The Immovable Mountain: Unveiling God s Control Mark 9:14-29 (ESV) November 19, 2017 Pastor Josh Beakley

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1 The Immovable Mountain: Unveiling God s Control Mark 9:14-29 (ESV) November 19, 2017 Pastor Josh Beakley Our Senior Pastor, Ritch Boerckel, is away on Sabbatical. So I encourage you to continue praying for him, for a time of rest and encouragement and joy. May he be strengthened. This week we ll complete a three week series called Mission Opposition. If you ask most children in Sunday School to define their purpose in life, their mission, many will be able to answer that they exist to glorify God. His glory is His aim. It s His design for all things. And yet, it s a mission that doesn t go without opposition. Over the past few weeks, we ve seen Satan work to lure God s people into pitfalls. And somehow, instead of diminishing God s glory, they inspire Him to reveal more of it. In The Strike, we saw mission mutiny drive Moses to unleash self-righteous anger, and yet it provoked God to unveil His holiness. Last week in A Second Wind, we saw mission fatigue drag Elijah down into self-pitying anguish, and yet he provoked God to unveil His goodness. And today, we turn from mutiny and fatigue to set our sights on mission impossible. Mark 9: This is a section we will call The Immovable Mountain. 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. One of the joys of becoming a parent is revisiting your own childhood as you read your kids stories from when you were little. Cat in the Hat. Green Eggs and Ham. Very Hungry Caterpillar. Where the Wild Things Are. Go Dog Go. Goodnight Moon. One from my childhood was a tale about a small blue train. It s a petite engine chugging along, who meets a string of

2 freight cars filled with stranded toys and candy that needed to reach boys and girls waiting on the other side of the mountain. The toys pleaded for help. They were stuck. No other locomotive, whether shiny or new, old or rusty, passenger or freight, would stop to pull such cargo. But this tiny cobalt train decided that even though she d never towed such weight, nor had she been up the mountain, she would, for the sake of the children, try. So she hitched up the cars and started the climb, all the way up the hill, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can By sheer determination, she summits the peak. And all the toys cheer, Hurray! Lollipops and peppermint drops for everyone! There she was. The Little Engine That Could! It s a story that fit perfectly for those of us raised in an age of positive thinking. Now there s something to be said for the value of confidence and optimism, but for young impressionable children such as I was who don t realize their limits, they might be in for a rude awakening. My first car was a little blue Honda. It had almost 200,000 miles. It was a great vehicle for the early years, but slowly the engine showed signs of wear. She had trouble starting. She choked out some strange coughs. I worried not though, for mine was the power of positive thinking. When the engine seemed like it would give out, I just set my mind to carry the car by sheer force. I think it can, I think it can, I think it can It s a mindset I maintain to this day when the gas tank gets low and my wife s anxiety begins to rise. (Congregational Laughter!) But one day, on a small hill in San Diego, my little baby blue sedan gasped out a puff of white smoke and became the little engine that couldn t. And then a simple repair bill helped positive thinking meet cold hard reality. Limitation. It s an experience with which I m sure you can relate. There have been grades that I studied to earn, jobs I sought to land. There were teams I tried to join, personal goals I labored to attain. There were attitudes I promised to change, sins I swore to conquer, all the while repeating the mantra, I think I can, I think I can... And after not a little amount of failure, I ve made a discovery. Positive thinking is not all-powerful. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of spiritual warfare. When our religious ambitions rely solely on the power of human strength, failure is inevitable. There are some challenges in our lives, no matter how positive our thinking or diligent our efforts, we can never overcome on our own. Cosmic battles where victory without divine intervention is impossible. You see, it s one thing to go over a mountain. It s another thing entirely to make a mountain move. Everything s been building to this point. Jesus burst onto the scene preaching a message radically different than the religious teachers of His day. He was proving His control over sickness, power over demons, and authority to forgive sins. He commissions His disciples with that very same power and sends them out to do ministry among the nation, and Israel is humming. But for all the wonder of glory the disciples experienced, they continued to find themselves face to face with confusion and failure. When Jesus asks them to feed the 5,000, they stumble and they struggle. All we have is five loaves of bread and two fish! Yet Jesus somehow proves Himself able. Right afterwards, they find themselves wrestling with this storm in a boat with wind and waves against them, struggling in their own might. And all the while, nonchalantly, Jesus walks on water, almost passing them by. He was proving that He is more than able. And yet, the disciples don t seem to understand. Their hearts are hardened. Every time a new mountain appears, they seem oblivious to the fact that opposition is not incompatible with God s mission.

