SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the CCW podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you connect with us on social media to stay up to date on ministries and events happening at CCW.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you're encouraged, inspired, and motivated by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To find out how to connect with us, keep listening after the message ends.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, Saints.
SPEAKER_01: It is my pleasure to bring you greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't met me, my name is Eli Alexander.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the family and children's pastor here at the church.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm normally not uh wearing uh khaki pants in the summertime, but I figured on an occasion such as this, being able to preach in front of the main congregation, it was the time to bust out my khaki pants, maybe even iron them, put on my uh grandfather's hand-me-down penny loafers that I inherited not too long ago.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I spared no expense on uh presenting myself before you in a nice fashion.
SPEAKER_01: It is uh not lost on me that I am uh bringing to you a word from God's word on faith and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Uh specifically on a baptism Sunday where uh I had the privilege to baptize sweet little Henley, one of my closest little CCW kids' friends.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's not something that we take time to curate.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, let's make sure that we're talking about faith on Baptism Sunday and make sure that we're singing about faith and prayer, because Eli's talking about faith and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That's not something that we get together and curate as a staff to try to play Christian manipulation with you.
SPEAKER_01: No, that is that is a God-ordained happy little accident.
SPEAKER_01: And as we know, God doesn't make accidents, everything is for a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: And so as I sat in worship and I listened to this new song that Benji and the team led us through, on faith and on prayer, and on the friend that we have in Jesus, and as I a few weeks ago realized, oh wow, I'm gonna be teaching on faith and prayer on baptism Sunday, all these, like like I said, maybe accidents uh come into a better view as actually a God-ordained plan that is not lost on me and is very, very special to me.
SPEAKER_01: So, as you guys have known, we've been on our summer series, and the text that uh Rick asked me to teach from, I was so excited that it was in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: In case you were here the last time I was here, it was in Joshua chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: And I love God's word, Old and New Testament, but Old Testament is some uh, you know, if you're a weightlifter, that's like maxing out, that's like PR.
SPEAKER_01: Getting ready for some Old Testament text can sometimes be challenging.
SPEAKER_01: The New Testament is just amazing.
SPEAKER_01: I love to just swim in the New Testament and God's word in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So when Rick said Matthew chapter 17, verses 14 through 20, talking all about having faith the size of a mustard seed.
SPEAKER_01: If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell that mountain to move from there to there and it will move.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we're gonna be today.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be in Matthew chapter 17, verses 14 through 20.
SPEAKER_01: But I'd also like you to turn in your Bible, if you have two tassels, if you're one of those super Christians that's got a double tassel Bible, you can flip to Mark chapter 9, verses 14 through 29.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that I tell you that you should want to have both of those verses handy is because of the nature of the gospels.
SPEAKER_01: Now you might be saying, Eli, what are the gospels?
SPEAKER_01: I've heard the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, but you said gospels plural.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you asked, is what I always tell my kids when I ask rhetorical questions.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you asked.
SPEAKER_01: The nature of the gospels is this.
SPEAKER_01: The gospels are the first four books of the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and these are four corroborating autobiographies, or not autobiographies, excuse me, biographies of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Gospels are.
SPEAKER_01: They're the same story with a little different flavor in each one, right?
SPEAKER_01: And Mark, Mark is known as like the immediate gospel guy.
SPEAKER_01: If you read the book of Mark, you'll read immediately they went, immediately they went, immediately they left, immediately they prayed, immediately they healed.
SPEAKER_01: It's the immediate gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Mark was urgent.
SPEAKER_01: Mark was getting to it and keeping it moving, all right?
SPEAKER_01: Some of the other guys, like Luke, Luke was Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Luke, and so Luke is a genius.
SPEAKER_01: So he uses big words, and that's one of the trademarks of Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So each one has a little bit of a different flavor to it.
SPEAKER_01: I described it to the kids a couple weeks ago like this.
SPEAKER_01: I said, it's almost like if I picked four of you guys to write about my every move.
