Intro

Does everyone know what a Rube Goldberg Machine is? Many of you probably do, and I thought I would try to explain it, but I think — to be truly appreciated — these must been seen. So if you’ll kindly indulge me, I would like to show you a brief video to start our message off today.

Rube Goldberg Video (2:46)
Why did I show you this video? Good question! Let’s put it in our

pocket for later. Verse

22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

Context

Wednesday before the crucifixion.
Peter has just pointed out the cursed Fig Tree.

Verse 22

22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.

So this story picks up from where we left off last week. It’s almost like a side-series in Mark. A miniseries. Maybe we need one of those pre-episode recaps like on Netflix? “Previously… in Mark…”. Anyway, when last we left our heros Jesus used a fig tree as an illustration of the coming destruction of the temple. From the source. From the roots-up. And Peter, when he saw the tree was dead pointed out to Jesus that what He had said had come true. The tree He cursed was now dead.

Jesus probably wanted to say “Duh!”, but instead he says “Have faith in God” and this is very interesting to me. What does this mean?

“Have faith” is interesting to me. Is this an admonishment? (I find your lack of faith disturbing) or is this encouragement? (You got to have faith-ah, faith-ah, faith-ah). This is reasonably important so let’s pop this in our pocket for later.

Also: does this feel like a weird transition to anyone else? Why are

we shifting from an illustration about the destruction of the temple to a discussion about throwing mountains into the sea? We’re going to drop this in our pocket as well.

I know, I know, it’s like a pickpocket convention in here right now, but we’ll take it easy on the bookmarks for a bit now. Let’s keep reading.

Verse 23

23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Not Too Big For God

Wow. This is a big one. Moving mountains. I’ve never seen a mountain moved, but Jesus prefaces it with a strong truth claim. ‘Assuredly’, ‘Verily’, ‘I tell you the truth’, ‘AMEN’. So we know that Jesus is telling us something that is true… but how do we square that with 2,000+ years of mountains not moving? There’s actually a lot going on here, so let’s have a look.

We see ‘moving mountains’ used a euphamism for doing the impossible a several times in the Bible

Isaiah 54:10

For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you, Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,” Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

1 Corinthians 13:2

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Psalm 46:2

Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Revelation 8:8

Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.

Now that’s not an exhaustive list and it’s not just limited to the Bible. Even colloquially we talk about ‘moving mountains’ as accomplishing the impossible. When God called my family here to Calgary and to Mountain Springs, my wife, who loves BC and would never want to leave said, “If you don’t think God can move mountains, you’re wrong. He moved the Rockies from the east to the west to get me here.”

Better than Man Can

But you know what, I think there’s even more to what Jesus is teaching the disciples here. When Jesus says “this mountain” He is referring to the mountain they are currently standing on. The Mount of Olives. Now, 12 miles to the south of Jerusalem there is a fortress called the Herodium. This was — and still is — visible from the Mount of Olives. The Herodium was a fortress built by Herod. Yes, the same Herod who built the temple, the same Herod who had all the babies killed to try take out Jesus — like a first-century Terminator. Now what makes the Herodium so interesting to this story is that once Herod had the fortress constructed, he had a nearby mountain relocated to build an imposing berm around the entire fortress. It looks like a volcano from the outside.

From this location, Jesus — without hanging a lantern on it — is saying that God can do anything that humans can do, but as opposed to the years it took to construct the Herodium, Jesus implies that — like the fig tree — God can do it instantaneously. Jesus is engaging in a round of “Anything you can do, God can do better”.

God WILL Move the Mountain

But wait! There’s more! It is absolutely fascinating to me that Jesus just so happens to choose the Mount of Olives for this object lesson. If we pop into Zechariah 14, verses 4 and 8 we read:

Zechariah 14:4

4 And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east.
And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two,
From east to west,

Making a very large valley;
Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south.

This exact mountain is predicted to move. Zechariah 14:8

8 And in that day it shall be
That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea
And half of them toward the western sea;
In both summer and winter it shall occur.

This exact mountain is very likely to be oceanfront property. The power of our God is incredible and the depth of the layer of Jesus’ teaching are mind-blowing.

Doubting Prayers

That’s all cool, God can do what seems impossible to us… and I’ll explain what I understand this to mean in the next verse… but for now; notice the caveat there: “and does not doubt”. We’re told to have faith AND not to doubt. We’ll put this in our pocket with the faith.

Verse 24

24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

And there it is. One of the big “proof texts” for the Word of Faith Name-It-And-Claim-It people.

Can we make a brief trip to Tanget Town?

Tangent Town (Word-Faith)

Whatever you ask for, they say… believe it, receive it. Believe it and receive it. What ever you ask for. It reminds me of the old Paul Oakley worship song from 1996.

It’s all about me. And all this is for me. For my glory and my fame.