3 In Mark 8:22, as if almost by symbolic intention, Jesus heals a blind man in two stages, where it seems like it s so hard for him to see. And it s as if He s showing His followers the level of their cluelessness. And it seems maybe things begin to shift in Mark 8:27. Mark 8:27 30 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, Who do people say that I am? And they told him, John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets. And he asked them, But who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, You are the Christ. And strictly charged them to tell no one about him. This is a moment of clarity. Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed, the Chosen One. Jesus knows that this identity and mission have to be secret if they re to be accomplished. Jesus begins to teach them the secret that glory will be accomplished in the valley. And in verse 31 He s teaching them Mark 8:31 35 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel s will save it. The disciples again seemed to miss it. Jesus is making clear His mission to die, and the disciples seemed doomed to blindness and failure. Jesus is about to show that suffering and glory are not mutually exclusive. So right after He says this, in chapter 9, He takes His inner circle to the mountaintop. Mark 9:2 3 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. He shone with a glory, not in reflection, but as the source. Mark 9:4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Our friends, Moses and Elijah, presumably representing the Law and the Prophets. They were two men who had lived in the only other eras of many miracles. These were men who were at crucial points in history, interceding on God s people s behalf, and at times when the covenant was at stake, praying. And here they are talking to Jesus. And I wonder, what are they talking about? Well, we ll let that sit for a while. We ll revisit it later. Peter sees this happening and he says to Jesus Mark 9:5-10 And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. For he did not know what to say, for

4 they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son; listen to him. And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only. And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean. So they come down from the mountain, the special three, pondering this secret. And they reach the scene of our text today; a group of nine disciples completely halted in spiritual failure. And by verses 30-32, they re again missing Jesus mission to die. In verse 34, they re arguing amongst themselves about who is the greatest. It seems as if Jesus and His people are on two entirely different missions. His disciples want glory through greatness, while Jesus is after splendor through suffering. Could it be that heavenly glory leads away from earthly greatness? And that divine favor is achieved through what we perceive as human failure? Do you ever feel like sometimes you and God are on two different missions? Like He s undoing the life you re working so hard to build? Threatening the health you ve toiled so hard to maintain. Dividing the family you fought so diligently to unite. Removing the salary you labored so meticulously to earn. Why? Why does God allow us to fail? Why does He put us in positions where we need Him? Where we re uncomfortable? Because He s on mission for His glory. He won t let anything get in the way of our enjoying that. And He knows that we too easily settle for our own glory here and now, working towards us being the greatest. He knows we avoid situations where we might need to pray, and the few prayers we do offer are about our lives becoming better and our glory shining brighter. When we realize God s mission for His own glory doesn t seem to be in alignment with ours, then sometimes we abandon prayer altogether, deciding we ll settle for as far as our own might can take us. And so it seems, God must continue to present us with the impossible. To expose our need of Him and to save us from the snares of self-reliance. What has God asked you to do that seems impossible? What is your immovable mountain? What problems do you stay up at night trying to solve and avoid, aiming to think you can, think you can, think you can your way out of? What crisis is threatening you with failure? Perhaps God is granting us a better view of Himself. Could it be that God is using these immovable mountains to coax us out of our self-reliance, prompt us to pray, and reveal the awesomeness of His control? That s the point for today. God is in control! Would you say that with me? God is in control! We learned that He s holy. We ve seen that He s good. And today, we remember that He s in control. In Mark 9, His control may be neglected and even insulted, but such opposition makes it all the more beautiful when it s totally unveiled. This is something that can set us free from self-reliance. So what does it look like to behold God s control? How do we do that? How do we respond? Here are three ways. I. Sober Up With Discernment Discernment means wisdom, insight. It s the kind of understanding by which we grasp that our own strength is not enough. Sobriety.

