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Please remain standing and turn in your copy of the Scriptures to Mark 9.
We’ll be looking at Mark 9 this morning.
So here now is God’s Word is read beginning in verse 14, Mark chapter 9.
And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.
And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, it’s Jesus, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.
And Jesus asked them, what are you arguing about? And someone from the crowd answered him,
Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.
And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.
So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.
Jesus answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.
And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy,
and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth.
And Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him?
And he said, from childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him.
But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief.
When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit,
saying to it, you mutant death spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.
And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out.
And the boy was like a corpse. So then most of them said, he’s dead.
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?
And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word that you have given to us.
And we ask, Lord, that you would give us hearts and minds to understand what has been preserved for us.
That we would accept it, we would believe it, we would take it up in our hearts and treasure it.
And that we would obey it in our lives.
Lord, we ask that you would send your spirit and make your word alive to us this morning.
We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may be seated.
Have you ever witnessed a seizure? It can be absolutely terrifying.
I remember one evening I was in high school. A mother in our home school family, our home school group,
she stopped by to visit my parents and she found herself struggling with a whole host of health issues,
including occasional seizures. And after visiting with my parents, my dad and I walked her out to the car
and she suddenly stiffened. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started shaking.
I panicked inside. My dad ran forward and caught her before she hit the ground.
With careful, calming words, my dad continued to reassure her that she would be okay.
I wasn’t even sure if she could hear anything he was saying, but he kept speaking to her as if she could.
He carefully sat her down on the seat of the car, tilted her head back so she could breathe without biting her tongue,
and then quickly searched for her EpiPen in her purse as she had cautioned him to do if ever a seizure happened at our house.
Due to my dad’s quick action, she was back in the realm of consciousness within a few minutes.
But I’ll never forget the way that she just seemed to leave her body.
The father in our story has been dealing with demon-induced seizures in his son for years.
Even regular seizures can have this otherworldly quality to them that make me think of spiritual oppression,
so I can only imagine the strain that this father in our passage was going through.
While this in high school was the first time that I witnessed a seizure firsthand, I’m not a stranger to them.
My older cousin, Isaac, has had very severe autism since childhood,
which has given him extreme seizures most of his life,
so my aunt and uncle are also rather sympathetic to this father’s plight in our story.
But I think Mark included this story in his Gospel because he wants us to see what faith looks like
in the face of great doubt and difficulty and how it can show up in unlikely places.
Because Jesus is a patient and powerful Savior, we can put our trust in him.
I think Mark shows us we see three different kinds or stages of faith in this passage.
First, we see no faith from verse 19, O faithless generation,
and from no faith to what we might call fake faith in verse 23, if you can,
and from fake faith to true faith, I believe in verse 24, help my unbelief.
So let’s look at the first stage is no faith.
Our passage opens to a chaotic scene.
Jesus has just descended the Mount of Transfiguration in the beginning of the chapter,
and he finds that the nine disciples that stayed behind are in a big argument with the scribes.
There’s a crowd watching.
We don’t know what the argument is about, but as Jesus approaches, the word spreads like wildfire.
Jesus is here. Jesus asks, what are you arguing about?
It’s not clear exactly who he’s asking specifically.
It could be the scribes, the crowd, or his disciples.
But a man steps up. Teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a demon.
I asked the disciples to cast it out, your disciples, and they were not able.
In verse 19, we see Jesus respond to the man, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
Now, we might at first be taken aback with Jesus’ apparent exasperation,
but if we had been reading through Mark, this would not be the first time that we encounter it.
In fact, if we look at the previous chapter, chapter 8 in verse 12,
just before our passage today, we find Jesus similarly disappointed by a lack of faith.
Verses 11 and 12 of chapter 8, the Pharisees began to argue with him,
seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.
And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign?
Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.
Jesus flat out refused to prove himself to the Pharisees who were skeptically demanding a miracle.
Jesus doesn’t do miracles to create faith. He does miracles in response to faith.
See, the Jews, especially the Pharisees of all people, should have known better than to try to test God.
I mean, in the Old Testament, we find passages like this in Numbers 14 and 11.
