I can appreciate those who call me Pastor Whiting, Pastor Greg or just Pastor. They do so (I think) out of respect. They grew up believing that a pastor should be referred to by his official title. I don't criticize those pastors who ask their people to call them by a title. It's just not for me. Many people already put pastors on a dangerous pedestal; and titles, I have found, sometimes adds to the deception that pastors are any more holy than the other believers who sit in the pew. If I sin, and I do often, they need to be prepared to treat me as any other brother in Christ (lovingly confronting and restoring me).
I also need to be reminded that I cannot be isolated from the others who attend. I need God's grace just as much as they do. When I first arrived at Grace Baptist Church in Westlake, Ohio as the lead pastor, I asked them to either call me the most high reverend Pastor Whiting or Greg. I told them I preferred Greg since that is the name my parents gave me (well, it was Gregory back in '66). I told them that if they left titles out of my name, I promised not to call any of them by their biblical titles, such as: Deacon Doug or Saint Sandy or Priest Paul. Whatever they call me, I am just privileged to be their pastor. I certainly don't deserve to serve God and them in this way. It is by God's grace.
So, when people heard that I earned my Doctor of Ministry degree from Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, they just couldn't help but call me Doctor Greg or Doctor Whiting. They know how much I love titles! I told them that I understood their use of that title, and that I would forgive them this one time - first offense was free. After that, look out! I suppose if I have to choose between titles, I would much rather prefer Pastor Greg. However, I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, and believe that whatever they call me, they have respect for the responsibility God has given me, and that they genuinely care for me.
I do need to keep a check on my attitude. Although I want to downplay this degree , I need to be thankful to God for bringing me through this process. It only took me 10 years to complete the 6 year degree! I am also very grateful to those who prayed for me, encouraged me, and even helped financially over these years. I do know that it is an accomplishment, and I need to accept people's congratulations graciously. I will try to do that. My wife and others from our church have planned an all church picnic to celebrate this graduation, and I certainly want to thank them for their kindness and support through celebration.
I also do not want to diminish all of those others out there who have earned Doctoral degrees. I do not have a PhD. (which I think is extremely more difficult); but even those with D.Min. degrees, like me, should take "pride" in their work. They have done a great job, worked hard, and deserve any accolades that come their way. If one of their rewards they choose is being called Doctor, then that is great and fine by me. I believe additional education is a great decision for those God has led to it; and if they do it, they should work hard and then enjoy the rewards along the journey and when it is complete. Congratulations to all the doctors out there!
I did greatly enjoy my time at DTS. I was thankful to get a little broader perspective than I had previously, and I was able to meet some great people along the way. It was a great reminder that there are many people and churches who love God and are doing His work, even outside of any particular denomination or association. I already knew that, of course, but spending time with other godly men and women who are pursuing Christ and serving Him faithfully made my belief more concrete and practical.
What I enjoyed most about my time at DTS were my classes that I took on campus. That allowed me face to face interaction with teachers and other students. Those are my greatest memories. With all my transitions over the past 10 years, and other times that I needed to take a break (for a variety of reasons), I ended up doing most of my final classes by independent study. Another thing I really appreciated about this degree was that it was designed for people still in ministry; and each of the projects (at the end of each class) were meant to apply practically to my specific church.
All of my other degrees are stuffed in a box in a closet; but I have decided to prominently place this D.Min. degree where I can see it often. I have chosen the bathroom wall in my office. Why the bathroom? For one, I can see it several times a day in there. Secondly, I suppose it is an accomplishment to appreciate for a while; and to let others see as well. But, my greatest reason is to remind myself that my degree might as well go in the toilet if I don't love God and others more as a result of this educational journey. If I am not humble and grateful and wholeheartedly dedicated to God, then take the paper of the wall, place it in the circular container with questionable water, and press the flush lever.
Doesn't the Bible say something like...
"And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." - I Corinthians 13:2
If this degree allows me to serve more effectively and opens doors for ministry of the gospel, then thank God for that. But, if this degree is for pride's sake, or so people will think I am something that I am definitely not, then flush it now. Keeping it in the bathroom, with the natural smells and appliances, will hopefully keep this all in perspective.
As of right now, the diploma is not quite on the wall. Teresa asked for it, I assume, to find the right frame that will match the bathroom decor! So, once it is up, I invite each of you, if you desire, to come sit on my toilet (cover down please!) and look at my diploma. You get one free look; but if you admire it too long, as to think I am anything special, I may have to flush you.
Thanks for reading this, by the way. Now, I never need to talk about it again!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
This is the message manuscript for May 25, 2008. I have gotten away from doing Holiday messages for some reason - not sure why. We usually do something at the beginning of the service to honor moms or dads or veterans or whomever the special day is designated for. In this case, it was Memorial Day and so we wanted to honor those who have served and are serving in our armed forces.
We began the service with a video, that honors those who have served. A casket was rolled down the center aisle with a flag on it. Some who had been in the military marched down behind and folded the flag before "taps" was played. Then one of those officers had all veterans stand and a prayer of thanks was given. Then they played while we sang: America The Beautiful.
For the message, we continued our series from the gospel of Mark.
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
Mark 4:1-20
Please turn in your Bibles to Mark 4. In the Bible in front of you, it is page 867 or 885.
A middle-aged man was distraught over his wife’s stubborn refusal to admit she had a hearing problem. One day he asked his family doctor for advice how to convince his wife that she has a hearing problem. The doctor promptly told him that when he got home he could confirm the hearing problem by opening the front door and from there asking his wife what’s for dinner.
Then the doctor said, if she doesn’t answer, move closer to the kitchen. Repeat the question again, and if she still doesn’t answer, move right up to her ear and whisper in it, “What’s for dinner, honey?” In this way, the doctor assured him, she’ll have to admit she has the problem.
So the man raced home with joy in his heart and opened the front door. “What’s for dinner, honey?” he asked. His wife made no reply, so he moved closer to the kitchen and asked again. “What’s for dinner, honey?” Again, nothing was said. When he looked into the kitchen, sure enough, there she was at the kitchen counter. So, he tiptoed over to her and whispered in her ear, “What’s for dinner, honey?” She turned and looked at him straight in the eye: “For the 3rd time, I said, we’re having MEAT LOAF!”
Somebody did have a hearing problem, but the man didn’t realize it was him. The passage of Scripture we are looking at together, today, introduces us to people who had a tremendous hearing problem; and they didn’t even know it. In fact, they thought they heard and understood everything quite well. However, Jesus Christ begins to use a teaching method that will challenge their hearing, their spiritual understanding; and which will be directed at their hearts.
Mark 4:1,2 – “Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:”
Before we launch into the particular parable he used here, let’s take a moment to get the setting. Jesus had moved out of the confrontational and scholarly setting of the synagogues, and went out to the seashore by the Sea of Galilee. Last week, we found out why there were large crowds gathered and what danger that caused. Look at:
Mark 3:9,10 – “And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.”
So many people were flocking to Jesus, wanting to be healed, that he was actually concerned for his safety. So, he asked his disciples to get a boat ready; and it didn’t take long for him to need it. But, he doesn’t get into the boat to escape somewhere, he gets in the boat, to be safe and then to be able to keep teaching.
That would seem strange to most of us; and if there was such a large crowd, how in the world did they hear him teaching. They did not have the technology or sound systems we have now. Could he really teach large crowds from a boat? Before we launch into this parable, I want to take a couple of minutes to consider the setting of the Sea of Galilee.
On a DVD presentation entitled: “The Fifth Gospel: The Land and Sea of Galilee”, Pixner, a Benedictine priest-archaeologist, proposes answers to intriguing questions that surround Jesus’ ministry near the Sea of Galilee. We are going to watch a clip, less than 2 minutes in length, but one that will give you a picture of the area Jesus may have been; and a farmer in that area talks about the natural sound system that God built.
VIDEO CLIP: The Fifth Gospel: the Land and Sea of Galilee – 19:46-21:31
It was in this setting that Jesus was said to have begun teaching in parables.
A parable is a comparison. It is a common day story with a deep, spiritual meaning. It is not an allegory, where everything in the story seems to have a special meaning; but the story itself, in parable form, is a word picture of a spiritual truth.
Jesus began to teach the truth using parables (vs. 1,2)
According to the New Compact Bible Dictionary, a parable “was an effective method of revealing truth to the spiritual and ready mind and at the same time of concealing it from others.” Jesus was changing his way of communication. He had moved out of the synagogues to the seashore. He was speaking to a different type of crowd. These stories would gain tremendous interest in the listeners; but not all of them would be able to comprehend it. We will see why in a little while. These parables were not just to gain mind recognition of truth; but for heart change. The first one we are introduced to in Mark is when:
Jesus told the story of the sower, the seeds and the soils (vs. 3-8)
Mark 4:3-8 – “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
Jesus used a story that people could relate to. As we saw in the video, it is possible, from the seashore, that Jesus could point to a field, where a farmer was planting seed and tell that parable. He uses a story of something they can see in present life to describe a spiritual issue that they cannot see – the work of the Spirit and Word of God on people’s hearts.
The parable is about a farmer who goes out to plant seed in his unplowed field. Some of the seed fell on the field where the path was well worn from foot traffic. It may have been from animals or even the sower himself, as he worked the fields. The seed would fall on the trodden path, but had no good soil to take root in.
The birds came and ate the seed.
Some of the seed fell on rocky ground, where the soil had no depth because limestone was so close to the surface. I have read that “in many places in Palestine there is only an inch or two of soil on top of a ledge of limestone rock. If seed falls on this ground it will grow and germinate quickly. The limestone holds heat from the sun which creates ideal conditions for seeds to sprout. But after the seed puts down roots in search of water it starves and dies as quickly as it grew. There is no substance on the ledge to sustain it.” The heat of the sun quickly did away with any growth there.
Then, there was some seed planted among thorns that had not come up yet; but they very soon did spring up and choked the planted seed. Barclay wrote: “The Palestinian farmer was lazy. He cut off the top of the fibrous rooted weeds; he even burned off the top; and the field might look clean; but below the surface the roots were still there; and in due time the weeds revived in all their strength. They grew with such rapidity and such [strength] that they choked the life out of the seed.”
And finally, there was seed planted in good soil, which produced grain, and it multiplied abundantly in the harvest. In fact, depending on the soil, it yielded 30, 60 or even 100 times the seed sown. According to scholars, back in those days a yield of 10 times the seed sown was considered a great crop.
That was the parable, the story. OK, so I know more now about Palestinian soil and farming in the First Century. But, what does this parable mean? Jesus will tell us in a few verses. But that is not what we are to know next. What Mark, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, tells us next, is about what Jesus said about why He spoke in parables:
Jesus used parables to reveal truth to His followers and to conceal it from those who rejected Him. (vs. 9-12)
He began his parable by saying: “Listen up!” and then immediately following the parable, he said:
Mark 4:9 – “And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
He is not poking fun at the earless; but He was saying that there were certain people with the right kind of hearing that would be able to understand what Jesus was talking about. Some time has now passed and he was alone with his twelve disciples and other close followers. They had some questions about these stories, these parables Jesus had been using.
Mark 4:10-11 – “And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.”
“To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God.” His followers were the ones who had the “ears to hear” and who could understand the secret of the kingdom of God. The word translated secret here is the word from which get our English word: “mystery.” Over a period of time, God chose to progressively reveal His salvation plan; and over those many years, most people were not able to clearly understand it.
Later, the Apostle Paul would write:
Romans 16:25,26 – “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to [the] gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.”
For now, the mystery was being revealed to the disciples, that this was a time of planting the seed as far as the Kingdom of God was concerned. It was not yet time for the complete harvest. Although people did not understand it in the past, now some of Jesus’ followers were given the ability by God to understand some of what he was talking about.
Those whom God had called were able to understand, to a point, that the kingdom of God was near because Jesus Christ came from the Father. Remember that Jesus preached this message to all those who would listen: not just His followers:
Mark 1:15 – “…The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The good news of the kingdom was that God had come in the flesh, in the form of Jesus Christ, and he was THE ONE who could get them to God. Some were able to understand that; but most people did not see Jesus as the coming King; but as a common carpenter, who was a religious crazy man. They would agree with the assessment Jesus’ family gave about Him in Mark 3:21 – “…He is out of his mind.”
What was the kingdom of God? Sometimes called the “kingdom of Heaven”, it is one of those already/not yet issues in the Scriptures. When you become a follower of Christ, you are a part of the Kingdom of God, but you won’t experience it until this life is over. It sometimes was spoken of as something present; but mostly as the time when Jesus Christ would come back to Earth to rule for 1,000 years. We are to be living by the standards of the Kingdom of God now; but the reality of it won’t come until the future. Jesus overcame sin and death, but we will not realize that full victory until Jesus returns. Although there are not many of them, this is the place in Mark where we are hearing Jesus talk about the Kingdom of God, using parables. He is taking a complex spiritual issue and putting it into a common day story form. We will see more of this next week.
Let me tell you a story: There was once a boy who had a little dog named Charlie. One morning, Charlie woke up the little boy, when the boy realized he was not in bed; and in fact, he was not at home at all. He was walking in an abandoned warehouse. In that warehouse, it was dark and something didn’t smell right. As the boy continued walking, he stepped on a nail that penetrated the skin. He removed the nail and began to limp in pain. Then, he walked into some type of table that he could not see in the dark and hit his shin.
He finally found his way out of the warehouse and stumbled onto the street. He then realized he only had his PJ’s on as the wind and cold tore through him. A lady approached him, asking him for money; but he had none. Before he could even get the words out of his mouth, she gave him a push and a dirty look, saying: Thanks for nothing! He continued down the street, trying to figure out how to get back home. A car rushed by, spraying dirty water all over him. A man in a storefront seemed to take compassion on the boy and asked if he could help. The boy said: Yes, please; may I use your phone to call my mom and dad to come pick me up.
The man said that although he couldn’t let the boy in his store looking and smelling the way he did, he would make the call for this boy. The boy was pleased and gave him his parent’s phone number. The man went inside but didn’t come back out for what seemed like forever. All of a sudden, the boy heard the sirens of a police car pull up behind him, as he stood in front of the store. The police got out of the car, explained to the boy that the store manager had called them, complaining that a strange looking, strange smelling troublemaker was loitering outside his establishment. They loaded the boy in the police car and took him to jail.
After spending several hours in jail with some very scary people, his parents came to the jail and bailed him out and took him home. The boy was exhausted, in great pain and upset; was glad to finally be with his parents and be home. However, his parents yelled at him all the way home and once home, they grounded him for life.
What is the moral of this story? Never name your dog: Charlie
Why aren’t you laughing? Didn’t you understand my story – the moral of it? You are probably thinking: how could you have just wasted 2 minutes of my life! You’re right: this story makes no sense. But that is my point. The majority of people who lived in Jesus’ day thought the very exact thing about His stories. They make no sense. What in the world is he talking about? Now, Jesus knew what His stories were meant to teach; and those who “had ears to hear” understood them.
But, just as you must have thought: What is he talking about?, so did the people of Jesus’ day. But, what is even harder for us to understand, is that statement Jesus made about why He spoke in parables to the non-believers:
Mark 4:12- “So that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
This is another one of Jesus’ statements that is hard from me to grapple with. It sounds as though God was intentionally keeping these people from understanding the gospel; so that they could not be forgiven of their sins. What? I thought the Bible said:
I Peter 3:9 – “[God]…is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
All through the Scriptures, we read how God loves people and offers them salvation through his Son. In human terms, he makes the message simple, not hard. So, what is Jesus talking about here in Mark 4:12?
Jesus uses a quotation from Isaiah 6, in order to explain that it is about the hardness of the people’s hearts, not about God being mean.
Many of the people listening to the parables were like the people in the day of Isaiah the prophet:
Isaiah 6:9,10 – “And he said, Go, and say to this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
And He may be referring to the prophecy that speaks of God’s people having hardened their hearts:
Ezekiel 12:2 “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house.”
Jesus is saying that those who cannot hear the Word of God and apply it are not denied the possibility of belief, but are excluded from the opportunity of being further instructed as long as the disobedience continues. So a person may believe, but they are no longer open to instruction from the Word of God. Here in the Isaiah and Ezekiel passages, we have the Hebrew tendency to express a consequence as though it were a purpose – in effect, the message is this: go tell my message, but don’t expect anyone to listen to it. The effect will be their persistent refusal to accept what is said to the point where they have made themselves incapable of hearing it. Those living in hard, rocky or weedy soil can make themselves incapable of hearing the Word of God. Isaiah was to experience this for 40 years. This experience was replicated in Jesus’ ministry.”
You see: The people Jesus was talking about had already rejected him. So, as a sign of that rejection, he was going to talk in parables, and talk about spiritual meanings that they would not be able to understand. They were 100% accountable for their unbelief; and now, their resistance resulted in not being able to hear the clear, simple message of the gospel, even given in word pictures.
Vines wrote: “In other words Jesus comes and gives people the truth, but if they won’t see it, the time comes when they cannot see. If people won’t hear it, the time comes when they cannot hear. As they refuse to know the truth, they lose their capacity to know the truth. Jesus came so that people might have forgiveness of sin, that they might be converted. He was using the parabolic method as a wedge to open up their hard hearts, to give them opportunity to see the truth in picture form, to cause them to beget interest, to get their attention again, and to help them move on to find saving truth.
And let’s also keep in mind the truth of verse 11. God, the Holy Spirit, had revealed the truth of the kingdom of God to those who had believed. This has always been and will always be a work of the Spirit of God in the hearts of people. No one can take credit or boast when they “get it”, understanding spiritual truth to the point of trusting in Christ.
Ephesians 2:8,9 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
So, these parables are all about a person’s responsibility to trust in Jesus for salvation; and that fact that the Holy Spirit must do a work on their hearts. If not, those who reject the truth will not be able to understand, repent of their sins, or be saved. We cannot fully comprehend the work of God in this matter; but we should be able to understand the human perspective and what is expected of us.
By the way, the followers of Christ were the ones who should have been able to understand these parables; but isn’t it interesting that Jesus’ own followers needed Him to “spell it out for them”?
Mark 4:13 – “And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?”
