Faith Required (Aug 29th, 2021) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, it's a pleasure to be with you again this morning.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, you can open them up to Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

We're going to be in verses 14 to 29 this morning.

And as you're opening there, I want you to think about something that you've done recently that was extremely difficult for you to do.

Or maybe life's been relatively easy recently.

You can think of something that comes to mind that was hard.

And as that thing comes to mind, let me ask you this question: What is it that drives you to do hard things?

Not what is it that drives you to do easy things.

Easy things are called easy things because they're easy to do.

But what is it in life that drives you to do the things that are hardest and the things that are most difficult for you?

I don't know about you, but COVID has not been friendly to me when it comes to stepping on the scale.

I am one of those who has been uh added to the COVID-15 club.

That's when you add 15 pounds through, I mean, this period is getting longer and longer, so there's more and more weight to add, really.

Maybe it's even more than that now.

But I decided that I needed to get out of this club.

This is not a club I wanted to be part of.

So I started running.

And recently I went on a run and I decided I would try to run the longest distance I had ever run.

Now, here's something we know about running, it's difficult.

And we know that because I guarantee you you've never seen a person who's running who has a smile on their face.

They always look like they're ready to die.

And that's probably because they are ready to die at whatever point of their run they're in.

So I left my house and I knew that this would be difficult.

I decided I wouldn't do a loop, I'm just gonna run as far as I can.

I wanted to be able to make it through this difficult endeavor I had put myself on with one goal, not to be found lying in a ditch with both my legs cramping up, having to call my wife to come and get me.

Now, I'm sure you've done similar difficult things in your life, even things of greater difficulty.

And my question this morning is what is it that drives us to do the things that are hard in our lives?

Now, the disciples in Mark chapter 9, verses 14 to 29, they had just been told by Christ that in order to follow him, this would be the most difficult endeavor they would ever take up in their lives.

Mark 9:14–29

In Mark chapter 8, verses 34 to 38, Jesus tells them that if they're gonna follow Jesus, they actually have to take up their cross, this instrument of death, and that to follow him, that to be a Christian, to be a follower of Christ, might even require their life.

Mark 8:34–38

You can imagine the disciples hearing this.

That in order to be a disciple of Christ, you needed to take up this instrument of death and follow him.

Imagine what they understood was the task before them.

They knew that this would be difficult.

They knew that the future would be hard.

Do we?

We know by experience that following Christ is difficult, even more difficult in these times.

His commands can feel hard for us to follow.

Loving him more than the world can seem like an unfair trade-off.

And especially in these times, it can be hard to follow Christ.

And what Christ is telling us this morning, and what he's telling his disciples, is that the call is dangerous and the call is difficult.

And the question that Christ wants to answer for us is what is going to drive us through the difficult and dangerous call?

And the answer we find in Mark chapter 9 is faith.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

That if we are going to take up the call of Christ, if we are going to grow as a disciple of Christ, faith is required.

And so in Jesus' compassion, directly after calling the disciples to this extremely difficult task of taking up their cross and following Him, He will give them the tools to do so.

And what Christ wants to do for you this morning is equip you with the tool that is faith that is required for you to follow Him.

And so the disciples, with their eyes set on Jerusalem, they begin this difficult journey of taking up their cross and following Jesus and learn this lesson that faith is required.

Let's read this text together.

Read it with me.

I'm reading from the ESV in Mark chapter 9, verses 14 to 29.

Mark 9:14–29

And it says this when they came to the disciples, this is the three disciples that Jesus was with on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured, when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd among them, and scribes arguing with them.

And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.

And he asked them, What are you arguing about with them?

And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.

And whenever it seizes him, it throws him on the ground, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.

So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.

God, would you change us?

Would you grow our faith in these moments?

We know that this takes a miracle.

This takes the work of your spirit, working through your word in our hearts as we listen and submit ourselves to you.

So, God, do your work as you will.

We pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Faith is required.

If we are going to be following Christ and growing in our discipleship with Christ, faith is required.

And so the question is if we're going to follow Jesus, how do we grow our faith?

Well, the first thing I want you to see in this text is that I grow in faith when I find faith's fuel.

I grow in faith when I find faith's fuel, and that fuel is Jesus.

Now, first I want you to see in this text the problem.

Jesus is coming down the mountain, and he's with three of his disciples.

And on this mountain, he had just been transfigured.

In the transfiguration, Jesus was revealing this astounding picture of his future glory, his kingdom glory, to his disciples, to James, Peter, and John.

And now he walks down this mountain from this amazing high.

James, Peter, and John had just seen the glory of Jesus Christ, the heavenly glory displayed to them.

And he walks down to this, down the mountain into this bleak picture.

He walks into a scary problem.

And the problem is this is that the disciples lack the thing that is most important for them.

Faith.

We know this is a problem because look at how Jesus rebukes them in verse 19.

Look what he says there.

He says, O faithless generation.

Is he happy about what the scene that he's walking into?

The answer is no.

He looks at his disciples and he sees their faithlessness, and so he cries out, How long am I to be with you?

How long am I to bear with you?

See, Jesus' heart breaks when his followers' faith is empty.

Jesus' heart breaks when we as disciples lack the faith that is required to follow him and grow in him.

And so it's clear that things are not going well for the disciples.

Look at what it says in verse 14.

The scribes were arguing with them.

In verse 15, the crowd is clearly given up on the disciples.

And they breathe the breath of fresh air when Jesus gets there, because now here is one who can finally deal with this problem.

Here is one who can finally mend the situation.

So in verse 16, Jesus asks, What's going on?

And we get a sense of what is exposing the disciples' empty faith.

Look what it says in verses 17 and 18.

It says, Someone from the answer, 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.

See, a man has come to the disciples, and this man has an unclean spirit.

And this unclean spirit's causing this man to convulse in fits and seizures.

And we get a sense of even just how problematic this situation is.

I wonder if you could just put yourself in the shoes of this crowd for a moment.

Because as soon as the spirit sees Jesus in verse 20, look what it says.

Immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.

And this crowd has gathered around this boy who is convulsing in these fits and seizures and foaming at the mouth.

And they gather around this father who's worried for the life of his boy, explaining that from childhood this spirit has been attempting to take the life of this boy, casting him into the fire, casting him into the water.

Jesus walks into the scene, and the biggest, his greatest problem is that the disciples should have been able to deal with this unclean spirit, but here stand these faithless disciples, unable to deal with the unclean spirit that was before them.

See, in Mark chapter 6, verse 7, Jesus had commissioned the disciples.

Mark 6:7

He'd given them a mission, and he had given them the authority to fulfill this mission.

And look what it says in Mark 6, 7.

I'll read it for you.

It says, He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two.

And listen to this, gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

They had been given a mission, and they had been given authority to cast out these unclean spirits.

But here they are standing before an unclean spirit, unable to cast it out.

See, Jesus is teaching us a lesson here.

He's teaching us that doing the work that he gives us is impossible without faith.

See, if our condition is faithless, our calling is fruitless.

And so you need to hear this this morning.

God is often going to put you in situations that you think are way too hard for you.

You are going to be in situations that are harder than you have ever experienced.

And in those moments, you need to ask this question why is he putting me through this?

Why is he making me do this difficult thing?

And the answer is this because he wants you to see your weakness, he wants you to see your emptiness so that you can find the source of faith, Jesus Himself.

See, the answer for the disciples is that they must.

They needed to be continually filled with faith.

And the answer for us as we face difficult and hard things is that we need to be continually filled with faith.

We need to find the source of faith that fills us with faith.

See, to follow Christ is to be like an engine that constantly requires fuel.

