Nothing Impossible to You

There’s tremendous truth to be gleaned there, arguing from the greater to the lesser. If God can make you holy, then there’s much to be learned in trusting and believing Him in other areas as well.

Turn, if you would, to Matthew 17, Matthew’s gospel, 17th chapter. Of course, I wasn’t here for the first Lord’s Day of the year, but my mind has been thinking upon a text that may be suitable for the year, encapsulating a certain thought for the year. It can be helpful sometimes. Many of you may have a life text. A life text is something your mind goes to regularly. It recalibrates. It brings to your attention certain things that you remember, maybe how God has worked in your life, what God has done for you. And you think about this particular text regularly, and it is of great encouragement to you. It’s good to have even a life text. It’s also good to have texts for seasons, even a season of a year.

And so, I draw your attention to where the Lord has directed my mind for the year. Matthew 17, we’re going to read from verse 14. Matthew 17, verse 14.

And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and sore-vexed. For oft times he falleth into the fire and oft into the water. I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.”

Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me.”

And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, “Why could not we cast him out?”

And Jesus said unto them, “Because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you, howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

Amen. We’ll end the reading at verse 21. And what you have heard once again is the very word of God. It’s a word to you. Even before we preach it, it is the word of God to you. Receive it and believe it as such in the people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, give us help now. We’re so thankful for the power that we have enjoyed from thy hand, especially in saving our souls. We thank thee that thou didst do what is impossible when we were drawn from nature’s darkness and placed into the kingdom of thy dear son. Help us to see the impossibility of it. That we by nature were the children of wrath, even as others, but you saved us. You gave us an eye for Christ and we believed on him.

Oh Lord, help us. Help us then to see thy power, to see who thou art and believe thee. We ask now, bless thy word. You know what each one needs to hear. May we hear it as the very word of God. Give me then the fullness of the Holy Spirit, please, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

As we step into a new year, many of us carry burdens into the new year, burdens we were already carrying at the close of the previous year, or maybe even for the entirety of 2024. We long for help. We pray for deliverance. We frequently may find ourselves asking God, “Lord, intervene.” It may be in our personal walk. It may be in our families. It may be in ministries that we are tied to and connected with. It may be the spiritual condition of our community or in some other matter. We find ourselves faced in 2025 with this immovable mountain. It will not budge, it will not shift, and it seems like it’s going to stand there forever.

And our Lord addresses His disciples using such language as you find in verse 20, where He addresses them in their inquiry, “Why could not we cast Him out?” How come we couldn’t move this scenario from A to B? How come we failed to see what we have seen at other times in this particular case? “Because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

The text is intended to encourage us, give us hope. And to see even in the matters where there is an improbability or an impossibility, yet we may see God work in ways that will surprise us. These hindrances, challenges, difficulties, impossible cases, these mountains as they are described, you’re not meant to think of a literal mountain. You’re not meant to imagine that you can say to a particular mountain in the area, “Move into a lake or move into the sea.” That’s not the idea. We’re talking about things that barricade, things that hinder, things that seem impossible to climb over. And by prayer, they may be dealt with, removed, no longer be the challenge that they currently may be.

Of course, the verse is not a blank check for selfish desires, nor is it an endorsement of that which is carried along in the word of faith movement. If you don’t know anything about that, that’s good. But it’s not. It’s not falling into that where we can just seek for things and dictate outcomes completely separate from the will of God. I think I’ve mentioned this before. There used to be, at least in the UK, an advertisement for Mercedes-Benz, and it had a song, and the basic lyrics went along, “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? My friends all have Porsches, I must make amends,” and so on and so forth. It went on, and it ended with that note, “Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?” That’s blasphemy.

The verses that encourage us, and there are a number of them in the word of God, encourage us to take God at His word and to believe Him and see Him do things, accomplish His purposes in this world, are not intended to be harnessed in a selfish, carnal way. Now, sometimes the lines are a little blurry there. When I mention about the desire for a Mercedes Benz, maybe it’s more obvious to you. Sometimes when it relates to the sickness of a loved one, you’re praying for the preservation of their life, for their health. In those matters, you’re wrestling with what is the will of God here? And yet you have a text like this where you have that very scenario. You have a man who is challenged with this issue of a child, possessed with a devil. And so his concern, the matter that he brings to the disciple, relates to the physical and spiritual welfare of one he loves.

