Discipleship Confusion (Matthew 17:14-27)

Sermon

Key Passage

Matthew 17:14–27 NIV

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?” “From others,” Peter answered. “Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

Introduction

Well, it’s good to be back!

Fishing photos?

Today, we are talking about confusion

Confusion is something that a guy like me deals with on a daily basis. I think some of us end up more confused than others of us.

...if you know what I’m saying. LOL.

In our family, I’ve always done our family budget using good ol Microsoft Excel.

I create cells and formulas and all sorts of things.

I change colors, fonts, and I think it looks pretty good.

To be honest, I’m pretty proud of the budgeting system I created.

Here is the problem, I wanted my wife to help with the finances.

You know, as a husband, you always have to create contingency plans for if something happens and she is left to do the finances. I want her to know how it goes.

Now, I have to tell you about my wife. She’s a pretty smart cookie. Also, she’s BABELICIOUS!!!

She did all of these medical classes in school to be a Physical Therapist Assistant.

She learned things that I really don’t need to be known, but she does.

I used to think of this as my ankle. Apparently, it’s not It has a name that is super long.

This is my head. No. It is a thousand things but my head is not one of the things she learned.

The kids who sang “Head and shoulders, knees and toes...knees and toes” were lied to.

Anyways, she’s super smart and knows more big words than I do.

She looks at my Excel spreadsheet like it is an artifact from the planet Xenon or something.

I tried to teach her, but I quickly discovered that this is one of those things that I would understand, because my brain is weird. No one else would understand...including my wife.

So to remedy the problem, I started to research the budgeting software apps.

Wow, they really do a good job of selling the apps!

I watched one where the guy started off all stressed out with a pencil in his hand, the house was a mess, his desk was covered with confusing looking papers.

Then he got this budgeting software, and his desk was clean, he was taking his wife out for fancy dinner, the kids started behaving, the whole thing.

That seemed like the logical choice! I bought a one year subscription.

I set up our bank account, put the bills in, and did everything I thought I was supposed to do.

But I couldn’t figure out how to use the software.

It tracked what was spent, but not very accurately. It didn’t tell me how much money was left to spend.

It created like a thousand categories.

My excel spreadsheet did not have separate budget lines for cat food and dog food.

But this software did.

It promised so much, but when I got in the door, I was left with confusion.

I ended up just not using the software and creating a new Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and telling Lisa, “If Jesus comes back and you are left, you are on your own.”

I guess this is the motivation to disciple my wife well, because if I go and she stays, she’s in trouble.

Relate to Topic

I chuckle as I think about this story

But to be honest, it doesn’t feel all that different from my life trying to follow Jesus sometimes.

I grew up going to church, but I also remember being at a place of my life where I came face to face with the reality that I needed Jesus.

I had tried doing life myself and it had led me to a place of failure. I am not a good navigator of life by myself.

I had grown up in church, so I knew that my life needed to be fully surrendered to Jesus. So early in our marriage Lisa and I both said, “We are going to surrender our lives, our marriage and our family to Jesus.” We were both baptized together as a recommitment to Jesus and a statement of the foundation on which our marriage would stand.

The picture I had in my mind was similar to many of you. Now that I’m a Christian, I will have the wisdom of God, the peace of God the Joy of the Spirit.

God’s will will direct me and His hand will protect me.

Then life began to happen.

Lost jobs, death, financial struggles.

Is this what I signed up for?

As a disciple of Jesus, confusion is something that is a reality of our lives.

There is a lot of this life that doesn’t make sense in our minds:

Why does my life look like a mess and other people’s lives look like God is dumping out blessings from Heaven? Did I mess something up? Am I not a real Christian?

The Bible says that God’s will is good, pleasing and perfect. Why does it seem that when God’s will is seen in my life, it often results in not-so-good, life wrecking, and broken confusion?

Not to mention how we interact in the world. As we step out our front door, I know we have a calling to make disciples. I get the mission. But how am I supposed to live the rest of the time?

Does anyone resonate with this?