I don't know why this happens, but I feel like every time I leave my house that uh for a destination that's more than half an hour away, and I leave, you know, if I have time, this never seems to happen.

But when I leave with just enough amount of time, this seems to always happen.

I turn on the car and I look at the gas uh meter and it says low.

And so this morning as I'm driving here, it's about an hour away, I turn on the car and I have about an hour to get here.

Uh, and I turn on the car and I see low.

And I'm reminded that this car requires fuel to drive.

And what Jesus wants us to remember as Christians is that we require a constant connection to the source of fuel, Jesus Himself.

And that when we lose that source, we're unable to do the things that Jesus has called us to do.

That it is impossible to follow Christ, it's impossible to take up your cross and follow him if you are not connected to the source of faith, Jesus Himself.

And so, one of the reasons why we often find ourselves empty in life rather than filled with faith that drives us to follow Jesus is because we're not filling up with the right fuels.

Instead of looking to Jesus to find uh to fuel our faith, we're looking to other things.

Imagine for a moment, to carry this illustration even farther, that engines need fuel, imagine you were on a plane.

And imagine you saw, maybe you're you know a lot about planes, so you know where the gas goes in.

And so you saw a water truck drive up to the place where gas is supposed to go, and you start the you see them start pouring water into the gasoline tank.

You would stand up and you'd cry out, no, no, no, that's not the right fuel.

That won't work, that won't drive an engine, we're gonna fall out of the sky.

And yet in our lives, we do the exact same things.

We try to fuel ourselves with the wrong fuel.

And I want you to see in this text two wrong fuels.

First, I want you to see that I am wrong fuel.

I'm wrong fuel.

See, reading through the Gospel of Mark, you notice this constant theme.

If you were to read through the Gospel of Mark in one sitting, you'd you would notice this that whenever Jesus leaves the presence of the disciples, things go horribly wrong.

It's exactly like parenting.

You're ever upstairs when your kids are downstairs, especially when they're young and maybe in the toddler age range, you're upstairs and you hear complete silence.

What begins to fill your heart?

Worry.

This cannot be good.

If my kids are quiet and I'm not around, there is no way that I'm coming down to a cleaned up living room.

I am coming down to disaster.

And what we notice in the Gospel of Mark is that every time Jesus leaves the disciples, things go horribly wrong.

We see this in Mark 6.

After feeding the 5,000, Jesus puts the disciples on a boat so that he can stay on land and pray, and immediately they are filled with fear.

As the waves crash over the side of the boat.

In Mark 14, when Jesus leaves again, he leaves the disciples to pray in the garden.

The disciples they fall asleep.

See, the Gospel of Mark, it teaches us this lesson so vividly that a true disciple of Christ crumbles when Christ isn't present.

Jesus understood this.

So before leaving the disciples, he made this promise to them.

He says this in the Gospel of John, John chapter 16, verse 7.

John 16:7

He says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

See, Jesus is saying this that if I die on the cross, if I fulfill my mission of being the Lamb of God, shedding my blood for the sins of the world, then the Holy Spirit will come to you, and I will never have to leave you again like I did in Mark chapter 6, when you went on the boat and were filled with fear, like I did in Mark chapter 14, when I was praying and you fell asleep.

Mark 6 · chapter mention Mark 14 · chapter mention

I will never have to leave you again because you will be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Church, do you hear this promise that the presence of Christ never needs to depart from you?

Because if you are in Christ, if you have placed your faith in him for salvation, you are now filled with the Holy Spirit.

This is why Jesus can say at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, he says, Behold, I am with you until the end of the age.

Jesus' presence never departs those who place their faith in him, because his presence is now inside of them through the Holy Spirit.

And yet, even though it's true that the Holy Spirit lives in you if you are a Christian, even though it's true that Jesus will never depart from you, it is all too possible for us to depart from Jesus.

For us to decide to walk in our own way, for us to decide to go alone.