5 During my early childhood years, I took gymnastics lessons. My parents thought it would improve my coordination. And at the age of six, my family made a move. It took us a couple months to find a new gym. My first day in that class, our coach walked us around the facilities for orientation. My six year old pride was insulted. I was too advanced for this kind of nonsense. I knew what the rings were and how to stretch. How could this guy not realize my already muchseasoned talent? We approached the floor and he began demonstrating how he would help us learn back-hand-springs. I knew this was beginner stuff. I d already done it. I knew what I was doing. I couldn t explain the technique, but I knew the moves I had mastered. When it was my turn, I told him I didn t need any help. I could do it on my own. So he smiled and let me try alone. I looked at my lineup of novice peers, smiled with confidence, threw myself back as hard as I could, and landed straight on my head. I almost passed out. In the blackness, I could hear everyone laughing. I got up, dizzied by a throbbing headache and welling tears. I d never been so humiliated by failure in my entire six years of life. It was the kind of shame from which I thought I would never recover. If only that had stayed my lowest point. (Congregational Laughter!) You don't need me to tell you I would enjoy plenty more opportunities to realize I had not yet learned my lesson. I lacked the discernment necessary to realize that I did not have what it took on my own. I recklessly relied on myself and the result was total embarrassment. It was the kind of shame that sobered me to my physical inability and the futility of my stubborn self-reliance. What happens when we trust ourselves? What sort of obstacles do we face that prove selfreliance to be pointless? Mark 9: We ll call this Coming Down from the Mountain. Jesus descends from the peak to the valley. From a scene of glory into a scene of suffering. From a manifestation of the power of God, to now the power of Satan. From a parent in heaven pleased, to a parent on earth tormented. From a Father calling all near to His Son to listen, to a father grieved that his son cannot even speak. Jesus and His companions descend from the heights of the transfiguration down to this valley of opposition. And they find some disciples who ve neglected God s control; doing ministry with insensitivity to God. And the result is a failed exorcism. Failure. They are disciples who have met with two obstacles that reveal the utter futility of self-reliance. They are two obstacles that would sober us up to discern our own inabilities. Obstacle # 1 Human Expectancy: The size of our appetite (9:14-15) Ministry based on self-reliance cannot satisfy the enormity of man s craving for true glory. The size of our appetite for true spiritual greatness is too expansive for any human effort to satisfy. If we fight spiritual opposition on our own, human expectations will always go unmet. And that s what happens here. The people are starving for a show of true power, and the symptoms of which are very embarrassing of the lack of power here. First, look at the shame that the disciples endure. You can see the scribal condescension their self-reliance invites. The religious leaders come with predatory scorn for them. 14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. In Jesus absence, the disciples began this fierce debate with the scribes. Up until this point, they have been silenced by the power of Jesus. But now they witness failure. And like sharks sensing

