[0:00] Please be seated. Please take out your Bibles to Mark chapter 9. Mark chapter 9. A couple things I want to do before we head into the text today is I want to have a little bit of a pastoral moment.
[0:13] I want to ask you guys a favor, but I just also want to inform you of a few things. As you know, we have a whole, I don't know what we call them, a gaggle of kids at the front.
[0:29] Is that what they're called? Gaggle? A group. But we also have a group that's graduated from that group who are now a part of our youth ministry.
[0:41] So we kind of kicked off this new rendition of the ministry in October, November. And it's going okay. It's busy. We have several leaders that have given their time.
[0:55] I've asked Dave Nannery to step up and take over the leadership of that, which he has shown his expression of delight in doing so.
[1:07] It would be in a proper term. As you know, I've been kind of out of sorts with my surgery. And I've also been working on my dissertation. So I have not been readily available.
[1:18] But today we're holding a meeting just to pray for the future, just to give you guys an update. There's probably, if every child show up, there'd be about 20 kids that come out. And just so you know, some of the teens, is that a fair term? We'll call them teens.
[1:33] They're bringing out their non-Christian friends. They're participating. They seem to be enjoying the time. You parents would have a better testimony of what's really going on back home.
[1:46] But we're still just kind of getting our feet grounded on what to do, what the future looks like with them. So I'd ask your prayer today. We're going to be having a meeting just as an entire staff, as we plan out what the next several months look like.
[2:02] So that would be greatly appreciated if you could do that. Second thing that I want to ask your prayers are, we as elders are going to be meeting very soon in the spring.
[2:13] We're going to be having a bit of a retreat. And we're going to be looking at some of the things here at the church, if there's any changes that need to be made. And we're not talking about any major changes. But we have felt a need to desire to clarify what a walk in discipleship looks like.
[2:28] What is our role as a church and leaders to facilitate Christian growth, maturity, and how people can get in to use their gifts accordingly.
[2:42] And going on what Dave said earlier today on a completely other subject. Perfect. Yeah, so next week I thought I'd have Ask the Pastor if there's anything that you guys are wanting to talk about.
[2:53] Or even if you want to come get to know me a little bit better, I'll bring some Tim Horton donuts and muffins or something. We can come together, have some coffee. I know there's many of you I haven't had the opportunity. But this is one of the things that we want to start creating a regular event happening to give a lot of people that are new.
[3:11] We don't recognize their faces, but an opportunity to meet Dave, myself, some of the elders, just to become more acquainted. Sometimes the church life doesn't go that way.
[3:21] I know if I probably locked that door that we'd probably get to meet everybody because people tend to run out of that door pretty fast, right? But, you know, we have the pleasure of seeing you here.
[3:33] And we do want to get to know you. We want to know how to serve you, love you, and minister to you. But you can also come with theological questions. All I know is if you let Brent Smith put in all the questions, it'll all be about Revelation.
[3:47] So please save me from that. Just have a little fun at Brent's Express. It'll be at 9 o'clock next Sunday in the Journey Room.
[3:58] So if you notice where we usually have Dave's class, the Journey, that's where we're going to be having it upstairs. There's a fire room with tables and chairs. And donuts and coffee.
[4:10] And you guys can come with any questions. I'll share just a quick story. When I was doing my pastoral insurance internship, I was at a pretty large church. It had about 12,000 people. And I got asked to be the Bible answer man for the women's ministry, which literally has thousands of women coming in this large auditorium, right?
[4:29] So all week I am studying every single disputed passage or theological position that I could ever be asked.
[4:40] So I'm ready to go, right? Any kind of question. And the question that consumed her entire time was, Can I read my daughter's diary? So it was just about bringing biblical wisdom into real life events.
[4:55] So you're free to bring any of those type of questions. It doesn't have to be a transition one. So take a look at with me at Mark chapter 9. As Dave noted in your bulletin, there is a short biography of George Mueller or Miller.
[5:12] If you have the two diphthongs or whatever they're supposed to be over the U. Does everybody know who George Miller is? If you guys know who George Miller is, please place your hand up.