Just like the disciples who try to cast this demon out without dependence on Jesus or prayer to God, many of us can walk in faith on our own strength.

Well, what might this look like in your life?

Well, here's one way.

Maybe when sin is exposed in your life, maybe a spouse points it out, or maybe someone in your small group brings up sin, or maybe just the Holy Spirit's convicting you one day of sin.

How do you deal with that?

How do you deal with sin that is exposed in your life?

See, some of us what we decide to do is we decide to do it our own way.

We decide that we're gonna grit our teeth, we're gonna clamp down, we make a declaration.

I'm not going to do that sin anymore, I'm done with it.

But if we fight sin with faith in our own strength, we will fail time and time again.

And what Jesus is teaching us is that it requires dependence on Him, following Him as sin is exposed in your life.

As you serve the church, as you disciple your family, as you do all the things that Christ has called you to do, it requires faith.

It requires constant connection to Jesus Christ, it requires complete dependence.

I am wrong fuel.

The second thing I want you to see is that others are wrong fuel.

They are poor fuel.

Now notice what the scribes were doing here.

See, the disciples were depending on themselves, but the scribes, they were arguing with the disciples.

The scribes were standing among the crowd and they were looking for miracles.

And they had this question: if Jesus was really God, then we want the disciples to prove it through this miracle of casting out the demons.

The scribes were standing there and they were looking to the disciples, wanting to see a display of strength, wanting to see a display of amazing ability and miraculous ability to cast out this demon.

But the scribes as well, they teach us something significant that our faith can't be dependent on other people either.

That if we place our faith in other people who are sinners, we will constantly be let down.

See, if your faith is dependent on a person outside of yourself, I want you to know this.

You will be let down.

See, true faith in Jesus, it really changes the lens that we look at people with, doesn't it?

We begin to realize that other people, they're not sufficient saviors.

Wives, take a moment for me and look to your husbands if they're with you here and look to them and say, say these words.

You will let me down.

You will let me down.

I hope you haven't said them already this morning.

I hope this is the first application of that truth.

But look to them and declare this truth to them.

You will let me down.

See, they may be a great man, but they are not the perfect man.

And there will be times where their actions and their words they may hurt you.

He will let you down.

But now, wives, maybe look to your husband and say, I will let you down.

Isn't that the truth?

As well, that just as this other person may let us down, we will let down other people.

See, husbands, placing all your hope in your wife will let you down.

Children, kids, can you look to your parents for a second?

Look to them, ready?

You're gonna really enjoy this.

Okay, this is coming from the pulpit.

I can see some of you are a little too eager for what's coming.

I can see some parents grabbing their kids and heading out of here.

I'm not gonna deal with this.

Can you look to your parents and say, you will let me down?

Oh, can you believe it?

Even your parents aren't perfect.

And see, the reality here is that there is only one who is perfect, and yet many of us have this faith that is dependent on others, so that if this other person fails in some way or sins in some way, our faith is devastated because of it.

And so let me ask you this: how do you react when others let you down?

When someone in your life fails you, when someone in your life doesn't do what you wanted them to do, when someone in your life doesn't bring you the satisfaction that you hoped that they would bring you, how do you react?

Is your faith crushed?

If it is, the problem may be that you are depending on others rather than depending on Jesus Christ.

Listen to the third point, and this is the most important point.

Only Jesus can fuel my faith.

Only Jesus can fuel my faith.

I can't fuel my own faith.

Others can't fuel my faith.

Only Jesus can.

He is the one who is perfect.

He is the one who will never let you down.

And so imagine Jesus walking in this scenario with the disciples and the scribes, and here are the disciples laboring in their own strength.

And here are the scribes depending on others for their faith.

And yet here is Jesus who has called the weak and the lowly to come to him to find rest.

See, God receives great glory when his children are entirely dependent on him.

This is what faith is it is turning to Jesus in complete dependency.

So the crowds, they see Jesus, and the crowds react rightly.

