Summary
- The sermon emphasizes the importance of having absolute faith in Jesus, maintaining a focused prayer life, and living righteously to witness mountains move in one’s life.
- The preacher reflects on the account of Jesus healing a boy with an unclean spirit from Matthew 17, highlighting the disciples’ inability to cast out the demon due to their lack of faith.
- The sermon encourages believers to approach God with the belief that He is both able and willing to act, and to recognize the effectiveness of the prayers of the righteous.
- The preacher also shares his personal journey and the role of prayer in guiding his ministry decisions, emphasizing the power of persistent and focused prayer.
It is very meaningful that Daniel is here, so may he go back to his fantastic Christian days in the years ahead. Okay, I will read from Matthew 17:14. Is there an echo, or has the sound come back? There’s a little bit of an echo, a little bit of an echo. So, Matthew 17:14-20.
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him, and kneeling before him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic, and he suffers terribly.”
For often, he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him. And Jesus answered him, ‘O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him near to me.’
14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” (Matthew 17:14-17, ESV)
I don’t know, this, I don’t know if this microphone might be on. It could be causing it.
18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:18-20, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, we’re so thankful that you brought us here. It is no accident. Thank you for the prayers of your people, especially Daniel’s mom. Thank you for her.
Thank you for hearing our prayers, all of our prayers, Lord. You made it so clear to us in the end that this is where we are. where we need to be, so we celebrate your decision and we look forward to what you will have in store for us here. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Well, my name is Ray Choi, and you can call me Ray, you can call me Pastor Ray, you can call me P-Ray, P-dot Ray, whatever suits you.
I’m very thankful that Daniel’s here. It’s very special, and Daniel’s mom, she started praying for me back in December, and I heard about it. She brought up my name to her pastor and said, “Why don’t you invite this pastor to see if there would be a possibility of us worshiping here?”
And at the time, Mrs. Lynn didn’t know, but I was doing a lot of soul searching. I was ordained in 2011, so it’s been, this is about the 13th year, and when I got ordained, I had a certain picture of what church life and Christian life would look like, and it just wasn’t panning out the way that I thought.
I thought we would grow very quickly. I thought by year five, we’d be planting a second church, we’d be very active on the mission field, and we would just reach hundreds, maybe thousands of people.
That was what the Lord had put on my heart, and it just didn’t, as you know, it didn’t work out that way, and we were wandering through the desert. I think Sister Sarah’s picture is right.
We were in Pasadena at a choral center in the beginning, then we were at a church in Pasadena, and then right before the pandemic, the Lord had us move out of that church, and we were worshiping at our house in Alhambra.
Then, a couple years later, rather suddenly, God moved us to Torrance. We were at my house there, and then started looking for possible church buildings in Torrance, and I struck out zero for 100.
Then, there was one church through Brother Abraham, a fellow colleague who was a pastor and also teaches at Pepperdine. He had a church in Culver City. So, we moved there about a year ago, but all of us, I think, especially me, felt strongly that this was very temporary. And that’s a little strange to go somewhere and not feel like you can sink your roots deep.
And sure enough, God had us on the move again. But back in December, I just said, “Lord, is this what I’m supposed to be doing? Am I not hearing you well? Is it my fault that certain things that I feel are deep in my heart are not being expressed and I’m not seeing what I thought was from you?” And I asked, every December, I asked the Lord, “What do you have for me? And I’m open to anything. I asked the Lord, if you want me to quit, I’ll quit.”
If you want me to start over in another city, I’ll start over. I was struggling with that question. It was Matthew 5 about the salt that loses its taste. It was about three in the morning on Sunday. I was so tired, I didn’t know what to preach.
Then, the Lord gave me that verse. His slight encouragement/rebuke is, “Don’t lose your taste. Make sure you are salty. Make sure you are shining.” I think it was almost a recommissioning for me that December.
