Jesus Meets the Helpless Demon-Possessed Boy

I. The story
A. All three gospels that contain the Transfiguration have this story of the demon-possessed boy right after it. It’s really part of the same story.
B. Here’s what happened: It seems that Jesus and His disciples came to a town at the foot of a mountain. Leaving the other disciples in the town, Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain.
C. Do you know how sometimes in a movie, a person is changed into a serpent or dragon, revealing who they really are, and it turns out that they had just come in the appearance of a normal person, but they were really something else?
D. Up on the mountain that’s sort of what happened to Jesus. Suddenly He turned into what He really was: His face began to shine was brightly as the sun, and even His clothes turned bright white, so that looking at Him hurt your eyes. Jesus came in the appearance of a normal person, but He was anything but a normal person! His glory had been hidden, but now they could see it!
E. Not only this, but Moses & Elijah, who’d been dead for centuries, reappeared and spoke with Jesus.
F. The disciples were so amazed that they wanted to stay up there on the mountain. But no, Jesus led them back down to meet the disciples at the town at the foot of the mountain.
G. When they got there, a big crowd had gathered around the other disciples. In the center of the crowd there was a man with his demon-possessed son.
H. He had asked the disciples to cast the demon out of his son, the man explained to Jesus, but they were not able to do so.
I. So Jesus rebuked the demon, and immediately the boy was delivered.
II. Lessons to learn from Jesus taking the disciples back down to help the demon-possessed boy
A. It’s no wonder the disciples wanted to stay on the mountain beholding the glory of Jesus and seeing Moses and Elijah rather than come down and face demon-possessed little boys that no one can heal.
B. There are sweet places of refuge in this life. Sometimes it’s coming to church. Sometimes it’s going on a retreat. Sometimes it’s spending time with a dear friend. Sometimes it’s doing something really fun. And those times are very precious. But they don’t last. They aren’t designed to last.
C. The fact is that Jesus leads us not only to beautiful & pleasant places but also to scary & ugly places.
1. Even while Jesus was revealing Himself to the disciples on the mountain, evil things were happening in the valley below. This is why Jesus won’t let His disciples stay up on the mountain.
2. You see, God cares about more than just us, and He wants us to care about more than us too.
3. All the things God does in your life: they’re not just for you. He blesses you not only because He loves you, but because He loves others. We’ve been blessed to be a blessing.
4. We are taken up on the mountain so we are equipped to go down and help people in the valley.
5. The disciples didn’t want to go back down, they wanted to stay. But Jesus led them down.
6. While they’re up on the mountain, the disciples are just thinking about themselves. But Jesus is thinking about a little boy down in the valley being smashed and abused by an evil spirit.
7. Jesus doesn’t just show His glory on the mountaintop. He shows it also in the valleys.
8. Jesus works even in the dirty mess of human need. He doesn’t just work in the easy, clean places.
9. Jesus wants to take your hand – He wants to show you something. He wants to take you someplace where you might not be comfortable — not to scare you, but to show that He’s bigger than all the scary and confusing problems of mankind.
10. We may feel like we don’t want to be bothered by other people’s problems. But this is not the way of Christ. He came down from heaven into the dirty place of human need, pain and lostness. And He wants to lead us down into it as well.
11. There are a lot of scary things in the world. And the easiest thing in the world is just to want to get out of there.
12. But Jesus wants to take us places we don’t want to go — to show us that His touch can heal even in the deepest places of human need.
D. Sometimes God will lead you to serve Him in a dirty and even dangerous place.
1. But if no one takes risks, then many people will never hear about the love of Jesus.
2. If we won’t take risks, our neighbors down the street may never hear about Jesus.
E. The encouraging thing is that Jesus goes down the mountain with us.
1. He doesn’t call us to go anywhere or face anything alone. He says, “I will be with you.”
2. And that makes all the difference in the world.
3. We can be willing to be led into places in this world we would never go, because we know for sure that He is with us.
4. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)
F. If they had stayed up on the mountain they would have missed seeing Jesus deliver this little boy.
III. A lesson to learn from the disciples failure to deliver the boy
A. Sometimes problems are too big and too hard for us to solve.
1. Sometimes God lets us fail even at things we're gifted in.
2. You see, Jesus had given them authority to cast out demons. And it worked! They had successfully cast out many demons. But suddenly it stopped working. They tried and tried. They did all the same things they had done before. But nothing happened.
3. It was embarrassing. In the past the people were wowed by their ability to command demons. But now they couldn't do it. God let them fail.
4. You will have some problems like that in your life.
5. You think you can do it. You try again and again. You try this; you try that. You get advice; you get people to help you. But nothing you do solves the problem.
6. Sometimes all you can do is pray.
7. Sometimes we have to wait until Jesus comes before things will get fixed.
B. Why didn’t God deliver this boy through the disciples? He certainly could have.
1. To humble us and remind us we can't do anything without Him and make us realize that He was doing it all along.
IV. A lesson from Jesus’ deliverance of the boy
A. Did it take a lot of hard work for Jesus to cast the demon out?
1. 18 “And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.”
2. Jesus never tried something and failed. If He set out to do something, He did it.
3. The disciples couldn’t cast the demon out because Jesus wasn’t there.
4. With Jesus, all things are possible.
B. If Jesus can heal this boy, can He not heal you? If He’s willing to come down to help this demon-possessed child, is He not willing to come down to help you?
1. If He can root the evil out of this child, can He not root the evil out of you?
2. He’s the One who not only heals bodies, but heals hearts.