Fellowship Bible Church (00:00)
What is up, my people? Welcome to Fellowship Bible Church's Sermon Spotlight, where we are coming at you each and every week with a fresh service to debrief in effort to send biblical truth. What better way to do that than by the power of conversation? I'm Mark Francis in the center host seat today, excited about having the

call it trifecta as we go around the podcast space here. Got Miss Abby Lindenburg over here. Hey. Co-host today. Yes. Great job last week. thanks. Hosting. Yeah. Yeah. I'll leave that to you. can have that all you want. says, huh? ⁓ She says, OK, I don't want to do that anymore. Now, you guys are, you and Cole, had the band. You had Caleb Pearson. hear him two weeks in a row in this seat. Two weeks in a row. Yes. Welcome back. Thank you. Welcome here once again.

Just need to have you in the preaching team. I like this. so two weeks in a row is helpful for you, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. To where you can prepare. Yeah, it's funny as the preaching team works through it. Obviously, we're getting very good at bouncing off each other and often alternating to where nobody's multiple times in a row. But we're not against that philosophy or mentality either. And so because I was following up myself and where I left off and it does make it a little easier to tie things together, especially with a passage this big. So.

⁓ So, we're in Mark 9, and coming off the Transfiguration mountaintop, down into the valley. And ⁓ so, to be able to surround that with some songs of hope and communion this past week, I think was helpful, especially in this—and I'll just bring this up, Abby, I'll turn your way first—but just in this season of life for some of the families here that we have at Fellowship Bible Church who are going through difficult times. ⁓

I found it to be very meaningful and poignant to where we are as a church even right now. So what did you glean out of the weekend? Well, I also I personally love when all the kids are in the service. They just like bring a good energy and doing the motions and stuff and even Jules teaching us their memory verse. I don't know. It just gives us a glimpse of what they're doing, but also brings a fun energy upstairs. ⁓ And I know I have some friends that

have started bringing their kids in for worship every week, just to be a part of that, do that as a family, and then have their kids go to class, which ⁓ I think is really great to practice that, like just to give lot of small churches do that. Yeah. Weekly. Yeah, it just gives them a little bit of exposure that like, we're all one here, like you go do your thing, whatever. It's like more unity in that. Yeah. And downstairs in Fellowship Three, Mike Thomas is typically the one who does communion just out of

habit and routine and he loves speaking to the kids. It is kind of time leading up to communion. He's like, all right, my favorite people, here's what's happening in this time and place right here now. And he talks about something in this past week of victory and hope. and just, it was neat just to get to see him in that world. Cause I grew up in a church where you had

quote-unquote, children's church where they would invite you to the front of the room. Have their little three-minute. And have a little three-minute thing in front of the entire church. Yeah. You know, and then you'd go back and you say you had your little moment. So it kind of gives a little bit of that old school small church vibe. But yeah, I thought the message was great with, you know, doubting your doubt. I feel like that was kind of the main line that I took out of it ⁓ because it does feel like doubt means that you are weak.

or that it doesn't equate to faith, it's the opposite, is how it feels. And I know one of your questions kind of alluded to that too, your follow-up questions, like, why do we feel that way? I mean, I got to feel like it's pride, but I don't know, that was one line that really stuck out to me, like, doubt your doubt, don't stop there. Like, why do you have these thoughts and digging deeper into that? So, I appreciated that line for sure.

Yeah, it speaks to relationship with Jesus. mean, the way the Father says, believe, help my unbelief, speaks to the yes and of his relationship with Jesus, which we get to see grow. I love that he goes from teacher to I believe, Lord, I believe. And so, there's a trajectory there that we see, but it's a helpful reminder of what faith actually can look like when things are hard. And that's not often taught or caught or focused on because we want to

You know, when the Christian life is easy, that's probably fruit, not faith. And we kind of confuse some of that when blessings abound. I'm being faithful, but to be full of faith is not necessarily full of results. It's a dependency issue. And so the passage ended there. But that was the tension. What are we going to focus on? So you had mentioned I'm in the pulpit two weeks in a row. Had 40 minutes to cover five verses and then had 35 minutes to cover 16 verses. So it's narrative.

