A New Beginning

Greg Laurie: Everybody has faith. For instance, when you go to a restaurant, you're applying faith and hoping that that food is prepared properly. But then someone comes along and says so have faith in God and we say, whoa, faith in God, that's insane.

Guest (Male): Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie says since we all apply faith anyway, let's put our faith in God Almighty, who loves and cares for us. There is no safer place to put your faith than in God Himself.

God's plan for His children includes blessings, joy, and contentment. It also includes some challenges and trials along the way. But that plan also provides the tools to navigate those tough times we face.

And today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us understand one of the most important tools we've been given. Faith is the key that will help us see a way when there seems to be no way. Today, Pastor Greg helps us put our amazing faith into practice.

Greg Laurie: Let me start by saying something you might find surprising. Everybody has and lives by a form of faith. Now some might say no, I don't have faith, I'm not a man of faith, I'm not a woman of faith. No, everyone has faith. Everyone applies faith. Listen to this: even the atheist has faith.

Now, I didn't say they had faith in God. They have faith in something, I'm not sure what. Maybe they have faith in themselves? Well, that'll be a disappointment. Or maybe they have faith in a political system? That'll be even more a disappointment. Or faith in whatever. But they have faith. And by the way, I think it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. To not believe that there's a creator and someone who's in control of all the things around us.

But everybody has a measure of faith. And when we bring the word faith up, I think the problem is we make it too mystical. When in fact, we act in faith every day. For instance, you go to a restaurant and you order, you're hoping that that food is going to be fresh, you're hoping that it will be prepared properly.

When you board a 747 that weighs over 300,000 pounds, that it's going to somehow get up in the air and take you to the place you want to go, you're applying faith when you do that. When you step into an elevator, you're applying faith and hopes that all the cables are working and they've done their due diligence and all the checks on it and so forth.

When you go down to the drugstore and you fill your medications, you're trusting that pharmacist knows what they're doing and they're going to put the right pills in the right bottle. But then someone comes along and says so have faith in God and we say, whoa, faith in God, that's insane. Listen to this: there is no safer place to put your faith than in God Himself.

So question: what is faith and how does it work? What is faith and how does it work? Number one, faith is belief plus action. Faith is belief plus action. Hebrews 11:1 gives an excellent definition of faith where the author says, faith is the substance of things hoped for, it's the evidence of things not seen.

So faith isn't just believing something, it's acting on that thing one believes in. See, you can have mere intellectual assent toward something. In other words, say I believe this is true. As the Bible says, the demons believe and tremble. And as I pointed out in an earlier message, the devil believes God is real, the devil believes the Bible is true, the devil believes Satan is coming back again, but he has not submitted himself to that, he is not following the Lord. But it's an acknowledgment of the truth of it. No, real faith in God is faith plus action, belief plus action.

Number two, faith does things. If you have real faith, you will do something with it. Going back to Hebrews 11, that Abel offered a sacrifice. Noah prepared an ark. Abraham obeyed, etc. They all did things because faith with no works is a faith that does not work. Let me repeat that. A faith with no works is a faith that does not work.

Everything in our life revolves around faith. We're saved by faith. We're told over in Ephesians, for by grace you've been saved through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast. Not only as Christians are we saved by faith, but then we live by faith. The Bible says the just shall live by faith.

So not feeling, because if you build your Christian life on your emotions, you're going to be riding a roller coaster. Sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down emotionally, but faith is steady as she goes as we believe the word of God regardless of our emotions.

Now, I know it's very easy to talk about faith and tell people to have faith. I heard a story about a woman who went to her pastor and said, "Pastor, my husband scares me. He actually said to me that if I keep coming to your church, he's going to kill me." And the pastor said, "Now, ma'am, don't be afraid. The Lord is with you and the Lord will protect you and it'll be okay."

And then she came back a week later and said, "Pastor, again my husband said if I keep coming here, he's going to kill me." Again, just trust the Lord. He's in control. She came back a week later and said, "Pastor, my husband just said to me, if I keep coming to this church, he's going to kill you."

The pastor paused for a moment and he said, "You know, there's a great church on the other side of town you might like to start attending." See, the point is it's easy to tell someone else to have faith, but then when you have to apply faith, it can be a different situation, right?

My third point is faith can make the difference between something happening and not happening. Again, faith can make the difference between something happening and not happening. Look, God can do what He wants, where He wants, through whomever He chooses to do it through.

