THE RULE OF GOD REQUIRES FAITH IN CHRIST
Matthew 17: 14-27

INTRODUCTION

I want you to know that I have approached the text for this morning’s sermon with more than a little apprehension. I’ve been nervous about preaching on this passage ever since I set up the original sermon schedule last December and my anxiety has only increased as a result of Jared’s accident. There are two reasons for my anxiety. First, I’ve been nervous because of v. 20. Jesus tells the disciples that the reason they could not cast out the demon is because of their lack of faith. It appears that he says the only thing standing between us and the performing of astounding miracles is our lack of faith. If we have just a little bit of faith we can move mountains, nothing will be impossible for us. My Pentecostal and charismatic friends love to quote this verse and others like it to prove that the only reason any Christian is sick or in trouble is because they lack faith. On the surface it would appear that they have a strong case.

But my anxiety has been increased by Jared’s accident. I can relate to the father in this story who comes to Jesus and begs him to have mercy on his son who is suffering greatly. Is there a promise here that if I would simply believe, my son will be healed? Is the only reason my son is still in a coma, my lack of faith? Or is the problem not with me but with God. If Jared isn’t healed, does that mean that Christianity is a hoax, that God doesn’t exist? Or does it mean that God is impotent or unloving? I have a concern that my circumstances will cause me to interpret this text in a certain way. I will try to make it "fit" with my experience rather than seeking to the best of my ability to say what God through Matthew intends for this passage to communicate. I’m concerned that my opposition to the Pentecostal/charismatic view of faith will cause me to read into this passage rather than seek to let this passage speak to me. I’m concerned that my longing to have Jared returned to us whole and complete will cause me to read this passage in a particular way. I’m concerned that the fact Jared is still in a coma, in spite of our prayers, will cause me to try to make this text fit my experience. I want to be submissive to the Word of God. I don’t want to make it submit to my needs, expectations and preconceptions.

While the facts of this story deal with a father who has a son suffering from epilepsy, yet Jesus’ healing of the boy and the disciple’s failure to heal him are not the main point. This is not a story to tell us as Christians how to rub the magic lamp and get our genie, named Jesus, to do what we want him to do. This is a part of Matthew’s larger story about how it is that God rules over his world through Jesus. This is part of the larger story of how God is saving his people through Jesus. Jesus is the one who is the fulfillment of all that God has said in the OT and he is the one who fulfills all God’s promises to his people. This story is about him and our need for him, not about how to eliminate all the suffering from our lives on planet earth.

MAIN POINT

Only faith in Jesus Christ will make you acceptable to God because…

I. Human beings are by nature unbelieving and perverse (vv. 14-17)

This story takes place immediately following the account of Jesus revealing his glory to Peter, James and John on the mountain. In fact, while these three disciples were seeing Jesus in his heavenly glory on the mountain, the other nine are experiencing suffering, doubt and embarrassment. As he comes down the mountain with his three disciples, he discovers a crowd of people surrounding the nine he left behind. What he discovers is more of the same unbelief he encountered on the mountain with the three. As he approaches the crowd the man who is at the center of the commotion runs over to him and falls on his knees before Jesus. He begs Jesus to have mercy on his son because he is suffering greatly with epilepsy. He is often thrown into the cooking fires in their home and into the water. In other words he is in danger of being killed by his malady on a regular basis and must constantly be watched. Then he explains that he asked the nine disciples to heal his son but they could not. Upon hearing that his nine disciples were unable to heal the boy, Jesus exclaims, "O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?"

I want you to see the similarity between what Jesus says here and what he says back in 16:4. Notice there is a behavior that Jesus says is caused by a state of being. "A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign." Jesus says it is because the Pharisees and Sadducees are wicked and adulterous that they ask for a miraculous sign. Now in 17: 17 it is because the disciples are unbelieving and perverse that they are unable to heal the boy. In addition notice the use of the word "generation". By using this word Jesus says that the particular action of a few people reveals the nature of all the people who are currently alive on planet earth. (That is meaning of generation.) What Jesus says about all the people who are alive based upon the actions of a few is meant to shatter the illusions of our own goodness. When you see people acting in ways that you could not imagine acting you should not judge yourself as superior to them. The reason we are not as bad as others is not due to some inherent superiority in us but to the grace of God towards us. The cliché, "But for the grace of God there go I", is really true.

