Lessons for serving

Some of you will remember the Aussie evangelist John Chapman, who spoke alongside Billy Graham during Mission England, back in the day, and then did some mission weeks with us here. And in one of them we did an event for golfers. The idea was a round of golf, then a talk from John in the clubhouse. And as I was driving him there, John said, “I’m feeling rather under pressure for this event.” So I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because one of your JPC golfers said to me last Sunday, ‘I’m going to sit next to you with a friend who’s never shown any openness to the gospel – because you’re bound to be able to get though to him.’’’ So I agreed that was unrealistic pressure and that he should put it out of his mind. Well, I picked him up later and asked how it had gone. And he said, “Your JPC golfer is now suitably disillusioned with me. He asked his friend in front of me what he’d thought of the talk and the friend said, ‘I liked the opening joke. The rest I found unconvincing.’ And beyond that…” said John, “…the conversation went nowhere”.

Well, I wonder if you can identify with that? With a time when you thought, ‘This speaker, or Christianity Explored, or this leader, can’t fail to help my friend come to faith.’ But then, as far as you can see, they do fail. Or maybe, like me, you’ve been the failure – you’ve been the one trying to turn the conversation to Christianity, or leading Christianity Explored, or whatever. And you’ve got nowhere and, as far as you can see, no-one seems any closer to faith. Or you’re the small group leader who feels you’ve failed to stop that person dropping out. Or the friend who feels you’ve failied to help another Christian in their struggles. Or the parent who feels you’ve failed to lead your child to faith. In each case, try as you did.

Well as we rejoin our series in Mark’s Gospel, tonight’s passage speaks right into that sense of failure and weakness we often have as we try to serve the Lord Jesus. So would you turn in the Bibles to page 844 which will get you to Mark chapter 9. And we’re picking up again at Mark 9.14. So, our last bit of Mark was about the transfiguration – when Jesus took three of his disciples up this mountain, and they were given a glimpse of his real glory as the Son of God. And where we pick up this week, they’ve come back down the mountain, and look at Mark 9.14-18:

…when they [that’s Jesus and the three who’ve just seen the transfiguration] came to the disciples [that’s the nine who’d been left behind], they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw [Jesus], were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has 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 the first lesson here about serving the Lord Jesus is that:

1. We can’t (Mark 9.14-18)

By which I mean, when sharing the gospel with people not yet trusting in Jesus, or trying to help those who are, we can’t do for them what’s really needed. Look at Mark 9.17-18 again:

And someone from the crowd answered [Jesus], “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has 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.”

So the Bible unashamedly says: there is a spirit world; and there are personal, evil forces – the devil, or Satan; and his spirit allies, or demons. The world may sneer at that, and yet our part of it spends £500 million on Halloween. And, as a former archbishop of Canterbury once said:

Isn’t it foolish of western civilisation to deny the existence of Satan when he is the best possible explanation of it?

In other words, does all the evil in the world just come down to human choices or is there something (or someone) more, possessing people – through ideologies or false religions; or by getting them living for money or things or pleasure or power or sex or success – all the stuff that controls us while letting us think we’re still in control? The Bible says elsewhere (1 John 5.19):

The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

So what we’re reading about in Mark 9 is just an extreme case of Satan’s possession of a life – but albeit more subtly, he’s doing it with everyone, everywhere. And this extreme case shows what Satan is always out to do.
So, Mark 9.17 – he’s always out to dehumanise:

he has a spirit that makes him mute.

So Satan loves to take something uniquely human – like language, or the sanctity of life or sanctity of sex and marriage – and rob us of it. And Mark 9.18 – Satan is always out to control:

…whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.

So Satan loves to take away the freedom of self-control, and bring us under his control. And this father says to Jesus, end of Mark 9.18:

So I asked your disciples to cast [this spirit] out, and they were not able.

And the lesson they had to learn in serving the Lord Jesus is the same lesson we need to learn. And it’s that we can’t. We can’t do for people what’s really needed. So if they’re not yet trusting in Jesus, the Bible says elsewhere that’s because (2 Corinthians 4.4) Satan:

has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ

So we can share the gospel with people – but we can’t get them to see it. Or we can encourage fellow-Christians and point one another to Jesus in the Bible but we can’t strengthen their faith or keep it going in hard times or get them over the obedience hurdles they’re facing. We can’t do for people what’s really needed. So let’s not do what that JPC golfer did with John Chapman and think certain people are bound to get results, certain speakers are bound to bless us, certain courses are bound to change people.
Because it isn’t like that. Because those people or courses can’t do what’s really needed. And in whatever ministry you do; leading a small group, doing a 1-to-1, counselling, preaching, Celebrate Recovery, Christianity Explored, keep saying to yourself, “I can prepare and host and lead and so on, but I can’t create faith and obedience, or grow it, or restore it. And nor can this course or program”. That’s the first lesson here about serving the Lord Jesus:
We can’t. Then the second lesson is that:

2. He can (Mark 9.19-27)

Look on to Mark 9.19:

And [Jesus] answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?”

And I take it there that he’s including everyone involved – the scribes, the father, the crowd, the disciples. Because faithless is what we all are by nature. Our problem is not that by nature we don’t have enough faith in God – but that by nature we don’t have any faith in God at all. Because we distrust him, because we doubt that to put our lives in his hands would be good for us. And what we see here is Jesus creating faith in this father. So look on to Mark 9.20-22:

And they brought the boy to [Jesus]. 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 he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him.

