Well, good morning to everyone.
If you care to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 17.
That's where our lesson will be taken from this morning. Matthew
chapter 17. Before we begin, let's bow in
prayer. Our Father, oh, how thankful
we are that you've given us another opportunity to meet together
to worship your matchless name. Father, I pray you would bless
us as we look into your word. How we thank you that you've
given us and preserved and protected and given to us to open and to
read and study your written word. Father, how we thank you. And
I pray this morning that you would take your written word
as it's open and reveal to our hearts the Lord Jesus Christ,
the incarnate word, that we might believe him, that we might grow
in faith and knowledge of him. Father, what we pray for ourselves
here, we pray for our children's classes that you would bless
in a special way, bless our teachers, bless our young people that this
might be a time where the seeds of faith are planted in their
heart. Father, we pray for those who are hurting, who are sick
and afflicted. We continue to pray for our brother
Aaron and pray for Barb and Father others who need you especially.
We pray for our brethren who've been affected by these storms
and pray that you would enable them to recover quickly. Thank
you for sparing them from so much of the damage that we've
seen. Father, again in this hour, we pray that you'd show us your
glory. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have a lesson this morning
that I Pray and trust will be helpful to all of us. Something
that will affect certainly our everyday lives. The title of
the lesson is when faith is imperfect. When faith is imperfect. And
a general lesson that I would like for us to take from this
passage of scripture is this. That the faith of every believer
is imperfect. Our faith is never as strong
as it should be and by no means Is that ever an excuse for weak
faith? You know that. It's just so.
Our faith is never as strong as it should be. It's imperfect.
But we shouldn't accept that. We should never just accept,
well, my faith is not as strong as it should be. But this is
also true. There's no reason for us to despair when our faith
is imperfect. Because salvation does not depend
upon the strength of our faith. Salvation depends upon the strength
of the Savior. who God has given us to trust.
And even though faith is small, even though saving faith is small,
it's still saving faith. Just like water in a teacup.
Water in this glass is water. The same as the high rivers full
of water. Different quantities, but same thing. Now I want us
to take five lessons from this passage this morning on imperfect
faith. The first thing I want us to
see is the imperfect faith of a believing father, Matthew 17
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's a lunatic
and sore vexed for off times he falleth into the fire and
often to the water. And I brought him to thy disciples
and they could not cure him. Now this boy is not a lunatic
in the same way we use the word lunatic. He was an epileptic
and the symptoms became worse during a full moon is what the
word means. But now the disease was caused
by being demon possessed. And that is something that was
very common in our, and during the time of our savior's earthly
ministry, it was common for this reason. So he could show his
power over the devil by casting out these, these demons. And
Luke tells us this demon possessed boy was this man, this father's
only child. And the father brought his son
to the Lord because he believed the Lord could heal him. He brought
him to the Lord because this is what he believed. He had faith
that believed this. He believed that the Lord Jesus was his only
hope. See, the father knew this. The
son's problem wasn't physical. He didn't need to take him to
a medical doctor because his son's problem wasn't physical.
It was a spiritual problem. spiritual problems, so he brought
his son to the Lord. Now that's faith. And there's
a picture here that gives us awful good instruction for parents.
The best thing we parents can do for our children is bring
them to the Lord. The best thing we can do is bring
them to the Lord in prayer, to pray for them, and bring them
to hear the gospel preached. Now, I know you're all here for
the Bible classes, so I'm preaching to the choir. But one of the
best things we can do for our children is bring them on Sunday
mornings to our Bible classes. We've got three of the best teachers
you'll find anywhere, anywhere. The best thing we can do for
them is bring them to the services, to the service here, to their
Bible classes, because our children and all of the lost have a spiritual
problem, a spiritual problem. It's not a lack of education.
It's not that they're in a bad environment. Their problem is
a spiritual problem. Their problem is they've got
a sin nature that can't be educated out of them, that can't be taken
out of them. This father brought his son to
the disciples first. He brought him to the disciples
first, but the Lord was not there. He brought him to the Lord, but
the Lord was up on the Mount of Transfiguration. And they
brought him to the disciples, but the disciples could not heal
the boy. The only one who could heal his son was the Lord. And there's another good lesson
tied back to what I said just a minute ago. Our children need
to hear the gospel. They need to hear their pastor.
