Jesus Is Merciful & Blesses Faith Matthew 17:14-23

It's right there, yeah. I grabbed it. I was going to put it where we were sitting, but I was too afraid. I'm going to keep it safe. Sam, you need to go sit with your mother right.

Now. You better change that. Good morning. This morning we're seeing Reid. I'm not going.

To sing at this moment. We're going to read from a familiar psalm, Psalm 100, and it's such a good way to begin our service. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with rejoicing.

Know that the Lord himself is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courtyards with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name, for the Lord is good.

His mercy is everlasting and his faithfulness is to all generations. It is good to come together and worship the Lord together, to delight in him together as his people. I do have one announcement. Not today, but this coming Sunday we will have a members meeting where we will vote on pastors and deacons and where we will also discuss our building some more.

Just as a reminder, the men who are nominated for pastor are Robert Knight and Rob Cerrito. The men who are nominated for deacon are Butch Coley and Ronnie Stedman. We believe that these godly men are right for our church this time, so we ask you to prayerfully consider supporting them as we support them for these roles.

You know, this morning our sermon in a little bit is going to be on faith, faith to move mountains. I was driving here this morning and noticing the weather and maybe some of you were going, what a dreary day.

Oh, I'd give anything to see the sun. And I was just thinking the whole time, well, praise the Lord. Here is an illustration of faith because none of us can see the sun, but we all know it's there. None of us are doubting that.

None of us are wondering if we'll ever see it again. It was just the Lord providentially for a million reasons, he let it be overcast this morning, but also for me. You leave out here today, the sun may be out and the illustration may be broken.

Not really broken, completed in a way because the Lord will have shown the sun again and he will show himself faithful. But if it is overcast, you will have a visual reminder of what faith is, believing even when you can't see it is so.

And so we're going to talk more about that in a little bit. I just wanted to talk about it as quickly as I could, because I thought we might all get in here and talk about this and that and the other.

And I bring up in 30 minutes that it's overcast and you all think, is it? Was it? And so we're talking about it now. Now we're going to have some time of meet and greet. Somebody brought donuts this morning.

Maybe you didn't have a chance to grab one. Now you do. So let's have.

Meet and greet. And if you have to run and get a donut, that'll be a okay. Apologize to Stephanie.

What's the text when you talk to me about software? It was like two, three o 'clock in the morning when I read it. It was really long. Is that you don't have any idea how many people text me something that said, do this.

It's a problem, but you fix it. No, you didn't. But I'm just saying that was my interpretation.

So I appreciate your help. Well, I don't know if I can do much, but I'll tell you later. Well, we're not doing anything small business, so I think we can get something cheaper.

If everyone would take your seats, please, or come back to your seats and stand with us and.

Join with us as we sing. For all you non-liturgical people, non-liturgical people,.

Well, this past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, which marks a period of 40 days until Easter, typically used as mourning and to focus on the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Every day we're thankful for what Christ did for us.

This first song is kind of like an Easter song, but we really want to focus. I think it's easy to just go, oh yeah, he did this for us, he did this for us, but we really want to try and grasp the enormity of that.

So hopefully this song will help.

I would say, as the pikes became my fleas, now the ground beneath quakes as its maker bows his face to launch the victory cry. As the pikes became the blade to see my name engineered in the woods, for through your selfless mind to live, one through your selfless love is the power.

Thank you. Please remain standing.

Thank you. What a blessing that last song was. I don't know if the particular verse that I was.

Thinking of was the reference that they were thinking of when they wrote the song, but one of those first few lines, when they talked about the river and it got deeper, it made me think about Ezekiel and the river flowing from the temple and how it gets wider and deeper and as the prophet is seeing the river and it's a picture of the kingdom, how God is growing his kingdom and how marvelous it is.

