- Welcome to the audio podcast of The Father's House. We hope and pray you are both challenged and encouraged by this time in the Word. - Good morning. Now let's give it up a shout again for all our locations. Napa, East Bay, Roseville, Prison Church and that word. Love you guys. Thank you for tuning in today and all those on the live stream. It is good to be a God's house. Amen. No other place I'd rather be than right here in the presence of Jesus. You can go ahead and be seated today. Whoo, what a day. Thank you, team, thank you, band. Man, I am excited to bring the word to you this morning and we are continuing in the book of Mark. How many of you guys are enjoying this series that we've been in? It's been so good and we are continuing through as we head into chapter nine. And I just really, we sense that the Lord wants to do something in our hearts in a personal way today. As I was praying, as I was seeking God for this weekend, I just really just since the leading of the Holy Spirit, that there are people in the room today and the Lord, he's gonna call directly to you. And you may feel like, oh, I'm just a number in the crowd or I come here all the time or I'm just here, but I really believe in not just saying this in a cliche way, but I do sense that the Lord would draw you in this morning and whatever season you find yourself in that he is going to draw close to your heart. And the book of Mark, he's establishing, Jesus is establishing his authority on earth as we're looking through the ministry years of Jesus. And we're gonna jump into chapter nine, which is kind of a wild chapter. There's a lot going on in this chapter. It starts out and Jesus is transfigured on the mountain and Peter, James and John are there and Elijah, Moses show up out of nowhere and it's this whole cloud moment and God actually speaks through the cloud. And he's like, this is my sign, listen to him. It's this glory fourth dimensional supernatural encounter. It's wild. And then it jumps into verse 14. And that's where I wanna pick up today. If you have your Bibles, you can open up, but I'm gonna read this, it'll be on the screens. And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, Jesus, they were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, what are you arguing about with them? Someone from the crowd answered, "I'm teacher. "I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit "that makes him mute. "And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down "and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. "So I asked your disciples to cast it out "and they were not able." And he answered them, "Oh, faithless generation, "how long am I to be with you? "How long am I to bear with you? "Bring him to me." And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, Jesus immediately convulsed the boy and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. "And it is often cast him into the fire and water "to destroy him." Listen to this, the man said, "But if you can do anything, "have compassion on us and help us." And Jesus said to him, "If you can, "all things are possible for one who believes." And immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe, help my unbelief." And when Jesus saw that, a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to a you mute and death spirit, I command you come out of him and never enter him again. So there is a moment here in Mark. There's a lot of chaos happening. The scribes are arguing with the disciples because the disciples are trying to pray. I mean, just picture this image. They're trying to pray over this boy who is having a very large demonstration of a demonic spirit he's seizing. There's a lot going on with the disciples. They're like, "Why isn't this working? "What's happening?" Jesus comes off the mountain. He's just had this holy moment with God and a few of the disciples. So there's chaos, there's intensity and there's desperation coming from this father. And there's a statement in this passage that I think will resonate with every single one of us in this room and those watching in every location, prison campuses, if you're on the stream, you're sitting in your living room, this will resonate with you today. And that is verse 24 where it says, "I believe but help my unbelief. "I believe but help my unbelief." The father is saying this out of a great, great place of desperation and need. Some translations even say that he was brought to tears. So you're picturing this father with this desperate need in tears and he has this honest and humble moment with Jesus where his faith level in that moment actually goes, "If you can and then changes into, I believe, "but would you help my unbelief?" And listen, Jesus doesn't shame him. He doesn't walk away because of his doubts. No, Jesus reminds him what to believe and then responds to his desperation. And here's what I want you to know today, church. God doesn't despise those who struggle with doubts. In fact, he gives grace to those who humbly and desperately cry out for him for help in their unbelief. And we all have doubts on this journey with God. You could be in the middle of a worship service this morning and be doubting the very words that