6 blood in the water, they all seize the moment of spiritual weakness and they come forward in a frenzy to exploit it. They were highlighting the disciple s shame and weakness, and mocking their lack of ability. Whatever they are arguing, they re hungry to feed on their failure. It s an embarrassing symptom of unmet expectations. Here they are with the scribes after them. It s the shame of predatory scorn. But second, after their shame, look at the suspense; the social anticipation that their self-reliance has provoked. Here you see the persistent thirst of the crowd to behold true power and true glory. 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. Here is the real deal. They were thirsty for true power. And this is an interesting twist in the plot. Usually Jesus performs the miracle and then people are amazed. Here at the very beginning, everyone is amazed. Jesus showed up. The spotlight is on Him. He s center stage. It s like when the town bully is beating up on the little kid and all of the sudden, big brother shows up and everybody s ready for a showdown. Here He is! And the crowd s greeting is immediate and it s comprehensive. It s all the crowd. The nature of their greeting was emotionally charged. They were amazed. And it was maybe even physically aggressive. They ran toward Him. This is quite an entrance for Jesus. The crowd is ready for something amazing because the disciples don t have it. There are unmet expectations from the scribes and from the crowd. You see the shame and suspense. It kind of shows the size of our appetite for something greater than man alone can produce. Obstacle # 2 Spiritual Adversity: The force of our opponent (9:16-18) If the disciples were unable to address the size of human appetite, you can be sure they were unable to handle the force of their opponent. Jesus shows up and He asks 16 And he asked them, What are you arguing about with them? There s no answer. At the shock of His presence, they all fall silent. 17 And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. A father brought his son. Luke 9:38 says it s his only child. He brought him to Jesus to be healed because the dad claimed his son was somehow possessed. And he goes on to describe the painful ways this spirit manifests its power over the boy. The force of the opponent becomes clear. This is serious spiritual adversity. This is power which the disciples had not before encountered. It was so strong in fact, that the spirit enjoys two triumphs to this point. First, you can see the intense pain he has imposed. He has oppressed this boy with sadistic cruelty. The spirit makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and

7 becomes rigid. What a terrible condition! Muteness, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, lockjaw, bodily rigidity. This is cruelty that this demon is tormenting this boy with. Why would an evil spirit be so savage? What was its design? What was he trying to do? From all we know, it seems that the purpose of demonic possession is to distort and try to destroy the image of God in man. It is to oppose God s glory and attack any way it can come forth. What a brutal thing for a father to watch his only son suffer. Here is spiritual adversity in all its cruelty. It s a temporary triumph for evil. And then after the intense pain the opponent imposes, look at the temporary gain it enjoys. Not only has it triumphed in sadistic cruelty, it also triumphs in maintaining stubborn control. When Jesus was gone, the father resorted to the followers. And he says, 18 So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able. They were unable. They were not strong enough. Now in Mark 6:7, Jesus had given them authority over spirits. And in 6:13, they cast out many demons. They had done this before. This wasn t new to them. They weren t strangers to spiritual authority and power. But something happened here that left them stumped. They lacked the strength and the demon exploited it. In this struggle, the father realized that they were unable. It s almost like an animal trainer that comes to your house to get a lion out. He s unable to tame him and comes out overpowered and a bit shaken himself. For the disciples, this is a spectacular failure. And for the demon, this is an impressive victory over the followers of Jesus, no less. Sadistic cruelty and stubborn control are tragic triumphs over the disciples inability. You see here these obstacles. What people expect, their anticipation and spiritual adversity, these are the forces their opponent would bring against them. They expose the futility of self-reliance and how pointless it is. They highlight on our own, our failure. The point is that trusting your own control is futile. It s pointless. It doesn t work. Trusting yourself doesn t work because only God is in control. Only God is fully in control! We need the kind of discernment that exposes us to our own inabilities and provokes us to sober up. Sober up to the futility of self-reliance. It s the fact that we need to learn how little control we really have. It s a lesson that is much better to learn before we re forced to face the shame and embarrassment of failure. Think of the disciple, Peter. He made not a few mistakes relying on his own wisdom and might. He opposed Jesus mission to the cross. He struck out with that sword, trying to stop Jesus from being taken away. And then even after that, he denied Him three times before the rooster crowed. That s what he did in his own strength. Talk about failure. Trusting your own control is futile. It doesn t work. But even in a failure like that, God can turn it around. And His glory may even be found in the valley. Now we re going to turn from the futility of self-reliance, to God s agony in the face of it. In verses 14-18, God s control is neglected by these disciples after He came down from the mountain. But in verses it s going to be maybe unintentionally insulted by the pathetic plea of a desperate father. What does it look like to behold God s control; to flee this pitfall of

