[0:00] Turn to the Gospel according to Mark chapter 9. I will begin reading in verse 14.! And he answered them, Immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
[1:05] And Jesus asked the father, How long has this been happening to him? And he said, From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
[1:20] And Jesus said to him, If you can, all things are possible for one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe.
[1:31] 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.
[1:44] 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.
[1:56] And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
[2:07] This is God's word to us. It was written for his glory and our good. We would all do well to listen to it, to believe its promises, and obey its commands.
[2:19] Let's pray together. Father God, we do praise you for this day, and the opportunity to come together with the congregation, those whom you have called your own, and to learn from your word.
[2:34] And I pray, Father, that will be the very thing that happens this day, that all of us will submit ourselves willfully to it, that we'll be taught by you, our great teacher, that you will expose the places of our heart, that we harbor deep sin, that we harbor faithlessness.
[2:53] And Father, we pray that you will help our unbelief. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. We have come a few stories into now the second act of sorts, kind of a three-act play that Mark writes for us.
[3:11] So far through the first half of chapter 8, we've gotten really his lengthy introduction in which he presents to us story after story after story, some teaching interspersed, but primarily stories to say that Jesus is in fact the Son of God.
[3:26] All of these punctuations of miracles that he performs. And we've noted he kind of seems to speed us along. There's a real hastening to the last half of chapter 8, and chapter 9, and chapter 10.
[3:40] And this is the second act, and it's when he begins his journey toward Jerusalem. We all know what's going to happen when he gets there. The disciples now have been with Jesus for about two years.
[3:51] There's about six more months coming, and he's come to a time in his ministry where he sets aside largely the public aspect of his ministry, and he turns his attention fully to the apostles.
[4:05] They have been with him all this time, but yet they have so many lessons to learn. They are getting it, but they don't quite get it. And so there's a number of lessons that are going to begin happening here.
[4:15] We first see a blind man healed at Bethsaida, which is on the western coast of the Sea of Galilee. Then they move to the area north of the Sea of Galilee, known as Caesarea Philippi, where Peter makes the bold proclamation that Jesus is the Christ.
[4:32] And then there's the immediate rebuke following that, as he does not understand how it is that Jesus intends to usher the kingdom of God into place. And the lesson taught here to the disciples is the cost of discipleship.
[4:45] We talked about that two weeks ago. Then Jesus leads a small band with him, Peter, James, and John, up onto a mountain, likely Mount Hermon, just north of Caesarea Philippi, and the transfiguration happens.
[4:59] Jesus comes in his glory. He gives them a visible manifestation of what the kingdom of God will look like. And we see Moses and we see Elijah in fellowship with him there. And the lesson he's teaching them there is the surety of the coming kingdom.
[5:15] This week we're going to see the necessity of faith. And then in the coming weeks, the excellence of service, the seriousness of sin, the nature of marriage, the childlikeness of faith, the difficulty of riches, and the prominence of humility.
[5:32] And all of this is capped off in Mark's Gospel with another blind healing, the healing of blind Bartimaeus. All that to say that Jesus himself is the Lord of spiritual blindness.
[5:44] It's metaphorical in that way. And he's bringing about this process of education with the disciples. And so we see this fascinating story.
[5:57] Mark is actually, in this case, the most lengthy telling of the story and gives us the most detailed. Thank you, Mark. You finally came out of your writing brevity and you've given us more detail to the story.
[6:08] And we'll talk a little bit about Matthew and Luke's account, some of the things that they add to this. But we get this very lengthy account. And for good reason, because Mark is saying to us, if you were going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it is going to require faith.
[6:24] It is necessary to be a disciple. And he does that so beautifully under the inspiration of the Spirit in this story. So notice with me, firstly, the scene.
[6:36] Verse 14 says, And when they came to the disciples, remember they have been up on the mountain. The they here, the pronoun, the help that we need with that is to see that this is Peter and James and John and Jesus.
[6:47] When they came back, when they rejoined this band of brothers, they saw a crowd around them of scribes. The scribes being the religious elite of the day, the mouthpieces, arguing with them.
