Good morning, everybody. My name is Drew. I'm the pastor here at Hope Heights. Glad that you're here with us. Fun to hear a lot of laughter today. Must have been some great
jobs, or
maybe not so great jobs that people have had. I've shared probably some of my least favorite jobs. One of my jobs, not so much chores at my house, but jobs, was when I was in college.
I worked at a hotel, which probably many of you maybe know this. I've probably shared some stories from this,
but worked at a job for multiple reasons. I was not a fan of this job. I had to wear khakis and a button up shirt and a tie every day, which was not a favorite thing of mine to do.
I guess I don't even do that now.
And I had to sit at a desk. And I think the worst part, I thought it'd be a great job because I sat down about 75% of the job was just to sit at the front desk at a hotel and wait for people to come in and help them. And I thought that'd be a great job in college because I just could just sit. But when you just sit at a job, it's like the longest, longest days.
And I just would sit and sit and sit.
And this was pre. Like at this point there wasn't even WI fi in hotels and so there wasn't like smartphones or WI fi. So I just sat,
tried to read books and just looked at walls.
I looked at the same generic flower painting for like three years in college. And it just felt like the longest
moments of my entire life.
I feel even like weird talking about,
like I still feel like I should work through that maybe that season of my life.
It reminds me of a moment in a movie. I'm sure maybe you have seen this movie. In the movie Incredibles, there's this great scene in the movie where there's all this excitement of these superheroes who are fighting crime and all this adventure is going on and the good guys are winning. And there's this quick cut scene in the beginning in the Incredibles that goes right to the dad. And he's at work, if you remember this. And he's just in his. I love it. The whole scene goes to kind of more of a gray scale. And he's in just his suit and tie, or just tie. And he's in his tiny cubicle, which is also happens to be the cubicle. That's where the pillar is, which I love. It just adds to the thrill. Remember he has this conversation with this lady that goes nowhere. The look on his face and the feeling that he's having describes how my days at that hotel went.
I would often ask myself, why am I here? Well, it's because they paid me money is why I was there.
But that feeling of kind of like, why are you here? What am I supposed to do? There's, like, a mundane part of it. There's a numbness to it. At times, it felt kind of like a chaos to, like. Everything just kind of keeps going and spinning. And what is this? Is this real life? Is this really what things are supposed to be? Today we're in the Book of Mark, as we have been for a while, and we just had this moment called the Transfiguration. Last week was Easter. We celebrated Easter. And we got to celebrate the Resurrection, which is this pinnacle of all of creation, of all of history, of the cosmos forever, for all people. And we got to celebrate this moment in Mark, the Transfiguration where Jesus takes his disciples, just a few of them, up on a mountain, and Jesus begins to be transfigured. He glows, it says, brighter than any, like, earthly bleach or anything could make him right. He's this moment where they see all the glory of God and Jesus is there, and it's Elijah and Moses. This is this moment that's glorious, and they're overwhelmed by it. It's this amazing moment. And then today, we cut to the
other part of the story in Mark,
the next scene which just gets back to regular life, where people are arguing
and fighting and just the crumminess, the grayscale of life happens.
And I'm really encouraged today by the
passage because it reminds us of, what do we do in that?
What does it look like to actually just be a disciple? In fact, this passage today reminds me. People sometimes ask, like, so what does it mean to be a Christian or a disciple? What does it mean to follow Jesus? Or maybe someone who isn't one. Someone who just says, hey, you're like a pastor, right? Or you guys, like, go to church. What does that look like in your life? And I think, like, how do I explain that to someone? Because there could be a lot of things to explain to them. I could just say, oh, well, we follow Jesus.
What does that mean?
This is actually a passage. This week, I've been thinking, you know, I could. This is a story that I maybe would walk someone through to help them understand what. What does it look like? It's a story I might reread to remind myself. This is actually Like a pretty realistic view of what it actually looks like to just be kind of trying to get through life as a follower of Jesus, what it looks like to follow
Jesus, as we say here at Hope Heights and bring joy to our city. What does that really look like?
And so that's my hope today. We're in the Book of Mark. We're in Mark 9. If you have your Bibles, you want to crack them open the. To Mark nine. It's one of the gospels in the beginning of the New Testament. So right in the beginning of this new part, this part where we're learning about Jesus. The Gospels are just this good news about Jesus, stories of this guy named Jesus that we're learning about. Mark is one of the four gospels where we learn about the story of Jesus. And we are in nine, which is right in the middle of it. We're just starting kind of a new part. It's actually this new journey towards Jerusalem, towards the cross, towards the end of
the Book of Mark where we're gonna see Jesus crucified.