[5:24] All right. So I know I've got that many Christians in the church. Okay. Just kidding. George Miller, if you pick up any book, Christian book, whether a long book or a short book, about people who, the great men and women of the faith, George Miller is inevitably in that book.
[5:43] George Miller, born in the 1800s, was German by birth, and he had this incredible desire to reach British Jews. So he raised his support, went over to England, and that ministry didn't work out for him.
[5:58] But what he noticed was there was a need to take care of orphans. So him and his wife decided to take in these young girls and started caring for them.
[6:10] And then it turned out more and more. They didn't have the social structures that they do today to take care of orphans and stuff. So he just started praying. He didn't have the money. More kids started showing up and more needs happened.
[6:25] So his whole testimony, he's got this, there's several great books on him. If you're curious, I have several of them. But he became known as a man of great faith and great prayer.
[6:37] And he actually, there's a statistic that I have that in today's dollars, he prayed for money to come in that he never asked to take care of orphans.
[6:48] In the end, he took care of thousands upon thousands of orphans and raised over $113 million. Never sent out flyers asking for money.
[6:59] But it was known that there was never a day that the orphans did not have milk or bread. Okay? So I'm going to share with you a little bit of story about his character. So the story goes, it was the captain of a ship on which George Miller, he was from Bristol, England, was traveling to Canada.
[7:18] It was known that during his life, he received more than a million pounds, which would be about $113 million in our economy from the Lord. Without ever advertising, every penny came as an answer to prayer.
[7:32] The captain is writing, We had George Miller of Bristol on board. I have been on the bridge for 24 hours and never left it, and George Miller came to me and said, Captain, I've come to tell you I must be in Quebec by Saturday afternoon.
[7:48] The captain retorted, it is impossible. So George said, Well, then, very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement in 57 years.
[8:01] Let us go down into the chart room and pray. I looked at the man of God and thought to myself, What lunatic asylum did this man come from? I have never heard of such a thing.
[8:14] Mr. Mueller, I said, Do you know how dense the fog is? No, he replied. My eye is not on the destiny of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.
[8:27] The man knelt down and he prayed one of the most simple prayers. When he had finished, I felt forced to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and he told me not to pray.
[8:41] He said, As you do not believe, he will answer, and I believe he has. There is no need whatever for you to pray about. I looked at him and George Miller said, Captain, I have known my Lord for 57 years, and there has never been a single day when I get up and he has failed to give an audience with the king.
[9:03] Get up, Captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog had gone. I got up, and the fog had indeed gone. And on that Saturday afternoon, George Miller kept his promise engagement.
[9:16] I've entitled today's sermon, Jesus, help my unbelief. Jesus, help my unbelief.
[9:28] I want to submit to you that one of the most misunderstood ideas, aspect of the Christian faith is the idea of faith.
[9:41] For many, people believe that faith is something we stir up in ourselves. If I can believe something strong enough, God will honor me, or God will bring about whatever I am praying.
[9:57] Some believe that the reason we are not healed is because of our lack of faith. If we can only believe something passionately enough, that will make it come true.
[10:11] I'm reminded several years ago, I'm in a parking lot, and I have two Mormon missionaries kind of jump down on me, and they're telling me. And I said, you mean you don't tell me you don't have any questions about some of the historical facts of Mormonism that have never been proven?
[10:27] In fact, it's been the exact opposite. And he says, no, you just have to believe. So I said, you mean to tell me that if I believe that this lamppost next to me is made out of gold, it will be made into gold.
[10:41] He says, well, we're not saying that. I said, well, actually, yes, you are. You're actually making truth dependent on what I believe. And if I can force that belief in myself, that truth will come forward.
[10:54] And I'll be honest with you, I would really like this lampstand to be gold, right? You see, but that is not the faith that is presented in Scripture, although many people think it is.
[11:04] It is not something that is stirred up by some power within us that allows God to accomplish great and mighty works. If you've been a Christian for any amount of time, you've heard 2 Corinthians 5, 7.
