Matthew 13 (Part 4) :53-58

When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. Coming to his home town, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers, they asked. Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, only in his home town, in his own house, is a prophet without honor. And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Let's pray. Holy Father, from these verses, through the power of your Holy Spirit, we invite you to just minister, speak, and direct our hearts according to your will. Lord, we know every time we sit down to get into the word that we need your spirit. We know that we need that work of illumination. We know that we are completely and utterly dependent upon you to derive any understanding or insight from the word. We know, Lord, that you are the one who is going to impart that here today. And so it is with expectation that we just invite you to minister and speak to our hearts and apply this word, Father God, to our lives with understanding. We ask all of these things in Jesus' name, amen. As you well know, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he wasn't there very long. He was raised, actually, in Nazareth of Galilee. And so it says here, as we look at these verses, that Jesus went back to the place where he was raised, probably to connect with family, I'm assuming. While he was there, he spoke in the synagogue. And after doing so, the people, it says, were amazed. They were amazed, and they said to one another, wow, where did this guy get these smarts? Where did all this come from, anyway? And your Bible may say astonished, as far as the word that describes this. And the people wondered because they knew him. They knew his family. There was a familiarity with his family. And they knew that there was something more that was going on with this man than what was explained by his family and his very, very common upbringing. And they refused to consider, I think, what that more white might be. And I think the reason they did that is because of that familiarity. It says that they took offense at him. You know, those are interesting words. They took offense. Why in the world would they be offended? I mean, what is there to be offended about? Just because this guy happens to come, you know, have been raised in this town, and he was the son of a carpenter. To you and I, that all seems like, you know, we're just so used to hearing that sort of stuff. It's like, well, you know, big deal. Jesus was, you know, he was raised by a carpenter, probably was a carpenter himself up until the point that he began his public ministry. But it was just that very thing that bothered people, you see. It was kind of like they were saying, you know, how dare you, a simple carpenter, presume to instruct us or teach us, you know? You know, you're no different than we are. So what makes you so special, getting up and saying these things and so forth? And the reason that they were offended by this is because they were seeing him exclusively from a worldly point of view. And they talked about it. They said it among themselves. They said, isn't this the carpenter's son? Of course, you and I both know the answer to that question is no. But, you know, don't we know his brothers and his sisters? They name his brothers and they mention, you know, they're all around here. They're average, ordinary people. What's up with this guy? I mean, the presumption of this guy to think that, you know, he's this big rabbi teacher guy, you know, that can go around talking to people and telling them stuff and so forth. And so they choose to see him, they choose to look at him from this worldly perspective. And, you know, people still do that today. When they think about Jesus, when they talk about Jesus, sometimes people will say, well, you know, he was a good teacher. Jesus was a good teacher. Or some people may even go so far as to say, you know, he was a prophet. But they refuse to look beyond that because they're looking basically from a worldly perspective. And the Apostle Paul admitted that at one time he and others made the same mistake about Jesus and about who he was. In fact, do you remember when he wrote to the Corinthians? Let me put this up on the screen for you. He actually said to them, he said, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. And that means nobody. But he says, though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Paul, you know, admits here, hey, you know, at the beginning, you know, of my understanding of Jesus Christ and who he was, and of course, he wouldn't have called him Jesus Christ back at the beginning. He would have called him just Jesus of Nazareth. He saw him from a completely worldly position. He was the leader of a sect. And he was a leader of a particularly dangerous sect. And even though he had been killed, his followers were continuing to claim that he was alive. How preposterous is that? And continue to spread his lies and so forth. And Paul believed that this was a situation that needed to be stamped out. Of course, you and I both know that he was on his way to Damascus one day when he met the Lord Jesus. And of course, his entire perspective changed after that fateful meeting. And so Paul says here