Help Me With My Unbelief

So the ministry of Jesus is this sermon series about different episodes or different chapters in the life of Christ. And I’m really, really excited about the episode in the chapter that we’re going to look at today. I’d like to show you a beautiful picture. So that is Mount Herman. Mount Herman is the highest mountain in the Palestine area.

I’m with Tony. I think that when he spoke last week about Jesus’s transfiguration on a mountaintop, this is the most probable sight. Mount Tabor and some other places are possibilities. But I think that this is where Jesus and his three disciples that were with him came down from. This is up at the northern border of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

He came down from here in the region of Cesaria Philippi, and he went right into a frustrating, difficult situation. Have you ever had a mountaintop experience? And then after that, real life came back to you. So we’re going to pick right up and see how Jesus handles this as he comes off of this mountaintop experience. If you’d like to read in your Bible with us, this is going to be in Mark chapter nine. It’s going to be in verses 14 through 29. And I’m going to have all the scriptures on here. But it’s a little bit of a lengthy Scripture, so this might help if you look on by yourself as well.

When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. What are you arguing with them? He asked.

A man in the crowd answered, teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. I ask your disciples to drive out the Spirit, but they could not. You unbelieving generation, Jesus replied. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me. Now, we’re going to keep reading, but this is kind of unique. I do not know of any other place in the gospel of accounts where Jesus is just flat exasperated.

Now we have times where he rebukes his disciples, but this passage of scripture is chock full of superlatives, of kind of special things, quotes and principles in this short scripture that are really, really powerful ideas, both positive and challenging. And here’s a challenging one: what would exasperate Jesus? Let’s read on.

So they brought him. When the Spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s, Father, how long has he been like this? From childhood, he answered. It is often thrown him into the fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. If you can? Jesus said, everything is possible for one who believes. Isn’t that beautiful? Everything is possible for the one who believes.

Immediately, the boy’s father exclaimed, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. Does that resonate with you? I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.

When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. You deaf and mute spirit, he said, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again. The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, he’s dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, why couldn’t we drive it out? He replied, this kind come out only by prayer.

Now, as you can see in this short story, this short chapter, there’s several important ideas here, and we’re going to look at them here. The first thing is the idea of coming down from a mountaintop experience. The next thing here is the frustration and the exasperation of Jesus. The next thing is these two beautiful lines, everything is possible for the one who believes. And I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. And the last prominent thing I saw here is this idea that this kind can come out only by prayer. Now, Tony and myself and the other people who give the messages on Sunday, our target time is 35 minutes, just to let you know, so you can emotionally prepare yourself.

So between 30 and 40 minutes is usually how long we plan on going. We cannot fully explore all of these ideas. Even though it’s a short chapter of Scripture, a short passage, we can’t fully unpack these. So here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to take what I think is the most prominent idea, in my view, from this passage of Scripture and focus on it.

And that is this idea of faith, of unbelief and belief. And so this idea, the frustration and exasperation of Jesus, what was he frustrated about? He was frustrated with the lack of faith that his disciples had. He had miraculously given them the ability to heal. But their lack of faith, and of course their lack of prayer, was preventing them from using a power he had given them.

And so I believe this bullet point is about faith. Obviously, everything is possible is a bullet point about faith. I do believe is actually going to be the theme of our message today. Help me overcome my unbelief. And so what I’d like to do is spend the remainder of our time on these three bullet points together, on the idea of belief.

But before we do that, I just want to touch on coming down from a mountaintop experience for a couple of minutes with a scripture and a thought, and also about prayer. So our theme today really is, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief. Do you guys remember maybe a month or two ago that Wizmar Cleveland stood up here and shared about his trip to Bolivia? Now, the church here sent out a team of over 30 people, Chased Denoux is on the front. He helped lead that with Brittany.

And Wizmar was sharing with me just a week or two ago that that was such a mountaintop experience. And what’s kind of ironic is that Jesus’s mountaintop experience was literally physically on a mountain, and so was Wizmars up in the mountains of La Paz, Bolivia. But in both cases, in Jesus’s case and in Wizmars case, it’s a metaphor for having a powerful faith building experience, a strengthening experience, and then coming down from that and having to deal with real life. And I wanted to share this scripture with you as a thought on this issue.

In Romans chapter twelve and verse eleven, the Apostle Paul commands this never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord.

Now, that’s a command. And so if you’ve had a powerful experience, maybe it was at the World Discipleship Summit, maybe it was at a conference, maybe it was in a personal Bible study where you had a powerful experience, maybe it was a conversation with a brother or sister that you felt was life changing, life strengthening. You could have a very normal fear. And the fear is all this motivation I now feel, this deep conviction that I’ve just developed. Will it dissipate? Will it go away? Will it seep away? And what I see in this command is that you can decide, I’m not letting this thing go. And you can redecide, you can revive, you can reset your convictions, your motivation, your enthusiasm.

