Where’s the Juice? Or
What ’Secret’ Jesus told His disciples behind closed doors.
Sermon Mark 9: 14-29 ( reflection on Mark 6:6b-13)
Routines....
I wake up and the very first thing I do is make the coffee. Stumbling through the pantry to find the filters and scooping the coffee. Some in my family come down in the morning looking for a class of OJ and a toaster waffle/pop tart. This is where we get our morning Juice… Heck no, but now that you are in the wake up mode, and I have you thinking about food, let me get right to the point, where do you get your juice from? More specifically, where does the power in the Christian’s life come from?
At first, and quickly I hope you answered Jesus! And with out Him we would not be Christians and we would be domed to a life for today’s pleasures only with not a hope for the future and not a chance for the glorious fellowship that awaits us, who have accepted Jesus as our personal savior, desiring and turning from our sinful way of living, submitted our lives over to Christ and strive to walk in His ways.
If you have done this act you may consider yourself a Christian. A Christian who has the assurance that Christ died on the Cross to pay the penalty for our very own sin, thereby making the ultimate sacrifice which through Romans 10:10 tells us “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” This is the ticket to heaven folks! I hope you all have it, and if you don’t it really is this simple. It is having belief and faith. I know this might be different but here is where we need to stop first for a moment. If you have never made the commitment and the decision to follow Jesus this is your day. This is the day that the Lord has made, and He wants you to be part of it all, but you have to make the decision. Does anyone want to now choose to be on the side of Jesus and know that your fate is sealed. If you do lets get it done now!
I am inviting you right now to make the decision, you can do it in you chairs or better yet, come up here and make it publicly know, Jesus knows who you are, you know you need Him, and there is no reason in the world that you should wait another moment.
Special INVITATION ( this is a little different, I want to allow the Spirit to begin working right in the beginning , if no one comes forward to the prayer- ) I guess that settles it, you had a chance again of making the first public step in the Christian walk, if you still are not right with God at the end of this message you will have a chance to respond. But for now, lets get down to some meat and potatoes and see what the scripture tells us where the power comes from.
Ok So we all agree that Jesus is the Juice? Well lets look at the scripture to see what it says to us. You might be surprised to see what Jesus says.
Lets turn our Bibles together and read from Mark 6:6b-13 where Jesus sends His disciples out. (READ Mark 6:6b-13 )
It is clear that the Apostles, Jesus 12, had the Juice - the power of God, through Jesus. He gave them authority over evil spirits.
· Jesus then instructs them on how they should go out, with nothing more than the clothes on their back and a staff, no food, bag, money. You see Jesus wanted them not to rely on themselves.
But on the authority and power He gave them.
It is common for us to want to control things on our own, but here they must rely on His command. This is the problem today friends, we want to control the way things turn out, but there is a whole new way we need to think, and we can hand over control of our live to Jesus by accepting His will and power.
What did they preach…. That people should repent. This is the same today, we need to repent of … Sin.. And we, as mature Christians, need to be able to tell others that they too need to repent also.. Sin is not a good thing. We can’t just go around telling others not to sin, especially if we are sinners.. Sorry we are all sinners. So what we are telling, what the apostles were saying is that in order to get right with God, you must/ should repent, turn form your sin, and back to God. It is a personal relationship with God and not man. Can I be a sinner and tell others not to sin, sure, but it would be a bit more effective and a stronger witness to be demonstrating a holy life, a life living for God free from sin.. Really hard to do.
The 12 drove out many demons and anointed many sick people, and healed them.
(If you read carefully it does not say that they drove out every demon… So what was the mater with the power, Where was the Juice.
Lets look at another piece of scripture, in Mark 9:14-29, this time lets have a few of the youth present this account. (Youth, chosen before hand, come forward)
Just to bring you up to speed the 12 returned to Jesus, Jesus demonstrates that He has the power by doing miracles such as, feeding 5000, walking on the water, healing the deaf and mute, feeding 4000, healing the blind man, and predicting His own death. Lots of great biblical accounts to read, who said the Bible is boring?
Jesus comes down with Peter, James, and John after the transfiguration high up on a mountain. As they come in sight of the other disciples there is a large crowd and an argument is taking place with the teachers of the Law. This is where the story continues..
(YOUTH READ SCRIPT MARK 9:14-29)
It is common for argument to take place when we really don’t understand something. There is confusion, not fellowship. You see when ever we lose sight of the Lord and try to make reason and do things on our own we can expect trouble. This is why we need to study and seek understanding through the Bible. Jesus is the light and without Him things can get a little messy, as it did in His short absence.