SPEAKER_01: But one of you was in the lobby, one of you was right here, one of you was outside on the security team watching the parking lot, and one of you was serving them kids.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's gonna have a little bit of a different flavor of what I did.
SPEAKER_01: Someone would say, I saw Eli walk up on the stage and preach a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Someone might say, I heard Jesus, or I heard Eli preach a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Not Jesus, heaven help me.
SPEAKER_01: I heard Eli preach a sermon because they're out there in the lobby.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't see me walk on stage.
SPEAKER_01: Does that mean that I levitated out here on stage just because the person in the lobby didn't see me walk out here?
SPEAKER_01: No, that's not what that means.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to present to you in this way an illustration of what it means to be contradictory versus what it means to be supplementary.
SPEAKER_01: First example is gonna be funny, I hope.
SPEAKER_01: Second example is gonna be not so funny.
SPEAKER_01: So, to talk about what it would mean to be contradictory.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, think back.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you it was long ago, some of you it's right now, to when your child was smart enough to speak, but not smart enough to use the toilet.
SPEAKER_01: Smart enough to spend all their time on an iPad, like they're a computer programmer, but not smart enough to know that they shouldn't eat their boogers, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's where I want you, like that age, I don't know the number, but I that's where I want you to be.
SPEAKER_01: And think of this child at say 7.30, bedtime's at 8 for this child, all right?
SPEAKER_01: 7.30, child goes to mom and says, Mom, I want a cookie.
SPEAKER_01: Can I have a cookie, please?
SPEAKER_01: And mom says, No, it's too close to your bedtime.
SPEAKER_01: You can't have a cookie.
SPEAKER_01: Child thinks back.
SPEAKER_01: How can I be the most brilliant, manipulative child possible?
SPEAKER_01: And goes to dad, who is in another room in the house, and let's just picture this like it's my household and it's my sister, and my sister can get anything from my dad.
SPEAKER_01: And so my sister goes to my dad and she says, Dad, I'm really hungry.
SPEAKER_01: Could I have a cookie?
SPEAKER_01: And my dad, of course, would say, Yes.
SPEAKER_01: And then my sister, of course, would take the cookie and happily go eating it right in front of my mom, so that my mom would say, I told you not to get a cookie.
SPEAKER_01: And she would obviously say, Well, dad told me that I could.
SPEAKER_01: And then ensues World War III, right?
SPEAKER_01: So those are contradictory stories.
SPEAKER_01: Mom said no, dad said yes.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way we're reconciling this.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a matter of black, or it is a matter of black and white, there is no gray.
SPEAKER_01: Mom said no, dad said yes.
SPEAKER_01: They are contradictory story.
SPEAKER_01: No reconciliation there, right?
SPEAKER_01: Then, here's my boring story.
SPEAKER_01: Vitamins.
SPEAKER_01: Did you all take your vitamins this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Vitamins are a supplement, right?
SPEAKER_01: Vitamins are there to supplement your diet and your exercise.
SPEAKER_01: You were not supposed to get 100% of your daily nutritional value from the vitamins that you take in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: That's just not how that works.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, I'd wither away if all I had to do to be nutritionally sound was eat my vitamins.
SPEAKER_01: So that is a supplement.
SPEAKER_01: They come alongside, they come alongside your diet and nutrition.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, the gospels are supplementary to one another.
SPEAKER_01: Where one is lacking in a part of the story, we can luckily glean from another part of the story to take its place.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I want you guys to think of because we are going to go a little bit between Matthew and Mark.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same story, but there are some differences.
SPEAKER_01: There are some differences.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to keep that in mind as we go through these two texts.
SPEAKER_01: The last thing I want you to know as far as context is that this is immediately following the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what is the transfiguration?
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you asked.
SPEAKER_01: That's a whole sermon series in and of itself, as far as what was the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_01: But in short, for us to understand this message here, the transfiguration was Jesus and some of his disciples on top of a mountain, where Jesus took the form that he originally had in heaven before clothing himself in man's form.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus assumed the heavenly form on top of that mountain where he met with Elijah and Moses, and the disciples were there to just see the shining light in this heavenly holy meeting and just say, wow! Like that's the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_01: Like just otherworldly witness that the disciples had, just to be on a fly on the wall for that meeting.