The text that we will look at this morning, but I hope you will keep in your mind for the entire year, is a call to genuine God-honoring faith that trusts in God’s power, sees how His will will be at work through you believing Him. Nothing shall be impossible unto you. Nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Where do you go with a text like that? I know where your mind goes because it’s where my mind goes. What are the caveats? Well, we’ll look at that. I have two main heads here. We’ll see first Christ’s plan and then the Christian’s participation. Very simple. I’m keeping this real simple. You have Christ’s plan. What was He intending? What was the drive in saying these words? What’s behind all of this? And then what’s our participation in it? Because it has something for us, doesn’t it? It requires us to take it and to harness it within our own lives.

So, Christ’s plan in these words. Before we are to consider what we are to do with the text, we must first understand what Christ intended to reveal when speaking these words.

Let’s think firstly of the power of the Word. The power of the Word. What our Lord Jesus says, we have to see the power of the Word. Our Lord’s statement is rooted in the unshakable truth that God’s Word is sure. When Jesus speaks of moving mountains, He is drawing rich imagery from Scripture. There are passages like Zechariah 4, verse 7, and other places where you see how the impossibilities are described as mountains and yet they will be made a plain. They’ll be laid low. They will be removed. And it is reminding us that God’s power can overcome challenges in our path, but it’s always in accordance to His Word.

The disciples’ failure in Matthew 17 occurred not because God’s power was lacking. It wasn’t because God had neglected or didn’t see the problem or didn’t hear their prayers. Nor was it a failure because their ambition was carnal. When they come and they try to handle this particular ministry opportunity, the man is looking for mercy for his son. There’s nothing carnal in the disciples. They have done this. They have seen similar things before, and they were sent out, given authority to cast out demons (that’s Matthew 10). And they went forward and they were rejoicing because they had seen this. They had seen that the devils were subject to them. They had enjoyed power and authority over even demonic influence. But here in this matter, they fail.

And like I say, it’s not the lack of God’s power, nor is it a problem with their ambition. But the failure is because the challenge raised doubt. The fact that the problem didn’t immediately dissipate, it didn’t immediately go away, raised doubt in their hearts. And they can’t figure it out. And they falter. Instead of pressing on, instead of pushing in, instead of, the language of verse 21, “howbeit, this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,” the encouragement then is to press into God more. Seek God more. Bring the matter again to God. Keep persevering in prayer and intercession. Go before God with this matter yet again and again until…

So, they should have understood that the authority given to them, the power given to them, the encouragement that they had seen in the past, was not somehow at an end, and it wasn’t that they had come to a point where this is truly impossible in the sense that it could never happen. But when there was a challenge, when it didn’t budge as they expected, when things didn’t fall out as they anticipated, that produced doubt, that caused them to falter, and they didn’t press on. The same is true today. We too easily doubt God’s Word. You too easily doubt God’s Word. I know this. This very text is met with doubt. “Nothing shall be impossible unto you.” For some of you, perhaps most of you, there is again a doubt. Nothing, nothing shall be impossible. You’re looking then, again, for caveats. You’re looking for the little areas you say, “Well, I don’t think it applies to me in this way.” Well, let’s think about this then.

You know, when we take God… God has given His word here. “Nothing shall be impossible unto you.” There are many texts in Scripture. Every time you lift your Bible almost, there is some verse to encourage your heart to believe and trust God. There’s some language of “fear thou not.” There’s some word to put your trust in God, rest in God, believe God. You can hardly read the Bible without seeing it. Some of it’s more explicit, of course, but you can hardly read the Word of God without being encouraged to believe and trust God more.

So what is not acceptable to pray? Well, for selfish or worldly gain, prayers that are motivated by greed and pride and vanity… Personal glory. James 4:3 deals with some of this. Any prayer that is along those lines, get rid of it. This text is not addressing you gaining all that you may want in this world for yourself and all the glory of it.

And sometimes you will find those, again, with the word of faith movement or even certain Eastern spirituality that harnesses all the religious texts will take verses like this and harness them for their own end and visualization and things of that nature. It’s not about that. It’s not about visualizing. It’s not about the magnetism of the universe to those of a positive mindset. It’s not about that.

