Praying For Faith and Faith For Praying

[0:00] Well, if you have a Bible, please turn it to Mark chapter 9.

[0:19] ! 14 to 29.

[0:46] Thank you. Cheers. Lord, as we open your words, please would you speak to us, would you impress upon our hearts what you want us to know, to hear, to do.

[1:08] Please would you open our hearts and minds. Please would you help us in our doubts and unbelief. Please would you help us to hear and speak to us through your Spirit and through your Word for the glory of your Son.

[1:28] Amen. Mark 9 from verse 14. And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and the scribes arguing with them.

[1:44] 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?

[1:57] 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, becomes rigid.

[2:13] So I asked your disciples to cast it out. And they were not able. And he answered them, all faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?

[2:28] 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.

[2:41] And he fell to the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood.

[2:55] 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. And Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.

[3:13] Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief. And when Jesus saw that the 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.

[3:34] And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out. And the boy was like a corpse. So that the most of them said, he is dead.

[3:45] 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?

[4:00] And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Amen.

[4:10] This is God's word. We pray he blesses the reading of it. Well, I want to ask a question. How is your faith this morning?

[4:24] I've got a little slide to show you here, if we can get it working. But how is your faith this morning? D.L. Moody spoke of three kinds of faith.

[4:38] There is struggling faith, like a man in deep water desperately swimming, trying to keep afloat. Then there is clinging faith, like a man hanging to the side of the boat.

[4:52] And there is resting faith, like a man safely within the boat, free from struggle and stress, and perhaps able to reach out and help someone else get in.

[5:04] Three kinds of faith. Struggling faith, like you're treading water. Clinging faith, like you're clinging to the boat. And resting faith, like you're in the boat. I wonder which one you feel like this morning.

[5:21] Perhaps all three are represented in this room. No doubt if you've been following Jesus for some time, you will have experienced all three of these kinds of faith.

[5:36] And so, in relation to this passage, how do we understand what's going on in this passage? What's the main thing?

[5:46] In the story of Mark, why is this story here? If we took this story out of Mark's gospel, what would be missing? What would be missing from Mark's gospel if we didn't have this story?

[6:04] What is the point to this? And so, let me say, first thing to help us, first point, when we consider what kind of faith we have, it's a story about faith.

[6:14] And so, the first point is, let's not presume that our faith is greater than it is. Let's never presume that our faith is greater than it is.

[6:25] One thing that we learn from this passage is that among the many people described in the scene, there were nine disciples of Jesus who thought that they were safe and sound in the boat.

[6:36] They thought, to use that illustration, they thought, we're in the boat, that's where our faith is. We're not treading water, we're not clinging. We're the disciples. Our faith is like that of the man in the boat, reaching out to help others.

[6:52] They thought they had everything they needed to reach out and help others. They perhaps viewed themselves as being in the best position in the crowd of people.

[7:04] They perhaps viewed themselves, the nine disciples. So, remember, Peter, James, and John have been up the mountain with Jesus during his transfiguration, and they come down and they find the nine other disciples among this crowd of people, and the nine disciples perhaps thought they had the most faith in that crowd.

[7:28] Yet, being presumptuous about your faith will often lead to failure and disappointment. To use Moody's illustration, the disciples, they did reach out to help, but they didn't reach out in faith.

[7:41] It seems they perhaps relied too much on their own ability. Now, it's interesting because back in chapter 6 of Mark, these disciples were given the authority to cast out demons.

[7:56] Jesus gave them authority, and they were sent out to do that very thing. And yet, out of nine disciples, not even one of them could cast out this demon.

[8:07] Why? Why is that so? Well, according to our passage, firstly, look at Jesus' response in verse 19.

[8:19] Jesus says, Oh, faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Jesus says, well, bring them to me.

[8:30] I can do something about it. Secondly, when the disciples ask in verse 28, Jesus replies in verse 29, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

[8:43] And so, we've got something about faith. He didn't say, oh, prayerless generation. He said, faithless generation. But he said, this cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

[8:54] What does he mean? Which one is it? Is it faith or is it prayer? Thirdly, in Matthew 17, Matthew describes the very same situation, and yet Jesus seemingly gives a different answer.

[9:06] In Matthew 17, verse 20, Jesus says, The reason why you couldn't cast them out is 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.

[9:27] And fourthly, Jesus also said to the man, in Mark 9, verse 23, he said, All things are possible for the one who believes.