And so, I ended the year casting a wide net. And I said, “Lord, I’ll go anywhere. I’ll go to a small city. I’ll go to a big city. I’ll stay in California. Southern Cal, I’ll go to Northern Cal. I love Berkeley, I would love to do a campus ministry there. I visited North Carolina last year, and I love North Carolina. I grew up in Philadelphia. I wouldn’t mind going back to East Coast. Midwest is fine with me. All Caucasian people who work on farms is fine with me. I’ll do anything you ask me to.”
The last place I think I would see myself ending up is in a Korean church. I’m going to Korea. And the Lord, maybe humorously, I exhausted all of my efforts, all my other options. The doors closed one by one.
And in the background was Mrs. Lim praying every, pretty much every day. She comes to the 5:30 a.m. prayer meeting from Tuesday to Saturday. I joined this week with Jackie.
I saw Mrs. Lim every Sunday, and she was praying all throughout the time.
And as far as I can tell, she’s a righteous woman, and God hears prayers of righteous men and women. And that prayer got answered.
And on the last day, when the elders of Canaan Church were expecting a final answer from us, I was on the fence, and I was telling the Lord, “I don’t want to come unless you make it abundantly clear, because I don’t want to do life uncertain, or trial and error. I don’t want to get it wrong.”
And so, on the last day, God gave me a clear, clear word through a dream, and it was a series of pictures, and it was so obvious to me that the Lord wanted us to come here. So, I praise God for that.
And with that, let me just share briefly. What do you think? The one point I have for today is, if you combine absolute faith with focused prayer and righteous living, mountains will move in your life and around your life.
If you combine these three agreements of absolute faith in Jesus, a focused prayer life, and righteous living, mountains will move in your life and around your life. Matthew 17, that I read, there’s a parallel account in Mark 9. As I was reading this in some related passages, one thing became obvious to me that there are four kinds of faith.
Number one, no faith, zero faith, faithlessness. That’s one kind of faith. The other one is counterfeit faith. It’s masquerading as if it’s faith when it’s not faith. The third one is little faith.
There’s some, but it’s not big enough to see a mountain move. And then, the last one is absolute faith in Jesus. If you have that, and I have that, mountains will surely move in our life.
So, no faith. The father had a son who was suffering from epileptic seizures. This one had a demonic, suicidal, twistedness attached to it, and so he would constantly throw this son of his, trying to drown him in the water or burn him by fire, just trying to take him out.
And that’s what Satan does, he works to steal, kill, and destroy. And this father has enough faith to bring his son to Jesus. The same way that all of us, we have at least a semblance of faith that you’re here. You attend church, you read the Bible, there is some faith, and this father brought his son to Jesus.
And many people, they mistake bringing a paragraph request to the church, as if it’s the same thing as you yourself bringing the case, the situation, before Jesus.
It’s very different because, in churches, we can almost fool ourselves that just because we’re plugged into a church, that must mean I’m more plugged into God. And because we share the purpose, that must mean I am directly praying to God in Jesus’ name for this situation, because this is what the Father did. And at the end, Jesus’ response to this Father is a commentary on an entire generation, including the Father. He says, “Oh, faithless generation.” That means we can attend church week after week and be utterly faithless.
Mark 9:24.
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24, ESV)
Jesus says, ‘Oh, faithless generation, this father says, I believe, yet help my unbelief.’ So which one is it? Does he believe?
He’s trying to believe, maybe he’s coming to grips and being honest with himself, maybe deep down, I do not believe as much as I think I believe.”
I have enough faith to bring a situation to a church member and to share a prayer request on a Sunday or a Wednesday night, but Jesus sees the hearts of men and women. And for whatever reason, this Father is coming to the realization, “I think I believe, but perhaps I don’t believe, help my unbelief.”
And so, if that’s where you are, that’s where you want to start praying, “Help my unbelief.” I believe, sort of, kind of, I’m not sure, I grew up in a church, but I don’t know Jesus well. Start praying this prayer. I believe, help my unbelief.” This is somebody who doesn’t have faith.
