SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the CCW podcast.
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SPEAKER_00: We hope you're encouraged, inspired, and motivated by today's message.
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SPEAKER_01: Church is always good.
SPEAKER_01: But something's different today.
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you what it is, but something happened to me out there singing about the tears of the desperate at the feet of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: I have doubt a lot, but I do not doubt that God has ordained what is going on here today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to be here to continue in the Gospel on the Ground series and talk to you about the gospel belief.
SPEAKER_01: And if you would turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be looking at verses 14 through 29.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to read it in its entirety first, and then we'll discuss.
SPEAKER_01: Mark chapter 9, verse 14, says this, and when he came to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and scribes were disputing with them.
SPEAKER_01: And immediately when they saw him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to him greeted him.
SPEAKER_01: And he asked the scribes, What are you discussing with them?
SPEAKER_01: Then one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit, and whenever it seizes him, it throws him down.
SPEAKER_01: He foams at the mouth, gnashes at his teeth, and becomes rigid.
SPEAKER_01: So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not.
SPEAKER_01: He answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
SPEAKER_01: How long shall I bear with you?
SPEAKER_01: Bring him to me.
SPEAKER_01: And then they brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
SPEAKER_01: So he asked the father, How long has this been happening to him?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, From childhood.
SPEAKER_01: And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.
SPEAKER_01: But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.
SPEAKER_01: And immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_01: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more.
SPEAKER_01: And then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him, and he became as one dead, so that many said he is dead.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
SPEAKER_01: And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?
SPEAKER_01: And so he said to them, This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.
SPEAKER_01: Will you pray with me today?
SPEAKER_01: Father God, I come to you today thanking you for the privilege to be here and to open your word and share your word.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I come here and just ask you to remove the distractions that may be here today.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I believe that you have a word of encouragement, a word of conviction, a word that may change someone's life.
SPEAKER_01: And if even one person receives that word today and changes, God, it will be worth everything that we have done here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_01: So a story like this, I think the best place to start is to talk to you about mountains.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to the mountains next week, my family and I.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at some colleges and some mountains.
SPEAKER_01: We like mountains.
SPEAKER_01: We went to a mountain a couple of years ago in New Hampshire, Mount Washington.
SPEAKER_01: They say it's like the highest point east of the Mississippi or something like this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: What I do know is that we drove like 40 minutes on this road back and forth with a deep drop-off to get to the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: And we made it up there, and now we like mountains, but we don't like them as much as the bedraggled looking people that we saw who had hiked to the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: And it was cold up there, and the air was a little bit thinner, and the wind was blowing, and Luke was arguing with Ella because she wouldn't give him her jacket or something like this.
SPEAKER_01: And we were on Mount Washington and we saw the summit, and then we drove back down, and you have to rest your brakes on the way.
SPEAKER_01: I don't first time I ever had to rest my brakes, but it's a thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so we drove back down the mountain, and having that mountain experience last summer, we felt like we were equipped to go to Mount Rainier.
SPEAKER_01: And we were going to do some hiking at Mount Rainier in Washington State.
SPEAKER_01: And we get to Mount Rainier at the base camp, and it doesn't take long to realize that we don't have shoes like everybody else has at Mount Rainier.
SPEAKER_01: And as I start exploring this, I realize that Mount Rainier is training ground for Mount Everest.
SPEAKER_01: And so we drove a little bit up Mount Rainier in the snow in May, and we get to this thing called Paradise Valley.
SPEAKER_01: And we go up to Paradise Valley in a snowstorm and take a picture in front of what looks like a Christmas tree.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the picture, but it was on Memorial Day.
SPEAKER_01: We took our Christmas picture.
SPEAKER_01: Mount Rainier.
SPEAKER_01: We like mountains, but we don't really know that much about mountains.
SPEAKER_01: What I love the most about the mountains, though, is definitely the view.
SPEAKER_01: Man, the world looks so perfect from the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: You can't see the sin, you can't see the pain, you can't see the hurt and the dirt and the grime when you're up at the summit of the mountain looking out.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a fact of the matter that you can't stay on top of the mountain forever.
SPEAKER_01: But still, I want you to think about the majesty of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: That's point one on your outline.
SPEAKER_01: The majesty of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: I tell you about mountains because in verse 14, the Bible says, when Jesus came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and I asked the question, where is Jesus coming from?
