What Jesus Commands: Faith

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone. Welcome to our worship service. It’s good to see you here with us today.

There are a few announcements I’d like to mention before we begin.

The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:30.

We’re nearing our goal for our Alma Hunt offering but still have a ways to go, so please consider giving a part or all of your tithe to this very important mission.

You’ll see a note in your bulletin from Steve Trumbo about some of the books his father collected. Those books aren’t here quite yet. Steve’s going to bring them early in the coming week, so they should be available for you to go through then if you’re interested.

We’ll be having our regular deacon meeting this coming Tuesday. Two people have agreed to serve as deacons after your vote — Vonda and Jim, thank you both for agreeing to serve.

Next week is picture-taking day for a new church directory. You can stop by either before Sunday school or after the service to take those. Those will be taken in the fellowship hall.

Please continue to keep the Kelly family in your prayers in the death of June Kelly.

Daniel says Brenda is doing okay. She’ll be in rehab at Shenandoah Nursing Home for about a month, so please keep Brenda. And Daniel’s sister Anna Marie passed on Friday, do please keep her family in your prayers. Daniel, you’ve kind of been through it lately haven’t you?

Della, do

Jesyka, do you have anything for us today?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Holy Lord, everything we need is found in you. For those of us who come here today feeling broken, bring restoration. For those who come here feeling weak, bring strength. For those who come weeping, bring joy. For those of us who come with doubts, bring faith. For those who come here feeling shame, bring freedom. For those who come feeling burdened, bring rest. For those of us who come here feeling anxious, bring peace. Heal us as only you can, and bless this hour. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Sermon

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him.

Don’t run from God in all of your pain and questions, run to Him and learn how to lament.

Watch your words, because they can either make the world even more beautiful or burn the whole world down.

Those are three things we’ve talked about for about the last month that make you more than just a sit-in-the-pew-on-Sunday-morning Christian, a lifeless Christian, but that start transforming you into a disciple of Christ.

But is that all you need to do? Just those three things? Not hardly. I could spend another six months on that subject, but September’s almost over and I want to spend October talking about spiritual warfare.

So for today, I’m going to talk about the foundation of what it means to be a disciple, the one thing you need above all else to please God, and that’s mentioned in Hebrews 11:6. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews says:

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Faith. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. Both the importance of faith — which I’m sure we all know by now — and just how hard it is for us, even as Christians, to believe in God’s provision, blessing, and help, not just in our times of need but in every moment.

We looked at that a few weeks ago with the story of Lazarus, didn’t we? But there’s another gospel story about the struggle between doubt and faith, and it’s one of my favorite scenes in the life of Jesus. Turn with me to the gospel of Mark, chapter 9. Today we’re going to read verses 14-27:

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, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.

And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 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.”

And he 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.”

And 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!”

And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf 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 that most of them said, “He is dead.”

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And this is the word of the Lord.

More often than not, especially in the early days of Jesus’s ministry, there was a crowd wherever he went. People needing healing, people wanting to hear his teaching, or people just curious as to who this man was. This is one of those times.

But this time is a little different, because the scribes are there, arguing with some of Jesus’s disciples. And in verse 15, the moment the crowd sees Jesus walking towards them, they’re greatly amazed and run up to him.

Now, why is this crowd amazed? This is important, because it plays into a key verse coming up. If you look back at the beginning of chapter 9, what great event takes place? It’s the transfiguration, isn’t it?

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain, and there these three disciples see Moses and Elijah with Jesus, and Jesus himself as he was before he became a man — his clothes became radiant, intensely white. This was Jesus as he truly is, in all of his power and glory.

After the transfiguration is over, Jesus and the three disciples go back down the mountain to the scene we have here. And the crowd rushes to him greatly amazed because evidently some of that glory, some of that power, is still present in Jesus’s appearance.

Remember Moses, when he came down from the Mountain of God after receiving the Ten Commandments. We’ve spoken about that before, how Moses’s face shined with the glory of God so much that he had to wear a veil so that the people wouldn’t be afraid.

It’s the same thing here, except far from the people being afraid, Jesus’s appearance made them rush toward him, made the people want even more of him.

And you can imagine Jesus greeting them, looking at every face but also looking at the group of people just a little farther on — the other nine disciples he’d left behind, and the scribes.

