Overcoming Unbelief

NOTE:

My manuscripts are basically my thoughts on paper. Typically, I use them as a guide, not verbatim. Very rarely do I preach my message exactly the way I wrote it. If you would like to hear the message preached, please visit Abundant Life Fellowship’s multimedia page at http://www.abundantlife-lompoc.org/multimedia.html

Over the course of the past few weeks, we have been looking at what we need to do as a fellowship to see the manifest hand of God move among His people. We looked at the power of covenant agreement. And when people lay petty differences and arguments aside, and come into a corporate agreement with one another, God moves. Last week Dr. Tim Dailey was with us and he taught on the journey from vision to victory. Going from Egypt where the vision is birthed, to victory in the Land of Promise. In between is a wilderness time that will bring about changes. This church is on a journey. A journey that is birthed out a vision that will lead to victory. Right now, we are in the wilderness journey that is bringing about changes; some major, some minor. I shared with you last week the vision that the Lord has placed upon my heart to plant 20 churches by the year 2020. But in order to see that vision turn to victory, we must overcome another hurdle that lie in the way of every saint. A hurdle that has tripped many Christians from seeing vision fulfilled in their individual lives and in their fellowships. That hurdle is unbelief.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Mark, chapter 9 and we will begin reading with verse 14. In our passage, we find a man whose son is plagued by a demon. And some of Jesus’ disciples were attempting to cast the demon out of the boy, but they could not. Almost out of desperation, the father of the boy goes to Jesus. The man asks Jesus to help his son if He could. Jesus replied with a powerful statement, “anything is possible, if a person believes” (vs 23 NLT). Then the man replied with a statement that I believe could be uttered by virtually every Christian at one point or another. “I do believe, but help me not to doubt” (vs 24 NLT).

There is no doubt in my mind that there are those of us in this room today who believe in Jesus, the Bible, miracles, etc. But there are times in our Christian walk when God asks us to do something that appears to be too large for us to handle. Looking at the task at hand and then looking in the mirror, often we begin to doubt, or just flat out suffer from unbelief.

I have a movie clip this morning to better illustrate this point. Many of you are familiar with the Star Wars saga. This movie clip comes from the Empire Strikes Back. To set the scene, Luke Skywalker, the hero of the story goes to seek out one who will train him to become a Jedi knight. He crashes his X-Wing fighter on the swampy planet of Degobah. There he is shocked to find that the one who is to train him, is an old, small green guy by the name of Yoda. In this scene, Yoda is trying to convince Luke that he is capable to remove his craft from the swamp. As we watch, see if you can identify with Luke when the Lord asks us to do something that seems virtually impossible.

You see, Luke’s purpose and destiny was to become a Jedi knight. In order to fulfill his destiny, he had to, as Yoda told him, “unlearn what he had learned”. There were things that he would encounter that he could not overcome by conventional means. And there were times in my past, and even times today, that I do exactly what Luke did. First he had already admitted defeat before he even attempted the task. Second, he grumbled and complained. Third, he was riddled with unbelief.

There are things in our walk with the Lord that He asks us and expects us to do. And to accomplish and fulfill our vision, purpose and destiny we have to operate, not in the realm of doubt, but in faith. So this morning I want us to look at the effects of unbelief, and how we can overcome it.

1. Unbelief can prohibit vision fulfillment

“Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” – (Numbers 20:12 NKJV)

2. Unbelief can prohibit a miracle from being birthed in your life