In his book, Wanting: the Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, Luke Burgis relates the story of the public relations genius Edward Bernays. In 1929, Bernays was approached by George Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Company, with a proposition: Figure out a way to induce women to smoke, and I will make you a rich man.
In 1929, hardly any women smoked. The societal taboos were too great. Bernays understood that women would only take up cigarettes if they saw smoking as a challenge to male power. In the words of A. A. Brill, a psychoanalyst who consulted with Bernays, cigarettes would need to be seen as “torches of freedom.” In the age of the nineteenth amendment, it was important to frame smoking as a woman’s right.
Bernays went to work. He planted models in New York’s Easter Day Parade, a huge event at the time (think Super Bowl halftime show), who would demonstrate that strong, attractive women – many accompanied by handsome young men – smoke. He then coaxed young, high society women to stroll down Fifth Avenue over lunch hour, smoking cigarettes, and made sure that professional photographers and journalists were there to capture the moment.
Bernays succeeded in opening an entirely new market for cigarette sales (to say nothing of the cancer treatment industry). The sales of Lucky Strikes tripled in one year. Women who had never even thought of lighting up a cigarette now wanted – and soon needed – a smoke.
The new women smokers thought that they took up smoking of their own free will. They smoked because they wanted to, which was true. What they did not realize was why they wanted to: a little Austrian-born man, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, had planted that desire in them. They wanted to smoke because other people, people they admired, wanted to smoke. Though their desire was genuine, it was not autonomous. Edward Bernays had planted it in them.
We are sometimes aware that we are imitating other people’s style and mannerisms – when we cut our hair the way that actor does, wear the same clothes the cool people do, watch the same YouTube video that 3 million other people already watched – but we are probably not aware that we mimic other people’s desires. Yet this imitation of desire is one of the driving forces in our – or in any – culture.
Desires get passed from person to person like a virus. No one thinks of a common cold as something they produced all on their own; they know they caught it from someone else. But everyone thinks that their desires are completely autonomous, all their own.
This is not true. We catch our desires, as surely as we catch our colds. They are passed onto us, wittingly and unwittingly, by parents, siblings, and friends. They are foisted on us by Madison Avenue Mad Men and Silicon Valley tech giants. I want this team to win because my dad wanted them to win. I must have the new iPhone because the beautiful people on TV love it.
The age of YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook is an era of pandemic desire. Foreign desires grow like invasive species of weeds. We have trouble distinguishing between the desires that are ours – desires that are deeply rooted in our humanity or planted by our upbringing – and the desires that have been planted in us by television and social media.
Psalm 37:4 makes a promise: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Many people think of this as a kind of bargain: If I will delight in God, he will give me what I desire – a desire that, in all likelihood, was planted in me by someone else. That is not what the psalmist means.
When God gives us the desires of our heart, he is not giving us an object of desire; he is giving us desire itself. The desires he gives enrich our lives. Instead of bringing us into competition with others, they enhance our relationships. They deepen our passions, awaken our minds, and foster our peace. Like other desires, we “catch” them, but these we catch from God himself.
If we spend more time delighting in clever Facebook posts than in the words of the wise God, or in news media reports rather than Gospel narratives, or with clickbait advertisements instead of prayer, we will possess (or be possessed by) desires that were given by the Edward Bernays of our age and not by the everlasting God.
Desires guide and move us, but if our desires are not really ours – they have been implanted in us by peers and colleagues, television and media –where will they guide us? But when God gives us the desires of our heart, those desires guide and move us toward the richly satisfying life he intends for us, the life for which we long and for which we were made.
Imagine that you find yourself unable to do something you want to do, should be able to do, and have done in the past – say, eat ice cream. You go to your doctor and she does all kinds of tests and discovers that you are lacking an enzyme which is necessary for the digestion of ice cream. She then gives you the good news: your body can produce plenty of this enzyme just by eating mangos. But you dislike mangos; dislike them as much as you like ice cream. So, what do you do? Do you learn to eat mangos (ugh!) or do you give up ice cream (noo!)?
Let’s pose the same type of question, only let’s change the issue from a physical one to a spiritual one. You find yourself unable to do something you want to do and should be able to do: recognize God’s will. You go to your pastor and he runs a variety of soul tests and comes to the conclusion that you’re missing a spiritual enzyme (of sorts) that is necessary for the recognition of God’s will. That spiritual enzyme is loving relationships with other Christ-followers.
What do you do? You are an introvert. You don’t like big groups. It’s not easy for you to be with people. Taking part in a fellowship group or a Bible study is work for you; you think of it with distaste. So, do you learn to have loving relationships with other Christ-followers or do you give up on knowing God’s will?
We have a real problem in society generally and in the church in particular—and it is getting worse. We are a ferociously independent, perilously individualistic people. Ironically, the advent of personal computers and especially mobile devices – supposedly communication devices – has made meaningful relationships with others even more challenging.
A survey a few years ago revealed that millions fewer people were attending church services than they did two decades earlier, yet more people claim to pray daily than they did then. What that means is that people are trying to do the Christian life in isolation, which violates God’s design and cannot be successful.
Like the human body’s digestive system, the Body of Christ’s recognition system for God’s will requires an enzyme of sorts: loving relationships. Humans are interdependent by design. God made us in such a way that we cannot reach our potential without others. It is a paradox, but you cannot fully be yourself by yourself. And you cannot fully perceive and understand God’s will without the aid of other Christians.
In Colossians 1, we have a description of the Apostle Paul’s remarkable prayer for the Colossian Church. I have prayed it for Cal Road and for other churches many times. In it, Paul makes only one request, but it is an important one. He prays the Colossians might be filled with the knowledge (or recognition, as the word could be translated) of God’s will. Paul understood that the recognition of God’s will is vital to the church and to our lives. Let’s read our text, beginning at Colossians 1:9.
“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (ESV)
We’ll spend two weeks in this passage, but before we start digging into the details, we need to set the passage in context. When Paul wrote in verse 9, “And so” (NIV, “For this reason”), from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you,” we need to ask, “For what reason?” What had Paul heard about the Colossians that caused him to pray ceaselessly for them? He’d heard (verse 8) about their love in the Spirit. He mentions something similar in verses 3 and 4: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints…”
Paul understood what the Colossians’ love for the saints meant: their church had what it takes to recognize God’s will. They had the essential equipment for receiving messages from God.
If I’m on my way to meet you at the coffee shop but you’re trying to call me to let me know you’re running late, I will not get your message if I left my phone at home again. You can call a dozen times, but I won’t hear your voice, because I don’t have a receiver capable of accessing your message. Just so, when a church does not love each other, when they forget or, worse, show contempt for each other, they won’t have a receiver capable of hearing God’s voice, and they will not know his will.
When Paul heard that the Colossians had love for all the saints, he knew they could hear from God and recognize his will. That’s why he began praying for them to “be filled with the knowledge of God’s will,” which he knew was essential to their success. He asked God to convey that knowledge, verse 9, “through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” If love is the receiver needed to capture the signal, wisdom and understanding are the router and the computer that process it.
Of the two words, “wisdom” is the more general. The wise person grasps God’s ways. He understands God’s values and, as such, has the framework into which God’s specific will for churches and individuals fits. The Bible regards God himself as the source of wisdom, the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, the Scriptures as a means for gaining wisdom, and humility as the condition for maintaining wisdom.[1]
The word translated as “understanding” could be, and frequently is, translated “insight.” This is the more specific of the two words. It has to do with seeing how the big truths fit into a particular situation. Note that the knowledge of God’s will is delivered through spiritual wisdom and understanding, which is to say, through wisdom and understanding that are sourced in the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, we will not have wisdom and understanding; and, without wisdom and understanding, we will not recognize God’s will. And if we don’t recognize God’s will, our walk, both as individuals and as a believing community, will not (v. 10) be worthy of the Lord.
