If you have a Bible this morning and you want to read with us, I encourage you to do so. I'd like to ask you to turn to the Gospel recorded by Matthew chapter 17. And just make a couple of preliminary comments before we look to this scripture reading today. We're going to begin our reading in verse 14, so you can try to find that as we say just a few words. As the pastor here, and some of you are course members, and some people that regularly attend don't know the Lord, I want to express before, and I don't know why I need to do this, but I just feel the need to this morning as we were singing. In my heart, there is a overflowing desire towards one thing for you. It can be interpreted in a cliche way and thereby be dismissive of it, but I mean it very deeply and intentionally. I have no desire as your pastor than to push you closer to the Lord. Knowing him, myself, is the greatest blessing of my life. I have a good life, a very good life, a wonderful wife whom I love greatly. I have four boys that you all that have children know the love that you have for your kids. And since moving down here, the Lord has put a love in my heart for each of you. But with every person in my sphere of influence, someone as close as my wife and as distant as a stranger that I might meet later today, the Lord has been such a, I don't even know the words. It's so wonderful that the object of my life and the purpose of my life I feel so clear about. And that is whether a person's lost and doesn't know the Lord, I just want to push them closer to the Lord. You all know that have attended here for some time that if you're a young Christian, I so desperately want you to know the Lord in a way that you willfully, voluntarily, eagerly want to make him the center of your life without compulsion. And I have no doubt that it bleeds into almost every sermon that I preach because I have long feared that multiple generations have passed serving the Lord out of obligation and duty. But when you know the Lord, not just in salvation, but when you press in further Beginning of this chapter, I'm reminded that Jesus had taken three aside and he had taken them up to a mountain and showed them things in his transfiguration. And there were other religious men atop that mountain that were revered by many. And yet in the glory of Christ's presence, they all faded away. And oh, how that speaks to my heart. That through prayer and the manifestation of the indwelling spirit, that when his spirit is present, his gentle, loving spirit is near you and nobody else can discern it. but your own soul, this part of you that is not a mental thing, and it's not an emotional thing. It's just you are in the presence of the Lord. He leaves you different. You're different. And I have so often seen young people who think that they understand who the Lord is and what He can do because they have just had one taste of the Lord. And thereby assume that they get it. And let me tell you, you don't. If you pressed into the Lord and came to know Him for 1,000 or 10,000 or a million years, more and more each day, you would be no closer to knowing them than when you began. And I, the more that I come to know the Lord, not through acts of preaching or through any religious activity, but just me and the Lord, the more that the enticements and the distractions of this world seem so foolish in the light of knowing Him. And I do feel a desperation for you because I want you to know the Lord. I want you to know Him more. And that's the sincerity of my heart. As I bring forth this message today, found in the book of Matthew, I want you to know that's the aim of it. And I felt like I needed to say that this morning. So we're gonna take a reading from the book of Matthew chapter 17. And this is a familiar story and, or at least I think there's a verse in here that is familiar. And I would say oft misunderstood. And I would say that by myself, I don't think I have grasped its full meaning and I want to be transparent about that. I remember saying that one time and an older preacher came by and said, you shouldn't start your sermon by saying you don't know what you're talking about. But that's what I just did. Because I do feel like there is a surface level meaning that people, excuse me, a surface level interpretation that people have grasped on this text. and it's an incorrect one. And they have tried to employ that incorrect interpretation in their own life and found it to fail and thereby distrusted the Lord as a result. And what this has to do with is having a mustard seed of faith. And that's the title of our message this morning is Mustard Seed Faith. And we're gonna read the text in just a moment because I think the context of it really enumerates the power of what Jesus is saying here. But if you're like me in the, what I'm gonna now call the misinterpretation of this text, I have often thought, Lord, if I just have enough faith, then I can get what I want. And I'm not even talking about sinful things. I'm talking about good things, right things. If I just have enough faith that I can get what I want, and if I perceive that I have enough faith and God doesn't answer me, then in the crevices of my heart, it produces doubt. I distanced myself from the Lord because what I would naturally reason is, Lord, I had mustard seed faith, and let's suppose for a moment that you did. Now, I'll add as a side note, you and I are no judge of that. But setting that aside, let's suppose for a moment that you did have mustard seed faith or greater. and the object of your desire is placed before the Lord. And he doesn't answer you. He does not deliver what you've requested. Then the heart would reason, God has failed to keep his promise. That's one ditch. Let's look at the other side of the ditch, or the other ditch on the other side of the road. Satan can drive us to be self-loathing. If I just had more faith, it would have happened. Now between the two, that's the side that I gravitate towards right there. Is what is wrong with me? If I just had exercised more faith, then X, Y, Z would be happening or would have happened. And so, In that