Impossible

If we actually think about everyone, everybody has faith in something or someone. They have a warranted faith in some ultimate truth. Really the question is, is your faith in the right place, person, and purpose? We have a faith that moves us and determines who we are and what we're becoming. This morning, we see a hard lesson from Jesus on faith. We will have three points. Problem with faith, then what faith can do, and then what we believe. First, the faith problem.

Lord, have mercy on my son

Jesus is coming down with three disciples to rejoin with the other nine. And a crowd has gathered there. So it's important. We remember what, what, what these three disciples just saw was Jesus glorified, transfigured, returned back into his glory. And then they heard the father speak. Now the three of them and Jesus are coming down and well, they come to the crowd.

Verse 14.

When they came to the crowd, a man came up to him

that is Jesus

and kneeling before him said, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls in the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him.

So the simple event is after coming down from the mountain, a father approaches Jesus and he kneels before him.

You can just see here a father desperate to see his son helped. We know from what happens later, and we know from Luke, the father actually says he has a demon. So we see something significant. He's terrified to see his son so tormented, uncontrollable, seizures, and throwing in a fire, throwing in water. It's extremely dangerous, and so he's desperate. Now the father has a frustration with the disciples that they have not been able to heal him.

The, the, the disciples have been given this kind of authority. They they've been sent out in chapter 10 to exercise this kind of authority, to cast out demons, to even raise the dead. Now, sure. Normal. It was that they would exercise this authority, but God has given him this authority while he's with them.

This father, he comes to Jesus, recognizing something is different about him, he calls out, Lord, possibly here already recognizing who he is, Yahweh, have mercy on my son. Show my son, who is in desperate need of healing, your kindness. This appeal to mercy, mercy is why God delivered Israel out of Egypt. Mercy is God's kindness and power directed toward man to restore us, to forgive us, to heal us. The man is desperate. He's not demanding, but he is begging. He's appealing. Lord, have mercy on my son because of how difficult and painful his condition is.

Now, as we consider here, it's a demon, not as a mere medical problem. There's an order of being, God, angels, man. Angels are greater than man. There's a way in which they would have to have a supernatural authority or power to do something about this demon in the sun.

Faithless and twisted generation

Our attention needs to be drawn to Jesus' answer to this request.

Oh, faithless, and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?

An unusual, not a typical expression we hear from Jesus, so let's hear it. Oh, faithless and twisted generation, speaking of all the people, But the disciples are in view. How long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear you? It begins with, oh, this is what we've seen before, with kind of a solemn, serious tone. There's something warning coming.

Faithless. Not trusting God. God promised, they haven't trusted him. God has spoken, they're not listening. God is with them, and they're disinterested. God has coveted with them in his steadfast love, and they keep playing the whore with other gods.

Faithless means refusing to listen to God, hear him, trust him, and follow him. God has committed himself to a people, and they're supposed to be a people of Abraham, a people of faith. That's what is most significant for Israel, a people who would believe God and what he has done.

And here, Jesus, in expressing this response and hearing the disciples could not heal, a faithless generation. The second declaration, he says, twisted. A faithless and twisted version. These two things go together because whenever you do not trust God who would bring healing and order to your life, you get distorted, you get twisted up, you get knotted in your heart. Remember, Jesus already taught us it's what comes out of our own hearts that defile us. That twistedness, that distorting what God has given us and using it for evil rather than for good. Instead of being grateful for God and his good gifts, we grumble and we use them for evil. They've not been God's faithful people to worship him. They presumed upon his grace. They're twisted. They take what is good and distort it. They do not know how to understand or see things rightly.

That declaration is challenging to hear as he's speaking to the crowd with the Father in view and the disciples in view. But the next two questions reveal a side of Jesus again we don't see that often. Kind of like when he throws over, throws the tables in the temple. We don't see that righteous anger regularly in Jesus. Here it seems like we see what we might call righteous frustration. How long do I have to be with you? How long do I have to bear with you?