[11:18] For we walk by faith, right? And not by sight. Galatians 2, 20. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.
[11:30] Hebrews 11, 1 says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith is at the forefront of our Christian life.
[11:42] One author simply states, we believe and we live by faith. Faith is the dominating feature of the life of every single Christian. Because we have to put our trust entirely in what we cannot see.
[11:57] Have we seen God? We sing these songs to Jesus Christ, but we have not seen Him. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, yet we have not seen Him.
[12:09] We believe that God will justify, resurrect. He will raise us up into an eternal home. Some will say that is blind faith.
[12:22] But that is not blind faith. It is a faith that is based on a testimony, evidence. It is a faith that is taught in this book, this Bible. We believe it to be God's word.
[12:34] We believe people have come before us and testify to its truth, and we trust it. This is the word that anchors our faith. It anchors our souls to life. We believe it is a true word, a sure word, a word that overcomes all.
[12:50] So, in today's passage, I believe it is both fascinating, reassuring, interesting, and encouraging for any believer.
[13:01] But before we dive in, I want to move through this passage, verse by verse, pulling out some of the truths that Mark is teaching us.
[13:13] If you were here last week, you would have heard another story that we told in Mark chapter 7. But you would have learned that there's three different chapters to Jesus' ministry.
[13:25] The first chapter was his desire to go out from Mark 1, 15, teaching the word of God, preaching the gospel, calling people to repent and believe in the kingdom of God.
[13:39] And in the middle way of Mark, Mark chapter 7, 8, he starts to shift his ministry. He's actually going to begin building in to the men that he's been walking with for three years.
[13:51] So, we're within six months of the cross, and Jesus Christ knows and understand, he's dying on that cross. Jesus Christ knows he's going to raise from the dead, but he also knows he's going to heaven.
[14:03] And there needs to be some people who know and understand Christian truth that are going to take this message to the world. So, this is that secondary part of the ministry of Jesus Christ, right?
[14:20] We've already seen the powers. If you go through Mark, you'll see stories of him raising the dead, calming storms, healing every disease, driving out demons, feeding thousands upon thousands of people, just incredibly miraculous things.
[14:35] And now, he's becoming very intentional with his discipleship. essentially, because he knows he is leaving, he's going to be teaching them to live by faith, not by sight, right?
[14:58] He needs them to have a belief not based on what they can see and feel. He's going to teach them how to have access to the power of Jesus when he is not with them.
[15:10] So, here he is. Let's take a look at verse 14 of Mark chapter 9. Dave read a parallel passage.
[15:24] This story is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Verse 14. And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them.
[15:39] And the scribes arguing them. What Luke is, Luke tells us that this happened the very next day after the transfiguration.
[15:50] So, Jesus was on the mount with Peter, James, and John. And they saw Jesus Christ transfigured. They heard God talk. They saw Jesus glow.
[16:01] We're talking probably the greatest experience man could ever have on this earth, right? They're hearing God. Beloved, this is my beloved son. If anything would assure you of who Jesus Christ is, this is it, right?
[16:15] The testimony of God himself. And they're seeing this vision. It's incredible. So, they, being Jesus, Peter, James, and John, had this incredible emotional situation. So, they're coming down.
[16:28] And all of a sudden, they see a great crowd mixed in with the rest of the disciples. And it seems they're having this argument with the scribes. Now, the scribes were known as those men who were the legal experts of the law.
[16:41] And they were the ones that informed the Pharisees. Now, we know from earlier, Mark, it said the religious rulers had sent out these men from Jerusalem to question this man, Jesus.
[16:54] So, it doesn't say what they were really arguing about. Maybe they knew that the rabbi was away, and maybe it was their time to strike. I remember when I lived in residence, I had a Bible study that had many young men in it.
[17:09] And I noticed there was this young law student. Whenever I was away, he would meet with them and ask them questions. And he was trying to trip them up. And I would just simply say to him, if you have any questions, you're free to come and talk to me.