So it’s not for selfish or world… Again, when you think about that, it’s not saying, it’s not that you can’t say, “Lord, bless my business, help me in my business, further my business.” But again, you pray it carefully. “For be your will, Lord, so that I may use it, provide for my family, and make ends meet, and so on and so forth.” It’s okay, but you know when you elevate that to something that is purely for your own name, your own glory, your own ambition, for your own carnal desire, not the natural aspects of life…

For outcomes that contradict God’s character or His revealed will, you start praying a long line that goes against everything that God reveals about Himself or that He has said in His Word. Forget it. It’s not going to happen. You can’t contradict God. You can’t contradict His nature and use this text to do so. Personal desires without submission to God’s will. Demanding outcomes without any reference to the sovereignty of God. Our Lord Jesus again in the Garden of Gethsemane prays, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” There’s always a resignation, always a submission to and a desire that God’s will be done because it’s always best.

Always looking for signs to test God. Seeking miraculous signs as proof that God is there, God’s power, rather than just trusting His Word. Coming to Him with a word like this, seeking vengeance or harm upon others. Again, this is abuse of the text, not to express your bitterness in a way in which you desire something upon others in a negative way. Looking for results without obedience, without faithfulness to Him, expecting God to act while neglecting your walk with Him, your love of Him, your obedience to Him, your prayer and repentance from your sin, and so on. No. This isn’t how you get to harness this text.

There are such a thing as acceptable prayers, prayers that reflect genuine faith, align with God’s will, trust in His wisdom, His timing, His purposes, and so on, where you really believe Him and you trust and you depend on Him to do what it is that you’re bringing to Him. So what’s acceptable to pray? What’s the positive? Well, praying for God’s glory and the advance of His kingdom. There’s no greater prayer. You’d be hard-pushed, let’s couch my language a little more carefully, you’d be hard-pushed to find a better prayer than, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I mentioned this on Wednesday night. It’s so encouraging to meditate on all the fullness of what that is harnessing, what it’s saying, “Thy kingdom come.” Jesus is saying, He’s warranting, “Pray this way.” When you pray, say, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The obedience of heaven, let it be here. The desire to do God’s will that’s in heaven, let it be reflected here. The submission to the authority and kingship of Christ in heaven, let it be so here. And you can almost just end it right there. I mean, that encapsulates so much.

When you’re praying in that way, impossible things or things that appear impossible, you will find come to pass. But also other things, your own faith, your own spiritual growth, these are good things to pray for. The prayers of the Apostle Paul, if you read them and study them, you will find they’re filled with language that look for the spiritual prosperity of believers. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, so on and so forth. These things are prayers you can pray as well, rehearse to God, and know that He will accomplish it.

Deliverance from spiritual strongholds, victory over sin, temptation, demonic oppression… These kinds of things as well, you can know that the Lord Jesus Christ loves to come in and upend that which once was Satan’s territory. He loves to come in and lay hold and so you have some besetting sin, and you can pray and seek God for deliverance, and you can be assured that He will help. Some of your sins will go more easily. Some of them will require prayer and fasting. Regardless, that territory can be won. That territory of your heart may be won for Christ. And He will assist and He will help you.

Matters of healing as well. It’s not wrong. You see it here. Looking for deliverance for someone. You have it revealed in so many passages. You can’t neglect the rightness to come before God requesting, in humble acknowledgment of a sovereign purpose, that He might heal.

And so I think in our church, and here in our context, we have a healthy acceptance of the sovereignty of God, and we consider it and we know it, and so we’re resigned to that. But the problem is if we’re so resigned and we never actually pray for divine intervention, we never actually bring a matter that may seem impossible, and bring it to God and ask for deliverance, then we may never see it. I know you say, “Well, God’s will will always be done.” I get that, but there’s a reality here. To come before God, to intercede for someone, just as this father did for his son. He didn’t just sit back and say, “This is the way it is.”

I could turn to other passages, go back a couple of chapters to Matthew 15, you have the Syrophoenician woman, this time coming for her daughter. There must be patience, there must be perseverance, asking even for it, knowing God loves perseverance. He loves it. It’s such a critical part of what He establishes in His own true sheep, perseverance. And praying for that, “Lord, help me to persevere to the end.” Even if life is difficult, even if I don’t have everything that I might aspire to have.

