Mark 9:24

I mean, if there's any statement in scripture that I can identify with, it's that statement that that seems to, to really encapsulate the struggle that we have as followers of Jesus in this world facing the things that we face, that, that there is this measure of faith, but, but it seems inadequate. It seems that often fails. It's not enough. And we need the Lord to increase our faith, which is really a picture of, of what this text is teaching us this morning.

Uh, this is one of those, uh, those helpful pictures and Mark's account of what it means to follow Jesus, which is really the essence of being his disciple. If you know Jesus as savior and Lord, if you trust in him for your salvation, you are by definition one of his disciples. You are a follower of his and followers of his disciples of Jesus.

Uh, not only have the same types of things that everybody else has happened to them in life, but, but often our salvation, our following Jesus brings on even more on top of us. So what does it mean to follow Jesus through the hard things in life? There are three perspectives in this passage. Maybe you can identify with one or maybe all three to some extent. The first perspective is the perspective of the desperate father. I mean, imagine this father in this picture. Imagine his anxiety.

Imagine his fear over what his son has been suffering from. Verse 17 tells us really the most mild part of it, he's unable to speak and Jesus adds on to that later, he's unable to hear as well. So he's deaf and mute. He's cut off from all human human communication. But much worse is what we read about in verse 18 that he suffers seizures, worry as convulsions. And in those conversions, he foams at the mouth, he gets locked jaw grinding his teeth, and his body becomes rigid.

Now, if you know anything about medicine, those are classic symptoms of, of what are known as Grand Mal seizures. This is, this is often what epilepsy looks like and that's even the indication that Matthew gives us in his account of this same story. Matthew 1715 describes the boy is having seizures and he uses the same Greek word that we get the word epilepsy from. But here's an important caution that does not mean in any way that somebody who has epilepsy is demon possessed.

That does not mean that epilepsy is caused by demonic possession. Now what we have here is a case of a demon using a condition, cerebral condition like epilepsy, kind of as a, um, as a, as a front, as a cover for what he's doing in this boy's life and it becomes exposed in verse 20 when when he has brought the boy is brought to Jesus and the spirit, it says, sees Jesus and immediately throws the boy into a convulsion.

That is how we know that even if this boy has something like epilepsy, this has been exacerbated. This is being used by this demon to afflict this boy and his family. Verse 21 gives us an idea of the severity and the length of this. It tells us that this boy has been afflicted like this for a number of years. He's probably, you know, maybe 13 at the time. And this accounts, uh, occurs and, and the word that, that this father speaks to Jesus about how long he's had.

It indicates he's had it as since he's been a very young child. So that coupled with the severity, the kind of affliction that, that we see in the symptoms here shows that this is a very strong kind of demonic possession. We addressed demonic possession a couple chapters back, and I'm not going to go into how it occurs, although we did at that time. But you can go back and listen to that if you're more interested in. And how is it that a child could even become afflicted like this?

Really, today we want to talk about what does it mean to, to be that father. What does it mean to be those disciples when we're low? Walking alongside somebody who's afflicted like this, you know, this father is somebody we can relate to. I can relate to this father is like so many parents who have a child who is suffering physically. This father is like a, a spouse that has a husband or wife that's suffering physically.

This, this father is like you if you have another loved one in your life that suffering some physical affliction. Uh, our home in Jacksonville, Florida is fairly near the, the male clinic. So we open it when there is a need for people to come and stay with us. Whether receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic and a couple of weeks ago, Cindy hosted a a family, not just any family, a family we've known for many, many years. They brought their 22 year old daughter.

This daughter grew up with one of my sons. They were in the same class from kindergarten through about seventh or eighth grade. So we know this family very well. They were part of our church that we were at at the time. So this is like looking at my own daughter and she is now brought to the male clinic because she has a kind of cancer that is metastasizing that the doctors in Orlando where they live can't seem to get a handle on.