SPEAKER_01: That just happened before we jumped into our text, the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to first hope by now y'all have gotten to Matthew chapter 17, verses 14 through 20, and I'm going to start reading in verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: And it says this When they came to the crowd, a man came up to him, and kneeling before him said, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly.
SPEAKER_01: For often he falls into the fire and often into water.
SPEAKER_01: And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answered, O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you?
SPEAKER_01: How long am I to bear with you?
SPEAKER_01: Bring him here to me.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.
SPEAKER_01: Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out?
SPEAKER_01: He said to them, Because of your little faith.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: That I would preach only you and you crucified and resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: That we as a church body would grow from your living word, that it would cut to our hearts, that it would grow us where we need to grow, that it would prune us where we would need to be pruned, so that we may grow as faithful disciples of you.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you would be with me.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you would comfort me in my nerves.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray that you would be with those who are here struggling with faith, struggling in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: God, where we lack, you are there in full abundance.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you would be with us today.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray all of this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
SPEAKER_01: Are y'all ready?
SPEAKER_01: Oof, got one ready.
SPEAKER_01: Are y'all ready?
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
SPEAKER_01: I asked that because I was getting cotton mouth, alright?
SPEAKER_01: The first point that I got for you guys in your notes, and just by the way, if you guys notice any difference in what I'm reading versus what you're reading or on the screen, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Pastor Rick typically preaches out of the New King James Version.
SPEAKER_01: I preach out of the English Standard Version.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not making this up as I go.
SPEAKER_01: It's just a difference of translation, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Don't want you to come come for me with torches and pitchforks.
SPEAKER_01: But the first point that I have for you is that in this text we see a formidable opponent.
SPEAKER_01: We see a formidable opponent.
SPEAKER_01: Fun fact about me, and if you got our blog that goes out in the email every week, I love the idea, or I'm just interested, I don't love the idea.
SPEAKER_01: That makes you sound like a boring person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm interested by the idea of coffee mug Bible verses or bumper sticker Bible verses.
SPEAKER_01: You might ask me, Eli, what is a bumper sticker Bible verse?
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you asked.
SPEAKER_01: A bumper sticker Bible verse are those Philippians 4.13s, those John 3.16s.
SPEAKER_01: They're those good verses.
SPEAKER_01: They're nice and short, so they fit on a coffee mug or a bumper sticker.
SPEAKER_01: They're nice and short, and there's so much good packed into those verses.
SPEAKER_01: I would argue that Matthew 17.20 certainly qualifies as a coffee mug Bible verse.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, my mom, she even proved it to me.
SPEAKER_01: She said she had a charm when she was younger, and it was, it had the scripture inscribed on it, just the reference, surely, and then it had a mustard seed.
SPEAKER_01: A nitty-bitty mustard seed.
SPEAKER_01: And it was on her little charm bracelet.
SPEAKER_01: So I can promise you that uh the Christian industry has uh monetized this verse for the sake of coffee mugs, t-shirts, pens, and bumper stickers.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to keep our eyes before verses that encourage us, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna tell you, oh, you should read John 3.16 less, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just that's foolish.
SPEAKER_01: So there is a downside potentially to this ever-so common coffee mug Bible verse, and it's that when we hear something over and over and over and over and over and over again, we can sometimes fall for the temptation to just not care about it that much anymore.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, Jesus died for my sins, got it for the whole world.
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, yep, got it.
SPEAKER_01: Next verse.
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, faith the size of a mother seed.
SPEAKER_01: I've got faith.
SPEAKER_01: Next verse.
SPEAKER_01: I can do all things.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Next verse.
SPEAKER_01: When we've heard heard things all the time, over and over and over again, it can be tempting to get kind of jaded on it.
SPEAKER_01: To not even care so much about it because we've heard it so many times.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what I want to challenge you is this don't grow complacent over verses that we've heard all the time.
SPEAKER_01: We've heard them all the time for a good reason.
