Walking on a Bridge of Faith
Matthew 17:15-21
“For assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here there’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” - Matthew 17:20
All of us have traveled across bridges. When we travel across a bridge, it usually means that two bodies of land have been separated by a challenge. There's either a water way, such as a lake or a river, that has to be crossed and we can't drive across. Therefore, they construct a bridge. Maybe there's one mountain range to another range or one large hill to another hill which is separated by a valley or low spot. You can't drive across because it's too big, so they construct a bridge. This bridge is designed to take you from where you are to where you are trying to go. We are trying to get from here to there, so they construct a bridge that we can cross over from where we are to where we need to be.
There is a bridge that God has constructed for everyone, so we can move from the natural to the supernatural. He has given us a bridge. We do not have to stay stuck where we are. We can literally move from where we are in the natural into the supernatural. But we have to cross the bridge. The bridge that God has constructed for us to move from the natural to the supernatural is called FAITH. It is the only bridge that He has constructed. So, we do not use this bridge, we cannot cross over. No matter how much we want to cross over or how much we need to cross over, without the bridge of faith, we cannot move from the natural into the supernatural.
Now, it's time for us to cross over because God has constructed the bridge. But a bridge unused becomes a useless bridge to those who need it the most. Many of us, whether in our lives or in the lives of others, know that what we need in our lives demands the supernatural. The reason we know our struggles demand the supernatural, is because the natural hasn't fixed it. The natural has not changed it, reversed it, or done anything substantial with it. Therefore, it's time to cross over into the supernatural. But there's only one bridge, and that's the bridge of faith.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, we need to know the power of unbelief because faith is the only bridge to heaven. Unbelief will keep us stuck where we are. Unbelief is a powerful tool the enemy uses against us. We can read in the gospel of Matthew chapter 13:58, “Now Jesus did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” Unbelief can stop God's many mighty works in our life. Unbelief is so powerful. It'll keep God at a distance. Unbelief is so powerful that you could spend the rest of your life stuck where you are and never cross over to see the supernatural.
Today let’s meditate on a story in Matthew chapter 17:14-15. “A man came to Jesus, keeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic” and sufferers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.” The boy was physically weakened due to his condition, but the scripture shows he has somebody in his life who cares, which naturally was his father. His father cared that he had an extremely sick son who needed to be delivered. Now we are here either we need deliverance for us or someone we know needs deliverance. The natural can't fix all our problems. And the father of the epileptic boy knew this. The father says in verse 16, “I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him.” Look at the verse, in Matthew 10:1, “And when He called His 12 disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.” But the father came to Jesus and said, ‘I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’ The disciples whom Jesus had given the full authority to cast out demons and illness, could not heal and cure this child.
I. Faithlessness Leads to Perversion
When he brought the boy to Jesus, Jesus said in Matthew 17:17, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. However, notice what Jesus says before He says to bring the child. In verse 17, “O faithless, unbelieving, and perverse generation. How long shall I be with you. How long shall I bear with you?” Why is Jesus upset? He says you are a generation that has upset me because you are unbelieving, and your unbelief has made you perverted. The word ‘perverse’ is used in this context to mean behave in a way that is unacceptable or alter from your original path. Faithlessness leads to perversion. Your unbelief has perverse your thinking, it has perverse how you operate, it has perverse how you look at God. And now God must remind you of His glory and make you have to go through the same stuff over and over and over again. Because faithlessness leads to Perversion. Faithlessness leads you to behave in a way that is unacceptable or alternate from your original path God has set for you. Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.” In Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him.”
II. Faith beneath the Surface Level
Secondly, the Bible says when the father brings the boy to Jesus, In Matthew 17:18 “Jesus rebuked the demon, and the child was cured from that very hour.” It’s interesting, the boy had a neurological problem, he's got the medical issue, but behind all this is a demon. If you don't see the demon and you don't understand the demon, then you're just going to be dealing with a neurological problem or physical problem and physical circumstances. Jesus knows the source of his problem because the source of his problem was spiritual. His neurological problems were part of his physical problems. We can call it seizure. A seizure usually affects a person who appears or acts for a short time.