They need to hear their teachers because that their teachers,
their pastors teach the word. They preach Christ. They teach
the word that points to Christ. And that's the only means the
one and only means God uses to save his people is the preaching
of the word, the preaching of Christ. But now listen, the lost
need more than the preacher alone. They need the power of God. They
need the power of the Holy Spirit. The loss can only be saved by
the power of God, the will of God, and the grace of God. They need a preacher, but they
need more than the preacher alone. They need a teacher, but they
need more than the teacher alone. They need God, the Holy Spirit,
to move him in power. And that's why we bring our children
to the Lord in prayer. He's the only one who can help
them. Now, this father had faith. He believed that the Lord had
power to heal his son. But look over Mark chapter nine.
This is Mark's account of this very same miracle. I told you
that the father had imperfect faith. And I'll show you why
I say that for Mark chapter nine. Verse 23, Jesus said unto him,
if thou can't believe all things are possible to him that believe
it. And straightway the father of the child cried out and said
with tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. See,
this father knew his faith was imperfect. I believe. Lord, help
thou mine unbelief. Help mine unbelief. It's so weak.
It's frail. It's not what it ought to be.
And every believer here can identify with that, can't you? Lord, I
do. I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. It's so weak. I look back in
our text, even though this father's faith was imperfect, the Lord
healed his son. Verse 18. And Jesus rebuked the devil and
he departed out of him and the child was cured from that very
hour. Now the father's faith by his
own admission was imperfect, but his son was healed. You know,
I can't find one example in scripture ever of anybody coming to the
Lord, begging for mercy that they didn't receive it. Not one,
not one. Now we don't receive mercy because
of strength of our faith. This father, he received mercy
for a son, but it wasn't based on the strength of his faith.
We received mercy because of the graciousness, the power of
the mercy giver. That's why we received grace.
It wasn't faith that healed the boy, was it? The Lord healed
him. The Lord healed him, even though
the father had imperfect faith. So that's why I say we should
never accept or excuse our weak faith, but don't despair because
of it. The Lord healed this boy, even though the father had imperfect
faith. All right, the second thing I want us to see is this.
There's no faith in the show of religion. Verse 17. 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." Now, the Lord didn't make this statement
and call this father or call his disciples a faithless and
perverse generation. That wouldn't have been true,
would it? They weren't faithless. They had weak faith, imperfect
faith, but it was faith. They had genuine faith in Christ.
The Lord said this to the scribes. I'll show you this in a second.
This crowd gathered around that the Lord came to was full of
the scribes, and they were there just dripping with their pious,
self-righteous, religious attitude. Now, the Lord had been up on
the Mount of Transfiguration. He took Peter and James and John
with him, remember that? Well, he left the other nine
at the bottom of the mountain. And while the Lord was up there
on the Mount of Transfiguration, this father brought his son to
the other nine disciples who were left behind. And when the
Lord came down from the mountain, he found this crowd, and in this
crowd, leading this crowd were the scribes. and they were questioning
the disciples credentials. Look back again in Mark chapter
nine. I'll show you where I, where we learned this from Mark
chapter nine, verse 14. And when he came to his disciples,
he saw a great multitude about them and the scribes questioning
with them what the scribes were doing. They were questioning
the disciples credentials. They were saying, now, If your
master is really the Lord, if he's really the savior, if he's
really the Messiah, how come you can't cast out this demon?
I mean, if he's really, if your master is really the Messiah,
how come you can't cast out this demon? Like they're saying, it's
like, if you can't cast out this devil, this demon, you're an
imposter. Now, you know, just plain old,
that almost anybody, you don't have to have a lot of spiritual
light to see through the falseness of this. Here they're telling
these disciples, if you can't cast out this demon, it's because
you're an imposter. How come nobody's asking the
scribes, how come you don't cast him out? They couldn't cast him
out either. And now that the Lord has returned,
the scribes, they want to see a miracle. And you know why they
want to see the Lord attempt this? Because they don't think
the Lord can do it. They want him to be discredited. They don't
think he can do it. Now you think about these fellas, they'd already
seen so many miracles, hadn't they? They'd already heard the
Lord himself preach so often, yet they would not believe. And
this is the scribes doing this. You know what the job of a scribe
is? Is to take the scrolls, the written word of God, and copy
it. write it to another scroll so
that they have more than one copy of it. It's their job to
read the scriptures and to copy it. If anybody should know the
scriptures, it should be the scribes. If anybody should know
all of the evidence of the Old Testament scriptures, giving
us prophecies of the Messiah, who he is, what he'll be like,
what he'll do. If anybody ought to know that,
it's the scribes. And they didn't. They didn't.
