Jesus Helps Our Unbelief

broke with our sin. And finally, it's a faith religion. We hear Him by faith. We know Him by faith. We're forgiven by faith. Seeing God and believing God, that is the process we're going to look at this morning as we really meditate upon this fantastic declaration of a father begging Jesus to heal his son, I believe, help my unbelief. Faith is central to Christianity, and we can see this with just a brief overview of Mark where we've come from. Jesus opens, or Mark gives a simple thesis of Jesus' preaching in Mark 1.5. The kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. Mark 2, Jesus sees the faith of the paralytic and his friends, and he says to them, your sins are forgiven. Mark 5, Jairus, the synagogue ruler, he comes to Jesus, and he's afraid because his daughter is dying. And on the way there, a woman who's been bleeding for years, by faith, touches his garment, knowing if she just touched Jesus, she'd be healed. Jesus turns to her and says, your faith has made you well. Jairus, feeling impatient because of the delay, because his daughter is sick, hears Jesus say, do not fear, only believe. In Mark 8, after he's fed 5,000 once, he's fed 4,000, he gets in the boat and he warns the disciples, be, be aware, be weary of the leaven of the Pharisees. Which is unbelief. It's rejecting God, and doubting God, and denying God. And then in Mark 9 we see this man in this central part of the great disciple discourse, I believe. Help my unbelief. If you've been with us, Mark is constantly pressing us to believe. He presented Jesus as the Son of God, the suffering servant, the one who has authority to teach God's truth, the one who has authority to forgive sin. And he's pressing us to respond in faith. A starting point for today, what does define faith as this? Humbly receiving God's revelation. That's our starting point. Humbly receiving God's revelation. As Isaiah came and read Deuteronomy 30, that's important. Faith doesn't require us to be creative. It doesn't require us to go on this great investigation to discover things that are, that are hidden behind stones. No, it's simply receiving and responding to God's Word as He speaks. It's not too hard for you. It's not far away from you. If you're right here, it's literally right in front of you in that book. God's Word. This morning our simple study is going to be looking at what it means to believe and to ask God to help our unbelief. Our story begins in verse 14. For the setting, we remember that Jesus just took three disciples. We call them the inner circle. Peter, James, John. up to a mountain. There he transformed into this, this glorious, back into his glorious nature, where, what he will look like when he's resurrected from the dead. And then Peter gets it wrong, and there's a confrontation, and then we hear that great truth from heaven about Jesus. This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. That's the revelation. Jesus is God's Son. Listen to Him. Receive Him in His words. Now they're coming down the mountain, and they came to the other disciples. So we're reuniting with the larger group of disciples. There's a great crowd. There's an argument. Verse 15, immediately, we're going to see that again as a cue for the climactic buildup of what's happening here. All the crowd, when they saw Jesus, were amazed and ran up and greeted him. And Jesus asked them, what is this argument about? What's going on here? And some of the crowd answered him, teacher, this is the father of the young man. I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. His son has an adversary. There's an unclean spirit that is afflicting his son, and we'll see later, since he was born, It seizes him. It throws him on the ground. He foams in his mouth. He grinds his teeth. He becomes rigid. And since Jesus was up on the mountain with other disciples, when he came, he asked the disciples that were at the base of the mountain, I asked them to cast him out. And notice the very precise declaration. They were not able. Now, In chapter 6, verse 7, Jesus commissions the disciples and gives them authority to cast out demons. They go out of the city, and they go out of the country, and they perform the work of Christ. It's important. This is the great disciple discourse. He's training his disciples to carry on the work for when he departs. He's about to depart. These disciples, they've seen discipleship modeled by Jesus, they've been taught, and then they've been sent out to practice, and yet they still don't get it. They were not able to help him. And notice what Jesus says in response, and it seems to give us a diagnosis as to what's wrong with the disciples regarding why they were not able to help him. Verse 19, he answered them. O faithless generation. He points out their problem, which is unbelief. They have not heard the warning. They have not heard the charge to believe. They have not yet gotten it. They're still only partially