So that song was a blessing as I recall that prophecy from Ezekiel for me. Let me read Ephesians chapter 4 verses 12 through 16. For the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head even Christ from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

I know our missions committee is working hard to evaluate how our church wants to serve and it calls me to think how we all, even though we may not individually know of a particular ministry or involved in a particular ministry outside the church, but all of us individually are ministering every week.

You're ministering to your family, your children, your grandchildren, you're reaching out to your neighbors and your loved ones, and we hear about teachers sharing the gospel and ministering to your students.

And so I was just curious how as ministers of the gospel, how we can pray for you, how we can equip you, and how we can love on you as you are ministering in your own individual lives. So think about that, how we can pray for you as you minister individually in your own lives and what other prayer requests that you may have this morning or praise reports.

I want to hear those too.

Yes, sir. I apologize. I think you guys usually recap. So everybody hears, we want to pray for.

Penny and Amy as the coming of Penny is drawing near and pray for Chris as he's leading Sam and Gus and faithfulness and leading them in Bible reading and leading them to the Lord. And Rob requested prayer as he speaks into individuals that he has contact with at his job.

Yeah, so Tina is reminding us to pray for our students and teachers in our school systems and the influence, both positive and negative, that's happening in the school system. Anybody else? All right.

If you will join me in prayer. Father, we want to come to you as humbly as we know how, because I'm reminded of your word that you tell us that apart from Christ, we can do nothing. We wait because you give us life and you allow us to see a new day and a new morning and you sustain us throughout the day and you allow us to rest again at night.

And everything in between comes from you. The strength to work, the strength to live, the strength to minister, everything comes from you. The words to say and father salvation comes from you. Mercy and grace come from you.

And so father, we want to give you honor and glory as we are here together, as we are gathered together as saints, that witnessing a work that you have done, we would never come together on our own. We would never love one another on our own, but it's because of the work that you've done in us that people can see your glory in us and what you accomplished and what you're doing.

And father, as we want to be a church who are ministering saints, we pray and ask for you to equip us and ask for your help as we equip others and as we pray for others and as we help others to do the work of the ministry.

Father, we want to give you glory. We want to be able to do things that people can say only God can do that. We want you to receive the glory. We want you to shine. We want to exalt Christ and we want him to be famous and we want people to be saved.

We want people to hear the gospel. And so we pray for your help. We pray for the efforts here with this body. Father, we want to lift up Penny and Amy, and we ask that you would comfort Amy and give both Penny and Amy strength as the days approach that that Penny will make her arrival.

And we, we pray for comfort and, and healing, of course, and, and blessings on that day and in the, in the future days ahead. Father, we pray for Chris as his desires to lead his family and lead Sam and Gus to you and through your word as they read your word and explain your word.

And father, we, he requested that we pray for faithfulness. And so father, we pray that you will continue to work that faithfulness in him. And, and when his sons look at him, his daughter will look at him and he will, they will see Christ and they will love you more.

Father, we want to pray for, for Rob and for Sarah and, and all others here that, that we would take advantage of the opportunities that you would give us and give us the words to say as you, as you promised the apostles, as we come in contact with individuals, we want to speak the gospel into them to the, to the best of our ability at our job without causing anyone to stumble or causing any kind of negative impact at our jobs.

But we want to, we want to speak life into them the way that you would have us to. So we, we lean on your understanding and we lean on you working through us to do that. So father help us as we speak to them and our teachers, we pray for them.

I know we, we just heard this week of an assault on a teacher, Kelly and I, and so we pray for that teacher and her safety and her recovery. And father, I pray for the safety of all of our teachers that they, they have to balance safety concerns sometimes with teaching their lessons and helping children to grow no matter their age.

And so father, they, they deal with so much and, and as Christian teachers above all, they want you to receive the glory through their teaching and through their interaction with their students. And so father, I pray for our teach, our Christian teachers here and our Christian teachers everywhere that, that you would help them as they minister to their students.

Father, we want to pray for, for Tina and that you would help her and, and continue to help her to, to, to feel well and, and be better and to, to, to bless her and her family. And father, we thank you for her reminder that we want to continue to pray for the influences that our students have in our school.

