be based upon the outcome of the value of that which you have your faith in. And in— and what that spells is disaster, heartbreak, ruin, devastation. So he says, have faith in God. Have faith in God. Have faith in who now? God. Have faith in God. Now look at verse 23. For verily I say unto you that whosoever, which means doesn't really matter Who you are, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, which means that you got to speak to your situation because that's what a mountain represents. A mountain represents your situation. A mountain represents your circumstance. A mountain represents your dilemma, your consequences that you're dealing with in your life. The Bible tells us to speak to our consequences. Not cry about them, not get depressed about them, not complain about them, not even necessarily just pray about them. And I know sometimes that when we're up against things, the first thing we do is pray about situations. And you should always pray. The Bible says in Luke 18:1, men are to always pray and not to faint. But there are some things that God doesn't want you To spend your time praying for when he's already given you the authority to deal with it yourself personally. What you got to be able to do is disciple and differentiate between what things are a necessary prayer item and then what things becomes a faith item. When you're using your faith Then you're saying to God, I'm using the authority or the power you gave me to deal with my situation. Amen. And when you're using your faith to deal with your situation, then it's not a job for God to do for you unless it is something that you cannot do for yourself. Does that make sense? Amen. It's like God gave us faith so that we can use it to accomplish certain things in this world. We know quite naturally that the power and the results of faith comes from God, but God gave us faith so that we could use it so that we can grow up in him spiritually and become mature adult Christians, spiritually mature adult Christians. And do the things that he set us in this earth to do when he said 2 things. One, in Genesis 1, to man, which was Adam, and woman, which was Eve, he says, I'm blessing you and I'm empowering you to have dominion in this world. Rule, reign, have dominion, multiply, and replenish. In other words, you're in charge of the earth. Then secondly, in Matthew 18, He said, behold, I've given you keys to the kingdom. Keys to the kingdom. Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So when God gave you the authority and the power to do certain things, he automatically knows that you can get the job done if you use your faith And have faith that when you use your faith, that God is going to see you through to the place of victory. Now, for God to give us faith and give us the power of faith, of course, so that we can accomplish certain things— Hallelujah. And yet we not do it because we want to pray, which means, I'd rather for you to do it, God. I, I know you gave me faith to do it, but I want you to do it. I just want to sit on the sideline and watch you win the battle and get the victory for me. That's equivalent to having children, teaching your children how to tie their shoes, and yet every time they put on a pair of shoes, instead of you letting them do it, you coming over and tying the shoes for them. Or that's equivalent to teaching them how to sit down And, and eat a plate of food or cut up a steak or something, and every time it's time for them to do it, you come over, you take the fork and the spoon, and you cut up the steak and you hand-feed them yourself. When I come out, come in, I come in with that on. Doesn't really make any sense for you to teach them how to do it if you're going to do it for them every time. See, when you take your child to the driver's license bureau or agency to get a driver's license and you work with them to teach them how to drive a car, you're doing that so that they can learn how to drive independently of you having to be the one behind the wheel. You lie. You want them to, at some point, to be able to get in the car and go to the store and shop and then come back home safely. You don't want to have to always be the one to get up and go and do it for them. Well, God, when he gave us the power of faith, he gave it to us so that we could learn how to operate in this world in the power of faith, moving mountains, doing whatever we need to do with faith without him having to do it for us. Now I'm going to prove that to you. I want you to go with me to the book of Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews four. Hebrews four and one. Hebrews four and one says, "Let us therefore fear." Lest a promise being left, which was a promise established by Jesus that God would bless us and meet every need. Let us enter into his rest. Let me read again. Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left— what is that promise? It's a promise of provision. Let us therefore fear, which means let us have respect, and let us draw nigh, and then let us cleave, which is a sense of apprehending. It's like having a mindset that I'm going after this promise, I'm going to get this promise, this promise is mine. It's almost as if God is suggesting that But I want you to name it and I want you to claim it because I've made it available for you and you can have whatever it is that you find in my word as a promise. Yes. So, so the writer says we gotta fear, which means we gotta have a certain level of respect for the promise being left us, because being left us represents that there is an inheritance that is given to us And God wants us to be able to apprehend, or he wants us to possess the inheritance. But the Bible says that we have to have a certain level of fear, which doesn't mean to be afraid. It means to have respect for and have regards for. Okay, now let us therefore fear, lest the promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them— representing the Israelites that came out of Egypt— but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Verse 3, and I'll come back to verse 2: For we which have believed do enter into rest, As he, God, has said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Now verse 4 says, for he spake in a certain place of the 7th day on this wise, and God did rest the 7th day from all his works. So what is the Bible saying right there? Well, it's saying a couple of things. Number 1, it is saying that there is a promise left, and that promise was established to the body of Christ through Jesus. Number 2, it is saying that this promise is still available, and we can have— we can inherit this promise. Number 3, it is declaring that God has made the promise to be a promise of rest. That's what the promise is, a promise of rest. A promise of rest means that we cease from our labor, from our struggle, and from our toil as we begin to use our faith to inherit the provision that God has already made for us. But the way that this thing works is that God has already entered into what the Bible calls rest, which means that the things that we want God to do for us, God has already done. And if we're going to receive or inherit what God has already done, Then we receive it because we realize that God has made it available to us. But just because God has made them available to us doesn't mean that God's going to do all the legwork in order to get it into our lives. He has made it available to us, and what we have to do is we have to use our faith the way that the Word teaches, which is him teaching us how to use it through the Word. And then we use our faith to bring these things to pass. So that we can have in this lifetime what God established for us long before he created this earth. Now, everything that you find in the Bible as a promise that you want to claim as it pertains to your life has already been established. It's already done. There's nothing new under the sun. When we pray for God to do something for us, what we're really asking him is to release into our life what is already established from the foundation of the world. God is in this thing called rest. He's not coming out of rest to prove a point to us that he's God. He's not coming out of rest to prove to us that he's a need giver or a way maker. He's not coming out of his rest in order to show you that you can have what his word said you can have. Amen. What has to happen is that we have to enter into his rest. We have to get to the place where he is. It's not talking about getting to heaven, although that is our ultimate destination. Rest is a place where you no longer have to struggle in order to have the things in this world that you have need of. How many of you recognize that God has no need? Amen. He's an all-sufficient God. He, he's not in need of anything. He's not in need of worship. He created angels to worship him. He's not in need of praise. The Bible says if he wanted to, he can make the rocks praise him. The rocks can cry out. He's not in need of food. He's not in need of water. He's not in need of shelter. He's not in need of clothing. He's not in need of finances. He's not in need of air. He has no need. So if he has no need, then he's in a place of rest, which means all his needs are met. And what he has done for us is he's opened the door to that same place of rest that he's in And he said to all of us, you may enter into my rest, but in order for you to enter into my rest, there's a couple of things that you have to do. One, you got to get into the realm of faith. Amen. Two, your faith has to be in me. And three, you got to start operating your faith. Okay, let's read verse 2 again. Unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, unto others. But the word preached did not profit the people who heard it because they didn't mix faith with the word when they heard the word. That's like sitting in church hearing the word but not believing it. What a waste of time. Don't come to church if you're not going to believe the word. That's equivalent to going, going to a restaurant. You're hungry, you know you're hungry, your hunger is hungry. Um. They got food all around you, you can smell it, you can smell the bread cooking, you can smell the steak frying and sizzling on the grill. You're hungry and you know you're hungry. And yet you walk out of there and say, I ain't gonna eat because I'm not hungry. Well, why did you go? Why did you go? To try out your new Reeboks? Yes. Listen, when you hear the word of God, believe it. Don't even struggle with that. It may seem to be something that is supernatural. Believe it anyway. It may seem to be something that is gigantic. Believe it anyway. It may seem to be something that seems less likely to transpire in your life and on your behalf. Believe it anyway. And you know the devil has a way of trying to make people feel like this ain't gonna happen for you. That you're just not, you're just not. And I don't want to use the word luck, but for the sake of making a