Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Amen.
[00:00:08] Man, what a. What a testimony to be reminded of the missionaries we support going into dangerous places to proclaim Christ. What a beautiful thing. Good morning, church.
[00:00:22] What a joy to be together today. I say that every time I get up here and I so mean it. It is such joy to be with you guys today. I am so excited for our time. We are continuing a series out of Matthew that we've been doing in Matthew 16 and 17 called who is Jesus? We're going to be in Matthew 17 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bible, if you don't have a Bible with you, there's house bibles around the room. Just look underneath the chairs in front of you, you'll find one. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. And so if you don't own a physical copy of the Bible, please take this as your invitation to take one of those or tell one of our pastors and we will give you a nicer one in Matthew 1617. The reason we're kind of doing this little self contained series is there's this shift in Jesus's ministry starting in Matthew 16. There's this scene where Jesus finally, publicly, at least with his followers, acknowledges and kind of accepts the title of Messiah. There's this really famous scene where he's like, who do people say that I am? Then he turns to his disciples and says, who do you say that I am? And here's the thing, guys, Jesus has been Messiah the whole time. Like, spoiler alert, that's the whole deal. But this is him acknowledging it. There's no veil. He's not hiding it. And there's this beautiful scene where, where the holy spirit kind of gives the disciples and Peter, like this unique knowledge and revelation. You are the messiah, the son of God. And it's this beautiful picture. But I think the thing that's important for us to remember, guys, is that question of Christ. Who do you say that I am? That question is a universal question.
[00:02:08] It's a universal question for a very specific reason. See, Jesus is very concerned about how his followers understand his identity. And the reason is because Jesus identity is not neutral. That's not a neutral truth. If Jesus is who he claims to be, then that has profound implications for how you and I live our lives right now. And so this question is timeless. It is just as much for you and I as it is for the twelve. Jesus asked the same question of us. Who do you say that he is?
[00:02:47] Now, don't mishear me here. Like you can easily ignore the question you can choose to ignore or dismiss. But don't be fooled. That is still a choice.
[00:02:58] A choice to dismiss his self identification and the possible claim that it may put on your life and your choices. Right? We should pay careful attention to how we answer the question of who is Jesus? Because, guys, it changes your life, changes the way you experience life.
[00:03:19] In the snow house, we have something called school snacks.
[00:03:23] These, by the way, are the premium snacks. These are the pre packaged goodies that we buy to put into lunchboxes because we are way too cheap to buy the hot lunch at our school. And so we buy. This is like, this is. Guys, this is all the good stuff. This is the snack size cheetos. This is the gushers, the animal crackers, the mini slim jims, the applesauce squeezers. And if you're old, I'm sorry. Like me, these didn't exist when I was a kid. You missed out on the era of applesauce squeezers. Cause applesauce is amazing. And now they put them in giant ketchup packets and you get to squeeze them directly into your mouth and it's magical. I don't know why they didn't think of this when I was a child, but I. This is the premium snacks. And by the way, all Aldi brand, mind you. Here's the problem.
[00:04:10] The school snacks are far and above the best snacks in our house. Like, they're the premium snacks. And so whenever a kid in my house wants a snack, they don't want an apple. They don't want a handful of popcorn out of the communal bag. They want school snacks. And sometimes a second parent who lives in my house, who shall remain unnamed for the sake of this sermon illustration, gives into whining and gives. Let's allows the kids to have school snacks during non school hours. And I gotta tell you guys, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. Cause school snacks cost more than regular snacks. So we only buy the exact amount that we have that we need for the week, for school. And so I have taken on the role of de facto school stack policeman in my house. And whenever I see my children lurking toward the pantry, there's this. An interaction similar to this.
[00:05:09] What are you doing?
[00:05:11] And guys, I'm here to tell you, especially kids in the room, you need to hear this. Your parents, they know. They know instantaneously because it's usually deflection. It's usually like nothing. Oh, really? Why are you getting in the pantry? And my son's just like, just looking at this dried pasta.
[00:05:31] No, you're not. What's going on? And it's this whole back and forth, right? And then sometimes there's even, like, just a straight up lie. I'll just. I'm looking for some salted peanuts and maybe some raisins for a quick snack. No, you're not. I know you're not. And there's this. But here's the deal, guys. Here's the deal.
[00:05:51] There is no human being on earth more arrogant and confident than a child that has already gotten permission from the other parent. Right?