Now, who are these people called the scribes? They’re the religious experts of the day. The scholars. The wise people.

Their job was to study the law of Moses, copy the law onto scrolls for sharing in the synagogues, and write commentaries on the law. These are the smart people who think they’re smarter than everyone else — Jesus included, because they know so much about the law that they’re convinced Jesus is a fraud.

So Jesus approaches them. He hears the scribes arguing with his disciples, and Jesus doesn’t like that. Jesus never likes that. If you’re coming after his people, his family, the ones who love him, he’s going to show up right in the middle of it all. So he asks them in verse 16, “What are you arguing about?’

Verse 17 says that it’s someone from the crowd who answers, but it’s clearly the father, isn’t it? Because he says, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.”

Now, notice that the scribes don’t answer Jesus’s question, do they? Because the scribes are smart, smart enough to know they can flex their mental muscles all they want on the disciples — the disciples are just starting out, and they’re still pretty much just a bunch of hicks. They’re still young in their faith.

But every time the scribes try to tangle with Jesus, they come away looking like the arrogant and misguided people they really are. So they’re silent here.

But the disciples don’t answer him either, do they? They’re silent. They’re ashamed. And we find out why in verse 18.

This man has brought his son to be healed, and the son is possessed by a demon that’s given the boy a form of epilepsy. The father says, “Whenever the demon seizes my boy, it throws him down, and he foams and grunts his teeth and becomes rigid.”

So this father’s brought his son to Jesus, only to find that Jesus wasn’t there. So instead he went to the disciples and asked them to heal his son. But the disciples couldn’t, which of course was just enough for the scribes to boast that here was a demon that neither the disciples nor Jesus could cast out.

And now we come to verse 19. To me, Mark 9:19 is one of the hardest verses in the Bible.

You can’t read that verse without flinching. It sounds so completely unlike Jesus to say anything like this. He sounds so exasperated, so tired, so sick of everything. In fact, it can almost seem like our Lord is getting very close to sinning with his speech here, isn’t he?

I want to take a good look at this verse, because of course Jesus isn’t sinning at all. It might seem that he’s frustrated. He’s not, but even if he was, we can’t blame Jesus for feeling that way.

After all, his disciples couldn’t perform their duty. And the scribes won’t stop denying Christ — these people who say they know everything there is to know about God except for the plain fact that God is standing right in front of them at the moment. It’s easy to see how Jesus would be frustrated with them too.

But more than that, it’s easy to see how Jesus would be frustrated and even angry with both parties, with the disciples and the scribes, because they’re doing what we do all the time, especially nowadays.

Don’t believe me? Just replace “disciples” with “Christians” and “scribes” with “secular people.” Replace “disciples” with “Conservatives” and “scribes” with “liberals.”

Argue, argue, argue. Us against them. We curse and cuss and talk about the other side like they’re animals, and all the while we forget that all of these political and social and religious issues have people at the center. We’re not fighting over ideas, we’re fighting over people and those people are souls. They are people made in the image of God. They are people who are hurting.

The disciples and the scribes are arguing and debating about who’s right and who knows more about the truth. All either side cares about is scoring points and making the other side look bad, but Jesus says there’s a boy standing here sick with a demon and a father who’s at the end of his rope.

There’s where your focus should be. Healing the boy might be beyond the disciples’ power, and helping the father might be beyond the scribes’ power, but surely showing compassion to these two people is not.

“O faithless generation,” he says, “how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?”

That is not an expression of anger. It is not an expression of frustration. It is an expression of deep and profound sadness. Verse 19 is Christ showing his sorrow over faithlessness. Over a lack of sympathy for the hurting and the sick.

There was never a lonelier soul on this earth than Christ’s, because there was never a soul so pure and loving.

Here not hours before, Peter, James, and John were witnesses to their Lord’s transfiguration. For just a moment, Jesus took off his earthly body to reveal who he truly was in all of his glory.

The two greatest figures of the Old Testament joined him — Moses representing the Law, and Elijah representing the prophets. And then in a moment that must have been so difficult, Christ willingly puts on his human form again and walks back down that mountain, only to find that he’s surrounded by unbelief.