But it's interesting how the Lord chooses to do His work through people. God could have sovereignly parted the Red Sea without Moses playing any role, but instead the Lord said to Moses, "Hold up your staff and watch what I will do." God could have brought fire down from heaven without Elijah praying, but He directed the prophet Elijah to pray and fire came down.

Listen to this. Jesus could have healed everyone, everywhere during His earthly ministry. He didn't have to lay hands on that person and have this other person touch him and speak to a word to even another person. He could have just said on the count of three, everyone's healed and boom, they would have all been healed.

But no, we see him working in the lives of people that called out to him and applied their faith because again, faith can make the difference between something happening or not happening. We think of blind Bartimaeus who heard that Jesus was coming his direction. So he cried out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" And someone said, "Shh! Don't bother Jesus."

And he yelled even louder. "Jesus, Son of David!" he cries out. "Have mercy on me!" And Jesus touches and heals Bartimaeus. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, right? That's not in the Bible, but it's kind of true. Bartimaeus was the squeaky wheel, wasn't he?

But then there are others that were more quiet in their faith, like the woman we looked at recently who had the physical ailment of constantly bleeding and she reasoned if she could touch the hem of the garment of Jesus, she would be healed. And she was and Jesus commended her for her faith.

Well, speaking of women with faith, we're going to look at another woman now who had what I would describe as amazing faith. Important note, she was not one of the disciples of Jesus. She did not have the privilege of walking and talking with him day and night and hearing his great teachings and seeing his powerful miracles.

She knew nothing of that. In fact, she lived in a different country. But she had heard of Jesus. She was a sinful woman with a great, great need and she rallies with amazing faith for her daughter to be delivered from the power of demons causing Jesus to say in Matthew's account of the story we're going to read here from Mark: O woman, great is your faith.

I mean, that's a pretty big deal when Jesus calls you out in a positive way and says, great is your faith. I mean, think about it. Jesus Christ was an expert on the subject of faith, was He not? Jesus, of course, was God incarnate. He created all things. He's known every person He's ever called from Abraham to Moses, from Sarah to Ruth, from Peter to John.

Yet He specifically comments on the faith of this woman. It's something we need to look at, it's something we need to admire, and it's something we need to emulate because it was amazing faith. This woman had a problem, as I said. Her daughter was possessed by demons and she needed to get to Jesus and hell or high water would not stop her. She was the mother who would not give up.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment.

Hey everyone, I want you to know about our app called Harvest Plus. Think of it as a Harvest version of Netflix. We have all of our resources in one place. We have our movies, like Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon, Johnny Cash: Redemption of an American Icon, A Rush of Hope, and much more. Then we have our television program, daily devotions, and much more. So go and download the Harvest Plus app.

Well, Pastor Greg is presenting a message today called Amazing Faith. Here's Pastor Greg now to dig into today's scripture.

Greg Laurie: Let's read now from Mark chapter 7. I'm going to read verses 24 to 29, and by the way, I'm reading from the New Living Translation.

"Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre." Underline that because I'm going to come back to it. "He didn't want anyone to know what house He was staying in, but He couldn't keep it a secret. Right away a woman who had heard about Him came and fell at His feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit and she begged Him to cast out the demons from her daughter. Since she was a Gentile born in Syrian Phoenicia, Jesus told her, 'First I should feed the children, My own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.' She said, 'Well, that's true, Lord. But even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps that fall from the children's plate.' I love the response of Jesus. 'Good answer,' He said. 'Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.' And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed, and the demon was gone."

If you're taking notes, here's a major point. This woman had an unexpected and an amazing faith. Again, she had an unexpected and an amazing faith. Why is it unexpected? Because she was a non-Jewish woman from a pagan background. Verse 26 says she was a Gentile born in Syrian Phoenicia.

More to the point, she was a Canaanite. Now, you say, well, so what? Well, remember, the Canaanites were the enemies of Israel. Remember when God directed Moses to lead the Israelites through the wilderness and they came to the promised land? And what was the promised land? It was the land of Canaan.

What was the first city to fall? It was the city of Jericho, a Canaanite city. And we think well, that's so sad that they went and took that territory from these people. No, the Canaanites were wicked people. The Canaanites were known historically to sell their children into prostitution. The Canaanites would take their little babies and offer them as sacrifices to their false gods. And God gave them warning after warning after warning.

So this woman is connected to the Canaanites. So the Israelites and the Canaanites, let's just say they didn't get along very well, right? And here's another interesting thing. She lives in Tyre, where Jesus went to see her. Now Tyre is not in Israel. Effectively, Jesus is leaving the country to go visit this woman.

