Transcription
The word of God is living and active. The Holy Spirit uses it to convict and comfort us. So let's listen as God speaks to us today from Matthew 17:14-20.
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly, for often he falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him."
And Jesus answered, "Oh faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."
This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray.
Thank you, God, so much for this day, for this opportunity for us to gather together freely in your name. Lord, thank you so much for, um, the word that you're going to bring to us today. I pray that if anything is not of you, that it will fall on deaf ears and what is from you, um, will fall into open hearts and open minds. God, thank you again. We love you and we need you in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.
>> Well, good morning again. Um, from time to time, we get, uh, the blessing and privilege, uh, to do what we're about to do this morning, which is to welcome a guest preacher. Um, we're really excited, uh, whenever we get, uh, to do this. Uh, our guest preacher this morning, his name is Zach Cochran. I'm excited for him to come up here in just a second. Um, Zach has, uh, served as a, a pastor, uh, in different capacities over the years. He currently, uh, serves as vice president of operations, uh, at the Gospel Coalition. I think I got that right. Sorry if I didn't. Um, Zach and our other pastor, Tim, uh, are good friends. They worked together for a number of years at, uh, one of our sending churches, um, and they also went to seminary, um, together. So, Zach is a, a friend of our pastors and a friend, um, of our church.
Now, all that said, um, the best way that we can actually set Zach up well today is less to focus on his position or who he knows and instead to receive what he is here to bring, um, which is the word of God. So, every time we have a guest preacher, um, we say this is that receive, uh, what he says, um, as you receive what, uh, Tim or myself or Stephen have to say, um, because we're bringing the same thing, which is the word, um, of God. We are blessed to have him this morning. So, y'all welcome up, uh, Zack Cochran.
Good morning. It's great to be with you again. And I'll say happy Father's Day to the fathers in the room since I'm not with my crew, my kids. Packed my best dad ever socks for us today. So, um, I am celebrating in. I got a video on the way to church of really grumpy but trying to say happy Father's Day kids this morning. Uh, my name is Zach. Like Garrison said, I get to serve with the Gospel Coalition. If you're not familiar with our ministry, um, we were started about 20 years ago. And here's the singular focus of the Gospel Coalition is to renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel. 20 years ago, Tim Keller and Don Carson got together over coffee and said, "Hey, we don't go to the same church. We don't believe all the same things, but believe in the same Jesus. Why can't more people do this?" And so they started hanging out, started becoming friends. They invited more friends into this and say, "How can this broaden to write more resources for the church?" So, we exist to help the church flourish. We're in confusing times, challenging times, and we're trying to help you guys live faithfully in this moment. We exist to serve the church. So, if we're playing in the Olympics, TGC never gets gold. The church gets gold medals. Our best day, we get silver medals. So, our hope is to help churches, help pastors keep flourishing and surviving.
We just had our women's conference singing and praising about Jesus last week. And I want to say this, in my position now outside the local church now, serving and traveling several weeks out of the year, I get to be in churches like this. And I'm also a part of Harbor Network, which is a network you're involved in. And I get to be in in rooms like this all the time. And I'll say, "This is something special. You're in a room in the second floor of a Y singing and talking about Jesus. And my guess is there's sacrifices you've made to be in this room. There's travel arrangements you've made to be in this room. There's there's relationships maybe you don't have 'cause you're in this room. And I would say do not grow weary. >> Keep being strange 'cause there's a vibrancy to this room. There's a, there's a joy to this room even amongst your team that isn't normal. And there's something special here. If you don't grow weary, God, God is doing something special in this church and in the city. So whatever when you hit the road bumps, when you hit the speed bumps, just continue to believe that Jesus is doing something way much way beyond what we could ever do in our own strength. You pray for us and we can get into the word.
Father, we're here because you're alive and we need your help. And we ask you to give us grace and open our eyes to see the beauty of your son Jesus. Say something to us this morning. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.
