Help My Unbelief!

Introduction

All right, good evening. Once again, we appreciate everybody being here. And those of you that have been here every night certainly want to acknowledge that and thank you for your dedication to our efforts here this week. And of course, tonight for the first time, I’ve got my whole crew here, which is nice. I’ve got my wife and my younger two, Jack and Aubrey are sitting there, and then of course Abigail’s over here with her camp buddies on the front row. so it’s good to have all of them here with me tonight. So if you hadn’t been able to say hi to them, please do so afterwards. Although we will probably try and skip out a little bit earlier after tonight than we normally do because I’ve got to get them to bed.

And I got a 45-minute drive home. so please don’t don’t judge me if we get out here a little bit earlier tonight. But that should be some consolation for you. That means I’m probably not gonna preach as long tonight. So there is that. I was talking to Brent last night, and I was like, I’m getting into like gospel meeting preacher mode where I end up going like longer than I normally do, because I’m a 30-minute guy, but I’ve been going like 40, 45. So a little bit unusual, not sure how that’s happening. Probably because I’m up here rambling on like I am right now. So, without any further ado, we’ll get into the lesson here tonight. our previous stories that we’ve looked at, we’ve kind of looked at some stories that talked about people who were maybe going from a state of unbelief to a state of belief.

But tonight’s story, we’re looking at someone who is going from a state of belief to a state of maybe more belief, better belief. And I think because of that, it maybe will resonate a little bit more with most of us here, because I think most of us that are here are sort of in that camp, right? We are, as far as I know, there are hopefully there are some people here that hear in the gospel that never heard it before, and you’re not a believer in Jesus, and we implore you to believe in Jesus tonight. But if you’re here and you’re already a believer, that’s probably where you find yourself. But yet, you know that there’s some room for more. So that’s what we’re going to look at tonight.

What does faith look like in the life of a Christian? So far in our studies, we’ve looked at Mark chapters 7 and 8, Sunday morning, and then we backed up and we looked at chapter 5 Sunday night, and then we moved on to chapter 6 last night. And we’re going to conclude tonight and tomorrow night by looking at chapter 9 and then chapter 10. And so we kind of took a little bit of an odd route through it, but it’s the way that I felt that it was going to work best, so that’s what we did. So Mark chapter 9 is going to be our text for this evening. If you haven’t turned there already, please do so. Have you ever felt in your spiritual life like you maybe are plagued by a certain level of unbelief, even.

If you’re like most people, you probably feel like maybe you struggle with having the level of faith that you feel like you should have from time to time. You probably think your faith could be stronger. Hopefully that’s a recognition we all have, that we all will have room to grow. Maybe we’re going through a tough time where we’re kind of in a valley and it’s not as strong as it has been at other times in our lives, and that’s okay. We’re not perfect. We’re all trying to grow. In our story this evening, we encounter a man who admits just that. That on the one hand, he has faith, but on the other hand, he knows it could be better. So I want you to pick up reading with me in verse 14 of Mark chapter 9.

And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, 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.

To him, if you can, all things are possible for the one who believes. And 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 him, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.

And indeed, this verse could be rendered, I have faith, help my lack of faith. And of course, that should bring up in our minds the question of, well, what is faith? What does he even mean by that here? And of course, according to Hebrews 11 in verse 1, it’s the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And so this man here is convicted of something he hasn’t seen yet, that Jesus is going to expel this demon from his son’s body. He believes that can happen, even though he hasn’t seen it. Maybe he hasn’t seen anything, any miracle that Jesus has worked. And yet he believes that it’s true. He believes that it’s possible. What had led this man to have any level of faith in Jesus?

We don’t know. Most likely he had heard some stories. And so when he hears that Jesus is nearby, like so many others, and they come running, and he in desperation brings his son to Jesus, believing that he might be able and willing to help. And of course, what’s interesting about this story, there’s something that’s kind of unique to this story versus some of most of the other miracle stories that we read about, that this man first had brought the boy to the disciples, and they were arguing with the crowd, they were arguing with the scribes and the Pharisees about this. And for whatever reason, Jesus isn’t there at first. And Jesus comes upon this scene, and they’re all wondering why is it that the disciples are unable to cast this demon out?