Notice the little big word “all.” The knowledge (or recognition) of God’s will comes to us through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. There is a potential problem here. You have some wisdom and understanding and so do I, but neither of us has all wisdom and understanding. That leaves us in need … of each other, which is how Goddesigned it. He routinely sends the knowledge of his will to multiple people and not just one; to the Church and not just the individual. What’s more, he doesn’t usually send all of it to every person but some to one and some to another. That is why someone who separates from the church cannot expect to know very much of God’s will. And that is why humility is so important in understanding God’s will.
The way email works can serve as an illustration. Let’s say your childhood best friend is going to be in town tomorrow at noon and wants to meet you for lunch, so he sends you an email. He only has an hour, but he’d sure love to see you. When he clicks “send,” his email is broken down into packets of information, each with an IP address, which are sent separately, sometimes along different routes. When the packets arrive, they are reassembled into a meaningful message. (Well, not always, but you get the idea.)
Like email, when God reveals his will, it is often broken down into packets, sent, and then reassembled by a group of loving believers with Spirit-sourced wisdom and understanding. It’s not that God cannot send the knowledge of his will to one person, but frequently he does not. He intends us to relate to, and rely on, each other. If we insist on going it alone, we forfeit much of the wisdom and understanding we need to comprehend what God is doing in and around our lives.
A few years ago, I heard Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, share his story. Phil was on top of the world, wildly successful and full of big ideas for the future. In fact, he named his production company Big Ideas Productions. Because things were going so well, he concluded that God wanted to grow Big Ideas into a much larger company, so he spent millions of dollars, hired all kinds of staff, and got himself upside down financially. His cash flow couldn’t handle the skyrocketing bills, Big Ideas went bankrupt, and Phil was forced to sell all VeggieTales copyrights to another company. In a short time, his company and his life had fallen apart.
Phil looks back and says, “When things were doing so well, I thought that was God wanting us to expand, so we grew like crazy. Now I think it was more me having all these great ideas in my head and being so excited that I wanted to do them all at once.” He admits that he wasn’t humble. His wisdom wasn’t sourced in God and his word. He was charting a course without counsel and flying solo. That is a recipe for misunderstanding God’s will.
How important is it for you and me and for our church to receive the knowledge of God’s will? Well, how important is it for a military unit to know whether Central Command is ordering them to attack or defend, to advance or retreat? It is vital. Look at verse 10: “…so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.” There is a reason behind Paul’s prayer: being filled with the knowledge of God’s will is not an end in itself. Such knowledge will help us do two things: live a life worthy of the Lord; and please him in every way.
The word translated “worthy” is derived from a Greek word meaning, “to have the weight of another thing.” The terminology developed around the use of ancient scales. Say you went to the market to buy five pounds of wheat flour. The merchant would place weighing stones on one side of the scale then fill the other side with wheat until the scale balanced or, as they might say, “achieved worthiness.”
Some merchants used inaccurate weighing stones or rigged the scale to their advantage, which is why Proverbs 11:1 says “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.”
To walk worthy of the Lord is to go through your day in a way that balances your lifestyle with your calling as a servant of the king and savior of the world. Without the knowledge of God’s will, that is not going to happen. And it can’t happen if we are using inaccurate weights – that is, ones that are calibrated for the non-Christian. If we try to balance our lives using the scale weights everyone else uses – career, house-size, body mass index, social media footprint – we’ll never balance out in a way that is worthy of the Lord.
Instead of using such things to measure ourselves, let’s weight the scale with: Jesus’s trust in, and obedience to, his Father (how do we measure up to that?); his sacrifice for his friends; his love for his enemies. Place on the scale the Lord’s patience, his care for the needy, his openness to strangers. Set our lives against those weights.
We will of course be light in such virtues, but we can at least use the right scale. And we don’t need to worry: God isn’t waiting for us to be just like Jesus in all these things before he’ll be pleased with us. The desire to be like Jesus already pleases him, as does every effort we make toward that end.
That brings us to the second reason Paul prays for these Colossian Christians to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will: so that they can please the Lord in every way. We can please the Lord. The Lord can say of you, “Isn’t he something special!” Or, “I just love her; she’s such a delight.”
We may think it is impossible for someone like us – with all our problems and shortcomings – to please God. We cannot even please people; how on earth can we please God?
If that is what we think, our thinking is precisely backwards. It is impossible to please some people; no matter what we do, they will never be pleased. If you grew up with a mom or dad like that, you know what I mean. But did you know it is also impossible to please ourselves—at least for any length of time? Humans don’t stay pleased.
But it is not impossible to please God. He loves to see his children succeed. He delights in them. He sings over them. He is easy to please – but hard to satisfy. He is delighted by every honest effort his children make, but he always wants more. Not because he is a slave driver but because he knows what we can be and longs for us to experience it. He made us for glory, for perfection, for all joy, and, for our sakes, he will not be satisfied with less.
When our grandson Phinehas was five-years-old, he colored a picture for me and then, in his just-learning-to-make-letters handwriting, signed his name: PHIN (all caps). I was pleased with the picture but even more with the signature. I assume that, when he is older, his handwriting will be firmer, clearer, and flow more easily. I want and expect that for him, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thoroughly pleased with what he’d done.
So, it is with God. He isn’t hard to please. We, with all our problems and shortcomings, can be a real source of pleasure to God, a joy within the fountain of joy. He even tells us, through the apostle, what pleases him. That is what we’ll see next week, when we will look at four things that bring pleasure to God our Father.
In closing, I remind you that bringing pleasure to God and walking worthy of the Lord Christ happens to people and churches who are filled with the knowledge of his will. And that knowledge comes to us like email: in packets (if you will), which often follow different routes and must be put together. This means you need other people in the church, and they need you. I repeat what was said earlier: You cannot fully be yourself by yourself. And you cannot fully perceive and understand God’s will when you don’t have the kind of relationship with others that God intends.
So, ask God to lead you into healthy relationships with others and to heal those that are unhealthy. Don’t be a loner.
One of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry, was walking with his friend Wes Jackson past a plot of Maximilian Sunflowers, which can grow to nearly ten feet. Jackson pointed to a plant that stood alone, disconnected from the rest.
Wendell Berry saw that this plant was taller than most and had bigger flowers. But it wasn’t healthy. Its blossoms were so heavy that the branches were starting to break under their weight. In one sense, the plant had “succeeded”: it was unusually tall and its flowers were impressive. It stood out from the crowd. But Maximilian Sunflowers can only thrive in community, not in isolation.[2]
That’s true of people too, especially of the followers of Jesus. Take steps to enter into the life of the church. Be involved with Jesus’s people. Find a ministry to be involved in. Join us on Thursdays at 4:30 for the next 9 weeks to pray for our church. Come to next week’s church family picnic. Don’t stand alone.
Blessing/Sending (Hebrews 12): In view of God’s mercy, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Do not be conformed to this world, but rather, be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
[1] Prov. 9:10; Eccl. 2:26 and Daniel 2:20; 2 Tim. 3:15; James 3:13
[2] Matt Woodley, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; source: Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace (Counterpoint, 2002), pp. 139-143
The Spanish author and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo coined the term “intrahistoria.” The term does not refer to “the history populated by kings and generals,” which is taught in our schools, but to “the quiet and unrecorded lives of ordinary people who are born, who work, who breed, and who die leaving scarcely a trace of their existence behind.”