This word zeal, we don’t use it very much, but I looked into the thesaurus, and it says it’s like passion, ardor, fervor, fire, enthusiasm, eagerness. These are the kind of things that, if you feel them slipping away, Paul says, don’t do that. Make a decision to hang on to that.

So that’s my thought on coming down from a mountaintop experience. I put it this way. By deciding to keep your enthusiasm for your Christian walk, you can prevent the difficulties and the frustrations of life from stealing away your growth. And so I hope you guys are encouraged by that.

I want to touch briefly on the last bullet point. This kind can come out only by prayer. Here’s a scripture I want to share with you. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Now. If you have a spouse that you’re having trouble getting along with if you have a roommate that you’re having trouble getting along with a friend, a coworker, a boss that you’re having trouble getting along with. If you have a sin that you’re having trouble overcoming, if you have anxieties that are taking away your peace are you asking God? Prayer brings power.

That’s what Jesus is communicating when he said this to his disciples. You can tap into the power of God to help you with your relationship with problems, to help you with your inner peace, to help with victory over sin and the other challenges and goals of the Christian life, but not if you don’t draw close to God. And this is what Jesus is saying. Some things only come out by prayer, and that’s what I shared.

So now I’d like to get into what I’d really like to focus on for the remainder of our time today. And it’s this beautiful, powerful one liner: I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief. Now, with your permission, the way I’d like to do this is to share my own journey of faith and how I’ve struggled with my own faith and what the things that have strengthened my faith and share them with you. And I hope it will help you grow in your own faith. I hope what what has helped me will be helpful to you. The first thing that happened to my journey of faith was that I lost my faith.

When I was in middle school, I got very actively involved in a church in a teen ministry, a teenage ministry, in a church called Central Christian Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. And I loved it. And in 7th grade and 8th grade, I began to read a lot of Bible because of that church’s teachings. I’ll never forget, and it was a life changing experience, when I opened up my old King James Bible that my mom had given me, and I read Philippians 1:21, which says, for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I looked at that kind of devotion and I looked at that idea that man going to heaven. I want to have the kind of faith that’s even better than anything that’s going to happen in this life and that I can give my entire life to Christ. As a 7th grader, that connected with me.

The problem was, in church, I was learning as much about sin as I was about the Bible from my friends in church. So my vocabulary for profanity expanded greatly because my friends in church taught me harsher, worser. That’s not a word I know, curse words right in church.

I initially began to dabble in sexual immorality with girls in the church. We did some of the fiercest gossip you ever heard right in church. And so what I was experiencing I didn’t have this phrase to label it at that time, but I think what I was experiencing might be labeled churchianity instead of Christianity. And there was a lot of sincere people who supported the church, who believed in God, who loved the Bible. But what was causing me problems was that when I would read the Bible’s description of the normal Christian life, they were not living it, and I was not living it.

For example, did you know that in the normal Christian life, you’re supposed to help other people become Christians? This is an expectation not of the Navy Seal Christians not of the Green Beret christians not of the elite inside group christians. It’s an expectation in the Bible. Jesus said, as the Father has sent me, I’m sending you guys. We are all sent to share our faith. Now, I would look around at my teen friends and at their adult parents, and nobody was doing that. Another thing the Bible teaches in the normal Christian life did you know, is the idea of discipleship, that in Christian life we should develop friendships with other people that have a spiritual side to them, where we try to help each other grow and stay strong in our faith, pray together, correct each other, encourage each other, teach each other. I developed some good friendships in that church I would not call it discipleship.

And what I saw in the adults was the same. And as I was getting older, I realized I was a hypocrite, surrounded by hypocrites. All of them were very pleasant. Like, it was a nice environment. It just wasn’t Christianity that I thought Jesus would approve of. And by the time I was a junior or senior in high school, I became what they call an agnostic.

So here’s the dictionary definition of agnostic. It’s one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a God. In other words, I didn’t know whether there was a God or not. I thought if God went to the trouble to send his Son, have him die in the cross, raise him from the dead, miraculously produce the Bible, why isn’t there any real Christianity going on that I’m witnessing? And so I think agnostic is more intellectually honest than being an atheist.

I think atheism is a faith because I don’t think you can prove that God does not exist. And so an atheist believes that there is no God. I don’t have that much faith. So I thought it was like, all right, look, I’ll be open to more information. I just don’t know if there’s a God or not.

