Why Can't I....? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah
We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this morning.
Last we looked at the transfiguration of Jesus – the moment His glory broke through the veil of His human flesh – the holy glow.
Today we’re moving from the glorious mountain top experience back down to the valley of daily life.
So let’s read Mark 9:14-29….
I know we’ve all experienced that moment after we’ve been exposed to a glorious mountain top experience with Jesus where life’s reality reaches up and smacks us in the face. Often it’s just having to go back to work on Monday morning.
Jesus and the three disciples who were on the mountain with Him experience the same thing in this passage. This reminds me of the story in Exodus when Moses and Joshua are coming down mount Sinai after Moses received the Decalogue (10 Commandments) in a mountain top experience and as they were walking back to camp they hear a loud noise that Joshua thinks is caused by battle but Moses hears it and says “it’s not the sound of war but the sound of a wild party! What are these people up to?”
As they get close to camp they see the people not only partying, but worshiping a golden calf idol that they had made! Can you imagine what kind of a Monday morning experience that was?
Jesus faces that here. The first thing He encounters when He returns from the mountain is a huge group of people standing around watching a big argument between the other disciples and those nifty scribes. I think that’s the reason Jesus took Peter with Him, He probably expected something to happen while He was away and figured it was better if Peter was where He could keep and eye on him.
This argument started because the disciples couldn’t cast an evil spirit out of a young boy. They had tried but nothing happened and that gave the scribes an opportunity to try and undermine them and their teacher. Of course when you try to upstage someone they get all defensive and the next thing you know there’s a fight. That’s just great.
But let’s face it we’ve all felt that way at times haven’t we? You know what I’m talking about, those times when we pray from someone and nothing happens?
Sometimes we feel like God’s left us hanging out there on a big ol’ limb. Am I right, isn’t that how it feels?
Do I have your permission to be even more blunt? O.k.? For some, if not all of us, it has at some level caused a crisis of faith. Not to the point where we’re thinking about abandoning the faith, but it has caused us to question some of what we believe about divine healing and other miracles. It may have even caused to hesitate to pray for others, or even changed the way we pray.
Don’t we sometimes feel like we have to make excuses for God? Am I crazy here or am I on to something….
Then you read a passage like this and you may have an idea what the disciples were feeling. But the interesting thing to note is how Jesus responds. He doesn’t try to make them feel better about their doubts; in fact His response is almost like rubbing salt in the wound. How would you feel if you asked Jesus “Why?” and He answered back “How long do I have to put up with you?” That’s kind of rough isn’t it?
When we feel that way only have a couple of options: we can quit or we can get aside with Jesus and learn from Him. This happened in two ways.
Look at the father of the boy in his first request in vs. 22 where he basically showed a lack of faith and said to Jesus “if you can…” Then after Jesus challenges his faith in vs. 23 with an ‘if you can’ question of His own the father gets it and says in essence according to R. Alan Cole “ok then help me just as I am, a doubter.”
The father learned to approach Jesus with faith no matter how small it seemed to be. Don’t come to Him with doubt; come to Him humbly and honestly with whatever measure of faith you have. You might as well what have you got to lose!
Then we see the disciples learning from Jesus. Still hurting and humiliated by what they had just experienced they asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out the demon. I think their question says a lot about where they were coming from. Based on their question “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” who were they more concerned with? Themselves and their reputation. If they had asked “Why couldn’t we help that boy and his father?” it would have shown a mature level of compassion and humility.
So Jesus sees right through this and gives them a quick lesson in humility: This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting (some mss. leave out and fasting but there’s strong evidence that it should be included).
I’m not discounting the importance of prayer and fasting, it’s obvious that Jesus meant what He said, but why did He say it? In the past Jesus had sent out the disciples in twos and had given them authority to cast out demons. They had done it before so they were completely confused as to why the formulas of the past didn’t work this time.
I believe Jesus answer was intended to show them that they couldn’t rely on a method or formula that worked in the past.
The disciples had to learn to rely on an abiding, humble reliance on God’s power. Prayer and fasting isn’t about a formula for ministry success, it’s about setting everything aside and drawing near to Jesus and drawing in His strength and power. It’s admitting that we’re weak and He is strong and through His strength we can do all things. (Phil. 4:13)
If we pull back from doing powerful works of compassion because we’re afraid of how we’ll look if we fail then we need to go back to Jesus for an attitude adjustment and prayer and fasting is a great place to start.
So let’s ask ourselves this morning do we care enough about the hurting people around us to get on our faces before God and ask for His help to make a difference? Are we willing to put aside everything else so that we can encounter our loving and powerful savior in such a way that we can then serve others with His compassion poured into our hearts?
