Jesus and our Low Expectations.

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. We hope this message inspires you, roots you down deep into the Lord, into His Word, and may His Spirit be your guide as you enjoy this teaching. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the message. God’s Word for us this morning comes from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, verses 14 through 29. Hear now the Word of the Lord speaking to you.

When the Spirit 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 answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him, and when the Spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, How long has it been happening to him? And he said, From childhood, and it has 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.

— Mark 9

(ESV)

Immediately the father of 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 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 we not cast it out? And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

— Mark 9

(ESV)

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, if you’re like me, you’re starting to realize that it is very hard to live faithfully as a Christian,

Faith in a Faithless World

especially in these days, and especially in this city. In this post-Christian rise and fall of Mars Hill, where everybody seems to be walking away from the faith type of world we are living in, remaining faithful to Christ seems almost impossible. If you’re like me, you may feel like a traveler in a foreign land without a compass, or better yet, you are surrounded by others who insist that your compass is broken, or that our faith is insignificant, or false, or worse yet, detrimental to ourselves and others. But this morning, I want to bring us into the good news, that Jesus knew it was going to be this way, and he told us so. Remember, just a few weeks ago, if you were with us, Jesus declares, if you are going to follow me, you have to take up your cross, this symbol of his suffering, and follow him.

And Jesus teaches in the Gospel of John, that if the world’s going to persecute him, of course, it will certainly persecute those who follow him. And this morning, this text, Jesus doesn’t just tell us that’s going to happen. He actually steps in and helps us personally and directly navigate this world that we’re trying so hard to navigate on our own. He’s going to show us how to be faithful to him. That’s because I think in Mark 9, we find a microcosm of the cultural chaos similar to the very ones we’re experiencing today. And in Mark 9, we find Jesus smack dab in the middle of that chaos, showing us, teaching us, showing us the way through. See, he will show us in this text, what true faith is, and how to live that faith out, even in the midst of a chaotic world. Mark 9 then serves as a kind of faith diagnostic.

See, underneath the narrative, Mark will give us three principles, three habits, or what we’ll call three checks, that help us answer our pressing question this morning, and the question that’s pushed on us every single day, how can we remain faithful in a faithless world? As we will see, to keep the faith, we must first consistently check our motives. Why are we coming to Jesus? Second, we must consistently check our expectations. What do we actually expect of Jesus? And third, we need to check our abilities. Just how reliant am I on my own self-reliance? You see, these habits, these principles, these checks, provide a practical and God-ordered guide on what true faith is, and how to live our faith truthfully. Not in a way that runs from the pressures of the world, but in a way that runs into them, to live and to offer a better eternal hope.

Checking Our Motives

So let’s start with that first habit of keeping the faith. We need to check our motives. We’ll find that in verses 14 through 17, where we catch a glimpse of the very different reasons why people come to Jesus in this passage. Verse 14. And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them. So this is Jesus. He is with those disciples He was with on the Mount of Transfiguration that we saw last week. He’s with Peter, James, and John, and they come down the mountain, and they come to the disciples. They see a great crowd around the disciples, and scribes are there arguing with them. And immediately, all the crowd, when they saw Him, when they saw Jesus, were greatly amazed and ran up to Him and greeted Him and asked Him, What are you arguing about with Him? And someone from the crowd answered Him, answered Jesus,

Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. So hopefully you’re seeing this. Each group here has a different motive, a different reason for showing up here looking and waiting for Jesus. I mean, up first are the scribes. And why are the scribes here? Well, they’re here to debate with Jesus and the disciples. The scribes are motivated by intellectual arrogance. They want to show that their religion of law-keeping and tradition is the one true religion. They want to show that the way of Jesus is the wrong way. First, because they’re convinced that their way is the only way to God. And second, if they’re right, then that means their life has just been made obsolete with all its traditions and all its law. So out of an inflated sense of self-importance and an inflated sense of self-preservation, the scribes come ready to prove the Son of God wrong

and to show His disciples they don’t know who God really is. But notice, Jesus never engages the scribes. Next, we run into the crowds, or more likely the crowds run into us on their way to clamber over Jesus. See, the crowds for Mark is a mob. It’s a mob of chaos and a mob of power. It’s always on the move because its members seek, not debate like the scribes, but they’re seeking distraction. They’re seeking a search. They’re seeking for meaning that keeps them ultimately empty because they’re looking in all the wrong places. See, they clamber for the world’s next big thing to fill the void in their hearts. The crowd is the perfect example of FOMO, this fear of missing out, well before the Internet ever pushed this into our social conscience. And as we will see in the chapters ahead, this crowd is fickle and this crowd is volatile.