you're seeking. We all have questions, we all have struggles, we all have areas of unbelief. Why? Because we're human beings and we live on a broken planet. There's also levels and lack of the word of God in our lives, right? We lack in the word and faith comes by hearing. So if we're not hearing the word, then we lack in faith. We lack in times of prayer and praying in the spirit. Jude 20 says we gotta build ourselves up in our most holy faith. Sometimes we lack in the absence of joining together in the community of believers. Hebrews 10, 25 says, "In part courage to one another." There's so many reasons why we struggle in our faith journey with God and we doubt at times pulling away from the faith community into isolation, lacking time with God, not being in his word, lacking in times of prayer and seeking after him will leave us into drifting to unbelief. This is a fight, you're in a fight, I'm in a fight. The body of Christ, the church globally right now, we are in a fight for our faith. And that's why one of the translations of the father has said that he said, "Help me overcome my unbelief." So many things contributing, so many of our unique experiences in life are creating this struggle, this dialogue that we have with ourself, with God, with our situation, like how can I believe and yet have all these questions in my mind? And there was a season for me and I've shared this many times when I've spoken, but there was a time in my life where I struggled in my belief for miracles. Now, prior to this moment, I had seen miracles. Like I literally had saw tumors disappear from someone's body, not joking, not exaggerating. In Fiji, I literally saw tumors just fall off this man. It was crazy. I've seen people with blind knives open and see. I've seen ears that were completely closed, open so they can hear. I've seen people get out of wheelchairs and walk. I have seen, I have witnessed the miracles of Jesus. Even in my own physical body, multiple times, I've been near death and I've, hello, I'm here, right? There's been times where I have witnessed the faithfulness, the goodness and the miraculous power of Jesus. But there was this moment in my life where someone very near and dear to me, my sweet grams, she was 63 years old and she was battling with cancer. And I was so full of faith. I mean, you talk about great faith. I was like, I've seen it, he can do it, he's gonna do it, he's gonna heal her. She was my BF, like best friends for life. I mean, we should have just had the bracelets, right? She was there when Joseph proposed. It was me, Joseph and my grandma. I mean, this is the level that we were at. It was precious. She was super young, she was super hip. She tried to wear our clothes. Like, she was the best of the best. But she battled with cancer and she's suffering and we're watching her suffer through it. But even in the midst of her suffering, I remember one time she was laying on her bed and me and my mom were there and she was just groaning in pain. And I began to weep, but I was like, so full, I might know. You're gonna be healed. Like, I just began to declare it over her body. And long story short, she goes to be with Jesus. And I've shared this story before. But this moment in my life and in my walk with Jesus drastically impacted how I believed and how I doubted. In that moment, everything just woo, a tell spin. Like, wait a second. I've been praying, I've been seeking Lord, what is going on? And I remember in a worship service on a Sunday morning, I came into church, hey, how's everybody doing? Pastor Dr. Cyril, you know, how'd my kids got them ready? Everybody's worshiping and I'm in the middle of my grief and my questions that maybe only me and God know about. And we began to sing, I believe that you're my healer. I believe that you heal every disease. Boom, doubts, boom, unbelief. Standing on the front row with my hands lifted and I remember my hands coming down and my heart just kind of closing in. I can feel it in that moment. And this tension, it's a tension. Lord, I believe, I've given my whole life to you. I've literally given every, I've surrendered every part of me all my days I'm choosing to follow you. But in the tension of, but at the same time, oh boy, do I have some unbelief in my heart. But listen, the enemy tries to put on shame on the believers, right? When we begin to find ourselves in that tension of faith and doubt, right? Belief and unbelief. The shame of the enemy comes and says, who do you think you are? You say you're a Christian. Oh, you think you believe the word of God and then the lies start to flood into our hearts and our minds and then we drift even further back because of the struggle that we're in. But I want to tell you today that God is not afraid of your questions. God's not afraid of our doubts and our concerns and you could be like me, you're singing in a worship service and you're believing and you're declaring while at the same time you're like, is this all true? Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe that healing's for them. Maybe that rescued marriage is for them. Maybe it's not for me, maybe God is good but maybe sometimes and you're in the struggle and today God and his kindness would come with his patience and his goodness and draw us into a place where we can still say, God, I believe but would you help my unbelief? And in that moment in my life, I had to make a decision. I had to choose to step in to the faith journey with Jesus and say, even though I don't understand, even though this doesn't make sense, I will still trust you and I will still believe and I'm telling you today on the other side of that decision, God is still faithful and he is still good and there are promises still to be had and there are miracles still to be done and it took me a while and God and his patience, he walked with me through that season and I can tell you today that I've seen miracles since then and I believed for miracles since then and have seen them come to pass. Does it make sense? No, it's crazy. This journey that we live on this planet while there's a heavenly realm happening at the same time, it doesn't always make sense but we can stand on the word of God that he is faithful and true even in the midst of our doubts. (congregation applauds) I mean, the disciples, let me just take a sip 'cause man, woo. (congregation laughs) The disciples, they literally walked with Jesus. They witnessed the miracles of Jesus firsthand, right? We read about them or we have our own experiences. No, the disciples were literally there when he turned the water to wine. When he healed the people, when the leper got healed, when the 5,000 were fed, they were right there with Jesus and yet sometimes they doubted more than anybody else, right? You got Peter, steps out on the water with Jesus and he's walking on water and some of you just are like, yeah, if I did that, man would believe no matter what, Jesus is son of God, he can do anything, look at me, walking on the water, like this is crazy, this is wild. What happens? He begins to sink because of unbelief and doubt. He sees the waves, he gets afraid and he's like, we start sinking, what does he do? He cries out to Jesus in desperation. Jesus kind of rebukes him and was like, why are you doubting? I'm literally right here. Like he's one of the disciples he saw yet he still had doubts. How about Thomas? He literally has a nickname, doubting Thomas. What a bummer for him, right? But he goes throughout the journey with Jesus. He sees all the stuff as well and he literally told the other disciples, I will not believe that he rose from the grave unless I see it and touch the scars in his hands. This is crazy. And Jesus literally tells him, like, why do you doubt? Give up your doubts, lay your doubts before me. Bible legends, I mean, go through the book, the entire book, you're gonna find these legends, these heroes of our faith that doubted. I mean, you got Adam and Eve from the very beginning, doubted God, Abraham, Sarah, David, Elijah, Gideon, John the Baptist, Moses, when he got called by God, he literally is like, whoa, not me, find somebody else. I think you chose the wrong guy. He had so much doubt in his heart. There was a tension in the hearts of the heroes of our faith. Why do we think that there's not gonna be tension in our hearts today? As Christ follows in the 21st century, we're walking around, the world is just crazy right now. And we think, why do I have these doubts? When these legends who did incredible things for God, you literally parted the Red Sea, you literally walked on water. They questioned Jesus as well. But doubts don't disqualify you as a believer, but they should cause you to desperately cry out to God. In our desperate faith cry, he will meet you there. In the midst of these vulnerable moments, in our lives, and what feels like defeat and failure, God has compassion toward those who will cry out to him. God has compassion and will turn to those who cry out to him, even if it feels like a mustard seed of faith. If you cry out to Abba Father, he will turn and hear your cries. So let me ask you this question today. And I wanna give us a little time at the end because I really believe that in our response time, God wants to do something like I said, personally, in every single heart. Even right now as I'm speaking, doubts are just even as like, what's she saying? True, is this like that? Doubts are flooding. But I believe today that you're gonna have a moment with Jesus. Some of you need a moment with Jesus. Some of you are longing and are desperate for a moment with Jesus. And today I believe is your day. This isn't an accident that we're here. This isn't some coincidence. No, we are meeting in the house of God where everything begins to make sense when we are in his presence. When we come into the house of the Lord, there's clarity. And I believe today that that is for you today. But I wanna ask you this question. How much faith does it take to get God's attention? What a question, right? Look, I thought he had my attention. You know, like a little spoiled kid that like always has the attention. No, how much faith does it take to really get God to turn and go, I see you. Let me come to that need. How much faith does it take? Enough faith to get up and go to where Jesus is. Enough faith to get up and go to where Jesus is. I talked about the paralytic man a few weeks ago. And it took enough