The father tells that his son is possessed and that the Disciples could not help. And with this statement he is telling us a truth, the only real help we can ever expect is from God, not man. (Why do some pray to saints?) In this account the apostles were available and had a reputation for healing, so it is understandable why the father would go to them.
Here Jesus shares with us the frustration He had, and some of us feel when no one listens to us and understands us..
“O unbelieving generation, How long shall I stay with you?” He is saying -what’s with you guys why don’t you get it yet. I have been teaching you, I leave for a short while and you guys do nothing but argue when I return. You keep losing sight of the truth. {I think of this frustration when we watch churches arguing about traditions and minor theological differences. Why can’t we just focus on God, why do we break up churches?}
Still Jesus presses on (sounding sarcastic) “How long must I put up with you” How long will this take? “Bring the boy to me.”
· Jesus commands them to hand over the boy, as He want us today to hand over our problems to Him.
When we can’t heal a situation on our own, and we admit it is out of our control why do we seek anything but Jesus. There are many new age remedies, religions that want us to hand over our problems to them, side stepping Jesus. If you watch TV you are probably aware of all the New Age self healing. Spiritual stuff … be very careful. God is the way, through Jesus.
· As soon as the boy is brought to Jesus the Spirit does nothing… No!
the spirit sends him into a convulsion. You see when sin is confronted with roughhouses, Jesus, it can’t stand it. Just as God will not tolerate sin, remember the Garden of Eden? What happened, Sin entered, temptation, the fall of man, and the separation of Man from God.
Sin/evil wants to get as far away from Holiness as possible. Have you ever watched the TV show Cops? What do the bad guys always do when they see the cop… they run away, trying to get as far from them as possible. What do the Cops do. Do they just let them run, or do they confront them?
How do we react around sin? Do we tolerate it? Do we look the other way, do we join in? How do we react around dirty jokes, Stuff on the internet, even some rather distasteful TV shows? Do we just let it continue, put up with it, without saying a word.. do we embrace it?
Or do we say what Jesus told the Apostles to say.. Repent from sin..
Evil wants us to buy in to sin. If we do, it will achieve what sin does, Sin separates us further from God. Making us unable to commune with Jesus. Christians who what to walk a closer walk with Jesus need to remove barriers/sin, from our lifes. How can we have the power and the benefits Jesus offers if we fellowship with sin.
James 4:7 tells us right on “ Submit to God reject the devil, draw closer to God and He will draw closer to you”
Just like the evil spirit could not be in the presence of Jesus’ holiness, evil does not want to be around the God fearing, righteous man. But if you allow sin to continue in your life, it will attract more sin, Submit to sin… and sin will draw closer to you.
We need to be living a Holy life. What is a Holy life? What is Holiness? With out getting into a deep theological explanation of sanctification, Holiness is a state of being, like purity of heart, setting us apart for God, living a life free from sin. Many will say that it is impossible to live a truly Holy Life, As Romans reminds us that all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, my response is we start trying to walk in the ways of the Lord and yes it is a seemingly impossible task at times, but for God all things are possible. Jesus Himself told the woman who was caught in adultery, who was going to be stoned to death, Go and sin no more. Did she ever sin again? Good question, but to us who desire to walk in His ways, when we do sin , again, we become quicker to repent of it. Hay, this is what we do with good family and good friends, when we do something that brakes or damages our relationship with someone we love we want to make up and if we need to admit our guilt then that is what we do. Jesus loves us and wants there to be nothing in the way of our relationship with Him.
· Jesus asks the boys dad “How long has he been like this?”
Do you think Jesus does not know… or could he have been asking so that the crowd could hear and learn. Everything is a testimony, Jesus did all things to bring glory to God .
The dad here, is the boy steward responsible for him, Jesus calls him a boy.
The dad tells us that the boy has been like this from childhood. And then request Jesus by saying “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” Dad is including himself in the request. The boy has been like this for a while.
· Jesus says - Say What? Well actually He says “If you can?”
At first it seams as though Jesus is being sarcastic here. But it is interesting that Jesus did not say If I can…He repeated the words the father spoke. I wonder, Is it that Jesus wants to point out how little faith the father has? Perhaps. You might make the case, even take the Bible literally, that Jesus is turning it around – If you Can, Jesus did not say,, If I can. Do you thing it could it be possible that the father could have had a part in healing the boy? Remember what Jesus said, with faith as small as a mustard seed, we could move mountains.. You see faith is special.
Did not Jesus tell the woman who had an issue with blood, that after she touched Jesus’ robe, in a crowd, that her faith has made her well. Jesus often reminded us that it is our faith that does miracles. He often gave God the credit for healings never drawing attention to Himself. (The Anti Christ / False will take credit.)