So while they are here right now to marvel at Jesus’ teaching and miracles, it won’t be long before they will be calling out for His crucifixion in the passages ahead. And like the scribes, Jesus never engages the crowd either. There is only one Jesus engages here, and that is the father of the boy with the unclean spirit. And why is he here? Well, it’s not to debate Jesus. It’s not to be distracted by Jesus. Pure and simple, he is here out of desperation. He comes to Jesus, as we will see, for help and for compassion. He is at his literal wit’s end. His boy is suffering physically and spiritually. And he can’t get it to stop. And it seems no one else can either. See, it’s his father’s desperate love for his son that motivates him to find Jesus, to cut through the arguments of the scribes

and the chaos of the crowds, to ready himself even for a potential case of disappointment once again, all because he’s not ready to give up hope and he’s not ready to give up on his son either. So, he comes to plead with Jesus to save his son, but Jesus has much more for him than this. And before we get there, we need to ask ourselves the looming question that is hovering over these verses. And that question is this. Why have you come to encounter Jesus here this morning? Perhaps you’re like the scribes and you’re ready to argue with Jesus. And if you are, let me just say, Thomas Terry is ready to answer all your questions right after this service. Seek him out. Maybe you’re here, though, like the crowds, to see what all the fuss is about and maybe to try to hear something new.

And of course, there’s other reasons why we’re here. Maybe your friends invited you. Maybe your parents made you show up. Maybe you’re trying just to do a little bit better. Or maybe your newsfeed has overwhelmed you over the past few weeks. Perhaps you are a little bit more like the Father in this passage than you realize. Maybe like him, you’re nearing or at the end of your rope. And you’ve heard that Jesus might be able to meet some of your needs. Now, to all these motives, let me say we are glad you are here. We are glad you are here because, not anything I have to offer you, but because you will get a direct answer from Mark in these passages. Not about what motives are right in your heart, because what Jesus will show us is that none of them are right. None of them are pure.

Because Mark wants to show us why Jesus is here in the chaos. See, this is the great reset of the passage and the great reset of faith. Yes, we need to assess. We need to assess consistently our motives. We need to see where they’re weak. We need to see where they’re struggling. But more important to our faith and more important to staying in our faith is knowing and holding fast to what motivates Jesus to stand in the midst of the broken crowd. See, our faith is built not on our motives. It’s built on Jesus’ motives. And His motive is this. Jesus is here because He is the very Son of God that we saw at the Mount of Transfiguration last week. The very Son of God who offers you all things in and of Himself. He isn’t here because He wants to argue with you.

He isn’t here because He wants to offer you some perfect worldly experience. He is here for your faith. See, He stands before us this morning in Mark 9 because He wants to show us that everything that we are looking for, everything we didn’t even know we were looking for, is found squarely in Him. And it is yours simply. And we said at the outset that we would provide a true definition of faith. And here it is. It’s yours simply by believing that Jesus is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do and then building our whole life on it. Building our whole life on that belief. Consistently. Day in and day out. And looking to Him when it’s hard. Now, to keep us in that true faith, we not only need to check our motives. Mark is showing us we must also check our expectations.

Checking Our Expectations

We must check our expectations. We see that in verses 18-23 where Mark writes, And whenever it seizes him, that’s the spirit seizes the boy. This is the Father speaking. When the spirit seizes the boy, 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 answered them. That is, Jesus answered them. O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to Him. And when the spirit saw Him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked His Father, How long has this been happening to Him? And the Father said, from childhood, And it has often cast him into fire and into water

to destroy him. And here you hear the desperation. 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. See, like a good director, Mark is bringing us into the central meaning of this passage by expanding out of the panoramic view of the scribes and the crowds and bringing us in the close-up between Jesus and this boy’s father. And at the center of this exchange is the dad’s expectations. Expectations that have been shaped consistently by the world and are about to be reshaped by Jesus. So, see, from the get-go, you see how the world has trained this boy’s dad to lower his expectations to all the conditions he’s had to face. First, there are the conditions of the boy. The conditions are physical. He is mute. He foams at the mouth.

He grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. But notice what the source is. The source of these physical conditions are spiritual. According to the dad’s own testimony, it is an unclean spirit that does all this to his son. And this spirit is attempting to destroy his boy, even throwing him into fire to burn and water to drown. And let me say this, too. We know this is more than just biological and neurological misfirings because the unclean spirit responds, responds to Jesus’ presence. He convulses the boy when Jesus enters the frame. The boy’s spiritual and physical conditions can’t help but overwhelm the father. So you can hear the seeds of hopelessness begin to spring up in the dad’s voice when he explains the situation to Jesus. And so the dad begins to temper his expectations, even for this Jesus. Second, the father has been conditioned to lower his expectations by his own generation,

a generation that Jesus describes here as faithless. See, as we’ve already seen, the man is surrounded by scribes who are trying to tear down Jesus for their own sake, their own pride-based religion. And he’s surrounded by a crowd that doesn’t see a need for faith, only a need for amazement and amusement and entertainment, Jesus. See, everything around the dad tears at his faith. And ironically, everything that tears at his faith has already let him down. The scribes can’t help him because their faith is misplaced. The crowd can’t help him because their faith is replaced. And the disciples can’t help him because their faith is still falling into place. See, all these conditions have trained the boy’s dad to lower his expectations. So of course, when he approaches Jesus, the dad makes his plea to this Messiah. He makes it conditional. This skepticism slips out as the man hides behind that little tiny word,

if. If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. See, the world has made the boy’s dad, at best, uncertain whether Jesus could help him. And at worst, it’s pushed him down the well of cynicism. That is, until he sees that Jesus is different. You see, unlike the world, Jesus doesn’t lower expectations. He actually comes in and raises expectations. That is why Jesus calls out the man for placing the conditions on him. He says rather incredulously, if you can, he’s saying, don’t hide behind your little if there. See, the problem isn’t with Jesus. The problem is with this man’s frail faith. The man needs to take away his conditions because there is nothing conditional about Jesus’s character and power. See, Jesus raises our expectations because he is so much more than everyone else. He’s so much more than everyone who has tried to help this boy.

No one else could heal this boy’s physical and spiritual life because only Jesus is the Lord over the physical and spiritual world. See, it isn’t by chance that this scene takes place right after the transfiguration, where what did Jesus do? He physically manifested his spiritual perfection. And as we will see, this authority, Jesus’s authority over the physical and spiritual world revealed at the transfiguration is immediately put into practice when Jesus heals this boy’s physical and spiritual trauma. Even rebellious spirits must obey Jesus’s authority. And as we will see, his healing brings physical restoration too. See, Jesus is raising the dad’s expectations. He’s raising our expectations by doing more than we could ever expect him to do. Jesus is literally coming down the mountain of transfiguration in all his glory and divine sonship to serve this young, broken boy and his distraught and disillusioned dad with that very power.

And where the unclean spirit threw the boy down to destroy him, Jesus will literally take him by the hand to lift him up and to restore him. So that brings us here this morning to a very simple, all-important question. What do you expect from Jesus? Now, more than likely, you will find as you think through that question that the world has been training you to lower your expectations of him. Probably the most prominent one, especially that comes out in this passage, is what we might call the enlightenment mindset. You probably felt this outlook sneaking in when you heard or read this passage the first time. Perhaps you said to yourself, Oh, this boy, he isn’t under the influence of a spirit. He’s just suffering from seizures. All he needs is a good doctor and some medicine and he’ll be well on his way. But that’s not just there haphazardly.

That’s there for you to stop and ask yourself, Why am I reacting this way? The answer is we’ve all been trained in that enlightenment mindset. We’ve been trained to think that the only reality out there is the physical reality. What we can know and experience through our senses. We’ve been trained to say that there is no spiritual world or if there is, it can’t be known and it certainly can’t manifest itself in evil spirits trying to possess little boys. But we should lean into another question. Why can’t it be both? Why can’t the suffering be both physical and spiritual? See, outside our enlightenment prejudice, we really don’t have a good answer for this. And in fact, in Matthew’s Gospel account of this very scene, Matthew attributes it to both, the physical and the spiritual. See, where the father begs Jesus to heal his boy of seizures,

physical seizures, Jesus does so in Matthew by casting out the demon, the spiritual one. See, the world is telling you to lower your expectations. Jesus is saying, let me raise them. See, he doesn’t just cut our world in half like the enlightenment philosophers do. Instead, he holds all things together including the physical and the spiritual worlds and he comes to rule and redeem them all. See, Jesus comes down from the mountain where he manifests his pure spiritual perfection to enter into the valley of our physical chaos and suffering. If you know your Bibles, you probably hear echoes of the Exodus where Moses goes to the top of Mount Sinai to be confronted by the glory of God. All afterwards, he walks down the mountain and he’s confronted by the idolatrous chaos of his people. And what does he bring? Mostly judgment. But now in Jesus,