Even Jesus’ followers had a hard time when Jesus began teaching this way. If you don’t understand this parable, Jesus asked, then how in the world are you going to understand the others about the Kingdom? So, he goes on to interpret it for them. This incident reminds us that even Jesus’ closest followers didn’t always understand what was going on or even what Jesus was trying to say. This should be an encouragement to all of us, me included, when I simply don’t understand many things I read in the Scriptures. Jesus tells us what this particular parable means:
Jesus explained to His followers that there are 4 possible ways to respond to the truth (vs. 13-20)
This is what I would call the SO WHAT section of this passage. As Jesus explains what this parable means, His followers will understand why people will respond differently to Jesus and the message of the gospel that the disciples will be responsible to teach in the future.
For us this morning, I am going to ask you to take some time for personal reflection, and ask yourself some tough, evaluative questions. Are you willing to do that? I believe the emphasis of Jesus parable, that he is about to explain, is on the soils, that represents the various heart responses of people. I want to challenge you to determine where your heart is right now, as it relates to the truths of God.
Mark 4:14 – “The sower sows the word.”
The farmer in this story is probably Jesus and His followers, who are speaking the truth of the word of God. Jesus does say that the seed is the word of God. He is now going to describe the different types of hearers of the word of God as the soil on which the seed fell. He begins with the 3 types of negative responses people were giving to the truth:
1. A hard heart does not respond
Mark 4:15 – “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.”
I would like to apply these as though each of you represent one of these soils. Let me begin with this front section, going half way back; as though your hearts are the hard soil described here.
The truth of the Word of God is given, but your heart is so hard, it takes no root. And in this case, Satan is pictured as the birds who take away the word from your heart, the seed that is sown. So, Jesus does connect the non-believers to Satan. In fact, later, he will say that those who reject Christ have Satan as their Father, as they believe His lies:
John 8:42 – 47 – “Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
Have you met anyone like this? You have shared what you consider to be the simple truth of the Word of God; and yet they just can’t get it. It is like the saying: I feel like I’m speaking to a brick wall. It makes no sense to them. In fact, they are completely cold to it. Don’t get frustrated. Jesus told you it would happen.
Is your heart hardened to the truth?
This is a good question to ask yourself. You have found ways to ignore the truths of God’s Word. For those of you who have not given your lives to Christ – you have hardened your heart so that the word of God has no effect. You blame your unbelief on science or hypocrites within the church or something else that makes sense to you. You have no desire to respond humbly to the Word of God. Can I give you this warning? There may come a time when God will give you over to your hard heart.
For those of you who are believers, we will see in the next several weeks that it is not only non-believers who can have a hard heart – we can as well. Some of you haven’t humbled yourself to God and his word for years. You think you know all you need to know; and you have lived in spiritual pride. You can’t remember the last time you cried over your own sin. You are not humbly walking with God. You hear the Word of God often, but it has been a long time since it had an impact on your heart.
As soon as the Word is spoken, you begin to think in a critical way, and how it needs to be applied to someone else, but has nothing to do with you. I can’t convince you. Only the Holy Spirit can soften your heart and help you to repent of your hard heart. Could this describe you? Let’s move on to the back section on this side; and let’s say you represent the 2nd soil: another possible heart response.
2. A shallow heart does not make long-lasting commitments
This second kind of soil, this second kind of heart makes an initial response that seems genuine. There is a lot of excitement:
Mark 4:16,17 – “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.”
The testing of your commitment demonstrates that you were not truly believers. Many who followed Jesus were exactly like this. They seemed very excited while Jesus was doing his miracles and healing everyone. But, there came a time when he began to make demands; that is, when he explained to them the commitment they were going to make if they were to truly follow Him:
Luke 9:57-62 – “As they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. To another he said, Follow me. But he said, lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Yet another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Many showed interest, as though they were good soil; but when the realization of the costs of following Christ came, they showed themselves to be rocky ground. Jesus said: if you follow me, you may not have security. In fact, I may ask you to leave the country to follow me. You must place me above family. You must set aside your old way of living before you came to me, and you must live your new life, wholly dedicated to my kingdom. You must be willing to tell others about me and how they can get to God.
So, do you have a rocky heart? You’ve seen this haven’t you? Someone is very enthusiastic about the message of truth and following Christ. But, when the trials come, and their faith is tested, they abandon it, and go back to trusting in themselves. They didn’t count the cost of following Christ; and may not have been saved in the first place. What about you? Did you demonstrate a great desire at some point, but have never committed yourself to Christ? What is keeping you from doing so? It may be that your heart is rocky soil; and unless you humble yourself, you will think you are ok with God because you said some prayer when you were a kid. You may find out too late that the Word of truth never penetrated your heart.
Now, remember, just because you fail God or even doubt at times doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t a Christian. Consider the disciples themselves. They all failed Jesus – all the time. And near the end, they all fled. In fact, the leader, Peter, denied that he even knew Christ. Were they still Christians? Yes. But, in Jesus parable, he was explaining how many people would show good signs at first, but were not truly children of the Kingdom of God. There is a 3rd soil, a 3rd response.
3. A divided heart has other priorities
Let me talk now to this back section. Jesus described a third way that people had been responding to the truth about Him.
Mark 4:18,19 – “And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”
This group seemed to be followers. They hung around longer. They sounded good. They looked good. But there were 3 competing things that eventually stole their heart away, and showed them to be pretenders. They had great intentions but did not make the lasting, true commitment to Christ.
Some of them left because of the cares of the world. Things were tough. They became involved in politics instead or saving the whales or coaching sports teams. These things could have been good, but their concerns for the things of this life overtook their desire for Christ and living for Him. Others were deceived by the pursuit of wealth. They bought into the concept that money solves all problems; and what you really need is more money and more stuff. So, in order to pursue more and more, they had to put aside their full commitment to Christ and the kingdom of God. They no longer heeded Christ’s words:
Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
And still others allowed other interests, other relationships, to take over their lives. They no longer were dreaming of how to accomplish great things for Christ; and that was replaced with accomplishing great things for themselves. They showed themselves not to be thorn ridden soil.
They have a divided heart. It is like the heart of the girl to which a young man once proposed. He said, “Darling, I want you to know that I love you more than anything else in the world. I want you to marry me. I’m not rich. I don’t have a yacht or a summer home or a sports car like Johnny Brown, but I do love you with all my heart.” She thought for a minute and replied, “I love you with all my heart, too, but tell me more about Johnny Brown.”
Do you know people like this? Everything looked good. It looked like they were devoted to Christ; but then other things, other concerns became more important to them. Perhaps they never truly committed themselves to Christ. Or, you could be truly saved, but living like a non-believer – if your heart is like this non-believer. You have all the signs of a follower, except for the fact that you are more committed to this life, the accumulation of stuff, having fun, money, security for the future. Could this be true of you? Then Jesus gives one more option and let’s pretend that this group up front represents this response.
4. A devoted heart humbly receives the truth and produces a spiritual harvest
Spiritual maturity it is not about how much you know, how often you go to church or how good you look on the outside. Sometimes, children are able to understand biblical concepts better than adults. Spiritual maturity is connected to a humble heart, no matter how old you are or how long you have been a Christian.
This kind of heart, represented by this good soil, is about a heart that has responded to the truth:
Mark 4:20 – “But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
These are the hearts that humble themselves, accept the word of truth and then apply it.
James 1:21,22 – “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your soul. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
True Christianity is going to result in action. You can argue all day about how you believe a person is saved because they said a prayer; but in the Bible, the emphasis is on fruit and the harvest. When we evaluate ourselves, we should see Christ continuing to work in us, using us to make a difference for Him. As the book of James points out, although works do not save us, faith without the corresponding fruit of works, is a dead faith.
When you came to Jesus Christ, you had to come as a child, completely believing everything He said, giving yourself to Him completely. That true commitment is borne out over time as you bear fruit by investing in other people’s lives in some way.
Walvoord and Zuck: “Giving out the news of God’s kingdom is like sowing seed on various kinds of soil. At Jesus’ first coming and in the present Age the kingdom is largely veiled in the face of satanic opposition and human unbelief. But despite this, God’s rule takes hold in those who accept Jesus’ message and His rule manifests itself in spiritual fruitfulness. But God’s kingdom will be openly established on earth at Jesus’ second coming with a glory yet undisclosed. Then there will be an abundant harvest. Thus the parable displayed god’s kingdom as both present but veiled and future but openly glorious.”
If you have this kind of heart, the good soil that Jesus describes, then when you hear the Word of God, you are willing to accept it. And it isn’t just about accumulating knowledge. Your heart is sensitive to God’s Spirit. You cry out for Him to change you and to lead you. And when His Spirit reveals something to you, you carry it out in your life. And when you fail, as you often will, you confess your sins and get your heart right. It is your desire to live for Jesus Christ, to know Him, to grow in Him; and to direct other people to Him. Does this reflect your heart?
Let’s Pray.
We began the service with a video, that honors those who have served. A casket was rolled down the center aisle with a flag on it. Some who had been in the military marched down behind and folded the flag before "taps" was played. Then one of those officers had all veterans stand and a prayer of thanks was given. Then they played while we sang: America The Beautiful.
For the message, we continued our series from the gospel of Mark.
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
Mark 4:1-20
Please turn in your Bibles to Mark 4. In the Bible in front of you, it is page 867 or 885.
A middle-aged man was distraught over his wife’s stubborn refusal to admit she had a hearing problem. One day he asked his family doctor for advice how to convince his wife that she has a hearing problem. The doctor promptly told him that when he got home he could confirm the hearing problem by opening the front door and from there asking his wife what’s for dinner.
Then the doctor said, if she doesn’t answer, move closer to the kitchen. Repeat the question again, and if she still doesn’t answer, move right up to her ear and whisper in it, “What’s for dinner, honey?” In this way, the doctor assured him, she’ll have to admit she has the problem.
So the man raced home with joy in his heart and opened the front door. “What’s for dinner, honey?” he asked. His wife made no reply, so he moved closer to the kitchen and asked again. “What’s for dinner, honey?” Again, nothing was said. When he looked into the kitchen, sure enough, there she was at the kitchen counter. So, he tiptoed over to her and whispered in her ear, “What’s for dinner, honey?” She turned and looked at him straight in the eye: “For the 3rd time, I said, we’re having MEAT LOAF!”
Somebody did have a hearing problem, but the man didn’t realize it was him. The passage of Scripture we are looking at together, today, introduces us to people who had a tremendous hearing problem; and they didn’t even know it. In fact, they thought they heard and understood everything quite well. However, Jesus Christ begins to use a teaching method that will challenge their hearing, their spiritual understanding; and which will be directed at their hearts.
Mark 4:1,2 – “Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:”
Before we launch into the particular parable he used here, let’s take a moment to get the setting. Jesus had moved out of the confrontational and scholarly setting of the synagogues, and went out to the seashore by the Sea of Galilee. Last week, we found out why there were large crowds gathered and what danger that caused. Look at:
Mark 3:9,10 – “And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.”
So many people were flocking to Jesus, wanting to be healed, that he was actually concerned for his safety. So, he asked his disciples to get a boat ready; and it didn’t take long for him to need it. But, he doesn’t get into the boat to escape somewhere, he gets in the boat, to be safe and then to be able to keep teaching.
That would seem strange to most of us; and if there was such a large crowd, how in the world did they hear him teaching. They did not have the technology or sound systems we have now. Could he really teach large crowds from a boat? Before we launch into this parable, I want to take a couple of minutes to consider the setting of the Sea of Galilee.
On a DVD presentation entitled: “The Fifth Gospel: The Land and Sea of Galilee”, Pixner, a Benedictine priest-archaeologist, proposes answers to intriguing questions that surround Jesus’ ministry near the Sea of Galilee. We are going to watch a clip, less than 2 minutes in length, but one that will give you a picture of the area Jesus may have been; and a farmer in that area talks about the natural sound system that God built.
VIDEO CLIP: The Fifth Gospel: the Land and Sea of Galilee – 19:46-21:31
It was in this setting that Jesus was said to have begun teaching in parables.
A parable is a comparison. It is a common day story with a deep, spiritual meaning. It is not an allegory, where everything in the story seems to have a special meaning; but the story itself, in parable form, is a word picture of a spiritual truth.
Jesus began to teach the truth using parables (vs. 1,2)
According to the New Compact Bible Dictionary, a parable “was an effective method of revealing truth to the spiritual and ready mind and at the same time of concealing it from others.” Jesus was changing his way of communication. He had moved out of the synagogues to the seashore. He was speaking to a different type of crowd. These stories would gain tremendous interest in the listeners; but not all of them would be able to comprehend it. We will see why in a little while. These parables were not just to gain mind recognition of truth; but for heart change. The first one we are introduced to in Mark is when:
Jesus told the story of the sower, the seeds and the soils (vs. 3-8)
Mark 4:3-8 – “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
Jesus used a story that people could relate to. As we saw in the video, it is possible, from the seashore, that Jesus could point to a field, where a farmer was planting seed and tell that parable. He uses a story of something they can see in present life to describe a spiritual issue that they cannot see – the work of the Spirit and Word of God on people’s hearts.
The parable is about a farmer who goes out to plant seed in his unplowed field. Some of the seed fell on the field where the path was well worn from foot traffic. It may have been from animals or even the sower himself, as he worked the fields. The seed would fall on the trodden path, but had no good soil to take root in.
The birds came and ate the seed.
Some of the seed fell on rocky ground, where the soil had no depth because limestone was so close to the surface. I have read that “in many places in Palestine there is only an inch or two of soil on top of a ledge of limestone rock. If seed falls on this ground it will grow and germinate quickly. The limestone holds heat from the sun which creates ideal conditions for seeds to sprout. But after the seed puts down roots in search of water it starves and dies as quickly as it grew. There is no substance on the ledge to sustain it.” The heat of the sun quickly did away with any growth there.
Then, there was some seed planted among thorns that had not come up yet; but they very soon did spring up and choked the planted seed. Barclay wrote: “The Palestinian farmer was lazy. He cut off the top of the fibrous rooted weeds; he even burned off the top; and the field might look clean; but below the surface the roots were still there; and in due time the weeds revived in all their strength. They grew with such rapidity and such [strength] that they choked the life out of the seed.”
And finally, there was seed planted in good soil, which produced grain, and it multiplied abundantly in the harvest. In fact, depending on the soil, it yielded 30, 60 or even 100 times the seed sown. According to scholars, back in those days a yield of 10 times the seed sown was considered a great crop.
That was the parable, the story. OK, so I know more now about Palestinian soil and farming in the First Century. But, what does this parable mean? Jesus will tell us in a few verses. But that is not what we are to know next. What Mark, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, tells us next, is about what Jesus said about why He spoke in parables:
Jesus used parables to reveal truth to His followers and to conceal it from those who rejected Him. (vs. 9-12)
He began his parable by saying: “Listen up!” and then immediately following the parable, he said:
Mark 4:9 – “And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
He is not poking fun at the earless; but He was saying that there were certain people with the right kind of hearing that would be able to understand what Jesus was talking about. Some time has now passed and he was alone with his twelve disciples and other close followers. They had some questions about these stories, these parables Jesus had been using.
Mark 4:10-11 – “And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.”
“To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God.” His followers were the ones who had the “ears to hear” and who could understand the secret of the kingdom of God. The word translated secret here is the word from which get our English word: “mystery.” Over a period of time, God chose to progressively reveal His salvation plan; and over those many years, most people were not able to clearly understand it.
Later, the Apostle Paul would write:
Romans 16:25,26 – “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to [the] gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.”
For now, the mystery was being revealed to the disciples, that this was a time of planting the seed as far as the Kingdom of God was concerned. It was not yet time for the complete harvest. Although people did not understand it in the past, now some of Jesus’ followers were given the ability by God to understand some of what he was talking about.
Those whom God had called were able to understand, to a point, that the kingdom of God was near because Jesus Christ came from the Father. Remember that Jesus preached this message to all those who would listen: not just His followers:
Mark 1:15 – “…The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The good news of the kingdom was that God had come in the flesh, in the form of Jesus Christ, and he was THE ONE who could get them to God. Some were able to understand that; but most people did not see Jesus as the coming King; but as a common carpenter, who was a religious crazy man. They would agree with the assessment Jesus’ family gave about Him in Mark 3:21 – “…He is out of his mind.”
What was the kingdom of God? Sometimes called the “kingdom of Heaven”, it is one of those already/not yet issues in the Scriptures. When you become a follower of Christ, you are a part of the Kingdom of God, but you won’t experience it until this life is over. It sometimes was spoken of as something present; but mostly as the time when Jesus Christ would come back to Earth to rule for 1,000 years. We are to be living by the standards of the Kingdom of God now; but the reality of it won’t come until the future. Jesus overcame sin and death, but we will not realize that full victory until Jesus returns. Although there are not many of them, this is the place in Mark where we are hearing Jesus talk about the Kingdom of God, using parables. He is taking a complex spiritual issue and putting it into a common day story form. We will see more of this next week.
Let me tell you a story: There was once a boy who had a little dog named Charlie. One morning, Charlie woke up the little boy, when the boy realized he was not in bed; and in fact, he was not at home at all. He was walking in an abandoned warehouse. In that warehouse, it was dark and something didn’t smell right. As the boy continued walking, he stepped on a nail that penetrated the skin. He removed the nail and began to limp in pain. Then, he walked into some type of table that he could not see in the dark and hit his shin.
He finally found his way out of the warehouse and stumbled onto the street. He then realized he only had his PJ’s on as the wind and cold tore through him. A lady approached him, asking him for money; but he had none. Before he could even get the words out of his mouth, she gave him a push and a dirty look, saying: Thanks for nothing! He continued down the street, trying to figure out how to get back home. A car rushed by, spraying dirty water all over him. A man in a storefront seemed to take compassion on the boy and asked if he could help. The boy said: Yes, please; may I use your phone to call my mom and dad to come pick me up.
The man said that although he couldn’t let the boy in his store looking and smelling the way he did, he would make the call for this boy. The boy was pleased and gave him his parent’s phone number. The man went inside but didn’t come back out for what seemed like forever. All of a sudden, the boy heard the sirens of a police car pull up behind him, as he stood in front of the store. The police got out of the car, explained to the boy that the store manager had called them, complaining that a strange looking, strange smelling troublemaker was loitering outside his establishment. They loaded the boy in the police car and took him to jail.