seeing. I don't believe Jesus is upset with the crowd here. He has to be speaking of his own disciples. And you can hear the frustration of a teacher who's just pouring himself out to his pupils. He's pouring himself out to these disciples who, who have to carry on his mission. How long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? I mean, the language there literally is, is to put up with. How long will I, will I have to be with you and, and, and see how you're, you're just not getting it? And then you see Jesus' request. Bring him to me. Well, we see that he's brought. So the first point here, we see an ineffective faith. The disciples in verses 14 and 19, they have an ineffective faith. They, they are not able to help because of a lack of faith. Then we see verse 20, a model of faith. They bring the boy to him. And when the Spirit saw him, immediately, Mark is warning us to see what happens. The Spirit convulsed the boy. It's the equivalent of a spiritual tantrum here. When this unclean spirit comes to Jesus, he sees that he's really up against now, and there's a convulsion. He throws him on the ground. There's foaming at the mouth. Jesus asks a question, verse 21. How long has he been like this? Jesus is all-knowing. We're not sure if he's asking for the Father's sake to let him kind of share what's going on, or for the crowd's sake. Verse 20, he said to him, the Father explains. He's been like this from childhood. It oftentimes to destroy him. And then the Father really gives us this declaration that the whole story hinges upon. Remember, the disciples, they were not able to help him, so here in verse 22, This man who has a son who's in constant danger because of an unclean spirit says to Jesus, but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. We see a man in real despair. Most likely he's taken this son to other doctors, to other sages, to the rabbis, to the priests maybe, to the scribes. As any of us would do, whenever you have a son who's sick like this, who's in constant torment, you've done everything you can to find someone who would help. You now hear of Jesus, and you bring the son to Him, but the disciples, they're unable to, so there's some despair. Can you do anything? I don't want to say there's just pure doubt here. There's probably some hope. I need help. Will you please help me? No one else can. Can you? There's a longing for some kind of hope that His Son could be healed. Look at Jesus' answer. Verse 23. If you can... There's a kind, godly rebuke here. If you can, The man has a partial vision of Jesus. He knows that Jesus can do something. He's heard of Him. He's heard how He's healed paralytics, lepers, healed the blind, healed the deaf. He's cast out demons in other places. And Jesus makes it very clear, no, no, no. If you can't, that's not how you come. I don't want you to question me. I want you to know this. All things are possible for one who believes. Now that doesn't mean if we just muster up enough faith we can have whatever we want. What he's helping the man see is Jesus saying, I'm God Almighty. I can do all things. There's no limit to Jesus' power. This is very similar to when Mary asked, how could it be that I could have a child while still a virgin? The angel says, all things are possible with God. We see here a teaching on the omnipotence, that is the all-powerfulness of God. And let me just give a very simple definition of that. God can do whatever he wants to do. God can do whatever he wants to do. And this is important for us to embrace because that declaration, that, this teaching that, if you have compassion on me, please help. Jesus says, if you just believe, I will help. I can do this. It really rubs up against our primary doubts. If you think about the way Satan is always attacking the faith, or if you think about the way we regularly are left in despondency or worry, there's two big questions we always ask. Can God help? Does He want to help? Is He able? Is He willing? We see here Jesus, He's going to have compassion. One thing we always see Jesus doing is responding with compassion to those who come to Him with a humble request. And we see here He's able to help. There is nothing outside of His dominion. He is able. He is powerful. He has compassion. We also see something else. There's an invitation. All things are possible for one who believes. That is an invitation to believe. Look at verse 24. Again, Mark uses this word immediately. He draws our attention. This is the high point of this story, because the whole focus here is on faith. Immediately, The father of the child cried out and said, I believe, an affirmation, help my unbelief, a request. This is really the most hopeful response. It's meant to be instructive for us. I want us to first see this is meant to be instructive for us. He believes and still asks for More help to believe. Really he's asked for help twice. First, will you help my son? And then he asks, will you help my