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Sep 29, 2024

The Power of Faith

Passage: Mark 9:14-29

Preacher: Jess Achenbach

Series: Gospel of Mark

Category: New Testament

Keywords: faith, hope, works, word, belief, sovereignty, believe, nathan

Summary:

Two aspects of Faith. Saving faith (Salvation) and Growing faith (Sanctification) Christ calls us to know Him better, to grow our faith through spiritual disciplines (primarily through reading the word) and good works.

Detail:

John is out of town this week and I have the privilege of bringing the word to you this morning.

Last week, Andrew talked about the Transfiguration, how many of you guys were enlightened by that message?  Very interesting, it was about putting on spiritual glasses and the idea that the spiritual world is unseen right and the theme of being unseen is going to carry over into today's message a bit.  I want to just tell you that the message topic today is too big.  You can see by the bulletin here it says “the power of faith”  It's just like – well, read the Bible and there you go.  It is a big topic but I want to dive

in a little bit because there's some things that I think that I discovered this week about faith and I hope to share them with you and maybe you guys can get some clarity a little bit on Faith and Hope and Trust, Confidence and Belief. What do these different words mean and how we apply them to our life so I'm going to pray right now that the Holy Spirit would come in to this place here and fill me so that I could speak truth to you through the word.

This morning Father thank you that you've given us your word, that you've given us faith, that you have given us a path for our life that you have a calling for each one of us.  Also, that we get to have

this hope of the glory to come, so Lord, as we look into your word we ask that you would open our eyes help us to hear your words from what you've written down in your scripture that we could understand it and then most importantly Father we'd be able to apply it to our lives so that we would leave here not just having heard something and then letting it go but to understand it and apply it and have change in our life.  We pray Father for your word to go forth, in Jesus name, Amen.

I titled this message the power of faith and the healing of the demon-possessed boy, so I'm just going to start by reading the passage and this is Mark 9.  If you have your Bible, it's Mark 9 and we're starting in verse 14 and going through verse 29.

So and when they came to the disciples (again keep in mind they've just come off the Mount of transfiguration Jesus has told Peter James and John the disciples who were with him “hey don't tell anyone about this keep it quiet until after I come

back from the dead” and they're what does that mean but they they're keeping it quiet and so they come down off the mountain and here's what they find) 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 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.  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 around foaming at the mouth, and Jesus asked the father how long has this been happening to him. And he said from childhood and it has often cast him into the fire and into water to destroy him but 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 and said to it 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.  (Some passages add prayer and fasting)

There's a lot to unpack in this In this passage here but it's primarily about faith hope and belief. What we see here is usually backwards from the way that it normally happens.  Typically the Greek is more expressive than English, like the word love in English is love so what you feel for someone. But in Greek we've got all these different specific words to describe different kinds of love, the language is much more rich in how we are able to understand the intent of the author.

Well in this case in the Greek, faith and belief can be almost synonymous whereas in English we kind of have a different mindset about belief and faith. Belief is like kind of the head knowledge that we have about something and Faith is the action that comes out of the head knowledge. That's kind of like the Nuance that we have in English but really in scripture faith and belief they're really tied closely together.

 

In this section, Jesus is coming off of the mountain and he comes down to be greeted by a sea of people, and the word that Mark uses (Mark is only one to use this word) is a powerful descriptor word that shows how excited they were, almost as if it were a famous rock star status, imagine that they always wanted to meet and he's coming in- everyone's “rushing the stage”  to see Jesus.

These people had all come to where the disciples were at, hoping to see the rabbi Jesus, hoping to find their Master, but he wasn't there he was up on the mountain.  

 

Jesus comes to them and the scribes and the Pharisees had been arguing with the disciples and he says what's going on?

 

Do you notice the disciples don't answer?  I can just picture them - they're oh man what's going on here the scribes don't say anything and neither do they until finally someone from the crowd says. I brought my son here to be healed but your disciples couldn't do it.

 

What is Jesus’ response? Oh you faithless generation, how long am I going to be with you?  How long am I going to bear with you?

 

Jesus had to been frustrated at this point.  For clarity sake I want to go back in the Book of Mark and I am going to show some of the verses that talk about faith as well as his experience with his Disciples.

 

Mark 3:13-15 13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve[a] that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons.

Mark 4: 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

So in chapter four they're still lacking Faith.

 

Mark 5 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

This is the rare surprise of abundant faith.

Mark 6 (Visiting His hometown) 36 Overhearing[c] what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Here we're seeing Jesus getting frustrated because people are lacking Faith

 

Mark 6:6-7; 12 Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.

12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

 

Twice now they've been successful at going out and casting out demons let's go on to Mark 7 oh there's

more of Mark 6:

Mark 6:49-52 (but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50 because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 51 Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52 for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.  So lacking faith again, their hearts were hardened.