After spending several hours in jail with some very scary people, his parents came to the jail and bailed him out and took him home. The boy was exhausted, in great pain and upset; was glad to finally be with his parents and be home. However, his parents yelled at him all the way home and once home, they grounded him for life.
What is the moral of this story? Never name your dog: Charlie
Why aren’t you laughing? Didn’t you understand my story – the moral of it? You are probably thinking: how could you have just wasted 2 minutes of my life! You’re right: this story makes no sense. But that is my point. The majority of people who lived in Jesus’ day thought the very exact thing about His stories. They make no sense. What in the world is he talking about? Now, Jesus knew what His stories were meant to teach; and those who “had ears to hear” understood them.
But, just as you must have thought: What is he talking about?, so did the people of Jesus’ day. But, what is even harder for us to understand, is that statement Jesus made about why He spoke in parables to the non-believers:
Mark 4:12- “So that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
This is another one of Jesus’ statements that is hard from me to grapple with. It sounds as though God was intentionally keeping these people from understanding the gospel; so that they could not be forgiven of their sins. What? I thought the Bible said:
I Peter 3:9 – “[God]…is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
All through the Scriptures, we read how God loves people and offers them salvation through his Son. In human terms, he makes the message simple, not hard. So, what is Jesus talking about here in Mark 4:12?
Jesus uses a quotation from Isaiah 6, in order to explain that it is about the hardness of the people’s hearts, not about God being mean.
Many of the people listening to the parables were like the people in the day of Isaiah the prophet:
Isaiah 6:9,10 – “And he said, Go, and say to this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
And He may be referring to the prophecy that speaks of God’s people having hardened their hearts:
Ezekiel 12:2 “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house.”
Jesus is saying that those who cannot hear the Word of God and apply it are not denied the possibility of belief, but are excluded from the opportunity of being further instructed as long as the disobedience continues. So a person may believe, but they are no longer open to instruction from the Word of God. Here in the Isaiah and Ezekiel passages, we have the Hebrew tendency to express a consequence as though it were a purpose – in effect, the message is this: go tell my message, but don’t expect anyone to listen to it. The effect will be their persistent refusal to accept what is said to the point where they have made themselves incapable of hearing it. Those living in hard, rocky or weedy soil can make themselves incapable of hearing the Word of God. Isaiah was to experience this for 40 years. This experience was replicated in Jesus’ ministry.”
You see: The people Jesus was talking about had already rejected him. So, as a sign of that rejection, he was going to talk in parables, and talk about spiritual meanings that they would not be able to understand. They were 100% accountable for their unbelief; and now, their resistance resulted in not being able to hear the clear, simple message of the gospel, even given in word pictures.
Vines wrote: “In other words Jesus comes and gives people the truth, but if they won’t see it, the time comes when they cannot see. If people won’t hear it, the time comes when they cannot hear. As they refuse to know the truth, they lose their capacity to know the truth. Jesus came so that people might have forgiveness of sin, that they might be converted. He was using the parabolic method as a wedge to open up their hard hearts, to give them opportunity to see the truth in picture form, to cause them to beget interest, to get their attention again, and to help them move on to find saving truth.
And let’s also keep in mind the truth of verse 11. God, the Holy Spirit, had revealed the truth of the kingdom of God to those who had believed. This has always been and will always be a work of the Spirit of God in the hearts of people. No one can take credit or boast when they “get it”, understanding spiritual truth to the point of trusting in Christ.
Ephesians 2:8,9 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
So, these parables are all about a person’s responsibility to trust in Jesus for salvation; and that fact that the Holy Spirit must do a work on their hearts. If not, those who reject the truth will not be able to understand, repent of their sins, or be saved. We cannot fully comprehend the work of God in this matter; but we should be able to understand the human perspective and what is expected of us.
By the way, the followers of Christ were the ones who should have been able to understand these parables; but isn’t it interesting that Jesus’ own followers needed Him to “spell it out for them”?
Mark 4:13 – “And he said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?”
Even Jesus’ followers had a hard time when Jesus began teaching this way. If you don’t understand this parable, Jesus asked, then how in the world are you going to understand the others about the Kingdom? So, he goes on to interpret it for them. This incident reminds us that even Jesus’ closest followers didn’t always understand what was going on or even what Jesus was trying to say. This should be an encouragement to all of us, me included, when I simply don’t understand many things I read in the Scriptures. Jesus tells us what this particular parable means:
Jesus explained to His followers that there are 4 possible ways to respond to the truth (vs. 13-20)
This is what I would call the SO WHAT section of this passage. As Jesus explains what this parable means, His followers will understand why people will respond differently to Jesus and the message of the gospel that the disciples will be responsible to teach in the future.
For us this morning, I am going to ask you to take some time for personal reflection, and ask yourself some tough, evaluative questions. Are you willing to do that? I believe the emphasis of Jesus parable, that he is about to explain, is on the soils, that represents the various heart responses of people. I want to challenge you to determine where your heart is right now, as it relates to the truths of God.
Mark 4:14 – “The sower sows the word.”
The farmer in this story is probably Jesus and His followers, who are speaking the truth of the word of God. Jesus does say that the seed is the word of God. He is now going to describe the different types of hearers of the word of God as the soil on which the seed fell. He begins with the 3 types of negative responses people were giving to the truth:
1. A hard heart does not respond
Mark 4:15 – “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.”
I would like to apply these as though each of you represent one of these soils. Let me begin with this front section, going half way back; as though your hearts are the hard soil described here.
The truth of the Word of God is given, but your heart is so hard, it takes no root. And in this case, Satan is pictured as the birds who take away the word from your heart, the seed that is sown. So, Jesus does connect the non-believers to Satan. In fact, later, he will say that those who reject Christ have Satan as their Father, as they believe His lies:
John 8:42 – 47 – “Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
Have you met anyone like this? You have shared what you consider to be the simple truth of the Word of God; and yet they just can’t get it. It is like the saying: I feel like I’m speaking to a brick wall. It makes no sense to them. In fact, they are completely cold to it. Don’t get frustrated. Jesus told you it would happen.
Is your heart hardened to the truth?
This is a good question to ask yourself. You have found ways to ignore the truths of God’s Word. For those of you who have not given your lives to Christ – you have hardened your heart so that the word of God has no effect. You blame your unbelief on science or hypocrites within the church or something else that makes sense to you. You have no desire to respond humbly to the Word of God. Can I give you this warning? There may come a time when God will give you over to your hard heart.
For those of you who are believers, we will see in the next several weeks that it is not only non-believers who can have a hard heart – we can as well. Some of you haven’t humbled yourself to God and his word for years. You think you know all you need to know; and you have lived in spiritual pride. You can’t remember the last time you cried over your own sin. You are not humbly walking with God. You hear the Word of God often, but it has been a long time since it had an impact on your heart.
As soon as the Word is spoken, you begin to think in a critical way, and how it needs to be applied to someone else, but has nothing to do with you. I can’t convince you. Only the Holy Spirit can soften your heart and help you to repent of your hard heart. Could this describe you? Let’s move on to the back section on this side; and let’s say you represent the 2nd soil: another possible heart response.
2. A shallow heart does not make long-lasting commitments
This second kind of soil, this second kind of heart makes an initial response that seems genuine. There is a lot of excitement:
Mark 4:16,17 – “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.”
The testing of your commitment demonstrates that you were not truly believers. Many who followed Jesus were exactly like this. They seemed very excited while Jesus was doing his miracles and healing everyone. But, there came a time when he began to make demands; that is, when he explained to them the commitment they were going to make if they were to truly follow Him:
Luke 9:57-62 – “As they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. To another he said, Follow me. But he said, lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Yet another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Many showed interest, as though they were good soil; but when the realization of the costs of following Christ came, they showed themselves to be rocky ground. Jesus said: if you follow me, you may not have security. In fact, I may ask you to leave the country to follow me. You must place me above family. You must set aside your old way of living before you came to me, and you must live your new life, wholly dedicated to my kingdom. You must be willing to tell others about me and how they can get to God.
So, do you have a rocky heart? You’ve seen this haven’t you? Someone is very enthusiastic about the message of truth and following Christ. But, when the trials come, and their faith is tested, they abandon it, and go back to trusting in themselves. They didn’t count the cost of following Christ; and may not have been saved in the first place. What about you? Did you demonstrate a great desire at some point, but have never committed yourself to Christ? What is keeping you from doing so? It may be that your heart is rocky soil; and unless you humble yourself, you will think you are ok with God because you said some prayer when you were a kid. You may find out too late that the Word of truth never penetrated your heart.
Now, remember, just because you fail God or even doubt at times doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t a Christian. Consider the disciples themselves. They all failed Jesus – all the time. And near the end, they all fled. In fact, the leader, Peter, denied that he even knew Christ. Were they still Christians? Yes. But, in Jesus parable, he was explaining how many people would show good signs at first, but were not truly children of the Kingdom of God. There is a 3rd soil, a 3rd response.
3. A divided heart has other priorities
Let me talk now to this back section. Jesus described a third way that people had been responding to the truth about Him.
Mark 4:18,19 – “And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”
This group seemed to be followers. They hung around longer. They sounded good. They looked good. But there were 3 competing things that eventually stole their heart away, and showed them to be pretenders. They had great intentions but did not make the lasting, true commitment to Christ.
Some of them left because of the cares of the world. Things were tough. They became involved in politics instead or saving the whales or coaching sports teams. These things could have been good, but their concerns for the things of this life overtook their desire for Christ and living for Him. Others were deceived by the pursuit of wealth. They bought into the concept that money solves all problems; and what you really need is more money and more stuff. So, in order to pursue more and more, they had to put aside their full commitment to Christ and the kingdom of God. They no longer heeded Christ’s words:
Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
And still others allowed other interests, other relationships, to take over their lives. They no longer were dreaming of how to accomplish great things for Christ; and that was replaced with accomplishing great things for themselves. They showed themselves not to be thorn ridden soil.
They have a divided heart. It is like the heart of the girl to which a young man once proposed. He said, “Darling, I want you to know that I love you more than anything else in the world. I want you to marry me. I’m not rich. I don’t have a yacht or a summer home or a sports car like Johnny Brown, but I do love you with all my heart.” She thought for a minute and replied, “I love you with all my heart, too, but tell me more about Johnny Brown.”
Do you know people like this? Everything looked good. It looked like they were devoted to Christ; but then other things, other concerns became more important to them. Perhaps they never truly committed themselves to Christ. Or, you could be truly saved, but living like a non-believer – if your heart is like this non-believer. You have all the signs of a follower, except for the fact that you are more committed to this life, the accumulation of stuff, having fun, money, security for the future. Could this be true of you? Then Jesus gives one more option and let’s pretend that this group up front represents this response.
4. A devoted heart humbly receives the truth and produces a spiritual harvest
Spiritual maturity it is not about how much you know, how often you go to church or how good you look on the outside. Sometimes, children are able to understand biblical concepts better than adults. Spiritual maturity is connected to a humble heart, no matter how old you are or how long you have been a Christian.
This kind of heart, represented by this good soil, is about a heart that has responded to the truth:
Mark 4:20 – “But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
These are the hearts that humble themselves, accept the word of truth and then apply it.
James 1:21,22 – “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your soul. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
True Christianity is going to result in action. You can argue all day about how you believe a person is saved because they said a prayer; but in the Bible, the emphasis is on fruit and the harvest. When we evaluate ourselves, we should see Christ continuing to work in us, using us to make a difference for Him. As the book of James points out, although works do not save us, faith without the corresponding fruit of works, is a dead faith.
When you came to Jesus Christ, you had to come as a child, completely believing everything He said, giving yourself to Him completely. That true commitment is borne out over time as you bear fruit by investing in other people’s lives in some way.
Walvoord and Zuck: “Giving out the news of God’s kingdom is like sowing seed on various kinds of soil. At Jesus’ first coming and in the present Age the kingdom is largely veiled in the face of satanic opposition and human unbelief. But despite this, God’s rule takes hold in those who accept Jesus’ message and His rule manifests itself in spiritual fruitfulness. But God’s kingdom will be openly established on earth at Jesus’ second coming with a glory yet undisclosed. Then there will be an abundant harvest. Thus the parable displayed god’s kingdom as both present but veiled and future but openly glorious.”
If you have this kind of heart, the good soil that Jesus describes, then when you hear the Word of God, you are willing to accept it. And it isn’t just about accumulating knowledge. Your heart is sensitive to God’s Spirit. You cry out for Him to change you and to lead you. And when His Spirit reveals something to you, you carry it out in your life. And when you fail, as you often will, you confess your sins and get your heart right. It is your desire to live for Jesus Christ, to know Him, to grow in Him; and to direct other people to Him. Does this reflect your heart?
Let’s Pray.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Cinderella
"She spins and she sways To whatever song plays Without a care in the world
And I'm sitting here wearing The weight of the world on my shoulders It's been a long day
And there's still work to do She's pulling at meSaying "Dad, I need you
There's a ball at the castle And I've been invited And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?" So I will dance with Cinderella While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...She says he's a nice guy and I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress She says, "Dad, the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing Oh, please, Daddy, please?"
So I will dance with Cinderella While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone She will be gone Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned She says,
"Dad, the wedding's still six months away But I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?" So I will dance with Cinderella While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone"
The above song is my girls' favorite right now . It is by Steven curtis chapman; and they love they hear it over and over and over again. My boys aren't that crazy about it (for obvious reasons - it's a "girls" song; but I really enjoy it. It reminds all those who listen of how quickly time with our children passes; and very soon, they are gone (one way or another). It tugs at my heart every time. It will forever have more meaning to everyone who hears it because of the news that broke this morning:
NASHVILLE — Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman's youngest child died Wednesday evening after being struck by a car driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family's Williamson County, Tenn. home.
Maria, one of the Christian singer's six children, was taken by LifeFlight to Vanderbilt Hospital, which confirmed the death, according to Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
The 5-year-old was hit by an SUV driven by her teenage brother, she said. Police did not give the driver's name.
The teen was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser down the driveway of the rural home about 5:30 p.m. and several children were playing in the area, McPherson said. He did not see Maria in the driveway before the vehicle struck her, she said.
"It appears to be a terrible accident," McPherson said.
-USA TODAY -
This news report is hard to read. I cannot imagine what must be going on in the hearts of that family right now. I don't suppose anyone can really understand unless they have been through it. I will definitely keep this family in my prayers as they journey through this time of heartache. There are so many different aspect of this story - all of which are difficult.
I do have a flashback, however, to an incident in our family less than a year ago. Teresa was not home and I had all the kids at another event. When we got home, I let out all of the kids near the door, before heading into the garage. My attention was diverted by something. I saw Breanna near the front door and I was ready to pull into the garage. Then, Breanna said something and pointed toward the car. I got out of the car and my heart sunk as I found Caleb, bending down in front of the surburban looking at some ants. If Breanna would not have gotten my attention, I would have gone forward and run over my son.
Even now as I write this, my heart is tender and terrifying thoughts run through my mind. All in all, I am resting in the grace and mercy of God, that saved me from the same thing the Chapman family is experiencing right now. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that God spared my son. I realize that my children, our family is never completely safe. Anything can happen at any time - this I know.
I continually place my life, Teresa's and each of my cildren - in the hands of God. May God give all of us, including the Chapman family the grace that he promises is sufficient for any circumstance. Somehow, may we be able to say, only by God's power, what Job said: "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away - Blessed be the name of the Lord."
And I'm sitting here wearing The weight of the world on my shoulders It's been a long day
And there's still work to do She's pulling at meSaying "Dad, I need you
There's a ball at the castle And I've been invited And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?" So I will dance with Cinderella While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...She says he's a nice guy and I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress She says, "Dad, the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing Oh, please, Daddy, please?"
So I will dance with Cinderella While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone She will be gone Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned She says,
"Dad, the wedding's still six months away But I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?" So I will dance with Cinderella While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song 'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone"
The above song is my girls' favorite right now . It is by Steven curtis chapman; and they love they hear it over and over and over again. My boys aren't that crazy about it (for obvious reasons - it's a "girls" song; but I really enjoy it. It reminds all those who listen of how quickly time with our children passes; and very soon, they are gone (one way or another). It tugs at my heart every time. It will forever have more meaning to everyone who hears it because of the news that broke this morning:
NASHVILLE — Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman's youngest child died Wednesday evening after being struck by a car driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family's Williamson County, Tenn. home.
Maria, one of the Christian singer's six children, was taken by LifeFlight to Vanderbilt Hospital, which confirmed the death, according to Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
The 5-year-old was hit by an SUV driven by her teenage brother, she said. Police did not give the driver's name.
The teen was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser down the driveway of the rural home about 5:30 p.m. and several children were playing in the area, McPherson said. He did not see Maria in the driveway before the vehicle struck her, she said.
"It appears to be a terrible accident," McPherson said.
-USA TODAY -
This news report is hard to read. I cannot imagine what must be going on in the hearts of that family right now. I don't suppose anyone can really understand unless they have been through it. I will definitely keep this family in my prayers as they journey through this time of heartache. There are so many different aspect of this story - all of which are difficult.
I do have a flashback, however, to an incident in our family less than a year ago. Teresa was not home and I had all the kids at another event. When we got home, I let out all of the kids near the door, before heading into the garage. My attention was diverted by something. I saw Breanna near the front door and I was ready to pull into the garage. Then, Breanna said something and pointed toward the car. I got out of the car and my heart sunk as I found Caleb, bending down in front of the surburban looking at some ants. If Breanna would not have gotten my attention, I would have gone forward and run over my son.
Even now as I write this, my heart is tender and terrifying thoughts run through my mind. All in all, I am resting in the grace and mercy of God, that saved me from the same thing the Chapman family is experiencing right now. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that God spared my son. I realize that my children, our family is never completely safe. Anything can happen at any time - this I know.
I continually place my life, Teresa's and each of my cildren - in the hands of God. May God give all of us, including the Chapman family the grace that he promises is sufficient for any circumstance. Somehow, may we be able to say, only by God's power, what Job said: "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away - Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Monday, May 19, 2008
RELATING TO JESUS
RELATING TO JESUS
Mark 3:7-35
Please turn in your Bible to Mark 3. In the Bible in front of you, it is page 867 or 884.
