Father's Day 2024: Five "Less" People

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Mark 9:14-29

N:

Welcome

Good morning! Thanks for being here today, whether you’re in the room of online, to worship the Lord Jesus together, and to spend time in fellowship and in the study of His Word with the family of Eastern Hills.

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I’d like to say “thank you” our Welcome Ministry team this morning. These folks are just so helpful and friendly and a blessing to our church members and guests alike. Thank you, Welcome Team for your ministry and faithfulness every Sunday!

Opening

Again, Happy Father’s Day! It’s odd—in preparing for this morning’s message, I went back and looked at my Father’s Day messages from the past. I did special emphasis messages on Father’s Day my first three years as senior pastor, through 2020. And after that, I mentioned Father’s Day in my opening, and made reference to men or fathers in my message, but just kept on going with whatever series I was in. And I may do that in the future as well, but this year, I wanted to take time for a special focus on men for Father’s Day. We’ll be back looking at the book of Daniel next week, and we should go straight through to the end of it, Lord willing.

Like Mother’s Day, this day can actually be rather painful for many. Some of you men have been unable to have children, though you would like to have children. Some of you have children who are no longer with us. Some of you have children that are living in rebellion and sin. The pain of these situations is a real burden that you carry. My heart goes out to each of you I have just mentioned.

Many of you have the missing of a father who has passed away, or the pain of an absent father in your life. We pray for your peace as well.

For some of you men, you aren’t at a place where you want children, and so you feel like this message will be useless for you. I pray that isn’t the case this morning.

And ladies, you might feel that today I’m going to focus a lot on the men. Admittedly, I am. I strongly believe that if the church is going to be all it can be in this world, it is going to take a movement of God stirring the hearts of believing men. Men of commitment, men of character, and men of conviction. So I will admit to you that today, we are mostly focusing on the men in the room. But that doesn’t exclude you, or children for that matter, either. I will primarily use men as I illustrate things today, but the point applies to all of us.

With that said, we are going to dive in to our focal passage this morning, where we find a desperate father bringing his demon-possessed son to Jesus. Please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to Mark 9, and please stand as you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word as we look at verses 14-29 today:

Mark 9:14–29 CSB

14 When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes disputing with them. 15 When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran to greet him. 16 He asked them, “What are you arguing with them about?” 17 Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they couldn’t.” 19 He replied to them, “You unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me.” 20 So they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, it immediately threw the boy into convulsions. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. 21 “How long has this been happening to him?” Jesus asked his father. “From childhood,” he said. 22 “And many times it has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, 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.” 26 Then it came out, shrieking and throwing him into terrible convulsions. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up. 28 After he had gone into the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 29 And he told them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer.”

PRAYER (decisions made at camp this week)

I’m guessing that all of the guys around my age remember the show Home Improvement, starring comedian Tim Allen (no, not our Tim Allen) as Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor, complete with Allen’s signature grunting sounds. Shall we, men?

If you haven’t seen the Home Improvement, Tim Taylor was the host of a TV show called Tool Time, a kind of parody of the real This Old House with Bob Vila. One of the things about both Home Improvement and its show-within-a show Tool Time was that Tim Taylor always wanted what, guys? More power. It didn’t matter what he was working on (usually unsuccessfully except for the intervention of his friend Al) or what he was working with, Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor wanted more. And let’s admit it, guys—we often are the same way.

Each episode usually revolved around a struggle that the Allen family faced, even though it was a sitcom. And even though Tim Taylor always wanted “more,” the family’s struggles were often caused because Tim was “less” in some way. He wrestled with decisions about his show, with parenting his three sons, or with occasional conflict with his wife, Jill. And almost invariably, he’d go out in his back yard and talk over the fence to his sage older neighbor, Wilson.

I think that we can all identify with the feeling of being “less.” Our focal passage today shows us how Jesus interacted with five kinds of “less” people just after coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John. Even though He had just had this literal “mountaintop” moment, He had to come back down to His purpose in ministry, where He had to walk with various “less” people. He interacted with the faithless, the clueless, the prayerless, the hopeless, and the helpless (we’re not including the evil spirit as a “person” that Jesus interacted with). We begin with the faith-“less”:

1: The faithless (scribes)

We’re not going to discuss these characters in exactly the order in which they appear in Mark’s narrative, so we will be jumping around in our focal passage a little. However, when Jesus came down the mountain, what He found was a debate going on.

