The Character of God II, The Seed of Our Faith

17, we have a briefer message this morning because of communion, but I want us to be sure to be in the Bible together this morning. Now this passage in Matthew 17 is repeated in three Gospels. This story that we're going to read today about the healing of a young boy or possibly a teenager, it appears in all three Gospels, but not the fourth, the three what's called synoptic Gospels. You know what the word synoptic means? Think about it. Synoptic, synoptic, see the same, right. And the three synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I know, I don't want to hear anybody's. If you said John we still love you. John really sees things quite differently, doesn't he? If you read, I mean, he just doesn't have a lot of the same stories. He sees it from his real compassionate heart. The others are much more detail oriented and storytelling oriented. All right, let's read it together. Matthew 17, beginning in verse 14. And when they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. Lord have mercy on my son, he said. He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him. Oh, unbelieving and perverse generation, Jesus replied. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment. And then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked him a question I've asked the Lord hundreds of times, or some variation of it. Why couldn't we drive it out? He replied, because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. Three versions, the same story. The root issue is Jesus' authority over demonic powers, that which had held a young boy in the grip of seizures, so much so that it would have killed him. But the other root issue that's being addressed here this morning is the issue of the lack of authority in the disciples. As you recall last week as we started this series, I'm seeking to relate to you how the knowledge of God, how knowing Christ personally, increases our authority as kingdom people. That's where we're going this month of May. Now there's several dynamics going on here today, and I'm exercising some immediate self-restraint here, because it is amazing up here how long it takes some of you to go to sleep. It doesn't take you very long. How long has it been? Three minutes? I have to assume that you had Valium for breakfast or something. All right, let's see which of these groups you can relate to. First of all I see here, and there's some individuals, and listen carefully, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand in a minute. The frantic father. How many of you relate to the father in this story who has a loved one who's hurting? Do you know someone in your orbit of life who's hurting? Someone that you care about, who you cannot seem to help. You've got a lot of concern and compassion. Perhaps today I want you to see a couple of things that may just encourage you. I want you to notice the humility of this father. He came, and notice the Bible says, he bent his knee before the Lord and said, Lord, have mercy on my son. Have mercy on me. Can I just say one more thing? If you're here today and you don't have a burden for anybody or anything, can I give you one? Can I impart a burden to some of you to become fathers who care about the condition of children? There are demons at work today to kill children. Just like back in this story. Church, if you don't have a burden today for the demons that are terrorizing 1.5 million children in the womb, then I want to give you a burden for that. If you don't have a burden for the demons that are filling the airways with garbage that can do nothing but really undermine the perseverance of our young people to stand pure before God until they're married, then you need to have a burden for that. I was just taken back this, I think it was Monday or Tuesday night, when one of the three local network stations, and I probably can't say it here in this forum, but I've already written a letter about it, which I don't often do, interviewed a family over in West Deer, and basically demonstrated to all of us how they were the model family being really communicative about sexual values in the 90s, and how they decided that it was time to give their 15-year-old daughter birth control devices. When they interviewed, the dad in his kind of hip way said, well, I kind of wish she'd waited until she was 20, but I guess that's just the way it is in the 90s. We decided just to go ahead and give our daughter what she needed to protect her from getting pregnant and getting AIDS. I'm not exaggerating this story at all, not one hint, not one inference toward any of the moral implications and nothing about how do we protect this 15-year-old from what she remembers 10 years later when she's married and dysfunctional because of the people that she slept with and the memories that she has, because you see, we see them here in the church all the time. But you'll never hear that. I want to give some of you a burden today for where things are and what our kids are facing. And I'm appealing to you, church, don't just stand still. Don't just sit there and let the garbage that comes over the airwaves not affect you. We need to have frantic fathers and mothers who have a burden. The second group I see here is a suffering son. And I'm sure today, like last night, there's a number of you here and you really don't have anything left to care for others because you yourself are burdened. You have a tremendous problem. It may be a physical one. Interestingly here, this person had a chronic physical illness. Don't put your hand up today, this moment. But maybe you're here today and you have a chronic physical illness and you've about given up hope that God will ever do something for you. I want to say