They still didn't believe. Yet they make this big show of
religion. They're the scribes. They're the, you know, they're
some of the most respected people in the community. And that just
shows us saving faith cannot come from ceremonies of religion.
It can't come from shows of religion. It can't come from a head knowledge
of religion. Nobody, absolutely nobody can
believe on Christ. unless the Holy Spirit is pleased
to blow where he listed, to move where he will empower and give
saving faith. And when he gives saving faith,
that faith will always be imperfect because we're still in the flesh.
The problem is not with the Holy Spirit. The problem is not with
the faith that he gives. The problem is the flesh that we're
in. It'll always be imperfect. But the only way we can have
any level of faith is what the Holy Spirit is pleased to give
us. And the Holy Spirit gives saving faith through the preaching
of the Word, through the preaching of Christ. It's not through the
form and ceremony of religion. It's not through education. It's
through preaching, the preaching of Christ. Saving faith is a
heart matter. It's not a matter of the outward
motions of religion. Saving faith is a heart matter.
That's where God deals with sinners, but it's not in the outward show
of religion. All right, the third thing I
want us to see. the imperfect faith of the believing
disciples. Verse 19, then came the disciples
to Jesus apart and said, why cannot we cast him out? And Jesus
said unto them, because of your unbelief. Now, even the disciples
who had been so close to the Lord for so long, they'd heard
every message he ever preached. They had private conversations
with him. They're not recorded in scripture. They saw every
miracle that he performed. Yet, they were weak in faith
and strong in unbelief. Still yet. Now they believed,
absolutely they believed, but their faith was weak. And that's
true of every believer. It's different degrees at different
times of our lives, but that's true of every last one of us.
We're weak in faith and strong in unbelief. And I'll tell you
why. Being in this flesh weakens the
faith. Because the flesh, this old man,
All that old man can see and think about and try to do is
things of the flesh. Not spiritual things, fleshly
things. That old man is constantly, constantly,
constantly trying to get us to look to the arm of the flesh.
The flesh is constantly trying to get us to do what is impossible
for us to do. And when you try to do something
that's impossible, your faith becomes weak. When you look at
what you can do in the flesh, Your faith becomes weak because
you're looking at what the flesh can't do, instead of looking
at what God can do, what God does do. That'll always weaken
our faith. Because when we look to the power
of the flesh, the situation always looks hopeless. Doesn't it? When we look at what we can do
to fix the problem, whatever the problem is, it looks impossible. And that weakens our faith. Because
you know, we can't do anything physical or spiritual. So no
matter if you're looking at a physical situation, you're looking at
a spiritual situation. We can't do anything. We can't
make it right. And that makes our faith weak because the flesh
is looking at what we can do for ourselves instead of looking
to Christ and trusting Him and depending upon Him. Our faith
is the strongest when we realize our complete and utter helplessness
and just rest on Christ. That's when our faith is the
strongest. Now that's true. That's just the fact of life
for the believer in this flesh. It's still never an excuse for
weak faith, is it? No, never. Our God's ability and power is
unlimited. Nothing can stop him from doing
what he promised to do, what he wills to do. And since that's
true, our faith should never be weak. See, there's never an
excuse for weak faith. Now weak faith, give you some
examples of how damaging weak faith is. Weak faith makes it
impossible for us to do what God commanded us to do. Look
back at Matthew, excuse me, Matthew chapter 10. Weak faith makes
it impossible for us to do what God's commanded us to do. Matthew chapter 10, verse five. These 12 Jesus sent forth and
commanded them, saying, go not into the way of the Gentiles
and into any city of the Samaritans, enter ye not, but go rather to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach,
saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse
the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely you have received,
freely give. Now the Lord commanded, this
is his commandment, to those 12, cast out the devils. But in our text, the Lord said
they could not do what he commanded them to do because of unbelief. Now, the Lord has commanded us
to go into all the world and preach the gospel. He's commanded
us to be a light in the world, to tell people about the Savior,
to show people the light that God put in us, to show them Christ
the Savior. He's commanded us to give and
not to worry whether we'll have enough. He's commanded us to
be about the business of worshiping him and enjoying it. Not worshiping him because it's
a duty. Worship him and enjoy it. The Lord's commanded us to
go through this world as pilgrims. We're just passing through this
place to tell the world, y'all do what you want. I'm just not
going to be too awful involved with you. I'll be a, you know,
a proper citizen and those kinds of things. But I'm just not getting
too involved. I'm not getting bogged down in
the affairs of this world. I don't belong here. My citizenship's not here. I'm
looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. That's what
God's commanded us to do. And I wonder, and I hate to think,
how often I've missed a blessing because I didn't do those things.