 

We have two in Mark 7: Mark 7:17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?

Mark 7 Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 51 Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52 for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.

Lastly we see in Mark 817 (“Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”

Again in this last passage, their hearts are hardened, they can’t fully understand or believe Jesus and so their hearts are hardened.

We fast forward to our current passage and we see that Jesus was disappointed because they did not have faith enough to cast out this demon but at least they were arguing with the Pharisees about it.

With his query to the disappointing disciples out of the way, he turns to the demon possessed boys father and asks what is going on? What is wrong with your boy and so the father begins to tell him about really what modern day science we would probably call Epilepsy right?  

It seems like he's having like a Grand Mall seizure he's going down he's shaking, his he's foaming at the mouth. what's different is, someone with just epilepsy isn't going to be intentionally thrown into fire when he goes near it or near water necessarily.  This demon had been trying to destroy this child.  When Jesus asked him well how long this had been occurring, the answer was “since childhood”.

There was probably a lot of frustration on the part of the father having had some hope he's going to bring bring his son to the great healer for rescue.  Clearly he's heard about this Jesus through some channel.  The disciples had gone through the whole of the country preaching and healing people as Jesus had been as well and people had had their demons cast out, so this father has a hope. He's saying “oh man I'm going to come and I'm going to bring my son and he's going to be healed”.  However when he comes the disciples are not able to do anything and Jesus isn’t around, and he's let down.

This desperate father asks Jesus “If you can do anything for us would you please have compassion on us and help us.”  Jesus's reaction is like “if I can?”

 

I want to pause here because this is a verse that can be taken out of context and abused.  It has been abused and I have witnessed it.

 

We understand there is a kind of hesitancy on the fathers part. He'd heard that healings had been happening, and so he brought his boy to the disciples and there had been no healing.  His child hadn't been saved but now he asked the master if, if you can would you would you heal my son and what does Jesus say if you have well let me read it because I don't want to take it out of context either.

Mark 9 verse 23 “all things are possible for one who believes wow so has anyone ever heard this verse used out of context because I sure have.

 

Andrew had preached a message I think it's probably a couple years ago now on John 15:7 and if anyone was here and knows the song you can sing it with me “John 15, John 15:7 if you remain in me and I remain in you ask whatever you wish it will be given to you John 15.

 

What does the verse say? Jesus saying hey if I'm going to be in you and you're going to be in me you just ask whatever you want if you have enough Faith right and you're going to get what you want and people have taken these types of verses out of context and I would encourage you to listen to that message. It really talks about anything is possible inside of the will of God it's not just I feel like I'm going to walk through that wall and I can believe as much as I want in my head and I get a running start there better be an ambulance nearby I'm a big boy that's going to hurt.  No it is whatever is inside the will of the Father where our faith has the opportunity to see miraculous change.

 

There is a reason why I take offense when people abuse these types of verses. I had a cousin that was hit by a car his oldest child was 10 he had five boys. His wife really embraced the the concept that sometimes gets misrepresented here.  That if we just have enough Faith he's going to be healed and they proclaimed all these verses over him they paid Benny Hinn to come in I mean it was like they spent thousands and thousands of dollars to have him seen by these charlatan preachers.  They believed that he was going to be be healed and they proclaimed it he is already healed.  By his stripes you were healed and so when he died five years into it can you imagine those five boys' Faith being shaken.   These are some of the reasons why it's important for us to understand what this faith isn't.

 

This concept that that we have enough Faith but rather to have enough Faith inside the will of God to do what God has called us to do and how is that? How do we know what that is? 

This is one of the primary points today.  It’s that we are informed through scripture, that's what it comes to.

 

We're going to see in just a minute all about faith so I have a couple questions for us.

 

What is Faith?   Anyone can answer this,  what is Faith?  It is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of Things Not Seen.

Hoped for! Hope is a key component of Faith, so let’s ask these three questions:

What is Faith

Where does it come from

and once you have it, how do you grow it?

 

Hebrew 11:1 Faith is the Assurance of things hoped for and convictions of Things Not Seen. Look at the next chapter later in Hebrews 12 it says: “therefore since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us oh man we're talking about running this race with perseverance looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfector of our faith “.

2 Peter 1:1 it says that you have been given an allotment of Faith Ephesians 2:8-9 for it is by Grace you've been saved (what is Grace? it's unearned Merit) for by Grace you have been saved how through faith.

 

We have this faith that the grace of God is going to cover our sin. so for by Grace you've been saved through faith this is not of yourselves this is not a but it's a gift of God why? so that no one can say they've earned their salvation.

Essentially this faith that we originally have is a gift but I want to clarify something about faith.

We have kind of two aspects of faith I want to say there are two different types of Faith but they maybe same coin different sides.

