Living to Move Mountains Matthew 17:14-23

She had a fainting episode, but what a blessing it is to have Jessica, who's a nurse in our midst, who's able to help her out.

So just to let you know the update there, and she's doing good downstairs, getting fluids and sugar in her body.

So what a blessing that is that she's doing okay. But at this time, let's start this sermon.

You hear often the messaging that tells young people that you can change the world.

And what this messaging is communicating is to work hard to make a difference in the world for whatever cause the secular world says is worthwhile.

What the secular world does not understand is that the greatest difference an unbeliever can make is very small in the whole scheme of things.

Even though some difference can be made, think of our founding fathers. Many of our founding fathers were unbelievers, but they knew one thing very clear, and that is that power corrupts people.

They saw this in Europe as kings governed ruthlessly when there was no restraint on them. So they formed a government with a balance of power.

In America, we have three branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial. The president who belongs to the executive branch only has so much power.

He has to work within the legislative branch, and that is Congress, to get things done.

And the judicial branch is there to make sure the president and legislature are governing within the confines of the

Constitution. In this way, the Constitution that the founders wrote is the highest authority.

They wrote this document with the belief that God is the highest authority, not the government.

So when people want to do away with this, that's usually a red flag because what it's showing is that nothing is higher than the government.

But of course, the founders said, no, God is higher than the government, and we are under His authority ultimately.

Now, this positive influence, this document that the founders wrote, their influence over our nation is only temporary because in a fallen world, it only lasts for a time before evil overtakes it.

We are starting to witness this right now, and it will only increase as time goes on, as the country moves further from God and not toward Him.

The Bible describes the end of the world where there will be one government ruled by a dictator who is possessed by Satan.

We know from Scripture that his reign will be over the entire world, so there will be no republics, no governments that are of the people, by the people, for the people.

That is what a republic is. So any good accomplished in this world by unbelievers is superficial and short -lived.

Over the long haul, it does not last, but not so for the Christian, the influence that the

Christian can have. The difference that you and I can make is deep and it's lasting.

It is deep because God is able to truly transform people, and it is lasting because we are a part of a future kingdom that will have no end.

As Daniel 2 .44 says, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.

This is the kingdom that you are living for. God calls each of you to advance this kingdom.

This is why Eureka Baptist exists. To advance this kingdom that will go on forever.

The way that you bring lasting change to his kingdom is by growing yourself and helping others move toward Christ.

This future kingdom will be populated by those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ.

God designs for you to arrive well there yourself and to help others arrive well to this glorious destination.

The way that God can use you and I to make a difference is through faith.

Hebrews 11 .6, without faith it is impossible to please

God. The way that God can use you to make a difference is through faith, and this is the only way that we can make a difference that is deep and lasting.

This morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew, we will see Jesus' disciples try to make a difference in this world, but they do it the wrong way.

But Jesus comes to show a better way. So this time I encourage you to turn in the Bible with me to Matthew chapter 17. We will be looking at verses 14 through 23, and if you are using a red

Bible, it is on page 978, the red Bible in the pews. This sermon is titled,

Living to Move Mountains, and this sermon is one big sermon, so it is going to take us two

Sundays to get through it, but here is our big idea for this two Sunday sermon.

The big idea is this, aim to truly advance God's kingdom in this world.

Aim to truly advance God's kingdom in this world, and we will see three commitments how, and what

I am going to do before we jump in is I want to read the text, and then we will zero in on what is here.

So Matthew 17 verses 14 through 23.

And they could not heal him. 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.

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out?

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.

As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day, and they, the disciples, were greatly distressed.

Once again our big idea, aim to truly advance God's kingdom in this world, and we'll see three commitments how in this two

Sunday sermon. And the first commitment how is this, I'll tell you right now. Through resisting the urge to live under your own power.

Resisting the urge to live under your own power. This is the one we're going to look at today. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were one

Sunday ago. We looked at a conversation between Jesus and three of his disciples about the last days.

These disciples who had been trained in the Old Testament knew that Elijah played a significant role in the end times.