There’s also counterfeit faith. Matthew 7:21.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21, ESV)
On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to you, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
I used to think these were struggling Christians who had a spiritual gift from the Lord Jesus himself, and they just ran with it. They did life as if they were the Lord of their life and their ministry, and they just spent many, many years, and then at the end, they lost connection to Jesus. Jesus at the end says, unfortunately, “I don’t know you.”
I used to think that way, but when I read it again, I think these are pretenders. I think this is an example of a counterfeit faith.
Because Jesus says, “I never knew you.” It wasn’t like, “I knew you 50 years ago and then you’re busy with ministry and we’ve lost touch.” No, he says, “I never knew you.” Meaning, they’re performing things in Jesus’ name without knowing Jesus. It’s counterfeit.
They even have signs and maybe you watch some youTubes and you saw something very sensational. You saw somebody vomiting out a demon, supposedly. But you can’t check up on that, you can’t see it. Is that person really still delivered the following week? It’s just a youTube short that you just caught it.
I think this is an example of somebody who even can be impressive in a church setting, prophesy supposedly in Jesus’ name, and do mighty works in Jesus’ name, and even cast out a demon, but it is inspired by demonic power and it’s a counterfeit. It’s just a show. It’s just a show. Like, I believe in this.
I believe you should be able to cast out a demon, but these people were just pretending to do it, and maybe they were inspired by Satan himself and empowered by Satan to do something that looked like a miracle, but it was not. I think this is an example of counterfeit faith.
The disciples, they come to Jesus, and they ask him privately because they’re embarrassed. Jesus just did something which they could not do right before, and so they’re embarrassed. They go to Jesus privately. They ask him, “Why could we not cast out this demon?”
And Jesus says, “Because of your little faith.” So there’s zero faith. There’s counterfeit faith. Here is an example of a little faith, and if you have a little faith, Jesus says, “you just need a mustard seed size,” and when I think of a mustard seed, that’s pretty little.
Jesus says, “It’s even smaller than that. Maybe you need a microscope. It’s there, but it’s not even visible to the human eye from far away,” and so this one is a little faith, and if you have this, then we should be praying, “Lord, I want more faith.”
What I had by faith of 10 years ago is not enough. I want more faith because if there’s more faith, even the size of a mustard seed, then the mountains should move, Jesus says, yet why are the mountains not moving? It’s just there. We keep praying to it. We keep believing that this thing should change, this circumstance should change, I should change, and yet I’m like this mountain just immovable, unchangeable.
In this situation, it’s not getting better. Jesus says, pray for more faith. What is faith? Mark 9:21.
And Jesus asked his Father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it is often cast into fire and into water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us.” This is what faithlessness sounds like. “If you can, if you’re willing, maybe you’ll do it, maybe you won’t.” This is faithlessness.
You pray, I don’t know if God heard me. I don’t know if God’s going to answer this.” It’s faithlessness. Because you can see by Jesus’ response.
Mark 9:23.
23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” (Mark 9:23-25, ESV)
Jesus says, “If you can?” He’s responding to the faithlessness of the father.
And we might say, “This is not faithless. The Son to the disciples, you’re going to church, it’s not faithless. you’re asking for prayer, it’s not faithless.” Jesus says, “What do you mean, if I can? Not only can I, I am willing.”
God is able to move a mountain. Nothing is impossible with Him, that’s faith. Not only is He able, He is willing. He is compassionate, He is loving, so that’s what faith sounds like.
You can and you will, you can and you will in your time and your way. I believe it, I believe it. This mountain should move. It should not stay there.
And so, rather than bringing a prayer topic to your friend, to your parent, to your church, bring every situation to Jesus Himself, because He can. God is able. Nothing is impossible.
God is willing, Jesus is compassionate. For mountains to move, not only do we need His kind of faith, we also need a focused prayer.
Because in Mark 9:28.
28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:28-29, ESV)
And then some manuscript of King James also shows, “and fasting.” Fasting just means a focused prayer. Like when you fast, it’s like you shut out the world.
You don’t even think about eating, drinking, where to go to eat. You know, if you think about just meal times and cooking and cleaning and going to a restaurant, which one do I go to? That’s a lot of hours in a day. So, when you fast, like suddenly, you’ve gained several hours to pray, which you didn’t have on a normal day.
