Is Jesus the Answer Gospel Meeting Series

🔹Is Jesus the Answer for my Happiness?

🔹Is Jesus the Answer for my Anxiety and Fear?

We’re dealing with a subject, Is Jesus the Answer?, that I pray will build your faith. Many people in this world are looking for answers, and sometimes the answers they seek are not always found. It’s not that there are no answers to their questions, but as a great theologian said, “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” Sometimes you can look for answers in all the wrong places. Solomon looked for answers in possessions, people, and fleshly lust.

 You read through the Song of Solomon, and Solomon would tell you that when you look for answers in the wrong places, it’s all vanity, chasing after the wind. I pray the young people hear that today. Numerous individuals will tell you the pathway to life’s answers is through self-exploration or pursuing desires. The reality, from people I’ve talked with as they’ve aged, is often tears. They find that what they thought they were getting was not what they got. That’s because there is an answer, but it’s not found where mankind often directs us.

Is Jesus the Answer?

We’re going to talk about this idea: Is Jesus the Answer? I know sometimes we say these things, and for individuals faithfully walking with God, trying to be who God would have them be, you look at that question and say, “Joe, the answer is yes. Gospel meeting over.” But sometimes questions are asked to make a statement. 

Paul did that in Romans 8: “What shall separate us from the love of God?” He wasn’t asking for an answer. “If God is for us, who shall be against us?” He wasn’t seeking an answer.

Questions can make statements. Sometimes questions call us to pause and say, “If I know this to be true, why am I spinning my wheels looking for answers in other places or people?” As we dive into “Is Jesus the answer for my unbelief and doubt?”, I offer that Jesus is absolutely the answer. I’d like to provide biblical reasons why Jesus is the answer.

• Mark 9

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to open to Mark 9. That’s where we’ll be this morning. As we talk about unbelief and doubt, there’s only one place I know to turn that adequately expresses this. If you’re not careful, you might think unbelief and doubt would never be part of the lives of people who love Jesus. That’s not always true. Nor is it true that unbelief and doubt are only found in people who don’t know Jesus is the source where healing and sustenance are provided. 

In Mark 9, we’re introduced to an individual who perhaps was at the end of his road. Perhaps he had gone as far as he knew, and Jesus was his last option. I don’t know if that can be deduced, but what I do know is this individual understood that Jesus was the person where he would find the answer he needed, yet he still struggled.

• Mark 9:14-24

"Lord I Believe, Help My Unbelief"

It’s that statement, “Help my unbelief,” that I want us to think about today. As a father, I don’t know what you’ve experienced with your children. Aaron and I have been blessed to have healthy children, with the exception of occasional accidents—like deciding the couch and ottoman were good for bouncing between or playing outside and falling, resulting in a broken bone.

In those scenarios, as a father, it’s a helpless feeling to know your child is hurt, and you can’t do anything about it. It’s a helpless feeling to hear your child’s cries, knowing they’re in pain, and you can’t help. Place yourself in the position of this father, whose son has a spirit that throws him into convulsions. We don’t know exactly what that was, but we know the spirit was removed. The father is real, the son is real, and the concern is real. The father comes to the disciples, and they cannot cast it out. There are many statements that could be explored there.

Jesus Addresses Unbelief

Verse 19: “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to me.” Is that a statement about the son or the disciples? After all, they couldn’t cast it out.

Oftentimes, Jesus would say, “These can only be cast out by prayer.” Prayer is total reliance on the one who does it all. You can’t do it; you go to the one who can. The apostles at times struggled, thinking they were something, but they could not.

In this case, Jesus addresses the situation with this idea of unbelief. Let that flow through. In verse 21, Jesus asks, “How long has this been happening to him?” Have you ever studied the questions Jesus asked? It’s quite telling. Jesus could discern the hearts of individuals. Did Jesus really not know how long this was happening? If he didn’t know, why not? What was the limitation of Jesus in knowing the duration of this issue?

I offer that Jesus wasn’t asking because he needed a fact. He was asking to drive home a fact: this has been going on a very long time. The father’s plight, the son’s difficulty—the son would have had physical scars, the father emotional scars. Did the father try to drag his son out of a fire, getting burned himself? What would you do if your son fell into a fire? You’d reach in to get him out.

Jesus wasn’t saying, “I don’t know; please tell me.” He was driving home that what’s about to happen doesn’t make sense in human terms.

The Father’s Struggle with Belief

The father says, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” That word “help” means to run to the aid of one who cries for help. 

Jesus responds, “What do you mean, ‘If you can’? All things are possible to him who believes.” 

Immediately, the father cries out, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” He believed in Jesus’ power but struggled with the “how.” 

Sometimes that’s you and me. We believe God is the source of sustenance, the healer of affliction. We faithfully come to Him in prayer, but sometimes we don’t know how it’s all going to work out. Not knowing the “how” can impact our total reliance. You might say, “No, it doesn’t, because I don’t need to figure out the ‘how’ to know God is the source.” I offer that in moments where you don’t have answers, you’re often the most real and authentic. In moments like being wheeled into surgery, not knowing the outcome, there’s a sense of, “Do I really believe everything I’ve learned?” 

I didn’t understand that fully until my dad died of cancer six years ago. Seeing him in hospice, unable to close his mouth, my prayers shifted from “Lord, please heal him” to “Lord, please take him.” Have you ever been there? Praying for healing, only to find yourself praying, “Lord, just take him”? It would be more merciful to allow him to leave this life than to work through healing here. 

