Seeing Is Not Believing (Mark 9:14)

How many believe that the Lord has something great and powerful for the city of Boston? How many believe that the Lord has something great and powerful for the Lion of Judah Congregation? Let us turn to Mark, Chapter 9, brothers and sisters, beginning with verse 14.

My prayer this morning, brothers and sisters, is that we would all cross a frontier, that we would cross an invisible frontier. I declare it from this moment on, calling what is not as though it were, and that in the end, whatever frontier we must cross to conquer the territory the Lord has for our individual lives, as a church gifted for special things, in a particular city, may the Lord accomplish it according to his name. And we have a long road ahead of us and a demanding task.

Mark, Chapter 9, verse 14: “When he came to where the disciples were...” Where did he come from? The biblical passage preceding this passage is the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus in his glory, transfigured before his disciples: Peter, James, and John.

“When he came to where the disciples were at the foot of this mountain, he saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them, and immediately all the people, when they saw him, were amazed, and they ran to greet him. And he asked them, ‘What are you arguing with them about?’ And one of the crowd answered and said, ‘Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit. Wherever it seizes him, it shakes him, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and wastes away; and I told your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.’ And he answered them and said, ‘Oh, unbelieving generation, how long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me.’ (Jesus is having a bad day.) And they brought him to him, and when the spirit saw Jesus, it violently shook the boy, who fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, ‘How long has this been happening?’ (He diagnosed him; he is counseling him—a tremendous pastor, Jesus.) And he said, ‘Since childhood. And many times it has thrown him into the fire and into the water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have mercy on us and help us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you can believe, everything is possible for the one who believes.’ I like this verse in the New International Version. Jesus says here, ‘What do you mean, “If I can?” Everything is possible for the one who believes.’ “And immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, ‘I believe. Help my unbelief.’ And when Jesus saw that the crowd was gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.’ Then the spirit cried out and shook him violently, and came out, and he was left as though dead, so that many said, ‘He is dead.’ (Such profound peace upon this boy.) But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him up, and he stood. When he entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ And he said to them, ‘This kind cannot come out by anything except prayer and fasting.’” This is the word of the Lord. Father, thank you because your word is living and effective, and sharper than a two-edged sword. We believe, Master. Help our unbelief.

Brothers and sisters, imagine this scene, because this scene symbolizes so much. In part, I can say that, as I read it, this scene could be called: the pastor’s nightmare upon returning from vacation. But what did you do to my church? Pastor, there was a demon, a little demon, that manifested itself, and we rebuked it, but it paid no attention to us, and there was a small fire, and 30 more brothers and sisters left us for Florida, and we collected an offering of 20 dollars. Oh, Pastor! How long, how long? No, glory to God. We are going to testify to the pastor: the power of God moved, souls came to the Lord, we felt his presence, chains were broken, we had a day of victory, Pastor. We missed you. We missed you, but the Lord appeared anyway and blessed us with his presence. Amen.

But it is another kind of nightmare. I think it is just as much a nightmare. What this represents, brothers and sisters—and I believe what this scene prophetically represents—is a profile of the modern church, a profile of the days in which we live. And let us understand, brothers and sisters, that in the days in which we live, we can take encouragement from the fact that none of this is new. Our spiritual struggles, our temptations, our frustrations—none of it is new. On that afternoon, when the Lord came down from the Mount of Transfiguration and encountered this scene, all the elements of the church’s struggle today, in 2004, were present here.

First, we have the triumphant, powerful Lord. Never was his glory more obvious; never was it more obvious that he was the Christ, the Messiah—never was it more obvious. Before the eyes of his disciples, he is transformed into his natural glory; that must have been something serious. To see the garments of our King transformed from his humble human rags into glory. Which, by the way, is what awaits us one day. It is an experience awaiting every one of us: every believer will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye, says the word of God. And they got to see it, and they saw Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah, and Peter declares, “This is too good; we do not want to go back down from here. Let us make three shelters; let us stay here.” This is the glory of God. Jesus, powerful.

And we see a church that Jesus calls by name and authorizes. Brothers and sisters, let us understand something about these disciples. Every one of these disciples had been authorized to rebuke these demons, first of all; and second, they had already done it in this very Gospel. In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 6, we see in verse 7 that Jesus, when calling his disciples, says: “...then he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over unclean spirits”; and then, in verse 12, it declares: “...and they went out and preached that people should repent, and they cast out many demons, and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” These same disciples who are confronting this deeply frustrating scene had already been authorized by the power of God to cast out demons and lay their hands on the sick, and they had already seen the power of God flow through them. Rebuking a demon was nothing new to them. Seeing a sick person healed was nothing new to them. I dare say that seeing a dead person raised was nothing new to them. They had been authorized with the power of God, and yet what we see is not the scene of a powerful church moving in its gifts. And, by the way, the Lord scattered them, called them, and commanded them to go out into the areas surrounding Jerusalem, two by two.

