Believe | Pastor Robert Morris | Gateway Church

[Music] you don't have to go to seminary to understand this book you just have to meet jesus you just have to meet the resurrected christ and beginning at moses and all the prophets he'll explain the scriptures to you if you believe in jesus he's opened your mind and now you can understand the bible so he explains he opens and he blesses [Applause] [Music] hey everyone welcome to gateway church welcome every campus welcome gateway gatherings we've got over 40 new gateway gatherings this week so welcome everyone i just want to mention about kingdom business leaders that's something that god put in my heart when we started the church actually the very first elders meeting we ever had i said i want three pastors that i've never seen a church have before and maybe there were hundreds or thousands i just didn't know of them i said i want a deliverance pastor that's what i called freedom ministry back then we we changed it to freedom because nobody wants deliverance you know nobody wants to admit they want deliverance but yo freedom i yes i need that please so so i said i want that i want some way to help people get free because i i actually spoke with a person today or yesterday that i'm not going to tell you who he is because you know he's very well known and but he'd been listening to my free indeed series and he said i need freedom and i told him i said i want you to feel so good that you talked to me about this i said the only people that need freedom by the way are people who are breathing so if you're not breathing you don't need freedom so uh you you need freedom and so we're helping this guide so then secondly i told the elders i said i want a stewardship pastor i want someone to help people learn how to manage their finances they get more training to drive a car than they do to manage a checkbook and and then we talk about tithing and they're in so much debt they don't they they just can't even follow biblical principles so so i want that and then i said and i want a business pastor someone to pastor business leaders and uh it took several years i knew who it was supposed to be after a few years and that was steve newland that one of my best friends and um he sold his company i guess 10 years ago or so somewhere around that time and and i said steve please do this and it has been so fruitful and so if you're in business you don't have to be a business owner to be a part of king of business leaders if you're in business we want to help you you need to be trained how to be in business my father who's here was great civil engineer such a great civil engineer started his own company the company grew and like many here's what happens all of a sudden now he's a business owner and he didn't get to do much civil engineering he hired civil engineers you said him saying but he wasn't trained to to to own a business and pay you know 75 employees or whatever so so people need help in this area so we want to help you so let me just let you know something's coming up may 20th uh we're doing a a it's a half a day called accelerate john maxwell will be here one of the greatest business leaders of our time he'll speak i'll speak steve will speak it's only a half a day in the morning so if there's any way you can be here and then we're going to be kicking off something letting you know about something we have that that's been developed here just for business leaders so you can tell this is not a normal announcement where i'm saying hey we're doing something whenever this is a passion that i have to help you do what god's called you can to do so that you can be who god's called you to be okay okay okay everyone online so if you're in business we want to help you okay all right so the men's summit was great if any of you men got to come it was fantastic uh and then i want to also let you know that we've had tables at the front of the sanctuary sanctuaries for altar ministry we're taking away the tables we and we won't we want you to come if you want alter ministry but we'll have hand sanitizer available mask if you have a mask the person will wear a mask we want to be safe but if you want alter ministry we want to be able to minister to you and pray with you after the service and still be safe so i just want you to know that we're changing some things about ultra ministry uh but we still want to be safe and then next weekend i'll i'll be back the next and i'll go to memorial day weekend we'll continue our passover pentecost series but next weekend it's mother's day i have something special for the mothers i have the person i believe to be the mother of the church today joyce meyer will be here next weekend so so i'll see you then okay so we're in a series called passover to pentecost 50 days that changed the world we're kind of focusing right now in the 40 days when jesus was on this earth after mother's day i'll spend some time focusing on the 10 days preparing for pentecost or the coming of the holy spirit what was jesus trying to do during the 40 days why did he spend 40 days on the earth after the resurrection i mean why i don't think we've ever even thought about why didn't he just um rise from the grave and and say hi and be gone why spend 40 days and we talked last week a little bit about uh explain he wanted to explain scripture to him he wanted to open their minds to understand scripture he wanted a blessing we talked the week before that about he wanted to teach us not to judge according to the flesh according to appearance or age or ethnicity or any of that we talked about that so we've been