They turn to Jesus and they run to Jesus in amazement.

And look how Jesus responds to the boy.

Look at what he says.

He says, Bring him to me.

Bring him to me.

Church, you see how practical this is?

See, your faith is fueled when your immediate reaction is to bring all things to Christ.

There has never been a moment in your life, there never will be a moment in your life where you are too dependent on Jesus Christ.

Jesus is not looking to his children to be self-dependent.

Jesus is not looking for you to be independent.

Jesus is looking for his children to be completely dependent, to bring all things to him and find help, to bring your requests to him and find answers.

Listen, when you turn to Jesus, he always answers.

He's not like that friend that you text who I don't know why they do this, but they put on the read receipts and you see it's red, but you never get the response.

Jesus will never leave you on read.

He always hears you.

When you turn to him, he always turns to you.

And so turn to Jesus.

Depend on Jesus.

And yet so often we continue to struggle with this, don't we?

We fail to depend on Jesus.

We keep turning to other things instead.

And this leads us to our second point that in order to grow deep faith, we need to fight faith's flaw.

We need to fight faith's flaw, which is unbelief.

See, somewhere along the way, from when Jesus had commissioned his disciples to cast out the unclean spirits, somewhere along the way, the faith of the disciples and the faith of this Father had been brought to a bare minimum.

Instead of their hearts being filled with belief that Jesus can do all things, their hearts were filled with unbelief, that Jesus would be unwilling to help them or unable to help them.

And the thing that Jesus needed to expose as he came down this mountain was that their faith was flawed, was that their faith was being destroyed.

Was that the thing that was most required of them was being attacked.

And so, with expert precision, this is how Jesus works in our lives, with expert precision, Jesus is able to show the man that the faith that's required to see the boy healed was being absolutely destroyed by unbelief.

So at the end of the conversation, this father is able to cry out and confess, help my unbelief.

Now here's my question: what is it that leads to unbelief?

What is it that brought the disciples, that brought the father, that brought the scribes, that brought the crowds to this point?

That their hearts were filled with this unbelief.

See, the reality is that unbelief is active in all of us.

And it's constantly strangling out the faith that is in us that would otherwise be causing us to seek and depend on Jesus.

And so I want you to see in this story three ways that unbelief is present in each of us.

The first way that unbelief might be present in you is you may not believe that Jesus is needed.

You might believe that Jesus isn't needed.

This is what it was like for the disciples.

Notice that in this story, they never sought Jesus' help.

They continued trying to cast out the unclean spirit, believing that they could do this apart from the power and presence of Jesus Christ.

So this is what often keeps us from running to Jesus is this belief that we just don't need him.

This belief can be especially strong in us when life is going really well for us.

Maybe at this time in life things are easy.

You think you're doing fine without Jesus, without constant dependence, without prayer, without faith.

And you need to hear this: that this is the most, it's one of the most dangerous positions that you can be in.

To be thinking that you're fine on your own.

To be thinking that everything's okay.

See, the belief that you don't need Jesus can absolutely destroy your life.

And you'll find yourself like the prodigal son who ran away from his father thinking that he could find true joy and fulfillment outside of the father's house, and yet we all know the story.

He was blind to the destruction that was wrecking his life until his eyes were opened.

And he was eating pig's food.

And he realized that he had fallen far away from the enjoyment and satisfaction he could have had in his father's house.

Second way unbelief might be active in our hearts is we may believe Jesus isn't able.

This is displayed in the man's word in verse 22.

The man says, If you are able to do anything, if you are able to do anything, this man doesn't know who he's standing before.

This man doesn't know that he's standing before the one who is able to do all things.

And so he phrases this question like this if you're able to do anything at all, just please help me do something.

And so Jesus immediately rebukes him and says, All things are possible.

Church, we need this rebuke.

We constantly think that Jesus is only able to do the small things.

Many of us live with this spiritual life motto that if you want something done right, do it yourself.