By the way, this is the only time Jesus ever left the nation of Israel. Tyre's 25 miles north of Galilee. Sidon is 25 miles beyond that. It's a long way on foot. No Uber. No skateboards, no bicycles, no motorcycles, no anything. You did everything on foot. That's a long way to go to reach a person, especially someone who's not even Jewish and has been raised in a pagan culture.

It made no sense. The disciples are thinking, "Wait, wait, what are you doing? You're leaving Israel? Lord, you're really popular right now. You're trending on Twitter. Your Instagram account is blowing up. You have so many followers."

Jesus is like, "That's interesting. I have an appointment with someone, I'm going to Tyre."

"Uh, why?" Well, they didn't understand why, but they were about to see why He was doing this. He wanted to reach this woman.

Listen, she needed a miracle and Jesus was going to bring it to her. This is a good reminder that as Christians, we need to go where people are. Again, let me say, we want to go where people are. This is why here at Harvest Ministries, we're always trying to find creative new ways to reach unexpected people in unexpected places. And so here is the Lord reaching this woman.

By the way, Jesus did not say the whole world should go to church, but he did say the church should go to the whole world. So he went out of his way to reach her. Now I mentioned she was pagan, which means she worshipped false gods. She probably worshipped the goddess Astarte, which was the goddess of fertility.

Clearly, she was disillusioned with these gods. They had not helped her because they're not real. And if that wasn't bad enough, now her daughter has become severely demon-possessed. I'm sure there's some cause and effect between all those little idols in the home, those false gods, and this demonic activity in the life of the daughter.

And it's a reminder for us that as parents, we have a direct influence on our children. Listen to me, moms and dads. Your children are watching you. Little eyes are watching and little ears are listening. They listen to what you say, but more importantly, they watch what you do.

Be a good example. For instance, let's say you drink in front of your kids and then one day your kids have a problem with alcohol and you wonder why. Or you fight with your spouse right in front of the kids, sometimes even asking the kids to take sides in the argument, which is always a horrible idea. And then you're shocked when they have those same issues in their life or whatever it is.

You know, the Bible talks about the sins of the parents being visited on the children. By the way, that's not describing some mystical curse that's passed on from generation to generation. That is simply talking about a repeated behavior of sin that can be passed on as an example.

If the parents are divorced, chances are far higher that the children will end up divorced. If the parents have issues with alcohol use, chances are far higher that the kids will have them. Those are negatives. Listen to this. If both mom and dad attend church regularly, chances are far higher that the children will attend regularly. So not only can we pass sin onto our children, but we can pass blessings onto them as well.

Heard the story of a father and his young son who were climbing a mountain and they came to a very difficult place on the trail. And the dad was thinking about which way he should go and as he was deciding his little boy standing behind him said, "Choose the right path, dad. I'm coming right behind you."

Listen to this. The primary spiritual responsibility for raising your children is not on the church. It's not in Sunday school. It's not in a Christian school. It's in your home. You be the godly example. You be the godly leader. You read the Bible to them before they go to bed at night. You pray with them and you model what it is to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Because it's a lot easier to build a child than it is to repair an adult. Let me say that again. It's a lot easier to build a child than it is to repair an adult. Listen, the cure for crime is not in the electric chair, it's in the high chair. Start early.

The Bible says bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And in that verse, it's implying not only should you put parameters in the child's life and use strong standards to raise them in, but it also implies create a thirst in them. So live a life with the Lord that will make your child desire that same relationship with Christ.

And that's the mom here. She's like, "I've got to get my daughter to Jesus. I don't really know that much about Jesus, but I know He has the power to deliver her." And so she's bringing her daughter to the Lord.

By the way, she doesn't come with demands. She comes begging for mercy. In Matthew's account of the same story, we find her saying, "Have mercy on me!" and here in Mark's account, verse 26, she begged Him to cast out the demon from her daughter.

Now look at the response of Christ. And this, by the way, is from Matthew 15:23. "But He answered her not a word." He answered her not a word. She's pouring out her heart. She's begging, she's pleading. He's literally gone out of his way to leave the country to be with her and she comes with her request and he doesn't even respond.

Have you ever talked to someone and they don't really respond at all? They're just not interested in what you have to say. They don't make eye contact or you start pouring your heart out and they pull out their phone and start scrolling through social media? Or they're ghosting you on social media, not responding to you?

