Sixteenth Sunday after
Pentecost (Proper 19B)
September 12, 2021
Text: Mark 9:14-29
Beloved in the Lord, do you have enough faith? Jesus says, “All
things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23; ESV). Oh, really?!
Then why is it that so often life seems impossible? Why won’t the cancer go
away? Why is my marriage in trouble? Why won’t the kids behave? Why did I lose
my job? Why did God take my loved one away from me in death? Why do I still
have to die? Why is it that my faith CANNOT move a molehill, much less a
mountain? All things are possible for the one who believes? What can this
possibly mean?
It’s easy to fall into this line of thinking. And when we
do, we inevitably begin to ask ourselves the question, “Do I have enough faith?” What is so sinister about
this question is the logic behind it. If my cancer isn’t cured, if my marriage
falls apart, if I don’t have a job, if my loved one dies, it must be because I
don’t have enough faith. Or maybe I
don’t believe at all. Many are the false prophets who would burden you with
this false law preaching that says when things go badly with you, it’s because
you either don’t have faith, or you
don’t have enough faith. If you
believed enough, these false teachers
maintain, you would have perfect health, significant wealth, and you would live
in prosperity. This is the “name it, claim it” crowd, or the “Word-Faith
Movement” as it is called, represented by televangelists like Kenneth Copeland,
Joyce Meyer, and Joel Osteen. This is the theology represented in the Prayer of Jabez book that was so popular
a few years back. But it’s false doctrine, beloved. It’s a lie. Don’t believe
it. Don’t give in to it. The devil loves it when he can convince us that God is
punishing us and we cannot enjoy His blessings or salvation because we don’t
have enough faith.
Of course, you don’t
have enough faith. If you want to
quantify faith, nobody has enough of
it. It’s impossible. Only Jesus has
enough faith. We fallen humans always need more, always need our faith to be
strengthened. We always have our doubts. We’re always afraid God can’t handle
what ails us. We’re always searching for something else that can solve our
problems. We always find ourselves fearing, loving, and trusting things and
people that are not God because we can see
them, touch them, grab onto them. And these things and
these people, which are concrete to us, become our idols. Money becomes an
idol. Possessions become idols. Politicians become idols. Our spouse or our
child or our parent becomes an idol. Good gifts of God become idols because we think we can trust them more than we can
trust God. We too often think of God as an abstraction. We think we have to see
to believe.
This is true even of Christians who have comparatively
strong faith. That is why the prayer of the man in our text, the father of the
demon possessed boy, must become our prayer as well: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (v. 24). It is both a confession of
sin and a confession of faith. It is a confession of sin in that it admits the
deficiency of our faith in this respect: It is never strong enough. We always struggle with doubt as long as we
live in this fallen world. We’re always afraid our problem, whatever it happens
to be at the moment, is something that God, something that Jesus, cannot handle. “If
you can do anything…” we pray along with the anxious father in our text. “If you can…” We doubt. All things are not possible for us. But all things are possible with Jesus. Where our faith
is weak and lacking, Jesus’ faith is perfect, strong, as strong as it is
possible for faith to be. Of course He can! He’s Jesus! He’s God in the flesh!
And He wants to help. He wants to help the demon-possessed boy and He wants to
help you in all your sorrows and struggles and temptations, in your sin and in
your death. “I believe; help my unbelief.”
But this is also a confession of faith. Help my unbelief,
yes, but you wouldn’t even make such a request if you didn’t believe at all. I
believe. It’s just that my faith needs to grow. Even when the father in our
text says, “If you can,” he’s still
making a request of Jesus that takes faith. He wouldn’t even have asked,
wouldn’t even have approached the disciples in the first place if He didn’t
think Jesus could help. The “If you can”
part betrays his doubt. But the request itself is a confession of faith. Jesus
helps the man in our text move from an attitude of “If anybody can help, Jesus can,” to a faith that confesses, “Jesus CAN help, and He will, in His own way,
in His own time.” As it happens in our text, the time is now and the way is Jesus’ authoritative Word. In a demonstration of His divine authority
over all things (even demons!), Jesus commands the demon to come out of the boy
and not to return to him again. The demon convulses the poor boy and comes out.
And then there is a death and resurrection of sorts. The boy is lying
motionless, like a corpse on the ground. But Jesus, the Lord of life, who on
the third day would rise again in His own glorious body, takes the boy’s hand
and raises Him up.