The quiet lives of ordinary people move humanity to a degree that the noisy lives of kings and generals cannot compare. They are to history what a southerly current is to the Mississippi. Winds may blow from other directions and roil the waters. Kings and generals may sweep across the world like storms on the surface of history, but the current of all things will continue to move towards its goal.
In the coming age, the lives of many kings and generals, tyrants and heroes, will be forgotten like a December snowfall is by June, while the quiet lives of ordinary people will be a cause for joy and celebration. Names that never appeared on the A-list (or even B- or C-list) of celebrities will be written in the Book of Life.
One such name is Kenneth West. I first met “Brother West” when I was in my early twenties and he was in his seventies. My wife and I were on a trajectory toward overseas service with our denomination. We expected to work among the poor in Latin America, but before we could do so we needed to put in two years of “home service” in the U.S. I was placed as a pastor in a small church in a rustbelt city in northeastern Ohio.
“Brother West” was one of the first people I met. He was hard to miss. He was about 6’5” and weighed over 200 pounds. He smiled often, though he was missing some teeth, following a surgery on his jaw that had severed a nerve. He wore simple, dark clothes, but there was a light in his eyes.
As I got to know him, I learned that he had lived an unusual life. He had owned a farm that bordered a lake in Idaho during the forties, where he lived alone and raised his own food and milled his own wheat. He had previously worked in a mine in the Pacific Northwest and had spent time in rural Alaska. At age thirty-five, he came to faith in Jesus Christ, which changed the direction of his life.
He ended up in northeastern Ohio, where he pastored a small holiness congregation. When I met him, he had retired from pastoral work and had moved to our small church. He taught Sunday School and played the piano when needed. He also played a guitar that he had made himself.
I can’t remember how it happened, but I began to meet with Ken West on Thursday afternoons. He would stop at church on his way home from work. (Though he was well into his seventies and didn’t, I think, need to work, he was employed as a custodian for a local business.) He and I would pray together and spend an hour or so talking. I learned from him that a man with an ardent spirit could also have a sharp mind, wide-ranging interests, and an openness to new opportunities.
For some people, pastoral ministry is not an aid but an obstacle to spiritual formation. Scripture becomes a source for sermonizing rather than a guide to living. Busyness militates against prayer and thoughtfulness. Instead of enhancing friendships, church board meetings often make them more difficult. But in Ken West I found a man who had years of experience as a pastor and still had a fire in his belly to know God and love in his heart for people.
Ordinary people may leave no trace in the writings of academic historians, but in the chronicle that God is recording, people like Ken West figure prominently. They are not a momentary squall sweeping across the surface of history. They are the current on which all things move to their glorious fulfillment when everything has been brought together under the authority of Christ.
Viewing time: 23:44. Subject: Role of prayer in facing trials and temptations.
This sermon follows Jesus into the Garden of Gethsemane. It unpacks his instruction to “Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation.” But the thrust of the sermon is the worthiness of Jesus to receive our worship and adoration. (Text below.)
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And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Mark 14:32-42)
I am about to violate a sacrosanct law from the secret rulebook every preacher follows: I am going to make the application before I preach the sermon. But I’m doing it for a reason: On this Communion Sunday, I don’t want to close with the application for us but with the adoration of our Lord Jesus.
So, here is the application. You will soon be hearing about a weekly prayer opportunity at Cal Road. For about eight weeks, we will meet to pray for our church using the Scriptures as our prayer guide. We will be asking for the very things that God desires to give. And we will watch and celebrate when he answers our prayers. I urge you to come to these prayer meetings. If they are not at a time you can attend, start your own prayer meeting and invite some friends to join you. It is not enough for us to learn about prayer. What matters is that we pray. That is the application. Pray! Pray with one another.
Now to our text. Just prior to the events we just read about, Jesus was celebrating Passover with his disciples in the large, upstairs room of a home in Jerusalem’s temple district. He had taken extraordinary precautions to keep the location of his Passover meal secret—even from the disciples. Towards the end of the meal, Jesus looked at Judas and said, “What you do, do quickly.” Judas had been frantically looking for an excuse to leave so that he could alert the authorities to Jesus’ whereabouts. Jesus gave it to him. He got up and went out into the night.
It would not have taken long for Judas to reach the High Priest’s residence and to set things in motion. A posse (for lack of a better word) would need to be assembled. It would take time, perhaps a few hours, before they were outfitted and ready. After receiving their orders, they would be sent out under the command of the High Priest’s personal assistant. A few minutes after that, the house with the upstairs guestroom would be surrounded. Then a lead team would burst through the door and find it … empty.
When the intelligence Judas provided proved unreliable, he was in trouble. According to Matthew’s Gospel, Judas had already taken the authorities’ money, and he had failed to produce results. I suppose he did some fast talking, all the while wracking his brains, trying to think of where Jesus was likely to go.
In Luke’s account we learn that after Judas left the upper room, Jesus instituted the “Lord’s Supper,” and then gave his disciples some final instructions. Before Judas had time to return with the posse, Jesus wrapped up what he was saying, sang a Passover hymn with his disciples (probably the Great Hallel, comprising Psalms 113-118), and left. Just think of Jesus singing these words on the eve of his crucifixion: “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? … The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. … O LORD, save us; O LORD, grant us success … The hymn ends with these words: “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 118:29)
They left the city, crossed the Kidron, and started up the Mount of Olives. Verse 32 tells us that they stopped at a place called Gethsemane, which is Hebrew for “Olive Press.” John refers to the place as a grove or a garden. A municipal statute barred people from keeping gardens in Jerusalem – fertilizer was banned in the Holy City – and so rich people kept gardens just outside the city gates. One of those rich people seems to have been a friend of Jesus, for this was one of his favorite places to go.
Jesus knew that when Judas found the upper room deserted, this would be one of the places he would think to look. The disciples entered the Garden and Jesus told them to sit and wait – probably near the entrance – while he went on to pray. Then he signaled to Peter, James, and John to follow him, and they walked together into darkness.
Peter, James, and John. They had been among Jesus’s earliest disciples. They were the only disciples with Jesus when he raised the synagogue ruler’s daughter back to life. They were alone with Jesus the Mount of Transfiguration. They had seen his glory in a way no one else had.
Perhaps they thought that this life they were embarking on was all about glory. James and John, expecting the revolution to begin any day, had tried to maneuver their way into the highest cabinet positions in Jesus’s government. Their eyes were set on glory.
And Peter. Peter was always telling Jesus what to do. When Jesus told him to row his boat out into deep water and let down the nets, Peter said, “But Master, we’ve been fishing all night and haven’t caught a thing!” After the miraculous catch of fish, he said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.” Much later, when Jesus first told the disciples that he would suffer and be killed, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Suffering was not on Peter’s agenda.
Only an hour or two earlier, Peter had contradicted Jesus yet again. When the Lord told the disciples, “You will all forsake me,” Peter insisted that, although those guys might forsake him, he never would. When Jesus countered, “Peter, before the night is through you will have denied me three times,” Peter gainsaid him: “I will never deny you. I will never forsake you. I will die with you first.” There was in Peter a pride, a willfulness that had to be broken before he could become the Rock Jesus had named him. After this night, it would be broken.
But I think there was another reason the Lord took these three men. They were dear to him, and he wanted someone to be with him when he faced the hour of his trial. He didn’t want them to fix things for him; he wasn’t looking for answers. He just wanted them to be there.