The Lord said to Moses, how long will these people despise me?
How long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?
For Isaiah 65, verse 2, the Lord says, I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people
who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.
Jesus didn’t come to do miracles so that people who have no faith would believe in him.
Miracles do not have the ability to create faith in the person that sees them.
See, people who see miracles will always have alternate explanations that they can create and believe.
Miracles themselves don’t have that power. Jesus knows that.
And he’s unwilling to do magic tricks for the Pharisees who are arguing with his disciples.
Now, we don’t know exactly what the Pharisees were arguing with the disciples about,
but the subject of miracles appears to be pertinent.
You see, the disciples had just failed to heal this demon-possessed boy.
And the Pharisees probably have in a heyday.
The disciples probably would have been discouraged already by this failure itself,
without the mocking Pharisees.
But now on top of that, they’re plain baffled.
You see, in chapter 6 of Mark, the disciples had been sent out to do this very kind of thing already.
They had spent days, weeks, even months, casting out demons, healing the sick, all without Jesus.
So why should this be any different?
We know that the disciples are stumped because if we look in verse 28,
when they’re back at the house alone with Jesus, they ask him,
What went wrong?
And Jesus’ answer has puzzled many.
He said to them,
This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
Are we meant to interpret this as a special reference to a special category of demons that are vulnerable to prayer?
Well, what about Jesus?
Was he secretly praying in preparation, or does he just not need to pray?
Well, I think the answer is far more simple and straightforward.
A lack of prayer on the disciples’ part demonstrated a lack of faith.
Prayer is not the secret vulnerability to seizure-inducing demons.
It’s a demonstration and fruit of the faith present in the heart of a believing disciple.
Prayer not only shows God and others that you believe you need him,
but also it’s an expression of that faith.
If you believe that you don’t have the resources you need,
and you believe there’s someone who has them and can give them to you,
then you’ll ask him.
It’s that simple.
But we see in our passage a movement from no faith to fake faith.
The next stage of faith is what we might call fake faith.
The Father asked Jesus to help if he can.
Look at what happens in verse 20.
The crowd brings a man and his son who immediately begins convulsing at the sight of Jesus.
It’s worth noting that this reminds us that sometimes the presence of God
actually brings a storm before it brings the calm that we seek.
Job found himself talking to a whirlwind when God first showed up.
As the seizure is happening, Jesus asks the Father a question.
How long has this been happening?
When Matthew and Luke recount this story, they don’t even mention this.
But Mark does, because Mark wants you to see Jesus in his patience, in his compassion.
See, Jesus is not here to just get another healing done and out of the way.
Jesus is patiently connecting with the Father of the boy,
asking him, how long has this been happening?
One commentator notes that for Matthew and Luke, the point of this story is the miracle.
But for Mark, the miracle is the penultimate, or we might say second to last, to faith and faith to discipleship.
See, for Mark, the significance of Jesus cannot be fully conveyed by what he does, but by who he is.
One can be amazed by a miracle, but one can only trust and believe a person.
How many of us would jump in, just get the task over with?
Did Jesus have to ask this question?
It doesn’t appear relevant to the healing.
Jesus knows people’s thoughts, so surely he knew how long this boy had been suffering.
Jesus is not seeking new information for himself.
He’s patiently connecting with his troubled father.
This man is ravaged by stress, probably at his wit’s end, quickly losing all hope of a cure.
But this story is a perfect example of the patient kindness of the Lord Jesus.
And then verse 22, the Father explains, ever since the boy was little,
he’s been tormented by this evil spirit with murderous intentions.
And then he says, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
I think Mark wants you to see yourself in this man’s shoes, subtly asking if Jesus is able.
But Jesus would turn that question back around on you.
Jesus would turn that question back around on you.
It’s not a matter of God’s ability, but a question of your faith.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you find yourself doing this all the time.
Is God able to provide a job for me, a car for me?
Is God able to provide a spouse for me?
Can he really help me pass that class?
Can God really help my mother, grandmother, sister, brother, child, grandchild?