SPEAKER_01: And so we should continue to glean the truth from those verses over and over again, as many millions of times that we read it, because there is good truth found in the living word of God.
SPEAKER_01: There is.
SPEAKER_01: And so, I want to give you this illustration from C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis's novel, The Screw Tape Letters.
SPEAKER_01: If you've read it, uh, awesome, you're cool, I want to talk to you after.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't read it, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you the uh Cliff Notes.
SPEAKER_01: The Cliff Notes version is that Screw The Screw Tape Letters is a novel about two demons just chit-chatting about trying to possess uh a human.
SPEAKER_01: And they're talking about all the strategies and tactics that they can use to try to get this guy and condemn him to eternal damnation.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds fun, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's a great book because C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis is just such an illustrative author, and he crafts just beautifully the ways that an enemy would try to win our souls.
SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things that is constantly mentioned in this book is that these demons are trying so hard to lull the Christian into a sense of complacency.
SPEAKER_01: They often say, if we can get this Christian to be complacent, we got him.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's where I want to encourage you not to say, oh great, Eli's teaching about faith the size of a mustard seed.
SPEAKER_01: I've heard this a thousand times.
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you to stay in tune and see what God's word has to offer.
SPEAKER_01: Because complacency is the enemy for a growing Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Now, another common verse, I wouldn't put it on a coffee mug, because it's pretty it's it's pretty scary to be to be completely frank, would be John 10 10, specifically the first part.
SPEAKER_01: All of you will know it once I start.
SPEAKER_01: It says, the thief only comes to steal and kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings me to my first sub point of this text, which is that this opponent desires your destruction.
SPEAKER_01: This opponent desires your destruction.
SPEAKER_01: Going back to the screw tape letters, it's not just complacency for complacency's sake.
SPEAKER_01: It's not so it's like, oh, they're not a super Christian, so they won't affect me and my demon possession, you know.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what it's saying.
SPEAKER_01: They know that complacency leads to the Christian's ultimate destruction.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's lukewarm.
SPEAKER_01: There's no true faith there, right?
SPEAKER_01: This opponent desires your destruction.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to look any farther than our text from today.
SPEAKER_01: We don't.
SPEAKER_01: What do we what do we read here?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus heals a boy with a demon, is what I'm reading, is my subtitle in my text.
SPEAKER_01: This demon, in order to try to destroy this boy from the inside out, casts him into fire, into water in fits of seizures in order to try to burn him or drown him.
SPEAKER_01: It rendered him mute and deaf.
SPEAKER_01: What other means other than to completely destroy its host?
SPEAKER_01: What other means?
SPEAKER_01: There's no other benefit other than to completely destroy his host.
SPEAKER_01: We often will joke about this Bible verse almost.
SPEAKER_01: We'll claim this verse when we have car troubles.
SPEAKER_01: We'll claim this verse when we've kind of had a rough week at work or any other trivial manner of things.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is this.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is this that there is an enemy that has no greater joy than your ultimate and complete destruction.
SPEAKER_01: Physically and spiritually, full stop.
SPEAKER_01: There is a real enemy that desires nothing but your complete and total physical and spiritual destruction.
SPEAKER_01: And this might feel uncomfortable to sit with.
SPEAKER_01: I admit that when I was studying this text, it made me uncomfortable to sit with it.
SPEAKER_01: Like, wow, like my life isn't that hard.
SPEAKER_01: Is he really out there to just destroy me?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01: The answer is yes, that he actively seeks to completely annihilate you.
SPEAKER_01: That is this enemy's job.
SPEAKER_01: There's another scary truth that comes from this text, and it's the second sub point, and it's that this opponent is stronger than your little faith.
SPEAKER_01: This opponent is stronger than your little faith.
SPEAKER_01: My first sub point is that the opponent's desire is your destruction, then my second is that he is stronger than your little faith.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before I continue, it's important to distinguish that no enemy ever has or ever will be stronger than the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah, what a savior.
SPEAKER_01: There is no enemy that will ever be stronger than the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not contradicting what this point says.