[00:06:01] That's how the interactions go sometimes. What are you doing? I'm sorry, the pasta. But sometimes the interactions go like this.
[00:06:08] I'm getting applesauce and gushers. Mom said I could. And I'm telling you guys, when that moment happens, that kid walks with the swagger that says, I paid the mortgage in this house. Right. They are. Their mom said I could. Right. And you might be sitting there going, but don't they just lie about that sometimes? Yeah, but I'm here to tell you, you can tell instantaneously, because when they really genuinely are walking in that kitchen under the authority of the other parent, oh, my gosh. There is a swagger that goes with walking toward the pantry under mom's authority. They know they've got the key to the snacks and they're going to write it for all it's worth. Now, that's a silly example, guys. But beloved, I think the same is true of our faith and our practical experience of Christ. There's something about walking in the authority that just unleashes a whole different person. And it is obviously when you see it, it's obvious when you see it. Today, when we were outside greeting, Dave asked me, he said, what's the sermon about today? Give it to me in a sentence. And I go, you know, it's about faith. And it is. It's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about what it means to be men and women of faith today. But really, that's like, that's the secondary piece. What we're actually talking about today is the authority of Jesus, beloved, the way Jesus will answer the question himself today about his identity is this. Jesus is the authority.
[00:07:44] He is the authority, our faith in his authority, because that taps us in to his kingdom work. But Jesus is the authority.
[00:07:56] This whole thing that we call Christianity, it only moves forward when Jesus moves it forward, because he's the king, he's the power. He's the authority. All creation will bow down to his authority.
[00:08:13] You and I, we simply don't have the ability to move the needle on the kingdom of God the best we have, whether we're talking about the grand scale of things like the moral decline of a nation or the individual who we long to see them give their hearts to, Jesus, we can't do it. You don't have it in you, but Christ can.
[00:08:38] Christ can and he does.
[00:08:43] He advances his kingdom and you and I. The invitation that sits for us as followers of Jesus is to trust that, to trust that Christ has the authority, the ability, and is moving his kingdom forward, to have real faith in his authority, to advance his kingdom of guys, when we are, when we're synced up to that, when we walk in faith that Christ is who he says he is and will accomplish what he says he'll accomplish. Beloved mountains, move.
[00:09:17] The world changes.
[00:09:21] Pray with me. We're gonna jump into this text. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning.
[00:09:26] Illuminate our hearts today. God, speak to us through your word, Holy Spirit. You are the one who can convict us and challenge us and remind us and encourage us and disciple us today. And so we ask that you would speak today. Let each and every one of us hear from you as our heart needs. And let us leave today having met with you, Lord, pray these things in your name. Amen.
[00:09:46] Matthew 17. We're going to start in verse 14 if you want to read along with me. And we see this.
[00:09:55] When they reached the crowd, a man approached and knelt down before him. Lord, he said, have mercy on my son. Because he has seizures and he suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him. Now, remember, we're stepping into an existing, ongoing narrative, right, like this whole chunk of scripture. That is Matthew 1617. Jesus has accepted his identity as Messiah with his followers. He's been, as he's done this, he's been immediately redefining for them what messianic ministry actually is. He's been talking about how his messianic ministry will be one of earth earthly loss and suffering, but eternal victory. And his followers are having a really hard time with this. Is it hard for them to wrap their heads around the way Jesus defines the ministry that he will do as Messiah? And so Jesus, knowing this, takes his three closest followers, Peter, James, and John. He takes them up on a mountain, and they get to experience what we call the transfiguration. They get a peek behind the curtain. They get to see Jesus's full divinity. They hear the voice of the Lord. Jesus set this all up as an encouragement to them in the midst of a difficult time of preparation, as well as to set them and the church up to endure in the coming suffering of his betrayal in death. Our text picks up as Jesus and the three are walking down the mountain to rejoin the other nine disciples. This whole scene, and Matthew does this a lot, but this whole scene, it really kind of echoes the narrative of Exodus 19, when Israel camped at the base of Mount Sinai and Moses went up to meet with God. Remember in that text, Moses went up and met with God. In our text, Jesus walked up and showed the three he was God. Moses walked back down to the crowds to find them worshipping a golden calf. Jesus walks down to find them eagerly awaiting him and needing his help.
