You notice the title of the message, our series is on increase. We've talked about increase from so many different angles. And as Seth said earlier, our God is a God of increase. His kingdom and the government of his kingdom and his peace, there will be no end.
Like it's ever increasing, ever growing, every merging. Like it never stops. Everything in the kingdom grows and increases. And so we've looked over the past couple months at this word increase, which Pastor Seth said is our word of the year.
And I believe it is because we've seen God do so many great things in our body this year. And so today I want to talk about, and if you'll notice that the title of message is in quotes, increasing your faith, increasing your faith. How many are facing something right now where you feel like, I need to believe for more. I need more faith.
I need to believe bigger. Well, don't feel like you're on an island by yourself, because even the apostles, the 12, the ones that lived with Jesus, the ones that trained with Jesus, the ones that studied under Jesus, the ones that were authorized and sent out by Jesus said the same thing. In Luke chapter 7, verses 5 and 6, it says the apostles came to him and said, everybody say this, increase our faith. They said increase our faith.
And I think what's interesting about this verse is that Jesus just doesn't automatically increase their faith. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even tell them how to increase your faith. He doesn't preach a message when increasing your faith. He actually brings them back to the truth of God's word.
And so today I want to look at, we're going to read from Matthew 17. So if you have the Abraham Bibles, and you want to turn there, we're eventually going to go there. But let's go back to Luke chapter 7. Because we want to launch from here, Luke 7, it says the apostles came to him and said, increase our faith.
And Jesus said to them, he said, if you have faith as what? A mustard seed. If you have faith as a mustard seed or like a mustard seed, you will say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and cast into the sea, and it will obey you. If you have faith, he doesn't say, hey, let me tell you how to have more faith.
He says if you just have an insignificant minuscule amount of faith, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted, cast into the sea, and it will obey you. Sounds impossible, right? Jesus says a very similar thing in Matthew 17. He says this.
He says, 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. Again, he doesn't say you need more faith. He says that you need faith as a mustard seed. Now, I pulled a mustard seed out of our spice drawer this morning, and I get it.
This is not the same mustard seed that was probably in Israel when Jesus said this, but this is our mustard seed. Can you guys see it? Do you believe I have one here? This isn't a dime bag, just don't get excited.
This is a mustard seed bag. All right, now you guys, can you see some? There's some little mustard seeds in there, right? So what he says, he says, you don't need to increase faith.
He says, can you see that? He said, if you have the faith like as a mustard seed, this little, like I'm holding it, you can say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted by the roots and go and grow in the sea, and it will obey you. Or you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it'll move, and nothing will be impossible. See, what I learned from those two verses of this is that your provision is not proportionate to the size of your faith.
Like, here's what happens a lot of times. You get in the midst, like, whether it's if you think about a mulberry tree, the mulberry trees were known for the roots, and the roots went deep, and they dug in. And you might have something in your life that's so deep rooted in there, you think there's no way that this thing can come out. Maybe it's unforgiveness, maybe it's bitterness, maybe it's hatred, maybe it's some secret sin, maybe it's idolatry, I don't know, but you may have something so deep rooted that you've been almost embracing it for so long that it's got roots that go deep.
You think there's no way that I can believe that God could deal with this thing. But Jesus says, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted here, and it'll obey you. He says, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain. Like, some of you are facing something so big right now that it looks like there's no way through it, there's no way around it, there's no way over it, it just is.
And Jesus said, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move here from there, and it'll move and nothing will be impossible to you, that your provision is not proportionate to the size of your faith. So here's what happens a lot of times, you know, we do people with disservice when we say, well, if you just wanna have a little more faith, you wouldn't be in the mess you're in. Maybe I've said that to you? Man, if I could just get the faith engines turning, like you can't generate faith, you can't produce faith.
So what happens a lot of times we face this mountain, and we think, well, the mountain's this big, and therefore if the mountain's this big, I need faith equal to the mountain. And somehow I've got a little bit, but I've gotta generate some more so that I can attack this thing. That's not what Jesus said. He said that this will move this.