[9:41] Now, notice that Jesus didn't say, All things are possible for me. Of course, that would have been true. All things are possible for Jesus. But the inference here, when he says all things are possible for the one who believes, the inference is, the disciples didn't believe.

[10:01] They didn't believe. They were uniquely given authority by Jesus to do this, but somehow, they didn't rely on where that authority came from. Perhaps they began to think that this ability to cast out demons was their own ability, and not a delegated authority.

[10:19] Jesus would later tell them it was because of their little faith. Yet on the other hand, there's something about prayer. So, let me ask you a question. Which one is it? Is it prayer, or is it faith?

[10:31] Why could they not cast out this demon? Well, I'm sure you would probably agree, if you've spent much time wrestling with prayer, and wrestling with faith, that these things are one and the same.

[10:46] If there is true faith, there will be true prayer. And where there is true prayer, there is true faith. Both of these things are a dependence on God.

[11:00] And so, as the title says, let us be praying for faith, that we would have faith for praying. I thought this was quite clever.

[11:13] It's a palindrome. It's the same forward as it is backward. Praying for faith, and faith for praying. Anyway, that's about as clever as I can get. But they're one and the same. Faith and prayer go hand in hand.

[11:25] You can't have one without the other. You can't have one without the other, because both are an expression of dependence on God. And it seems that the disciples, in some way, in their attempts to cast out this demon, they did not truly depend on God, and they did not seek God for help.

[11:44] And this expressed itself both in a lack of faith, and a lack of some kind of appeal to God for help. Some, some form of appeal.

[11:55] Do you remember, we've been going through Mark's gospel, and you've been going through the gospels for many years, but you notice that very often when Jesus does something, like feeding the 5,000, what does he do?

[12:07] He looks up to heaven. He looks to his Father. He depends on his Father. I mean, he is the Son of God. He can do whatever he wants, but he is always relying on his Father.

[12:19] And Jesus has been trying to give this example to his disciples. Come on. In some way, they should have appealed to God. They shouldn't have been presumptuous about how much faith they had.

[12:31] And so, perhaps they relied on these past successes they had. When Jesus first sent them out in Mark chapter 6 and gave them authority to cast out demons and said, on you go.

[12:45] Perhaps now, in front of this desperate father, they're relying on their past successes. How often do we do that in life? We rely on yesterday's faith.

[12:56] We rely on yesterday's grace. You know, through the Exodus, when they had to gather manna, God says, no, you can't keep some left over for tomorrow.

[13:09] No, his mercy has to be new every single day. You need to gather the bread every day. Give us this day our daily bread. Why?

[13:21] It might not be necessarily because there's a lack of bread, but it might actually be something to do with teaching us to rely on God every single day. And I need to hear that.

[13:32] I don't know about you, but I need to hear that. The disciples needed to hear that, relying on yesterday's success. Perhaps they began to see this authority that Jesus gave them as their own.

[13:46] Well, we're the apostles. We're the ones with authority here. In Garland's commentary, he quotes a chap called Christopher Marshall saying, presumably, they had come to regard their power to heal and exercise as their own autonomous possession rather than being a commission from Jesus to realize his delegated authority afresh each time through prayer.

[14:15] Mark is suggesting that self-confident optimism might feel like faith, but it's actually unbelief because it disregards the prerequisite of human powerlessness and prayerful dependence on God.

[14:32] You see that? Self-confident optimism might feel like faith, but it's actually unbelief because it disregards this need to recognize our powerlessness and our prayerful dependence on God.

[14:46] And so Garland goes on to say this, and maybe we can relate with the disciples. Garland says, only when the disciples are caught up short do they learn that they do not possess anything.

[15:00] they don't possess anything. And they only realize it when they're caught up short. You ever been caught up short? This is something we all need to be reminded of as we follow Jesus.

[15:15] We can do nothing on our own. Jesus said in John 15, Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

[15:33] I am the vine. You're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing.

[15:44] Nothing. Now what does it mean to abide? To stay connected to the vine. Stay connected. David, we were speaking about this a couple of weeks ago.

[15:56] Yeah, the branch cannot do anything to produce fruit by itself. If you cut a branch off the tree, it's not going to lie on the ground and keep producing fruit. Just stay connected to the vine.

