1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. In our Gospel
lesson today taken from Mark 9:14-29 we see that Jesus descends from the Mount
of Transfiguration and meets a defiant demon, an anxious father, an astonished
crowd, and despairing disciples. Even today, despair threatens to overwhelm our
faith by pointing out how we fail to change or improve in our Christian lives. But,
we see in the Gospel lesson today that Jesus doesn’t linger in the glory of the
transfiguration, but descends to a world of despair and doubt so that He may
deliver us. Today we ask Jesus to give
us faith to overcome our doubts, and help us believe that all things are
possible with Him. The message is
entitled, “Jesus: I Believe, Help My Unbelief.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Mark 9:14–29 says, “14 And when they came to the disciples, they
saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15 And immediately all
the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted
him. 16 And he asked
them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher,
I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it
seizes 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.” 19 And he answered
them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to
bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 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. 21 And Jesus
asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From
childhood. 22 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.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All
things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately
the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw
that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to
it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter
him again.” 26 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.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him
up, and he arose. 28 And
when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we
not cast it out?” 29 And
he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”
3.
The most important thing in the
entire world is to learn to say, “I
believe.” Without faith in
the one true God and Jesus Christ, whom He sent, there’s no salvation. By the grace of God, a child can say it. By the grace of God, given through Holy
Baptism my daughter Eleanor has saving faith.
Without the Holy Spirit, the wisest man on earth doesn’t even know what
it means to believe. The disciples had
made a fine confession of their faith earlier in Mark’s Gospel. Now we see that their faith fails them in a
crucial moment. What could we expect
from this troubled father in our text? May
the Lord teach us all to believe, to help us in the midst of our unbelief!
4.
Here in Mark 9 Jesus, with Peter,
James, and John, had been on the Mount of Transfiguration. This amazing experience had lifted the
disciples far above the distasteful things of this world. They had a foretaste of heaven. To a lesser degree, we too have moments when
we feel the nearness of God, when in God’s Word and Sacraments Jesus reveals to
us His love. But, the return to the realities
of life in this world are unavoidable.
5.
As the little group came down from
the mountain, they saw that the other disciples were in the midst of an
agitated crowd. In the front were the scribes, who were
questioning the disciples and taking advantage of their inability to heal a
demon possessed boy. In the absence of
Jesus, the disciples had tried to drive out the demon that was harassing the
child. Before the scribes could answer
Jesus about why they were arguing with the disciples, the father of the boy
poured out his story. His son had from
early childhood been troubled by a demon who would cast him to the ground,
trying to destroy him by throwing him into fire and water. The father hoped Jesus would do what the
disciples couldn’t. Heal this child.
6.
Faith that takes God at His Word and
lays hold of His almighty power can never fail. It can
truly move mountains. Deeply moved
the father cries out, “I believe; help my
unbelief!” This man detests the
weakness of his faith, but he goes straight the Jesus, the only One who can
make up for his lack of faith. When we
go to Jesus where He promises to be found in His Word and Sacraments, we find
that our own weak faith is strengthened in our hour of need. Here in Mark 9 we see how soon the time of
need and sorrow was over for the troubled soul of that father! Before the crowd could grow larger, Jesus
rebuked the demon, commanding it to leave the child forever. As always, the voice of Jesus, the Son of
God, demands obedience. Although the
demon cried out in anger and gave the boy a blow so vicious that he appeared to
be dead, Jesus took him by the hand and restored him to life and health.
7.
In this passage from Mark 9 we learn
of what to do with our doubt, despair, and unbelief. We take them to our Lord Jesus who alone
can give us saving faith to believe in Him, which He’s done through the hearing
of His Holy Word and the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. There was a pastor who once encountered a
young man who was a devout Christian, but he suffered from cerebral palsy. He told the pastor that some of his friends
had come to him and said, “We’re going to
heal you of your cerebral palsy.” So,
they had laid hands on him and pronounced him whole, but Harvey still had
cerebral palsy. Then they told him, “The problem is that you don’t have enough
faith, and if you don’t have enough faith, you will never be healed. If you really want to be healed, you have to
claim your healing in Jesus’ name. You
have to believe that you are healed before you can be healed.” When he remained unhealed, they
eventually had concluded that he must be guilty of a heinous sin that was
blocking the healing. Finally, they had
declared he must be under demonic possession, so they had planned an exorcism
and tried to drive the demon out of him, but still he wasn’t healed. Finally he came to the pastor in tears and
said, “Pastor do you think that I’m
possessed by a demon?” The pastor
told him that he didn’t think so, then he prayed that Harvey would have peace
and that he would trust the Lord with His body and his life, because sometimes
God says “no” even to the most passionate prayers.
8.
This kind of thing goes on ever day
in America and around the world. Blind
people are told to believe they can see and they try their best to do so, but
they open their eyes and can’t see a thing.
The lame are told to believe they can walk, but they can’t get out of
their wheelchairs and walk. So, some
people say the problem is with them, they have a poor faith. But, no one asks the obvious question, “If faith is all that is needed, why doesn’t
he healer himself have enough faith to cause the healing to take place?”
9.
We can’t make a decision to believe
something that we don’t actually believe.
We
can repent of our sins by the power of the Holy Spirit. We can learn about Jesus and study His Holy
Word. We can make decisions to do all
kinds of things that will affect our future behavior, but what we can’t do is
create saving faith in Jesus as our Savior by our own willpower. This is what’s wrong with modern evangelism
techniques that suggest that all a person has to do is make a decision and
faith will well up in his soul. It
doesn’t work like that. Paul tells us in
Romans that faith comes by hearing, it comes by the Word of God that points us
to Jesus as our Savior from sin, death and the power of the devil. It’s the Holy Spirit who creates saving
faith, as we recognize today with the baptism of my daughter Eleanor. Mark 16:16 says, “16Whoever believes and
is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
10.
The father of this
young boy who was demon possessed was in the presence of Jesus, the Author of
Faith. Hebrews 12:2 says, “2[look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus called him to trust Him. He had every reason to believe that Jesus had
the power to do something for his son, but he wasn’t completely sure that he
believed enough. So, he cried out in
tears, “Lord, I believe; help my
unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Every
Christian has some level of saving faith in their heart. But, the intensity of that faith isn’t
constant. It increases and diminishes. No matter how strong your faith is, there are
moments in this life when it’s assaulted by the devil. Sometimes it can seem as if your faith is
barely hanging on, and you make a prayer much like this man made to Jesus, “I believe, but my belief isn’t perfect, it
isn’t strong. I need help. Help me with my unbelief.” When you’re assaulted with doubts and
your faith is weak, go to the source of faith, the Word of God that points you to
Jesus as your Savior. Trust in your
baptism, that you were washed and cleansed of all of your sin and made a child
of God through water and the Word. Trust
in His body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins
in the Lord’s Supper. There’s no time in
your life when your faith is stronger than when you are immersed in God’s Word
and His Sacraments. Staying close to
God’s Word, listening to the promises of our Lord Jesus are the things that
kill unbelief and build a powerful faith that doesn’t let you down in the midst
of doubt, despair, and unbelief. Amen.
11.
Please pray with
me: Dear
Jesus, we pray that You have patience with us.
Help us not to wait until the trouble that surrounds us is so great that
we can hardly see Your presence for our tears.
May we rather come and learn of Your grace and power to help and to
save, so that when Satan assails us and our loved ones, we may not doubt but
believe, so that the mountains of difficulties and the depth of despair may not
rob us of the certainty that You are mightier than Satan and sorrow. We, too, pray, “I believe; help my
unbelief!” Amen.
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