They're, they're quite negative sometimes is the reports we hear. And so we pray that your gospel would penetrate in our schools and the light would just dissipate all the darkness. And we look forward to that day when it's, when it's all light and evil, evil has been put under the feet of Christ and he, he has made evil his footstool and, and it's just pure light of the gospel and Jesus Christ.

And there there's love and no more hate. There's no more sin and evil, but there's love of your law. Father, we pray, we pray for Wayne as he has started this new position, that you would help him and encourage him physically with, with his knee and mentally as he, as he's a different age as the other ones we, but we thank you for giving him this job and father, we lift him up to you and ask for your help.

And we also pray for Thomas that you would give him strength at this time. And we also pray for his wife and his daughter that you would give them strength and courage and bless them with grace as they go through this time with, with Thomas and the rest of their family as well.

And father, we, we pray for this service that you will be glorified. We want to look to you. We want to lift our eyes to you and only see you in our songs and in the, in the word and in our prayers. And father, we pray that you would let that penetrate in us so that it has an effect on our relationships with everyone else.

And we pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Stan Lewis, please.

All right. I've been throwing songs at y 'all that y 'all don't know, but occasionally there's one I don't know. I know the chorus of this one, but I don't know the verses real well. So sing loud so I can learn it.

I was young.

I had such small Bibles. Well, I mean, I will, I will take that happily, but when I was younger, I had such small Bibles fit in your pocket and could see so well. But now, you know, they say, Lord, this Bible has large print and you look at it and you say, I know that's too small to have large print.

It has to be a big Bible because that large print is barely legible or large print. This time in the service, we're going to partake, observe the Lord's supper together. A moment of reflection. I want to have from 1 John 1 5 -10.

This is the message we've heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him, there's no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us all from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous so that he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we've not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Just a couple of thoughts I want to key in on as we begin a time of reflection. One, he talks about us having fellowship with Christ, with the Lord over time and that sin breaks that fellowship. And we know people, you've probably met someone who says, well, I've gotten to such a plane of Christian living that I no longer sin.

And we all think, probably still lying. I bet that's the one that's, if you're doing no others, that's the one. Cause I don't, I don't believe that. I mean, praise the Lord if you're the one, but I don't think so.

But he says here, if we say we have no sin, we make him a liar. And then before that, he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. It's interesting that people can deceive you, but you can deceive yourself as well.

So this morning, as we come to this time where we observe the Lord's supper, we remember together Christ's death, his burial and his resurrection. Let us take time to reflect on our own hearts, maybe where we've been deceived, been deceiving ourselves and ask the Lord for forgiveness and cleansing.

And B and as we take this supper, I just want to remind us, remind me that as we do this, we proclaim both his death and his resurrection until he comes, that he died on a cross for our sins, that we might be made right.

That he was raised from the dead victorious over sin so that we know that if we trust in him, we will not be ashamed, but he will raise us also one day. So, so as we enter this time, let's, let's begin with prayer.

Father, I am mindful of even this morning, having to ask for forgiveness. Lord, we are a people who stumble in many ways. We break fellowship with you because we deceive ourselves and that sin will please us more than you will please us.

Oh, this morning, would you cleanse us of sin, sins of omission, where we should have done something and haven't sins of commission, where we did something and we knew it was wrong or we found out later it was wrong.

Oh Lord, would you wash us Lord? Though our sins be a scarlet, would you make them white as snow? Though it be as crimson, would you make it as wool? Would you cleanse us now? We want to be clean before you, not just for this meal, but for every moment after, for this week, for our life, we want to build our lives on Christ, that they would mean something in you.

And in a hundred years, maybe no one will know our name, but our life would have mattered because we build it on you. So Lord, we pray now that you would cleanse us, that you would remove every weight that stands between us and fellowship with you and stands between us and serving you faithfully.

