SIDE A SIDE B: Faith and Doubt

Notes and reflections on the second talk of the “Side A Side B” preaching series at the Feast Valle Verde June 6, 2021

Matthew 17:17-18

17 Jesus said in reply, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him here to me." 18 Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured.

This was probably one of the worst things that we could ever experience as a parent. When our child needs help but we're powerless to do anything.

We are all fluctuating in our faith and doubt. In this talk recap, we’ll understand our doubts and yet, still move in faith.

One Big Message: God wants you to grow up 😊

We are reminded to grow up because the church is filled with spiritual cry babies. Cry baby tendency is an adult who behaves like an immature person. Sometimes, we tend to have an immature attitude while serving God. The level of our service doesn’t guarantee our spiritual maturity. That way of thinking can be a sign of spiritual and emotional infantility, causing us to damage ourselves and others.

Spiritual babies still need to be weaned from idolatry.

Spiritually immature people want God to be the way they want God to be. We are becoming spiritually immature if we want God to be a provider and a healer only! We are controlled by the image of God that we have.

In line with this need, we’ll be learning three spiritual lessons for us to grow up from this spiritual infantilism.

1. Church people will fail you.

Matthew 17:14-16

14 When they came to the crowd a man approached, knelt down before him, 15 and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

The disciples had been casting out demons effectively but for some reason, they couldn’t do it this time. Sometimes, when we become so successful in the ministry, we begin to become reliant on our own power and ability. Never forget that as we do our mission, the Holy Spirit is the one powering us up. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in us.

We can imagine how upset this father must have been when he found out that no one, not even the man of God, could heal his son. What he did not know was that he only brought his son to the disciples, he didn’t bring his son yet to Jesus.

Sometimes, we think that we brought something to God, but in reality, we just brought it out to our church leaders, for an instance. Humanity will always be imperfect. We might have told a few people about our problem but when they couldn’t help us, we assumed that God also couldn’t help us. Don’t consider it beaten, until it's been brought to Jesus. He is the real miracle worker!

Everyone will fail me – that’s why I need Jesus.

There is only one name that will make sense in our spiritual walk, His name is Jesus! We serve only because of Jesus! Church people will fail us but only the name of Jesus will prevail.

From top to bottom, we’re all sinners that need Jesus.

The more we’ll get near to Jesus, the more we’ll deepen our life in God, and the more we’ll realize we need the Lord all the more.

You will be forced to run to Jesus.

When everybody has failed us, we’ll have no recourse but to go to God. Never expect from others what only God can give us. Run to Jesus as fast as we can. Don’t make Jesus our last recourse. He must be prioritized. Matthew 6:33 says to seek first the kingdom of God.

2. Stop trying to control God.

Matthew 17:17-18

17 Jesus said in reply, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him here to me." 18 Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured.

It seemed like Jesus was a little fed up with the disciples because they weren't able to successfully perform an exorcism. But is that really the reason why Jesus got mad at the disciples? We don’t often see Jesus getting annoyed with people most especially with the apostles. However, we need to understand the context. This is based on a concept called Design Patterns, witnessing connections between the Old and New Testament.

Before Jesus gives this stern reaction to his disciples, Jesus had recently transfigured in Mount. Tabor. What’s the connection? Mount Tabor actually hyperlinks with Moses and his transfiguration in Mount Sinai. How is this connected with Moses?

Exodus 32:7-8

7 Then the Lord said to Moses: Go down at once because of your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly. 8 They have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them, making for themselves a molten calf and bowing down to it, sacrificing to it and crying out,” These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”

When we lose our vision of the true God, we tend to manufacture our own version of god. This is a sample case of idolatry. We must be loyal, heart-centered and totally focused on the only one true God.

TRUTH: We all try to control God because we don’t trust Him.

There are times that we cannot feel God’s presence. However, God is God! We must remember that God is good at being God!

In our desire to control God, evil controls us.

That’s the classic example of what happened to Israelites. They wanted to control God when they made the molten calf. They offered their rings and all their golden staffs that were hidden years back from their ancestry - brought it all out and formed it into a molten calf. Why do we resort to other beliefs when we are in crisis? Evil controls us.

Exodus 32:19

19 As he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing. Then Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets down and broke them on the base of the mountain.

The tablet was where He inscribed the 10 commandments.

Here are the parallels/design patterns:

First pattern: Moses/Jesus transfiguration up a mountain.

Second pattern: Moses/Jesus go down and see evil (taking over people's lives)

Third pattern: Moses/Jesus get angry at a people that didn’t trust God.

This explains why Jesus responded the way that He did.

Jesus was mirroring the anger of Moses to a faithless and corrupt generation that fell into idolatry.

In this way, Matthew was also saying that Jesus is also the new Moses. Moses had just barely left when the Israelites started worshipping another God. In the same way, Jesus had just barely left when the other disciples started failing in their faith.

Sometimes, spiritual babies follow other gods because we don’t trust God.

When God seems to be late in our life, do we often find ourselves resorting to other things or to people who we think might be able to help us? When God seems to be failing us, do we often question His goodness? Do we often turn our backs against Him?

This is what separates baby Christians from mature Christians. Baby Christians rely heavily on sight. They rely on their senses. They cannot trust what their senses cannot perceive. This is the reason why they quickly turn away when they don’t understand what’s going on, but mature Christians are built differently. They don’t rely on sight because they see through the lens of faith. They don’t back away from their belief just because they experience a bad day or a delay or a detour in life. They simply press on in spite of the challenges because they believe that God is in control.

Which one would we like to be? Dive into the deep waters, awaken our spirituality, and connect with our God. Some of us have been living completely oblivious of God's sovereignty that we have never fully really experienced the ocean of His love.

God wants to move us from the spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. How? Start trusting God. Start surrendering our life to Him. Start bowing down to His sovereignty.

GOD WANTS YOU TO GROW UP!

We're not Bible scholars. We're children of God.

Our Father's words are in this book called the Bible. It’s a very ancient book so we need to read it just like how the ancient people read it to understand what the book is trying to say. The good news is that the church already provided liturgies and everyday gospel readings for us to determine these design patterns.

Jesus read the Bible this way.

Jesus was a Jew. He read it as a Jew, seeing brilliant design patterns and thousands of hyperlinks that connected everything. The more we read it this way, the more we'll understand what our Father is telling us.

3. Growing more is trusting more.

God wants us to grow! Let’s stop being spiritual babies that throw tantrums when we don’t get what we want from God.

What is spiritual growth anyway?

Does growing more means knowing more? More teachings, more doctrines, more talks, more wisdom?

Does growing more means praying more? More devotions, more rosaries, more prayer meetings?

Does growing more means doing more? More service, more charities, more obedience?

These are all essential but not the essence and core of spiritual growth.

Matthew 17:19-20

19 Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith in the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Our problems appear like a mountain in front of us. But faith is a trusting relationship. Mustard seed signifies the capacity to grow and become big. Tell our problems that we have a big God!

Growing more is trusting more.

Yes, God wants obedience. But there's something more basic than obedience.

When we don’t obey, it’s because we don’t trust.

Quoting paragraph 397 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in His creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They doubted God’s goodness and so, they didn’t trust Him. We are called to surrender our trust issues to God for us to spiritually grow.

My usual temptations are powerless in the Surrendered Place.

Entrust everything to God including all the worldly attachments. Surrendered place is the heart of God!

When I trust God deeply, it's easy to obey Him.

Proverbs 3:5-6

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways be mindful of him, and He will direct your paths.

The love language of God is TRUST.