8 self-reliance? First, we sober up with discernment. II. Cry Out in Desperation Desperation means with need and desire. Every other option has failed and we cry out because God is able. When we go to the grocery store, sometimes we get new jars of jams and sauces and those lids are on really tight. They are so tight, shockingly, that my kindergartner can t open them herself sometimes. She struggles I can t do it! I look over at her and she says, Dad, this one s pretty tough. I m not sure you can open it. And so, she keeps going for it. And she s concerned. We re not going to be able to eat dinner. Dad, just please help! So I come over there and grab the jar, and with one twist of breathtaking might, I pop it open. (Congregational Laughter!) I watch her eyes widen with awe. Dad, you are so strong! I know. (Congregational Laughter!) There s something kind of sweet about it. But there s also this twinge of slight belittlement because she thought opening peanut butter was maybe beyond the limits of my strength. (Congregational Laughter!) Because of how small she is, she doesn t have a great way of realizing how much stronger you become when you re an adult. It takes experiencing her own struggle and then watching my ease, to prove the sufficiency of her dad, who is more than able to handle the problem. Now, as much as Dad enjoys dominance over the standard kitchen variety, he has actually encountered jars before that have found the limits of his strength. But is there anything too difficult for God? Is there ever a crisis that truly challenges the sufficiency of His control? Or is He just waiting, allowing us to experience at least some of the difficulty, to grow in our understanding of the scope of His divine sufficiency, how strong He really is? Look at verses We might call this The Pathetic Plea. Here, the father makes his doubtfilled appeal to Jesus for his son. This is kind of the crux of the emotion. God s control was neglected and now here, it s even a bit insulted. And we see some responses of Christ that reveal God s agony at our self-reliance. These are responses that should move us to cry out with desperation to the only true hope that people like us of such spiritual inability actually have. Three responses of Christ: Response # 1 Exasperation: The weakness of God s people (9:19-20) It means He was pushed to the edge. This is His limit. He came down the mountain. He sees His disciples in self-reliance and the scribes and the crowd and the father, and it s just too much, almost. He s exasperated by the weakness of God s people. And here s a few expressions that highlight why He s so exhausted. Look at the rebuke that God s people provoke. 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. That letter, O! is an exclamation of deep emotion. This is an arduous lament. How long? How long? How many times do we have to keep doing this? It s hard to know who He s talking to

9 directly, but it seems as if it s including the disciples in this lament. This wouldn t be the first time that Jesus expressed disappointment with them. In Mark 8:17, they were doubting His power even after a great miracle. And Jesus said, Mark 8:17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? It doesn t seem out of line to say that everyone is included in this lament of exasperation. And second, look at the kindness that God s people enjoy. Even after the rebuke they provoked, the kindness they enjoy. Look at this expression of gracious intent in verse Bring him to me. He hasn t given up. They test His patience, but they are not beyond the healing reach of His grace. And so, here s the kindness they will enjoy. But look at the attacks that they sustain in verse 20. The demon lashes out with an expression of his own: heinous contempt. 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. The use of this word in the older times was of a violent dog tearing up a carcass. It s just thrashing the boy about in retching convulsions. Can you imagine what that s like to see? Growing up, I had a brother who had epilepsy. And I will always remember the sound of my parents cry of his name when he would fall down in seizures. It s unforgettable! And here s this demon just throwing this boy about in the sight of Jesus. He s thrashing wildly for control. So we see Jesus exasperation, but second we see His response of Response # 2 Compassion: The tenderness of God s pity (9:21-22) After the weakness of God s people, look at the tenderness of God s pity. Look at His compassion. You can see Mark s emphasis on Jesus careful attention through personal interest that He displays. 21 And Jesus asked his father, How long has this been happening to him? And he said, From childhood. Jesus cares about the real life experience. This is an invitation for the man to share his story. God s concern. It s not about the demon so much as it s about the father and the son and what he s experiencing. Careful attention. And Mark also highlights the boy s miserable affliction; the painful torment that the son has endured. 21 And he said, From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. It s been going on for a long time. It doesn t seem to be his fault. The father can tell that the spirit was not trying to hurt the boy, but to kill him. It s a shamefully public spectacle. This man