[16:08] Depend on the vine. Always be receiving from the vine. depend on it for everything that you need. Throughout the gospels, we see many times the disciples are often hopelessly helpless when Jesus is away.

[16:26] And even at times when he's present, they often fumble and fall when they rely on their own strength. Faith is a trust and dependence on Jesus. And so let second point, let doubts and failure lead you to faith and prayer.

[16:43] Because we will doubt at times and we will fail at times, but let your doubts and failure lead you to faith and prayer. We can all have doubts.

[16:53] We can all fail at times. Hendrickson says, the disciples should not have allowed their faith to flag and their prayers to take a holiday. And how often can we do that?

[17:07] What this passage helps to remind us is that even our faith itself is a gift from God. It's a gift that we do not originally possess.

[17:18] It's a gift that we do not work for, we cannot work for. It's a gift that we are given by God. We cannot think like faith is always going to be our default because it's not.

[17:33] Faith is not always going to be our default. Our flesh is fighting against faith every single day. And yet we cannot expect that we're automatically going to have faith.

[17:45] And we cannot act like faith is ours that we always possessed it as a gift. Now when you think about this scene with the desperate father, his child, this massive crowd around him, the scribes arguing, the disciples completely helpless, I wonder how the scene began.

[18:06] what were the nine disciples doing when the others were up the hill? You can feel sorry for them, can't you? I wonder if they were just trying to get some rest and then a desperate man brings his son looking for Jesus.

[18:19] He wasn't looking for them, he was looking for Jesus and all he found was them. The disciples can't give him Jesus. All there is is them.

[18:32] Does that sound familiar? What do we do when people come looking for Jesus and all they find is us? It's a scary thought. Well, the nine disciples couldn't give this man what he needed.

[18:46] They tried, but they couldn't give it to him. And the man came looking for Jesus in the first place. And somehow a crowd formed, somehow scribes come.

[18:59] I wonder which of the disciples tried first. Who would be brave enough to try first? Who would be brave enough to try second when the first person failed? I wonder whose idea it was to try.

[19:12] Was it the disciples? Or was it the man? Or was it the scribes? Or was it the crowd? Do something. Do something about this. You might have thought their first thing to do would be pray.

[19:26] You know, sometimes we face helpless situations and we don't know what to do. Just pray. Just pray. Either way, when this man came, it seemed like it went from bad to worse.

[19:41] Failure soon turned into arguments. Again, how common is that in life? Failure often turns into arguments, disagreements, conflict.

[19:54] Goes from bad to worse. It's easy to imagine the disciples failing to be effective, scribes watching, ready to criticize and argue.

[20:07] And that never helps a situation. There always seems to be people like the scribes watching, ready to argue and criticize. Even if there's justification, it never helps.

[20:20] Garland says, while we debate who is right, who is wrong and who is at fault, the world stands by helplessly in the grips of evil.

[20:34] You know, we can't be caught up in arguments while that desperate father's standing there with his son like, is anyone going to help? Is anyone going to help? There's a great crowd spectating, just a bunch of spectators watching for a spectacle.

[20:50] The disciples are failing, the scribes are arguing, yet in the middle of it all is a desperate father trying to help his suffering son. Does anyone have compassion? Is there anyone in the rabble offering a single prayer for this father?

[21:06] Think about how this man felt. He spent years watching his son suffer, feeling helpless, and for once in his lifetime, there seems to be a glimmer of hope. someone who can maybe actually help, and yet when he goes to find this man, Jesus, all he finds is failed attempts, prying eyes, and pointless arguments.

[21:28] That's all he finds. I wonder if that is how people feel when they come to church looking for God for help, and all they find is failed attempts, prying eyes, and pointless arguments.

[21:40] It's a challenge. I wonder how many people have been searching for Jesus with just a thread of hope, and yet they encounter faithless disciples caught in pointless arguments.

[21:53] We can do better. No. We can do better. Just even offer a single prayer. And it's not that we don't try. The disciples tried.

[22:05] And the thing that they realized was their faith was not as great as they thought it was. even if we think we have faith, we're probably always better starting with a prayer, starting with dependence on God.

[22:21] We will fail. All of us have failed. Perhaps you feel a bit of a failure this week. Perhaps something has happened this week in which you have failed.

[22:31] In fact, it would probably be a miracle if any one of us haven't done that this week. Some people, you just know, some people know that they're just in the water struggling to keep afloat.