In other words, they were armed with the name of Jesus—the name of Jesus—not the tangible presence of Jesus, but his authority. Here they have the same thing. They are confronting a demon, but the scene is very different. Instead of a powerful church, what we see is a powerless church. The beautiful thing is that the word of God does not shield us from this scene. In his mercy, he allows us to see it. He allows us to see the disciples in this condition so that we may learn from them. And we see the Lord come down after a tremendous spiritual retreat, an unparalleled demonstration of the power of God. And he is confronted with confusion, and he is confronted with a powerless church, and he is confronted with a crowd bringing serious problems to the church, to the disciples. “Jesus, I brought him to you; I brought you my son,” he says. Incidentally, the scribes are not far away. And what do the scribes represent? We are surrounded by a world that watches us, an unbelieving world that criticizes us, and a world ready to point out every failing in the church of Jesus Christ. It looks for the slightest evidence of powerlessness in the church of Jesus Christ, as if to say, “Aha, you see? You preach a tremendous Jesus. You preach a Gospel of power. You preach a God who changes hearts. But what about this person, and that other person, and what do you have to say about this demon, and why can’t you rebuke it—you and your great Jesus? What now?” And they watch us, brothers and sisters. They watch us. They are waiting precisely for those moments of powerlessness and weakness. Has this not happened in your life, while you declare a King of glory, while you declare tremendous changes, while you declare that you serve a powerful God? Don’t you have friends? Don’t you have coworkers? Many of them long for the Gospel that comes from your lips to be true.

I believe that the world that criticizes the church with hostility is a minority. I believe that the great multitude is a multitude that desires Jesus, that longs for a powerful God, that longs for a powerful church, that longs for a church capable of bringing change, capable of moving in the power of God, capable of using the authority God has delegated to it. When they come here, brothers and sisters—and they do come, and they will come and come, and God willing, they will come in multitudes—they will come with their sins, they will come with their chains, they will come with their vices, they will come with their illnesses, they will come with their messes, they will come with their disordered lives. Isn’t that how we arrived? That is how we arrived. Didn’t we come that way? They will come hoping to encounter a powerful Jesus, and they will say, “Jesus, I bring you—I bring you my son, I bring you my husband, I bring you my marriage, I bring you my cancer, I bring you my addiction, I bring you my confusion, I bring you my need, I bring you my brokenness, I bring you my pain, I bring you my life. Do something, Jesus. If you can, have mercy on me and do something.” And here we see the contrast of an Almighty God and how all this power seems to be passing through a contaminated filter.

Speaking of steps of faith, this Tuesday we are going to have a barbecue at my house, and I decided to get rid of the charcoal grill we have because, frankly, I do not know how to use it. I got rid of it. Well, Marina, we are going to modernize. I am going to buy a gas grill. I have my fantasies about dealing with a gas grill. Would you believe that I am not mechanically inclined at all? The Lord did not give me those gifts. I said, “In the name of Jesus, I am going to assemble it,” because it came in a box and it says you do not even need tools. The first lie—the Lord rebuke them. Do not believe the man at Home Depot when he tells you that you do not need tools. You needed a good screwdriver and whatever else. I open that box and begin taking out pieces, and I think: “If I do not assemble this correctly, this is the end of Samuel, the end of the house, and the end of half the neighborhood.” A step of faith: yesterday, in the name of Jesus, after assembling everything and checking whether all the wires were where they were supposed to be and all the tubes were where they were supposed to be—in the name of Jesus, you know what? ... It lit. It lit—glory to God. I thought, “The first miracle of this weekend.” But my confidence in this appliance increased because they say that this appliance has a filter. Every gas appliance, every gas grill, is built with a filter. This powerful tank of gas, which, if one is careless, can result in a dramatic explosion. But that gas flows through an extremely tiny pinhole; all that gas passes through that filter. And if that filter is not attached to the gas tank exactly as it should be, it does not flow; it does not flow. All that power, all that energy, remains in the tank. And we are left without meat; we are left without a flame. The power of God is more or less something like that.