statement, you're just not lucky enough. And although we don't believe in luck, we don't look for luck, but you understand what I'm saying. We're not fortunate enough. In other words, the enemy trying to make you feel like it's too good to be true for you. You're just not. You know, it happened for someone else, but it's not going to happen for you. He has a way of trying to make you feel that way because he knows that Faith is personal, and that when you really begin to develop and grow your faith, it becomes a personal project that you work on because you know that your faith is going to produce certain things in your life that nothing else can produce. Your faith is going to produce things that your money can't produce, that education can't produce, that no person is going to give you. And so faith has to become personal. But what faith does is that faith brings you into a place of rest. It brings you to a place where all of your provisions are being cared for, where all of your needs are being met. If your needs are not being met, then don't say it's on God or that the hangup is on God's end. Listen, you can't make this word untrue. You can't make God of a liar. We can't make the promises of God of none effect. Somebody somewhere are getting results from the word. Let's say you and I try the word, determine that we're going to use our faith. That education. So we go through a process of naming and claiming certain things. We do everything that we feel like we know to do, and at the end, we feel like we should receive. Well, let's say, hypothetically speaking, you don't receive what you wanted, what you asked for, what you believed for. Well, that doesn't mean that just because you didn't receive it that God's word is not true. That's right. That doesn't mean that God failed you. That doesn't even mean that faith doesn't work. That doesn't mean that the promises are not available. So, if you didn't receive certain things that you were expecting to receive, the fault is not on God's end. That's right. There's no flaw in this Bible. There's had to be something somewhere along the canvas of your life, somewhere within the corridor of your faith that you didn't do right, that you didn't process right, that you missed. And you got to go back and you got to track it down, backtrack yourself, and go through the motions again, go through the actions again, Until you figure out what you've done wrong or what you didn't do right. That's right. 'Cause it could never be that God's word doesn't work. Now the people that we're reading about, they had the promise presented to them. They saw the power of God manifest before their eyes. They had every opportunity to believe and receive from God. They saw God move in the cloud. They saw God rain down quail or manna from heaven. They saw God part the Red Sea. They saw God turn rivers in Egypt into blood. They saw God send the, the plague through the land that devoured up all of their vegetations that belonged to the Egyptians. Yes. They saw God open up the mouth of a rock and send a river out of a rock. They saw God do numerous amount of miracles, and yet when it came down to entering into rest, into a place where they would have no more needs, the Bible says they did not receive. Why? Because when they heard the word, they did not mix their faith with the word. Which means, which means That God is comparing the word and then faith to 2 ingredients that has to be mixed together in order to produce a full outcome. So you can't use one without the other expecting to get results. So you can't just have faith and no Word because the Bible says in Hebrews 10:17 that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word. And then you can't just have the Word and no faith. You can't have faith and no Word, and you can't have the Word and no faith. If you got one, you got to get the other, and they don't work independently of the other. You have to mix them together. Yes. That's right. And if you mix them together, now you got the proper ingredients that it takes in order to produce the outcome or the manifestation that you desire in your heart. The Israelites did not receive the manifestation because they didn't mix the word with faith. They heard the word, but they didn't believe what they heard. heard. And it's just like people today come to church, sit back, and doubt the word. And when you doubt what you hear, when you doubt what you read, when you doubt what God says, then you are mixing doubt with the word. And when you mix doubt with the word— doubt is not an ingredient that God commanded that should be mixed with the word. Faith is the ingredients that God commanded. I don't know. that should be mixed with the word. Am I making sense to you? Yes. Okay, so if I'm making sense now, go back to where we began. Let me give you a little bit more. Go back to Mark 11. Watch this now. Look back at verse 23. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea— you see that? And shall not doubt. In his heart. Okay, so let's deal with doubt in the heart. First thing, let me say that doubt is An opposer or opposition of faith. Doubt and faith cannot work together. Faith is 100% persuasion. Doubt is 99.9999% faith in the equation. In other words, a grain of doubt Calls for faith to become insignificant. So let me, let me, let me phrase, or let me state that again. Faith is 100% persuasion. Anything less than 100%, even if it's 99.99999%, It is not faith. So you can have almost all the faith required, and you can have just a little tiny itty-bitty speck of doubt, and when you try to mix the two together, it will not work together. You're up against giants. Because not a whole lot of faith is going to be able to sync itself with a little bit of doubt. So God said that if you doubt in your heart, you are not in faith. Well, Pastor, I have faith. You have to move it. But I have doubt too. Well, you can't have both together at the same time because one trumps the other. Let me say it like this: a little bit of doubt trumps a whole lot of faith. In other words, If you have a little bit of doubt, yet you consider yourself to have a whole lot of faith, then now your faith has become nullified because you got a little bit of doubt. Of course. Because you can't have a little bit of doubt when you're dealing with God. You got to have a whole lot of faith to the point Where you have no doubt at all when you're dealing with God. So in other words, you've got to have all faith and no doubt when you're dealing with God. Now, if you're dealing with people, then that's a different story, that's a different system, that's a different scenario. Have as much doubt as you want when you're dealing with man. If not, That's your leisure because man is not all-powerful. Man is not omnipotent. Man is not omniscient. Man cannot do all things independently of the resources that's provided in this earth. Yes. We have to have all faith in God in order to move mountains. So, here's the issue. Many people pray, go through what they know to be the process of using their faith, and even try or make an attempt to lay claim, lay seizure to their claim, which simply means possess their promise. But that's not how that works. See, the way this thing works though Is the Bible way. Now represent— The Bible way is simply God's way, which again is called the God kind of faith. The way it works is that you get into a state of mind where you will not allow for doubt or unbelief to enter into your mind while you're using this process or while you're operating the process of faith. In other words, I have to reason with myself Why? I have to make an agreement with myself that the moment I get into the realm of faith to use my faith and release my faith in God, that doubt, unbelief, and fear cannot be permitted to enter into my mind. That's right. That's the agreement that I've made with myself. I don't make that agreement with the devil. I don't make that agreement with people. I don't make that agreement with God. I don't make that agreement with the things that I'm after. I have to make that agreement with myself. My spirit man, my soul man, and my natural man has to come into an agreement that when I begin to use my faith, doubt, unbelief, and fear is not permitted into my mind. I have to become one with myself. I have to become on one accord with my spirit, soul, and body. Now that I got myself in agreement or in alignment, now I can begin to operate in the process of faith. What is that process? Going into the Word, finding the promise in the Bible, knowing that the promise in the Bible is God's Word to you about what you can have and what you can do, not when you get to heaven. But right here in this earthly realm. The moment you find that promise, you personalize that promise for your life. You could say this, which is what I say: I believe I receive. Which means I am now declaring that I'm taking on this journey, that I'm applying my faith to this process, and that I'm personalizing that particular promise Yes. To be a promise that I will inherit and apprehend. Secondly, I got to get my mouth in agreement with my mind. I got to get my mouth in agreement with my heart. Both my mind and my heart needs for my mouth to be in agreement. Let's say why, or let me share why your mind needs your mouth to be in agreement. The reason your mind needs for your mouth to be in agreement is because there's going to be some things that the enemy will try to do to distort your faith by way of attacking your convictions or your persuasion. He'll try to get you to look at things that's going on around you and suggest that these things that you see are or reasons why you can't have your promise. Suggestively like it was with Peter when he stepped out of the boat and started walking on the water toward Jesus. He was walking by faith. How many of you know he was walking by faith? Amen. You know he had to be walking by faith if he's walking out on the water. Well, when he took his eyes off of Jesus and he started looking around, All of a sudden, doubt got into his head and he started listening to the voice of the enemy tell him, you can't do this. Well, you got to be able to do it because you're doing it. That's right. If you weren't able to do it, you would have never took the first step. You would have sinked the moment you got off, off the boat into the water or got out of the boat into the water. Jesus pulled them up and said, wherefore did you doubt? So doubt happens in the mind. Doubt comes because we listen to the suggestions of the enemy. Doubt comes because we take our focus off of God, we put it on our circumstances and on our environments and on what he is doing and on how they are treating you and on what happened over there. So in order for our mouth and our mind to link up and be in agreement, we got to continue to keep our mind on the promise. And when our mind stays on the promise, Isaiah— I'm sorry, uh, Philippians 2:5 says, let this mind