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 a read.

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. This, 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.

The, 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.

And 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.

And I was driving here this morning and noticing the weather and maybe some of you were going, what a dreary day.

Oh, I'd, 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, this morning, but, but also for me, so that we all, 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, and so we're talking 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, 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 to get a donut, that'll be a okay. Apologize to Stephanie.

Is that you don't have any idea how many people text me something that said, do this.

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

So I appreciate your help. 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, this past Wednesday was

Ash Wednesday, which works a period of 40 days until Easter, typically used as morning and to focus on the sacrifice that Christ made for us.

And every day we're thankful for what Christ did for us. And 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 the song will help. 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, and maybe 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 in this 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, Ephesians chapter four, verses 12 through 16.

For the quipping 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, to your, 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.

Want to hear those too? You know,

I take my time. So we're really thankful for that. The Lord's kindness to Amy. Of course,

Amy is praying the Lord's kindness for me, but he will come soon. We're really, really thankful for that.

As far as one way that I can minister, I wouldn't be faithful in the way I minister. It's with standing with us.

I've just been thinking, where would we go next in our scripture reading? And I think back to where we're going to go next.

So we're going to have to minister. And so just pray for our faithfulness in that. Be mindful of that.

And the Lord bear fruit for that. 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 his job.

So Tina is reminding us to pray for our students and teachers and our school systems and the influence, both positive and negative that's happening in the school system.

Anybody else? And for his name, mainly it's his name that bothers him so bad.

And also continued prayer for our friend

Thomas who is, he's now asked to report things.

So at the time, I believe it's just being prepared for his wife and their daughter as they face these coming days.

And I mentioned basically the same as what I was talking about.

I'm going to contact people every day. I have opportunities and I'm just afraid that I don't use those opportunities.

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 what 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 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 healing, of course, 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 all others here that that we would take advantage of 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 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 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 it's just pure light of the gospel and Jesus Christ. And 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 sees 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. 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. Oh, so long.

You see, there's life for us and the things that 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 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 First John chapter one, verse five through 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.

And 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 if you're doing no others, that's the one. Because 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.

Isn't it 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 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 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 as 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 loved us 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. We worship you now in Christ's name. Amen. Isn't it 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, I don't know about you, but if I knew pain was coming down the road,

I 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 had 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.

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 have already talked about that. Did I already talk about that?

Let's see if my technology will work with me. If 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've 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.

If you want 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.

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.

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?

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 come quietly, they come walking, they come running, they come loudly.

We think about blind Bartimaeus who said, yelled out, son of David, son of David. And they said, hush,

Bartimaeus, 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. 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. 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. And, 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. But point two, 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.

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 that is perfect. Plenty of food.

The weather is 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've 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 save this mountain, be moved into the sea, and 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'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. It was so miniscule that it...

You know, you get products from the grocery store, and it has... What's the phrasing of it?

I'm blanking on it, but it... Trace amounts. You might have said they had trace amounts of faith.

It was so small, they couldn't even put it in the ingredients list. It was trace amounts.

If it was poison, it couldn't have killed them. They did not have faith.

And they should have had faith, of course, because they've walked around with Jesus.

They've seen all his miracles. But they should have had faith because...

I think it's Mark 10, where Jesus sends out the disciples two by two.

He sends out the 70 and has them do all kinds of works.

They're casting out demons. And they come back to him, and they're rejoicing, and they're saying, even the demons are subject to us.

And, of course, that's the passage where Christ says, don't rejoice in that. Rejoice that your names are written down in heaven.

But that passage illustrates that the disciples had had success casting out demons in the past, that they had had faith in the past, but not this time.

Faith, in some ways, is like an on or off switch. Either you have it or you don't. It seems like, at least in this case.

And you could realize or you could not realize that you don't have it because they don't see it.

They don't understand. What's the problem, Jesus? We don't understand what's going on here. You don't have faith.

Could you be in a situation where you find out you don't have faith and, of course, not like it?

That's the situation the disciples find themselves in. I think the opposite of faith is unbelief.

I don't think that's too controversial of a statement. The opposite of faith is unbelief.

I think in a context like this, that one way unbelief shows itself is fear. That instead of believing, we draw back in fear.

The way our unbelief works itself out is that we are afraid. Sometimes we experience that in our own life.

I'm sure Amy has experienced it with me at some point where I have been afraid. And I've lacked faith, and so I was afraid.

I might have even been mean to her because I lacked faith. We've seen that in people and ourselves and others, that sometimes when we are living by fear, we're angry.