unbelief? I believe, help my belief. It portrays honesty and humility. It really captures the tension of a believer's wrestling within. He first states, I believe. Hebrews 11 1 says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. This man does not see his son getting better currently, but is hopeful. He is finally talking to the one who has the power to heal him. We see he affirms. I believe you have to be the one who can heal. At the same time, we see Him giving some instruction. There's a frailty to His faith. There's a still learning, and a still wanting, and a still waiting to see what happens. I think I find this passage so helpful because it captures my own wrestling. My own internal wrestling with how I approach Christ. I believe, but my faith always seems so weak. Honestly, I feel like a fraud at times. The worry, the boasting, the lack of trust, the lack of obedience. I was talking to a pastor friend of mine that I've, we've been kind of giving each other mutual encouragement, counsel for many years. And he asked me a question of the day that really took me by surprise. He said, Keith, do you feel like a yo-yo? Of course I said, well, I've kind of felt like that all my life. But what he meant is you've just had so many ups and downs. Yeah, I think that's right. I'm striving for faith, but seeing how weak my faith is. Now let me be very clear. Having walked with the Lord for 20 years, I cannot deny His love, His care, His power. There's no way I doubt in any way that Jesus Christ came, was born of a virgin, died on the cross, rose again, is at the right hand of the Father, and will come back. I am certain that those things are true. What bothers me is how little I actually trust those things to be true. What bothers is how I wrestle constantly to have myself aligned with those truths. I do believe real Christians wrestle with having real faith. The worldly way of thinking is, what I need to do is dive deep in my heart, and I need to muster up more strength. What Jesus taught in Mark 7 is, what comes from within is what makes us unclean. If we want strength, we need to look to the one who gives strength. We need to look to the one who is strong. I need to cry out, help my unbelief. I want to hang out here for a moment. I want to really wrestle with faith. And I want you to see what this man is praying is what we've sung. We started by singing, help me to sing thy praise. We need help just to sing praise. Help my unbelief. And then we had the song of assurance. Arise my soul, arise because of what Christ has done. Come thou fount another song we could have sung. Tune my heart to sing thy grace. Christians are called to regularly pursue God. Does they strengthen my faith? Really what we're asking is, align my heart with yours. Help me to see you and to trust you. A little later on in the service, before the Lord's Supper, we'll be citing the Apostles' Creed. The word creed comes from the Latin credo, which is simply I believe. If you look at that creed, there's three I believe statements. I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are a credo people. We are a believing people. We're united around the things we believe. Really everybody has a creed. Some of us write them down. Some of us just have assumptions. We all live by faith. If we think about what faith is, I wanna try to articulate it a little bit more than just humbly receiving God's revelation. I believe there's three ingredients to faith. If there were gonna be a quiz after the sermon, these three things would be on that. I believe they flesh out faith helpfully. First, faith has some understanding. It's not just some kind of mystical, I'm gonna believe in whatever's out there and take a blind leap. No, there's faith. Now sometimes it's a dark staircase and you can only see that one step in front of you, but there's an understanding of something. There's a truth. God has spoken. There's some kind of knowledge and understanding of what he said. Secondly, there's an affirmation. There's understanding of what's in front of us, and then there's an agreement. I affirm. I agree. I hear and I humbly receive. We align ourselves. This is kind of like the map device where you miss the turn and you recalculate. That agreeing, that affirming is seeking to recalculate our lives to be aligned and agree with Jesus Christ and what He said. And thirdly, there's commitment. There's walking alongside or walking behind and following what Christ has said. I believe faith means we understand what Christ has said, we affirm what Christ has said, we commit ourselves to what Christ has said. Now, that doesn't mean we don't have any questions. The psalmists invite us to ask questions. The whole point here is that we don't, none of us have this perfect faith yet, because we have not yet seen Him face to face. What it means is God has given us enough knowledge, enough revelation, enough to see who Jesus is and trust Him. I'll make it very clear