Good morning. My name is Matt, one of the pastors here and if you have a Bible, please turn with me to Mark 9 as we continue our sermon series looking at the cross-shaped life in the Gospel of Mark. If you're using one of the Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you, it's on page 1,074, 1074. While you're turning there, let me welcome you again. If you're a guest with us this morning, we are really glad that you are here and we do hope that you feel at home with us. We're going to take a look at verses 14 through 29. So here now God's holy and true word from Mark 9 verses 14 through 29. 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 sees us 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, oh, 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, 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 when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. It's the Word of the Lord. We pray with me. Our father, we thank you that we can be here gathered here together to praise you and your son and your spirit. We thank you that we have your word, that it is infallible, that it is inherent, that we can trust it. We thank you for the grace and mercy that you continue to offer us and call us to through your word. And because of what your son has done on the cross. Father, would you use this time now to make us new, to transform us, that we would be equipped to proclaim and demonstrate the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations for it is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. I'm going to talk about one of those subjects, one of the things about Christianity that usually makes people squirm a little bit because it's something that we know we're supposed to be doing, but we really struggle to do it. So let's just get on with it. Let me ask you a question. How is your prayer life? How is your prayer life? I would imagine a lot of us right now, myself included, are fighting back their urge to go, don't ask me that, right? Okay. And see, it's such an interesting thing if you think about it. One of the most important disciplines, one of the most important things that we can do as Christians is to pray, but at the same time, one of the most common things about the Christian life that seems to slip away, seems to fall into neglect is our prayer life. It's like we're on a cycle. You know, it's like you get kickstarted and you start praying a lot and it's going great and then all of a sudden you kind of realize you sort of forgotten to do that and then you feel kind of guilty and then eventually you sort of get another kickstart and you get going again, it's like this cycle. Hopefully some of you right now are maybe realizing for the first time, oh wait, that's normal? Yes. Yeah, it is. Okay, it's probably likely that there are some people in the room who have had a very strong very rich prayer life for years and years and years. Okay, but a lot of us struggle. A lot of us go through fits and starts and that's something that we want to be honest about. It's interesting like if you do have a really strong prayer life right now, it might be because of one of two things. One of the things that tends to kickstart our prayer lives is when we go through something really hard. When suddenly we are facing something we know we can't do on our own, that gets us to pray a little more or maybe sometimes you go to a seminar or you read a book and that kickstarts your prayer life. We had a praying life seminar just a few months ago here and there's about 20 of us there and all 20 of us right now we're going, oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right because I bet some of us kind of had that kickstart and we're praying a lot and then it kind of fell into neglect again. I hope that's not the case for all of us but I'll be honest that is the case for me and can I just can we just kind of tell you something? The guy who taught that praying life seminar is a friend of mine and in the beginning he whispered to me, I'm so glad I'm teaching this this week because my prayer life is shot right now. Okay, so that's being honest, right? That's this happens. Let's be a church where we just be honest about the fact that as Christians as a result of the fall, as a result of the damage done to humanity by the sin of Adam and Eve and the work of the devil, we tend to neglect the things that will benefit us and benefit other people the most. That's just part of how life as a Christian goes and we need to just be honest about that, be honest that we struggle. The ironic thing about prayer is like we know a lot of us really know how amazing it is to have that sweet connection with God through prayer, a regular fervent prayer life, the strength that you feel, we know that that's there but yet it still falls apart on us and begins to we begin to struggle with it. Well, I was very challenged by this passage because it really does culminate in the end to Jesus pointing his disciples to prayer and as this passage worked on me this week, I spent a lot more time in prayer than normal and it was really good and I just want to invite you, let's all together, let this be one of those kick starts that gets our prayer lives up and running again and then we'll do it again in about three months when we need it again. Okay, we'll do that as a church but we're going to be focusing on that because here's what stings a little bit about this passage. What you really see in the disciples is that prayer lessness and powerlessness go hand in hand. Prayerlessness and powerlessness go hand in hand apart from prayer, we really can't do the things that we're called to do. Now, conversely though, here's the beautiful thing as followers of Christ, when we are prayerful, we are powerful because we rely on God's ability and not our own. That's what we want to really focus on this morning that as followers of Christ, when we are prayerful, we are powerful because we rely on God's ability and not our own. So we're going