10 faced the social stigma of dishonor and the generational end of his bloodline and the very life of his son. This is torment the son endures. It s miserable affliction. And third, the father continues reacting to Jesus compassion by submitting a somewhat pessimistic request. We see his pitiful ambition. 22 But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. If you can! He appeals to Jesus kindness and he joins himself to the boy. Have compassion on us. Help us! He s in desperate need. But the appeal is conditional if you can. His faith took a blow after the disciples failure. And now this request almost becomes pitiful. He believes that Jesus is good, but he may doubt that He is God. He is confident, like some people are, that Jesus may be willing to heal, but not so certain that He is able. God s control here is unintentionally insulted. Jesus compassion is shown through careful attention, challenged by miserable affliction, and doubted through a pitiful ambition. But after His exasperation and compassion, Jesus gives the response of correction to this father. Response # 3 Correction: The readiness of God s power (9:23-24) We see the readiness of His power. It s highlighted by two exclamations. First, there is Jesus exclamation. 23 And Jesus said to him, If you can! It s a statement of shock and of surprise. If you can!? This isn t a question of ability. God s power is more than sufficient to handle this situation. It s not a problem of divine unwillingness or inability, it s human unbelief! And Jesus makes His point by giving a simple condition. 23 All things are possible for one who believes. The thing necessary here is faith. And later in Mark 11, Jesus would make a similar point. He would say Mark 11:22 24 And Jesus answered them, Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. God s power is not limited by His ability, but your access to it depends on faith. If you can! and the simple condition Christ gives. Believe! But second, look at the petition the father declares, his exclamation. He just cries, Help! 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe; help my unbelief! What an honest cry! He hears what Jesus is saying about the need for faith. But he s being stretched. His faith is mixed with doubt. He s imperfect. It s tainted by unbelief. But he

11 recognizes the problem. And he takes what little faith he has and he risks it all on Jesus. You see, the point is not so much to have power in ourselves and our own faith, even the weakest faith, but trusting in the power of God. And here, we see God s agony in our self-reliance and drawing the man out until he just casts himself into the hands of God. The point is that while trusting your own control is futile, it doesn t work, trusting God s control is always worthwhile. It s always worth it. God is always enough! He s worth trusting! So we cry out in desperation amidst all of our weakness and even with some doubt, when we re stretched beyond our own limits and wondering whether or not God can do something. The things that we re just stressed about in our lives. We plead for God s help even amidst our unbelief because God loves to prove Himself trustworthy. He loves to prove that faith is worth it. You ll never regret it no matter how scary it gets. Because even in the valley, He can bring glory. So the futility of self-reliance and God s agony in the face of it. Now we turn to His remedy. How do we respond? How do we get away from trusting in ourselves? III. Kneel Down In Dependence A few years ago, Forbes.com posted an article called The 5 Words You Can Never Speak In Customer Service. When people call asking for troubleshooting, trying to fix their electronic problems, there s a few words that you can never use. This five word phrase is off limits. It s a taboo statement. The phrase goes by the acronym DYPII. It s a five word question that is so insulting. Did You Plug It In? (Congregational Laughter!) It s the most obvious troubleshooting solution possible, right? It s so insulting to hear that. So instead, you re supposed to say something like, Maybe the wall connection is loose. Can you do me a favor and check where it plugs into the socket? A customer calling for help doesn t want to be insulted by the kind of question: Did you plug it in? And yet sometimes, that s exactly what the problem is. People just forget to plug in. They forget sometimes a lack of power is simply because they haven t made a connection. And here Jesus offers a not-so-secret-solution. This is the remedy for self-reliance. It s how we overcome independence. Look at a few reminders. Reminder # 1 Divine Power: The extent of God s sovereignty (9:25-27) His divine power moves according to clear design. Jesus saw the crowd running together. This prompts Him to perform the miracle. He doesn t want this to become a big spectacle because He s here to train His disciples to live by faith after He s gone. This is a more private ministry. And so the crowd is coming, and by clear design He s going to show His divine power. And He s going to show it by complete dominance. 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. God proves He s in charge. This is complete dominance. But the boy almost seems killed in the process. And in that moment, the father s faith is stretched to its limit. It s a terrifying moment in