Like you don't need more faith. See what we don't understand, we try to generate faith, but here's the thing about faith, faith is a gift. Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says this, the day you're saved, four by grace, are you saved through what? Faith, and that none of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, less than any man should boast.
See a lot of people can read through that, but it says, four by grace, you're saved through faith, and that, that is modifying faith. That faith is not of yourselves, and it is the gift of God. We're like, well, I thought grace was the gift of God, it is. But grace is a gift, right?
It's free, it's unearned favor. It would be redundant for the apostle Paul to say that grace was a gift, because we all know that. What we don't get is that faith is also a gift. Like God actually gives you the faith to receive what he's already provided.
Work it up. And so all this stuff, like we try to produce faith. I need more faith, I gotta generate faith. I gotta pray more and read more and study more, and then I gotta bind and loot.
Like, you know what happens? You already have it. See, what happens is our faith becomes a work, when that happens. See the apostle Paul also says this in Romans 12, where he says, I say to you by the grace given to me that let not one of you think more highly of himself than he ought, and that's a message in itself.
He says, let not one of you think more highly of himself than he ought, but to think soberly, sober mindedly, as God has dealt to each one, a measure of what? Faith. Now some translations of the King James says, the measure of faith, and I hear people argue, well, it's the measure of faith, because everybody has the same measure, and then you have people on this side, well, it's a measure of faith, and we all have different measures. You know what, it doesn't matter.
You know why? I don't care if it's a measure of faith, or the measure of faith, whatever version you wanna use, it's faith, right? Why doesn't it matter if I got the same amount of faith, or a different faith than you do? Because it only takes an insignificant amount.
Like, you already have it. You already have it. And so it's not about me drumming up more faith. Jesus said, you just need to use the faith that I've already given you.
I've deposited it in you. It's in there. Peter in second Peter chapter one one, I just dropped my faith. Faith, it's faith gone wild.
Peter, not only have they got this verse, but Peter talks about you who have received in second Peter one one, sometimes like to say, like precious faith, that you've received like precious space because of the righteousness of Jesus, that here's the thing, I have the same faith, like precious faith means of equal value, that the apostle Peter had. Like that's what he said under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that you have received equal value faith as the very apostle Peter. The reason it's equal value because it came from the same source, like it came from Jesus. So here's the thing, next slide.
If you already have faith, and it only takes an insignificant amount of faith to move a mountain, like where's the disconnect? Like you already have it. Why don't we see the thing manifest that we're believing for? Because you have it.
Like where's the disconnect? So we're gonna look at Matthew chapter 17. We're gonna read through this. Now this is the story from the second one where Jesus said you could say to this mountain, be removed or move here to there and it'll move.
I'm gonna read this to you. We're gonna read verses 14 through 21. It said when they had come to the multitude, a man came to him kneeling down and saying, now just in context, so Jesus had just taken Peter, James and John, what we remember, the Mount of Transfiguration. They're up on the mountain.
Peter, James and John and Jesus come down. So the disciples that it's referring to in this story were the remaining nine because the other three were up on the mountain. It says, and when they came to the multitude, they being Jesus, Peter, James and John, a man came to him kneeling down to him saying, Lord have mercy on my son for he is an epileptic and suffers severely, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.
Then Jesus said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear you? Bring him to me. You can hear the frustration in Jesus's voice.
Like sometimes when something doesn't work out the way we see it in scripture, well, it must not have been God's will. Do you realize Jesus was angry that the disciples didn't get the breakthrough that they should have? He says, you faithless and pervert, basically you bunch of perverts. Like you faithless and perverse generation, how long do I have to deal with the idiots?
That's what he's saying. He's like, bring him here. Bring him to me. He says, and Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him and the child was cured from that very hour.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, we're gonna stop right here. Why could we not cast him out? Why could we not cast him out? See, so I don't wanna teach on this today, but when something doesn't work out the way that you see it prescribed in scripture, the first place we go is back to the master.