faith for him and his friends to get him to Jesus. I can't let the tension cause me to draw away from Jesus. No, I gotta push into it and have enough faith to get to him. I can't just sit back and go, oh, well, here we are, this is it. Oh, it's been a struggle. Every day's a struggle and he'll do what he's gonna do if he wants to. What? No, let faith arise. Even if it feels weak, even if it feels not enough, let faith arise and get to Jesus because he heals our hearts when we're found in his presence. When you get into his presence where he is, there is healing, there's restoration, there's clarity, there's everything you need. All you need is some faith to get to Jesus. How much faith does it take to get his attention? Enough faith to agree with what God says and say yes. Mary, the mother of Jesus, she said, be it unto me according to your will. In other words, she's like, I don't understand, but you have my yes. I don't understand the situation I'm in, but you have my yes. I don't know why it didn't work out like I thought it was going to or like I wanted it to, but no matter what, Jesus, you have my yes. If you have enough faith today to say God, I say yes to whatever you want, he has, or you have his attention. How much faith does it take? Enough faith to cry out even in the face of the crowd. I mean, blind Bartimaeus, right? Bart is out there, he's crying desperate. His disciples are like, quiet. Jesus is coming through, no, no, no, no. What does he do? He continues to cry. Son of David, have mercy. Son of David, have mercy on me. He wasn't embarrassed. He wasn't ashamed. No, he was a desperate man with a desperate need reaching out to Jesus. And the man in this story that we started out with, this father, this desperation that was in his heart, the tension between belief and unbelief. He says, I believe, but help my unbelief. This man is in some serious fatigue. He's been taking care of his son since he was a young man. As he said, he falls into the fire, he falls into the water. You can just imagine that this man has been struggling throughout the night, throughout the day, taking care of his boy. And he comes to the disciples and they're like, we can't do anything. We don't know, like, and hope gone from the father. Man, I came here, I thought that he would get healed. Oh, now I'm back to square one. But yet this desperate, and this desperation rises up inside of him and he says, but help my unbelief. And that tense of that word help. It means help me forever. Help me continually. Help me for the rest of my life. How good is that? He's not just saying, help me in this moment. Heal him so we can just, like, go on with our life. We gotta go to the grocery store and do a couple of things. No, he's like, help me in my unbelief for the rest of my life. Even if you heal my son in this moment, there are still gonna be situations that come around that I'm gonna need the help of the heavenly father. And so I'm crying out, help in desperation for not just the here and now, but for the rest of my days continually, every single day that I wake up, every worship service I find myself in, every traumatic experience, every situation that doesn't make sense, I'm gonna need the help of the father. So if you got enough faith to just cry out, then it's good enough. If you have enough faith today, just say, Jesus, I'm desperate, which you come to my need, then you have the attention of the Almighty God, and he will lean over, and he will look, and he will see, will you be there standing, crying out with your hands, lifted, saying, God, I need you. And listen, I don't care if your life is going great, and you're like, I'm on the mountain top, and I got on the money I need, and everything's fine, our relational, and if you are in that place, I'd love to talk to you, 'cause I'd love to see what's been going on. But if you're like, dude, everything's just going, we're just skipping through life, d-d-d-d-d. I still know, because I've experienced it, that there are still doubts in your mind toward who Jesus is. There's still questions that weigh in the back, and honestly, today, I believe that the Holy Spirit would want you to come honestly before him, and pull out any of that stuff, but maybe you've been bearing, you haven't been thinking about. He's like, let's reveal it this morning. So where are you at today? Just take self inventory, and then we're gonna sing, I'm gonna have the band come. Where are you at today? You may be sitting in some questions and some doubts even right now as we speak. You might be distant, you might even not be able to acknowledge that there's doubts and unbelief. And maybe you feel like your faith is just disintegrating. It's like you're losing your faith, you're losing the battle, and you feel like a failure, and you feel that shame just covering you today. Like, I'm not enough, I don't have enough, I don't believe enough. God's not gonna have, I'm not gonna get His attention because of the place that I'm in. Where are you at in this moment? 