Face2Face | Paradoxical Faith l Pastor Jamie Kemp

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I'm Pastor Jamie, and I'm excited that you're joining us for this week's message.

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Thanks for listening.

Alright, Salamatsian.

I don't know if it's morning or afternoon, so I might as well go with the Bahasa there.

So good mor uh good afternoon, good morning.

Great to see you guys here today.

Um I'm in the center.

I just learned uh last week that this is the center of the stage, not here.

So uh I'm getting adjusted to that.

It's great to see you guys.

I'm Pastor Jamie.

Welcome to IS Jakarta.

Uh, great to have you here.

Today's sermon's gonna be uh uh have a little bit more introspection in it.

Um so I need you to pay attention till the end, okay?

So uh so let's do this.

Let's go ahead and go ahead and lift your right hand up and say, I promise to listen till the end.

And if I fall asleep, I won't snore too loud.

All right, there we go.

All right, I got you with me.

All right, at least you'll be with me at the beginning.

We'll see if we all end together.

All right, that's what we're up to.

Well, um, I remember when my kids were little, uh, we got them a trampoline, all right.

And this was one of those big trampolines that's like uh maybe like 15 meters, and I don't know if it was circumference or radius.

It's been a while since I took math.

Um, but it was one of those big trampolines, and we had the netting on the side, so they don't just like jump off and land headfirst in the flowers or something like that.

But uh, but it was an incredible thing for my kids to jump on as children.

And uh my son especially enjoyed bouncing on it counts countless hours jumping.

I called it uh I called it the insta party because anytime kids came over, we just threw them on the trampoline and they just had an incredible time jumping on it.

So, but when Benaya, my son, was little, we discovered that if we jumped together, if we timed the jumps just right, um he he would jump higher than if he was just jumping on his own.

And we called this the double bounce, okay?

Uh and so Benaya would often call Tasha, my wife, to come and watch and see how high he could jump.

And and oftentimes when we would do the double bounce, he would go maybe 10 to 15 centimeters higher.

But this one time, something freakish happened in the space-time continuum.

Uh uh because when when he jumped and I jumped, it was the perfect convergence of my weight and his weight, my jump and his jump, and maybe the barometric pressure or air temperature had something to do with it, I'm not sure, but he went really high.

I don't mean a couple extra centimeters, I mean he bounced up over my head.

Um, you know, just 18 kilograms of boy clawing its way through the air, calling it, and and I remember um my eye meeting Tasha's eye and thinking, this is not good.

So uh so I meant her, I just kind of made like a dive for him and I kind of caught him in mid-air and we kind of landed together, and Tasha said to us, Um, I don't think this double bounce is a good idea.

All right, maybe maybe you should be careful.

And we were until she went back in the house.

And uh, but it was on the trampoline, it was on the trampoline that my faith started to make more sense to me.

I've learned a lot of lessons about my faith from that trampoline.

You see, the strings of a the springs of a trampoline are are designed to move, they're designed to bend, they're they're designed to absorb impact because they can flex and support you.

Now imagine instead of a trampoline, we were jumping on a pile of bricks, you know, a wall of bricks.

You would never do that because bricks don't flex, bricks don't bend, bricks don't absorb an impact.

Uh, and and if you pull one brick out of a wall, there's a chance that the whole wall might start to collapse.

And some t sometimes that's how we think about our faith.

We think about our faith like it's a like it's a brick wall, like it's rigid and it's unyielding, it's certain, and there's no room for questions or doubts.

And if we start to wonder, it's like pulling one of those bricks out of the wall.

And so if you wonder, if God is good, why does this happen?

If God is love, why do I feel so alone?

If God is really there, why doesn't He answer my prayer?

And it's almost like we we we have this mentality that if I question God, it's like I'm pulling out one brick and my whole faith begins to be in question and crumble.

That's why a lot of I think university students walk away from the faith.

They they grow up with what I would call a brick wall faith, and all of a sudden they're confronted with questions and obstacles in their faith.

One one brick gets removed or questions and their faith starts to crumble.

But what if faith isn't a brick wall?

What if faith is more like a trampoline?

What if faith is meant to flex or to bend?

What if faith is designed to absorb the impact of our actual messy lives?

Because life is gonna hit you, right?

You're gonna have questions.

There's gonna be times where you have doubts, that there's gonna be moments where we don't understand what God is doing.

And maybe the problem isn't that we have doubts, maybe the problem is that we've been taught that faith doesn't make room for those doubts.