Registrate through it navigated the passage and then kind of just tried to keep an application in mind and So hopefully that came out this this weekend and it seemed to be an encouraging passage for a lot of people Well applications are important I mean, I feel like that's why we're here with this podcast to give some voice and some some real-life stories or examples of that and You know, so the Billman family just lost someone and they attend fellowship three

They had the memorial service on Sunday afternoon, but they also attended church downstairs in fellowship three, which made the service heavier, but more meaningful. Looking at it through their lenses of losing a mom or losing a wife. And afterwards I was able to briefly speak with them. He's like, that's where I am. Help me in my unbelief, because I believe. Right. Help me. And so just hearing that authentic

response from Jim in his moment in time right now to where God gave him that sermon, and that whole family that sermon, to be able to respond in this time of suffering, which then leads to doubt and leads to ⁓ just questioning things. And you know that that family believes, but then where is God in a time of losing someone? Where is God in a time of getting a bad diagnosis? Where is God in a loss of a job?

or a difficult financial situation, go down the list of any of those things. And to glean that depth out of just a narrative passage like this, to me is helpful. Because again, you can just look at these stories and be like, okay, let's unpack the convulsions, let's unpack the deaf and mute spirit. And stop it. Stop it, like good for them. Yeah, right. Jesus, it's another miracle. And it's over 270 words, very vivid, it's very heavy. And part of the tension,

as far as like cutting room floor stuff and planning for it. I felt going into the weekend, I have a lot of... I had three separate ⁓ threads throughout the whole sermon. One was the holidays and the idea of that also being a wrestle for people, not just an easy time of celebration. Then Jay Hudson Taylor's journey, his progression, and then Simone personal stories. And so was kind like, man, I really hope I'm not overpacking those anecdotal things.

to make the passage seem secondary. And people spoke against that, which was good afterwards. They felt like we were able to cover the passage well, and those things informed the passage. But I really felt like this is the first weekend of November. Everybody's talking about the holidays. That Halloween night flips and it's like, boom, here we go. And Fellowship has lost a handful of people, have passed away in the last two weeks. So that has been something I'm, and two of the last three,

or four Christmases, I've lost a loved one between December 5th and December 20th. Two of the last four years I've lost a loved one. My wife's granddad died on Christmas. So, I've been reflecting on that and heart's heavy for others. And it's like, okay, well this passage can be an encouragement. You can read something like this and see Jesus better, clearer, and then hopefully we pull that application out. So that was kind of what drove the time. I feel like you had two...

heavy passages back to back that they turn out very encouraging, honestly. That was the hope. this be an encouragement. I've described it with teenagers before as ⁓ biblical discouragement is encouraging. When we read life getting rough and hard biblical passages, it actually creates in us this kind of sigh of relief, a breath of fresh air. Okay, I'm not different, I'm not unique, I'm not forgotten. The Bible accounts for this stuff and it's funny because two months ago,

I reached out to Micah and I was like, dude, you have the transfiguration. Let's switch. I literally said, can we switch? I love that passage. Can we switch? And we kind of talked back and forth and it was like, no, no, no, let's not switch. Like he's already started preparing for it. I'm like, I'm not going to be that guy that sets that precedent. Give me your passage. I like it better. But as we both started studying it and realizing like I'm teaching ⁓ a continuation of that, but those three are often kind of all taught together. And obviously Mark wrote them, right?

right there. So it was fun to tag team that with Micah and try to show the same Jesus on the mountain in transition in the valley because we can all rinse and repeat that kind of feeling in our own lives all the time. Intimate communion with the glory of Christ. Wow, let's stay here. Let me pitch a tent and stay here. Forget the suffering stuff. And then walking down the mountain into suffering and Jesus says, here's what you're to stay quiet about, here's what you're going to focus on. And then they walk into

It's an awesome passage, awesome, like full of awe at what's happening. And Mark brings that out for us. So didn't have to. That's the beauty of expositional teaching. Yeah, and it definitely felt like, too, like they're on the mountain. That's kind of like their holiday. they got away. Yeah, right. They come to the retreat. And that's what a lot of people will teach as an illustration.