[00:12:02] He's greeted by a father who has come to his followers, the nine, for healing for his son. Now, there's a little bit of a caveat here that I think is actually worth us sitting with as a second, because it doesn't just speak to this text, but speaks to how we, as modern westerners read the gospels. I think it's good for us to engage this. You'll find, as you study the gospels, that Jesus miraculous ministry for the people is almost exclusively healing illnesses and casting out demons. He heals illness and he frees folk from demonic oppression. And it's important to note that first century jews just had a more holistic understanding of health and sickness than we do. They didn't separate people out into the categories of physical, mental, and spiritual like we do. They did not have a category for mental illness like we do. Most of what we would call physical and mental illnesses were often seen as having deeply spiritual components. And so it leaves us modern readers with an interesting question. As Bible believing christians, we readily affirm Jesus like deliverance ministry. Right? Like, of course, of course. We joyfully affirm that Jesus has authority over the spiritual realm and engages in spiritual warfare and tells. Tells demons what to do, and they obey. He frees people who are experiencing demonic oppression. Right. And yet we also don't look at those today struggling with mental illness and just assume probably demons. That's not usually where we go. And so when we look at these kind of texts, we really, I think it's good for us to sit back and go like, so what's Jesus actually doing here? I think our text today is a prime example because Matthew uses specifically physical descriptions, illness type descriptions. But then he also uses spiritual freedom descriptions when he's talking about this boy and his illness, and so it kind of leaves you going, so, was every recorded instance of Jesus casting out demons, was that. Was that demonic deliverance? Sometimes he interacts with spirits, and he gives them specific commands. They talk. There's a back and forth. Sometimes, however, the text just describes Jesus speaking a word, casting out. There's no interaction, and the person is healed. So are these descriptions of two different encounters where Jesus is doing demonic deliverance? Sometimes. And sometimes he's just miraculously healing a mental illness and using the common language of his day. I'll be honest with you guys. I have no idea. I don't know because the text doesn't tell us. We don't get a full answer to that. But I think it's important to note that I think the Bible leaves room for this possibility. Now, I say that because I just feel like that's the kind of caveat we need to talk about when we read these sort of texts. But don't let that keep you from the more important truth of this text. What's on display in this text, fully on display in this text, is that Jesus is the king of creation, and all facets of the curse, be they physical ailments or mental ailments or spiritual ailments, they bow before the authority of Jesus. That's what we see in this text today. Most scholars agree that what ancient Aramaic, called lunar disease or lunacy, is likely what we call epilepsy. And this is how Matthew describes this boy's ailment. Certain stimuli are causing this boy to convulse with seizures, and it has happened in really dangerous ways with him falling into fires and into water. Mandy, consider this father with me for a moment. Like, it's really easy. I think when we're reading biblical stories and just the way that the descriptions are kind of brief and quick, I think it's easy for us to intellectualize these things sometimes. But can we take a moment and think about this dad?
[00:15:59] His boy, the phrase he uses. His boy has suffered terribly to the parents in this room. I know you can imagine the desperation of this father.
[00:16:13] This child is suffering. His child is actively in danger and distress, and this dad can't do anything about it. He's stuck, you know, maybe not in the exact way he's experiencing it. I think all of us can imagine and think of what it is to desperately need help.
[00:16:32] When you have an ill child and you can't do anything besides trust someone else to fix it. It's powerless. It's a painful position. This father needs help. He can't fix it on his own. And so he sought out Jesus, the well known figure and healer. The father brings his son to Jesus ministry, and it doesn't work.
[00:17:01] There's some weight to that. You can see why this father runs past the crowd and runs up to Christ before he's even settled in, or he's still in travel mode. He's still on his time off with his boys. And this father runs up and falls on his knees. I need help.
[00:17:20] They couldn't heal him.
[00:17:22] I can feel the desperation of this moment. He calls Jesus Lord, not just rabbi. He's desperate. And so far he's not found the help he needs. He's cutting out all the middlemen. He's going straight to Christ.
[00:17:36] Because I think even as we think about this father's position, I also think many of us can think about the discouragement of the disciples in this moment. Right? Like that part, I think is easy to move past. But, man, there is a unique kind of discouragement that goes with ministry just not working.
[00:17:56] Imagine the nine as this man spells out their failure. I mean, remember back to Matthew ten when Jesus commissioned these men to do this exact ministry.