[6:58] These scribes seem to follow Jesus around his entire ministry, hiding behind walls and bushes, just popping up all kinds of places at the most inopportune times. And here they've ambushed the disciples and they're having a debate with them.
[7:14] Likely, it's around an event we're going to look at, but likely on whether or not Jesus is the Christ and if they should be following him, if they should even be his disciples. And verse 15 says that we see a crowd and nothing amazing happened.
[7:29] Jesus didn't do anything amazing, but they knew who he was. And so they were amazed and they ran up and they greeted him. And he wants to know, he asks a simple question, what are you arguing about with them?
[7:42] Now notice they don't get a response. He doesn't get a response from the scribes. He doesn't get a response from the disciples, but rather he ends up getting a response from a man in the crowd. And so it's likely that as Jesus comes back as the great teacher, they're ashamed in his presence about the things they were arguing about.
[8:00] And here he has a great opportunity to set all of the argument straight. But Mark here, going from the telling of the transfiguration, and again under inspiration, but moving into this story of the healing of this boy, Mike's a stark juxtaposition between the mountaintop and the valley down below.
[8:20] The scene changes from unimaginable glory on a mountain to the den of a crowd in the valley. From the sweetest of fellowship to the senselessness of an argument.
[8:32] From the exaltation of the Son of God to the suffering of another only child. And Luke adds that detail for us. I believe that Mark here means to show us the stark contrast between the kingdom of God and this world.
[8:49] And the great issue at hand is the issue of faith. Notice Jesus' response. Skipping the man in the crowd, the father, as he tells Jesus what's going on for a moment.
[9:02] But verse 19, Jesus answers, finding out that the disciples are unable to heal the boy, unable to cast out the spirit. He answers them, O faithless generation.
[9:15] He's speaking to all those there, including the disciples who were really the object of this story. How long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?
[9:27] Bring him to me. I think that this phrasing is very similar to the sigh we see in chapter 7, verse 34. As he just says, just get it.
[9:37] Just get it. You recall back in chapter 6, Jesus commissions the twelve apostles and sends them out two by two to minister the gospel of God.
[9:49] He's shown them how to do it as he's been ministering all these years and then he sends them out to do it. Mark 6.13 says, And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
[10:03] Because, in verse 7 of chapter 6, we see the record that Jesus gave them authority over the unclean spirit. So they've been able to do this thing before, but now we find them in a position where they're unable to do it.
[10:20] Remember in Mark 4, verse 40, after Jesus has calmed the storm of the Sea of Galilee, these great 10 to 15 foot waves on this little body of water, He's spoken and the waves, the wind has obeyed Him.
[10:34] He says to them, Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? After Jesus feeds the 5,000, then later He feeds the 4,000.
[10:45] The disciples are fretting because they only remembered to bring one loaf of bread with them on this boat journey back across the Sea of Galilee in one of the many crossings. And Jesus asks them, How many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up when I fed the 5,000?
[10:58] And they responded, 12. And He said, How many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up when I fed the 4,000? And they say, Seven. So 19 baskets of leftovers. And so He says to them, So I fed a multitude abundantly.
[11:11] And then Mark 8, 21, Do you not yet understand? Do you still not have faith? This section that we're in now, the last half of 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, before the journey to Jerusalem really sets off is punctuated by predictions of Jesus' coming, suffering, death, and resurrection.
[11:34] We see three passion predictions that are always followed by some faithless misunderstanding on the part of the disciples. They have yet to fully understand the power and provision in Jesus' presence.
[11:47] They're there with Him and they still don't get His power and provision. How is it possible that they would come to understand these things and experience these things when He's absent?
[11:59] This is what Jesus is setting them up for and this is what He's going to teach them in this story. How is it that they're to function when He's gone? And here we see the necessity of faith.
[12:12] So first, that's the scene. This is what's happening. Second, the son's situation. Verse 17 and 18. As he asks what they're arguing about, someone from the crowd answers him, Teacher, I brought my son to you for he has a spirit that makes him mute.
[12:28] And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down and he foams and grinds his teeth. That's foams at the mouth and he becomes rigid, tense. So I asked your disciples to cast it out and they were not able.