And so when things go wrong in our life, rather than turning to God in prayer, we begin working harder.

I can fix this.

If I just try harder, I can fix this.

Or some of us we know we can't do anything, so we turn to anxiety.

If I just think about this over and over and over again, maybe I can get myself out of this.

Now, by saying all things are possible, Jesus doesn't mean here that if you just have enough faith, you can make God do whatever you want him to do.

What he is saying is that faith, that your faith should believe in the unlimited power of God.

I love what one pastor says.

He says that you don't ask small things of the God who can do all things.

But though some of us would never say it, we just don't believe.

Maybe we've been conditioned by years of unbelief.

We just don't believe that God's willing to work in our life.

We don't believe that He's that He's even able to work powerfully in our lives.

So some of us we've conditioned ourselves.

Whenever a faith-filled thought enters our mind about what God might do in our lives, we immediately have that thought of unbelief that says, nah, God, God will not do that.

God would never provide that blessing in my life, God would never work that way in my life.

He's just not able to do that.

And one of the ways that you know that you don't believe in God's ability and power is by looking at your prayer life.

And you live if you live a life that's relatively free of prayer, if you're not turning to prayer constantly throughout each day, one of the things that that says about your belief system is that you just don't believe God is able to help you in your day-to-day activities.

See, prayer is hard because in order to pray, you have to stop doing something, don't you?

I mean, you can pray while you're driving or you can pray along the way, but to really have a life of committed prayer, there is a time in the day that you dedicate to doing nothing but praying.

You could be up for maybe those 15 minutes and doing something else, working on something.

But instead, you stop all things and you bow before God and you say, God, would you work in this way?

And what you're doing is you're displaying that your heart believes that these minutes that you spend in prayer, this time that you spend speaking with God, will accomplish more than if you were just to spend that time working.

Disciples of Christ, faith-filled followers, know that prayer is the work.

Prayer is the work.

Their hearts are filled with faith, and so they're constantly turning to God in prayer, knowing that if anything is going to happen, it will happen by prayer.

That's why I love, one of the things I love about this church is that there is always an announcement about the prayer meeting.

With this recognition that if we're gonna accomplish anything great here, it's not gonna be from the lights, it's not gonna be from the amazing worship, it is going to be through prayer that God uses those things.

It requires God's people to pray, to slow down, to say, God, only you are able.

So listen, church.

A church with a healthy prayer meeting, a church with a healthy prayer core, a church that is committed to prayer is a church that God will use to do amazing things.

So, church, commit yourself to prayer.

Commit yourself to praying with the other members of this church.

See, we might believe that Jesus isn't able.

The third thing, third way unbelief might be ruling our heart is that we believe that Jesus isn't willing.

Notice the man gives Jesus an out.

He says, if you can do anything, have compassion and help us.

See, this man needed the faith to know who he was in front of.

He needed to know that in Jesus you will always find the utmost compassion.

That Jesus is filled with compassion and willingness for his children.

You will never turn to Jesus and find someone who is not willing.

This is not who Jesus is.

Jesus is compassionate.

Jesus is there in the time of need.

Jesus is ready and willing to help those who cry out to him.

So listen, church, hear this truth.

When you cry out to Jesus, he hears you and he helps you.

You don't have to pray, Jesus, if you have compassion, Jesus if you are willing, because that's not who Jesus is.

Jesus is compassionate and Jesus is willing, so that when you pray to him, he hears you and responds.

This is the nature of Jesus.

This is exactly what Jesus came to do: to hear the compassionate cries of his children calling out for help.

He's the savior of the helpless, not of those who can help themselves.

This is the work that Jesus came to do.

The man, the father, would request that Jesus would help his unbelief.

And Jesus would do just that by healing the boy and casting out the demon.

The faith that this man required, the faith that the disciples required, would be restored by this magnificent miracle of healing.

He helped the man's unbelief.