Sometimes when our friends are in trouble, when they are going through a divorce or diagnosed with a terminal illness, we are afraid to be with them. We think, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any answers.” But people aren’t usually looking for answers at such a time; they are looking for love. Jesus didn’t want his friends’ answers; he wanted them.
As they walked further into the Garden, he began, verse 33, “to be greatly distressed and troubled.” The verb translated “greatly distressed” is common in the gospels. It is the word that is used of the shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem when the angels appeared to them (the word the King James translated, “sore afraid”). It is frequently used in the gospels to describe people’s response to Jesus’ miracles. It means to be astounded or confused. The Greek scholar Gerhard Kittle says that the main idea is one of perplexity. Now think of that: the Lord of glory perplexed! That is a word that is never used of him, except here. There is dreadful darkness in the Garden.
That adjective “troubled” is a strong word. The King James translates, “very heavy.” It has the idea of bearing an overwhelming weight of sorrow, of staggering under intense emotional pain. Jesus tells the Three Friends, “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.”
They had seen him endure misunderstanding, persecution, bodily assault, political scheming, and physical exhaustion. They watched as he stood peacefully before a gale, calmly awaited the onslaught of a screaming demoniac, and walked confidently through the midst of a bloodthirsty crowd. But they had never seen him like this: deeply distressed and troubled. Overwhelmed with sorrow. As terrible as what followed on Calvary would be, we have the distinct impression that it was here in the garden that the battle was decided. Later that night, in the halls of Caiphas, he would again be Master of the situation. Before the Roman procurator, he stood with incomparable dignity. Nailed to a cross, he responded with grace and forgiveness. It was here – in the Garden – that the attack, the onslaught – came with overwhelming force.
“And going a little farther,” vs. 35, “he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” The normal posture for prayer was standing, with hands raised to heaven. But Jesus fell to the ground in an agony of soul that we cannot conceive. He had lived his entire life to do the Father’s will. When he was twelve years old, he answered his mother, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49, ESV marginal reading). “For I have come down from heaven,” he said on another occasion, “not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” “‘My food,’ he told his disciples, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work’.” The constant temptation he faced was to circumvent the Father’s will. Each of the temptations in the wilderness revolves around this idea: You can save the world, you can convince them you are their Messiah, you can have authority over all the kingdoms of the earth, without becoming obedient unto death.
In the wilderness, empowered by prayer and fasting, and full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus vanquished that temptation. But the devil did not give up: Luke says that he left Jesus until “an opportune time.” This is that time. Jesus came to the Garden to implore heaven, but at his feet the very gates of hell opened before him. He prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me.” The cup from which he shrank was not merely death, but the bearing of humanity’s sin, and the separation from his Father that would entail.
We cannot know the extent of his suffering. We have not, as the author of Hebrews wrote, “resisted temptation to the shedding of blood.” We cannot know what he knew, nor feel what he felt, for we are sinful and our ability to know and to feel has been significantly degraded. Our estrangement from God has deadened powers that were innate to us. Our capacity for both anger and joy has been dulled. Even our capacity for sorrow– by the mercy of God – has been blunted. But Jesus was sinless. He had a larger capacity for feeling than do we. He knew greater joy and – as here – deeper sorrow than we are currently capable of experiencing.
Three times he prayed. A man whose wife was dying once told me that he prayed for her once and never did so again. To keep praying, he said, would demonstrate a lack of trust. But our Lord asked three times. Who could accuse him of lacking trust? The apostle Paul, too; he wrote, “Three times I asked the Lord to take this from me.” It seems that the biblical approach is to keep praying until God answers.
You may think, “But God did not answer. Jesus went to the cross despite his prayers.” But he was answered. Listen to what the author of Hebrews wrote about this scene: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”
Did you catch that? He was heard. But the author of Hebrews goes right on to say, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” He was heard, but still he suffered. He was answered, but the answer was … no.
We somehow get the idea that prayer is only answered when we get what we want, when we escape hard times. But God heard Jesus, and he didn’t escape. Luke writes that an angel came to him and comforted – or, better, strengthened – him. God’s answer was strength to do the Father’s will. When Jesus rose from the ground that third time, peace had been restored. He was in control once more. Calm, strong, ready, not because he would escape suffering, but because he had won through temptation and would submit to his Father’s will.
Look back to verse 37. After his first struggle in prayer, Jesus returned to find his friends sleeping. He said to Simon, verse 38, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Watching and praying are not a last resort for those who have already fallen into temptation, but a protective measure to keep them from falling.
If we are to win through our trials, we must pray before the crisis arrives, as it surely will. Before the crisis arrived, Jesus prayed. We find the same thing in the wilderness. We read that he fasted and prayed for forty days and was then tempted by the devil. We get the wrong idea and think the devil took advantage of Jesus after he had fasted for forty days because he was vulnerable. On the contrary, he was fit, equipped, and mighty in Spirit because he had prayed. In the prayer he taught us to pray, we say, “Lead us not into temptation,” but if we wait to pray until temptation is upon us, we will be saying, “Lead us out of temptation” (or worse, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”)
Jesus’ trial did not wait for him to come to it; it came to him. Verse 42: “Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer.” Just so, your trials will find you. If they find you tomorrow, will they find you prepared? Will you, in the words of an older generation of preachers, be “prayed up?” Jesus had long before faced the issue of whose will he would obey. The author of Hebrews tells us that he came into the world saying, “I have come to do your will, O God.”
If you wait until you are already in the fires of trial to pray, it will be too late. To complain that God didn’t help you after you have already fallen into temptation is like complaining your seatbelt didn’t work, even though you waited until after the accident to put it on. Don’t wait to settle the issue of obedience until after the trial has arrived.
Jesus warned Peter that he would fall into temptation if he remained prayer-less. But Jesus, though tempted with a force we cannot comprehend, did not fall into temptation. He entered it on his guard and triumphed over it because he prayed; his entire life was an ongoing conversation with his Father.
St. Paul says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” This is true because the essence of temptation is not tied to some particular sin – lust or stealing or blasphemy or coveting. Temptation comes in a myriad of forms but, whatever its form, its essential nature is to try to satisfy our deep needs and real desires in ways that are inconsistent with God’s character and will. The very heart of temptation – from Eve until today – is always, “God’s will, or mine?” For Jesus in the garden, the temptation was not, “Man’s salvation or my comfort.” The question was not, “Can not he for whom all things are possible do this some other way?” The question was “Will I do it God’s way?” He conquered the quintessential temptation with the prayer, “Father, not my will, but your will be done.” It is a terrible thing – I hope it is not true of any of us – to be in the habit of saying to God, “Not your will, but my will be done.”
You have already heard the application: pray! If our Lord triumphed through prayer, can we triumph without it? I will give no further application, but rather an invitation to join me in adoring the Son of God.
Our Master stood the test. He did not fail. For us and for our salvation, he endured the anguish and remained faithful. Temptation that would have swept us away like a flood, could not move him. The tidal wave of temptation struck the Rock of ages and he disappeared beneath it. But when it receded three days later, he rose from the wreck and ruin unbroken and unbreakable. The Captain of our salvation has triumphed! He is the holy one and true, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the faithful and true witness. He is the Lion of Judah and the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. The man of sorrows has become the joy of all the earth. Fix your gaze on the author and perfecter of our faith who for us and our salvation came down from heaven … to be lifted up on a cross. Worship and adore our great God and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
A young friend called me one day in a panic. He was overwhelmed with doubts about the Christian faith, he told me, and he did not know what to do. I asked about the content of his doubts. He replied that he was doubting everything, including the existence of God, the nature of Jesus, and the reliability of the biblical text.