to talk about this by looking at three things this morning. We want to talk about prayer lessness and then helplessness and then resurrection, prayerlessness, helplessness and resurrection. If you close your Bible, take it back out because we're really going to walk right through this passage. I would love for you to be looking at the word as we do this. Don't worry, nobody's looking. Just take it back out, keep it open. Let's walk through this passage. Let's talk about prayerlessness looking at verses 14 through 24, big chunk here. And here's the first thing we want to see this morning. Prayerlessness is a form of unbelief. That's things a little bit too, but it leads to good things. So let's take a look at this. Prayerlessness is a form of unbelief, 14. So they come back. This is talking about Jesus and Peter and James and John, they had been up at the mount of Transfiguration and now they return to the other nine disciples and they come across this scene where there's this crowd and scribes are arguing with the disciples. And then they show up and they see that Jesus is there, they're excited and surprised and they greet him. But here's the thing, the scribes that says they're arguing with the disciples and this is a very hostile word. I mean, they're really taking it to the disciples. And the reason is because the disciples are unable to help this dad and his boy who has the unclean spirit and they're pretty excited about that. The scribes are pretty excited about that. They want to see the disciples fail because the disciples are these ordinary men who are following Jesus and they're suddenly doing these really incredible things. This is not the first time that they attempted to cast out demons. We've seen them do that successfully in chapter 6, but it is the first time that they've failed. And so the scribes who want to be the ones that think they know everything that the ones that think they're the best, they take advantage of this opportunity. They're so excited. So they pounce on the disciples. Why can't you do it? Aha! And it's probably pretty vicious. So then Jesus shows up. And I love this. Look at verse 16. He says, what are you arguing about with them? Now, grammatically it's pretty clear that he's talking to the scribes. Hey, this is one of those moments where Jesus is like a father who sees his kids at a park getting sort of harassed by some other kids. And so he walks over and steps in front of his kids and says, excuse me, what's the problem here? Well, it's about to get ugly, right? And Jesus is defending his disciples, right? But fortunately for the scribes in that moment, the man interrupts. 17. Okay? Someone from the crowd answered him, teacher, I brought my son to you for a house, a spirit that makes him mute. And he explains, this man explains to him that this spirit is causing this boy to go through wretched experiences, just a horrific experience. And so the man was hoping that Jesus could maybe do something. He came, Jesus wasn't there because he was at the transfiguration. So he says in verse 18, so I asked your disciples to cast it out and they were not able. And there it is, the disciples are, we see here, unable to do something they had been called and sent to do and something that they had successfully done before. They were unable. Why? Look at Jesus's response. 19. And he answered them, oh, faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And right there, Jesus exposes the issue, exposes the problem here, even the problem of the disciples. And it is unbelief. In fact, you could translate that faithless generation as unbelieving generation. So he seems to be including the disciples in this. He's really talking about everybody. He's really what he's talking about is the reality that affects the entire world, unbelief. And unbelief, not believing who God is, that he is who he says he is, that he can do what he says he can do. All of that unbelief is the cause of all the sin in the world. It's the cause of all the misery in the world. And Jesus is saying this is the problem. Unbelief is the problem. But see, it's kind of confusing at first because we know that the disciples believe. We saw just a few weeks ago that they can, they confessed that Jesus is the Christ. So what's happening here? Now we move into the meat of this story of this dad. And it really shows us something about you and me. Look at verse 20. They bring him the boy, the evil inside this boy sees the good in Jesus and reacts violently. And then verse 21, Jesus asks the father how long has this been happening to him? Isn't it interesting that in this moment, Jesus takes time to enter into dialogue with this dad. He wants to talk to him. He wants to know him. He wants a relationship. And in a relationship, people talk to each other, right? And so we see them talking to each other here. So the dad responds. He says from childhood. And it's often cast them into the fire into water to destroy them. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And so this also brings about a reaction from Jesus that's very telling. He says if you can, all things are possible for the one who believes. Now, is he saying that if you believe you should be able to do anything. Therefore, if you can't do something, you don't believe. Is that what he's saying? No. What he's saying is that if you are a believer, if someone believes what they believe is that anything can happen. All things are possible because God is sovereign. He is in control. And so to believe, God is to believe that he is in control that anything can happen. So we don't approach God saying if, but rather will you, or would you? And so here's what's interesting. That response by Jesus then provokes in this man a very honest, emotional response. Take a look, verse 24, immediately, the father of the child cried out. Stop there for a second and realize this is a very, very deep, emotional, loud cry. Matthew and his gospel uses the same word to describe Jesus as cry on the