And so, whether you want to believe that fasting should have been in there or not, I think the point is this: this is a focused prayer. This unclean spirit, like the disciples, they attempted to cast it out because they were successful in the past. But this one, this situation, was more severe. It needed focus.
So, if you want certain mountains to move, we need to raise the temperature of our permit and have a focus. I think one of the reasons why we’re here in this church is we need to learn from the first generation Koreans. They know prayer. You know, you can look down on them and say they’re just being religious or whatever, no, you have to hand it to them.
And I’m getting to that place now. There’s just a lot of things to learn from the first generation because in terms of prayer, they might not all be doing it with the right heart, but if you get it right, that you wake up at 4:35 in the morning, you drive to church 20 minutes, 30 minutes, the pastor is 25 miles away, he comes every morning Tuesday to Saturday, and then he’s here on Sunday. If you just give it to them, they understand like prayer is serious. You gotta focus.
Like, I like my prayer at a cafe with a latte and just kind of like meandering through prayer, but I’ll give the request, I’ll meditate on scripture, but it’s different. Like, it’s dark outside, it’s cold, and you drive somewhere when you’re like half asleep because you want to meet the Lord. There’s just an intensity here that is needed for this mountain of this demonic oppression to move.
And so, certain situations, it just doesn’t move because the prayers that we pray are not powerful enough.
They’re not focused enough. They’re not diligent enough in prayer. I think the disciples are learning. Oh, I was successful last week casting out a demon. Jesus is saying, this one, you gotta focus. And it’s not like we have magical powers. It’s not like we are gifted and then apart from Jesus, we are just doing ministry and casting out demons. That’s not the point.
The point is, like John 15, Jesus says, I’m the vine. you’re the branch. Just stay connected to me. And when you’re connected to me, you lay hands on a person.
It’s as if Jesus is laying hands on that person. Because wherever Jesus is, demons are cast out. People are healed. I don’t think necessarily it’s a spiritual gift that’s necessary.
What’s really necessary is connection to Jesus. Because if Jesus is connected with you, and you’re connected with him, and Jesus is saying, today, go to that person, pray for that brother, pray for that sister, and you go with Jesus.
You lay your hand, Jesus’ hand is laying on top of your hands. That demon, when you have this type of focused prayer, that demon will be cast out. That mountain will move.
And because Jesus says, “apart from me, we can do nothing,” you’re like a branch that’s withering away and dying. So, we’re not just endowed with power and then we just do ministry. No, we ask Jesus, “Do you want us to do that today? Do you want us to go there today? Do you want us to meet that person today? If so, can you be with me? Can you go with me? Can you go before me?”
And then, we go together with Jesus. It requires a focused prayer. In prayer, it’s just admitting, “Jesus, apart from you, I can’t do anything. I’m just powerless, I’m just…” And if something happens, not because I’m so diligent or I’m so pious, no, no, God gets all the glory, He did it.
We just were at his hands and feet, partnering with him. All of this, we just laid down our confidence in ourselves, the experience that we think we have, the prayers that we think on our own are powerful. All of that goes out the window. Like when you have a focused prayer, you really know that I have nothing to offer, I have nothing to give.
Jesus, you are everything, can you go with me? Can you go before me? Not only do we need absolute faith, focused prayer, lastly, we need righteous living.
We might not talk about this much, but if you read James 5:14.
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:14-16, ESV)
Here, we see that some sickness is a direct result of sin. Not every sickness is because of sin, but there are some, and here is an example.
That when the elder is coming to pray for you, or a pastor, or a friend, they should ask you in your time of sickness, “Have you sinned?” Because possibly, your sin was the open door for the sickness to come in.
And so that sin should be confessed and you should be forgiven of sin first before asking for a prayer of healing from a righteous man or woman. And so by implication, I think this passage, we can imply that a righteous person is somebody who is not sinning. Or if he sins, he is quick to repent and sins do not pile up in this person’s life. That’s why he is a righteous person. That is why the prayers of this righteous person are effective.