And we need that this morning, don't we?

We need Jesus to help us with our unbelief.

And I want you to see this miracle and see how Jesus has helped our faith by showing us this miracle, but know that Jesus has done something even more significant to help our belief.

See, the greatest cure to unbelief is to look to the cross.

See, meditating on the cross can remove all unbelief and can fill our hearts with faith.

Well, why is that?

Well, think about the three areas of unbelief we even saw in this text.

And I want you to notice that the cross counters every one of these areas of unbelief.

The cross shows us that this unbelief is just foolishness, that it's wrong.

So maybe the area of unbelief that you struggle with is that you believe that Jesus isn't needed.

See, the cross proves otherwise.

When we meditate on the cross, we're reminded that Jesus was needed, that the perfect Son of God needed to die on the cross so that we could have perfect righteousness, that we couldn't do it on our own.

We couldn't live a perfect life.

We couldn't be perfectly moral.

We would always fall short of the glory of God, and yet on the cross, when we look at Jesus dying and shedding his blood for sinners, we are reminded that we couldn't do it, but Jesus could.

He was needed for our righteousness.

Second thing, area of unbelief we might have is that Jesus is enabled.

And look at how the cross proves otherwise.

On the cross, Jesus cried these words, it is finished.

It is done.

Your salvation is not a task that is left undone.

It is not like that reno that you started two years ago and you still has the finishing touches to be put on.

On the cross, Jesus cried out, it is finished, it is paid in full, the debt has been erased, your sins have been dealt with.

Redemption is complete and final because Jesus is able on the cross to pay for your sin.

Maybe your area of unbelief is that you just don't believe Jesus is willing, and yet when you look to the cross, you see the Son of God hanging there, and you see that your Savior was willing for the joy set before him to endure the cross.

And see, it's possible that you're here and you've never actually had any faith in Jesus because you've constantly believed he's unable to save you from your sin, or he's unwilling to save you from your sin.

Or you just don't need him to save you from your sin.

And I want you in these moments to look to the cross and see the necessity, the ability, and the desire of Jesus to save you from your sins in this moment, if you will turn to him in faith.

See the cross, it destroys all of our unbelief and it fills our heart with faith.

But there's one last thing that we need to cultivate faith and to grow in faith, and that's that we need to fan faith's flame through prayer.

See, the most important thing Jesus wants to teach his disciples here is that is to depend on him by faith.

But faith has a language, and the language of faith is prayer.

See, those who depend on Jesus, those who have the faith required of them, do this by prayer.

And so as the disciples stand there shocked about what they had just seen, they ask, why could we not cast it out?

And Jesus said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

See, the disciples had been sent to drive out unclean spirits, but Jesus wants us to know that service to him cannot be done unless there is a constant dependency on him and a constant awareness that we are inadequate.

We cannot do it.

See, prayer is faith in action.

When faith grows legs in your life, it will be through prayer.

This is exactly what prayer is, and this is exactly what prayer does.

I love what one pastor says, and I'm quoting him here.

He says, the core of effective prayer isn't discipline, it's desperation.

Let me say that again.

The core of effective prayer isn't discipline, it's desperation.

So if you're feeling overwhelmed, defeated, weak, or insufficient, there's good news.

You're in the perfect spot to pray.

In prayer, all you need is nothing.

All you need is need.

And so in these moments, we could continue to talk about prayer, and maybe I could give you some practical points about prayer and how to cultivate this discipline in your life.

But I think that there's something better to do.

That as Jesus teaches us that faith is required, and as we learn that prayer is faith in action, the best thing that we can do is pray.

And so I'm going to invite the worship team to come up.

And as we sing this song, I want you to commit this song to God in prayer.

There are many ways we can pray.

We can pray with other people, we can pray with our head bowed, silently, and we can pray as we sing.

So would you stand with us and sing this song?

And let's pray this song together as a community to say, Jesus, our faith is in you.