And of course, as we saw with the case of the legion of demons, not all demon possession was the same. And so Jesus commands that they bring the boy. But before he does that, he says something interesting. He says, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? I think that we can sense Jesus’ frustration here. It’s reminiscent of him sighing deeply within his spirit back in Mark chapter 8 and verse 12. He’s just growing frustrated. Over and over again, he meets people and they consistently display a lack of faith. In the parallel account in Matthew 17, Jesus calls them a faithless and twisted generation. He is absolutely exasperated with this generation’s attitudes and faithlessness.

And it echoes many of the Old Testament prophets, and I have a few verses here on the screen behind me. Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse 5, if you’d like to turn over there, Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse 5.

Jesus echoes kind of some of these words of the Old Testament here. He says, They have dealt corruptly with him. They are no longer his children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. And what do we see so often with the history of the people of Israel is that they have their moments of faithfulness, but then what happens? They degenerate, and they get into this period where God has to reject them because they have rejected him. And so what are they? They are crooked, they are perverse, they are twisted. Further down in the same chapter in verse 20, it says, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

God is constantly dealing with people who do not have the level of faith in him that they should, despite the fact that he has proven himself over and over again. Jeremiah chapter 5, verses 21 and 22. Hear this, O foolish and senseless people. Hopefully you’ll see how this ties in to some of our previous lessons. Who have eyes but see not, who have ears but hear not. Do you not fear me? declares the Lord. Do you not tremble before me? I place the sand as the boundary for the sea in a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass. Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it. And again, here a little bit reminiscent of what happens in Mark chapter 4, where Jesus calms the storm in the sea.

And I was talking to Brent last night about how that’s also in Psalm 107, something that is another thing that Jesus plays out from the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.

Here we have this God who is so powerful that he’s able to calm the seeds because he set them in place. And yet we don’t fear him like we should, yet we don’t have faith in him like we should, that he can do the impossible. And so their problem is a consistent lack of faith. Nothing changes. It was the same lack of faith in the Old Testament, was then there in Jesus’ day, and is still present in many today. All of these generations, the problem was the same. It was their lack of faith to some extent. Sometimes a different extents, but to some extent. Jesus’ opponents had no faith at all. This man maybe wasn’t quite sure what to make of Jesus. And even the disciples’ level of faith was not sufficient to cast this demon out.

And what I find kind of ironic about this, as we turn back over to Mark chapter 9, is it says there in this text, in verse 18, whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and etc. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.

Bookmark that in your mind for just a few moments.

We usually we look at these stories, and you know, we’ve for it, for example, right? We looked at the story of the woman who just said, all I’ve got to do is touch the hem of his garment. I mean, just this extraordinary level of faith, and we think, well, that’s what it takes for Jesus to perform a healing. Well, apparently not. Because in this case, we have a man who’s he seems a little bit doubtful, doesn’t he? If what does he say to Jesus, if you can do anything, his faith isn’t quite where most of these other people’s faith seems to be, and yet Jesus delivers the healing anyway. If you can. So then why does Jesus cast the demon out? I believe it was the man’s appeal to Jesus’ compassion, right?

So many times we see Jesus move to help people, move to help these crowds, not because of their faith necessarily, right? I mean, remember, he feeds a crowd that eventually they’re gonna walk away because that’s all they really cared about was seeing some amazing work and just kind of being entertained and being fed. And then when things got hard, they walked away. But Jesus fed those people too. But Jesus does this because of his compassion. This was his nature. It’s about his love for his creation, in addition to the man’s level of faith wherever it was. And so the man says, if you can.

In my mind, I’m going, trying to think about what would that make Jesus feel like? What would that make him think if someone walks up to you as the creator of the universe and asks you, hey, can you do this?

I think if I were Jesus, my head would be about to explode. Like seriously? Are you really asking me this right now? I literally created you. I created the ground that you are standing on. And yet he asks him, Can you do this? In other words, he’s saying, Does Jesus have the power? And the answer is, of course, yes, Jesus has the power. And the Greek word here for can or to be able to is related to the word for power, do namus, right? Dynamite. That’s where we get that word from. And so, in a sense, the man is asking Jesus, do you have the power to do something about my predicament? And Jesus says, literally in verse 23, if you can. I mean, he repeats the man’s statement with a level of incredulity that we rarely see out of Jesus.

