Mark 9:14–29 — How Much Faith Is Enough?

This sermon is from Mark chapter 9 verses 14 through 29 and is entitled "How Much Faith

Mark 9:14–29

is Enough."

It was delivered to Ecclesia churches on Sunday, October 5, 2025.

Over the course of Jesus' ministry so far, we have seen a lot of examples of faith and

also many examples of a lack of faith.

So if you think back with me, we've seen as early as Mark chapter one, a leper, display

a huge measure of faith.

He doesn't even question whether Jesus is able to heal him.

It only wants to know if Jesus is willing to heal him.

And then at the other end of this kind of spectrum of faith on display, we have the people of

Nazareth, Jesus' own hometown where he grew up.

And in Mark 6, they display so little faith in Jesus that they won't even come to him

for healing.

And Jesus wonders at their lack of faith.

The disciples have kind of waffled back and forth between being empowered by Jesus to

heal people and cast out demons.

And then on other occasions, they've questioned Jesus' ability to even put bread on the table

and even challenged him when he brings up this topic of suffering.

Most recently, after finally declaring their belief that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus takes

three disciples, Peter, James, and John, up on the mountain, where he is transfigured

into a glorified form right there before their eyes.

Even after being told by the voice of God in that moment to listen to Jesus, as they

come down the mountain, they disbelieve what Jesus tells them about how he must die and

rise from the dead.

such an inconsistent response, even from the people who are the closest to Jesus.

The question kind of is begged here, "How much faith exactly is enough?"

And it's an important question. It's one that I've encountered often in talking with people

even today. How much faith is enough? Is it a scale on which I just have to be closer to

the leper than the Nazarenes? Can I even know that I have enough faith or do I need to live in

kind of fear and uncertainty until the end? How much faith do I need before being baptized,

for example, to make it a legitimate baptism in faith? This question is central to salvation,

especially if we're going to say that salvation is received by grace alone through faith alone

Christ alone. So I hope that we can walk away from this passage today with not only a greater

confidence in the provision of Jesus for us, but also a more biblical way to measure faith entirely.

Because according to God's word, far more important than how much faith you possess is

who your faith is in. This is a measure that is far less about strength and is far more about

surrender. So let's get into it and let's join Jesus and Peter and James and John as they come

down the mountain to find the other nine disciples in a mess. This is Mark chapter 9 starting with

Mark 9 · chapter mention

verse 14. "And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and the 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 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." So Jesus calls this crowd that he comes back to, a faithless generation.

In the absence of faith in Jesus, you're kind of always left with chaos, and this situation is

certainly chaotic. So let's back up for a moment and kind of take stock of the situation and see

what we can learn about being a faithless generation or rather avoiding that. So in the absence of

Jesus and the three of his disciples, a crowd has come and assembled at the base of this mountain

looking for him, but they haven't found him. Instead, they found nine of the twelve disciples

waiting at the bottom of the mountain for Jesus to return. And along with the crowd of people

looking for Jesus, a father has come with his child, who is possessed by a demon and is experiencing

seizures. But by the time Jesus comes back, the situation has devolved significantly.

the disciples have tried and failed to cast out the demon. And then the scribes are now actively

arguing with the disciples. And the man and his son are almost forgotten in the background. And it's

chaos. And while the crowd is excited to see Jesus coming, because he's the one that they wanted in

the first place, Jesus doesn't waste a moment and asks what they are arguing with his disciples about.

And the scribes actually don't even answer before a voice comes from the crowd saying,

"Teacher, this man in need is so forgotten that we don't even know who he is at this point.

He's just a voice in the midst of the crowd." And it is to this crowd, and most specifically,

describes that Jesus exclaims, "Oh, faithless generation."

Jesus doesn't actually chastise or correct his disciples here at all, not even for failing

to cast out this demon.

And we'll talk about why that happened later, but to their credit, the disciples have tried

to soldier on in the absence of Jesus, even imperfectly.

But what Jesus expresses frustration over and, for us, points to a sign of faithlessness

is the behavior of the scribes and the crowd.

Why?

How do these people set an example of a lack of faith in Jesus?

We don't know from the text what the scribes were arguing with the disciples about.

But what's more important is their hunger for an argument.