talking about this this one this week might surprise you a little bit he spent 40 days trying to get the disciples to believe and that's the title of the message believe now you might think i think they already believed let me show you the bible by the way if you want to read about the 40 days the last it's easy last chapter of matthew last chapter of mark last chapter of luke last chapter of john the four gospels and first chapter of acts and those that's the ten days the of the first chapter of acts all right okay so let me read you some scriptures mark 16 verse nine now when he rose early on the first day of the week he appeared first to mary magdalene out of whom he had cast seven demons she went and told those who'd been with him as they mourned and wept and when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her what does your bible say they did not believe now this don't let the 11. remember referred to as the 12 when jesus is on the earth judas betrays him and hangs himself for the 50 days they're referred to as the 11 from then on they're referred to as the 12. these are the 11 disciples that have walked with jesus three and a half years your bible says not just pastor robert they did not believe did your bible say that they did not believe how many times had jesus told them i'm going to jerusalem i'm going to be the son of man will be scourged beaten mocked and crucified but will rise again on the third day were they at the tomb on the third day they didn't believe verse 12. after that he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country that's the emmaus road disciples we talked about that last week and they the emmaus road disciples went and told it to the rest that's the eleven but they did not believe them either these are the 11 disciples these are the guys he's been spending three and a half years with they did not believe mary and they did not believe the two disciples on the road to maze now i know this i'm just having fun with you is this what your bible says that's why he had to stay 40 stinking days to get these guys to believe one other verse one other passage luke 24 verse 9 then they returned from the tomb these are ladies now several group of ladies and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest it was mary magdalene joanna mary the mother of james and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles and their words seemed to them like idol tales and they did not believe them that's our bible he rose and they didn't believe so three three applications to believe all right three things i want you to believe here's number one believe jesus is god not just the son of god because we're told god in three persons believe jesus is god now i want to go to a passage and talk about how you can strengthen your belief mark 9 verse 14 when he came to disciples now okay let me give you a clarification if you go up a few verses jesus goes up on the it's called the mount of transfiguration he takes peter james and john with him he's transfigured before them and now he's coming back down so there there are nine disciples at the bottom of the mountain because he took three with him so this is when he came back to the disciples okay and when he came to the disciples he saw a great multitude around them and scribes disputing with them immediately when they saw him all the people were greatly amazed and running to him greeted him and he asked the scribes what are you discussing with them then one of the crowd answered said teacher i brought you my son who has a mute spirit and wherever it sees him it throws him down he foams at the mouth gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid so i spoke to your disciples if they should cast it out but they could not he answered him and said o faithless generation in other words unbelieving how long shall i be with you how long shall i bear with you i just love these four words bring him to me this is the creator and sustainer of the universe bring me the boy i'll take care of this then they brought him to him and when he saw him immediately the spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming at the mouth so he asked his father how long has it been happening to him and he said from childhood and often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him but if you can do anything have compassion on us and help us jesus said to him if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes immediately the father and child cried out and said with tears lord i believe help my unbelief okay first thing i want you to notice is how calm jesus is bring him to me when he comes the spirit throws this boy down he's wallowing and foaming at the mouth you know now i'm i don't mean this in in any way um uh to be unconsiderate of what the boy was going through but i just want you to think about this this he's wall going all over the ground you know i i i okay so it's just all right jesus says to the father how long has it been like this it doesn't rat he's not like oh my gosh god oh man how long has this been happening and the father says since you since child since he's a child and then i know it doesn't say this but i just wonder jesus is like y'all got any other kids yeah we got three yeah how long y'all been married 17 years where'd y'all meet uh jeremiah's pizza parlor oh i love jeremiah's pizza party have you been to the original over on bethany street you got to go to the original that's that's the best i love their pepperoni and i don't now pepperoni i know has beef and pork so i don't think jesus um [Applause] [Laughter] have you had their mushroom