Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Have you ever felt like the entire world was against you? Ever felt like it was all you could do to just hang on? Ever had your faith stretched so thin that it almost snapped? Ever given up on God because He never seemed to come through for you?

We’re going to tackle that head on in this new series that starts today. For the next two weeks, we’ll be exploring what faith can do.

This is going to be tough. For the next couple of weeks, you will hear blunt, pull-no-punches, honest truth as we learn what faith is really all about.

I’ve had so many reminders lately of how many hurting people are in our church right now. We’ve had this series planned for months, and I believe it has come in God’s perfect timing. There is so much hurt, so much pain in our church. So many unanswered questions. So many people whose faith has been stretched to the breaking point. We need the truth about faith, and that’s what we’re going after in this series.

Something you will NOT hear in this series are Christian clichés. You won’t hear these platitudes because they don’t work. They only work on bumper stickers, T-shirts, and goofy church signs that make me so mad that I want to drive my car right into them.

We’re not going after clichés. We’re chasing after truth. And the truth is that there are a lot of times in our lives when having faith is a very messy, very raw, and very difficult thing to do.

We’re going to be in Matthew 8 in this series. In the first three verses of Matthew 8, there is an incredible scene with Jesus and a man who had leprosy. We’re going to jump into this incredible story right after we seek God’s favor on our time together.

Matthew 8 says, “When [Jesus] came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:1-3, NIV)

Now, like with most things in the Bible, for us to really grasp this story, we’ve got to understand the cultural context. The term “leprosy” was generally applied to all types of horrible, highly contagious skin diseases.

Listen to what the Old Testament Law said about people who contracted these diseases. “The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45-46, NIV)

Can you imagine living like that? Can you imagine being ostracized from everyone? From your family and friends? Forced into a lifetime of isolation?

Can you imagine shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!” whenever anyone came close to you?

This disease was not only excruciatingly painful. It was not only physically incurable. It robbed you of all human contact for the rest of your miserable life.

In your worst moments when you needed love and compassion the most, there was no one. We read it straight from Leviticus 13. “He must live alone.”

This was the life, if you can call it that, of the man in our story from Matthew 8. But when he saw Jesus, he completely ignored social protocol.

He approached Jesus, and instead of shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!” he said, “"Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

He broke every custom and every sacred tradition you could imagine. In fact, he flat out broke the law. But nothing was going to keep him from Jesus. There’s a good lesson for the church there. When a sacred tradition gets between us and Jesus, the tradition has got to go.

And when this leprous man reached Jesus, look at the first thing he did. He fell to his knees.

Actually, I think the King James Version of the Bible does a much better job here. It says that when the leper met Jesus, he worshiped Him.

Here’s how you know that someone has truly encountered Jesus. Their first response is worship. Their first response is not asking Jesus to do something for them. Their first response is worship.

If a person can’t worship freely and naturally, that person has not truly encountered Jesus. Something to keep in mind the next time our church is worshipping together and you decide to read the bulletin because, “I don’t like this song.” It’s not about what you like. It’s about giving Jesus what He likes, which is your worship.

Look at the first word that came out of the man’s mouth in our story. “Lord.” In one word, he confessed the truth of who Jesus was. In one word, he showed incredible understanding of what Jesus can do. He is Lord.

So many people want to dumb down Jesus. We want to make Him our buddy, our pal, our homeboy. The leper in our story knew the truth about Jesus. He worshipped Jesus as Lord. And that simple faith explains what happened next.

The leprous man asked the impossible of the Lord Jesus: heal me.

There was no cure for leprosy. There was no vaccine or medication to prevent or cure this disease. This guy probably lived in a colony of lepers somewhere outside the city. He had never seen any of his friends healed of their diseases.

And yet, when he was in the presence of the Lord Jesus, he was moved to ask the impossible: heal me.

That’s faith. He had never seen it happen, but he believed that it could happen.

That’s because, “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1, NIV)

And because that is true, “We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV)

Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Just because you’ve never seen it happen doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.

If we live by faith and not by sight, then we don’t let what we see dictate what we believe. We don’t calculate the odds. We don’t limit what God can do based on our limited perspective.

Simply put, a person of faith asks the impossible.