If you can, well, of course I can. Of course, man’s mind is limited, right? And with man it’s impossible, but with God, all things are possible for the one who believes. That’s the level of faith that we’re called to. That’s what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 26. In verse Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 20, we’re told that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. And in the parallel account to this story in Matthew chapter 17 and verse 20, Jesus tells the disciples, truly I say to you, if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

Again, he’s using these moments not just as an example to try and get people to see that he is the Messiah, but he’s also using them as teachable moments for the disciples. Again, why does he need to say what he says there in Matthew 17? If you have the right level of faith, if you have the faith of just a mustard seed, and you say this mountain, it will move and it will move. Why does he say that? Because they had already tried to cast out this demon, then they couldn’t do it. Obviously, they needed some teaching. They needed more faith. And that metaphor to say to a mountain, move from here to there, that was actually a very common metaphor in ancient Jewish literature for doing something that was seemingly impossible.

And it’s actually something that comes up a couple of different times in Isaiah. If you want to turn over to Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 4, we’ll look at that, and then we’ll look at chapter 49 and verse 11. Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 4. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground will become level, the rough places of plain. Again, this is the idea. Back up to verse, right? A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. This is that passage that is talking about, you know, John the Baptist coming, preparing a way for Jesus. What is going to happen in those days?

What are we going to be talking about? What is that going to look like? Impossible things are going to happen. Right. And then you look at Isaiah chapter 49.

Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 11. Again, this is in a context that we looked at before, like verse 9, talking about those who are in darkness coming out of the darkness, not hungering and thirsting, verse 10. So the shepherd metaphor is verse 11, and I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up. Jesus is going to make the impossible possible. And so we see that for the one who truly believes, faith unlocks possibilities. Or more apt, we could say that faith unlocks impossibilities. What we think cannot be done, God has the power to do.

Something that we all desperately need to do. And so the man responds, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.

Verse 24. Immediately the father of child cried out and said, I believe. And in some manuscripts, even add, cried out with tears, I believe. Help my unbelief.

This wasn’t just a statement. It was a cry of desperation. And I do think that we need to take a second and admire that this man’s brutal honesty about the situation and about his faith. Yes, he had faith, but it wasn’t where it should be. He had unbelief. He had lingering doubt. He didn’t have complete and total faith and trust. And so he asked the Lord to fill up the measure of faith that is lacking. And I think for us, sometimes the first step to increasing our faith is first admitting that we don’t have enough. And the second step is praying to God, crying out with tears as this man does, and asking him to help us develop a heart that believes more firmly in his truth, his goodness, and his power.

In fact, Jesus specifically calls it out.

Again, a greater level of faith than we see here in Mark chapter 9. The centurion, after Jesus, he asked Jesus to come heal his servant, and Jesus said, Yeah, okay, I’ll come and heal him. And Serenturion says, No. I’m not even worthy for you to come into my house under my roof. Just say the words, and I know that it’s going to be done. And what does Jesus say in verse 10? He marveled and said, Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. While the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And to the centurion, Jesus said, Go and let it be done for you as you have believed.

And the servant was healed at that very moment. What was it that activated Jesus’ power? It was the man’s faith. And what’s even more astonishing about that story is the fact that Jesus very explicitly draws it out here, is that this man was not a Jew. This man was a Roman centurion. Of all the people that had reason to not really have a lot of belief in Jesus, here’s certainly a man that fits that description. And yet Jesus says, I haven’t found faith like this Roman in any of you guys. And that’s why he says, Many are gonna come from east and west and recline at table. In other words, they’re gonna come from all these Gentile nations, but yet the sons of this kingdom, the Jewish nation, will be thrown into outer darkness.

Because they didn’t have the level of faith that they needed. And then we can look at another example in Matthew, going on to the next chapter in chapter 9, verse 22. And this is a parallel account to Mark 5, which again, the one with the flow of blood that we already looked at, but in verse 22, it says, Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well. Again, we noted that when we looked at that story. What was it that saved her? It was her faith that made her well. It was her salvation both physically and spiritually. And then you look at another story in verse 27 through 29, where Jesus heals two blind men. There we have that again. And it says in verse 29, he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it done to you.