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an e-mail on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves." "That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?" The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" "You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government," says Bud. "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required" answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows... this is a herd of sheep. . .and give me back my dog."
No offense meant to any Congressman attending today! Some people don’t seem to relate well to cowboys, or to government officials; or there may be someone else or group in your life; and you just don’t understand them sometimes. What they do and what they say don’t make sense to you. And trying to relate to them seems absolutely futile most of the time.
Welcome to the world of those First Century followers who were trying to relate to Jesus Christ. As we’ve already seen in the first couple chapters of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus Christ was not the Messiah they expected. Here was a Carpenter’s son from Nazareth, claiming to be God in the flesh – that’s impossible! He said He was the Son of God, yet fully man; and not only did He claim to be the Messiah from the Old Testament prophecy; but He was saying that the ONLY WAY to get to God and Heaven is to go through Him – Jesus Christ alone. WOW!
In our passages from Mark this morning, we are going to see how different people and groups of people related to who Jesus Christ was and what He did. It is also interesting to see how Jesus related to them. We begin with how those who were hurting related to Jesus:
Mark 3:7-10 – “Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.”
How did the crowds relate to Jesus; and how did He relate to them?
Those in need of healing would do anything to get to Jesus.
Jesus showed his concern by healing many and yet protected the plan
There are a couple very interesting and instructive things we learn from these first few verses. Just after verse 6, that tells us the Pharisees and Herodians were making a plan to destroy Jesus, we read that Jesus withdrew, with His disciples, from the synagogues and out to the Sea of Galilee. It wasn’t that he was afraid of them; but that the incredible opposition he was facing and the hatred and desire for destruction that the religious leaders had, were not to result in Jesus’ demise – not yet. Jesus was protecting the plan and the process of God’s plan by moving out of these dangerous circumstances.
Word has spread like wild fire. Jesus was able to heal. Jesus was casting out demons and healing all kinds of diseases. And when people heard what he was doing they went to where he was – and they came from all over. They didn’t just come from Galilee, but from many regions outside of Galilee, including traveling from Jerusalem in Judea, which was over 100 miles! So, everyone was coming to Him, especially because He could heal them.
Look again at verse 9: “And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him.” That sounds a little strange, doesn’t it, as though Jesus is concerned for his own safety? But, remember, He was fully God and fully man. His main concern was for the protection of God’s plan and timing. Now was not the time for Him to be run over and bodily crushed by the pressing crowd. And we are told here that it was a concern. So, he told his disciples to get a boat ready in case he needed to get away from the people.
But, I want you to try and understand the circumstances here, to get a picture of what was taking place. Let me do it this way. Let’s suppose that each of you has a disease, ok? Your disease might be just an irritation, or a sickness; but it might also be very serious. You could be crippled, have a blood disease, a heart problem, a life threatening illness. And you would do anything to be healed of it.
And what if I told you, that in our service today, was someone, who if you were able to touch him in the next 30 seconds, you would be healed of whatever disease you had; and that person’s name is Steve Glick (point to him). What would you do? (20 people go after Steve)……..OK, you’re healed – you can back to your seats now!
The way the sick related to Jesus is that He was their healer; and they would do whatever necessary to get to him and touch Him. Jesus related to those who wanted to kill him and to those who wanted to be healed by loving people but also protecting the timing of the plan that God the Father had given. Then Mark adds to this in:
Mark 3:11,12 – “And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the Son of God. And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.”
How did the demons relate to Jesus and how did he relate to them?
The demons obeyed Jesus and were afraid of Him.
Jesus commanded the demons to come out and to shut up.
Remember: We have already read in Mark that one of the main things Jesus did, in the midst of His healings, was to cast out evil, unclean spirits – demons. And when the demons saw Him coming, they were terrified. In this case, we are told that they bowed before Him and cried out: “You are the Son of God.” Now, don’t get any delusions here. This was not like they got convicted in their hearts, repented, walked the aisle, and bowed down in reverent worship. No, they were not getting saved. They were simply showing that they were subordinates to Christ, knowing that He could destroy them with one word.
So, even though they called Him the Son of God, which he was, it was not their place to say it. In fact, since their main goal was to destroy people’s lives, Jesus wanted absolutely nothing to do with them talking as though they believed. They may have said he was the Son of God, but they certainly did not believe the full sense of what they were saying. The only relation Jesus wanted with them was to command them to come out of people, the people they were destroying and to shut their mouths. Also keep in mind, that Jesus’ order not to make Him known was part of the fact that Jesus’ time to be fully known, along with His complete mission would come – but not yet. Jesus had authority over when and how more details of His works and message would be spread.
Commentator William Barclay gives his thoughts on another reason why Jesus commanded them not to spread this news: “Jesus was the Messiah, God’s anointed king; but his idea of Messiah-ship was quite different from the popular idea. He saw in Messiah-ship a way of service, of sacrifice and of love with a cross at the end of it. The popular idea of the Messiah was of a conquering king who, with his mighty armies, would blast the Romans and lead the Jews to world power. Therefore, if a rumor were to go out that the Messiah had arrived, the inevitable consequence would be rebellions and uprising, especially in Galilee where the people were ever ready to follow a nationalist leader.”
I wonder what it was like for those who were healed:
Reader 1 (Jody): “For 14 years, I had lived with the severe pain of my disease. No doctor here the First Century could diagnose it clearly. I had several operations, but with no real technology, nothing was really known or cured. One day, I heard about this man who could do the unbelievable – he could heal people’s diseases. In fact, I was told He could heal ANY disease. At the time, I lived 75 miles away from the Sea of Galilee; but nothing was going to stop me. I was going to get to this Jesus and be healed of my disease. I truly believed that. Once we finally got to Jesus, I couldn’t believe my eyes – it seemed as though the entire world had come to Him. I saw those who were sick trying to get to him; and I saw others who had already touched him…they were healed and were telling their incredible stories. Well, I have a story to tell as well. I touched Jesus, and he healed me – completely!
Reader 2 (Jenn): “I had gone to church ever since I was a kid. Here in the 21st Century, it is pretty easy to be religious, but at the same time not know God. I knew all the stories from the Old Testament. I played the religious game and everyone thought I was a good Christian. I had them fooled. The fact was that, until recently, I had lived with the ugly disease of unconfessed sins. These sins were destroying me, my relationships and my future. But one day, a friend explained to me what Jesus Christ had done in his life. He reminded me of what I used to read in the Bible: Jesus was able to forgive ANY sin, and clean any messed up life. So, I humbled myself and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and to be Lord of my life. I cannot tell you the changes He has brought. Do I still struggle with sin? Yes. But, as a Christian, I am clean, holy and eternally forgiven, in God’s eyes – I am His child.”
Mark then gives us the full introduction to the group of men that Jesus chose as His closest followers:
Mark 3:13-15 – “And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to teach and have authority to cast out demons.”
The 12 disciples became His followers and students.
Jesus chose them as friends and taught them to spread the good news about who He was.
Jesus retreats out of the area by the Sea and goes into the hills of Galilee. Out of the crowd gathered, He invited 12 men to go with Him. He was creating His team. We read earlier how he had called 4 fishermen and one tax collector. Now, we are introduced to the rest of this group. But, before we read the names, don’t miss a couple key points in these verses.
Jesus chose these guys. He did not pick their names out of a hat, or ask for volunteers. He chose them, essentially saying to all of them: Come, Follow Me. Then, He took these guys into the hills, the mountain as this text says, and gets them all together. And by the way, when he called them, just like with the first 5 guys, they immediately followed Him.
He chose 12 guys and also gave them the name Apostles, which means “sent out ones”. We are told here in verse 14 why He chose them: to be with Him and then to send them out. Jesus was gathering for Himself a group that He would call friends, despite how disloyal they would turn out to be; and He would release them, eventually, to preach the truth about Him. And to authenticate their message, He would give to them the ability to have authority over demons, as He did.
And then we have the listing:
Mark 3:16-19 – “He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Isacariot, who betrayed him.”
John MacArthur, in his book Twelve Ordinary Men, had this to say about Jesus’ choices for His Apostles: “They had no track record as orators or theologians. In fact, they were outsiders as far as the religious establishment of Jesus’ day was concerned. They were not outstanding because of any natural talents or intellectual abilities. On the contrary, they were all too prone to mistakes, misstatements, wrong attitudes, lapses of faith, and bitter failure – no one more so than the leader of the group, Peter…
They spanned the political spectrum. One was a former Zealot – a radical, determined to overthrow Roman rule. But another had been a tax collector – virtually a traitor to the Jewish nation and in collusion with Rome. At least four…were fishermen and close friends from Capernaum…
The twelve were personally selected and called by Christ. He knew them as only their Creator could know them. In other words, he knew all their faults long before He chose them. He even knew Judas would betray Him, and yet he chose the traitor anyway and gave him all the same privileges and blessings he gave to the others.”
Reader 3 (Ben): “I am Philip, one of Jesus’ original disciples. You won’t read many details about me because I was not a main leader of the group or a part of the inner circle. But, you will read that I was very interested in leading people to get to know Jesus, including another of the original disciples, Nathaniel. Jesus Christ had changed my life, and I just had to share it with others. There was one thing I learned to say over and over again. When I first went to my friend Nathaniel, I said to Him, ‘come and see. I can’t explain everything well, but if you will just come listen to Jesus Christ and experience Him firsthand, you will hopefully see what I have seen, and your life will be changed as well.’ And that is what happened. We saw thousands of lives changed; and even after Jesus left us to go back to the Father, it was my greatest desire to introduce people to Him.”
Reader 4 (Kourtney): “In 1996, I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. But, it wasn’t until later that I realized that Jesus had called me, not only to follow Him; but to be used by Him to reach others. That was scary and very intimidating! I am not the public speaker type. When I am under pressure, I don’t get my words out very easily, and I often stumble over them. Not only that, I continue, in my walk with Jesus, to fall into sinful habits and fail Him often. It is very frustrating. So, as I read that Jesus chose these 12 knuckleheads to spread the gospel message, even though they would fail miserable on a regular basis, I realized that it is a great blessing that Jesus chose this knucklehead – me – to serve Him in the same basic way. So, I am deeply touched and humbled by the privilege to serve the Lord of mercy and of grace.”
Of course, it is over a period of time that we learn more about these guys called the Apostles; but this is all we are to know for now, on this journey through Mark. Then what?
Mark 3:20,21 – “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, he is out of his mind.”
Jesus went back to Capernaum, his home base and entered into a house. Once again, a large crowd gathered, so many, that no one could even eat their dinner. The word “family” here refers to kinsmen, those that were with him; and they had come to get control of Him, after hearing of everything that had been going on.
They had probably heard of how he had challenged the orthodox teachings of the religious leaders; and no one in their right mind, challenges the scholarly scribes of the Pharisees. He had left home and good business prospects in carpentry, and began to travel around preaching, with no real home or security to speak of. That didn’t make sense to his family. He certainly didn’t seem able to take care of Himself, as He continually placed Himself in dangerous circumstances. He had created His own little following, like a cult, and these 12 guys He was calling Apostles, were pretty strange. And he was acting like a rock star, with crazed fans always hanging all over him, and crying out his name, even pressing on him so much that we can’t eat like civilized people:
“He is out of His mind”, and we need to do something about it. Mark leaves us hanging here for a while and then will come back to his family several verses later.
But next in Mark’s writing, He reminds us how the religious leaders related to Jesus:
The religious leaders accused Jesus of being empowered by Satan Himself.
That is how the religious leaders related to Jesus; as His accusers and judges:
Mark 3:22 – “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”
Aren’t they a piece of work? Anything good Jesus did, was somehow turned into something evil by the group of people who claimed to be the closest to God and loved Him the most! Beelzebul was the name for a pagan God and the prince of demons was Satan; so they were accusing him, basically, of being a demon Himself.
Jesus responded to His accusers with stories of truth and a severe warning.
Mark 3:23-25 – “And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that Kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”
Jesus faces the accusation, that He able to cast out demons because He is empowered by Satan, with these proverbial sayings, known as parables. They were every-day life types of illustrations, and yet they helped bring light to the deep, spiritual truths that Jesus was teaching. In this case, he used these illustrations to show how the religious leaders’ accusations were false; and to warn them of the dangerous road they were headed down.
Jesus asked the question (verse 23): “How can Satan cast out Satan?” He brings out the point that their accusation is illogical. Jesus gives the illustration (v.24) of a kingdom, which if divided, cannot stand. In the Civil War in the United States (1861-1865), over 620,000 Americans died, fighting against one another. President Abraham Lincoln had said: "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free...", and that was the main issue we think of when we think of our divided country at that time. When a nation, a kingdom is at war with itself, it only brings destruction.
His second illustration (v.25) is about a divided house. When there is constant fighting within a home, that family will eventually be divided, probably separated, and may even divorced, many times causing new families to form, leaving the original families forever divided. We have all seen the trouble a divided household can bring.
Then, in verse 26, Jesus made his point:
Mark 3:26 – “And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.”
He had illustrated this. Satan cannot remain strong if he were to be divided, by using Jesus to do His work. It was ridiculous to suggest that Jesus was doing Satan’s work – Satan wouldn’t survive if that were true. And, it was obvious that Satan and His work were still alive and well; so their accusation was certainly false. Then, Jesus gave another illustration to show that their accusation of Satan being in charge and Jesus working for Him was false as well:
Mark 3:27 – “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.”
In this illustration, according to commentators Walvoord and Zuck: “Satan is the strong man. His house is the realm of sin, sickness, demon possession, and death. His possessions are people who are enslaved by one or more of these things and demons are his agents who carry out his diabolical activity.”
Jesus continued to say that you must first bind the strong man, and then you can plunder. The point is that Jesus was the ONE who could have victory over the power of Satan. He had already demonstrated that during the temptation in the wilderness. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was able to release the victims of Satan, which included those possessed by demons. Many people had experienced the freedom that Jesus brought to them, as they were formerly held captive by sin. Jesus was not here to cooperate with Satan, as was suggested, but to conquer Him.
Jesus then continues his answer and directly challenges his accusers:
Mark 3:28,29 – “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
This is not an easy one, is it? It is not really something we would expect Jesus Christ to say. It sounds like he is saying there is a sin that cannot be forgiven. That doesn’t sound right. He begins by saying that all kinds of sins can be forgiven, including those who say things they shouldn’t say. It is easy to get caught up here with the next verse about the sin that cannot be forgiven; but let’s take a moment to rejoice in the truth of verse 28: all our sins can be forgiven! Many people believe they have done too many terrible things to ever be forgiven by God; but be encouraged by the fact that no matter what you have done in the past, it is possible for you to be forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Then Jesus puts the hammer down: “…but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Although he doesn’t clearly tell the people that that is what they had done, they certainly had come dangerously close, because, according to:
Mark 3:30 – “For they had said, He has an unclean spirit.”
They had blasphemed against the Son of God, but that was forgivable:
Matthew 12:32 – “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven…”
So, what in the world does this mean? If you have ever studied this so-called “unpardonable sin”, then you know there are a variety of ideas out there about it.
· Barclay believes that if a person “has got his moral values inverted until evil to him is good and good to him is evil, then, even when he is confronted by Jesus, he is conscious of no sin; he cannot repent and therefore he can never be forgiven. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit.”
· Vines believes that the nation of Israel rejected the work of the Holy Spirit, when on the Day of Pentecost, they accused those on whom the Holy Spirit fell, to be drunk with wine. He believes that when they rejected the Holy Spirit that was giving witness to Christ, it was over for them as a nation. He believes that people can commit this eternal sin in this way: “There can come a point out there somewhere when a person finally and firmly rejects God’s final call, and then God says, It’s all over. I have no other invitation. The sin against the Holy Spirit, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to reject the Holy Spirit’s witness to the Lord Jesus finally and firmly.”
· Walvoord and Zuck: “In light of the context this refers to an attitude (not an isolated act or utterance) of defiant hostility toward God that rejects His saving power toward man, expressed in the Spirit-empowered person and work of Jesus…Such a persistent attitude of willful unbelief can harden into a condition in which repentance and forgiveness, both mediated by God’s Spirit, become impossible.”
Most of those who have studied this more and know much more than I do, may get at it in a variety of ways, but they all end up in the same place. They believe that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is to reject salvation; and in the end, that cannot be forgiven; and in fact, is an eternal decision.
Reader 5 (Jody)– “One of my favorite things to do back in the First Century was to listen to the political or religious leaders debate. Eventually, it would turn into name calling and slander. On one occasion, I heard the religious leaders accuse Jesus of probably the worst thing someone in religious circles could have been accused of. They said that, perhaps, Jesus was able to cast out demons because the prince of demons, Satan himself, was empowering him. I couldn’t believe it. How would Jesus respond? He responded by talking in proverbial language, arguing that the accusation made no sense. He spoke of nations and households and what a thief has to do in order to break into a home. These were all illustrations we could understand. But then, He said: ‘anything can be forgiven, except blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.’ I admit that I wasn’t quite sure what He was saying; but I did make a decision right then and there. Jesus was the real thing. He spoke with authority and truly loved people like no one else ever did. He healed people physically and spiritually. I decided that I would allow God’s Spirit to work on my heart; and that I would give my life to be unified with Christ and be on His team.
Reader 6 (Jenn)– “In College in the 90’s, it was my joy to debate just about anyone about pretty much anything. The most fun I had arguing a point was during theological debates. It was my goal to mess with the other people’s minds and try to confuse them as much as possible. I especially liked to argue about passages such as Mark 3:28,29, where Jesus said that there is a sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which can never be forgiven. That was a fun one. Everyone left that argument pretty confused! But, eventually, my love for arguing about everything left me pretty lonely, without friends. One day, a wise teacher sat me down and challenged me with something. He told me that I had become like one of Jesus’ illustrations in Mark 3:23-26. I knew a lot of the Bible, but it wasn’t truly penetrating my heart. I was a kingdom or a house divided. I went to church and loved to argue with people about God; but I was not humbly following Him. That day, I determined in my heart, that I would be unified – body, soul and spirit – to humbly follow Jesus Christ with my whole being. I would choose to love Jesus and follow Him much more than arguing about Him just to confuse the faith of others. I am a follower of Jesus Christ.”