And if that metastasizing isn't bad enough, the symptoms that is producing leave this girl in such pain that if she is not heavily medicated to the point of really having to sleep all the time, she is wracked with pain. So Cindy had not only her but her parents in our home for several days while they were consulting at the male clinic and the anguish, the anguish that a apparent, the anguish that Cindy saw in that mother and that father over what is happening to their child.

And maybe you can relate if that's your child or grandchild or spouse and it's not just physical affliction, is it there, there are mental disorders that, that uh, a parent watching a child go through that a spouse watch as a husband or wife go through there. There are addictions that a loved one gets caught up.

And there are, there are times when our loved ones, those people we care so much about, they are making a series of life choices that, that are so destructive and so hurtful to them and others around them. And, and alls we can do is sit back and say, this situation seems so out of control. What do I do? What do I do? That's, that's being able to tap into what this father is feeling here.

So maybe you're here today and it's your child or your grandchild or it's your, your loved one of another relation. And whether it's a physical affliction or a mental disorder or, or some other, an addiction or something like that, that, that, that you know, that sense of helplessness that this father is feeling. So remember that perspective as we go a little further in the text and how Jesus speaks even to him. But there's another perspective here.

The second perspective is the perspective of the discouraged disciples. You know, back in chapter six, these, these, uh, these disciples, they'd actually been commissioned by Jesus to cast out demons were told early in chapter six that he sent them out on a short term missions trip and he gave them authority. You gave them a power over the demonic. And chapter six, verse 13 told us that they were successful.

They went on their short term missions trips and they were able to cast demons out of people during that time. So, you know, I, I'm sure they came into this situation somewhat confident that they'd seen this before. They can deal with this and yet it goes terribly awry. It goes terribly wrong. And, and now we see as the man reports to Jesus in verse 18, I asked your disciples to drive this demon out, but they couldn't. This demon was able to resist all of their efforts.

This demon, the text doesn't say it, but I can imagine this demon was mocking them for their failed efforts. And so you have these discouraged disciples. These, these men have wanted to come alongside and minister to this boy and minister to his father and they feel this great sense of failure. They feel that all of their efforts to minister to this boy to do the right thing, we're inadequate.

Maybe you can relate to the discouragement of the disciples this morning, maybe like my wife was voicing to me, what do I say? I don't even know what to say to a suffering parent like that, that you can't find the right words as if there are some magic words that we can speak to somebody who's suffering like that or maybe you're attempting to come alongside that son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter or spouse or other loved one and and your efforts fail. You hit a brick wall.

They're not open to it or, or the medical answers are all bad or there it doesn't seem to be a treatment option and you become like these disciples. I've been trying to do the right thing and it's just inadequate. I, I'm at the end of myself. I don't have any more resources to bring. I'm so discouraged.

And then there's the third perspective and the third perspective I call the derisive skeptics and that's who surrounds this father and the disciples in verse 14 that there is a large crowd around them and there are scribes, religious officials who are disputing where the disciples, you know here are the scribes, are the religious leaders, the people who are supposed to care for somebody like this boy and his father. They don't seem to care at all about what is happening to him.

They want to dispute with the disciples. What authority do you have to be able to say that you can cast out a demon? What power do you think you have or it is that Jesus has to be able to do this. In fact, Hendrickson, one of my favorite commentators on mark says that these scribes were probably filled with chortling malicious glee over the inability of these disciples to cure this boy. They were like, we would call it, they were rubbing it in.

They were disputing with the disciples over their very ability to even minister in any way. And then there's a crowd around this and even the crowd, we get an indication it's, it's not a crowd who are there because they want to grow in their faith or, or they're adding faith to the situation. This is a crowd, you know, like you might find in the audience have a Jerry Springer show. This is the crowd that would form around an accident scene to, you know, they're interested in the drama.

They're intersted in the Gore of it is this is an unbelieving crowd. So Jesus rebukes the scribes and he rebukes the crowd. And Verse 19 he calls them, you are an unbelieving generation. The scribes are unbelieving because again, they're, they're, they're and they're hard hearted about God and God's movement through Jesus and they're there. They're in tennis to be quarrelsome, to make, to make it more difficult for these disciples to minister to this family.