Lots of people are afraid to ask big because they’re afraid of making God look bad. “If God doesn’t come through, then He won’t look so good, so I’d better tone down my prayer.”

“I can’t pray for something audacious because it just seems too crazy.”

“I can’t pray for a miracle because God might not come through.”

I have seriously met people who wouldn’t pray big prayers because they were trying to protect God’s image. They wound up with a prayer that was so generic and so small that, whatever happened, they could claim that their prayer was answered.

That is so arrogant. God doesn’t need you to be His image consultant. He doesn’t need you to be His manager or His life coach. He doesn’t need you to protect Him from Himself. He’s not some pampered, spoiled celebrity. HE’S GOD! He’s quite capable of making His own decisions. And He doesn’t need you or me to explain or defend Him to anybody else.

Not only is this arrogant of us, but it is also laden with fear. “I can’t pray this because I’m afraid God won’t come through. I’m afraid that my prayer won’t get answered.”

The man with leprosy in our story didn’t have a single reason to be arrogant and he didn’t have time to kowtow to fear. He had one shot. One shot at Jesus as he was passing through, and you’d better believe that this man was going to make the most of his opportunity.

He fell to his knees before Jesus and he boldly and confidently asked the impossible. He didn’t worry about Jesus’ image in front of the other people. He didn’t let fear of rejection tell him what to do. He had an impossible prayer coupled with a faith that Jesus can do the impossible.

And I’m pretty sure that’s what the Bible says. Luke 1:37, “For nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37, NIV)

That is so simple that a child can understand it…and yet most of us adults don’t believe it. We say we believe it. We might even think that we believe it. But we don’t really believe it.

If we truly believed that nothing is impossible with God, we wouldn’t be living in fear. We wouldn’t be dreaming pitifully small dreams. We wouldn’t be spending time thinking about what our church CAN’T do. We wouldn’t be praying small, safe prayers. We wouldn’t be letting our current situation rob us of joy.

If we truly believed that nothing is impossible with God, we wouldn’t be living in pessimism, but in optimism. We wouldn’t be living in fear, but living in power. We wouldn’t be saying, “I can’t,” but we would be saying, “God can.” We wouldn’t be looking at what is, but instead we would look at what could be.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Jesus will automatically answer your prayers exactly like you want Him to. We’re going to talk about that next week. I’ve got a powerhouse message for you next week as we talk about that aspect of faith. It’s going to rock your world.

But here’s the deal: we can’t let fear of the unknown rob us of what we do know. What we do know is that nothing is impossible with God.

Say that out loud with me. “Nothing is impossible with God.” Say it again. “Nothing is impossible with God.” One more time. Don’t say it. Shout it. “Nothing is impossible with God!”

Now, apply that truth to whatever you’re facing down in your life. It’s a game changer, isn’t it?

The man with leprosy was fearless. He had every reason to be afraid. The people could block his way to Jesus and tell him to go back to his leper camp. Jesus himself could have pulled out those verses from Leviticus and say, “Hey, you’re unclean. You’re not allowed to approach me. The Bible says so right here!”

This man had every reason to be afraid, but he simply wouldn’t let fear keep him from encountering the power of Jesus. He believed nothing is impossible with God. He believed Jesus was truly the Lord. And if you really believe that, go big or go home.

If you really believe that, you will walk through life with a spiritual swagger. There’s a sanctified arrogance that surrounds a person of strong faith.

And that’s about the time when a person with lesser faith comes along and says, “Oh no. The Bible condemns arrogance.”

I’ve been confronted by those people multiple times. Sometimes I get accused of preaching arrogantly. I’ve had more than one person refer to me as cocky.

Let me say this, on the record. I realize that I’ll be misquoted and taken out of context. I don’t care. I’m saying it anyway. A person of faith should be cocky. We should have an arrogance about us. We should walk with a swagger.

Here’s why from the book of Jeremiah. “This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches,

but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24, NIV)

We are arrogant. We brag. We boast…about our God. I’m the most arrogant person you will ever meet. I am arrogant that my God can do anything that my God chooses to do. I am arrogant that nothing is impossible for my God.