Jesus is God who's come down. He's done miracle after miracle. He's spoken and they've always been in awe of the authority with which he speaks. The three of them have just seen his glory. He's done mighty works and wonders and they should know who he is and trust him.

So he asked, how long do I have to be with you? Clearly assuming some kind of a temporary mission, his time will come, the definitive time with which he said there is a time that he will go to Jerusalem for the last time to die. This particular time, though, with man to save man, he's voicing a, I don't have a better word for it other than a frustration. Here they just seem to regularly not get it. The second question gets at it even more.

Not just how long must I be with you, but how long do I bear with you? That implies difficulty. To bear with somebody implies and assumes that there's something difficult about them. They're people that are not easy to be with. We all have folks we think it's easy and happy to spend time with them, and then sometimes it's hard to be with certain people.

Here Jesus is saying, how long do I have to bear with you? How long must I bear with this lack of faith and misunderstanding and not getting it? A similar call for us. Paul says in Ephesians 4, we must bear with one another. Again, there's the assumption, sinner's sin, and our sin continues to make relationships difficult. Here, the God who has come to save us asks these two questions that I want to make sure we really contemplate and think about well as to why he's saying it.

We're not as easy to love

Verse 17 tells us something important about Jesus. Verse 17 is not the most popular declaration of scripture. I've never seen it on a coffee mug or a t-shirt. I don't know if anybody has actually declared this as their life verse. It's not often repeated, but it is Jesus, our loving Savior, speaking. Jesus, our loving Savior, who loved us and laid down his life for us, He came to save us from our unbelief and our twistedness. These things that are frustrating, and he's expressing the frustration about who we are, he's not surprised. He came to save us from those very things. There's actually something for us to really think about who we are. We're not as easy to love as we think we are. We're not as easy to love as we think we are.

It's important that we do have this category that Jesus is frustrated. Because with that, we actually really have to wrestle with the teaching that God disciplines those he loves. If you're a parent, you get frustrated with the child you love and you discipline them. We have to have a concept that he does see our sin. There is a frustration that we continue to go back to the same sins.

There's a frustration that we would not get it. I think the same thing is taught at some level with,

I hold out my hands all day to a stiff necked and right obstinate people.

There's a way though, which those who Christ died for and redeemed and they keep following the same sin pattern.

How long? The more challenging aspect of the passage is Jesus asks, how long will he be with us? We know what the answer is, right? Forever. Go to the end of the book. The end of Matthew is Jesus literally saying,

I will be with you always to the end of the age.

He will be with us forever.

So he's expressing this, he's making it clear there's a frustration over them not getting it. Now I do believe the how long has a time stamp because he has a temporal mission. He's here for a certain time to go and die on that cross at a certain definitive time and he will rise again and he will be with his disciples so that they see him risen and then he will ascend and that's the time I believe he's referring to specifically. And then he sends the Holy Spirit, his spirit, into our own hearts, and he's still with us.

You have to ask, is this kind of frustration still present about his people today? Are we just as slow to get it and to trust God? Do we lack faith? Do we have disinterest in God? We need to ask, is Jesus right to be frustrated? There's a principle, the people you love the most disappoint you and frustrate you the most. It's challenging to hear Jesus express this kind of frustration about doubt and disbelief, disordered desires, but again, he's coming to save us from these, But he also wants us to be safe from them and to grow up out of them. The very last words of verse 17,

bring him here to me.

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

The creator restores the boy. He rebukes the demon. The God of all authority restores him to health. He restores, that word there can mean salvation. He speaks. The demons must shudder and obey. The boy is saved.

That must be the basis of your faith. Jesus is good and has all authority. We do not deserve anything from Him. We are difficult to love. We are unfaithful and we are twisted. But Jesus comes to speak His blessing, the blessing that is good, the blessing of salvation.

