Believing Our Lord

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Well, back when we lived in Seminole and back before the pandemic, we had a man come around to the house one evening and said he was from the cable company, I think, which we didn’t have cable at the time. So I thought that was odd. He said he needed into our house to do an inspection and said he’d been going around to our neighbor’s houses and they’d let him in.

and if I could just let him in for a minute, I said, I don’t think so. Well, could I get you to give me a time when you’ll be home that I can come back? I said, no, I don’t think I’m going to give you that information either.

Well, could you fill out your contact information? No. And he went on down to my neighbor’s house and I called the sheriff.

And they came out and picked him up. He was a con man. And I don’t know how many houses he had been into on our street.

I don’t know what his plan was, but it probably wasn’t anything good. I wish I had that presence of mind in all sorts of circumstances to know just a sixth sense to know if somebody’s not on the up and up. But if there’s something in your mind that says, I don’t trust this person, it’s okay not to follow their directions.

as a matter of fact I recommend not following their directions I remember another time when I was in college and this was before you had bluetooth where you could talk on the phone in your car I was under strict instructions from my parents to pull over and use the phone and so around lunchtime one day I pulled into a church parking lot not too far from our house to make a phone call these guys pulled up next to me and said hey we’re selling cologne phone no we’ve got it in the back you ought to come smell some of it see if you want to button no I’m not doing that and um then my mother said they could have chloroformed you I didn’t get out the car mom we’re fine I drove off you don’t have to follow their instructions and and we we drill this into our kids about you know don’t go with people you don’t trust now I I submit to you there’s there’s more than just stranger danger we need to make our kids aware of.

But that’s one thing we’ve drilled into. You don’t go with strangers. I don’t care if they say, you know, they need help finding their puppy.

I don’t care if they say mama and daddy are hurt. Don’t. No, don’t go with them.

But when you trust somebody, it’s a little different. You’re more willing to follow their instructions. Brother Tommy comes up and says, and by the way, I don’t like to be the passenger when anybody else is driving.

But Brother Tommy comes up and says, hey, you want to go to lunch? I get in his car, no questions asked, right? I just, I trust him and we’re going to go have lunch.

And hopefully we all have people in our lives that we trust. And, you know, if my wife called me and asked me to do something, well, I was going to say no questions asked, but I’m just overflowing with questions. But usually I’m going to do what she asked me to, even if the answers don’t make sense to me, right? Because I trust her.

As I’ve said for a long time, if you can’t trust your wife, who can you trust? When we trust somebody, we tend to be inclined to believe them and to do the things that they asked us to do. If we don’t trust, we don’t follow their instructions, we don’t let them guide us.

It’s that simple. And I bring this up because that’s the dilemma the disciples found themselves in. They trusted Jesus to an extent, and I don’t want to make it sound like they distrusted Jesus.

They believed Jesus, but they were still on the fence about what that meant. How much did they trust him? How much did they believe the things he was telling them?

How much faith did they have in the things that he was telling them? Their faith really, at the point we’re at in the book of Mark, their faith was really still in its infancy. And so they struggled with believing when he told them something that was outside their expectations.

They struggled when he called them to do something that was uncomfortable. They really struggled with what it meant to follow Jesus. And the struggle really is not with whether Jesus is calling us to do something hard.

The struggle for us is not whether Jesus is calling us to do something that makes the struggle for us really is a matter of whether or not we actually trust him and what extent we trust him that’s what I want us to look at tonight is is the importance of believing him if we say we trust him then that means we ought to believe him and that means we ought to act accordingly tonight we’re going to be in mark chapter 9 where we left off last not last week but the week before last mark chapter 9 we’re going to pick up in verse 14 if you turn there with me in your bibles and once you find it if you’d stand if you’re able to without too much difficulty if you don’t have Bible or can’t find it. It’ll be on the screen for you here. But Mark chapter 9, starting in verse 14, and we’re going to look through verse 29 tonight.

It says, and when he came to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them and scribes disputing with them. Immediately when they saw him, all the people were greatly amazed and running to him, greeted him. And he asked the scribes, what are you discussing with them?

This is funny to me. It’s like he cannot, because the religious leaders at this point were not to be trusted, he couldn’t leave the people alone for five minutes without walking in and the scribes are telling him something and he’s saying, what are you telling him now? He has to know what kind of misinformation are you spreading to them now?

Verse 17, Then one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son who has a mute spirit. and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down, he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not.

He answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me.

Then they brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. So he asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood.

And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, notice that, but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Death and dumb spirit, I command you, come out from him and enter him no more.

Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him, and he became as one dead, so that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out?

So he said to them, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting. And you may be seated. And hopefully you’ve picked up a copy of the handout.

There are some over here and some in the foyer back there. They give you the comparison of the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so we can see the full story here, some of the details that each one focuses on. But we look at this story, and it would on the surface appear to be similar to some of the stories we’ve looked at already.

And we have to keep in mind that none of the Gospels individually were meant to give an exhaustive account of every detail of everything that happened in Jesus’ ministry. Even the collection of the Gospels as a whole do not purport to tell us everything. As a matter of fact, John says there are numerous other things that could not be written down.

He said there’s not room in the whole world for the books that it would contain to write everything. And so each of the Gospel writers is writing with a very specific purpose in mind. They are dealing with the stories, the accounts, and even the details within the stories that undergird the point they’re trying to make.

Now, none of that is meant to say that they’re making any of it up. None of it is meant to say that they’re being dishonest in the way they’re handling it. If I believed that, I would be doing something else.

But each of them is trying to explain something to us. And each of these stories, they’re not just putting stories in because they’re recording every miracle he did. The miracle stories they include are there for a reason.

And so this is not just a repeat of the healing stories, things he’s already healed people of, or demons he’s already cast out. We’ve already seen that he has the power to do those things. And so it’s important for us to understand what’s going on here in the context of this ongoing struggle that the disciples are in the middle of with their faith.

And him having just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration looked at two weeks ago. I was just recently in the office. I have never, I have preached verse by verse through books before, but usually shorter books, or I’ve hit highlights all the way through books, but I’ve never done verse by verse through a book this long, and I was worried that I would get burned out or that y’all would get bored, but I have learned so much about the book of Mark just by taking it piece by piece and seeing how all these things fit together.

The point of this deals with this ongoing struggle that they’re having in their faith. Ever since the moment when Peter said, Peter made this confession, you are the Christ, you’re the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus blesses him for making that true confession.

And then in the very next breath, Peter says, I’m not sure about your plan. Why don’t we try it my way? And that points to where they have been ever since.

Of saying, I believe the things you say yourself, but I’m not sure how to act on that when the rubber meets the road. I’m not sure if I trust you to actually, and it’s not the most eloquent way to say it, but it came to me during that message on Peter’s confession, and it’s stuck with me ever since it had to have come from the Lord, that if we believe he’s the Lord, we need to trust him to do Lord things. As a matter of fact, those words have come back to haunt me numerous times since I have said them.

And they are in the midst of this struggle. And so when we look at this story about this exorcism that takes place, it’s not just another miracle, as though it could be just. It’s making a point, and the point of the story is not about the healing, it’s about faith. It’s about what Jesus teaches them about faith.

After all the signs they’d seen, there was this confession, and yet they are still resistant to acknowledging Him as Lord. In general, the disciples, they acknowledge Him as Lord, but they struggle with accepting this in practice. Have you ever been there?

In principle, I believe this is true, but in practice, I’m not sure what to do with it. We run into that in our daily lives all the time. In principle, I know that spending less than I take in is better for me in the long run, but in practice, I have trouble with that.

You know, in principle, I understand that staying within my weight watcher points will make me do this, but in practice, tacos and ice cream, right? They were struggling to accept his lordship in practice. Even after seeing the transfiguration, this inner circle, Peter, James, and John, who had gone with him, they were expressing reservations about what Jesus told them about the future.

They’re asking him, wait a minute, what is the deal about Elijah coming back and that and Jesus is having to explain all this to them coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration so tonight when when Jesus comes off the mountain with these three he encounters in verse 14 he encounters this scene where the other nine disciples are down there amid a crowd where there’s a man asking for healing for his son who’s tormented by this demonic spirit in verses 15 through 18. In verse 22, the man asked Jesus, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus takes that question and points him to the necessity of faith.

In verse 23, he says, if you can believe, if you can believe it, all things are possible to him who believes. Now, I’ll hit on this a little bit later, but I just want to be clear from the get-go. This is not a name-it-claim-it principle that just because you believe it, you can have it regardless of God’s will.

That’s not what he’s saying. But he’s telling this man, if you can believe, this is something that’s within the will of God, if you believe I can do this, because he’s even struggling with his faith. He’s struggling with what he believes Jesus can do.