be in Christ, let this mind that was in Christ be also in you. And then Isaiah 26:3 says, God will keep you in perfect peace if your mind is stayed on him. You got to keep your mind on Jesus. When your mind is stayed on Jesus, or you're allowing for the mind of Christ to become your meditation the, the source of your meditation, then you only say what Jesus would say. And you only speak out of your mouth what you're meditating on in your mind. You only speak out of your mouth what you're meditating on in your mind. That's why Joshua 1:8 tells us that this book of the Lord, this book of the law, this Bible, shall not depart out of our mouth but we should meditate therein day and night. So meditation, which is coming from the mind, communicates itself through the mouth. And when you're meditating in your mind, then you're going to speak the word with your mouth. And you're going to only say what the word says, or you're going to only say what you're meditating on. Do you notice that you have a habit of saying what you're thinking? Yes. Okay. Let me say this for you. Have you ever heard anybody say, I was thinking about something? Yes. What you was thinking about? I was thinking about going and getting me some smothered pork chop, some candy yams, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and the list goes on. Okay, people have a habit of communicating what's on their mind. So what God wants us to do is get the Word on our mind so that our mouth could usher into the atmosphere the meditation of our mind, which is the word of God. Secondly, the reason I need my mouth to be in sync with my heart is because my heart, which is my spirit, is where my faith lives. And my faith can only be released into the atmosphere or into the realm of the spirit through my mouth. Amen. So therefore, my mouth becomes the conduit or the release valve for my faith to be released. I can't release my faith through what I think. I can't release my faith through what I feel. I can't release my faith through what I want. I release my faith through what I say. That's why the Bible says here, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, in Mark 11:23, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, he or she shall have whatsoever he or she will say. You understand? Yes. Now, thirdly, to, to walk this process of faith out in order to receive, the moment I've released my faith through verbalizing my conviction, now I have to act on it. I got to do something about it. I can't just sit back and expect for something magical to happen. Because God doesn't operate with a magic wand. God is not a genie in a lamp. Let me show you this as I close. Go to the book of James. Are you getting this? I said, are you getting this? Yes. Okay, James Chapter 5. Uh, let's look at Prayer of Faith. Prayer of Faith, verse 15. Um, that talks about it a little bit, but let's just back up a little bit and into chapter 2 and take a look at verse number 17. And this would be a short close versus a long close. James 2:17. Even so faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone. Yeah, man may say, thou hast faith and I have works. Show me thy faith without works. And I will show you my faith by my works. In other words, James is saying when it comes down to faith, you cannot use your faith if you don't do something. So there are people who say, well, I'm believing God for this and I got faith, but yet they're not doing anything to support what they believe. Your faith has to have support. You know what supports your faith? Your actions. Mm-hmm. If you believe God for something and yet you never try to put any action or any effort behind it, then you're not in faith, you're in hope. That's what hope is. Hope is sitting by hoping and expecting and waiting on something to happen without any necessary enforcement. Faith is getting up and having a reinforcement with what you believe. Faith is when you step out there, you say, I know that this is going to happen, I believe that it's going to happen, and I'm going to do all that I can do to make it happen. Faith has to have works. It can't just be profession, it can't just be declaration. There has to be a corresponding action. Faith without works It's just hope. I hope God does it. I hope he come through. I hope I get the job. I hope it happens in my life. That's all that is, a wish. Faith is more than a wish. Faith is more than hope. Faith is more than desire. When you're in faith, you're in action. If you're not in action, you're not in faith. You're only in faith when you're doing something. If you're not doing something, you're not in faith. Oh, Pastor, but I'm standing on the Word. No, you're not standing on the Word, you're standing on hope. Amen. Have faith in God. When your faith is in God and you're doing what the word says to do, to correspond your faith with your works, there is no possible way on this earth that you cannot accomplish what God said you can accomplish. Amen. But your faith cannot be in the systems of this world. Your faith cannot be in your intellectual capability. Your faith cannot be in your education or degrees. Your faith cannot be in your money or your support club. Your faith has to be in God. And if your faith is in God and you're processing the word, working the steps, it's just a matter of time You're going to have your testimony that God did it in your life. Close your Bible. I'm out of time and I'm done. Amen.
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