We're doubtful. We're stressed out because we're not walking in faith.

Paul reminds us that we don't walk by sight. We walk by faith. It's such a good reminder for us because I'll mention again, hopefully for the last time, but even the weather today reminds us that we don't get around by sight.

We get around by faith. That is what the Lord has called us to do. So, brother and sister today,

I just want to encourage you that you can have faith.

And what's interesting about this is Jesus, their faith was so teeny tiny, trace amounts, almost nothing, basically nothing, no faith.

But Jesus is about to tell us that if your faith is the tiniest faith, the mustard seed faith, little baby of faith, you can move a mountain, or God can move a mountain, may move a mountain for you.

You know, sometimes we think about these people in the Bible and we think, isn't he big? Isn't she wonderful?

Aren't they great men of faith, great women of faith? But you and I don't have to be great, and our faith doesn't have to be great.

It just has to exist. It just needs to exist. Because the

Lord, his power is constant. It's not like we're charging up the power of God by our faith.

It doesn't weaken. It doesn't depend on us or our faith.

So our faith can be so small, and he will act in such powerful ways to move mountains.

What can faith do? Move mountains. Who said that?

Jesus did. He said, move it from here to there, and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible to you. You know, we live in a world where everything looks impossible.

He says, nothing will be impossible. R .T. Frantz has two really helpful statements about faith that I want to include here because I think they're going to be encouraging to us.

He said, it's a striking illustration of the fact that faith for Jesus is not a matter of intellectual assent but a practical reliance on a living

God. Having faith is not just getting the right answer on the test.

But it's putting our weight fully on Christ and trusting in him for salvation, for what's going on in my home and your home right now, the struggles that you face in your life.

And I don't know anyone who doesn't have them. I was having a conversation with someone this week, and they were telling me about somebody

I'd never heard of who was a famous person who had a famous spouse and very wealthy.

And from the world's mindset, they had everything. And he was about to go to a big event the following week, and then he committed suicide.

It's very sad for him, his family, and everyone involved. It's horrible. It was just such a reminder that sometimes we think if we had money, that'd fix it.

If we had notoriety, that'd fix our problems. If we'd win the lottery, no more problems for us.

It's a fool's belief. What we need is a practical reliance on a living

God, putting all of our weight on him and trusting him, even when we don't see what's going to happen.

The other thing R .T. Frantz said that I thought was super helpful and wanted to say was, it's important to observe here that it's not the amount of faith which brings the impossible within reach, but the power of God, which is available to even the smallest faith.

Oh, brother and sister, would we be people of faith when it's dark, we believe the light's coming, when we feel the coldness of this world, that we believe

Christ's warmth is coming, when everything around us says give up, we say we will not, but we believe that God has a plan and it's good.

And we may not even live to see it work out, but it will work out.

You know, in Jesus's day, mountains didn't move every day. A lot of things are different back then, but that stays the same.

Mountains didn't move every day. I think now there are probably some science people in here who know a lot more about science than I do.

I think me and Sam watched a cartoon once that was explaining how rocks become molten lava and they go through these phases and they move up and down and do, you know, over hundreds and thousands of years.

They just, you know, mountains do move. It just takes thousands and thousands of years for it to happen. But here,

Jesus says, mountains will move in your life. Mountains will move if you but have faith, not in yourself, not in your faith, but in me and in my power.

It's even available to the smallest amount of faith. You know,

I don't know how you come in this morning, happy, sad. Everything's going well.

Everything's going bad. I guess it can depend on the hour of the day, which one you are from time to time.

But here's a word for us that will be there for every aspect of our life.

We can have faith in a God who does not change, whose power does not weaken.

He doesn't sleep. He doesn't get sick. He doesn't lose hope.

He remains strong. He's an anchor in the storm.

And we can attach to him, and our little boats won't move. He goes on to announce in verse 22 that while they're gathering together,

I'll mention verse 21, I'm sorry. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

Now, in many of your Bibles, there'll be bracketed or there'll be lines around it. And what that means is that the translators of your translations think it might not have originally been there.

They have a text somewhere, an early text somewhere, that doesn't have that in this text.

And what they think it is is in Mark it is there. So what they think is that it was always in Mark, and somebody saw it in Mark and said it probably should be here too, and they added it after.

They could be right. They could be wrong. We don't know. It is in Mark, so it's here as well.

And so it doesn't... Sometimes we get to these things, and you wonder, should that cause doubt in me about the word of God?

