[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 13 September 2009 "I Believe; Help My Unbelief!" Mark 9:14-29 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

"I believe; help my unbelief!" is perhaps the most realistic description of every Christian. Like every believer of every age, you and I are often assailed by doubts, really, unbelief. It is the flip side of confidence and trust. It doesn't mean that you have lost faith altogether, but that your faith is assailed, under attack. You suffer from doubts whether or not the promises of God are true for you. "Help my lack of faith! If only I could believe to the extent that you describe, being able to overcome all things! But I cannot because my faith is too small."

This unbelief isn't the unbelief of the self-professed atheist who is confident that none of it is true. That isn't what is happening here. The man pleads with Jesus to do something if he can. This is not a complete turning his back on Christ, but he doubts. We aren't speaking of hardened unbelievers or militant atheists, but of people just like you.

After his rejection at Nazareth, Jesus sent out the twelve disciples two by two, with authority over the unclean spirits. This meant that the disciples could command unclean spirits to come out of those so possessed, thus healing them. We don't hear much about that until this section of Mark's Gospel when we find the scribes arguing with the disciples. From the crowd a man tells Jesus his situation. He had brought his son to the disciples so that they would cast out an unclean spirit which troubled the boy, causing all sorts of problems, one of them being epilepsy. But the disciples had been unsuccessful in healing the boy, and this had created a controversy.

The disciples and the crowd are rebuked by Jesus as he calls them a "faithless generation." If you were to review everything that Mark has recorded in his Gospel until now, you would see that Jesus had healed many people of demon-possession as well as various illnesses and conditions. He fed five thousand men with a few loaves and fishes, and then four thousand on another occasion. He had calmed a storm on the lake. He walked on the water. He spoke of his suffering, death, and resurrection. And yet, the people did not have faith in him as Savior. I have sometimes heard people say, "Well, if I had been there in those crowds I certainly would have believed in Jesus and everything he said." The disciples were . . . and didn't. I worry that had I been there I would have been the most hardened Pharisee in the crowd!

Over the years I have observed that some people don't want to call me to minister to them when they are ill because they think that they aren't in imminent danger of death. They have the wrong idea that the only time one calls the pastor is if one is going to die, but they ignore the fact that many of the common problems of life become crises of faith. In other words, they don't realize that their faith is under attack by Satan.

Every Christian has such crises. The greatest saints have been afflicted with this kind of unbelief or these doubts. Many people are surprised to learn that even those who teach and preach God's Word to them are filled with the same unbelief that they have! Oh, but it's true! Having more knowledge about the things of God doesn't necessarily mean one has more faith. Faith should never be thought of as mere knowledge. Knowledge does not equal faith, as James points out [James 2.19]. The demons have knowledge of God and are afraid! But they do not have faith. It doesn't mean that those who have knowledge are safe from the attacks of Satan. Quite the opposite, those who have more knowledge are attacked far more often. Ask any pastor and, if he is honest with you, he will tell you that this is true.

Luther called these doubts or temptations Anfechtungen. These attacks of the devil try to pull you away from trusting the Word of Christ. One day you believe strongly. The next day you are filled with doubts, unbelief. The following day you believe again. These are real tensions. You hear the Gospels and you believe without question what Jesus says to you, but then you hear whispered in the back of your mind, "What if it isn't true?" You want to believe it but you are afraid and you get to the edge of unbelief.

These temptations tend to attack you when you are most vulnerable, such as when you or a loved one suffers from disease or misfortune. Put yourself in this man's place. Luke tells us that this man's son was his only son [Luke 9.38]. His situation seemed hopeless now that the disciples could not help him. How often have you been there in a similar situation in your life? You despair of God's care and help. You know you should trust and believe that he will help but things don't seem to be going that way for you. You faith gets weak. You doubt. You question whether or not you believe.

Indeed, you know the First Commandment's meaning: "We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things." Well, have you? Have you never disbelieved that God loved you and that everything that happens in your life is for the good? That's easy to claim when all things are going well in your life, isn't it? But what about when you have been worn down with illnesses and conditions that rob you of your health, your peace of mind, your money? What about when you get knocked down by some problem and you get up only to be knocked down again repeatedly? Your life resembles this man's life. His son was possessed by an unclean spirit which caused him epileptic seizures. This man loved his son but this condition had horrible results. The boy didn't grow normally. He probably didn't have any friends and couldn't play childhood games with them. In short, he was robbed of a normal childhood, and this broke the father's heart. What would become of his son in the future? No one had been able to help until now. Jesus' disciples tried to help but couldn't.