[00:18:08] This is what I'm sending you to do. Go proclaim the kingdom, heal every disease and cast out of every demon. You see, this is what he sent them to do. This is the exact sort of thing they've been doing for years at this point with Jesus all around Galilee. So why isn't it working, man, have you been there before where God gives you a skill, a passion, a call and understanding of ministry, and you find so much life and connection in Christ, and then maybe slowly, maybe suddenly, it just stops working.
[00:18:45] What worked before suddenly comes up empty.
[00:18:48] It's a disconcerting experience, a discouraging experience. I've been there before. I think many of us have followed Jesus with a bold yes and found ministry, success and personal life and joy by doing this or that. But then something shifts and changes, and now it just doesn't work.
[00:19:10] I feel discouraged. In my faith, I'm not connecting with Christ, this activity or this mission or this group. It's painful.
[00:19:17] I'm pretty sure any of us who've been following Jesus for a long time can connect with that.
[00:19:23] Read on with me. Verse 17.
[00:19:26] Jesus replied, you unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him here to me. Then Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. And from that moment, the boy was healed. Okay. Wow. That's not where I thought that text was going. Right? That's. Wow, me only, maybe. Okay, that's kind of shocking to read that. I don't know about you guys, but when I imagine Jesus, I don't often imagine, like, frustration, annoyance, grumpiness.
[00:20:03] It's definitely the vibe we get here, right, man? It's important to note, I think, as we look at this, that Jesus's comments here are not directed at this father. Instead, this father's desperation moves jesus to a place of rebuking his followers, and it kind of escalates into a rebuke of the crowd and the generation as a whole. Right? Like, this would be similar to the way, like, in English, we might say, like you people, right?
[00:20:31] A text like this, I think, is strange or shocking as it may be to read, I think it actually reminds us of two important truths. The first one is this. Jesus is fully human, right? Jesus is not some separate, far away, perfect spiritual artifice. He is a real person, and as a result, he experiences very real humanity, frustrations. But second, and I think this is a really important piece of perspective for our faith, it reminds us that Jesus incarnation is and of itself a sacrifice, that for Jesus to be incarnate is sacrificial. It's difficult. The Christ hymn of Philippians two is a helpful reminder here. Jesus left the throne room for us.
[00:21:21] He poured himself out and lived among us, the God of the universe, in the throne room, in his holiness and perfection, chose to live on earth with you and me.
[00:21:34] Does he love us? Of course.
[00:21:36] Does he have compassion for his creatures tossed about by the reality of the curse? Of course.
[00:21:43] But it was simultaneously an immeasurably huge sacrifice for him to do. So.
[00:21:50] Imagine the hardship. I mean, just to zone in on one thing.
[00:21:55] Imagine the hardship involved in going from being everywhere to being somewhere, right?
[00:22:03] That's the experience of Christ to be incarnate for you and me.
[00:22:09] Because Jesus.
[00:22:11] Jesus is incredibly compassionate, but it's also hard to sacrifice for him. And when he's faced with this over and over and over and over and over again of, like, I pour out, I love, I serve. And he gets these similar responses. What is it that we see that actually gets Jesus goat? Like, what gets him in this text? Well, hold on to that, because Matthew pauses that for a second, because he actually gives us Jesus's action before he gives us Jesus's motivation here. So hold on to that, because what we actually see immediately here is that Jesus has complete capability over the curse with but a word, he heals the boy. And Matthew goes out of his way to let us know this is a complete healing, a permanent healing.
[00:22:59] I love this, guys. I love this. Because we've already said, right, this text kind of echoes Exodus 19. And if you remember Moses interaction with Israel, like, way back in that text, Moses comes down off Mount Sinai. He's got the tablets with him. He's heard the covenant of God, and he gets frustrated by the crowd as well. He walks down and finds them assuming he's dead and worshiping a golden calf. And he gets pretty angry. But his response and his frustration was to blow up in anger, smash the tablets of the covenant on the ground, and start yelling at everyone. That was the best Moses could bring to Israel's faithfulness in that moment was anger and rage. But Jesus is a better Moses.
[00:23:46] He responds to his own frustration in the crowd's faithlessness by healing the boy, by doing the ministry. This is our Jesus beloved. He is much better than the best this world has to offer.
[00:24:01] He responds to need and faithlessness with an authority that conquers the curse and meets our needs. I mean, is that not the gospel message? That Jesus found us dead in the curse, that our sin had left us suffering terribly, that we are faithless, seeking our own way? And Jesus response to this is to seek us and save us, to fix what our sin has broken, to speak with authority completely and heal what is dead in us, to make a way for us to be with him forever.
