This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day three together of our look through Matthew chapter 21. We're looking
at the last week of Jesus' life. It begins in this chapter and we've seen Him
teaching us about what's really important in this chapter.

The importance of following Him, the importance of the fulfillment of what He's
done. In verse 18 to 22, there is one of the strangest miracles that Jesus ever
worked. Listen to what happened.

In verse 18, the Bible says, "Early in the morning, as He was on His way back to
the city, He was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, He went up to it, but
found nothing on it except leaves. And then He said to it, 'May you never bear
fruit again.

' Immediately, the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed.
How did the fig tree wither so quickly?

They asked. Jesus replied, 'I tell you the truth. If you have faith and do not
doubt, not only can you do what was done to this fig tree, but you can say to
this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea and it will be done.

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. '" Now let's
begin with the disciples, with what happened here, this withering of the fig
tree. The disciples expressed their need to learn with the question, "How?

How did you do this, Jesus? " In fact, when they did that, they showed more
faith than we usually do. We usually express our need with the question, "Why?

Why did Jesus hurt this poor, innocent tree? What had this tree ever done? Why
did He do this?

" We question the teacher's authority and we put ourselves in a place where
we're never going to learn, because the truth is, I trust Jesus. If He withered
the tree, there was a reason that He withered the tree. Jesus created the tree.

It was fully His right to wither the tree. The truth is, this tree was not being
fruitful. It wasn't fulfilling the purpose for which it had been created, and
we're going to get to that in a deeper way as we get later into this chapter.

But I want you to notice that the disciples, they didn't ask, "Why did you do
it? " They asked, "How? " We want to be able to do that too.

Jesus, if you can do it, we want to have that kind of power too. We want to be
able to make a difference in the world like you're making a difference in the
world. They have more faith than we often do.

When you ask how, you can learn from the teacher's authority rather than just
questioning it. How did Jesus do what He did? And Jesus says, "If you had faith,
you could move mountains, not just wither this tree.

You could move mountains. " There are actually three times that Jesus told His
disciples He could move mountains. We talked about one already in the study of
Matthew, Matthew chapter 17.

There's a second specific time in Luke 17, and then there's this passage. If you
look at those three different circumstances in which He said, "You can move
mountains," you can learn some things about what it takes to build the kind of
faith that moves mountains. And what you learn might surprise you.

What's the classroom? What's the learning ground for having the kind of faith
and trust in God that can actually move a mountain, that can do things that no
one else could do by trusting in Him, by praying, by talking to Him? Jesus, you
find in the circumstances where He taught these things, Jesus helps us to
understand that what we learn from is failure, our failures.

We learn from what we lack, what we lack. We also learn from wonder, how we
wonder, how we worship God and have a sense of awe before Him. Let's walk
through these.

First, you learn to move mountains from failures. In Matthew 17, we studied this
earlier in Matthew, you'd think that you would build your confidence,
self-confidence, through success. Maybe you can, but you can't move a mountain
through self-confidence.

You learn to move mountains through failures. You learn to move mountains by
realizing what you cannot do. And you might remember in Matthew 17, the
disciples had just tried to heal somebody that needed healing, but they weren't
able to do it.

They failed. And so they came to Jesus and said, "Why couldn't we do it? " And
He taught them about mountain-moving faith.

If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. He taught them
through their failure about a new kind of faith. Here's what we learn in
failure.

In failure, we learn humility. And without humility, you cannot do the things
that only God can do by you trying to do them or by you thinking people are
going to point to you when they get done. The only way you can accomplish in
your life through prayer, through trust, through faith, the things that only God
could accomplish is by beginning with humility, humbling yourself before Him,
trusting Him, not trusting yourself.

So it starts with failure, but we learn something from that failure. We learn
humility. Now, there is a second circumstance in which the disciples and we
learn about how to have the kind of faith that can move mountains, and it's in
Luke chapter 17.

It's a circumstance where they came face to face with their own inadequacy. And
whenever that happens, you've entered the classroom of faith. The disciples'
attitude is so refreshing.

They have this fresh attitude of asking Jesus for help when they don't know what
to do. One time Jesus was talking to them and He says, "You need to learn to
forgive someone as many times as needed. " And the disciples looked at
themselves and they thought, "We can't do that.

We don't have the power to do that. We can't forgive somebody that often. Once
is more than enough.

" So they came to Jesus and instead of pretending like they could do it or
arguing about why they couldn't do it, they said to Jesus, "Would you increase
our faith? Because if you don't increase our faith, we're not going to be able
to do that. " Jesus asked them to do something and they knew they lacked the
ability to do it.