[17:21] But he never wanted to talk to me about his questions. He wanted to talk to these newborn believers who he was, I just wanted to know questions about the Bible. Or answers. Well, come talk to me.
[17:32] These guys just got saved. So, I don't know. Perhaps that's their motivation. But I wonder if Peter, James, and John are sitting there after having this experience with Jesus Christ saying, is this what I got to come back to?
[17:46] Just take me in heaven. We'll stay here forever. Right? Notice verse 15. And immediately, all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed amazed and ran to him and greeted him.
[18:01] This word amazed means to be awestruck, to have wonder. They became excessively and excited by emotions. For some of you who are old enough, you remember Beatlemania.
[18:15] People would be fainting. That was just by four guys who could sing a song, right? This is Jesus Christ who heals, brings people to life.
[18:27] I guarantee you the emotional excitement that was there far greater than anything the Beatles would have seen or heard. Right? They understand that this is a man who heals the blind, heals the sick, brings voice to the mute and brings hearing to the deaf.
[18:48] And he simply asked them, what are you arguing about with them? Verse 17, And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.
[19:03] 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.
[19:15] And they were not able to. Matthew records that this man actually came and kneeled before Jesus.
[19:31] The word cry used in Luke says it's like to make a war cry. Lord, have mercy on my son.
[19:43] This is a desperate man with a desperate plea before God. So the issue going on here is a man knew that Jesus was in this part of the world, the neighborhood.
[19:55] We do not know how far he traveled, but he brings his son to Jesus who he knows is possessed and oppressed by a demon. Now, if you're a student of Mark, you will remember in Mark chapter 6 that Jesus actually sent out his disciples two by two.
[20:13] And he gave them the authority over unclean spirits. So previous to this point, the apostles were able to go and do this work that for some reason they can't do now.
[20:30] Alright? So they bring this, Jesus isn't here, we'll give him to the apostles. We've heard about the apostles going forth and driving out demons, that they had authority, but for some reason it's not working.
[20:47] And in this story we see this incredible heartbreak of this man. Luke records that this demon convulsed him so that he foams at the mouth and shatters him.
[21:02] That means that the demon would weaken him, would break him, would power him down. Commentators believe we would have seen scars on this boy.
[21:17] We see the testimony would throw him into the fire, throw him off of cliffs like he's trying to kill this young boy. Throwing him around.
[21:29] Life of pain would have been all over this boy's body. So this man takes this son that he loves, brings him before the disciples.
[21:43] I don't know if they said, I know Jesus isn't here, we can do it. Let me do it. Nothing happens. What kind of question would come to his head?
[21:56] There was never anybody throughout Galilee that was not healed. So all of a sudden you start asking, why me? Why my son?
[22:07] Why no mercy for him? Why no mercy for me? He begged the disciples. Then Jesus makes this interesting comment in verse 19.
[22:19] He said, and he answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?
[22:33] Now the biggest problem from a theological point of view or an educational point of view is who is the people or person that Jesus Christ is directing this comment to?
[22:47] Is it to the father who brings his son? Is it to the crowd that is watching? Or is it to the disciples?
[22:59] Those are the three options that are out there. Many people think he's speaking directly to the crowd. I actually believe he's lamenting these things to his disciples.
[23:12] Why do I believe that? Is I believe that this is part of the context where he's training them? He's preparing them for future ministry. Earlier in Mark 8, 21, Jesus asked several other type of questions to the disciples.
[23:28] he asked them, do you not yet perceive? Do you not yet understand? Are your hearts hardened?
[23:41] And he even said, having eyes, so you do not see and having ears, do you not hear? And yet you do not remember. Why don't you guys understand?
[23:58] These are the men who've been walking with Jesus for two and a half years at this point. They have seen everything that Jesus has to do. I believe this is all about them and Jesus Christ preparing for the ministry beyond the cross, beyond the resurrection, and beyond the ascension of Jesus Christ.
[24:17] I think it may be fair to say that perhaps Jesus is a little exasperated at this point. So, Jesus is going to use this pre-ordained encounter to teach the disciples something.