okay so i'm just saying he's calm he's in the boat one day the boat is sinking he's sleeping what i'm trying to tell you is jesus is not unconcerned with the boy but he's unimpressed with the demon he's totally unimpressed with this demon the reason is because he's god he's the lord of heaven and earth and then it says when he saw the people running and watching this boy in other words when he saw the demon putting on a show he cast him out because he said you're not going to put on the show so he cast this demon out but something's very important this guy says to him if you can do anything jesus said to him if you can believe here's what he said sir the if does not regard me the if is not about me the question is not if i can do anything the question is if you can believe because i can do it and then this man gives the best answer in the world to this lord i believe help my unbelief that's good that's a great answer for you i actually think that the angels in heaven were kind of like you know in family feud good answer good answer good answer i don't know if you've ever seen that show they say good answer when it's a horrible answer have you noticed that it's like it's like a name a type of cat dalmatian good answer good answer and i love steve harvey that is not a good answer okay all right this is a good answer lord i believe help my belief okay probably all of us could say that probably all of us could say in my business my family my marriage my health for my kids my grandkids i believe helped my belief wouldn't you say that prayer that's a great one i do believe lord but i'd like more belief so he gives a key to getting more faith to more belief verse 28 when he'd come into the house his disciples asked him privately why could we not cast it out and he said to them this kind comes out by nothing but prayer and fasting okay here's what he's saying because you have to put action to your faith if you want more faith you have to move you have to do something you don't get more faith by just sitting around you get more faith by pressing into god you needed more faith and you didn't have enough faith because you haven't spent enough time in prayer you haven't spent enough time fasting the the famous passage in james about faith and works faith without works is dead let me read it to you in the message i've been reading the message a lot i'd really like for everyone to get the message version and just just read it as your daily bible because it just puts it in a new light so let me read this the famous passage about faith and works from in james chapter 2 about the message from the message james 2 verse 21 wasn't our ancestor abraham made right with god by works when he placed his son isaac on the sacrificial altar isn't it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners that faith expresses itself in works that the works are works of faith no it's not works of the law it's not not talking about salvation works of faith the full meaning of believe i love this the full meaning of believe in the scripture sentence abraham believed god and was set right with god includes his action see romans paul says abraham believed god he was counting him for righteousness james comes along and says abraham put his word his faith to work and he was counted to righteousness or these scripture contradictory scriptures never contradictory it's complementary so what he's saying is is that true faith works true faith does something there's some action so here's what i want to say if you want to build your faith if you say i believe but help my own belief you want to build your faith do something now let me say again you don't get saved because you do something but you do something because you get saved read your bible you want to build your faith read your bible pray tithe attend church and i just want to say something i'm i'm grateful that our own line is going up i'm grateful if you're watching online but if you if you have peace i want you to come back i want you to attend church when you feel peace in your heart and here's the reason if you're not attending because of safety and health reasons that's great but if you're not attending because you want to have church in your pajamas that's not a good reason because there's something about coming together and worshiping god so you have to put action to your faith okay uh pastor uh jonathan evans was at our men's summit uh dr tony evans is his dad jonathan played in the nfl for five years and now he's the chaplain of the dallas cowboys did a great job but he made a great point i just want to make that point about putting action to your faith he talked about that at their church they've installed a motion lighting so that when you leave come in the room the light comes on when you leave the light goes off he said the reason we installed it is because people who don't pay the light bill don't turn off lights i'll pause while you look at your teenagers but here's the point that he made there's nothing wrong with the power even though the room's dark there's nothing wrong with the lights nothing wrong with the power it's just that the light doesn't come on until there's activity in the room and i'm just telling you that there's nothing wrong with the power of god but the power of god is not turned on until there's activity in your life until you do something all right so number one believe that jesus is god number two believe jesus loves you a lot of people have a problem believing jesus loves them i did for years i finally had a counselor coach type guy say to me i said i don't understand why god would