In this last passage of Mark 3, the gospel writer comes back to a topic he opened up in verse 21. This is a part of the writing style of Mark. He mentioned, in verse 21 that his family thought Jesus was “out of his mind”. Then he launches into the accusations of the religious leaders who accused him of partnering with Satan, claiming that Jesus was crazy because of an evil spirit within him. Now, Mark comes back to the family dynamic as Jesus makes another important distinction about His followers. How did his family relate to Jesus?
Jesus’ family thought He had lost control and needed their help.
We already read that his family thought he was out of his mind, and there were some good reasons for those thoughts – at least from a secular, human perspective. They were treating Jesus as though he were the needy child, who was emotionally and mentally unstable, and they needed to come in and “save the day”, so to speak. So, Mark continues this story:
Mark 3:31,32 – “And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.”
Jesus dealt with His human family by speaking the truth about the family of God.
Mark 3:33-35 – “And he answered them, Who are my mother and my brother? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus didn’t answer the way we would expect him to in situations like this. Last week was Mother’s Day; and wouldn’t we just love Jesus to say something like: “My mom’s here? Let her through”; and then proceed to talk about how she is most blessed among women, and that people for centuries would be worshipping her image; but that is not what he does.
Do you remember the story of when Jesus was a pre-teen, and he was travelling with his parents; when, all of a sudden on their way home, he wasn’t there with them and they panicked? They finally found him, 3 days later, back in Jerusalem, talking with the teachers of the Scriptures. Those men were all amazed at his understanding. His parents were, understandably, upset. But Jesus said to them: Don’t you understand that I need to put my Father’s (God) business above my earthly families desires? The text in Luke says that they didn’t understand what he was saying, but that his mother kept these things in her heart.
So, now, I wonder what she was thinking. Jesus loved his mother and we will see that more clearly near his death; but Jesus was making another important point. It is likely that his brothers and sisters were still all non-believers at this point. Jesus looked at those who were following Him, believing in Him, and seeking to honor God with their lives – and He said: “You are my family. Whoever does the will of God is my family.”
It may not be what they, his family, or we want to hear. But, it reminds us about the most important family that we all have the opportunity to be a part of: The family of God. Those who have done the will of God by trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, are a part of that family. And now, we are to continually identify with the family of God by humbly walking in His ways. And we are to treat one another like family, encouraging and challenging one another to do God’s will.
Reader 7 (Ben) – “I have to admit to you that I was pretty ticked off at my brother, Jesus. He was so high and mighty. We used to play ball together. He was a lot of fun when he was younger. But once he began his public ministry, he didn’t have much time for me anymore. Of course, I didn’t have time for him either. I was enjoying my life, going after any desire my heart might have; which eventually left me hurting and hungry for more. When Jesus seemingly cut off his ties with our family and began his own, spiritual one, I became bitter toward him; and I made sure that everyone knew what I thought of him. But, it was years later, after Jesus appeared to me following His resurrection, that I finally “got it.” Family is important, but the family of God, made up of those who follow Him, is eternally important. It finally made sense, after I humbled myself, to realize that my own brother was actually God’s Son! I began to follow Him and was a part of that same, spiritual family – the family of God. I eventually wrote about how to demonstrate that you are a part of God’s family, in the letter I wrote, known as the Book of James.”
Reader 8 (Kourtney)– “Family was everything to me, until I lost them. I had the fantasy of being the perfect family – husband and wife completely dedicated to one another, with 2 kids, a dog, the beautiful house, the boat, and everything else the world had sold me as ‘the American Dream’. But the dream came crashing down in 2004, with the separation, the divorce and his re-marriage. Now we were dealing with the heartache and fallout of what is left after our fantasy turned into a nightmare. All I had talked about was the importance of family, and now, I had no chance to make it what I wanted it to be. Now what? This all changed for me a couple of years ago, when a friend who truly cared for me, invited me to her church. It was there that I was introduced to a new kind of family – a spiritual family. I heard about how much Jesus Christ loved me, no matter what I had done; and how that love took Him to the cross. I learned from the Bible that if I received the gift of eternal life, I would be adopted into God’s family. Jesus said that those who followed Him would be His friends; and that He showed himself to be the greatest friend ever by laying down His life for us. So, now, my dream has little to do with family fantasies and what Americans are striving for. It has everything to do with being closer to Christ, following Him, and inviting others to be a part of this very special family – the family of God.”
Please stand with me for prayer. Would you take a few moments to reflect on what we have learned from God’s Word today? Will you consider how Jesus Christ has related to you and how you have responded to Him? Then, once you have prayed, we will sing together the song you have learned today, which talks about one way in which Jesus Christ relates to us.
Let’s pray.
Mark 3:7-35
Please turn in your Bible to Mark 3. In the Bible in front of you, it is page 867 or 884.
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an e-mail on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves." "That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?" The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" "You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government," says Bud. "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required" answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows... this is a herd of sheep. . .and give me back my dog."
No offense meant to any Congressman attending today! Some people don’t seem to relate well to cowboys, or to government officials; or there may be someone else or group in your life; and you just don’t understand them sometimes. What they do and what they say don’t make sense to you. And trying to relate to them seems absolutely futile most of the time.
Welcome to the world of those First Century followers who were trying to relate to Jesus Christ. As we’ve already seen in the first couple chapters of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus Christ was not the Messiah they expected. Here was a Carpenter’s son from Nazareth, claiming to be God in the flesh – that’s impossible! He said He was the Son of God, yet fully man; and not only did He claim to be the Messiah from the Old Testament prophecy; but He was saying that the ONLY WAY to get to God and Heaven is to go through Him – Jesus Christ alone. WOW!
In our passages from Mark this morning, we are going to see how different people and groups of people related to who Jesus Christ was and what He did. It is also interesting to see how Jesus related to them. We begin with how those who were hurting related to Jesus:
Mark 3:7-10 – “Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.”
How did the crowds relate to Jesus; and how did He relate to them?
Those in need of healing would do anything to get to Jesus.
Jesus showed his concern by healing many and yet protected the plan
There are a couple very interesting and instructive things we learn from these first few verses. Just after verse 6, that tells us the Pharisees and Herodians were making a plan to destroy Jesus, we read that Jesus withdrew, with His disciples, from the synagogues and out to the Sea of Galilee. It wasn’t that he was afraid of them; but that the incredible opposition he was facing and the hatred and desire for destruction that the religious leaders had, were not to result in Jesus’ demise – not yet. Jesus was protecting the plan and the process of God’s plan by moving out of these dangerous circumstances.
Word has spread like wild fire. Jesus was able to heal. Jesus was casting out demons and healing all kinds of diseases. And when people heard what he was doing they went to where he was – and they came from all over. They didn’t just come from Galilee, but from many regions outside of Galilee, including traveling from Jerusalem in Judea, which was over 100 miles! So, everyone was coming to Him, especially because He could heal them.
Look again at verse 9: “And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him.” That sounds a little strange, doesn’t it, as though Jesus is concerned for his own safety? But, remember, He was fully God and fully man. His main concern was for the protection of God’s plan and timing. Now was not the time for Him to be run over and bodily crushed by the pressing crowd. And we are told here that it was a concern. So, he told his disciples to get a boat ready in case he needed to get away from the people.
But, I want you to try and understand the circumstances here, to get a picture of what was taking place. Let me do it this way. Let’s suppose that each of you has a disease, ok? Your disease might be just an irritation, or a sickness; but it might also be very serious. You could be crippled, have a blood disease, a heart problem, a life threatening illness. And you would do anything to be healed of it.
And what if I told you, that in our service today, was someone, who if you were able to touch him in the next 30 seconds, you would be healed of whatever disease you had; and that person’s name is Steve Glick (point to him). What would you do? (20 people go after Steve)……..OK, you’re healed – you can back to your seats now!
The way the sick related to Jesus is that He was their healer; and they would do whatever necessary to get to him and touch Him. Jesus related to those who wanted to kill him and to those who wanted to be healed by loving people but also protecting the timing of the plan that God the Father had given. Then Mark adds to this in:
Mark 3:11,12 – “And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the Son of God. And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.”
How did the demons relate to Jesus and how did he relate to them?
The demons obeyed Jesus and were afraid of Him.
Jesus commanded the demons to come out and to shut up.
Remember: We have already read in Mark that one of the main things Jesus did, in the midst of His healings, was to cast out evil, unclean spirits – demons. And when the demons saw Him coming, they were terrified. In this case, we are told that they bowed before Him and cried out: “You are the Son of God.” Now, don’t get any delusions here. This was not like they got convicted in their hearts, repented, walked the aisle, and bowed down in reverent worship. No, they were not getting saved. They were simply showing that they were subordinates to Christ, knowing that He could destroy them with one word.
So, even though they called Him the Son of God, which he was, it was not their place to say it. In fact, since their main goal was to destroy people’s lives, Jesus wanted absolutely nothing to do with them talking as though they believed. They may have said he was the Son of God, but they certainly did not believe the full sense of what they were saying. The only relation Jesus wanted with them was to command them to come out of people, the people they were destroying and to shut their mouths. Also keep in mind, that Jesus’ order not to make Him known was part of the fact that Jesus’ time to be fully known, along with His complete mission would come – but not yet. Jesus had authority over when and how more details of His works and message would be spread.
Commentator William Barclay gives his thoughts on another reason why Jesus commanded them not to spread this news: “Jesus was the Messiah, God’s anointed king; but his idea of Messiah-ship was quite different from the popular idea. He saw in Messiah-ship a way of service, of sacrifice and of love with a cross at the end of it. The popular idea of the Messiah was of a conquering king who, with his mighty armies, would blast the Romans and lead the Jews to world power. Therefore, if a rumor were to go out that the Messiah had arrived, the inevitable consequence would be rebellions and uprising, especially in Galilee where the people were ever ready to follow a nationalist leader.”
I wonder what it was like for those who were healed:
Reader 1 (Jody): “For 14 years, I had lived with the severe pain of my disease. No doctor here the First Century could diagnose it clearly. I had several operations, but with no real technology, nothing was really known or cured. One day, I heard about this man who could do the unbelievable – he could heal people’s diseases. In fact, I was told He could heal ANY disease. At the time, I lived 75 miles away from the Sea of Galilee; but nothing was going to stop me. I was going to get to this Jesus and be healed of my disease. I truly believed that. Once we finally got to Jesus, I couldn’t believe my eyes – it seemed as though the entire world had come to Him. I saw those who were sick trying to get to him; and I saw others who had already touched him…they were healed and were telling their incredible stories. Well, I have a story to tell as well. I touched Jesus, and he healed me – completely!
Reader 2 (Jenn): “I had gone to church ever since I was a kid. Here in the 21st Century, it is pretty easy to be religious, but at the same time not know God. I knew all the stories from the Old Testament. I played the religious game and everyone thought I was a good Christian. I had them fooled. The fact was that, until recently, I had lived with the ugly disease of unconfessed sins. These sins were destroying me, my relationships and my future. But one day, a friend explained to me what Jesus Christ had done in his life. He reminded me of what I used to read in the Bible: Jesus was able to forgive ANY sin, and clean any messed up life. So, I humbled myself and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and to be Lord of my life. I cannot tell you the changes He has brought. Do I still struggle with sin? Yes. But, as a Christian, I am clean, holy and eternally forgiven, in God’s eyes – I am His child.”
Mark then gives us the full introduction to the group of men that Jesus chose as His closest followers:
Mark 3:13-15 – “And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to teach and have authority to cast out demons.”
The 12 disciples became His followers and students.
Jesus chose them as friends and taught them to spread the good news about who He was.
Jesus retreats out of the area by the Sea and goes into the hills of Galilee. Out of the crowd gathered, He invited 12 men to go with Him. He was creating His team. We read earlier how he had called 4 fishermen and one tax collector. Now, we are introduced to the rest of this group. But, before we read the names, don’t miss a couple key points in these verses.
Jesus chose these guys. He did not pick their names out of a hat, or ask for volunteers. He chose them, essentially saying to all of them: Come, Follow Me. Then, He took these guys into the hills, the mountain as this text says, and gets them all together. And by the way, when he called them, just like with the first 5 guys, they immediately followed Him.
He chose 12 guys and also gave them the name Apostles, which means “sent out ones”. We are told here in verse 14 why He chose them: to be with Him and then to send them out. Jesus was gathering for Himself a group that He would call friends, despite how disloyal they would turn out to be; and He would release them, eventually, to preach the truth about Him. And to authenticate their message, He would give to them the ability to have authority over demons, as He did.
And then we have the listing:
Mark 3:16-19 – “He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Isacariot, who betrayed him.”
John MacArthur, in his book Twelve Ordinary Men, had this to say about Jesus’ choices for His Apostles: “They had no track record as orators or theologians. In fact, they were outsiders as far as the religious establishment of Jesus’ day was concerned. They were not outstanding because of any natural talents or intellectual abilities. On the contrary, they were all too prone to mistakes, misstatements, wrong attitudes, lapses of faith, and bitter failure – no one more so than the leader of the group, Peter…
They spanned the political spectrum. One was a former Zealot – a radical, determined to overthrow Roman rule. But another had been a tax collector – virtually a traitor to the Jewish nation and in collusion with Rome. At least four…were fishermen and close friends from Capernaum…
The twelve were personally selected and called by Christ. He knew them as only their Creator could know them. In other words, he knew all their faults long before He chose them. He even knew Judas would betray Him, and yet he chose the traitor anyway and gave him all the same privileges and blessings he gave to the others.”
Reader 3 (Ben): “I am Philip, one of Jesus’ original disciples. You won’t read many details about me because I was not a main leader of the group or a part of the inner circle. But, you will read that I was very interested in leading people to get to know Jesus, including another of the original disciples, Nathaniel. Jesus Christ had changed my life, and I just had to share it with others. There was one thing I learned to say over and over again. When I first went to my friend Nathaniel, I said to Him, ‘come and see. I can’t explain everything well, but if you will just come listen to Jesus Christ and experience Him firsthand, you will hopefully see what I have seen, and your life will be changed as well.’ And that is what happened. We saw thousands of lives changed; and even after Jesus left us to go back to the Father, it was my greatest desire to introduce people to Him.”
Reader 4 (Kourtney): “In 1996, I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. But, it wasn’t until later that I realized that Jesus had called me, not only to follow Him; but to be used by Him to reach others. That was scary and very intimidating! I am not the public speaker type. When I am under pressure, I don’t get my words out very easily, and I often stumble over them. Not only that, I continue, in my walk with Jesus, to fall into sinful habits and fail Him often. It is very frustrating. So, as I read that Jesus chose these 12 knuckleheads to spread the gospel message, even though they would fail miserable on a regular basis, I realized that it is a great blessing that Jesus chose this knucklehead – me – to serve Him in the same basic way. So, I am deeply touched and humbled by the privilege to serve the Lord of mercy and of grace.”
Of course, it is over a period of time that we learn more about these guys called the Apostles; but this is all we are to know for now, on this journey through Mark. Then what?
Mark 3:20,21 – “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, he is out of his mind.”
Jesus went back to Capernaum, his home base and entered into a house. Once again, a large crowd gathered, so many, that no one could even eat their dinner. The word “family” here refers to kinsmen, those that were with him; and they had come to get control of Him, after hearing of everything that had been going on.
They had probably heard of how he had challenged the orthodox teachings of the religious leaders; and no one in their right mind, challenges the scholarly scribes of the Pharisees. He had left home and good business prospects in carpentry, and began to travel around preaching, with no real home or security to speak of. That didn’t make sense to his family. He certainly didn’t seem able to take care of Himself, as He continually placed Himself in dangerous circumstances. He had created His own little following, like a cult, and these 12 guys He was calling Apostles, were pretty strange. And he was acting like a rock star, with crazed fans always hanging all over him, and crying out his name, even pressing on him so much that we can’t eat like civilized people:
“He is out of His mind”, and we need to do something about it. Mark leaves us hanging here for a while and then will come back to his family several verses later.
But next in Mark’s writing, He reminds us how the religious leaders related to Jesus:
The religious leaders accused Jesus of being empowered by Satan Himself.
That is how the religious leaders related to Jesus; as His accusers and judges:
Mark 3:22 – “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”
Aren’t they a piece of work? Anything good Jesus did, was somehow turned into something evil by the group of people who claimed to be the closest to God and loved Him the most! Beelzebul was the name for a pagan God and the prince of demons was Satan; so they were accusing him, basically, of being a demon Himself.
Jesus responded to His accusers with stories of truth and a severe warning.
Mark 3:23-25 – “And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that Kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”
Jesus faces the accusation, that He able to cast out demons because He is empowered by Satan, with these proverbial sayings, known as parables. They were every-day life types of illustrations, and yet they helped bring light to the deep, spiritual truths that Jesus was teaching. In this case, he used these illustrations to show how the religious leaders’ accusations were false; and to warn them of the dangerous road they were headed down.
Jesus asked the question (verse 23): “How can Satan cast out Satan?” He brings out the point that their accusation is illogical. Jesus gives the illustration (v.24) of a kingdom, which if divided, cannot stand. In the Civil War in the United States (1861-1865), over 620,000 Americans died, fighting against one another. President Abraham Lincoln had said: "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free...", and that was the main issue we think of when we think of our divided country at that time. When a nation, a kingdom is at war with itself, it only brings destruction.
His second illustration (v.25) is about a divided house. When there is constant fighting within a home, that family will eventually be divided, probably separated, and may even divorced, many times causing new families to form, leaving the original families forever divided. We have all seen the trouble a divided household can bring.
Then, in verse 26, Jesus made his point:
Mark 3:26 – “And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.”
He had illustrated this. Satan cannot remain strong if he were to be divided, by using Jesus to do His work. It was ridiculous to suggest that Jesus was doing Satan’s work – Satan wouldn’t survive if that were true. And, it was obvious that Satan and His work were still alive and well; so their accusation was certainly false. Then, Jesus gave another illustration to show that their accusation of Satan being in charge and Jesus working for Him was false as well:
Mark 3:27 – “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.”
In this illustration, according to commentators Walvoord and Zuck: “Satan is the strong man. His house is the realm of sin, sickness, demon possession, and death. His possessions are people who are enslaved by one or more of these things and demons are his agents who carry out his diabolical activity.”