[22:43] It's obvious. Other people know that they're clinging to the side of the boat, but how long do you coast along thinking that your faith is alright? How long do we go thinking our faith is alright?

[22:57] We believe in Jesus, but we let that daily dependence slip. we stop thinking about how much we need to draw on the vine. We go through our week thinking that we know how to produce fruit, forgetting that we're just a branch and we can do nothing but apart from the vine.

[23:18] Everything we have is from God. Everything. 1 Corinthians 4-7, Paul says, what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, then why boast?

[23:32] Like you didn't receive it. Everything we have is from God. And so when did we start to begin to think that it came from us?

[23:45] So I want to share with you something that I found in my mum's house. It's a school report card. Primary six from my primary school.

[23:58] school. And you'll never guess what the subject is. Religious studies. Here's what it says, okay. Callum is his own worst enemy.

[24:17] He's reluctant to put pencil to paper and subsequently this belies his liability. He will not read and act upon any correction instructions in Jotas.

[24:31] He has to be constantly supervised in order to produce results. Talking about a branch producing fruit has to be constantly supervised to produce results.

[24:45] These disciples can't produce results because Jesus is up the mountain. Jings. Callum is reluctant to express an opinion until motivated by others.

[24:59] Still hesitant about basic concepts. Shows religious and moral education shows little interest in this area. Folks, and if I could read you my English report card, I was useless at speaking, reading, writing, anything I have to offer this morning only comes from God.

[25:22] And I'm not saying it's any good, but anything I have comes from God. And during this week, believe me, I had to be reminded of that because it would be easy to think I know how to do this and not depend on Jesus to do it.

[25:38] To not depend on Jesus in this very moment to say anything true about him. all we have is from him. We are branches and we can only produce fruit if we are connected to the vine.

[25:52] How can we help anyone look for Jesus if we stop looking to him every day? Why do we read about the disciples struggling with faith all the time and yet we wake up every day expecting faith to be a default?

[26:08] It's not. It's a gift from God, but our flesh wages war with it every single day. Hebrews 11 6 says, without faith it's impossible to please God.

[26:19] For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Who seek him. Seeks. See, I told you I was useless at English.

[26:30] How often do we try to please God without faith and how often do we try to produce fruit without the vine? We do it all the time. I do it more than I should.

[26:42] Trying to please God with works. Trying to please God with words. Trying to please God with rituals and with reading, with serving, with singing, even with praying, yet without faith.

[26:57] The disciples asked Jesus why they couldn't do it. At least they're trying to learn. Being a disciple means being a learner. Always a student of a Lord.

[27:08] God. We should never feel like Jesus grudges teaching us things. He is our teacher. He's our Lord. He's our good shepherd. When we fail, which we do, we need to run to Jesus.

[27:25] Failure can lead to arguments and discouragement and despondency unless we move towards faith and prayer. And sometimes faith and prayer just simply look like a desperate man saying, I believe, help my unbelief.

[27:41] Confess your sins, says 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and he is just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[27:53] So let us move towards prayer. Even if we have to crawl, you don't even need to get up off the ground to begin to ask God for help. If you ask him for help, will he not give it?

[28:07] Dear Christian, remember how Jesus made you one of his disciples in the first place. Remember how he loves you and he laid down his life for you.

[28:20] Give your life to Jesus. He can do more with our lives than we can do with our own lives. Remember how good he has been to you. Remember how he has brought you to this very point today.

[28:38] One of Jen's favorite songs. Jen said to me that she wants this song at her funeral. You might know it, I don't know if you know it, all the way my Savior leads me. He's led me all the way.

[28:53] God has been so good to us. Confess to him and be glad that he loves to forgive us and cleanses us. And we need to remember his yoke is easy.

[29:04] His burden is light. Oh how weary and burdened is your life when you stop depending on Jesus. Your life becomes so weary and so burdened. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

[29:18] You see there's not a single person in this account in Mark chapter 9, not a single person who does not need Jesus, yet the only person who sees it and knows it is this desperate father.

[29:31] He is the first person in this whole account that moves toward prayer. You see there's nine disciples there. There's a crowd of people and there's scribes who should know better.

[29:44] And yet the first person to move towards prayer is a desperate father. A loving father. A loving father who finds faith in Jesus for his suffering son.

[29:56] Isn't it interesting to see this father-son situation right after the transfiguration? Because God the father has just declared from a cloud of glory that Jesus is his beloved son.