And Jesus says, if you believe I can do this, all things are possible to him who believes. And the man responded with tears in verse 24, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. And I think what he’s saying here with this is, I believe, and I want to believe with every fiber of my being.

But if there’s any part of me that still has doubt, even that doubt, I’m willing for that doubt to be brought to heel. I’m willing for that doubt to be corralled and brought into submission to you. I want you to, if there’s any part of me that does not believe, I want you to help that part believe also.

And sometimes even as believers, we will have, I know we don’t like the word doubt. We might have questions. We might have unanswered questions that we struggle with.

And it’s not wrong to have questions, as long as we’re willing to get those questions answered. I know some people who are so enamored of the questions that they reject the answers, Because it’s more comfortable for them to live in a world of unanswered questions than to accept the answers the Bible gives. Me, I don’t like unanswered questions.

It’s a reality of life, but I want to know the answers. It’s okay for us to have the questions as long as the question is not a smokescreen to avoid the answer. He’s saying here, I may have these lingering doubts, I may have these lingering questions, but I’m willing for you to help me believe.

And so Jesus commanded the Spirit to come out of the man’s son in verse 25. And we see in the following verses in 26 and 27, the man was healed. And so we’re dealing with this issue of the man’s faith, imperfect as it was.

It was the precondition for his son to be healed, this faith. And I think this is important for us as believers to understand as well, that our faith is imperfect. Fortunately, our faith, though, as imperfect as it sometimes is, our faith is in a God who is perfect.

And the reason I bring that up is because, you know, I was saved as a child, but for many years I struggled with questions and doubts, not about whether he could save me, but did I believe hard enough? Did I believe it? Did I say the right words?

Did I believe exactly the right things? I kept coming back around to that question, did I believe hard enough? Was there any question in my mind?

Did that, and did that nullify the whole thing? But this man benefited from the power of Jesus Christ when he had enough faith to say, I believe, but help my unbelief. And that’s one of many, that’s not the only place in Scripture that I think makes this point, but it’s the part that we’re dealing with tonight.

But even though we are justified by faith, ultimately it’s not even the power or the force of our faith that saves us, it’s Jesus. And I hope we understand that. Jesus is the one who saves us.

It is not the power of my faith. It’s not how firmly, how steadfastly, how sincerely I believe. It’s Jesus.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe in justification by faith. But as we are exhibiting faith, we need to make sure that we are putting our faith in Jesus Christ and not putting our faith in our faith.

Not putting our faith in our power to believe, strongly enough. If you believe Jesus, He’s the one that saves. Just like this man, he still had his lingering questions and lingering doubts, but he believed Jesus, and that was enough.

So it’s dealing with this issue of this man’s imperfect faith, and we see the contrast here with the disciple’s lack of faith. And this recurring theme of faith is what points to me that that’s really what this passage is about, is about the faith. So amid this whole interaction, the man told Jesus, I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not.

And there’s this response in verse 19 that has puzzled me for years, again, until I began studying this as part of the whole body of the book of Mark, instead of just taking one story at a time, this whole ongoing book of Mark that we’ve been studying, this puzzled me for a long time because it seems like such a harsh response from Jesus. The man asked for his son to be healed, and Jesus says, you faithless generation, you unbelieving generation, How long do I have to put up with you? And I think that, I’m not going to argue with the Bible, but that doesn’t sound like how Jesus would respond to this man who’s coming to him for help.

He’s not responding to the man. He’s responding to his disciples. Because it’s not the man who’s unbelieving in this situation.

Yes, his faith is imperfect, but it’s the disciples who are unbelieving in this case. They’re not unbelieving that Jesus is who he says he is. They’re not unbelieving in Jesus’ power.

But as we’ll see in just a moment, they’re unbelieving about the promises of Jesus, the promises that he’s made to them. This man believes that the power of Jesus can do something for his son, and he seeks Jesus out, and he wants even his doubts to become faith. And yet the disciples who are better acquainted with Jesus’ power than anybody, they are paralyzed by a lack of faith.

These nine that have not gone up the Mount of Transfiguration, they are paralyzed by a lack of faith. when this man comes to them and says, can you do something about my son? Now, I think any one of us would be, I think most of us in this room, if we encountered a situation like this, would be at a loss.