we have a better Moses. We have the glory of God in Christ coming down a mountain in the midst of the idolatrous chaos of his people. And what does he bring? Healing, hope, restoration. Why? Because Mark is saying, look forward. This Jesus is here to take that judgment and to restore you fully, completely, physically, and spiritually. If you believe in him and hope that he will hold you in that belief. See, he comes down in perfection into our problems to take us by the hand just as he did this boy. To raise us out of our brokenness, physical and spiritual alike. Remember what the gospel tells us. Remember sort of the drum that Mark has been beating this whole time. See, there is a bigger mission to come where Jesus here in our passage cast out one spiritual evil spirit. At the cross, Jesus will deal with all spiritual problems

Checking Our Abilities

by defeating sin, death, and the devil once and for all. And where he physically restores this boy for a time. The coming resurrection, Jesus offers a way to a full physical restoration for us, for the world, beyond our imagination that lasts eternally. See, where the world puts limits, Jesus surpasses it. Doing what only he could do. Saving us, not partially, but holistically, physically, and spiritually inside and out. Now, along with checking our motives and checking our expectations, Mark is subtly instructing us to check our abilities. The rest of our passage is gonna tell us this basically. Much of your self-reliance is a sham. And then it’ll tell you but Jesus is able even when and especially when you are not. We see this. We see this starting in verse 24. Some of which we’ve already hinted at. Verse 24. Immediately the father of 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 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 as we just saw, Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him up, 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? And Jesus said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. See human insufficiency is swirling all over these words. No one can do anything about the boy’s condition except Jesus, not the scribes, not the crowds,

not even the disciples and especially the boy’s dad. And it’s the father, it’s the father who faces his inability first. And what is shocking is, is that it isn’t his inability to heal his son that overwhelms him. It’s his inability to remain faithful to Jesus that breaks him. I mean think about where this whole experiencing has been leading the father. Yes, it leads him to the end of himself, to the end of his own abilities. But it ultimately leads him to a confession. I believe, help my unbelief. To put another way, all of this has been leading him to faith. And faith is the point of this passage. Faith is the point of all of Mark. Faith is the point of all that Jesus is doing here. Because for Jesus, the boy’s exorcism is secondary. The father’s faith is primary. For Jesus, the true miracle,

the deeper magic, as C.S. Lewis would put it, the deeper magic is faith. But what does all that mean? What does it mean when the man declares, I believe. What does this mean for him? Again, it’s back to our true definition of faith. I believe you, Jesus, are who you say you are. And that you can do what you say you can do so much that I’m willing to give and to stake my boy’s life on it. And what does that ‘help my unbelief’ mean? Well, it tells us what we so often miss. And it tells us exactly what we need to hear in Portland today in our contemporary context. That our faith is not a one and done event. It is a lifelong experience. That yes, it has a start, but it never has a finish. That is because Jesus

is never finished with us. And we are never finished needing Jesus. See, the dad knows that not only is he unable to save his son, he’s unable in his own ability to keep himself in the faith. But he also knows that Jesus, the only one who can heal his son, is also the only one who can and offers to keep him in his faith. See, the shift in hope is massive. He’s shifting from a personal self-sufficiency to a Christ dependency. And that, my friends, is the seed of true faith. And when it’s a true faith, it will blossom. And it may be hard, but it will blossom into an always God-reliant, never-ending faith. A faith that needs Jesus all the way down. And the miracle of the father’s faith is met with the miracle of his son’s healing. But don’t miss the order. See, faith comes first.

The miracle of healing comes later. It’s not the other way around. So the healing doesn’t cause the father’s faith. Encountering Jesus does. The healing comes in and confirms everything the father has just confessed. That yes, this Jesus, who you believe in, is exactly who he says he is. He is our rescuer. And simultaneously, it says, he does what he says he will do. He saves this boy in compassion and in grace. But that’s not the end of the passage, is it? See, it’s not just the dad who comes face-to-face with his own inability. So do the disciples. See, where their ministry failed, they couldn’t get rid of the evil spirit. Jesus has succeeded, and so they are just standing there, left asking the question, why? And I think Jesus’ answer is direct. I think it is quite gracious. He’s explaining, it’s not because they are faithless

like the scribes or the crowd. I mean, think about what the disciples are doing here. They are following Jesus. They are asking the right questions. They are attempting to reorient their lives around who this Jesus is. But they still struggle because they still need to grow in their faith. They need to understand who Jesus is in light of the cross and the resurrection that will be the key that opens up all of these treasures. And so what does Jesus do? He wants to highlight their need for faith. And so he ties their inability to their prayer life. Why could we not cast it out, they asked. And Jesus said to them, verse 29, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Now Jesus isn’t saying to all of us, if you pray more, then you will be able to have the power to heal all the world.