I didn't do them because of weak faith, because I was looking
at the flesh. I was looking at the temporary
instead of looking at the eternal. I was looking at the flesh instead
of looking at the spiritual. And this is worth pointing out.
I know everything that happens, even in my weak faith, everything
that happens, happens according to the direct will and purpose.
I know that. I know I believe that just as
strongly as I believe anybody. But we can never blame our failures
on the Lord. Say, well, I did that. I sinned.
I did wrong. I didn't do what I was supposed to do. And then,
you know, but that was the Lord's will. No, wait a minute. We can
never blame our failures on the Lord. Never. Our failures are
always the fault of our weak faith. The disciples could not
heal that boy because of weak faith. Israel did not enter into
the promised land. It wasn't God's fault, was it?
What does scripture say? Why did they not enter in? because
of unbelief. The disciples, remember they
were in the middle of the sea rowing and toiling and the storm
was so bad. And they saw the Lord, the master,
the one that they love, the one that they believe. They saw him
walking to them on the water and they were afraid. They weren't
happy. They were afraid. They thought
they saw a ghost. It couldn't be the Lord coming to them. And
they were afraid because of unbelief. Peter, walking on the water,
the next second is sinking beneath the waves because of unbelief. Only a little faith. The disciples, how often did
the Lord tell them I must go to Jerusalem, suffer and die
and rise again the third day? Well, the Lord went to Jerusalem
one day. He suffered and died. And three days later, a group
of ladies came and told them the Lord's risen. I saw him. I talked to him. He told me,
come tell you he's risen. It's three days after he died,
and they believed not. They couldn't believe that the
Lord had been raised from the dead because of unbelief. Unbelief
causes a lot of problems, doesn't it? And often, when we fail to
get a blessing from the word preached, it's because of unbelief. And not just on the part of the
hearer, on the part of the preacher too. That's shameful, shameful,
shameful, shameful, shameful. But it's true, nevertheless.
It's just so. It's the way it is in this flesh.
And we need to remember this. We're in a spiritual warfare.
We're not in a fleshly warfare. We're not fighting with carnal
weapons. We're not fighting fleshly enemies here. We're in a spiritual
warfare. And the one and only way we can
be victorious in that warfare is faith. is by trusting Christ
to not only to do everything for me, but to be everything
for me. That's the only way we can be victorious. It's relying
on Christ to be everything that we need. That's what faith is.
All right, here's the fourth thing I want us to see. The power
of even small faith. Verse 20, back in our text, You should say unto this mountain,
remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing
shall be impossible unto you. Now we need to remember that
Lord here is not talking about physical things. He's not telling
us, Oh no, if you just have faith the size of a mustard seed, you
can do anything you want. No, that's, I mean, if I had
faith the size of a mustard seed, I'd fly here, you know, rather
than like Superman, rather than drive, you know, deal with traffic.
That's not what the Lord's talking about. He's talking about spiritual
things. He's still talking about salvation. He's talking about the impossible
for the flesh, being free from sin, being free from the power
of the devil. The Lord said, you can do the
impossible if you just had faith the size of a mustard seed. The
mustard seed was the smallest seed of all the herbs that the
Jews had. It was the smallest seed. He
said, you can do the impossible if you just have faith the size
of a mustard seed. Now, moving a mountain, moving
the Rocky Mountains from here to here, here to there, that's
not something that's hard to do. That's something that's impossible. It's impossible. Well, believing
on Christ and resting in him, believing that Christ himself
is all it takes to save me and I don't have to contribute one
thing to it. That's not something that's hard for the flesh to
do. It's something that's impossible. impossible for the flesh to do.