They knew that the prophecy from Malachi told that Elijah would proceed the coming of the Messiah, and Jesus told them how this worked.

What he explained was that there are really two Elijahs. One is like Elijah, John the

Baptist, and one is literally Elijah who returns to the earth in the end times.

And this is what the Bible taught. And so Jesus is explaining this to his disciples.

And as we see God's plan, we see how it works to perfection.

And as we see this, as we see him orchestrate all the details, we are to give him the praise that he is due and be amazed that everything is happening according to plan.

Everything in the past, everything in the present, everything in the future. Now this leads us once again to our text this morning that we already read, but now we will zero in on.

I'm going to begin by looking at verses 14 and 15. Once again, the disciples here come to the crowd and a man comes up to him and kneeling before him said,

Lord, have mercy on my son for he has seizures and he suffers terribly for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

Now in the last passage, we saw that Jesus was with three of his disciples, Peter, James and John.

But now that they are down from the mountain, the disciples are together. And what we will see in this text is that the disciples are away from Jesus at this point.

What the text tells us in verse 14 and 15 is that a father is very concerned because his son is suffering from chronic seizures.

These seizures dominate his child's life and he comes to Jesus desperate.

Now we know about seizures from our own experience. There are people in the world who deal with chronic seizures and as they go through their life they experience epileptic episodes and they don't know when they are going to strike.

My favorite college football team, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, I don't know why

I picked them as my favorite team, but you're kind of born with it, right? They won seven national championships long before I was born.

I'm not as lucky as Keith who his team just won the national championship, Georgia. But anyway, the

Gophers once had a football coach by the name of Jerry Kill who suffered from chronic seizures and he would be coaching in the middle of a game and then he would have an episode.

And this happened several times and then they would take him away in an ambulance. So we know some from our experience what seizures are like, whether you've experienced one or whether you've seen it.

Now this father has a son who is constantly having these episodes and what he tells

Jesus in verse 15 is, 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.

Now, we will zero in on verses 17 and 18 in our second point, but I will say one thing from those verses that is important for us to know right now, and that is that demons are causing these seizures.

We already saw that as I was reading. What the second half of verse 15 says is that this demon is using these seizures to throw this child into the water, to throw him into the fire, to harm him.

So what's interesting though here is that epilepsy is a medical condition, but here we see that it is a demonic issue.

Historically, when people suffer from chronic seizures, what they thought was, well, is this demon possession? And this is the passage that they went to to see that.

But of course we know today that it is a medical condition. Demons torment people in lots of ways.

People go through life in misery because a demon is tormenting them.

And you might ask, well, can a demon torment a believer? And the answer is no. Why is that?

Because a believer is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and when you're indwelled by the Holy Spirit, he has no place there.

Now, a demon can still influence a believer from afar, but as far as possession goes, as far as tormenting, that cannot happen to a believer.

So in this case, this boy is clearly not a believer, and he is suffering from these seizures.

And as this boy is suffering, the father goes to the only one who can help him. We've seen this throughout

Matthew. All these problems are happening. People don't know where to go. Anywhere they go, they're not getting the help they need.

But then there's this man who's going around and he's healing people. This man knows that. So he goes to Jesus, and lots of people have all these ailments, and Jesus helps.

And the people we have seen come to Jesus come to him out of desperation. And what we have seen so many times from Jesus is that when people come to him, he heals them in a moment.

You know, it is like often when we have healing, it takes weeks. It takes months. It might take years when people go to Jesus in a moment.

And we see that in this text. Instantly, this boy is healed. Now, what is interesting is that Jesus is not the first place this father sought help from.

Verse 16 tells us the first place that he goes. The man tells Jesus, I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him.

So this father brings his son to the disciples and their efforts are unsuccessful. Now, you might wonder why he went to the disciples in the first place.

How in the world could they help him? Well, the answer lies earlier on in the book of Matthew.

In Matthew chapter 10, verses 7 and 8, Jesus tells his disciples to proclaim as you go saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.

So Matthew 10 is where Jesus calls us. He sends them out and what he tells them is you have, through the power of the

Holy Spirit, this supernatural ability. You can heal people. You can even raise the dead.