self-loathing state, which I'll again point out when we get there, when we begin to feel self-pity, the key word in that is self. When we start focusing on self, then that thought process in that ditch then seeks to sabotage our exercising faith later. Well, in other words, I can't do it anyway, so why try? And so this morning, I don't want us to go in the ditch. I want us to see what Jesus is saying. And I want us to realize that there is some profound, by this whole context, there is some profound application that can be found in the midst of the scripture. And I hope that the Lord will help to apply that to your heart as he has mine. Matthew chapter 17. looking in verse 14. So Jesus has just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration. If you've been here on a Wednesday night, you'll know that that event, preceding that event, was the whole, the disciples for the first time learning that the Messiah is going to die. Up to this point, from Matthew 1 through 15, the same could be said in Luke 1 through 8 and Mark 1 through 8, all of Jesus' ministry thus far has just been set on proving that he is the Messiah. But their conception of who the Messiah was was still a king, a natural earthly king. So in Matthew 16, he has just said, that's not what a Messiah does or what the Messiah will do. I'm gonna die. To which the famous example of Peter rebuking him and him saying, get behind me, Satan. And right after that, he calls them to discipleship. If any man will follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. And then there's a whole teaching there, obviously. And then right after that, he goes into the Mount Transfiguration, takes three up there, reveals his glorified body. Elias and Moses are there. And then it leads into our scripture text. And I think some of those points are relevant as we get into verse 14. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and sore vexed. For oft times he falleth into the fire and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. And that'll conclude our reading this morning. So I wanna try to elaborate a little bit on this context and what we can infer from certain things if we dive a little deeper here. So it seems as though what has occurred, and you can read into it yourself and see if you conclude this contextual facts that He has taken three of his apostles up to the Mount of Transfiguration, has revealed his glory to them, has instructed them not to tell anyone until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. And then he comes down from the mountain and the other nine disciples have been amongst a crowd of people. So this is, I think beginning to be a pivotal point, I don't necessarily think this moment, but this is in the midst of a pivot between the height of Jesus' fame and following to this man is starting to be a problem. And we need to eradicate him, that coming from the leaders, and I think this situation exacerbated that idea because it's gonna be done very publicly. And he comes down, and the disciples, we know that other nine disciples are present, because the scriptures tell us this, and amongst this big crowd that begins to come to Jesus, one man steps forward in clear desperation. Now I don't know about you, I don't know who this man was, I don't know anything about his personality, we don't know his name. But if I'm amongst a big throng of people, And this leader who has done many marvelous things and is esteemed at this point by thousands and tens of thousands of people, having traveled through all of Galilee and Judea and doing miracles, and his fame had spread even to Herod, the Bible tells us, that the rulers that were... ruling from a distant location from where Jesus is at here, had still heard about Jesus and were convinced of all the excitement going on enough that they were eager to hear him. And so I'm trying to bring attention to the fact that Jesus right now is very elevated in the eyes of the people. And not after some, At least what it says here, Jesus does not say, okay, who needs something and how can I help? And all of you sit down and let me do this. This man is so taken by his child's problem that amidst the crowd and amidst all these things happening, he asserts himself and begins to beg for the help of Jesus. Now for me personally, that would take a lot. because often my fear is I don't wanna be the center of attention, or I know there are other people who have legitimate needs or deeper needs than what I have, or perhaps it's the fear of judgment of other people would cause me to restrain myself from being assertive and saying, listen, I have a need, please come and help me. But I think we can infer from what this man does that he is so desperate, and even the way that he expresses his problem is one where he cuts to the chase in desperation. Now, in the original, it implies that this man, the boy, was epileptic. So other translations, Tell us that, that he would be cast, and it makes sense with all this, that as he was by water or by fire, it didn't matter, suddenly something would seize his body. If you've ever been around somebody who has seizures, sometimes you can't anticipate it, or if you're not watching for it, and yet it's a terrible thing. It's a horrible thing to watch. It's a scary thing. And it's also one that leaves people absolutely helpless. There's nothing you can do to get it stopped. You just have to try in that state that they're in to prevent them from hurting themselves or somebody else. And this obviously had happened enough times and it had affected these people's lives enough that this man was willing to step forward and plead with this man, Jesus, a complete stranger, for help for this serious problem. But we find out something interesting too, is that before he goes to Jesus, he went to somebody else. Now again, and from a, what would you say, like a social etiquette, doesn't that make sense? Like if you're trying to follow the rules of social etiquette, and you're in the hospital, you probably will ask the nurse first for something. And then in our minds, we work our way up the social hierarchy to those