Sermon for 091524
Text: Mark 9:14-29
Theme: Our able Savior
In the Name of the Father…Amen.
The Gospel lesson serves as our sermon text for this morning.
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God the heavenly Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Mark 9:17–18, 29 (NASB95)
17 And one of the crowd answered [Jesus], “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; 18 and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.”29 And [Jesus] said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
Lord God, You are able more than able To accomplish what concerns me today You are able more than able To handle anything that comes my way You are able more than able To do much more than I could ever dream Lord God, You are able more than able To make me what You want me to be. Amen.
Introduction
Mark 9:18 (NASB95)
18 and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.” The disciples were not up to the job. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, that is a doubt that has plagued us all a number of times over throughout the trials of our lives. Why? Because there are times for all of us that it is simply true. There are things that no matter how hard we try and try again, we simply cannot do. For example: Moving the altar. Ok, let’s try something smaller: how about the baptismal font? Better yet: climbing up the steeple to repair the cross? I know, let me lead by example, right?
Like the disciples, there is much we are unable to do. No, the disciples were not up to the job. They had tried to help the poor father and his helpless son, but they could not. Your heart has to go out to this poor dad! How awful it must have been to watch his poor dear boy being thrown on the ground, foaming at the mouth like that of a dog until he went rigid as if he were dead. It’s bad enough when our children are sick, but to know that it’s a spirit throwing your kid about—how horrible that must have been! You can hear the heartbreaking anguish in the man’s voice as he appeals to Jesus. You can feel it in your heart.
Without question, the disciples would have been moved by the father’s appeal when he first came to them. Without doubt, they had tried and tried again, but nothing had happened. How hard it must have been for the disciples to face this father and crowd desperately looking to them for help and face the fact that they were not able to do anything. It’s not like they hadn’t done it before. The Gospel record is very clear that Christ’s disciples cast out demons in his name while He was with them and after He ascended into heaven. But this time they were not able. That is simply the way that God works sometimes to teach us and deepen us in the truth.
Yes, that’s the way it works sometimes. Sometimes we are not able, even if we were able before or at another time. Some may object here that the boy was obviously suffering from some form of epilepsy—that the disciples were wrongly treating him as if he were possessed by a demon—and that’s why their exorcism didn’t work. But the Lord Jesus makes it clear that even if it was epilepsy, an unclean spirit was clearly behind it. Jesus casts out the demon and frees the boy from its power.
This is one of those places in Scripture, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. where it’s made clear for us that no matter what trouble there is in this world:whether it’s a sickness of the body, mind, spirit, or souldestructive weather like tornadoes, hurricanes, and drought, or even global pandemics, you can be certain the devil and his crew are at the root of all of it. Just because we can explain it by biology, climate science, or other means of understanding the world in which we live doesn’t mean there’s not some evil spiritual force at work. The thought may frighten some or cause them to raise their eyebrows, but it shouldn’t for us, dearly loved by God. We know there is a real spiritual world and that Jesus is the Lord over it all, both good and bad.
For God sometimes leaves us unable in order to turn us from ourselves to faith in Christ.
The problem was not a misdiagnosis on the disciples’ part. Their problem was the same as the poor father’s when he stood before Jesus and said,:Mark 9:22 (NASB95)22 “It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”It was a problem of faith. As shocking as it may be to hear someone saying “If you can” to Jesus, it is understandable, given that His followers had just failed to help the man and his boy. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last that the failures of Jesus’ followers would reflect on the Lord. Yes, there’s plenty of that going on, even in our day and age, isn’t there? And while you and I may never actually say “If you can” to the Lord out loud, we certainly live it out when we allow the troubles and trials that we face in this world to weigh us down and rob us of our peace and joy, as if we didn’t have a Lord and Savior in Jesus who can do all things.
Yes, the Lord’s good purpose in allowing us to face times when we are not able is to strengthen and deepen our faith in Him who is able—in Jesus. The Lord reveals this to the disciples when he answers their question about why they couldn’t cast the spirit out, and he says:Mark 9:29 (NASB95)29 And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”To be very clear here, Jesus is not telling the disciples that they needed to add something else to all their own efforts to make the exorcism work. Instead, He is in fact telling them to let their efforts go and cast themselves completely on the Lord and His strength. What the Lord showed them in all of this was that they were in fact not able, but that He was able to do all things through them.
But Christ most certainly can deal with everything in this sin-troubled world.This is about faith, as Jesus himself says to the boy’s father:
Mark 9:23 (NASB95)
23 And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Faith or believing, however, we have to understand, does not find its power in of itself. No, the power is always in faith’s object and faith’s object alone, in Jesus. The trust of my heart does not accomplish anything; it’s Jesus, in whom my heart trusts, who does it all. The Lord is not telling His disciples that if they commit their minds and hearts to something and then pray a whole lot about it, it will happen. No, what He is telling them to let it all go and leave it in His hands, in the truth that He is able, even when they are not.
The trouble with weak or little faith isn’t that I don’t trust Jesus, that I’m not able, or that I’m not up to the job, but the very fact that I don’t trust Jesus, that I think that He’s not able, that I think He’s not up to the job. With a weak faith, I trust in the wrong person (myself or somebody other than Christ) and in the wrong thing (my own strength). I believe! Help my unbelief!As the Lord in mercy helps the father and delivers his poor boy before our eyes in the Gospel today, He is at work to deepen and strengthen us in the truth that He is more than able to deal with anything and everything that we face in this sin-troubled world. He is at work to strengthen and grow the weak faith that lives in each of our poor sinful hearts by drawing our eyes away from ourselves and what we are not able to do to Him who can do and has done all things well.Summary statement: Christ Most Certainly Can Do What We Are Entirely Unable to Do.
Conclusion
We reflect on what Jesus says in verse 29 of our text this morning, which declares: Mark 9:29 And [Jesus] said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” What is the Lord saying here? The Lord’s direction for us is that this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer should not be taken as turning us to something within ourselves to solve the problem but rather as a direction to turn the problem over to Him. The call to prayer is a call not to a human work but rather to an empty-handed looking to the Lord to do what He alone can do. We do not accomplish anything through our prayers, but God does great things through them.Prayer is not so much an act on our part as much as it is a total letting go on our part. The Lord’s direction for us to pray is a call to turn to the Lord beforehand so that we may approach things not in our own strength but only vested in His power.
Christ furthers the work of His Word at the altar this morning as He comes to us in His body and blood, directing our eyes and hearts to the cross, where He won an eternal victory over sin, death, and hell for us with His bitter sufferings and death. Look on Him sweating in agony there, trying and trying for you until it was all finished. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, there is nothing undone lying at the foot of the cross.What we were not able to do He has accomplished. It is finished. Christ has done it all for you. He is more than able to take care of all things for you. Look upon the wounds in His hands and feet and His side today as He comes to you in His body and blood, and leave all your fears, worries, and cares in His most able and capable hands. Amen.
Let us pray:I hear the Savior say, “Thy strength indeed is small; Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all.”Refrain: Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.
For nothing good have I Whereby Thy grace to claim; I’ll wash my garments white In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb. Refrain: Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Amen.
2 Corinthians 13:14 (NASB95)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
All of us are waiting and none of us will be disappointed. Amen.
The Lord continue to bless us, shine His face on us, be gracious to us, that He lift His countenance upon us, and give us His peace. Amen.
In the Name of the Father…Amen.