We go back to Jesus. We don't go to Facebook. We don't go to like call 15 people and tell them how this didn't work. We know we go back to the person that wrote the book.
So here we have, we get to see the secret conversation between Jesus and the disciples. They tried to cast this demon out. It didn't come out and so what do they do? Hey, you cast him out.
We couldn't do it. Where's the disconnect? Why could we not cast him out? Now before we move on to the story, I just wanna point out this.
Think about this for a minute. First and foremost, let's go the next slide, so you can see this. It says, why do they fail even though they won? They had authority, get this.
So sometimes people misinterpret this scripture and we go down two more verses. It says this kind of only come out by prayer and fasting. It's not talking about demons. And I'll get to that in a minute.
I'm gonna tell you what it's talking about. But think about this, first and foremost, they had authority over not just some demons, not just like a few demons. It says in Luke nine, it says, Jesus gave them authority over all demons. All demons, not, there wasn't like some fasting demon that couldn't come out.
No, they had authority over every single demon. Matthew chapter 10 one says, he gave them authority over every kind of sickness and every kind of disease to heal all sickness and heal all disease. So if the guy was demonically possessed and he has a condition because of it, they had authority not only to heal him, but also to cast the demon out full authority from Jesus. First and foremost.
Secondly, they were obeying Jesus' command. So we think, well, they must have been living in sin. Like right now, the first thing we got for? Well, you must have been living a certain way because it didn't work.
Well, think about this. Jesus tells them in Matthew 10 one, he gives them all authority and power over all the demons and every sickness. And in Matthew 10 verses seven and eight, he says this, he says, as you go preach, saying the kingdom of God is coming to you, heal the sick, cleanse the leper, cast out the, erase the dead, cast out demons, freely you've been given, or freely received, freely given. So his command to them was, heal the sick and do what, cast out demons.
They were trying to do it. They were literally in obedience to what Jesus commanded them. And living in accordance with his will. Thirdly, they had prior experience.
Like they were, think about this. They were the most experienced demon caster outers in the earth, except for Jesus. Like only Jesus was better at his job than they were. They had more experience.
They had done it time and time and time again. When Jesus sends them out in Luke chapter nine, they came back and reported that all that happened. When Jesus, like this was such a good deal in Luke chapter 10, he sends 70 more out to do the same thing. And the 70 come back and Luke 10 and say, we, you know, demons flat at your name.
Like it was commonplace. They were experienced at it. And finally, I believe they had a measure of faith. You know why I believe they had a measure of faith?
Because when they, see, remember how James says, faith without what? Works is dead. That action puts like substance to your faith. Like they actually stepped out, took a risk, did the thing that Jesus told them to do, and they expected it to work.
Like they expected it. Like if they didn't expect it to work, do you think they would have went to Jesus and said, hey, why couldn't we do it? Like if I expected to fail, I'd be like, nah, I knew it wasn't gonna work anyway. And I don't wait my way.
But see, look, they were authorized by Jesus himself. They were given full authority. They were walking an obedience to his will and to his word. They were experienced.
They were seasoned at this. And on top of that, they actually believed when they did, and when they said, move, guess what? It's gonna move. So with all those things in their favor, so to speak, where was the problem?
Next verse, Jesus answered the form. Everybody say this, why could we not cast it out? Jesus said to them what? Because of your unbelief.
See, it wasn't that you didn't have the authority. It wasn't that you weren't living in obedience to my word. It wasn't that you haven't had prior experience. And it wasn't even that you had to measure faith, and you expected it to work.
It's because you had unbelief. He said, I say to you, if you have faith, as much as you'll see, you'll see this mountain move here and it'll move, nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. We will come back to that in a minute.
But for right now, I wanna show you this. Is that, it wasn't that they needed more faith. See, the issue wasn't, it wasn't that they, they didn't have faith. It was that they also had unbelief.
See, the issue for you is not the absence of faith, because you already have it. See, the issue is not the absence of faith. The issue is the presence of unbelief. See, you think, well, if I have unbelief, I can't have faith, I have faith again.