Our passage has three different interactions tied to it today. Each of them reveal a moment of confusion for the disciples.

We may ask the question: “why is this passage in the Bible?” “Why would the Holy Spirit inspire writers to add these stories of confusion and failure by the disciples?”

Because the Holy Spirit knew that we would be confused and fail often. It isn’t just you. It was Peter, James, John, Andrew, Thomas and the rest of the gang.

We get to observe their confusion and Jesus’ response to their confusion as a lesson for us in our lives.

Satan

I believe life is confusing. It isn’t always because you’ve done something wrong. But this is the result of not being All-Knowing like God is.

God is never confused. He is All-Knowing.

Me, I’m often confused because I am Very-Little-Knowing.

However, Satan wants to take advantage of our confusion.

If we do not turn to Jesus in our confusion, here is how he wrecks havoc in our lives:

Self Reliance— I don’t understand what’s going on around me, so I’m going to take steps to control the outcome and not rely on God.

We start living like we did before Jesus, because we don’t trust Him with our lives.

Circumstantial Theology— Some start to over-spiritualize their confusion. If it’s hard, then God must be saying no. We begin looking for the “yes” answers, the easy road, the path that makes us most comfortable and believe that is because it was God.

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” When we start letting our circumstances dictate the will of God in our lives, we’ll be floating around with no relationship to God and no direction in our lives.

Deeper, we will be even more confused because we will have convinced ourselves that we are chasing God’s will, but in reality we are chasing our own comfort.

Withdrawl/Isolation— We step back from everything because we don’t know.

We talked about the difference between isolation and solitude a few weeks ago. This is the negative one.

All of these are the opposite of what Jesus calls us to in discipleshp.

Our confusion will either drive us to Jesus or drive us away from Jesus.

As His disciples, we must know that the answer to our confusion is Jesus.

Satan wants us to separate from the one who gives us our worth, our identity, who has bought us.

if he can separate us from Jesus through confusion, we are broken with God, the world doesn’t see His love, and the church is less effective in its mission.

All by how we deal with confusions of life.

Question for today:

I believe our text today answers the same question in three different ways:

How does a disciple of Jesus deal with the confusion of life?

Topic

Matthew 17:14–18 NIV

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

I want to pause right here and recap what we are seeing in this story.

Jesus had been spending some time away from northern Israel.

He will return here for a little while before beginning his journey to Jerusalem where He will be crucified.

A man approached Jesus and knelt before him.

He asks Jesus to have mercy on his son.

There are some very important subtleties in this interaction that I feel we need to explore.

The man is asking for mercy for his son. Then he describes what is going on with his son.

His son is demon possessed. It causes him to suffer greatly. He falls into the fire or into water.

The man saw Jesus’ disciples and saw that they had been given authority to cast out demons.

He pleaded with them to cast out the demon, but the demon would not be cast out.

I imagine one of the disciples tried, then another, then another. None of them could succeed.

So finally they give up. Eventually, the man finds Jesus and the disciples who failed to cast out the demon were there.

He explains it to Jesus and Jesus gives a borderline rude/uncompassionate response.

Where is the “I have compassion on them because they are like sheep without a shepherd” Jesus?

Jesus rebuked the demon and the demon left the boy.

Last week Jason talked about how we need to have faith like a child, but also our calling as parents to protect and disciple our children to know Jesus.

I want you to see some of the subtlety in this passage:

Do you think it was the sin of the child or the sin of the father who led this child to become demon possessed?

Here is the thing about demons: you won’t be just walking down the road to get a scoop of ice cream, then BOOM, you get possessed by a demon.

There is a posture of your heart that must stand in rebellion to God and surrender to Satan and his demonic influence in this world.

How did this boy have the proximity to Satan to be possessed by a demon?

It was the leadership of the father. It had to be.

Now because of the consequences of his sin, he has to watch his son dealing with burns, seizures, and all sorts of dangerous situations.

He likely cannot even sleep because what if his son falls into the fire at night?

How would you feel as a parent seeing your child suffer because of your sinful decisions?

