Sermon Notes: Mark 9:14-32
Text: Mark 9:14-32
Big Idea: Jesus is the divine Son of God, the suffering servant Messiah who inaugurates the kingdom of God, who atones for sin through his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus calls his people to a costly discipleship of self-denial and suffering with purpose and joy.
Big Idea: Fear and ignorance rob God’s people of faith. Jesus is able to overcome fear in us if we will place ourselves completely in his care.
Observation: What does this text say?
Author: John Mark
Audience: Gentiles who are being told the good news of the kingdom of Jesus.
Followers of Jesus who are growing up into maturity in Christ and learning how to live under the rule of his increasing kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Occasion: Mark, as Peter’s missionary helper, is writing a gospel “tract” for use on the field as they preach the good news to Gentiles.
Genre: Overall, historical biography.
Key words and phrases (big words, words that are repeated, etc.):
Arguing...I brought my son to you...so I asked your disciples to cast it out...they were not able.
...spirit that makes him mute.
O faithless generation – there is a little exasperation here on Jesus’ part.
All things are possible for one who believes.
I believe; help my unbelief – The father’s coming to Jesus displays faith. The father’s request “...if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us” shows his struggle with holding on to his faith.
Why could we not cast it out...this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
The Son of Man is going to be delivered...killed...after three days he will rise.
But they did not understand the saying...afraid to ask - (See the father’s exclamation: I believe; help my unbelief). – The disciples are just like the father. They believe, but their fear displays they are shaky in their faith.
Lists:
None.
Contrasts and comparisons (What is being contrasted or compared? Is there an illustration?):
Contrast – Peter not realizing he had been coopted by Satan in his thoughts contrasted with the father who knew it was an unclean spirit that was causing his son’s condition.
Contrast – Jesus’ disciples unable to cast out the demon contrasted with Jesus’ ability.
Contrast – The father coming to Jesus for help because of belief and struggling to believe.
Compare – The father of the boy with an unclean spirit wondering (fearing) if Jesus is able to help them compared with the disciples struggle with fear in asking Jesus for clarity. Fear is a component in each of their struggles with faith.
Expressions of time (until, then, when, after): (noting only the most significant)
V. 18 Whenever – speaking of the time the unclean spirit manifests its presence and hold on the boy. Meaning this boy only shows these physical symptoms when the unclean spirit chooses to hurt his subject. Otherwise, he leaves the boy alone.
NOTE: There are times when the unclean spirit manifests its presence in ongoing physical sickness, and times it doesn’t. There are times Jesus encounters folks who are just physically sick due to the curse of sin.
IT REQUIRES DISCERNMENT TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. In this instance, Jesus lets us know this kind of demon is only cast out with the power of prayer and fasting present in the one casting it out that drives the command.
V. 28 When – The disciples only ask the reason they could not cast out the unclean spirit in private, and Jesus gives the reason in private. This is a little bit of the insider/outsider theme. Jesus keeps some instruction private for those who are truly following him.
Terms of conclusion/purpose clauses (wherefore, therefore, for this reason, finally, for, so, so that):
V. 31 For – Jesus was continuing to keep his full mission under cover because he is still teaching his men about the mission so they can understand and be ready. But they don’t understand just yet, and they are afraid to ask Jesus, showing they are like the demonized boy’s good daddy who believes and at the same time struggles to believe.
What does the text say: (Don’t interpret here. Just restate the passage in your own words.)
Jesus returns to the whole crew of his disciples and finds them in an argument with the scribes because a daddy has brought his son who has an unclean spirit to Jesus for healing. Jesus is not there, so he asks Jesus’ disciples to cast out the demon. They are not able, and this is the source of the argument.
Content of the argument? That is not clear. But they are arguing over the fact they can’t.
Jesus expresses frustration with his men because they are still dull in faith.
Jesus takes the boy, inquires of his need, and the father in desperation asks Jesus, “if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!”
Jesus, in a holy moment, declares that all things are possible for the one who believes.
This daddy, having some faith and at the same time full of disappointment, fear, and doubt cries out of that state of contrasts: I believe; help my unbelief! (Exclamation point. The daddy is crying out.)
Jesus receives that cry of help as faith, because it is, and he heals the boy.
Jesus and his disciples enter the house and ask the reason they could not cast the demon out, and Jesus tells them that this kind (implying there are kinds of unclean spirits) can only be driven out by command that is empowered by the disciplines of prayer (and some manuscripts add, fasting).
NOTE: Due to other gospel accounts adding “fasting” and the fact that other older manuscripts have “fasting” we can safely add fasting here.
Clearly, the disciples are not prayed up and empowered by the discipline of fasting.
This encounter reveals something in the disciples. They, like this daddy, believe and doubt at the same time.
Jesus continues on the mission to die, be buried and rise on the third day. Yet, they still don’t understand as their expectations are getting in the way of understanding, and they are afraid to ask Jesus for help in understanding.