He speaks with all authority to restore us, to heal us, to give us all that is good. Christian, I hope you let the challenge of this passage set in that there is a way that God our Savior bears with us, patiently walking with us, bearing with us, long-suffering for us. There's also a hope that we grow up. Remember what the father said about Jesus,

this is my son with whom I am well-pleased.

That frustration over our sin, well, we're forgiven because the one who pleased the Father died for our sin, so we can be forgiven. And that isn't so we can keep walking in sin and repeating sin so we'll just be forgiven as if sin abounds, grace abounds, no. We praise God that we're sin abounds, grace abounds, but the goal of grace is that we walk more faithfully in that grace. Our next teaching here on faith from Jesus is what faith can do. What faith can do. 19 introduces a new scene, but we're still talking about the same event.

A little genuine faith

The disciples, they get to come to Jesus privately. So we've been publicly with a crowd. Jesus rebuked the entire generation, including the disciples. But now the disciples get to come and they ask him a good question.

Why could we not cast out the demon?

The disciples get to come and Jesus will tell them what the parables meant, or they get to ask particular questions, and I think we get a solid question out of them. That's a good question. Jesus being a good rabbi, he shoots straight with them. Being a good God, he gives them a right, good diagnosis.

It's because of your little faith. It's because of your lacking faith. The tensiest, densest, the smallest, really just lacking is the key idea here, I think. You could not do what I've given you the authority to do because of your lacking faith. It's important we make sure we understand it's lacking faith because of what he says next.

Jesus is not contradicting himself.

For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move here to there, and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.

All right, so the mustard seed is the smallest seed. Mountains are big.

We get kind of a play on words here. There's smallness and there's largeness. The little faith that kept them from being able to cast out the demon can't be the same thing as the mustard seed faith, which is smallness of faith, a little faith. That's why I think it has to be lacking, and there are two different concepts here. The mustard seed is small, mountain is large. If you have a small amount of faith, but the right faith, you can move a mountain?

They lack faith. So they could not heal the boy of a demon. Important that the takeaway is not muster up enough faith in you to do good works. No, the point is that they had such lacking faith, they could do nothing on their own. They didn't have the confidence in themselves, they didn't have the courage in themselves, they most of all didn't have a true faith that God had given them this mission and authority.

A little genuine faith in Christ is greater than their lacking faith. A little genuine faith in Christ is greater than robust, manufactured faith, self-confidence. A little genuine faith is greater than your own robust faith in yourself. You get back to what does faith in Christ mean? It means we seek to trust him. Know Him who does all things good for us and then calls us to participate in His good things. A little faith goes a long way and grows us into a mature faith. Let's make sure we understand what Jesus is saying.

You should not seek to only have a little faith. That's not the goal. You should not seek, how can I just have enough faith to be saved? How can I have the smallest amount of faith so that I can be saved and then just do whatever I wanna do? That's not what he's saying.

Faith needs to be in the right object or person. God himself who has spoken. Faith must be trusting him who has given us all that we need. Christian, we're supposed to have faith like a child. I think this is sometimes misunderstood. Not childish faith as in immature, silly. No, faith like a child, a child trusts a parent. A child is supposed to be able to trust what an adult says. Not childish as in still silly and independent and just doing whatever you might think you might wanna do. No, a childlike faith means you trust fully.

If you're wrestling with, do I have the right faith? There's a wonderful prayer in the Gospel of Mark for you. When Jesus asked,

do you believe?

The man says,

I believe. Help my unbelief.

What a wonderful pattern for all of us who regularly struggle with faith.

I believe, I do hear you, I do trust you, but I know I don't trust you rightly and enough. I know I can trust you more. As you grow in faith, you depend less on yourself, you depend more on God. As you pursue godliness and purity and repent, you strengthen your faith. Because faith is the direction you're living. Faith is what you're trusting will satisfy you.

