Book: Mark

Outsiders and Insiders

In this sermon, Pastor Babij shows that many in the crowds following Jesus during His earthly ministry did not actually believe in Him; some in the crowd just wanted miracles and freedom from Rome, others thought Jesus was insane, and still others claimed Jesus used demonic power. Pastor Babij explains Jesus’s response to these attitudes and what being a true follower of Christ looks like.

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all right let’s uh take our Bibles this morning and we’re looking at the gospel of Mark chapter 3.

and we are going to be looking at verse 20 to verse 35 that’s the whole rest of the chapter and today we’re going to be looking at really And discussing Outsiders and insiders it’s very important uh under uh understanding what we should have as believers and the question is are you on the inside or are you on the outside there’s always a crowd but just because you’re in the crowd doesn’t mean you’re on the inside so that’s what we’re going to look at this morning In this passage of scripture many things going on here so take your Bibles take your uh iPads your phones whatever you’re using today and follow along as we look at this and I am in The New American Standard Bible so um it may be a little different if you’re using the ESV but that the difference is very slight let’s pray let’s pray this morning Lord we thank you today for your grace and mercy to us we thank you for the word of God we thank you that uh we’re able to open it up and read it and study it and hear it and I pray Lord that as we do that our hunger for the word of God would increase and it would never decrease and Lord if it does decrease then we would know we would have to look for sin because sin is the very thing that stifles us for having a desire for the word so Lord let us do that repent and turn from that sin and then get back into following you hearing your word and then putting it into practice in our life and so Lord I pray today that we would all know whether we are on the inside or the outside and I pray in Christ’s name amen all right so chapter 3 verses 20 through 35.

now before I look into the text I just want to let you know that there’s been a widespread Fame of Jesus Christ all throughout the land north south east west uh and of course everybody heard about what Jesus was doing in his miracles in casting out demons and healing and preaching with authority that no one ever heard before and so they were coming from everywhere uh to hear about Jesus to see him uh to touch him all kinds of things were going on and so because of this exponential growth it drew different crowds and of course those crowds Drew opposition and also problems now throughout The Narrative of the Gospel of Mark the audience of Jesus really splits into two groupings followers and opponents now just because someone’s an opponent doesn’t mean later on they can become a follower and it doesn’t mean just just because someone’s a follower later on they can drop out and not follow Jesus Anymore so both of those Dynamics are going on throughout the gospel of Mark all right of course you want to be asking yourself am I a follower so even when Jesus picks those who will be close to him to be his pupils and in Fury and that’s his Apostles in infuria it infuriates the religious leadership of the day and how does it infuriate them well remember that when a young man wanted to be under the tutelage of a religious teacher like a rabbi and go to an advanced Torah class or into some kind of training the teacher would not seek out the student the student would seek out the teacher well Jesus in this case is seeking out the pupils so he’s doing completely opposite of what is the norm in the day and so Jesus prophetically calls to himself 12 men who will be his apostles and how does he do that well from Mark chapter 3 verse number 13 he prays all night prayer meeting before the father he asked the Father which ones he should pick and then he gets up the next day and he picks them in verse number 13 of chapter three he summons uh the workers to himself and if you notice what it says in chapter 3 verse 3 13 it says and summon those who he himself wanted and they came to him all right and then this group would become the Inner Circle but remember even in this Inner Circle there was someone who would betray him and of course that we all know is Judas Iscariot all right and then what he does is he appoints them in verse number 14 of chapter three he appointed the twelve so that they would be with him and that he could send them out so he wanted them around him so he could teach them and who does he choose he chooses fishermen he chooses unage uneducated men doesn’t mean they weren’t smart men it just means they had no formal education he chooses stubborn men tough man he chooses skeptical men and he chooses attacks collector and an insurrectionist who wanted to over throw the government of Rome so all these men are in his group called The Twelve so Jesus is committed to invest in them to teach them and to prepare them to carry on his mission how does he do it he teaches in all kinds of way he uses brevity he uses imagery he uses vivid language he uses parallelism he uses rhyme and Rhythm he uses pairs in alliteration he uses the fourisms he uses all kinds of things and he also connects events with instruction and involves himself in memorable dialogue with other people before the disciples and even in controversial discussions before the disciples before the apostles so they could learn how to do it so they were his followers and the 12 were considered to be the inside Circle and what were they to do they were do they they were to do the exact same thing that Jesus was going to do and that was summarized up in two words that Jesus was going to go preach the gospel of the Kingdom all right and that’s the only way anyone can get into the kingdom is by receiving the message of the Kingdom all right and then of course he was going to dismantle the kingdom of Satan and that’s exactly what they were going to do in