Because this poor, heartbroken, hopeless man is here with his son looking for help from

the followers of Jesus, but the scribes have no interest in helping them at all.

The scribes are more interested in bickering with the disciples while their master is away,

to prove them wrong, to prove them incompetent.

Who knows exactly what they're trying to prove?

But these men, who are so well versed in the Word of God, who were supposed to be spiritual

leaders and example-setters for the community, are more interested in their own supposed

religious superiority than anything else.

And the crowd for their part isn't much better, because they're huddling around the argument

and they run to Jesus to see which side of the argument he will come down on.

This is a crowd who is hungry for a spectacle, they're hungry for a show, and they have very

little desire to see the mercy of God on display for those who need it most.

And the disciples, well, they've allowed themselves to become distracted by the agitators and

the crowd, and they've lost sight of the only person in that crowd that Jesus ends up wanting

to see when he gets there.

which we cannot afford to lose sight of Jesus and the gospel or the mission because we are

distracted by a thousand other lesser arguments.

I think we all know that the chaos of the world is tempting to lose ourselves in because

it's loud and it's present and it's persistent.

It's easy to be more influenced by the cultural leaders, political and otherwise, and the

and the causes that they shout about the loudest.

It's easy to let your soul be stirred by the people who like to comment endlessly about

what has been said and done and argued about.

And it's easy to let your heart be troubled by the news cycle and follow the crowd and

their concerns, what's trending, what's popular, what's newsworthy.

So let me just ask you to be so, so careful about the time and energy and ultimately the

influence that you give to these voices.

We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and remain firmly rooted in His Word if we are to stand

on a firm foundation.

So here, faithlessness doesn't actually begin by not having enough faith in Jesus.

It begins by willingly putting our faith in just about everything else.

Satan's strategy so often relies on keeping us busy and distracted and preoccupied by

anything but Jesus and the mission that he has called us on.

So the good news for anyone who has ever been let down by the followers of Jesus when we

get distracted, when we are unfocused and unfaithful, the good news is that Jesus is

always faithful.

So let's see how he deals with this child and specifically with his father.

This is verses 20 through 24.

And they brought the boy to him.

And when the Spirit saw him, immediately it 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 has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him.

But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

And Jesus said to him, "If you can, all things are possible for one who believes."

Immediately, the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe.

Help my unbelief."

Here we have two problems that are presented.

The most obvious one is the child, who is under assault from a demonic entity.

But the most serious for Jesus is a question about the faith of the Father.

So let's talk about both of those in turn.

Let's first recognize that the condition of this boy sounds an awful lot like a condition

today that we would refer to as epilepsy or epileptic seizures.

So it might be tempting to the modern reader to interpret this through our own lens as

just a misunderstanding of physical illness.

a movement by some modern scholars even to not take God at His word and try to reason

away anything spiritual or supernatural or miraculous in Scripture.

The author C.S. Lewis referred to this as chronological snobbery, which is the mistake

that modern people make by thinking any idea is truer simply because it is newer.

And we don't want to fall for that.

So there are many ways in which ancient people were actually more advanced and educated than

modern man, frankly, especially when it came to the Word of God.

But more important here is the actual content of the passage, which tells us that this isn't

your garden variety seizure disorder.

For one thing, it seems intent on killing the boy and intentionally causes seizures

to happen when the boy is around fire or a body of water throwing him into either one

of those. Epileptic seizures do not have intentionality. But more clearly, it says, "The Spirit

saw Jesus and reacts." And Jesus continues to address the demon throughout the passage.

Now is it possible or even likely that this boy suffers from a seizure disorder and has

been possessed by a demon who takes advantage of that? Certainly. Because demons have no

morality system or issue with taking advantage of the weak. I think this is probably more common,

especially in situations with mental illness than we realize. I do believe that demons have no issue

with taking advantage of people with conditions like schizophrenia, depression, the list goes on.

But why do I think that it's important that we address this, that it's not just a physical issue,

it is a spiritual issue? Because one significant thing that will threaten our faith

is the prideful belief that we know better than God's word, that we can twist and reason and

reinterpret His Word to read in such a way that it is more comfortable or understandable to us.

I have no issues with science and scientific research.

In fact, the scientific method is a wonderful system

when we actually follow it in our science, but science is based on our knowledge

and our reason and what we can see.