SPEAKER_01: The truth of the matter is that there very much can be enemies that are stronger than a little faith.
SPEAKER_01: Once again, we don't have to go farther than the text.
SPEAKER_01: The father takes his son to the disciples, the messengers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Surely they can do it.
SPEAKER_01: They've done it before.
SPEAKER_01: They've been by his side the whole time.
SPEAKER_01: But what does this father tell Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: He says, I took him to your disciples, and they could not cast it out.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if I'm wearing my grandfather's penny loafers, my other grandfather is also here today, and he was kind enough to introduce me as a child to a little show called Andy Griffith.
SPEAKER_01: The Andy Griffith Show.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you don't know, if you've been living under a rock and you haven't seen the Andy Griffith show, uh Andy Griffith is the upstanding, fantastic sheriff of the town of Mayberry.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's got this goofy, good for nothing, can't use a bullet in his gun, deputy named Barney Fife.
SPEAKER_01: And Barney just gets into all sorts of trouble, and thus the show goes.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if we take that silly example and we apply it to this text, if Jesus is the sheriff of the town, he has entrusted his disciples as his deputies to be the hands and feet of Jesus' ministry on his behalf.
SPEAKER_01: And he absolutely gave them the power to accomplish this mission, but they absolutely messed it up, did not deliver because of a little faith.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't Jesus' power that was the problem, it was the disciples' small faith that was.
SPEAKER_01: And we aren't left to imagine just how frustrating this was for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Because remember our context of this text.
SPEAKER_01: This is right on the heels of the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_01: The disciples witnessed with their eyes a heavenly figure of Christ meeting with Moses and Elijah on top of a mountain, shining with a bright light.
SPEAKER_01: They witnessed this with their eyes.
SPEAKER_01: They saw it.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, a few paces later, not it doesn't even say days, they came down from the mountain a few paces later.
SPEAKER_01: They have too little of faith to accomplish this task.
SPEAKER_01: Too little of faith to accomplish this task.
SPEAKER_01: Read his frustration in verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh, faithless and twisted generation.
SPEAKER_01: How long am I to be with you?
SPEAKER_01: How long am I to bear with you?
SPEAKER_01: That's frustration.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to imagine how frustrated Jesus might be at his disciples because he says it right there.
SPEAKER_01: Now, all this isn't to say that the disciples had no faith.
SPEAKER_01: Surely they did.
SPEAKER_01: They had performed miracles, they'd seen Jesus' miracles, they had a faith in Jesus, but it's plain to see that their faith that they had wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the disciples aren't the only example of faith that we can see in this text either.
SPEAKER_01: On the one hand, we see the disciples' faith, and it's lacking.
SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, we see a father's faith, and it's lacking.
SPEAKER_01: So if you got your thumb in the Mark text, and you want to flip over there, we can read verses 20 through 24.
SPEAKER_01: I'll read them out loud.
SPEAKER_01: It says this in verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: It says, And Jesus asked his father, How long has this been happening to him?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, From childhood, and it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him.
SPEAKER_01: But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to him, If you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
SPEAKER_01: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: If you can, if you can.
SPEAKER_01: You can see Jesus' frustration with that remark too.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a sassy retort from Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you can, Jesus says, if I can, if I can, what kind of what kind of little faith is this, right?
SPEAKER_01: What kind of little faith is this?
SPEAKER_01: If you can, I can do anything.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe we can do anything, is what Jesus is saying in this text.
SPEAKER_01: So, to backtrack, we've seen two examples of a little faith.
SPEAKER_01: But we do see from the Father a brilliant response.
SPEAKER_01: We do see his brilliant response.
SPEAKER_01: After he says, if I can, after he gets a slap on the wrist, gets told off by Jesus saying, if I can, I can do offerings.
SPEAKER_01: We hear the Father say this: a brilliant confession and a petition.
SPEAKER_01: Says, I believe, but help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: I believe, but help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: This sounds kind of confusing, but this could just as easily read, I'm on my way, but I'm not all the way there yet.