in this passage, you know, we used to think of Jesus in worldly terms. We don't anymore. That's a huge mistake, because if you do, you're going to miss everything that Jesus is. Physically speaking, you know, we're told in the scripture that there was nothing special about Jesus. You know, 700 years before he was even born, the prophet Isaiah actually wrote about his average looking appearance. Again, let me put up another passage from Isaiah 53. It says he had no beauty. And there wasn't anything majestic about him, you know. He didn't walk around with any kind of an air of distinction or nobility or anything like that. Nothing to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should actually desire him. He looked like a guy. And that was definitely on purpose. He looked like a guy. He just looked like another guy. You know, it's funny. I've looked around at people, average looking people from time to time and, you know, guys, obviously. And I've kind of thought to myself, I wonder if Jesus looked like you. You know, we got all these pictures and paintings and no snapshots. But we got all these pictures, you know, and recreations of what we think Jesus, you know, looked like. And I noticed that he's always rather heroic looking, you know. He's got the, he's got just, he usually looks pretty buff, you know. And he's got this special kind of a chiseled, you know, facial appearance, you know, and kind of a holy sort of a demeanor, you know. And he was a guy, you know. Isaiah tells us here, there was nothing, there was nothing in his appearance that would make you look at him and go, whoa, that's somebody special. You know why? God didn't want us to look at him after the flesh. He didn't want us to, to look at Jesus in a worldly way. That's what we do all the time. That's what we're used to. We're used to looking at people, judging them from the outside. You do that to Jesus. If you assess Jesus from a worldly position, you are going to lose it altogether. You're going to miss who Jesus really is. And that's a tragic thing to miss, by the way. That's a huge loss. And what causes it? What causes us to look at somebody from a worldly perspective? What causes us to assess someone from a fleshly view? Well, it's really given to us here in the very last verse, verse 58. Look at it with me again in your Bible. It says, and he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Now, your Bible may, instead of lack of faith, simply use the word unbelief. Same, same concept. But it says that Jesus did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief or their lack of faith. In fact, when Mark retells this. this very event in his gospel account, he says that it was Jesus' turn to be amazed. They were amazed at him when he first started talking and they wondered where he got all this stuff, but Mark tells the story that Jesus was the one who was amazed, but he was amazed at their lack of faith. He was amazed at their unbelief. You ever thought about what it takes to amaze God? I mean, that's a big deal. I mean, what do you gotta do to amaze God? Well, there's a couple of times Jesus was amazed. He was amazed at the people of Nazareth because of their lack of faith. He was also amazed on one other time when a Roman centurion expressed faith in his healing ability and so forth. It says Jesus was amazed. But we see from this that faith is an incredibly important element, so important that when Paul wrote his letters to the churches, he was often curious about their faith. He would write to them about their faith, and in one particular instance, when he wrote to the believers in Thessalonica, I find it interesting, as he's writing to talk to them about their lives, he didn't ask them about their church building or if they had ordered those new chairs yet. He didn't ask him about their children's ministry program or how much money they had in the bank or how good offerings were or whether, he didn't ask them about any of those things. Over and over again, he asked them about the condition of their faith. Let me show you kind of a synopsis of the first 10 verses in chapter three. It says, we sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen you, and I've highlighted all these, and encourage you in your faith. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution, we are encouraged about you because of your faith. Night and day, we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is still lacking in your faith. Isn't that interesting? And that's not the full read of those first 10 verses. It's a little bit of a condensation of them, but still, you could see that in the first 10 verses, Paul mentions their faith no fewer than five times, excuse me, out of the 10 verses, five times. That's what he's concerned about. That's what he cares about. So why the importance of faith? Because faith is what our lives in Christ are all about. It's how we live. It's everything. Our faith, we can't underscore the centrality of faith with what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse seven. We live by faith. We live by faith, not by sight. That's living after worldly things. We live by faith. I mean, that is such a powerful statement. And the implications of it are something that sometimes escapes our notice. You know, we can read that. We read that in the Bible. And you just kind of, it doesn't take you very long to read it, we live by faith. How long did that take? But when did you sit and just ever just think about it? What does it mean that we as Christians live by faith? That our lives are predicated on faith? Wow. I mean, when you stop and think about that, it's really, truly amazing. There are so many things in the Bible that talk about faith and its incredible, vital importance. Look at this passage from Hebrews 11. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. You want to live a life pleasing to God? Faith is the key. Faith is the key to living a life pleasing to God. And then probably one of my all-time favorite passages in the Bible is Galatians chapter two, where Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ. And I no longer live, but Christ now, he says, lives in me. In the life I live in this body, how do I live it? I live it by faith. I live it by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. How do I live my life now? By faith. I live it not by sight. I live it not by worldly assessment and worldly perspective. I live it by faith. I'm living it by faith. This is so huge that it is important for us to go deeper in our understanding about, okay, so what is faith? What does it mean to live by faith? Well, fortunately, the Bible carries its own definition of faith. In fact, there are several places. I think this is probably one of the most popular, Hebrews 11 and on. Now, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see with our eyes. Still, there's a certainty. That's what faith is. It's being certain. I'm sure. Yeah, but you can't see it. I know, but I'm still sure. That's faith, okay? Faith is about seeing what can't be seen by the human eye or even necessarily perceived by the human heart because the human heart in and of itself is deceitful and wicked and so forth. Faith is all about believing even when the life around you seems to be telling a completely different story. Doesn't life have a great way of doing that? When you and I perceive life and assess life by what I see right here, I'm usually in for a major disappointment. But when I begin to look at life with the eyes of faith, it changes my whole perspective. There are so many ways that this applies to our lives. One of the ways that I see happening, one example of how faith may or may not be applied is one that I see in the area of marriage challenges. When two people are struggling in their marriage, which often happens, the tendency, of course, for those two people is to look at all the outward signs that are going on in their marriage and all the trouble and then to base their outlook on their marriage on those markers. You know, they look at those specific markers and they say, well, this is what defines it and this is how I'm assessing the situation. And often, when a couple comes in for counseling, finally, they are so beaten down and so discouraged and so disheartened by life and everything that's going on that they literally can no longer view their marriage through the eyes of faith. It's just what is in front of their eyes. It's right here, right now. That's all they can see. There's nothing more to it. And we sit down and we start talking and it's obvious from what is coming out of their mouths that God is nowhere present. Even though they are believers. And I don't counsel unbelievers. That's an exercise in futility. So, you know, but we begin to talk and we begin to, it just becomes very, very clear that there are literally, hardship and difficulty has created blinders on their spiritual eyes to see any potential for faith. And consequently, sometimes when married couples come in for counseling, they don't need to talk about their marriage. Sometimes they need a boost of faith. Sometimes that's the majority of what they need. And they, but see, they don't know that because all they can see is a broken marriage or a broken relationship. And so they come and they say, help us fix this. Well, okay, I understand what you want to accomplish and that's commendable. And I'm glad you came in for that perspective. But you're asking me to start to work with you on building something for which you have no faith in God right now. You see, your faith is decimated. It's, or it's just not even on the radar. And see, I might as well be doing secular counseling then. Do you understand why I don't do counseling for unbelievers? Because you can't bring God into the equation. And if you can't bring God into the equation, what hope is there? What power is there? What strength is there apart from God? That's not what I signed up for. I never signed up for the, you know, I'm gonna be a marriage counselor. Good grief. Shoot me now. I mean, I can't think of something I would rather not do than talk to people about their problems without Jesus. You know, it's like, ah, forget it. Now, you bring Jesus into the equation, I'll talk to you about anything. And we'll have hope about it if we can really get to talking about him and focusing on him and so forth. And so I find that sometimes when people, you know, come in for what they believe to be marriage