A Frustrated Messiah
Text: Matt. 17:14-20
Introduction
1. Illustration: Our dog Copper has issues! First of all, he is part Basset Hound and part Terrier. If you combine a Labrador and a Poodle they are called a "Labradoodle." That would make Copper a "Barrier," and the barrier is between his ears - he's not very bright. He is dependent on me to take care of him. When I get up in the morning he is waiting on me to feed him. He goes into this dance and runs around in circles because he knows it is time for him to eat. It would be cruel for me to know that he cannot eat unless I feed him and just ignore him. He is dependent upon me.
2. We encounter people everyday who have needs and Jesus has given us the responsibility to meet their needs. Jesus is frustrated when we don't meet those needs.
3. The truth is...
a. People Need Our Help
b. We Lack the Faith to Help Them
c. We Need to Step Out in Faith
4. Read Matt. 17:14-20
Proposition: Jesus has given us all we need to meet people's needs and wants us to step out in faith and meet those needs.
Transition: The spiritual reality of life is...
I. People Need Our Help (14-16).
A. I Brought Him to Your Disciples
1. This text is living proof that we cannot live on the mountain. We have to come down and minister to the people in the valley.
2. As Jesus and the disciples come off the mountain, "At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus..."
a. Keep in mind that this happened the day after the Transfiguration.
b. Immediately after the Transfiguration Jesus was again confronted with sickness and the powerlessness of the disciples, who had yet to learn the source of His authority (Horton, 363).
c. After being on the mountain and having tasted once again his heavenly glory he is confronted with the reason he came.
d. He came to save, heal, forgive and restore.
3. As the man knelt before Jesus he said, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water."
a. The word being translated here means "to suffer epileptic seizures (associated in ancient times with the supernatural power of the moon) - 'to suffer epileptic seizures, to be an epileptic'" (Louw and Nidda, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Symantic Domains).
b. Some of the symptoms depicted here resemble those of epilepsy, which may imply that demons gaining control over the human central nervous system can sometimes cause epileptic-type phenomena.
c. This observation does not, however, mean that epilepsy is always caused by demons (Keener).
d. The worst part of this is that the demon tried to kill the boy by throwing him into fire or water. The demon was torturing the boy, and it held him captive (Horton, 363).
4. The man respects Jesus as an esteemed pious master by calling him "Lord," but he goes beyond that to anticipate that Jesus can extend mercy to heal his son.
a. He has apparently heard of Jesus’ reputation as a miracle worker and seeks help for his beleaguered son.
b. The boy’s lack of control over motor skills causes him to suffer greatly.
c. The father had such confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal that he assumes that his disciples have this ability as well.
d. But his confidence has been dashed: "I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him" (Wilkins, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Matthew, 595).
5. The man tells Jesus, "So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.”
a. In light of their previous commissioning, empowering, and experience, it seems strange that the disciples now failed where once they had succeeded.
b. About a year earlier, Jesus had sent the Twelve out to minister "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
c. And as you go," He said, "preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
d. Hadn't He already given them power over unclean spirits (Matthew 10:1)?
e. It is clear from this verse that the power of God is not a permanent possession; it must be maintained by prayer and faith. We are encouraged by Paul not to neglect a gift.
f. 1 Timothy 4:14 (NLT)
Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.
B. Every Spiritual Blessing
1. Illustration: What is it to serve God and to do His will? Nothing else than to show mercy to our neighbor. For it is our neighbor who needs our service; God in heaven needs it not (Martin Luther).
2. God has given us everything we need to minister to people.
a. Ephesians 1:3 (NLT)
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
b. He has given us the ability.
c. He has given us his power.
d. He has given us his Word.
e. There is nothing that we lack!
3. God has blessed us to be a blessing.
a. Genesis 12:2 (NLT)
I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.
b. He hasn't blessed so that we could lavish in our blessedness.
c. He hasn't blessed us so that we could tell everyone how blessed we are.
d. He hasn't blessed us to sit on our blessings.
e. He has blessed us to be a blessing to others.
4. God has given to us so that we can give to others.
a. 1 Corinthians 12:7 (NLT)
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
b. He has given us His Word so that we can tell others the Good News.
c. He has given us His comfort so that we can comfort others in need.
d. He has given us gifts to share with a lost, hurting, and dying world.
Transition: He has given us everything we need to help people and He gets frustrated with us when...
II. We Lack the Faith to Help Them (17-18).
A. Faithless People
1. At this point Jesus is incredibly frustrated. The question we need to answer is with whom is he frustrated?
a. Is he frustrated with the father? No.
b. Is he frustrated with the son? No.
c. Is he frustrated with the crowd? No.
d. He is frustrated with his disciples.