SPEAKER_01: Or I believe, but I'm struggling.
SPEAKER_01: I believe, but I also doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Dear friend, if you can echo this father's prayer, and I pray that we as a church would be a church that prays that we believe, but God help us with our unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: If you can echo this father's prayer, find encouragement in this.
SPEAKER_01: In our text today, our second point, we find an effective faith.
SPEAKER_01: We find an effective faith through the first sub point: Jesus, God's faithful son.
SPEAKER_01: We find an effective faith through Jesus, God's faithful son.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus exemplified faithfulness in his life on earth.
SPEAKER_01: In his prayer life, in his ministry on earth, he came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, his ministry was not completely and totally consumed by healings and teachings, though that certainly was a major component.
SPEAKER_01: Another major component of Jesus' ministry was to treat to retreat in silence and solitude for time spent alone with his heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_01: Where we lack in faith in God, where we doubt, where we are tempted and fail, Jesus never has.
SPEAKER_01: Where our relationship with the Father is at times distant or strained, and let me tell you this, dear brother and sister, and as I tell it to myself, if that is the case, it is not his fault.
SPEAKER_01: If our distance from the Father is there, it is not his fault.
SPEAKER_01: And if we are distant from the Father, we can know and be rest assured that there is a Savior Jesus who has never for an instant been out of tune with the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: There's no clearer proof of this willingness to perform the Father's will, because he was willing to perform the Father's will even unto death on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: I see it best in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke chapter 22, where Jesus begs, begs, sweating blood, tears alone.
SPEAKER_01: His friends have betrayed him because they've fallen asleep at the watch.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus praying to his father, seeing the cross, seeing the cross to come, he begs, if you could let this pass from me, if you could just let this pass from me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't want to do this.
SPEAKER_01: If you could let this pass from me, take it.
SPEAKER_01: But above all, let your will be done.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is God's faithful son.
SPEAKER_01: We have to remember, because we can be so tempted to forget this, that the Trinity, one and three, three and one, has been eternally existent.
SPEAKER_01: Eternally existent.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wasn't born in the form of he began existence for the first time in the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: That's not when Jesus enters the scene.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit doesn't enter the scene in the book of Acts at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_01: The three parts of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, have been eternally in existence in perfect harmony since the beginning of time.
SPEAKER_01: It is this faithful sonship that equips Jesus to be our second point, our Jesus, our faithful Savior.
SPEAKER_01: This harmonious and perfect relationship with the Father means that Jesus has never lacked faith and has thus never lacked power.
SPEAKER_01: If we contrast our story and we see the disciples' failure, we see Jesus' success, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has never lacked faith and thus never lacks in power.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is greater than any enemy and any lack of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the debt that is stacked against Jesus in our text today.
SPEAKER_01: He comes down from the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: His disciples who had just seen the most amazing thing ever are now facing a faith crisis.
SPEAKER_01: They have too little of faith.
SPEAKER_01: There's a father with too little of faith.
SPEAKER_01: There is a son who is physically and spiritually possessed and crippled.
SPEAKER_01: And there is a crowd that is watching.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you guys are pessimists or optimists, but I can promise you that this crowd isn't there because they believe in Jesus 100%.
SPEAKER_01: This crowd is there because they just want to see something happen.
SPEAKER_01: Good or bad, they're going to see something cool happen, right?
SPEAKER_01: Either this guy's just going to be demon-possessed, and that's awful that we like to see a train wreck as human beings.
SPEAKER_01: Or Jesus will save and oh, that'll be cool.
SPEAKER_01: I've got my entertainment for the week.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go about our business.
SPEAKER_01: They're not all there because they believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The lack of faith in the environment of our story today is ripe.
SPEAKER_01: There is not a lot of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Not a lot of faith in this story today.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, in seemingly no manner of difficulty, is faithful and powerful enough to immediately save this boy.
SPEAKER_01: Immediately save this boy from both his physical and his spiritual affliction.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read it.
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew 17, it says this.
SPEAKER_01: It says here in verse 18, Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.
SPEAKER_01: Instantly.