And the crowd is unbelieving because they're fickle. The crowd is, they're just really for the show just drawn like people are drawn to an accident scene. Really what we have here is a picture of what we saw in chapter six and Nazareth when Jesus was not able to do any mighty miracles because all the people in Nazareth refuse to believe. That's that kind of crowd that we see here.

Maybe you can identify maybe not being part of that crowd, but you can identify with the effect of the crowd like that upon you. Maybe you're in the place of that father and and Ellis. You're hearing from the people around you, from the experts, from the culture are around you, is doubtful as scornful that you would actually believe that God could do something to save or to heal.

Or maybe you hear from, from the crowd, from, from people who maybe are well meaning, but, but they're not even thinking about what they're saying and what they say. Just eviscerates what's little is left of your faith or maybe you've been in the place of these disciples and you're the one coming alongside somebody who's in pain trying to minister to them and having your failures and inadequacies, ridiculed and scorned by the unbelieving culture around you. I mean, that's what we live in.

We live in the midst of an unbelieving generation. That's a description not just of Jesus's time, but if the culture that you and I live in and, and, and so just to believe and, and to say and proclaim that we believe that yes, Jesus still heals. Jesus still saves Jesus, still delivers, is met and so many ways with the scoring of the unbelieving culture around us.

So what is Jesus teaches here about following him in the midst of the suffering in our lives, in the midst of suffering in the lives of those that we care about, that, that we love? Well, let me give you two streams. And the first stream is when you're the one in pain. When you're that father or mother, when your, that spouse of somebody in the hospital room, when, when, when you're, that that loved one of someone who's, who's caught up in an, an addiction or in Rehab.

Uh, what, what does this passage have to say to you when you're in the place? Like, this father is here, this father who's been bearing this painful burden for so long? I mean, can you imagine? You know, he hears having lived with all this, he hears that, well, Jesus has cast demons out of other people and so he, he grasped on to that last little bay a bit of and faith that he has said maybe if I seek out Jesus, my son can be delivered.

And he travels to where he hears Jesus and his disciples are and he arrives in Jesus, isn't there? Because Jesus at the time that he arrived was probably coming down from the mount of transfiguration, but there's nine of his disciples. And so this man where that last little bit of hope comes to his disciples, your followers of Jesus, you've been with them. I've heard you have been used by him to do this. Can you help me? Can you help me?

But when he asks the disciples to drive the demon out again, verse 18 they can't. And now Jesus comes on the scene. And then verse 22 you can tell his hopes are shredded. You can tell his faith, his eviscerated. There is maybe only a thread hanging there. And that's why he voices what he voices to Jesus. But if you can, but if you can do anything, please have compassion on us. Please, please save us. Please deliver us if, if, if you can do anything.

He's struggling to believe that if that, that Jesus is even able to save. I mean, everything else has failed him and now he's struggling where Jesus has ability. If you can do anything, but he's struggling as well with even if Jesus is able, as Jesus willing, does Jesus really care? That's that common. We see have compassion on us. Jesus, do you care? Maybe you've been in that place. We're in the midst of it. You know you are struggling on one hand with Jesus.

Are you really able to heal this girl from her cancer? Are you really able to relieve the symptoms that are causing her so much pain? Are you able to do it? The medical experts don't know what to do. Maybe you're struggling with God's ability to step into a situation, but maybe you're struggling with God's willingness to do that. Have compassion on us. Jesus, do you care? You care what I'm suffering. Jesus. I know you hear prayers for many, many people.

I know I'm one of millions of people praying to you seeking hell. Maybe. Maybe there's too much coming at you all at once. Do you really care or do you really care of Jesus? I know I haven't lived a very good life lately. I haven't really measured up so maybe that's affecting your ability to step in is you don't have full compassion because I'm not worthy enough, which by the way, it goes against every truth that we've just sung in our worship this morning, but it's real.