2. We can see his level of frustration when he says, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
a. Jesus expected his disciples to have sufficient faith to repeat his miracles by this point.
b. Faithless: to refuse to put one's trust or reliance in something or someone (Louw and Nidda, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Symantic Domains).
c. Faithless . . . people (v. 17) applied generally to Jesus' contemporaries, but in this case specifically to his disciples, who proved unable to stand in for him in his absence.
d. Disciples were by definition apprentices in training to assume the role of their teachers.
e. Jesus had already sent his disciples out, and they had healed the sick and driven out demons. Had they not seen enough to believe (Keener)?
f. Perhaps the events of the Transfiguration explains Jesus' frustration.
g. The event was the high point of Jesus' life until now. He was reminded of the splendor and glory of heaven. Now he is confronted with once again with human unbelief (Horton, 365).
3. So Jesus did what his disciples should have done. He "rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well."
a. The demon knew his efforts were hopeless, because, he recognized the divine identity of Jesus.
b. He was compelled to obey the Son of God (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
c. Jesus rebuked and condemned demons not people.
d. Notice that the moment Jesus cast out the demon the boy was healed (Horton, 365).
B. Lacking Faith
1. Illustration: "Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things, ‘above all that we ask or think’. Each time, before you Intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!" (Murray, Andrew)
2. To believe is to act.
a. James 2:26 (NLT)
Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.
b. It is not enough to say you believe in prayer; you have to do it.
c. It is not enough to say you believe in the Word; you have to do what it says.
d. It is not enough to say we need to tell people about Jesus; you have to do it.
3. We need to trust in God's ability to use us.
a. Zechariah 4:6 (NLT)
Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
b. It doesn't matter what your abilities are.
c. It doesn't matter what you think you can do.
d. It does matter what you think God can do through you.
Transition: As a result...
III. We Need to Step Out In Faith (19-20).
A. Faith As Small As a Mustard Seed
1. As you might imagine, the disciples felt like a bunch of whipped puppies.
2. So "Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, 'Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?'”
a. They were embarrassed at their own failure and were perplexed as to why they themselves could... not cast it out.
b. Why was He able to accomplish with a word what they had not been able to accomplish with great effort?
c. "You commissioned and empowered us to heal and to cast out demons," they said, in effect. "And we have been successful before. Why did we fail this time?"
d. They probably went about the act of casting out the demon in the same way they had on earlier occasions.
e. They probably invoked the Lord's name, commanded the demon to leave, and awaited his departure. But this time nothing happened (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
3. Like any good teacher, Jesus was kind but to the point. He said, “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”
a. Jesus makes a powerful statement about faith. The disciples had failed not because of a lack of ability, but because of a lack of faith.
b. The disciples do have faith in Jesus and his mission, but here it is not functioning properly; it is "little faith," or defective faith.
c. Apparently in the present incident the disciples were either relying on their own abilities to do the exorcism, or else they were doing something that God had not called them to do; perhaps they were trying to put on a show for their own acclaim (Wilkins, 597).
d. Jesus' reference to the mustard seed had more to do with its ability to grow than its size.
e. If he was using an illustration about size he could have easily used a grain of sand.
f. The point is that faith can grow. We need to feed our faith with the Word of God and become aware of the power of God.
g. In referring to the moving of mountains, Jesus was illustrating the limitless power of God (Horton, 367).
h. Ancient peoples thought of mountains as rooted far beneath the earth, so "moving mountains" was a typical Jewish teacher's image for doing what was virtually impossible.
i. With this illustration Jesus indicates that even were we casting out mountains rather than demons, we would only be scratching the surface of a life of faith (Keener).
B. Believing What God Can Do
1. Illustration: A man walked up to a vending machine, put in a coin, pressed the buttons labeled, “coffee, double cream, sugar.” No cup appeared, but the nozzles went into action sending forth coffee, cream and sugar. After the proper amounts had gone down the drain, the machine turned off. “Now that’s real automation,” said the man. “This thing even drinks it for you.” That is just how some people want their faith. They want to make a deposit, put in some money and let the rest be taken care of automatically.
2. By faith we will do the impossible.
a. Mark 9:23 (NLT)
“What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
b. We will do things that we didn't realize we could do.
c. We will do things that no one thought we could do.
d. We will do things beyond our abilities, talents, and resources.
3. By faith we will see God do amazing through you.
a. John 11:40 (NLT)
Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”
b. We will see people saved.
c. We will see people healed.
d. We will see people filled with the Spirit.
e. We will see lives transformed to the glory of God.
Transition: Are you ready to step out in faith and see the power of God at work in your life?
Conclusion
1. The truth is...
a. People Need Our Help
b. We Lack the Faith to Help Them
c. We Need to Step Out in Faith
2. Do you want to be a source of frustration or a source of joy?
3. What would you rather hear, "You of little faith," or "Well done good and faithful servant?"
4. The choice is yours.