SPEAKER_01: That's coming from Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I said Mark was the immediately guy.
SPEAKER_01: Mark was the immediately guy, but Matthew says the boy was healed instantly.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to flip there, but in Mark, it says that the boy dropped like a corpse after Jesus rebuked the demon.
SPEAKER_01: But as soon as Jesus grabbed the boy's hand and stood him on his feet, he was fine.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus had the power to immediately heal, to immediately save, in spite of the faith vacuum.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrews 3 in the New Testament, it describes Jesus as faithful to the one who appointed him.
SPEAKER_01: God the Father appointed Jesus to seek, secure, and save the lost.
SPEAKER_01: He is the faithful Savior still today.
SPEAKER_01: And his arm is not too short to reach and save you.
SPEAKER_01: Next point of this message is that there's an open invitation.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read both texts and just see what exactly it is that we are being invited to participate in.
SPEAKER_01: So in the chapter 17 in Matthew, it says this in verses 19 and 20.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Then the disciples came to Jesus privately.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: They didn't want to get told off in front of the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't want to be embarrassed.
SPEAKER_01: So the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out?
SPEAKER_01: He said to them, Because of your little faith.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: That's our Matthew text.
SPEAKER_01: Mark says this in verses 28 and 29.
SPEAKER_01: Said when he entered the house, his disciples, once again privately, not to be embarrassed, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out?
SPEAKER_01: And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
SPEAKER_01: By anything but prayer is the reason on one hand.
SPEAKER_01: Little faith, the other hand.
SPEAKER_01: So one hand, the disciples weren't prayerful enough, other hand, disciples weren't faithful enough.
SPEAKER_01: Which is it?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Which is it?
SPEAKER_01: Well, remember what we talked about?
SPEAKER_01: Contradictory versus supplementary.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to take Mark's word on the matter more so than Matthew's word on the matter.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to believe Matthew more for whatever reason or Mark more for whatever reason because these two go together.
SPEAKER_01: They go together.
SPEAKER_01: I have never seen, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I have never seen a faithless prayer warrior.
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen a faithless prayer warrior, someone who is constantly on their knees petitioning the Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen a faithless prayer warrior.
SPEAKER_01: And on the flip side of that, I've never seen somebody pray who doesn't have faith.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way that you can balance that equation to make it make sense.
SPEAKER_01: Faith equals prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is a sign of faith.
SPEAKER_01: These two go together.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to take one apostle's word versus the other, or one writer's word versus the other.
SPEAKER_01: It can be both.
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: It can be both.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have this open invitation.
SPEAKER_01: And the first thing I want you to know about this open invitation is that we must first recognize our need.
SPEAKER_01: We must recognize our need.
SPEAKER_01: You and I need to know that we will not recognize any invitation if we do not first recognize our own need.
SPEAKER_01: There are two needs that we can see in the passages.
SPEAKER_01: One is the physical and spiritual needs of the boy, obviously.
SPEAKER_01: He's seizing and throwing himself into fire.
SPEAKER_01: I could say that that is an example of a great need.
SPEAKER_01: I think you can all agree with me.
SPEAKER_01: The other need that we see in the story is a need for the disciples and a need for this father to have a greater faith.
SPEAKER_01: A greater faith.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here today and you're not a follower of Jesus, if you haven't placed your faith in him, it doesn't matter how put together your life is, how good a person you are, how healthy you are, or how many zeros that you have in your bank account, your spiritual condition is like that of the boy in our story today.
SPEAKER_01: Without a faith, a saving faith in Jesus, you are in desperate need.
SPEAKER_01: Desperate need of Jesus' help.
SPEAKER_01: If you are a Christian, if you have placed your faith in Christ, we're called to recognize our need as well.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a matter of, oh, I'm saved.
SPEAKER_01: I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01: I got no more need.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what this text teaches us.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we're not saying that the disciples here have no faith.
SPEAKER_01: We're not saying that the Father has no faith.
SPEAKER_01: The Father claims himself that he has faith.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I believe, but help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: They're lacking in faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's not enough faith.