[12:42] So we see a boy. We don't know his exact age, although when asked how long this has been happening, he said from childhood, so he's potentially a little bit older boy who is demon-possessed.
[12:53] And this is the cause of all of these other symptoms that we see listed here. It's the demon possession that is causing these things. Now, as a bit of a side note, I do believe that this type of stuff still happens in our world today, although not in the prevalence that it happened in this day.
[13:12] It seems that in all of history, there was a great fervor to demonic activity in the days of Jesus. It's my presumption this was Satan's attempt to occupy the people, to destroy their God-image-bearing ability because the Son of God was on the scene.
[13:36] So it would be irresponsible to assume that anyone with similar symptoms also has a possession. This would be a bad hermeneutic. This would be a bad way to deal with the Scriptures. But this certainly is the cause of this boy's infirmities.
[13:51] The father says that he's mute, can't talk. Jesus later adds that he is deaf in verse 25. The father may not have even known that the boy couldn't hear what it is he was saying.
[14:04] This young boy was living in complete isolation. Right? Had the presence of people around him but couldn't hear a thing they would say. No comforting words could enter into his mind. And he couldn't express the anguish that he was in.
[14:16] In complete and total isolation. Verse 18. The father says that the demon that possesses him throws him down. If you have an NASB, the word used here is slams.
[14:31] The original Greek is a violent word. Right? Not tosses him to the ground but slams him to the ground. Luke adds in chapter 9, verse 39, and shatters him.
[14:44] Right? This is a violent, this is a pummeling. This boy is being beat against the ground again and again and again. Matthew 17, 15 says that he has epilepsy.
[14:55] And this is a Greek word. The word we use, epilepsy, is a Greek word which means to seize, possess, or afflict. In fact, our common use, our western use of the word epilepsy just refers to a group of neurological disorders.
[15:10] It's not a particular one. It's a group of neurological disorders. The cause of which mostly are unknown although brain damage can often be the cause of epilepsy.
[15:23] And so it's likely, we don't know this for sure, but it's likely that this demon has been throwing this boy so violently against the ground that he has sustained head injury after head injury after head injury.
[15:34] And the other things that are happening to him are a result of the demon trying to kill him by throwing him into the ground. We know that the demon was trying to kill the boy.
[15:46] The father says that he's trying to destroy him. Verse 22, it's often cast him into fire and into water. The father believes that the demon is trying to destroy him.
[15:58] There would have been a lot of open fires in this day. They didn't go camping all the time. They just lived their lives and open wells. This father is following his son around.
[16:10] I would imagine at all moments and all time to save him from being burned alive or drowned by this demon. Now, demons are created beings.
[16:24] We don't have time to get into the theology. I don't have time to study it right now. But they're fallen angels. We know that they were created by God. And therefore, they fall under the reign of God. God permitted this boy to be possessed.
[16:39] He permitted it to happen. It's not the causation of it, but He permitted it to happen. And therefore, He also reigned over what was happening to this boy. And that's a hard thing to understand.
[16:51] I don't know why. I don't know why any of us deal with the things that we deal with and why this boy would have to go through such a terrible thing. His father as well, as a loving dad witnessing what's happening to this boy.
[17:05] We can certainly say that Jesus was exalted in this situation and that may be the greatest reason that this thing is happening to this boy and to this father. But what we can say for sure is that as God reigns over this, God did prevent the demon from taking the boy's life.
[17:22] The demon was doing everything it possibly could to take this boy's life. And God, by His grace, was preventing it from happening. Whether it be through simply sustaining the head injuries that would come to him or by his father scooping him up out of fire and out of open wells.
[17:41] This boy is in a horrible, horrible state. This is his only son. I have two sons. And I know a lot of you in the room don't have children, but when you have children and you start to see them get hurt, it is absolutely heartbreaking.
[17:57] When Cade was finally able to form tears, babies can't form tears really early if you don't know that. When he could form tears and the first time he got hurt and he cried, I cried too. It was so heartbreaking to me that he got hurt.