SPEAKER_01: I thought that they all just kind of hung out together.
SPEAKER_01: But here, where this story picks up, Jesus, Peter, James, and John have been on a mountain, and it's the mountain where Jesus transfigured himself.
SPEAKER_01: And they have been up there meeting with Elijah and Moses, and Peter liked it so much up there, he says, Lord, why don't we just build three tabernacles up here?
SPEAKER_01: He was gonna stay because he liked it there.
SPEAKER_01: And then God came and said, This is my son.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to him, and then Moses and Elijah weren't there anymore, and they had to come back down the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: You can't stay on top of the mountain forever.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times in my experience, when I've had a pinnacle experience with the Lord, when I've been on the mountaintop, I don't just walk down onto flat ground.
SPEAKER_01: I come all the way down into the pit of somebody else's valley.
SPEAKER_01: And I think maybe that is the situation that Jesus and Peter and James and John are walking into here.
SPEAKER_01: When we read, he sees a great multitude around the disciples, and the scribes are disputing with them.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus reconvenes with nine disciples.
SPEAKER_01: He's been gone, and what have the disciples been getting into in the meantime?
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a dispute, and it seems like the disciples have had the opportunity to publicly defend themselves in front of the scribes.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus asked the scribes, what is this dispute about?
SPEAKER_01: Now we read dispute, and I don't know exactly what dispute means, but I do know that we had a pastor here before, Pastor Danny, and he always said that he and his wife, Miss Susan, never fought or argued.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes they would have conversations that the neighbors could overhear.
SPEAKER_01: And I just wonder maybe if the disciples and the scribes are having conversations that you could hear down the street, this dispute.
SPEAKER_01: It seems like that to me.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, in your outline, this is a disaster for the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: They're in the middle of a disaster.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus asked, What's the dispute about?
SPEAKER_01: And before the scribes can answer, a man steps forward in verse 18 and he says, I brought my son who has a mute spirit to the disciples to cast it out, but they could not cast it out.
SPEAKER_01: And I just believe that when the disciples couldn't heal this man's son, the scribes were right there questioning whether or not they really had any power.
SPEAKER_01: And the scribes were right there, probably saying we ought to kill these false prophets.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible doesn't tell us that, but when I read all this together, the disciples couldn't do it, and now the scribes are arguing with him in front of a crowd, and here Jesus walks into this.
SPEAKER_01: It's a disaster.
SPEAKER_01: And make no mistake, now the disciples had been given power before.
SPEAKER_01: In Mark chapter 3, the Bible tells us that they were given power to heal the sick and to cast out demons, and they had done it.
SPEAKER_01: In Mark chapter 6, they report back that we've been healing the sick and casting out demons.
SPEAKER_01: You know what they had?
SPEAKER_01: They had a track record of success, they had solid experience, they trusted their ability.
SPEAKER_01: So when I think about this scene here, the man brings his son to the disciples, and Jesus isn't there.
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder what happened, because Peter wasn't there.
SPEAKER_01: I know what would have happened if Peter was there, but Peter was on the mountain trying to build a tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: So I wonder if Matthew went first.
SPEAKER_01: And they brought the child to him, and Matthew laid his hand on the child's head and said, Be healed.
SPEAKER_01: But he wasn't healed.
SPEAKER_01: And so he called Bartholomew, be healed, no healing.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what's going on, man.
SPEAKER_01: We've done this a lot.
SPEAKER_01: Judas, think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Judas is part of these nine disciples who've been casting out demons and healing.
SPEAKER_01: And when it didn't work, and there's hot water.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do when what's always worked stops working?
SPEAKER_01: What do you do when the way you've always done things doesn't get the results anymore?
SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to change?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you just keep doing it the way you've always done it?
SPEAKER_01: These disciples definitely had confidence in their own ability.
SPEAKER_01: They had done it.
SPEAKER_01: They knew exactly what to do.
SPEAKER_01: And I know this, I believe confidence in my own ability inhibits my prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: Because if I know that I can do it, I don't always necessarily have to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what's going on with these guys.
SPEAKER_01: When the man brings his son, they can't cast out the demon, the scribes gather around, the crowd gathers around.
SPEAKER_01: Thank goodness Jesus shows up.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, the condition of the child.