Then I experienced a miracle. I went off to college and I met some people in a campus ministry at the University of Florida that were living the Christian life. Like, some friends of mine said, don’t go to this church because these people will try to convert you. I was like, Ding, check one box. And I went to this church in this active campus ministry, and people there were evangelistic. They were trying to help people become Christians without being obnoxious about it. And they were involved in one another relationships that you could call discipleship. And they were wholehearted about it. They were, as they say in gambling, they were all in. They’d put all their chips in the middle of the table for Jesus Christ. I don’t like gambling, so I’m not going to use that analogy anymore.

I want to offer to you three miracles. So if the supernatural does not intervene in the natural, why would you believe? So unless you see a miracle, I don’t think you can believe in God. And so I want to offer to you three modern day miracles. The first miracle was the miracle I saw.

And that’s the changed lives of Christians. Now, I’m not talking about a miracle like, like Jesus did in his day, where a blind person receives their sight again or where a dead person is raised. But I believe there’s three miracles that I offer you right here that I believe happen in slow motion rather than instantly. And the first one is I believe there’s something amazing about a true Christian. I know many of you who came in the doors of this church maybe years and years ago, were struck by the love, the devotion, the enthusiasm, and the lives of the people in this building. Did that not help you become a Christian?

So that helped me so much. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say coming into this church, I’m so impressed with the love that people have for each other and the love that they’re extending me. Now, the changed lives of a Christian doesn’t mean Christians are perfect, right? But you can see a real Christian as opposed to a hypocritical Christian. You know what I’m talking about.

The second miracle is intelligent Design. Now, I’m going to spend the rest of the time talking about intelligent design. The third miracle we simply don’t have time to cover is the miraculous nature of the Bible. Now, the reason I want to focus on intelligent Design is along with the Bible, it has had the greatest impact on strengthening my faith. And so I hope sharing about that will be helpful to you.

I want to talk about intelligent Design. I’ll have one slide at the end of the message on the miraculous nature of the Bible. And then we’ll go to the Lord’s Supper, we’ll take communion together. But I’d like to talk to you about how my faith is so dramatically strengthened by intelligent Design. Here’s intelligent design.

For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.

So this scripture does not use, and the Bible does not use the term Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is a description, a label for the idea found in this passage of scripture. And here’s the idea. We can see God’s power and we can see God’s divine nature by an observation of what has been made, that means the universe. By observation of nature, we witness God.

So to frame it another way, through science, we are pointed to God. By observation of nature, we see God. And so we see this label of intelligent design. And here’s the first thing that the idea of intelligent design addresses. Where did life come from? How did life start? And so the first, forgive me, I’m not a great graphic artist, but I’ve got a little bit of graphic ideas here.

How did we go? I didn’t talk to Twan before I started today. Twan is our graphics guy. He’s amazing. How do we go from no life to life? How do we go from no life to life? So in the 1950s, a scientist said that he was shocking water and he produced some basic parts of amino acids that could make a protein. A further study of his work found out it was not true. Scientists have not been able to produce life on their own. They have not been able to take the chemicals, the ingredients necessary for life, and shock it and make it come to life.

We have not been able to produce life. We haven’t been able to do it. A second problem is in scientific observation we have not been able to observe life spontaneously creating itself in the natural world. It’s not happening.

Life does not come from non life. Now, here’s another observation. There are a lot of systems in the biological and non biological world. There’s a lot of systems and they’re impressive and they’re amazing. Here’s the question can a system come from a non system?

Like, can you, for example, did this happen? I should have talked to Twan, I know. Did a lightning bolt hit a puddle, create a little cell? Biologists know there’s all kinds of problems with that idea, immense problems with that idea. I’m not a biologist, but you know what? I know it’s kind of a ridiculous idea, but we’ll work with it. So did the lightning bolt hit a puddle, create a little cell, and then with billions of years of time and with the stress of the environment, did it produce life? Did it produce systems? Did evolution do that? So let’s talk about evolution. So I want to talk to you about a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. So microevolution is the idea that species can change.

So a microevolution is brought about by mutation and natural selection. And so, for example, it’s a negative example, but for example, tuberculosis in many parts of the world has become drug resistant tuberculosis because of mutation and natural selection. Also, there’s that classic idea that in a long standing drought, the shorter animals die, the taller animals can reach the leaves at the top of the trees. And so giraffes necks kept getting longer and longer. So this is not something that you believe in or you don’t believe in. This is scientific fact. This is going on. It’s observable. Do Christians believe in evolution? Well, you cannot answer that question until you recognize this distinction.