Jesus continued to say that you must first bind the strong man, and then you can plunder. The point is that Jesus was the ONE who could have victory over the power of Satan. He had already demonstrated that during the temptation in the wilderness. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was able to release the victims of Satan, which included those possessed by demons. Many people had experienced the freedom that Jesus brought to them, as they were formerly held captive by sin. Jesus was not here to cooperate with Satan, as was suggested, but to conquer Him.
Jesus then continues his answer and directly challenges his accusers:
Mark 3:28,29 – “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
This is not an easy one, is it? It is not really something we would expect Jesus Christ to say. It sounds like he is saying there is a sin that cannot be forgiven. That doesn’t sound right. He begins by saying that all kinds of sins can be forgiven, including those who say things they shouldn’t say. It is easy to get caught up here with the next verse about the sin that cannot be forgiven; but let’s take a moment to rejoice in the truth of verse 28: all our sins can be forgiven! Many people believe they have done too many terrible things to ever be forgiven by God; but be encouraged by the fact that no matter what you have done in the past, it is possible for you to be forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Then Jesus puts the hammer down: “…but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Although he doesn’t clearly tell the people that that is what they had done, they certainly had come dangerously close, because, according to:
Mark 3:30 – “For they had said, He has an unclean spirit.”
They had blasphemed against the Son of God, but that was forgivable:
Matthew 12:32 – “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven…”
So, what in the world does this mean? If you have ever studied this so-called “unpardonable sin”, then you know there are a variety of ideas out there about it.
· Barclay believes that if a person “has got his moral values inverted until evil to him is good and good to him is evil, then, even when he is confronted by Jesus, he is conscious of no sin; he cannot repent and therefore he can never be forgiven. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit.”
· Vines believes that the nation of Israel rejected the work of the Holy Spirit, when on the Day of Pentecost, they accused those on whom the Holy Spirit fell, to be drunk with wine. He believes that when they rejected the Holy Spirit that was giving witness to Christ, it was over for them as a nation. He believes that people can commit this eternal sin in this way: “There can come a point out there somewhere when a person finally and firmly rejects God’s final call, and then God says, It’s all over. I have no other invitation. The sin against the Holy Spirit, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to reject the Holy Spirit’s witness to the Lord Jesus finally and firmly.”
· Walvoord and Zuck: “In light of the context this refers to an attitude (not an isolated act or utterance) of defiant hostility toward God that rejects His saving power toward man, expressed in the Spirit-empowered person and work of Jesus…Such a persistent attitude of willful unbelief can harden into a condition in which repentance and forgiveness, both mediated by God’s Spirit, become impossible.”
Most of those who have studied this more and know much more than I do, may get at it in a variety of ways, but they all end up in the same place. They believe that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is to reject salvation; and in the end, that cannot be forgiven; and in fact, is an eternal decision.
Reader 5 (Jody)– “One of my favorite things to do back in the First Century was to listen to the political or religious leaders debate. Eventually, it would turn into name calling and slander. On one occasion, I heard the religious leaders accuse Jesus of probably the worst thing someone in religious circles could have been accused of. They said that, perhaps, Jesus was able to cast out demons because the prince of demons, Satan himself, was empowering him. I couldn’t believe it. How would Jesus respond? He responded by talking in proverbial language, arguing that the accusation made no sense. He spoke of nations and households and what a thief has to do in order to break into a home. These were all illustrations we could understand. But then, He said: ‘anything can be forgiven, except blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.’ I admit that I wasn’t quite sure what He was saying; but I did make a decision right then and there. Jesus was the real thing. He spoke with authority and truly loved people like no one else ever did. He healed people physically and spiritually. I decided that I would allow God’s Spirit to work on my heart; and that I would give my life to be unified with Christ and be on His team.
Reader 6 (Jenn)– “In College in the 90’s, it was my joy to debate just about anyone about pretty much anything. The most fun I had arguing a point was during theological debates. It was my goal to mess with the other people’s minds and try to confuse them as much as possible. I especially liked to argue about passages such as Mark 3:28,29, where Jesus said that there is a sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which can never be forgiven. That was a fun one. Everyone left that argument pretty confused! But, eventually, my love for arguing about everything left me pretty lonely, without friends. One day, a wise teacher sat me down and challenged me with something. He told me that I had become like one of Jesus’ illustrations in Mark 3:23-26. I knew a lot of the Bible, but it wasn’t truly penetrating my heart. I was a kingdom or a house divided. I went to church and loved to argue with people about God; but I was not humbly following Him. That day, I determined in my heart, that I would be unified – body, soul and spirit – to humbly follow Jesus Christ with my whole being. I would choose to love Jesus and follow Him much more than arguing about Him just to confuse the faith of others. I am a follower of Jesus Christ.”
In this last passage of Mark 3, the gospel writer comes back to a topic he opened up in verse 21. This is a part of the writing style of Mark. He mentioned, in verse 21 that his family thought Jesus was “out of his mind”. Then he launches into the accusations of the religious leaders who accused him of partnering with Satan, claiming that Jesus was crazy because of an evil spirit within him. Now, Mark comes back to the family dynamic as Jesus makes another important distinction about His followers. How did his family relate to Jesus?
Jesus’ family thought He had lost control and needed their help.
We already read that his family thought he was out of his mind, and there were some good reasons for those thoughts – at least from a secular, human perspective. They were treating Jesus as though he were the needy child, who was emotionally and mentally unstable, and they needed to come in and “save the day”, so to speak. So, Mark continues this story:
Mark 3:31,32 – “And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.”
Jesus dealt with His human family by speaking the truth about the family of God.
Mark 3:33-35 – “And he answered them, Who are my mother and my brother? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus didn’t answer the way we would expect him to in situations like this. Last week was Mother’s Day; and wouldn’t we just love Jesus to say something like: “My mom’s here? Let her through”; and then proceed to talk about how she is most blessed among women, and that people for centuries would be worshipping her image; but that is not what he does.
Do you remember the story of when Jesus was a pre-teen, and he was travelling with his parents; when, all of a sudden on their way home, he wasn’t there with them and they panicked? They finally found him, 3 days later, back in Jerusalem, talking with the teachers of the Scriptures. Those men were all amazed at his understanding. His parents were, understandably, upset. But Jesus said to them: Don’t you understand that I need to put my Father’s (God) business above my earthly families desires? The text in Luke says that they didn’t understand what he was saying, but that his mother kept these things in her heart.
So, now, I wonder what she was thinking. Jesus loved his mother and we will see that more clearly near his death; but Jesus was making another important point. It is likely that his brothers and sisters were still all non-believers at this point. Jesus looked at those who were following Him, believing in Him, and seeking to honor God with their lives – and He said: “You are my family. Whoever does the will of God is my family.”
It may not be what they, his family, or we want to hear. But, it reminds us about the most important family that we all have the opportunity to be a part of: The family of God. Those who have done the will of God by trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, are a part of that family. And now, we are to continually identify with the family of God by humbly walking in His ways. And we are to treat one another like family, encouraging and challenging one another to do God’s will.
Reader 7 (Ben) – “I have to admit to you that I was pretty ticked off at my brother, Jesus. He was so high and mighty. We used to play ball together. He was a lot of fun when he was younger. But once he began his public ministry, he didn’t have much time for me anymore. Of course, I didn’t have time for him either. I was enjoying my life, going after any desire my heart might have; which eventually left me hurting and hungry for more. When Jesus seemingly cut off his ties with our family and began his own, spiritual one, I became bitter toward him; and I made sure that everyone knew what I thought of him. But, it was years later, after Jesus appeared to me following His resurrection, that I finally “got it.” Family is important, but the family of God, made up of those who follow Him, is eternally important. It finally made sense, after I humbled myself, to realize that my own brother was actually God’s Son! I began to follow Him and was a part of that same, spiritual family – the family of God. I eventually wrote about how to demonstrate that you are a part of God’s family, in the letter I wrote, known as the Book of James.”
Reader 8 (Kourtney)– “Family was everything to me, until I lost them. I had the fantasy of being the perfect family – husband and wife completely dedicated to one another, with 2 kids, a dog, the beautiful house, the boat, and everything else the world had sold me as ‘the American Dream’. But the dream came crashing down in 2004, with the separation, the divorce and his re-marriage. Now we were dealing with the heartache and fallout of what is left after our fantasy turned into a nightmare. All I had talked about was the importance of family, and now, I had no chance to make it what I wanted it to be. Now what? This all changed for me a couple of years ago, when a friend who truly cared for me, invited me to her church. It was there that I was introduced to a new kind of family – a spiritual family. I heard about how much Jesus Christ loved me, no matter what I had done; and how that love took Him to the cross. I learned from the Bible that if I received the gift of eternal life, I would be adopted into God’s family. Jesus said that those who followed Him would be His friends; and that He showed himself to be the greatest friend ever by laying down His life for us. So, now, my dream has little to do with family fantasies and what Americans are striving for. It has everything to do with being closer to Christ, following Him, and inviting others to be a part of this very special family – the family of God.”
Please stand with me for prayer. Would you take a few moments to reflect on what we have learned from God’s Word today? Will you consider how Jesus Christ has related to you and how you have responded to Him? Then, once you have prayed, we will sing together the song you have learned today, which talks about one way in which Jesus Christ relates to us.
Let’s pray.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
HAPPY [belated] MOTHERS DAY
Aren't you about a week late Greg?
Yes, I suppose I am; but that is kind of the point of this writing.
I find myself telling my mom, my wife, and in general, other people about how much I appreciate them - way too late. I wait too long. I do it on Mother's Day and birthdays and anniversaries and other times; but not enough.
As an example of this, I thought about writing last Sunday about my mom and my wife; but I didn't. So, here I am, a week later, to tell you what an awesome mother I have been blessed with - and what an unbelievable wife and mother to my children, God has given me.
The main things I think of when I think of growing up in my mom's household, was that she was highly devoted to God, my dad, and to us. I have never doubted her loyalty to any of these. She has been a great example of what it means to be a godly wife and mother. Even today, she cares for each of her 3 children, my dad, and all of her grandchildren in wonderful ways. We wish she lived closer so that we could spend more time together; and yet being where God wants her to be and having her family where God wants them to be, has always been one of her strongest beliefs. That doesn't make it easy for her or any of us, but it points our focus back to God, who gave us our wonderful mom in the first place.
Mom - I love you, am thankful to God for you; and I greatly appreciate how you continue to love God, dad, and our entire family!
Teresa, my wife, and the mother of my children, doesn't think she is a great mom; and this happens to be one of her greatest weaknesses (maybe I shoudn't be sharing this!). She just cannot see what a blessing she is, right now, to me and to our children. There is no doubt that she loves God above all, loves me, loves our children, and wants what is best for all of us. When our children disagree with what is best, there is conflict; and yet Teresa continues to care for all of us, even in the midst of it. Having 5 children (ages 7-13) is not easy; and yet we both believe that God has given us each one of them for this special time in all of our lives. Teresa serves us, knowing how quickly this time is passing; and what a great privilege we have with our family.
Teresa - I love you, and am extemely grateful to God that you are my wife and our kids' mother. I do not doubt your desire to care for them and to lead them to live for God all of their days. Even though it is difficult to accept the fact that we cannot force that, I am glad that we get to pray and work together to see what God chooses to do in and through our children. You are a great mom and a great wife - BELIEVE IT!
Mom and Teresa, Please know, that even though Mother's Day has officially passed, I am thankful to God each day for bringing you into my life - and into the lives of our kids!
Greg
Yes, I suppose I am; but that is kind of the point of this writing.
I find myself telling my mom, my wife, and in general, other people about how much I appreciate them - way too late. I wait too long. I do it on Mother's Day and birthdays and anniversaries and other times; but not enough.
As an example of this, I thought about writing last Sunday about my mom and my wife; but I didn't. So, here I am, a week later, to tell you what an awesome mother I have been blessed with - and what an unbelievable wife and mother to my children, God has given me.
The main things I think of when I think of growing up in my mom's household, was that she was highly devoted to God, my dad, and to us. I have never doubted her loyalty to any of these. She has been a great example of what it means to be a godly wife and mother. Even today, she cares for each of her 3 children, my dad, and all of her grandchildren in wonderful ways. We wish she lived closer so that we could spend more time together; and yet being where God wants her to be and having her family where God wants them to be, has always been one of her strongest beliefs. That doesn't make it easy for her or any of us, but it points our focus back to God, who gave us our wonderful mom in the first place.
Mom - I love you, am thankful to God for you; and I greatly appreciate how you continue to love God, dad, and our entire family!
Teresa, my wife, and the mother of my children, doesn't think she is a great mom; and this happens to be one of her greatest weaknesses (maybe I shoudn't be sharing this!). She just cannot see what a blessing she is, right now, to me and to our children. There is no doubt that she loves God above all, loves me, loves our children, and wants what is best for all of us. When our children disagree with what is best, there is conflict; and yet Teresa continues to care for all of us, even in the midst of it. Having 5 children (ages 7-13) is not easy; and yet we both believe that God has given us each one of them for this special time in all of our lives. Teresa serves us, knowing how quickly this time is passing; and what a great privilege we have with our family.
Teresa - I love you, and am extemely grateful to God that you are my wife and our kids' mother. I do not doubt your desire to care for them and to lead them to live for God all of their days. Even though it is difficult to accept the fact that we cannot force that, I am glad that we get to pray and work together to see what God chooses to do in and through our children. You are a great mom and a great wife - BELIEVE IT!
Mom and Teresa, Please know, that even though Mother's Day has officially passed, I am thankful to God each day for bringing you into my life - and into the lives of our kids!
Greg
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
JESUS - THE LAWBREAKER
JESUS – LAW BREAKER
Mark 2:18-3:6
Please turn in your Bible to Mark 2. In the Bible in front of you, it is page 866 or 883.
I’m sure there are laws that you don’t appreciate very much and wish were non-existent. I’m sure there are some speed limit ones that make no sense and are hard to obey. On the internet, there are some things which, according to these websites, are still against the law in some places in Ohio. I cannot promise that these are all true, but I know there are some incredible laws like these still “on the books” in our country:
· In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the speaker’s stand, you can be fined $25.
· It is illegal to get a fish drunk.
· The Ohio driver’s education manual states that you must honk the horn whenever you pass another car.
· Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited.
· Breast feeding is not allowed in public.
· It is illegal for more than five women to live in a house.
· It is illegal to mistreat anything of great importance.
· No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July.
Jesus was a law-breaker, not in the Ten Commandments or Bible’s absolute laws; but when it came to man-made laws; especially those that were meant to make people seem more spiritual. The laws that were made by the religious leaders of Jesus day seemed even more outlandish than some of the ones mentioned above. They got caught up in the deception that the more laws you made to dictate people’s every move would make you more holy and acceptable before God. Jesus was going to destroy those myths.
In the previous passage (Mark 2:15-17), the religious leaders had been complaining that Jesus was spending time with sinful people; and Jesus told them that He was here to do just that. Those who recognized they were in need were the ones who would humble themselves and accepted the message that Jesus was giving: That He was the promised Messiah, the Son of God, who had come to save them from their sins. But, we will find that nothing will satisfy the religious leaders when it comes to Christ; until they kill him, that is.
This morning, Mark takes us right into another episode where they are criticizing Jesus and His followers for something else:
Jesus and His followers broke the religious traditions of fasting:
Mark 2:18 – “Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
Perhaps the cynical people, who were looking for anything they could accuse Jesus of, were taking this opportunity with the party at the new disciples’ Matthew’s house, to go after him again. Maybe they were pointing out that while Jesus and his followers were having a feast, the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were observing a religious fast.
The Old Testament said that all Jews should fast on the Day of Atonement, showing their spirit of repentance (according to Leviticus). The Pharisees and those who followed their traditions would also fast twice a week, usually on Monday and Thursdays, to show they were righteous and holy. It is interesting that the fasts normally took place, not during the full day; but from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. At least, according to tradition, that is when they fasted.
So, the criticism was this: Hey Jesus, the followers of John the Baptist and the religious leaders all fast, to show their dedication to God. So, why aren’t your followers fasting as well, following their example of piety? In other words: “your followers aren’t as holy as the others!”
Fasting does not seem to be the issue people use to show their spiritual superiority today; but we could substitute issues such as music, Bible translations, how many church services someone goes to, how long their devotional or prayer time is, etc. Anything that might be good, but people can wrongly use as some type of spiritual holiness test, could fit what these religious leaders were doing with fasting. It would be like going to someone and criticizing them because they didn’t attend a Sunday evening service, not really caring the reason they had, but just assuming that they must not be as spiritual as those who did!
So Jesus responds:
Mark 2:19,20 – “And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.”
Jesus used a modern day illustration of the first century to explain why his followers were not fasting. And again, Jesus loved to answer questions with questions: When the bridegroom is present for the wedding and all the celebration around weddings, there is no reason for the wedding guests to fast. When a Jewish couple was wed, they would not go on a honeymoon but stay for a week of celebrating. And the closest friends of the bride and bridegroom were invited. They would be celebrating, eating and drinking and enjoying the presence of the bridegroom. It would make no sense to be somber and abstain from food during the greatest times of celebration. In fact, it would be inappropriate to do so.
And of course, Jesus was referring to Himself as the bridegroom and his disciples as the wedding guests. He said: The time will come when I am taken away and then they will fast. And when he says “taken away”, his words denote a violent removal, as the prophecy declared:
Isaiah 53:8 – “By oppression and judgment he was taken away…”
Yes, that time would come. In fact, some of those religious leaders who were fasting so proudly, would be a part of the unjust judgment that would be brought on Jesus. But, Jesus’ point was that his followers were not fasting now, because he (the bridegroom) was with them; and so this was a time of celebration and focusing on Him. When he would be taken away (the crucifixion and eventual ascension to Heaven), then it would be time for them to fast. Let’s not just keep this in the First Century. Let’s consider how these things apply to us today:
SO WHAT?
Do not allow traditions to dictate your worship
There is nothing wrong with traditions unless you treat them as biblical absolutes. The religious leaders viewed fasting as part of their worship of God (mostly just an external show); and anyone who did not fast as often as they did must not worship God or be as holy. Fasting is not talked about in most churches; but many churches certainly have their traditions which they believe honor God. That is no problem. The problem comes when those churches or individuals within them expect that abiding by tradition brings extra merit with God; or those who do not abide by the same traditions are less committed to Him or less holy. Don’t fall into the trap of being bound by other’s man-made traditions; and don’t use your traditions as the standard for determining someone else’s holiness. But, this does not mean that we should ignore this issue of worship that is described in the Bible:
SO WHAT?