cross. Okay, so this is a deep, powerful moment. Very vulnerable, this man is right now. And he says, I believe, help my unbelief. And right there, we see something that's true of this man. It's true of the disciples. It's true of all of you and me who believe. And that is this. We who believe are a mixture of belief and unbelief. That's the key thing that we have to understand. It's not like when you become a Christian suddenly, you're 100% belief and 0% unbelief. That's not the way it is. Rather, we believe, but we also struggle with unbelief. It's exactly what we see happening in this man here. I don't know who knows what the percentages is, whether it's 60, 40, 90, 10, who knows. Maybe when you first start following Christ, you're a much less percentage of belief and a lot more unbelief. And then over time, that would change, but the reality is we are always still a mixture of belief and unbelief. And that mixture is made up of faith in God, that's belief, and then faith in self. That's the unbelief. And that's what we're always wrestling with. That we believe God, but we also believe ourselves. And that's why prayerlessness is the number one sign that what's happening is, we've begun to put more faith in ourselves than in God, that we're relying on ourselves to do the things we're called to do than on God. Keep in mind, you know, think about this, a couple of weeks ago, we saw Jesus say to His disciples that you're supposed to deny self, I believe it, deny it. And that's the path to faith. That's the path to putting more faith in God, is denying ourselves and trusting more in Him. But our sin nature hates that idea, hates that idea of helplessness. Our fallen nature just is sickened by the idea of saying that we're helpless. We want to feel like we're powerful, like we have glory, like we can do it. That hatred of helplessness is pretty thick, but it's also recognizable from the earliest stages of life. If you have kids or if you've ever babies that you've seen children transform into very interesting monstrous beings when you try to help them with something they want to do themself. You know what I'm talking about? I mean little kids where they're trying to do something like, oh, let me help you with that. And they're like, don't let myself. You know, and you're like, well, what's happening to the child? But there's this visceral reaction. I'm not helpless. Is what that is happening in my house. This happens a lot with juice. I think my floor has consumed more juice than my kids. And it's because they just want to do it themselves. But when we try to help, they get very angry. That is an example. And the reality is do we want our kids to be able to grow up and pour their own juice? Yes. But the reality is we never really grow out of that. We never grow out of that hatred of helplessness. Even as adults, we want to believe I can do this. And we turn to God and say, I'll do it myself. Prayerlessness is the number one sign that that's what we're doing. That God is calling to us saying, let me help you and we're saying, do it myself. That's what prayerlessness is. And so to pray then is to put more faith in God and less faith in yourself. That's why the practice of prayer is so essential. It's really choosing to put more faith in God, less faith in myself, more faith in God, less faith in myself. Because think about this, if we're not praying, we are attempting to do something that is impossible, impossible, unless we have God's help. We can't obey God's law. We can't live the way we're called to live. We can't do the things the Bible calls us to do on our own. And when we try it, we're just going to fail. Prayerlessness is that acknowledging of helplessness. And what's so interesting in this text is at the acknowledgement of helplessness, that's when we see Jesus act. And so we can see that that's what God wants. He wants us to acknowledge that helplessness. And then he acts. Then we're ready for grace. Let's talk about helplessness. Look at verses 25 through 28. 25 through 28. Second thing we want to see here this morning is this. Prayer prepares our hearts for grace because when we pray, we acknowledge our helplessness. Prayer prepares our hearts for grace because when we pray, we're acknowledging our helplessness. Think about this. If we're looking at 25 through 27, sorry, not 28, through 27, the situation is the man has just now cried out. I believe helped my unbelief. In other words, I believe, but I need help. I'm helpless to believe more. So in response, what we see is Jesus casts out this demon. Okay, the man is the dad. He's continuing the dialogue with Jesus. He's continuing this relationship. And he said he asks for help. He acknowledges his helplessness. And then Jesus does something that surely helped his faith. He casts the demon out of his son. That's what God wants from you and me. It was for us to really recognize our helplessness and run to him in prayer because that's what brings him glory as the only one who can give us the strength that we need. But we do. We hate the idea of helplessness. When's the last time you open a pickle jar? Isn't it funny? Like there is a common denominator. We've all seen this and done this multiple times when somebody can't open a pickle jar. How's that go? Right? Somebody takes the jar and they're like, straining is hard. They possibly can veins are popping out of their neck and forehead. They're getting red. You're kind of like, you're going to burst a blood vessel. And they're just, you know, they're trying as hard as they can and they can't do it. So eventually they just kind of slam it down. And then to their whore, somebody picks it up, pops it open. Now what do they say? I loosened it. No. Fact. You did not loosen it. Had you loosened it, it would have opened. Okay? The person who opened it loosened it. Right? Why? Why do we feel so desperate to say I loosened it? Because we hate helplessness. But guess what? Guess when you get to enjoy the pickles? When you give