don't give up hope today. The Lord has a word for you. He wants to encourage your spirit today. If you're a suffering son or daughter, God hasn't forgotten you. He is not far away. He's not putting you through this to make you feel the pain. He wants to touch your life today. The third group I see here, and get ready to identify, I see discouraged disciples. I didn't put discouraged on there, but you can pin it in on your outline. Discouraged disciples. Anyone here ever had the experience of praying fervently and sincerely for someone and nothing happened? Try a hundred times or two hundred times or five hundred times. I'm sure those poor disciples, you know, I think they were really, how many of them really cared? They really wanted to free this young fellow? I mean, I think they were really, sincerely devoting themselves to trying to free him. And I bet, I mean, I'm sure, I mean, they're just people like us. In the back of their mind, they're thinking, you know what? Jesus and the big heavy disciples, Peter, James, and John, they're about to come down from this mount and they're going to see us fumbling the ball down here. We got to make something happen. And they couldn't do it. And the other account in Mark chapter nine tells how the Pharisees and the scribes were like berating them and they're arguing. And when Jesus walks on the scene, everything changes as it always does. But if you're here today and you're just a bit discouraged, if you're a home group leader and you haven't been able to bring your people along, if you're serving in a ministry and you feel like you've been fruitless, if you've been praying for someone and nothing's been happening, I want you to know the Lord has a word for you today, discouraged disciple. He wants to restore your hope. I have this happen so many times in my life. So many times I've prayed for people and it didn't happen. I sometimes I'm tempted to not pray. You ever get that way? I feel like saying, you know, try someone else because I just don't have it. But you know what? I've determined I'll never say that because it isn't in me anyhow in terms of my ability. And as long as I have breath, I'll do what the Bible says. And that says, pray for one another. And I'm going to give you that opportunity in just a few minutes. So listen carefully so you know what to pray. The fourth group that I'm sure covers many of you are not particularly in this service, but at least a few of you is what I'm going to call the curious crowd. You're there along with the multitudes kind of watching this all happen. And you're here today as we have in every service, not really convinced yet that this all makes a lot of sense. Or at least the whole issue of your participating in the authority of the kingdom of God. In fact, for you, it's just survival as a Christian. And I want you to know it's okay today if you're in the midst of kind of struggling with some things. It's okay if you're asking questions. And it's particularly okay if you're really honestly seeking, who is this Jesus? Because I want you to come face to face with who the real Christ is. And I believe if you do that, you'll give your life to him. Every week I meet people just like that here at North Way. Every week, Pastor Scott tells me about somebody who was sitting in one of the back rows who heard a message and some light went on and something clicked and they gave their life to Christ. Maybe that'll be you today. Now, which of these four groups do you associate with? You ready? Okay. Punch your neighbor. It's time to wake them up. They got to respond. Number one, how many frantic fathers do we have? You're really burdened for somebody. Lift your hand up right now. All right. Many of you. Praise God. I'm not going to ask you what you're suffering with, but how many suffering sons are here? Pain, hurt, discouragement in your life. All right. I don't want to ask this question, but I have to. How many discouraged disciples do we have? I knew that. Okay. And how many just kind of curious, sort of not sure how this all fits. Any of you here today? Several of you? Okay. Well, let's see what Jesus says now. He comes on this scene. Let's see what he says. The first thing I hear him saying is he's searching for faith. Look at Matthew 17, 17. First words out of his mouth. Oh, unbelieving or faithless and perverse generation. How many of you would like to hear that from Jesus when he walked up? Not exactly words of encouragement. Sorry, Robert Shiller. That's just the way it is. Get that off the tape, please. Now, what does he really mean here? Because how many of you know those words, if they were spoken to you in the context, could really cut your soul? Because first of all, you kind of know you deserve it. I don't really believe that's what Jesus was saying. I don't believe he was saying in the way to discourage. In fact, I believe if Jesus wanted to do anything, he wanted to move his disciples along and grow them up. Do you believe that? So you don't do it by beating down on people. I've kind of discovered that over the years. In fact, a little bit later here, we're going to see Jesus move in a merciful way and heal this young man. So I believe that's the context. It's the context of mercy and encouragement. What does he mean that when he says faithless ones? Well, the word and we have a Greek definition up there. Apistos means it's the alpha derivative. In other words, it's the Greek word with an A in front of it means lacking faith, lacking credibility, not having enough to make it work. How many of you identify with that? You know, you're kind of moving on 110 current. You need a 220 to get this thing charged. That's easy to understand. The other word is a little tougher. It's the word diastropho in the