It is statements like this that convince me that the Bible is God’s word. These disciples are supposed to be the heroes in the story and yet Jesus calls them unbelieving and perverse and uses them as exhibit number one of the lost condition of the human race. You will not find the heroes of other religions talked about in this way. The Bible is unrelenting in its insistence that human beings do not deserve to be saved and do nothing to contribute to their salvation but their own sin. The disciples are not followers of Christ because they are in some way superior to other people or have some kind of innate spirituality in them. They are by nature unbelieving and perverse men.

Another illusion that Jesus’ condemnation shatters is the illusion that an abundance of supernatural experiences will create believing people. These disciples have not only seen Jesus perform miracles like this hundreds of times but they have themselves performed these kinds of miracles before. Way back in chapter 10 Jesus sent these men out, giving "them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness." Jesus gave them the authority to do this and they have actually done these sorts of things before. Faith is not created by seeing miracles done or by doing miracles. This is so contrary to how we think. How often have you thought that if God would do a miracle for you, you would never doubt, never not be faithful to him? It’s not true. The reason that people do not believe is not because there is insufficient evidence to believe. The reason people don’t believe is because they are by nature unbelieving and perverse. The reason they don’t believe is they don’t want to believe.

Only faith in Jesus Christ will make you acceptable to God because…

• Human beings are by nature unbelieving and perverse
• And because…

II. God cannot accept unbelieving and perverse people, yet he is kind to them. (vv. 17-18)

The language that Jesus is using here is OT language. In Deuteronomy 31 God tells Moses that he is going to die. Then he says about the nation of Israel, "…these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed." Then he tells Moses to write a song and teach it to Israel "so it may be a witness for me against them." Listen to a few of the lines from the song and see if you can hear the similarity with what Jesus says here.

In Numbers 13-14 God asks a very similar question about Israel. This takes place about 15 months after God delivered the nation Israel from slavery in Egypt. He performed the 10 plagues, he parted the Red Sea for them and drowned the Egyptian army, he fed them every day with manna, he provided water out of rocks, he led them every day with a pillar of cloud in the day and of fire at night. Then when they came to the edge of the land of Canaan they refused to go into the land because they were afraid of the people. They accused God of bringing them out into the desert only to kill them. They were forming a mutiny in order to kill Moses and Aaron and then go back to Egypt. At this moment God showed up and this is what he said, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them…"

Jesus isn’t simply being peeved with the unbelief he is encountering. He is declaring God’s animosity and hostility towards unbelievers. It is a perverse and evil thing to not trust in the God who has made us and who has revealed himself to us in Jesus. God has proven himself over and over again and it is wicked to not submit to him, to not trust in him, to not obey him. God threatens to treat with contempt those who treat him with contempt by refusing to trust his promises and obey his commands.

But now notice what Jesus says at the end of v. 17 and what he does in v. 18. Don’t miss this. He looks on the entire group of people gathered here and calls the whole bunch of them unbelieving and perverse. But then he has the boy brought to him and he casts out the demon that is afflicting him and heals him. God commands faith and responds to faith but is not limited by the lack of faith. He is sovereign in his grace. He is kind to wicked people. Every day he gives life, breath and everything else to billions of people who despise him. He often heals and restores to health people who do not trust in him out of the greatness of his mercy. Thus he does here. He is not responding to anyone’s faith but is acting contrary to what everyone here deserves. We ought to trust in Christ but our lack of faith does not limit Christ’s power. In other words, faith is not the determinative force in the universe. Rather God’s sovereign pleasure is the ultimate determinative force in the universe.