Praying for the salvation of others, their spiritual growth as well. God’s will to be done above all else, just in general. These are good prayers. If you’re involved in ministry that brings the gospel to the ends of the earth, or just our own locality, you can pray for it. You can bring impossible things.

And I could fill my sermon with my own personal experiences. I could fill it with things that others even said to me, “That’s impossible.” And they told me it can’t be done. Everything, everything that could be tried was tried. It can’t be done. Leave it alone. I’ve been told that. And I’ve seen God do what others determined after years of saying it can’t be done. I have seen God do it.

The power of the Word, the purpose of faith.

What is the purpose of faith here? What is the Lord teaching His disciples? Yes, to believe, take Him as Word. Because of your unbelief. That’s what Jesus said to them. Your unbelief. What didn’t they believe? They didn’t believe what He had said. I’m giving you power. Go. Cast out devils, and so on. That was a word. And they were to go out there and engage in the ministry upon that word. And when they faced the difficulty, that was a particular scenario where there wasn’t an immediate response, their whole hope just welted right there.

And you can see so much of human response to that because they go out on the word, they see good success, and what’s happening? All of the expectation of their hearts, the expectation, listen now, the expectation is based on the fact that it happened before. And so they saw it happen, and they saw it happen again, and they saw it happen again. And the expectation is based on the fact that it happened before, not on the word. The initial word to go cast out devils. They see success. It happens, it happens, it happens. Then it doesn’t happen. Instead of going back to the word, they’re knocked.

Because there was a pattern, really, that they were going back to rather than the word. Don’t do that. Faith is not an end in itself, but it is a means. God asks us to believe Him, and in so doing, He fulfills His purposes. There’s no getting around it.

When Jesus tells His disciples that nothing will be impossible, He is speaking, of course, in the context of the advance of His kingdom, the glory of God’s name, the glory of the kingdom of Christ being extended.

Like I say, the failure is not because of a lack of effort in the disciples, it’s not because they were seeking it in a carnal way, but doubt arose. That’s what Jesus says. He assesses it. He can see it. “Because of your unbelief.”

It’s very easy for us to say that something doesn’t happen because it’s not God’s will. We may do that too quickly. The real assessment of God is “because of your unbelief.” I wonder about myself in that regard.

Faith believes God, takes God at His word, has the ability to overcome obstacles that stand in the path. Hudson Taylor observed, many of you have heard this, there are three stages to every great work of God. First, it is impossible. Then, it is difficult. Then, it is done.

There’s never a part where it’s easy. This is why people sit on their hands and don’t get involved. They don’t get into the trenches because they’re looking for the time when it’s easy. And that’s why people who have that mentality will do nothing. God uses those who look at the impossibility and get on with it anyway. And He uses those who see it’s hard and get on with it anyway. And before you know it, it’s done.

As I’ve already said, I have seen this. I’ve seen it’s impossible. It can’t be done. And every time, you know, there’s one particular event that I’m thinking of. Every time I made an attempt to go in a certain way, to try and deal with it, just believe in God, I’m gonna go. There were people that, because I had to work with and I’m subject to, and it’s not here, by the way, so it’s not. I’m not saying anything about anyone here. It was another time, another place. Every time I tried to go down, I said, no, don’t do that. No, that’ll backfire. Every turn I attempted, it was met with no, to the point that the only recourse I had was to the place of prayer.

I said, God, you’re going to have to do something here. I saw Him do it. Still remember telling one of the men what happened. It’s just disbelief. Of course, if you don’t believe God going into the issue, you’re not likely to believe in coming out of it either. Still in disbelief. Anyway.

Much of God’s work is impossible. How is it not? We sang about it. The most impossible thing is for someone who is unholy to be made holy. The gospel is impossible. The changing of life is impossible. The turning from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God is impossible. Impossible! It makes no sense. It can’t happen.

Man by nature has no interest. None seeks after God. None understands. All are gone out of the way. The whole work of redemption is impossible from beginning to end.