Do you see why he would fall on his knees in front of Jesus and say, “Have mercy on my son.”

He’s innocent, but suffering the consequences of my sin.

Parents, I know all of us have our own temptations, struggles and sin.

But your kids will have a manual for life built on even your hidden sin.

Surrender your life to Jesus, not only for your sake, but also for your kids sake.

It is tragic to see the result of a parents sin bring tidal waves of destruction into their kids lives.

The parent’s sin kills the kids marriages

The parent’s sin kills the kids perspective of God

The parent’s sin breaks appropriate boundaries of work and worship.

Your witness and authentic surrender is what your kids need to see.

You may be able to put up the facade at church. At work. In your life group.

But your kids will see the real you. The real you is imprinted on their lives forever.

Parent your children carefully. Live before God humbly.

So this father begs for Jesus’ mercy for his child.

The disciples couldn’t cast out the demon

Jesus casts out the demon

When Jesus cast out the demon, it left some confusion with the disciples

They were doing what they thought Jesus had told them to do.

He had given them authority in this regard. But now, it appeared there was an asterisk next to that authority. “some authority” “occasional authority”?

Can you sit with the disciples in this moment?

I thought this was something Jesus told us to do.

He said we were supposed to go do it. It is His will. I think I heard a sermon somewhere that says, “If Jesus sends you out to do something, He’ll give you the ability to do that something.

Now this situation comes and what was supposed to work, didn’t work.

We can’t do what Jesus asked us to do.

Do you ever feel like that in life?

Jesus tells you to go love your neighbor. I can muster up love for almost anyone else, but that person. Grrr.

How do I love them, when Jesus hasn’t given me the love in my heart for them?

Jesus tells you to make disciples, but when I talk about God, I not only get rejected, but I get ridiculed by my co-workers.

If God sends me out to make disciples, why would He send me out to fail by not preparing their hearts first?

If God says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own, it seems that God should take away the worries of tomorrow so I don’t have anything to worry about.

But here I am worrying, and also worrying that I am sinning by worrying about the issues in my life. Double worry has to be double problematic in God’s eyes. He must see me as a total failure.

The disciples as Jesus this question:

Matthew 17:19–20 NIV

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

In the book of Mark, the author adds the verse:

Mark 9:29 NIV

He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

In their confusion, Jesus points to two connected topics: faith and prayer.

First Jesus says, “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move the mountains. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

There are two ways of viewing what Jesus is saying here.

First, if I muster up enough faith, God will do anything I want Him to do. As long as I have enough faith, I can demand that God fix my problems, pay my bills, help my friends and I will see God align Himself with my will because I have faith.

That is the “me-centric” view of faith.

Second is the “God-centric” view of faith. We have defined faith here in three points.

First- A relational knowledge of God

I read the Bible which reveals the nature of God

I recognize my sin, and His holiness

I recognize my insufficiency and His sufficiency

I experience His love, and see my need for it.

I discover His authority, wisdom, power and glory.

Second- This leads to a life surrendered to His Lordship.

His will becomes everything, the only thing I want in life.

His wisdom, His plan, His will, His Kingdom replace everything in me.

My life is broken, I only need Him.

Third- This leads to obedience when God speaks

God I will obey. If it is hard, I will obey.

If it brings suffering, consequences, harassment, or even death, I will obey because my life is lived for you.

When we live in absolute surrender to God, it isn’t our will that we are trying to get done in this world, it is His.

It will be done with His power, in His timing, and in His ways.

What can get in the way of God? Nothing. Not mountains, not seas, not valleys.

It is impossible.

This is because the object of our faith is God. Not us.

Faith by itself does nothing. The God of our faith is the source of our strength

Prayer

Very similarly to faith, we have to ask the question, “What is the object of prayer?”

Is it a spiritual powerup so God will do what you want Him to do? No.

Prayer is relationally drawing near to God.

Being near to God, knowing His voice, surrendering your will, and doing what He says.

If you are not in communication with God, how will you know what to obey?

Jesus knew exactly what needed to be done here because of His intimacy with the Father through prayer.

