-My son likes going to AWANA. He enjoys playing games, hearing bible stories, singing to campfire songs. He doesn’t exactly enjoy memorizing bible passages. He give up several times while I am trying to help him learn the passages. I have to prod him on, telling him he can do it and that we are almost there until he finally lights up when he realizes that he has accomplished the goal
-Similarly, in our text today, Jesus gives us some hard sayings that seem impossible but pivot around a sincere request from His disciples
-It is their request, “increase our faith” that helps us better apprehend the meaning of the rest of the passage and gives us the strength to do them
-Has anyone ever seen the movie Lorenzo’s Oil?
-It came out in 1992, starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon
-If you can still find it, watch it – great movie
-It is a true story about Augusto and Michaela Odone whose 7 year old son, Lorenzo, is perfectly normal until he begins to suffer blackouts and memory lapses
-He is diagnosed with ALD (Adreno Leuko dystrophy) – a disease passed from mothers to sons that is so rare that doctors weren’t even working on a cure
-Basically, ALD is a disease where the body makes too many fatty acids and somehow it destroys the functions of the brain
-The parents go on a quest to discover answers and discover that giving their son some fatty acids found in vegetable oil, they can slow or even stop the onset of the disease
-Augusto was awarded an honorary doctorate for his discovery
-Some people are willing to go to great lengths to help their children
-If your child had a fatal disease and there was a cure, would you pay any price in order to save your child?
-Most people are willing to do a great deal to assist their children so that they may be healthy and successful in life
-How about spiritually?
-What are you willing to do to help your kids and grandkids get to heaven?
-The Bible is pretty clear in that we are all born sinful and spiritually dead
-The Psalmist writes in Psalm 51, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
-We are all born spiritually dead and in need of God’s salvation
-How many of you chose to be born?
-Likewise, how many of us choose to be reborn into God’s family.
-People who hurt little children or those that are otherwise helpless have a special place in prisons – they are considered in the penal system, even by other criminals to be the lowest of the low
-In the same way, God has a special punishment lined up for those that imperil the salvation of infants and children and steer new believers in the wrong direction
-Out text says that it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and have them thrown into the sea {PAUSE}
-What do you do when someone offends you? Do you silently hold a grudge against them?
-Found on internet - Man Allegedly Patient About Revenge SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) " Police say a 30-year grudge boiled over when a former elementary school teacher littered the driveways of former co-workers and bosses with roofing nails and splattered paint on their garage doors. Thomas R. Haberbush, 72, pleaded guilty last Tuesday to one count each of stalking, criminal mischief and criminal tampering, all misdemeanors. Police said that three former school board members, a retired principal and a retired assistant principal at Caroline Street Elementary School were among the nine victims Haberbush targeted over the past two years. Their car tires were damaged by roofing nails that Haberbush threw in the driveways, police said. "It’s very bizarre to carry around a grudge for nearly 30 years," said Saratoga Springs police investigator John Catone. "At least now there can be closure for all those people he terrorized." Police said Haberbush had been angered after receiving poor work reviews. Saratoga County assistant district attorney David Harper requested that Haberbush undergo a mental health evaluation as part of the plea agreement. He also will be barred from contacting the victims in the future.
-It’s like the old saying, “holding grudges is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
-Jesus says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
-How often do you sin? A few times a year? A couple times a month? Once a week? Every day?
-How bad is our sin problem, really? Is it more like a hangnail or more like a potentially fatal car crash?
-Jesus would say more like the latter – The Apostle Paul, founder of numerous churches, writer of the majority of the NT and martyr says this, “the good that I want to do I can’t and that which I don’t want to do, that I do.”
-When Jesus reinterpreted the Law for the people of His day, He made it clear that sinning was not just deeds committed but thoughts and desires as well
-We are powerless on our own to stop sinning
-But that is why Jesus came – to solve our sin problem
-It was His suffering and death that paid for all of our sins – the ones we’ve already committed and the ones we have yet to commit
-It is not our righteousness that gets us into heaven but His
-It has been said that God will never ask us to forgive someone for more than we have already been forgiven {PAUSE}
-There are several things that we don’t want more of – calories, pounds, problems, headaches, ANY OTHERS
-There are many things we would like a lot more of - $, cars, clothes, shoes, maybe kids but better yet grandkids, love, how about faith
-Jesus disciples say, “Increase our faith.”
-It was a big thing Jesus was asking of them and they realized it – so too for us {PAUSE}
-Jesus says that if your faith is as small as a mustard seed you can say to a mulberry tree be uprooted and planted into the sea and it will happen
-How impossible is that? Have you ever tried to do something seemingly impossible? Yes, you have!
-The apostles could not conceive of doing the miraculous signs that Jesus had done
-However, Jesus says in John’s gospel that his disciples would do even greater things – Do greater things than Jesus? How about speak the gospel that brings people to faith, taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, face persecution and death for the sake of the gospel as a mere human
-Have you done ever done seemingly impossible? Heck yes, you have! You yourselves are miracles of God, having had faith planted in your hearts
-You have shared the hope that you have in Christ Jesus even in the midst of the struggles of life by your words and deeds
-You may not even know the people who have been encouragement by your hopefulness {PAUSE}
-I got in the habit of praising people for the work that they do
-I thanked one of my platoon sergeants one time – he said, “Thank you? I’m only doing my duty.”
-One of the things that bugs me about the Air Force is everyone calls one another sir and ma’am all the time
-In the Army, if you call an NCO sir, he will say to you, “Don’t call me sir. I work for a living.”
-That is what Jesus is talking about in the last section of our text. When we do what God expects of us, should be expect any praise? No!
-Military awards are given out like candy at Halloween these days. Performance reports are over inflated. One chaplain has said that it is not enough anymore in a report to say they walk on water, they have to be carrying Jesus.
-If you do what you are supposed to do, that should be rated as “meets expectations” or “acceptable”
-So, how do we do the things that are required of us? How do we do them when we receive no reward that encourages us to keep going? Faith! God gives us the strength and vitality to keep going despite the obstacles. As it says in Philippians 2:16, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”
-God, please increase our faith!
