Bring Your Son Here

Have you ever found that when you read Scripture, sometimes you run into strange things going on in Scripture or things that don't seem to make sense? Our text this morning is one of those times. Now, when we run into things in Scripture that don't seem to add up, our first thought, the first thing that we should do ought to be to look in other places in Scripture to see if we can gain a fuller understanding of what's going on. So a couple of examples would be, When you're reading through the New Testament epistles and you're reading about Paul writing to the Philippians and you're wondering what's going on or you're looking for some context about the Philippians, what ought you to do? Well, what you ought to do is you ought to go to the book of Acts where we have another account, more information about Paul's interaction with the Philippian church. You want to learn what the people are like. You want to learn what's going on in their congregation. When we're reading the epistle, we're also going to look at Acts to try to broaden.

and fill out our understanding. When you're reading through the Psalms, as we read this morning about King David, sometimes those Psalms are general, and sometimes those Psalms are very specific, and David wrote them at a very particular time in his life. If you want to understand the Psalm more fully, the thing that we ought to do is we ought to say, okay, well, David's being chased out of the city by his son Absalom, and he's writing a Psalm about it as he's doing it. We can go back over into 2 Samuel, and we can read about that account. We can read about what was going on between David and between Absalom, and it will help to broaden and deepen our understanding of the text. This idea is also true, and I would say even especially true, when we read the Gospels. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels. Now, synoptic or synopsis just means a summary.

a brief putting together, the footnotes, if you will, of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of his life and ministry. And so we have three accounts of his Jesus life, and each of them contain similar information. Now, that doesn't mean that they're exactly the same. They each write from a different perspective. Excuse me. Matthew writes as a Jewish tax collector. And so Matthew is a man who knows the law, and yet he's despised by his people because he works for the Roman government, collecting the Jews' money, their taxes, to turn in to the Romans. And Matthew emphasizes on Jesus being the Messiah that fulfills the Old Testament prophecies. Then you come to Mark. Mark's gospel focuses on Jesus' obedience, what Jesus did.

as he lived his life, how he obeyed his father. This is the emphasis of the gospel of Mark. Mark also travels with Peter in a lot of places and even writes for Peter. Then you come to Luke. That's the gospel that we're studying. And whereas Matthew was a Jew, Luke is a Gentile. And where Matthew was a tax collector, Luke is a physician. He's a doctor. And so he's a Gentile doctor. And what he focuses on is Jesus being the son of man, his humanity. how he interacted with, as a man, his life and ministry. This means that when we're reading any one of the synoptic Gospels, we should also be aware of the additional information that we can find in the other Gospels. This morning, as I said, we're studying the Gospel of Luke, but the Gospel of Luke doesn't give us a full picture of the event that we're going to be studying. And so we're going to lean heavily on Mark's account of it because Mark is much more thorough in his description.

of this event where Jesus is casting out a demon from a young boy. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter two, I'm sorry, from Luke chapter nine, verses 37 to 42. On the next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. And a man from the crowd shouted, saying, teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only boy. And the spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams. and it throws him into a convulsion with foaming at the mouth, and only with difficulty does it leave him, mauling him as it leaves. I begged your disciples to cast it out, and they could not. And Jesus answered and said, You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here. While he was still approaching, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy.

and gave him back to his father. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, the question I have to begin with, and we're going to open it up, is which part of that passage didn't sit well with you? Was there a part of it that you didn't like? Okay, what was it? Okay, the part with the demon. You don't like that there was a demon? Is that what you mean? Okay. What else? Yeah, Jesus' response. Jesus' response is very jolting. It's very jarring. Because you have this man, this father, who's caring for his son. And he's pleaded with the disciples, can you heal him? They can't heal him. Jesus comes with the other disciples he'd taken up on the mountain for the transfiguration. He's coming back down to the crowds now. And this man calls out to him, can you help my son? He's possessed by a demon and it's going to kill him. And Jesus' response is, you unbelieving and perverted generation, how long do I have to put up with you? And you're going,

And then he says, bring your son here. And it's almost as if you think if you or I were to say this sort of thing, it would be him saying, bring your son here would be said in disgust or contempt. Fine, I'll help you. Bring him here. And you're left going, I know Jesus doesn't sin ever in any way, even a little bit, but he's talking too much like me right here. I don't understand what's going on. And so we need to lean on the gospel of Mark to get a better picture of what's going on here. There are three main things that we're going to focus on this morning. The first is going to be Jesus' rebuke, understanding what precipitated his response and who he's talking to and why he's talking to them in that way. The second is going to be his interaction with the father and his son when he says, bring your son here. And the third is going to be how this father treats his son. Okay, three things. Jesus' rebuke.