A lot of people will focus on the transfiguration and say, have you ever been ⁓ on a retreat or you get that spiritual high or you have that conference or you wouldn't hear that, heard that speaker or you got baptized? A lot of people focus on the spiritual high and then the immediate spiritual low. But I think what Mark is doing is bigger than that because his focus is still on Christ the whole time. You read this in English, you're hard pressed to think the focus is on the boy because of the adjectives, but the focus is on Christ.

by far and away referred to the most times. He, Him, and Jesus, and He, Him, and Jesus, over and over and over. For even me right now, the quick light bulb moment is, let's not look at this as the spiritual high and the spiritual low. Let's look at the full counsel of God and who He is, which is why we're looking at mighty Messiah suffering. Exactly. Jesus is the same, but it's how He is revealing Himself in those moments, and He is still mighty Messiah.

in those lows, and he is still suffering servant in those highs. And so to recognize that still the story is about Christ. It's not about us in our position. And so what do we learn about Christ? Well, we learn defeat and desperation drive us to Him. And that's what they're designed for. What is defeat and desperation designed for in this life? Well, for unbelievers, you figure that out. Good luck to you. But for believers in Jesus,

draws us to his divinity so we can be dependent on him and that is so we see it we see the whole thing happen for the father that's what i love about this passage he he totally goes through that whole process teacher i brought you jesus and part of me is like did you really though because you also probably brought him to the scribes and the disciples jesus happened to come down the mountain and and the attention switched to jesus and then the father's like i brought you my son like you didn't hike up the mountain with your son right but but

Jesus is demonstrating how present He is in the valley. In fact, He's dragging His faithful followers. That is where we belong. That is where we're going. That's the time we didn't have to get into was verse 29. Everyone gets so caught up on prayer and fasting. Is that a procedure or a posture of prayer and dependency? We know Jesus modeled prayer and dependency on God the Father. It's why He didn't need to specifically pray to exorcise the demon.

But we could talk about the application of we're called to be in the valley together and the disciples are being trained and shown how to do that well. They're not just learning, wow, Jesus is really good at it, good for him. He's equipping them. He has been this whole time. He has time to instruct his disciples. If I was Mark and I was recounting this event, guess what I would omit? I'd be like, who cares that later they were in the house with Jesus wondering why they couldn't do it? Who cares?

Why is that going to make the cut? This is God's word. That is so like not exciting compared to the fun movie theatrics of the possessed boy being saved because Mark's narrative is so much more than about the little boy being saved. Jesus is, I shared that George Morgan quote, I think, I didn't have time to like even make a slide of it. The passage, Jesus finds disputing scribes, distracted father, demon possessed boy, defeated disciples, and he handles all of them perfectly.

silenced the scribes, comforts the Father, heals the boy, and still instructs his people. That is so crazy to me. His message matters more than the miracle. That's always been true. Can we talk about that verse 29? Yeah. Since you're there, you know, this kind cannot come out by anything but prayer. So, at first glance, you can say, okay, the disciples, were they not praying? Right. they not pray hard enough? What about this specific demon needs prayer?

Like there's all kinds of things. they did pray, would it have worked? Right, to go down this path. So in your studies and your research, you came to the conclusion that it's a little less about this prayer, but more about dependency. So Jesus' answer is this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. That should beg the question, what was their question? So Jesus' answer is based on their phraseology.

Why could we not cast it out? So the focus is on their casting. That's why the answer is, this kind can't be driven out by anything but prayer. So I'd like to, this is obviously not in the Bible, but if they phrase that question differently, what does it take to cast out this demon? Jesus could answer that question multiple ways. Well, for me, nothing. It's like nothing to me, you know what I'm saying? But He's addressing them, so I think that's why...

You're asking me why you couldn't? There's only one way you can, and it's by praying and summoning me, dependency on me. Think about that J. Hudson Taylor quote, his resources are mine. In this story, the father's resources are the disciples. Think about the father's posture. I told your disciples to cast it out. Ugh, he didn't even ask. You know what I'm saying? He didn't even ask. He didn't even demonstrate dependency on the disciples.

He didn't say, you guys are willing, he said, I have heard some things, you guys do it. And what would that even look like? They start just going like, blah, blah, you know, get out of them. like, no, Jesus is saying this kind can only come out by prayer. So then the question, which I don't know the answer to this, what did Jesus mean by this kind? Because there's describing words about the spirit that it was a mutant deaf spirit that ironically hears and speaks when Jesus starts going.