James 5:17.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. (James 5:17-18, ESV)
Think about how powerful Elijah’s prayers were, that he could shut up the skies for years, and only when he prayed did the rain come. This is mountains moving.
He is a righteous man. He’s not perfect. We know he’s not perfect.
We know he wavered in his faith when Jezebel was after him, even after he scored this huge victory before the prophets of Baal. So, he’s not perfect, and he has his weak moments, but he is a righteous man, and James is encouraging us.
Elijah is not special. Elijah is not special. All of us can be like Elijah. He has a nature like ours. Like Elijah, if we don’t keep sinning, if we’re quick to repent, if we don’t let sins pile up, when we pray, because we’re a righteous man or woman, mountains move. The cloud goes away, and there’s no rain for years, and then when you pray and rain clouds come. The mountains move because of the prayers of a righteous man or woman.
1 Peter 3:10.
10 For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” (1 Peter 3:10-12, ESV)
Psalm 34:17.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (Psalms 34:17, ESV)
Did you notice whose prayers God listens to? It’s the prayers of the righteous. And who are the righteous ones?
The ones who fear the Lord, and because they fear the Lord, they do not sin easily. And here, he’s talking about speech.
It matters how you and I live. It matters how you and I talk. It matters how you and I think. It matters what we do, day in and day out.
We can’t just say, well, we’re all the same. We’re all sinners. It’s true. We plead the blood of Jesus. We ask for forgiveness. We’re forgiven, it’s true.
But if you want your prayers to be effective, we need to grow in our righteousness.
I hope you want mountains to move in your life and around your life. I hope you want to see amazing signs and wonders and people delivered from demonic oppression, cancer patients healed in Jesus’ name. I hope you come with that kind of expectancy of what the Lord can do because He’s able and He’s willing.
How can we see mountains move in and around our lives? It’s through absolute faith in Jesus. He is not only able, He is willing to do whatever we ask, provided we have absolute faith. We have a focused prayer life.
Let’s raise up the prayers. I think that is one invitation the Lord has already given to this church. But just by being here, let’s raise up the temperature of our prayers.
And lastly, let’s live righteously. As soon as we sin through our thoughts, through our words, through our action, let’s repent right away. Let’s live righteously. The prayers of a righteous man or woman are effective because God hears them.
Let’s pray.
Father, if we are in the no-faith camp or the counterfeit faith camp, Lord, we ask Jesus that you would meet us.
We don’t want to stay in that situation. It is life and death. We don’t want to stay in a faithless, spiritually dead condition. We really don’t want to pretend to have faith when there’s no faith. So, we want to pray for, in that camp, “I believe, I want to believe, help my unbelief.” For those of us with little faith, likely we’ll never see a mountain move. Likely we’ll never see situations change dramatically. Likely, many prayers will be left unanswered because our prayer, because our faith, is too little.
But Lord, if that is where we are today, we ask for more faith so that eventually we can have absolute faith in Jesus. Thank you for this formula: absolute faith plus focused prayer plus righteous living equals mountains moving. Because you’re doing it for us. you’ve heard our prayers.
Lord, help us to commit, as we step into this church, the legacy that is left behind, not only this church, but the first-generation Christian Korean church, that they paved the way for focused prayer. It was part of their DNA. It is why you bless Korea so much.
It’s why you sent out so many missionaries from Korea. It’s because of focused prayer. They really, to the best of their ability, are trying to prioritize their life with you. It matters that we want to start the day with you.
Lord, we want to learn from them. We want to raise up the temperature of our prayer life. Also, we want to live righteously. Forgive us through our speech, through our thoughts, through our attitudes, through our motives, through the hidden things, through our actions.
In so many ways, we displease you and live in a way that closed your ears toward our prayers. Forgive us. Lord, we ask that you forgive us, we ask that you would help us to realize the power of a righteous life. It will translate into effective prayers that will move mountains. Thank you, Lord, we pray that you meet with us as we close out this service. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