Jesus' interaction with the father and son, and then finally how the father cares for his son. And so we'll start with his rebuke. You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you? Who's he talking to? You think, man, he can't be talking to the father. That seems harsh. Well, who else is there? The disciples. So now he's rebuking the disciples. We think he's calling them. unbelieving, perverted, and he's saying, I don't know how long I'm going to have to put up with you. It doesn't seem like the sort of, you know, part of the apprenticeship model that would be, you know, it doesn't seem like a good part of that. I can't wait till I'm not, I don't have to deal with you anymore. You know, if a teacher said that to their students in their classroom, that teacher wouldn't be doing a good job. They're not going to care for the children and do well and instruct them if that's their disposition towards them. I can't wait till you go away.

So is he talking to the Father? No. Is he talking to the disciples? No. So who is he talking to? Well, we have to look at the Gospel of Mark to understand. In Mark 9, verse 14, it describes the beginning of our text. In Luke it says, On the next day they came down from the mountain, and a large crowd met them. If we turn to the Gospel of Mark, it says when they came back, Jesus and the three disciples he took with him, it said they saw a large crowd around them, around the disciples. and some scribes arguing with them. And so we see a little bit more about what's going on. It's not just this big crowd with the disciples. There's a dispute going on. There are Jewish leaders, scribes, who are arguing with the disciples. And this is what Jesus comes back to. Now, what were they arguing about? Well, undoubtedly, they're arguing about the disciples' inability to cast out the demon. The scribes are mocking. The scribes are making fun. The scribes are questioning their authority.

You remember earlier in this chapter, in Luke 9, Jesus tells the disciples to go out. And what does he tell them to do? He tells them to preach, and he tells them to heal people's sicknesses, and he tells them to cast out demons. And it says he gives them authority to do these things. And they actually went out and did it. And then they come back and they report to him. And then Jesus takes the disciples and takes them away and rests with them for a while. Then there's the transfiguration, and now we're coming to his interaction with the crowds again. And there's some level of expectation on behalf of the people, the population, the crowds, that these men can cast out demons. These men have something about them. And so this father comes to them and he says, I begged your disciples to cast out the demon and they could not. And then there sit the scribes going, see, we told you, you don't have the authority. You're not who you say you are. But really, it's not about the disciples. It's about Jesus' authority. They're mocking Jesus' authority. He doesn't have the ability to do it.

Because his people don't have the ability to do it. We, as God's people, these disciples, they're ambassadors for God. In 2 Corinthians 5.12, Paul writes, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Now I'll ask you this, what was the purpose of the miracles? It was to demonstrate the power of God so that the people would believe. the gospels, that they would be reconciled to God. And so here you have the disciples trying to cast out these demons. And we'll find out later, they really were trying and they weren't able to. And the scribes see it and they go, see, we were right. This man's not the son of God. Look, his disciples can't do it. The scribes were attacking the disciples' authority, but it was just a thin veil for their real attack, which was on Jesus and his authority.

The second thing I want you to realize about this arguing that's going on that Jesus comes back to is that this argument is happening publicly. It's happening in the midst of the crowds. And they're seeing it. They're hearing it. They're processing it. And you have to understand that what the scribes were saying was true. The disciples couldn't cast out this demon. Later on in Mark's account, once this whole event's over and Jesus is with his disciples in a house privately, it says that they come to him and they question him privately, saying, why couldn't we cast out the demon? And Jesus replied to them, he answered them, and he says, this kind cannot come out by anything but prayer. And so you realize he's not faulting them for failure. He says, this kind only comes out by prayer.

