GO MOVE A MOUNTAIN

GO MOVE A MOUNTAIN—Matthew 17:14-20 Christ Church Quaker Farms July 29, 2012 Do you believe it? Do you believe that faith can remove mountains? Please look at the mustard seed, which is attached to your bulletin. How big is that seed? Not very big. It’s rather tiny. If it wasn’t encased in plastic, it would have gotten lost. So Jesus challenges us. “ IF YOU HAVE FAITH THE SIZE OF A MUSTARD SEED, THEN YOU COULD MOVE MOUNTAINS.” Do you think that you have faith, the size of a small mustard seed? Let’s find out. Please open up your red prayer books to page 358. AS you know, this is the statement of faith as received by the worldwide universal church. Now, I’m going to ask you a couple questions. If you wish to answer, you may do so by raising your hand: • Do you believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? If so, please raise your hand. • Moving to the next section, Do you believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God? So, it sounds to me that there is a lot of faith in this room. It appears to me that most of us have faith that is much, much bigger than the tiny size of the mustard seed. You see, the people to whom Jesus was originally speaking these words had much less faith than you do. They didn’t know that Jesus was the Son OF God. The Holy Spirit had not yet come, so they didn’t know anything about him. But you do. You know and believe this. So your faith is much broader, much deeper, and more informed that the people who originally heard this message. You see, Jesus knew that his original audience, and those of us who would come later, actually do have faith much larger than that of a mustard seed. But we are not using the faith we have. So, Jesus challenge is better understood like this: If you use your mustard size faith, then you can move mountains. In today’s Gospel, the original disciples had at least faith that was the size of the mustard seed, but they had attitudes of doubt, and so the sick boy in the Gospel appeared to them to be a mountain, which they could not move. • At the time that the disciples prayed for the boy, Jesus was not with them. Earlier in the Gospel, the disciples had successfully prayed to heal others, but this time was gone. But now that He was temporarily absent, they let their attitude of doubt suppress their faith. Then, the boy’s illness became a mountain that they could not move. The disciples are not the only ones with doubting On our journeys of life we encounter gigantic mountains, figuratively speaking, which we feel like we just cannot move. • Some of us encounter difficulty in our relationships with family, friends, associates, church members, or neighbors. Rather than invest time and energy to work things out or to seek reconciliation, if you are like me, you may just withdraw, and let the relationship deteriorate or die. • Some of us have self indulgences and obsessions around food, alcohol, sexual temptations, television, the internet, making money, or whatever. When those obsessions hurt ourselves or hurt our relationships, we then realize that we ought to stop; but those mountains appear too hard to move. • Some of us are in situations where we really need help, but we are just too proud to ask or seek out such help, and the small problems can grow to mountain like proportions. • And of course, some of us feel like we have been buried under the mountains of cancer and other health issues; economic hardship; the loss of a loved one, and more. Now, all these mountains can seem to be overwhelming, but Jesus is telling us that through our faith in him, we can remove mountains. Suppress the doubt, and not our faith. We can nurture and grow our faith so that we can invite Christ to come and help us in the wonderful ways in which He has promised that He will. Too often I become so absorbed in the mountains of my life, that I fail to see the one power that is greater than all the mountains in the world. Indeed, you all just told me that you believe in God the Father, who created heaven and earth, and therefore all the mountains of the earth. Do you not think that He who made the mountains will not rest until He has guided and empowered you to move the mountain out of your way or off of your back? Jesus does not have all this power and love just so he can watch us suffer. He is ready to deploy it if we prayerfully discern how he wants us to move each mountain. Now his way of moving mountains may not be our way. But in Christ, we can move mountains. • Sometimes we have to pray and receive prayer. • Sometimes we need to ask for help from God, in prayer, or from trusted friends, which we will be making in our Small groups this fall. • Sometimes we have to recognize that the mountains we have encountered are actually mole hills, which we made into mountains by our own stubbornness and self indulgence. 1. So, the mountain of a broken relationship and be leveled down by honest and sincere efforts at reconciliation, understanding, forgiveness in the love of Christ. 2. The mountain of self obsession and self indulgence and be leveled off, if we receive prayer and counsel, and if we ask God to forgive us for putting our self absorbed indulgences ahead of him and head of other people. I see people doing this all the time. 3. The mountain of pride, where we refused to ask for help when we need it. Jesus can dissolve that in an instant. . Recently I have failed to complete a project at home, which in my mind has grown from a mole hill into 35,000 ft mountain. The longer I have avoided the project, the bigger the mountain has grown in my mind. It seems too hard. It going to take too much time and effort. Now, by my failure to do what I have needed to do, I have placed an unnecessary burden on my family, and I feel guilty every time I think about it. So, last night, I asked for some help from a Small Group friend of mine, named Little John. He and his wife, Little Pat, are here today. When John stands up and his head hits the chandelier, you will recognize him. Well, last night had a five minutes conversation about this with John, and now I am ready to tackle this on my day off tomorrow. Mountain moved. 4. Of course, the mountains of disease and financial; hardship and grief as much weightier than my stupid little project. They can seem impossible to get from underneath. However, even in those circumstances, I have seen Christians use their faith to move the mountains of discouragement, sorrow & hopelessness to walk tall in the knowledge that Jesus is walking with them and carrying the burden upon his back. You see, the doubters of the world tried to bury Jesus under the mountain of death. But Jesus rose from the dead, and now that he might help us move all our mountains. We just have to decide to have an attitude adjustment to minimize doubt, and to grow faith. In another place, Jesus spoke of the mustard seed in another parable. He said that your faith is like a mustard seed. • You can water that seed with prayer, which will be available today from our Healing Ministry. • You can plant your seed in the good soil of fellowship, as we will share in our Small groups. Then watch your faith grow--- together , in Christ, we will move the mountains we encounter, that we might live out our lives in the fullness and abundance offered to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.