Wait… are those not the correct lyrics? No, of course not. The real lyrics are:

It’s all about You, Jesus
And all this is for You, for Your glory and Your fame It’s not about me
As if You should do things my way
For You alone are God and I surrender to Your ways

And that is correct, but if that is correct. If God is in charge and we are submitting to him how then are we getting whatever we want? This isn’t the only verse that seems to indicate that God will give us the desires of our hearts. Get your pens ready, cause I’m about to open the floodgate!

Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
James 4:2: “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.”

2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”

3 John 1:2: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”
Malachi 3:10: “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts. ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.’”

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
John 14:14: “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

There are lots of charlatains who abuse the name of Jesus and the titles of “Pastor”, “Bishop”, “Reverend”, and the like to sell greed to people as if it was holiness. In fact I attended a church with my father one summer where they sang a paraphrased Luke 6:38 during each offertory.

Give and He’ll give it back to you Give and He’ll give it back to you Give and He’ll give it back to you Pressed down, shaken together Flowing over, back in good measure He’ll give it back to you.

As I recited these lyrics, even though they are essentially Scripture, you probably felt a little uncomfortable. You knew it was wrong even if you aren’t quite sure why.

Last time I was up here I said there are three important things we need to consider when studying the Bible what are those three things?

1. Context 2. Context 3. Context

The context of this passage in Luke 6 is forgiveness. If you took verse 38 out you would not for one second think that Jesus was talking about money. Why woudl Jesus make a two sentence diversion in a talk about forgiveness to bring up financial blessing? He wouldn’t! He didn’t!

Just like evey other Name-It-And-Claim-It verse I cited above this was taken out of context. Once these are placed in their original contexts, you see that they don’t mean what some corrupt teacher would have you believe in order to line their own pockets.

Friends, don’t be fooled by people who take the Bible out of context to make it say something it doesn’t say. If someone presents a verse or a soundbite out of context that should send you to the Bible to

get what Paul Harvey would call “The Rest of the Story”.

And with that, let’s return from Tangent Town and ask the sincere question: if the Word of Faith people are wrong (they are), then what does this verse actually mean?

According to His Will

The Amplified Bible renders the open of this verse as “whatever you ask for according to God’s will”. This fits nicely with 1 John 5:14;

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And with James 4:3 (the verse right after “you have not being you ask not”);

You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

And later in the book of James — in Chapter 5 and Verse 16 we are told that “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

And we see this through the Scriptures, don’t we? Let’s look at a couple stories from the Gospels.

The Centurion’s Servant in Matthew 8:5–13

5 Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, 6 saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”
7 And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

8 The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! 11 And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.

The Woman with the Haemorrhage in Matthew 9:18–22

18 While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” 19 So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples.

20 And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. 21 For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” 22 But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.

Or Peter Walking on Water in Matthew 14:22–33

22 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. 23 And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. 24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
28 And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”
31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

I think it’s time to pull that second thing out of our pockets. We’re told to ‘have faith’, ‘not doubt’ and now ‘believe’. And we see where Peter’s lack of faith caused him to sink where the faith of the

Centurion and the Woman made them well. So then is it our faith that make things happen?

Well… here is Paul, the author of a sizeable portion of the New Testament…

2 Corinthians 12:8–10

8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

And here again, another notable New Testament figure, Jesus Himself in Mark 14:36

36 And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”

What are we to make of this? Were Paul and Jesus lacking in Faith? I doubt any of us would make that argument. So then, in Paul’s case we see that it was God’s will that this unspecified “thing” that was hindering him was not to be removed. It was God’s will that Paul be subject to that thing. And of course it was God’s will that Jesus would redeem all people everywhere, so Jesus would not have the ‘cup’ taken from him.

Fate vs Free Will Teased

So clearly all of our prayers will not align with God’s will. And only the ones that do will be answered with a ‘yes’… so the question that arises from this is: how do we fit God’s sovereign and unchanging will with the effectiveness of prayer from faithful people?

How do we fit together Isaiah 46:10:

Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’

And Mark 11:24:

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

That’s right! I will provide an answer to the fate vs free will debate that has raged for millennia… right after we pull thing number 3 out of our pockets. Anyone remember what that was?

Dead Trees & Prayer

That’s right, how did we get from a dead-fig-tree illustration about the the spiritual and physical destruction Temple to a discussion of prayer? At first blush this might seem like we are going from 4th gear into reverse all of a sudden, but the reality is just the opposite. Jesus is about to shift the world into high gear.

See, the Temple was the way people accessed God. It started with the portable tabernacle and carried on from there, eventually culminating in the Herodium Temple built by a man who hated God and run by people who did not know Him. But Jesus would dry the Temple up from the roots and its subsequent destruction in AD70 was catastrophic for the Jewish people.