So we understand that even the disciples were perplexed by what had happened. They were going, why can't we cast this demon out? And then they come and ask Jesus, why couldn't we? And he says, this kind only comes out by prayer. Now if the disciples were wondering about their inability to cast out the demon, how much more, with the scribes arguing and mocking, do you think that the crowds were wondering? There was a real conflict here. Are these men able? Are they who they say they are? Can they do the things they say they can do? Is Jesus who he says he is? This is what Jesus walks back to. And you understand that the only people who are sure they're right are the scribes. They're sure that these men aren't who they are, who they say they are, able to do the things they are. The disciples and the crowds are wondering, what's going on here? And so Jesus returns to a growing doubt.

that this boy cannot be healed, that he cannot heal this boy. When his disciples weren't able to heal him, Jesus' authority was under attack. It was being questioned. And so to all of this, Jesus replies, you unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you? You remember that when the people petitioned Jesus for a sign, what does he say to them? He says something very similar. You evil and unbelieving generation, always asking for a sign. But no sign shall be given to you except the sign of Jonah. Now I want you to realize in context, how many, like, have people been healed by Jesus already? Yes. Has Jesus done anything else miraculous? Yes. He fed 5,000 already. This is common knowledge to the crowds, to the people.

And for them, in light of that, those realities, to still be questioning, wondering, doubting, you realize it's not from an entire, it's not from ignorance. It's not from them going, we don't know who you are or what you say you are. They've seen, they've heard. Why did they come out if they didn't have some expectation of his ability to help them? And so then when the disciples can't heal this boy, All of it gets called into question. And aren't we like that? A whole life of God's faithfulness to us, sustaining us, caring for us, shepherding us, disciplining us, rebuking us, encouraging us, and all of that. And then when the next thing happens, it's as if none of this other stuff has happened. We've had no interactions with God. We have no faithfulness in our own lives to point back to and say, He has delivered and he'll continue to. And so Jesus rebukes them. You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you? It's also interesting to note that he doesn't do what we would do. If you were in his situation and you came back, our inclination would not be to rebuke the generation. Our inclination would be to cower. It would be to question. There's all of this mounting pressure against us. What do you do when you find pressure exerted against you?

That's opposed to you. We're all inclined to cower, to shrink back, to doubt, to second-guess ourselves. But it's not so with Jesus. I want you to see that questioning Jesus' authority, or even rejecting it out of hand, doesn't diminish his authority at all. Just because someone refused, I don't accept that. That doesn't change anything. Jesus is no less powerful. No less authoritative, no less sovereign, no less God, because some fool says, I don't receive that. All they're doing is demonstrating their folly. In Psalm 2, we read that the kings of the earth are going to gather together against the Lord and His Christ. Does that change who's going to win? All the kings of the earth gather together, and they're going to fight against the Lord and His Christ. I wonder who will win. No, we know who will win. No matter how many people...

fight against him, Jesus will conquer them. Their resistance, their doubt, whether it's the resistance of the kings described in Psalm 2, or it's the doubt and the mocking and scoffing of the scribes leading the crowds to do the same, that resistance doesn't change the outcome one bit. It doesn't diminish who Jesus Christ is at all. And so Jesus rebukes the scribes sharply. And he rebukes them publicly because all these people are watching. And they're all being led astray by these scribes. The things that I'm describing to you, what you have here is you have the leaders and then you have the followers. You have the scribes and you have the people, the sheep. You have shepherds and you have sheep. And Jesus rebukes the shepherds because they're held to a higher standard. And they're leading the sheep away. But he rebukes them sharply.

You remember that when Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and Jesus says to him, a man must be born again. And Nicodemus is thinking, how do grown men get born again? He's thinking body parts and he's thinking that doesn't work. And Jesus says, how are you a teacher of the law and you don't understand these things? Teachers of the law are held to a higher standard. They're not allowed to be ignorant about the things of God. Think of your job. Think of what you're supposed to do at your work. You've been trained. You've been taught. You know way more about it than I do. So if you and I are working, if I come to your job and I work alongside of you and we both make the same mistake, who has the greater failure? You do because it's your job. You know how to do it. It's your bag. And so Jesus rebukes the scribes because they should know. They should know.