His disciples didn’t have faith enough to cast out this poor child’s demon. The scribes did not have faith enough to see that every prophecy they took such great care to copy down and pass on was fulfilled in the person standing before them.

“O faithless generation,” he says. “Where is your faith?”

This story, by the way, is included in both Matthew and Luke. Both add an important word here, with Jesus saying “O faithless and perverse generation.” That teaches us that a lack of faith is a moral crime, a sin, and a cause of the evil in this world. Our world is in such a sad state not because it’s drowned in sin, but because it’s not drowned in faith.

“O faithless generation,” he says, and would Jesus say that to us now? If Christ came through those doors this moment, would that be his cry? How would it not? If we believe that the love of Christ is real in any sense, then how can we not believe that our sin causes him grief?

How could Jesus react in any other way but sadness when he arrives to find the ones who love him arguing with the ones who hate him, and all the while this poor boy and his father stand there still suffering?

“How long am I to be with you?” he asks. “How long am I to bear with you?”

Jesus, fully God, knew that his ministry, death, and resurrection on earth was the only way to bridge the gap between sinful children and their holy Father. But Jesus, fully human, longed to return to the glory of heaven once more.

What kept Jesus on this earth for those thirty-three years of living was love, yes. It was devotion, yes. But it was also the disciples’ faithlessness. Jesus would not leave his disciples until they had grown strong in faith. He couldn’t, because those few men were meant to be the spark that lit the world.

But look at them here, so poor of faith that they couldn’t heal this boy. So poor of faith that they’d rather argue with the scribes than tend to the needs of the suffering.

Jesus had been away for a single day up on that mountain, and even though the people he left behind didn’t build a golden calf to worship like their ancestors did, he still comes back to find that everything has gone wrong. In just one day. So what would happen if Jesus would go away from the disciples all together?

We don’t know all the reasons why Christ’s life on the earth was so short, but we do know he couldn’t leave until he’d left his disciples strong enough to stand by themselves and lay the foundations of the church.

You can think Jesus is angry and frustrated and impatient in verse 19. I don’t see that at all.

I see a Lord whose patience is enduring, and whose anger is instead a deep and abiding love that says both to the disciples and to us, “I will remain with you until your faith is strong and unbending, because there’s no end to my mercy.”

And as a testament to his love even when no love is shown around him, and to his faith even when he is surrounded by faithlessness, he says at the end of verse 19, “Bring the boy to me.”

They do, in verse 20. And the spirit seizes the boy immediately, throwing him into a fit. Have you ever noticed that the shorter the devil’s time is, the more the devil rages? The more faith you have, the harder he works? That the moment a church begins to flourish, the devil bares his teeth and bites?

That demon stands in the presence of the Lord of all and knows that his time is coming to an end, so he’s going to do as much damage as he can. That’s how demons work.

Now, here’s this boy. This poor boy. He’s been thrown to the ground. He’s convulsing. He’s writhing in pain and agony. He’s foaming at the mouth.

This evil spirit that’s made its home in him is lashing like never before, threatening to tear the boy apart, so what does Jesus do? Does he immediately heal him? Does he cast that demon out before it can do one second more of damage? No. What’s he do? He starts talking to the father.

It’s such an amazing scene that it’s almost comical — this boy flailing himself before them, Jesus standing there looking, and in verse 21 he just kind of looks at the father and says, “So how long’s this been going on?”

And even though the father’s watching all of this happen too, he still tells Jesus everything. “From childhood,” he says. And in verse 22, “And it has often cast him into the fire and into water, to destroy him.”

Why’s Jesus taking his time talking to the father when this poor boy is suffering on the ground at his feet? Doesn’t this go right to what Jesus was so upset with the disciples and the scribes over?

They were arguing rather than tending to the boy. Jesus is talking to the man rather than tending to the boy. What’s the difference?

I’ll tell you the difference — it’s faith. Jesus, right here, is teaching this father how to have faith. He’s guiding the father toward a door in his own heart that needs to be opened in order for Jesus to heal this boy.

And the father reaches that door at the end over verse 22 when he says, “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

“Us,” he says. Help … us. Do you notice that? The father identifies himself with his son’s own misery.

In Matthew chapter 15, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus for the healing of her daughter, who was also possessed by a spirit. She says to Jesus, “Have mercy on _me_”. _Me_, not “my daughter”. But this father says, “If you can do anything, have mercy on _us_.”