verse 14 and verse 15 of Mark chapter 3 they were going to preach and then to have authority to cast out demons so the 12 are specifically appointed Servants of the Kingdom to help carry out the work of Jesus Christ and the twelve again were the inside crowd however there are those who are part of the crowd that surrounding Jesus and they think they are followers of Jesus but actually they stand in opposition to him because they want him for the wrong reasons they want him just to heal them they want him to do something for them so you see a person may be on the outside crowd near Jesus and never be part of the inside crowd this Lord’s Day I would like you to consider in our text and think what section of the crowd would you find yourself and I think at the end it’s going to become abundantly clear whether you are in the inside crowd or the outside crowd now let’s pick it up in verse number 20 but before I read that I want you to let you know that in this section of scripture there are three groups mentioned and there are these three groups reflect three responses to Jesus ministry only one group and one response is correct the rest of them are not you’ll find that you’ll see that in the text so Jesus and his disciples have come back either to Peter’s house in Capernaum or to Jesus home we don’t know which one he came to but they’re very close together so after much demanding Ministry they’re weary from travel they’re weary from work and all they want to do is they want to get a little lunch that’s all they want and they want to relax all right but look at what happens and this will pick it up and this shows us about the general group this is the general group first verse 20. all right look what it says and he came home he’s talking about Jesus and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal so they get to the house and they can’t even get in to eat the crowd is was demanding the crowd was needy the crowd was thick and to such an extent that they couldn’t even get some something to eat and rest a while the crowd really didn’t care about Jesus now uh nor do they care about the chosen Apostles that he just picked the only wanted to get something from him something from them so then the general crowd of followers we’re still on the outside but they wanted to get near Jesus but instead of getting near Jesus they were actually an obstacle for his mission and not a benefit for his mission so this is troubling in in the crowd that is at the door that is blocking the way where they can’t even eat but what is more troubling is what happens next and here’s the first group and the first group is this Jesus family who seems to misunderstand him at this point and they actually become his opponents and they are Outsiders also look what it says in verse 21 it says when his own people heard of this they went out to take custody of him now let me stop there for a minute now it says here his own people came to him now who are they some say that they are his associates others say it’s referring to his family and his friends now in my investigation it what I found out it leads me to conclude that this group is family um and why do I say that if you look down to verse 32 it shows up again they show up again and say look at verse 32 chapter 3 a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him behold your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you all right so again there here is the crowd and the family comes to that particular area and where Jesus is that house and they’re asking for Jesus all right in this case they are too so verse 21 uh why did they come for Jesus well it wasn’t to his enhance his ministry it wasn’t to uh encourage him in any way it wasn’t even to feed him being that he couldn’t get any food in the house if you look in verse number 21 this it tells us that it says when his own people heard of this they went out to take custody of him for they were saying he has lost his senses now this is the view of his family the view of his family is this listen he’s beside himself he’s out of his senses he’s out of his mind he’s somewhere down the line has lost it now those closest to Jesus have a mistaken apprehension of him and instead of becoming his followers they become the crowd outside crowd that is actually against him and they’re just like the religious authorities so instead of being Jesus Advocates they become his opponents and his own family had concluded that he had taken leave of his senses and that it was time to take him home now what was their response their response was that it was time literally it means to get him into their power the scripture says that it was time to take custody of him some translations say to seize him so they were there to say okay I Think Jesus has gone let’s have a family Forum him Jesus has gone too far he’s inflamed everybody in this whole country and he needs to be stopped all right maybe today we say let’s bring him home and give him some medication and let him settle down a bit because he’s too focused he’s got too much zeal and let’s let’s do that and and and so that’s what they wanted to do they wanted to take him back home and kind of settle him down a bit and Jesus of course remember had kicked up so much dust and stirred up so much controversy it was time for the family to intervene now it may be good to remember at this point that his family members did not yet believe in fact the Gospel of John says this in chapter 7 for not even his brothers were believing now we do know that his brothers did believe later on so but now they’re in the outside crowd right and they’re kind of getting upset about what he’s doing in fact Mark is using a literary device here called the samblage story and what that means think of think of a sandwich you’ve got the top slice of bread you have the meat uh and uh Tomatoes or lettuce in the middle and then you have the bottom slice of bread okay this top slice of bread is that they come to the house and the crowd surrounds the house and on the outside entrance and so Companions of Jesus try to control him or suppress