Healing from faith and foe

Good morning. If you were with us last week we heard of how Jesus healed a man who was deaf and mute man. This week we hear of another person who is mute and deaf being healed, but this time his aliment is demonic in nature and not medical. In addition to healing the possessed boy there is another, more pressing condition Jesus has to heal, that is faithlessness. Faithlessness of the father and the disciples.

We’re going to see today Jesus heals from faithlessness and foes.

There are four main parties in this story: defeated disciples, a desperate father, a possessed son, and an exasperated Jesus.

Each are asking different questions: This disciples are asking, why couldn’t we do it? The father is asking, can you do it? And Jesus is asking to them and us today: Where’ your faith?

Maybe you are feeling defeated in your walk with Christ, wondering where the power went. why you seem so weak and ineffective.

Maybe you are feeling desperate like the father of the Son today, in a private or public crisis wondering if turning to God can change anything.

Jesus is here to heal both our faithlessness and our foes in both a painful yet powerful display of his love.

Jesus exorcises our faith

Mark 2 healing the paralytic

Defeated disciples - desperate father

self reliance and doubt leading to faithlessness

Jesus delivers us from doubting his power and relying on our own.

Jesus takes our little faith and our efforts does a miracle.

Impossible in nothing to Jesus

All things are possible with faith

With God it’s never a question of ability, it’s always a question of sovereignty.

Jesus fills us with faith and life

Raises the girl to new life

Filling the disciples again with faith based in power

English Standard Version Chapter 12

7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.