But here's what I'm learning that faith and doubt can coexist.

That faith and doubt can exist together.

I can believe God and still have questions.

I can trust Jesus and still be afraid, or I can say, I believe, and in the same breath say, but help me with my unbelief.

And I think this is the place where most of us live.

That when it comes to our faith, we live somewhere between I believe and help me with my unbelief.

Most of us live somewhere between I believe and help me with my unbelief.

And that's exactly where we find this Father in Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

His son is suffering, and he comes to Jesus desperate for help, and Jesus asks him about his faith, and the father gives this incredibly honest answer and says, I believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.

And I love that prayer because it's so honest, right?

And it's where most of us live.

We believe in Jesus, we believe he's good, we believe he can answer prayer, we believe that he's with us, but sometimes I still have questions and I have doubts.

Sometimes we're praying for something and we're wondering when when God are you gonna come through?

When are you gonna answer this prayer?

But this father and this story of scripture shows us something important that you can have faith and still have doubts.

You can have faith and still have doubts.

Now, I am by no means an art expert.

All right.

Uh last month I was invited to an art exhibit, and and I remember seeing people walk through the museum, and man, they were so engaged with the art.

You know, they would they would be standing there in front of a piece, like just staring at it, right?

And I had no clue what the I just couldn't relate to them at all.

Or, you know, I'd go and stand next to them and I'd be like, what are you looking at?

Like, I what are you seeing that I'm not seeing in this this this this artwork?

All right, so I realized some of you, man, you can appreciate a great piece of art.

For me, I'm like, is it lunchtime yet?

You know, how fast, like how how long is an appropriate time to look at this piece of art before I can move to the next one, right?

But but uh uh but that's that's how it is for me.

But uh this uh but I want to show you this painting.

Uh but this painting, I understand it.

It's Renaissance painter Raphael, it's his last painting that he painted uh called the Transfiguration, right?

And it's and he gets the inspiration from it uh uh uh from Mark chapter 9, when Jesus picks a couple of his disciples, a few of his disciples, to go to Mount Tabor.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

And when they get to the top, they have this incredible moment with God.

Mark Matthew chapter 17 describes it like this: that Jesus' face shone like the sun and his body radiated with life, and then all of a sudden Elijah shows up, and then Moses shows up, and you can see them here in this painting on Jesus' right and on his left.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

It's a powerful moment in the scriptures.

And you gotta be thinking, man, if you're David or Abraham, like why wasn't I invited to the party?

You know, like these guys are like kings of the faith, right?

But but but there's this moment that the father speaks to over Jesus and says, This is my son whom I love.

Listen to him.

It's a powerful moment in the scripture.

And of course, if you know the story, Peter does what Peter does when he doesn't know what to do.

He blurts out something.

He's like, I'm gonna build a shelter for you and a shelter for you.

It's like Oprah.

Remember that when she was like, and you get a car, and you get a house, he's like, you get a house, and you get a house, and you get a house, right?

And I can just imagine James and John, like, come on, bro, act like you've been there before, you know, like totally embarrassing them, right?

But but uh and this is but this is where our story in scriptures begins.

But what we're looking at here is a is the well-known cropped version of the story, the cropped version of the painting.

When I was 22 years old, I visited the Vatican Museum in Vatican City, and I saw the full painting.

This is what the full painting of the transfiguration looks like.

And we see a little more of the story.

We've got Jesus on the mountaintop, but just below him is the crowds of people full of scribes and onlookers, the disciples are there, and a boy that was demon-possessed.

And Jesus enters into this intense argument at this moment.

And this is where we begin our story in Mark chapter 9, verse 16.

Mark 9:16

It says this Jesus asked, What is what is all the arguing about?

And one of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him.

He's possessed by an evil spirit that won't let him talk.

And whenever the spirit seizes him, it throws him to violent vi violently to the ground.

Then he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid.

So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn't do it.

Jesus said to them, Man, you faithless, faithless people, how long must I be with you?

How long must I put up with you?

Bring the boy to me.

Now the author and the painter uh intentionally contrast, we can see the contrast in the story and in the painting of the of the serene, of the uh, of the peaceful presence of God and the disunity of the demonic.

We see this contrast between the the peace of the mountaintop, the joy of the mountaintop, and the hell-tortured valley.

On the mountaintop, we experience the presence of God in a special way.

And that's my prayer every Sunday when we come to church like this.