him so that would be a b a if it’s in a kind of a chiastic structure a would be the top piece of slice of bread another a would be the bottom slice of bread and that would be in verse number 32 where his family shows up again and says hey your family’s outside and they’re looking for your brothers and mother they’re looking for you and so again there’s the sandwich and everything else in between is going to be what Jesus is teaching now the first time they wanted to bind Jesus and suppress him the second group really comes for the same reason to suppress him and to try to take him away because he’s lost his mind but in the middle section we’re going to see this is what happens and we’ll get we’ll get there and it’s the b a b is the middle it’s the meat and it’s the middle of the sandwich that Jesus binds the strong man Satan and freezes captives to become followers of the strong man Jesus or the strong man God’s son so the authority of Jesus binds the prince of demons so people come to bind him suppress him his family and others but now Jesus is the one doing the binding all right now we’ll see that as we develop now let me just back up a minute in our text because some suggestions uh some reasons of why his family would come to this conclusion about him uh and of course it would be no sensible man would take such risks as Jesus and why is that well here’s the first thing it doesn’t make sense to leave a flourishing Carpenter’s business with a regular income to become a vagrant who didn’t even have a place to lay his head Jesus said that of himself all right so Jesus throws away his security it’s all about security isn’t it all right people cherish security but Jesus throws it away a second reason could be this it doesn’t make sense to put himself up against the powerful influential and political powers of the day see the odds are he’s not going to get away with it for a long time he’s crazy to stand up against the Pharisees and the scribes and the political herodians and the rabbis and so he throws away his not only security but his safety he is opening him up to the tax from all over the place and then another reason it doesn’t make sense that any man should get mixed up with such odd followers fishermen a former tax collector and a fanatical nationalist see Jesus what he’s doing is he’s throwing away social except acceptance all the things that we cherish social acceptance people would like us that we would have Security in our our life and that we would have safety he’s throwing every one of these things away and they don’t mean anything to him see it didn’t matter what people would think and say about Jesus he was not Lord in by Societies or families acceptance or approval see he was considered just to be too fanatical now what is funny and of this kind of teaching here is this isn’t it funny that as soon as a Christian gets zealous about their faith and passionate about the word of God and following Christ they are considered in a negative way fanatics right but someone can paint their face with two colors of their favorite sports team and go into a stadium a public stadium and act like a nut before cameras and be considered in a positive way fans seems so ironic but that’s what happens and I’m sure I am sure you have been uh if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time someone has probably already labeled you as a fanatic a Holy Roller a brainwashed and a cult uh you lost your mind and hopefully someday you’ll gain back your senses only because you follow Christ only because you say Christ is the only way only because you say that the only one who could be right with the father is through coming through the sun in Repentance and faith to enter into the kingdom of God only because you say my life is and and show your life is different than it used to be you don’t go and do what you used to do anymore you don’t go and get drunk and take drugs and and you know live this uh promiscuous lifestyle anymore why because you came to Christ and then people are calling you crazy when in reality when you come to Christ you become sane and every before you came to Christ you were insane you get that because you start seeing reality the way it really is why because the Bible is real the Bible is a real book the Bible is communicating to people it’s not a must deal thing that and some old Fable up there and I just and you know that we shouldn’t follow no it’s real it’s alive it’s active it’s cutting because it comes from God and God’s our creator so God knows exactly what we need and how to bring it to us so that’s group one group number two is found in verse number 22 and this group are the critics who accused Jesus of being a sorcerer In Cahoots with Satan of course they clearly become his opponents now before I read verse number 22 remember the scribes are already documented as official opponents of Jesus at this point they could not downplay the authenticity of Jesus miracles however they had to come up with some kind of explanation for Jesus authority over demons they were past asking insinuating questions now it was time for our frontal attack so look at verse number 22 here’s the frontal attack and the opponents attacked the source of Jesus power it says this the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying verse 22 he is possessed by beelzebol and he cast out demons by the rulers of demons now this is their response to Jesus ministry and their response is they decide to attack the source from which Jesus acquired his power to be able to cast out demons the religious leadership concluded that he is also insane and he is insane because he’s possessed by evil spirits or he’s driven by your evil spirits so that’s their accusation that’s the response to Jesus ministry now what is amazing in the next several verses is Jesus does not display a man who is insane he displays a man who is in charge of his faculties and look what he does to the accusations against them he really says to them listen your accusations my friends are ridiculous and I’m going to prove that and because Jesus called his