You Don’t Have to Be the Savior: Learning to Trust the One Who Is

On our very first Easter as a church plant, we were still tiny—maybe twenty people meeting in a little space beside the dentist office in downtown Barboursville. We decided to go big: a full outdoor Easter gathering with breakfast for anyone who wanted to come.

Then, the week before, our daughter needed major surgery in Cincinnati. Sarah Beth and I were gone for days. I couldn’t prep, set up, or coordinate. From my perspective, everything was at a complete deficit.

But Easter morning came, and 150 people showed up. Breakfast was cooked, chairs were out, kids were cared for, music was ready, and the Lord met us. I had almost nothing to do with it.

That little snapshot captures the heartbeat of Matthew 17:14–20: our lives are full of deficit—and Jesus is endlessly abundant. The Christian life isn’t about becoming our own savior; it’s about finally owning our need and learning to trust the Savior we already have.

Jesus comes down from the mountain of Transfiguration and immediately steps into a scene of pain. A desperate father kneels before Him and pleads:
“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly… often he falls into the fire and often into the water” (Matthew 17:15).

The dad has reached the end of what he can do. He can’t buy a solution, work harder, or “try more” to fix his son. He’s out of options and on his knees.

The son is needy too. His seizures drag him toward danger he would never choose. He is pulled toward harm by something stronger than his will.

If we’re honest, we know both roles:

• We’re the parent, spouse, or friend who cannot fix what’s broken.
• We’re also the one pulled by our own “demons”—sin, addiction, misplaced desires—into places we never planned to go and never wanted to stay.

Neediness is not an exception in life; it’s normal. We are not self-sufficient. We are not in control.

The father continues: “I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him” (Matthew 17:16).

The disciples care. They try. But they are not able to heal the boy.

That stings, because it exposes how we often think:
“If I just say the right thing, parent the right way, love hard enough, plan well enough—I can fix this.”

We quietly put a savior-weight on ourselves that only Jesus can carry. We try to be the rescuer of our kids, our spouse, our friends, our prodigal family members. Scripture pushes back:

You can love, walk with, and pray for people—but you cannot save their hearts.
We are needed, but we are not the Savior.

Then comes Jesus’ hard word: “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” (Matthew 17:17)

“Faithless” means our hearts do not naturally rest in God. We might say we trust Him, but our reflex is often to trust ourselves, our plans, or our backup strategies.

“Twisted” means our inner compass is bent. Sin has disordered what we love and how we see the world. We were made to trust God, desire His glory, and long for His kingdom—but we often chase smaller kings and smaller kingdoms instead.

So we try to build little kingdoms that won’t last and give our hearts to “saviors” that can’t actually save—including ourselves.

Jesus’ rebuke here is not a threat to walk away. It is more like a holy groan of love:
“How long will you carry this misery of unbelief? How long will you cling to weak saviors when the real Savior is standing in front of you?”

Even our believing is broken—and it needs saving too.

Right in the middle of all this deficit—physical, emotional, spiritual—Jesus acts:

“And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.” (Matthew 17:18)

No delay. No struggle. No doubt. The boy who was unsafe a moment ago is now whole. That’s abundance.

The whole Bible paints this picture of Jesus:

• “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16).
• He came so that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
• He is the One who “fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22–23).
• In Him “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” and you “have been filled in him” (Colossians 2:9–10).
• God “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

When our deep deficit collides with the deep abundance of Jesus, the result is not that we merely climb back to zero. In Christ, our guilt is removed and we are filled with new life. We move from empty to filled, from spiritually starving to welcomed at God’s table, from condemned to beloved sons and daughters.

Later, the disciples ask privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” (Matthew 17:19). They know Jesus had given them authority earlier (Matthew 10:1). They’ve seen God work through them before. So what went wrong this time?

Jesus answers: “Because of your little faith” (Matthew 17:20).

He is not shaming them for not having “big” faith. He is exposing their misplaced faith. They had begun to lean on their own experience, memory, and technique instead of on Jesus Himself. They treated God’s authority like a tool in their belt instead of a gift in empty hands.
Jesus goes on:

“If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

The point is not the size of the faith; it’s the direction of the faith.

• A lot of faith in yourself can do very little.
• A little faith in Jesus can participate in what only God can do.

In Mark’s account of this same story, Jesus adds, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer [and fasting]” (Mark 9:29). Prayer and fasting are not magic techniques; they are ways of remembering our deficit and returning to dependence.

• Prayer is how we say, “I can’t—Lord, I need You.”
• Fasting is a physical reminder that we are not self-sustaining.

Around here, many of us have been taught to handle problems on our own, to never show weakness. There are good and beautiful parts to that toughness. But you and I cannot carry the weight of being our own savior, or anyone else’s. That weight will eventually break us.
Jesus is inviting us to lay down that false strength and come back to Him with mustard-seed faith.

For those who are not yet Christians, this story is an invitation. The Bible says we have all sinned—turned away from God’s good design—and we cannot cure ourselves. The good news (the “gospel”) is that Jesus lived, died, and rose again to rescue sinners and bring them into God’s family. You do not have to stay in spiritual deficit. You can turn to Him in trust today.

For those who already belong to Jesus, the call is simple and deep:

• Name where you are trying to be the savior. Where are you carrying a weight only Jesus can bear?
• Lay down your self-reliance. Admit your need instead of hiding it.
• Pray the honest prayer of the father in Mark 9:24:
  “I believe; help my unbelief.”

Jesus is not asking you to impress Him. He is inviting you to bring your real deficit—your weakness, your fears, your shaky faith—to His endless abundance.