That man, that you get a chance uh after a chaotic week of doing your thing, whether it be at home, at school, uh, or at the workplace, that that that when you step into IS on a Sunday, man, that you're stepping into the presence of God, that that you get refreshed, that you get encouraged, that you walk out of here thinking, man, I'm glad I was in the presence of God.

That's what I'm uh looking for every time that we come to church.

It was about three weeks ago that I had this incredible encounter with the Lord here at IS.

It was it for months I've had this vision of when we're leading worship, when the singers are on stage.

Uh it's I've had this thought that, man, the worship is coming from the stage down into the congregation.

But three weeks ago, I had this experience that it was my first time at IS where I heard the worship not coming from the stage down to y'all, but I heard y'all singing out in worship.

And I felt the worship coming from you guys up to the stage.

It was almost like from behind, it was almost like pushing me forward.

It was just a beautiful moment with the Lord.

It was such a mountaintop experience for me.

But I'm here to tell today to give you a dose of reality.

That if you live in Christ, there's a valley in your future.

Um, we don't get to live in the cropped version of the story of the painting, do we?

Number one, the valley is where real life happens.

The valley is where real life happens.

We live in the highs and lows of life, and Jesus says, in this world you will have troubles, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

If you're familiar with the synoptic gospels, that's Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Matthew, all three of them, they tell the same story of the transfiguration and the and the healed boy.

But but Matthew, he takes 110 words to tell the story.

And then when you read through the Gospel of Luke, he uses uh 144 words.

But when you read Mark's version of the story, he's usually quick and to the point.

But in this story, this time, he uses 272 words to tell the story.

You see, Mark is writing to the persecuted Christians in Rome, Christians who are daily facing difficult situations, daily facing persecution, and he's trying to let them know that Jesus is Lord, not only when you're on the mountain, but when you're also in the valley.

In 2016, I uh I started a uh a national campus ministry movement called Chi Alpha Indonesia, and the goal was to mobilize churches, uh Indonesian churches to reach the university campus.

So in about 2016, I began traveling all over Indonesia to help local churches to reach out to university students.

And now, 10 years later, I oversee a network of 250 churches, but I can still remember my first trip to Ambon uh to lead a week of campus ministry training.

All day my team and I would do the training, and then at night I would do the kakaer, I would do the revival services, all right?

And now remember at that time I was living in Jokja.

That's the center of Javanese culture.

I mean, everything is thumbs up, you know, uh uh everything is Mongol and Sopan and Santay, right?

I I I loved living there, right?

So so usually so at my church in Jokja, I was used to speaking to a nice, quiet church.

Well, no one warned me about Ambon and its churches because when I started preaching, whoo wee, I started getting some amens.

I started getting some hallelujah.

Let me just put this I've never preached better.

All right, so let me give you some.

Man, if you want me to preach better, you gotta help me out a little bit.

All right, I need a couple amens from the congregation, a couple hallelujahs, even a couple, help them, Jesus.

You know, that's fine, I'll even take that, all right?

So I'm preaching and I'm bone, and all of a sudden I'm getting, I got a fresh anointing, man.

I'm like, I've never, I've never been so good.

This is great.

And then the altar time, the prayer time, oh boy, there was some power in this right hand.

All right, you know, because you know, usually I'm praying for people, no problem, but there, oh man, I'm praying for people are falling down, people are, I'm like, man, what happened?

All right, this is great, right?

So so then I'm like, I can't wait to get back to Jocha, man.

They don't know what they're in for, all right?

So man, I get back to my church, my nice little church in Jocha, and I start preaching nothing.

They're just not as quiet as they ever were, all right.

I'm like, okay, no problem.

Just wait till the prayer time, all right?

Then they're gonna get it, right?

And so so I go up and I start praying for people, nothing.

They're just like they're just getting blessed, but nothing is happening.

I feel like, man, something must have happened uh be between Ambon and Joe.

Somewhere over Bali, the anointing left me.

I don't know what happened, all right.

Because when I got home, reality hit, right?

And I think we can all relate to that, right?

Like we have an incredible experience with God, and we're on that mountaintop, man, where it's me and Jesus, and then you have to go back into real life, right?

And you get you get hit with reality, right?

Uh uh think about it today, like, man, you can come to church and have this amazing experience with the Lord, but then on Monday, you're back in the office, right?

And you gotta step back into reality.

Some of you, it's like, I leave church and by the parking lot, it's gone.