How long do I have to bear with you? How long do I have to demonstrate who I am and what I'm about? They should know, and yet they don't. Jesus also rebukes these men publicly for the sake of the crowds, because of the people. They're left going, uh, who, what's going on? Here we all came because we all need help, and we've come to this man, Jesus Christ, and his disciples. And yet here's this boy that they can't heal and they're left doubting, wondering, what's up? And Jesus rebukes the scribes publicly so that everyone knows what's up. Do you ever doubt God, his ability or his willingness to deliver you? Do you doubt the authority of his word to command you when it doesn't feel right? When scripture speaks to you and to your situation and you go, but it doesn't, that doesn't feel, I don't think that's going to end well. It doesn't feel right. This is a culture that we live in.

all of life by feelings. And the problem with feelings is that they're corrupted by our sinful nature. It doesn't make feelings as a category wrong, but we have to realize that feelings, just like logic, have been affected by the fall. And we live in a time and in an age where we all negotiate the decisions of life by how we feel about them. I don't feel like that's going to be enjoyable. I don't feel like that's going to get me what I want. I don't feel like they're going to like me. I feel like that's going to be hard. And then we come to the authority of God's word and him telling us to do things and it cuts across the grain of our feelings. Have you doubted that God's word is for you in those moments? Have you doubted God's intimate care for you? That he cares about you. That he knows who you are. That he knows your frame. That he knows your weaknesses and he knows your struggles and he knows what's hard for you.

Or do you live as though he's just sort of a disinterested father who's like, yeah, well, as long as you don't really screw up over there and make me get up off the couch and come deal with it, you just do what you want. If you've doubted these things, I want you to look now into our second point, how Jesus interacts with the father and the son. He rebukes the crowds. He rebukes the scribes. You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? And then he says to the father, bring your son here. Bring him here. You understand that there's a distance between them. Jesus is coming to the crowds. And this man cries out. He yells out. And Jesus rebukes the crowds. And he tells the man, bring him here. In verse 42, it says, while he was still approaching, while the sun was still approaching, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into a convulsion. If we look at Mark for further light and further illumination, we read at this point that Jesus asks the father a question.

He says, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, since childhood. It's often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. And so you understand this father's terrified for his son's life. It's tried to burn him. It's tried to drown him. Jesus is the great physician of our souls and our bodies. And he knows everything. He knows what we need. He knows what you think. You can't think for a minute he doesn't know what's going on with this boy, that he doesn't know the answers to the questions that he's asking, and yet he still asks them. Why does he question the father? If Jesus already knows more about the demon than the father ever could, and more about what's gone on, and has a deeper, perfect understanding of exactly what's going on, why does he question the father? Why doesn't he just heal the boy?

He asks the father for two reasons. The first is to expose the father's faltering faith. The father goes on after he says, it's been happening to him since childhood and he's been thrown in the fire and he's been thrown in the water. The father just keeps, excuse me. The father goes on and keeps talking. He says, but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible to him who believes. Jesus says, if, if I can. This is the father as the mouthpiece for the mind of the crowds. If you can help. If there's anything you can do. The disciples couldn't. If there's anything you can do. This father doubts. This father's scared. And you'll notice that Jesus, in his response to the father, changes what's going on. The father is questioning whether Jesus can. And Jesus says, if I can, all things are possible for him who believes.

And so Jesus takes the thing that the man's questioning, can you do it? And he says, no, that's settled. The question is whether you believe I can. And don't we confuse that all the time? We confuse whether God's able to do it with whether we believe he's able to do it. And those are two different things. Why else did Jesus question the father? He exposes the father's faltering faith, his doubt, his imperfect question. He also asks him this question to show us that Jesus honors imperfect faith. If you come to him, he'll in no wise cast you out. You don't have to clean yourself up. You can't clean yourself up and become presentable to Jesus Christ. You can't do it. And so when Jesus says to him, if you can, all things are possible to him who believe, it says in Mark, immediately the boy's father cries out and said, I do believe. Help my unbelief. The father knows that he doesn't believe as he should. He knows he doesn't.