We got there last week, but now we got some weeks to move into this time. And so we ended our time last week with the crucifixion. We started here. We're in Mark 9, where the transfiguration happens. Jesus goes up on the mount with his disciples. As we start Mark nine, he glows. There's Elijah there. There's Moses. God says, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. Elijah and Moses leave. It's only Jesus God shows to these disciples, hey, Jesus is the one to listen to. He's the one. He's the key to all of this, to the law and to the prophets, to everything. It all comes through Jesus, my son. He's the one who's come to fulfill all these things. He's the key. And now today, that we're going to continue. I think these stories are so great together. They're meant to be together. And actually Raphael paints this painting. This is this top part of the painting that actually, I think, shows us a picture of a lot more than
just some people, right?
If you just saw this painting, you might go, oh, that's kind of cool and looks old. This essentially shows what it. The essentials of what it means to be a follower of Jesus or a Christian or what. What's up with Jesus? Why is he here? What's the deal with him? What are people supposed to do? What's up with the chaos? What's up with the grayscale kind of world? It feels like sometimes I'M just in an office and it's going over and over, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it. I think today might hopefully help us understand that a little bit. This is a painting painted by Raphael. It's actually end of his life. He actually didn't finish this painting. He died right before it was finished. They say some of his assistants probably finished it. But for a period of time in the world, this was considered one of the most famous paintings in the world.
Still maybe one of the most famous paintings.
It was commissioned to Raphael and him and Michelangelo, the other Ninja Turtle were in this heated rivalry over who was like the greatest artist. And so he was commissioned to do this, and he was just gonna do the Ascension. And then word kind of got out and Michelangelo started painting some really cool painting. And then Raphael was like, I'm gonna paint an even cooler painting than, you know, classic painters and their cool rivalries. It's like when people started throwing diss tracks out now and, you know, but at the time, really essentially the same. They're very famous, famous people at the time. He decides to paint this masterpiece with. I mean, it's beautiful to show the combination of the Ascension into the story of this demon possessed boy, which really
shares a story of mankind and how Jesus enters into it. It's beautiful.
It was actually hung then in a church. It was supposed to be hung just in this church. And it actually became this, like, symbol for art.
And it's really kind of a cool history of this, even just this work of art.
And it paints today. We're going to use this to help
us understand a little bit of this passage.
First, let me just read the story. So this is the story today. The passage we get is a story that's happening a moment right after the Ascension. Jesus has went on the mountain. He's coming down the mountain now with the few disciples that he brought there
into the bottom part essentially of this painting.
He's entering back into the world, essentially back into the office, back into the real life. And we're going to encounter what's really happening and how that works. It's been a few weeks since we got to do this, but I'm going to ask you to stand up and I'm going to read the story to us first. So if you'd stand. I'm going to read the Word of God to us. These passages starts in Mark 9, 14. I'm going to read this to us and then we'll take some time just to dig in Together I'll have the
passage up here on the screen as well.
So imagine this Jesus just the ascension. They just saw all the glory of God. He still probably is still glowing some, right, still got a trail of his
glory off of him.
And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and the scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran to him and greeted him. And he asked them, what are you arguing with them?
What are you arguing about with them? And someone from the crowd answered him, teacher, I brought my son to you. For he is a spirit that makes him mute.
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. And he asked them, o faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
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 convulsed the boy.
And he fell on the ground and
rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
And Jesus asked his Father, how long has this been happening to him? He said, from childhood. 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 I can, all things are possible for one who believes.
Immediately the Father, the child, cried out and said, I believe. Help my unbelief. 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 enter.
Never enter him again. 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 and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could he not cast it out? Why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Let's pray. Lord, thanks for your word. Thanks that you give us this moment in your story, in our story. I pray you'd use this to awaken our hearts, to make our hearts more flesh. That your spirit would change us and renew us, that we draw closer to you, Lord, and that we would know you more. Thank you for your word. That we'd believe it today. You're good. You're really good. To us. Pray this in your son's name.