Wash us now and cleanse us as we partake of this meal together. In Jesus name, amen. I just want to remind you as well that maybe you're here today and you're not in Christ or you're unsure if you're in Christ, then this meal is not for you.

Just let it pass you by. If you're here and you're in some sort of high handed sin that you've not sought forgiveness for, you've not repented of, then let this cup pass from you. Butch, Robert, Rob, would you come up?

Ronnie, would you come up and help us take out the elements? As they deliver those, I just want to remind you, Jesus in the upper room with his disciples, telling him that someone will betray him. Is it I, Lord?

Is it I, Lord? And then Judas leaves and the Lord institutes this supper. And while they were eating, Jesus took some bread and after a blessing, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat.

This is my body. Let's eat together. Let's pray one more time. Our father, we thank you for your body that you allowed to be broken as a sacrifice for our sins, Lord. Thank you, Lord, that we and we were your enemies.

You love this still. And that God, you sent your son to die for our sins, to suffer in our place, that he would even carry out this symbol of what he was going to do, knowing the pain and suffering that was coming and his body would be broken.

We thank you, Lord, for this and worship you now in Christ's name. Amen. It's interesting how Christ, hours before he would go to the, well, maybe minutes before he would go to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, but hours before they would take him and imprison him and beat him.

And he would stand before judge after judge and be falsely accused and falsely maligned and eventually go to the cross that he hours before that says, this is my body. This is my blood poured out for you.

He wasn't surprised. He knew what was coming. He was mindful of what was coming. And I don't know about you, but if I knew pain was coming down the road, I'd want to send my mind a thousand other places.

But the Lord Jesus is discipling his disciples, even before he goes to the garden. This is my body. This is my blood shed for you. And when he'd taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink from it, all of you.

For this is my blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. Let's drink together. Father, we thank you Lord that your blood was shed for our sins. You gave your body and your blood and you really did die for our sins.

And you really were raised from the dead that we might walk in newness of life. So we remember your gift beyond measure like no other gift. And we remember Lord that you are victorious. And in you, we are victorious too.

In Christ's name. Amen. Thank you brothers. Has anyone noticed the weather today? I just hoped that someone might have noticed the weather, what it was doing. Oh, oh, I might've already talked about that.

Did I already talk about that? Let's see if my technology will work with me. My technology could speak. It would say I'll work as well as you let me work. It's like Balaam's donkey. It's saying, why are you beating me?

I've always treated you well. It's your fault that I'm not working well right now. We are going to be Matthew 17, 14 through 23. So I've been thinking about the weather, but the other thing I've been thinking about is how in life there are requirements to do things.

If you want to leave the country, you got to get a passport. You probably ought to get some shots, depending on where you're going. You probably ought to get some shots. If you want to get a driver's license, there are requirements.

If you would like to drive on our fine roads, there are requirements to be able to drive on those fine roads. You're going to go find some ugly roads. You still have to have that license to drive on those ugly roads.

There are requirements in life. One I was talking to Sam about the other week was, somehow we were talking about, he'd asked, most everything we talk about or many things we talk about comes from a question from him, but we were talking about theme parks and riding on rides.

I don't know if he was asking me, why don't people fall off or how do people do it without falling off? I don't know about you, but I've been on one before where I thought I might fall off. Of course, the harness obviously kept me in.

Of course, it goes to Sam. They have these men or women there standing there with a stick or with a thing, and you must be so high to ride this ride. There are even requirements, thankfully, on theme park rides if they're of such a nature.

So throughout life, we run into requirements. We understand it. We don't always like it. We don't always like going down to the DMV. Now they've made it so much you can do so much online, but we don't always like going to the DMV.

We don't always like going and getting our shots. I don't ever like going and getting my shots. We don't always like the requirements, but we understand it. Today, we're going to talk about a requirement, faith, that I think we come to and we understand we need it.

