The mountain-moving faith in our world, our religious world today, is very much like the world of the first century. It was a time as Jesus came on the scene preaching, bringing his kingdom message, a time when people were expecting power and glory. They were expecting the imminent establishment of the kingdom of God in such a way that all of the nations of the world would know it. In empirical observation, people would see that Yahweh, their king, was God and the Roman oppressors would be overthrown. There was this expectation of imminent glory if Israel would only be faithful to the temple and to Torah, to the law, faithful to Moses. Religion today, in much more secular terms, is sort of treated that way. Religion is a way of getting what you want in this life. That's the way we treat everything in America, don't we? It's often the way we treat God. And so sometimes we can even go to the Bible and find a prayer, take it out of context, and use it as a talisman to get what we want. A whole merchandising scheme has come out of taking the Jabez prayer and turning it into something that it never was and wresting it from its context. There's also the famous way texts like the one that we will be discussing this morning are treated in the prosperity movement. Name it and claim it, or as it's often called, blab it and grab it. You know, use this prayer, use this talisman to get what you want. Now, we're not liable to fall into those temptations, those of us sitting here this morning. We probably don't watch a lot of Christian television. Probably don't spend a lot of time in Christian bookstores with all the promises of power and glory, if you'll only try this. But often when we're going through trials, often when we're going through times of testing or temptation with ourselves or with others, loved ones especially, we secretly wonder, even if we don't express it, I just wish I had more faith. I just wish I had that mountain-moving faith that Jesus talks about. So what I want to do this morning is go back and ask the question whether we have taken this mountain-moving faith out of its context in Jesus' expression of this point, just as we often have with the Jabez prayer. And to do that, we have to take a step back and look at this context a little bit more generally. The point that Jesus is making in chapters 16 and 17, particularly of Matthew's gospel, is the process from disfiguration to transfiguration, or from the cross to glory. He begins in verses 21 through 26 of chapter 16 with the shadow of the cross. You see, again, the people had come to see the Messiah as the one who would reestablish the old Jewish theocracy. And the temple would be, once again, the center of Israel's worship. The law will be fully obeyed and the temple rituals and sacrifices will finally be acceptable to the Lord again. And so the closer Jesus and his disciples get to Jerusalem, the more the disciples, along with the people of their day, as they had been taught by the religious leaders, came to expect power and glory and triumph with the horns blowing. They were expecting an inauguration of a president, not the crucifixion of a king. And so Jesus brings up his death and resurrection, And it is not received well by the disciples. Peter, we read, took him aside and began to rebuke him. Pretty bold. Peter was always quite willing to share whatever was on his mind. And he did with Jesus time and again. He took him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said, this shall never happen to you. And you remember Satan's temptation. when he took Jesus on a high mountain and he tempted him, he says, look, you can have all the glory now. You don't have to go through the cross. Go around the cross. Go around Good Friday, direct straight shot to Easter. Get your glory now. You don't have to wait for it. Health, wealth, and happiness, immediate gratification. And that's why Jesus here, when Peter says this, says to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. And then immediately after this, Jesus tells them that not only he, but they must take up their cross. They must suffer and die. This is not any more liable to make it on the top Christian bestseller lists of paths to spiritual victory than it was for Peter and the disciples, but it is nevertheless the message that Jesus brings them. Cross before resurrection, death before victory, weakness before strength, weeping before shouts of triumph. But the cross isn't the last word. Jesus tells the disciples in verses 27, beginning at verse 27, that he is coming in glory one day on the clouds and he will judge. He will separate the wheat from the chaff. He will make all things new. That day is coming. It isn't yet, but that day is coming, he tells them. And then he follows up this teaching with the event of the transfiguration. We have to understand a little bit of this event before we can understand what is meant by Jesus' appeal to mountain-moving faith. First of all, after six days is a pretty interesting way to start this. The allusions are to creation and to Mount Sinai. First of all, to creation. The obvious allusion is to the six days in which God prepared the world for the habitation of his covenant creature with whom he would have fellowship. And then God himself entered into the seventh day, the Sabbath day, not because he was tired, but because he was victorious. And so he receives the tribute of all of the creation on his seventh day of victory, his seventh day of triumph. It is his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. But not only God, but Adam was supposed to enter into that. Adam was supposed to imitate the six days of work and then enter into that Sabbath rest after he had finished