And their eyes were opened. There’s a level of faith required on their part in order to activate the power of Jesus for their salvation. Why is it so important that we believe? Because it is faith that makes us well. Without faith, it is impossible to please God, the Hebrew writer tells us later in Hebrews 11 in verse 6. And so when we’re going through difficult times, it takes great strength to believe, to keep the faith. And so the question becomes will we believe? Is our faith strong enough? Do we want it done to us? And that’s really the self-examination question, right? Do I want it done for me according to my faith? And if that’s the way God works, what’s going to be the answer to that?

1. Will We Believe That God Will Intervene?

So let me ask a few questions here tonight. Will we believe, number one, that God will intervene? What we need to believe is that God sees what we’re going through and that he hears our cries. Just as this man cries out in desperation and with tears, so God hears our cries. Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord promised that while they were going to be in exile for a while, that God would deal with the enemies of the Jewish people, and that he would restore them to their land. He said in Jeremiah 30 and verse 17, but I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord. There are going to be some times of silence. There are going to be times of difficulty, but God was still there.

We have to believe that God is not just sitting out there aloof, unconcerned about our problems, but that he knows and cares for us and will come close and deliver. That’s something that certainly David relied upon, even in his darkest moments. He wrote in the shepherd’s Psalm that we looked at already one time, Psalm 23 and verse 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they come for me. David had that understanding and faith that God was with him no matter the darkness of the situation. And when later David feigned madness in order to escape death, afterwards he said in Psalm 34, 15 and 17, the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.

2. Will We Believe When We Don't See?

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them and delivers them out of all their troubles. And here’s the point that not only did David know that to be true, but in the sense that he had a mental understanding and knowledge about God and his faithfulness, but he acted upon it. He lived like he believed it. He personally experienced it. And that’s what God desires for us to believe in our own lives as well. That no matter what we’re going through, God will intervene. Not always so much in a way that we might like or desire for him to, but in a way that he knows is best for us. Will we believe that God will intervene? Will we believe when we don’t see?

Right. And yet, even then some don’t. How many people who literally saw the miracles of Jesus with their own eyes rejected him? And we oftentimes say, oh, if I could just see, then I would believe. Well, maybe. Maybe not. Will we believe in God’s promises, even though they have yet to come about? To his disciple Thomas, who doubted, Jesus said, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And I don’t know about you, but I just I really don’t like waiting. Just gonna be honest. I’m an impatient kind of guy. I was about to lose my mind on the drive down here this afternoon. People going.

Can’t pass them. I don’t, I go to a potluck. I’m gonna sit there until that line is gone. I don’t care. I’m just gonna wait. I don’t want to stand in the line. Don’t even get me started on Disney. Apparently they’re introducing some new sort of fast pass where people are gonna like pay out the note. And I guarantee you they’re gonna make it. They’re gonna make some money on that because people are gonna pay it. People don’t like to wait. But if God said it, sometimes we start to not believe it because, well, it doesn’t happen as fast as we like. Maybe I believe it, but I want it now, and waiting is hard. But it’s while we wait that God does some pretty amazing things sometimes.

Think about Joseph, for instance, who had to wait years for God’s promise to take place, that his relatives would come bowing down before him. But his trust was in God. Through being a slave, being a prisoner, being falsely accused. He had to have doubts in that prison. But ultimately, his trust in the Lord never waited, wavered, and he was rewarded. Think about Abraham, who waited 25 years for the promised son to be born. Think about Moses, who underwent a 40-year transformation in the wilderness of Midian. Talk about patience. And so this faith is a walk. As the Apostle Paul and the writer of Hebrews, who are not the same person, so aptly points out, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

3. Will We Believe in God's Word?

And so while we’re waiting, we need to trust that God knows what is best. And that he will not only give us the strength to handle whatever we are facing and whatever lies ahead, but that he will be with us all the way. That’s why it’s called a walk of faith. Thirdly, will we believe in God’s word? I know we all say yes when someone asks us, hey, do you believe that you know the Bible is the word of God? You say, Yeah. But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. What do I mean? Well, if we say we believe God’s word, are we following it? It’s one thing to say I believe, it’s another to live by it. Even the demons believe, but they do not obey.