So macro evolution is the idea that a little cell over billions of years of time can become a human being or a horse or a goat or a whale. Now, this not only is there not scientific support and proof for this, but it’s a hypothesis that’s coming under more and more scrutiny of just not holding water, just not being legitimate. And so this idea that if we create a little cell and if you know how complex a cell is, that ain’t going to happen from water shock, lightning, shocking water, the small cell is incredibly, incredibly complex.

So I believe in evolution because I’m not stupid. It’s a scientific fact. Here’s the question. Remember this guy? Here’s the question. Did lightning hit a puddle? And all we had to do is wait long enough billions of years and that little cell could produce an amazing set of systems called Leonel Messi, the star of this last this last World Cup. He was incredible. Isn’t that a great shot? Google Images. I love that.

Could random chance have produced the systems of the body? So, look, I know this is too small the print for everybody to see, but obviously the body is a collection of astonishing systems. We have the central nervous system, the gastrointestinal system, the musculoskeletal system, the Lymphatic. All of these systems are not only amazing all by themselves, but they’re working in concert with each other to perform what our body performs. Above and beyond that, we’re not just a set of biological systems that life has been breathed into.

We are self aware. We are creative. We have the ability to reason. We have the ability to build roads and buildings and cars and submarines and spaceships. Lightning bolt, random time, spaceships. Here’s what I would prefer to hold on to, to go from no systems to the astonishing systems not only in biological life, but in non biological life like the laws we have of gravity, physics, astronomy, all those things that make up our world and our universe. A system does not come out of a non system by itself. Some force and some designer outside of that system has to think of the system, create the system and have the power and the wherewithal and the desire to make it real. And so the idea of an intelligent creator is not barbaric. It’s not superstitious, it’s not primitive. It’s the most reasonable, logical result of the evidence that we see in life. And I want to tell you the thing that helps my faith the most is DNA. I’m just telling you, I don’t know what all DNA does, but here’s what I know. God has designed a system where four amino acids, four nitrous bases are put in combinations in a double helix strand right down in the middle of every cell of biology, every living cell. And by taking just four possible combinations, just four possible combinations, every single biological living cell knows whether it’s going to be part of a human body, the body of a horse, the body of a goat. It knows whether it’s going to be part of the eye, part of the ear, part of the arm. If it’s going to be part of for, say, part of the bone, it knows right where to fit in and shape with the other cells around the bone. It knows its job. It knows how to cooperate with the other cells around it.

This is elegant. This is ingenious. This is astonishing. Random chance? Not possible. Look, science points to God. Now, there are scientists who just don’t want to believe in God, and they would do anything to not have to submit to someone who’s actually more intelligent than they are. Because if there’s no God, what’s the most intelligent thing on earth? It’s a scientist. And I’m not accusing all scientists of consciously rejecting God because of that. But I would say that, as the Bible says, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. And so it’s a natural thing for all of us.

The more we know, the more arrogant and haughty and conceited we can be. In all the surveys that have been done and how, what percentage of scientists believe in the God of the Bible? It runs at about 40%. What do you make of that? I’m not sure what you make of that, but the idea that all the scientists reject the existence of God is a lie.

It’s just plain not true. And so I believe I prayed that I would not be demeaning, but I just think this is laughable. And so I can understand how a person who recognizes that God is invisible could have a hard time initially believing in God. I respect and honor that. I get that. But I think the more you look at the evidence, the more science you do, the more it points, obviously, logically, reasonably to the existence of God.

So let’s talk about the idea that God is invisible just for a minute. While we look at this white SUV. So can that car invent itself? Well, obviously not. So what has to take place for that car to come into being? So people have to design it and people have to build it. And so you have humans on an assembly line and in the planning process before that bringing that car into reality.

The builders of that car are outside that car, making that car happening. Nothing builds itself. Nothing creates itself. Even you and I do not have the ability to give ourselves even our own talents. You might be able to sing good. You might be able to run fast. You might be able to do great with literature and be a wordsmith. You did not give that to yourself. An outside force gave that to you. So what about our universe?

So it would be logical to think if the universe did not create itself, nothing creates itself, that there would be a God who created it, who was outside of the universe and lived separately from the universe but had the ability to permeate the universe. And so we believe in a lot of powerful things that are invisible, whether you have ever thought about it or not. Do you believe even though you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t detect it with your senses? Do you believe in gravity? Can you measure the impact of gravity?

Do you believe in electromagnetic forces? Do you believe in radio waves? You could not use your cell phone without radio waves. You could not look at a television. You couldn’t look at all these things that are wireless. And we know that radio waves are true. Now, I’m not saying that God is like gravity or radio waves. I’m just using that as an illustration to say we can believe in something that’s invisible if we can see its impact on the real world. Can you see the impact of the invisible God? I think with the help of science, of all things, you can see and even measure the impact of what God does.