So you have these little windows where God is showing His people to believe what’s impossible through Abraham. Abraham, you don’t have a child, child of your old age, it gets to the point it’s impossible. And it’s meant to teach the church, look at what happened to Abraham and Sarah.

So, should man be born of a virgin? And the echoes of impossibility come through those passages of the incarnation. Nothing’s impossible with God. Let’s iterate it again. As you go through there, you see God is teaching His people. The whole work of redemption, everything connected to it, is impossible. But, God.

So we consider the creation of the world. It’s impossible. It’s impossible until it’s there. And the parting of the Red Sea is impossible until, boom, it’s there. And the toppling of the walls of Jericho, impossible until it’s done. See, so many of the aspects of God’s work are like this, where you don’t even get to see a gradual development. It’s impossible and then it’s done.

And so you don’t even get much encouragement along the journey except from the Word, what He has said. And you keep going back to the Word. So faith is the endurance to know it will be done even when it still appears impossible. Faith endures.

They stopped believing, and so they didn’t get the outcome they sought. But keep believing, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. So that is Christ’s plan. Through His Word and through faith, the purpose of God will be fulfilled.

What’s a Christian’s participation? Let’s think about this a little more. What are you to do with this? It’s just like you sit around believing. Let’s open up this a little more.

Think about this. How do we participate in this? “Nothing shall be impossible unto you.” What is your responsibility, aside from some vague aspect of believing God?

Well, first, we might say trusting God’s power over our problems. Trusting God’s power over our problems. Too often, you focus on the size of your problem, rather than on the greatness of your God. Look at it now, maybe you’re living through it right now, and you have this problem, and it seems huge, insurmountable, impossible. And you’re meant to see the greatness of your God. Your eye is meant to look upon Him, not upon the problem.

The disciples of Matthew 17, they had seen God’s power before, but in this moment, they allowed doubt to cloud their vision. They don’t see the power of God. All of a sudden, it has become an impossibility to them. They weren’t filled with that same vision they once had.

So faith in God, trust in God, means recognizing that no challenge is too great for Him. Again, as long as it aligns with His nature, as long as it’s for His glory and the advance of His kingdom and so on, then we can reasonably expect. Like I say reasonably, that reasonableness is based on what God has said, not human reason merely. I hope you’re following. He said it. He has said it in His words. Go and preach the gospel to every creature. Souls will be saved. His kingdom will advance. Jesus will build His church.

So while, again, the challenge may seem impossible to you, it’s not to Him. And faith doesn’t make the problems disappear instantly, but it shifts our perspective from fear to trust. When you get your vision filled with God, when you believe God, when you take Him at His word, it’s God who gave this word.

And so Abraham’s old, way beyond his wife, way beyond the possibility of bearing a child. Yet you read, Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. He staggered not. In other words, when he looked at his wife, he didn’t see the impossibility. He just saw the promise. He’s looking at this aging woman. It cannot happen, is what the man would say, except he has a promise from God. And so with that promise, he looks. He doesn’t see an aging wife. He sees the promise of God and the greatness and power of God. And he said, with God, nothing’s impossible. Nothing.

He said it. He had to do the same thing a little later, after Isaac was born. And God said, “Take your son, your only son.” Not from there, it’s a burnt offer. Again, he had to believe the word.

All of God’s word, all of the future of what God was doing was invested in Isaac. God was doing, that was the promised child. God’s, the future of the work is there in Isaac. So Abraham, again, not looking at the circumstances merely, not seeing the mountain, if I end his life, it’s over. He doesn’t see that. He sees the word. He sees the promise. He sees God is going to fulfill His promise. He is going to make nations be blessed through this. All the families of the earth are going to be blessed through this son. Of course, it points to Jesus Christ, but you understand what I’m saying. It’s all fulfilled in that. God’s purpose is all there in Isaac at that moment.

And he believes the word. And so if God intends for me to slay my son, he must intend to raise him from the dead. It’s the only conclusion. He’s this man. It’s great. He staggered not at the promise of God. He believes the word because his vision was filled with God. So you see the problem. Don’t see the problem, see your God. See the word that He has given. See how He loves to glorify Himself in the impossibilities.

The problems stay, but God is there. Trust Him, don’t fear the problem. And even when the outcome seems uncertain, or even beyond that, impossible, believe the word. Trust God’s power over your problems.

