A Faith For Every Generation

Introduction

If I were to ask you your name it’s probably something you do not have to think about. Often times our address, the route we take to work, tying our shoes and many other things we do subconsciously. Life has the ability to become so mechanical, it becomes so rudimentary. We wake up Monday go to work, eat lunch, go to gym, come home watch power, scroll instragram and TikTok and go to bed. We come to church for midweek bible study, come to worship and sing songs we know by memory, take communion listen to the sermon and go home and nothing changes. I need us to know that our children see the daily cycle, our youth understand our patterns more than we think they do. Allowing our life to be based on being reactive can set us up for failure everytime and brings our life to a place of trusting God in a very inconsistent way. We have to be careful that we do not treat God as this spiritual fire extinguisher where we use Him when the fires of life become to turbulent to manage.

Tragedy and Trauma happens, we emphasize and highlight the mustard seed portion of the story but understand the amount of tragedy and trauma that led to this lesson behing taught by Jesus. This pericope is a simply titled “Instructions About Faith” - Faith is not just something that happens over night, it’s literally a lifelong process of growth and development.

In this text we are introduced to a father and a son. A father who is out of sorts, in a state of bewilderment due to the condition of his child. Understand the response, the response to his disciples and this father is faith. No matter the situation you are dealing with today the response is faith! The question on the floor is how do we get there? I ask this question because how many times have we been going through a tough time and someone responded to your response with “you just gotta have____faith”

Matthew 17:14–21“And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but 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 bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as 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. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.””

A Posture of Submission

Faith begins in a posture of submission. The bible indicates that this father is kneeling down to Jesus and makes his request known. Sometimes faith means surrending. You’ve done all you’ve can, you’ve exhausted all resources and now you are in a position of dire need.

Sometimes life will beat you down to a point that all you can do is kneel before Jesus! To kneel in this manner is to kneel with reverence in mind, the root word of this word to kneel is to essentially fall before.

Dealign with the woes and trauma’s that our children deal with will put you in a place of submission. Here’s a father witha son, epileptic, suffers severely to a point that he’s fallen in fire, he’s fallen in water. Listen, raising children is challenging to begin with, then when you add the fact children have challenges, children are exposed to things and fall victim to things that even the best parenting cannot rid them of.

Life, friends and family can bring you to your knees. Regardless of age, sometimes we find ourselves in situations that bring us to our knees. Trauma is not age specific, pain is not age specific, tears and heartache is not age specific. Even in the midst of suffering remember what the Psalmist writes in Psalm 34:10 “The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.”

Our Faith Can Heal

Matthew 17:16 “So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.””

The tough part about life is fellowship and just coming to church is not going to change your problems. This is a two part solution, “but they could not cure him” it wasn’t that they did not have the power to cure him, it wasn’t that they did not have the power to drive out demon the, the issue is we can’t do anything without faith.

Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

It’s not just about carrying out a task, understand that you can’t recieve the help you need without faith as well. Faith is more that just believing in the power of God. It is continuously putting ourselves in position to be connected to God.

Matthew 17:17–18“Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.”

Do we really believe that Jesus can heal our problems? Are we really faithful as it pertains to how we prioritize the power of Jesus. Faith is deeper than believe, do our actions portray the idea that we trust in the Lord. We can’t expect a miraculous power with a doubtful faith.

Some of the issues we have in life are due to disconnection, consistent attendance can lead to connection but it’s not the totality of connection. We’ve been here before, we’ve brought our youth to church, as young people we’re coming to church, we are singing and taking notes but are we really locked in

You want to heal, it begins with obedience. Understand sometimes I can’t get to Jesus on my own, sometimes I need a little help getting to Jesus. Our youth need help getting to Jesus. Understand the enemy is within arms reach, the enemy is setting things right in front of our youth, it’s time that we make Jesus accessible regardless of age! Often times we are a faith away from healing us from the most broken moments in our life.

Planted in a Place that Can Grow

Matthew 17:20–21“So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as 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. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.””

A mustard seed faith, not only do we have to believe but we truly need to ensure that we are cultivating the next generation in a space that they can grow. What does our soil look like? What does our watering pattern look like. It’s one thing to plant seeds but are we putting ourselves are we putting the next generation in position to grow. Not just grow but faith should promote an exponential growth.

We’ve looked at this text from a position of faith and envisioned it from the perspective that if we are faithful things around us and ourselves will grow. Jesus was very intentional by using the mustard seed as a place of illustration. A mustard seed is more than just this small seed that grows into this large tree. A mustard seed has multiple uses. If I grind the seeds they can add flavor to food, I can make a paste out of mustard seeds to heal insect bites. Mustard has a lot of nutritional properties, magnesium, iron, calcium and potassium. If you like a turkey sandwhich like myself that mustard is a nice additive. It’s anti-imflammatory for the folks dealing with arthritis.

Just like the mustard seed has a number of uses and properties so does our faith in Jesus. For those who are heartbroken faith in Jesus is a remedy for that. For those who don’t feel as close to God as you used to, faith is a remedy for that. For those who feel like life isn’t worth living any more, faith is a remedy for that. Going through something isn’t age specific, therefore faith isn’t age specific.

Faith is the remedy to move those mountains of frustration, those mountains of depression, those mountains of anxiety, those mountains of anger, those emotions of anger, those emotions of digust, those emotions of grief! Jesus has the ability to remove those trials from us and has also given us the power to move the mountains of life!