This is a lot like the first one. You've got to have humility that comes out of
an understanding of your failures. Here you have to have faith that comes from
an understanding of what you lack.

You learn from what you lack. You learn from what isn't there. Would you
increase our faith?

When you realize what you lack, if you want to become a kind of person who moves
mountains, who does the kinds of things that only God can do, the only way to do
that is by trusting the power that only He has. Increase our faith. Now, the
simple words you might use are, "God, I need your help.

" You might need to say that in an area of your life right now, "God, I need
your help. " When you recognize what you lack and you say, "God, I need your
help. I can't change that other person.

I can't change the past. I can't make this happen. I can't see my way through
this.

God, I need your help. Increase my faith. " That's where mountain-moving faith
starts.

A third place that mountain-moving faith starts, we learn in this passage, and
that is you learn to move mountains through wonder, the worship that comes from
a spirit of wonder. The disciples saw Jesus work this miracle we just read, and
they were awed by it. And they learned about mountain-moving faith from that
sense of awe.

Sometimes we have lost the ability to wonder, to have this sense of awe before
God. Wonder is an incredible awe of what God is able to do, at what God is able
to do. Maybe you're like me.

It's hard for me sometimes to have this sense of wonder in life. I was brought
up, we were brought up in a scientific age, and the idea is that everything has
to be proven, everything can be explained. But you can't prove love.

You can't explain love. The rules that work in a chemistry lab don't work in a
relationship. So we have to have this spirit of wonder.

When I talk about it, it's not just a sweet cliché, always pretending that
everything is wonderful with little quotes around it, maybe little hearts that
you draw around it. That's not the kind of wonder that I'm talking about. I'm
talking about a different, powerful kind of wonder, one that looks life, real
life, square in the face and says, "God is still here.

" Even in the midst of a difficulty, even in the midst of the cross, there is a
resurrection that's coming. There is wonder in that. And from that sense of
wonder, you learn worship.

And you cannot move mountains without worship, without this sense of God can do
anything. God is an amazing God. I'll never forget, many years ago, I was
working with a children's camp of first and second grade kids, and one of the
things we were doing was making these paper flowers.

You rolled a piece of paper in a roll, and you cut down it, and you pulled it
out from the middle, and it made these little flowers. It took me about 30 hours
to figure out how to do it, but then I taught the kids how to do it. Most of
them picked it up in about three minutes.

But this one little girl, she couldn't make hers work, so she brought it over to
me, and she just hadn't cut down far enough. So I helped her with her scissors
to cut down, and I took her little hand, and we grabbed the middle, and we
pulled it up together, and I'll never forget the look in her eyes. You've seen
it sometimes in a child's eyes, this just look of delighted wonder, this wow
moment.

Maybe you've lost that. Maybe there's no wow in your relationship with God
anymore. Maybe the scientific age has taken it out of you.

Maybe the busy age has taken it out of you. Maybe it's just that you've seen so
many wonderful things, you've become used to them. Recapture that spirit of
wonder.

It's one of the ways that we see God do the greatest things in our lives,
because again, we recognize that only He can do it. Now, we've talked about the
spirit, the attitude that we need to move a mountain, but how do you move a
mountain? Jesus talked about it at the end of this passage.

He said, "Pray. " You pray. You talk to God.

If you ask God, God can do it. But as you look at the times that He taught about
moving mountains, He reminds us you pray with humility. You pray with faith.

You pray in worship. Because not just shooting a quick prayer up to God is the
kind of prayer that has steeped itself in the attitudes of heart, of life, that
has grown through failure, that has seen God work in your life, even through
what you lack, that has developed a sense of wonder as you watch how God is
working in your life. That is the kind of prayer that watches God do what only
God can do.

So let's take a minute to pray together right now. And as we pray, there may be
a mountain in your life that needs to be moved. Some circumstance, some
situation that you know no human being could affect that.

Only God could do that. Only God can move a mountain into the sea. Only God
could change that person.

Only God could cause me to have the ability to accomplish this. Only God could
work this out. Trust God with that mountain right now.

Say, "God, I put it in your hands. God, I trust you with it. In humility, in
faith, in worship towards you, I trust you to do what only you can do.

I'm tired of trusting myself. I'm tired of being doubtful towards you. I trust
you in this moment.

You're the God who loves me. So I can trust you with this, even this. I trust
you.

In Jesus' name. Amen. " Tomorrow, we're going to see together Jesus showing
stubborn people how to change our hearts.