So why doesn’t the church look more like this? Where is the spiritual swagger? Why are most churches all about playing it safe instead of taking audacious risks of faith? Why are so many Christ-followers praying safe, sanitized, powerless prayers?

Because real faith is rare.

Did you catch the first words of our story? “When [Jesus] came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” (Matthew 8:1-2, NIV)

Large crowds were following Jesus. But only one had the courage to step out. That’s a pretty good description of most churches today. Large crowds gather, but a very small handful are willing to step out. The rest are content to hang back in the safety and security of the crowd. Never sticking their neck out. Never signing on to a move of faith. Maybe even criticizing that move of faith from the safety of the crowd.

That can never be true of our church. When God lays a move of faith in front of us, and make not mistake about it…He will…are you going to hang back with the crowd, or are you going to step out. Will you stand up and say, “I’m not sure I fully understand this. I know we don’t have all the answers, but let’s go.”

Out of the large crowds that were following Jesus, one stepped out in faith. And the one who stepped out was the one least qualified to do it. The leper. The outcast. The one who literally had to break the law to approach Jesus at all. The one with the most barriers in front of him is the one who took the step of faith.

Churches that seem to have the most obstacles in front of them are primed to do some of the greatest work for the Kingdom. You know why? Because God has to come through. There’s no possible way they can do it on their own.

Christ-followers who seem to be the least likely candidates are often the ones that God uses the most. Because when His will is accomplished through them, He gets all the glory.

If you feel like you’re a nobody living nowhere capable of doing nothing…good. That makes you a prime candidate to step out in faith and be used by God.

If you feel like your situation is impossible…nothing is going right…it would take a miracle to turn this around…good. You’re a prime candidate to take that step of faith.

Never forget that large crowds were following Jesus, but only one stepped out. The least likely, least qualified one of them all. All because he was the one person in the crowd who understood what faith can do.

You’ve got to hear this, church. Situations and circumstances don’t dictate our faith. Diseases and disasters don’t dictate our faith. Nothing that we can see dictates our faith because faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we DO NOT see.

So many times we take the approach that, “I’ve got to see it to believe it.” God simply shakes His head and says, “You’ve got it backwards. You’ve got to believe it to see it.”

Mark Batterson wrote, “Here is a lesson I'm learning. When you are spiritually immature, you find the greatest peace when you’re in comfortable circumstances. But as you grow spiritually, comfort makes you uncomfortable.

We ought to be most peaceful in circumstances that require divine intervention. Why? Because all the pressure is off of us. There is nothing we can do about it.

Are you at peace? Is it because you are comfortable? Or is it because you’re in a situation that requires a miracle?

All of us want a miracle, but most of us don’t want to be in situations that necessitate one! I think spiritual maturity manifests itself as peace in impossible circumstances because of an unconditional and uncircumstantial trust in God.”

A lot of people in this room are in a situation where God simply has to come through. You can’t do it on your own. There is a mountain in front of you that you simply can’t move.

Maybe it’s something that’s going on in your marriage. Maybe it’s one of your kids. Maybe it’s an issue with your health. Maybe you’re dealing with a job loss or you’re facing financial devastation.

Maybe you’re still struggling with issues from your past that still haunt you. Maybe the future is what scares you to death.

Maybe you need Jesus. You’ve never come to the cross to seek forgiveness for your sin. You’ve never had your slate wiped clean by the blood of Jesus.

Here’s what we’re going to do today. We’re going to do something very different as we wrap up today. But truthfully, we need to do this way more often than we do now. We’re going to end by praying. We’re going to wrap things up today by asking the impossible.

Some of our leaders are going to be upfront. And they’re here for one reason. To pray for you and with you. Every one of these leaders is ready to pray an impossible prayer over you. We’ve had so many new people in our church recently. Even if you don’t know these leaders very well yet, they will love you and pray over you. They’ll pray the big, audacious, impossible prayer because we worship a big, audacious God who makes the impossible possible.

Our band’s going to play a song called What Faith Can Do. As they play, just step out and come up. One of our leaders will meet you and pray with you. Don’t hang back in the crowd. You be the one who steps out. Remember what we saw in our story today. No one in the crowd was healed. The one who stepped out is the one who was healed.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: faith, God's power, Matthew 8, prayer, What Faith Can Do