Rabbi Eleazer says as much in the Babylonian Talmud. With the destruction of the temple access to God was cut off. Prayer is closed. He said that an iron wall now separated the people from their God. He even went as far as to cite Lamentations 3:8, “Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.”

But Jesus made no such claim. The Temple will be destroyed and all people will now have unfettered access to Him. To pray wherever they are and God will hear them. And faith in Him is all you need to perform the mightiest works imaginable! The temple is no longer part of the equation.

We now have access to God and can call upon Him in power to move as only He can to accomplish amazing things and change the world. And we get to be a part of that! How amazing! How humbling. How awesome.

Fate vs Free Will

Which leads us back to the Fate/Free Will discussion. The Sovereignty of God paired with the effectiveness of faithful prayer. But we know Jesus and Paul were faithful, yet they were answered with a ‘no’. From this we can understand that sometimes we will pray for something that is outside the will of God and thus He will say ‘no’, but does that mean that God only answeres ‘yes’ to prayers that line-up with things He was already planning to do anyway? And if that’s true… why bother praying at all? How does this fit? How does it work?

I am going to read an excerpt from a Q&A blog post on the Focus on the Family website.

The questioner asks:

If God has a plan, why should we pray? Do our prayers really make a difference if He already knows how things are going to turn out? Christian friends have often assured me that God is working out His plan for me and my children. At the same time, they have also urged me many times to have faith in the power of prayer. To me, this sounds like a contradiction. Isn’t God’s plan going to work itself out whether we pray or not? Will things be any different if we don’t pray?

The brief response is opened with this thesis statement:

Your question touches upon a mystery too deep for the human mind to penetrate. The Bible says that God has a predetermined plan for the whole universe and every individual in it. It also teaches that prayer changes things. How do we reconcile these two apparently contradictory ideas? The answer is that we can’t. We simply have to affirm by faith that, in some way we can’t comprehend, both statements are true.

I’m sorry, but I find this answer quite unsatisfying. For me this is roughly equivalent to shrugging your shoulders and grunting. I don’t think God would tell us things He didn’t want us to understand. It’s okay if we don’t have all the answers, but I’m less certain it’s okay to stop searching for them. There are plenty of things God does not tell us, those are things we don’t need to understand.

“Okay, smartypants”, I hear you say, “What’s the answer then?”

I’ll preface my explanation with this; I don’t know that what I am about to share with you is the answer. Only that it is an answer which makes sense of all the data and follows logically. There may be a better answer and if there is, I am more than open to it. I’m interested in truth, not dogma and theology wars. That said, here is my proposal:

The Rube Goldberg Machine

God knows everything that will happen. Right? But God knows much more than that. God knows everything that could happen, if circumstances were different. God knows how any possible decision would affect any possible person in any possible world.

More than that, I believe God is love. And when He tells us that His desire is that none should perish, but that all should come to a saving knowledge of Jesus… I think we should believe Him.

So then, if God is motivated to save the maximum number of people and He knows how any possible person would react in any possible situation, then I think when God created the world, He used this perfect knowledge to order the world and sequence of events based on how we would respond.

Let’s pull out that Rube Goldberg machine from the beginning of

today’s sermon The creator of that machine had an end goal in mind, and he looked at all of the resources available to him; basketballs, rakes, string, pipes, shovels, tape rolls, and more… and he carefully arranged each of them based on how they would react to any given stimuli and thus was able to complete his objective.

See where I’m going with this?

In the same way God arrange and sequenced us based on how we would react and the choices that we would make in order accomplish His goal of bringing the maximum number of people to salvation!

What does that mean for my prayers? Do they matter? Yes!

In fact, not only do the prayers of the faithful matter, they mattered thousands of years ago, before the foundations of the world were even laid, God hear your prayer. God has already heard and set into motion answers to prayers you have not even thought to pray yet.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I find that to be… amazing.

Take Home

And with that, I will invite the worship team up as I give you one final

admonition. Know that your prayers matter. God hears them. He heard them before you even knew you were going to pray them. Take joy in that, church. Take joy in knowing that you are safe in the will of God. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18:

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

And we can, hopefully, take some comfort in knowing that when God answers our prayers ‘no’ — even though it hurts for us in this moment — that he is (as Romans 8:28 says) causing all things to work together for good. When God said ‘no’ to Jesus it resulted in the means of salvation for all mankind.

Communion

And now that I’ve set the table, let’s invite our Communion team up to help distribute the elements so that we can participate in the Lord’s Supper together.

1 Corinthians 15:50–57 says:

50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

While the elements are distributed I would encourage each of us to consider what I have just read.

** When Distributed ** 1 Corinthains 11

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Let’s partake of the bread together. 1 Corinthians 11

25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

Let’s partake of the cup together. 1 Corinthians 11

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Amen.