SPEAKER_01: The father tells the condition of the child in verses 17 and 18.
SPEAKER_01: He has a mute spirit, doesn't talk, seizes him, throws him to the ground, gnashes his teeth, foams at the mouth, and becomes rigid.
SPEAKER_01: From what I understand, medicine will tell you that this looks like a grandma seizure, like epilepsy.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in Matthew's account of this story, chapter 17, verse 15 of Matthew, the father tells Jesus this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, My son is epileptic and suffers severely.
SPEAKER_01: So epilepsy was a thing, but the devil, through his demons, is using this medical condition of the child.
SPEAKER_01: I think the biggest support of this is in verse 22, the spirit throws him into the fire and the water.
SPEAKER_01: I've seen a couple of seizures, and they are not like magnetized to fire and water.
SPEAKER_01: So the demon is using the condition that the child is in, trying to destroy the child.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 9 goes on to tell us that the spirit comes and goes with great difficulty, bruising the child.
SPEAKER_01: And then this man comes out of the crowd, and the disciples haven't been able to fix it, even though they thought they should have been able to.
SPEAKER_01: And he talks to Jesus, and I believe that he's just helpless, desperate, and completely vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01: And Matthew chapter 17, verse 14 tells us that he kneeled down and begged for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: He kneeled down in the crowd with the fight going on around him, and he begged for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Where the tears of the desperate meet the feet of the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we see right here.
SPEAKER_01: He's crying out, begging for mercy, with the scribes and the disciples arguing all around him.
SPEAKER_01: Public place, not worried what anybody thinks, not worried what anybody says.
SPEAKER_01: He takes a submissive stance.
SPEAKER_01: That's number four on your outline today, a submissive stance.
SPEAKER_01: He's desperate.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't like desperate.
SPEAKER_01: I try very hard to structure my life so that I don't have to fool with a lot of desperate.
SPEAKER_01: I wear my seatbelt, go to the gym, get checkups, try to eat, right, and exercise.
SPEAKER_01: I got some coverage.
SPEAKER_01: I know who to call when the thing goes sideways.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that keeps me from taking a submissive stance.
SPEAKER_01: It's been 22 years ago since Amanda and I were shopping for our first house.
SPEAKER_01: I was young and full of energy, and I knew just what I wanted.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted a three-bedroom house.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted it in a good school district.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like an acre of flat land with green grass if possible.
SPEAKER_01: Wanted two bathrooms, but I would settle for one.
SPEAKER_01: It would be great if it had a basement.
SPEAKER_01: And we wanted to get all of this for about$84,000,$85,000.
SPEAKER_01: But I was determined.
SPEAKER_01: And we looked at houses from Locust Fork to Million Dollar Lakes.
SPEAKER_01: From Blunt County all the way to Tuscaloosa, all over Jefferson County.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't dip into Shelby County because there was nothing for 84-9 down here then.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty years ago.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, Amanda got wore out, and the poor little real estate agent that we were working with, he said, I just, you got to find some stuff and then we'll go look at it.
SPEAKER_01: So on a Friday, I pulled from the Realty South website, because it worked different on the internet back then.
SPEAKER_01: So I went to the Realty South website and I got my papers.
SPEAKER_01: Nine things I was going to go look at, and I plugged all those addresses into MapQuest, and I got my papers.
SPEAKER_01: And I go out that next Saturday morning all alone with my stack of papers, and I have to go find us a house.
SPEAKER_01: And the first one I come up to in Gardendale, which is where I said I would never live, is on a dead-end street by a nursing home, and it's a little white house, and it's got like an acre and a half of flat green grass surrounded by woods.
SPEAKER_01: And it was like the haze lifted, and here's this house.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this house was an L-shaped house.
SPEAKER_01: You walk into the house, into the kitchen, you've got the living room over here, and then you go down and you've got on the left in the hallway the bathroom, and then you've got the door that leads to the basement, and then it turns right, and you've got three bedrooms down the back of the house.
SPEAKER_01: The farthest one on the end was the master.
SPEAKER_01: And I know it was the master because it had a five-foot by five foot ensuite with a two and a half foot shower.
SPEAKER_01: It was just right.
SPEAKER_01: Three bedrooms, two baths, good school district, big bunch of greengrass, basement that was a little bit dungeon-esque.