Amen. All right, you can have a seat. What a crazy story, huh? Jesus comes down from the mountain. There's a scene, right? It's very different than the glorious scene on top of the mountain. It's a scene of people arguing. Religious leaders and disciples are arguing about this boy who could not be healed. There are people who are now cheering on Jesus who are amazed. Holy cow. This Jesus has come down. Look at him. He's glorious. He might still honestly be like when Moses came off the mountain, might be kind of still glowing some. There's people amazed by Jesus. There's people arguing over why this boy couldn't be healed. There's a father who's concerned, I'm sure, for his boy. There's a boy who is overwhelmed, who's possessed by this spirit, this demon that's making him mute, that's causing him to convulse, that's trying to throw him in water and fire, trying to kill him, has taken over his life. I mean, it's a picture of essentially life, right? It's a picture of people fighting and people cheering and people overwhelmed and people sad. It's just this terrible and real picture of life. To think back to this, this is why I think people love this painting. Raphael kind of captured it. There's people pointing to who Jesus is. There's people pointing to this boy. There's people arguing with one another. There's people who are probably just there because there's a crowd there. There's a boy who is there because his dad brought him, who's just hoping to live. There's a concerned dad who just. I just brought him, hoping somebody here could help.
A lot is going on. Thankfully, Jesus shows up. There's a lot going on. We have a whole mixture of people, including, I didn't mention our murderous enemy in the mix. What a picture, right?
This is the world that we kind of are in. I think if we're not careful, sometimes we might paint a picture of the life of a Christian as sort of
the top of this, right? Of, like, I just get to spend my days with glorious Jesus and he glows and I glow, and we spend our days glowing and singing hymns.
But often this is the reality of
a fallen, broken world, right?
It's very real. I actually asked, I said, maybe this will be hard for us to grasp because Raphael painted this in a style that maybe doesn't work because we don't look like this now. So I said, hey, AI, I need you to Help. So I went online and asked ChatGPT, could you make this painting look modern? I said, if this happened today, what would it look like? And this is what it gave me, which I think is accurate and kind of weirded me out. I was like, I don't like that, because that's true. I think everybody would probably pull phones out and take pictures of Jesus. So then I said, could you make it less accurate?
So I took the phones out.
So we're going to go with this one because that adds, like, a whole new element to it. I think when Jesus shows up, we get like a new picture of this passage.
So here's what my hope is today.
We're going to walk through this passage together, look at these different kind of groups of people. And my hope is we can kind of see ourselves in there, see how this happens today, and see what is
the hope in this passage. Why would Mark want us to see this moment happen? And how does this maybe can give us some hope as followers today even of Jesus, as Jesus does show up today in our lives.
So the first little moment we get here, when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them. So they come down the mountain with Jesus, these few disciples that were with Jesus, and they see the rest of the disciples of Jesus who they had left behind days before or a little bit before, right? And they had left them, and they now have come up on the mountain, they've come down, they're with the crowd. And since they've been gone, some things have happened. This crowd has gathered. This guy has come with his kid,
which we will learn in a minute.
And apparently they have tried to cast
this demon out of the kid and didn't work.
And now they are in a heated
argument with the scribes, with other leaders.
And I don't know what they're arguing about. We think maybe they're arguing about, like, why can't you cast the demon out? Maybe they're arguing like, what have you done wrong? Or maybe they're arguing like, see, we told you this Jesus doesn't really have the power, or maybe you shouldn't be following this guy, or what's wrong with you? Or maybe they're arguing about techniques. Hey, you used the wrong technique. You used the wrong substance when you tried to heal him. You guys aren't praying the right kind of prayer when you're praying for him. I'm not sure. We don't know exactly what's happening, but there is an argument here. The word here is not. They're Having a discussion about, you know,
what's happening in the world that day. But they're having an argument, and we
see that as Jesus comes up, the crowd also becomes amazed at him. So there's this kind of cool picture
here that Mark gives us.
These people are arguing, and then Jesus shows up.
And people become amazed at seeing Jesus.
They greet him and Jesus says, what
are you arguing about?
Right?
So we get to see this first.
So this is a very real thing
in real life, right?
People spend their time arguing, discussing, what should we do? How could we have done it? Why aren't things working?
It's a lot of our time discussing who.
Who did things the right way, who's not doing things the right way, why you should do it your way and you shouldn't do it this way.
That's part of my day, right? That's part of the world I do see around me.
And part of the day I do see around me is people being amazed
by things around me. Again, describing the world around us.