[24:32] Notice at the end of verse 19, bring him to me. Bring him to me. Verse 20, and they brought the boy to him and when the spirit saw him, remember the demons know exactly who Jesus is, immediately it convulsed the boy and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth.
[24:56] So, here we get to know a little bit of the heart of our Savior. And Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And the father just simply says, from childhood.
[25:10] 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.
[25:23] think about this. Usually, if you had a disabled family member, as we said, there's no social services at that time.
[25:34] Perhaps your child can't walk, can't talk, you would move him to the front of the city gates and he would beg. You can't do this with this young boy.
[25:47] the demon inside of him is trying to kill him. So this is a father who's with his son night and day, night and day.
[26:01] The love for his son would be great. And when he says, have compassion on us, this is a broken man.
[26:15] He heard these stories that even the disciples of Jesus had power over demons. He finally brings his son and nothing happens. I wonder what that scene would have been like, right?
[26:27] Would one of the disciples say, hey, I got this, I'll go in, I'll do it? Didn't happen, maybe another one jumped in. No, no, no, no, no, you're saying it wrong. Your hands are in the wrong position.
[26:39] Right? Because I believe those disciples all would have wanted to drive that demon out, and I believe those disciples would have all taken their best shot.
[26:50] Hey, I did it last month, I can do it now. Let me try. But notice how Jesus does it.
[27:03] He asked this man a question. How long has your son been like this? By Jesus asking that question, he's entering into this man's pain. He's entering into this man's hopelessness.
[27:18] And he's also entering into this man's fear. If you know the stories of the gospel, you know that Jesus Christ touched the leper, the one who was never to be touched, the one who was ostracized from society.
[27:36] he touched the blind as he placed his hand on the unclean and the Gentiles, those who believed and those who did not believe.
[27:48] And here we are seeing this personal Jesus once again inserting himself in the pain of this man's life. He didn't need to know his story.
[28:00] It wasn't necessary. but for some reason he chooses to. Jesus isn't some secret code.
[28:13] We don't chant some secret mantra or live some sort of life that allows us to call on his power. When we come to Jesus Christ, you know who we get?
[28:25] A personal God who enters into our lives. Who asks the question, who are you?
[28:37] What is this pain? Tell me about your hopelessness. Tell me about your fear. So this man tells this story of his life, this love that he has on his son.
[28:55] And he's always there. I've got a friend of mine. He's married and his first child had extreme cerebral palsy.
[29:06] And he says for the first probably ten years of his life, he said he couldn't love his son. He resented his son taking away his wife's affection from him, the needs that he needed in the wheelchair to be fed, to be taken and everything.
[29:26] And he said, I found it so very hard. And they later had two more children, a son and a daughter. And he finally just clicked in one day, just watching his son with the other kids sitting around him on the floor, watching his wife just sing to her son, who they don't know if he can even understand him, but just rocked him on the floor.
[29:54] And he said, I finally understood what love is. He confessed, repented, and he loves his son now. His wife loves his son.
[30:07] Now, notice the comment that this man makes at the end of verse 22. He says, but if you can do anything, notice he's not demanding.
[30:19] He says, have compassion on us and help us. The word compassion here is he's asking Jesus to go to the deepest reserves of his bowels.
[30:34] Like, would you be moved at the greatest point of your emotions and have mercy on us? If you can find it deep within you, can you help me?
[30:50] Can you help my son? This man is absolutely shattered. Now, Jesus says something to him that has not been said anywhere else but in the gospel of Mark.
[31:06] Verse 23 says, and Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes. How many people use a NIV?
[31:17] Who uses a NIV Bible? Okay, I see someone ratting out their husband. Is that right now? You'll notice it's actually a question mark in the NIV. It's actually not a question.
[31:28] It's an exclamation point that Jesus is making. He's speaking a truth. He's not asking a question. If you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
[31:40] but it's not a, it's a term of exclamation. It's a statement of reinsurance.