[30:09] Yet surrounding this heavenly declaration we have Jesus talking about his own suffering. We have a loving father and a suffering son and then we enter this account and there's another loving father and a suffering son.

[30:23] Now I'm not necessarily saying that these things have to be connected but it just struck me that out of all the people in this story, out of all the people in the crowd and the disciples and the scribes, Jesus and consequently God the father understands more than anyone the heartache of this other father and this other son.

[30:49] They understand more than we know. Jesus will release this boy from suffering and then he will walk towards his own suffering.

[31:03] Jesus understands these things. He understands a loving father because his father in heaven loves him and he understands a suffering son because he is the suffering son and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

[31:17] And notice the care that Jesus has for him. The father first said, teacher I brought my son to you.

[31:28] And then he says, so I asked your disciples to cast him out and they were not able. And Jesus says, well bring him to me. Bring him to me.

[31:41] How many other people would have said, I'm too busy, I'm too important. Just leave him with my disciples. Jesus says, bring him to me.

[31:54] And then the spirit, this evil spirit within this boy starts tormenting him again and Jesus asks, how long has this been happening to him?

[32:07] Now, I wonder if you have thought this or are thinking this. Jesus says, bring the boy to me. And the evil spirit throws the boy down and starts tormenting him again.

[32:20] And Jesus asks a question. Why didn't Jesus just cast the demon out right away when he sees the demon tormenting this boy? Why does he ask a question? He doesn't need to ask the question.

[32:33] He can still heal him. Why does he ask the question? I think part of it is that he allows this man to tell his story.

[32:49] I'm almost going to choke up. This is not just a story about Jesus casting out a demon. It's a story about Jesus helping a desperate father find faith.

[33:07] If Jesus healed this boy immediately, the father might not have had the opportunity to lean on Jesus. It's like Jesus is inviting the man. Inviting the man to ask him for help.

[33:19] Inviting the man to trust him. He is inviting the man to prayer and to faith. If he didn't ask him the question and just healed the boy, he wouldn't have invited the man to have faith and to pray.

[33:33] And I've been there. I've been, we've all been there probably. A loved one who's in trouble. I've been at the side of a hospital bed with one of my boys who is suffering and I've been in tears.

[33:47] And you want to be the one who protects. You want to be the one who provides and you feel utterly helpless. And it can lead you to despair or it can lead you to prayer.

[34:01] You can sink into fear or you can lean into faith. And that doesn't always mean that healing will come but it's about trusting in God.

[34:14] Trusting that he cares. Trusting in his will. And many of us know what that's like. And listen to this man bear his heart to Jesus. It's like he is saying to Jesus, this demon is always trying to throw my boy into the fire and into the water to destroy him.

[34:33] This demon is always trying to kill my son. And I might be pulling him from the fire and pulling him from water. But I can't save him. I can't do anything. Please, if you can do anything, Jesus, have compassion on us and help us.

[34:49] How many of our prayers sound like that? Sometimes that's all we've got. That's a prayer. The man moves toward prayer. He pleads to Jesus for compassion and help.

[35:03] Now, it's not like the leper of chapter one. The leper of chapter one says, if you will, I know you can. You can.

[35:13] If you will, you can. Now, this father here says, if you can. But nevertheless, it's a prayer. His faith is so little, but it's there.

[35:30] It's there. Out of all the crowd and all the disciples and all the scribes, this one person has a smidge of faith. The size of a mustard seed.

[35:43] And do you know how much God can do with faith the size of a mustard seed? He doesn't need a lot from us. This man is looking to Jesus with eyes filled with tears and hope.

[35:57] He's asking, pleading with Jesus. Before Jesus, on his knees, with tears in his eyes, pleading with Jesus. What do we call that? We call that prayer.

[36:09] You see, when Jesus later talks to the disciples and says, well, this cannot be cast out by anything but prayer. He's not saying that the disciples need some kind of special extra prayer.

[36:26] He's not saying they need to use special words. He's not saying, boys, you should have been praying 24 7 here. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying you need extra long prayers.

[36:37] He's not saying you need to be more passionate in prayer. I think he was just looking from his disciples what he saw in this father. If the disciples had just pleaded with God, I believe, help my unbelief.