Only faith in Jesus Christ will make you acceptable to God because…

• Human beings are by nature unbelieving and perverse
• God cannot accept unbelieving and perverse people, yet he is kind to them
• And because…

III. True faith in the true Christ overcomes every barrier between us and God’s rule in and through us (vv. 19-23)

As soon as the disciples have a chance to get alone with Jesus they have but one burning question. Why were we not able to cast it out? They ought to have known the answer from Jesus’ stinging rebuke, but they, as most humans think that Jesus was talking about someone else, not them. They thought the sermon was for the crowd, not they the "great" disciples. Jesus tells them the reason they could not cast out the demon is that they had such little faith. This is the fifth time he has told the disciples they have little faith. But then he tells them that they just need a faith the size of a mustard seed and they can command mountains to be moved. In fact, if they have faith like a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for them. There are a number of difficulties in what Jesus is saying here that we need to deal with.

First, when Jesus says they have little faith and then says they only need a mustard seed size faith and they can move mountains, he is obviously meaning they have no faith. At least, when it came to casting out the demon, they had no faith. The entire point of the mustard seed illustration is to show that it isn’t the quantity of faith that matters, but the quality of your faith. The object of your faith determines the quality of your faith. Let me give you two illustrations. Is there anyone in here who is afraid to fly but who has flown? (Get some details if there is someone.) A person who is afraid to fly will wait to the last minute to board the plane. He sits in his seat stiff and clutching the armrests or the people sitting next to him. He breathes rapidly and is very pale. He can barely stifle a cry of terror as the plane lifts off the runway and points its nose into the sky. The entire trip is pure misery. When he lands he bolts from the plane and falls into the arms of those waiting, trembling with relief to have made it. On that very same flight there are dozens of people who travel all the time and have hardly noticed taking off or landing. They have been calm and serene the entire time. Both kinds of people trusted in the airplane, right? They both bought tickets and got on the plane and safely arrived at their destination. In terms of experiencing what the plane is for, it doesn’t matter that one had great faith while the other had very little faith. The important thing is that they trusted a trustworthy object. A small faith in the airplane gained the objective of traveling to the destination, just as did a great faith.

But now let’s say that I built an airplane using a car engine and materials I have laying around my house. I built it based upon a design I found on the Internet. Then I invite you to join me for the maiden flight. I’m going to fly from the Rock County airport to the Dane County Airport. You agree to go with me. We tell all our friends how happy we are to be flying this awesome machine and how certain we are to enjoy our flight. Our friends tell us we are crazy to be getting on this plane. We inform that we have great faith and they are unbelievers. We say that this plane will get us to Madison safely. We have no fear but are absolutely confident we will make it. We are sincere in our belief that the plane will get us to Madison. Jesus would say, after we crashed, "O you of little faith." We have little faith because the object of our faith is not trustworthy.

The disciples were not trusting in Jesus. They were not trusting in the words of Jesus. They were trusting in themselves. They were trusting in their past experiences. They were trusting in a Jesus who did not exist. Jesus was not the focus of their faith and so they were unable to cast out the demon. People who talk as if faith has power in itself are nuts. This is a very common error. We have been told countless times by people in the hospital "you have a strong faith. It will get you through." My faith will not get me through. Jesus Christ gets me through. Faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. The size of faith is not the critical issue but rather who or what are you trusting in. I am absolutely convinced that the disciples had no faith because of the last sentence of v. 23, "And the disciples were filled with grief." In about six months from the time of this occurrence, these same men will be rejoicing that Jesus suffered, died and rose again. They obviously are not trusting Christ. They are grieved because they have plans for their lives and Jesus dying is not one of them. They want God to bring heaven to earth, they do not believe they need what Christ came to do, make them fit for heaven. Their treasures are still on earth and not in heaven.