So this man would have seen this. He would have heard about it at least. This is why he goes to the disciples.

They should be able to do this. Jesus gave them this ability. But there's a problem where before the disciples were healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers and casting out demons.

Now they aren't doing that. They're doing nothing.

They offer the man no help for his son, who is suffering these seizures that are caused by a demon.

And as the father tells Jesus in verse 16, I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him.

Now, why were they so successful before where this man would have heard, you know, they're doing all these things.

Jesus is probably occupied. So let me go to his disciples. They can do what he can do because they have the same power, the power of the

Holy Spirit. Why? Why were they so successful before? But they fail miserably here.

Jesus tells us the answer in verses 19 and 20. Let's look down at those verses.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out?

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.

Jesus is very blunt with them here. They were unable to heal this man's son, who is possessed by a demon because of their little faith.

Jesus, once again, uses the phrase little faith. Now, we have talked about this before, but it's worth saying again.

It is worth noting that Jesus has little faith and not no faith. There's an important difference here.

Jesus is not talking about unbelievers here, people who have no faith.

The Greek word that is translated by the phrase little faith means a faith that is ineffective, defective or deficient, according to one

Bible commentator. But the Greek word is different when an unbeliever is described.

In Matthew 1358, the author Matthew writes that Jesus did not do any works there because of their unbelief.

They didn't believe in him. Different word. That word is describing unbelievers.

This is important to know because these are believers who are not using the ammunition that they have and that ammunition is faith.

They are not relying on the power of the Holy Spirit. These disciples, through the power that Jesus has given them, have the ability to heal people.

They have the ability to raise the dead. They have the ability to cast out demons. If they have faith, this man wouldn't have to go to Jesus.

They would have done what was needed. So what are they doing?

What are they doing instead of exercising faith here? Instead of relying on God? They're relying on their own strength.

At first, they were doing these mighty works through the power of the Holy Spirit. They were living with God every step of the way.

But then they forgot about how they were able to do this in the first place. The only way they were able to do these mighty works to help people was through God's power.

Without it, they failed. And Jesus rebukes them for using their own strength.

He tells them, it's because of your little faith that you were unable to help this poor man who has a son whose life is being dominated by a demon, who's giving him all these seizures, throwing him into the fire, throwing him into the water, tormenting him.

Now once again, we look at this passage and we're thinking, are we like the disciples? Do we do this in our own life? If we're honest, we have to say yes.

Too often, we try to do things on our own strength. And when we do, it always fails.

God does not bless self -sufficiency. God does not bless self -sufficiency.

We wonder why things don't happen spiritually. It might be because we're doing nothing to live in God's power or what we are doing is being done the wrong way.

Now, in this text, the disciples were given a unique ability that we don't have. We can't raise the dead.

We can't cast out demons on a dime. Now, one time my dad was with a group.

There was a guy who was possessed by a demon and they prayed for hours over the guy before it finally left. But they didn't have the ability that the disciples had here in a moment.

Demon, leave. Gone. They didn't have... So it is different, okay?

We don't have this ability that the disciples had. But we can do amazing things through God's strength.

We can experience blessing in our lives as we rely on God and we can help people.

We can truly make a difference. But the only way we can truly help people is if we resist the temptation to do things our own way.

We want to fix people. But instead of relying on God to fix someone else, we do it our own way.

I have a friend who is a father of a good kid. He obeys his parents.

He's a student. He's a good student in school. He's going to get into a good college.

He's well -liked, but he's not yet a believer. This young adult has not yet been baptized because his father does not want him to be baptized before he's ready.

If he was trying to do things his own way, he would force his son to be baptized and just assume he's a believer.

But in reality, no true spiritual work would be taking place. He rightfully wants him to be baptized at the right time when he is genuinely converted.

But we need to resist the temptation to take things into our own hands because when we do this, it has no spiritual power.

And this is a great danger in preaching, the very thing I'm doing right now. You can have a great speaker who gives a great presentation.

