Matthew 17: 14-20
“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 is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. 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. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
Song
Touch the Hem of His Garment, Jabar - Atlanta Singer
I recently went on a road trip back home to Kansas City. Just me. I took a southern route going and a northern route coming back home basically making a full circle. But during one of the legs of driving—I think it was Iowa to Wisconsin, closer to the end of my trip—it dawned on me that the whole trip had been a trip of faith. There were messages of faith that kept popping up during the trip. Some of them I noticed at the time—like sermons or gospel songs I listened to—and others that came to me during this moment of reflection that reminded me if I had not put my faith and trust in God I wouldn’t have made it to Kansas City and back as I had with no issues at all.
Now it was during another leg of my trip that I began to ponder the question what is faith? Me being a person of Higher Ed, I decided to first turn to my friends at Merriam-Webster and see what they had to say. Of the three definitions it gave I looked at the second one—which was itself broken into four parts—as it came closest to my experience. If you look up the word faith in Merriam Webster’s dictionary you will find this definition: “Faith- belief and trust in and loyalty to God; (2) belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion; (3) firm belief in something for which there is no proof; (4) complete trust.” Like I said that got close to what I experienced, but it didn’t hit the nail on the head. So, I turned to the Bible. And I found myself in Hebrews chapter 11 where Paul gives not only a definition in verse one—“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”—but he also gives us chronological examples of faith from Abel to Abraham and his sons, and the prophets of the Old Testament and how they all lived and overcame by faith. Wait a minute? Didn’t Webster’s say faith is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof?” Well Paul said it was “the evidence of things not seen.” Now, I’m pretty sure when you’ve got evidence of something, whether you’ve seen it or not, you’ve got proof of it. In other words, I might not have seen you get healed, but the fact that you’re up alive and walking and talking and in your right mind when the doctors counted you out that’s proof of what God can do. I might not have seen Him do it, but the fact that you’re on top of your mountain today when last year, last month, or even last week you were in your lowest valley that’s proof again of what God can do that we can’t see. Amen. That’s a subject for another day though.
Getting back on topic, again, I have to ask what is faith? I then got to thinking about it and I thought about the phrase “…Faith, if it hath not works, is dead…” which come from James chapter 2 verse 17, but I still didn’t feel as though I had my answer, but God; God has a way of leading you to answers when you least expect it. I won’t go into it much, but I happened to be on Facebook and I saw someone had posted the words from Matthew 17:20, and out of curiosity I went there, and I read that verse which lead me to go back a few verses to get our full text today of “Matthew 17: 14-20.” This set with me because you see, a man comes to Jesus and asks him to cast the demons out of his possessed son because Jesus’ disciples were not able to do so. Jesus says bring the boy to me, and he cast out the demon. Then Jesus’ disciples wonder why they couldn’t cast out the demon. “And Jesus said unto them: because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” That’s when I realized—and if you don’t take anything else from this message take this—this simple equation, Belief + Works = Faith. You see the disciples were doing the work but they didn’t believe the demon could be cast out. If you think about it often times we do the work when we need something from the Lord—we pray, we fast, we preach, but then there’s that human side of us that doesn’t always believe. That’s alright though. Even the disciples didn’t always believe it either. Remember Thomas, who wouldn’t believe that Jesus had been resurrected until he was able to see and touch Jesus himself? Or Peter, who Jesus called to walk on water to him, and the Bible says a wind started to blow and scared Peter and he began to sink until Jesus got ahold and said, “Ye of little faith. Why did you doubt?” When you pray and ask the Lord to do something you have to believe it and trust in Him with your whole heart and soul. Now on the flip side of that, you may believe but you’re not putting in any of the work. Yes God can heal you, but you still have to do the work and take yourself to the doctor. Who do you think put the doctor there? Yes you may need a financial break, but you still have to take yourself to your job. God blessed you with it now you’ve got to do the work. If you’re still not following me, let me give you a few examples of Belief + Work.
You see, faith is believing that the dry bones in the valley can live, but the work is preaching. Faith is believing the giant will fall, the work is shooting your sling shot. Faith is believing God will deliver his people from captivity, but the work is walking before pharaoh and saying I was sent by the great I AM and now let my people go! Faith is believing that God can heal you from the issue of blood, but the work is reaching out to touch the hem of his garment! Finally, brothers and sisters, Faith is believing God can redeem the people, but the work is bearing the sins of the people and dying on the cross for their salvation. Amen!
I thank you all for letting me fellowship and worship with you all this morning.