that are most important. And so this man seemed to recognize that his situation, in light of all the plight of the people, did not warrant initially going to Jesus first. So he goes to the disciples. And this is a really important point that he goes to the disciples because Jesus here in a moment is going to condemn the disciples for not being able to heal him or heal his son, and the core reason they could not heal him was because of their lack of faith. And I wanna make what I think is an important point here. Notice that the reason the boy wasn't healed was not because the boy's lack of faith. Notice it wasn't because of the father's lack of faith. Notice the reason why the boy wasn't healed was because the healer's lack of faith. So momentary side note, when a miracle worker today claims they have apostolic power to do things, and then someone that they try to heal is not healed, and then they blame the person that they don't have enough faith. That has it exactly opposite in God's economy. According to God's economy, it was the man who was supposed to be doing the healing that was to have enough faith. And so they reveal themselves as false teachers and preachers here. Jesus is somewhat exasperated also. That's kind of an interesting wrinkle toward the disciples, isn't it? So not only do they say, listen, disciples, you weren't able to do this, but he takes it a step further if we look in verse 17 and listen to how he speaks to them. Oh, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And so, We can't tell tone here. I don't know exactly how Jesus said it. I don't think it was a harsh rebuke like he gave at times to those Pharisees that rejected him. But I do think there was a degree of irritation that you ought to know better than this. And so how can we make sense of this whole situation? Well, I think Jesus gives us the answer as always. If we rewind some seven chapters, we find something really important that Jesus did. Jesus commissioned the 12 to go out in his name with power. This is really important. He had made them stewards over something. That's really important to understand what he made them stewards over. because what he knew and what we talked about on Wednesday nights is that he was gonna pass on his ministry to these disciples after he ascended. And so once he ascended into heaven, the key to the ministry of the church, especially in its inaugurating age, especially at its infant stage, was gonna be handed off to these 12 ordinary men. And so in Matthew chapter 10, he is helping to scaffold and teach them like an apprentice does. He is teaching them how they need to conduct the ministry of Jesus after he's gone. And he tells them, if you look in Matthew chapter 10, and I'll turn there real quick, he says this in verse one. And when he had called unto him his 12 disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. So we find some important things here. Jesus. had specifically commissioned him, commissioned his disciples to go to this specific group of people, those that were sick, those that were unclean, those that were sinners, and what they were to do is to heal them, but it was not to just heal them for the humanitarian purposes, but that it would be a validation of the ministry and the gospel that they were preaching. So to pause for a moment and make this point about all the healings, both in the Bible, and listen to me, the supernatural healings that can take place today. The primary purpose of God in healing is not the temporary well-being of the person being healed. God sees us, and listen, I believe God is very sympathetic to human weakness and sickness and pain. He is such, and he is so much that, that he came to earth and took upon himself that same frailty that we had, that he might be a faithful high priest, understanding and sympathizing with our infirmities. Jesus has his eye on something much greater than people's temporary well-being. There is something in the human mind, even as Christians, that makes it hard for us to accept that our health, our wealth, our prosperity, and our comfort is nowhere close to the center of God's eye. I don't wanna say he doesn't care. But I do wanna say he doesn't care about those things as an end in themselves. His aim for you is much higher than your wellbeing. Physically, monetarily. So when he gives the disciples this power, that power as they were going out, and they were preaching a message that was altogether different than the religious establishment. Why would people believe the disciples and put their faith in this Nazarene named Jesus? Why would they do that? instead of putting their confidence in all the things that in their minds had been proven for hundreds and hundreds, even at times thousands of years, what would cause them to shift the allegiance of their heart from trusting the Sanhedrin court, from trusting the sacrifices in the temple to save them, from trusting their own selves and their religious rights and their works, what would cause them to shift their devotion to that and put it into some lowly, frail, seemingly unimpressive man walking through Galilee. Well, Jesus made provisions for that. He said, I'm gonna convince them because when the men go out and they preach my gospel and my word, it is meant to convince all the masses of people through the miracles that they perform and through the miracles that I perform. It was a validation of the words of Jesus Christ. He wanted people to believe and to come to know him and so he did miraculous things to bring them to the knowledge of Christ. So here, it is evident in Matthew 10 that he had given them the stewardship of that area. Now listen, I wanna say this. God has given you and I stewardship over some things. So when I think of a stewardship, I think foremost, I'm not saying this is right to do that, but most immediately of my children. I am to steward their souls for at least 18 years. Now you steward your money carefully, you steward your home carefully, you may steward your vehicle carefully, you steward a lot of things. Nothing is more important that you steward than the souls of your