I asked my young friend, who had recently been leading a ministry to twenty-somethings in our community, how long he had been having these doubts. He had been dealing with them for some time. I asked him what he had done about his doubts, and learned that he had been watching YouTube videos, mostly by atheists, who addressed the very issues he was facing.
I discovered that my friend was excited by his doubts. He felt like he was living dangerously. He was ready to separate from his parent’s religion and to escape its moral code.
His doubts began over the appropriateness of same-sex sexual relationships, spread to the six-day creation teaching his parents espoused, stumbled into politics, and then overflowed into everything else he thought he knew about Christianity. He began to deconstruct the faith he had been taught. He ended by denouncing it.
I don’t think the trailhead leading to my friend’s atheism started with his doubts; it started with unhealthy and largely unrecognized desires, like the desire to outshine others. The seeds of doubt would not have been harmful had they been planted in healthier soil. Everyone doubts, but some people doubt wisely while others doubt foolishly.
I owe the phrase, “Doubt wisely,” to the English Romantic poet John Donne. Besides being one of England’s greatest poets, Donne was also a member of Parliament and, later, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. This famous preacher and church leader believed that doubt plays an important role in the human search for truth.
According to Donne, truth, like a craggy mountain peak, is difficult to attain. Those who reach her “about must and about must go.” There is no straight path up the mountain of truth for us. It is rather a switchback on which one must inevitably confront doubts. Doubts, like great boulders on the path, may safely be encountered when one is searching for the truth. But they will crush the person who is avoiding, or trying to manage, the truth.
My friend did not doubt wisely. He did not attempt to research the things he had been taught, to find out if they were sourced in the biblical writings, or if they were add-ons supplied by society. For example, instead of rejecting his parent’s faith because it was associated in his mind with the acceptance of a political party’s candidate, he could have discovered what the Bible actually teaches about leaders. Instead of listening to what YouTubers say about a six-day creation, he could have read what the Bible says, and learned how reputable scholars have explicated its key passages.
Instead, he listened to what aggressive atheists claimed the Bible says—people whose education was practically devoid of biblical scholarship. My friend was not wrong to doubt, but he failed to doubt wisely.
He assumed that his Christian parents were naïve. Whether he was right or wrong about that, I don’t know. But he was wrong to think that all Christians are naïve, while other people – including those he watched on YouTube – are clearheaded, logical thinkers.
The great English man of letters Malcolm Muggeridge was right when he claimed that we are living in one of the most gullible ages ever. But Muggeridge went further than that. He claimed that the serious believer is less likely to be gullible than the worldly person. True believers can carefully examine their doubts since they know they are standing on solid ground. The worldly person, carried on the shifting currents of contemporary thought, must cling to the flotsam of today’s transitory ideology.
To “doubt wisely” one must first believe wisely. People, standing on God’s revelation, aided by the eyewitness testimony of the apostles, to which they have added their own experiential proofs, have a body of evidence that helps them believe wisely and, paradoxically, doubt wisely.
I posted an article yesterday (https://shaynelooper.com/?p=4314) about my journey from embarrassment to pride over Jesus. I’d love to hear if other people have been on this journey. Are you proud of Jesus? Do you want others to know that you are connected to him? Share your thoughts in the Comment Section.
We’ve had a gay pride now for a few decades. It’s high time for Jesus Pride. It’s time for Jesus’s people to stand up and stand out. We have so many reasons to be proud of our Leader.
Be proud of Jesus. He is the greatest person to ever walk this earth, and you (by grace alone) have a share in him!
I was navigating this world as a newly converted Christian. One of the guys who sat across the table from me in study hall – there were so many of us that study halls took place in the cafeteria and the performing arts center – had learned I was “religious” and had taken to calling me, “The Preacher.” But I didn’t preach. I was silent about my faith.
One Sunday at church, I heard something that worried me. Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” It was as if he was speaking directly to me, for I was ashamed of Jesus.
The biblical writers and the early Christians they wrote about did not have that problem. They boasted about Jesus. They said things like, “We cannot help but speak about what we have seen and heard.”
I am no longer ashamed of Jesus. I am, in fact, proud of him. Some people are proud of their favorite college football team, some are proud of the presidential candidate they support, while others are proud of their accomplishments and possessions. I am proud of Jesus.
We will not be proud – or ashamed either, for that matter – of someone unless we have some kind of connection to him or her. I greatly admire Albert Einstein for his remarkable mind and his transformative work in physics, but I am not proud of Einstein. Why would I be? Other than having visited the town where he lived, I have no connection to him, no share in Einstein.
But I do have a connection to Jesus. I cannot take credit for that. He initiated it; I merely responded. But I’ve thrown in my lot with him. I am one of his people; I have a share in Jesus.
There are so many reasons to be proud of him. Long before the suffrage movement and women’s liberation, Jesus promoted the importance and worth of women. Unlike other rabbis, he taught women and included them among his disciples. It was to a woman that he first announced that he was the Messiah. After the resurrection, he first revealed himself to a woman.
Jesus stood with the poor and the marginalized. He recognized and proclaimed their value in a religious culture that despised them. He not only offered the poor his charity, which was common enough; he offered them his friendship, which was exceedingly rare. And he assured the poor that they were special to God, regardless of what the religious professionals said and did.
Jesus was remarkably brave. When a screaming demoniac rushed him, Jesus fearlessly stood to await his arrival. In the midst of a sudden and brutal storm at sea, when commercial fisherman were losing their heads and giving themselves up for dead, Jesus remained perfectly calm. When the authorities came to arrest him, he offered himself up so that his friends could escape.
Jesus was absolutely brilliant. His teachings are incomparable. No other person, no school of thought, no intellectual movement in the history of the world has impacted humanity so greatly as Jesus.
Jesus gave up everything to help people who did not even acknowledge him. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris seek power so that they can help people. Jesus gave up power so that he could help us. St. Paul says, “Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor.” Though he was just, he was willing to suffer injustice. Though he was blameless, he died for our sins.
Let other people boast about presidential candidates and football heroes, I’ll boast about Jesus. As people once said about him, “He has done everything well.” And he is everything I aspire to be.
To be good at prayer, we must get better at waiting. This sermon explores the relationship between waiting, faith, and answered prayer. Click the link above to watch it or read it below.
If I’m running errands and need to make four stops while I am out, I plan my route so that there is as little overlap as possible. I estimate the time of each stop. I take into consideration traffic flow. I do my best not to waste a single minute.
It is a game for me, but a game I take too seriously. I am good at rushing; I am not good at waiting—but I am getting better.
Christians are, almost by definition, those who have “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Jesus left his first followers with instructions to “wait for the Gift my Father promised…” (Acts 1:4). The church didn’t begin by doing but by waiting.
Waiting is the rule, not the exception. St. Paul tells us that “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19) – and we wait with it. Waiting is a skill we must master, especially when it comes to prayer. Prayer is more like slow roasting than it is like microwaving. Rush it, take the prayer out early, and it won’t be done. The psalmist said to God, “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Psalm 5:3, NIV).
I’ll mention two more things before we read our text from Hebrews 11. Even Jesus, Son of God and Lord of men, had to wait. In fact, he is still waiting. After writing about Jesus’s great sacrifice, the author of Hebrews says that he is: “waiting … until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.” (Hebrews 10:13). How about that? Even Jesus waits.