Actually, they can coexist. Faith and unbelief can live in the same house. They can coexist. And when they coexist, one cancels out the other.
If you look at Mark chapter nine, the same story talking to the Father, he comes to Jesus. He says, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us, Jesus says, if you can only believe, all things are possible to him who believes, and the Father says this. He says, Jesus, I believe, help my what? Help my unbelief.
I believe, help my unbelief. See, belief and faith and unbelief can cohabitate. They can coexist. It's like this.
Let me have two ladies. Oh, you two will be perfect. Oh, sorry, Carol. Carol, you wanna come up?
Back, come on. I want you to notice here. So, I just wanna tell you, this is prophetic too, okay? Because red and white, four tails on the top.
And blue allergates on the bottom. So, in case you were wondering. Carol, take that. Carol, all right.
Now, this is, I pulled this out of my gym this morning. This is a five pound kettle ball, right? So, not like, it's not a mountain. I didn't wanna like, I didn't wanna get a hernia trying to lift this.
But, so if you guys, you can put a little tension on that thing. All right. Now, this isn't tug of war, okay? I just, just a little tension on it.
All right. Now, you wanna be faith or unbelief. All right. All right, so, you got this mountain, right?
You got a little bit of faith, right? You got to measure of faith. So, you got to mountain, you need to move, right? All right.
Look, everybody say, come on, Carol, you need more faith. Come on, more faith, more faith. Come on, more faith. You got to increase your faith.
Come on. Not working. See, it's not working because her faith is being offset by her unbelief. Like the two can coexist like this.
And so, here's where we are in life. We have a measure of faith. It was deposited in you the day you got saved. You only need a little bit.
So, it's not the amount, but here's what we tell people. You need more faith. Come on, stir it up. You got to crank it up.
But, it doesn't matter how much you crank it up over there. Because, over here, I've got unbelief in my heart. An unbelief will short-circuit the faith that's already in there. See, I don't need more faith.
What I need to do is, go, go, go, go. Pull on it now. See, I need less unbelief. See that?
See, as I get rid of the unbelief, all of a sudden the thing starts to move. She didn't increase her faith. She didn't grow it. She actually just got rid of the thing that was hindering the faith from doing what God said it would do.
They say, come here. Let's give it a hand. We love you. Thank you.
Hey, that's the only time I'm ever going to love unbelief. See, if we look at that, so here's his father. He says, I believe, help my unbelief. And if you look at Abraham, Romans 4 verses 20 and 21, it says this.
He did not waver at what? The promise of God through unbelief. See, unbelief will cause this. It'll cause you to waver back and forth.
You're pulling in faith, but then unbelief's tugging you this way. And then you're going this way. He didn't. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was what?
Strengthened in faith. Let me guess what the word strengthened means in the Greek. It means to increase in strength. Do you get it?
How do you increase in faith by getting rid of unbelief? You don't actually increase faith. You get rid of the thing that's holding faith back. It says that Abraham did not waver at the promise of God.
Some translations say stagger at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened. Abraham increased in strength in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced. That God was able to perform what he promised. You see that?
It wasn't that he was partially convinced. He wasn't 80-20. He wasn't 90-10. He wasn't 99-1.
He was fully convinced. And when he was fully convinced and had no unbelief, his faith naturally increased. So see, faith is a gift. God gives it to you.
We allow unbelief to come in and actually hinder the faith that God's given. Like you don't need a lot. See, you need to get rid of the unbelief more than you need to work on the faith. Because he gives it.
Paul says this. He says, the life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
The life that I live, I live by the faith. It's like it's his faith. We put faith in him, but it's his faith. He gives it to you.
All right. Here's my message today. Here's what I want to point out. Jesus said this.
He says, because of your unbelief. For surely I say to you, 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. However, I might say this kind. Does not go out except by prayer and fasting.