However, what does Jesus mean by saying that if you have a mustard seed size faith in him, then you will be able to move mountains, in fact, nothing will be impossible for you. The metaphor, "moving mountains" is a very common way of talking about removing obstacles to accomplishing a goal. So Jesus is saying that if we have faith no obstacle will be able to keep us from accomplishing our goals, getting what we want. "Nothing will be impossible" cannot mean you can do everything that you believe you can do. Will you be able to make yourself invisible? There are times when it would be very helpful to be invisible. In fact you could make an argument in some situations that invisibility would help you better accomplish God’s will. Is the only reason you can’t make yourself invisible, your lack of faith? If you believe in Jesus will you be able to travel through outer space without the aid of a space ship? Will you be able to live underwater without any SCUBA gear? Will you be able to design a nuclear submarine without every studying nuclear physics? What if you fall in love with a woman but the woman is married. If you have enough faith, will the woman divorce her husband in order to marry you? Obviously, the "nothing" has limits. What are they? The limits cannot be whatever I want or desire or think would be best.

Here is where paying attention to context becomes important. Here is where my Pentecostal friends go wrong. They do not pay attention to context. First, the disciples have been given specific commands and promises from Jesus to heal and cast out demons. Casting out demons and healing is part of the work God has assigned to them as apostles. I do not believe I or anyone I know has been given these same commands and promises. If you know where these commands and promises are located please tell me. Second, we must take note of the fact that Jesus did not heal this boy in response to anyone’s faith. He sovereignly chose to heal. Jesus worked in spite of human unbelief. So the determinative factor in the healing of this boy is not faith, but the sovereign grace of Jesus. Third, and most importantly, look at what immediately follows Jesus’ promise that "nothing will be impossible for you." Jesus tells the disciples for the third time that he must suffer, die and rise again. There is not just one suffering son in this story. Jesus is going to suffer at the hands of men and be killed. He is going to ask his Father to deliver him from this suffering, three times, but his Father is going to say "No, you must suffer." God the Father is going to refuse to do for his own Son what God the Son freely did for this human father and son. Nothing was able to keep Christ from laying down his life on the cross. What is it that kept Jesus on the cross? Hebrews 12:3 says, "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame." What joy? The joy of being glorified with his father forever. The joy of thousands upon thousands of people redeemed by his blood, joining him in the worship of his father and the enjoyment of heaven. Jesus was able to endure the cross by faith in the promises of God. Jesus was able to do the most difficult thing that any human has ever done, willingly go to hell for others. He did it by faith. He knew that glory waited on the other side of the cross. This is my conclusion as to the limits to "nothing will be impossible to you." Nothing God promises to you or commands for you to do will be impossible to you if you have a true faith in the true Christ. You will be able to do whatever God assigns you to do for the glory of Christ and the good of his people. Every mountain standing between you and the work of God in and through you will be removed as you trust in Christ and his promises.

I want to emphasize what Jesus emphasizes here, faith is absolutely essential if you are going to experience God’s work in and through you. While God is kind to unbelieving people he always responds to true faith in the true Christ. This is his promise. True faith in the true Christ is always expressed in a life of prayer. It’s instructive that in Mark’s account of this story, Jesus answers the disciples question about why they couldn’t cast out this demon by saying, "This kind only comes out by prayer." In other words, the disciples weren’t praying when they sought to cast out this demon. They were depending upon themselves and their methods of exorcism. We are not fatalists. The reason the demon did not leave that boy is because the disciples did not engage in believing prayer. If you do not engage in believing prayer you will not be able to move the mountains of resistance between you and God’s will for you.

So what does all this mean for my family and I as Jared lies in a coma in the hospital? It means that we should continue to ask our gracious God to heal our son. We should ask God to do this for the glory of Christ and the good of his people. At the same time, we should ask God to strengthen our faith so that we will rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces more hope in the glory of God; because we know that being loved by God is better than having a whole son; because we know that this suffering is making heaven a more glorious place for Jared and us; because we know that this suffering will enable us to share in the holiness of God and we love the holiness of God more than we love everything else. The love of God for Jared and for us is not in question because Jesus suffered and died. The power of God to raise Jared from the dead is not in question because of the resurrection of Christ. The question we do not know the answer to is this: Will God’s glory and the salvation of his people be better served by Jared being restored today, in three weeks, a year or at the resurrection of the dead? We do not know. What we do know is that whatever God’s will is in this matter will be experienced if we will persist in believing prayer. We will only know and experience God’s love and power as we continue to trust him to fulfill all his promises to us in and through Jesus.