⁓ Is it possible that it's that specific kind of demon that takes prayer for a disciple to take out? Or is it possible that that ⁓ exorcism in general, this kind of exorcism that you guys can do that isn't me? We don't necessarily know, but the point is he is pointing them to a posture of dependency. Prayer. You didn't depend on me. And you look at the history of how they came off of their mountaintop.

going out and doing miracles and casting out demons, and then the self-focus and the, look at me, look at what we can do, kind of kicks in, and now here's just another teaching moment for Jesus to be like, you guys are leaning too much on yourselves. This is a matter of, you can't do this at all. Yeah, and the demon gets some describing words that could be different. mean, from childhood, deaf and mute, that demonstrates very, very oppressed.

like crazy oppressed. So you could do a deep study into, of the disciples exercising demons, were those demons rookies? Were they just junior mini demons that were barely oppressing? Like to what degree? But again, you just, the whole passage in context, which is right after the transfiguration, guys, and right before, ⁓ Jesus is going to mention, where am I? I just lost it. Again, he's going to foretell his death and resurrection. So that's why Mark is putting this mighty Messiah ship in there.

It's right in between a ton of language about the suffering servant. So I think Mark's saying we need to not forget about his might even though Jesus is about to be talking about his suffering all the time. Probably so that we don't fall victim to this idea that death is going to win. Yeah, I could see that being very discouraging. If Jesus keeps talking about suffering, I wouldn't want to follow him whole lot. I'd be like, what? But Jesus is going to demonstrate what's beyond. The point of the mountaintop, the transfiguration is

is not a tease, it's a reminder, it's a perspective. They were given the glasses for the cross on the mountaintop. So I have another question for you. backing up to verse 26. So it says, crying out and throwing himself into terrible convulsions, it, the spirit, came out and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them says he is dead. makes me think back of the blind man and not being fully healed in the moment.

seeing figures that appeared like trees. that was, I think, Tim Sanford had that pattern. He gave some more depth to what that looks like, and implications of the Pharisees and the people around him, the disciples, and how, you know, are they really seeing clearly? Did you and your studies see any more meaning out of why this boy became a corpse? Yeah, and I think it ties to the resurrection language Jesus foretold.

suffering and don't say anything until the Son of Man rises from the dead. You did allude to that in the sermon a bit. Now they're going to get an image of that and then he's going to foretell his death resurrection again. So I think there's a very intentional demonstration happening. But I love that you brought up that passage of the trees because Tim had such a fun one in the sense that that's how we know that guy became progressively blind because he knew what trees look like. Some people read that passage and think, ⁓ another guy blind from birth. If you were blind from birth, you do not know what trees look like.

So he's saying they look like trees. So he was a progressive in and a progressive out sort of miracle. Here, all of the language points to the lifeblood, earthly lifeblood of this boy being the spirit. It's throwing him into fire and water trying to kill him. It's convulsions. It's not good. All of the senses are impacted, not only in the boy, but in those around him. They get to see, feel, hear, smell and taste. It's totally impacting the boy.

And so he's very intentional, Marcus, with his language. The boy was like a corpse. That means he's not dead. Like a corpse to the point where most of them said he's dead. So Jesus, they know he has yanked the spirit and they're still not reading this through the lens they should. Well, he's gone. What are you implying in that? Did Jesus fail? ⁓ Is Jesus going to have to? Stories have to have been shared that he's raised.

He's right. That's a great point. Even if he was, let's say he was. Let's say he was dead. So are you going to complain? What was happening here? So they are looking for everything that's wrong. Yeah. All of them the whole time, their focus is on what's wrong. If I'm a disciple and I'm unable to drive out a demon, I know one reason why I can't do it because my focus is on the demon. My focus is on the Father, the scribes. If I'm a disciple of Christ who has successfully done something like this before,

but now I'm arguing with the scribes? You know what I'm saying? How that should not be a part of the process, probably at all. Their focus is not where needs to be. And so Jesus is literally absent, physically coming down the mountain, and he's like, all right, see? They already forgot. They already forgot. Well, and it's interesting too, because they don't completely forget, because they're basing it off of what happened before. Right.

