Road to Reality - the Principle of Faith Part Two — K.P. Yohannan

Living by faith, along the road to reality, next. Welcome once again to the Road to Reality, the ministry of Gospel for Asia. In a minute, we'll be hearing from Brother K .P. O 'Hannan, the founder and director of Gospel for Asia.

Living by Faith Beyond Conversion

Today, K .P. will focus on faith. Now, most of us realize that we're saved by grace through faith, but does that mean once we exercise faith to become a Christian, it's, well, no longer needed? Today, we'll discover God wants us to live by faith every day of our lives.

So, let's learn together how we walk in faith as we turn to Mark 11 on the road to reality. K .P. first recalls a time in his life when the Lord called him to exercise faith and trust, trust in God, and God did something incredible.

Listen to this.

A Test of Faith in Prayer

Some years ago, with some of our brothers and sisters, we went to a meeting. If I'm not mistaken, we had maybe about 25 ,000 people or more, and as the meeting just began, we saw the dark clouds descending all around us.

And I just didn't know what to do, because we were going to get rained on. And I never claimed I'm a man of faith, and I struggle a lot of times, and I pray for sick people all the time, and also get healed, but when I get a headache, I look for aspirin.

I do pray also, of course. But I said to myself, you know, this is a test. The Lord brought us here for this meeting, and it's my choice to believe. And I thought about Elijah, man just like us with all the struggles and weakness and confusion, but by just believing, he was able to stop the rain.

So I quietly said, Lord, I know Elijah, and I wish I had some faith, but I can trust you and ask you to give me some faith tonight. The little bit of faith, like a mustard seed, because I have seen enough of God's grace and intervention in answering prayer that I said to my colleagues, let's pray and believe God for God to intervene and answer prayer.

So we prayed. Well, thank God the Lord answered prayer. And all of a sudden, all the clouds moved away, and it's a clear sky just for us. But the strange thing, after the meeting was over, we discovered just about a couple of kilometers away from us, all around us, it was pouring rain.

And after the meeting was over, we gave the invitation, prayed for people, as we drove away just about a few seconds, it began to rain there on the ground also. God is pleased when we, even in our struggles and unbelief, come to him and say, oh Lord, I believe you to answer prayer.

Jesus' Teaching on Faith-Filled Prayer

All the fasting and prayer and crying and weeping will do no good unless we engage faith with it. That's the key. Now, the fig tree, Jesus cursed. You know the story. He went to get something to eat from the fig tree and I like figs and they are sweet, amazingly sweet.

And I have no question about Jesus ate a lot of figs and this time he was hungry and he went and looked for it, but there was no figs, only leaves. And he cursed the tree, of course, and he had all kinds of interpretations, but let it be, Jesus used this also as a means to teach his disciples about faith.

He said, have faith in God. If you can believe, you can say to the mountain, it will move. He can do the same thing I did. And then he explains to them how to practically handle faith. That is what you see in verse 24.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, okay, here it is. Whatever, we're going to spend some time in prayer. Subjects are many, but how sad it would be we go through all these prayer requests like a ritual.

We do the same thing we did last week. But how sad it is for us to go through this exercise and have no expectation, an absolute, rocky, strong, Milton conviction. I ask my God and he will answer. And there is excitement, there is thrill.

How sad it would be for us to go through another evening and not to have that. And Jesus said, when you pray for something, you ask, this is what you should do. Believe you have received it, past perfect tense.

You ask for something, you believe you already got it. And then you will have it. Now this is illogical. This make no sense. Why? How can you say you got something that you don't have? Think about it.

I didn't say this, Jesus said it. You're praying for something, you're asking for something and you start thanking God for receiving, getting, having received what you asked for, then you will have it.

How do you explain it? How do we understand it? Jesus is saying, this is how you walk in faith. How may I illustrate this? My journey of faith is brief. I don't have 10 million illustrations or fantastic events to report to you, but a few that I know that I, in my own life, experience as real.

Trusting God for the Ministry Building

Some of you, you have seen and walked into our office building, which is a five-story building. And I think we had the building now 15 or 16 some years or more. I remember the time when my leaders, we felt as we are praying and thinking about the ministry, that it's important to have a place where we can have offices, but also to have some training done for brothers that want to go to the mission field.