Mark 9:14 CSB

14 When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes disputing with them.

This is the only mention of the scribes in this passage, so it seems as if Jesus didn’t engage them directly at this moment. The scribes were having an argument with the disciples that had stayed in the valley while Jesus and the Three went up the mountain, widely accepted to have been Mount Hermon, which was fairly far north of the Sea of Galilee in what was predominantly Gentile territory at the time. If we read very much of the synoptic gospels, we find that the scribes—men who could read and write, and who in Hebrew culture made copies of Scripture—were constantly opposed to Jesus and His ministry. They didn’t believe that He was the Messiah. Luke illustrates this fact well:

Luke 11:53 CSB

53 When he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to oppose him fiercely and to cross-examine him about many things;

We have no idea what they were arguing with the disciples about. It could have been about the disciples’ failed attempt at exorcising the demon possessing the boy. Perhaps the scribes were mocking them for their attempt.

But the fascinating question about them from a biblical perspective is: “Why were they even there?” These Jewish scribes should not have been that far north, unless they were just following Jesus around, looking for Him to say something that they could take issue with. They were just looking for trouble. They didn’t believe, and they had no intention of believing. They were completely faithless, resistant to the truth about Jesus. In fact, they played a major part in Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion:

Mark 14:43 CSB

43 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived. With him was a mob, with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.

It is entirely possible, and even likely, that there are men in this room right now or listening online who fall into this “less” category. You don’t believe that Jesus is who He said that He is, and for many of you, you don’t really care. You think that you have no need for a Savior, because you are doing just fine on your own, thank you very much. You think that as long as you’re a generally good guy, maybe a decent husband and father compared to some of the guys you’ve seen, then you’ll be just fine when you die if there’s a God. You’re better than that other guy, so he’ll go to hell and you’ll go to heaven. And if there is no God, then it doesn’t really matter, does it?

God exists, and Jesus really is the Messiah, so it matters. We’ll come back to that in a bit.

2: The clueless (crowd)

This category is what Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor would have fallen into often, at least in regard to the appropriate use of tools. But we already saw in verse 14 that a large crowd was gathered around the debate that was happening between the disciples and the faithless scribes. But who they had really been looking for was Jesus.

Mark 9:15 CSB

15 When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran to greet him.

It's interesting that Mark chooses to say that the crowd was amazed when they saw Jesus. Some have suggested that perhaps Jesus's face was glowing following his transfiguration on the mountain, such as what happened to Moses in Exodus 34. This is unlikely, becauseJesus had just told them not to tell anyone what they had seen on the mountain until his resurrection. Him having a glowing face would negate that instruction. Thus, they were probably amazed because Jesus arrived suddenly, right when he needed to. So they were clueless about where he had been and when he would return. Not only that, but they were also clueless about his power:

Mark 9:25–26 CSB

25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, 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.” 26 Then it came out, shrieking and throwing him into terrible convulsions. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, “He’s dead.”

The people standing around were certain that the boy was dead, but they were clueless. They didn’t understand what was happening in front of their very eyes.

Jesus wasn't trying to build his name or his brand, and many of the people who were following him only came because of the miracles that he performed, such as the feeding of the 4,000 which occurred in chapter 8 of Mark's gospel. They had all the wrong ideas about Jesus. They saw Him as a novelty, a magician. And Jesus was frustrated with them and their unbelief:

Mark 9:19 CSB

19 He replied to them, “You unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”

Again, there are likely men hearing this right now who fall into this category. It's not that you're necessarily hostile to Christianity, you just don't really think that it's for you. Certainly, Jesus was a great man and a great teacher, and perhaps even a good person to emulate, but that's probably it. Or maybe you want to reframe Jesus with a modern lens — that Jesus was primarily a social justice warrior who came to upset the status quo, and as long as we are reframing Jesus with a modern take, then we might as well reframe his mission also. He didn’t come to save us… He came just to be an example so that we can learn to be… nice?

But this also is a mistake. Was Jesus a great teacher? Yes. Was he a great man? Certainly. Did he care for the oppressed of the downtrodden? Absolutely. But nothing and no one was going to come between him and his mission to become the means by which humanity could be saved from sin, death, and hell. Redefining Jesus as anything or anyone other than the Messiah is clueless.

3: The prayerless (disciples)

There is one more multiperson group to consider in our focal passage. Jesus's disciples had tried to drive out the demon from the boy, but it turns out that they had been unable to do so. We learn this from the sad statement of the father:

Mark 9:18b (CSB)

18b ...I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they couldn’t.”

Why couldn’t they drive the demon out? Jesus informed them later on in private that demons such as that one, which must have been rather formidable, could only be driven out one way: through prayer.

Mark 9:28–29 CSB

28 After he had gone into the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 29 And he told them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer.”

But if prayer in this case had been the key that opened the gate of delivering this boy from the demon, then it stands to reason that the disciples that Jesus had left behind when He went up on the mountain had chosen not to avail themselves of this access to God through the Holy Spirit’s intercession. They hadn’t prayed.