[31:52] And he's basically saying you have brought your boy to someone that understands and can do something about it. The fact is the father knows there is hope for something here.
[32:05] This is no accident. This is Jesus, the one who calms, star, raised the dead, healed all sick. No healing did not never occur around him.
[32:17] But one thing is that Jesus never ever made his miracles based on faith. But look what this man cries out to him in verse 24. Immediately the father of the child cries out and said, I believe help my unbelief.
[32:40] who says that? I believe yet God helped my unbelief. Has anyone here cried that out to God?
[32:56] You're crying out but you doubt. Have you ever been this honest with God? have you been this honest with your friends?
[33:10] The father is saying I believe in you. I believe in your power but I doubt.
[33:23] No, in fact, I got a lot of doubt. Is that enough? simply what Jesus is asking this man is to run to me in your unbelief.
[33:36] Come to me in your unbelief. The question is how much faith do I have to have for my boy to be healed? How much faith do I have to see him saved?
[33:50] Verse 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.
[34:04] In verse 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. But Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him up, and he arose.
[34:21] And there's this bit of passage of time that happens between verses 27 and 28. It says, and when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?
[34:38] Verse 29, and he said to him, this kind cannot be driven out but anything but prayer.
[34:49] how often during our times of trial that we feel we need greater faith, right? We know it.
[35:02] We know that what we have in us cannot sustain us. Often we will try to work more. We will try to prove our faith by our deeds.
[35:15] We will try to stir the faith from within us. But as we have known throughout all the teaching of scripture, faith is never from within, it is from without, and that outside object of our faith is Jesus Christ.
[35:32] You see, this is what Jesus Christ is explaining at the end of this passage. He is not saying that this is a special demon that needs a special prayer in order to be driven out.
[35:45] What he is doing is he is teaching them about prayer that you need God's power, not your own. That's what he's saying. You need to rely on my father.
[36:00] Prior to this passage, there is no teaching on prayer. In fact, Mark just simply tells us that Jesus would go away to pray.
[36:16] Mark 1.35, he went to the wilderness. Mark 6.36, he left the crowd to go pray. We will later read in the Garden of Gethsemane in Mark 14 that he needed to get away and pray.
[36:29] But nowhere did it teach them how to pray. pray. So what these disciples required to drive this demon was the power of Jesus.
[36:48] And how were they to harness that power? It's prayer. prayer. That is the same truth that exists for us today. In order to tap into the power of Jesus Christ, we need to tap into prayer.
[37:06] Prayer is depending on God and not ourselves. I get why the and you guys know this story, right? When you have done something so many times and it's always turned out good, do you pray as much before it?
[37:22] You don't, right? Because you think, I've got it. I've got it. But what God's trying to do to these disciples to make them see is that they still need to rely on him even though they have these powers.
[37:36] Because our default position is always to rely on self more than God. We're in trials, we try to solve them ourselves. We're going to try to work through this sin in our own flesh.
[37:49] I'm going to set up these barriers and I'm going to follow these rules of life and that's going to keep me from sin. When God is simply saying, hey, you need to plug into me first. Some of you know that you cannot muster the strength necessary to meet certain moral and spiritual challenges.
[38:12] The reality is perfect belief is impossible from us. Perfect righteousness is impossible for us. us. But what is possible is that we can run to a God, come to him, and say, Father, I need perfect belief and I need your perfect righteousness.
[38:36] Why is this so important for us to know? I don't care who you are. if you can't identify with the disciples, right?
[38:49] They were beset by failures. They were ready to argue than they were to seek God. They were undisciplined in their prayer life. They failed to obey in those areas that they were supposed to obey.
[39:04] Do you ever find yourself rationalizing away your decisions instead of just following God's word? You're more eager to learn techniques than you are taking the time to walk closely with God?
[39:23] Are you able to confess to God that your faith is imperfect, weak, wavering, and doubting? Are you able to cry out God run to me in my unbelief?
