If you would please open your Bibles to the Gospel according to Matthew. We're in chapter 17. Matthew chapter 17. We looked last time at the transfiguration there on the mountaintop. Now beginning in verse 14 and reading through verse 23. This is God's Word. 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. 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." Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of the boy and he was healed from that hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, 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. Nothing will be impossible for you. When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, the son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him. And on the third day, he will be raised to life. And the disciples were filled with grief. May God add his blessing to this reading from his holy and inspired word. I don't know how carefully you pay attention to the reading, but depending on which translation you have, if it's like mine, which is the old NIV from 1984, in verse 18, The NIV says, Jesus rebuked the demon and came out of the boy and he was healed from that moment. Literally, in the Greek, it doesn't say moment, it says hour. Oh, so why would I correct this? I mean, it really doesn't matter, moment, hour. Well, the reason is because Matthew gives a much shorter version, still true, still accurate, but he gives a much more condensed version of this incident. Whereas Mark, who normally writes in very compressed fashion, Mark's favorite word is immediately. He keeps going from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next. And Mark, in telling this story, actually gives us a lot more detail. We're not gonna read Mark's gospel this morning, but I want you to understand that what happened here, while absolutely true as recorded by Matthew, doesn't fill in all the details. Because notably in Mark, when Jesus cast the demon out of this child, the demon threw the child into another massive seizure. And when the seizure stopped, everybody thought the boy was dead. I mean, that's how bad it was. And that's how bad it looked after it stopped. Matthew leaves out those details. He just says, Jesus cast the demon out. And from that hour, he does say hour, he didn't say moment, NIV says moment. From that hour, the boy was healed. So in other words, the problem didn't come back. What's interesting about this is that they thought the boy was dead. They thought the situation was hopeless. Going back to the start of the story, the man had brought his son to Jesus, he thought. But what he got was Jesus' disciples. And Jesus' disciples were not exactly the same thing as Jesus. And a lot of times, when people are looking for God, they come to us. They come to our churches. They come to our conferences. They come to whatever. And some of them meet the Lord there, but some of them don't get past us. Sometimes instead of being people who really bring folks to Jesus, we're sort of a poor substitute. And it's like, well, you just need to do this and you need to do that and you need to do the other instead of you need to know what Jesus has done for you. You need to trust him. I'm not the answer to your problem. Jesus is. Come to Jesus. Well, this man had brought his son and he had not gotten help. I brought him to your disciples, verse 16, but they could not heal him. So now he approaches Jesus. He kneels before him and he says, Lord, Have mercy on my son. You know what we need from God? Mercy. Mercy. If you ever are tempted to think that somehow suffering in your life is unfair, what did I ever do to deserve this? Oh, you want a list? So no, you're a monster. Why would you try and make me feel worse at a time when I feel bad? I don't want you to feel worse. I want you to find help. If you want help, you need to ask for mercy. Because if you go to God trying to explain to God that basically you're a pretty good person, you know you've made some mistakes. I know I'm not perfect. But basically, God, I'm a lot better than other people. I've done a lot of good. And you need to know that, because I'm going through a hard time right now. And I really don't deserve to go through a hard time. I have plans for my life. And I need your help just to get over this hump, solve this problem, get past this thing. And then I think I can take it from there. I'm telling you, that's the way a lot of people operate. They really feel that God, I mean, they're doing a pretty good job running their life. But now they've got a problem. I guess I'll ask God for help, okay? I mean, you know, if he's real and if he's all-powerful, he ought to be able to help me out. I mean, this shouldn't be a hard thing for God. I'm just gonna ask him, give me some help and let me get back on the road and I'll take it from here. I had a procedure done years ago where they wanted to monitor my stomach acid and see how much of it was making it up into my esophagus and if that was causing my pain. So they gave me a little wireless device to wear on my belt that would have a connection to the sensor that measured acidity that they had implanted in my esophagus just above the valve that is supposed to keep the acid inside your stomach. They want to know, how bad is this reflux? How bad is this? Now, in order to do that, they don't just say, open your mouth, and they put the thing down there. They have to put you to sleep. It's not a real long procedure, but you have to be out. So they knocked me out with drugs. And then they implanted this thing in my esophagus. And you see, they have to really implant it so that it'll stay there. They don't want it coming back up, and they don't want it going on through at least for a while. Why are you telling us all this? Well, there's a reason. When I woke up from the procedure, we were in Atlanta. We lived in Atlanta for a number of years. And Atlanta can be a bear as far as traffic, also as far as crime. But I felt that I should be the one to drive us. away from the hospital and so forth and so on. So as they're wheeling me to my car, I'm insisting that I'm fine and that I'll do the driving. And my wife, fortunately, was not under the influence of drugs and she didn't go along with it. Why are you telling us this? because I thought in my drugged up mind that I was totally capable, and not just capable, it would be better