all of the tasks of obedience that God had given him to do. Six days of preparation leading to the seventh day is what is in view here. But the most immediate allusion is to Exodus 24, to Mount Sinai, where Moses goes up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and of course the 70, after six days of preparation. You see here the six days of preparation, the seventh day of rest, the seventh day of entering into the cloud, the seventh day of entering into the Holy of Holies, God's own presence. Moses takes Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, along with the 70, as Jesus takes Peter, James, and John. Moses takes his company into a bright cloud, just as we read here that a bright cloud enveloped Jesus and the disciples. Just as Moses' face shone with the glory of God, Jesus' face and garments are transformed in dazzling brightness. Jesus' whole ministry up to this point can be read as the six days of labor, the six days of preparation, not yet the Sabbath rest which yet awaited him and us in him. And so here he is on the mountain being transformed, the word we get for metamorphosis. He was metamorphosized. He was transformed, not permanently, but in a transitory way as the future glory of his coming on the clouds as he had just taught them was now seen in a sort of preview of coming attractions. That's what the transfiguration is, a preview of coming attractions. And as such, it is transitory. It vanishes as quickly as it came. But that's not what Peter thought about it. Peter's always got the plan. He's always got it all figured out. He knows exactly what Jesus... He's Jesus' campaign manager. He knows exactly what Jesus should be doing at this point. It's all about glory, making it to Jerusalem, victory, power, and frownment. He says, this is great. This is the moment we've been waiting for. Jesus, why didn't you do this sooner? This is terrific. I'm on the mountain. This is like the old days with the tabernacle and the Shekinah glory filling the tabernacle. And here I am a witness to it. Let's set up tents. Let's just make this revival week. Let's stay up here. Let's never leave. The glory has come down. Glory came down and what is it? Heaven came down and glory filled my soul. Let's just stay here. Let's stay here and bask in the glory. Let's not go down to the cross. Stop talking about that cross. Let's stay here. I like it here. This is good. This is a good place. Peter has already shown his distaste for the cross. He wants to stay on the mountain and bask in the glory. But this is the six days of labor, not the Sabbath day. The glory that for a moment chases away the shadow of the cross is nevertheless transitory until Jesus finishes the work that he has been given to do. Peter's enthusiastic chatter is interrupted by the divine voice. The same words that we heard at Jesus' baptism. This is my son whom I love. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him. This is remarkable because, of course, in Deuteronomy, God tells the people, this is my prophet Moses. Listen to him. And now Moses and Elijah are standing on the mountain and God, the Father, says, listen now to him. This is my son. This is my faithful son in whom I am well pleased. I was not well pleased with Adam. He didn't make it into the seventh day. I am not well pleased with Israel. They were cast out of the land. They will be cast out of the land at this point in Jesus' ministry. But I'm happy with him. This is the son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Moses and the elders heard a voice in the cloud. And that voice, remember, shook the foot of the mountain. It shook and filled everyone with terror so much that even Moses said that he was afraid. And so also here in verse 6 of chapter 17 we read, when the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground terrified. The same response. And by the way, this isn't that they fell down to the ground in prayer, they fell down to the ground in adoration, they fell down to the ground terrified. Phobia is an English form of the word that we get from this Greek word. They were petrified. And it's the same word that's used when Jesus calmed the storm. Remember he calms the storm and they're more afraid of Jesus now than they are of the storm? Who is this who calms the sea and the waves? But tenderly Jesus touches them and he tells them not to be afraid. And when they look up, we read, they saw no one else but Jesus. And again, the original here is much more emphatic. When they looked up, they saw no one, not anyone else, except for Jesus alone. So what's being underscored here is that Elijah and Moses vanished from the scene. This isn't a trio. Jesus is not just the main attraction and the main act. He is the only one left standing at the end of the transfiguration. Now, on their way down the mountain, Jesus taught them what all of this meant, warning them to keep it a secret. Now, why would he want them to keep it a secret? Here again, we're all like Peter. We all think in terms of glory and power. wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to go tell everybody about the transfiguration? Wouldn't more people have believed? Wouldn't more people have rallied around Jesus at that time? Why did Jesus tell them to keep it a secret? He knew what we would do with it. He knew that we would be worshiping on the day of transfiguration and not on the day of Easter. He knew that the transfiguration, which was but a transitory sign of the Son of Man coming to restore all things on the last day would become the main attraction. That we would settle for a sign of glory here and now instead of the cross, which is our reality here and now as we anticipate the glory to come. All of this