counseling, sometimes, you know, they just need a real booster shot, you know, in their heart of faith. And by the same token, when a couple's faith, when a couple's faith is strong, you know, when the two of them have a strong faith in Christ there is often a corresponding strength in their marriage. Doesn't mean they have a perfect marriage by any stretch. But I find that it is very rare when two people's faith is strong, when their walk with God is strong, I find it very rare that they have insurmountable marriage problems. You know why? Because faith is that which mounts the insurmountable. And when two people have faith, regardless of the condition of their marriage, they're both trusting God to make it better because their faith is strong. They've been built up in their faith, right? And so they begin to apply their faith to those things in life that aren't what they should be. And there's all kinds of things in life that aren't what they should be. Let's face it, right? But they begin to apply, they begin to extend that faith into those areas, relationships and, you know, whether it's finances or health issues or fear issues or addiction or whatever, we all deal with these issues. But if you don't come at them with a heart of faith, forget it, you know? Those things are just gonna bowl you over. I'm not saying that people who are people of faith can't have marriage problems, I'm not saying that. But if their faith is strong, what I am saying is they're not going to come to a place of hopelessness because they have faith in God. And they're like, you know what? This really stinks right now, but I'm just really, we're really trusting God's gonna make something out of this thing. And we're just gonna surrender to him every day, we're just gonna give it to him. And usually people of faith have come to the place of faith because they realize how impotent they themselves are in and of themselves. But that's often what faith is predicated on is the revelation of my own personal impotence, you know? My own personal inability to affect any change in this situation, you know? It's like, I got marriage problems and there's nothing I can do about it, nothing. I've done a lot to make them, but I can't fix them, right? But you know what? God's able. I don't know what he's gonna do exactly, but I know he's able. I know that God is able. I know there's nothing God can't do. I know that he, in fact, you know, he is powerful. And you know what I love to hear? I love to hear people quote Ephesians 3.20 when it comes to issues of faith. Let me put it up on the screen for you. Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. Do you know, if two people who are having marriage problems, and again, I'm just using one example, okay? You apply it to whatever's going on in your life. If you apply this verse, you're going to be way better off than if you try to solve the issue or look at the issue apart from the understanding that God is able to do immeasurably more than all that we could even ask or imagine. Can you imagine somebody talking to you about their marriage? Maybe they came to you and they had that attitude. They said, yeah, you know, we've been really struggling lately, my wife and I got to be honest with you. We've really been a lot of hardships lately, a lot of bumps in the road. And we all have them. We all have bumps in the road, but you know what? We're trusting God that he's able to do immeasurably more than anything we can even ask or imagine. We're just trusting him and we're surrendering to him and we're giving our marriage to him every day. And we're just trusting that he's going to work in our lives and work in our hearts and bring about his purpose and the reason that he brought us together as a couple. Wouldn't that bring a smile to your face? I mean, can you imagine people having that kind of an attitude rather than what people normally come with when they want to talk to you about their marriage and how, what a dirty, rotten creep the other person is and all the bad and just yucky stuff? So here's the question. Do you believe that God can do immeasurably more? You know why I'm asking you that question? Because I care too, like the Apostle Paul did, how your faith is. How's your faith? How's your faith? You say, well, I don't know how my faith is. Well, let me ask you this. Do you believe God can do immeasurably more than anything you could ask or imagine? Well, I don't know. Well, that might just tell you. That might just be a barometer for you on how your faith is. You see, Paul cared about that when he wrote to the Thessalonians and other believers. How's your faith doing? Are you staying strong? Do you believe in God? Do you believe God can do immeasurably more? Are you putting your trust in him? Are you putting your hope in him? Or are you looking at your spouse and putting your hope in them and saying, well, if they just get their act together, that has your eyes here, down here, instead of where they need to be up there, focused on him, setting your heart, your mind, your eyes on things above, not on things below. Listen, you keep your eyes down here on the circumstances and the conditions and that and the people and whatever, you're always gonna be depressed. No