for me to drive than for my wife, who had less experience in downtown Atlanta, to drive. Now, my wife is a fabulous driver. She's an intelligent woman. She actually could have won NASCAR any number of times. But my wife, didn't have as much experience driving in downtown Atlanta as I did, because I always just did that part. It wasn't because she said, oh, I can't deal with all these cars. Would you please drive? It wasn't that at all. It's just, I'm a man. You understand. And as a man, my job. I'll do it. You just sit right there and be beautiful. I'll drive. So here I am in a wheelchair, incapacitated, arguing with the hospital staff and my wife about who ought to drive. That's nuts, right? It is nuts. But that's the way I see person after person after person after person after person after person after person trying to run their life. Instead of coming to God and saying, God, I have made a mess. I am so sorry. You please take over. I want you to be in charge. I don't want to keep doing this anymore. I keep getting into wrecks. God, would you please have mercy on me? Have you come to the point in your life where you've done that? Where you just surrender it to him? and realize you don't need a little help, you need mercy. You don't need someone just to get you past this rough patch and then you'll take it from there. You don't want to be in control anymore. You want him to be in control. Oh, but if I turn things over to him, he might do something that I don't like. I can guarantee you he will. But I can guarantee you that he knows better than you. God knows. So, this fellow brings his son to Jesus. He kneels before him, begging for mercy. Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire and into the water. Again, if you read the expanded version, it says this demon throws him into the fire, throws him into the water. It wasn't just a series of unfortunate coincidences. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And what he was seeking to do with this boy was to destroy him. And the father knew that much. He also knew that he couldn't deal with it. He also knew that the disciples had tried to cast the demon out, but they couldn't heal him. And Jesus says, oh, of course, of course, please. No, Jesus says something that might surprise us. Oh, unbelieving and perverse generation. What? That's not very nice. Jesus was just telling the truth. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me." When the father brought the boy to him, you read Mark's account, Jesus started asking him questions. Even as the boy is having a horrible seizure, Jesus is talking with the Father about the medical history. Sometimes when we bring our problems to God, He doesn't respond exactly the way that we had hoped. Because somehow His timetable is different from ours. This boy had suffered for years. But when we finally get him to Jesus, we want help now. And Jesus is instead talking with the Father. And this is the father who makes the famous statement, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Well, there is a clear lack of faith on the part of the father. He's willing to try this, but he's not at all sure it's gonna do it. He says, Lord, if you can do anything, please help. but I appreciate the fact he's asking for mercy, because that's what we need to do. If you tell God, I want what I'm entitled to, you're going to hell, because that's what we're entitled to. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. You are owed a paycheck, and the paycheck is hell. If you don't want to collect what you deserve, you need to realize Jesus already took the punishment that you and I deserve. And so you ask him for mercy. Jesus, having rebuked the lack of faith on the part of basically everybody there, says, bring the boy to me. And so Jesus rebuked the demon, verse 18, and it came out of the boy and he was healed from that hour. You want to read the Mark account, it's in chapter nine. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and said, why couldn't we drive it out? Remember that these disciples had previously cast demons out of other people. These disciples had previously been used of God to do miraculous things. When the 5,000 were fed and when the 4,000 were fed, they didn't all have to come to Jesus to get the bread. broke the bread, multiplying it, giving it to the 12 disciples, and then sent them out into the crowds. And the miracle continued to happen even as they went from person to person and group to group. These fellows had experienced miracles. They had seen God do things that only God could do through them. But somehow in this situation, They had been unsuccessful in helping this boy and thereby helping his father. So now they're curious. And they say, why couldn't we drive it out? And he replied, you just need practice. Right? No. 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. Nothing will be impossible for you. So we just need more faith. Okay, so I'm gonna just believe harder. How big is a mustard seed? You ever seen a mustard seed? Tiny, OK? You can easily, I just ordered a bunch of non-hybridized seed off the internet. And because I figure, you know, if we ever get to a supply chain problem where we can't get the hybridized seed that yields these wonderful crops, it would be good to have some non-hybridized seed. Because non-hybridized seed reproduces, OK? And they showed a picture of these bags, and I got the big bag. I got the deluxe thing. And it came, and it's about this big. Thousands of seeds of 32 different varieties and instructions in a tiny little pouch. Seeds are small. Some seeds, some seeds, watermelon seeds are big. Avocado seeds. Is that a seed or a pit? I think they're the pits. Anyway, a mustard seed is tiny. So on the one hand, Jesus, I mean, this is, if you understand it, a little humorous. Jesus is saying, your faith is so small. If you had faith as big as a mustard seed, you could do miracles. So how small is their faith? I guess it's smaller than a mustard seed. Well, yeah, their faith was too small, but what makes faith effective is the object of your faith. It's the object of your faith. In other words, If you believe with all your might something that isn't true, it doesn't make it true. But I have great faith in this. Yeah, but if it's not true, it's not effective. It just makes you crazy. If your faith is in God's