God himself waits. In that passage from Isaiah, we read that all who wait for God are blessed. But just before that we read, “The Lord waits to be gracious to you.” We are keeping the God of the universe waiting—waiting for us to be capable of receiving his blessing. Even God waits.
There is no getting around it. Everyone waits. One man who did it well was Abraham, the man of faith. That is no coincidence, for faith is essential to waiting. Without faith, we cannot please God (as the author of Hebrews put it), but neither can we wait for him. When faith fails, we run ahead and try to force things to come out right on our own. We see this correlation between faith and waiting in the story of Abraham. He can help us understand the role of faith in waiting and the role of waiting in the lives of God’s people.
Let me read what the author of Hebrews says about Abraham in Hebrews 11, starting with verse 8. Take note of the repeated refrain, “By faith…”
In other words, they were still waiting. The power to wait on God comes from God and reaches us through faith. Faith itself is not the power but rather the transmission line that conducts the power. The electricity in your house is not produced by the electrical wires that run to and within your house, but by the power plant. But when the wires are broken, you lose power. When faith short-circuits, you lose a different kind of power: the power to “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7).
“Abraham, the man of faith” (as the Apostle Paul called him) was able to wait because he believed; he trusted God. He was not so much waiting for things – land or descendants – as he was waiting for the Lord. Persons inspire faith; events and things do not. Because “Abraham believed God,” as the Scriptures repeatedly and emphatically state, he was able to wait. Trying to make yourself believe in a good outcome will not help you wait; believing in the good God will.
In verses 8-10, we are given the when, what, where, how, and why of Abraham’s faith. We find the When in verse 8: “By faith Abraham, when called . . .” Faith is not something we can manufacture from our own resources whenever we find ourselves in need of it. Faith is voice-activated. It is triggered by God’s word.
Today’s Smart TVs are voice-activated: just speak and your favorite show will appear. All you need is an internet connection and the proper apps installed – which is to say you’ve downloaded the necessary software. Faith works in a similar way. When the necessary download (God’s Spirit) is installed, God’s word activates faith. When God called Abraham, his voice made a faith response possible. It was when God spoke to him, that Abraham was able to believe.
That was the when of faith. Next, we find the what. The text says (verse 8): “he obeyed and went.” The what of faith has two components, one of which is the same for every believer and one of which can vary from believer to believer. Whoever you are, at whatever point in history you’ve lived, in whatever strata of society you’ve occupied, the what of faith is always obedience. When Abraham received the call that makes faith possible, he obeyed.
The original language here is as economic as possible: just four words. Translating it into English requires a few more: “By faith, having been called, Abraham obeyed.” You could substitute your name or mine (or any believer’s) for Abraham’s: “By faith, having been called, Aaron obeyed.” “By faith, having been called, Jean obeyed” or “Dan obeyed” or “Andrea obeyed.”
The first component in the what of faith is a given that is always the same for every believer: obedience – “the obedience of faith,” St. Paul called it. The second is a variable, which differs for different believers (or for the same believer at different times in his or her life). Abraham obeyed (the given) and went (the variable). Shayne obeyed (the given) and preached (the variable). Aaron obeyed (the given) and forgave (the variable). Jean obeyed and told a friend about Jesus. Dan obeyed and gave money. Andrea obeyed and went to visit her neighbor. The first element of faith, obedience, is a given for you and me. The second, the variable, will often be different.
This is where we get into trouble. We overlook the first element of faith – the given, obedience – but insist on the second, the variable. Here’s what that looks like. The Lord speaks to me about giving a sizeable gift to the church. I hear him, obey, and give. All is right in Shayne World. But then I start thinking that other people should be doing what I did. If they don’t, they cannot be good Christians – and maybe they’re not Christians at all! I assume that Aaron’s and Jean’s and Dan’s and Andrea’s “andvariable” must be the same as mine.
This leads to an ugly legalism and to a judgmental spirit that Jesus strictly forbids. We should all be doing the things Scripture clearly teaches, but there is room for diversity in things Scripture is not clear about, and in matters of personal guidance – the and variables – we must expect diversity.
Next, there is the where of faith, which might better be called the wherever of faith. The end of verse 8 tells us that Abraham “did not know where he was going.” That is not surprising, for in faith there is always an element of not knowing. The unknown gives faith room to breathe and grow. The unknown may be about the where (as it was for Abraham) or it may be (and frequently is) about the how or even about the when or why, but there will be an unknown. Without it, faith has no opportunity to function. Yet we do everything in our power to eliminate the unknown. If we could, we’d wrap faith up so tight in a straightjacket of certainty that it couldn’t breathe.
Next, we have the how of faith: “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” The when and where and what inevitably lead to the how. If we hear God when he speaks, follow where he leads, and obey what we know, the how will eventually become clear. The danger for us is that we will demand to know the how before we say “yes” to the what. You can call that prudence or common sense, but it is a faith-buster. It makes faith impossible.
For Abraham, the how meant living like a refugee in the land promised him. Verse 9 says, “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” A more straightforward translation is, “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise.” Had Abraham insisted on knowing the how before he said yes to the what he might never have left the city of Ur. But God always gives grace for us to live the how, even to thrive in doing so, once we’ve said yes to the what.
Now we’ve come to the why, which we discover in verse 10: “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Abraham could live in tents like a refugee while waiting and praying for the land, and for descendants to occupy the land, because he was looking forward to the city with foundations. He could succeed in the insecurity of the present because he was certain of the security of the future. He remained confident, as only people of faith can, that God “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Abraham was taken by God into a big story. He was promised the Land, descendants to dwell in the land, and a particular descendant who would bring blessing to all the people of the earth. That is a big story and big stories take time to unfold. Never forget that you too have been taken into a big story.
Now all of this raises a question: why did God make the promise 25 years before he intended to fulfill it? Why make Abraham wait so long? Waiting is uncomfortable. It is tedious. Pretty much everyone everywhere hates to wait. So, why not make the promise a few days – a few hours – before delivering on it?
For that matter, why make us wait at all? Why not answer the moment we pray? If God operated that way, just think how strong our faith would be!
But would it? Does the child whose parent gives her everything she wants when she wants it become more trusting or more demanding? Does she develop the mindset that will help her become a compassionate, faithful, and strong person? Probably not, for people are shaped in the waiting. Waiting is an indispensable tool in character building. You can no more build character without waiting than you can build a house without a hammer.
God has us wait because it is in the waiting that we come to know him. It was during the 25 years that Abraham waited that he grew so close to God that Scripture calls him “the friend of God.” How did they become friends? They waited … together. Abraham didn’t just wait for God; he waited with God.
God also has us wait because it is during the waiting that his Spirit adjusts our prayers until they align with his will. This alignment is not just a matter of praying for the right things but – more importantly – becoming the kind of person who can – and regularly does – pray for the right things.
Another reason we wait: God gets greater glory from receiving our trust than from answering our prayers. I’ve often heard people say things like: “Just think how much glory God would receive if my friend was miraculously healed.” Yes, but he will receive even greater glory if you and your friend continue to trust him – and even increase your trust – while you wait.
But how do we do that? It happens with us in much the same way it happened with Abraham. First, we hear God’s word to us. Remember that faith is voice-activated —God’s voice. If, like Abraham, we obey his word to us, faith will grow. But we must expect to wait for things that we want badly, things that we are desperate to have, even things that God intends to give. Waiting is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. Expect to wait.
Understand too that waiting does not mean wasting time. Abraham worked while he waited. He was a man of action as well as a man of faith. When we divide faith from work, we do injury to both. Faith is the root; work is the fruit. Faith is potential energy; work is kinetic energy. Faith is the flame and work the light that proceeds from the flame.