[00:24:34] What a gospel. Jesus authority. So free, so beautiful. And yet, as we see in this text, we often have such a hard time trusting it. Read on with me. Verse 19.
[00:24:51] Then the disciples approached Jesus privately and said, why couldn't we drive it out?
[00:24:57] Because of your little faith, he told them. For truly, I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
[00:25:12] After this scene where the whole thing blows up. The disciples approached Jesus privately, which, by the way, I get that had to be a hard day for them, right? Like, what an embarrassing day. They failed to heal this boy. Jesus rebuked them in front of everyone. It all worked out fine, but also kind of, I would want to slink off, right?
[00:25:31] Discouragement, embarrassment, all the above.
[00:25:34] But I do think it raises a great question for us. Why couldn't they do it?
[00:25:41] What broke here? This is the exact ministry Jesus commissioned them to. I mean, the gospels are chopped full of stories where they do this exact thing. Why now? Of all times, when Jesus has so boldly told them that he is in fact the messiah, that it all finally falls apart. I mean, here they are making their way to Jerusalem with the messiah. This is what they've been dreaming of. This should be the high point of ministry. Why does it stop working now?
[00:26:15] But Jesus response to them is the problem is their faith.
[00:26:21] Their faith is little.
[00:26:23] How did the disciples lose faith? I mean, they've been with Jesus this whole time. They just had the rock star moment where Peter affirmed, you're the messiah, the son of God. And Jesus is like, yep. I mean, how could this be when they're low on faith?
[00:26:42] Let's talk about it for a minute. What is faith?
[00:26:47] Hebrews eleven one is famous verse about faith says, faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.
[00:26:54] I think what the author of Hebrews is getting at here is that faith is about trust.
[00:27:00] Trust is something that is outside your immediate grasp. Faith is when hope is reality, when you have confidence in things you don't have eyes on. We live in a world that tells us faith is a blind proposition.
[00:27:15] The word faith is used to mean believing in something without any evidence. That's how we use that word in our culture. And while folk may choose to use the word that way, that is not what it means, and it's not how the Bible uses the word.
[00:27:31] Faith means. We take a leap of trust in an area where we have plenty of reason to trust, but may not have direct access to that information or that confirmation in the moment. Here's what I mean by this. The vast majority of us have gone to restaurants and sat in chairs. Yeah, it's a pretty normal experience. We go into restaurants, and I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to guess the vast majority of us have done that a ton of times, and the vast majority of us do nothing to check the structural integrity of said chairs. Right? You walk in, you pull a chair out, you sit in it, and then you enjoy your meal. And you've done that a long time. You've done that so many times that you don't think about that anymore. Right? Now, likely we haven't sat in a restaurant and had a chair break.
[00:28:22] If you sit in a chair and it breaks and you're sprawled out on the floor, your experience of restaurant chairs will change overnight, right? All of a sudden, you don't sit in a chair without checking it. Some of you are sitting in the chairs in the lobby, like the little area back there right now, and you're going, this is my experience every time I sit in these chairs that the church has, for some reason, guys, the same can be said for flying. Right? You haven't inspected anything in the plane, but you're taking a leap of trust that the right people have, in fact, done the right stuff. You go on the plane, you take your flight. Although I feel like the more stories that come out about Boeing, we might be like, can I actually go check it myself before we take off? Is that cool?
[00:29:04] But you guys, you get what I'm saying? You get what I'm saying here. You actually have a ton of reason to trust the chairs at a typical restaurant. You have a ton of reasons to do so. And so in the moment, you don't do anything to directly verify it. You take a, albeit small, but a very real leap of trust. The same principle operates in our relationship with God.
[00:29:28] You. You cannot fully know what God is doing in any given situation, much less every given situation.
[00:29:40] You don't have the ability to fully see how he interacts with the world.
[00:29:47] It's too complex for you. But what you do have is, you know his heart for you. You know his track record with you and with others. And so you can take a leap of trust and trust him with your life. Trust him with various circumstances. That's what the Bible's talking about when it's talking about faith. It's talking about a leap of trust. Yes, but a leap of trust that is built on the reasonableness of facts.