that what's important about faith is that you place it on the right object. who and where you place your faith is of utmost importance. There's a popular notion out there that if you're just sincere, it's okay. Just be sincere in whatever you believe in. Let me be very clear, there's plenty of people today who are going to go to hell who are sincere in their sin. Being sincere is not sufficient. You must have sincere faith in the one who can save you. Let me try to illustrate this a little more clearly. When I was 15, we had bad weather in the South, and we had a two-hour delay, and my friends and I decided we would, well, be up to no good. We went out to a park where there was a lake that was frozen, and I was dared to run across this lake. Well, I was sincere and confident that I could run across this lake. I understood it was frozen. I understood myself to be fast and light on my feet. I affirmed that I could do so, and I committed to do so. And it was about 60 yards across. 25 yards in, I'm in the water. I then have to swim by breaking the ice. There's one point where I actually climbed up on the ice only to have it fall back down on me. Point being, I was as sincere and confident as anyone could be. But I placed my faith in the wrong foundation. I had foolish faith. This was not believing in the God who speaks truth. It was foolishness of putting my faith in myself and my surroundings. Where? With whom you place your faith makes all the difference. The weakest faith and the strongest source is salvation. This man, he's strong. He as the one who is able to do all things, even with a weak faith, he stands strong. This is why the author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12, look to Him. who is the author and finisher of your faith. If you want to grow up in the strength of your faith, if you want to grow up in the maturity of Christ, you look to Jesus. Looking inside or outside, that's actually not going to be what helps you. It's looking up to Him and into His Word. Now I want us to see this is how God has always functioned. All the Old Testament saints, they were saved by faith. They were called to faith. If you think about Noah, He heard from God, hey, I want you to build a big boat and gather all the animals. At that time, that really made no earthly sense. But he heard who was speaking, he recognized it as right and good, and he did it, and it saved his life. We're gonna get to Abraham, who was told, leave your family, which in that day was scary and dangerous. You're leaving everything that would protect and provide for you. He leaves his family trusting that God has spoken, that he will provide, that he will protect. And Abraham is a fantastic study of faith. He hears God say, I'm going to give you a child. Abraham knows his wife is barren. Abraham flees and sinned to Egypt. He tries to fulfill God's promise twice in his own work. He even laughs at God when he tells, when God reminds him of his promise. So God gave him a son and his name was Isaac, which means laughter. Abraham, he believed God. And even in the midst of these failures, we see that God kept remaining faithful to his promise. God kept reminding him of his word. And Abraham grows up to a man of faith who's willing to trust God to the point that he knows if his son is slain and slaughtered, God would be able to raise him up from the dead. We have Moses, who God calls to confront Pharaoh, the greatest king of the greatest nation. And Moses tries to get out about 10 different ways. But he knows he cannot do one thing. He cannot deny God who calls him. Joshua, hey, here's a military strategy for you. Walk around the walls, blow some trumpets, clang some cymbals, I'll have the victory. That makes no sense. Unless it's the God with whom all things are possible is speaking. We could go on and on, or we could just read Hebrews 11 and see how God has regularly called men to hear his voice, trust what he says, and even though it makes no sense in our earth, in our minds, in our sin, he says, trust me, I will provide, I'll protect. The same is true for us. We have to realize we're a faith-seeking, understanding people. We're receiving God and saying, I don't understand, but help me understand. Or God, just help my unbelief. Help me hear you clearly and to trust you so that I will obey you. Brothers and sisters, there are universal truths that must be believed by all. We are sinners. Jesus Christ has come down to die on the cross for our sins. He is risen again. He will return. We must believe in Him to be saved. And then there are truths that are unique to all of us. God calls each one of us through a different kind of trial, through a different kind of life, and we must trust Him as He speaks to us where we are. But we always have to remember, we're saying, I believe. I believe Christ is God as He speaks. And pray, God, Help my unbelief. Help me put away my fears. Help me put away my doubts. Help me put away my sin. Help