wonder we have to take pills to pick us up. No wonder. Where's our faith? Where's our trust? Where's our hope? You know? Listen, you, the farther you get away from God, the more depressing life is. So how do I build up my faith? Well, there's some things that we know. There's some things that we know for sure. Romans 10, 17 says this, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So we know right there that this is kind of like, the word of God is kind of like a weight set, you know, that you're doing this. And the whole, you can tell I haven't done that much in life like ever. But you know, I've watched other people and seen the results. I just decided I didn't want to be in bondage to that because I realized that the more muscle you have, the more fat you can hang on it. Oh well, and that's another story altogether. I just heard that somewhere and I decided that was a great excuse not to add more muscle. So I just thought, good. Anyway, but you know that that working of muscles and so forth produces strength, greater stamina and so forth. And the word of God is like a weight set that you're using to stay in shape and so forth. It builds up your faith. Another way we grow in our faith is one that we hate to admit. And that is through trials. Oh man, he's going to talk about trials, hardships. I want to show you a quote. One of my favorite authors, by the way, is George Mueller. I only read one of his books. In fact, I don't even know, maybe that's all he ever wrote. But he wrote, to endure great trial is to learn strong faith. And he says, I've learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings. He basically is kind of admitting that. He says, yeah, God has taught me faith. You know how? In the school of hard testings, severe trials, that's where I learned to trust God. Do you ever stop to think about the fact that if you don't have difficulties, there really isn't any reason to learn to trust? I mean, what are you going to trust in? You don't really need that sort of a thing. You're just kind of on cruise, you know? But we all go through difficulties. We all go through trials. And by the way, trials and difficulties don't have this magical formula to automatically build up our faith. As we put our trust in God, we are built up in our faith. But please understand people, trials and severe testings can just make you hard and cranky too. They can make you angry. They can make you bitter. They can make you just depressed. They can do that too. But that happens when you don't trust God in the midst of them, and you just sit and focus on your problems, and you turn into one big pity party. Poor me. Look at me, look at my life. Look at what I have to deal with. You know? That doesn't make anybody good. But when we walk through those trials hand in hand with God and put our trust in him, our hope in him, our life in him, and we say, Jesus, I don't have a clue what you're doing in my life. All I know is it hurts, but I choose to trust you today because your word says that you work all things together for the good of those that love you and are called according to your purpose. And you know what? In my human understanding, my human comprehension, I can't even begin to figure how you might possibly bring something good out of this. Looks to me like it's a virtual impossibility, but I trust you. I trust you. I choose today to trust you. I don't understand it, I don't get it, and I don't want it, but I trust you. You know? Trials and challenges, I'll tell you one thing they'll do, they'll test your faith, tell you where it's at. Have you ever thought of trials as kind of a blessing in disguise? I know, I know. But from this perspective at least, it tells you where you're at. It's kind of like, you know, didn't you hate tests at school, especially pop quizzes? Hated them. And I hated the teacher for giving them. I would waltz into class thinking this is going to be a piece of cake, and they'd say, put your books on the floor, take out a piece of paper, get out a pencil. Oh, I hated that. I hated that. That meant there was going to be a pop quiz, and then they'd say, number your paper from one to 20. You know? I didn't study last night. I didn't read the book. We're going to do a pop quiz on chapter 13. Oh, I didn't read chapter 13. I didn't feel, you know, prepared. Do you ever feel prepared when you go through a test in life? But you know what? Those quizzes, those tests, they have a way of telling you where you're at, just like they did when I was in school. I was not a good student in school, by the way. I did not test well. Didn't like school. Hated it as much. My dad was the superintendent of the school system, and I hated school, you know? And I was usually in the principal's office, who was usually a good family friend. But Paul, what are you doing here again? Oh, I don't know. I hate school. I hated school. Hated it. I don't really like tests in life any better, to be completely honest with you. But you know what? They really tell me where I'm at. And when I freak out, when I'm going through a difficult season, I know that that means my faith isn't very strong in that area. And God has allowed me to experience that difficulty and my subsequent response to it in