[00:30:15] It's where that comes from. So why is that so important for our text in the disciples ministry? Well, guys, I think this is a pretty accurate picture of what we see happening here. The disciples have been living life for the last three or so years where they pretty radically trust Jesus. They've walked away from a lot to trust Jesus, and they have seen him do amazing things, and they've gotten to do amazing things through him. But in our text today, over the last few weeks, he's been really rocking them.
[00:30:49] He's been breaking their understanding of his identity and his upcoming work. I don't think we fully understand how foundation, rocking and Jesus message about dying and losing to the religious leaders and roman authorities was. For these men, it was such a foundational, fundamental shift in their understanding of the Messiah and the coming ministry of the Messiah that it was enough to rock their trust in Jesus.
[00:31:18] Guys, you can sit in thousands of restaurant chairs and never think about it, but the minute one breaks, it doesn't even have to be you if you're sitting there and you see, you hear that and someone else sprawls out over the floor, you're gonna be like, I should check my chair real quick. Right?
[00:31:38] It only takes one negative experience to rock our foundation of faith. We get cautious. Faith can be shaken.
[00:31:51] But this whole issue, I think, because it also reminds us that it was never the disciples doing the kingdom work.
[00:31:58] Jesus is the one doing the work. He's the one who heals. He's the one who casts out demons. He's the one who advances the kingdom. He's the one who saves. He's the authority. Right? The disciples weren't given some kind of superpower by Jesus.
[00:32:14] I think one of the biggest mistakes we make thinking about spiritual truth is to think that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom work, is superpower that we can control. I've got news for you guys. If you can control it, it's you doing the work.
[00:32:28] That's not how the kingdom of God advances.
[00:32:31] The kingdom advances by the word of Christ and Christ alone. He is the authority. The only work that we do is trusting that he will do the work.
[00:32:42] We seek where the spirit is already working, and we trust in him to work. This is the practice of faith.
[00:32:49] And by the way, it is exactly how the disciples did their ministry. They followed Jesus. They grew in trust of him. And when he said, all right, guys, go do this, it'll work, trust me, they did, and it worked. Right?
[00:33:03] That's what it means to operate in faith, to join with Jesus, to trust that he is who he says he is, that he does what he says he will do.
[00:33:14] Jesus is telling them that this experience, their trust of him, has fallen short. It has become small here at the seeming culmination of Jesus ministry, the disciples trust is falling short. And a little boy remains unhealed, because this is a stark warning for us as followers of Jesus today, your experience of the spiritual life, of the kingdom of God, of what it means to be a Christian, all comes back to faith.
[00:33:50] It all comes back to faith. Do you actually trust Jesus? Do you trust that he is who he says he is? Do you trust that he does the things he says he will do? It is fundamentally this trust that taps you into the kingdom work in this world. Fundamentally, you and I, we don't have the strength to move the needle on the kingdom.
[00:34:17] You are great people, and I love you guys, but you cannot forgive sins.
[00:34:23] You cannot heal the sick. You cannot fill the downcast with joy. You and me, we can't do it. And praise be to God. We don't have to.
[00:34:32] Jesus is doing that.
[00:34:35] He is actively at work doing that. He is living and powerful. He is saving and sanctifying those who are his, killing the curse. And we can tap into this when we trust that it's true in that faith, we get to participate in it.
[00:34:54] But it's still Jesus doing the work through us, still his work. So what does that mean practically? It just means this.
[00:35:02] Your faith is not meant to be blind. That's foolish.
[00:35:07] Your faith is not meant to be blind and foolish. Faith is based on trust. And hear this. Trust is based on facts.
[00:35:19] It is.
[00:35:20] So how do you build your faith? I mean, listen, there's few more fundamental pastor things to say than what I'm about to say, but this is the truth of it. Do you read the word?
[00:35:32] Do you pray?
[00:35:34] Do you share and receive testimony?
[00:35:36] Do you engage in community?
[00:35:39] Those four things, those will build your faith?
[00:35:42] A million percent. A million percent. Because faith is built on trust, and trust is built on facts. The more you see and experience that God is who he says he is and he does what he says he'll do, the more you will trust him, the more you will tap into his work, the more you'll experience the spirit in the world around you. So how do you grow that list?
[00:36:00] Well, you read his word, because this is an account where brothers and sisters who've come before us for thousands of years have said, hey, you know what? I know it's super weird, but turns out God actually is who he says he is. And this part's even weirder. He does what he says he'll do.