As a matter of fact, the story came up twice tonight, just talking with people in the auditorium before we got started, but the young lady that showed up here during the summer, some of you already know the story, that this is not where my brain automatically goes, but I am convinced she was possessed by a demon. And dealing with that as it unfolded and her reactions when we were praying for her and trying to counsel her through the situation she was dealing with. And coming to that conclusion and looking at Stella and saying, I am way too Baptist for this.

You’re going to have to take the lead here. This is not in my wheelhouse. I think any one of us would be at a loss in this situation if this man came to us and said, can you cast this demon out of my son?

So why was Jesus so upset with the disciples? It’s because of their unbelief. And unbelief fundamentally is a refusal to accept Jesus’ record.

See, the problem here is not that the disciples refused to exercise blind faith. Oh, I believe I can cast out demons when nothing had ever been said about that. You know, if my faith is strong enough, I can cast out demons.

If my faith is strong enough, I can will a brand new truck into existence. We’re not talking about this kind of blind faith. The problem is also not that they lack faith that God can do whatever.

They have seen Jesus do incredible things. And I suspect they were not shocked to see Jesus cast the demon out of the man. But faith here is not believing that God can do whatever we ask.

Faith is believing that God will do what God says He’ll do. And that’s one of those things that stuck with me for years. I wish I had been the one who said it, and I wish I could tell you who said it.

Off the top of my head, I want to say Adrian Rogers, but I may be wrong. Their problem here is that there were specific promises made to them. There were specific things they were told that for them to not believe that they could cast out this demon meant that they were doubting what Jesus said they would be able to do in his power.

So again, Jesus is not upset because they refuse to exercise blind faith here, oh, we can do whatever. It was not even because they thought Jesus couldn’t do it. But they were, in a sense, doubting the promises of Jesus, and they were doubting his track record of him being able to do these things through them.

Because this event, this incident where the man came and said, can you cast out this demon out of my son? It didn’t occur in isolation. This wasn’t a brand new thing on their horizon.

They had not only seen Jesus cast out several demons by this point, but Jesus had told them way back in Mark chapter 3 that he was going to empower them to cast out demons. So they had a direct promise from Jesus Christ that they were going to have the power and the authority in his name to cast out demons. And in Mark chapter 6, they had already done it.

He had sent them out, I believe, two by two to go and preach the Word and heal the sick and cast out demons. And they had done it. So we’re not only talking about the fact that Jesus has already told them, you go and do this, and I’m going to make you able to do it.

But they had already done it. They had already seen Him work through them. And yet now, for whatever reason, they seem to have lost their nerve.

I don’t know if it was the situation. I don’t know if it was the fact that they were being forced to come to terms with what degree of faith they had? I really don’t know.

Except I don’t want to fault them too much because we would probably do the same thing. But at this point, they didn’t believe that they could. And ultimately, the even bigger problem was that they didn’t believe he could through them.

See, if they’d said, I don’t think we can do this, that would have been a big enough issue. But what lay behind that was a lack of confidence that he was going to do what he said he would do. I think if somebody had said, we want Jesus to cast out the demon.

No, no problem. He’ll be right with you. We want Jesus to cast out the demon through you.

Oh, no, no, that’s not going to work. In spite of what Jesus had promised, in spite of what he had already done, they were saying, no, I don’t believe this can happen. And that’s why Jesus is so upset.

That’s why this response, because he’s not, they’re not doubting their abilities, but they’re questioning his, at least his ability to work through them. And so this becomes the focus of the passage, the difference in the faith between the man and the disciples. And we see when we look at his response to them, both in Mark and Matthew, that following Jesus requires faith in him.

It requires believing him. There’s an abbreviated conclusion here in verse 29 where Jesus points to prayer and fasting, depending on the Greek manuscripts we read, as the key to accomplishing something like this. Now, prayer, though, when we pray, we’re asking God to do something, and we’re trusting that God can do what He says He’ll do.

So even saying prayer here is the key, it’s pointing to a reliance on Him to accomplish the work. There has to be faith behind that prayer, or we’re just saying words. And Matthew 17, 20 gives more detail than Mark does, and there Jesus explains, again, how this reliance on God in prayer is tied to faith.

He says, because of your unbelief. That’s reason you weren’t able to do this. For assuredly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

What we see when we look at the response in both of these Gospels, and Luke alludes to it as well, we see that the disciples were trying to follow Jesus, and they were trying to serve Jesus, but they were having trouble believing what he said. I mean, when the rubber meets the road, they were really having trouble believing what he said. He claims to be the Messiah.