The relationship between faith and prayer is like the relationship between flame and light. If faith declines, prayer dims. And faith always declines when we wait for things rather than for God. If you are having trouble praying – struggling with doubt and ready to give up – you might be in the wrong waiting room. You’re waiting for things rather than God. Refocus your waiting on the Lord. Adopt the attitude of the prophet Micah: “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7).
(This sermon finds that it is not enough to pray in the moment of need. The faith we need grows in a praying life – as Jesus’s disciple discovered for themselves.)
When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” “O unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” (Mark 9:14-29)
The section preceding our text is absolutely packed with allusions to the Old Testament. St. Mark clearly wanted readers to equate what is happening here with what happened on famous mountain in Israel’s history. The links between the two are fascinating, and we’ll explore them when we Go Deep on Wednesday at 6:30.
Our text ends with Jesus’s explanation that “This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out only by prayer.” This kind – the stubborn, tough, pernicious kind –comes out only by prayer. Jesus was speaking about an unclean spirit, but there are other things that torment us that can only be effectively handled by prayer. There are marriage problems that won’t be resolved if we don’t pray. There are financial predicaments, relationship impasses, job difficulties, and health setbacks that can only be overcome by prayer.
There is something odd about verse 29—but here I am starting with the end of our text, and we really should begin at the beginning. We’ll return to that odd thing before we’re done, but first we need to get some context.
Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John up a very high mountain where they had an experience which, as far as we know, no one else has ever had. On that mountain, they stood in the presence of two of history’s great heroes, Moses and Elijah, even though they had lived (in one case) hundreds and (in the other) more than a thousand years earlier.
But that was only the beginning. They saw Jesus transfigured before their eyes. They could hardly bear to look at him—it was like looking into the sun; he was awesome. They were confounded. Frightened. And then they heard the voice of God address them directly, and they nearly came undone.
They never forgot what happened on that mountain. At the end of his life, knowing that his death was near, Peter was still talking about it. It was his mountaintop experience. And yet this wonderful, unforgettable event on the mountain was followed by chaos and confusion in the valley. That often happens.
The mountaintop is not an escape but a preparation. It is not a place to live but a place to be readied for service. Peter wanted to build shelters and stay there, but Jesus did not oblige him. We occasionally (by God’s grace) ascend the mountain, but we inevitably (also by God’s grace) return to the valley. That’s where we live; that’s where we do good.
Jesus took three disciples with him up the mountain, but he left the other nine in the valley to carry on the work. When they returned to the Nine, they could see that a crowd had gathered around them, and it was not a happy crowd. There were experts in the Jewish law there and an argument was in full swing.
Because people were focused on the argument, the crowd didn’t notice Jesus until he was quite close. When they did see him, they ran to him, and something about him caused people to marvel. Mark does not tell us what it was, but some people think that Jesus looked different after the transfiguration, the way Moses looked different when he came down from Mount Sinai (Exodus 34).
Jesus walked right up to the Nine and asked them what they were arguing about. It is possible that the experts in the law had challenged their authority to perform exorcisms. Whatever the case, before the disciples had a chance to answer, a man in the crowd interrupted.
He had brought his son to Jesus, but Jesus was gone, so he asked the disciples to expel the unclean spirit that was ruining their lives. “But your disciples,” the man said, “don’t have what it takes.” Imagine how the disciples felt as this guy blurted this out in front of all those people.
But the distraught dad was apparently not the only person talking, for Jesus did not answer him;he answered them. I think that means that other people were all talking at once: the disciples, the indignant scribes, people in the crowd. There were accusations and recriminations – it was chaos.
Amid all the clamor, Jesus says (literally), “O unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you?” Note that word, “unbelieving.” It is important to the story. Jesus then says of the man’s son: “Bring him to me.”
When the spirit saw Jesus (I don’t know how a spirit sees – was it through the boy’s eyes or in some other way?) it convulsed the young man. He fell to the ground, rolled around, and foamed at the mouth. Jesus immediately turned to the dad and asked, “How long has this been happening to him?”
The dad said, “From childhood.” Think of that. Years of anxiety and fear, always on high alert, always worried about what other people are thinking. And the great sadness the dad felt for his son in his torments, the helplessness, and, eventually, the hopelessness. And then someone told him about Jesus, so he brought him his son, but what he found were nine disciples who weren’t up to the task. His hopes, which had risen, was dashed and his faith was nearly extinguished.
The disciples, I’m sure, made it harder for this man to trust Jesus. I wonder if we ever make it harder for people – our children, coworkers, and neighbor – to believe? If, like the disciples, we argue, get angry, and act just like people who don’t belong to Jesus, we are making it harder.
Listen to this dad’s words: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” There is not much faith there – but there is a little. Faith figures prominently into this passage, into Jesus’s teaching, and into effective prayer. The principle is this: “According to your faith be it done to you” (Matthew 9:29).
Facing a seeming impossibility, the disciples once said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” Do you know how Jesus answered them? (I paraphrase.) “You don’t need great faith. You need genuine faith. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and cast into the sea, and it will be done for you!”
Can so little faith really lift so massive a mountain as a critically ill child, a critically ill marriage, an impossible job situation, an extreme financial need? Can it really be true that a little faith is all that’s needed? How can that be?
A little faith is enough, as long as it is genuine, but only because it is joined to Jesus’s great faith. The one who “ever lives to intercede for us” also intercedes with us when our prayers align with God’s will—and his intercession makes all the difference. When we wear his yoke, he does the heavy lifting. When Jesus says to this dad, “Everything is possible to the one who believes,” the one who believes and for whom everything is possible is preeminently Jesus. The desperate father’s smidgeon of faith is joined to the great faith and faithfulness of Jesus the son of God. “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4).
The word of Jesus to this dad revived the dying embers of his faith – a word from Jesus can do that – and he cried out, “I believe!” then immediately added, “Help my unbelief!” And Jesus did help his unbelief. If Jesus sees even a spark of faith, he will tend it, help it, blow on it until it becomes a fire.
I want you to notice something it took me a long time to understand. Within the same person at the same moment, belief and unbelief can coexist. We are a little like an old-style hard drive in a 1980s computer. We can have bad sectors. We can be tooling along, trusting God, when suddenly we access a bad sector – that is, we discover a part of our life where unbelief dominates – and we crash.
Most of us struggle to face the fact that these bad sectors – these areas of unbelief – exist in our lives. And because we don’t face it, we don’t understand why our genuine efforts produce so little fruit for Christ.[1]
But Jesus is willing to help us. The man’s prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief,” is one that I have often prayed. And the Lord has helped me. And he will help you too.
Jesus aided this man’s belief and helped his unbelief by answering his prayer. Actually seeing God answer prayers greatly helps our belief and systematically dislodge our unbelief. In this case, Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to leave the boy and never come back. But notice that the answer to this dad’s prayer did not at first seem very encouraging. The spirit shrieked, sent the boy into prolonged convulsions (the Greek says something like, “much convulsing), and then came out, leaving him lying on the ground, looking to all the world as if he were dead.
Sometimes things look worse after the Lord answers our prayers. But if we stop trusting at that moment, we’ve stopped trusting too soon. With the frightened dad looking on, Jesus lifted the boy and he arose (both words regularly used for resurrection), and the father’s faith was helped.
Jesus then went into a house and his disciples followed him. As soon as they were alone, the Nine asked him (verse 28), “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” They had driven out demons before; why had they failed this time?