SPEAKER_01: Like you go down wood steps and it's got like a half wall, so if you go about three steps and trip, you could fall straight to the floor.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, cinder walk, cinder block, concrete floor, that's where the washer and dryer was.
SPEAKER_01: And we were gonna renovate this thing because the lady who owned the house was in nursing home, and her kids were selling it, and it was going into the estate 84-9.
SPEAKER_01: So we got the house, and for our wedding, we got$3,000 worth of Lowe's and Home Depot gift cards.
SPEAKER_01: And they used to send you this little 10% off coupon when you moved.
SPEAKER_01: So we held on to that thing, and right before it expired, we carried all of our gift cards up to Lowe's on a Friday night, and we filled up like eight buggies.
SPEAKER_01: And we got 10% off, like$350 off of$3,500.
SPEAKER_01: It was amazing.
SPEAKER_01: We put it all in the basement in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: It rained real hard and the basement leaked because that's what it did.
SPEAKER_01: But we had our house.
SPEAKER_01: My grandmother, Nana, she lived in Gardendale in a place called Peachtree, a mobile home community.
SPEAKER_01: And she was super excited that we lived in Gardendale because we could see each other more than we had before.
SPEAKER_01: And she would come out and like pick up sticks in her yard and check her mail if we weren't there and all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And we'd been living there about a year, and long about September of 2004, the whole state was like preparing for hurricanes.
SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of mad because I didn't like to have to think about hurricanes.
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm a tornado guy, but hurricanes?
SPEAKER_01: Hurricane Ivan?
SPEAKER_01: And Nana called and said, Hey, can I come stay with y'all for the hurricane?
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to stay in my mobile home.
SPEAKER_01: And I was thrilled that she was gonna come and stay with us.
SPEAKER_01: So we filled up like a five-gallon thing of water, and we had some oil lamps and some matches and maybe some beanie weenies or something.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: We weren't that far away from being prepping for the Y2K, so I knew how to do that.
SPEAKER_01: We had dinner, and we see the winds coming.
SPEAKER_01: You could see them blowing the trees, and we went to bed, and long about midnight, I believe it was, I heard what sounded like a tree fall on the house.
SPEAKER_01: And I jumped up and I ran down to Nana's room.
SPEAKER_01: No tree.
SPEAKER_01: But no Nana.
SPEAKER_01: And from her room, I could see down the hallway and that basement door, we had not latched it open or latched it closed.
SPEAKER_01: And she got up in the middle of the night thinking that it was the bathroom, and in the dark, she stepped off down eight steps around a landing, falling down onto the concrete floor.
SPEAKER_01: And I ran downstairs and I called for Amanda to call 911.
SPEAKER_01: And here is my grandmother, Nana, the one who always dried my tears and bandaged my boo-boos, and the one who always took the fear away and told me that it was gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: And she's laying here on the basement floor at my house, and she looks up at me with terror in her eyes, and she says, David, help me.
SPEAKER_01: And she was 82.
SPEAKER_01: I called Amanda.
SPEAKER_01: Amanda called 911.
SPEAKER_01: I stayed down with Nana holding her hand, resisting the urge to get her up because I'm dumb and I would have done that.
SPEAKER_01: Patting her head, telling her it was all gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: Telling her it was all gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the paramedics got there, and thank goodness, thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: One of the paramedics was my sister-in-law's brother-in-law.
SPEAKER_01: That may sound complicated.
SPEAKER_01: He was married to my sister-in-law's sister, and they were close, like he had been to Thanksgiving, right?
SPEAKER_01: We had seen him a couple of weeks before.
SPEAKER_01: He knew that this was not just some lady laid in a floor, this was Nana.
SPEAKER_01: And so I went upstairs, I left them alone, and I got down on my knees in the bedroom with my head on the bed where Nana had been sleeping.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Please, Lord, help Nana.
SPEAKER_01: Please, Jesus, let her be okay.
SPEAKER_01: Complete helplessness, complete desperation, submissive stance, crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: They loaded her in the ambulance, and we had to go to Princeton Hospital all the way across the city.
SPEAKER_01: We passed like five hospitals to get to Princeton because that's where her doctor was.