Last we looked at the transfiguration of Jesus – the moment His glory broke through the veil of His human flesh – the holy glow.
Today we’re moving from the glorious mountain top experience back down to the valley of daily life.
So let’s read Mark 9:14-29….
I know we’ve all experienced that moment after we’ve been exposed to a glorious mountain top experience with Jesus where life’s reality reaches up and smacks us in the face. Often it’s just having to go back to work on Monday morning.
Jesus and the three disciples who were on the mountain with Him experience the same thing in this passage. This reminds me of the story in Exodus when Moses and Joshua are coming down mount Sinai after Moses received the Decalogue (10 Commandments) in a mountain top experience and as they were walking back to camp they hear a loud noise that Joshua thinks is caused by battle but Moses hears it and says “it’s not the sound of war but the sound of a wild party! What are these people up to?”
As they get close to camp they see the people not only partying, but worshiping a golden calf idol that they had made! Can you imagine what kind of a Monday morning experience that was?
Jesus faces that here. The first thing He encounters when He returns from the mountain is a huge group of people standing around watching a big argument between the other disciples and those nifty scribes. I think that’s the reason Jesus took Peter with Him, He probably expected something to happen while He was away and figured it was better if Peter was where He could keep and eye on him.
This argument started because the disciples couldn’t cast an evil spirit out of a young boy. They had tried but nothing happened and that gave the scribes an opportunity to try and undermine them and their teacher. Of course when you try to upstage someone they get all defensive and the next thing you know there’s a fight. That’s just great.
But let’s face it we’ve all felt that way at times haven’t we? You know what I’m talking about, those times when we pray from someone and nothing happens?
Sometimes we feel like God’s left us hanging out there on a big ol’ limb. Am I right, isn’t that how it feels?
Do I have your permission to be even more blunt? O.k.? For some, if not all of us, it has at some level caused a crisis of faith. Not to the point where we’re thinking about abandoning the faith, but it has caused us to question some of what we believe about divine healing and other miracles. It may have even caused to hesitate to pray for others, or even changed the way we pray.
Don’t we sometimes feel like we have to make excuses for God? Am I crazy here or am I on to something….
Then you read a passage like this and you may have an idea what the disciples were feeling. But the interesting thing to note is how Jesus responds. He doesn’t try to make them feel better about their doubts; in fact His response is almost like rubbing salt in the wound. How would you feel if you asked Jesus “Why?” and He answered back “How long do I have to put up with you?” That’s kind of rough isn’t it?
When we feel that way only have a couple of options: we can quit or we can get aside with Jesus and learn from Him. This happened in two ways.
Look at the father of the boy in his first request in vs. 22 where he basically showed a lack of faith and said to Jesus “if you can…” Then after Jesus challenges his faith in vs. 23 with an ‘if you can’ question of His own the father gets it and says in essence according to R. Alan Cole “ok then help me just as I am, a doubter.”
The father learned to approach Jesus with faith no matter how small it seemed to be. Don’t come to Him with doubt; come to Him humbly and honestly with whatever measure of faith you have. You might as well what have you got to lose!
Then we see the disciples learning from Jesus. Still hurting and humiliated by what they had just experienced they asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out the demon. I think their question says a lot about where they were coming from. Based on their question “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” who were they more concerned with? Themselves and their reputation. If they had asked “Why couldn’t we help that boy and his father?” it would have shown a mature level of compassion and humility.
So Jesus sees right through this and gives them a quick lesson in humility: This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting (some mss. leave out and fasting but there’s strong evidence that it should be included).
I’m not discounting the importance of prayer and fasting, it’s obvious that Jesus meant what He said, but why did He say it? In the past Jesus had sent out the disciples in twos and had given them authority to cast out demons. They had done it before so they were completely confused as to why the formulas of the past didn’t work this time.
I believe Jesus answer was intended to show them that they couldn’t rely on a method or formula that worked in the past.
The disciples had to learn to rely on an abiding, humble reliance on God’s power. Prayer and fasting isn’t about a formula for ministry success, it’s about setting everything aside and drawing near to Jesus and drawing in His strength and power. It’s admitting that we’re weak and He is strong and through His strength we can do all things. (Phil. 4:13)
If we pull back from doing powerful works of compassion because we’re afraid of how we’ll look if we fail then we need to go back to Jesus for an attitude adjustment and prayer and fasting is a great place to start.
So let’s ask ourselves this morning do we care enough about the hurting people around us to get on our faces before God and ask for His help to make a difference? Are we willing to put aside everything else so that we can encounter our loving and powerful savior in such a way that we can then serve others with His compassion poured into our hearts?
Labels: belief, disciples, discipleship, faith, fasting, humility, Mark 9:14-30, prayer
posted by Jerry Stitzel @ 12:56 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