We all come here with burdens. There's a many season of extreme trouble or grief. Always something to take our eyes off of Christ. Something like a child sick, a vocation threatened, a future in doubt. It's easy to lose your sight of trusting Christ in the middle of trouble. To be honest, I actually think it's easier to lose sight when things are doing well. It's easier to kind of just appreciate that everything is good and not immediately have a grateful heart and rejoice constantly, growing in faith when things are going well. We normally think I need to believe and have faith when things are troubling. We do think about faith when things are terrifying like this father does.

Maybe we're anxious about the future. We don't know what's coming next. Maybe anxious about what's happening all over the world and we're not supposed to know everything happening around the world. We're not designed to have that information. Maybe you're fearful of not being forgiven by someone. Maybe you're afraid that you can't forgive someone. Maybe you're afraid that if you do forgive someone, you'll let them off the hook and they'll do it again. There's all kinds of things that threaten our faith in Christ to be obedient to what he says we should do. You see, when we think about moving mountains, I don't think God intends us to go talk to Humpback Mountain tonight. If you wanna go try to flip over Humpback Rock, go for it. I don't think there's a point though.

That little bit of faith, genuine faith, can do mighty great things. He can heal you. He can bless you in your reconciliation of forgiveness. Christian, are you seeking to trust Christ? Do you consider in the midst of dilemma and trouble that he's able to do far more than you can even ask or imagine? When you're walking by faith, you're eagerly expecting the God who makes promises and promises blessing to bless you and others. Walking by faith means you have hope. You're eager to see what God would do, knowing that he is a great God of grace.

Moving mountains. Well, it might be amazing to see a mountain flipped upside down. I tell you, it's pretty amazing to see somebody transfer from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his own beloved son. It's amazing to see a new believer grow in hunger, Immaturity. It's so encouraging to see someone who was once childish and lacked all courage to proclaim God's word boldly.

Grow in faith

To see the kind of grace that changes and transforms us. If you're burdened with a problem that Jesus is putting his finger on here, a lack of faith, there's a few prescriptions that I believe scripture gives us very clearly. First, be with other Christians. Why do we gather together? To sing with one another? To sing to one another? Sometimes we're singing for one another?

You're not going to solve the deep deception and destructive problems in your own heart and mind by yourself. Second, proactively listen to God. The most clear way To be built up and strengthened in faith is by hearing the truth of God that will strengthen your faith. Meditate on Psalm 1 where the wise man is like the tree planted by the river, the source, God's word itself. Grows strong and bears fruit. Meditate upon his word day and night. Third, pray. That is the most difficult one to do by ourselves. Pray with the Christians. There's a small group of saints who meets during the Sunday school hour. Come and pray with them. The whole church prays on Wednesday night. If you want to grow in faith, you must pray.

Fourth, if you are convicted that you are lacking faith as a Christian, My challenge to you is to ask, was there a time where you can point back when that faith started lacking? And was there a sin you refused to repent of at that time? That's usually what gets us off track. God's speaking, but we stop listening, and that's when faith is hindered.

Finally, meditate on the cross. to see the power of his great forgiveness. Meditate upon the resurrection to see the power of the new life of Christ. If you're not a believer, we're so glad you're here. My prescription for you would be the same, but I'm gonna do it in a different order. Meditate on the gospel. The first four books in the New Testament are gospels. We're in Matthew, then Mark, Luke, John. Just read one of those over and over.

Asking God to show you himself, asking God to help you see who Jesus is, because the one thing you must believe is that Jesus came to die on the cross and he rose again to give you new life. That the simplicity of faith is just that. We believe Jesus came to forgive us with his death and to give us new life with his resurrection. There's more to say, but nevertheless. What I confront here is, more directly, is what is called Peter Pan syndrome. It's rampant in our society and our culture. I never want to grow up.