The Lord has connected this church to a tremendous tank of energy: the power of God, the very energy that gave life to the universe, that put the stars in their places, that created heaven and earth by his word alone. That is the power available to the church. But the Lord has connected this power to a very fine filter called faith. And if that filter is not clean, if that filter does not work, that power will not be transferred into our lives and our reality. Almighty God, the sovereign God, limits himself. The Lord says, “If you can believe, everything is possible for the one who believes.” Everything is possible for the one who believes.

The problem is not that God is not Almighty. In this same Gospel, in Chapter 10, when the disciples asked Jesus, “Well, if this rich, godly man cannot enter heaven, then who will enter heaven?” the Lord declares: “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God, because all things are possible for God.” He declares to the prophet Jeremiah: “I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for me?” It is a rhetorical question because we know the answer is no. Nothing is difficult for God. He is the Yadae, Almighty God; there is nothing he cannot do.

But the key, the filter, is believing. As the Lord said to Martha in front of Lazarus’s tomb, he speaks to Martha and says, “Do you believe that your brother will rise again from the dead?” And Martha says, “Well, I know that at the resurrection...” The Lord declares to her: “Have I not told you that if you believe—if you believe—you will see the glory of God?” And I believe, brothers and sisters, that here we find what is obstructing the flow. The Lord diagnoses it in verse 19: “...answering him, he said to them, ‘Oh, unbelieving generation.’” Why does the power of God not flow as it should? Brothers and sisters, because we are, and have long been, an unbelieving generation.

What do we mean by this? It sounds scandalous. Last year I had the privilege of attending a graduation at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and all those who had just received their Doctor of Ministry degrees walked across the stage. More than half of the dissertations made some reference to postmodern times. I had never heard that term before then, thank God; perhaps it would have confused me. And I asked, what does this mean, a postmodern age? And what they mean by that is that we are now living in an age when, frankly, no one believes in anything, when there is no absolute truth, when two contrary truths can exist and be equally true. That is the idea of the postmodern era. And what I say is that the Word of God was speaking about a postmodern era years ago. This is nothing new. The Lord is speaking about an unbelieving generation. The postmodern era had its beginning in the Garden of Eden, when Satan asked Eve, “And do you take it seriously? Do you take the Word seriously?” Brothers and sisters, I do not believe the postmodern era is any different from the generation Jesus is describing.

Brothers and sisters, keep in mind that before Jesus, before John the Baptist, this biblical generation, this New Testament generation, lived for 400 years without a prophet and 400 years without seeing God move in a miraculous way. What happened during those 400 years? What happened in that silence? Two ways of thinking emerged, and the Apostle Paul describes them in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. He says, “...for the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom.” The Greeks here, brothers and sisters, represent those who turn to science, those who insist on the scientific method. In other words, if you cannot reproduce it in a laboratory, if I cannot touch it, if I cannot measure it, if I cannot feel it, if you cannot give me the evidence, if you cannot describe it to me, if I cannot measure it, I cannot believe it. If I do not see it, I do not believe it. And the Jews seek signs; in other words, show me a miracle and I will believe you, show me a mighty sign and I will believe it. How many of you have had a friend? You speak to them about the Lord, and they tell you, “Well, when Jesus appears to me one of these days and calls me by name, then I will believe.” I have news for you: He is going to appear to you one of these days, and you will indeed believe it, and you will indeed fall to your knees, and you will indeed declare, “Jesus is Lord.” Now, I hope it will not be too late.

This is nothing new. In the previous chapter, one of these same Pharisees, these scribes, asks the Lord for a sign. In chapter 8, verse 11: “...then the Pharisees came and began to argue with Him, asking Him for a sign from heaven in order to test Him.” Do you know where this verse occurs? The Lord has just given bread and multiplied the bread and fish for 4,000 people. Do you want a greater sign than that? Multitudes of demon-possessed people set free, multitudes of sick people healed. Do you want a greater sign than that? And they ask for signs in order to test Him, and groaning in His spirit, the Word says, “...groaning in His spirit, He said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’” I love this: He left them with the words still in their mouths, “...and leaving them, He got back into the boat and went to the other side”; He left them with the words still in their mouths. Why did Jesus do this? Because He is reckless? Why did He treat them this way? Because He knows this generation, brothers and sisters. This is the same generation that walked with Moses in the wilderness. There is no sign from heaven, there is no miracle that can make you believe. They saw—this generation in the wilderness saw—the Lord divide the waters and make a highway through the sea. That very afternoon, they saw the most powerful army in the world drowning in those same waters. They saw the Lord Jesus go before them in a pillar of fire; by night He covered them with a pillar of clouds. They saw bread fall from heaven to feed them. They saw stones in the wilderness gush forth water to quench their thirst. They saw signs, and even so they doubted Him. Even so they rejected Him; even so they died in the wilderness, so much so that in Hebrews, chapter 4, the writer declares that those signs did not benefit them because they were not accompanied by faith.