children. It is, it ought to always be in the calculus of your decision making. how will this impact? Not financially, not academically, how will this decision that I'm making impact the spiritual wellbeing of my child? And if what I'm considering doing or allowing them to do poses a high risk to their spiritual wellbeing, brother and sister, I beg you to reconsider. Because Proverbs instructs us so clearly, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it comes the issues of life, and yet at the beginning of our children's lives, they're unable to keep and guard their hearts. So God has entrusted that stewardship and that protection to you and I, and we are to filter those things that are allowed to be exposed to their eyes and their hearts, that it might eventually get to their hearts. And so we've got to protect them from it. This man and this boy, I believe, based on this text, had been placed within the stewardship of these apostles. They had been given the commission, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Preach the gospel and heal people, not according to your own strength, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. Go into those places and preach and heal. And these men, this boy was one of those that was placed within the responsibility of those apostles. And yet, I think what happened is that that boy came to them and he was in such a terrible position. He was in such a terrible state that there was a wondering in the minds of the apostles. Yes, we healed those other people, but nothing's been as bad as this one. You know, I think Christian people can do that in a different way towards people who are lost in sin, which is a much greater problem. is that perhaps you have people at work, perhaps you have family members, perhaps you know people, and they are so hardened to the gospel. They are stubborn. They could be anywhere from the Pharisees. They are so, just completely mesmerized with their own way of doing religion, and any threat to that, they will completely guard their hearts against. And so in the weakness of our faith, We say, why even try? Or here's one even better. Why even pray for them? It's not effective. Nothing I do seems to make a difference, seems to change the situation. Or there's people that are so, they're taking such joy in a sinful life. that you would think, there's no way if I was to talk to them about the Lord, they would have any interest whatsoever. And yet, God has placed them in the sphere of your life and made you responsible for stewarding your influence over them. You know, that's one of the amazing things about the Lord that I love so much is his providential arrangements. Isn't it amazing? I mean, think about it. Eight point something billion people in the world, and God providentially arranges the most amazing things. Making your parents your parents, making the friends and neighbors off of Decisions that at times are so casual and flippant. You ever done something like that before and seen the handiwork of God? Where you made a decision flippantly, with no forethought, or maybe it wasn't flippant, maybe it was completely selfish. I'm doing this because I want to, and I don't care what the will of God is. I am doing this. And then, within the providence and compassion of God, he uses what we have intended towards our own demise spiritually, and he reorients it, and he flips it for our good to expose us to people and to arrange our lives and allow us to come into circumstances and situations that would then be a ministry and a help to our own hearts. And God arranges all of that. Think about how you met your spouse. Think about all the things. that God did, I think back hundreds of years ago, when random people that are my hair, I don't even know their names anymore, that made decisions to leave the foreign, what we would call foreign lands now, and traverse a harsh wilderness and make all the decisions that they made, and we might be here. God providentially arranges things, and then, He makes us stewards over many of those things. See what I think Jesus is teaching here, I wanna go back to my text for just a moment and say this. I think what Jesus is teaching here is this. Not that because we just have a whole bunch of faith, we can walk around and reorder the world in accordance with our will. That's not what he's teaching. He's not saying if you just bear down and believe a little more, then this person won't die, they'll live. that I won't lose my job, I'll get a better one. He's not saying that our faith will allow us to reorder the world according to our will. But I believe what he is saying is this. My will is this. And I have made you the steward of this particular part of my will. And the only way that certain things will come to pass is through your intervention through prayer and faith. So let me give you an example of something that I believe is in the Lord's will. I believe it's the Lord's will that all men are saved, don't you? God desires all men and women to come to the knowledge of the truth, period. I have been given a, significant influence over four little boys. And I think it's God's will that they all four be saved, all of them. And yet he has placed in my hands decisions that will impact their ability to hear the gospel. And the Bible tells us in the Book of Romans that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And so I'm made responsible for them. And so the desire of my heart is then I must pour the gospel into my children and put them in places where they can hear the gospel and see the gospel and feel the effects of the gospel through a gospel surrendered life. So what if I choose not to do that? Because it seems to me like it's just not a good idea. that it would deprive them of certain other worldly advantages. And so in my lack of faith in God, I say, you know what, God, I know it's your will to save them, and I know it's your will to expose them to the gospel, but I have a will that is different, and I wanna exercise that will, and I wanna do this with their life, and I wanna see about it that they can become great men of the earth, to