So, therefore, scripture should always hold authority over our thoughts

because it isn't based in the limited knowledge of man,

but in the revelation of a limitless God.

So let's turn to this man now because that's what Jesus does.

In the middle of this demon forcing the child to seize on the ground in front of them,

Jesus remains unthreatened by this show of force by the enemy.

He turns to the father and he asks, "How long has this happened?"

This isn't the arbitrary question that it seems,

but is actually an invitation to this man to share his story in his heart with Jesus,

which is what he does. It's significant that this has been happening since childhood,

because the assumption of the crowd and the community would likely have been that the father,

not the child, was at fault for this, that this was some kind of punishment for something the

father had done. And they would have believed this was probably caused by that. It's an assumption that

Jesus actually challenges elsewhere in John chapter 9 actually, but here Jesus isn't concerned with

John 9 · chapter mention

what the faithless crowd believes, but rather he's concerned with what the man believes.

Remember, this man has already had his hopes dashed once by the failure of the disciples,

And now comes to Jesus, likely with even less faith than he likely started with,

that Jesus can help his son, that anyone can help his son.

He does not have the confidence of the leper in Mark 1 to say, "If you will," but instead he says,

"If you can do anything."

But unlike the faithless Nazarenes in Mark chapter 6, this man does have the faith to do one thing,

Mark 6 · chapter mention

to come to Jesus in the first place. Jesus doesn't take offense at this man's lack of faith,

but he does address it, and he poses a question to the man with this statement,

Anything is possible for one who believes.

He doesn't say for the person with enough belief or enough faith.

He doesn't say for the person without any doubts.

He doesn't make any comment about the amount of faith that the man has at all,

but rather that he needs to simply believe.

What's the unspoken part here?

it's that the man needs to bring whatever faith he does have and put it in Jesus.

And the man responds with such honesty in what will be the pinnacle statement of this passage,

"I believe, help my unbelief." We can learn an awful lot about responding in faith to Jesus

from this passage and from this man. Jesus is going to respond in a moment here,

validating this confession of faith. But the key takeaway is that Jesus was never

concerned with the amount of faith or hope or belief that this man possessed. The question

for the man and for us is, are you willing to put all the faith you have in Jesus?

The man also recognizes that he is weak and is struggling with unbelief, with a lack of faith.

And he's honest with the Lord about that as well, crying out for help.

There's a German pastor from the early 1900s named Gründmann who put it this way.

He said, "Real faith always recognizes its inadequacy."

But people who recognize that their faith needs to be stronger and feel inadequate

can still have confidence in Christ. That should be good news for us.

Let's go back to that well-worn phrase about salvation, that salvation is a gift of God

that we receive by grace through faith.

How is it that our small, inadequate faith is sufficient?

How is it that that little amount of faith that we have is enough?

Because God's grace is sufficient.

In 2 Corinthians 12, 9, the apostle Paul reveals that God said to him, "Regarding his own concerns

about insufficiency. My grace is sufficient is enough for you. My power is made perfect

in your weakness. So the question of saving faith is now not about quantity, it's about

quality. It's not about how much faith you have, it's whether you are willing to put

all of your faith in Jesus alone.

So for those of you who are still considering following Jesus,

let me just encourage you that you do not have to wait

until you have everything figured out

and feel like you have all of the answers

because you know what, this side of heaven, you never will.

I would invite you to come to Jesus now

with what you do know, with what you are sure about

and put what faith you do have in Him alone.

And that's gonna look like taking one more step after another in obedience to Christ.

That's gonna look like taking your faith out of all the places that you've been

holding on to for dear life, all the places that you've been looking to for peace,

and instead put all of that faith in Jesus alone.

Because you cannot find salvation and life in Jesus plus something else.

He is either your only hope, your Lord and your Savior,

or He isn't.

And yes, that does look like a process

as the Spirit of God and the Word of God

reveal those places where the enemy still has a foothold,

where you are still misplacing your hope,

but it begins with coming to Jesus

and laying what you do have at His feet

and saying, "Everything I have is yours, Jesus.

Help me with whatever unbelief remains.

For those of you who have put your faith in Jesus,

we too get to come to Jesus honestly

with our remaining lack of faith.