Doubt can start to creep in at the edges, prompting us to ask if God really is able to remedy that situation,
to provide for our needs, or truly satisfy our desires.
But look at Jesus’ response in verse 23.
He repeats the man’s words back to him.
If you can, all things are possible for the one who believes.
One commentator says the statement, everything that’s possible to one who believes,
must appear to the Father as an elusive hope.
For the faith that he needs to heal his son is a faith he does not have, or so he thinks.
You see, the Father had gotten things mixed around.
He had gotten in his head that it was a question of whether Jesus could.
He thought the object of his faith was in question.
But Jesus corrects him.
There’s no question to my power.
The question is, do you believe?
In Mark 1-40, Jesus encounters a leper with faith who sees things very differently.
In Mark 1-40, a leper came up to him, imploring him, kneeling, said to him,
If you will, you can make me clean.
He moved with pity.
Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I will.
Be clean.
Jesus says, my ability is not the question.
The question is, do you believe that I can?
And prayer is the primary way that we trust in the promises of God.
In prayer, we come and ask God to do what he has promised.
You shouldn’t come merely asking, suggesting, if you can.
By the way, I think that sometimes we may inadvertently try to disguise a lack of faith
with the phrase from Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
when he said, not my will, but your will be done.
It’s a good phrase.
It’s humble.
We don’t want to be ordering God around, telling him to do our will.
But how many times is it merely a cover to not be too invested of the outcome
or to not be too sure whether you should pray it, subtly implying, if you can.
What did Jesus mean when he prayed in the garden, let this cup pass from me,
but if not, not my will, but your will be done.
We need to make sure that we get clear on what we pray for
when we pray for God’s will.
Look at the Lord’s Prayer that we just prayed this morning
when Jesus tells us to pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
What are we praying for?
Is this a call for God to just do what you’re going to do?
Why would we need to tell God to do what he’s going to do?
No wonder people wonder why we should pray
if God’s already going to do what he’s going to do,
ordered all things according to his will.
We need to understand what we mean by the will of God.
See, there are two ways, actually, to use the will of God.
The one people think of often is what God intends to do.
By that they mean the fixed, immutable plan
that God has foreordained from all eternity everything that comes to pass.
This can be called the will of God.
But that’s actually not usually what the Bible is talking about
when it uses this phrase.
For instance, 1 Thessalonians 4.3 when it says,
this is the will of God, your sanctification.
The Bible speaks of God’s law as God’s will.
Why would we need to pray that God was going to do what he’s going to do?
We don’t.
God never tells us to pray that just whatever’s going to happen will happen.
God tells us to scour his word for his commands, his promises,
find out what he loves, what he hates,
and then ask him to do what he’s promised,
to make us holy, to judge the wicked,
to bring salvation to lost sinners, to provide for our needs.
Our only leverage with God is what he’s promised he wants to do.
So what was Jesus praying?
He was expressing his own will as a human,
shrinking back from facing the wrath of God for our sin,
but then submitting himself to
and asking his father to conform his desires to what his father desired,
to want the glory that came from the salvation accomplished for sinners
more than anything else.
Christ’s prayer to his father, your will be done,
was not a resigned whatever will be prayer.
It’s a bold wrestling in which he was honestly expressing his human withdrawing,
yet requesting that the father would unite their desires
and accomplish what was promised.
The father in our passage started out asking with fake faith
for Jesus to do something if he was able.
But when Jesus corrects him, he responds with true faith.
From fake faith to true faith in verse 24.
Verse 24, immediately the father of the child cried out and said,
I believe, help my unbelief.
Right here we see Mark’s favorite word showing up again, immediately.
See this man, he doesn’t wait around in introspection to double check his feelings.
He doesn’t search his own heart trying to test whether his feelings are genuine or not.
He simply looks straight at Jesus.
Friends, this is true faith.
One commentator says, true faith is always aware of how small and inadequate it is.
The father becomes a believer not when he amasses a sufficient quantum of faith,
but when he risks everything on what little faith he has,
when he yields his insufficiency to the true sufficiency of Jesus.
I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.