up? See, I can't do it. That's the moment that your heart is prepared to receive the grace of the opening of the jar. It's only when we finally say, okay, fine, I can't do it. You know, Martin Luther in his Heidelberg Disputation, he gave these 28 theses. Not the 95 theses or different theses. Luther was obsessed with theses, but here this is the thing. Okay. In number 28 of the Heidelberg Disputation from 1518, he says something that is primarily it's about salvation, but it really applies to the whole of the Christian life. And here's what he says. It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ. Think about that. It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ. Because otherwise, we will assume that I did it in God helped. So in other words, we need to despair of our ability. We need to embrace that helplessness. And you know, it's interesting about that. You know what that does for your failures, for our failures and our inadequacies. It puts a whole different paint job on them. Because what it means is they're specifically designed to help us despair of our own ability. And then therefore to run to God in prayer. So to think about the dad, the dad's cry prepares his heart for grace. He says I can't do it. Help my unbelief. And then Jesus does something that helps his belief. And think about maybe that's informative of how the disciples felt. In verse 28, when they ask this question, look at their language, look what they say when they're talking to Jesus privately after this ordeal has taken place. They say why could we not cast it out? Why couldn't we do that? And Jesus responds so powerful, so interesting. He says this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. In other words, Jesus is saying you could not because you prayed not. You tried to do it in your own power.
Says the same thing in John 15. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. You know what's beautiful about that? That it's not only okay to feel helpless, it's essential. It is essential for our relationship with God that we feel helpless. You can bring the next slide up. This is a key thing. It's not just okay. It is essential that we recognize our helplessness in salvation and in all of life. That's what God is wanting for you and me. Think about this. There's one of the times in scripture where God is basically saying to his people, go ahead without me, the Old Testament, and he says it to Moses and Moses says, no. Moses says, no, we're not going without you. I'm not going without you because he knew it's absolutely futile. We cannot do the things God is calling us to do without him. So God wants us to come to him in our helplessness, recognize it and come to him in prayer. So what is it like when you think about all the things that Jesus is calling to you and it seems insurmountable? You know what are those things? What are the things that maybe you've been unwilling to recognize a helplessness with it? Is it maybe it's even believing? Maybe you need help believing. God is saying to you come to me in prayer for that. Maybe you need help serving more. You're not serving very often. You just can't really get your heart wrapped around that. God is saying come to me. Acknowledge that you're helpless. Let me help you with it. Maybe it's giving more of your money to the church or to charity. Maybe it's being kind. Maybe it's sharing the gospel. Whatever it is, all these big monsters that we're wrestling with, we are invited by God to look at our failures in our inadequacies and let all of that drive us to him in prayer and say, I need help. I'm helpless and that opens our hearts. It prepares our hearts to receive from him. That's when he can do things for us that are amazing without us becoming prideful thinking that we did them on our own. This is something I used to really struggle with. I really struggled with the idea. I thought this is with the Christian life that God would say, you do this and I say, I'll be right back. I go work on it and then I would come back and say, I did it, God. And he'd say, good job. That is so not the way it works. And when we believe that's the way it works, what happens is we hear God tell us to do something. We go try to do it and we fail and we don't want to come back. Sound familiar? The way it really works is God wants you and not to try to come and say, I did it but to come to him and honestly say, I can't do it. I can't do it. But I want to. And I desperately, desperately need your help. And that prepares our heart for grace. And then we can feel the work of the Holy Spirit and it's amazing how that brings about transformation and change in our life. It brings about resurrection. So third, let's talk about that. Let's talk about resurrection. There's a resurrection in this passage. Did you see it? We'll see it. Look at 25 through 27 again. And here's what we want to see because of the resurrection of Christ, there's always power for progress in the Christian life through prayer. Always. Always. 25 through 27. Look at this. Two things that really stick out here. Number one, the permanence of Jesus' exorcism. Look what he says in 25. He says, come out of him and never enter him again. Permanent. Okay. And then number two, look at the proof of the exorcism. The last few words of 27. And he, what does it say? A rose. Do you know what Greek word that is? Resurrection. Mark uses the exact same word here that is used of Jesus's resurrection in other places in the scripture of our resurrection. Okay. This is very intentional. Mark is deliberately using this word to point us to the resurrection of Christ which proves that Jesus triumphed over the power of sin and evil. Okay. That is very key. Triumph, even over the power of unbelief. He's triumphed over the power of sin and evil. That is one of the key pieces of the gospel. That when Jesus died on the cross, he not only paid for our sin, if we believe in him, he not only ensured that we'd be declared righteous, but he also broke the power that evil and sin has over those who believe. That power is broken. And what's beautiful is it's permanently broken. It's permanently broken. Look again at 25. He says, never enter him again. I love that. Never again. There's permanence there. Permanence there. Now, does that mean that this boy was never influenced by evil again? Influence perhaps. But what we know is evil was never able to take control of this boy again. Never able to completely destroy him again.