Jesus showing up, asking them what they're arguing about. Then someone from the crowd says, well, I brought my son because my son is in this terrible place.
This is. This I couldn't imagine. This is terrible, right?
The spirit has got a hold of him. He can't talk. It throws him down.
He foams at the mouth. He grinds his teeth. He becomes rigid.
Some scholars said it seems like evidence
of maybe epilepsy or something like that, if we want to understand kind of what's happening in a modern sense.
He said, this happens to my son. So I brought him to your disciples because I've heard what happens. I've heard that, like, the people come to you and your people and they cast out demons and. And they heal people. And so I'm just trying to find a way to help my son. So I asked your disciples to do
this, but they weren't able to do it. We're just stopping there.
This has happened before. Remember, the disciples were actually sent out. Jesus says, I'm going to send you
out to cast out demons, preach the good news. Actually, they actually do it when that happens.
So I don't know what's different this time, but this time they're not able to do it.
I don't know if they are doing
something different or their hearts are in a different place, or they try a different technique or it's not working this time. Which maybe if you're reading Mark, if you just read through Mark and didn't pause all the times we paused, you might Go. Didn't we just read like, I think it's in six Mark six. Didn't we just read that? Like they just did this. They went out and they cast out demons in the name of Jesus and huh. So he says, hey, your disciples are unable to do this. And so now they're arguing about why they can't do it. I'm sure they all have lots of thoughts. So Jesus response isn't necessarily, well, they should have done it this way or this way or hold on, let me take them. But he actually has a different response, similar. He answers, o faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.
This is one of the most like
kind of tired responses. It feels like we don't know the
tone of his voice, but it seems
like Mark's trying to share that a little bit. Like, whew, how long is this going to go on?
I think after the ascension, Jesus knows,
like, we're getting close to my, my death and resurrection here.
I don't have a lot of time with you.
We got to figure this out. Bring the kid to me. We're still missing something here, friends. And so they do, they bring the boy to Jesus.
So we have this crowd that's arguing. We have people who are amazed at Jesus. We have this broke, this, this kid who is taken over by the spirit, essentially the enemy, right? Satan wants to destroy this kid.
This is very much a picture of the world, right?
We have an enemy who has come who would love to just destroy each and one of each one of our lives, each one of our friends lives, each one of our kids lives, each one of our family members lives. He loved to throw us down,
cause us to be rigid, almost dead, eventually dead. It's like a lion that comes right to, to kill and destroy. What a picture.
Jesus comes from the glorious mountain down
to a people,
one boy, but really
a picture of all people who are under siege by the spirit. And he says, bring him to me. So they bring him to him when
the spirit saw him.
The spirit knows who Jesus is. And the spirit immediately makes the boy convulse and he falls to the ground and he rolls about and he foams at the mouth.
The spirit is like a having a fight or having a little meltdown here, having upset that Jesus is close to him. And Jesus asked the Father, how long has this been happening in him?
And he says, from childhood. Kid's always been dealing with this.
I mean, another picture, right? How long have we been Dealing with this spirit in us, this sin in us, forever, always.
And then Jesus, only Jesus
can heal
him and as often casts him into the water to destroy him. This is such a interesting thing, right?
There's actually a lot of like commentary on this that fire and water mean lots of different things. I think in general we can pull out of this, right? There's a spirit in him who wants to kill him, who wants to throw him into fire which would burn him or water which would drown him. It wants to destroy him.
There's a spirit who wants his end to be death. And we know that Jesus end is to come to bring us life. And so we know which spirit this is. It's the same spirit who tried to
tempt Jesus so that he would not
come and rescue people to life. And so Jesus always has something to say about this.
He did not come down from the mountain to just say hi to this
boy, to just get some information about this boy. But he came down to say, that boy doesn't. The spirit doesn't get to destroy this boy today.
But if you can do anything the
dad says, have compassion on us and help. Jesus senses in even his question that he doesn't totally understand or believe who Jesus really is.
Just like the disciples as we've heard
over and over in their hardened hearts,
he doesn't really believe who Jesus is
or what Jesus has really come to do.
He maybe just thinks Jesus is like a miracle worker. Like, hey, if there's a way you can make him not keep having convulsions
or just keep having these seizures, or
if you could help him not just
keep flying into water or fire.
He doesn't understand like you have come to like cast out the evil that no one could do, that you've come to give him life and a future and eternity. He says if you can do anything and Jesus response is very understandable, then if you can.