order to bring illumination to my heart. Paul, this is an area where you have not yet surrendered to me. This is an area where you just, you can't seem to rest in me. You can't seem to just kind of give this thing to me, you know? One of the things that I got to tell you, though, that really blesses me about the Lord is how he ministers to us according to our faith. You know, when Paul was writing to the Thessalonians and saying, how is your faith? It's obviously a one-way conversation. If the people could have written back and we could have read those responses, we probably would have read something that would have shown us that, well, some people's faith was strong, some people's faith was kind of strong, some people's faith was really weak, and some people's faith was virtually non-existent. Because we're all in those various kind of situations. We're all in those different conditions of faith, you know? Some of you right in this room today, I'm not going to point fingers, obviously, but your faith is probably very weak. Some of you have very strong faith. Some of you are somewhere in the middle. What's really cool about God is that he doesn't find fault with people, but he deals with them right where they're at. You know, Ken and I just this last week were talking about Gideon, you know, the story of Gideon, and we were talking about the issue of when Gideon put a fleece out before the Lord in order to determine his will, and we were talking about the fact that although people use that a lot, and they'll say, well, we're just going to put out a fleece before the Lord, and they forget that really Gideon is not one of those bastions of faith that we look to in the Bible to say, whoa, what a guy. In fact, what he did, he did out of unbelief and a lack of faith, you know? And yet we continue to kind of think that that's something we should, you know, do ourselves, you know? It's like, well, I'm going to put out a fleece before the Lord, you know? And it's like, oh, okay, well, you just kind of told me where you're at sort of thing, you know? It's like he did it because his faith was weak, and he basically, God comes to him and says, Gideon, you're the man to go against the Midianites, and Gideon goes, right, huh? You got the wrong guy. And so God says, no, you're the man. And so he put out this fleece, literally, this sheep's fleece, and said, you know, do this. He asked for miracles related to that so that he would be certain of the Lord's calling in that particular thing. But again, it was based in unbelief and a lack of faith that he did what he did. Gideon doubted, you know, that what God said he was really going to do. Now, Abraham, on the other hand, now, there was a man of faith. Now, that didn't mean he didn't have lapses of faith because he did. He was a man just like you and I. He wasn't perfect, but he was a man who was, you know, his faith was stronger, let's say, than Gideon, all right, if we're going to look at faith on these different levels. And I love how Paul, because to me, this is just, this is my goal, you know, when it comes to faith. Paul talks about Abraham in Romans chapter four, I'll put this up. It says, without weakening in his faith, talking about Abraham, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet, he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but he was strengthened how in his faith and gave glory to God. Now, what's interesting about this passage is you'll notice that it says, Abraham faced the fact that he and Sarah were beyond childbearing, you know, in and of themselves, physically speaking. And of course, this promise is all about the birth of Isaac now. So when people come to me and they say, my marriage, listen, pastor, face the facts, buddy, my marriage is dead. I don't have any problem facing that fact. But are you going to also at the same time be strengthened in your faith and not waver in unbelief and believe that God can still raise the dead? You see, we don't, we don't believe God still raises the dead and we do waver in unbelief. Let's face it. You know, our faith is not that strong sometimes, especially when we're facing the facts. You know, the facts were the physical, worldly conditions that Abraham was dealing with. He's an old man and Sarah is an old woman and it ain't going to happen anymore from a physical, natural standpoint. He faced it. And by the way, this speaks right in the face of that crazy mixed up ultra faith stuff that you see on television and read in books that tell you that if you, you have to believe that it's already happened in the sense that you deny the reality of it. That's so dumb. It goes against the word of God says that Abraham faced the fact of the condition, but yet he still did not waver through unbelief. Let me put up a quote from Andrew Murray. I love this one too. He says, faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation. Now when he talks about all expectation, he's talking about worldly expectation. Please understand that it's not faith expectation. That's a different thing altogether. But when you, on a worldly basis, cannot expect any improvement, any change or whatever, faith steps up and says, but God, but God, I can't, we can't. I look at my wife or something