The risk of faith is more costly to the father than bringing his son to Jesus.
He can talk and explain about his son, but he must cry out for faith we see in this passage.
True faith takes no confidence in itself, nor does it judge Jesus by the weakness of his followers,
but it looks to the more powerful one who stands in the place of God,
whose authoritative word restores life from chaos.
True faith is an unconditional openness to God,
a decision in the face of all to the contrary to believe that Jesus is able.
Perhaps you’re here this morning, you realize you’ve been doubting God.
You’ve not been living in belief that God is able to fulfill all his promises for you.
You’ve been doubting.
Or maybe you’re just starting to get concerned that the lack of things happening on your timetable
is a reflection of your own lack of faith.
This man is your example.
Don’t look at your faith.
That’s a recipe for failure.
That was the disciples’ problem, and that’s why they found themselves unable to cast out the demon.
Look at Jesus.
Jesus intends for this interaction to be a lesson for his disciples,
who by this point were thinking that their ability to overcome evil spirits and heal people
was based on their own faith.
That’s why they failed.
But Jesus drew out the response that he was looking for.
The man, the father, he stopped looking at himself.
He looked straight at Jesus, and he asked for faith.
Remember, faith itself is a gift from God.
So we have to look at God.
Look to God and ask for it.
In the request, he received what he had asked for.
By depending on Jesus’ provision of faith, he was demonstrating his possession of that faith.
Now in response to that man’s faith, Jesus turns to heal this man’s son.
He rebukes the spirit, forbids it from ever entering the boy.
But then something troubling happens.
The boy begins shaking with another seizure, falls limp to the ground.
Jesus was supposed to be able to heal the boy,
but it looks at first like the evil spirit might have the last word after all.
Jesus rebuked the spirit, but maybe it managed to kill him on the way out.
Imagine the despair creeping into the heart of the father.
The doubt filling the hearts of the disciples.
The boy’s dead.
The crowd begins to whisper.
The father doesn’t want to believe it, but maybe it’s true.
What is Jesus doing?
Is this really part of the plan?
Just then, Jesus reaches down and grabs the boy up.
Take a look at the language in verses 26 and 27.
You notice the words corpse and dead in verse 26.
And then in verse 27, he arose.
Mark’s language is very intentional here.
Did Jesus have to perform the miracle this way?
Couldn’t Jesus have just cast out the demon without a final seizure?
This method seems to call into question Jesus’ power rather than affirm it.
That’s how I used to read it when I would read it in the past.
But to answer this, I think we need to remember
that Jesus’ purpose to do miracles was not just to go around healing people.
Physical healings were beautiful demonstrations of Christ’s power and compassion.
But every single person that Jesus healed eventually died.
He used his healings to teach lessons.
So you notice the language that Mark used explicitly.
Dead and arose.
That language is not accidental.
It’s the same in Greek.
If we look at just a few verses before our passage, the beginning of chapter 9,
and a few verses after, we find this account is sandwiched by Jesus telling his disciples,
he’s got to die and rise again while they still don’t get it.
See, just like the disciples, we’d be inclined to think that the greatest demonstration of Jesus’ power
would be for him to just show a force, make a show of force,
cast out the demon without allowing it one last chance to kill the boy.
Yet as Jesus had been telling his disciples and would tell them again,
his power would be on greatest display in laying down his own life.
In just a few weeks, it would look like Satan, his demons, the Romans, the unbelieving Jews,
had won as Jesus hung on a cross.
Only Jesus didn’t just appear dead.
He was dead.
Yet that was not the end of the story.
Jesus rose and ascended into heaven.
See, Jesus allowed the demon to have this one last shot in this instance
so that he could show that his greatest power is displayed in his own death and resurrection.
Jesus’ greatest demonstration of power occurred in his own laying down his life,
to bear our sins, be executed for them, rise again from the dead,
accomplishing a salvation that must be received by faith.
Without faith in Jesus, we have no part of his sacrifice, but with faith, it becomes ours.
You see, we all need more than physical healing.
We need the spiritual cleansing from sin and the new life that Jesus accomplished
and gives us by his death and resurrection.
