Faith to Move Mountains

This is the sermon Matt gave this past Sunday at St. John's Lutheran Church in Flanagan, IL.  It was wonderful to meet new brothers and sisters in Christ and develop yet another partnership with a church.  We were very grateful for the opportunity to share and be welcomed into this great body.

Matthew 17:14-27

                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.

In medieval Europe the church and the state were intimately woven together.  No one would have imagined that the two should be separate.  Even in Germany Lutherans and Catholics persecuted and hunted down anyone who would not subscribe to certain Christian doctrine. 

Nowhere was this more true than in John Calvin’s Geneva.  Calvin, a contemporary of Luther, fought groups like the “libertines,” who believed that grace freed them so that they did not need to submit to church or civil authority.  When some challenged Calvin’s authority and declared his doctrines heretical they were punished by being paraded through the streets of Geneva while loudly asking God for forgiveness. 

               

Some of the first settlers of the Southern tip of the African continent were Dutch men and women given land by the Dutch East India Company to establish a port for Dutch ships going to and from India.  These settlers brought with them the Calvinism of the Dutch Reformed Church.  They grew to believe that the lands of Southern Africa were their “promised land” and that God had ordained that they establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. 

However, this idealized kingdom did not work out.  Instead, the Dutch along with some Germans, French Huguenots, and a few British settlers would eventually develop a political system of racism that placed them on top and any person of color on the bottom of the political, economic, and social ladder.  And they believed this was God’s created order and will.    

               

In the reading I shared with you Jesus comes down the mountain of transfiguration.  He has just revealed His glory to His inner circle of disciples.  But while he was up there a man came to the disciples left at the bottom. 

This man’s son had been born with severe seizures that would constantly throw him to the ground.  He went looking for Jesus.  Having heard the stories of the miracles Jesus performed maybe his son could be healed to.  But Jesus was not around.  So he took the boy to the disciples of Jesus.  But the disciples failed miserably. 

        

When Jesus comes down the mountain the man immediately falls at Jesus’ feet and begs him to heal his son.  He also includes the fact that the disciples are incompetent. 

Jesus rebukes the disciples harshly.  He condemns them for their ineffectiveness.  And then Jesus finally says, “Bring the boy to ME.” 

This is a far different message than we here in our modern American culture.  We hear that all we need to do is love more.  If we just love each other then all life’s problems will go away.              

But love cannot fix the world.  It cannot solve our problems, because love is not faith.  We see all the problems around the world and all the problems we have in our life and we think that if people would just start loving then the world would be a better place.  If we, like those disciples waiting at the bottom of the mountain just try harder then we can heal the broken world.  We are the unbelieving and perverse generation that tries to fix things on our own, without Jesus.  We do not want God to be present and active in our lives.  We want God to stay up on the mountain until we get things straightened out down here.     

               

In South Africa today, the country is still reeling from the disease of Apartheid.  The economic power lies with a small minority, most of whom are white.  The political power has been seized by the black groups.  Racism and animosity continue to divide the country, cities, and even neighbors. 

                

Poor medical systems and a plethora of other issues have contributed to the spread diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, which have ravaged millions of lives throughout the continent of Africa.  The answer over these past few decades has been for Western governments to offer more and more financial aid.  Yet it has been shown time and time again that throwing money at a problem rarely improves the situation and many times makes it worse.

                

So what do we do?  Should we do nothing to help other countries?  Should we do nothing about the spread of HIV/AIDS?  What about easily treatable diseases that could be cured simply through access to clean drinking water?  Should we sit at the bottom of the mountain of sin, illness, and death that ravages a country like South Africa and do nothing?

               

After healing the young boy from his seizures Jesus says to his disciples:

“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.”

Then after they came together in Galilee, Jesus 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 was transfigured, after Jesus healed the boy and after Jesus told them that even a small bit of faith could move a mountain they heard him speak about his death and resurrection and they were filled with grief!  He did not talk about his death alone.  He told them that he would be raised to life!  And they were filled with grief. 

                

The mountain of pain, suffering, disease, and death in our lives and throughout the world is looming over us.  It is a mountain of doom and despair.

                

When we focus on the mountain suffering in this world and the brokenness that we cannot fix then we will always be filled with grief.  Just like the disciples who focus on the death of Jesus and did not have the faith to see the resurrection even though Jesus told them point blank. 

We have a promise that through faith in Jesus those mountains can be and will be moved.  But the kingdom of God is not a human institution.  It is not something that we can institute with new laws or a new political leader.  It is not something we can fix with more or less taxes.  The kingdom of God is not of this world.   

                

You and I can do nothing but believe!  We can do nothing to save our families.  We can do nothing to save our communities; nothing for the United States or even South Africa.  Does that grieve you?

                

It is salvation… if you are willing to believe.

If you have faith in Jesus Christ then you will realize that it is not our job to save people!  It is not our job to fix the problems of the world!  It is God’s job and God’s problem. 

Instead of thinking that we can handle it on our own, like the disciples standing at the bottom of the mountain, it is our job to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ and lead people to Him.  That is a far cry from doing it ourselves.      

                

I want to share with you an opportunity to join in the proclamation of God’s good news in South Africa.  God wants you take to take His gospel to your friends and family, and even your enemies.  Love is good, but what God asks of us is to share the faith you have already been given in Jesus Christ.

                

Blessman Ministries is seeking to do that in South Africa.  God has called my wife and I and our daughter, Stella, to share the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ in the Limpopo region of South Africa.  It is not about creating a better government or fixing race relations between the people there.  And this mission is not just about feeding hungry people. 

Every meal passed out to a child it is about giving them the good news of Jesus Christ.  With every pair of shoes passed out the person giving those shoes first washes the feet of the receiver and prays for them.  A prayer and an invitation to follow Jesus is given with every pair of eyeglasses.  Blessman Ministries’ goal is to utilize their abilities to meet practical needs to open the door to impacting lives for eternity.  They hope that conquering physical barriers they are conveying eternal hope.

               

Blessman Ministries has started a farming program to teach people a marketable skill that can produce an income and food for them, their families, and the local community.  Their sewing micro-business employs women in South Africa in a similar fashion.  They hope to soon have a fish farm up and running in order to employ more people and add more protein to the meals of the children in their feeding program.  There is a lot going on.    

                

But I don’t simply want to give you information.  I want to give you an invitation.  I invite you to join us in this adventure of faith.  I invite you to pray that this ministry will never fall into the trap of the bottom-of the mountain disciples that think they have the power to fix the broken world without Jesus.  I ask you to pray about participating with us in this mission to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to people who desperately need it.  Maybe you could even join us for a short, two week trip?  We can give lots of information.  You can email us or follow our blog to get more information as well.

                

We would love for you to be a part of this ministry with us, whether through prayers or financial support, but most of all we hope that you will join us wherever you are at in proclaiming freedom and salvation in Jesus Christ.  God has given us a mission, all of us, and that mission is to make disciples of all nations.  The mountain is big, but even the tiniest bit of faith in God can move mountains.