The flesh cannot believe Christ. The flesh cannot rest in Christ.
The flesh is dead. It has no life. It cannot believe. It's impossible. But God, the
Holy Spirit will give us faith, genuine saving faith, faith in
Christ, the size of a mustard seed will do the impossible and
believe on Christ and rest in him. That's what the Lord is
saying here. See, putting away the mountain of our sin, that's
not something that's hard for the flesh to do. It's impossible
for the flesh to do. But if God, the Holy Spirit gives
us faith in Christ, even the size of a mustard seed, that
sin, that mountain of sin will be gone, put away under the precious
blood of Christ. Preaching the gospel so that
sinners will believe on Christ, preaching the gospel and making
sinners believe what you're saying, believe on Christ. That's not
something that's hard to do. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible for the deaf
to hear. It's impossible for the dead
to live. It's impossible. Then Frank,
why preach? Because preaching the gospel
in faith, believing in Christ, believing that he will bless
his word to the saving of his people. Believe that the preaching
of his word is never in vain. Believing that God's word is
never a failure makes it successful. God's people will believe. God's
sheep will be fed. You see, you and I can do anything
in the Lord's service if we would only believe. If we do it in
faith. Not do it trying to accomplish
other means or other goals, but do it in faith. This afternoon,
if you have time, if you don't have time, make time, read Hebrews
11 and see what those saints did. They did the impossible. Every single one of them you'll
read did it by faith. We can do anything in God's service
by faith. All right, here's the fifth thing.
I want us to see this faith in action. Verse 21. The Lord says, how be it this
kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. The Lord mentions
prayer and fasting. This is faith in action. Faith
even the size of a mustard seed. This is faith in action. This
is what faith does. Pray and fast. Pray and fast. First prayer. Why do we pray? Why do we pray? Because we believe
God's able, don't we? That's why we pray. And you know,
we'll only truly pray about the things that we can't do for ourselves. We'll only truly pray about things
that we realize, this is out of my control. That's when we'll
truly pray. Well, you know, that should be
everything. We should pray about everything, shouldn't we? Because
everything's out of our control. Everything's out of our ability
to do. And we pray about those things. They're out of our control,
but you know why we pray about them? because we believe they're
under God's control. That's why we pray. That's faith
in action. I believe these things are under God's control. And
then fasting. I've got good news for you. It
doesn't mean that you have to fast this afternoon. It doesn't
mean not eating food. Now, if you're like me, you look
forward to Sunday dinner. Go home and eat it. That's not
what this fasting is talking about. It's not physical fasting
that the Lord is talking about here. What he means is this,
denying ourselves pleasure of the flesh, denying the pleasures
of the flesh. And the pleasures of the flesh
is this. It's earning our own salvation, establishing our own
righteousness, at least contributing some of our own righteousness,
our own merit, our own doing to this thing of our salvation.
Christ can do 99.9% of it, but I want to do the rest. That's the pleasure of this flesh.
In faith, It denies that pleasure. It denies it. And the only way
we'll deny that pleasure that the flesh wants so badly is faith. It's belief in Christ, resting
in Him. You want me to tell you when
we'll give up our works? When we believe Christ already did
it all. The only way we'll give up trying
to add to Christ's righteousness is when we believe He's my righteousness. He's all the righteousness that
I need. He's the only righteousness that there is. I give up my works. I give up my obedience to the
law and rest in Christ when I believe He is my righteousness. We'll
only give up trying to make our salvation better and stronger
by our own works. And a lot of people do that,
don't they? They just want to make themselves, their salvation
stronger. They want to be a better believer, better than everybody
else. You know when we'll give up trying to make our salvation
better by our works? When we believe we're perfect
in Christ. We can only give up those pleasures of the flesh
by faith. We'll only quit trying to get
glory credit for ourselves because of what we do when we believe
this, the Lord Jesus Christ should get all the glory because he
did all the work. It's his matter of salvation.
This is the equation. I did all the sinning and God
did all the saving. Well, then he ought to get all
the glory. All the stains of mine, all the glory is his. That's denying ourselves. That's
denying flesh. And we can only do that by faith.
Now, It unfortunately will be imperfect, but that's what faith
will do. I hope the Lord will bless that
too.