Every other religion in the world offers a maybe.
And if you can, maybe if you do enough prayers,
maybe if you say the right words, maybe if you do enough good deeds,
we need more than a possibility of salvation.
We need certainty, certainty that only can be found in Jesus,
in his accomplishing our salvation.
But as we close, I want you to think about why Mark would close out his story
with these words on prayer.
Well, think about who Mark was writing this gospel to.
See, Mark wasn’t writing this gospel to the apostles.
He was writing to average, ordinary Christians just like us.
We haven’t been specially empowered like the apostles were
to cast out demons and heal in the same way that they were.
But what did ordinary Christians have then that we have today?
Prayer.
Yes, I believe that Mark has included these words from Jesus specifically
to encourage ordinary believers to pray, to exercise their faith in this way.
See, when Mark wrote his gospel, he consulted heavily, most heavily,
with Peter more than any other disciple.
So I think Peter’s perspective is pertinent to what Mark is doing here.
If we look in 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1 actually,
Peter includes an account of the transfiguration,
which has just happened in the beginning of Mark 9.
And in that same letter that Peter recounts that story,
he begins 2 Peter in this way.
And I think that Peter is reflecting on Mark’s point in our story today.
2 Peter 1, 1 opens this way.
Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Christ Jesus.
To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours
by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
See, even the apostles with all of their gifts needed Jesus just like everyone else.
And when they didn’t pray, they couldn’t do anything.
We’re in the same boat.
If we have faith in Christ, we have a faith on equal standing with the great apostles
because it’s the object of our faith that matters.
When Jesus emphasized the need for prayer,
he was explaining what faith looks like in action,
making it accessible to all those that would come after those first disciples.
We have a faith as an equal standing.
We have prayer.
Well, what if you aren’t sure that you have true faith or enough faith?
Come to Jesus anyway.
Remember the Father in this passage.
I believe, help my unbelief.
All of us have unbelief.
Come to Jesus with your unbelief and ask him to turn it into belief.
As you come, you will find a tender, compassionate Savior who’s patient and powerful.
My cousin, Isaac, who I mentioned earlier,
he’s unable to speak because of his severe autism.
His only means of communication is painfully slow.
He has to spell out each word, letter by letter,
pointing to them on a special keyboard with a helper to steady his hand.
Yet, a few years ago, after attending church faithfully with his family,
he was determined to make a public profession of his faith.
So at his church in Maine after meeting with the elders,
he stood in front of the congregation and gave his affirmative response
to the pastor’s questions about his own sense of his sin,
his need of a Savior, his trust in Jesus Christ as that Savior he needed.
He and his parents have faith that one day his loosened tongue
will be employed in singing beautiful praises despite his current inability to talk.
He’s in his late 40s today and his parents’ favorite hymn is
Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.
And it ends in verses four and five.
Jesus, the name that charms our fears,
that bids our sorrows cease,
tis music in the sinner’s ears, tis life and health and peace.
He breaks the power of reigning sin,
he sets the prisoner free,
his blood can make the phallus clean,
his blood availed for me.
And especially verse six as it ends,
hear him, ye deaf,
his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ,
ye blind, behold, your Savior come,
and leap, ye lame, for joy.
Amen.
Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, we thank you that we can come even with unbelief,
even with wavering faith,
even with small faith.
We can come with eyes fixed on our Savior,
who we know is powerful to save.
Lord, we thank you that you have made him clear in your word,
you’ve revealed him by your spirit to our hearts.
Lord, we would ask that you would strengthen our faith,
not as we build up something within ourselves,
but as we see Jesus able to come through
as we face all of life’s difficulties,
and you bring them on one by one,
on top of one another,
in order that we might keep gazing at our Savior.
Lord, we ask that you would give us eyes to see
in the midst of all the storms and difficulties,
all of the challenges that you bring our way.
We know that in all of these,
you are a faithful, compassionate, powerful Savior.
We ask that you would keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.
We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, in response, we shall sing Hymn 455,
I Need Thee, Precious Jesus,
and if you would join in standing as we sing Hymn 455.