If you don’t do this, you’re not gonna see it this year. The problems will remain.

Act in obedience despite uncertainty. Act in obedience despite uncertainty. Faith is not passive, it requires action. You don’t get just to say, “I believe God.” No, I think we can fall into this trap. I believe God, I trust God, and you really do, do you? In a way, you know your sins are forgiven, but are you really living a walk of faith?

The disciples were saved, but there was unbelief here. You’re unbelief. You’re saved, but you have unbelief. That’s a problem.

Our Lord calls His disciples to step forward in obedience, even when the way seems unclear or, as we say, even impossible. They’ve been given authority. They’ve been given a word. They fail to exercise it. And keep on believing that it was as He had said. The first hindrance, they stopped. The first obstacle, they relented. They gave up. People do this. This happens in God’s work all the time.

I’ve got a promise from God. I’m gonna go out and plant a church, or I’m going to go out and get involved in this, that, or the other. And many stop. They falter along the way. They give up. Why? Because of your unbelief. God did give you a word, you stop believing. They’ve been given authority, they failed to exercise it, they failed to believe, they failed to trust, and they didn’t go to God when there was a problem. “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

God’s given us authority, He has promised this will happen. When it doesn’t, we need to go to Him. That’s what prayer and fasting is. Prayer and fasting is going to God with a burden. It’s a burden sometimes that’s so great, you don’t even have the appetite for normal things in life. You don’t want to eat. Let me just say to you, if there’s such a problem in your life that is removing from you the desire to eat, it may be, not always, there can be other underlying issues, but it may be God’s saying to you, this is what I want you to do.

Or when you wake up at night, and you don’t normally wake up at night, you normally have sound sleep, but you’re being stirred in the middle of the night. Some of you have learned that God is stirring you to pray, to seek Him.

And so when He’s given us a word that He says will happen, and they’ve seen it occur, and now it doesn’t, they should go back to God and seek Him. And that’s where many of us feel. The first sight of difficulty or impossibility, and we stop.

Or we come into this, how might you describe it? Fetalistic acceptance? “My child will never believe.” Based on what? Based on what? Based on the fact that they are exhibiting the unbelief that is natural to them? They were born that way. You’re just waking up to see it. Now you’re seeing evidence of what was already there. And now more than ever, you need to press in. Nothing shall be impossible unto you.

So we need to obey, act in obedience, despite uncertainty. We’re not seeing it, well what will God have us to do? Seek Him, keep seeking Him. I know this is His will. He wants to save, let me seek Him.

My mom, when she came across Acts 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house,” no one told her that she couldn’t take that from God and just say, “Lord, I have a son who’s not saved.” And no one had come to her, thank God, no one had come to her to say, “Well, it might not be God’s will to save your son.” He’s out there in the world, so far away, professed atheist, no interest. And you can’t just take a verse like that and apply it to yourself. That was for the Philippian jailer. That was a specific word from the apostle for the Philippian jailer.

Oh, that may be true, but my mom still read it. She cashed it in before God. She cashed that check in. There are too many of us developing caveats that we have no right to be developing about what God might do in your life, for your family and beyond.

Oh, for a holy zeal for what brings glory to Him. The kind of praying that makes other people uncomfortable. You ever prayed in the presence of someone? You prayed something that made you uncomfortable? Because you couldn’t see the possible. How that was possible? You’re thinking to yourself, there’s no way. What’s he doing? Why would she pray that way? That’s ridiculous.

Is it so ridiculous? Is it? That’s the problem with you. Act in obedience despite uncertainty. Keep pressing on. In the face of the mountain, refuse to move. Give yourself to prayer and fasting.

I’ve told people this before. When there’s a pressing issue, you know, there’s an issue here, it all develops around issues. As a matter arises, an impossible thing, and you pray maybe, and nothing happens. You’re meant to press in. If more parents would just come together in a time of prayer, not just in family worship and so on. I hope that goes on in your home where there is prayer that you offer together and so on. I’m talking about there’s an issue. This child is wayward. This issue has arisen. We don’t know what to do. We’ve tried to address it in numerous ways. It won’t go away. And when you come together, when the two of you get together before God, you take even 10 minutes, 10 minutes, ten minutes of, we’re going to pray. Seven in the morning, before God, for this issue together. You’ll begin to see. You will begin to see what seemed impossible before. Things begin to happen.