Brothers and sisters, this afternoon, do you want signs? Do you want miracles? They are all around us. The miracles and signs are in this sanctuary right now, amid the quietness of this message. But as I now look at this congregation, I can point out—and I do not do so because I do not want them to feel uncomfortable—miracles. There are miracles here; miracles, signs, and wonders are sitting here in these seats. In these pews are lives transformed by the power of God, because I saw them being transformed by the power of God. Here in this pew I see people who came in here on crutches, never to walk again, and they are not merely walking, but leaping and jumping and rejoicing before the presence of God. Here, today, here in this sanctuary, I see people who were locked away in an insane asylum, and the Lord brought them out of there, and now, with clear minds, they are ministering to multitudes of others. They are sitting here right now. Here I see single mothers who came to this sanctuary with their lives shattered, with what they had left—their tears and their children—and I see it, I have seen it, and there is more than one; that is why it is so difficult to point anyone out, because there are many, many who have come. They were transformed; the Lord healed their lives; now they have graduated from college, and their children are attending college. As Yiye Ávila says, “And who did it?” To His name. Amen. That is happening here; it is all around us. What more of a sign do you want?

You want a sign? Look at the person sitting next to you. There’s a miracle sitting next to you. There’s an addict who was addicted and broken and drunk and slobbering and falling on the floor, and now he’s a servant of the living God. That’s a miracle. That’s a miracle. That’s a sign.

Do you know what the problem is? The problem is that seeing is not believing. Seeing is not believing. Brothers and sisters, the Lord blessed us with five senses—they say there are many more—but you know what our senses are. Our senses are merely receptors of electronic stimuli that our brain, which is a computer, analyzes and translates into touching and feeling, tasting and hearing and seeing. That is all. Our minds, our senses, merely serve to analyze. But they do not help us believe. It is not with our minds that we believe, brothers and sisters. The Word says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if you believe in your heart that He rose from the dead, you will be saved, because with your heart—with the heart—one believes unto righteousness. With the heart....

Brothers and sisters, what more of a sign do we want? He rises after being dead for three days, leaves His tomb empty, and even His enemies have not been able to throw it in our faces that there was still a dead man in His tomb, 2,000 years later. Two thousand years later, Jesus is still alive. He is still alive. He is still living. What more of a sign do we want? The Kingdom of God cannot be perceived with the senses; it requires other kinds of organs. The Lord made us in His likeness. He made us according to the same programming as the angels, and that means, brothers and sisters, that within us is the capacity to believe in and see and perceive the supernatural, which cannot be touched with our hands.

The Word of God says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2—the Word of God declares: “...but as it is written, ‘Things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, are the things God has prepared for those who love Him, because God revealed them to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.’” When our spirit launches out and joins with the Spirit of God, we begin to experience the miraculous reality of the Kingdom of God, and we begin to see the invisible. Not believing is a decision, and the Lord says that now, in this generation, the world is divided into two categories of people, and the Lord declares it this way: one day it will become very clear—here are those who believe; here are those who stopped believing. And He declares it in Romans, chapter 1, in the sixteenth century. The Apostle Paul declares: “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes”—to the Jew who is looking for a sign first, and also to the Greek who is looking for logical evidence. The Lord has salvation for these two as well. To us here who are looking for one another, the Lord offers the miracle of faith, because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written: “But the righteous shall live by faith.” And why does the Lord make it so clear? He says: “What more evidence can I give you? I love you; what more evidence can I give you? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest, for God manifested it to them. For His invisible attributes, His eternal power and deity, have been clearly visible since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Brothers and sisters, it was not until the twentieth century that they were able to determine the human genome and count the chromosomes of DNA, and what has resulted is something incredible. Chemicals—which is what DNA is; it is a chemical experiment—that communicate in a mathematical way, as though they had been programmed, as though they had been programmed by a computer. Who can tell me that God did not create us? Who can look out at night and see the stars, and see how the world continues and how the universe could be created, and not believe in a mighty God? For although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God; they did not give Him thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, of birds, of four-footed animals, and of reptiles. Therefore, God also gave them over to uncleanness. It is terrible, brothers and sisters.