12 the salvation of God. He s so near to destruction. Almost all seems lost. Except we see Jesus offering some power with calm determination. We see the special peace His power creates in verse But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. Luke says, he gave him back to his father. (Luke 9:42) This peace that Jesus brings. His divine power is so awesome! And this is just a clear reminder for us that Jesus offers physically, but then we hear a reminder verbally of God s control. Reminder # 2 Dependent Prayer: Our access to God s authority (9:28-29) Dependent prayer is the essential tool that is necessary for us to access God s strength. He exposes our need for prayer through first, our spiritual inability. Because look at verse 28. The disciples waited until they were alone in the privacy of the house. And they said, 28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out? They want to do a little ministry troubleshooting. What went wrong back there? They asked for help and Jesus shows them the necessary dependency that they should have had. He points them to this requirement they neglected. 29 And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. He said, Did you plug it in? Did you pray about it? Did anyone pray about it? They go, Oh, yeah! Prayer! You were trying to do it on your own. You needed to pray. Instead of relying on self, rely on faith. It reminds me of James 4:2. The disciple was writing to churches who were frustrated about not getting what they wanted. And he says James 4:2 3 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You re on the wrong mission. Get on mission, and then ask whatever you want and God will give it, in the name of Christ, according to the character of Jesus, the glory of God. You submit to His will, and it will happen. In the same account in Matthew 17, the disciples are asking, Why couldn t we cast it out. He said Matthew 17:20 He said to them, Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. It s faith. Even if the cord is thin, all you need is a connection to the source of power. Plug it in.

13 Pray. Trusting your own control is futile. It doesn t work. Trusting God s control is worthwhile. It s always worth it. And trusting God s control is completely essential. It s a must! You need Him. And so we pray. We kneel down in dependence. What s the problem that s worrying you today? Have you prayed about it? Have you talked to a God who cares, who wants to know? Who is maybe even permitting that opposition you re facing so that you would share it with Him. And at the end of the day, God s glory is very different than man s. Jesus is going to announce His path to the cross. The disciples are arguing about who is the greatest. They don t seem to get it. And we think back to that moment when Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah. What were these men talking about? After they had risen from the dead, they re there. They re enjoying life after death. And in Luke 9:31 we re told that they spoke of His departure, His exodus, His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Jesus mission that He was about to accomplish, is what they were so interested in. The glory. They were talking about the cross. His death and resurrection. The mission for glory accomplished in the valley. Jesus bringing an end to our suffering by absorbing God s wrath and conquering death. Is there any mountain more immovable than our sin? Jesus did what we never could, proving the only way forward would be by faith. There is no room for self-reliance at the cross. And praise God, there is no need! God, in the midst of what in the moments may feel like our biggest problems, He loves to prove Himself bigger. He is a God who always confirms that He is in control. Our prayer is that we would enjoy the mission of a God whose vision for glory is accomplished in the mess of valley. He s a God before whom no mountain could ever stand immovable. And though our series is now complete, we are confident that the mission before us remains to be continued, because the best is yet to come.