Oh, if I can. All things are possible for those. For one who believes immediately the Father, the child cried out and said, I believe. Help my unbelief. Kind of a strange statement. Jesus says all things are possible.
Now this is a verse that's very
well known this all things are possible for one who believes.
It's a verse that's used out of context in the sense of like, I want a thing. And so I can quote Mark 9:23 and say, I believe that I want this and then I should get it. I don't think that's what Jesus wants here. Right? Jesus is saying, do you actually believe that I Am the son of God who has come and.
And has power over this spirit who's
nothing compared to me, who I can cast out and rescue your son. And this dad says, I do believe, but I need your help believing. This is an incredibly encouraging verse to me.
I believe, help my unbelief.
Because many times I think I don't believe enough. I don't believe enough. If I believe enough, then this thing will happen. If I believe enough Jesus, then Jesus will show up. If I believe enough, then Jesus will answer my call. If I believe enough, then Jesus will. And this is a step before that, even my belief. I need Jesus to help me do. I can actually come and say Jesus, I'm struggling to believe that you even are a thing that he could help me with that. Isn't that cool? Our God. We can go to God and say, God, can you help me believe that you're there? I don't know if you're there, help me believe you're there. That's not what. I love this because we could say, I believe.
I need you to help me to believe. I think it's beautiful. This dad says, I believe. Help me though belief because I want my kids saved. I don't want my kid destroyed. Help me believe.
Jesus doesn't say, let's work on your belief. Once it's to a certain level, you can cash it in, then we'll help your kid.
He doesn't.
And then Jesus saw that a crowd came running together. He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it. Then he turns. This dad says, I believe. Help my unbelief. And then he turns. I'm sure this helped his. His unbelief. Jesus turns and says, you mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out and never enter him again. And after crying out and convulsing terribly, he puts up a fight. It came out. Imagine one last fight in this kid, one last attempt maybe to put an end to this kid. And then the boy lays there like a corpse. And these people say, he's dead. Maybe they thought even Jesus had killed him at that point. What did he do to him? Did he kill him? Did the spirit finally win? There was a. Was there a battle between this evil spirit and Jesus? For a moment, the spirit got him. It won. He's dead.
He's not dead, Jesus.
It was Jesus that's doing this. He took him by the hand,
he lifted him up and he rose.
The language here is actually very intentional. We don't always get this. These words that were used in Mark. But right here we get a language that says he lifted him up and he rose. Or this is actually like, he was
risen is the language that could be used here, which is the same language
we get later in Mark when we hear some ladies came to a tomb and they say, he's not here, he is risen. We actually hear the same language here.
It's very cool.
It's like Jesus comes down from the Transfiguration. This story happens and a little boy we think is dead. And then the story is not dead. It actually says Jesus comes and takes his hand and he is risen.
Isn't that cool? You wonder if they look, if they think back to this moment, they're like, remember when Jesus picked up his boy up? He was risen. The boy's risen.
It's incredible. The dad has to in that moment go, help me believe. And then this happens. And he goes, oh, that helped, that helped. I think. I believe. I mean, it's credible, right? It doesn't end there though. The disciples then are like, okay, that worked. What happened? What did we not do? They enter a house. Now he's just with his disciples. Why could we not cast him out?
And then he says this phrase, which
I think you'd probably talk about for a while with your disciples amongst each other. This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
This feels like a moment.
Maybe he said that.
I think if I was a disciple I might be like, did we not pray though, guys?
I think we prayed.
This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. What is he saying there?
Christopher Marshall wrote a book here on the Book of Mark.
He says this.
Presumably they had come to regard their power to heal and exercise as in like exorcism, as their own autonomous possession, rather than being a commission from Jesus to realize his delegated authority afresh each
time through dependent prayer.
Mark is suggesting that self confident optimism
may feel like faith, but it is in fact unbelief because it disregards the prerequisite of human powerlessness and prayerful dependence on God. Through that last part, Mark is suggesting that self confident optimism may feel like faith, but is in fact unbelief. It disregards the prerequisite of human powerlessness and prayerful dependence on God.