It's something that we are often tempted to feel. Is it not? These are the areas where we struggle with our faith like this man. Are you able Lord Jesus to see it, to save, to heal and are you willing? Do you care where you have compassion to heal and to save? Jesus says to him in verse 23 if you can, if he repeats his question back to them, if you can, everything is possible to him who believes to the one who believes, if you can.

Jesus seems to be saying, you know, the question is not whether I'm able or whether I'm willing to save your son to heal your son. The question really is, do you believe that I am able, do you believe that I'm willing to save your son? You know, this, this father is doing what we're so con, commonly tempted to do. I know what I'm often tempted to do is, is to put limits on what God is able to do. You know, God, I don't want to get my hopes up that you will heal this, this person.

I don't want to get my hopes up that you'll deliver this person from, from there, a addiction. And so I'm just going to lower my expectations because I had been disappointed too many times. And what are we doing there? Where we're putting God in a box where we're setting limits on what God can do, but it is what we do when we're in the midst of pain and we'd been discouraged and we're hanging only at a thread of hope.

We scale back our expectations of God and, and limit him in Jesus's gentle rebuke. Gentle correction. Everything is possible to him who believes. Now, don't hear that in the wrong way. I mean, that has been abused. That phrase that that's, that's, you know, that is not a statement of the power of positive thinking. And if you just think the right thoughts and believe strongly enough, every, you know, everything that you want is going to happen.

This is not some statement of the health and wealth, Prosperity Gospel. That is not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, don't set any limits on what you think I am able to do or willing to do. Don't set limits. Jesus is saying on my ability to heal. The doctors may say she can't be healed. The, the, the experts may say that he's never going to overcome his addiction, but that doesn't mean you need to set limits.

For me, we also set limits when, when, again, we, we, we believe in some way or, or step back from the idea that that God cares enough to step into the situation. Well, God, you know, again, I know I haven't lived that good a life. So you know, may, maybe you're allowing this to happen to punish me a little bit that that is what he's warning against here. But we even set limits by expecting God to save or heal only in the specific ways that, that we want him to.

You know, I want him to heal this young woman right now. I want him to remove the cancer. I want them to do it in the timeframe that, that I want, you know, right now. But, but I set limits if I say that is the only way that you will step into the situation and save and heal and setting, not setting limits, believing in the way that Jesus calls us here as to say, Lord, you know, here, here is what I want. I want desire that she be healed. I desire that she be healed as quickly as possible.

But I realize you see a much bigger situation and you are working in her life spiritually as well as physically and you are working in her parents' life and her family's life. And I know you had the big picture in mind and so your definition, Lord, of how you may want to save and heal in this situation is different than mine or maybe different than mine, so I don't want to set any limits on what you will do.

I will voice what I want to you Lord in prayer and I will believe everything is possible. Everything physically, everything, mentally, everything, psychologically, everything spiritually. If I believe that you can do this, if I believe that you are willing to do this 24 immediately the both the father of the boy cried out again. I love this statement. I do believe help my unbelief. He's not like the people of Nazareth who refuse to believe. He comes and he does what we all need to do.

He acknowledges, you know, Lord, I struggle with doubt. I struggle to believe I have the mustard seed of faith, of belief, but I need you to grow at. I can't produce enough faith in myself. I can't generate the kind of faith in me that that is going to give me the confidence that, that this is all going to be taken care of. And the truth that this passage teaches us here is we can't generate faith in ourselves. We don't generate faith and ourselves. True faith is a gift of God.

True faith is generated by Jesus and it's sustained by Jesus said, and it's increased and grown by Jesus as he works in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so like this father, we don't trust and our our ability to believe, we don't trust in our ability to generate the confidence that that that you know, we can come across like, you know, I got this, God's got this. We come to him humble, we come to him broken. We come to him and our inadequacy, we come to him in the midst of our pain.

We offer only are empty hands to God and we ask them to fill them. Lord, I have a mustard seed of faith. I have a thread of faith. Take that little mustard seed and make it grow. Make it increase. Give me the faith that I need to believe that you are able and that you are willing and that you are at work in this situation. True faith is always aware of how small and how inadequate it is in our confidence. Can never be in our ability to believe.