We have a saving faith and that's what the father is looking for he is coming and asking Jesus to save his son.

This saving faith is what we experience when we receive Christ isn't it? Then there's something more where we are called to grow our faith Paul says in Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3 1-3 Why are you guys still

drinking spiritual milk you should be on steak now?

Have you guys heard of the carnivore diet that's what you should be on right? It should be not that you're just drinking spiritual milk because you have not grown your faith so there's this other side of faith, one is the saving faith that we get when we receive Christ as our savior and the second one is after we're a Believer we continue and we grow deeper in Christ.

 

It's important because you will experience doubt when it comes to your faith. You will start to doubt at some point in your life, you're going to experience a trial you're going to experience something horrible, maybe your house gets broken into and now you go back and you're feeling “oh man is this place safe or not”? Everyone has a different type of trial but you will experience something

 

For some that's going to make you press deeper into Christ, and if you've been growing your faith you've been obedient you've been following those spiritual disciplines you're going to have the foundation on which your

faith can grow stronger. We compare that response to others that will be running away from God when trial comes.

That is what do we tend to do if we haven't grown our faith.  It's easy to start doubting even harder the difference between faith and belief to get back to my other point was you know in James 1 uh 2:19 it says you

believe that there is a God good even the demons believe and shudder.

You can have believe in God, you can have understanding something is true, but placing your faith in that truth is

really where it's at, and so that's that saving faith that we talked about.

 

I'm going to kind of skip a couple things here because I had an interesting last couple weeks so I was asked to do a funeral for a gentleman who had died.  He was an elderly man and he was a Believer, he was a a rough and tough

cowboy and everyone there said man he was one of the best neighbors you know - this is a guy that really loved his neighbors and when talking with his daughters  one explained how she was able to witness when she was a young girl a pastor had come out from this town of Missoula (they're from Montana) and their father had gotten down on his knees and he had began weeping and he gave his life to Christ!

 

How cool as a as a young daughter to be able to witness that saving Faith?  He recognized that he in himself wasn't enough, that he was sinful and he needed God to cover his sin, and so he began to live his life.

But he lived his life like this (hand motion in a strait line)  he didn't didn't really grow his faith he was one of those people that he he'd experienced the saving knowledge of Christ.  He'd asked God to save him and cover his sin but he didn't do the spiritual disciplines that God has called us to.  He wasn't growing in his faith and so, just kind of stagnated.  His family still had when he had passed away- they had a hope even though he had in many ways stumbled through life spiritually.  Let's face it, all of us have things in our lives every single one of us has an issue where we are not following the Lord in some aspect. What's yours? When we went to do he funeral there was an element of rejoicing because now even though he had had some habits some hurts whatever in his life he was free! Praise God he was free from the struggles of this Earth, from the doubts.

 

I Was preparing the message for this (that was on Sunday) on Wednesday I was talking with a friend

and I said “man I haven’t seen you guys around what's going on” he said by the way this friend of

mine is a extremely liberal “woke” type. He retired at age 57 and her replied that their daughter had gotten a new car in May (and she was it's not in Spokane but it's a different state) and she was driving through these curves and we're not sure if she lost control or what but she went off in the perfect spot and her car went down in the

reservoir she had two dogs with her and they were buckled in when they found her body. She was unbuckled and she'd had one of the dogs unbuckled but she drowned trying to save her animals.

 

The difference between having no hope, no faith, was like all the air had been sucked out of the room as I was talking to him.   I felt just you have no hope and so now they've completely disassociated themselves from all their family, he even said please don't say anything to my wife she doesn't want anyone to know.

 

Hope is real and faith is real and when you have that hope in the saving faith can mean everything to a family.

So that happened Wednesday night. Thursday morning I was sitting right here and John was in DC to do the prayer and so he asked me to come cover the Thursday morning prayer meeting.  I came and there was just a couple guys here and there's a gentleman that attends here. Who knows Dave and Becky Lott?  (Dave was instrumental and

remodeling the upstairs here) Dave made a comment he said you know our son would have been 50 this year

Dave went on to share about his son who when he was 21 years old, overdosed from heroin and then he told me a story (and if you were at the pastor’s dessert I apologize because I told this there)

Their their son had rebelled and he wasn't a believer.  He had left the house and he was out on the street couch surfing, and he'd become a heroin addict.

As a family they were going through the Old Testament book of Samuel in their devotions, and in the book of Samuel, David has an affair with a woman named Bathsheeba. God sends the prophet Nathan down to confront David and what does he say?  “you are that man” and David's response is contrition.  This inspires them to pray to the Father “we need a Nathan, send a prophet to confront our son” And they began praying this prayer but it wasn't long until they got the news that their son's dead body had been found in a park in Seattle.

 

They didn’t have that hope of a saving faith for their child, and they were in depression.  A couple weeks went by and they got a phone call from a young man who told them that he used to party with their son Mark.

