Down From The Mountain
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
The theme for this year, here on Sunday mornings, has been “The Life of Christ.”
The hope has been to draw us closer to our loving Savior by examining closer his life here on earth.
Two weeks ago we examine a most excellent event recorded in Matthew 17:1-8 often called the “Transfiguration.”
Jesus took his disciples up the mountain top wherein they witnessed Jesus in a glorified state.
Moses and Elijah were also there to comfort Jesus, considering his soon to be circumstances with the Jewish leadership and their torture and execution of him.
Remember, Peter wanted to make “three tabernacles” to each one there, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.
This prompted God to say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5).
What an exciting moment in these men’s lives!!!
Having now set the scene for our text this morning let’s examine our lesson for today.
Coming Down The Mountain
Coming Down The Mountain
Excitement Melted.
Excitement Melted.
As I just mentioned the disciples were in a a truly “spiritual mountain top” experience having just witnessed not only Jesus in his glory but two of their “hero’s of faith.”
Unfortunately, the disciples eventually had to come down the mountain and their spiritual excitement must have melted quickly seeing what was going on below.
14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.
The other nine disciples, apostles, were engaged in an argument with the scribes and Matthew 17:14-16 explains why.
14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.”
The other nine apostles had been unable to cast out a demon from this man’s son.
Now imagine the feeding frenzy this would have caused with the scribes seeing Jesus’ closest disciples not able to cast out the demon from this man’s son.
They were not going to miss this opportunity to make Jesus and his disciples look bad.
This is why Jesus quickly rebuked the “unbelieving crowd.”
17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.
Having ruined the scribes “aha” moment we read that the apostles came to Jesus privately later and asked…
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”
Jesus explained it was because of their “little faith.”
Matthew 17:20 (ESV)
20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith…”
The word “faith” here is a miss translation as it actually means they had a “little unbelief.”
58 And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.
1 Timothy 1:13 (ESV)
13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief
I will explain why that is significant in our next point.
Summary
Summary
So, we see some of Jesus’ disciples go from a spiritual high down several notices when they came back down the mountain and back to the “real world.”
That is what I want us to consider now in our next point…
The Real World
The Real World
Fleeting Highs.
Fleeting Highs.
I’m sure every single Christian here has experienced a similar “spiritual high” such as some of these disciples had that day on the mountain top and probably more than one.
Maybe it was a specific worship service that hit you just right at the perfect time.
Maybe it was a devotional around a campfire or a week of bible camp.
Maybe it was an answered prayer to a painful situation you were in and you felt spiritually amazing afterwords.
We praise God, during these times, like the psalmist in Psalm 111.
1 Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. 2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. 3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.
And as you and I know these spiritual highs can last a day, a week, and even longer sometimes, but eventually we all come back down from the spiritual high to “the real world.”
No matter how excited and zealous we get on that mountain top, at some point we must, like those disciples, come down the mountain.
It is actually impossible, on earth, to live that “mountain top experience” our whole Christian life.
As Christians, we quickly learn that our mountain top experience cannot eradicate…
…Unbelief, doubt, sickness, stress, criticism, and disappointment in others or even ourselves.
The truth of the matter is, it is not on the mountaintop that we have to bring our faith to bear.
During these times we are at our spiritual best, where nothing can faze us, nothing can stop us.
However, when we come back down to the real world, this is where the real spiritual battles are fought.
The mountaintops are the exception not the norm in this sin-filled world.
What I mean by that is that these “experiences are fleeting.”
There is a reason denominationalism has to keep upping the anti to keep their audiences “high” at a certain level.
Living “below” in the day-to-day world of human experience is harder than being on the mountaintop.
It requires a special quality, a reality check if you will.
It requires utter dependence on Jesus.
The other nine apostles, who tried to cast out the demon, were not able because of their “little bit of unbelief.”
In other words, they did not believe enough in the power of Christ to remove that demon.
And because of this they looked and felt like failures which allowed their enemies to “pounce.”
You and I can easily find ourselves like these nine disciples if we have just a…
Little Unbelief.
Little Unbelief.
Now we are not privy to why these disciples had a “little unbelief.”
We can, from history and our own experiences postulate, however.
These men had been able to “cast out demons” in the past as well as do many other miracles.
Earlier in Matthew 10, we see Jesus sending his disciples out “two by two” in what is called the limited commission and notice what Jesus says they will do…
5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
So, they had, without a doubt, done this many times before, so what was different this time?
Their lack of belief not faith.
They seem to have thought “I” got this, “I’ve” done this before, and forgot where their source of “power” came from, God not them.
As Christians when we have these spiritual highs, we can forget the dangers of “unbelief” that await us when we come back down to the real world.
We can start to think “I got this” and “unplug” ourselves from the source of spiritual power God and when we are unplugged from the source, we simply cannot…
Resist the devil without submitting to God.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Resist temptation with out God’s outlet.
13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Summary
Summary
With out the spiritual source of our power, Christ, we simply will not be able to resist temptation, we will be unable to grow spiritually like we should, or have a spiritual impact on others.
Conclusion
Conclusion
But thanks be to God that Jesus isn’t just a spiritual mountain top Savior.
He was with his disciples whether they were on the mountaintop or they had come down the mountain and were in turmoil.
As one brother put it, “He loves us and is with us no less when we are in ‘in the pits’ than when we are on the peaks of spiritual excitement.
Or as the apostles Paul put it…
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.