[39:42] When I first started pastoring here, I preached a sermon on how to know God's will. It's pretty simple. We know God's will is that we be saved, spirit-filled, that we serve, suffer, and we be sanctified.
[39:56] It's not a prayer life that's based on our needs for a new Porsche, right? A bigger house, but then we start thinking about our failures, our breakdowns, our shipwrecks, and disasters.
[40:09] What of them? One author states, failures are a way of being empty and useless so that all we have to reach is for God. The message that Jesus is wanting these disciples to grasp is that they need his power and it can only be accessed through faith.
[40:34] It can't be through repeated actions, good works, right? Reading right books, but it comes to coming to him in prayer.
[40:49] D.L. Moody said there were essentially three types of faith. He said one was struggling faith, like a man in deep water desperately trying to keep his head above water. The second faith was called clinging faith, like a man hanging onto the side of the boat.
[41:06] And the third form of faith was resting faith, like a man who is safely within the boat and able to reach out and help others. The truth is that we at all times waver between those three faiths, don't we?
[41:20] often it is treading water and pleading with God to throw us a life preserver. We must constantly be trusting Jesus or we will find ourselves back in the water.
[41:34] As you heard from Dave, Matthew ends this passage off with Jesus simply saying, 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.
[41:48] Nothing will be impossible for you. It has been said that George Mueller was a man of mighty faith.
[42:00] However, one author laments what a tragedy is that history remembers him as a man of mighty faith. In fact, Mueller would write, I affectionately warn against being led away by the device of Satan to think that these things are peculiar to me and cannot be enjoyed by all the children of God.
[42:25] For though as he has been stated before, every believer is not called upon to establish orphan houses or charity schools and trust in the Lord for means, yet all believers are called upon in the simple confidence of faith to cast all their burdens on him, to trust in him for everything and not only to make everything a subject of prayer, but to expect answers to their petitions which they have asked according to his will and in the name of Jesus Christ.
[43:05] He said, I prayed mightily because I was a man of great doubt. Let us pray. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, sometimes this faith and trusting is you is so very difficult to understand.
[43:24] we may not understand all the ins and outs of prayer, but we know repeatedly through the pages of scripture, we are to pray.
[43:36] We are to come to you, the all-knowing God, who knows everything that is on our hearts, our concerns, yet, we are to come to you and sometimes we need to say, Lord, help my unbelief.
[44:00] Just this week, Dave Nannery told the story that Tim Keller that tells us, that imagine what the people of Israel would have looked like when they came to that Red Sea and Moses stuck his staff in the water and it separated.
[44:18] I'm sure some people would have walked the middle aisle as it were, looking both left and right, not trusting that that water would stay there.
[44:31] Some probably needed to be coaxed, put in carts, carried by their loved ones, absolutely fearful. And then there would have been others running their hands through the waves, looking at the fish, giggling and delighting at the works of God.
[44:49] The simple question gets asked, which one of their faiths saved them? All of their faith did.
[45:02] Because it wasn't how they felt about God that was important. It was what we know about God that is true, that is important. That he is the one that hears us, he is the one that builds us up, and he is the one that answers that cry, Lord, help my unbelief.
[45:24] Father, even the prayer that Steve prayed today, if we, in case someone don't know, Steve came from a point where he was an orphan.
[45:38] He understand and can relate to a life of growing up without your parents and the dynamics that has on a young boy. And God has placed a special prayer in Steve's heart for Mason and the family.
[46:02] God, you take those points where we doubted, we didn't believe, and yet you answered, and now we can say God is good.
[46:12] God, he does take us through those times of our lives. He saves us, he washes us, and makes us white as snow.
[46:26] And God nowhere says he loves the one who shows more faith over the one who shows less faith, because, simply put, faith is a gift of God. We thank you for that faith, whether it be strong or weak, we cannot take credit for our strong faith, nor can we dismiss our weak faith.
[46:50] It is a faith that you alone has given to each and every one of us. But ultimately, as we come to you, we need to pray, give me more faith.
[47:04] We ask these things in your great and glorious name, that only your name can deliver in. Amen. Amen.