He explained that he had gotten saved himself and several months ago  Mark came up to him at Riverfront Park and as he was leaving he noticed that Mark  was crying and so he went after him. He shared that he knew someone who can help Mark. But  Mark said I'm not interested, I've done rehab it doesn't work and this kid says no it's Jesus but Mark responded that he was not ready to give up some things.

Long story short, Mark had gone on a road trip to Texas and when he was down there they'd lost their keys in the dash somehow they ended up having to take the steering wheel off in the dash and they got the keys and as

they're driving home to Spokane it's dark and there's two semis he's trying to pass and another semi

comes over the hill towards him. He realizes I don't have time to make it so he steps on his brakes to go back in behind the the first semi but that last semi there had stepped on his brakes to give him room and so he went to turn in between the two trucks.  When he did,  the steering wheel came off in his hands! Here he is, headed towards a semi with no steering wheel. Jesus Take the Wheel right? And just then the car veered on its own between the two semis and went out to a field where it came safely to a stop. When he got back to Spokane he called his party friend from Riverfront and he said hey I want to talk to you about Jesus and Mark ended up giving his life to the Lord

God had brought a Nathan into their son's life and of course his name was Nathan.  Dave finishing telling the story and he said yeah the last I knew 20 years ago he was a youth pastorup in Chewelah,  and I said you mean Nate Rhodes?   I pray with him on a regular basis!!!  What a small world we live in and how God uses stories like this to encourage and grow our faith.

When it comes to Faith I feel like we have three examples. You see we have the gentleman who gave his life and had a saving faith and never grew it.

We have someone who never had faith and will never experience and likely neither will her parents unless God

Intervenes.

Second we have the young man who did even though his parents didn't know it and now they still have a hope but on top of that we have another person in the story his name is Nathan.  Nathan has gone through his own trials and today you might be wondering why we have a bathtub up here?  It is for baptism you see, in the second service Dave and Becky Lott  the parents of Mark are going to be here and you know who else is going to be here? Nathan is coming, but Nathan's not coming alone because Nathan has been obedient, he has been growing his faith, in fact when I asked him to come for the service he said well I'm working with this guy right now and he's in recovery and his wife's a Believer but they're separated and their 12-year-old son wants to get baptized and there's a baptism every Sunday up at REAL LIFE and so we were just going to go up there and

get him baptized.  Would you guys be able to do a baptism if I bring him along?  I said “bring him”! That's why second service we're going to have a baptism and what an amazing picture of three situations of faith,

because when we get into this idea of growing our faith which God has called us to and so how do we grow our faith? it's to be in the Word. Faith comes through the word it says comes through the hearing of the word and I had so many references but since I decided not to preach for my notes today we're not going to hear them but I realized that this message is really too big for one service there's so many aspects to Faith but I wanted you to understand this part this morning.

God has called each one of us to a deeper level of faith and if you're not a Believer he's calling you to Faith he's calling you for Saving Grace. I think this body of Believers here, probably most of us are saved we've all heard the word so my question to you is what is your next step? How are you going to grow your faith, because if you don't take that step I you know what's going to happen!

 

There's one verse I wanted to read and it is here it's about works.  While works do not give us salvation, (for by Grace you to say through faith this is not of yourselves it's not by works so that no one can boast) but as James tells us,  works prove out that we actually do have a saving Faith. You don’t really see one without the other.  Here is the verse that outlines it:

 

Colossians 3:11-1511 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

The message this morning is that Faith is an action word! You need to be practicing your spiritual disciplines so are you doing that?  Are you actually practicing spiritual disciplines and what does that mean?   Jesus disciples couldn't cast out that demon without what? Prayer! Jesus said he was talking to the father this is something that is he's

called us all to something much deeper and greater than just the saving Faith. He’s called us to good works and beyond in order for there to be a faith to grow.

 

So be encouraged this week,  be in the word because the number one way why by which your faith grows is to be in the word.

Let's pray shall we?

 

Father in Heaven thank you for your word thank you for the gift of faith that we being given and we ask that your Holy Spirit would prompt us this week as we go forward to be obedient to be in your word to spend time in prayer and to look for good works that we can accomplish For Your Glory in Jesus name amen!

 

One way that you can grow your faith how hey you might not have $25 but you know what I would encourage you even if you don't have those funds I would step out in faith and say God I'm going to take that $25 or $50 one to say I'm going to see how God provides the 50 or the 25 for that, and if it doesn't happen no big deal but why don't you try it out see if God has a bigger plan for your life.  Also there is prayer time offered up here too by the way. Naomi, Jordan and Owen are facilitating that so you get three this morning.

May God bless you may he send his holy spirit to encourage you this week to be in his Word.

Go in peace.