May 3, 2026
This is the last of our sermon series, “I believe in you!” The first week we talked about how believing in someone isn’t knowing for certain, instead it’s living by faith. Faith not just in the person, but also in what God can do through them. The second week, we talked about how every child has a strength they can use to make a difference in the world, so let’s nurture them spiritually and believe in them! Last week we talked about the importance of mentoring and believing in the next generation, and how the failures we’ve had in life make us more real! They make us a better mentor and someone our mentee will more likely listen to. Today, we’re going to talk about looking for what’s positive!
It’s so easy to see the negative and decide nothing can be done. Jesus was different from that when he mentored and believed in people. Look at Matthew 9:9-13. Jesus had just healed a man. Verse 9 says, “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.” The Jewish people back then hated tax collectors! For one thing, they didn’t like to pay taxes, can you relate? Tax collectors in those days often cheated people, telling them they owed more than they really did, and then they would keep that extra money for themselves. What’s worse was they collected tax from fellow Jews for the benefit of the Roman empire. People thought since the tax collectors were Jewish, they should be on their side. But they were just in it for themselves. Tax collectors were considered thieves and traitors.
So, verse 9 says that Jesus saw Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. Jesus didn’t think to himself, that man should be ashamed of himself! Instead, Jesus thought, he has real potential to give glory to God! Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” And surprisingly, Matthew got up and followed Jesus! Then Jesus goes for dinner at Matthew’s house. Matthew’s friends come over. Verse 10 says many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees see this, they ask the disciples: why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? It was clear to everybody, if Jesus is picking followers, Matthew is not a good choice. But Jesus says, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…for I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.”
When you are looking for someone that God wants you to encourage, believe in, and mentor, you might think it would be great to mentor a respectable person. But that’s not what Jesus did. He took a risk on a guy with a dark past, but a willing heart. Jesus saw the positive in Matthew: if Matthew turned his life around for God, his tax collector and sinner friends might be influenced for good too!
There were other people Jesus believed in who weren’t respectable. Think about when Jesus was crucified, two criminals were on his left and right. One of them said to Jesus sarcastically, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” The other criminal said to the first one, hey, we’re getting what we deserve. But this man did nothing wrong. Then he asked Jesus to remember him when he went to heaven. And Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise!” Jesus came not for the respectable people, but for the outcasts.
Nobody is 100% respectable, and nobody is 100% outcast! If you want to encourage someone, you’re going to find yourself with the job of believing in a person who has some problems. To believe in someone means to focus on and bring out their strengths, and let things that you don’t like, that you’re tempted to complain about, let them go for a while.
Jesus was good at bringing out strengths. He saw people. He praised their strength. For example, he told the centurion, “Not even in Israel have I found such great faith!” He told the Canaanite woman: “You have great faith!” And he healed her daughter.
Everybody has strengths! It can take some effort to find them, but they are there. When you focus on and encourage someone’s strengths, so much is possible! Jesus praised people’s faith because he knew it would just grow their faith even more!
The truth is what you look for is what you find. If you look for the negative, you’ll find it! If you look for the positive, you’ll find it too! Jesus looked for the positive.
Sometimes the things that you think are negative qualities someone has, point you to their strength! Years back I had a boy in confirmation class who was very good at noticing my faults. He saw me driving one evening. A few days later he told me that I went through a red light! I said, No, it was yellow turning red! No, he said, it was red. I didn’t see him! I don’t know how he noticed me driving. Another time, I don’t get tan. I only freckle. There were these tanning lotions that came out then in the stores. They would make you look like you have a tan. I thought, I always wondered what it would be like to have a tan. I bought one and put it on. This boy had to tell me, in front of the confirmation class, you’re wearing a tanner. And you missed an area with your tanner! This boy drove me absolutely crazy. But he had a strength: he was good at noticing things. He grew up to become a repair man, and was very good at it, because you have to notice what is wrong to fix it!
So, you might have a talent for annoying others, but it can really be a strength, something that makes you amazing! It can be something that should be encouraged.
There’s a disciple of Jesus named Thomas. We know Thomas as what? Doubting Thomas. 2000 years later, he messed up once and we still call him Doubting Thomas! None of us want to be called the things we’re not proud of! Thomas was not there when the Risen Jesus first appeared to the other disciples. Thomas told the disciples, “I won’t believe Jesus rose from the dead until I see him and touch his wounds!” Then Jesus appears to them again, and this time Thomas is there! Jesus says, come on Thomas, touch my wounds, put your hand in my side. Thomas doesn’t touch the wounds! He says to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas believed! Sometimes it’s good to have some doubts. Thomas is probably the guy who wouldn’t get in with the wrong crowd, because he has doubts about them. He’s not easily influenced. Jesus believed in Thomas! That’s why he called Thomas to follow him three years before. And when Thomas finally saw the risen Jesus, he became the first disciple to confess that Jesus was God!
I want you to know that if you stopped believing in yourself, and the people who know you have stopped believing in you, there is a God and He believes in you! God believes in you! He wants you to believe in the people around you too!
My challenge for you this week is to think about a strength someone has, something amazing about them. And tell them! For example, you might say: I see in you a talent for seeing flaws and fixing them. I see in you a talent for making people laugh. I see in you a talent for really listening to someone and showing compassion. Tell someone what you see in them!
When you look at the people you know, you are probably aware of weaknesses. But they are so much more than that! They have strengths that make them amazing! God made them according to His plan. Jesus saw the positive! It’s your job to see the positive too! To see their amazingness. And to be sure to tell them, you believe in them! Amen!
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