[18:10] Gosh, you want to rescue them from every pain in this world. In fact, I think Sam had to take Cade to the bathroom when we were singing. When they came back in, when they got to the corner, Cade was holding Judas' hand.
[18:21] I think he thought it would be funny to sling him around the corner. And my heart like, because I was looking at, thinking Judas' head was going to get slammed into the wall the way this boy was slammed repeatedly into the ground, but this by his brother rather than a possession of sorts.
[18:37] But what I'm trying to point out to you is that this boy is suffering, but the father is suffering as well. The father is suffering as well. I am sure that many times in the life of this father and this son, this father has desired to trade places with his son.
[18:55] Please, let me take the beating. Spare him. And Jesus says to him, verse 19, bring him to me.
[19:05] He has immediate compassion. They're arguing over here. What are you arguing about? The father tells them what they're arguing about and he says, bring him to me. In verse 20, it says, and they brought the boy to him.
[19:18] And when the spirit saw him, this is the unclean spirit, the demon inside the boy, immediately it convulsed the boy and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
[19:30] And we see here a picture of darkness colliding with light. The demon sees Jesus and it knows what's going to happen. And it tries to get in its last punch.
[19:41] It tries to get in its last damage to this child. Such a picture of evil incarnate. This great collision. Verse 21, and Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him?
[19:54] And he said, from childhood. And then we see the explanation of the fire and the water. We shouldn't miss at this point this question that Jesus asked the father.
[20:06] How long has this been happening to him? Jesus doesn't need to know as if he's got to work out the equation of his power.
[20:17] Let me dial my power meter up properly so that I can put the right amount of power into the situation. Jesus, we could argue, is omniscient. He already knows.
[20:28] How long it's been happening to him? But what he does in this great display of compassion is he empathizes with the father's suffering. We've heard about the son's suffering, but as I pointed out, the father has suffered.
[20:40] And he asks him a question. How long has this been happening to him? How long? Let me share in this story with you before I do this mighty, mighty work.
[20:53] And then the father makes this request at the end of verse 22. This is the father's request. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
[21:04] And you see here that the father understands that Jesus is empathizing with him. The Greek word for help is a much, much mightier word in the original language. Boatheo.
[21:15] It means to run to our aid. Help us with urgency. We need your help. That's what he's saying. Right? And he includes that plural pronoun of compassion on us and help us, deliver us from the torment of this demon.
[21:36] Fourth, notice the response of Jesus. And Jesus says to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
[21:51] He says to him, I can and I will if only you will believe that I can. The father's response is the opposite of the leper's request in chapter 1, verse 40 of Mark.
[22:03] You remember that? He said, if you will, you can make me clean. The leper says, I know you can, but I just don't know if you want to. The father here says, I think you will, but I don't know if you can.
[22:21] And then Jesus follows with this axiom statement, this hinging statement, all things are possible for one who believes. The power of God is accessed, beloved, by our faith, by our belief in his power, that he has the ability to do the things that he said he's going to do.
[22:45] This is what he means by all things. He means all things within the will of the father. All those things that are ordained by God himself. I think the word all quite possibly may be one of the greatest misunderstood words of scripture for modern evangelicals.
[23:04] If we take this at its face value and say all things are possible for one who believes, every Christian can do anything they want to do. Isn't that fantastic? What a poor, poor hermeneutic.
[23:14] What does he mean? All things. He means all things in the will of the father. John 14.14 is similar. If you ask me anything in my name, Jesus says, I will do it.
[23:25] What does anything include? Things in his name. Things that exalt him. Things that are within the will of the father. All things are possible for the one who believes.
[23:35] For the one who has faith. Notice fifth, the sufficient faith of the father.
[23:46] The sufficient faith of the father. Immediately the father of the child cried out, verse 24, I believe, help my unbelief.
[23:57] And I love this statement. I love it. I have just meditated for hours this week on this statement. I believe, help my unbelief.
[24:08] It's such a beautifully humble statement. And doesn't it so readily sum up the experience of our lives? It does mine. I think it does yours as well.
[24:19] I'm always working to get my heart to catch up to my head. I know things, but I just don't believe them. I'm in constant ebb and flow in my faith.