This kind is not this kind of demon because they were given all authority over every demon, all demons, all sickness, all disease. There was nothing that fell outside of their authority. This kind is this kind of unbelief. See this kind, the kind of unbelief they had in that moment that kept them from seeing the deliverance that Jesus brought, that kind of unbelief comes out through prayer and fasting.
We're going to talk about that a minute. If this is a kind of unbelief, it means there's multiple kinds of unbelief. And so what I really dug into this week and asked God to show me, I said, show me the kinds of unbelief that can hide in our life. What are forms of unbelief that we may don't even know are there that could be hindering the mustard seed?
Like you already have the faith. You have been given. It says each one has been given a measure or each one has been given the measure. Whatever it is.
You say I have it. I have it. Like you have it. He gave it to you.
He didn't earn it. You brought the unbelief. See, we think we're ever here generating faith, but actually most of the time we're generating unbelief by the things we're either doing or not doing. And so here's what I want to look at today.
Six types of unbelief that I saw and we'll just go through them. This is going to be one of them. We'll come back to this one. But here they are.
We're going to look at it. Just a couple of these and a few of these will give verses on someone. So first and foremost, ignorance. I don't mean, oh, he's ignorant.
Not like that. Ignorant means you don't know, right? How can you believe in something you don't know about? So Paul says this when Paul's writing the Timothy, he said, he said, my previous life, I was a persecutor of the church.
I persecuted Christians. I was a terrible guy. But I found mercy in the sight of the Lord because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Like he didn't know when Paul was doing what he was doing.
He didn't know that what he was doing was wrong. He was ignorant. And so a lot of times what's the fix when I don't know what God's word says? Romans 10, 17.
So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. When I don't know something, where do I go to find out what God says about it? In his word. Right?
So if you're ignorant about something or somebody, you see something in somebody's life, maybe they don't know. See the first, a lot of times what do we want to do sometimes as Christians? We want to get the Bible bad out, right? Oh man, they're living in sin.
You know, like, and you want to smack a home run on your head. But stop for a minute. Maybe they don't know. Maybe they don't know.
Give people the benefit of the down. And if they don't know, what are you going to do? I'm going to help them. I'm going to build a relationship.
See, let me just talk about that for a minute. Because that's a lot of times too. Like, I just want to tell them what God's word says. Okay, I do too.
But you know, if they don't know that you value them, they're not going to receive what you tell them. So before you go tell somebody something, I'm telling them the truth of God's word. Okay. How about taking them to dinner first?
How about going to get a cup of coffee first? How about building a relationship with them first? So they have access into your life and they're like, you know what? I received that.
I received that. So it could be ignorance. It's a cause of unbelief. The second one could be this.
Misbelief. Misbelief. This was me. Chris and I met in 1992.
You guys do the math. She was 12. I was 22. No, not really.
I grew up in a church where I came into our relationship. I had beliefs. You guys think I'm like opinionated? Maybe.
Yeah. My wife would tell you like I'm really opinionated to a fall. But I came into this relationship with certain beliefs that I was sure of. Like that speaking in tongues was demonic.
Like I was sure of it. And I thought, I mean, I came in, and I believe that, you know, the miraculous had passed away after the first century. When the apostles were gone, the miracles were gone. And I, like, I believe something wholeheartedly, but it was erroneous belief.
Like I believe something. And so, so what did I do? What's the fix for that? Romans 12, too.
It says, do not be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Like you can't put the will of God on display if you don't know it. Like proving the will of God is actually putting God's will on display.
That God's will is healing. God's will is deliverance. God's will is restoration, reconciliation, all those things. And so I actually, like, I was like, you know what?
I'm not going to marry you because you're a Pentecostal. But I'll do this. I'll do this one thing. I'll give it one shot.
I wasn't living for the Lord. So just bear that mind. Like I was stuck in a mud on my belief, but I was living like a terrible life. But I went to the Lord and I said, Lord, if this is for today, if this is for me, if this is for us, then show me.
Then show me. And as I read scripture and as I began to read scripture, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me. I'm like, hmm, maybe I was wrong. And that made, I didn't want to say I was wrong.