However, not every problem doesn't exist because there is a spiritual negative reason. In other words, you can have a headache just because something is wrong physically. It's not a demon. It's just a headache. What should I do? How do I know? Understand, when you go to a doctor because of a headache that won't go away, the doctor is going to look deeper to examine it. You might be x-rayed. The doctor is going to look deeper and then the doctor will tell you, “no, it's just a headache. However, we sometimes face a problem where we don't go spiritually deeper to find out if a problem is spiritually deeper. We become satisfied with surface solutions and ideas which is fundamentally unbelief.
It says when Jesus spoke to the demon, the demon came out at once. Dear church, we have at least once in our lives experienced a supernatural miracle like this. We know we have been touched by God’s supernatural power when we have been dealing with troubles for years. But when we hold on tight to our faith life, all our troubles disappear overnight. Because dear brothers and sisters, that is the supernatural. We know that is not of the natural world, because you've been dealing with this addiction for a long time, you’ve been dealing with this problem for a long time, you've been dealing with this mindset for a long time, and you've been dealing with a certain circumstance for a long time. You've tried this and tried, but it has not worked over the years. But the moment you cross this bridge of faith, God comes out immediately and takes away what was troubling you for so many years. Because when you cross that bridge, it allows God to let the supernatural to happen in your life.
III. Faith Stronger than disbelief
Thirdly, in Matthew 17:19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” There are some people here also, in your private conversation with Jesus, are saying, “it doesn't work”. It is not working! This may be a human mortal error in our christian lives. It's not working. I'm not getting the victory, I'm not being delivered, and it's not working, and I tried. ‘It didn’t work’, this is what the disciples are saying. They tried, but it wasn't working, and they want to know why?
So, Jesus answers in verse 20, “because of your unbelief.” Jesus says the reason you failed was the power of unbelief. Your faith was so tiny that you could not cross the bridge into the supernatural. He said your faith was too small. Your faith was insufficient for the problem. You had enough faith to go to church, you had enough faith to be religious, you may even have had enough faith to pick up your Bible, but the faith you had and the amount of faith you needed didn't match. Only if your faith is strong will you be able to cross the bridge of faith and allow the supernatural to happen in your life.
Now let's meditate on a phenomenal principle of us entering into the supernatural. In chapter 17 Jesus is talking to His disciples. Remember, we're also His disciples. “If you have faith, the size of a mustard Seed you will say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
The Lord says we need mustard seed sized faith to deal with mountain-sized problems. Mountains in the Bible are immovable circumstances. Things you can't change because they're too big. Isaiah 54:10 says, “For mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed say the Lord who has mercy on you.” But Jesus says, in order to move a mountain, you need a mustard seed. We may all have this huge problem, this huge addiction, this huge crisis, or this huge issue which is extremely big. It has been there for years, and you've tried everything. But you know, it won't move. God said, what is missing is a mustard seed. A mustard seed of faith.
IV. Living Faith
Fourthly, some people may complain, ‘I do have a little faith. But how can a little seed move a big mountain?’ Did you know, when you plant this small mustard seed, from inside that seed a 15-foot mustard tree will grow. The seed is tiny, but the life inside of it is big. So, what made the disciples’ faith little, was actually the lack of life inside of it. It was a life issue, not a size issue. Because this mustard seed was used to refer to the smallest kind of seed you could ever have. We all see how small it is. However, the issue was not the size, but was living faith versus lifeless faith. What makes your faith small, is the absence of spiritual life inside of it. It's the void of spiritual life. James 2:17 says, “Faith does not have works, is dead” - calls it dead faith. It is faith without life. Our problem is a lack of life.