[36:53] Please do something. If they prayed to God like this father pleaded to Jesus, they might have cast out this stubborn demon. Jesus continues to draw this man into faith and prayer.

[37:08] Again, Jesus says something else. He prolongs this experience. The man says, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

[37:22] Jesus could have done it there again, but he says, if you can, all things are possible for the one who believes. He's saying to the man, are you going to have faith?

[37:34] And that's why the man says, I believe. Help my unbelief. It's faith the size of a mustard seed.

[37:45] And he casts out the demon before the crowd come over. He cares for the dignity of this boy. He not only casts it out, but forbids this demon to ever enter this boy again.

[37:58] The father asked for compassion. And he asked the right person. You see, John, the apostle, who was up the mountain with Jesus and came down and was an eyewitness of this happening.

[38:13] John later writes in 1 John 3, that Jesus, the reason the Son of God came into the world, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

[38:26] Don't think that God requires you to have enormous faith. Sometimes we think that we need the faith the size of a mountain just to move a mustard seed.

[38:38] It's the other way around. It's not the size of our faith. You can have great faith in a false God. It's not the size of our faith, but the object of our little faith is a big God.

[38:52] Mary, Queen of Scots, reportedly said, I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe. Yet it wasn't the power of his prayers.

[39:04] John Knox didn't believe that his prayers were great. He believed that his God was great. He never believed in the power of his preaching or the power of his praying.

[39:15] He believed in the power of the gospel and the power of God. That was the greatness of John Knox. And so I want to finish by highlighting three things that this passage can teach us.

[39:30] Firstly, don't underestimate the darkness and evil in this world. Don't underestimate it. It likes to wear a mask.

[39:40] In our passage, the demon masks himself with epilepsy. Now that's not to say that all cases of epilepsy are demonic. But in this case, the demon was producing epilepsy in this boy.

[39:57] The demon was producing all of these symptoms to torment and try to destroy this boy. There's so many forms of evil in our world today. And some of them take shape of humans enslaved to darkness.

[40:12] Yet there are spiritual forces of evil that are always trying to destroy our sons and our daughters, our friends and our neighbors. Ephesians 6 says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

[40:34] Don't underestimate the darkness and evil in this world. It's there. Secondly, don't overestimate how much faith you have.

[40:46] Don't think too highly of yourself when you come up against this evil. Don't overestimate how much faith you have. Let us remember that faith is a gift and it isn't our default.

[40:57] Our flesh is always fighting against faith. But if we ask God who gave us faith in the first place, will he not help us in our unbelief? If we begin by dependency and prayer, let us remember we cannot do anything without him and always lean into Jesus and always turn to him and look to him and depend on him.

[41:18] So don't underestimate the darkness and evil in this world. Don't overestimate how much faith you have. But thirdly, when we consider those two things, don't underestimate the greatness of our Lord.

[41:32] Jesus is an absolute game changer in this passage. He's full of power and authority, yet he's also full of compassion and care. He stands above everyone else in this account.

[41:44] Everyone else. The crowd are just looking for a spectacle. The scribes are looking for an argument. The disciples are lacking faith and the demon is terrorizing this boy.

[41:55] And yet Jesus shows us the heart of God. He understands when no one else does. He cares when everyone else is distracted. He acts when everyone else is powerless. He's the light that overcomes the darkness in our world.

[42:10] He's the one who both heals the sun and helps the father find faith. Will Jesus not hear our pleas for compassion and help today?

[42:20] Even if our faith is small and weak, will he not help us in our unbelief if we ask him? Prayer and faith go hand in hand.

[42:32] It's about trust in him. And it doesn't mean that it will always turn out the way that we expect it to turn out. We are not in control of that. And while we might think that we know what is best, we don't understand like he does.

[42:46] Our role is not to come up with the best outcome for Jesus to make happen. Our role is not to direct God at how he should restore all things.

[42:58] Our role is to have faith, to trust God, to ask sincerely and then to submit to his will. He is able. He is compassionate.

[43:09] He is good. And he is our God. Let me pray. O Lord, our God, you are so good.

[43:21] There is much evil in this world. There is often little faith in your disciples. But you are great.

[43:33] You are the light that overcomes darkness. You are the one who has overcome this world. And so even with the smallest of faith, let us depend on you.

[43:44] Let us look to you. Let us always come to you in prayer. And let us rejoice at how great you are and how willing and how compassionate and how powerful you are.

[43:58] We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.