Amen. Had the joy of going to seminary and working in a church with one of your pastors, Tim. Um, we have a picture of the young crew we were in. Um, this is a, uh, a crew that, uh, we were underpaid, um, under, underucated, and completely naive. Um, we just competed 96-hour degrees. We graduated seminary. We just went through a four-year cohort together. I think at the end of this picture, we just finished a preaching tournament, which is again, very naive and kind of ego, egoomaniacal. Um, and when I look at this picture, I think, man, what we didn't know there. This, this, this picture got shared around in our text group a couple years ago, and one, one of our friends said, "Back when we thought pastoring was going to be cool." Uh, when I think about this picture, I thought about all the things I didn't know. I had all this education, had all this training. I was, we were a part of a church that was in some magazine for some reason said that we were one of the fastest growing churches in America, and I thought I could do it. I thought that all this education, all this training, all these things I had prepared for that I was able to do this thing called ministry. The naivity was, I wasn't ready. I won't speak for town, but here, here's what I've come to learn. That all that knowledge, all that training, all those things I was able to learn didn't prepare me for my own sin struggles, for helping people through grief, to walking with that person over and over again that still struggling with that same thing. Helping teach the Bible to teenagers that have no interest in listening to you. Helping lose a child when you're just trying to have children. I, I thought the biggest, biggest belief I had in my mind that was false was I could do this.
Luckily, the Bible isn't naive to these realities because in the Bible, especially in the gospel, we see Jesus journeying with a group of young men similar to this. Naive, undereducated, under ready, and Jesus is walking with them along the way. In our text today in Matthew chapter 17, we see this, this story of these disciples thinking they were ready. Where we are in the story is these disciples are, are, are journeying with Jesus and Jesus around the corner and he's headed toward Jerusalem. So he knew he would die and he's preparing his disciples to get there and they're just coming down from the transfiguration and he wants to teach them something about faith. In our passage today, I just want to give you a quick outline so you know where we're going. We see a rebuke. We see the re, the reason for the rebuke. And we're seeing a response that we all can have. A rebuke, a reason, and the response.
Let's look at the rebuke. Disciples are coming down from the transfiguration. If you don't remember where we were last week in the, in the last passage, transfiguration is where Jesus shone this glorious moment. He invited these couple disciples into this moment. They're coming down from the hill. When they come down from the hill, this father runs up to Jesus and and talks about his son who is deathly ill. And he goes to his feet and he cries, "Lord, will you heal my son?" And he says, "The other disciples that you tried to leave me with couldn't do it." His father at the bottom of the mountain is longing for his son to be healed. He went to the disciples first and they couldn't do it. And look at what Jesus says to these disciples. Look at verse 17. Your Bibles. "Oh faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." If we're honest, that's, it's really harsh. Faithless and twisted stings. And the problem wasn't that they hadn't done enough, is that they hadn't done what Jesus told them to do. There was a lack of faith. There wasn't lack of evidence. There wasn't lack of experience. He had already commissioned these disciples once before to go out and heal in Matthew chapter 10. But he has commissioned them and he's, they're down. They're waiting and they're trying to be like Jesus. They're trying to be grown up and they couldn't heal the man's son. "How long am I to bear with you?" Imagine us trying to hear that from Jesus. Imagine us trying to say, trying to do something for Jesus. And Jesus' response was, "How long am I to bear with you?" And Jesus, after being frustrated with his disciples, he does this. Look in verses, verse 18. "And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly."
This tone, sorry guys, this tone of rebuke of the demon and the tone of the rebuke of the disciples is the very same tone. The tone that that says, "How long will I put up with you?" And the tone that he says, "Get out of this child demon is the same language." And notice that Jesus just uses his words. He just instantly with his words healed this boy from this demon. And the demon came out. And the disciples tried their best. They couldn't do it. And this father runs to this Jesus and says, "Father, have mercy on my son." And all of a sudden, he's healed by Jesus's words. And it's a reminder that of this phrase that faith is not a power you possess. Faith is not a power you possess. Faith is the substance of the power Jesus has. >> We do not contain power in and of ourselves to heal, to demonstrate, to do any work. The disciples' problem wasn't that they weren't doing the right, uh, practice or method. Their problem was they thought they could do it themselves. Faith is not a power we can possess. It's not a magic technique that we put in our pocket and we pull out when the party trick is available. Faith is not something we just muster up and we lean in on ourselves. Faith is knowing that Jesus is who he said he was. Pastor Tony Evans said like this, "Faith is acting like what God said is true." >> Faith is saying, "I believe who Jesus is, what he's done. He's for me, and I'm going to bank my life that he's going to do what exactly what he said he's going to do." When we're not using faith is not mustering up some type of power, energy, or or or mechanisms that we think God will respond to. I don't know if you know this or not, but God can do whatever he wants to do. He's not, "Oh, if they just say the right words, if they just do the right name." I don't know if you know this, but "in Jesus' name" isn't lifting the door to your prayers. "In Jesus' name" is the posture of our prayers. In Jesus' name, when we pray in Jesus' name, we're saying, "God, I can't do this." I'm saying "in Jesus' name" because Jesus holds all authority on earth as it is in heaven. >> Amen. >> Disciples' problem wasn't their mechanisms, it was their power. They were trying to do it in and of themselves.