Greek, perverse, which means just to distort or misrepresent. But a critical meaning that I discovered in my study this week, and this is the one I think really is inherent in Jesus meaning, is it was used of a potter who was throwing a vessel on a potter's wheel and kept working on it and massaging it, but couldn't get it right because it was off center. And what I think the Lord would have us to hear today is that we are part of a generation. We're part of a people who often live our lives a little off center in the Lord. And as a consequence, it's not that he's not touching us. It's not that his hands aren't on us. It's not that we're not on his wheel and belong to him. But because we're a little off center, what happens if it just keeps going around and around and off center? I mean, it doesn't matter what the potter's hands are doing because it turns out just a little misshapen. Turn to your neighbor and tell him, you have a funny... No, don't say that to him. Okay. We do, don't we? I mean, we do sometimes recognize that we're not shaped exactly as we would want to be or as the Lord would have us to be. And as a consequence, our vessels are not able to contain the pure life of God that he would have. And I have to say, folks, this business of being on center with God burdens me a lot. I've had conversations with a number of men and I don't want any one man thinking I'm talking about you today because I had this conversation several times this week with men in our church who know, who hear my messages and hear other people up in this platform and listen to radio preachers and buy tapes and hear us say week after week, spend time with God. And I had numerous men this week say, I just don't have time to spend time with God. And I want to submit to you, if you think you can just keep going on and on and on, you will, dear one, be living your life off-center and you will lack the authority of God to be able to move into situations and see things happen. How many men here today have been part of the wonderful men's breakfast series that Scott pulled together so well? I want to commend you men. I mean, you are saying with your life at a difficult time in the morning, 6.15, you stagger in here. I've seen guys in here with their tie on backwards and they're just making it. But they're saying, hey, I know I need the word and I need to be with God's men. And so you're here. And I say, praise God. And you know, come this week, if you haven't been there, I suppose you can still plug into the last several sessions. But men, that's just the starting point. Now, I know that God is merciful and He doesn't keep a log and say, well, you missed it. But listen, if you want your life to flow in authority, you've got to take control and say, God, I will be with you. I'll be centered. My priority, my focus will be on you and who you are. And I want to say, if we don't do that, we're going to hear Jesus say something like, well, how long then, verse 17, how long shall I stay with you? What does that mean? You and I, do you think maybe he's saying, well, how long am I going to put up with you losers? I mean, is that what he's saying here? No, I believe what Jesus is saying is this. We didn't read the last paragraph. Could we read it right now? Verse 22. Open your Bible back up. Okay. Verse 22. You put it on the floor. Verse 22. Okay. When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, the son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him. And on the third day, he will be raised to life. And the disciples were filled with grief. I believe what Jesus is saying here, just a couple of verses before he's saying to them, look, you men don't know it, but I don't have much more time with you. How long is it going to take before you get this? Time's short, man. Let's get serious. I want to say men of North Way. I think time's kind of short. It's time to invest your best energies and say, we're going to raise up the level of spiritual heat around here. We're going to set a standard that are going to challenge the women of this church. Real quiet out there, guys. We're going to lead the way. How long do we have? How long do you think God's going to put up with this nation? Blatantly, I mean, just blatantly taking God's word and stomping on it. And our nation's capital just saying, I don't agree with that. I have my rights. I'm going to see to them that I get my way. I'm not even going to get into that today. How long do we have? I don't know. Not as long as I think some of us probably feel we do have. So what is the answer then? How do we find this faith? That's the second point in your outline. What is the seed of faith he's talking about? Well, the good old mustard seed. How many of you know what a mustard seed looks like? Have you ever seen one of those things on your desk? You know, you get that little cube. You bring one back from the Holy Land with a little mustard seed in it with plastic. I was going to pass out mustard seeds today so you could all feel one, but it would have been like so frustrating because it would have rolled right through the little lines in your palm. I mean, that's how little it is and fall on the floor. It is a tiny little thing. And when we read that, we automatically think, well, Jesus here is talking about, well, we don't have quite enough faith. But if you really think about this, which most of you surely have done, he couldn't have been talking about amount here. He's not talking about the quantity. He's talking about the source. He's talking about the fact that in the seed is the source of faith. And that seed is nothing less than Jesus himself. Jesus is called the seed of woman in the book of Genesis, over whom, who will bring over Satan, power and authority to crush