Interpretation: (What does this mean? Take all of the observation data into account)
1. Fear robs us of faith.
Jesus came, as the divine Son of God, the promised One who would crush the skull of the Serpent Dragon and be killed in that crushing event of the cross, and this, God’s way of salvation, conflicts with the disciple’s way of salvation, so belief in and understanding of the good news of the cross, requires faith, and the disciples struggle with that faith.
The struggle of the father with his faith in Jesus to do what he had heard or witnessed him do for others is challenged by a fear that is manifested in his request, “...if you can do anything...”.
We know this because Jesus focuses on three words of his statement, “...if you can...”
A person who has come for help and then expresses doubt about the reason they made the effort to come for help is a person who is being beaten down by fear.
We see it in the disciples as Mark makes it clear in verse 32. They did not understand and were afraid to ask.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).
Lack of faith prevented Jesus from mighty works in his hometown as he marveled at their unbelief (Mark 6:1-6).
Jesus told the woman in Mark 5:34 that her faith had made her well.
God requires faith. Faith is a means God has ordained for us to employ with him that moves, shakes, changes, and transforms things to bring them in line with God’s kingdom and will.
Faith is sapped of power by fear.
Fear, not the fear of the Lord, but survival from the death of the curse and all agents of the curse, is something generated from darkness not light.
Therefore, fear saps us of faith.
Fear spins up Jesus’ created central nervous system and takes the brain offline in such a way that the human stops acting logically with thought and reason. Fear causes humans to begin acting out of the smallest part of our brains.
Faith requires our brains to be online, connected to the truths of God’s word that fuel faith.
Fear takes our brains offline, and we are physically unable to access the truths we need to take God at his word.
So, fear robs us of faith.
2. Unclean spirits feed on our fear and ignorance.
If this spirit could keep this father in a place of only responding to the physical symptoms and from coming to Jesus, it could keep this daddy in a fear cycle and keep its hold on the little boy for its own evil intentions.
The disciple’s fear kept them from simply asking the Creator of the universe in the flesh to overcome their ignorance and help them understand.
Fear and ignorance are “places” we allow what Paul called “strongholds” in our lives. Places where unclean spirits have a hook in us to take up influence on us.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (ESV) 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
Strongholds are not bad habits. Strongholds are literally in the Greek, a high place/fortress, raised against the knowledge of God. They are ideas, emotions, anything that is counter to the truth, anything counter to the knowledge of God.
Fear and ignorance are high fortresses that stand against the truth that Jesus is able to do all things according to his will in his kingdom.
Faith is the assurance and conviction that if it is in his kingdom, he can and will move mountains to bring it about.
3. Some unclean spirits (kind – genos, stock, lineage) require more than a word. They require prayer (and fasting).
Some demons respond to a word. Some are stronger than that.
The reason the disciples could not cast this one out is that they were not in the power of the discipline of prayer and fasting.
Jesus does not mean they should have dropped to their knees and thrown their bread away in the moment and said a prayer.
Jesus is referring to a state of continually being empowered through the disciplines of prayer and fasting so that, as we encounter evil spirits, we have what we need to empower our words when we command demons to be bound and to release people.
Gospel Connection:
Jesus is the divine Son of God. Clear as day. Jesus commands us to trust him, come to him by faith and walk with him by faith.
Jesus then commands those who come to him to continue living by faith, and that ongoing faith is evidence of our being sons and daughters of God.
Application: (What does this text require of me?)
1. Fight fear.
How?
Identify what generates fear.
Fill your mind with truth.
Learn to regulate your central nervous system so you can draw on truth to apply when you begin to spin up. How?
Say out loud in prayer to the Father that you are feeling fear. When you can identify it and say it, you begin to control it. That’s factual in modern neuroscience.
Breathe.
Exercise.
Begin repeating truth out loud.
Whenever you can as soon as you can, share with a trusted fellow church member.
Be accountable to one another in helping to regulate fear. Presence and conversation are called “co-regulation”.
2. Don’t discount the existence of and influence of unclean spirits.
We live in a supernatural creation, and these disembodied spirits of the Nephilim the second temple Jews called “demons” and “unclean spirits”, seek bodies to inhabit, influence, and destroy.
Luke 11:24-26 (ESV) 24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
These things seek bodies because they lost their in the flood, and they are beings of rebellion and in that rebellion seek to destroy the descendants of the woman for their own evil agenda.
If you discount their existence, you have taken up ignorance, and ignorance is a stronghold for false teaching.
3. Master prayer and fasting.
Prayer: Connection. Gratitude/Thanksgiving. Alignment.
Connection – practice the very presence of God by the Holy Spirit.
Gratitude/Thanksgiving – gratitude is the inner attitude rooted in the truth of who God is and his love for us. Thanksgiving is the external expression of that gratitude.
Alignment – praying in the will of God.
These three beauties are the foundation of prayer.
Connection with the Lord brings us to peace and regulation.
Gratitude/Thanksgiving communicates our stability and faith in the Lord.
Alignment displays we know his word and way and as loved children we ask, seek, and knock.
Fasting. Simply get started.
We will run up on “kinds” of evil that will require more power, and fear and ignorance won’t cut it.