But the question is, is there spiritual power? A 20th century preacher from Great Britain by the name of Martin Lloyd -Jones, he was a physician, but he was also a preacher.

He was once asked, how do you know you are preaching through the power of the Holy Spirit? His answer was this, you're conscious that you're hopeless, you're sinful, and you're weak.

In other words, you're hopeless apart from Christ's help. You're keenly aware of your sin and you feel weak.

Didn't Paul say that? Christ's power is made perfect in what?

Weakness. You need help and you ask

God for that help. A 17th century pastor by the name of John Owen once said, the messages that come most powerfully from me are the ones that come most powerfully to me.

So if this isn't digging deep into your heart during the week, that's a problem.

God makes you gripped by what his word is saying. And to let you into a little bit of the life of a preacher,

I was listening to a pastor recently by the name of Sinclair Ferguson, who has pastored for over 50 years.

And one thing he said was the importance of listening to your own preaching. And he didn't mean that you listen to the audio recording.

What he meant was you listen to the preaching just as the people listening to you listen to the preaching.

In other words, God is going to deal with you before he deals with anyone else.

What this means is that every sermon you preach needs to grab your heart. You cannot preach on your own strength.

It will benefit no one. And Ferguson said you must not only master the intricacies of the text, but more importantly, you need to be mastered by the text.

And God is telling me, Seth, listen to what I'm saying here. I'm talking to you. Be faithful.

Let what you are going to share on Sunday sink in your heart. Let it humble you. Let it transform you.

And then the sermon will come from you with power. So in other words, you're not preaching from a second -hand experience.

You're actually living this yourself. Once again, as John Owen said, the messages that come most powerfully from you are the ones that come most powerfully to you.

And if I write an entertaining sermon, but I'm not gripped by the truth of what the Word of God is saying, then there's no power in that.

There are churches where people talk about how great the speaker is. And yet you look at the people in the church, and predominantly these massive churches are filled with professing

Christians who aren't saved and baby Christians who aren't growing. This happens because these people are in an environment that is not designed for spiritual growth, but entertainment.

They are doing things their way, not God's way. The church's responsibility is to create an environment where people can grow.

And if you want to grow, you will grow in that environment. That's the mission of our church, to grow in Christ together.

So we create an environment, if you want to grow, you will grow, because everything flows from here.

God gives the growth. It comes from the Word of God. You build the church around the Word of God. And when churches do things their own way, they are making the same error as the disciples.

Once again in verse 16, the Father says, I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him. This takes place because they were relying on their own strength, their own creativity.

And this led to their work being completely devoid of the power of God. In our own lives, we should not do things in our own strength.

What a danger this is. We can do religious things, but the question is, what is happening that truly makes a difference for eternity?

In heaven one day, we will find that we did things in our own strength. And those efforts will be burned.

1 Corinthians 3 talks about these works that are thrown into the fire to be burned because they weren't done by faith.

They were done on our own strength. Anything not done in faith will be burned.

The aim of the Christian should be to have a life where the norm is a deep reliance on God for strength.

Where we truly believe what Jesus says in John 15 -7. That apart from Him, we can do nothing.

Do you ever wonder what that means? In the context of the passage, He's talking about the vine and the branches.

He is the vine, we are the branches. We can't do anything of eternal value without His help.

Without relying completely on Him to come to our aid. Everything we do must be done in faith.

And there's an old quote, One life soon will pass, only what is done for Christ will last.

What a wonderful quote that is. One life soon will pass, only what is done for Christ will last.

You can change that quote to say, Only what is done in faith will last.

God is only pleased if we are Christ -reliant and not self -reliant. But the way to resist this power of God is by doing things your own way.

Self -reliance and self -sufficiency is the great enemy of a work of God. If we do things our own way, we can be sure that God's blessing is not with it.

And we can be sure that it will have no impact for eternity. And it's sobering to think about this.

I've shared this story with you before. I was a part of a church growing up that was very, very shallow.

Of course, when you're a kid, you don't know it. You don't know it because it's all you know. And the

Bible was not really preached. Sin was not really preached.