SPEAKER_01: I followed the ambulance in my car, and that storm that was so big didn't matter anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Because there was nothing I could do.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that was the last time that I got down on my knees desperately begging God to do something that I couldn't do because I don't like being desperate.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I see with this father here.
SPEAKER_01: He's crying out, he's begging Jesus to do something completely submissive, no matter what anybody has to say or thinks.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, interestingly enough, says this, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
SPEAKER_01: How long shall I bear with you?
SPEAKER_01: This man's kneeled down in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Who's Jesus talking to here?
SPEAKER_01: Surely he's not talking to this man.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think he's talking to the scribes.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows they don't have any faith.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus is talking to his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Because, see, this miracle is a transition point for the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: They've been with Jesus, they've seen some things that Jesus does, they've watched him do mighty things, but they're headed into a time.
SPEAKER_01: Where they're going to need to believe things that they do not see.
SPEAKER_01: And they're not going to be able to rely on their track record and their ability.
SPEAKER_01: They're going to have to have faith.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells his disciples over and over that they have to have faith.
SPEAKER_01: Here he says, Oh, faithless generation, but in Matthew chapter 6, he says, Oh, you of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 8, oh you of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 14, oh you of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 16 and Luke 12, oh you of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: It seems like one of the things the disciples who were walking with Jesus heard the most was, oh you of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: And after this rebuke of his disciples, Jesus tells them to bring the boy.
SPEAKER_01: Bring him to me, verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says, when he brought the boy, the demon saw Jesus and he convulsed and wallowed on the ground, foaming at the mouth.
SPEAKER_01: And with all this going on, Jesus asked the Father, How long has this been happening?
SPEAKER_01: Why in the world will he need to know that?
SPEAKER_01: Like if it's been three years, I can't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: If it's only been a couple of days, I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: Why does Jesus need to know how long has this been going on?
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus wants to be more than just our fixer.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus wants to be our listener and the one we tell our story to and the one who empathizes with us.
SPEAKER_01: He can fix it, but he doesn't want to just be that.
SPEAKER_01: And so he asked this father to find out how long has it been going on.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to hear from you, even if there ain't nothing to fix.
SPEAKER_01: And the father tells him this the father says, since he was a child, and the demon cast him into the fire and the water to destroy.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, chapter 9, verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: The end, the father has this strange thing that he tells Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He says, But if there is anything you can do, have compassion on us and help us.
SPEAKER_01: Kneeled in front of Jesus, crying out, Jesus, if there is anything you can do.
SPEAKER_01: God, I know you're willing and I know you can, but even if you can't, I think what the Father is saying right here is he's saying, Jesus, I know you would, but I'm not sure if you can.
SPEAKER_01: I think he has a feeble faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's number five on your outline.
SPEAKER_01: The Father has a feeble faith, and we all have a feeble faith.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I know you would, but I don't know if you even can help.
SPEAKER_01: And I've thought about this man's wavering belief, this feeble faith, and why he got so destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: And all I can think of is that the man's faith was shaken because of his interaction with Jesus' people.
SPEAKER_01: His faith was decreased by what happened with the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: He brought his son, they couldn't do it, even though they had done it a hundred times before.
SPEAKER_01: They worked in their own power and experience and ability.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't work.
SPEAKER_01: And now we have this man questioning whether God can even do it.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray that my words and actions don't do anything to diminish anyone's faith.
SPEAKER_01: If it's possible, I would love to help people have their faith increased through what I do and say, but please, Lord, don't let me be a hindrance or a stumbling block so that people will leave me with less faith than they started.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus responds to the man and he says, If you can believe, all things are possible to those who believe.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the earliest transcripts read differently on this, and some of your Bibles may.
SPEAKER_01: Some Bibles say, if you can, believe, all things are possible to him who believes.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like Jesus is taken back.
SPEAKER_01: If you can, all things are possible to him who believes.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not forget, while we're doing all this talking, there's a boy rolling around convulsing on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: That's still happening here.
SPEAKER_01: And the Father cries out this honest and sincere prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: And I think we should pray this prayer every day unless you have perfect belief.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I believe, help my unbelief, forgive my unbelief, strengthen my unbelief, reduce my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: God, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, for this story.
SPEAKER_01: And thank you for this principle that our belief does not have to be perfect.