if we've got a bad marriage and I say, honey, we can't, but God. And I love how this is so beautifully expressed. David did a beautiful job of defining his own personal faith when he wrote this in Psalm chapter five. He said, in the morning, oh Lord, you hear my voice. In the morning, I lay my request before you. And then what does he say? And I wait in expectation. Now that's not worldly expectation. Because I face the fact from a worldly perspective, there's really nothing to expect. But from a divine, from a God-centered perspective, there's everything in the world to expect. Because with God, nothing is impossible, right? Oh, I know. We say that. With God, nothing is impossible. You know what? We don't really believe it. We don't really believe it. Let's just, let's just, let's just admit it. We say it. We can even quote the passage. With God, nothing is impossible. You know? But what, where's our expectations lie? I so forth you know so what do we do when we realize our faith isn't as strong as it should be by the way that should probably be like every day what do we do what are you gonna do with that you're gonna just get depressed discouraged give up can't do that again because there's hope there's always hope I keep coming back to the example of that man we don't even know his name who cared so much about his son who was ravaged by a demonic presence that he he traveled however far we don't know to meet with Jesus and to have Jesus take care of it for him and and the Bible says that when he got there Jesus wasn't there he was up on a mountain hanging out with Peter James and John they were gonna getting a light and smoke show up there and in what we call the transfiguration but event and so the other disciples decided well Jesus isn't here so the guy wants us to cast out this demon we'll just take care of it we'll take care of it for him you know because you know we're his reps and they couldn't do it and that course started bickering and complaining and arguing and so when Jesus came down off the mountain he heard these people arguing and complaining about this and he said what's what's what's going on here the man came to Jesus said I brought my son to your disciples because he's got this demonic thing that you know grabs hold of him and and they couldn't do anything about it and remember what Jesus said Oh faithless generation how long must I be among you bring the boy here and then he said well let's pick it up right there mark chapter 9 and then Jesus asked the boys father how long has he been like this from childhood he answered it has often thrown him into the fire or water to kill him but if you can do anything take pity on us and help us if you can said Jesus everything is possible for him who believes immediately the boys father exclaimed I do believe help me overcome my unbelief you guys have heard me quote this passage before because I think it's about one of the most honest statements a person can make when they see when they come face to face with the fact my faith isn't what it should be my faith isn't as strong as it should be what are you gonna do you're gonna give up get discouraged no you're gonna go to the one who can make a difference this man didn't just you know when when Jesus confronted him and said if I can what's this if business the guy could have said yeah you're right you're right come on son let's go just go home no he continued to cry out and to say you're right busted you know what I do have some faith I do believe but there are also pockets of unbelief in my life please help me overcome my unbelief and that's that's a prayer that I think that that that we need to begin to pray and and and regarding whatever area of our lives where faith is is lacking you know I I wish you know I've been talking a lot about marriage this morning and just how faith applies to marriage wouldn't that be incredible if somebody had an issue with their marriage and instead of saying you know we got marriage problems they said Lord I really need you to help me with this area of unbelief in my life that keeps me from really trusting you that this is gonna get better whoo that kind of puts it back but you know we don't like to put things back on ourselves do we we like to just keep focusing on the other person God it's the woman you gave me that's the problem instead of saying Lord help me with my unbelief help me to overcome my unbelief because I believe I mean your word says that with faith all things are possible and you know I either got to believe that or I should probably just close my Bible and just move on with life you know I mean but if it really says with faith all things are possible and right now I'm not really thinking about the possibilities my hope is not in the possibilities in fact I don't any hope at all maybe that's a good sign for me that my faith isn't where it needs to be in fact maybe I'm struggling with unbelief and I didn't even know it and I couched it in concern for my marriage or concern for my children or concern for this and all that and I and I focused on all those things and what was really going on here tonight I am riddled with unbelief Lord help me overcome my unbelief you know then I sound like an honest prayer to you you