bits and pieces. The most important part, really. So here is the kind of the main point of the sermon. Christ is worth depending on in any situation because he is the power for spiritual victory. Because he has the power for spiritual victory would be off. I think that's wrong. I think that is not correct enough. Because does Christ have the power for spiritual Of course he does. But he doesn't have it in such a way that I can grab it from him and be like, thank you so much, vending machine Jesus. I'll be back with a quarter in a month.

is the power for spiritual victory, dependency on Him, and J. Hudson Taylor's well-recorded progression of that seem to help put a helpful face and picture to that so that we can learn to do the same thing Christ is worth depending on. The strength of our victory is not in our command of spiritual oppression. It is in our connection with the one who commands, our connection to Christ, not our ability to summon Him.

but our ability to be connected to Him and to meditate on Him and ask Him. Prayer. In this valley moment that Jesus is coming down to, people are still looking out for themselves. The scribes are thinking about things, the disciples are looking at things, the Father is trying to get His Son healed. Not in bad ways, at least for some of them. I mean, I would want my Son healed too, but they're still looking at the physical and the temporal. And they're slipping into their own performance a little bit. I mean, how cool would it have been if

they enter the house with Jesus and they say, we really missed you, Jesus. And that was awesome what you did for that little boy. Not what they said. They said, hey, I got a bone to pick, Jesus. Why couldn't I cast it out? So Jesus is like, heavens to Betsy. Now I'll take you guys up the mountain. How about that? Like you can imagine what Jesus could do with these guys. He's giving them an opportunity for faith and to heed his commands. Fascinating. Peter, James and John make the cut for the.

the transfiguration, Peter and John become influential in New Testament literature, but then the rest of these disciples are literally at the bottom of mountain in a fight. Well, it's also interesting because his rebuke applies to all of them. It's the same... All of them. All of them. All of them. Yep, that's absolutely right. There's not like a separate thing for the disciples and like, and you should have this or that or whatever. It's like, no, you're all here. And even the three he's traveling with, they weren't ⁓ coming down the mountain going like, I'm totally in agreement, Jesus.

They're wrestling with what rising from the dead met. So the faithful few coming down the mountain to the other faithful few are wrestling with Judaism in theory, and then the rest of the disciples are literally wrestling with Judaism, like literally in a scruffle with the scribes. And so Jesus is just modeling, you guys, what are you going to actually lean on here? And the Father and the Son take center stage in that. And the passage, we could just go forever on this, but...

The passage starts with the chaos. A large crowd, some scribes, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. By the time you get to the end of the passage, it is the Father and Jesus. I didn't have time to reinforce that. I think the passage does it for us. But how is that not an excellent take home for us? I think I focused on it a little bit of just like, despite the spectacle, Christ is the focus. We lose sight of that all the time. It's, well, despite Christ,

Spectacle is the focus. I've been a believer since was four and half years old. You know how easy it is for me to say, well, yeah, yeah, I have Jesus, but you know what, despite all that Jesus, I'm going through it. And that is just the backwards perspective. Well, and here we are, election day. amen, brother. Yeah. Talk about Talk about dependency. vote sticker on. Yeah. Yeah. But that's just a real world today's example of scribes or

Disciples bickering or hope being in something else. Yeah, just going the wrong direction looking at the temporal and here we are just saying how can we just fix our eyes on Jesus? I think we look to him as being both mighty Messiah and suffering servant and just put our dependency fully on him and Get ourselves out of the way and that's that's the impossible task. But mm-hmm. That's what he's calling us to do, right? Yeah to follow Jesus ⁓ Hence this discipleship manual