[24:31] For many years, I ran Appalachian Outfitters in town here. On the Chesity River, there's a bend in the river. And on the inside bank, which is how rivers function, there's a beach.
[24:44] And we called it Big Bend Beach. I'm sure it's still called that this day. And that beach changed all the time. Every time there's a little change in the water fluctuation, the water level, more sand would be deposited or some sand would be carried away.
[24:58] But there was always a beach there. The beach always existed. We always would send people down there and let them camp on it. We never wondered if the beach was going to exist or not. It always existed, but it changed.
[25:09] Many of you are going to go to the beach this summer. I'm not. Praise God I'm not going to the beach this summer. Many of you will. Watch the sand as it comes and it goes. There's always sand on the beach. There's always faith, but it ebbs and flows.
[25:22] It waxes and it wanes. And this is the statement that he says, I believe. Help my unbelief. Praise God that he does not require of us perfect faith.
[25:37] But rather he requires of us humble faith, which is sufficient faith. I believe. Help my unbelief.
[25:49] And we know that his faith is sufficient because Jesus responds to it. The Father has said, if you can do this, if you can do it, and Jesus' response to him is, if you can, all things are possible.
[26:01] The very thing you're requesting of me is possible for the one who believes. The Father responds, I believe. Help my unbelief. And the evidence that he actually believed, that he has faith, is that Jesus heals his son.
[26:16] Verse 25. There's a crowd running together. So it would seem that the fact that Jesus is there is gathering a larger crowd. And so he quickly rebukes.
[26:27] His public ministry has largely completed. Remember? Like, he's got to get in these days. He doesn't want to be taken captive, to be put in charge, to be a military ruler.
[26:38] This was the thing he's trying to avoid as he's functioning in secrecy. So he quickly rebukes the unclean spirit, says to it, you mutant deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.
[26:51] This boy is delivered and he's delivered forever from the power of this demon. And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out again, giving him one last go, it came out and the boy was like a corpse so that most of them said, he is dead.
[27:09] Mark records for us the faithlessness still of the crowd. See that little detail he includes for us. Most of them said, he is dead, but Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose.
[27:21] In verse 27, he lifted him up. And this is what Jesus does. He takes those who are sin sick and makes them whole again.
[27:33] He takes those who were dead and he makes them alive. And as I reflected on this phrase this week, he lifted him up. My mind was taken to Ephesians 2.
[27:44] So please go there with me. Amen. The metaphor of this boy's life, this real event that happened, it points to something greater that has happened in your life if you have placed your faith in Christ.
[28:11] Oh, and I pray that you have. Ephesians chapter 2, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins and once you once walked. You were dead. Walking, but dead. Following the course of this world.
[28:23] Doing all the things that this world does. You just go along with the flow. Following the prince of the power of the air. You were dead. You were a worshiper of Satan. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
[28:37] Not that we're demon-possessed prior to Jesus delivering us. We're not demon-possessed. But yet there's a work that's happening in us. By our nature, we are enemies of God.
[28:48] Verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and we're by nature, there's that word, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Precious conjunction.
[29:01] But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.
[29:12] He's lifted you up in Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly place in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
[29:24] I read past where I wanted to, but it's so good. And then verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith. Faith has been given to us as a gift of God.
[29:34] This boy couldn't deliver himself from the demon, but Jesus delivered him. Praise God for the sufficient faith of the Father. Sixth, look at the disciples' doubt.
[29:51] Verse 28, And when He had entered the house, presumably a house that they were staying at in the area, His disciples asked Him privately, Why could we not cast it out?
[30:03] And He said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Now it would be really, really dangerous at this point to try to form some sort of doctrine about types of demons, species of demons.
[30:19] The lesson here ultimately in this story is not even about casting out demons. It's the lesson of faith and the power and how do we access the power to do the work of God, more generally speaking.
[30:31] So it would be wrong to look at that and go, What does He mean, this kind? What does He mean by that? He's simply saying an enemy of God. An enemy of God, the demon-possessed person, can't be exercised by anything but prayer.
