The three readings assigned for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost are Isaiah 50:4-10; James 3:1-12 and Mark 9:14-29. The text to be preached is Mark 9:24, “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!’”

How can you have at the same time both faith and unbelief? Is that not a rarity among Christians? Well, in point of fact, that is the constant state of the Christian mindset. At the same time one believes, he also has unbelief. How so? It all has to do with God’s understanding of the Law. Proper preaching of the Law never permits the Law to be used as a way of saving oneself. God uses the law to curb wickedness (temporal use), to show sin and to reveal His will (spiritual uses). Never does God use the Law to tell us what we can do in order to receive salvation. Salvation is a gift received by faith and faith alone in the promises of the Gospel which are always connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In fact, every time you sin, it is not just a matter of disobedience but also of unbelief in a promise of God. For example, when you steal from someone else, by that action you are telling God that you do not believe His promises to take care of you as He does the birds in the air and the flowers in the field. In fact, it is even worse than unbelief; it is idolatry! For when you steal something you are correcting God’s mistake in giving the item not to you but to another. This paradox of believing and not believing is part of the Christian life as a saint and sinner at one and the same time.

One only needs to read the latter verses in Romans 7 to see how even the apostle Paul struggled with the old Adam. Yes, the new Man in Christ desires to do the will of God but the old Adam is often too powerful to overcome. What is the solution to this terrible dilemma? The solution is found in chapter 8 of Romans by which Jesus did for us what we were unable to do for ourselves. He fulfilled the Law perfectly, died on the cross in our place and then transfers to us all His righteousness He did on earth with the robe of righteousness.

Each of us is truly like the father who believes that God loves us and that Jesus died and rose for our salvation. But we constantly struggle in that faith because there is no evidence that God keeps His promises except for the Word of God revealed to us. As sinner/saints that we are, we continue to have this battle with the old Adam until that Day of the resurrection of all flesh when this mortal will be replaced with immortality and we will be received forever into the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by grace through faith alone.