Called the book of Mark. What else is on your plate Abby? I know you've got notes over there. ⁓ Yeah, I you talked about ⁓ like trying versus trusting and yes driving versus resting sure I think one thing that came to mind for me is like, how do you do that without being passive? Right. That's the tension. That's attention and I think J Hudson Taylor learned that because he was trying and striving so hard. He knew what it felt like to be self-reliant

or in the disciples case, reliant on experience over Christ. If I was a fruitful missionary in inland China in the 1800s, that's kind of Uncharted Waters and very famous and well, seems to be going well, but it's personally impacting him because his dependency switched to himself at some point. And so he realizes that journey that it's not by trying, but by trusting. Well, what does he mean by that statement? He's not saying never try. Whatever he's referring to, it is not by trying, but by trusting. He's talking about

dependency and overcoming defeat and desperation. Are we called to try in the Christian life? Yes. ⁓ Grace is opposed to earning, but it's not opposed to effort. We are not called to sit around and soak in sour, right? So we should work. But he's saying dependency and victory over defeat and desperation is not going to come by trying in our own efforts. And that's the worldly thing to do. You flee. ⁓

But by trusting, that is how we do it. It's not by striving, but by resting. And so that's a fine line. It's a really good question, Abbey. And I think because the passage ends on prayer, you pray about that. Say, Lord, search my ways. If there are ways I am trying without you, make them known to me so I can trust you more. Help me trust you more than myself. I don't know how often I pray a prayer like that. We need to. Right. We should.

And notice what he says at end of that quote, the pressure of responsibility rolled away as I realized his resources are mine. That is J. Hudson Taylor no longer interested in success, he's actually just interested in obedience. That's something I share with our youth volunteers every year. We are not in the business of success, we're in the business of obedience because we trust Christ with the results. His Spirit is the only one given results that don't expire anyway. That's a whole big perspective change. we praise God that we have narrative Scripture.

Bam, there Jesus is and Mark spares no language to let us know, wow, he can do it all. Well, thanks for even sharing that from the youth perspective because many churches have the success in mind. They look to hit certain goals and hit certain numbers. baptism. it's refreshing to know that like, this is the, we're in the business of people and just looking to be used to prepare and deploy dependent disciples and it's up to God.

Just put our trust and dependency in Him. ⁓ Wow, like you said, we can keep going, but let's call it a day. Next week, we're hitting the passage where Jesus continues to predict His death. we'll look for... There'll be a different person in the pulpit next week, right? Yeah, buddy. All right, we'll see how that goes. Abbey, you're on the communications team. Yeah.

Share some of of the billion things you could say things pick the best three. What are the things coming up here? Oh, put you on the spot. Yeah, of course. There's a bunch with the holiday season coming up. So there's the work day, which is just kind of cleaning up the building inside and out to help prepare things. That's this Saturday. Yes, that's yeah. Really soon. The family meeting here about some major updates we have and the Sunday night, Sunday, the ninth and then twenty fourth.

hanging the greens. That's a Monday, ⁓ which is just, I've personally been to that and it's such a nice time. Like, I think a lot of people like decorating their house for Christmas. Imagine doing that for the church. It's just as fun, I swear. then also put in a perspective of a time of worship together and a time of serving together. And a lot of people maybe only enter the building when there's a service to go to. But to be here when there isn't is fellowship, the potential fellowship goes through the roof. Yes, it's a great time. I like doing that personally.

⁓ And then there's the Winchester parade that follow the star will be in at some point You can sign up to hand out invites if that's something you'd like to do or if you plan on being there There's follow the star the beginning of December That's a great event to attend or serve at Then we have Christmas Eve. and the Christmas Day potluck. So nice. Look there are no notes here people Abby just winged it right off when is Christmas even

Well, good job, but go to the website for all those details and continue to listen to sermon spotlight share it with your friends Like it review it give us all the posts and all the acknowledgments out there share your question I well, I added that a little bit. We're starting to post to social media more as well So if you're not following Instagram Facebook channels, we're posting clips of the podcast as well So I know a lot of people might not want to listen to a whole thing But you can still find this content there and share it very easily very excessively and so fellowship family has its own

podcast, you have Global Church. So check out all those different opportunities to just gain more information about what's happening here at FBC, but also just grow in your faith. I mean, this is here not just for information, but to spur additional conversations that you can have, whether it be with your community group or discipleship team of people that you're with, or just start ruminating more on this passage that you heard this past week. So, Abbie and Caleb, thanks so much for being here. Thank you, buddy. It's amazing to be a part of this. So the fact of matter, guys, that sermons are not meant just to take an hour.

but rather transform a lifetime. Until next week, much love and God bless.