We imagine big things, big programs, big activities, and big expectations with no life. So how can it grow? It won't grow because something without spiritual life cannot grow. The Lord says, if you have a mustard seed kind of faith, which is a life pulsating with spiritual life even though it's tiny, you will see the wonders your faith can produce because it's full of life.
So, it's the nature of faith that produces the power of the supernatural. Jesus says it can move mountains or troubles that seem like they cannot be fixed. He says when you have a mustard seed of living faith, you will tell the mountain what it must do. You will say something, and you will be able to have a conversation with the problem. God is not saying you will have a conversation with other disciples, or with other Christians, or with other people. The Lord says you will be able to speak to your mountain of obstacles. The mountain which is the problem for you. Speak to the mountain of problems, it may be an addiction, or it may be a situation. Speak to it, and it will back away from you. Why must it back away? Because the life you confronted it with, is the living life of faith. It is something supernatural. Living faith is the basis of seeing what appears to be impossible become possible, within the will of God.
V. Living by Faith on Earth
Finally, Matthew 17:21 “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” This kind of faith many Christians struggle to have. When you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you have crossed over from death to life and from hell to heaven. You have become a witness of a supernatural experience because you were given eternal life. It was an act of faith that caused a supernatural act to happen in your life when you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior. The problem is that the faith we used to get saved; the faith we used to take us to a supernatural location, our eternal destiny. We sometimes overlook it when it comes to living in the natural world. So many people are going to have to wait to get heaven to see heaven, because they did not live by faith on earth so that heaven could visit them. If we live by faith in earth, God comes nearer to us. Accepting Christ takes you to heaven but living by faith brings heaven to you. The problem today is that there are too many unbelieving believers.
The Lord talks about obstacles where demons are behind it. He says this kind of mountain does not go away except through prayer and fasting. In other words, the source is very deep. It is not ordinary. It is a problem that goes so deep. A simple aspirin can't fix it. You realize that your will can't fix it. The people that you know can't fix it. The other Christians you're surrounded by can't fix it. This only means your problem is so deep spiritually that you must dig deeper inside yourself spiritually. This kind spiritual digging only comes out by prayer and fasting.
Back to the story in Matthew 17, what Jesus was saying to the disciples is this child's problem was so spiritually deep, you should have gone deeper spiritually. They were not going deeper spiritually. That's what many Christians seem to run from. “I don’t know how to go deeper. I don't know how to go deeper in fasting and prayer. I don't know how to go deeper and fight demons in my life. I don't know how to go deeper if my troubles have been with me for years and I can't control it.” Dear brothers and sisters, you must go deeper, because there may be a demon keeping your troubles upon you. You cannot handle demons by taking pills, and you cannot handle demons on your own. You can only handle demons by going deeper with God. Because only God can handle your demons and send His angels and allow the supernatural to happen in your life. The Lord says you must go deeper.
In Mark chapter 9, we can also see the same story of this epilepsy son and his father. There is a part in Mark that Matthew didn’t state. In Mark 9:23, Jesus said “If you believe, all things are possible to him who believe.” Let me put in another way Jesus asked the father “do you believe I can heal your son”. The man says something astounding, he says “Lord I believe; help my unbelief”. The Bible says when he asked for help, even to help his faith, the Lord heard him. So that he could have the faith for what Jesus was going to do. Jesus gave him the faith he needed to boost up his faith for the seriousness of the situation and his son was healed. Understand, even if your faith is weak, you have a faith helper. Call upon His name, and He will give you faith. So, get ready for your miracle. God can only allow the supernatural to happen in your life if you carry yourself across the bridge of faith. There is only one bridge that connects the natural and the supernatural, but your faith must be strong to match your troubles. Therefore, the Lord says you must dig deeper. Fast and pray. For “without Him we cannot, but without our faith He will not.” Without Him, you cannot overcome the demons. But without carrying our faith across the bridge, the supernatural cannot happen. Amen.