We did a poll today across the church. Do we need faith? And we had a little buzzer at your seat, and you could yes or no on the buzzer. We'd all say yes. There'd be no one who says we don't need faith.

Yet, so much of our lives, we're walking around without it. In our text today, Jesus will even say, how long will I have to deal with this faithless generation? The disciples are lacking faith, but Jesus speaks and says, you're just an example of this whole generation of people who are walking around without faith.

Today, God's word wants to give us faith. It wants to increase our faith and build our faith. I haven't come here today with a stick to beat you. I've come here with food that you and I can eat together, and by God's grace, our faith increased.

Let's go to our text, Matthew 17, 14 through 23. When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he's a lunatic and is very ill, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

I brought him to your disciples and they could not cure him. And Jesus answered and said, you unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to me.

And Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him and the boy was cured at once. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not drive it out? And he said to them, because the littleness of your faith, for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move and nothing will be impossible to you.

But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he will be raised on the third day.

And they were deeply grieved. Point number one, in need of mercy. We come to this story and Jesus and disciples have just come off the mountain. And the other text, the parallel text, I think it's in Luke nine.

There's also one in Mark nine, but I think Luke nine highlights how the people are arguing with the scribes and Pharisees and they see Jesus and his disciples coming down from the mountain and they run to him.

Clearly this man runs to him and this man bows. He falls on his knees in front of Jesus and says, Lord, have mercy on my son. Isn't it interesting how, you know, I was thinking about how do people come to Jesus?

Maybe they come depending on their personality. They come in all different kinds of ways. They, they come quietly, they come walking, they come running, they come loudly. We think about blind Bartimaeus who said, well, yelled out son of David, son of David.

And they said, hush, Barnabas house. I'm sorry, Barnabas hush, hush. And he says, the text that he just yelled louder. Maybe some of the men like the centurion just walked up to him. Casual. We don't know how all people came to him, but we know how this man came to him.

He came running to Jesus and fell on his knees. He came humbly. And if we are going to come to the Lord, that's how we must come. James four, six, God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

You know, we could say that we need to come needy or that we need to come humble. But I think in either way, we're trying to get to the same place that we would come as people who realize their need. You know, it's kind of like an apology.

I don't know about you, but I like a good apology. I don't like a bad apology. You know, a lot of times you you hear a bad apology and it's like, I'm sorry if I offended you. I'm sorry if that didn't make you happy.

And and it's this I'm admitting no wrong. I'm admitting I've done nothing wrong. And sometimes we can come to Jesus that way where Lord, we need some help, Lord. But but this man came desperate. And you and I can well understand that if you have kids, it makes it even easier to understand because there's nothing you wouldn't do for your child.

There's no distance you wouldn't go, there's no if you could do it, price you wouldn't pay for your child if they were in need. There's almost nothing you wouldn't do for them. And this child is referred to in this text as a lunatic.

And the word there is that's what it was commonly used for. Now, if you look at a newer translation, I'm reading from the New International, I'm sorry, I always the North American Standard and 95 edition.

But if you read the newer version, it'll say epileptic or seizures. And if you read many of the newer versions, they'll say either he was an epileptic or he'll have seizures. I think that's the word usually refers to lunatic.

But they're looking at the context of the stories across the Gospels. And the context of the story is he's gnashing his teeth. He's fainting, he's falling over, it looks like he's having a seizure. And so they're saying he's having seizures.

That's part of the destruction that the demon is causing in him. It's trying to destroy this. He's often falling in fire, he's often falling in water, trying to drown, trying to burn himself. And you just imagine what this child might have looked like, we don't know, but might have had burns on his body here, there or somewhere because he was regularly or trying to fall into fire or water.

And so the harm that he must have gone through, the torture this child must have gone through, of course, his parents too. So this man comes to Jesus humbly. He comes to him needy for his son, who is suffering terribly.

And the man tells on the disciples, they could not heal him. They could not take care of him. The point to Jesus is merciful. Verse 17, and Jesus answered and said, you unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you?