We can confess what we struggle with to Jesus

because he's not going to turn us away.

Having faith in Jesus doesn't mean not having doubts.

It means bringing those doubts to Jesus too

and watch what he will do.

So with that in mind, let's see what Jesus does here

with the close of this passage.

This is verse 25 through 29.

And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together,

he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it,

you mute and deaf spirit, I command you,

come out of him and never enter him again.

And after crying out and convulsing him terribly,

came out. And the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead."

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house,

his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" And he said to them, "This kind

cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

This entire account of Jesus healing this boy is actually found in three of the Gospels,

but Mark's account of it is actually twice the length of the others.

That is very odd for Mark, who is usually known, as we've talked about, for being the

most brief and straight to the point.

But we also know that much of Mark's material has come from the first-hand account of Peter.

Last week we talked about how the perspective of the cross was necessary to really understand

everything that led up to it.

The glory of Jesus must be understood through the road that leads to suffering, and the

prophets were best understood and clarified by Jesus.

So let me just give you a view of this through a different lens that might make some sense

of why we are getting this detailed account from Mark via Peter's account of it.

Jesus has just finished telling them, remember, about his death and resurrection that is to

come and that suffering leads to glory.

And here we have the following take place with this casting out of the demon.

the enemy cries out in what seems like a victory cry, which makes the boy suffer and leaves him

like a corpse. And everyone thinks the boy is dead, and they kind of lose interest in the situation

because of it. But then after a tense moment in the original language, verse 27 reads that Jesus

raised him up or resurrected him and he arose. So it becomes clear to Peter later,

as he recounts to Mark, that Jesus is giving them in this moment a powerful

picture of his death but also of his resurrection, of what's happening behind

the scenes where the enemy has a victory cry just before he is defeated.

But what is this conclusion to the story also tell us about faith? In this moment with the boy

being healed, we are reminded of how Jesus is worthy of our trust because he has all authority

to do His will. But from the wider perspective of the cross, we are reminded that Jesus is ultimately

the faithful one. The one who suffered and died and rose from the dead for people like us,

we of little faith, can put that faith completely in Jesus, the faithful one. This is about surrendering

to Jesus and trusting his faithfulness when our own faith is lacking.

And that also was the key to the boy's healing.

Because when the disciples question him later about why they weren't successful, Jesus

replies kind of matter-of-factly that this kind of enemy can only be driven out by prayer.

Because what is prayer?

Prayer is a petition.

a request directed to God that admits, "Not my will but yours, and this has to be not

by my strength but yours."

Prayer is an expression of true faith that recognizes our weakness and inability to do

the thing that needs done and rests instead in God's strength and His ability.

The disciples had tried to drive out this demon kind of on their own authority.

And this demon wasn't going to respond to any authority but that of God himself.

It wasn't going to respond unless God himself drove it out.

And notice that Jesus says they needed to pray, but Jesus didn't stop to pray.

He rebukes the evil spirit himself, because of course, Jesus is God.

So as we close up this passage, let's consider a few things.

First and foremost, we recognize that Jesus is the faithful one,

and that our hope rests on his sufficiency,

not on our strength or the strength of our faith.

It's actually helpful for us to recognize

that we are a people often with little faith,

but we can place that faith in Jesus

and be absolutely secure.

We can also bring our lack of faith to Jesus as well,

and trust Him to work in us as Hebrews calls Jesus

both the author and perfecter of our faith.

We will grow in our faith as we continue coming to Jesus

and walking with Him in obedience.

We don't need more faith to share the gospel.

We need to take a step of faith to start those conversations

relationships, trusting that God is actually the one who saves.

We don't need more faith to break free of that habit.

We need to actually just take the next step away from it today, trusting that God will

supply the strength we need for tomorrow.

Our faith is actually perfected by Jesus as we take steps of faith in obedience to Him,

surrendering our lives to Him and to Him alone.

Ultimately, we know that we will never be enough, and so we live in such a way that

we are simply pursuing Jesus with every step, knowing that we are secured by the grace of

God alone through the little faith that we have placed in Christ alone.

Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Councilbloss, Iowa and in homes

throughout the week.

We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus.

You can learn more about our statement of faith and contact a pastor by visiting eclaseachurches.org.