So, what about you today? Do you, do you have a posture that says things like, "I've got this. If I can get my kids in the right schools, if I can just do the right things, if I can get that promotion, if I just work hard enough, I can fix them. If I just believe strong enough." The challenge of the prosperity gospel isn't that God will give us amazing things. The problem with the prosperity gospel is that we can bring about our own prosperity. That we can just muster up Jesus like he's a genie in a bottle. And God is the most generous being in the world. He's going to give you life and joy, but not because you have the best things to offer him, because you're his child. So, what are you trying to do in your own strength? What are you trying to do in your own power?
Jesus rebukes these disciples and then he gives the reason for the rebuke. Look at verse 17, uh, verse 19 and 20. And the disciples pulled him aside. I should imagine the scenario. They're so red-faced. They're so embarrassed. They, "Oh my God, we tried. Jesus, we tried. We couldn't do it. Why can't we do it?" And look what he says. "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, 'Why could we not cast it out?' And Jesus said to them, 'Because you have little faith.'" You have little faith. This little faith term is something that's kind of the, the watermark, the trademark of Matthew's writing. He uses this phrase in Jesus's teachings over and over again. In chapter 6, he says, "You of little faith when, um, on whether God would provide." Um, in chapter 8, um, when the disciples were worried about the storm, he says, "Why are you afraid, oh you of little faith?" When Peter was sinking, when he's trying to walk on the water, he was sinking. He says to Peter, "Oh, of you of little faith, why do you doubt?" When the disciples are panicking about having enough food to feed the 5,000, he says, "Oh, you of little faith." And then right here, "You do not have, uh, you have little faith." This little faith is the trademark of Jesus's teaching. And he's not simply telling them, "Oh, you have, uh, little faith because you don't believe hard enough or you don't have enough practice or experience or strength." You have little faith because you don't believe what, what I can do. The little faith was not about the quantity of their faith. It was about the object of their faith. "You of little faith." That was me in the photo. We've got this. We're ready. We can do this. It's you when you think if I just read my Bible enough, if I just read my annual Bible reading plan, if I come to church every Sunday, if I pray enough, then God will give me enough energy to love him and my neighbors well. And I just want to say, like, our faith isn't a power-up. We're not these cartoon characters that level up. We're not these people who, who just grow into these muscled faith people. That's not the way faith works. Because we know that all throughout the Bible that these people who believed in Jesus to believe God for what he's going to do constantly failed.
Here's what I found interesting about faith. The, the models of faith we have in the Bible are not people we would pick out as faithful models. Go to Hebrews 11. I wouldn't hire half the people in Hebrews 11. They wouldn't pass background checks. They, they're murderers. They're rapists. They're, they've killed multiple people. They've done heinous things. But the Hebrews says, "Hey guys, here's some faithful folks. Follow them." Why is that? Because if, if faithfulness is this moral, uh, hierarchy of climbing the ladder of faithfulness, yeah, Hebrews 11 doesn't make sense. But if faithfulness is saying that I'm, I'm a wrecked mess that continues to come back to Jesus for forgiveness, then that's faithfulness. Faithfulness is not strength. It's weakness. The disciples' problem was they had little faith. They thought they could do it. And Mark says this type of demon can only come out by prayer. What's prayer? Prayer is helplessness. Contrast the disciples' approach to this father's approach where he just says three words. "Lord, have mercy." Can I just take it aside right now on Father's Day, particularly? Know not all of us are fathers, but some of us are. And I just want to say to fathers, the greatest gift we can give to our children is "Lord, have mercy." Your child's greatest need is not for you to be this uber strong, never flawless, never have any chinks in the armor, never have any sins. That's not the greatest gift you can give to your child. The greatest gift we can give to our children, even the boys I'm trying to raise to be strong, noble, is to teach them that weakness is a gift. That they deeply need Jesus. Because if I create little self-sustaining, self-sufficient humans that never need Jesus, I've missed the mark. "Lord, have mercy." was his father's prayer. They, he comes to Jesus with these open hands because he knew exactly who could do something about his need. Da Carson says this in his commentary on Matthew. "What they need is not giant faith but true faith. What they need is not giant faith but true faith." The contrast. The gospels are always contrasting characters. If you, when you're reading the gospels, always know this character and this character are trying to be compared to. And the disciples are being compared to this young father. And this young father said, "Lord, have mercy." And the disciples are saying, "How come we couldn't do it?" Self-performance, self-reliance compared to desperation and neediness. Tiny is fine.