“‘If you can!’” Jesus says in verse 23. “All things are possible for one who believes.”

He’s turning the tables here, isn’t he? Jesus is giving this father — who by all accounts is not a follower of Christ at all, not a believer, just someone in a nearby town who heard that a healer was nearby — Jesus is giving him the first and most important lesson of what it means to have faith. And it’s this: If you don’t receive the mercy and strength you ask for from Christ, the fault is in you, not him.

“Did you say if _I_ can do anything?” Jesus asks. “No sir, that’s not the issue. It’s if _you_ have faith. All things are possible with me. But the things that are possible for you depend solely upon your faith in me.”

And now comes verse 24. Verse 24 is maybe my most favorite verse of the Bible. My favorite words in the Bible aren’t spoken by a prophet or an apostle or a king or even Christ himself, but by a simple unbelieving man whose name we don’t even know.

If Mark 9:19 is one of the most difficult verses of scripture to hear, verse 24 is maybe the most complete picture of what it means to be a human being.

“I believe,” the father cries out, “help my unbelief!”

In other words, “Help me, then, Jesus. If my faith is what’s wrong, then help make it right.

“Help me to overcome my unbelief. But please don’t let my lack of faith stand in the way of my son’s blessing. I do believe, but my faith is weak. So strengthen that faith in me, and increase it, so that whatever doubt I have in me might be taken away, and I might be counted worthy of this blessing from you.”

And that, friends, is the prayer of faith. That is how we should approach our Lord. “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.”

We live in an age where it’s our differences that are celebrated. It’s our color, it’s our race, it’s our gender, it’s our age, it’s our beliefs. That’s fine on the surface. God is a God of infinite creativity, and He’s made us all.

But we’ve gone too far. We’ve gone so far in celebrating what makes each of us different that we’ve lost sight of the fact that in here, in our hearts, we are all the same. We are alike in our depths, and only unlike on our surfaces. And so one person’s struggle for more faith can point the way for us all to increase our faith.

Right here in verse 24 is a complete map of faith that you and I and everyone can follow. We have the birth of faith, and its infancy. We have the cry of faith, and its growth.

The birth of faith begins with a desire, just as it does in this father. Whoever has a desire for the gifts that Christ offers has taken the first step on the way to true faith. But here’s where a lot of us stumble, because we don’t want those blessings. Not really.

How many people really see the need to have their sins forgiven? How many really want to live a holy life? How many want a true and deep relationship with God?

But how many pray for money, and for worldly security? How many pray for things that will never last?

Jesus says you must have faith, and yet faith is only possible when you start wanting the things that he wants, the true blessings, the ones he’ll both give you now and store up in heaven.

Then after the father’s desire for faith comes a realization that he is utterly powerless in providing it for himself. How many times has he watched helplessly as his boy suffered another attack? Watching him being flung into the fire and water, never knowing how long this episode will last or when the next one will come?

We can do nothing for ourselves. We have to know that first. And so if it’s faith that you really want, you have to understand that you cannot provide it for yourself. You cannot increase your faith. Only God can through the Holy Spirit.

It’s a terrible thing to want something so badly that you know you can never provide for yourself. That is exactly why you then have to listen to the calm assurance of Christ.

Jesus tells the father, “If I can help you? Of course I can help you. And because I can, everything is possible for you to receive from me.”

Jesus tells you, “I can satisfy your every need. I can give your soul rest. I can cleanse your sins. I can satisfy your desires. All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is trust me.”

That assurance, if you truly believe it, is all you need for your confidence. If you will only listen to Jesus, you’ll find in Him all that you need. That is how faith is born.

But just as a child, our faith must begin small. Watch the order of what the father says. First comes, “I believe.” Faith is now there, truly. But that faith he now has casts a shadow on the doubt that has plagued his entire life, and so he says immediately after, “Help my unbelief.”

That’s exactly why it’s so hard to just have a little faith. Impossible, really. Because a little faith is just enough to shine a light on all your doubt, and so the choice is either to increase your faith and drive that doubt from you once and for all, or allow the doubt you have to swallow you whole.