What he's saying here is, I think
Jesus is saying, I think you probably
tried a lot of stuff with this kid, techniques, maybe even did the things you did before, but maybe without me, maybe you thought, you know what, it worked before without your dependence on God, without your dependence on me, not in my name you weren't doing it in the name of Jesus or in like, hey, I have nothing here. Only Jesus can heal you. And you went, you know, I've gotten pretty good at this. I got this one. Jesus, he's reminding us that prayer is not like a cool technique in a conversation with God. Prayer is just us declaring our dependence on God. Prayer is us saying, I believe, help. My unbelief. Prayer is saying, I believe, help. He's saying, did you come to the kid and say,
help, Lord, help. Help this kid. We need. We need.
We have nothing that could save you. Sorry, bud.
But Jesus can. He's got everything that can save you. Or did you come to him and go, we've done this. Don't worry about it. We've got some techniques.
In fact, even at that time, that was pretty common. Like, they knew the kind of prayer to say, the kind of things. Incense to burn, the type of water to use. Did you come with maybe the right techniques? Had you argued before and discussed the right way to do it? And you kind of went, hold on, we've done this before. Do you remember? We were in the Bethsaida and we healed those people.
We got it.
You try the technique. How. How much does this happen all day
long in the church?
Hey, we've done this. We know how this works. We played this song, and then this song, and then we prayed in this way, and then we gave this kind of sermon. And then some people cried.
Everybody was moved. It was awesome. We figured it out. We no longer need the spirit to move. We can do it without it. I think Jesus is saying, this kind of spirit needs prayer. What he's saying is, while I was on the mountain, you forgot that you needed me. That in the end, I'm the one who casts demons out of people. I'm the one who rescues people. I'm the one who brings people home.
The prayer is, I believe.
Help. That's always the prayer.
Prayer is not a technique we do to coerce God to do something.
It's us coming to God and going, I believe you are who you are. Help. I need you. Help.
And one of the cool things that happened this weekend, if you got to watch it, I got to watch it live.
Which made me feel just like a
kid was watch the Artemis 2 splashdown.
Felt like I got to be part of history.
I don't know if anyone else watched this, but I've got to watch the astronauts come back in. But there was a moment when the ship was coming back in and, okay, I know I'M not using all the right words.
I know a couple of you are already correcting me in your minds. I don't. Don't email me.
I don't care. The rocket ship machine was coming in and it was starting to glow with magic, you know, orange stuff. And they were like, there's going to be a six minute communication blackout because it's going so fast and it's so hot or whatever. And it goes. And all of a sudden they're like, we won't talk to you for a few minutes. And then they go out and then they like, we can't talk to them for a few minutes. Hope we can talk to them. And the guy on the news is like, there's nothing we can do. It's all in their hands.
Let's hope they bring it home. And I was like, emotional.
I was like, by myself in my living room and I was like, you could do it.
Bring it home.
Bring it home. From my couch in Columbia Heights, I'm
like, you got this, guys.
Like, somehow they just kept talking about how there's really, we're all over the world and they interview someone in San Diego and they're like, we're just on the beach. There's nothing we can do. We're just hoping they can do it. There's an element to this that was beautiful in that there's nothing any of us could do. We just had to watch them bring it home.
And they did.
It was cool, right? The parachutes came out. Just kept saying, everything's going perfect. Parachutes are out. Perfect. They're blowing up good. And whatever, splashdown balloons came out. Everyone's cool, right? Those are technical terms, but they're all. It's all good. It was so cool. And then they get out and they're home and they're like, they made it home. But there's that moment where they said, nothing we can do. We just get to watch them.
Let's hope they bring it home. Right?
I think this is our moment here in Mark 9 is the moment Jesus comes, enters back off the mountain in all of his glory into the chaos of people arguing and cheering and fighting. And Satan has his grip on people and he's trying to kill this boy and everyone else around him. And he walks in and he goes like, you can't forget. You get to watch me bring everybody home. And I think you're trying to bring everybody home and it's not working and
it's okay and it's good.
You get to join me and watch me Bring everybody home. You're not an astronaut. Thank God I'm not in there and
I don't know anything about it. But you get to bring everybody home, right? You're a boy.
You're also a boy possessed by a
demon who's running towards death. I also am going to rescue you as well.
Jesus walks into just a perfect picture
of humankind and reminds us, what did
you need to do?
You needed to say, I believe, I need help. That's what you need to do. Maybe a little less arguing. Ephesians 2 reminds us of this true thing.
This is like a. This passage almost describes Mark 9 to us. But God being rich in mercy because
of the great love with which he
loved us, even while we are dead
in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ by grace we have been saved.
