Mark 9:14-19; 28-29

14 When they returned to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd surrounding them, and some teachers of religious law were arguing with them. 15 When the crowd saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with awe, and they ran to greet him. 16 “What is all this arguing about?” Jesus asked. 17 One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. 18 And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” 19 Jesus said to them, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? 28 Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” 29 Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer and fasting.”

Jesus, Peter, James and John have been on the Mount of Transfiguration, in the presence of God and now they return to the problems of the valley. Most of us want to live on the excitement of the high peaks in our lives. We crave the moments of majesty on the mountain over the mundane. We try to thrive on the thrill of the mountain top, not wanting to descend into the difficulties of unbelief and religious ridicule. As Jesus descends to meet the disciples He is greeted by two groups, the religious leaders who hold a grudge, as He arrives they are arguing with His disciples, and the crowd who run to greet Him. In the absence of the Almighty we end up with argument yet in His presence there is awe. What a contrasting scene, the religious leaders in deep dispute, determined to set the disciples straight spiritually and those who are delighted to see Jesus. Yet the real fighting is not over who is right but who needs released. Faith has the power to:

• Free

Jesus asks them for an answer to the anger but it is a man in the crowd that answers. “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. 18 And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” No wonder the disciples didn’t speak up, their faith has failed. I’m sure they had desired to prove their power in the presence of the Pharisees but they were pathetic. They were unable to free this young man from the destructive grip of demonic powers. It is important that we recognize demons are real, their aim is to discourage, disfigure, defeat and destroy. Today we are deceived into dismissing demonic powers yet they are real and relentless. Some of the deceptive thinking today lies in our faulty belief that as Christians we are free from the influence of Satan. Yet here are the disciples who walked with Jesus unable to free this young man through faith. Jesus’ response is important. He said,“You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you?” Jesus was not embarrassed by His followers, He doesn’t focus on their failure but their faith in the face of the enemy. Here we hear the holy voice of godly sorrow over the state of unbelief in a faithless people. Satan is at war with us, he is our enemy and his goal is not to embarrass but to destroy. This young man bound in the bondage of demonic powers is an example of Satan’s intention. In verse 21 we hear Jesus second question as He asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him.” Here we are given insight into the malignant nature of Satan and his demons, to control, they seek to kill. The problem is that when it comes to seeing people set free the disciples look for a:

• Formula

After failing to deal with this demon and watching Jesus drive it out they asked Jesus, “Why could we not cast him out?” Jesus reminds them that faith is not a formula as He replies, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting” They had walked with Jesus and witnessed His power yet somehow missed the prayer. Faith must express itself in communication with God and in personal sacrifice. Prayer is linking one’s life up with the Lord, listening to Him and obeying Him. Fasting is a matter of self-denial and surrender to the work of God in our lives. If we want to do anything significant for God we are going to have to be willing to spend time with Him and sacrifice some things for Him. The disciples had not done this, they had not taken the time to seek God in this situation, or sacrificed through self-denial. Faith is always tied to our focus on the Father. Our faith reveals our relationship with the Father, when we spend time in His presence through prayer we trust. There is a common connection between this kind of faith and what we do in our Christian lives. Those who don’t believe don’t pray and those who do not believe and do not pray certainly will not fast or deny themselves. When we don’t dwell in His presence there is no desire to deny self and surrender to the Savior. Dealing with the enemy is dependent on prayer and self-denial, this lack of power wasn’t a people problem but a prayer problem. The freedom through faith is found as we fast with our focus on the Father. There is power in prayer as we come into the presence of God in simple surrender. Today is your faith focused on the Father or a formula?

Luke 7:36-40

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. 37 When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. 38 Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. 39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!” 40 Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

As Jesus speaks to Simon he doesn’t just reveal Simon’s heart but He reveals several important principles that are as meaningful today as they were when He spoke them.

• First, just like the two people in the parable, everyone is spiritually in debt – verses 40-42

• Second, just like the characters in the parable, we can never repay the debt – verse 43

The good news is that forgiveness is available to all but forgiveness is not free, it always cost something. For the lender in the parable it cost 550 silver pieces to forgive those that were indebted to him. Forgiveness always cost something and when God said, “I will forgive you” it cost the life of his only son, Jesus, on the cross of Calvary. The Savior paid the sin debt, not so that we wouldn’t have to, but because we could not. Today when it comes to forgiveness we seem to error in one of two ways. Either we think we can pay our own way, where we get caught up in working to win forgiveness, a carrot we can never attain. Or we accept God’s payment without acknowledging the agony and cruelty of the cost. Instead of ending up with God’s grace we have a cheap grace or a “be good to get grace” life, either way we trade His treasure for trash. The woman came to Jesus because she knew she was immoral without any illusion of righteousness, but she also came crying because she knew the cost of forgiveness. Christ’s conclusion is clear, Simon, as a “high class” priest, had the same problem as the “low class” prostitute; we may measure degrees of sin but they all bring death. The woman’s wage may have been the greater debt but they both owed a debt that they could not pay.

• Third, those who Come to Christ will not be turned away (vv. 44-46)

Jesus now does something toward the one seeking that we need to see. As He continues to talk to Simon, the proud Pharisee, He shifts his position so that he faces the woman, giving her his attention and acceptance. In verse forty-four we are told, “Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon.” During the meal Jesus has His back to the woman while He facing his host, Simon. Now as Simon’s rejection of Jesus is revealed He turns away and toward the woman worshipping at His feet. Here we see who is received and the painful contrast between repentance and rejection. Jesus turned his back on his host to face this woman even though he was still addressing Simon. Simon had turned his back on this woman because of who she was and now Jesus uses her as an example to show Simon who he really is. Jesus now asks a powerful and penetrating question, “Do you see this woman?” Jesus wasn’t asking if they were aware of her presence or if they knew what she used to do but if they had seen what she had just done. In his hurry to judge her past, Simon had missed her heart in the present. In recounting what she has done Jesus revealed what Simon had refused to do. Simon may have invited Jesus to be his guest but he had omitted the common courtesies accorded to an honored guest. Jesus had chosen to overlook Simon’s intended insult because his purpose for being there was not to judge manners but to forgive sin. We feel justified to judge others because as we our focus on everyone else’s failures we fail to see self and sin. What this woman does for Jesus was more than mere manners and social niceties, they were an act of repentance and worship. She came to Jesus in faith desiring to be forgiven and was not disappointed. As her tears of repentance ran down the Redeemer’s feet she received His forgiveness.  Repentance brought her both relief and release, revealing her extravagant expression of worship through a torrent of tears. We are never more at peace than when we praise because we feel forgiven, free of debt, the guilt gone and the shame silenced.

• Fourth, those who come to Christ in faith will be Forgiven (vv. 47-50)

Jesus tells Simon in verse forty-seven, “I tell you, her sins and they are many have been forgiven, she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Jesus makes it crystal clear what brought about her salvation when he said in verse fifty, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” It was faith that has saved her. What was it that she believed by faith? What was the substance of her faith that saved? She believed that if she came to Jesus as a repentant sinner that Jesus would not send her away but save her. What do you believe, who is the focus of your faith?