Word, if your faith is in Him, then Even just something the size of a mustard seed will cause miracles to happen. In other words, if I believe with all my heart and all my mind that I am seven feet tall, I self-identify as a seven foot tall person, okay? Does that make me any taller? No, Jesus said you can't add anything to your height that way. No, no, no, but I really believe it. Doesn't make it so. But if God says, Jim, I'm gonna tweak your pituitary gland, and suddenly in your 60s, you're gonna grow taller. That'd be scary, actually. But if God says it, then I only have to believe it this much and it's gonna happen. You know why? Because God said it. And as we said last time, God's word is gonna be fulfilled whether or not you believe it. Do you believe Jesus is coming again? He said he was. Do you believe it's gonna happen? It's gonna happen. Well, what if you don't believe it? Still gonna happen. What if you're absolutely convinced it's a hoax? Still gonna happen. If you and I believe what God says, we're gonna see miracles. Two quick stories. One, God impressed on my heart when we were living in Mississippi that I was supposed to go to Massachusetts and we were going to work for Gordon College. We applied for the job at Gordon, and they said we'd hear within the month. We heard nothing for a couple of months, and that didn't sound very good. So what are we going to do? Well, we went to say goodbye to my in-laws down in Houston, And after the slated amount of time that I'd said we were going to stay with them, we're packing the car to head up to say goodbye to my parents. Why? We've already moved half our stuff to Massachusetts. Why? Because God told me that we were going to work there, and I was going to go to seminary there. And you do what God says. We had friends who said, well, Susan needs to be applying for jobs in the public school and so forth, and if you guys could get an apartment, it'd be great. I said, I don't want to go to Massachusetts. The only reason we're going is because God said go, and we're going to work at the college, and I'm going to go to seminary. So we finished packing the car in her parents' driveway, to leave for our trek north. And my wife says, honey, what are we going to do? I said, what do you mean? She said, well, Gordon College said that they would let us know within the month. It's been a couple of months. It seems like we didn't get the job. And I said, honey, if we don't get that job, then you can put me in a mental hospital. because clearly I'm crazy, because I think God told me that it's going to happen. And she said, well, I promised you when I married you that I'd go wherever you lead. And I said, well, thank you very much. Let's pray. And we sat down on the driveway there in 4002 Oxhill Road, Spring, Texas. And we held hands and we just prayed. And I said, Lord, You know the reason we're doing this is because I want to be obedient to you. It's not because I want to go back to cold weather. So I'm doing this out of obedience. I'm trusting you. Please, cause your will to be done. He said, amen. Oh, and I thanked him, of course, for my wife being such a godly lady that she was willing to follow my lead. God hadn't told her. God told me, I'm telling her, she's going along with it because she's hoping I'm not nuts. We went to stand up and between the time that we began to get up and we're standing fully upright, which nowadays for me could be a couple of minutes, but back then it was just a matter of seconds, okay? As I'm getting up, her parent came to the back door and called and said, Susie, telephone call. We go inside, it's Gordon College, calling to say we have the job. Yes! Because you see, the person who interviewed us for the job ended up taking another job at another college. And so they had to hire a new dean, and the new dean had to come in and go over all the stuff and then try and hire people. And that's why we hadn't heard anything, and they were very apologetic. But I'm telling you there's another reason, and that is God wanted to grow our faith. God wanted us to trust Him. Because the circumstances looked like we were nuts. But it's never nutty to obey God. Smartest thing you can ever do is to trust and obey. I said a couple of stories. I don't have time for the other one. I'll tell it another time. But I'll tell you this, over and over and over and over and over and over and over, God does exactly what he promised even when it looks circumstantially like it ain't gonna happen. God brought his people Israel to the edge of the Red Sea and waited until the Egyptian army caught up to them. And then said, why are you crying out to me, Moses? Use that rod, hold it out. And the seed parted. You just trust God. Even if you just trust God with a faith the size of a mustard seed, if you're believing what God says, you're gonna turn out to be right. If you're trying to just believe because faith is powerful, No, your faith is in faith. If your faith is in faith, you're just doing positive thinking. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. We're not talking about that. We're talking about believing what God says. And I want you to remember that one of the things God says, I love you. My circumstances are hard." Yeah, but He still loves you. I don't know how I'm going to get through this. Yeah, but He still loves you. What if I die? He still loves you. You're going to be okay. Whatever comes, whatever comes, do not be afraid. Your Father loves you. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Jesus told them, the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him. And on the third day, he'll be raised to life. The disciples were filled with grief. Lord, how could that be good news? That is the good news. That is the good news. Jesus came to save sinners, and the only way, the only way was for him to die in our place and be raised to life again. Thank you for the good news, even when it caused grief to his disciples, it was still the good news. Even when they didn't understand it, it was still the good news and it was going to happen, even when they did not believe what he kept telling them over and over. What is impossible with man is possible with you. We thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Help us to repent and believe the good news. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.