· Jesus Continues to teach the crowd. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
Lets repeat this : Everything is possible for him who believes.” Do we believe this?
· The father declares “I do believe: Help me overcome my unbelief!”
This father is faced with a decision of where his faith is, he acknowledged to seek Jesus, to come to Him for help, yet he admits that there is still unbelief. It is really time for the father to get off the fence, to decide in his heart who Jesus really is.
Maybe you are like this father, you seek Jesus and know in your heart that Jesus is the way, but you still hold unbelief in your life. This unbelief is keeping you from the true blessing Jesus has for us.
We all are faced with problems this world has and Just like Thomas who got out of the boat to walk on the water with Jesus, unbelief may swell up in us. We need to ask for help to overcome our unbelief. Unbelief comes from the absence of the relationship with God, most likely a result of our own desires, wills.
· As the crowd starts running over to Jesus to see the action, Jesus Rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
Jesus rebukes evil, so must we. If we don’t rebuke evil it will take hold and control of us. So if we are hanging out with people who are doing evil… how resistant are we? Do we get dragged in to doing what others do? “Not me pastor, I just hang out with them so that I can be a witness.” A witness will not blend in with evil, but like Jesus, will rebuke it. Again are we so holy that sin will go into convulsions when it comes near us, or will it be glad to see us? The Evil spirit did not react the same for the Apostles as it did when it came to Jesus. Evil knows.
SO If you won’t confront evil/ rebuke evil… leave. Guys, the Bible says it straight, “Bad company corrupts Good character.” Cor 15:33 Remember, when Jesus visited, ate with the Tax collectors, He did not permit sin to continue, but He brought repentance, changed lives, and brought back the personal relationship to God. We need to evangelize to the lost, but if it does not include the message of repentance, as the disciples did when the went out earlier, than we are missing the point. Righteous, perfect people don’t need God, so we all need God! ( Was the Dad repenting of his unbelief?)
· When Jesus rebuked the evil spirit “The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out.”
The word of the Lord is powerful, it obeys God The word is a sword, removing evil and sometime people we call friends.
· The boy looked dead. Many said dead.
You see when sin takes over it eats away taking more of you each time until what is left is weak. Thus you begin to desire the strength you get from evil/sin. It controls you. Have you ever tried to stop smoking, drugs, pornography, or even things which are less obvious in controlling you and your relationship with family and god like ;gossip, over eating, shopping/consumerism, TV, sports, hunting , fishing, internet, face book,??? Resist, repent from sin.
What is sin? James 4:17 tells us this scary truth, “To him that knoweth to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
But God does not leave us for Dead, what happens next?
· “But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet , and he stood up.”
This boy unable to control his life to the point of almost dead, is restored. Through the life changing power of Jesus Christ.
Do we believe that God wants to transform us back into a relationship with Himself. You bet. “But God demonstrates His love toward us , in that, while we were sill sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
God wants to lift each one of us up away from sin and on our own feet again, walking in His way.
· It says “He Stood Up”, God wants to restore us and allows us to make our own choices,
Once on our own we need to stand and follow Jesus. We talk about free will, we have it. Jesus will get us up, restore us up, but He lets us choose.
The boy was not healed to be a zombie or a puppet, he is fully restored. There is no sin, no evil that God can not overcome.
It is through Jesus and His payment on the cross that frees us from the wages of sin. Which is death.
People try to remove sin in our lives, but it is hard, it is easier to continue in our old ways. Many fail at the attempt at quitting an addiction, but with God nothing is impossible.
We must allow God to help, Jesus said to the evil spirit to leave and not to come back.
Yet there are other temptations and evil spirits out there waiting to take control of our lives. So we need to keep Jesus as the center of our life, in God’s word as a hedge of protection and as a light on our path.
This would be a good place to stop the account but here it gets interesting: Behind closed doors.
· When Jesus went inside the Disciples asked “Why could we not drive it out?”
Remember these are the same 12 who were sent out doing miracles and healings. This time they failed, and only stood around arguing. What should they have been doing?
When all else fails we have learned to, and naturally pray. I know that when hard times hit I find that I pray a little more, how about you?
· Jesus said “ This kind can come out only by prayer.” (some bibles say fasting)
You see this was a deep and powerful evil.. sin which continued to grow and grow. What kind of sin is sneaking into our lives and slowly taking it over? So what is so special about prayer?
But what is Prayer?