Jesus doesn’t expect you to flip a switch and have faith. It’s growth. steady growth. That’s what Christ wants of your faith. You don’t expect a baby to have the arms and legs of an adult, but you do expect the baby to grow, don’t you? Your faith might begin as small as an acorn, but if that acorn is alive, it will grow into a trees so large the birds can rest in its branches.

And as that faith grows, we have our third point — it cries. The father cries out in faith, “Help my unbelief.” This can mean two different things. Either he’s asking that his faith be increased and his unbelief removed by Jesus, or that Jesus would help him and his boy by healing the child. Actually I think it’s that second one. I think he says, “Please heal my child, even though it’s my doubt as much as my faith that’s asking you to do it.”

But there’s a lesson in that, an important one. Even when you are struggling with your faith, you have a right as a Christian to ask and expect that it will be answered. Weak faith is still faith.

But never forget that even though a small cry of faith is heard, the stronger voice of a stronger faith is heard much more clearly. Right? The size of your blessing is determined by the size of your belief. In the words of Christ, “According to your faith be it unto you.” The wider you open the door of your heart for Christ to act, the more angels will crowd into it.

And now last, we have the growth of faith. Jesus doesn’t pay any attention at all to the father’s confession of doubt, does he? His doubt is large, his belief is small, but it’s still enough faith that Jesus acts. He responds to imperfect faith by a perfect work. The father doesn’t know whether he wants his doubts cured or his son, and so Jesus cures them both.

Jesus will never lecture you into faith, but he will always bless you into it. When Peter saw Jesus walking on the water and stepped out from the boat, what happened? As long as he kept his eyes on Christ, he was safe. But the moment Peter looked away and doubted, the moment he began to fear, he started to sink.

Jesus didn’t call across the waters and tell Peter to have faith. Faith in itself was meaningless. It’s what Peter had faith in that mattered. That’s why Christ reached out and grabbed Peter with a strong hand first. That’s why he lifted Peter up and held him safe first, and then said, “O you of little faith, Peter. Why did you doubt? I’m here. I’m always here.”

Faith. So much depends on the strength of your faith. And what is faith, really? Is it just belief? No. The faith of the Bible, the faith that God calls you to have, is belief plus trust. It’s belief based upon the Word of God, which is always true and never wavering.

And you better guard your faith, because that faith is now under attack. You better believe it. It’s under attack out there in the world, and it’s under attack inside our churches.

Every two years, LifeWay partners with Ligonier Ministries to produce a report called The State of Theology in America. I read that report this week. Are you ready for this?

On the question of whether God changes, 48% of evangelicals in America say yes.

On the question of whether everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God, 65% of evangelicals in America say yes.

On the question of whether the Bible contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true, almost half of evangelicals in America agree.

How can so many Christians be so wrong about so many of Christianity’s basic truth? Because their faith is too weak. Because they believe God will bless them with a fat bank account but they don’t believe that God’s words are true.

Because they might go to church every Sunday — and the report says evangelicals still believe going to church is important — but their churches are all emotion and no substance. They sing and shout but they don’t learn. They place a great importance on faith. But the faith they believe in is little more than a fragile feeling, instead of an enduring belief based on trust in God’s unchanging nature and word.

Their pulpits are filled with pastors who won’t preach the Bible because preaching the Bible might offend someone, including the people in their own pews. And for many of those pastors, the training they’ve received in modern seminaries has educated the truth of God right out of them.

That’s why you have to keep your faith strong. You have to believe in God — yes, absolutely. But you have to know that your belief in God is only as strong as your trust in God, and your trust in God is only as strong as your surrender to God.

And if you are struggling with that, then go to Him. Cry out to him. Tell him, “I believe, Father; help my unbelief.”

And if you are ready to truly believe, then I invite you to the front as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray. Father we thank you for the story of this father and his son that so beautifully illustrates how we long for faith, how we all need faith, but how faith is also sometimes so difficult. In our hearts we cry out, “I believe.” Yet our minds also scream, “Help my unbelief.” So help us, Father, to grow in our faith. Help us to stand firm upon your Word and upon the truth of Christ. Help us to find a faith that is not shallow and that does not depend upon circumstances, but one that has its roots in a trust in you that you do not change and that all lays in your perfect and loving will. For it’s in Christ’s name we ask it, Amen.