Use fasting to get closer to the invisible God
We should not completely overlook the fact that Jesus said His followers would fast, once He was gone. For we who are followers of Christ today, we serve a God we have never seen. The bridegroom, Jesus Christ, whom we are waiting for, will return one day; but is not yet here in body. So, it makes sense that we would take times to do without things, such as food, in order to focus on our God, and on our complete dependence on Him. However, do not allow even this good practice of fasting to become another tradition just to make you look more spiritual to others.
Jesus moves into a couple other illustrations, to go beyond the issue of fasting, and keep emphasizing how Jesus’ arrival and presence with His followers has brought in a whole new way of life; and means that the old ways of worship and expectation have passed. He is using this critical comment and question of the people to teach something more about Himself:
Jesus broke the traditions of Judaism and became the way to get to the Father
He explains with a couple of illustrations, how you cannot abide by the old laws of tradition and mix it with a belief in Christ. The Old had to go completely so that they could embrace the truth of the new: Jesus was the way, the truth and the life, the only way to the Father. He gives illustrations people in that day would understand:
Mark 2:21 – “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.”
The religious leaders and people who were hearing Jesus’ statements about Himself and the gospel, were trying to keep the old covenant, the Old Testament worship practices, the traditions that they had added to the Law; and keep their own perceptions of what the future Messiah would be like and what He would do. This, Jesus says, is the old garment.
No one is going to put a new piece of fabric (unshrunk cloth) on the old garment; because it is only going to cause a greater tear in the garment eventually. The new cloth had never been shrunk, so when it got wet, it would shrink, causing a bigger hole than it had in the first place.
I think Jesus’ point was this: He is the something that is new. The Old Testament and law are being fulfilled before their very eyes. This was unique, fresh and definitely new. This is how, through Jesus Christ, that one gets to the Father. And therefore, you (which included all of those hearing Christ, living in that day and today) you must change the way you relate to God. You cannot hold on any longer to the old ways, the traditions, the sacrifices of your faith. You must believe that I (Jesus said) am the only way to God, and in this way, it is a new covenant, a new way of worship. And you cannot mix the two. Interesting.
Have you met professing believers or churches that are so tied to their religious, old traditions, that they just cannot bring themselves to celebrating the freedom in Jesus Christ, and allow what Jesus Christ has done to be enough? Again, there is nothing wrong with tradition until it gets in the way of the gospel and the truth that Jesus Christ is enough to save us and keep us with the Father and eternal life. Do not try to mix salvation by grace through faith with a works salvation. People and churches have tried it; and it eventually tears people apart and destroys.
Jesus goes right into another illustration that they would have related to:
Mark 2:22 – “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins – and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
It was also not smart to pour new wine (not fully fermented) into old wineskins (these were used and worn out, with no flexibility, very hard). No bottles in that day. The new wine would ferment, that is it would release gases, giving pressure to the container, so that the brittle wineskin would burst and the wine and skin would be wasted.
Jesus was emphasizing that you cannot just try to add Him (the truth of the gospel) in with the old church traditions that didn’t save anyone. When it comes to eternal life, you cannot mix grace through faith with hard work through religious traditions. Those who just wanted to add Jesus Christ to their list of religious practices and beliefs were deceiving themselves.
A few hundred years ago, Martin Luther wanted to reform the Catholic Church from within, but soon realized that the old traditions did not mix with the plain biblical truth, that salvation was completely apart from works and came only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The old traditions were getting in the way of getting to God only through Christ and his finished work on the cross.
Please understand: it is not just the Catholic Church that tends to hold on to traditions. It is human nature and the way churches tend to go eventually: we make and then cling to man-made traditions, and we have a very hard time letting go of them; even if they have become obstacles to spreading the good news about Jesus Christ and helping people grow in the freedom available in Christ. Jesus would have many opportunities to teach how His coming brought new life and meaning to all of the laws that God’s people had faithfully practiced and added to in the past. And action from Christ brought the religious leaders frustration and ammunition time and time again:
Jesus broke the Sabbath laws
Mark 2:23,24 – “One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, is disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
Jesus and His disciples, on the Sabbath day, were walking through someone’s grainfields, when the disciples picked up some heads of grain and ate them. The religious leaders, who were following, watching every move of Jesus and His disciples, saw another great opportunity to challenge Jesus.
They are like the younger sibling who loves to come running to the parents: Guess what brother was doing, what sister was doing. You told them not to, but they were doing it anyway! The Pharisees loved to run to Jesus with every little criticism they had, not only of him (they liked to criticize Jesus to other people) but of His followers.
According to commentator William Barclay: “This was done on the Sabbath and…all work was forbidden. Work had been classified under thirty-nine different heads and four of these heads were reaping , winnowing, threshing and preparing a meal. By their action the disciples had technically broken all these four rules and were to be classified as law-breakers. It seems [incredible] to us; but to the Jewish rabbis it was a matter of deadly sin and of life and death.”
According to the Talmud, the book of Jewish traditions: “On the Sabbath, you could not travel more than 3,000 feet from your house. You were not allowed to carry anything that weighted more than a dried fig. You couldn’t carry a needle for fear you might sew something. Taking a bathwas forbidden. Water might splash on the floor and wash it. Women were not to look in a mirror; they might pull a gray hair!”
It was like they were saying: How dare Jesus and His disciples? They claim to be the Son of God and followers of God; and yet they are not even keeping the most holiest of days, the Sabbath. So Jesus responded to this next criticism and accusation with another penetrating question and biblical story:
Mark 2:25,26 – “And he said to them, have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”
Jesus responded to this criticism by asking another, rhetorical question to make his point: Don’t you know the Scriptures, Jesus asked. It is funny, every time Jesus asks that question to them over the few years, because they of course knew the Old Testament Scriptures better than anyone. They just applied them in a legalistic, unbiblical way; and ignored the most important principles of the Scriptures!
Jesus reminded them of the story told in I Samuel 21, when David and his friends were hungry, and they went into the court of the tabernacle and asked for the consecrated bread. There were 12 loaves of bread on the golden table; and it was against the religious laws of that day to eat the bread that was reserved only for priests.
Jesus used this story to show that the religious leaders were so narrow on their interpretation of the law, that they were setting aside the principle. In other words, the true needs of others were to take priority over the man-made traditions of the law. Jesus’ followers picking and eating grain on the Sabbath, in order to satisfy their hunger was no big deal in Jesus’ eyes.
There have been laws in the United States in years gone by that prohibited certain things on Sundays, which in the First Century, took over the importance of the Sabbath Day, as believers celebrated the first day of the week because of Jesus’ resurrection. So, “blue laws”, as they were called were instituted and some of them are still in place in certain areas:
· In Ohio, It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday.
· In Salem, West Virginia, it's against the law to eat candy less than an hour and a half before church service.
· In Winona Lake, Wisconsin, it is illegal to eat ice cream at a counter on Sunday.
· And don't expect to order a slice of cherry pie a la mode in Kansas on the Lord's Day. No restaurant is allowed to serve it unless they're willing to run afoul of local police.
· Marbles, Dominoes, and yo-yos are also banned on Sundays in a handful of states.
Some of these are old laws, some are still “on the books”; and all of them, I’m sure were instituted so that people could give their focus on Sunday to God and church worship services. However, just as with the Pharisees, man-made laws become inflexible, don’t take real people into consideration and are many times way out of date. They are no longer reasonable or practical or purposeful.
I remember people in my past who felt this same way about Sundays, the Lord’s Day. They didn’t think you should work or even play on that day – just rest and go to church, of course. Now, there is nothing wrong with people who choose to do that; but the problem comes when they make that some kind of holiness rule, and expect everyone else to abide by it as well.
And then Jesus makes this next statement, that should have made it clear to everyone, how the religious laws fit into every-day life:
Mark 2:27 – “And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
This is a very telling statement. The idea of the Sabbath, of course, comes from the very beginning of human existence and beginning of the Scriptures, when we read in Genesis that on the 7th (Sabbath) day, Jesus rested. From then on, the 7th day of the week (Saturday) was connected with rest – a time to reflect on who God was and what He had done. Just like when God took a day to reflect on His creation and to rest.
The fact that God, who was all-powerful, did not need physical rest, should help us understand a little of what the Sabbath was all about; and how it was intended to help man. It gave everyone a day where their main responsibility was to rest from all of their hard work and reflect on who God was and what He had done.
Of course, eventually, the apostles began meeting on the first day of the week, Sunday, and declared that the Lord’s Day, because it was the day Jesus rose from the dead. So, most believers, after that, began taking Sunday as the day of rest – the day dedicated to reflecting on God with other believers.
However, as we have already mentioned, humans end up taking something good and turn it into some legalistic rules of holiness. And that is exactly what happened to the Pharisees and the religious people of Jesus’ day. They made their own binding rules about the Sabbath Day; and condemned those who broke them – no exceptions.
Jesus said during his public ministry that he was not here to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. His point was that the Sabbath Day was put in place to help people, not to confine them or limit them. It was to allow people to not have to work, but to spend the day enjoying God, God’s people, and whatever else they would enjoy as rest. And, if they needed to do work, or needed to prepare food, or whatever was needed, it was ok to work on the day of rest; because the people were more important than the program.
Jesus had authority over man-made laws
And Jesus then adds onto this statement, by reminding them that He is the one who has all authority. He has already demonstrated that he had authority over disease and demons and other’s people purposes for Him, and the process for how everything takes place. And now He says:
Mark 2:28 – “So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Guys, I, fully man and fully God, have the authority to use the day of rest however it will best benefit me and my followers. My followers have the same freedom. Don’t try to tell me that you are the authority. And don’t look at the law so narrowly and hold your traditions over the freedom that comes through me.
Jesus continually demonstrated who He was, and the religious people and leaders continued to deny Him. The next story that the gospel writer, Mark, relates to us is a prime example of this statement by Jesus: that He was the master of the Sabbath day.
Mark 3:1– “Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.”
Here is the set up again. He went into the synagogue, probably to once again preach the good news message about who he was, and guess what? It’s the Sabbath and here is someone in need of healing. Surprise, surprise…There is a man with a shriveled up hand and he comes into contact with Jesus. Hmmm…I wonder what is going to happen.
And the Pharisees begin to drool, because they can see another great opportunity coming to show Jesus to be a religious fraud, not willing to obey the biblical laws of the Sabbath Day! You don’t think they were that diabolical? Look at:
Mark 3:2 – “And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.”
Have you ever felt like there were certain people just watching, waiting for you to screw up? Jesus had that all the time, it seemed. They were relentless, and they certainly were not going to miss Jesus doing “work” on this most holy day – the Lord’s Day – the Sabbath.
And according to the law, this was punishable by death:
Exodus 31:14 – “You shall keep the Sabbath…Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death…”
The only “work” that was allowed by Jewish law on the Sabbath, was to save a life. For example, if a woman was in child-birth, she could be helped. If something was life threatening, saving a life was ok. Injuries could be helped so that they would not get worse, but could not be helped so that they would get better – on the Sabbath Day.
The Jews took this to such an extreme, that they would not even defend their own lives, if it meant violating the Sabbath laws. According to Barclay: “In the wars of the Maccabees, when the resistance broke out, some of the Jewish rebels took refuge in caves. The Syrian soldiers pursued them. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that they gave them the chance to surrender and they would not, so [the Syrians] fought against them on the Sabbath day, and they burned them as they were in caves, without resistance and without so much as stopping up the entrances of the caves. They refused to defend themselves on that day because they were not willing to break in upon the honor they owed to the Sabbath, even in such distress; for our law requires that we rest on that day.”
What did Jesus do?
Mark 3:3,4 – “And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here. And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent.”
Jesus told the man to come out, where everyone could see him. Jesus was about to do something, and really teach something, that he did not want people to miss.
Again, Jesus answers them with a question: a convicting, penetrating, revealing question. He brings the man in need of healing over, then looking at the critics, He asks: So, how does the law speak to this issue? Is it better to do good for someone or hurt someone on the Sabbath? Is it better to kill someone or to save a life? And I love this: The text says, in response to Jesus’ rhetorical questions, they were silent! They were speechless. Jesus had shut them up once again. The answers were obvious: It is better to do good and to save lives on the Sabbath. To not do good would be considered doing evil.
Mark 3:5 – “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”
Jesus gave a penetrating look to the Pharisees, showing his disgust with their sinful attitudes. He was grieved in his heart because of the hardness of theirs. And then, he said to the man: stretch out your hand. The man extended it toward Jesus; and immediately, he was healed. In this case, it is not recorded that Jesus touched him or even said “be healed.” The man just obeyed what Jesus told him to do and all of a sudden his hand was “normal”, as though it has never been crippled.
There is something that sticks out, here, about the vast difference between the priorities of Jesus and the religious leaders. In fact, there is something revealed about their hearts that is then repeated time and time again in the gospels. And it leads me to the final:
SO WHAT?
Have a tender heart toward those in need of Christ
I believe this is applicable because we can see, over and over again, that those who claimed to be holy, committed to God, were really committed to their own agenda; which meant ignoring the real needs of people and going on the attack instead. Jesus, however, had a tender heart to those in need of Him; and spent His time restoring their health and more importantly, introducing them to God.
Let’s listen to this song and look at the story unfold of those who were so concerned with their righteousness, that they lost sight of a person’s true need:
MUSIC VIDEO: MY BROTHER JACK
Have you ever experienced this, as any of the participants? Perhaps you were the non-believer, lambasted by the professing believers. Or maybe you were the believer that decided you needed to set the non-believer straight. Or maybe you were the believer who brought a non-believer to a place where believers were; and then you witnessed those other believers “attack” your friend. This scenario we just heard played out in song and pictures depicts in present day what was happening in Jesus’ day. The religious, pious people were so concerned with their rules and standards that they forget there is a hurting non-believer who needs to see Christ’s love and acceptance modeled.
When people saw that others were truly healed by Jesus, what kind of response did they normally have? They would glorify God. They would be amazed. And then, they would go everywhere spreading the news that Jesus Christ could heal, do miracles, cast out demons. But, what was the response to this incredible healing, from the Pharisees?
Mark 3:6 – “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”
Unbelievable! But, then again, this is what religion without a relationship with Christ can do. This is what religious people, more concerned with the external and regulations end up doing: they criticize those who are fully committed to Christ, responding humbly, in Christian liberty, to their God.
Isn’t interesting, that although it was obvious that the Sabbath should be used to give life and do good, the Pharisees used the Sabbath Day to plot how they could destroy Jesus. Do you see the irony in that? Sometimes, it is the church and its people that are the most unloving, unforgiving, critical people around. That is not how it should be; but sadly, it is many times true.
This says that they conspired with the Herodians. Isn’t that interesting? These two groups hated each other, and yet their hatred for Jesus was even stronger and made them allies.
The religious leaders were much more concerned with their traditions and rules than they were that people were in need of healing and that Jesus was able to make them whole. I wish this wasn’t true; but I have met people that were much more concerned with one of the following:
Music style; translation of Scripture; how we dress; how we give invitations; how much we dictate how people live their lives – much more concerned with these issues than whether or not we are reaching out to those in need; and doing whatever we can to meet those needs; especially meeting spiritual needs by pointing them to the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And, of course, the best way to do that is to model it.
To the Pharisees, true religion was about obeying all the rituals and traditions, which is why they emphasized work done on the Sabbath Day. To Jesus, true religion was about serving people; which is why his focus was on those in need, and he was not concerned that it happened to be the Sabbath Day when he did a great service for another people.
The challenge for us to make sure we don’t make our Christianity and worship ritualistic and legalistic. We need to make sure the priorities Jesus Christ had are the same ones we hold to.
Prayer
Mark 2:18-3:6
Please turn in your Bible to Mark 2. In the Bible in front of you, it is page 866 or 883.
I’m sure there are laws that you don’t appreciate very much and wish were non-existent. I’m sure there are some speed limit ones that make no sense and are hard to obey. On the internet, there are some things which, according to these websites, are still against the law in some places in Ohio. I cannot promise that these are all true, but I know there are some incredible laws like these still “on the books” in our country:
· In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the speaker’s stand, you can be fined $25.
· It is illegal to get a fish drunk.
· The Ohio driver’s education manual states that you must honk the horn whenever you pass another car.
· Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited.
· Breast feeding is not allowed in public.
· It is illegal for more than five women to live in a house.
· It is illegal to mistreat anything of great importance.
· No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July.
Jesus was a law-breaker, not in the Ten Commandments or Bible’s absolute laws; but when it came to man-made laws; especially those that were meant to make people seem more spiritual. The laws that were made by the religious leaders of Jesus day seemed even more outlandish than some of the ones mentioned above. They got caught up in the deception that the more laws you made to dictate people’s every move would make you more holy and acceptable before God. Jesus was going to destroy those myths.
In the previous passage (Mark 2:15-17), the religious leaders had been complaining that Jesus was spending time with sinful people; and Jesus told them that He was here to do just that. Those who recognized they were in need were the ones who would humble themselves and accepted the message that Jesus was giving: That He was the promised Messiah, the Son of God, who had come to save them from their sins. But, we will find that nothing will satisfy the religious leaders when it comes to Christ; until they kill him, that is.
This morning, Mark takes us right into another episode where they are criticizing Jesus and His followers for something else:
Jesus and His followers broke the religious traditions of fasting:
Mark 2:18 – “Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
Perhaps the cynical people, who were looking for anything they could accuse Jesus of, were taking this opportunity with the party at the new disciples’ Matthew’s house, to go after him again. Maybe they were pointing out that while Jesus and his followers were having a feast, the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were observing a religious fast.
The Old Testament said that all Jews should fast on the Day of Atonement, showing their spirit of repentance (according to Leviticus). The Pharisees and those who followed their traditions would also fast twice a week, usually on Monday and Thursdays, to show they were righteous and holy. It is interesting that the fasts normally took place, not during the full day; but from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. At least, according to tradition, that is when they fasted.