sparks a theological discussion about the end times that we don't have time to go into here. But Jesus tells them that Elijah who is coming is John the Baptist and look what they did to him. And they will do the same to me. Remember, preparation, glory. Cross, crown. Disfiguration, transfiguration. Good Friday, Easter. Jesus was bringing his kingdom. He was bringing it here and now. But in its present phase, it is weak and barely observable to the kingdoms of power and glory all around us. The serpent is bound, but he must be cast out. The transfiguration is a sign of that second coming in glory to finally cast Satan out. But even now, even now, the healings and exorcisms, the miracles that Jesus performs are themselves signs like the transfiguration. of coming attractions. Even now the kingdom is coming. And that's the case that we have with the boy who has a demon in the verses that we're especially concentrating on this morning, verses 14 through 21. 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. All right, so this is an example, as the transfiguration was of the person of Christ, this is an example of the work of Christ as the one who, in bringing his kingdom, ultimately at the last day, but even here and now, as flashes of the future burst onto the scene, he drives Satan out of his occupied territory. they came to the crowd and a man approaches Jesus kneeling before him. There's a sign here now of reverence and an invocation of reverence. Lord, have mercy on my son. Now this isn't the first time that there's an acknowledgement of Jesus' identity. Peter, in the previous chapter, gave his famous confession. Who do you say that I am? I say you are the Christ, the son of the living God. It's a good confession. The rock upon which the church is built. And yet, certainly no less theologically orthodox, but I think more tender is the fact that this man is not only giving that confession of Jesus Christ, but in his time of dire distress is calling upon that Christ to be the Christ for him and for his Son. Lord, have mercy on my Son. It is Christ-directed faith. Christ is the focus of this faith. It is just as the Father had said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him and here the Father is listening to the Son. The restoration of all things is signified in this exorcism which heals this boy from falling into the fire or falling into the well and drowning, as was his habit as he was caught by these epileptic seizures brought on by his possession. The healing then of this epileptic boy is like the transfiguration, a sign that the kingdom has come, not in all of its glory. Yet, certainly as a down payment and when Jesus is raised and returns in glory on the last day, the devil who is already bound at this stage in Jesus' ministry will be forever destroyed and we all, together with this believing father, will enjoy the everlasting Sabbath. But the six-day preparation first, the six-day work week first, to be the faithful Adam and the faithful Israel, Jesus must go through the cross to get to the promised land. he turns from this believing father, the focus shifts from the believing father to the unbelieving generation in verse 17. Because the man complains to Jesus, I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him. And Jesus says, Oh, unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? You get that language again from the history of Israel? As Moses comes down the mountain and he sees what's going on and the Lord tells Moses, how long will I put up with this people, this perverse generation? Jesus is beside himself with disappointment and disgust. He even implicates the disciples as part of this perverse, this perverted generation that doesn't get it. How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me. See, just as Jesus was alone in the Mount of Transfiguration with Elijah and Moses vanishing, Jesus left standing alone even here with his disciples. He's the only one who can get the job done. He has given them the commission and the authority to get the job done. In chapter 10, they returned with the 70. Again, an echo of the 70 and Moses in Exodus. And do you remember what they said when the 70 returned? Speechless, stuttering, stumbling over their words saying, The deaf hear, the blind see, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And Jesus said, I saw Satan fall from lightning, like lightning from heaven. The strong man had been bound. Satan had been bound. and they were now sent out to retake his stolen goods. That's what was going on here. But like the kings of Israel, they refused to drive the serpent out of God's holy land. They were paralyzed with doubt and fear. And it was because they did not see that Christ was the center of all of God's prophetic activity. You notice that the focus is not on the amount of faith. It isn't faith in faith. The weakest faith clings to the strongest Savior. This is the faith of a mustard seed, Jesus says. Why couldn't we drive it out? He replied, because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, 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. Again, the focus here is on the content of faith, not the act of faith itself and this is very important when we think about oh if I only had enough faith only I had that mountain moving faith Jesus was talking about faith is not a virtue in us but a clinging to the virtue that is in Christ according to his promise faith itself cannot move a straw much less a mountain it can only trust in the one who makes mountains move. A theology of glory says, see what God can do with powerful faith and isn't that what we see again in a lot of the appeals to glory and power in the Christian life today. See if