Faith Accompanies Authority

Learning the Context: Jews, Gentiles, and Building the Church

Pastor Scott Uselman began by setting the scene of Matthew’s Gospel and explaining how each Gospel addresses a different audience. Matthew, he reminded us, is written for those who know the Old Testament and builds on that history to reveal Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s plan. He recounted how recent weeks had walked us through John the Baptist’s death in chapter 14, Peter’s confession in chapter 16, and the growing opposition Jesus faced. All of this, he said, leads us into Matthew 17, where matters come to a head.

He spent time helping us understand a common concern with Matthew 17:21, the textual variant, reassuring us that though some manuscripts include it and some do not, it changes no central truth: “Jesus is the only way to the Father. Amen.”

Spiritual Battle and the Authority of the Church

Naming our times as part of a spiritual battlefield, Pastor Scott Uselman described the tension between heaven’s kingdom and the kingdom of darkness. “What our eyes can’t see, we have to take by faith. It is actually there.” He affirmed that our enemy is not visible or in the church, reminding us, as he learned through hard experience, not to look for the enemy inside but to be aware of unseen powers aiming to discourage and divide.

He taught that scripture gives structure to church life. “There is a structure in the scriptures about the church. I know that in our times that we live in, we like to think we just do things as we see fit… but there is structure.” The church, he said, is called to move forward in faith, storming the gates of hell, not hiding away from the world.

Personal Story: Called, Resigned, and the Call of God

Pastor Scott Uselman shared a story of a young minister, called into service yet discouraged and urged to resign by his denominational leadership. Reflecting on that experience, he said:

“God gave him responsibility and within that responsibility he was to face adversity. What he should have done… was say, I’m not going to resign because I know who called me, and if He called me then I’m going to continue to move forward. It doesn’t matter.”

He connected this with his own journey, having faced times when others advised him to quit, but choosing instead to trust the One who called him. He broadened the call to all of us: “God has probably revealed to you that He wants you to do something… If the Lord has told you to do something, then you need to go do it.” Reading scripture and discerning God’s voice, even in ordinary moments, are ways we come to understand our responsibility and the authority we are given.

The Struggle of the Disciples: Authority Without Faith

Turning to Matthew 17:14-23, Pastor Scott Uselman recounted how the disciples, left at the foot of the mountain during the Transfiguration, could not cast out a demon from a boy. The scene was described in detail:

“Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and is suffering greatly… I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

Jesus’ response was direct and searching. “You unbelieving and perverse generation… how long shall I put up with you?” Pastor Scott Uselman unpacked how the disciples had previously been given authority (Matthew 10), yet now found themselves powerless.

He lingered on the possible cause:

“Somehow they must have gotten into a mindset where they didn’t really believe that God wanted to use them.”

He drew a parallel with our churches today, how often we resign ourselves to powerlessness, not because God hasn’t given authority, but because we have ceased trusting He desires to use us. Faith, he said, is essential to activate the authority given by Christ: “It doesn’t matter what Jesus is doing with Peter, James, and John… I need to have faith that He wants to work through me.”

The Mindset of the Kingdom vs. the World

Pastor Scott Uselman explored what it means to have a different mindset from the world. When Jesus called the crowd and His disciples an “unbelieving generation,” he was naming a cultural mindset, a way of thinking that is skeptical of God’s power to transform situations.

“We Wesleyans… believe that when we are born again that God is actually changing who we are from the inside out. That’s what He’s doing when we’re born again.” Faith, then, means embracing a new way of seeing reality, one marked by the kingdom of God, not the world’s cynicism or status quo.

“If the world tells me this is true, I immediately know because the world is full of lies, I don’t believe it. But if God says this is true… now I know that what God says is true because I’m looking at things through the perspective of someone who is rightly connected to the kingdom.”

He challenged us not to settle for sermons or church life that simply echo the world’s concerns and relevance, but to live so differently that God can use us as signs of hope.

Trusting God for the Impossible

The third movement of the sermon circled back to Jesus’ teaching about mustard-seed faith. Jesus tells the disciples:

“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.”

Pastor Scott Uselman reflected on the context: Jesus pointed immediately to His own journey, His coming death and resurrection, as the ultimate example of trusting God for the impossible. “The impossible thing that most of us could not fathom if we were in the first century is that God would have the power to raise Jesus Christ from the dead back to life.”

He named the subtle trap of having “faith to fail instead of faith to succeed”, a tendency to believe our failures more than God’s promises. Real faith is believing that God can do the impossible, and that He often chooses to work through us in ways that surprise us and are simply His work unfolding in us.

He shared another personal example:

“When I’m talking to this man, trust me when I tell you I’m not thinking anything. Like apparently there’s a holy moment going on right there. All I’m doing is sharing about the Lord just because I enjoy it, right?... You have to trust that God can work through us. No matter what we might think and feel about ourselves.”

The real task, he said, is to let Jesus work through us, not because we’re strong or confident, but because He is faithful and has given us both the authority and the responsibility.

Living It Out

Faith accompanies authority when we are willing to trust that God still calls, still gives responsibility, and still works through those who trust Him. Whether it’s leadership in church, faith in daily work, or spiritual battles unseen by the world, we’re invited to act, not to wait until we feel strong, but to believe Jesus wants to work through us. We become agents of impossible hope when we surrender our own will and perspective for His.

Discussion Questions

1. Where have you sensed God calling you to act or step out in faith, but hesitated because you doubted He could use you?
2. In what small everyday situations could you invite Jesus to work through you, trusting that His authority is present even when you feel ordinary?
3. What would it look like to hold a mindset shaped more by God’s kingdom than by the world’s expectations in your daily life?