What a gracious Savior we have. How compassionate. He
really does care about us. He who is
very God of very God came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit
of the Virgin Mary. He descended into our mess of a world, our mess of a life,
into our problems, into our sin, into our death. He became a man for us men and
for our salvation. He who is very God did not consider equality with God a
thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant,
taking on our flesh, humbling Himself even to the point of death on a cross,
our death, the death we deserve in punishment for our sin. And in so doing He
delivers us from the main problem, the worst problem, the problem that is sin.
This is the problem that rots us to our very core. This is the disease that
kills us. It results in death every time. Jesus conquers it in His death. The
cross means forgiveness for us. So great is our Savior’s compassion, so great
is His love for you and for me that He willingly sheds His blood in order to
snatch us out of the jaws of hell. And here’s the real kicker. He is risen! He
is risen, just as He said! Death could not hold Him. He is victorious. His
redemption worked. We’re saved. And if that’s true (and it is!), how can we
doubt that He is able and wants to save us from the rest of our infirmities? “If you can…” we say to Jesus. “All things are possible for one who
believes,” He responds. “Just watch what I’m about to do. I forgive your
sins. If I can forgive your sins, which only God can do, surely I can make
everything else right again.”
“Lord, I believe;
help my unbelief.” We must keep coming back to this prayer because our
faith is weak. And the hard part is that even though Jesus promises that He is
making all things new, even though He is willing and able to help you in your afflictions,
He does it His way and in His time, not your way or in your
time. You have to bear the cross in this life. You have to suffer in this life.
You have to bear sadness. You have to be ill. You have to suffer broken
relationships. These things come to you now, for a little while, to crucify
your flesh, lead you away from your idols, and drive you to Christ alone for
mercy. The cross has this way of making evident the fact that your faith is
weak, weaker perhaps than you thought. It has this way of driving you again and
again to the prayer: “Lord, I believe;
help my unbelief.”
Some Christians have stronger faith and some have weaker
faith. And at one time or another, your own faith may be stronger or weaker. We
all need a stronger faith. We all need to grow in the faith. But here’s what
really matters: God has given us faith in
the first place, faith in Jesus Christ, trust in His sin-atoning death and
victorious resurrection, that there is forgiveness of sins in His blood. Faith
is God’s gift to us. And whether you have more or less of it, you have it, and
it receives. It receives God’s gifts. It receives Christ. Faith is the
receiving hands of the believer in Christ Jesus. Christ doles out Himself in
His gifts. Faith appropriates those gifts for the Christian. You do not have
enough faith. You never do in this fallen world. But the faith God has given
you is sufficient. It is sufficient to receive Christ. For all that really
matters, is Christ. You should always give thanks to God that for the sake of Christ,
the Holy Spirit has brought you to faith through the Gospel and continues to
sustain you in that faith, through all its highs and lows, by means of the same
Gospel.
And what about when you particularly struggle with a weak
faith? Immerse yourself in that same Gospel. Come to Church to be absolved of
your sins. Private confession and absolution is a great way to do this. Hear
the Word. Read and study it. Mark it, learn it, inwardly digest it. Trace the
sign of the holy cross upon yourself and remember that you are baptized. And do
as our Confessions say. Come to the Supper of Christ’s true body and blood. The
Supper is precisely for the weak in faith. I’ll let the Confessions have the
last word:
"Some Christians have a weak faith and are shy,
troubled, and heartily terrified because of the great number of their sins.
They think that in their great impurity they are not worthy of this precious
treasure [of the Lord’s Supper] and Christ’s benefits. They feel their weakness
of faith and lament it, and from their hearts desire that they may serve God
with stronger, more joyful faith and pure obedience. These are the truly worthy
guests for whom this highly venerable Sacrament has been especially instituted
and appointed… Worthiness does not depend on the greatness or smallness, the
weakness or strength of faith. Instead, it depends on Christ’s merit, which the
distressed father of little faith [Mark 9:24] enjoyed as well as Abraham, Paul,
and others who have a joyful and strong faith."[1]
“Lord, I believe;
help my unbelief.” “I am able,” says Jesus. “Take, eat, this is my body.
Take, drink, this is my blood. It is given and shed for you, for the
forgiveness of sins.” In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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