And yet his imperfections, his remaining faults and failures and weaknesses don't prevent him from bringing his son to Jesus. He doesn't lay back and go, well, I really want to see first. No, he brings his son to Jesus. And what you realize is that what this man says, what this father says is two things. It's both a profession of faith and it's a confession of sin. I do believe as a profession of faith. Help my unbelief is a confession of sin. And this is how he comes to Jesus. And this is how we come to Jesus. We don't come with perfect faith. We don't come all cleaned up. We don't come having everything all in its place. This father's response shows the reality of life, this side of glory. Things aren't perfect. Things aren't as they should be. Things are not as we would like them to be. But it doesn't keep Jesus from caring for us. And it ought not keep us from coming to him. And so after Jesus has this interaction with the father and he questions him and he says,

How long has it been going on? And the father answers and pleads and begs and falls all over himself and says, but if you can, and Jesus says, what do you mean? If I can, of course I can. Do you believe? And the father says, I do believe, but I don't believe. Help. Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit and heals the boy and gives him back to his father. Jesus doesn't correct what the father said. Well, you should believe because look at this and that and the other thing and of course it's obvious and what a fool you are for not believing and you should know better and don't do that again. No, there's none of that. Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit and he heals the boy and he gives the boy back to his father. We can talk about who Jesus is and what he's done, but much of what causes us to have faith and much of what strengthens our faith in Jesus Christ

is not hearing about what he does, but seeing what he does. Christians have faith that surpasses understanding. You can't articulate to the ends who God is. We don't have words to describe it, but we can see it. You can see who God is. You can see what he does. And that's sufficient to strengthen our faith and to cause us to press on. Another way of saying it is, talking about Jesus' love is one thing. Demonstrating Jesus' love is an entirely different thing. And the latter will produce far more fruit. Now we come to the father's care for his son. The father comes as Jesus is coming back. He says, teacher, I beg you, look at my son. We've already acknowledged that this father's faith is not perfect. He is not a perfect man. And yet he sets down for us a very good example. Thank you, honey.

This father sets down for us a very good example of what a father's love for his children looks like. He seeks his son's healing. He came to the disciples, and when they weren't able, he came to Jesus. In Luke 11, 13, Jesus questions the disciples, and he says, If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? He's saying even those who are evil and who are wicked and who don't know God, even they know how to love their children. Even they know how to care for them. They know how to provide for them. If they ask for a fish, you won't give them a scorpion. And this is how evil men treat their children. Even they get it. We as Christians ought to put the worldly love...

of unbelievers, the love that they have for their children, you ought to put it to shame. You ought to be better parents than they are. You ought to love your children better than they do. You ought not to get your how-tos from them. Christian parenting is not a veneer over the top of how the world says to deal with children. That's not what it is. It doesn't mean you get to yell and complain and manipulate and holler and as long as you cover it all over with, Jesus told you to listen to me. That's not it. Christian parenting is not the same as worldly parenting. This father loves his son, and he brings him to Jesus Christ. You remember in Mark, the woman who had a hemorrhage. She had for 12 years, and it says that in Mark 5, excuse me, it says a woman who had had a hemorrhage for 12 years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse.

After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak. The reason I'm reading that is to say when people have a concern, they have something that's dear to their heart, they're not willing to just go, well, it is what it is. I'm sick, and I guess I'll just be sick. My son's got a demon, and I guess he'll just have a demon, and he'll probably die of it. That'll be unfortunate. No, no, no, no, no, that's not love for your children. Being a father myself is that the way that this woman pursued relief from her affliction, that this father pursued relief for his son in the same way. He'd gone everywhere and anywhere he could trying to find help for his son because he loved him. The father demonstrates his love for his son by not faithlessly accepting his son's suffering and giving up. Oh, there's nothing that can be done. This is just how he'll have to be.