And what it should do is cause greater faith, that God has given us so many copies of his word that if there are mistakes that some man has made, that they can be compared one to another, and we can make a fair judgment or at least understand what's going on.

And so we'll say, he says, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

And so it is a good word to remind us to continue to pray and to continue to fast and continue to believe.

But he goes on to verse 22. 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.

And so again, this is the second announcement of Jesus. It's Jesus' second announcement.

He was going to go to Jerusalem, be delivered into the hands of men, and they would kill him.

He's preparing them for what's coming. And in a sense, they couldn't be prepared.

It's like marriage or having a child. You can't be prepared for this. They weren't prepared.

But he's giving them this word so they would know when it happens that was his plan.

The disciples understandably are grieved by this news, but not as grieved as Christ would be when he was in the garden asking the

Lord that this cup pass from him and not getting a yes. Not as grieved as he went to the cross and died for our sins.

Not as grieved as he is. He was suffering for us. And so we, again, are called to worship at a

Savior who has mercy on sinners like you and I.

Let's pray together. Our Father, we hear this word, we see this text, and we ask that you would build great faith in us, not dependent on circumstances, not dependent on seeing the sun, but faith that you are mighty, that your plans are good, and that we can trust you.

Oh, Lord, may mountains be moved in our lives. May we see your hand at work again and again and again.

In Christ's name, amen. In a moment, they're going to come up and sing. I want to say two things.

One thing, I was thinking about this earlier. Somebody said, I want to say it's

Michael Jordan, but it may be a total lie. He may never have said this. Somebody said it because I saw it somewhere, and you probably heard it, that you miss 100 % of the shots you never take.

By God's grace, I want us as a people individually to take shots, and us as a church to take shots in faith this year.

Maybe so. The other thing I want to say is this week, somebody reached out to me, helpfully, and asked me a question about the people who are nominated for pastor and deacon.

If you've got questions, I hope you'll reach out to me or the men involved and ask the questions.

The question generally was about if one of the nominees has a different belief than I do, not even the person asking the question, but just than I do, is that a problem?

If they have a different end times theology, if they have a different theology over here or there, is that a problem?

I just want to convey to you, it's not a problem. The reason that is, is one, in our statement of faith, in our

Bible, we have a statement of faith. We kind of outlined in there what we think we all should agree on.

There could be some variation, but generally what we want is hearty agreement on these things. These are the things that if we're going to be a church together, we need to agree about this.

We need to agree that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We need to agree. Now, just to clarify, that is on one level, and the next thing

I'm going to say is down here somewhere. It's important, but it's not as important as that. We also believe in believer's baptism.

We don't baptize babies. We can't be a church together, and half of us are baptizing babies, and the others are saying you're sinning in doing that or wrong to do that.

It doesn't work. So there are things we said we need to agree about these things, to be a church together and be able to work together and serve together.

We need to agree. There's a whole lot of other things that we can disagree about, and it doesn't matter. So if you think that the millennium is going to come at the end of seven years of tribulation, that's okay.

That's what I believe. I might be surprising a few people. If you believe that there's going to be a rapture, and then there's going to be seven years of tribulation, and then there's the millennium, that's okay.

If you think we're in the millennium right now, that's okay. If you think there's not going to be a millennium, that's okay.

There are multiple views on these subjects, and the thing we need to agree about is that Jesus is coming back.

He could come back any day. He could come back today at any moment, and that's why we want to be ready to meet him, and we want the people we love, the people we don't even know, to be ready to meet him as well.

And so if you've got questions, please ask me or the men or whoever.

Well, me or the men. Not whoever. That's bad. Ask me or the men, because whoever might tell you anything, but ask me or the men, and we'll be able to answer your questions.

And I want to say I appreciate the person who asked that question, because it came from a place of, we want to have unity.

We want to be working, all pushing in the same direction. We all want to serve together. We all want to be united, and I just thought that's such a good question.

That comes from a place, such a good place, but I wanted to encourage that person, encourage you that we can do that.

We can be united and have differences on secondary doctrines that aren't the gospel.

Now, our worship team, after all that, our worship team is going to come and lead us in a final song.

Please stand with us. Peace of God You the perfect holy

Washed away my sin Jesus, thank you Please satisfy

Jesus, thank you Once your enemy Now seated at your table

Jesus, thank you Big sacrifice

I've made Washed away my sin

Jesus, thank you

Jesus, thank you

Hey now, now may the God of peace who brought it from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep for the blood of the eternal covenant, that is

Jesus, our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.