Christ came to forgive you and restore you. Over and over again, you can see that the calling that we're predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, to be changed like Christ. We put away childish ways and immaturity. We get built up in the faith to be strong so others can depend upon us. Let's put aside this idea, this lie that you're supposed to remain immature. There's a weird piety tied to this. that's dangerous and destructive. Christ has come so that we might grow up into his likeness.

There's that final declaration, that mountain that'll move,

nothing will be impossible for you. Nothing will be impossible for you.

One of the places we see this kind of language is when Mary is told you're going to have You're gonna conceive as a virgin, and you're gonna give birth to God.

Nothing's impossible with God.

God speaks so we can trust Him. God heals so we can obey Him. God gives more grace so that we can thank Him and rejoice in Him. Christian, do you expect God to do great things? Do you pray for God to bless you and your family and your church and your neighbors? Do you expect him to truly do great things by his grace to bring glory? We're in budget season. Do you expect God to do great things? If you want to know what a church expects God to do, the budget reveals that. What are we expecting God to do? We need to make sure we don't give up quickly, lose hope. I think we expect too little of God. Our last point is faith in Jesus.

Know him who died and rose again

Verse 22, and as they were gathering in Galilee, a whole new scene. Jesus says to them, and I'll insert here again,

the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, And they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day. They were greatly distressed.

You actually see that last statement, they still are learning and growing in their faith. They still have not yet really seen who Jesus is. There's two missions of Christ.

There's a shift in the story, and he tells them again, Remember the first time Peter says, no, it can't be. And so Jesus rebukes him and says,

get behind me, Satan.

Because Peter seems to refuse to believe he must suffer before glory. Jesus causes distress again to make sure they understand what is going to happen, but they will not understand it until it happens.

This is significant for their faith and for ours, but especially theirs. They're gonna become completely undone when he's arrested, put on trial, nailed to a cross. They will not get it even though he said it must happen. They're still gonna refuse to believe that this is good and part of the plan. It's not until he's risen and they've seen him that they'll actually start realizing he said all these things to him.

He's preparing them to help them understand he's not a powerless victim in his trial, suffering and death. He's an innocent victim, but not a powerless victim. No, he used his power to die for us in our sin. It's the power of the resurrection that comes to give us new life. They're being trained to consider what he must do. So they proclaim him.

They're also being trained to understand what they must do because they're going to have to persevere suffering for the sake of the gospel as well. If you want to contemplate what a little faith does that uproots a mountain, to stand firm in faith in the midst of persecution. Do you want to know what it looks like to have a mountain turned over Peter going from the greatest coward in the gospels to a robust, courageous faith that looks the sword in the face and says, I fear God and I will obey him.

That's the transformation that's great. To stand firm against spiritual forces and be rooted in Christ. The great transformation Christ speaks of is our own transformation. He's given them many lessons. He just taught them coming down the mountain, John the Baptist had to suffer and so too they will treat me. Christian, it isn't how great of a faith you can muster that saves us. It's learning to depend upon Him more and more. It's learning to trust His forgiveness so that we know how to forgive. The key is we're not supposed to remain childish or to trust Him as a child.

Christ came to suffer. He died for our sins. He rose again so that we have new life and can be transformed into that new life. Trust Him. If you want to think about how you want to build your faith, meditate upon the truth Jesus teaches us right here, 22 and 23. Know Him who died and rose again. Know Him more who died for every sin, every unbelief, every twist of desire, and rose again so that we can be changed in every way. Will you pray with me?

Father, forgive us for how we have not listened. We thank you that you've never stopped speaking. Lord, our minds are dull, our hearts are hard. We're a difficult people, a difficult people to love. Thank you that we know your love that you sent your son. Thank you that we can know your love, that you discipline us. We pray, Lord, that in light of hearing this frustration and a lack of faith, Lord, may we contemplate what it would look like for us to trust you in a way that we would hear on that last day,

well done, good and faithful servant.

Think of how clear it is at how we live now as people of faith that it matters for this world, for your glory, for our blessing. May we trust you. Lord, we believe, help our unbelief. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.