Most commentators agree that, while the disciples had been given the authority to drive out demons (Mk 3:15, 6:7), and they had been successful (Mk 6:13). Apparently in this instance, they had been lax in their prayer lives, or they simply did not choose to pray for the exorcism, thinking that since Jesus had given them the authority, then the ability to drive out demons was intrinsic—that they had a built-in ability to drive out demons whenever they wanted. So they approached this exorcism in their own strength, rather than in the strength provided by Almighty God.

Gentlemen, how is your prayer life? Is your relationship with Jesus steeped in communication with him? Prayer is one of the vehicles through which God reveals his will and direction for our lives. Obviously, in the case of the disciples here in Mark 9, prayer was their source of power and authority over evil. Is that how we approach prayer? Is talking with the Lord the source of our spiritual power and strength? Or better yet, do we even feel like we have any spiritual authority and power from which to combat evil?

We don’t want to be any of these three, men.

4: The hopeless (father)

To be completely honest, it was the desperation of this father that led me to use this passage for Father's Day today. This dad wanted nothing more than the healing of his son from the curse that plagued him. He was hopeless, and so he tried to get his son to Jesus—the only hope he had for his son’s deliverance.

Mark 9:17 CSB

17 Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak.

Mark 9:22–24 CSB

22 “And many times it has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

It sounds as though the demon gave this poor boy something like epilepsy. As an aside, please don’t go away from this message and think that every disease can be cured if we just “pray hard enough,” or that every case of epilepsy is caused by demon possession. This isn’t what we should draw from this passage. This was a particular instance where this was the case, and the disciples didn’t just not “pray hard enough.” They didn’t pray at all. Are there still diseases that are caused by demon possession? I believe that there are. Can miraculous healing happen through prayer? I believe that it can and it does.

In this case, the demon was trying to destroy the boy. The father did all he could to get his son to Jesus in faith, but when he had arrived in the first place, Jesus wasn’t there. When he had left home to bring his son, he had believed that he would be healed. When the disciples had been unable to drive the demon out, his faith was shaken, so now he said, “if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

One of the biggest reasons that people give for not believing the gospel, and one of the biggest reasons that people who leave the faith give for doing so, is the hypocrisy in the church. They see men who put on the show of godliness on Sunday, but who live exactly like the world Monday thru Saturday. They see fathers who neglect their God-given responsibility to shepherd their families, to do all that they can to bring their children to Jesus and to be a godly spiritual covering over their wives, but put on a mask of godliness when they walk in the doors of the church building.

In our passage this morning, Jesus focused on the man’s “if” statement. “If you can?” The question was not about Jesus’s power, but about the man’s faith. Did he believe that Jesus could do the miraculous? “Everything is possible for the one who believes.” Christ can do the impossible. Faith is trust that that is true, and acceptance of what He chooses to do. Often we struggle asking for the miraculous, but why? Jesus is the only One who can provide the miraculous, so there is no one else to ask! Psalm 34 tells us:

Psalm 34:8 CSB

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!

Our God is good, and He does what is good.

Do we trust God to do what is good, men? Do we go to Him with our problems and issues, taking refuge in Him instead of other, lesser things that cannot satisfy? I wish that I could say that I always choose to trust Him! But sometimes, like this poor dad, I don’t. Sometimes my faith wavers just like yours, just like the father in this passage. Trusting God is a choice that we must make as we walk in faith.

This father chooses to trust, responding to Jesus that he does believe, but knows that his faith is weak, incomplete. “I do believe! Help my unbelief.” Jesus is his only hope, the only one who can help his helpless son.

5: The helpless (son)

The final person that Jesus interacts with in this passage is the helpless son. He has no power over the situation that he finds himself in—it is simply a miserable fact of his life.

Mark 9:17b–18a (CSB)

17b He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak. 18a Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid.

After Jesus called for them to bring the boy to Him, the evil spirit responded to seeing Jesus by throwing him into one of these seizures.

Mark 9:20–22 CSB

20 So they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, it immediately threw the boy into convulsions. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. 21 “How long has this been happening to him?” Jesus asked his father. “From childhood,” he said. 22 “And many times it has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Even when the boy was delivered, the evil spirit took one last opportunity as it left to shake him violently and leave him as though he was dead.

Mark 9:26 CSB

26 Then it came out, shrieking and throwing him into terrible convulsions. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, “He’s dead.”

This boy was absolutely helpless. His situation was in charge of him, not the other way around. Jesus was the only One who could help him.