I'm already in the valley, right?

So I get that, all right?

I get that.

So so I was up on the mountain, but I had to come back to reality.

Jesus comes down from the mountain and he's hit with reality.

And what does the scripture say?

He's confronted with a problem.

It says this one of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him.

He is possessed by an evil spirit that won't let him talk.

And when the spirit sees them, it throws him violently to the ground, and there he foams in the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.

So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn't do it.

Jesus said, You faithless people, how long must I be with you?

How long must I put up with you?

Bring the boy to me.

So they brought the boy to Jesus, and when the evil spirit saw Jesus, it threw the child into a violent convulsion, and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth.

How long has this been happening?

Jesus asked the boy's father.

He replied, Since he was a little boy.

The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him.

Have mercy on us if you can help.

Now we don't know how the boy got into this position.

Mark doesn't tell us, but we do know this.

The boy is suffering.

And sometimes things happen to us that aren't our fault.

Sometimes things happen to us that aren't our fault.

We live in a broken and hurting world, and not everything, uh, not every wound is something we caused.

And some of you are carrying around wounds that happened to you.

You didn't choose them.

You didn't cause them.

Someone did them to you.

Abuse or abandonment, some sort of hurt was done to you, and yet you're here carrying that, living with it, trying to figure out what to do with it.

And I want you to see when you hear this story, I want you to see how much Jesus cares about you.

That this is just a boy who knows how this happened to him.

But Jesus takes time to care for this boy, and Jesus cares about the hurt that was done to you.

And I want you to know it's something that happens.

The Father says, Have mercy on us.

He doesn't say have mercy on the boy.

He says, Have mercy on us.

Sometimes you need others to help bring you to Jesus.

Sometimes you've been wounded and you you can't come to yourself.

You need someone else.

This this past week, Pastor Anthony mentioned it.

I was at a funeral this past Thursday night, and uh, you know, we're mourning the death of a uh of a family member, but it was amazing to see that person's whole life group was there.

We ended up basically having a life group session at at the funeral.

I thought, man, this is this is biblical.

This is what Jesus says when he says, we're to mourn with those who mourn.

Because there's sometimes where where you're just dealing with something and you can't deal it with it on your own, and you need people around you.

Some of you know what it's like to watch someone you love go through something difficult and painful that you can't fix for them.

You've prayed, you've tried to help, you you've brought them to the doctor, you've seen the counselor with them, you've done everything you know how to do, and eventually you find yourself saying, God, I don't know what to do anymore.

And that's where this story takes us.

Because the Father comes to Jesus not with perfect faith, not with a perfect prayer, but a desperate one.

The spirit often throws him into the fire or water trying to kill him.

Have mercy on us if you can.

What do you mean, if I can?

Jesus asks.

Anything is possible if a person believes.

The father questions, the father, the father's question is, if you can, but watch this.

Jesus flips it around.

He says, You He says, You've got your if in the wrong place.

You've got your if in the wrong place.

If you can do anything, he says, and Jesus says, if I can do it, hey, we're did you know that I just fed 4,000 people with just some fish and some bread?

I don't know if you can see that lake over there.

See that lake over there?

Man, I I walked on what I walked on that, all right.

That lake.

Remember that storm we had last week where where everybody was scared?

I spoke to that storm and said, Peace, be quiet.

Yeah, I that's that's what I do.

You you've got your if in the wrong place.

If Jesus can do this, we're we're talking about the author and the perfecter of our faith, right?

This is he's the The first and the last, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega.

We're talking about the Prince of Peace, the bright morning star, our creator, redeemer, and savior.

Yeah, there we go.

All right, it's not gonna get any better without your help.

All right, this is gotta, this is like a two-way convert.

This is yeah, that's good.

You're getting it.

All right.

So there we go.

Yes, you're saying, if Jesus can do it, but just Jesus is saying, bro, you've got your if in the wrong place.

It's not if Jesus can do it, it's if we have faith.

It's if we have faith.

What do you mean, if I can?

Jesus asked.

Anything is possible if a person believes.

And the Father instantly cries out, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.

When Jesus saw the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit.

Listen, you eve you spirit that makes this uh boy unable to hear or speak.

He said, I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again.

Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into a violent convulsion and left him.

The boy appeared to be dead.

And a murmur ran through the crowd as people said, He's dead.

But Jesus took him by the hand, helped him to his feet, and he stood up.

Now this a mirac, this miracle doesn't happen without faith.