· Communication with God
· Sharing needs and Praises
· Giving our will to His (through prayer and fasting)
That makes me think, did the disciples not pray? They were Jews, they were with Jesus. Jesus even taught how to pray in the account of the Sermon on the mount. So how is it that the disciples could not heal the boy? Prayer is more than words. Real prayer is the communication with God, a living relationship. Prayer is not fancy words, it is taking with and communing with the Father. Do we have this kind of relationship with God? Just like the disciples we could do more time in prayer? . As much as we say we have faith, we live like the boy’s father with unbelief. Even Peter denied the Lord 3 times the night that Jesus was arrested. We all fall short, just like the disciples did.
The disciples were a lot like us, arguing about why they were unable to demonstrate real faith. The answer is simple, they just did not have a real prayer relationship with God. If they had, they would have been able to see the boy healed. But not healed of their own power, but healed by the power of God.
We are just human and because of original sin, sin originating back from the garden of Eden we continue to be self seeking, gratifying people. Some of us are working really hard at living a life for others, and a holy life. God wants us to return to Him. He wants a relationship with us, through prayer and even fasting. Fasting is often thought in terms of giving up of eating, but it could be much more. Whatever we can do to get in a closer relationship with God. If we fast to focus on God and develop a stronger relationship with Him great, but if fasting brings attention to ourselves than we accomplish nothing, the same goes with fancy, insincere prayer. Pray to communicate to your loving Father. This relationship, like all relationships is an on going process.
Husband,-Wife……. Parents- Children CAN we make stronger relationships if we don’t communicate, and work out our problems?
Using Jesus as our example we are taught to have a deeper prayer life. It is great reading the Bible and doing Gods will, but it is through a prayerful life we get closer to God. As our faith grows, our unbelief is replaced.
Conclusion
Today I have shared with you a biblical account which demonstrates several basic truths. Here are some of them:
1. The first is that we must bring our problems to God, Just like the father did. There are no problems to old or to big to bring to our father.
2. We must remove our unbelief and trust in the power of the Lord. By continued demonstration and exercising our faith we grow stronger. This is typically not an over night lesson.
3. Resist Evil, by living in Christ. Evil and Good can’t live together, we can’t serve two masters. Look to God and submit to Him, and He will grow closer to you. Careful what you watch on TV, internet, listen to and accept as part of our lives.
4. Everything is possible for Him who believes. There is nothing that God will hold back if we truly believe in Him.
5. God wants to lift each one of us up away from sin and on our own feet again, walking in His way.
Lastly, in this Biblical, Jesus shares a secret, well not really a secret….. But He teaches His disciples… behind closed doors is that real power comes from prayer. Prayer is more than just reciting, or asking God for things. Prayer is communication. Prayer is a relationship with God. God is the source of power, believing on, and submitting to God to meet our needs. We all have needs. Do you have a burden you want to have removed, a prayer that needs to be answered? Maybe something that has been a problem for a long time? Seek the power, the juice, seek God through prayer, a real personal relationship, through faith. So pastor where do I start, in prayer and in the word. Let me leave you with this last verse from John 15:7-8 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
It’s all about our relationship friends….
This relationship will spill over into all parts of our life. It will shine to others, changing lives along the way. For this is the great commission.. making disciples, but first… getting right, and making the relationship. with God yourself.
Closing - It is all about the relationship- stating with prayer. If your not right with God, You can’t be effective. Works need Prayer. And Love…
Today we have heard what that God wants you to remove your unbelief and to get back into a praying relationship with Him. What will you do with this message?
Do you want a deeper relationship with God.. it starts now. If you want to publicly acknowledge this today as I close us in prayer come forward. God already knows what’s in our hearts, If you want to come up to the alter now and make the life changing commitment by choosing God, please do it.
PRAYER
Dear heavenly Father, we thank you for your Holy word and message you have given us about the power of our prayer life.
We seek to be in a closer relationship with you.
We ask that you remove those things in our lives that keep us from you.
We ask that our Unbelief be removed, and help us to resist those things which are taking over our lives. Keeping us from you.
We seek the power and strength through prayer. I ask today, that I may be changed.
You know me Lord and I seek to know you better. I wish to hand over my will, and replace it with yours.
We have heard your message, now what will we do with it. If it be your will God, I invite anyone to the alter to do what needs to be done in reestablishing a relationship with you.
Brothers and sisters , the alter is here for you, come physically, come spiritually .
I know Lord that there are some of us here who need and want a closer relationship with you,
We want to leave our burdens in your hands and be accepted into your family. May this be the day, the moment that changes our lives as we accept your will for us .
Protect us and guide us through the week ahead.
Thank you for your sacrifice and all that you have done in Love for us.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