SPEAKER_01: It does not even have to be good.
SPEAKER_01: And you will meet us where we are.
SPEAKER_01: We see that from this man on his knees crying out with his feeble faith.
SPEAKER_01: Number six, the bolstered belief.
SPEAKER_01: The crowd comes running.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus rebukes the spirit and he says, Deaf and dumb spirit come out of him and enter him no more.
SPEAKER_01: It's important that Jesus says, enter him no more, because you see in Matthew chapter 12, sometimes when a spirit leaves a house, it will go find seven more wicked than itself and come back.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus doesn't just clean the house, he locks the door with this young boy as the crowd is gathering.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus does for this father who's saying, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: He helps his unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't anger Jesus that the man is doubting.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus does something to prop up his belief.
SPEAKER_01: He does something to shore it up, to make it a little more firm, a little more sturdy.
SPEAKER_01: He does it in the form of a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: And I think Jesus still does that today.
SPEAKER_01: I think the way God bolsters belief is by doing the unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01: We see it in the Bible, and you see it in your life if you look around.
SPEAKER_01: You know some of these stories.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what happened between the first scan and the second scan, but it's not there.
SPEAKER_01: The power bill was due and we didn't have any money.
SPEAKER_01: The day they were coming to cut it off, it was$307.25, and for some reason there was a check in the mailbox that morning for$307 and 25 cents.
SPEAKER_01: I was in Georgia a few weeks ago when I still had my boot on at this pastor's conference, and there were some young dudes there that were like running around, and I was determined that I would not be knee scootering around this hotel, and I was not going to use my crutch, but they didn't let me out of the boot.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm limping down this long corridor to the registration table.
SPEAKER_01: And there's an old man who's up there and he's limping too.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't know it, but we entered a limp race.
SPEAKER_01: And I got up and was about to pass him on the left.
SPEAKER_01: And he looked over at me and said, What happened to you?
SPEAKER_01: And I told him about my foot surgery and crooked toes and all this, and gonna get out of it in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What happened to you?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, I had surgery too.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I got this limp after my brain cancer surgery.
SPEAKER_01: His name's Bobby Jones.
SPEAKER_01: He's from Dublin, Georgia.
SPEAKER_01: And Bobby had brain cancer surgery and come out of it with a limp, but that was okay because the doctor said that he only had eight to twelve months to live if the surgery went well.
SPEAKER_01: But what had happened was while Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Jones was in the operating room, some angels showed up and told him that wasn't how it was going to be.
SPEAKER_01: And so whenever he finished up his chemo and radiation and surgery in 2019, he became a chaplain.
SPEAKER_01: And now he's got this limp, and everybody that asks him about it, he tells about how good God is.
SPEAKER_01: I met with a man just this week, 44 years ago, in rehab.
SPEAKER_01: I think he'd been in and out of jail, and he said the drugs had this obsession on me.
SPEAKER_01: And he told me straight up, Dave, I don't know what else to do.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know who else to ask.
SPEAKER_01: And I told Jesus, Jesus, if you'll take this obsession away from me, I'll walk through anything you give me.
SPEAKER_01: 44 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: He's in the room.
SPEAKER_01: Two years ago, he retired from being the executive director of that very rehab where Jesus changed his life.
SPEAKER_01: Miracles are all around, guys.
SPEAKER_01: God's given us stuff to bolster our belief if we just look and pay attention.
SPEAKER_01: We got to Princeton that night with Nana, and they took her in on the spine board to the emergency room.
SPEAKER_01: My brothers and my wives, and we gathered together and we prayed, cried, talked, waiting to see how bad it was going to be.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells me in James chapter 5, verse 16, that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't tell you that that's true or not.
SPEAKER_01: But I can tell you from my experience, on that day, September 17th, 2004, the down on his knees, helpless, desperate, completely vulnerable, crying out prayer of a 25-year-old punk kid was heard, and it was answered, and it availed much.
SPEAKER_01: Because about 4 o'clock that morning, the doctor came out to see us, and they had run CT scans and ultrasounds and all kind of whatever blood work, and Nana didn't have a single break, and Nana didn't have any head trauma, and Nana didn't have a concussion, and she didn't have any internal bleeding.
SPEAKER_01: Nana had nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And about two hours later, they told me they were gonna send her home.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, No, because you don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: She just fell down the stairs.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm arguing with these doctors, and you know what it was?