My dad’s fine today. I tell people he beat cancer—it just took dying to do it. God took care of that. But in that moment, I can only verbally explain the journey within me. There’s a point, even for a preacher, where you ask, “How much do I really believe this?” If I don’t believe, what am I saying?

Unbelief and Doubt Are Tools of Satan

The father in Mark 9 expresses a quandary—a mixture of belief and uncertainty. I believe this happens in more of our lives than we’d like to admit. In moments of uncertainty, we search, and sometimes searching doesn’t provide answers. Satan knows this. He uses those moments of rising doubt, concerns, and fears to turn some away from God instead of leaning into Him. 

Have you seen someone, through tragedy or hardship, instead of leaning into God, blame Him and lean away? For those in ministry or shepherds counseling others, through tragedy or uncertainty, most people either lean into God or away from Him—rarely staying neutral. In those moments, who you are and where your faith is shows.

Faith and Doubt

This idea of unbelief and doubt—Satan is the author of it. Scripture bears this out. In Genesis 3, the first concept of doubt and unbelief comes from Satan. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden, told what they could and couldn’t do. In Genesis 3:1, the Bible says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” Don’t let that statement be lost. The serpent was crafty. 

The context explains that the serpent talks to Adam and Eve, trying to convince them that what God said wasn’t true. He didn’t just call it foolishness; he attacked God’s character. He said, “God knows in the day you eat of it, you’ll be like Him, knowing good and evil.” If I can’t destroy your message, I’ll destroy you. It’s a debate tactic, still used today, especially in politics. If I can’t deal with your argument, I’ll destroy the person making it. Satan uses this to villainize God, swaying people from what He says. This happens in our world, not just in politics but in church work. It’s a tactic of Satan that leads to doubt.

Satan’s Tactics in Genesis 3

The serpent says, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

The woman responds, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

The serpent replies, “You surely will not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In other words, God doesn’t want you to be like Him, so He’s suppressing and oppressing you.

If you get people doubting God at His core, what He says is easy to sway them from. If you believe God acts from anger, self-righteousness, or self-elevation, you’ll see everything about Him as selfish, misunderstanding why God does what He does.

God is holy and righteous, but all of that relates to His desire for a covenant relationship with mankind, to bring humans back into a right relationship with Him. Everything from God’s standpoint is wrapped in His character—His goodness, redemption, and forgiveness when it’s not deserved. The love and forgiveness of God are manifested repeatedly in Scripture. God has made known His love for you.

Satan’s Strategy to Stir Doubt

When Satan stirs discord and doubt, he questions God’s word, contradicts it, and offers an alternative. All of that was to stir confusion and put Eve in the driver’s seat, where she reasoned it was okay to go against God.

Doubt and fear often lead us to think, “If I can’t trust God, I must figure it out on my own.” In Luke 1, Zacharias doubted God’s ability to overcome natural obstacles.

An angel appeared to him, saying, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John.” The angel describes John’s role as a forerunner in the spirit and power of Elijah, preparing people for the Lord.

Zacharias responds, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” As a result, he couldn’t speak until John was born. Why? Because he questioned the “how.”

Sometimes, not knowing the “how” leads to doubt. We try to figure it out and don’t get answers because some things can’t be explained in human terms. How do you have peace that passes understanding when watching a child die of cancer at St. Jude’s? How do you have peace when laid off in an economy where bills pile up, and you can’t afford eggs? That happens regularly.

Doubt as a Destroyer

Doubt is a destroyer.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” — James 1:5-8

God wants us to grow spiritually to a point where, even when we can’t see the “how,” we trust the “who.”

He says, “You’re not called to figure out how I’ll get this done. Let me worry about that.”

As a father, have you ever said to your child, “Let me take care of that. Trust me”? We struggle with that because we want answers. That’s not a bad pursuit, but you won’t always find adequate answers.

The father in Mark 9, whose son had a spirit, didn’t have answers. Except in seeking Jesus, he wasn’t going to find them. That’s why Jesus is the answer for unbelief and doubt.

Three Reasons Why Jesus Is the Answer

1) The Person of Jesus

I want to show you three reasons why Jesus is the answer for unbelief and doubt. First, because of the person He is.

In Mark 9:14, there was something already known about Jesus: He wasn’t like any other prophet. The children of Israel had heard of prophets, but there was a 400-year period where much had changed—Alexander the Great, the Maccabean Revolt, the Roman Empire’s rise. Some individuals were still prophesying early on, but for the most part, there was silence. Jesus comes on the scene, doing things unexplainable in human terms—healing, overcoming storms, making the blind see and the lame walk.

In Mark 9:14, a large crowd was around the disciples, some arguing, but others, like the father, were there because they needed something. It wasn’t uncommon for people to follow Jesus and His disciples for that reason. There was a recognition that Jesus wasn’t just any person. He offered something others couldn’t. His message and miraculous abilities were different. The personhood of Jesus cannot be understated.

The Context of the Transfiguration

The flow in Mark 9 isn’t accidental. Verses 1-13 describe the Mount of Transfiguration, where Moses, Elijah, and Jesus appear, and the three apostles suggest building tabernacles. A voice from heaven says, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear Him,” elevating Jesus’ personhood.

Jesus’ Power 

Second, Jesus’ power. He had power over storms, the natural, and the supernatural. 

Jesus’ Presence 

Third, His presence. 

• Romans 8:34
• Hebrews 7:25
• 1 John 2:1

These scriptures show Jesus is at the Father’s right hand, making intercession for you right now. That’s why He’s the answer—He has His Father’s ear on your behalf. 

Jesus was absolutely the answer for the father in Mark 9. Is He the answer for you and me today? Absolutely.