But we didn't have the resources at that time. And we said, we'll pray. And we did pray. But that was a time I was beginning to learn about living by faith and trusting God. You see, if you can do something by your own strength, your own resources, or you can do it by asking someone or getting through some other means, then you don't need faith.

You can do it on your own. But this was a situation at that time. And I simply couldn't see where on earth we will find the money to build a building like that. But as I was beginning to learn about faith, I said to myself, well, you know, I mean, it is impossible.

I just don't see on earth how we could do it, but my God is able and I can trust him to do the miracle. And it was during that particular week, I saw this ad in the magazine saying they are discontinuing a certain brand name washing machine, a certain kind that was used for overseas using the 220 watt electricity and all these different things.

Actually, they were making it for countries like India, and they were going to stop making it. And they had just a few left if anybody wanted it. At that time, there was no washing machines you can buy here.

So I said to myself, well, you know what? We are going to have this building and we need two washing machines so we can wash clothes for our brothers who live in that building. So I called the company and said, I'd like to order two of those washing machines.

And they sure sent these two washing machines in this large cardboard case. And the truck came and delivered it. And I said, oh no, what am I doing with it? It's two huge boxes. So I said, they're putting our garage in.

So they put it there and it sat there. My wife asked me, what on earth have you done? I said, this is the washing machines that is going to sit in our building and wash clothes. She said, what building?

I said, it's my faith. Some of you may have heard this story and I'd like to hear it again, so I'm saying it. So those large cardboard boxes sat there forever look like. Once in a while, I will open the door and go and look at these washing machines still sitting unwrapped in this cardboard cases.

And I would say quietly, you washing machines are going to wash clothes in that building. And nobody heard me because I didn't want anybody to hear me. I couldn't see the building and there's no way I can explain or give evidence or convince anyone this is going to do the job one day sitting in a building on the other side of the world.

It's not possible. But I want to learn that God is able to do it. Years goes by, the miracle takes place. The building is built. Those washing machines came and it is still washing clothes.

Maybe you can think of a few examples yourself where God lovingly and graciously responded to your faith in Him. Well, there's more encouragement along those same lines. We'll have that for you in just a moment on the road to reality with Brother KP Yohanan.

But first I'd like to tell you about KP's latest book called No Longer a Slumdog. I think you'll find this one hard to put down as KP shares how the suffering children of Asia are being clothed, fed, educated and loved in the name of Jesus.

Responding to the Needs of Asia's Vulnerable

But there are still many who are wandering the streets without hope and the opportunity is astounding. KP says never before have so many people in Asia been so open to the message of love found in the gospel.

As followers of Christ, we must respond while we can. We'll gladly send you a free copy of No Longer a Slumdog if you'll stop by winasia .org today. Again, go to winasia .org or call 866-WIN-ASIA. That's 866-WIN-ASIA.

If you're in Canada, go to the gospelforasia .ca website. That's gospelforasia .ca or call 888 -946 -2742. As we get back into the message, KP will have us recall a story in the life of Abraham.

Abraham's Faith in God's Promise

In the book of Romans, we read this amazing story about Abraham. It says God promised him a son and he, Abraham, believed in a God who calls things that are not as though they are. Something is not, nothing is there.

But this individual says, it is there. You ask, where it is? It is there. Can't you see? No, I can't see. I can see. How can you see? I can see by faith. Abraham, just like us, made a bunch of mistakes in life, but the most amazing thing about him, he had this incredible quality that honored God.

He believed God. When he made mistake, he acknowledged he did wrong, but would come back to faith again. The Bible says Abraham realized, recognized his body is dead. There's nothing left biologically.

All the tests in the world he can do. Every test will say, you will never have a child. But some years ago, the problem was not with Abraham, but with Sarah. So he could get a son through someone else and he did get Ishmael.

But another 25 years would go by. Now, 100 years, an old, broken, worn out man, it says he looked at his body and recognized it is finished. And looked at his wife. Impossible, it's all over. But then God says, be circumcised.

Philippians chapter three tells us, what is the meaning of circumcision? We are the true circumcision who place no confidence in the flesh. That's what it is. God, I give up trying to figure out logically, reasonably, how I'm going to do it.

I don't understand. I have no way to know this. God, I do not depend on myself for anything. Oh, Father, I don't. I trust you. My dependence is on you. And after he made the declaration, he received the son of promise, Isaac.