[00:36:15] And you read that over and over and over, over thousands of years, in different cultures, in different countries and different languages that for all time, at all places, God is who he says he is and does what he says he'll do. And as you read those stories of the patriarchs and see God's faithfulness to Abram and to Isaac and to Jacob, and going all the way forward and seeing his faithfulness in the New Testament, to the church and to Paul and to the advancement of the kingdom, all of a sudden you go, oh, you know, I think Jesus might actually be faithful to me as well.
[00:36:42] I think he might actually just do what he says he'll do.
[00:36:46] He was able to save Paul.
[00:36:49] I think he can save me.
[00:36:51] He was able to save Timothy. I think he might be able to save my kid.
[00:36:56] He was able to sanctify the church at Corinthe.
[00:37:00] I think you might sanctify my family and my church, when you read the word, you build up that list of facts.
[00:37:10] And then when you pray and you talk to God and you share your real heart with him, I have news for you. It does the same thing.
[00:37:17] You share your real heart with God over and over. Lord, I'm burdened for my child. I'm burdened for my friend. Lord, I want to see this sin killed in my life. Lord, I want to see you heal this person. And as you pray and you live a life of prayer, all of a sudden you start to look back and go, oh, wow, Jesus did what he said he would do. Oh, wow, he's faithful.
[00:37:38] And when you give and receive testimonies, when you spend time with brothers and sisters and you hear the story of how God saved them, and you share the story of how God saved you, and you make this a regular practice of your faith, to continually come back to your own story of death, to life, and to receive those stories from others, guess what you find out? God is who he says he is. God does what he says he'll do. And when you live your life in biblical community and you connect with other brothers and sisters and you hear these stories over and over, where God speaks into real needs and real hearts and real lives, all of it works together to build up the list, to build up the facts, to build up the trust, to build up your faith.
[00:38:19] You can live a life of faith, a life synced up with the kingdom of God. But hear this church, it will not happen by accident.
[00:38:32] It won't.
[00:38:33] Faith is trust, and trust is built.
[00:38:38] I love to read testimonies of, like, old missionary stories. A lot of you guys have probably read the story of George Mueller. This is a guy who opened an orphanage in England, and he has all these amazing stories of faith, how God has provided food when they had no food and money to pay bills. And there's one of my favorite stories, is that they were in this desperate place and someone from a local church made a massive financial donation to the orphanage. And they had all the money they needed to meet the immediate. I don't know what they were, but whatever the immediate needs of the orphanage were, they had all the money to write the check that day. And then George Muller goes to church that Sunday and he hears a testimony about the China inland mission and the need for money to send missionaries over to China because they were bogged down. And the amount of money that was asked for was just about the exact amount he'd just been donated. And so they wrote the check and gave it.
[00:39:23] And his board, his leaders go nuts. What the heck are you doing? And he goes, oh, I heard this need. We had the money to meet the needs, so I gave it. But we needed that money, you know? And then God provides exactly what they need for their orphanage. It's amazing. You read stories like that, and they're. And they're so powerful. But here's the thing, guys.
[00:39:43] They're actually very normal.
[00:39:46] They're actually very normal. George Muller doesn't have some superpower that you and I don't have.
[00:39:52] He was a guy who just thought very clearly about God's track record.
[00:40:00] I used to get to lead these mission trips to Matamoras, Mexico. Kurt Helmer used to be a part of him, too. We would take college kids and high school kids to go serve these local churches and Matamoras. And there was this lady who's still there. She's not able to do this anymore, but at the time, she's older lady now, but her name was Esther, and everyone called her sister Esther. And she ran this. This soup kitchen in one of the poorest slums and matamoros. And they had meals there, I think, six days a week, and they do two meals a day. And here's what's crazy about that.
[00:40:30] They had no pantries or refrigeration there.
[00:40:35] Esther would show up twice a day, six days a week, and just wait to see what God would provide to feed the people who were lined up. It was nuts. It was nuts. They did not store food on site at a food pantry.
[00:40:49] I got to be a part of that multiple times, or we would show up with a meal, and she'd walk up and go, oh, you're here. Cool, let's feed them. And she just showed up and trusted that God was going to provide the meal that day. And, you know, it's crazy. I mean, she ran that. She ran that soup kitchen for, like, 25 years. They did not miss a meal. Did not miss a meal. Local churches, local Christians, mission groups would show up. There was no schedule coordinating that. She just trusted that God had provided, and God provided. Now, listen, you can. You can run your soup kitchen with a schedule. You can have. You can have refrigerators there. But when you see that kind of story, when you hear that kind of story, it's not like Sister Esther had some superpower that we don't have.
