Pastor’s Message

Faith not Fear

God is leading us into a time of great prayers.  We have always been known as a people of prayer here at Cedar Fork.  God has a foundation to begin with, but I am convinced God is calling us to become Circle Makers.  Last Sunday I preached the first in the series on Circle Makers, and if you were not here I want to review shortly the concept of being a Circle Maker.

Mark Batterson in his book The Circle Maker tells of a time in his early ministry when he was studying the ancient “Book of Legends”, which was a compilation of writtings from the Talmud and Midrash, he found the story of Honi.  Honi was a a man of prayer and was known primarily for his prayers which brought rain.  The story goes that Honi was approached to pray for Jerusalem in it’s longest drought in recent history.  Honi drew a large circle in the sand, and declared to God as he prayed that he would not leave the circle till rain fell and he began to cry out to God.

He prayed and audacious prayer.  He did not just pray for a sprinkle or a light shower, which would have been greeted with great joy, but a gully washer, one that would fill even the caverns.  It was not long before his prayers were answered.

Because Honi believed God for great things and would not leave the circle till it came he was honored for his prayer.  The rains fell in torrents and as some said, the rain was as large as eggs.  The people had to run because the floods came.

I’d like for you to turn to Joshua 1:1- 9   “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses ‘ assistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Another Circle Maker was Joshua.  God had given him the promise of Moses that the land which was before them would be theirs, everywhere they put their feet.  The first test of Joshua’s faith and trust in God to claim the promises given to he and the Children of Israel was Jericho.  This was the place which stood in the way of them entering the Promised Land.  This was the gate to their entrance.  It is the same gate that 40 years before they had faced and fear gripped them.  They were led by their fears not their faith and they wandered in the desert for 40 years never gaining a chance at an entrance to the promised land.

However, this time was different.  Joshua didn’t call for a vote, or send spies, a senate task force,  to see if they could take the city.  There was no option.  God had given them the city and the land and Joshua said, “We will follow you Lord. Jericho will be ours.”

So what did Joshua do.  First, He claimed the promised passed down to him from Moses.  Second, He drew a circle around the area promised he and the people of God as they circled the city daily.  They prayed and circled their promise and they won.

“After seven days of circling Jericho, God delivered on a four-hundred-year-old promise”  The impregnable walls in this ancient city fell and God gave the victory to the his righteous.  God proved his promises do not have expiration dates.

This miracle is a microcosm of what can happen and does happen today.    This was the fulfillment of the promise which goes all the way back to Abraham.  So what is the promise which you feel God has given you? What is your JERICHO?

More than a thousand years later, Jesus was leaving this same city, Jericho.  The two blind beggars who said, “Lord, have mercy on us.”  Jesus stopped and looked at them and said, “What would you have of me?”

Now wait isn’t it obvious what they want?  They need food and healing.  They’re blind, and Jesus could tell that.  So why did he ask them?

Jesus made them spell it out. Not because he didn’t know, but to make these men define clearly what they wanted.  Here is where faith begins, when we spell out to God exactly what we need and want.  You say, ‘But how do I know what I should ask for?’

That’s typical of many Christians.  They have no clue what to ask God and what God’s promises are for them.  They are just living day to day without seeking God’s great promises he’s prepared for them.  Most of our prayers are for God to bless what we have planned to do, or to heal or deliver us from the struggles and problems we find ourselves in.  God is in the business of guiding us, directing us and taking us to places we never dreamed possible for us.  He’s not a God who follows after us like a helicopter parent who keeps getting us out of scrapes and fixes we find ourselves in.

In Hebrews we read that ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.’  So if we are not sure of what we hope for then it is the opposite of being sure of what we hope for.  So what is the opposite of Faith?  Fear- Dread- Worry.  Faith results in clear promises given us by God and prayers well defined in regards to those promises.

A Circle Maker is one who circles specific needs, people, issues and circles them seeking to apply God’s given promises from His Word- transferred down from the righteous to today.

Jericho is spelled different ways.

Cancer- it’s spelled healing, collapsing marriage- restoration,                                          drug addiction-is spelled deliverance,  financial problems- blessed, job trials- peace, persecution- victory, attacks by Satan-comfort and deliverance,                                         and a child far from God– salvation.

But God wants us to spell it out, and trust Him for a miracle.

Pastor Kim of the largest church in Seoul, Korea says, “God does not answer vague prayers.”  The reason he makes this statement is God must receive the glory for answered prayer and if it is vague then we will not know when or if it is answered.

In America we see more and more Christians who have pawned God-given promises and dreams for the American Dream.  So instead of circling Jericho we wander in the desert for 40 years.

We wander from church to church, job to job, spouse to spouse, dream to dream,     house to house, electronic trinket to trinket, vacation to vacation,                   advancement to advancement, career to career and we wander what’s the problem.

In the 1990’s a successful masonry businessman and his wife who worked for the Christian Broadcasting Network were experiencing the American Dream, when they the husband went in for a routine MRI on his back. Expecting to hear that he would have to have surgery, “The doctor said, ‘Surgery is not needed, nor advised.  You have cancer in you lower back and in your pelvis.  It is so far advanced you only have a few months to live.’  They went home and for the first time they just talked about their thoughts and feelings.  They their conversations about the future as redundant and worthless now.  They grew close once again.  The wife drew a circle around her husband and asked a hundred churches to do the same, claiming God’s promises in the scriptures for healing. Two weeks later in a Cancer Institute with a Cancer specialist they were told. “All our tests show you are cancer free.”  What they said, “I can’t explain these things.  Maybe they read the MRI  wrong, or maybe the cancer disappeared.”

The couple realized they were not living God’s promises only their own.  They moved back to the small community they had been brought up in and put their roots in their God and their family.  Twenty years have passed and today they enjoy their great grandchildren and the promises of God.

Arthur McKenzie calls it problem solving by prayer solving.  You address a promises of God and apply it to a need or problem and treat it like the walled city of Jericho.  You march around it daily praying and applying the promises of God to that setting.  Now some would try to run into the formidable walls with a battering ram.  But Gods plan is to pray over it with His promises until one day the draw bridge falls and you can enter the city as it says, “We surrender”.

Some questions as we close.

Are you living the American Dream, or your Dream or God’s Dream for you?

Or do you even know?

Do you study the Bible daily to know and seek His promises for you?

Do you know how to circle a dream, a vision, a challenge with the power of God through His promises?

Do you trust in your strength or in the promises of God?

Has He been faithful to you- then why we He not be faithful now?

Trust Him-