So I want to tell you something, christian. Science is on your side. So there’s this idea that we have to choose between faith and science. I might have to take a blind leap of faith, and I respect science, but I’m going to choose faith. That’s not how it works.

It’s just not how it works. This is what my faith is like. My faith is built on facts. And so these facts have stepped me up where there’s still a small step of faith I got to take. But this idea of the giant leap of faith not based on science is a lie from Satan.

It’s just a lie from Satan. And I sure hope these things have helped you overcome your unbelief, because they have been so foundational for me. I believe the choice between faith and science is a false choice. I believe that science is simply the study of God’s creation. And the scientific observation is just learning how God did it.

Like about ten or 20 years ago, it was announced that they mapped the human genome, and there was talk about, do we still need God now that we’ve mapped the human genome? I’m like, well, that question is a bit illogical. All you did was figure out how God did it. And probably after mapping it, you still don’t know how God did it. You just get to see what happened. You don’t even know how it happened.

This is what Jesus said. I think this is such a powerful line. He said this to Pontius Pilate. He said, Everyone on the side of truth, listens to me. I don’t believe Jesus was talking about religious truth.

I don’t believe he was talking about spiritual truth only. I think he was talking about all truth. Scientific truth, historical truth, religious truth, spiritual truth. The people who are humble enough and truthful enough to look at the facts around them and to observe nature, it should lead them to a faith in God.

The last bullet point, I told you I was just going to have one slide on this, is the miraculous qualities of the Bible. Now, before we look at that slide, I just want to talk about a sobering scripture and a sobering principle. This is found in Luke, chapter 16.

He said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. If you don’t want to believe in God, would someone rising from the dead right in front of you make you believe in God? Not if you don’t want to. You could literally. This happens in the gospel accounts with Jesus over and over again where people see the miracle, they even believe the miracle happened, but they don’t respond appropriately to the miracle. And so I just want to let you know, if your faith is founded on facts, you’re still going to have people that you could do your best job trying to persuade them and they are not going to listen to you. Do not let that shake your faith. Not everybody has to agree with you for it to be true. Our faith is reasonable. Our faith is well founded. Not everybody is willing to see it. And usually it’s because they love sin a lot. They’re too prideful. They just don’t want to.

Many of you who know me personally know that the Bible is very, very important to me, as it is to many of you in this congregation. The Bible is astonishing. We’re just, just about out of time, so I just want to breeze through this. The Bible is accurate on history. It’s been tested.

The Bible was verified by archaeology. The Bible was accurate on geography. The Bible is accurate about human relationships. Even modern day psychologists today often can’t agree on human relationships. But the Bible is bid on all the time, beginning to end the Bible, all the different books of the Bible, 66 books of the Bible, the average printing of the Bible is over 1000 pages. Every bit of it agrees on the nature of God. You can go to five different denominations today and they’ll give you different stories on the nature of God. But that’s not the Bible’s problem. The Bible agrees on man’s nature.

The Bible agrees on moral principles. Is homosexuality is a sin? You’re going to have ten different answers from ten different Christians. But the Bible never has a discrepancy like that. The Bible stands together on what is right and what is wrong.

The Bible agrees with itself. The Bible is accused by people of having contradictions. People who haven’t read it or people who haven’t read it honestly and humbly. The Bible has fulfilled prophecy. It has astonishing authorship.

Everything you could learn about writing a novel or a nonfiction book, like in creative writing, about symbolism, foreshadowing, poetry, every bit of that and more is in the Bible. The greatest author who ever lived is God, and there’s connecting themes in it that help show what an astonishing author that God is. And the Bible knows you. In James One, it says the Bible is a mirror for you, showing you who you are. The Bible by itself, if you read it honestly, is a slow motion miracle because it takes a while to get through it.

But reading it, you’ll see a miracle from God. I hope these things have helped strengthen your faith a little bit. I’ve shared with you things that have really made a difference in my life. As we go to take the Lord’s supper together, I want you to remember what frustrated Jesus. It was a lack of faith in his disciples.

I would encourage you to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs. You’re founded on a good foundation given to us by God. Let’s pray. As we remember Jesus’s death and resurrection, let’s pray together. Holy Father, thank you so much for revealing yourself and what you have made.

And we praise you for how beautiful, a miraculous and amazing Your creation is. Father, as we remember your Son, help us to remember what made him happy, what makes you happy, and that is faith. Help us to show that we believe in you and that we believe that you raise the dead. We love you and pray these things in your Son’s name. Amen.