Only faith in Jesus Christ will make you acceptable to God because…

• Human beings are by nature unbelieving and perverse
• God cannot accept unbelieving and perverse people, yet he is kind to them
• True faith in the true Christ overcomes every barrier between us and God’s rule in and through us
• And because…

IV. Jesus, the Son of God, fulfills the demands of God’s law for those who have faith in him (vv. 24-27)

This last, strange little story in chapter 17 seems totally unrelated to what has just happened. Over the years, every time I’ve read it I’ve wondered what in the world it is doing in here. Jesus and his disciples have been alone throughout most of chapters 16 and 17 but now they return to their "home base", Capernaum. As they enter town they are met by a member of the Levites who is collecting the temple tax. This is a tax that God imposed on the nation Israel in Exodus 30:11-16. Every male over 20 had to pay a half shekel of silver each year as the redemption price for themselves. They had to pay the money in place of dying; it is in atonement for their lives. The money is then used to fund the worship in the temple. Now the Levite asks Peter if Jesus pays the tax. He knows that Jesus does not submit to many of the teachings of the religious leaders and so he wants to know if Jesus will submit to this payment. Peter tells the tax collector that Jesus does pay the tax. Peter goes to the house where Jesus is staying to get the money for the tax. After Peter enters the house, before he can tell Jesus about the conversation he just had, Jesus asks him a question. What Jesus wants to know is this: Do kings collect taxes from their sons or from the foreigners that they have conquered? Obviously, kings don’t tax their sons but foreigners. Therefore, as Jesus says the sons are exempt from paying the tax.

What Jesus is saying here is astounding. First, he is implying that the people Israel are not true sons. God, the king, has been requiring this tax payment for all these centuries from the foreigners who owe him tribute. Second, he is implying that he is the true son and therefore is exempt from paying the tax. He does not have to submit to the law because he is the Son. But not only is he a true son, but all who are related to him are also true sons. You are not a son of God because of your ethnic heritage or because of your religious performance. You are a son if you are a follower of the one and only Son of God. He is simply saying what Paul says in Romans, we become heirs of God not through observing the law but through our faith in Christ.

However, Jesus voluntarily submits to the law, not because he needs to atone for his life but so that he might not unnecessarily offend others. He submits to the law for the sake of others. This is where the story gets really strange. He could have simply told Peter to take some money out of the common purse that Judas, the treasurer for the band of disciples carried and to go pay the tax. However, that is not what he says. He tells Peter to go fishing and the first fish he catches will have a shekel of silver in its mouth with which Peter can pay the tax for both of them. Why does Jesus give such a strange command? Why does he pay the tax for he and Peter in such a strange way?

There are two things that Peter’s fishing in order to pay the tax shows. First, the demands of the law are met by the grace of God through the work of Christ. God’s law must be fulfilled. The only people who are going to heaven are those who have fulfilled the requirements of the law. No human, except Jesus has done that. So any human that gains heaven will do so, only because Jesus has obeyed the law and suffered the curse of the law for him or her. I am righteous in God’s sight because Jesus paid sin’s death penalty and because Jesus obeyed the law for me. Second, the people for whom Jesus fulfills the law are all those who trust in him. Peter had to exercise faith in order to pay the tax. He had to take his fishing line and hook, throw it in the water, and open the mouth of the first fish he caught. He trusted the word of Christ. This is what faith is, trusting that all that God has promised me in Jesus is better and more sure than all the happiness that this world can give. What you are watching in this strange story is Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast."

Only faith in Jesus Christ will make you acceptable to God because…

• Human beings are by nature unbelieving and perverse
• God cannot accept unbelieving and perverse people, yet he is kind to them
• True faith in the true Christ overcomes every barrier between us and God’s rule in and through us
• Jesus, the Son of God, fulfills the demands of God’s law for those who have faith in him

© Copyright 2002 John Swanson.
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