Our confidence can only be and God and Christ's ability to give us the faith that we need to hang on and in God's ability to accomplish his will. Well, one last stream, just very briefly, what if you're not in the place of that father? What if you're not the actual one in pain, but you're the one coming alongside? What if you are the one ministering to the one in pain like the disciples here? I mean, you can see it in verse 28 discouraged from their failure.

The disciples asked Jesus, why couldn't we drive it out? And you know, implied in there question is a wrong assumption. Jesus, what's the formula? Did we not pray? Right? You know, I went to a very helpful seminar, actually a number of years back called power encounter and, and, and, and it was on the, the reality of the demonic and what to do.

You know, how God can use us in situations of when somebody is afflicted a or, or even possessed by demons, but an error that I picked up, not from the teaching, just for my own conclusions like the disciples is if I just learned the right formula, give me the, let me write down that prayer. What are the words I'm supposed to say? That's almost what they're asking here for Jesus. What's the procedure? Jesus, what did we mess up that we got right back in chapter six? Tell us how to do it.

So we have the procedure down. Uh, so you know, so that, that, that we have the technique that we need to be able to do this. And when we succumb to that same temptation as the disciples, that it's about a technique to learn. It's about a formula to recite. It's about praying in the right way with with certain words. You know, what are we doing it? It's actually a an evidence of unbelief because we're backing away from our belief that Jesus is able and willing.

We're putting the belief in our ability to know and utilize the technique or the formula and notice that that that Jesus does not give them a formula of what to say and how to pray. Verse 29 all as he says is this kind can come out by nothing. By prayer. He doesn't pray. There's no evidence in mark here that that he uttered a prayer before he cast this demon out. He doesn't give them a model. You prayed wrong. Pray in this way and it'll work.

No. When he says, this kind of demon, this strong kind of affliction can only be released by prayer. He's not talking about pray in this way and use these words, this formula, he's talking about a lifestyle of prayer. He's talking about a man or a woman who prayer is such a part of their life that every situation they encounter, they are. They are already walking in the spirit in such a way that God can use them.

He's not talking about knowing the right prayer to utter just seconds before you have to deal with a situation like this. He's talking about the sense of dependence upon God that a lifestyle of prayer is all about my prayer mentor Daniel Henderson has is, is known for saying this. Prayerlessness not praying. Prayerlessness is my expression of independence from God. Think about that. I don't pray when I don't think I really need to depend upon God.

When I think I got this God, then I don't pray and the other side of that same coin I'd add to it is dependence and prayer. Praying regularly, a lifestyle of prayer. Beginning my mornings in prayer because I know I'm such a needy person is my expression of dependence upon God. That's the kind of prayer he's talking about that we don't walk into a situation confident. I got this, I got an a faith. I know the formula. I know the technique.

We walk into a situation like this absolutely dependent upon God. We walk into a situation like this drawing every day on our dependence upon God, our dependence upon his holy spirit to be working through us, our dependence upon his word, our dependence and our reliance that he will use us even in the midst of our inadequacy. And that's exactly what the Lord loves to do.

When you feel inadequate coming alongside somebody who's in pain, and that's part of the design, because when you and I feel inadequate to Minister to somebody else, Christ is magnified. Christ's ministry is raised up, not my ministry, not your ministry.

Inadequacy pushes us to dependence upon Christ and the working of his Holy Spirit will finally, Jesus saves the boy first 25 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 that twofold command come out, don't return. That demonstrates is absolute ability, his absolute power and authority to act and to heal and to deliver. Now first it doesn't look like it's gone so well.

You know, there's that old saying the surgery was successful, but the patient died. I mean, that's kind of what it looks like here in Verse 26. It came out shrieking and convulsing the boy violently, the boy became like a corpse. So that many said he's dead and the crowd around and that's what they see. Oh Jesus, that didn't work so well did it. Your intervention actually pushed him over the edge and now he's dead. And that's often the case with how Jesus saves.