Even a guy who's like, I believe
and I don't believe. And he goes, I gotcha.
Raised us up, raises that boy up, raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages we might show the immeasurable riches of
his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not by your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
This passage reminds me that we often
get this in the wrong order.
I think that might have been what was happening. We just got a little moment of that. In Mark 9, the disciples were trying to do the good work that they were created to do. But they were trying to do it first without Jesus. They were dead men trying to help other dead men get life.
And that just created more dead men.
And first we need to be rescued from our death. And then from there Jesus creates us in his workmanship to do good works.
But first we don't skip that part. First we pray and say, lord, I believe, help me.
I thought of a few things here, that of why I don't do this.
As we get to the end here,
why I don't pray. Maybe even why the disciples didn't pray. And it's really just from the passage here today. I was thinking, why, why don't I just say it seems a lot easier just to go, lord, I believe, help me. It seems a lot easier than arguing and trying my own techniques and spending a lot of time on things that don't work. Number One I think sometimes I like to argue. It's fun to feel like you're right. It's fun to prove other people wrong because then you're right. Or at least they're wrong. Sometimes it's not.
You don't even be right. It's just nice to go, you're not right. It's fun to. It's nice to feel like you're in control.
A good argument over how a thing is supposed to work and who is supposed to do what
over if Jesus
way is right or wrong.
Feels like I'm in control. Makes me just feel better, I think.
I don't say I believe Jesus. You are who you are. I need your help because I want
to feel in control ultimately or better
or right or in believing who Christ is. I have to say that I am
not Jesus and I am not all together. That's hard. Or I can't heal the kid, that I need someone else. I like to argue.
Sometimes I don't pray because I don't actually believe Jesus can do it.
I just think, oh, he must. He went off to the mountain to hang out.
He's skiing with the other guys, so why would he come back? I guess I got to do it because Jesus won't do it. It's hard to pray if I don't believe that Jesus can even rescue me. Maybe I don't trust scripture or I don't trust friends who trust scripture. Maybe I've watched enough clips of skeptics that I'm starting to believe. Oh, maybe scripture was made up by
monks in the 14th century or whatever the video is, that's not true.
Maybe I listen to too many podcasts and they've given me lots of other things to believe that seem to be a lot more convincing than Jesus. Why would I go to him? Why would I say, jesus, I need you help when I've figured out a lot of other techniques that might be a lot more effective to heal this boy than Jesus. Maybe I need a lot more facts, a lot more information. I need to figure out some more systems and then I'll come and ask Jesus.
Maybe I was just hurt by other
people who have say they hang out
with Jesus and so I don't want to hang out with Jesus.
Whatever it is, it makes me sometimes
not want to go to Jesus because I don't know if I even believe Jesus.
He's not scared of us saying,
help me believe.
I think sometimes I just don't want to go to Jesus because he doesn't believe in me. What I mean, by that is he doesn't affirm and support all of my stuff. I go to him and I say, hey, I want to do this thing, Jesus.
And he goes, it's going to hurt you.
And I go, eh, but I want to do it.
And he says, I didn't make you for that.
And I go, well, then I'm not
talking to you anymore. And he's like, that's going to hurt you too. Yeah. Sometimes I just don't want to believe him.
The third thing is that
I was
thinking, sometimes I'm just that boy who's mute, or I could be blind or deaf. I'm just overtaken by a spirit. I can't come to Jesus. There are times in my life that I'm on my way to the fire pit or the water hole or I'm being destroyed. I can't make it to him. And thank God I had friends who carried me to him, that I needed help. And it wasn't that I didn't want to come to him or that I didn't need help. It was that I couldn't. And I needed a friend who would
say, hey, do you know there's someone who could rescue you from this? Do you know there's someone who could bring you life? I needed his dad, a friend, a brother, sister who would bring me to him, who would bring Jesus to me.
That one's the one that got me this week.
I thought, man, I think there's often
that I think, hey, you know what? You're hurting. I can tell something's got a hold of you. Maybe you should find Jesus. I'm going to pray you find Jesus.
Like, yeah, maybe God's leading me to bring you to Jesus.
My Kelly's aunt passed away this week.
And just a really cool little story. Her Uncle Clyde, who is just the sweetest dude. He is. Iowa. Like, think of a sweet old guy in Iowa who lives in a small town who no one will ever know about, except that I'm talking about him right now. The sweetest dude loves Jesus.