It's like maybe I was wrong. But you know what? God began to change my beliefs to line them more up with His. And I was passionately wrong.
And I think that still happens to a lot of the body of the church today. A lot of the body of Christ today is passionate about the wrong stuff. It could be ignorance. It could be misdirected, misbelief, erroneous belief.
How about this? Fatigue. Fatigue. Dealing with the same situation over and over and over.
If you look at the same story when Jesus comes to the Father. When he comes to the Father in Mark chapter 9, we don't see this in Matthew, but in Mark 9, Jesus asked him the question. He says, hey, how long has this been happening? How long has this been happening?
And the Father said, since he was a baby. So I don't know how old this boy was. He was probably a young child, maybe nine, ten years old. But here's a situation where it's since childhood, I think it's the next slide.
It says from childhood. How long has this been happening? He says from childhood. That world childhood means since infancy.
So here's a situation this dad had been dealing with day after day, month after month, year after year. And if you ever have ever dealt with something so long that you just get tired from it, you know, what do we like to say? We get to the place in life where we become fatigued. We become jaded.
We become worn out. We resign, not like you resign from a job, but we become resigned that it is what it is. It's not. It's not.
I was praying this morning, God said, actually, Google this to see if anybody else ever wrote it. I couldn't find it. So God says, and I said, it is what it is. He says, no, it is what God's word says it is.
See, it doesn't matter how long you've been dealing with it. It's not. It is what Jesus says it is. Like what he says matters.
It's the final. That's the final say. I do appreciate this dad because what's he do? He says, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
And Jesus says, if you can believe all things are possible to him, it believes. And he says, Lord, I believe that now what man ever asks for help? Like you got you got to appreciate this guy. Christian will tell you, she'll be like, well, you just pull over and ask somebody.
We're going the way that's the right way. I'm not asking for help. You got to appreciate this guy. See, interestingly enough, and all the times that Jesus called out unbelief in somebody, this was the only time he didn't call it out.
This guy called it out on himself. So I think if you'd be honest, you could identify something in your life that's gone on so long that you've got to a place where you just said, you know what, maybe that's the way it is. And what did the guy do? I mean, he started with this.
He admitted. He said, I have unbelief. Help me. Help me.
Do you realize when Jesus left in John 1416, he says, I will pray the Father that he will give you another help, or like Jesus isn't here physically, but yes, who is? Holy Spirit. And so I encourage you today, start with this. If you identify something in your life that's causing unbelief, because you know what, I'm just tired of this.
I'm tired. This thing has worn me out. Help me. Help me, Holy Spirit.
Help me, Jesus. I admit it. I've got unbelief. Help me.
Like that's why he's there. He's there to help. Since dominant. Now this is where these guys are in this story.
Am I helping anybody today? I'm helping to help you more. We're going to get into stick up now. But I'll make it quick.
Sense dominant. Having faith in what your five senses relay over what God's word says. See, that's what these guys were in the midst of. Go to the next slide.
I just want to read the statement from Mark. It says, whenever it seizes him, it throws him down. He fums with the mouse, nashes his teeth, becomes rigid. So your disciples, they couldn't cast him out.
So imagine this. Here come the disciples. The guys bringing the demon and pose, okay. Hey, what's up, Barthol?
Here we go, Barthol. I mean, we're going to cast another one now. Are you ready for this? You know, and here comes the kid.
Right? And he's foaming it to mouth. You want me to do it again? But think about this.
All of a sudden, what their five senses saw, heard, discerned, carried more weight than the faith that they were carrying on the inside. And Jesus says this, he says this kind, can only come out by prayer and fasting. See, here's the thing, it's interesting. In this situation, the kid falls down and does this again.
And Jesus cast out the demon. But Jesus neither prayed nor fasted in the moment. He said this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting, but Jesus didn't do either. See, Jesus didn't fast for a problem.
Jesus fasted into a lifestyle. That's the difference. See what happens when these things happen. Oh my gosh, there's a demon possessed.