We believe that. We have no problem with that theological proposition at this point. He says he’s the son of God.

Absolutely. When it comes to the very practical aspect of putting yourself on the line and confronting a demon because he said so, they’re saying, I’m not sure about that. It seems like they believed what he said about himself, but their faith wasn’t strong enough to act on those beliefs.

And when they tried to serve him, and when they tried to follow him, and they tried to do it without faith, they failed. And the reason this story is so important is because it could easily be, the circumstances may be different, but it could easily be written about any one of us. When we try to serve him, when we try to follow him, and we do it without faith, we’re going to fail every time.

We’re going to fail spectacularly. We cannot follow Jesus or serve him without believing what he says. Now I didn’t realize until I was nearly done writing my notes this week that this is the opposite side of the coin from what I preached about this morning.

Not that they are in contradiction with each other, but this morning I talked about how if we believe him, we ought to follow him. If we believe he’s our Lord, we ought to act like it. Well tonight we’re looking at the opposite side.

It’s amazing how God orchestrates that these things line up. Now that says if we’re going to follow him, we better believe him. For us to obey him, for us to live a successful Christian life, which means a life that honors him, these things have got to go hand in hand.

The following and the believing, the trusting and the obeying, they’ve got to go hand in hand, or we’re stuck. We cannot follow Jesus or serve him without believing what he says. They stepped up to the plate to cast out the demons.

They weren’t able to do so, And in Matthew, Jesus says it’s because they didn’t believe. In all three gospel accounts, you can check the handout, but I believe it says it in Luke as well. He has this reaction, faithless, unbelieving generation.

All throughout it, we see that they are failing at following him because they don’t believe. Because they don’t have faith. And if you’ve been around very long at all, you know that I’m not big on the idea of blind faith.

I believe the Bible teaches faith. But so many times where we see God’s people being called to faith in the Scriptures, there’s a recounting of what God has done in the past. Faith is, I don’t have a guarantee here. I can’t tell you with mathematical certainty what’s going to happen here.

But God is asking me to take this one step into the unknown, trusting because He’s done all of these things back here, trusting that He’s going to do this next one that He says. Blind faith would be if God called Moses to step out and part the waters of the Red Sea when he hadn’t just spent the last 80 years preparing him for that. Faith would be, blind faith would be calling Daniel to stand in the lion’s den without Daniel ever having known anything about God before that.

Imagine if Abraham had never had any interaction with God up until that point and the angel of the Lord just shows up and says, I want you to sacrifice your son. That would be blind faith. And blind faith can just as easily be put in the wrong God.

But when we’re called to faith as believers, we’re called to step out and take this step into the unknown with a huge amount of known behind us, a track record of a God who’s proven himself faithful time and time and time again. So that when we step out in faith, we’re able to do so because we’re trusting not in our circumstances, not in the outcome, but trusting in the God who brought us to the circumstances and the outcome. And so when I tell you tonight that God’s word says we need to have faith, I am not talking about the caricature that the world likes to portray of Christians as we just blindly believe whatever somebody says.

No, I’m talking about confidence in the track record of faithfulness that our God has over thousands and thousands of years of interaction with people. And so many times in ancient Israel, so many times with the apostles, when they were called on to make a stand, there’s this point where they go back and they reminisce over the faithfulness of God up to that point. You read through the Old Testament, you’ll see numerous times where they talk about He’s the God who led Abraham through the wilderness.

He’s the God that led our forefathers out of slavery in Egypt. He’s the God who brought us into a land of our own. They go through a list of the things God has done.

The Apostle Paul does that in speaking to people. Stephen does that when he’s called on to give an account. We can do that as well.

But if you want to serve him, if you want to follow him, you’ve got to believe him. And one of the things that will help us to believe him is to do what the disciples should have done and go back and take an inventory of all the things that he said he would do and how he’s done them. All the promises he’s made and how he’s fulfilled them.

And you and I can look for that all through Scripture. we can also look for that through our experiences in life of all the places God has brought us through, all the places Jesus has led us through and not let us down. But folks, we cannot serve Him in any meaningful way.

We cannot follow Him in any meaningful way if we’re trying to do so without believing what He says to us. It doesn’t mean there are no questions, but we can look at His track record, look at His promises, look at their fulfillment, and say to Him, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. and be like the man who was healed rather than the disciples who at this point couldn’t decide to what extent they believed.