Now some people say ‘wasn’t this just epilepsy? – those are the classic symptoms. So weren’t they just attributing to spirits something they couldn’t explain medically, which we now can?’ Well, one half of the answer is that the Gospel writers actually distinguish between epilepsy and the influence of evil spirits – e.g. Matthew uses two different words for those two different conditions. But the other half of the answer is that in Jesus’ view, this was the influence of an evil spirit. So if you believe on the evidence of his life, death and resurrection that Jesus really was and is the Son of God, you have to accept his view that Satan and his spirit allies are real.

But back to Mark 9.21-22. And what do you think Jesus was doing here? I think he was getting the father to face up to his absolute helplessness and hopelessness – in order to create faith in himself in this man’s heart. So, “How long’ has this been going on?” asks Jesus. “Well, all his life,” says the father. “And time and again it’s nearly taken his life in situations that are completely beyond our control. After all, how can we protect him from every fire and every local stretch of water? We can’t.” And that’s where faith in Jesus is born: when we stop putting faith in ourselves and say, “I can’t”. In this man’s case, “I can’t do anything to save my son”. In our case, “I can’t do anything to save myself. I can’t do anything to make myself acceptable to God. I can’t do anything to make up for the wrong I’ve done in the past. And I can’t do anything to change myself in the future”. I wonder if you can say that yet – whether you’re near that birth-point of faith? “I can’t” – second half of Mark 9.22-23:

“But [Jesus] 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.”

And Jesus wasn’t talking the Disney film kind of faith – where at some point the hero or heroine is almost always told by their mentor, “Just have faith” as if ‘having faith’ has some kind of power in itself to make things happen. For example, Moana’s granny telling her that if she just has faith she’ll make it safely beyond the reef to save her people. Jesus was not saying that if we have Disney faith we can make anything happen. He was calling us to have faith in him – that he can make anything happen that he wants to, and that with him there’s no question of ‘If you can’, because he can. All things are possible for him. Mark 9.24:

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

In other words, ‘I believe you – and yet at the same time I don’t. I believe – and yet at the same time I doubt’. And here’s the gigantic encouragement of this passage: Jesus answers that prayer. He heals the boy, as we heard read earlier. Jesus responds to that very imperfect faith. Which is just as well because perfect faith is as impossible for us this side of heaven as perfect obedience. So don’t let anyone tell you you need a certain quality of faith (a doubt-free, question-free faith) before Jesus will respond to you. And don’t let anyone tell you you need a certain quantity of faith, either. You sometimes hear how Christians have been praying for someone (for example, for healing of some sort) and it hasn’t happened – that turned out not to be the Lord’s plan, but the queston is then asked, ‘Did we not have enough faith? Did we need more?’ Well, I love the way Jesus answered that.
Because in Luke 17.5 it says:

The apostles said to the Lord [Jesus], “Increase our faith!”

And if it was true that we need a certain quantity of faith, you’d have expected Jesus to say, ‘Ah, I’m glad you’ve finally realised you need more faith. Now listen carefully, and here’s my formula for getting up to the next level of faith…’ But he didn’t say that. Instead, Luke tells us (Luke 17.6):

And the Lord [Jesus] said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed [which is tiny], you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you.

In other words, ‘You don’t need a better quantity or quality of faith. You just need faith in me because I can move mulberries, mountains, you name it – and that’s what matters’. So it’s not the quality or quantity of our faith that matters – don’t get hung up on that. It’s Jesus’ ability that matters – it’s who we’re putting our faith in. So that’s the second lesson here about serving the Lord Jesus: Having realised we can’t do what’s really needed, we need to believe that he can, and that he’ll respond to our always very imperfect faith. But the third lesson is:

3. So we must ask him (Mark 9.28-29)

We can’t. He can. So we must ask him. Look at Mark 9.28-29:

And when [Jesus] had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast [the spirit] out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

So the obvious question is: what made them think they could cast this spirit out? And the answer is earlier in Mark’s Gospel. Because in Mark 6.7-13 says:

And [Jesus] called the twelve [these twelve disciples] and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority [or power] over the unclean spirits…So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

So Jesus had already shared with them his power over these evil spirits, and in his power they’d already cast many of them out. But it seems here that they’d forgotten it was his power. It’s as if they’d begun to think, ‘We now have this power ourselves. So we can do this. We’ve got this. After all, we’ve done it lots before.’ To which Jesus says, (Mark 9.29) No:

This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

In other words, ‘You don’t have this power in yourselves – and never did. It was always mine. And you were always depending on me. And the way to depend on me and my Father is to pray. And that’s just what you didn’t do here.’ And the lesson for us in serving the Lord Jesus is just the same. It’s that the power to do what really needs to be done in people doesn’t lie in us – but in him. Whether that’s the power to create willingness in people to hear the gospel in the first place. Or the power to create faith in peoples’ hearts. Or the power to strengthen faith or keep faith going or restore faith. Or the power to get people over the obedience hurdles they face. It doesn’t lie in us – but in him. And so we must ask him to do what we can’t. Which means the first thing we should do regularly in any ministry we do is to pray for it. And the danger is: the longer we’ve been doing any ministry, the easier it is to become prayerless, and to become like these disciples - saying to ourselves, ‘We can do this. We’ve got this. After all, we’ve done it lots before.’

And at one level, there’s truth in that because there does come a point when you can prepare and lead a Bible study, you can run a Christianity Explored course, you can say all the right Christain things in a conversation, you can put a Bible passage through a certain method and churn out a talk or a sermon. But it’s horribly easy to do any of those things prayerlessly, and so for the Lord to allow little or no spiritual result at all. And I guess he’s allowed many of us to experience that at times, in a way that’s pulled us up short and rebuked our attitude. Because we must never come to serving the Lord with the attitude that says, ‘We can do this. We’ve got this. After all, we’ve done it lots before.’ Instead, we need to come with the attitude that says, ‘We can’t. He can. So we must ask him.’