SPEAKER_01: God had answered my prayer, and I did not believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it can be hard while you're waiting on God to answer your prayers, but sometimes when he answers them, it Nana went home that day.
SPEAKER_01: And she stayed with my brother because I wasn't responsible enough to keep.
SPEAKER_01: They locked their basement door.
SPEAKER_01: I invited them here today, they're here.
SPEAKER_01: Say hey to my brother.
SPEAKER_01: He's the older, better looking version of me.
SPEAKER_01: They stayed with them.
SPEAKER_01: She stayed with them a couple of weeks, and then she went back home, and then she started walking and cleaning and cooking and driving again, and she lived by herself independently for eight more years.
SPEAKER_01: Until her heart finally just gave out a little after her 90th birthday.
SPEAKER_01: God does the unbelievable to bolster our belief.
SPEAKER_01: So, what's your story?
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a story of the goodness and the mercy and the compassion of the Savior?
SPEAKER_01: A story that it's so hard for you to believe you don't even think you ought to share it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you share it over and over again?
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of you guys have known me a long time, and many of you have never heard that story.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the reason is is because I'm embarrassed.
SPEAKER_01: I'm embarrassed that I haven't gotten down and desperately prayed like that again, even though I saw the miracle that God did in my life.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the devil will use your embarrassment, and he'll use your doubt to keep you from telling your story.
SPEAKER_01: Because the stories are there to bolster belief.
SPEAKER_01: The devil can't do anything about the story, but he can shut our mouth.
SPEAKER_01: What's your story?
SPEAKER_01: Do you have one?
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you'll have an Acts 420 story.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we can't help but speak of what we've seen and heard.
SPEAKER_01: Because there are people out here with feeble faith.
SPEAKER_01: Shaken.
SPEAKER_01: And you might just be the way God is helping someone's unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 26, we see this.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit cried out and convulsed him greatly, came out of him, and he became as one dead, so that many said he is dead.
SPEAKER_01: He looks dead.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle sure doesn't look like the miracle at first, does it?
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure the scribes had something to say about it.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Jesus has killed him.
SPEAKER_01: Be my guess.
SPEAKER_01: But then Jesus reached down and took the boy by the hand.
SPEAKER_01: Now keep in mind, Jesus didn't have to take him by the hand.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 5, we see him tell a lame man, take up your bed and walk.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 11, Lazarus came forth.
SPEAKER_01: Lazarus, he didn't touch anybody.
SPEAKER_01: God created the heavens and the earth with just a word.
SPEAKER_01: But here Jesus chooses to reach down and take the hand of this boy.
SPEAKER_01: And he lifts him up, and the Bible says the boy arose.
SPEAKER_01: He arose to walk a new life.
SPEAKER_01: This is the gospel literally on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here today and you don't know Jesus, I want to tell you this same Jesus in Mark chapter 9 is still on the throne in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And God could have saved us with just a word, but He sent His Son, He sent His Son Jesus to be with us and to touch us and to die on a cross and to rise again.
SPEAKER_01: So that just like this man in this story, something could happen in your life that you can never do on your own.
SPEAKER_01: We're all sinners and we can't save ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is still here.
SPEAKER_01: And when you think you're dead in your sins, if you just believe, he reaches down and lifts you up, raises you to walk a new life if you'll accept him.
SPEAKER_01: He paid the price.
SPEAKER_01: Number seven on your outline, the prescription for power.
SPEAKER_01: As we end the story, the Bible says this when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out?
SPEAKER_01: And so he said to them, This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting, which is a little bit lighter than what Matthew says.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Matthew 17, 20, Jesus just says, Because of your unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you couldn't cast it out.
SPEAKER_01: Because of your unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: This kind only comes out by prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Again, some of the older manuscripts omit fasting.
SPEAKER_01: So this kind comes out only by prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And when I read that, I said, Are you telling me that Jesus' disciples believed that they had the power to cast out a demon without praying?
SPEAKER_01: I think that's exactly what Jesus is telling them.
SPEAKER_01: You must pray.
SPEAKER_01: You must have faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's the prescription for power.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be perfect faith.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't even have to be good faith.
SPEAKER_01: But you gotta believe.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.