How does a disciple of Jesus deal with confusion in their life?

We draw near to Jesus through prayer and surrender

We see this in our lives:

“I’m praying, but nothing is changing”

“I’m doing what I’m supposed to do...why am I still struggling?”

“Why does my faith seem powerless right now?”

“Why does God seem silent when I need Him the most?”

Jesus calls us to dependence, not our own assumptions based on our feelings.

We tend to want to try to fix our confusion.

Self-reliance

Changing our technique— read a book or watching a video

Shift blame to others

Our confusion brings us to the truthful humility that we are not all-knowing and we are not all-powerful. We are in the hands of a loving God who is.

Press in and learn dependence on Him today.

Interestingly, this is the last time Jesus uses the phrase “You of little faith” with His disciples.

Go to Him with your confusion. Allow Him to grow your faith.

Matthew 17:22–23 NIV

When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief.

Jesus had already predicted His death in the previous chapter. Now He does it again.

Jesus had told Peter, “On this rock I will build my Ekklesia”

The assembly of Jesus’ Kingdom is being brought together.

But how can this be if Jesus dies?

There is something that I have discovered in my life:

God created logic. But God is not always logical.

What I mean by that is the shortest path between two points is a straight line. Logical.

But God’s path between two points will always choose that path that includes my heart in the middle.

It isn’t efficient. Sometimes it isn’t even effective.

God isn’t worried about point A and point B.

Point A is clear in Genesis 1:1.

Point B is clear in Revelation 22.

The path God chooses between His creation of a perfect and Holy world and the restoration of that perfect holy world is by whatever means God feels necessary.

Not logic.

I lose sight of this reality. My life is so busy and consuming, that I fight for logic and efficiency in everything.

So in this world, when I see things like:

Why would God allow this suffering?

Why does obedience cost so much?

Why is God leading me down a path that I don’t want to follow?

Why does following Jesus seem harder, not easier?

I wonder, “What are you doing God? Isn’t there a better way? Your will just doesn’t make sense!”

This is what the disciples were feeling at this point. There is a much smoother and more direct path to Revelation 22 than you having to die.

But as we look at this from the perspective of a couple thousand years, we can see the plan of God was greater than they could ever imagine.

Jesus had to go to the cross. They had to experience the pain, the loss, and the grief.

They had to see the consequence of their sin being paid for in its completion.

Without the cross, there is no salvation

GOSPEL TELLING— CENTERED ON THE CROSS.

Jesus didn’t remove their grief. He did what was necessary to reach their hearts.

How does a disciple of Jesus deal with confusion in their life?

We look at the cross and the finish line. He is in control.

When God’s will doesn’t make sense in our life, it is easy to:

Reason with our emotions— It hurts, it can’t be God’s will

Escape and avoid— I’ll just not do the hard stuff and find my own path

Redefine obedience— God can’t want that. I’ll obey where I want and justify the rest.

Selective listening— I’ll only listen to what I want to hear from God. It’s no wonder you don’t hear his voice.

We get confused when God doesn’t seem to be working in our lives. We get confused when God’s will doesn’t make sense. Here is the third place we get confused as disciples.

Matthew 17:24 NIV

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

What is happening here?

There were the tax collectors from the Roman government, like Matthew, who would collect taxes for Rome.

These were different tax collectors. These were temple tax collectors who would go throughout Israel and collect money for the temple.

Keep in mind that they are in Capernaum. The temple is in Jerusalem. They are 85 miles away from the source of the tax.

But, as we all know, taxes can be collected from people who are geographically separated from where their tax dollars are spent.

I know there are a few people here who want me to preach that sermon.

This Jerusalem tax collector comes to Peter and doesn’t ask for the tax. Rather, he makes the accusation that Jesus doesn’t pay His taxes.

Now, Jerusalem has been sending up Pharisees, Sadducees and teachers to try and trip Jesus up.

What better way than to try and trip Him up with tax fraud if they can’t find a crime.

Peter says, “Yes, Jesus pays his taxes!”