ever love me and he said robert i can tell you why it's because god is loving and then he said to me i thought this is stuck with me said it's definitely not because you're lovable he said that's why that's why you don't understand it you think i'm not lovable but god loving you has nothing to do whether you're lovable or not one weak and not lovable the next it's because he's loving all the time so so let me show you again after the resurrection a disciple who understand who understood this all right john chapter 20 verse 1. now on the first day of the week mary magdalene went to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb then she ran and came to simon peter and to the other disciple whom jesus loved now let me just stop for a moment this is john john refers to himself throughout his gospel as the other disciple okay so when you see the other disciple saw my john is talk writing about himself but he noticed he says whom jesus loved so we'll come back to that in a moment she ran and came simon peter and to the other disciple whom jesus loved and said to them now i just think it's funny we're going to see something funny in a moment that john does and said to them they've taken away the lord out of the tomb and we do not where they've laid it we don't know where they've laid him peter therefore went out and the other disciple and were going to the tomb so they both ran together and the other disciple outran peter and came to the tomb first john's like i'm not going to say who that was but we all know now look at verse 8 then the other disciple i watch this who came to the tomb first went in also watch and he saw and believed there was one of the 11 who believed and that's what the bible says see you got to remember the holy spirit's inspiring the writers of the of the bible john couldn't say he believed if he didn't believe so one of them believed i'm trying to figure out why he believed i'm just i'll just go and give you the punchline the reason he believed is because he knew jesus loved him that's what caused him to have a breakthrough i'm talking about how to have a breakthrough one is to put action to your faith the other is to believe jesus loves you look look look at john 13 just just so you know he knows jesus loves him john 13 23 now there was leaning on jesus bosom one of his disciples whom jesus loved john 19 26 when jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved john 24 verse 7 therefore that disciple whom jesus loved john 21 20 then peter turned around saw the disciple whom jesus loved john knew jesus loved him now i do i still get a little tickled about john writing this about himself it's kind of like numbers 12 3. now the man moses was very humble more than all men who were on facebook moses wrote that so i can either conclude that moses and john were egotistical or again they were led by the holy spirit so they weren't saying something prideful they were just saying something factual it's kind of like if i said i have great hair it's just factual i'm i'm just joking i noticed that one as funny as i thought so we need to edit that before it goes on television okay so it doesn't mean that jesus didn't love the other disciples it just means that john knew that he loved him he had that revelation by the way uh john is the only gospel writer who recorded the 11th commandment you do know there are 11 right jesus gave us a new one john 13 34 a new commandment i give to you that you love one another john 15 12 this is my commandment that you love one another john 15 7 these things i command you that you love one another and then in first john which john wrote as well 4 21 and this commandment we have for him that he who loves god must love his brother john was the only disciple of the 11th after judas of the 11 that was not martyred the other 10 were martyred if you don't know by the way john lived to be over 100 years old but the other ten just to let you know matthew was killed with a sword philip was hung peter was crucified upside down james was thrown from the temple and then beaten to death that's james the lesser james the great was beheaded simon the zealot was crucified bartholomew was flayed to death with a whip thomas was stabbed with a spear thaddeus was killed with arrows andrew was whipped seven times by what was whipped by seven soldiers and then crucified and if you all know why john wasn't martyred it's because they tried to and he didn't die they had the whole roman coliseum filled and the big the big of the night after they'd done all sorts of killing christians the big night with the last event they had advertised it was they were going to burn him in burning oil they had a cauldron of burning oil they put john in it and he preached the gospel to him and they pull him out and he has he suffered no harm that's when they exiled him to the island of patmos and he writes the book of revelation so i know he suffered no harm but he might have got mixed up a little if you've read the book of revelation you know i don't know i'm joking he knew jesus was god he knew jesus loved him and i want to i want to explain one verse to you from john because it's one of the greatest gospels that maybe you've never thought of the last verse in the book of john says and many more things jesus did that if they were written in books i suppose the world itself could not contain the books okay i want you to think about that you can't understand the last verse of john if you don't understand the first verse of john he could not have been referring to the three and a half years jesus was on this earth because you could