me set my eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of my faith. See, our goal is to see Him truly so that our faith will be strengthened. Let me also encourage you. This is a man who's asking the right question. Will you help my unbelief? Romans 8 tells us that when we don't even know what to ask for, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. God is working constantly towards us and in us so that he will build us up to be the image of God he has called us to be. Be encouraged. Pursue Christ. Here we see a model of faith in this man. He hears Christ's Word. He receives it humbly. And yet he also says, I want to have a stronger faith. I want to believe you more. I realize there's something wrong with the way I'm not responding fully. Our third section. Jesus is worthy of our faith. Jesus is worthy of our faith. Jesus sees the crowd come running together. He rebuked the unclean spirit. He has power over the spirit. We see here that all things are possible with him. He says to it, you mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again. After crying out and convulsing him terribly, The Spirit had no option. The Spirit has no power or authority to stay when Jesus Christ says go. And it left the boy like a corpse. Most of them are saying he's dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him up, and rose. We see here the Spirit does not leave quietly. Again, the Spirit is an afflictor. He's not going to go quietly or easily. And so as Jesus is commanding him to go, he throws the boy into yet one last convulsion and then departs. And the way he departs, the boy appears dead. Maybe he is dead. If he is, it actually makes the declaration all the more powerful. All things are possible with him. He has authority over the demons. He has authority over the dead. He has power to overcome the afflictors. He has power to overcome death. Notice here, as we ask the question, Mark is always pressing us to ask, who is Jesus? First thing I wanted to see is, Jesus has compassion, as requested. The man comes to Jesus and says, will you have compassion and help us? We see Jesus has compassion. He confronts the man's doubt. He gives the man hope. And then he gives the man great clarity. I am able, demon, be gone. We have to trust that Christ has this compassion. He never turns away. His own believers. The family of God. The other children of God. He never turns His away. We even ask, Father, are You always good? Do You always treat us well? When we have these doubts, we have to ask. He did not withhold His own Son. What good thing would He hold back from us? If we want to see the compassion of Jesus, we need to look up into His Word. When we look around, we're usually conflicted, right? We see our circumstances and they're not the way we want them to be. We look inside and we see a heart that's not the way it's supposed to be. That causes confusion, that throws us into doubt. When we look up to Jesus, we look to His Word, we see the truth. He is, always has been, always will be, the good God who saves us. See His compassion. Notice here, the young man, he's just lying there dead after being thrown down and convulsed by the spirit. Jesus reaches down and touches him. He's not supposed to do that. Because the boy's unclean. It would be understood that if he touches the boy who's unclean, he only may clean, but not this Jesus. Not the one who's perfect and cleanses. He reaches down and touches him and rides him, cleansing him. He gives him new life. We also see that Jesus is powerful. The demons flee in fear. He speaks one word, and the young man is made new again. He speaks one word, and the dead come to rise. What we'll see next week, or the following sermon, the following text, He's going to predict, I will die and rise again. He's going to come, and He's going to overcome sin, the devil, and death, our enemies. Look up to Him. See He is always compassionate. See He is always powerful to help. Do not let those two lies, does He care? Can He help? Don't let those lies linger. That's letting the leaven of the Pharisees linger within your heart. Do not let those lies linger. Look up and look to His Word. If you're not a Christian this morning, We as believers, we're challenged to declare, I believe, help my unbelief. The same challenge is for you. You need to recognize your need for Him. Without Him, you're helpless. Without Him, you're going to face a God who is perfect in justice and judgment. Without Him, you're going to come before God, and your sin is going to come face-to-face with Him, and there's going to be an eternity of suffering to pay for your own sin, unless you turn to Jesus and believe. Who died on our behalf, in our place, taking the suffering we deserve so that we can be forgiven. Hear the invitation of Jesus. Come to Me. help you. Come to me and I will give you the help you need. The fourth part of our text, verse 28 and 29. After this man has come to his disciples