'Cause listen, you do not have to be perfect, you don't have to have it all together. You can bring your doubts and your confusion, and your pain, and your failure, and your fatigue, and your suffering, and whatever it is that you've been facing, you can bring it to Him today, and lay it at His feet. But faith has a vocabulary. Faith has a vocabulary today, we're gonna cry out to Jesus in a very simple way through song. 'Cause that's what I do, that's what King David did. We're gonna cry out with a prayer today. And as I was praying for you, man, this song just kept coming to my mind, this old hymn, "I Need Thee." 'Cause even in my life, man, last week, I'm sitting on the couch, doubts and things coming through my mind, and I had to just wait on the Lord, say, "Father, take out the doubt what I believe, but help my unbelief in this thing, the situation that I see. Take out the doubts that are in my heart, that are callousing my heart toward you, that are distancing my heart toward you." And this message is very simple, it's very just like belief, unbelief, faith, doubt. But what I want you to get today is that He's listening in and He's leaning in to those who will cry out. It's all across the system. When you just close your eyes for a moment and make it personal, pretend like there's nobody here but you and Jesus. Psalm 50, 15 says, "You can let doubt, fear and worry overtake you, or you can call upon the Lord. God has promised that if you call upon Him, He will deliver you." We're just gonna make this our response today. You can sing it or you can just receive, but I want that cry within your heart to come, just well up within you. (gentle music) ♪ Oh, I need thee ♪ ♪ Oh, I need thee ♪ ♪ Every hour I need thee ♪ ♪ My one defense ♪ ♪ My righteousness ♪ ♪ Oh God, how I need thee ♪ ♪ Come see me ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, I need thee ♪ ♪ Oh, I need thee ♪ ♪ And every hour I need thee ♪ ♪ My one defense ♪ ♪ My righteousness ♪ ♪ Oh God, how I need thee ♪ So just right where you are, just responding to Him today. Cry out to Him today. In your desperation, He's leaning in this way. No matter how many doubts have flooded, no mama, how much unbelief is there, no matter what you're facing, no matter what your situation says, He's so faithful, He's so good. ♪ Oh Lord, I need thee ♪ ♪ Oh, I need thee ♪ ♪ And every hour I need thee ♪ ♪ My one defense ♪ ♪ And my righteousness ♪ ♪ Oh God, how I need thee ♪ ♪ More than the end of me ♪ ♪ Oh, more than the end of my dream ♪ ♪ And more than the song I see ♪ ♪ And more than the next song I see ♪ ♪ Oh God, more than anything ♪ ♪ Lord, as heart goes by ♪ ♪ I will be by no side ♪ ♪ 'Cause I never want to go ♪ ♪ Tomorrow ♪ ♪ I need you ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus ♪ ♪ We need you ♪ I'm gonna call on Him right now. ♪ We need you, we need you ♪ ♪ We need you, Lord ♪ ♪ Oh, we believe and help our unbelief ♪ ♪ Oh, we believe that you will come ♪ ♪ But help the place is where we struggle, Lord ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ ♪ Jesus, come on, He's meeting you right there ♪ ♪ Right there where you are ♪ ♪ Right there in the middle of it all ♪ ♪ Right there in your circumstances ♪ ♪ Right there in the diagnosis ♪ ♪ Right there in your loss and your grief ♪ ♪ Right there in your situation ♪ ♪ He's meeting us today, Church ♪ ♪ He's coming close ♪ ♪ He has our full engagement ♪ ♪ He has our affection today ♪ ♪ And we have the attention ♪ ♪ And we all have He got us ♪ ♪ We're desperate for Him ♪ ♪ As we cry out to Him ♪ ♪ Jesus, we need you ♪ The response of this message is just this, what we're doing right now. Crying out to Him with our full need and desperation. What I do wanna say, if there's those of you in the room and you have not fully given your life to Jesus, you can't even be in this posture of saying yes to Him because you have not said yes fully with every part of your life. Just even as we're in this moment and you're saying, I need a savior, I need to be saved. I need to be rescued out of the life that I've been living, the life that I've been in. I just want you to lift your hand right now. If the campuses are still with us and you're in the room, lift your hand if you're on stream and just tell Jesus, here I come, Lord, I'm coming. I need you, I give you every part of me. Even the little faith that I have, I say, Lord, you can have every part of me. Campuses can be dismissed in this moment right here in this room. In all the livestream, I just want us all together just to pray this prayer out. As our response today, would you just say, Dear Lord Jesus, I give you every part of me. I come desperately to you now. I ask that you would wash away my sins and I repent of all that I've done. And Lord, from this day forward, I choose to follow you. From this moment on, you have my yes. From today until eternity, until I see you face to face, I give you every part of me. And Jesus might be there. Everybody said amen, amen. Hey, would you save your feet? We're gonna continue. The band's gonna keep worshiping. If you need to just make that desperation cry this morning, you can come down to these altars as our prayer team comes. Love you so much. Have the best week. Have the most secret rally conference. For more information on our church, log on to our website at TFH.org or check out the TFH app. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