But I want you to see see this.

This isn't the faith of the centurion.

Remember that story where the the one guy he just says, Hey, Jesus, all you got to do is say it, and I know it'll happen.

This is a different kind of faith.

This is a more real, honest faith that says, that, that, that, that, that I feel like you and I can relate to.

I would call it a paradoxical faith.

A paradoxical faith.

It seems like this father can can seemingly hold these contradicting realities, right?

That he's able to say, I do believe, but help me with my unbelief.

And for a long time I believed that faith and doubt were were enemies.

I used to think that doubt was the opposite of faith, but it's not.

The opposite of faith isn't doubt.

The opposite of faith is certainty.

The opposite of faith isn't doubt, it's certainty.

Certainty says, oh, I don't need to trust because I already know.

Certainty closes our mind, but doubt, man, it means we're paying attention.

It means we're we're wrestling with things, we're we're trying to figure out our faith in our real life situations.

So Jesus, he doesn't, he doesn't scold the Father.

He doesn't say, hey, come back when your faith is 100%.

Here's what I love.

Jesus accepts the messy, compromised, half-baked faith of an exhausted father.

Amen.

I gotta, I gotta, that's good preaching, Jamie.

Thanks, Jamie.

I'm gonna encourage myself today.

All right.

Encourage myself.

I love this that Jesus accepts the messy, compromised, half-baked faith of an exhausted father.

God is always, always more moved by our honesty than our perfection.

Jesus is gentle towards people who are fragile.

He will not crush the weakest reed or pull put out a flickering candle.

God meets us in our weakness, not in our strength.

The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness.

The Father comes with his faith in doubt, and Jesus meets him, and the boy is healed.

You don't have to have perfect faith to come to Jesus.

You don't have to have every question answered.

You don't have to understand everything that's happened.

You don't have to be able to explain why God allowed something to happen.

You don't have to pretend, you just have to come honestly.

And here's what I'm learning.

What if faith and doubt aren't as far apart as we think?

What if faith and doubt aren't as far apart as we think?

It's in Matthew 28.

It's the climactic conclusion of Matthew's gospel, right?

If you're if you're familiar with the gospel there, uh Jesus is in Galilee with his disciples, where he's gonna commission them to go out and change the world.

This is his final pep talk, right?

Before he sends them out.

Most of us know uh verse number 18, where Jesus says, Hey, uh, go and make disciples of all nations.

But most of us don't know, verse 17, the verse that precedes the Great Commission.

Verse 17 says this.

When they saw him, when the disciples saw him, they worshiped him, and some of them doubted.

Did you catch that?

They worshiped, but some doubted.

They're standing there with the risen Jesus, and some of them are still struggling to believe.

And then Jesus gives them the great commission: go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them, teach them, and I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

Now, I don't know about you, but I need this.

Because sometimes I imagine Jesus can only use people who've got it all figured out.

That that that you gotta you gotta have the perfect faith, you gotta have everything in line, and then Jesus can use you.

People who never doubt, but that's not the picture we get in the Bible.

The disciples worshiped, and some doubted, and Jesus still called them, Jesus still sent them, Jesus was still with them.

So the question today isn't, do you have perfect faith?

The question is what are you doing with the faith that you have?

What are you doing with the faith that you have?

Would you stand with me this morning?

Maybe your faith is small, maybe it feels weak.

Maybe you have more questions than answers.

So, but the Bible says, what are you gonna do with the faith you have?

Because Jesus even says it this way He says, if you have faith, even the size of what?

A mustard seed, the small faith, what can you do with that when you give that faith, that small faith to Jesus?

He says, You can move mountains with it.

So some of you come in today, man, your faith is so so little, it's wavering, it's wondering, it's doubting, and Jesus doesn't say, Hey, come back next week when you feel better.

Come back to me when your faith is stronger.

He says, Hey, hey, take what you got and bring it to me.

Bring your doubts, your questions, bring your need for healing or deliverance, and I'm gonna raise the dead.

All right.

Faith isn't having everything figured out, it's simply saying, Jesus, I believe, but help me with my unbelief.

And that's good enough for today.

Would you pray with me, Father in heaven?

Today we are gonna come before you in these final moments with what little faith we have, the struggles and the doubts, and we're gonna bring them before you today and ask you to move in our hearts and our lives.

Hallelujah.

I hope you enjoyed today's sermon.

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And until next time, may God bless you and keep you.