you just had mountain moving faith and here's how you can get it. But the irony here is Jesus is teaching the very opposite. He's talking here about the smallest faith, the meagrest faith. He's not talking about great faith. Look what God can do with people who have a lot of faith. He's saying, look what God can do despite the meagerness of people's faith. What then is the mountain to be moved? You can say to this mountain, jump in the sea. This is treated as sort of a carte blanche. It's all about mountains in general. What is your mountain that you would like to be moved? Health, wealth, happiness, greater spiritual success. It's not wrong to pray for these things at all. It's not wrong to actively work for their furtherance. These are good goals. But is that what he's doing? Is he talking about mountains in general and this is sort of a general rule or a general principle? Not at all. There's a particular mountain that he has in mind here. And Mark 11 is more specific in its details giving us the picture of what Jesus is talking about here when he talks about the mountain being thrown into the sea. Now again, the context is all important here. Jesus predicts his death again. James and John say, can we have our seats on either side of you? Not realizing that they're saying, can we be crucified next to you? A blind man calls out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy. You see, you get the picture. Different characters, but the same message. Jesus heals him, and then he enters Jerusalem in triumph. You see, Jesus entering. This is the prefiguring of Jesus entering the Sabbath day, which will be fulfilled in his ascension as he actually enters into the eternal seventh day having completed the week of preparation, all that God had given him to do. And right after this Palm Sunday event with which we are so familiar, Jesus goes into the temple and he doesn't cleanse it. We call it the cleansing of the temple. As if the temple was fine, it's just all these money grubbers who were in there that Jesus chased out. That wasn't the point. Jesus was condemning the temple. He was taking two-by-fours and boarding it up. Jesus was bringing judgment on the temple. How do we know that? Well, first of all, what happens just before he does this temple-cleansing action? He walks by a fig tree, which would be like the American flag for us. The fig tree, the symbol of Israel with its fruit for the nations. he walks by the fig tree and he curses it and says, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. Then he cleanses the temple and then immediately afterwards the disciples tell Jesus, did you know that the fig tree you cursed withered? And then there's the parable of the wicked tenants who were evicted and cast into outer darkness while those who had been evicted are brought in. See, this is what's going on. Jesus was not coming to reform the temple. He was not coming to make it happier. He was not coming to get rid of all of the uncleanness in the temple. He was coming to judge the temple, to judge the whole Mosaic economy, to say it was right for its time and its place, but now I am here. One greater than the temple is among you. Then what is this temple? Clearly it's the temple. What is this mountain? Clearly it's a mountain in Jerusalem because that's where these events all occur. What is the mountain that he has in mind? Given all of that cursing that goes on surrounding the temple, Jesus is saying the mountain on which he was transfigured, the mountain that is now being cursed, the mountain that is now being judged, the mountain that is now being thrown into the sea, is the Temple Mount. Go throw yourself into the sea. If anyone says that to this mountain and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. It's not a blank check. It's not about whatever mountain you happen to have in your life. And boy, I wish I had that mountain-moving faith. This is about Christ, beloved. This is about Jesus being the temple. And this is what infuriated the religious leaders. That Jesus presumed to go around the temple and forgive sins directly. To not go through those doves that were being sold in the temple. To not go through the sacrifices. To not call people to greater holiness, greater obedience to Torah, to the law that would eventually bring the kingdom, but rather that he was the word of God. Listen to me. He stands in the place of the word of God. He is the word of God. He stands in place of Moses. He stands in place of the temple. When the whole point was, if we just dedicate ourselves more to the temple and to the law, the kingdom will come. Jesus is undermining all of that by saying, I am right now, in this moment, Taking the temple, taking the temple mount, pulling it up by its roots, and throwing it into the ocean. In Matthew 24, he says, not one stone of that temple will be left upon another. And in 70 AD, it was totally destroyed and has never been rebuilt. Jesus, beloved, then, is the location of God's presence among us. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, remember, the time is coming when you will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Jesus is the holy land. There is no other holy land in the world. Jesus is the locust, the meeting point between God and sinners. And the nothing that will be impossible refers to the casting out of Satan and the forgiveness of sins central to the ministry entrusted to the apostles and now to those descendants of the apostles, those who are entrusted with the commission of word, sacrament and discipline. Satan is driven out of his occupied territory and forgiveness is given through the preaching of the gospel. Do you remember what Jesus said when the Pharisees were asking about, where do you get this authority to forgive sins? You act like you're the temple or something. Where do you get this authority? And Jesus said, after he had healed the man who couldn't walk, which is easier to say to a man? Which is the greater miracle? To tell a man, take up your bed and walk, or your sins are forgiven. Clearly, the greater miracle, the more difficult thing to say to a person is, your sins are forgiven. But Jesus and his disciples scandalized the religious leaders by doing just that. God delivers his forgiveness of sins through preaching, through ordinary human discourse, even through Christians confessing sins to each other with a priesthood of all believers, but especially in the context of corporate worship. That is the greatest miracle. That is the greater sign of glory. It's far more glorious than the transfiguration itself. And so finally he reiterates the point. Verse 22, When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him. And on the third day he will be raised to life. Now you think, all right, the disciples have to get this. Look at all that Jesus has gone through to explain this to them and to show them what he meant. But we read, and the disciples were filled with grief. Jesus was a traitor to the Jewish end times hopes, at least according to the religious teachers of his day. For them it was through greater commitment to Moses' temple and law that Messiah would come and restore all things. And so it was in a sense easier to believe in John the Baptist preaching repentance than to believe in Jesus who said that he was the temple, the restored temple. Even the disciples were not yet thinking in terms of the inauguration of the new covenant, but a sprucing up of the old. And this remained largely true until the resurrection when they could look back on these events finally with mustard seed faith. So Jesus ends as he began by reiterating his imminent death and resurrection. And this is where our faith finally this morning rests in hope of our own transfiguration and resurrection. There is nowhere else. There are all kinds of good things, brothers and sisters. There are all kinds of spiritual diet plans out there. There are all kinds of promises of victory. Come out to the desert. Do this. There are no temples, whether in Jerusalem or anywhere else. Jesus Christ himself is the presence of God among us. And he stands there alone, even if need be, without Moses and Elijah, because they've already made their witness to him. They've already pointed to him, just as the temple had. But now he comes, standing there alone. Saving faith is not saving because it's powerful, obedient, sincere, or because of any other virtue of faith itself, but because it clings to the only worthy object, Jesus Christ. Mountain-moving faith is mountain-moving because of its mountain-mover, not because of faith itself. Your faith, beloved, some of you I know have come here with great concerns and great problems and suffering and things that you don't even talk about except your closest friends and family members. And you wonder sometimes, if only I had more faith, if only I could believe the way Jesus says here. But if your faith is in Christ this morning, I tell you, I announce to you, and you must believe this. You have the faith that at this point the disciples didn't have, but that believing father did. You are trusting Christ, not only assenting to who he is, you are trusting him to save you, to have mercy on you. The temple has been cast into the sea. Jesus was buried in the sea of death for three days, but as that everlasting temple was raised immortal to the right hand of his Father, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. This is the faith that moves mountains. It casts every obstacle aside so that it can set the world's hope on Christ alone, the author and finisher of your faith. So joining our hearts with that of this believing Father, We cry out this morning, Lord, have mercy on us. And in this invocation, begin even this Lord's Day to enjoy the Sabbath that awaits us fully hereafter. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, it is difficult for us to reckon with the fact that we have the six days of preparation before the entrance into the Sabbath glory. And yet this is not preparation that we ourselves must win. This is not a victory, a triumph, a conquest that we ourselves must accomplish. But it is a trial we must go through knowing that you have already gone through it for us in a saving way. We know that we are decaying. We know that we are dying. We know that our outward man is wasting away even as our inner man is being renewed day by day. We know that. We know that we are not what we used to be in mind and soul and body. We know that only that final restoration that will come at the end is sufficient to transform us into the likeness of your son's glory. And yet, we are even now being transformed, as Paul says, from glory to glory. because the veil has been removed from our eyes as it is always in Christ. Help us, dear Heavenly Father, not to look for glory in all the wrong places. Help us to see it where you alone have put it. Help us, Father, not to trust in even very good things, even wonderful things, even things that you have commanded as having had their time and place in the Old Covenant. Help us not to drag those out and obscure your son who has inaugurated not a fresh start on the old covenant, but a new covenant with new blessings. Father, we look to that one about whom you said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And well pleased with him, in him you are well pleased with us. We pray in his name and for his sake your blessings upon us this day. Amen.