And look at the illustration that Jesus gives us to show us what faith is like. Look at verse, uh, 20. "For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to a mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." He calls the disciples on their little faith. And then the picture he gives them is of the smallest grain you can imagine. What's he trying to show here is that it isn't the quantity of our faith. It's the person of our faith, the mustard seed. If you believe like a mustard seed, you have true faith. Dr. Tom Shriner said it in his article on this. He says, "The focus is not on our faith but its object. The focus is not on our faith but its object." Faith talk can often gaze our eyes toward ourselves, but this father's faith was gazing his eyes on Jesus. Like a mustard seed, it grows and it nurses and it spreads and it's dependent. I grew up in rural West Tennessee, a farm ground, and I learned a lot about faith from watching the farm community, watching my family, knowing that they can plant crops and they can put fertilizer on and they can do all the things they need to do, but they will not grow a crop unless it rains. Our faith is like a seed, desperate, needy, but hopeful. As God brings rain, our faith flourishes. That's why plants and trees are the primary illustration of faith in the Bible. You do not produce your own fruit. God produces that fruit in you. We need to hear this this morning. And I'm a guy who loves lifting weights. You, I love this church because I can work out and sweat and go to church at the same time. If I lived in Charlotte, I would come here stinking in awe. >> But we need to hear this this morning. Faith is not a muscle, it's a seed. For faith is a seed, not a muscle. Faith is not a muscle to grow.
One of the, one of the verses that blows my mind is in, in Romans 12. It's Paul's letter to the Romans and he's getting to the applications. He has this chapter full of imperatives and he says this, "Be sober minded. Be humble each according to the measure of faith God gives." You say that one more time. "Be sober minded. Be humble each according to the measure of faith God gives." Your faith is a gift. And the incremental versions of your faith is also a gift. And here's one that humbles us. It destroys our self-righteousness. There's not enough Bible studies you can attend to be righteous. There's not enough classes you can attend to be godly. And when we look across a room full of different backgrounds, different, um, home lives, different education levels, different church backgrounds, different church traditions, all in one place, we can look at one another and say, "The only reason we are in this room is because God has given us faith." >> Yeah. >> And I can't be self-righteous comparing my faith to your faith because my faith isn't even mine to begin with. I get no credit at the end of my life when the credits roll. It's just God. Zach did nothing to earn any of this. And it's also we can't look down our nose at people that are just not there yet. >> They're just not ready to trust. They're not ready to learn. They're not ready to grow. If you can't tolerate slow-growing Christians, this place will be frustrating for you. 'Cause you will think, well, I'm doing this. Why can't you? 'Cause you believe faith is a muscle, not a seed. But what we do as a church is we, we bake in this, this garden, this garden with fertile soil, with healthy plants and little plants and big plants and say, "Hey, we're all in one garden, but we all get the same amount of rain." And how God lands that rain on my soil and how God lands that rain on your soil, it's all God. But let's grow together. Let's bear fruit. And some trees are going to give canopy to other trees. And some, some smaller plants are going to get the nutrients from other roots that can borrow it. But one garden together, growing together because of God's grace. Faith is a seed. It's not a muscle. It's not something you can just muster up and grow out of. You cannot believe enough to have faith. You need to see Jesus. He's right there.