Pay attention to Jesus’s answer in verse 29 (this is where we find something odd). “This kind can come out only by prayer.” Only by prayer. Not by rituals. Not by smarts. Not by a powerful personality. Only by prayer.
Let’s be clear about that. There are some things – uncleans spirits, deeply-rooted addictions, relationship conflicts – that are only driven out by prayer. That was Jesus’s own word. So, here is the odd thing: Jesus didn’t pray. Remember the story: he saw a crowd running towards them and quickly cast out the unclean spirit before they arrived.
He didn’t pray … at that moment, but he did pray—day after day and sometimes night after night, year after year. Jesus’s life was characterized by prayer. It was punctuated by times of prayer. Jesus is not here talking about praying on the spot but about praying before you’re in a spot. This kind does not come out by praying in the moment but by praying (as Paul would later put it) “at all times with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:18) from a life that is increasing in faith.
I’ve known people who seemed to think if they tried really hard to believe and spoke very loudly when they prayed, their request would be answered. I haven’t seen them succeed any more than the prophets of Baal did when they tried the same thing. Prayer that has power is never the prayer of a moment; it is always the prayer of a life – a life connected by a thousand cords to Jesus.
At four places in the New Testament record, we hear Jesus tell his followers, “When you pray …” He took for granted that they would pray. But those words brought something definite to the disciples’ minds that might not come to ours. They understood “When you pray” to refer to the three times every day when they said their prayers. That was their practice and Jesus didn’t put an end to it (though he did instruct them to do it differently).
We will never know the power of prayer if we only pray when we feel like it. Powerful prayers don’t appear magically in an emergency. They come out of a praying life. I was once stuck in a small village in Senegal because the taxi I was riding in had broken down. It was our third car repair of the trip. I was anxious to get back on the road and get our 13-hour cross-country trip behind us – thirteen hours crammed into the back of a small Renault station wagon without A/C in 100-degree heat. Finally, the car was ready. Together with five Africans, my friend and I stuffed ourselves into the car. The driver started it up but, before we could get on the road, the call to prayer rang out over the loudspeakers. Everyone, including the driver, bailed back out of the car, unrolled their prayer mats, and said their prayers, as they do five times every day.
It was three times a day for the people to whom Jesus was talking. When they heard him say, “When you pray,” they naturally assumed he was talking about those regular prayer times. When you read Jesus saying, “When you pray…” does anything definite come to mind? Do you have a regular prayer time? A twelve-second prayer before a meal is good, but it’s like a twelve-second fill up at the gas station. It won’t get you far.
Jesus said, “When you pray,” because he expected his people to pray. His disciples knew from watching him that the power to live well is gained, at least in part, through prayer. It’s no wonder they – men who had been praying all their lives – asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.
When Matthew tells this same story, he includes a part of Jesus’s answer that Mark leaves out. Mark records Jesus saying, “This kind comes out only by prayer,” but in Matthew he begins his answer with, “Because you have so little faith.” Faith is a spiritual muscle that is strengthened (in part) by praying and seeing answers. People who don’t pray don’t have the strength they need when they need it.
Jesus, whose faith in his Father was unbreakable, prayed regularly. He once went on a 40-day prayer retreat. He sometimes prayed through entire nights. He got up early in the morning to pray. And, no doubt, he joined his family, friends, and neighbors in the three daily times of prayer.
I am not suggesting that you go on a 40-day prayer retreat or spend entire nights in prayer (though I am not suggesting that you don’t, either). I am suggesting that you have a regular prayer time each day. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between time spent praying and power, but there is a relationship. I can’t promise that if you pray three times a day you will have power to move the mountain of illness or financial need or marriage troubles. I can promise that if you don’t pray, you won’t.
Some people try to pray as they go, which is the kind of prayer we looked at last week, and is essential to living the adventure with God. But in my own experience, I have found that I am much better at praying as I go if I have prayed before I left. The two kinds of prayer are symbiotic. Our planned prayer time empowers our unplanned prayers and our unplanned prayers enrich our regular prayer time. If I cut out one, the other invariably suffers.
There are stubborn, difficult things in life, in relationships, and in church that will only come out by prayer. If we don’t pray, they won’t change. Learn to pray. Ask for help. Read books on prayer. Make yourself a prayer schedule. Form a prayer group. But just do it. Pray!
Blessing/Sending (1 Thessalonians 5) Now may the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.
[1] Dallas Willard says something very like this – only says it better – in Renovation of the Heart.
Over the years, I’ve seen people come to our church from other churches. At some point, I learn the reason they left their church. Sometimes it is because they moved away. Sometimes it is because the pastor they loved moved away and the new pastor is changing everything. Often, they are looking for a church with better programming (for children, teens, or seniors).
The reason I have heard most often, though, is this: “I didn’t get fed there.” They did not appreciate what the preacher served on Sunday mornings. As a preacher myself, I have often wondered at this response.
Can a pastor speak for twenty, thirty, even forty-five minutes and not give the flock anything to feed on? What is he or she doing in the pulpit for all that time, if not feeding the flock?
When people say they are not being fed, what they may mean is that they dislike the spiritual food the pastor is offering. Perhaps it is dry and tasteless. It has no zing. By the time people are in the car and on the way home they have already forgotten what they were served.
It could be that what the pastor presents is nutritious but boring. There are good ingredients – the teaching is true and biblically accurate – but the ingredients are not combined in the right order. Or something essential has been left out.
It could be that what the pastor presents each week is tasty but not nutritious. People lap it up – the funny stories, the tearjerker illustrations – but there is nothing that will stick to the bone. It is comfort food for the spiritually obese. People get full but they never grow strong.
It could be that the fare a pastor serves is spiritually unhealthy. It might be filled with artificial ingredients – ideas that taste like biblical truth but are man-made rather than God-inspired. Their sermons might even contain traces of theological heresy that slowly poisons those who take it in.
There may be another and quite different reason why people say, “I didn’t get fed there.” They did not care to eat. The pastor may cook up a delicious and nutritious spiritual meal and present it with real artistry. But the person may have no appetite for nutritious spiritual food. They may be stuffed with intellectual and emotional junk food. “I didn’t get fed there” might only be a way of saying, “I’ve lost my appetite.”
Where this is the case, the preacher might be a great orator like John Chrysostom, a theological giant like Martin Luther, or a prince of preachers like Charles Spurgeon and people still won’t be fed. A banquet is served but the family goes hungry nonetheless.
When people say they were not being fed at church, I wonder if they are feeding themselves at home. As important as it is to have a preacher at church who presents truth that is divinely-inspired, relevant, and appealing, it is even more important to have church members who know how to feed themselves at home.
It is the men and women who have learned to nourish themselves on Scripture during the week who derive the most benefit from a sermon on Sunday. They have discriminating tastes. They recognize artificial ingredients, spit out poisons, relish a hearty meal, enjoy a satisfying after-dinner treat.
This means that churches must do more than prepare a tasty and nutritious spiritual feast on Sundays. They must also teach people how to prepare their own spiritual meals at home. They must give people simple recipes for getting the most out of the Scriptures. They must teach them how to marinade a biblical text in prayer, until all its flavors burst forth. And they must share in the feast their members prepare.
Church members who are well-fed at home during the week are those who most enjoy the spiritual meal that is served at church on Sundays. They have a hearty appetite, know good spiritual food when they find it, and recognize poor imitations for what they are. For such people, the call to worship on a Sunday morning is an invitation, a “Bon appétit,” that portends a rich repast.
The Way Home 