So, the criticism was this: Hey Jesus, the followers of John the Baptist and the religious leaders all fast, to show their dedication to God. So, why aren’t your followers fasting as well, following their example of piety? In other words: “your followers aren’t as holy as the others!”
Fasting does not seem to be the issue people use to show their spiritual superiority today; but we could substitute issues such as music, Bible translations, how many church services someone goes to, how long their devotional or prayer time is, etc. Anything that might be good, but people can wrongly use as some type of spiritual holiness test, could fit what these religious leaders were doing with fasting. It would be like going to someone and criticizing them because they didn’t attend a Sunday evening service, not really caring the reason they had, but just assuming that they must not be as spiritual as those who did!
So Jesus responds:
Mark 2:19,20 – “And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.”
Jesus used a modern day illustration of the first century to explain why his followers were not fasting. And again, Jesus loved to answer questions with questions: When the bridegroom is present for the wedding and all the celebration around weddings, there is no reason for the wedding guests to fast. When a Jewish couple was wed, they would not go on a honeymoon but stay for a week of celebrating. And the closest friends of the bride and bridegroom were invited. They would be celebrating, eating and drinking and enjoying the presence of the bridegroom. It would make no sense to be somber and abstain from food during the greatest times of celebration. In fact, it would be inappropriate to do so.
And of course, Jesus was referring to Himself as the bridegroom and his disciples as the wedding guests. He said: The time will come when I am taken away and then they will fast. And when he says “taken away”, his words denote a violent removal, as the prophecy declared:
Isaiah 53:8 – “By oppression and judgment he was taken away…”
Yes, that time would come. In fact, some of those religious leaders who were fasting so proudly, would be a part of the unjust judgment that would be brought on Jesus. But, Jesus’ point was that his followers were not fasting now, because he (the bridegroom) was with them; and so this was a time of celebration and focusing on Him. When he would be taken away (the crucifixion and eventual ascension to Heaven), then it would be time for them to fast. Let’s not just keep this in the First Century. Let’s consider how these things apply to us today:
SO WHAT?
Do not allow traditions to dictate your worship
There is nothing wrong with traditions unless you treat them as biblical absolutes. The religious leaders viewed fasting as part of their worship of God (mostly just an external show); and anyone who did not fast as often as they did must not worship God or be as holy. Fasting is not talked about in most churches; but many churches certainly have their traditions which they believe honor God. That is no problem. The problem comes when those churches or individuals within them expect that abiding by tradition brings extra merit with God; or those who do not abide by the same traditions are less committed to Him or less holy. Don’t fall into the trap of being bound by other’s man-made traditions; and don’t use your traditions as the standard for determining someone else’s holiness. But, this does not mean that we should ignore this issue of worship that is described in the Bible:
SO WHAT?
Use fasting to get closer to the invisible God
We should not completely overlook the fact that Jesus said His followers would fast, once He was gone. For we who are followers of Christ today, we serve a God we have never seen. The bridegroom, Jesus Christ, whom we are waiting for, will return one day; but is not yet here in body. So, it makes sense that we would take times to do without things, such as food, in order to focus on our God, and on our complete dependence on Him. However, do not allow even this good practice of fasting to become another tradition just to make you look more spiritual to others.
Jesus moves into a couple other illustrations, to go beyond the issue of fasting, and keep emphasizing how Jesus’ arrival and presence with His followers has brought in a whole new way of life; and means that the old ways of worship and expectation have passed. He is using this critical comment and question of the people to teach something more about Himself:
Jesus broke the traditions of Judaism and became the way to get to the Father
He explains with a couple of illustrations, how you cannot abide by the old laws of tradition and mix it with a belief in Christ. The Old had to go completely so that they could embrace the truth of the new: Jesus was the way, the truth and the life, the only way to the Father. He gives illustrations people in that day would understand:
Mark 2:21 – “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.”
The religious leaders and people who were hearing Jesus’ statements about Himself and the gospel, were trying to keep the old covenant, the Old Testament worship practices, the traditions that they had added to the Law; and keep their own perceptions of what the future Messiah would be like and what He would do. This, Jesus says, is the old garment.
No one is going to put a new piece of fabric (unshrunk cloth) on the old garment; because it is only going to cause a greater tear in the garment eventually. The new cloth had never been shrunk, so when it got wet, it would shrink, causing a bigger hole than it had in the first place.
I think Jesus’ point was this: He is the something that is new. The Old Testament and law are being fulfilled before their very eyes. This was unique, fresh and definitely new. This is how, through Jesus Christ, that one gets to the Father. And therefore, you (which included all of those hearing Christ, living in that day and today) you must change the way you relate to God. You cannot hold on any longer to the old ways, the traditions, the sacrifices of your faith. You must believe that I (Jesus said) am the only way to God, and in this way, it is a new covenant, a new way of worship. And you cannot mix the two. Interesting.
Have you met professing believers or churches that are so tied to their religious, old traditions, that they just cannot bring themselves to celebrating the freedom in Jesus Christ, and allow what Jesus Christ has done to be enough? Again, there is nothing wrong with tradition until it gets in the way of the gospel and the truth that Jesus Christ is enough to save us and keep us with the Father and eternal life. Do not try to mix salvation by grace through faith with a works salvation. People and churches have tried it; and it eventually tears people apart and destroys.
Jesus goes right into another illustration that they would have related to:
Mark 2:22 – “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins – and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
It was also not smart to pour new wine (not fully fermented) into old wineskins (these were used and worn out, with no flexibility, very hard). No bottles in that day. The new wine would ferment, that is it would release gases, giving pressure to the container, so that the brittle wineskin would burst and the wine and skin would be wasted.
Jesus was emphasizing that you cannot just try to add Him (the truth of the gospel) in with the old church traditions that didn’t save anyone. When it comes to eternal life, you cannot mix grace through faith with hard work through religious traditions. Those who just wanted to add Jesus Christ to their list of religious practices and beliefs were deceiving themselves.
A few hundred years ago, Martin Luther wanted to reform the Catholic Church from within, but soon realized that the old traditions did not mix with the plain biblical truth, that salvation was completely apart from works and came only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The old traditions were getting in the way of getting to God only through Christ and his finished work on the cross.
Please understand: it is not just the Catholic Church that tends to hold on to traditions. It is human nature and the way churches tend to go eventually: we make and then cling to man-made traditions, and we have a very hard time letting go of them; even if they have become obstacles to spreading the good news about Jesus Christ and helping people grow in the freedom available in Christ. Jesus would have many opportunities to teach how His coming brought new life and meaning to all of the laws that God’s people had faithfully practiced and added to in the past. And action from Christ brought the religious leaders frustration and ammunition time and time again:
Jesus broke the Sabbath laws
Mark 2:23,24 – “One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, is disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
Jesus and His disciples, on the Sabbath day, were walking through someone’s grainfields, when the disciples picked up some heads of grain and ate them. The religious leaders, who were following, watching every move of Jesus and His disciples, saw another great opportunity to challenge Jesus.
They are like the younger sibling who loves to come running to the parents: Guess what brother was doing, what sister was doing. You told them not to, but they were doing it anyway! The Pharisees loved to run to Jesus with every little criticism they had, not only of him (they liked to criticize Jesus to other people) but of His followers.
According to commentator William Barclay: “This was done on the Sabbath and…all work was forbidden. Work had been classified under thirty-nine different heads and four of these heads were reaping , winnowing, threshing and preparing a meal. By their action the disciples had technically broken all these four rules and were to be classified as law-breakers. It seems [incredible] to us; but to the Jewish rabbis it was a matter of deadly sin and of life and death.”
According to the Talmud, the book of Jewish traditions: “On the Sabbath, you could not travel more than 3,000 feet from your house. You were not allowed to carry anything that weighted more than a dried fig. You couldn’t carry a needle for fear you might sew something. Taking a bathwas forbidden. Water might splash on the floor and wash it. Women were not to look in a mirror; they might pull a gray hair!”
It was like they were saying: How dare Jesus and His disciples? They claim to be the Son of God and followers of God; and yet they are not even keeping the most holiest of days, the Sabbath. So Jesus responded to this next criticism and accusation with another penetrating question and biblical story:
Mark 2:25,26 – “And he said to them, have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”
Jesus responded to this criticism by asking another, rhetorical question to make his point: Don’t you know the Scriptures, Jesus asked. It is funny, every time Jesus asks that question to them over the few years, because they of course knew the Old Testament Scriptures better than anyone. They just applied them in a legalistic, unbiblical way; and ignored the most important principles of the Scriptures!
Jesus reminded them of the story told in I Samuel 21, when David and his friends were hungry, and they went into the court of the tabernacle and asked for the consecrated bread. There were 12 loaves of bread on the golden table; and it was against the religious laws of that day to eat the bread that was reserved only for priests.
Jesus used this story to show that the religious leaders were so narrow on their interpretation of the law, that they were setting aside the principle. In other words, the true needs of others were to take priority over the man-made traditions of the law. Jesus’ followers picking and eating grain on the Sabbath, in order to satisfy their hunger was no big deal in Jesus’ eyes.
There have been laws in the United States in years gone by that prohibited certain things on Sundays, which in the First Century, took over the importance of the Sabbath Day, as believers celebrated the first day of the week because of Jesus’ resurrection. So, “blue laws”, as they were called were instituted and some of them are still in place in certain areas:
· In Ohio, It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday.
· In Salem, West Virginia, it's against the law to eat candy less than an hour and a half before church service.
· In Winona Lake, Wisconsin, it is illegal to eat ice cream at a counter on Sunday.
· And don't expect to order a slice of cherry pie a la mode in Kansas on the Lord's Day. No restaurant is allowed to serve it unless they're willing to run afoul of local police.
· Marbles, Dominoes, and yo-yos are also banned on Sundays in a handful of states.
Some of these are old laws, some are still “on the books”; and all of them, I’m sure were instituted so that people could give their focus on Sunday to God and church worship services. However, just as with the Pharisees, man-made laws become inflexible, don’t take real people into consideration and are many times way out of date. They are no longer reasonable or practical or purposeful.
I remember people in my past who felt this same way about Sundays, the Lord’s Day. They didn’t think you should work or even play on that day – just rest and go to church, of course. Now, there is nothing wrong with people who choose to do that; but the problem comes when they make that some kind of holiness rule, and expect everyone else to abide by it as well.
And then Jesus makes this next statement, that should have made it clear to everyone, how the religious laws fit into every-day life:
Mark 2:27 – “And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
This is a very telling statement. The idea of the Sabbath, of course, comes from the very beginning of human existence and beginning of the Scriptures, when we read in Genesis that on the 7th (Sabbath) day, Jesus rested. From then on, the 7th day of the week (Saturday) was connected with rest – a time to reflect on who God was and what He had done. Just like when God took a day to reflect on His creation and to rest.
The fact that God, who was all-powerful, did not need physical rest, should help us understand a little of what the Sabbath was all about; and how it was intended to help man. It gave everyone a day where their main responsibility was to rest from all of their hard work and reflect on who God was and what He had done.
Of course, eventually, the apostles began meeting on the first day of the week, Sunday, and declared that the Lord’s Day, because it was the day Jesus rose from the dead. So, most believers, after that, began taking Sunday as the day of rest – the day dedicated to reflecting on God with other believers.
However, as we have already mentioned, humans end up taking something good and turn it into some legalistic rules of holiness. And that is exactly what happened to the Pharisees and the religious people of Jesus’ day. They made their own binding rules about the Sabbath Day; and condemned those who broke them – no exceptions.
Jesus said during his public ministry that he was not here to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. His point was that the Sabbath Day was put in place to help people, not to confine them or limit them. It was to allow people to not have to work, but to spend the day enjoying God, God’s people, and whatever else they would enjoy as rest. And, if they needed to do work, or needed to prepare food, or whatever was needed, it was ok to work on the day of rest; because the people were more important than the program.
Jesus had authority over man-made laws
And Jesus then adds onto this statement, by reminding them that He is the one who has all authority. He has already demonstrated that he had authority over disease and demons and other’s people purposes for Him, and the process for how everything takes place. And now He says:
Mark 2:28 – “So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Guys, I, fully man and fully God, have the authority to use the day of rest however it will best benefit me and my followers. My followers have the same freedom. Don’t try to tell me that you are the authority. And don’t look at the law so narrowly and hold your traditions over the freedom that comes through me.
Jesus continually demonstrated who He was, and the religious people and leaders continued to deny Him. The next story that the gospel writer, Mark, relates to us is a prime example of this statement by Jesus: that He was the master of the Sabbath day.
Mark 3:1– “Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.”
Here is the set up again. He went into the synagogue, probably to once again preach the good news message about who he was, and guess what? It’s the Sabbath and here is someone in need of healing. Surprise, surprise…There is a man with a shriveled up hand and he comes into contact with Jesus. Hmmm…I wonder what is going to happen.
And the Pharisees begin to drool, because they can see another great opportunity coming to show Jesus to be a religious fraud, not willing to obey the biblical laws of the Sabbath Day! You don’t think they were that diabolical? Look at:
Mark 3:2 – “And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.”
Have you ever felt like there were certain people just watching, waiting for you to screw up? Jesus had that all the time, it seemed. They were relentless, and they certainly were not going to miss Jesus doing “work” on this most holy day – the Lord’s Day – the Sabbath.
And according to the law, this was punishable by death:
Exodus 31:14 – “You shall keep the Sabbath…Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death…”
The only “work” that was allowed by Jewish law on the Sabbath, was to save a life. For example, if a woman was in child-birth, she could be helped. If something was life threatening, saving a life was ok. Injuries could be helped so that they would not get worse, but could not be helped so that they would get better – on the Sabbath Day.
The Jews took this to such an extreme, that they would not even defend their own lives, if it meant violating the Sabbath laws. According to Barclay: “In the wars of the Maccabees, when the resistance broke out, some of the Jewish rebels took refuge in caves. The Syrian soldiers pursued them. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that they gave them the chance to surrender and they would not, so [the Syrians] fought against them on the Sabbath day, and they burned them as they were in caves, without resistance and without so much as stopping up the entrances of the caves. They refused to defend themselves on that day because they were not willing to break in upon the honor they owed to the Sabbath, even in such distress; for our law requires that we rest on that day.”
What did Jesus do?
Mark 3:3,4 – “And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here. And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent.”
Jesus told the man to come out, where everyone could see him. Jesus was about to do something, and really teach something, that he did not want people to miss.
Again, Jesus answers them with a question: a convicting, penetrating, revealing question. He brings the man in need of healing over, then looking at the critics, He asks: So, how does the law speak to this issue? Is it better to do good for someone or hurt someone on the Sabbath? Is it better to kill someone or to save a life? And I love this: The text says, in response to Jesus’ rhetorical questions, they were silent! They were speechless. Jesus had shut them up once again. The answers were obvious: It is better to do good and to save lives on the Sabbath. To not do good would be considered doing evil.
Mark 3:5 – “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”
Jesus gave a penetrating look to the Pharisees, showing his disgust with their sinful attitudes. He was grieved in his heart because of the hardness of theirs. And then, he said to the man: stretch out your hand. The man extended it toward Jesus; and immediately, he was healed. In this case, it is not recorded that Jesus touched him or even said “be healed.” The man just obeyed what Jesus told him to do and all of a sudden his hand was “normal”, as though it has never been crippled.
There is something that sticks out, here, about the vast difference between the priorities of Jesus and the religious leaders. In fact, there is something revealed about their hearts that is then repeated time and time again in the gospels. And it leads me to the final:
SO WHAT?
Have a tender heart toward those in need of Christ
I believe this is applicable because we can see, over and over again, that those who claimed to be holy, committed to God, were really committed to their own agenda; which meant ignoring the real needs of people and going on the attack instead. Jesus, however, had a tender heart to those in need of Him; and spent His time restoring their health and more importantly, introducing them to God.
Let’s listen to this song and look at the story unfold of those who were so concerned with their righteousness, that they lost sight of a person’s true need:
MUSIC VIDEO: MY BROTHER JACK
Have you ever experienced this, as any of the participants? Perhaps you were the non-believer, lambasted by the professing believers. Or maybe you were the believer that decided you needed to set the non-believer straight. Or maybe you were the believer who brought a non-believer to a place where believers were; and then you witnessed those other believers “attack” your friend. This scenario we just heard played out in song and pictures depicts in present day what was happening in Jesus’ day. The religious, pious people were so concerned with their rules and standards that they forget there is a hurting non-believer who needs to see Christ’s love and acceptance modeled.
When people saw that others were truly healed by Jesus, what kind of response did they normally have? They would glorify God. They would be amazed. And then, they would go everywhere spreading the news that Jesus Christ could heal, do miracles, cast out demons. But, what was the response to this incredible healing, from the Pharisees?
Mark 3:6 – “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”
Unbelievable! But, then again, this is what religion without a relationship with Christ can do. This is what religious people, more concerned with the external and regulations end up doing: they criticize those who are fully committed to Christ, responding humbly, in Christian liberty, to their God.
Isn’t interesting, that although it was obvious that the Sabbath should be used to give life and do good, the Pharisees used the Sabbath Day to plot how they could destroy Jesus. Do you see the irony in that? Sometimes, it is the church and its people that are the most unloving, unforgiving, critical people around. That is not how it should be; but sadly, it is many times true.
This says that they conspired with the Herodians. Isn’t that interesting? These two groups hated each other, and yet their hatred for Jesus was even stronger and made them allies.
The religious leaders were much more concerned with their traditions and rules than they were that people were in need of healing and that Jesus was able to make them whole. I wish this wasn’t true; but I have met people that were much more concerned with one of the following:
Music style; translation of Scripture; how we dress; how we give invitations; how much we dictate how people live their lives – much more concerned with these issues than whether or not we are reaching out to those in need; and doing whatever we can to meet those needs; especially meeting spiritual needs by pointing them to the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And, of course, the best way to do that is to model it.
To the Pharisees, true religion was about obeying all the rituals and traditions, which is why they emphasized work done on the Sabbath Day. To Jesus, true religion was about serving people; which is why his focus was on those in need, and he was not concerned that it happened to be the Sabbath Day when he did a great service for another people.
The challenge for us to make sure we don’t make our Christianity and worship ritualistic and legalistic. We need to make sure the priorities Jesus Christ had are the same ones we hold to.
Prayer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