We need to do it. The elders of this church, we, brethren, we must learn to pray this way, seek God this way, see mountains moved, persistent prayer, obeying God, not trifling with sin, not coming to God, seeking from His hands some great thing and then walking away and living carnally in other ways.

So we want to see finally determining to have small faith, not little faith. Determining to have small faith, not little faith. If your faith is a grain of mustard seed, a grain of mustard seed is not big. The Lord’s okay with small, but He is not okay with little. What’s the difference? Well, that’s the language He keeps saying to His disciples when He saw their doubts and their fears.

Matthew 14, 31, when Peter begins to sink after walking on water, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” Or Matthew 16, verse 8, when the disciples were concerned because there was no bread, “O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves?”

So He has an issue with little faith, but He is okay with small faith. Small faith, it’s not huge, right? But little faith is synonymous with doubt and lack of trust, and it wavers in the face of the mountains. But small faith that maintains a sense of future potential is like a mustard seed. It’s small. But that mustard seed is going to grow into something significant. And so this kind of faith that is small, it’s just like a mustard seed, it’s small, but the potentiality of it is there, because though it’s small, it sees what shall be done.

And so when that woman, that Syrophoenician woman back in Matthew 15, when He commends the woman, He says, “Great is thy faith.” And the greatness was not down to size, but because it contained a perseverance in the power of Christ to deliver her daughter.

The potential was great because that small faith persevered until it saw come to pass what it sought. The mustard seed has potential to become a tree. This small faith has potential to see the outcome of impossibilities come to pass.

Little faith wavers, full of unbelief. Small faith says, “No, no, God will do it.”

So we’re not about saying, “I’m going to have great faith” in that sense, in the sense of the size of it, but the quality of it. What’s the quality of it? As little as it is, it trusts God.

As you move forward into this year, throughout this year, let these words stir your heart and give you a sense of resolve. Let it produce obedience that manifests in more prayer and seeking God for the impossible.

“Because of your unbelief,” He would say to you. You say, “Why didn’t that happen in 2024?” Because of your unbelief.

If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, “Remove hence to yonder place,” and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Albeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Let’s see it. Let’s see it. Let’s see it happen here. Those of you involved in ministry, let’s see it grow. Why not? Involved in other areas and responsible for other things. What would it look like if God did the impossible?

This is what I’m laying before you today. I’m laying it before you for this year. Because the Lord, this is His word. He encourages us. There are mountains in your life. Mountains that He wants to just take away. Lost loved ones. Struggling marriages. Small ministries that appear insignificant. Sin in the life. Whatever it is, you are to take heart. God is enough. His promises are enough. Nothing shall be impossible to you.

And Solomon built his temple. He had unlimited resources. He was a mighty monarch over a powerful kingdom, a great army, tremendous wealth. When the exiles returned centuries later, they had none of this. They had no visible evidence of a reigning king. They had no great wealth, no power, no army, none of it. And it would have been very easy, as it was for some of them, to conclude, “What’s the point?” But they had a word. A word from God. And so they built. And the glory of the latter house was to be greater than the former.

You say, “All I have is a promise.” The Lord would say to you, “That’s all you need. Nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Let’s pray.

You may be struggling in silence and loneliness, dealing with a matter maybe no one but God knows. Let this be the encouragement you need. Let it produce in you a response. What’s God saying to you? What are you to do with this Word? Not just hear it, but do it. Lord, help me, help us all to respond to this Word you’ve given. We ask in our Savior’s name that you would help us, that you would furnish us with the perseverance and give to us a sense of what you’ve promised. And take our vision off of the problem and onto our God.

Oh, may we see this year, things happen that we’ll be able to rehearse. And when the time is appropriate, be able to say to someone, “You will never guess what God did in 2025.”

So Lord, please help us to see Your hand in the history of our lives and to see those mountains move that seem so stubborn and so impossible. Bless us, we pray. Forgive our unbelief. Oh, deliver us from it, we pray. And grace us now with more of what we need.

Now unto Him that will keep you from falling, I present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, with glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.