In our current cultural climate, this is a two-edged issue. For many, we have a “pull myself up by my bootstraps” mentality—that if I’m going to escape the situation that I find myself in, then I’m going to come up with the solution, and I’m going to do what needs to be done. We don’t look to God in our helplessness—we look to ourselves, our resources, our plans. Granted, we have to take action as God directs, but there are situations that are completely beyond our control or power to effect.

The other side of this today is that many cling to their helplessness almost as an identity, as if it is some form of virtue to be helpless. Again, these do not go to the Lord for help or deliverance. Instead, they simply blame society for their travails and take to social media to post reels and memes about their difficulties, looking to likes and sympathetic responses from others to feel better about their situation. But these are no real help either.

Each of these people of groups of people were “less”: faithless, clueless, prayerless, hopeless, and helpless. And perhaps, guys, we have seen ourselves reflected in one or more of these. I know that I have, depending on what part of my life I’m looking at, or even how my week is going. Which one do you identify most with today?

But it doesn’t matter which “less” you find yourself in today. The truth is that Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor was right: we need more power. But we need more power than we can possibly possess in ourselves. We need the power of the Gospel:

Romans 1:16 CSB

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

The truth is, we all need Jesus.

The point: We all need Jesus.

This is the point for all of the “less” that we see in this passage. Jesus is more than worthy of our faith. Jesus is more than able to give us wisdom when we need it. Jesus is more than capable of answering our prayers, even the desperate cries when we feel helpless and hopeless.

Mark 9:25–27 CSB

25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, 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.” 26 Then it came out, shrieking and throwing him into terrible convulsions. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.

Jesus wasn’t there to be a sideshow. He was there to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). And delivering this boy from the possession that he struggled with was the means of bringing both him and his father to faith in Jesus. So Jesus drove out the evil spirit, commanding it to never enter the boy again—what a statement of hope that must have been for his father to hear!

And as the boy lay there as though dead, Jesus used the moment to paint a picture of what would soon happen to Him. Just before this, on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus had told Peter, James, and John that He would “suffer many things and be treated with contempt.” (Mark 9:12). And just after this, Jesus would teach His disciples about His coming trial, crucifixion, and resurrection:

Mark 9:30–31 CSB

30 Then they left that place and made their way through Galilee, but he did not want anyone to know it. 31 For he was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after he is killed, he will rise three days later.”

Jesus didn’t die a pointless death. He willingly laid down His life to pay the penalty that was owed for our sin. He died in your place and mine, taking the just wrath of God against sin on Himself. He did this so that we could be forgiven, justified before a holy God. And just as the boy was raised and stood again, so Jesus after three days rose again, overcoming death by the power of God. Death no longer has any hold on Him, and if we trust in His work on the cross for our forgiveness, surrendering our lives to Him, then we also will receive eternal life through Him. Believe the good news of Jesus: do not remain faithless. Jesus is the only object of faith that can save us. If you’ve never trusted in Him as Savior and Lord, I believe that the Lord is calling you right now to believe the Gospel and be saved. Like the father in this passage, ask Him to help your unbelief.

But Jesus also helps us in our cluelessness as we trust Him. He opens the eyes of the blind and gives wisdom to the foolish

Matthew 11:4–6 CSB

4 Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news, 6 and blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me.”

Proverbs 2:6 CSB

6 For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

He is near to all who call out to Him through prayer in faith:

Psalm 145:18 CSB

18 The Lord is near all who call out to him, all who call out to him with integrity.

To those who trust in Him, He gives hope as an anchor for the soul, according to the author of Hebrews:

Hebrews 6:19 CSB

19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.

And He is ready to help those who belong to Him when they are in need:

Hebrews 4:16 CSB

16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

It doesn’t matter if we are faithless, clueless, prayerless, hopeless, or helpless. We all need Jesus.

But dads—let us be like this father, desperate to bring our children to the feet of Jesus, doing everything possible to introduce them to Him, setting that as the greatest priority of our lives, striving to be an example of Christ’s love, humility, and servant leadership, because it is only faith in Christ which will last into eternity for them.

Closing

The hope that the Gospel brings is incredible! In Jesus, we have access to the very presence of God through His Holy Spirit within us if we are saved. And through His presence, we have peace, hope, and power that will see us through this life by faith.

Trust in Jesus. Believe the Gospel. Stop being faithless or clueless and believe.

Have you been prayerless? Perhaps this morning you need to repent of that and ask the Lord for forgiveness. Maybe you have other things that you need prayer for. Things that have you feeling hopeless or helpless. Don’t let pride stand in the way.

Church membership and baptism.

Giving as the Lord leads.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (1 Samuel 22-23, Proverbs 15:30-33)

No Pastor’s Study tonight

Prayer Meeting

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Isaiah 40:28–31 CSB

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding. 29 He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. 30 Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, 31 but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.