And in the same way, Jesus' resurrection proves that the power of sin and evil is broken. So, those of us who believe we are going to be influenced by the world of flesh and the devil. Absolutely. But it can't have power over us. Prayer is a permanent source of power because the resurrection is a permanent reminder of Jesus' victory over the power of evil and sin. It's a permanent reminder as we strive to do the things that God is calling us to do as we acknowledge our helplessness and say, I can't do this and we run to him for help. We know that prayer is this permanent source of power because of the resurrection is a proof that Jesus has permanently broken the power of sin and evil. There's always fish in the channel. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Some of you know that last year, I went fishing about this time with my dad and some of his buddies. Remember that? I came back and I unfortunately bragged about catching 163 fish and I just did that again. Sorry. But the reality is we go up every once in a while and it's awesome for two reasons. You catch more fish than you ever thought imaginable and my dad pays for it. The lake that we go to is absolutely huge. We could never be on the whole thing. I mean, it's just it's just absolutely massive. If you just stretch it all together, it's very long drawn out lake but if you put it all together, it's probably the size of Orlando. Massive lake. You know where we spend all our time? This little like 70 yard by 30 yard channel between two islands. All our time. Here's how it works. We go and we bring in a food for breakfast and dinner. Which means if you don't catch fish, you don't have lunch. I guess who loves lunch?
There's a good reason why we want to make sure we're catching fish. And so out of all the places in this monstrously huge lake, every morning we talk about, well where should we go? Where should we go, guys? We try over here. We're looking at this giant map. Maybe we should try here. How about this place? And someone will always say, oh there's always fish in the channel. And then because we want lunch, guess where we go? To the channel. We get to the channel and sometimes you have to move around a little bit, find out where they're hanging out. But once you find the hole, it's like it really almost is like shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, it is hilarious. You just catch fish after fish after fish, which means we have lunch. Now it took them a while. It took several trips. They've been going there for 30 years. But eventually they realized there's always fish in the channel. And so since they realized that, they've never gone hungry. They've never had to skip lunch. Why? There's always fish in the channel. God wants us to know that he understands the difficulties of following Christ, of the influences of the world to flesh and the devil, and that there's always power for us for this life in prayer. Always. Sometimes you got to move around and wait, but it's going to come. There's always power for us for progress in the Christian life through prayer, just like there's always fish in the channel. Can I tell you something? There is a few things that go around on the internet virally. One of them is this list of things that aren't in the Bible, which is good. We need more of those because one of the things that these lists are trying to expose is the fact that there's a saying that Christians say that's not in the Bible, and it's actually opposite from what the Bible says. The saying, the false saying goes, that God will only give you what you can handle. That is not true. That is fundamentally not true. God will always give you more than you can handle, so that you'll run to him in prayer, and then praise him for his help. Now, we don't have time for me to give a really good treatment of what prayer is, how to pray, and all that. I also don't want you to go from here thinking, okay, yes, I want to pray, and then you try, and it doesn't work, it doesn't go well, and so you give up, and so I want you to, I want us to go from here choosing to pray more, but also patiently awaiting more resources, and the pastors and I, the elders and I are going to really try to provide a lot more resources to help each one of us pray. Okay, so yes, let's go pray, but also know that the cavalry's coming, okay, we're going to provide a lot more resources and information so that we can do this, and then I'm not kidding, I think every, maybe quarterly, we'll have a prayer kickstarter because it falls apart. Everybody is like, yeah, it does, okay, so we're going to battle against that together because there's always power and prayer, we need power, we need to recognize that we're helpless, and that gives him all the glory. So let's pray, Father, we just praise your name that you do not expect us to come to you accomplished, but rather desperate and honest about our helplessness, for those in the room who have been fighting, fighting, fighting the idea of helplessness, Lord, would you open their heart today that they would give up and embrace that helplessness maybe for their salvation, or maybe for some issues that they've been facing, would you glorify yourself through our recognition of our helplessness and our despair of our own ability, and then would you move in mighty ways to show us that you are not helpless, with you all things are possible, you are sovereign overall, and we stand before you for given and free, righteous, and your children in Christ alone, in his name we pray.