We're in Africa and there's demons flying all over the place. Hold up a minute. I've got to go pray and fast. You don't have time.
You don't fast and pray for a problem. You fast and pray into a lifestyle. See, here's the thing. See fasting is not a hunger strike.
Well, I think most Christians are like Gandhi, right? I'm just going to fast until God moves. You're probably going to die. All right?
See, when we fast to get God to move, that's called manipulation. I'm doing something to manipulate God to do what I want to do. See, fasting does not get you brownie points either. Like, oh, there's Kristin.
She's fasting. Check mark, check, no, that's legalism. See, fasting suppresses me relying on the natural realm. I'm suppressing my physical man to allow the ascendancy of the spirit man.
That I can actually anchor in the spirit realm and it becomes more real what's there and unseen than the thing that I can actually see. See, and that's what fasting does. It allows me to anchor my faith in the unseen. But what happens, like, let's say this, if faith is anchored in the unseen, unbelief is anchored in the seen.
And what about prayer? He doesn't say just fasting. He says prayer and fasting. Think about this.
When you're praying, you're praying to a God you can't see. And if you're praying in tongues, you're praying to a God you can't see it. A language you can't understand. Talk about getting yourself to where you can operate in the unseen.
That will do it. See, when these things occur, you don't have time to pray in fast. That has to be your lifestyle leading up to it. About three weeks ago, I'm in bed.
It's 930. Kristin says, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I said, fine. I hear something drop.
I'm going to go, okay. She was sick. She had to flu. Next thing I hear, and it's silence.
I'm like, well, I guess I better get out of bed. So I get out of bed. She's laying. We have a little toilet room.
She's laying. I'm going to go out and I'm going to go out and I'm going to go out and I'm going to go fast and pray. I said, you come back to life right now. You live and not die.
I'm praying in the spirit. I'm putting compressors on her head. I'm praying and smacking her a little bit. I always wanted to.
You don't have time to do that. That has to be your lifestyle up to the point where something happens. You deal with unbelief in that situation before the situation happens. 20 minutes later, she goes and says, thank you.
She says, why didn't you pull my underwear up when I was laying on the floor? I'm like, I'm not a little respect. How about a Sarah called Abraham, Lord, Lord? And you're Sarah's daughter, you are.
How about that? No. Why didn't you pull my underwear up when I was on the floor? Familiarity.
Familiarity. Matthew 13 verses 57 and 58, it says that Jesus goes into his hometown and they're like, man, how does this guy preach like this? How does this guy do these kind of miracles? And all of a sudden they talk to himself out of faith because they said, wait, wait a minute.
Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't this Mary's kid? Isn't his brothers, aren't his brothers and sisters here with us? Oh, yeah, that's just Jesus.
That's just Jesus. And it says that they were offended at him. And Jesus said a prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house. Now he did not do many mighty works there because of their, what?
Do you realize this? Here's Jesus, the most anointed, the sinless, lame of God completely filled with the Holy Spirit, all authority to do every miracle, anything. And yet they're unbelief hindered the flow of power in that city because they were too familiar with him. So here's what happens a lot of times.
We become so familiar with somebody's past that we get to a point where we reason around to, there's no way God could be using that person that way because I know the person that used to be. See, it gets so bad that we actually can become offended at the very person that God wants to use because we think of them and see them in the light of the way they were before Jesus changed their life. See, these people were so dialed into the way that Jesus is humanity, the way he grew up, his family, his kids, or not his kids, his brothers and sisters, his job, his profession, all that stuff that they missed it. And they said they became offended.
And they said he could not do any mighty works there. The other, and Mark it says, except lay hands on a few sick people. He had a couple sick people, that was it, but he couldn't do any big works because of their unbelief. And so I challenge you the day that there could be somebody and you're like, you know, it's always the person you don't want to deal with.