We have to live it out. We all know that lesson. What does James tell us in James chapter 2 about this very subject? James says in James chapter 2, beginning in verse 18, someone say you have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe, right? We’re talking about having a level of faith here and getting it to a better level of faith. Well, even the demons have a level of faith, so to speak.

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works. And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

In other words, what James is trying to tell us here is that belief is proven by actions. It’s not enough to just say it. Do I really believe in God’s word? Our obedience to what God’s word said is proof of whether or not we believe it to be true. And it is through God’s word and God’s word alone that we find the right road, the right path to take in this life. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, the psalmist says in Psalm 119 105. Yet even so we tend to profess that faith, and yet tend to pick and choose what we’re gonna follow and what we’re not. We see the Lord say the same thing to the children of Israel, and their response in Jeremiah 6, verse 16, thus says the Lord, stand in the ways and see and ask for the old path, where the good way is, and walk in it, and then you will find rest for your souls.

But they said, We will not walk in it. Now, in fact, what the children of Israel had said to Jeremiah was, Jeremiah 42, 5 and 6, let the Lord be a true and faithful witness between us. If we do not do according to everything which the Lord your God sends us by you, whether it’s pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us, and when we obey the voice of the Lord our God. They’re saying, Yeah, Jeremiah, whatever you say, we’re gonna do it. But their attitude was, no, we’re not. We will not walk in it. They make this great declaration of faith. And so Jeremiah says, okay, I’m gonna give you God’s word.

And indeed, that word was displeasing to them. He told them, Well, God says, don’t go down into Egypt. It’s not going to go well for you if you do that. But that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. And Jeremiah knew that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. And what did I say in Jeremiah 43, verses 2 and 4? You speak falsely. The Lord our God has not sent you to say, do not go to Egypt to dwell there. In other words, they’re saying, Jeremiah, you’re a liar. And all the people would not obey the voice of the Lord to remain in the land of Judah. And so they left anyway. They went down to Egypt, and God was not happy. And it’s so typical. Nah, God didn’t really say that.

He didn’t really mean. I know it says that, but it doesn’t really mean that. It doesn’t really mean that for me. Because my situation is different. What we need to believe and get firmly entrenched in our soul is that the scriptures are God’s word given to us to help us understand what he expects, what is right, and what is wrong, and how to live this life, and that there are no exceptions. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Conclusion

Its teaching is true. It reproves what is wrong. It corrects and instructs on how we are to get and stay right with God. So I think the Lord is asking us whether or not we believe in his divine intervention, whether or not we believe in faith over sight, and whether or not we believe in God’s word. In conclusion tonight, I want to come back for just a moment to the story here in Mark chapter 9 on the healing of the boy, and make a couple of concluding points. The Father said in verse 22 that many times a spirit cast the boy into the fire and water to destroy him, and after Jesus cast it out, the boy falls to the ground and becomes like a corpse, so that most of them believe that he is dead.

They didn’t believe in Jesus, right? They believed. Note the contrast here. What they believed, what versus what they should have been believing. They believed the boy was dead, and they should have believed that Jesus was going to save. It seemed to them that the devil had won, that the demon had done its work, that the devil got what he always wants, right? Which is to destroy God’s creation. And of course, again, as men, as in some of these other stories, maybe he really was dead. It doesn’t really specify that here in this instance. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he had stopped breathing, maybe his heart had stopped beating. And if that’s the case, then I think that makes it even that much stronger of a miracle, right?

That this is yet another resurrection, a true death to life. Miracle in the Mark gospel text. But what does Jesus do? It says there that Jesus reaches down, took him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose. Jesus succeeded where the demon failed. And what a beautiful metaphor that is for what the Lord does for us. When we are down, Jesus reaches down and lifts us up. When we are dead, he makes us alive. When Satan says, you have lost, Jesus says, I’ve won. You are mine. You are my child. And I am willing. And I have the power to lift you up from wherever you are. And sit you up with me. Brother, that ought to inspire all of us. To not just have faith in what Jesus is able to do, but to spread that message to those around us.