[30:47] So the question I asked earlier, how would the disciples access the power, presence, and provision of Jesus Christ in His absence? They would, as we should, access it by prayers of faith.
[31:03] Prayer is the natural response of the person of faith. We believe in the God who says He will do things and therefore we ask Him to do those very things.
[31:15] How do we know that I'm right about this? How do we know that Jesus isn't trying to set up a doctrine of species of demon? Right? Matthew, His explanation is more explicit. Matthew 17, 20.
[31:27] He said to them in response to their question, why could we not cast it out? He says to them, because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.
[31:46] Now again, Jesus is not teaching them literally, you guys are going to start an excavating company because you're going to have faith and it's going to be amazing because you're going to need no equipment. You're just going to go out there and talk and things are going to get moved around.
[31:59] This isn't what He's saying to them. He's saying if you even just have a little faith. The problem in this situation, the reason that they couldn't cast out the demon is because they had no faith. They had no faith at all.
[32:10] They thought that they could exercise demons and they didn't go to the source of the power. They didn't believe that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus is the source for the ability to do such things.
[32:21] They had zero faith. He says to them, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed and mustard was the smallest seed in this region.
[32:32] Maybe ever. I don't know. But very small. They would have gotten what He meant by this. And if you've ever seen a mustard seed, it's like a little flake. It's really easy to like breathe too hard and it blows off your hand and you never find it again.
[32:42] Tiny. You just have a little, right? It doesn't have to be perfect faith. It just has to be sufficient faith. Humble faith. Know that the power doesn't come from you but it comes from me. This is the further juxtaposition of the Father's faith and the disciples' doubt.
[33:00] He believed and the disciples did not. Habakkuk 2.4 God says by the prophet, the righteous shall live by his faith.
[33:16] Paul cites Habakkuk 2.4 in Romans 1.17 and Galatians 3.11. Again, the righteous shall live by faith. The author of Hebrews does it as well in 10.38 but my righteous one shall live by faith.
[33:27] It is by faith that we have our very being, our access into the kingdom of God and it is by faith we continue in this life. So the application.
[33:39] What areas of your life do you lack faith in? What areas of your life do you have like no faith? You have no faith if you're not responding properly to the gospel. You don't have to have perfect faith.
[33:50] You just have to have sufficient faith. Faith like a mustard seed. Another way to ask the question would be in what ways have you failed to trust God? Do you trust Him with your very soul?
[34:04] Do you trust Him with your very soul? Have you placed believing faith in Jesus Christ? John 3.18 says, whoever believes in Him is not condemned.
[34:16] But whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Whoever believes is delivered from the consequence of his sin. But the one who doesn't has already been condemned.
[34:31] Do you trust Him in all the circumstances of your life? Romans 8.28, I hope this is not a promise that grows old to you. And we know that for those who love God, all things, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.
[34:45] Do you trust Him in all of the circumstances of your life? Matthew 28.20, behold, Jesus says, I am with you always to the end of the age. Do you trust Him with your children, with your wife or husband, or future wife or husband?
[35:03] Do you trust Him with your finances? Matthew 6.25-33, Jesus tells us not to be anxious about our life, what we're going to wear, what we're going to eat, all these things.
[35:14] It's ridiculous to be worried about these things. For the Gentiles seek after these things, verse 32, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.
[35:28] Do you trust Him in your finances? Do you trust Him with your plans? College students, the transition of life right now, do you trust Him with your plans?
[35:39] Proverbs 19.21, this is many of the plans in the mind of a man. You all can relate to that, can't you? Many are the plans in the minds of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
[35:52] To give some explanation to that, James 4.13-15, Come now you who say, today or tomorrow we will go into such and such town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
[36:04] What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. If God directs, I will go.
[36:15] You can rest and trust, have faith in a plan for your life. The disciples of Jesus Christ, this is what Mark is driving us to be.
[36:28] This is the very point of this. Believe that Jesus is the Christ and follow Him. The disciples of Jesus Christ will be so by faith.
[36:39] Let us cry out together to God, I believe. Help my unbelief. Let's pray. Let us pray.