Just, like, involved in his little local church. Married her aunt Bev. Clyde and Bev.
All you have to know is their names. Clyde and Bev.
Imagine him.
That's what he looks like. Incredible, right?
Love Clyde to death.
When I see him, he's just like, how you doing? Wants to pray for me. Love this guy, right? Like, I want his faith. I got to hear this story this week. Kelly goes to the funeral. I said, how's the funeral? And she said, really cool story, right? Before Marsha passes away, Clyde's like, I gotta make sure I see her. He goes to see her. He sits down with her and he says, marcia, before. Before you go, you know, it's so important that I know if I'm going to see you in heaven. And everyone's like, clyde, you don't have to bother her with that. And he goes, this is the most important thing we can ask her. And she goes, I know who Jesus is, Clyde. And he goes, that's so good. And then he prays for her and sings a hymn with her. And he leaves. He's like, I just had to know. He goes back to work. I think, what do you a Clyde like? He goes, we have to make sure she knows because that's, in the end, all that matters.
He had to make sure someone brought Jesus to her because she was laying there in her bed and pretty hurt
and pretty sick, I think, yeah, you know what? Sometimes I can't pray because I can't even talk. I need to be a Clyde. I need to make sure I say that.
Henry Nolan says we have fallen into temptation of separating ministry from spirituality. Ministry. He's just saying, like, in our lives, just the work of caring for people,
of bringing Jesus to people. Just your life, right? Separating our life from spirituality, service from prayer.
Our demons say we are too busy to pray.
We have too many needs to attend to, too many people to respond to, too many wounds to heal.
It's wild.
That's what I say, though. Prayer is a luxury, something to do during a free hour, a day away from work or on a retreat.
Instead of like a. It's an essential beginning to all things.
It's like our bonus luxury. He says it well, I'm going to
invite our worship team up so we
can begin a time of worship together. But as we end our time here,
I want us to consider, why do we find ourselves in the same place? I think it's because we forget essentially this story. A story of a God who starts in all his glory, but a God who then comes down out of his glory. And actually a God in this story who becomes a boy who is put to death. Did you see the story of the Gospel? In this story, a boy who's tossed about, actually killed by Satan by a group of arguing people, by a group of a crowd who's cheering, but a boy who rises up, defeats death and
rescues us from sin and death. We have a Jesus who comes into our.
Into our world even as we say,
I believe and help me in my unbelief Even for those who say, I don't believe, he says, I'm going to come and rescue you. It starts with us saying, I believe. Help me in my unbelief. It starts with us saying, I need you. I need your help. It's a story of a God who enters into our place, into our arguing, demon possessed, deathly world and rescues us. It's really good news. Really, really good news.
Friends, a couple things to consider as
we can move to a time to respond to that good news.
Can you pray I believe. Help my unbelief? What keeps you from that? Is it hard to admit that you have unbelief? Is it hard to admit that? Is it hard to just believe that you believe? Can you say, I do believe Jesus is real.
He's done these things. Can you pray that today?
Do you need Jesus to cast out?
What do you need him to cast out today? What's going on in you? Can you name that thing?
Who brings you to Jesus?
And who could you bring to Jesus today?
We also love to respond in a few other ways. Communion. Outside both of our doors in the hallway, we have communion. It's an opportunity every single week for us to remember the broken body, his blood that was shed so that we could have life, so that we could
be resurrected, so that we could be risen as well.
So we encourage you to do that. We encourage everyone who's a follower of
Jesus to do that in the hallway,
on your own or with a friend. Also, we love to sing. Our team is going to lead us in some worship today. There'll be people who would love to pray for you in the back of the room. They have yellow lanyards on. Please take them up on that. They love to do that. And we always have an opportunity to
give as a response to the gospel as well. There's a big a black box on
this side at communion if you like to give in person or online as
a way to support the ministry here at Hope. Let me pray for us as we'll continue to worship. Lord, thank you for your goodness and your kindness today.
Thank you that you have come down to us
and you've rescued us. That in our state, a brokenness of death, that you have risen and brought us with you. It's good news. I pray now as we sit that you would cast out those things that are not of you, that you would rescue us, that you would give us life, that you would heal us.
Thanks for bringing all these people together.
Thanks that we get to sing and thanks that we get to gather. This is really a gift. We love you, Lord.
Amen.