In the lusts of their hearts, so that they dishonored their own bodies among themselves, since they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, honoring and worshiping created things rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen. Brothers and sisters, is that not the South End? Is that not Boston? Is that not the United States? Is that not our world? A world that, even though the evidence of God is so clear, decides to reject Him. Brothers and sisters, our minds can only analyze, but it is with the heart that we believe. Now, how can we come to believe? What does the Lord tell us? How can we open that filter? How can we open that valve so that the power of God may flow cleanly, powerfully, and usefully?

Brothers and sisters, I suggest a couple of steps we can take. The disciples themselves asked the Lord, “Lord, increase our faith.” That is the first thing we want to clarify. We are not talking about the size of faith; do not worry. You already have all the faith you need to see the power of God within you, in terms of quantity. He says, “If your faith were like a mustard seed, you could speak to this mountain, you ask evil, and it obeys you.” It is not a matter of the quantity of faith, but of exercising that faith, becoming accustomed to using the faith God has given us. Brothers and sisters, I suggest this: first, let us pray. That is what He tells the disciples. “Why could we not rebuke this demon, Lord? Why did it become impossible for us?” And the Lord tells them: “This kind does not come out except by fasting and prayer.” In fact, in the oldest manuscripts and in other versions of the Bible, they do not even use the word fasting, although, brothers and sisters, a little fast would not hurt you. The emphasis is on praying. And why pray? Praying, brothers and sisters, is a dialogue with God. In prayer, the mere act of praying is an act of faith. You know it. The fact that you get up half an hour before you have to get up and sacrifice 20 minutes or half an hour of sleep, and, like a sleepwalker, look for the cup and look for the coffee—and be careful not to take out the rat poison—and put it in the microwave and turn it on... Thank You, Lord; thank You, Father. I left my bed; I left my wife. It is an act of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God, because whoever draws near must believe that He is—in other words, that He exists. There, in that room alone with you, is someone who not only comes; He is already waiting for you in the living room. He is already there. He is awaiting His appointment with you. He has miracles at His disposal. He already has your orders for your day. He already knows how to perfect you. And He is sitting there waiting for you, and it is a dialogue. You open this Word; the Word begins to transform you, and the Word begins to convict you, because He is a rewarder, a rewarder of those who seek Him.

You must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him.

He has your reward for you. And perhaps your reward is not what you were looking for at first, brothers and sisters. And that brings us to the next step. Step number two: first, pray. Second, begin taking steps of faith. Do it. Begin taking steps of faith. Like what?

A step of faith can be something like this, brothers and sisters. At first, it is merely bringing your life into alignment with the Word of God. Now, brothers and sisters, this is a painful process. If this is a beginning for you, brothers and sisters, glory to God. It is never too late to begin. This afternoon you can go home and pray, but you know what? In those times alone with the Lord, the Lord is going to reveal things to you in the Word that will pierce you, that will hurt. In other words, we are going to confront boundaries. Boundaries.... And the Lord may tell us: Honor your mother and your father so that your days may be something upon the earth. And out comes, “But!!” and that “but” is the boundary. You have already identified the boundary.

But I do not even know my father—or I do know my father, but he was never a father to me. How can the Lord ask me to honor him? Husbands, love your wife. “But, Lord”—you’ve got to be kidding. Father, love my wife. Wives, submit to your husbands. “What, to that.....?” How am I going to do it? Just do it. Just do it. Well, Lord, it does not feel right. I like the idea, and we will see each other. We need to clear this up, because here, I respect you as my God, but here you messed up; nevertheless, because you say so, as the Apostle Peter says, “Because you say so,” I am going to..... in the name of Jesus. And you say to that impossible woman: I love you. And you say to that lover about whom the Lord tells you again and again: This is not going to work out. This relationship is dragging you like an anchor toward hell. End it. That friendship—walk away from it. That habit—give it up. That addiction—give it up. You know my Word. Child, I love you; I am telling you this for your own good. I made you, I know you, I want what is good for you, I want to use you. There is potential in you because I created you, but cross the boundary. Believe me, let me use you.