I love in, in the end of his, end of this book, I'm sorry to spoil it for y'all, Garrison. The end of this book in Matthew, Jesus commissioning his disciples and he comes to the, the mountain where he appoints them. And I love that Matthew includes this line. "They came to the mountain, but some doubted." And Jesus says, Jesus telling, like Jesus ignores it. "All authority has been given to me. So I say to you, go make disciples of all nations." Matthew's logic is these disciples are coming. Some are doubting. And Jesus' first line of the great commission is "all authority has been given to me and I delegate it to you." Do we have room for doubt in our faith? Because if, if doubt is this, um, this posture that we just say, "Oh, you can't, you can't doubt." You got to be certain. I grew up in a, like revivalistic culture where every, I got saved every time I've doubted my faith. If you're not 100% sure, come down this altar today. I got rededicated so many times. But we have the, we have Jesus giving the keys of the kingdom to doubters. He says, "Go and and build my kingdom." Why? Because it's not on us. >> It's on the authority and reign of Jesus.
Can I encourage you this morning not to believe this lie that it's up to your confidence in your own ability. It's up to your confidence that Jesus is who he said he is. So what's our response? What's the response from us? And I could give you seven steps to grow your faith today, right? How to level up. And I just want to leave you to one, one question. When I look back at that picture, a lot of emotions come up. A lot of our, we're, we're still friends, most of us. And there's stories in that picture of cancer diagnoses, loss of children, hard situations, pastor transitions, just really difficult situations that nothing we did in that season prepared us for. And one of the things I learned since that picture is that I cannot do it in my own strength. I am a controller. I like planning everything because if I plan it well enough, it'll go exactly like I want it to do. And life doesn't work that way, does it? My guess is you've had dreams dashed, had circumstances that shocked you. There's pain in this room that I'll never know. For situations that are really complex. Can I just ask you this one question? What are you trying to do in your own strength? What are you trying to do in your own strength? As you think about your life and you think about all the things you're trying to do, all the, the, the ways you're trying to raise your kids or all the accomplishments you're trying to make in your career, all the ways you're trying to be faithful in this church. What are you trying to do in your own strength?
You may be here and you, you're on the line of what this Christian thing about. You may come to the Y. You're like, I saw a church upstairs. I'll check this out. Maybe you come with a friend. I have this conversation in my church all the time. I just want to turn over a new leaf. I just need to get my life together. Those are not bad things. They're just insufficient. Maybe today is the day you realize the greatest need you have is to give up and give the keys over to Jesus and believe that he is who he said he's going to be. You might ask, all of you might ask, why would I do that? It's because after this chapter, we're headed to a place where Jesus is going to die on our behalf. He's headed to Jerusalem. He says this, he, he rebukes these disciples knowing he would continue to journey with them. So, if you feel like a disciple today and you feel like, "Oh, I don't have enough faith. I'm trying to do it my own." Good news. Jesus loves us still >> because he doesn't give up on these disciples. He knows they're going to betray him. He knows they're going to abandon him. Yet, he continues in Matthew to go toward the hill where he would be crucified and he would be nailed and they would bury him and he would rise on the third day. And one of the first people he gets to be with after his resurrection is his disciples, the ones he rebuked in this very text. Jesus is a patient savior and he can be trusted.
So when you think about what are you trying to do in your own strength and what do you need to get over, give over to Jesus, I want you to picture Jesus with his arms open saying, "Stop carrying that. It's not for you to carry." Stop carrying your parents' mess. Stop carrying your kids' future. Stop carrying all the things you're trying to carry. You're human. You're finite. Us trying to carry all of life's struggles on our own is like the disciples trying to heal the kid in their own strength. It's impossible. But with faith of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. Nothing is impossible. What are you trying to do in your own strength? What are you trying to do in your own power? I invite you to give that to Jesus today.
Let's take time and just a moment of reflection. We invite you to sit however you're comfortable sitting in prayer. Close your eyes. And I, we're just going to sit with that question. What are you trying to do in your own strength? What do you need to give to God? Maybe your prayer this morning is the same prayer of the father. "Lord, have mercy." That'll do.
Father, we come to you like the father with empty hands knowing we bring nothing to the table with with faith of a mustard seed asking you to grow us. May you pour out your rain on our souls that are thirsty and need quenching. May you awaken us to things we don't know about or even ourselves. Father, I pray a prayer of blessing over this church. May you grow their faith and dependence on you. May you draw to them weary people that need a savior. May you bring brokenness into this place and messiness into this place. And may those people find a tenderness and a kindness that welcomes a stranger. May this church be a beacon of light amidst darkness. We pray this all for the fame of Jesus. Amen.