Well, that is not actually what's happening. It looks like that's what's happening, but it isn't. Jesus knows this woman has amazing faith. Jesus wants to draw this faith out and He wants to put it on display so we can all learn from it.

So He sort of puts up a hurdle, if you will, but He knows this woman can easily clear this hurdle. He knew she's going to be able to pass this test with flying colors. She had an amazing faith and she would not go home without an answer. What an example for us.

Guest (Male): Good encouragement today from Pastor Greg Laurie here on A New Beginning. His message titled today Amazing Faith. And there's more to come as this study continues.

As we've seen demonstrated today, the answer to so many of life's issues is come to Jesus. Whatever it is, come to Jesus. Have you ever come to Jesus yourself? Have you ever come to him to begin a relationship with him, to have your sins forgiven, and to know that you'll go to heaven when this life is over? Pastor Greg, what would you say to a person if that's on their heart today?

Greg Laurie: I would say that God is just a prayer away. It doesn't take years to become a Christian. It doesn't take months. Frankly, it doesn't even take hours. It can happen so quickly.

It just starts with you saying to God, I know I'm a sinner, I know that you love me, I know that you sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sin and pay for those sins and then to rise again from the dead, and I want Him to come into my life.

So here's my question to you: have you done that yet? Because Jesus, who did die on that cross and rose again from the dead three days later, is alive and standing at the door of your life right now and He's knocking. And He says, if you'll hear My voice and open the door, I will come in.

Would you like your sin forgiven? Would you like to know that when you die, you will go to heaven? Do you want Christ to come into your life right now? If so, why don't you just stop whatever it is you're doing and pray this prayer with me? You could pray it out loud, you can pray it in the quietness of your own heart, but pray this prayer to God.

Say, "Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, but I know that You are the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I'm sorry for my sin and I turn from it now, and I choose to follow You from this moment forward. I ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen."

Listen, if you just prayed that prayer, the Bible promises that God has heard your prayer and has answered that prayer. The Bible says that if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So God bless you. You've made the right decision, the decision to follow Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Yeah, that's right. And Pastor Greg would like to help you start off right living for the Lord. He'd like to send you his New Believer's Bible. It features hundreds of helps for new believers and it's written in an easy-to-understand translation. So contact us for your free copy of the New Believer's Bible.

Call us at 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click Know God. Well, Pastor Greg, we hear from listeners literally every single day and they confirm how this program is touching lives. In fact, take a listen to this comment.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg, thank you so much. For years, I thought I was saved, but I came upon your message. I was in the gym working out and I was listening to one of your messages, and the message I was listening to was Can You Lose Your Salvation?

And at the very end, you said, "I'm going to ask you a question: did you ever have it?" And I went next door to the Walmart and I ran into my preacher and I told him what had happened, and he said, "What do you want to do?" and I said, "I want to get saved."

He said, "When?"

I said, "Right here, right now."

So I got saved in the produce section of Walmart because of your message. And I thank you, because for years, I thought I was saved and I wasn't. And I got saved, and I got baptized, and for two years I've been living for Jesus. And I thank you. Thank you for all that you do. You're a great blessing to me. Thank you.

Greg Laurie: Wow. What a beautiful story. Just think how he was reached. How would you normally reach a guy like that? That is what I love about radio, is you can reach unexpected people in unexpected places with the unexpected message of the gospel.

And here's a guy who thought he was saved, but actually he wasn't. Then he ran into his preacher. So the Lord orchestrated all of those circumstances and this is just a reminder why we do what we do. And I have to be honest with you, this is what really motivates me to continue on doing what I do, hearing stories like that.

So I would encourage you to pray for us, but also to support us financially. In fact, some of you might even consider becoming a Harvest Partner. A Harvest Partner is someone who makes a commitment to support us on a regular basis financially. Every month they send a gift that we can depend on.

And the reason that matters is that helps us to consider new opportunities to go to new places and reach new people, like the gentleman we just heard from who committed his life to Jesus Christ at Walmart after hearing our broadcast. So prayerfully consider if you should become a Harvest Partner so we can continue to reach more people in more places.

Guest (Male): Yeah, that's right. You can call us and we'll help you become a Harvest Partner. Our number is 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24/7 number, so call anytime. Again, 1-800-821-3300. Or just go online to harvest.org.

Well, next time, we'll see why factors keep our prayers from being answered as Pastor Greg continues his practical series in Mark called The Gospel for Busy People. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.