influence all the men of the earth. and in my own strength. I don't have faith in the Lord and His will. I put faith in my own. Do you think that could impact whether they ever get saved or not? I do. I think what we say and we do matters. Here, I believe Jesus is teaching this. and the things that I have commissioned you over, you need to show at least a mustard seed of faith. And if you don't, there are some things that you will not be able to do that you ought to be able to do. So let me put it in one more practical situation, and then I'll close this morning. I think I'm to treat everyone and everything as though it's within my sphere of influence. But there are clearly things that are not. Here's what I mean. You remember in John chapter nine, one of the man that was born blind? Remember that the disciples asked him, is this man blind because of his sins or his parents' sins? And God says, neither. It's that the works of God may be shown in him. So let's just hypothesize for a moment that when that young boy was born and his parents begin to realize that he's born blind, that they begin to pray for his healing. And they pray and they pray and they pray and they say, Lord, please heal our son of his blindness. And they think that his blindness is within their stewardship and effect. And so they muster up as much faith as they can, and they pray as men in the Bible did. The apostles asked for, Lord, increase our faith. And they attain a mustard seed of faith. And yet the mountain before them is not one that God has given them authority over, because God has a better purpose for their son. So they pray for their son. and nothing happens. And they pray for their son, and nothing happens. And they pray, and they pray, and they pray for years, and nothing happens. So often at that moment, people abandon faith in God. They say, I've prayed, and I've believed, and God failed me. But I love what Jesus says to the disciples. That boy suffered for 40 years for a greater reason than his healing. What was that reason? Well, now for two millennia, one of the clearest examples in all of the Bible of God saving a person is found and that boy who was born blind. And so imagine, imagine those parents for all those years being disappointed in God that he didn't heal the boy, but all their disappointment was rooted in a deep misunderstanding. God had greater reasons. He's telling these people, I think he's chastening the disciples because of this. I think they had done what we so often do and that is we allow the things that are not within our responsibility and stewardship to so discourage us that we then think that exercising any faith towards any situation will never lead to a good result. You see what I'm saying? Because I had faith and this didn't happen, if I have faith here, there's no use. But here's what I can say from this lesson. It's clear to me that there are some things that suffer from our lack of faith. Right? There are some things that God, just like he did then, had put in our hands to be stewards over. I don't know what those things are. To be honest, the older I get, the less I care. The more I just want to have faith in God for everything. Application point and I'm done. It's not come out the way I intended today. But I guess here's what I would want to inspire you towards. If there are people and situations directly in your life that have tremendous spiritual need, do everything you can with faith to offer those things to the Lord. In other words, don't give up because God didn't move mountains that were not your prerogative to move. There is a need. What Jesus described to them was a physical impossibility, but something that was spiritually easy. Are you hearing me? What was physically impossible, Jesus says, with faith, it is easy. How does that translate to my heart? Here's how it does it. Over the last couple of months, I have found my private prayers without attempt being driven to those who are lost among us and don't know the Lord. And pleading with God, pleading with him to make himself known to them in a very real way. And I'll tell you from my vantage point standing here right now, there is no apparent difference than when I first began to pray. Oh, but by the grace of God, it will not dim the fervency of those prayers. God, I know you love them. You want them to come to know you despite the situation that sees them drifting farther and farther and farther from interest in you. God, I know you will that they come to know you. I believe in you and your power. I believe you don't need visible human instruments that I can perceive to accomplish your will. And so I beseech you, God, to draw them and convict them and show them your glory. And as I look out over many of you and I see some of your children and grandchildren erring very far from being under the sound of the gospel, the natural doubting man fears, but the spiritual man who knows God rejoices in assurance that if I would exercise faith and the mountains that God has put in within my grasp, that they can be moved. And I seek for you to join me in that prayer. That God would move our spiritual mountains and that his reason for not doing it would not be our lack of faith. I pray this week, really, I'm not saying this as words. I pray that God will burden us this week. Really. I pray that God would burden us jointly, not primarily over their need, but over his power. He has power to do things beyond our ability. This situation, I love it. I'm trying to stop. I'm trying to stop. This situation is so beautiful to me because they can't do it. He says, guys, you know better than this. Bring him to me. And then the healing. He just does it. No pomp, no circumstance, not going to some fountain to be dipped seven times. None of that. Jesus just heals him. In the verse, in verse 21, says some things come not out but by prayer and fasting. This morning, I pray God would communicate to your heart what he said upon mine. That's my prayer today. I pray that God would grant you more faith, grant us jointly more faith to see spiritual things done that it is God's will to do. That's our message.