and they've failed, he goes to Jesus who is able. We hear this fantastic teaching. All things are possible for those who believe. We hear this model of prayer. I believe, help my unbelief. We see Jesus actually conquer the demon and death with his power. And then we get this kind of insight at the end. Verse 28. And when he had entered the house, Usually when Jesus is making an intimate moment with his disciples, he's either on a mountain or a house. That's just something in Mark. He's constantly putting us there. He enters into his house with his disciples, and they ask him privately, why could we not cast it out? There's Jesus' answer. This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. We see here a strong focus on the practice of prayer. They had tried to help the boy. At least this time, the demon possessed man doesn't actually beat them up. That's happened in other times. But they failed. They could not help him. And so they want to know what's wrong. You have to pray. I believe that this goes along exactly with verse 19 when he points out the problem is faithlessness. Prayer means we're depending upon God to do what we cannot do. They must not have seen the need to look to God and say, will you help us help this young man? They're relying on their own strength is what I believe is implied. Here, if we're to take what Mark is presenting, it seems as if faith is central to our very salvation and our life, and, and prayer is the practice of faith. As one has said it, prayer is to the Christian as breathing is to living. For to live by faith and walk by faith, prayer is the battery that energizes faith. If you're stumbling, If you're easily entangled in sin, if you're growing more frustrated than faithful, I believe the remedy prescribed by the Lord and Savior right here is prayer. Prayer is how you overcome doubt. Prayer is how you overcome sin. Prayer is how you overcome an ineffectiveness in helping and healing. Faith is something that has to be practiced, and prayer is the gymnasium. If you want to grow in faith, it's gonna take prayer. And it's the most counterintuitive thing. I wanna appreciate this. When I feel like there's a lot to do, I want to create a checklist, and I wanna get to work. But we also have to realize most of the real work that needs to be done is outside of our power and ability. It requires us to get our knees and do the only thing that can really help. Let us look to the God who is able. Prayer's hard. It's hard to learn to do because it's denying ourselves. It's hard to persevere at times, but it's absolutely necessary. It takes practice, and it usually takes mentoring. In the same way, once you go out to the gym, you need somebody to help train you. We need help learning how to pray. Which is why we pray together on Sunday nights. Which is why I hope when you're with each other, you're praying together. Now oftentimes, if I'm honest, I think if we're all honest, think about what we pray for. We're praying for God to change, it's usually circumstances or other people. What we're really praying for is for God to help the one thing that we cannot fix is our own hearts. to give rest where we're weary, to give strength where we're defeated, to give healing where we're hurting, to remove all doubt? One of the most difficult things in life is to be competent as a Christian, to rely on our own strength and our own understanding. Faith turns to God and asks Him to lead us and guide us. As we conclude, two simple questions. Christian, what are you asking for in faith? What kind of healing and help do we regularly ask God for? Is it, is it a more comfortable, better life? Or is it a courageous, God will you bring a victory where it looks like there's just nothing but defeat? Well will you entangle my heart? Will you, will you, will you strengthen my soul? Will you give me a vigor so that I might love you more? What are we praying for? Are we longing to grow up in the maturity of Christ, asking God, will you help me to believe? Second, like it. What are we praying for as a church? A church is united in what we believe, we pray for. What we believe God has said and where we're going. Are we praying for healing? Are we praying that God would bring about a healing within? That we would pray that God would make us a hole within, so that when those in the world are able to come in, they don't enter into just our mess, but they enter into the healing process already taking place. We don't ever present or pretend that we're gonna get to the point where we've arrived and people are just gonna learn from us. No, they're gonna learn from us as we ourselves are walking through that healing process. I believe, help my unbelief. As we turn to Christ, we affirm all things are possible with Him. Whatever you come in burden with, He is able to help. Whatever burden you're carrying that needs healing, He is able to help. Turn to Him. I believe. Help my unbelief. Will you pray with me?