It's just part of who he is. You remember that Job prayed for his children. Before the Lord took him away, Job faithfully prayed for his children. He cared for them. In case they had sinned, he rose up early in the morning and he offered sacrifices and he prayed for his children. The prodigal's father looked for his son's return. You remember in that story, it says that he saw him off at a great distance. Well, why is the father off looking off at a great distance? He's looking for his son. He cares for his son. He didn't just go. Yeah, I need that too, don't I? I don't know if I can blow my nose with the mic. Hang on just a minute. Hopefully that's better. Thank you. The prodigal's father looked for his son's return. He didn't just go, oh, he's gone. Guess he's just gone. He took his money and so our transactions, our interactions, done. No, the father looked for his son. He loved his son. He cared for him. This is how Christian fathers are to love their children. You may not.

make peace with your children's destruction. You may not. You may not doubt the goodness and faithfulness of God to your children. And you may not stop pursuing it. If anyone had an excuse to stop, it would have been the prodigal son or father. Son came to him and said, just give me what's mine. I'm going to do what I want. And the father did. But he didn't stop loving his son. He didn't stop caring for him. And he didn't refuse him when he came back. No matter what you see, or what you're in the middle of with your children, whether they're young, or whether they're older, or whether they're grown. It's your work as parents to maintain a robust faith that God will be good to them, and that he will save them. Because if he won't save them, there's no other hope for them. There's no good, comfortable life for them. If God won't work in their life, then there's nothing else for them. And it's your work as parents to maintain faith.

for them and on their behalf. This is true of their bodies and the earthly infirmities that they face. The first time that your child has to go to the emergency room or breaks a bone or gets hurt in this way or some other way, the helplessness that a parent feels because of their inability to actually control it, fix it, stop it, prevent it, only parents understand it. Because they go, I can't, I... I realize I can't control this. And the vulnerability that they feel is overwhelming. And that has to do just with when they fall down and skin their knee. I remember when Joseph was a little kid and Vanessa would take him over to the park and they had one of those movable bridges that the kids like to play on. Well, he's like two. No, he's little.

and there's like this much room between the movie bridge and the handles. There's all this room for him to fall three feet. And we just go over there for a nice family evening. We're at the park, and she takes them over there while I'm at work. And so she's come to terms with him going across this bridge, but I haven't come to terms with him going across this bridge. Even though I've told her, you have to let him do things like go across that bridge. Now that I'm seeing it, I'm going, no, no, please, no. Don't fall. And you feel helpless. And that's just, when you experience that for the first time as parents, I'm here to tell you, you're going to feel that way a lot. And you who have grown children, do you not still feel that way? You watch your children and you're going, can I help? I don't know. Don't do that. That doesn't go away. And you ought not to try to get it to go away. The world would have you tell them, they're grown, let them, they're going to make it on their own, you know, sink or swim for them.

Your kids do have to learn to be self-sufficient and care for themselves and all of that. But you're not supposed to stop caring about them. You're not supposed to stop being a mom or a dad. This father loved his son. We don't know how old the boy is. But this father loved his son, and he didn't give up on his son being helped, being healed. And if this is true of our children and their bodies, how much more is it true of their souls? You unbelieving and perverted generation. Do you believe that God will be good to your children? Are you going to work to see to it that they serve the God who made them? Are you going to bring them to Jesus Christ and expect him to help them? Your children won't believe and they need Jesus Christ. They won't just come and go, oh, I see, I need Jesus. Oh, I've perceived the benefit. No, they need Jesus to heal them and to make them alive. Sometimes physically.

When they're sick or they're hurt, but always spiritually. We as parents, especially you as fathers, must seek God and entreat him, plead with him to be good to your children and to care for them. So what are the applications? There are three of them. And it's going back through our three points. The first application is do not trust what you see with your eyes. Do not trust what you see with your eyes. Trust God. And trust what he's already done, what he's already accomplished. And trust also what he's promised to do in the future. The life that you live, you must live by faith. And if you live by what you see and you live by what you feel and you live by the wisdom of the world, you won't live a life of faith. You can't. Those things are opposed to one another. You must live by faith. And it's vulnerable. It exposes you.