Like, why God does that person have to be the one to give me a prophetic word? Like, I don't want a word from them. See, Jesus says a prophet is not without honor accepted his own country and in his own house. See, what you need to do to keep unbelief from creeping in here is actually honor the anointing on somebody else's life.
See, if you learn to honor the anointing that God is placed on somebody else, you're honoring him when you're doing that. But when you look at the way they used to be, oh, there's no way God could use that person. You actually become offended and unbelief creeps in. And Jesus actually can't do the thing that he wants to do because you've minimized that person based on their past.
So you got to see people the way God sees them. You got to honor the anointing, the prophetic anointing, the apostolic anointing, whatever the anointing is, the teaching gift, the gift of helps, whatever the gift is. You honor the anointing on somebody else's life. And you keep unbelief from coming in.
The final one is this. I'll put it this, superiority. It says on the day, it says that Jesus appeared to the 11, the day that he resurrected, we're going to talk about resurrection here in a couple of weeks. It's the go-next slide.
It says he appeared to the 11 as they sat at the table and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness hard because they did not believe who had seen him after he had risen. Here's what happened. On resurrection day, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. It says out of whom he had cast seven devils.
It says that she went and told them, and guess what? I didn't believe her. It says then a few verses later says that he appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They returned and they didn't believe them either.
And so here's the disciples. Well, God forbid he appeared to somebody, not me. Why would I believe a woman out of whom he cast seven devils? Why would I believe two other disciples who aren't the apostles?
And so it happens a lot of times we can develop this spiritual superiority where if it didn't happen to me, there's no way it could have happened to you. And when that happens, unbelief creeps in. See, when I refuse to accept the testimony of somebody else that can actually hinder me from receiving in my life what God wants to do. Well, maybe he did it for you, but I don't think he'll do it for me.
If he did it for you, he'll do it for me. He'll do it for me. He doesn't play favorites. And sometimes you got to get off your high horse and realize that it says in Revelation, it says the Spirit, the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.
It says they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of the testimony that when somebody has a testimony of healing, when somebody has a testimony of deliverance, when somebody has a testimony that God's healed their marriage, when somebody has a testimony that God restored their kid from a really bad life, don't think, well, that's you, that's not me. Get off your horse. See, when you think that you're the end all be all for Christianity, unbelief is creeped in. And God wants to use each and every one of you to deliver a testimony.
See, those that have had their chains broken become what? Chain breakers. It's your testimony. But on the other end, you've got to be willing to receive from somebody else whether or not you perceive them at your level or not.
So I probably have told the story before, but I see Karen and Alan, so it reminds me of a central assembly story, but I dealt with chronic migraines for probably 10 years. And we had a pastor pastor Larry Greenie called for a, we've had prayer for healing, you go up for prayer. And of course everybody wants in the pastor line, right? Oh, the pastor's got more annoying.
So I got in the pastor line, because I wanted a pastor to pray for me. So when I got up front, I got shuffled to the blue-haired lady line. Like, I wanted the pastor, I didn't want the 80-year-old blue hair, because I failed to realize the anointing on her life. I failed to realize she carried something that I didn't carry.
And I walked out of that day without a headache. And I haven't suffered procroned migraines for years. See, sometimes the way you perceive people, unfortunately God and His grace allowed me to receive healing, even though I had a bad attitude. And that's how God is.
He's really good. And so here's what I want to do today. I want you to stand up. We're going to pray for, if you've been here today and you're believing, you've been here and you've been believing for something, for a long time.
Maybe you're fatigued. Maybe you're tired. Maybe you're just like, I cannot deal with this anymore. I'm just like, I'm about ready to throw in the towel.
I just want you to say this, Lord, help. Help my unbelief. That's where it starts. Lord, I believe, help.
Help my unbelief. You know, maybe you've been allowing things that you see to shape your faith. Maybe you've been allowing things that you hear to shape your faith. See, unbelief is faith.
It's just faith in the wrong thing. And so we've got to get to a place where what God's word says carries all the weight. And what I see here smell, taste the touch. Is irrelevant.
That's why Paul says we walk by faith, not by sight.