write a book of everything jesus did many books of everything he did in 33 and a half years it would not fill the world but the first verse in john says in the beginning the exact same way genesis begins in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god here's what he's saying if you write everything jesus has done since the beginning of time for every human being the world could not contain those books see he knew jesus was god that's the revelation that he had so and here's point number three believe that you love jesus now i don't have time to read the scripture i knew i'd run a little short on time today but the scripture is when jesus asked peter three times do you love me scripture is in john 21 okay and this is during the 40 days three times he says peter do you love me peter do you love me peter do you love me um you've got to remember peter was the most human of all the disciples i mean you know he jesus comes walking on the water and says it is i peter says if it's you jesus brother i said it is i on the mount of transfiguration he takes peter james and john with him so someone can write about it so someone can witness it jesus is transfigured his face is as bright as the sun moses and elijah show up and talk with jesus and peter says it's a good thing i'm here and there's a boy and the father the father has to speak from heaven you know many times he said twice he said this is my beloved son whom well please this time he said this is my beloved son hear him in other words shut up peter [Applause] and then jesus says disciples one day uh who's everybody saying i am it's and they're like uh jeremiah uh elijah uh anyone who says john the baptist that's got to be the stupid jesus was baptized by john the baptist have he's rather think of him i was standing beside him i didn't baptize myself you know i mean he just and then he said come on guys who am i peter says you're the christ the son of the living god jesus said flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you my father in heaven that's what jesus was saying this is a miracle this is a miracle that you got the right answer peter and then jesus says at the last supper all of you are going to deny me let me tell you why because the scripture says you're going to and he quotes the verse from the old testament he quotes it the sheep's going to be the shepherd's going to be slaughtered and the sheep are going to be scattered you're all going to deny me tonight peter says not me if everybody denies you i won't deny you jesus says you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows twice you're going to deny me three times after the resurrection he's trying to get them to believe that he's god that he loves them but he's trying to get peter believe that he loves him so he says to peter three times do you love me do you love me do you love me peter's last answer was lord you know all things of course jesus knew that he loved him he was trying to get peter to know that he loved him see god never asks you a question to learn something he always asks you a question for you to learn something when he said to adam where are you god knew where he was adam didn't know where he was he wanted adam to say i'm hiding from you in fear and shame here's what i want to tell you because of the resurrection i want you to know you do love jesus even though in word and in deed we have all denied him at some point in our lives some of you have denied him at school some of you did not even work didn't want to get really transparent with you some of you denied him in a bar some of you've denied him in a hotel room but that doesn't mean that you don't love him it just means that you blew it just like peter did but i want you to know i want you to believe that jesus is god that he loves you and that you love him i want you to bow your heads and close your eyes and i really want you to just take just a moment every campus everyone online just take a moment and just say to the lord what are you saying to me because some of you have had a difficult time believing that god loves you because you're not lovable in your mind in your eyes but he loves you not because you're lovable but because he's loving and some of you have had a difficult time believing you love jesus because of your actions because you've blown it just like peter did but i want you to know your love is not based on your actions and if you do everything right it's based on do you believe jesus is the son of god do you believe just jesus died on a cross for your sins and rose again on the third day and if you do you do love jesus don't let satan tell you you don't love jesus look how you live don't let him tell you that because then he just keeps you in bondage he keeps you in fear and shame like he had adam hiding from god jesus died on the cross so you don't have to hide from god anymore and you can come to jesus even after you've blown it three times lord i want to tell you thank you thank you thank you that you rose and that you spent 40 days teaching the disciples lessons that we still need to learn today and lord we commit in our hearts that we are going to believe we're going to believe your god we're going to believe that you love us and we're going to believe by faith that we love you in jesus

Channel: gatewaychurchtv

Views: 103,728

Keywords: Believe, Believe in Jesus, Believe in God, Why to believe in God, How to have strong faith, how to build faith, Robert Morris, Gateway Church, how to have stronger faith

Id: BS7NeZBLRBI

Length: 38min 24sec (2304 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021