But you live by faith and don't trust what you see. Scoffers will scoff. Unbelievers will act like unbelievers. And not only will they act like unbelievers, they will expect you to act like unbelievers. This is what the scribes were doing. We don't believe. You shouldn't believe either. And everyone's going, uh, no. You trust God. You trust what he's done and you trust what he promised he will do. Second, come to Jesus Christ as you are. Don't waste your time trying to clean yourself up. You're a mess. You're a mess like I'm a mess. Don't waste your energy and your life trying to become presentable to God or really to his people. So what's that mean for evangelism? It means you need to be okay with people coming as they are. You need to be okay interacting with people as they are.

So an example, we can multiply examples, but here's one. How do you interact with someone who's living and sleeping with their girlfriend, boyfriend? You have nothing to do with them, right? Until they get that figured out. No. Okay, let's try again. You interact with them and you're cool with them and you're friends with them and you're all this stuff and you invite them to your house, but you never say anything to them about that. Is that right? No, that's not right either. So you can't ignore them. entirely. You also can't engage with them but ignore their life. So how about, okay, we're going to get together with them, we're going to talk to them, we're going to have them over for dinner, and then we're going to talk to them about how that's, you know, they got to fix it so they can be like you. That's not going to work either. Getting closer, but that's not it either. How about this? How about you have them over together,

And how about you talk to them? That'd be good. How about their living arrangement comes up? That'd be better. Now, how about this? How about you talk to them about how you fail? Am I the only person who's ever sinned in that way? Before I was a Christian, am I the only person in the room who was that stupid? Ever failed like that? Do you have something to talk about? Oh, yes, you do. But if you refuse to, you've communicated to them. that they have to get all cleaned up before they can come here on Sunday. And you're lying to them. And you're lying to yourself. And you're lying about who God is. That father's faith wasn't perfect. And he came to Jesus as he was. And Isaiah tells us, come, you who are hungry and thirsty, come, buy food and drink without money and without cost. Why do you spend your money on things that will not satisfy? Come to me and live.

This is your work with the sinners. And you'll be good at it. And do you know why? Because you're a sinner too. You have this understanding of their struggle. You have an understanding of what goes on in their heart and why they don't want to change their life. Speak to them about the goodness of God and how he brought you up out of the pit. That's your work. You come to Jesus as you are and you call other people to do the same thing. You love them. The final thing is you love your children the way God loves you. You love your children by trusting God for them and with them. You lead your children and you teach them by example to trust God just like you do. You say, I don't want my kids to trust God just like I do. And I say, well, then you need to change how you trust God. You need to actually trust him.

And when you fail, you need to repent. You need to tell them, Daddy was wrong. And this is how we do it. Not like that, but like this. You teach them because they will learn from you. You don't get to choose whether they learn from you or not. And so your work is to love them the way God loves you. You come to God as you are. You come all messed up. You know what? You better learn to love kids who come like that. If you're not sure what to do in a particular situation with your children, have this question in your mind. How does God deal with me when I'm like that child? How has he dealt with me in the past when I'm a mess and rebellious and struggling and wandering and angry and distant and whatever it is? How has God dealt with me? And your answer better not be, he withdrew. He left me to myself until I got straightened out because that's not what the scripture teaches. That's not the gospel. The gospel is that while we were enemies of God, Christ died for us.

That when we were dead in our transgressions and sins, he sent his son into this world. That's how he's dealt with you. That's how he deals with his children. And that's how you're to deal with your children. You're to seek their good. And you're to seek it from God. And you're to pray to him and ask him to bless your children, to heal them, to protect them, to teach them, to give them new hearts and new life in his son. That's your work. That's what this father did, and he didn't wait until he was perfect to do it. And you know what? Jesus healed his son. Jesus heard his prayer, received his confession, and answered graciously. Let's pray. Father in heaven, what a good and kind God you are, righteous in all your ways, just in everything that you do, merciful to us wicked sinners. We ask, Father, that you would increase our faith and our love.

not only for you, but also for our neighbors, for our children, for our spouses, for those who hate you, and even those who vehemently oppose you. Father, we ask that you would grow us up and mature us and increase our faith. Make our hearts large and filled overflowing with love. Help us to trust you in what you've said and what you've done and not what we see with our own eyes. Satan seeks our destruction, Father. We seek your protection. Be merciful to us and draw near to us as we draw near to you. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.