A step of faith, then, can also mean moving forward on the Lord’s promises. As we begin to know the Word and obey the Word, we are going to begin seeing promises. It may be something as simple as a word from the Lord that comes to you one morning, at six thirty in the morning: you read the verse that says, “...because if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” and a step of faith can be something that does not even seem spiritual. A step of faith can say, “Well, if I truly am a new creation, if the Lord changed my mind, if the Lord changed my life, then why not go to this health workshop and be blessed there? Why not take an English class and tame that giant that has ruled my life, that Goliath? What is your Goliath? Brothers and sisters, what is the demon challenging your faith? What is the wall the Lord wants you to tear down? It may be: in the name of Jesus, Gregory speaks English, Samuel speaks only English, everyone speaks English; in the name of Jesus, I am going to speak English because I want to preach to my English-speaking brothers and sisters. I am going to take a computer class; I am going to enroll in college. Why? Because I am a child of a King, I am someone special, the power of God is in me. Why not?” And taking that class is a step of faith. And you say, “In the name of Jesus, I turn in faith.”

And this too is a step of faith: as you move in faith, taking those positive steps of faith, you will begin to feel spiritual impressions. The Lord will invite you to do ridiculous things, things that seem ridiculous—impressions, promptings that the Lord will cause you to act upon in the name of Jesus. And you know what? Brother or sister, you do not have to be a pastor or hold a title to move in the name of Jesus. In this very chapter, the apostles—including John—saw someone over there, whose name we do not even know, rebuking demons and doing what the disciples had been unable to do. It seems like an assembly line: “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” We do not even know his name, and John says to him, “Lord, we rebuked him because he is not in the group, he does not have the title, he did not go to seminary, he knows nothing about any of this.” “Young man, leave them alone; anyone who is with us is not against us.”

Brothers and sisters, we may not know this man’s name, but the Lord does know it. Perhaps his name is not written here, but I can tell you, brothers and sisters, every time you take a step of faith, the Lord notices. Every time you take a step of faith, there is celebration in heaven. Every time you take a step of faith, you rise in rank in the Lord’s Gospel, in the Kingdom of God. And only God knows where a step of faith, brothers and sisters, will end. Yesterday,

Brother Johnson gave me the privilege of going to visit Brother Ronnie’s home. Brother Ronnie is a brother who is here, and he is a brother because he received the Lord here as his Savior. He is a man who has a mental disability; he lives independently, but he has a mental disability. Brother Johnson was telling me that as he worked with him—a man with a mental disability, an elderly man who speaks only English—how was Brother Johnson, a man from Colombia who spoke little or no English, going to communicate with him? And he says he felt led by the Lord to greet him every morning with these words: God bless you. And to say it correctly, he says he wrote those three words on the steering wheel of his car: God bless you. And he practiced it there. God bless you, Ronnie. And he says that after a few days, Ronnie greeted him back: God bless you too. Oh, this is going well, this is going well; we understand each other.

Brothers and sisters, one step led to another step, one step led to another step, quietly, gradually, without much noise. Here is Ronnie; here is his roommate. Here they bless the Lord, because in the Lord there are no barriers, neither of language nor of experience.

Brothers and sisters, the third suggestion is this: let us join with people who profess and practice faith. If you are here this afternoon, you may have your struggles, you may have your doubts, but you are here, and God bless you. God bless you. The Lord knows where you are. The Lord knows that if you are here, it is because, at some level, you believe that there is a mighty God and that He rewards those who seek Him. And He welcomes your struggles; He invites you to be sincere with Him and to say: Lord, You know where I am. I believe. Help my unbelief. I believe.

Let us stand. You are closer to the power of God than you can imagine. But the God of glory is here. His power flows, and the boundary is your faith. Do you believe? What is your boundary? What is your boundary? What miracle is needed? Where do you need the touch of a living God? Not a religion; religion is merely the conduit that leads us to the throne of God. It is the way, the steps, the highway, but it is not the destination. The destination is the throne of God. And I am going to invite you to do this: first of all, if you have been here for some time and have visited us, or perhaps you are visiting us for the first time, the Lord invites you to become part of the believing generation, the generation of faith. You do not need much faith; you do not even need to have been here or visited us before. But if you are willing to say, “I believe in God, I need a God, and I believe that the Lord rewards those who seek Him, and today I seek Him, and I need this Jesus,” and you have never taken that step, you have never said, “I belong to Him. I want to receive Jesus as my Savior,” I invite you to exercise that faith and begin taking steps. If that is you, I invite you to raise your hands. If you want to receive Him, if you have never done so, and you want to make a profession of faith this afternoon, God bless you, God bless you, God bless those hands.

Today the miracle begins. Today. Today. Today your life changes. Today things are different.