How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him. And the boy was cured at once. Jesus was merciful to this child. He was merciful to this father.

And in a minute, he'll be, in a way, merciful to the disciples. I think it's interesting that in this text, everyone is needy, but Jesus, that the father is in need of mercy for his son, because he is suffering with him, at least emotionally in the family.

The son, of course, is suffering by demon possession. He's having seizures or he's jumping into fires, jumping into water. He's trying to kill himself because of this demon in him, controlling him. He's in great need.

And we'll see in a minute that the disciples are in need of faith. But Jesus is the one person here who's not in need, but he's the person who is showing mercy to this boy who nobody could fix. Jesus showed mercy.

He healed him in a moment. He cast the demon out of him in a moment. And in a moment, the boy was cured. It's interesting that typically the kind of language you might see around demon possession, you know, Jesus casting out a demon is not usually the term of healing, but a term of being delivered.

He was, the demon was cast out, the person was delivered, but here he uses the term healing because not only was he demon possessed, but part of the demon possession was he seemed to be epileptic or having seizures as well.

So he says he was cured at once. Jesus was merciful. And isn't that normal for Jesus to be merciful because the big picture of the Bible of the world space and time is a story of Jesus being merciful to undeserving people like you and me.

God creates a garden where there's plenty of food. Everything is nice. It's not too hot. It's not too cold. There's shade, there's comfort. It's so temperate, ladies and gentlemen. We go into rooms and I'm too hot.

You're too cold. Jesus, God gives them a garden where they can have no clothes on and nobody's complaining about the weather. Have you ever thought about that? Nobody's asking for it to be turned up a few degrees or down a few degrees.

He gives them a garden of Eden is perfect. Plenty of food, the weather's just right. And yet they rebel against him. God calls people out of slavery, the Israelites. He calls them out of slavery. If he does nothing else for them, isn't that pretty good?

And yet all along the way, they're saying, wouldn't it have been better had we stayed in Egypt in slavery and not been here? The temperature is not right here, Lord. I don't like the work we're doing here.

They rebel and rebel and rebel. He brings them to their own land and gives them their own land flowing with milk and honey. They have a land and kings and security. Yet even then they rebel against the Lord of glory.

And he sends prophet after prophet to call them to repentance. And what do they do? They kill the prophets. And then he sends his own son. And what do they do? They kill him too. Yet the Lord Jesus is merciful, merciful to this boy and merciful to us.

God has God done in response to all this rebellion. He sent his son Jesus to do miracles, teach truth and live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died and bring mercy to us.

Point number three, faith required. So the Lord Jesus heals the boy. They get away and the disciples come up to him later privately away from the crowds and say, why could we not drive out that demon?

Why could we not heal that boy? They don't seem to understand what the problem is. Even as Jesus said in verse 17, how long will I bear with you perverted and faithless generation? They still don't understand that their lack of faith was the problem.

It's gone over their heads. You know, in the parallel passage in Mark 9, Mark relays to us how Jesus talks to the father and says, if you have faith and that's the passage where the father says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

And sometimes you've probably prayed that way. I prayed that way. We've thought that way, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Matthew doesn't include that. I think he doesn't include that because he wants us to focus on the disciples and their lack of faith.

He wants us to see it. Jesus makes it clear. Verse 20, he said to them, because of the littleness of your faith, for truly I say to you, if you had the faith, the size of a mustard seed, you could say this mountain be moved into the scene.

It'd be moved. The problem is they lack faith. They don't even have a tiny amount of faith. Now, a mustard seed is kind of like the size of a little BB. It's teeny tiny. If I held it up, you might just be able, I mean, you'd be able to see it.

If you can see me pretty good, you'd probably be able to see it, but it's teeny tiny. Their faith wasn't even teeny tiny. And it was so minuscule that it, you know, you get products from the grocery store and it has, it has, what's the phrasing of it?