You say with this man, "I believe, but my faith is taking a battering right now." You pray and pray and God seems deaf to your prayers. So you pray harder, more often. Maybe you enlist other Christians to help pray for you, after all, if you get a lot of people praying for you God must certainly hear those prayers, right? It's the idea that you can gang up on God and wear him down if you have two dozen people petitioning on your behalf. Well, no, it doesn't work like that because none of us believes purely with the result that not all things are possible for us. Our unbelief stops us in our tracks. We break the First Commandment all over again. You see, all of this depends upon our powers, and you must admit as I do that our powers are pretty weak. One day your faith is on the mountaintop and the next day it is in the lowest part of the earth. The circumstances of life seem to conspire against you and you have those doubts. Satan attacks your faith and makes you doubt God's promises for you.

Did you notice what the Psalmist said in the Gradual today? "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Actually, we've been chanting that for over a month now! Perhaps, we can hear it now. These temptations or trials, Anfechtungen, are many and varied because Satan attacks us at our weakest moments and points. Those change from person to person and from time to time.

As Jesus rebuked the crowds, he commanded that the boy be brought to him. He quizzed the father about how long this had been going on, the father telling him and then expressing his weak faith, "But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus immediately seized on the father's lack of faith by saying to him, "If you can! All things are possible for one who believes." Faith overcomes, but there is a problem with this man. He doesn't have that kind of faith that trusts so implicitly. He has those doubts, this unbelief, this weakness.

Do not think that you are the only person who has this kind of unbelief! Even the disciples themselves have it! They were not able to cast out the demon due to their lack of faith. They are the ones that Jesus addresses as "O faithless generation." I can say with absolute certainty that there is not a person in this sanctuary this morning who has not been guilty of this faithlessness, this lack of complete trust.

Yet, faith remains for you as it did for this man, but it is weak. Luther remarked:

Now if God allows faith to remain weak, one should not despair on that account, but rather recognize it as a trial and temptation [anfechtung] by means of which God tests, prods, and drives a person to cry out all the more and plead for such faith, saying with the father of the possessed boy in the gospel, "O Lord, help my unbelief" [Mark 9:24], and with the apostles, "O Lord, increase our faith" [Luke 17:5]. Thus does a person come to learn that everything depends on the grace of God: the sacrament, the forgiveness, and the faith. Giving up all other hope, despairing of himself, he comes to hope exclusively in the grace of God and cling to it without ceasing.¹
Though our faith is weak, let us pray earnestly along with the apostles, Luke 17 [:5], "Lord, increase our faith," and with the child's father in Mark 9 [:24], "Lord, I believe: help my unbelief!"²

What the disciples and this man did not do was to depend completely upon Christ and his grace. The whole point of the failure of faith lies in trusting in something or someone other than Christ. Jesus is the only constant in this whole text. Everybody else is flying off somewhere.

So we come again to the place where we find Christ in his grace and mercy. Luther directed us there: the Sacrament. In the Sacrament you have the grace of God, his forgiveness, Christ's life. Notice today's Introit:

"My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love."

And Jesus does! He gives the seal of faith by giving you his true body and blood, not only for your forgiveness because of your unbelief, but precisely because of your doubts and unbelief. You don't come to the Supper not believing the words of Jesus, but you do come because you want to believe all that he has said to you. And here he gives you the tangible proof of his love, his grace, his forgiveness. And he gives you his strength. Listen to a sampling of how our Lord's Supper hymns speak:

622 Lord Jesus Christ, You Have Prepared

6 Lord, I believe what You have said;
Help me when doubts assail me.
Remember that I am but dust,
And let my faith not fail me.
Your supper in this vale of tears
Refreshes me and stills my fears
And is my priceless treasure.

Text and Music: Public domain. Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

634 The Death of Jesus Christ, Our Lord

8 Help us sincerely to believe
That we may worthily receive
Your Supper and in You find rest.
Amen! They who believe are blest.

Text and Tune: Public domain. Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

Here in this Blessed Sacrament is Christ! Here he is with his gifts! Here he is to bless you with stronger faith! Let every communicant say: "Amen! This is true!"

"I [do] believe; help my unbelief!"

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

¹Martin Luther, vol. 35, Luther's Works, Vol. 35 : Word and Sacrament I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 35:18 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1960).
²Martin Luther, vol. 43, Luther's Works, Vol. 43 : Devotional Writings II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 43:173 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1968).