How long did Abraham say to his friends and his wife, God has given us a son? Because you read in Romans four, he gave thanks to God. He said, Lord, thank you for the son you gave me. And nobody could see the son by faith.

Forgiveness and Unhindered Faith

But here's the thing. Why on earth Jesus will tag on that verse after saying about prayer? Did you see that? That's kind of interesting way to do things. Look that, verse 25. I mean, he just talked about, said, whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have received it and you will have it.

Don't doubt it. But then the next statement he makes, it seems it has nothing to do with faith. I mean, look at there. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him or forgive her so that your father in heaven may forgive your sins.

For us to exercise God-pleasing faith, for us to have no hindrance to believe God, for us to have no guilty conscience, bothering us, holding us back to trust and believe God. It is an important factor that our hearts must be cleansed from bitterness.

Unforgiveness. This afternoon, someone said to me, so and so want to give you a letter. I said, well, I receive all kind of letters and I'm glad to receive a letter from anyone as such. This individual said, the letter is talking about forgiveness.

I said, what do you mean? And he explained, you see, he wanted to come and see you, but he didn't want to do that. So he thought to write a letter to you asking forgiveness. I thought it's strange so that you are not left in terrible confusion.

So, you know, this individual, you know, three or four years went by that much time, why on earth he lost this much time? Think about those, about three and a half, four years now, possibly the guilt he's living with, the anger he's living with, the confusion.

And for the life of me, I can recall one thing in my mind that I did to him or he did to me that there has to be some clearing up of it. I don't know what it is. But the deception of the enemy makes us sometimes live in our own world of darkness and unforgiveness while we pretend to be clever and smart and we go on like everything is right.

But God is not answering our prayer. Our faith is not effective. It is like you try to start this engine for the car to go, but there's no way because the petrol is mixed with water and all kinds of messy stuff.

It just don't fire. I wanna ask you tonight, is there something, is there anything in your life that you need to get rid of, especially something you hold against someone? I do not know who that person or who those people are, but please listen to me.

Repentance, Forgiveness, and Freedom

I'm going to close in a few minutes here. Time will never be the answer for sin. Time will never heal your wounded heart. Bitterness, unforgiveness never will. Only repentance, admitting, releasing, forgiving, let go is the only way, no other way.

There's not one individual here, not one person who can say, all through my life, I never been hurt. Nobody wounded me. I never experienced betrayal. I never experienced betrayal, criticism, slander. We all, every one of us, sometime in our life, from your dad, from your mom, your parents, your teachers, your colleagues, and a thousand names we can maybe mention, we all have been sometimes, somewhere, we all have been hurt, abandoned, wounded.

But the question is this, have you come to the place of understanding Christ who experienced the worst of the worst of pain, agony, loneliness, betrayal? He experienced it all. The question is this, is there a time in your life you ever came to receive grace from the Lord and deliberately forgiving others and releasing others?

Why? It give you freedom to trust and believe. Let me conclude. We often do not see answers to prayer, miracles that we long for, supernatural intervention of God, because we do not have faith to believe what we pray for that we have already received it.

We are not able to exercise that pure faith like a little child and trust God, even when you have the knowledge, because our hearts are polluted through unforgiveness and bitterness. And the Lord want us to come to the place where we see what he said and be like he is and experience the Father's grace.

God is so gracious to us and willing to extend his grace and forgiveness to us as we come to him through repentance and faith. Today on The Road to Reality, we heard a portion of a message from K .P. Yohannan called The Principle of Faith.

And it's our prayer and desire that it brought encouragement your way to live by faith. The Road to Reality is the radio arm of Gospel for Asia, where our desire is to share the good news of Jesus Christ to the millions of people in Asia who've never even heard the name Jesus.

Serving Widows and Abandoned Children

Many of them are widows and abandoned children. Imagine being shunned from society and ignored even by your close relatives simply because you're a widow and your husband is no longer alive. Well, that's the reality for widows in South Asia.

Or imagine having to search for food in waste dumps and making your home with the trash and rubble that you search for food for. That's the reality for the abandoned children of Asia. Is there anything we can do to help?

Well, there sure is. And we can tell you how at winasia .org. That's winasia .org. To learn in Canada, go online to gospelforasia .ca. The Road to Reality is brought to you each week on this station by Gospel for Asia.

Until next time, may God richly bless you as you place your trust in Him.