That would just be pushing us back into our own abilities. No, Jesus is emphasizing prayer here because true prayer is always about faith. At its simplest, prayer is faith in action. When we pray, we are saying at a minute, I can’t do this on my own. I need your help, Lord. So where does this leave us? Where does this leave us this morning? Well, it leaves us with another question that we need to ask. Is our faith in our own abilities getting in the way of our faith in Christ Jesus? See, I mean, think about it. Perhaps you’re even feeling right now that you don’t really need Jesus. You can, and you have been able to thus far, hold everything together. If I’m self-sufficient, then why do I need Jesus, right? But if we’re being honest with ourselves, are there any cracks in our self-sufficiency?

Where Does This Leave Us?

Let me just start at a basic physiological level. Why do we need sleep? And why does the world fall apart when I don’t get enough? And what about your self-reliance this morning empowered the sun to rise? And friends, that’s just at a basic level. I mean, how do we square our commitment to self-sufficiency? And I’m talking to myself here. How do we square our commitment to self-sufficiency with that brooding feeling of helplessness when we read the reports of Afghanistan or just simply drive by all the homeless camps on the way to church? See, like the dad in this passage, we are either on the way or smack dab in the middle of coming face-to-face with the limitations of our self-sufficiency. Our self-sufficiency always lets us down. So when we can’t heal a child or we can’t make our relationship better or we can’t make the cancer go away,

and like the father, we are forced to ask ourselves at some point, where do we turn for hope? Because I can’t accomplish it on my own. See, as this passage promises, Jesus is fully sufficient to face your brokenness. And now follow me here. He is fully sufficient to overcome its deepest sources. Its deepest sources. And my friends, he already has. He’s dealt with the deeper root cause of every act of suffering, every broken relationship, every bout of cancer, and he’s done it once and for all at the cross. Because at the cross, Jesus faced sin, death, and the devil, and even better, when he walked out of the tomb, he declared eternal victory over them all. But perhaps you’ve been down this road before and you’ve grown disenchanted with Jesus. Maybe you’ve started to feel like he’s a little less than advertised. And you may be thinking

that Jesus is the one here who says all things are possible for one who believes and yet he hasn’t made all my dreams come true as he said he would. For one, this morning, I want us to see that this passage, Mark 9, helps us with this struggle too. See, we may be saying if I’m going to believe like this father, I need to experience the type of miracle this father did. Or at least see evidence of healing like this right now. Friends, notice this. You already have. You’ve seen it in this passage. Remember what the father believes in. It wasn’t the healing that brought about the father’s faith. It was his encounter with Jesus. And you have, right here in front of you, all the same evidence, all the words of Jesus that this father did. The same words that brought the father into faith.

So like the boy’s father, you are being asked right here, right now, based on who Jesus is and what he has promised to do and what he has already accomplished. Will you believe? And will you let Jesus help you when you struggle with that belief? But here’s the greater thing. Jesus has already surpassed his work that he briefly did for this dad in just one snippet. He surpassed it at the cross and at the empty tomb. Here, Jesus opens the door to a true, fully realized, reconciled relationship with God. One that changes not just one boy spiritually and physically, that offers to change all of us spiritually and physically. And how is it ours? Through faith. Not in our own motives. Not in our own expectations. And not in our own abilities. But it is built on Jesus who comes with the right motives. Who comes to blow away

all of our expectations. And genuinely has the ability to do and has done all things. And he doesn’t leave you. And he doesn’t forsake you. But helps you walk in that faith even when you’re facing unbelief. Let’s pray. Lord, we have to stop and marvel in your providence that you have provided us with a word, your scriptures, that though written so long ago, still show us hope. Point us to life. And point us to faith. So this morning, I pray that you would do a mighty work. And that you would bring us all to confess day in and day out. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. It’s in Christ’s name we pray. Amen. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com