[00:41:30] She just looked at God's track record with clear eyes.
[00:41:34] She just actually trusted him. She added up the facts and said, yeah, God takes care of things. God. When God calls you to a mission, he equips you for it. Let's go. Let's do this.
[00:41:46] Because your faith won't be built by accident.
[00:41:51] You have to set yourself up to grow your faith so that you can participate with God in the kingdom. And there's a very specific reason for that. Let's read this last little chunk of text and we'll end out verse 22.
[00:42:00] As they were gathered together in Galilee, Jesus told them, the son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him. And on the third day he will be raised up. And they were deeply distressed.
[00:42:11] Jesus is again pushing them on this hard teaching. My ministry is not what you think. It is my ministry. Even when they're struggling with this, he pushes as. This is why Jesus is so concerned with their faith. He knows what's coming.
[00:42:28] He knows what's coming. He knows how their trust in his authority is already stretched and strained. And he knows it's going to get harder. He's warning them ahead of time that difficulty is coming.
[00:42:41] But he's also reminding them that it is only through faith they can tap into this kingdom, because they will need this. They will need this faith in the coming dark days and in the coming joyful but difficult days as he builds his church. Beloved, the same is true for you and I.
[00:43:02] It is only faith in Christ that will carry the day in your life. It is only faith in Christ that will carry the day in your life. Life is hard.
[00:43:13] Can I get an amen on that one?
[00:43:16] Painful things happen.
[00:43:20] Circumstances will scream in your ear that Christ is not enough because the kingdom of God so often looks like earthly failure.
[00:43:30] You and I will often waver in our faith. That is normal. That's what it means to be a broken, sinful human. It happens, happened to the disciples. It will happen to you and I, but it doesn't happen to Jesus.
[00:43:45] He is trustworthy still. He is the authority still. He is the king still. Band if you want to come back up, I want to close us with some words from Jesus in the sermon on the mount. It's one of the closing things he says in that sermon.
[00:44:01] He says that he is the firm foundation that allows us to survive the storm of life. Remember that parable. Those who hear my words and put into practice, like those who built their house on the bedrock, they dug through the sand. They built their house on bedrock. When the storm came, the winds blew and the waters came, but the house survived.
[00:44:19] Remember that part of the sermon?
[00:44:21] What I love about that, what I hate about that. But what I love about that is that Jesus affirms pretty clearly in that parable, the storm came for both guys, right?
[00:44:33] Life was difficult and painful. Suffering and trials came for both people.
[00:44:38] But the firm foundation of Jesus strength, Jesus character, Jesus love, Jesus authority will bolster us against the faith shaking pains of this life.
[00:44:53] It will allow your faith to not just survive, but to thrive within the painful struggles of life in the cursed world.
[00:45:02] When life gets hard, as we land out tonight, today, when life gets hard, the question is simply, who has your faith?
[00:45:12] Who has your trust?
[00:45:15] Who has your confidence?
[00:45:19] Consider that. I want to invite us to take a second to pray as we always do. And I want to ask you to pray over something really specific today, the very first Sunday of this series, I asked you guys to take note cards and to write down the names of one or two people that you were praying for God to move in your life and save them.
[00:45:36] And if you were here that day, hopefully you have your card tucked in, your rival. If you weren't, that's fine.
[00:45:41] I still want you to think about that person.
[00:45:44] Think about those one or two people in your life who don't know Christ, who you desperately want to.
[00:45:51] Why don't you engage that with Jesus today?
[00:45:54] Think about what it means for us to be men and women of faith.
[00:45:59] Think about the image Jesus gave.
[00:46:04] He said there's even a little bit of countenance that wasn't some weird, like, prosperity invitation for us to use Jesus to gain worldly comforts. No, no, no. What Jesus was saying with that analogy is this, when you're trusting me, I'm changing the whole world.
[00:46:27] You're trusting in the work of Jesus. You're trusting in and the work and the power and the authority that made all things, sustains all things, and was able to restore all things.
[00:46:40] Let us take a few minutes to consider our own faith and maybe church to come to Christ in bold faith, asking him to move, asking him to save, asking him to intervene in the lives of those who knew love that they might come to know him. Church, take a few minutes to do work with Christ, and then we'll end at our time today.