The joy of following the Lord was not really stressed. It was more, let's try to avoid hell.

And let's use Jesus as a ticket to get out of hell. He was treated as fire insurance.

And it's interesting because they say hindsight is 20 -20. As time goes by, you can see things more clearly.

20 years ago, I was in that movement. And 20 years later, hardly anybody, any young person that was in that movement is still following the

Lord. I wonder why. It wasn't a work of God.

Why wasn't it a work of God? Because it was done in man's own way. It wasn't done through the way that God told us how to do it through the

Bible. It wasn't done through the power of prayer. And look at the fruit of that.

It's interesting, the only reason I'm walking with the Lord today is because the guy who came after that movement actually preached the

Bible. And that's when I was changed. That's how it happens.

It's interesting, if you look at church history, there was a well -known pastor from the 1700s, the 18th century, by the name of Jonathan Edwards.

And he wrote a book called Religious Affections. And what he meant by that was, what are true feelings toward God and what are false feelings?

Because there's a lot of movements in the church today where it's all based on an experience. It's emotionalism.

It's not really built on the Bible. It's built on having a feeling about God, having great music, because it produces this feeling.

A .W. Tozer called that worship -tainment. It's not built on the deep -rooted word of God.

And what Jonathan Edwards found during the Great Awakening, because remember, the Gospel was preached during this time in the 1700s.

What he found was that there was a true movement of God and there was a false movement of God. The true movement was built on the word of God.

The false movement was built on emotionalism. So, one was done through faith on the word of God, and one was done through a superficial

Christian experience. So, I find this very fascinating.

This happened in times of old, and this still happens today.

What is a true work of God? A true work of God comes through faith, from the word of God.

And not just part of the Bible, but the whole counsel of God. We can't use man's methods to produce any spiritual change in anybody.

It only comes through the word of God. So, this is something

I want to make very clear. And the disciples found that out. They were told, you can do these things if you do it by faith.

And they were able to. And they were able to make a great impact. But then they did things their own way.

And look what happened. Absolutely nothing of spiritual value took place.

I think the greatest tragedy is when you see ministries where 20, 30, 40, 50 years later, where is the fruit?

There is none. Why? Because they did it their own way. You want to have an influence.

In your life, in my life, whether it's in your home, your kids following the Lord, in your community, in your church, you want it to be a true movement of God.

And the only way that can be accomplished is by doing it His way, is by relying on Him, by living a life of reliance, which is faith constantly in Him.

So, with that, this is the first part of this Two Sundays sermon. Two Sundays from now, we will see points two and three, where we will see a growing pattern of reliance upon God's power and also discovering the peace of God with the purpose and the circumstances that God has planned for us.

We'll see that in point three. But this time, we will close in prayer, and I'll explain what's going to happen next

Sunday. Father in Heaven, this is a convicting sermon for me, and I trust for many others here, that we would not do things our own way.

There's lessons from history, and the history just bears out what the Bible already says.

If you use ingenuity, creativity, man's methods, there will be no true, deep, lasting fruit.

But if we do it the way that You tell us, then we can make a difference in people's lives.

We can grow ourselves, and we can help others grow as well. And we can help others come to faith in Christ by giving them the whole

Gospel, by calling them to count the cost of following Jesus.

So help us to do it Your way, Lord, and not our own way. And then let You work, and we will see deep and lasting change in our hearts and in the hearts of others.

I pray for this in Jesus' name. Amen. As I mentioned, so next

Sunday, Larry Forsberg will be here. For those of you who don't know, Larry Forsberg was the interim pastor here before I came here.

He's actually the reason I'm here. He graduated from the same seminary that I went to, and he found me that way.

And I got to know Larry. Larry's a wonderful man, a good preacher. So you won't want to miss it.

Some of you have seen him here before. But he's one of those guys, you talk to him, and you just want to run 10 miles because he's so inspiring.

And everyone here will say that. So who knows him? So be here next week to hear him preach.

And then two Sundays from now, we'll be back. We'll finish this sermon. And I look forward to that time with you.

But as we close today, let's close with the benediction. So please receive it at this time.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.