Then runs to Jesus and says, “You pay your taxes, right?”

Then Jesus gives a very interesting teaching. It is a teaching that some people like to twist to fit their own desires. Jesus is not giving a reason not to pay your taxes here. He is telling you why you should.

Matthew 17:25–26 NIV

“Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?” “From others,” Peter answered. “Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him.

Jesus asks, “Who do the authorities on this earth collect taxes from? Their citizens or their children?”

Peter says, “Their citizens”

Jesus says, “Then the children are exempt from taxes.”

This is where people stop reading the Scripture and say, “See, I’m exempt from my taxes. Jesus says so.”

Jesus is highlighting that the Kingdom of Heaven is higher than the kingdoms of this earth.

But the kingdoms of this earth still charge us taxes.

If I’m a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, then I am exempt from the taxes here.

Jesus says, “Yes, your highest allegiance is to the Kingdom”, but listen to what He says.

Matthew 17:27 NIV

“But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

So that you do not cause offense.

I might say, “I don’t care that the government or anyone else is offended at me.”

But Jesus did. In this regard, it was the witness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

When you put on the jersey for team Jesus, you represent something to the world around you.

Jesus said, “Pay the tax, so we won’t be unnecessarily accused of the things of this world.

Then He tells Peter to go fishing, catch a fish and he would find a 4 drachma coin (worth around $100 in todays currency)

That would be a pretty cool day of fishing.

So was it God’s will that the tax would be paid? Yes.

I want to drive this home in a unique way.

There is a lot about this life that is unfair. Taxes seem to be one of those things.

There are a couple of verses I want us to wrestle with this morning:

Matthew 5:14–16 NIV

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

If we act like the world and do what we have to like the world, then the world will not see anything that looks like light.

It is by doing good, not because we are required by law, but rather so our testimony is not brought into question. This is how God is glorified in our lives.

1 Peter 2:11–12 NIV

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

I want to ask you this question:

Is your money eternal or temporary?

Is your time (the breath in your lungs) eternal or temporary?

We can hold onto the temporary things God has blessed us with exclusively for our own selves.

Or we can see that they can be a reflection of God’s glory in this world.

God’s blessing of money in your life (I won’t call it your money) can either push people away from the Kingdom or reflect His glory.

God’s blessing of time in your life (not your time— the time He has given you) can be used for your own entertainment, or for His glory.

We have the opportunity to use temporary blessings to translate to eternal glory.

This is what it is to be a steward.

Time and money are the biggest things.

We can be selfish or obedient.

Obedient means we give what we have been given for the glory of God in this world.

How does a disciple of Jesus deal with confusion in their life?

We recognize we are stewards, not owners of His blessings

Conclusion

Some of you walked into this room carrying confusion you haven’t told anyone about. Confusion about your family. Confusion about your future. Confusion about your faith. Confusion about why life looks the way it does right now.

If that’s you, hear this clearly: you are seen. Not by me — but by Jesus.

He sees the disciple who is trying to obey but feels powerless. He sees the disciple who is walking a path that hurts more than it makes sense. He sees the disciple who is trying to live faithfully in a world that feels complicated and heavy.

And He does not shame you for your confusion. He meets you in it.

The disciples were confused in every scene of this passage — and Jesus stayed with them in every scene. He taught them, guided them, corrected them, and loved them. He did not walk away from their confusion, and He will not walk away from yours.

So if you are confused today, don’t rush to fix it. Don’t run from it. Don’t hide it. Let your confusion become the place where you draw near to Jesus.

Let it become the place where you pray again. Where you trust again. Where you surrender again. Where you remember who you are and whose you are.

Confusion is not a sign that God has left you. Confusion is often the place where He is inviting you closer.

Take‑Home Question / Challenge

Where is Jesus inviting you to draw near to Him in your confusion this week?

Who needs you to stand in the gap and pray during their time of confusion?

Not to solve it. Not to escape it. But simply to bring it to Him — honestly, humbly, and expectantly.

Because disciples don’t overcome confusion by being strong. Disciples overcome confusion by staying close to Jesus.