It's often a process in which sometimes things become worse before they became come better. I got an email from an old friend, uh, a pastor now in, in Portland who, who, uh, about 15 years ago when I knew him, he was not a, a follower of Jesus though I'd been witnessing to him. He was, he was caught up and an alcohol addiction and drug addiction.

And, and while he made some faltering steps towards embracing Jesus as Savior, he, he then back slid or air, you know, I'm not sure if he was in the kingdom yet, but, but months later he was in a prison cell. He was in a prison cell and he was going through withdrawal from his addictions. And he wrote me to remind me of how low he had to get that, that that really it had to get worse before it got better. And out of that, Jesus has miraculously saved him and is now using him in a mighty way.

Ministering in Portland, it often has to get worse before it gets better. That's not always the rule, but often that's the case when Jesus intervenes. So even at this point, there's a test of faith for this poor father. Will you trust the word and the promise of Jesus, even in the face of what you're seeing, even in the face of what scares you so much.

He looks like your son looks like he's dead, but Jesus, verse 27 takes the boy by the hand and raises him up and the boy stands up and don't miss this resurrection language here. It's very intentional on the part of mark, that word raised. That's the same word that mark uses over and over to talk about how Jesus was raised from the dead and, and, and really I, I think that's the intent. God's intent.

This is, this is not only a real miracle, real deliverance that happened, but this is a picture of what Jesus does spiritually. This is a picture of first of all of Jesus's own resurrection being raised from the dead to new life, but this is a picture of what he does to you and me when we turned to him and repentance and faith, just as he raises this boy from what looks like death and frees him from demonic possession and dominion to live a new life, he does that for you and me.

He raises us out of the hole that Satan has on us. He raises us to new life. He resurrects us and that's what he's done in my life. He's raised me. How about you? Have you turned to Christ and repentance and faith and an experience? This him, him delivering you like he delivered this boy out of really Satan's cause. That's what we all are before we're saved. We're in the dominion of the devil and he rescues us out of this. Just as he rescued this boy here, he raised me.

He high hope he raised you. I reminds me of the old hymn by Charles Gabriel. In loving kindness, Jesus came my soul and mercy to reclaim and from the depths of sin and shame through grace, he lifted me. He raised me. In other words, from sinking sand, he lifted me with tender hand. He lifted me from shades of night to planes of light. Oh, praise his name. He lifted me. Has He lifted you as he has a ratio of you turn to him from the dominion of darkness? Has He resurrected you? Has He saved you?

This is not just about how he comes alongside people in pain. How he enables us to be used by him and our inadequacy to minister to people in pain. This is as well a picture of what he does for you and me through the Gospel. Do you know the Gospel? Let's pray. Thank you Jesus. That for this powerful picture of, of what you do do through the Gospel. That's you.

Um, you go into the prison that Satan has us in, whether we recognize it or not, and you free us, you deliver us and you take us from that old self dead in sin and you raise us up and you'll lift us up in resurrected life, resurrected life now through the Holy Spirit, living in us resurrected life and Aternity as as are a glorified soul, has rejoined with our glorified body.

Thank you as well, Lord, for the picture of ability and compassion that you have to come alongside us in the midst of our pain. And I pray for any of my brothers and sisters here this morning who, who, uh, are there in some way or another? Maybe it is a son or daughter.

Maybe it is a spouse, maybe it is a grandson or granddaughter or maybe it is some other loved one that whether it's a physical affliction or a mental disorder or some kind of chemical addiction or lifestyle choices that are so destructive, Lord, they, they're like this father and they're crying out to you to rescue them, to, to uh, take the little mustard seed and of their faith. And increase their faith and I prayed.

That's what you do is they come to you as we come to you, Lord, saying, I believe, help my unbelief, increase our faith, give us the ability to believe that we would see you move with power, that we would see you act and save and deliver and heal. We pray this in your holy name. Amen.