SPEAKER_01: They have some, but not enough.
SPEAKER_01: In the Matthew text, we're invited to be faithful.
SPEAKER_01: And in the Mark text, we're invited to pray.
SPEAKER_01: In these two texts, God has welded these two words together so that we know that a faithful Christian is a faithful prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Not prayer, prayer, right?
SPEAKER_01: They actively pray.
SPEAKER_01: Faithful Christians actively pray.
SPEAKER_01: You do not pray if you have no faith, and if you don't have faith, you won't pray.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how you try to arrange that, it'll never work.
SPEAKER_01: And so the second subpoint is this.
SPEAKER_01: We must access what has been given.
SPEAKER_01: Let's play a quick game of see what the passage doesn't say.
SPEAKER_01: I really love this game.
SPEAKER_01: I love this game.
SPEAKER_01: In case you were wondering, a way to help your children understand God's word, this is a great game to play with them.
SPEAKER_01: Almost say everything that the passage doesn't say so that they get what the passage does say.
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: So let's play a quick game of see what the passage doesn't say.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't say that this miracle was impossible.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't say this miracle is impossible.
SPEAKER_01: That would be denying his deity because Jesus is all-powerful and able to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: So he doesn't say this is impossible.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, when they say, why couldn't we do it?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't say, Oh, this is a job only for me.
SPEAKER_01: That's not Jesus' response either.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus indicates that this miracle was impossible because of a little faith and a lack of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: With faith being the driving force for prayer, had the disciples and the father in the text been greater prayers and had a greater faith, I'm led to believe that they were capable of performing this miracle.
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
SPEAKER_01: See what even Jesus said.
SPEAKER_01: Had they had the faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, they could have moved mountains.
SPEAKER_01: If they had a greater faith, they could move mountains.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, they've just descended the mountain where Jesus transfigured.
SPEAKER_01: It is a very visual, visual thing that Jesus is telling them.
SPEAKER_01: If you had just a little more faith, if you had some faith, you could move mountains.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I believe, is declaring that the disciples and this father had what it had the opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: They had the chance.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_01: As the band starts coming up, continues to pray, to play, I want to close with two invitations.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to first know that after we pray here, I'm going to be at the front.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to invite Pastor Rick to come to the front.
SPEAKER_01: If you've made a decision to put your faith in Christ, we would love to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to invite our prayer team.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a prayer need, if you have faith, if you believe, but you have a prayer to help your unbelief, I want you to come pray here at the altar.
SPEAKER_01: It will be open.
SPEAKER_01: But here are those invitations.
SPEAKER_01: To anyone who may not have placed their faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I want to invite you.
SPEAKER_01: Like the people we saw get baptized today, I want to invite you to put your faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: To put your faith in his life, death, resurrection, and promised return.
SPEAKER_01: When people get baptized, we don't believe that there's something magic in the water, that the baptism is what saves them.
SPEAKER_01: No, we believe that this immersion, like Pastor Rick said, is a sign for all of you here, for all of us to see their faith.
SPEAKER_01: That is their declaration to say, I believe.
SPEAKER_01: I want to extend that invitation to you.
SPEAKER_01: Apart from Christ, our spiritual condition matches that of the boy in our story.
SPEAKER_01: We are not good.
SPEAKER_01: But the great news of the gospel is that the story does not have to end there if we place our faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: To those who are in Christ, I want to invite you to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Pray the Father's prayer from our text today.
SPEAKER_01: I believe, but help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that God would help our unbelief so that we may grow in our effectiveness in God's kingdom for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: God's word says this He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with Him graciously give us all things?
SPEAKER_01: Friend, this is your invitation to put your faith in the Son given up for many.
SPEAKER_01: And Christian, this is the God that you serve.
SPEAKER_01: This is the powerful God to whom you pray.
SPEAKER_01: He has been faithful.
SPEAKER_01: So let us grow in our faithfulness towards Him.
SPEAKER_00: If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.
SPEAKER_00: Take a moment and text CCWConnect to 94,000.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.