This is the gospel. That those who are dead may live. That those who are hopeless can find hope. And yet all too often we are beset by faithlessness and weakness, just like the disciples. Why can we not cast it out? Why could I not do anything? Well, Jesus makes it very plain. It was because of their little faith. And he tells them, even this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. And some manuscripts add, and fasting. They needed to spend more time in prayer and fasting, growing closer to God. Besides lacking understanding, the disciples seem to lack the ability to fully carry out their commission from Jesus. And that failure is an occasion for more encouragement to more prayer. And of course, the lesson here being for all of us that more time and effort in prayer is going to result in growing closer to God and growing in our faith.

And that’s something that they struggle with. It’s something that we struggle with. Having the right tools to do a job and knowledge of those, of the use of those tools is critical for success in any endeavor. And that’s especially true when it comes to prayer, right? Especially when that even is coupled with fasting. These are spiritual warfare weapons that we have that God has given us. And of course, fasting is an oft-overlooked, I think, tool, but vitally important. It’s a necessary part of our spiritual walk, I think, according to the New Testament. It’s mentioned a lot. Doesn’t get the attention it deserves. But the combination of prayer and fasting increases our effectiveness and concentration in relying upon God in trying to kind of clear out the cobwebs and the spiritual blockages, if you will, that get in the way of us really connecting with God and focusing upon his word.

And so if we want God’s wisdom in whatever we’re going through, if we want to be delivered, we need to put on the armor of God and use every spiritual weapon that God has made available to us. It’s not easy. I say this just because it is recent personal experience. I fasted for three days last week. And that’s not easy. Especially when you have kids around and you know you’re constantly bombarded with food. And I did it for more for health reasons than anything else. I have some issues, digestive issues that I cause me a lot of pain that I have to deal with that from time to time in different ways. And one of the ways that I can do that is by fasting. But I’ll tell you what, it takes a lot of mental clarity.

And sometimes I think God is encouraging us to find a little bit of mental clarity to get out of all. Just get everything that is a barrier, get everything that is just a distraction out of the way. And just focus on something important for once.

Not something I suggest doing. Just don’t go three days if you haven’t ever done it before. Start small. Start with 12 hours, then go to 24 hours, etc. But see how that might help your spiritual life when you when you connect that with prayer. In conclusion, and I as we’re drawing rapidly to running out of time here. I said I wasn’t going to go long, but here we are. I love this story. And I love the story because I think it’s all of us. Yes, I have faith, but I know it’s not what it should be. Lord, help me to get where I should be. And I think that’s what really what God wants for all of us is just to be honest, not only with ourselves, but also with Him.

Because if we don’t do that, then we’re never going to grow, right? That’s really what confession is all about. It’s about telling God, hey, I know I messed up. I know this is wrong. I know I have this problem in my life. Because He already knows, right? It’s about admitting it to myself as well. So today, if we want God to do a work in our lives, then we have to be brutally honest and say, as this Father said to Jesus, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Be honest with the Lord about your doubts. That’s okay. He already knows them. And for what I can see, when we come to God honestly and expectantly, which is how this Father came to Jesus, then we will see God work mightily in our lives.

And so believe that God desires to be a part of your life. And believe in what he has promised, even though at the present time it may not look all that promising. Get into God’s word and trust in its faithfulness and truthfulness. Trust in God’s will for you, whatever it may be. Knowing that he desires to do great things in and through you. But one last thing. Once we’re honest about our doubts and areas of unbelief, we can’t just leave it at that. What we need to do is, just like this Father, we need to confess those doubts and then begin the process of turning away from doubt to belief and faith, right? That’s we talked about confession. Now we’re talking about repentance. Saying that’s who I was, but that’s not who I’m going to be anymore.

I’m going to move on to a deeper level of faith and to be the kind of Christian that I know I can be, and I know that I’ve been called to be. I know that my faith is not what it should be. Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. If you’re here tonight, why don’t you make that confession? Repent, being baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. We can help you in any way tonight. Why don’t you come while we stand and while we sing?