his head. He is called the seed of Abraham, who will be the fulfillment of the promises of father God to the people of God. In Romans chapter four, he's called the seed of David, the one through whom redemption comes to set people free and bring the kingdom of God. That's who the Lord is. He is our seed. It's not the size here. It's the source of life. I had a vivid remembrance of this. I was visiting with a couple of pastors when I was away about two weeks ago. One of them was telling me about his own journey and how at that particular season in his ministry, he was feeling very discouraged that people were beating him down. And many people were withdrawing their support and accusing him of this and that. And as he was sharing with me, like many of you, I had a bit of a picture emerge. And I saw, as he was sharing this, his soul, his heart. And I saw wet concrete being poured around his heart. And I saw the weight of that. And I saw the heaviness of it. And I saw the inability of his heart to survive with that concrete. And we were, I was just listening. And as he went on, a few minutes later, the Lord changed my picture and I saw something different. And I wonder how many of you can relate to this. I remembered this long concrete walkway in front of the colonnade where I went to college or the main administration buildings. And this was, these were built in the late 1800s. They were wonderful structures. And this concrete walkway was all buckled. And there were places where it had been literally torn up and replaced. And there were still buckles in other places. Yeah, trees along the way, yards and yards away, had sent roots up, pushing up, pushing up through the concrete and buckling it. How many of you had driveways that have done that? Or your sidewalk looks that way? What was happening? Just the simple expansion of life was breaking up the concrete. And I had a chance to share with this pastor. I said, you know what? The seed of life in you, the Lord Jesus in you is going to break that concrete that's coming over your heart. And it's going to crack it off because nothing can stop the growth of the life of Jesus in us. If we will simply water it with the word, Ephesians 5.26, and water it with the flow of the river of the Holy Spirit. How many of you let your spiritual language flow over the seed of Christ in you? You see, what we end up doing is we don't tend the seed. Scott asked this question. How many farmers are here today? I think it's important. We need farmers. How many gardeners? Let me ask that question. What happens if you don't tend that seed for the next three months? What are you going to have in August? A major mess, right? Weeds, if anything. It's the same with the seed of the life in us. We've got to tend it with the word. We've got to tend it with the spirit. And allow it to begin to grow and to cultivate life in us. Dear ones, please listen as I conclude. Even if today you're a frantic father and you don't know where to turn, the seed of faith is already in you. Just cultivate it with the word and with the Holy Spirit's flow in your life and believe God to direct you to the point where you'll be able to bring about a deliverance, an answer to your need. If you're here today as one of the suffering sons, I want to say God is here and He wants to, as we minister to in communion, He wants to just cultivate that seed and let faith rise up. And I'm going to say this, as we pray in circles in a few minutes, I want you to believe for a miracle where you are today, out there. As we were worshiping just a bit ago, I was going to bring some of you forward. And I said, Lord, just a minute. No, we don't need to come forward. Hello? We don't need to come forward. We can touch God in the back. We can touch God in our home groups. We can touch God throughout the community as we come together. If you're here today as a discouraged disciple, just cultivate that seed and watch God begin to pour His grace and strength through you. Watch the Holy Spirit begin to give you opportunity to step out and trust Him once again. I had one of those experiences this week. I invited a guy to come. Actually, what happened was we were talking about a couple of things related to his life. And I see him in a part-time job he's in. And he said, well, you know, I don't know what's going on in my life. I said, well, you know, it sounds like you need to find God's will for your life. You're 31 years old. You don't know what you're doing? He said, yeah, I guess so. He's not a Christian. I said, well, how'd you like to have coffee and talk about that? He said, yeah, I'd like that. I said, you would? Oh, shit. I suddenly went from a discouraged disciple to really anticipating next week we're having coffee to talk about God's will in his life. And how many of you here today know that God wants to just move in that? I want to say one last thing as the music team comes up. For this whole church, I believe there's a wonderful seed of faith in this church. I believe there's a powerful thing, but dear ones, many of us have yet to cultivate that. And if we'll but encourage each other with the word and with the spirit, God wants to allow our seed of faith to grow, to reach out, to touch the many thousands of people who don't know the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who have not been touched by him. And I don't know today where you are, but I do know this, as we wait on the Lord together, things are going to happen. Jesus is here today to minister to us and to cause his faith to rise up. If you have the faith of the son of God, Mark 11, 24, you can say to that mountain, be moved into the sea and it'll happen. I believe that today. I want you to stand with me and believe it. Let's stand and pray.