critics out and began to speak to them in Parables now look at what it says in verse 30 23 of chapter 3 and he called them to himself and began speaking to them in Parables now let me just stop for a minute because this is the first time Jesus is using parables in his ministry and so what is a parable well a parable is a teaching device all right and it really means comparison or analogy now there’s a couple things about parables first they are connected with the central message that God has begun to assert his kingly power against evil and the promised salvation that was already at hand because the message of the Gospel was being preached so that’s connected in all the Parables you’re going to see from now on second thing about Parables is this it’s not meant to be fully obvious what Jesus is saying matter of fact it’s meant is not meant to be transparent it requires the hearer or reader to use some effort to get their points and then provoke the hearer or the reader to a response of either repentance meaning this you know what I was thinking this way and man my thinking is all wrong about how you get into the kingdom of God but now that I hear what you’re saying I Repent of that thinking and I embrace the truth that God is communicating to me or it could also bear the response of outright rejection so that’s what parables are all right and they are meant to be hid to those religious rulers and open to his disciples all right and we’re going to see that matter of fact the next section of scripture is going to be the parable of the sower so he he exp he does that whole Parable the next time so there’s one thing about a parable that it is not and I want to stress this very emphatically it is not simply stories illustrating moral truths it is not that some people like to make it those things but it is not all right back to the text look at verse number 23 Jesus as asks the question all right you accuse me of this that I do these things in the power of Satan all right look what he says in verse number 23 how can Satan cast out Satan now of course he doesn’t wait for their response because they don’t really have a good response all right they have no response so Jesus responds and he responds by using the if word now I don’t know we don’t always get this in the English language but in the Greek there are different classes of if all right and he uses two classes of ifs here he uses a third class conditional if and then he uses a first class conditional if now of course that seems all very technical but look what it says in verse number 24 it says if a kingdom is divided against itself that Kingdom cannot stand all right you see that well here he uses a third class conditional if and that simply means this it’s the condition of reality all right it’s it’s a condition of reality and so it would go something like this in other words if this really takes place that a kingdom is divided against itself in purpose and in goals it cannot stand you know that’s like a no-brainer here everybody knows that so see the reasoning is not that of an insane man it’s that of a very rational and clear thinking person and then notice the second thing in verse 25 he uses a second illustration the first one about was about the kingdom the second one is about a house but it’s the same thing illustration two verse 25 if there’s the same third class connection conditional is a condition of reality if a house is divided against itself that house will not be able to stand now everybody knows that if you have fighting and bickering going on in a home constantly constantly constantly constantly and it never lets up and there’s never any solution it will finally fall apart everybody knows that so Jesus is using the most common sense you could use in fact the condition is a condition of reality and if it this is really takes place that a household is divided against itself in purpose and goals it cannot stand common knowledge that everyone understands so that’s what’s happening so Jesus is saying listen here’s the accusation against me but now that you accuse me of this I’m just showing you that if that’s the case that I’m empowered by Satan to cast out demons than his kingdom his house is going to fall apart so the next condition in Mark chapter 3 verse 26 the if term switches to a first class and the first class condition is for the sake of arguments type of condition for the sake of arguments and to convince his opponents Jesus for the moment admits what they really claim namely that Satan has risen up against himself and has been divided so the first class if switches to the past situation namely Jesus past exorcisms in which Jesus is Accused by the scribes of complicity with Satan in such an Endeavor so Jesus response is that if that had been the case or if that is the case then Satan has risen up against himself and if Jesus were casting out demons by Satan’s power then Satan’s kingdom will not stand look at verse number 26 if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided he cannot stand and then it says this but what he’s finished he’s shooting himself in the foot he’s shooting himself in the head he’s killing himself he’s destroying any power that he has now what is again unique about scripture is what is actually happening happening is the opposite see the op here’s the reality the opposite is true the reality of the situation is that Jesus has been snatching demoniacs out of Satan’s power by the power of the holy spirit of God and that’s what it says in verse 27 all right but no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he binds the strong man and then he will plunder his house now this is what he says to them Satan is the strong man his house is the realm of sin and sickness and demon possession and death his possessions are people who are enslaved by one or more of those things and demons are his agents to carry out his diabolical activity throughout the whole world and no one can enter his realm and carry off his possessions unless he first binds the strong man that means that one has to show themselves more powerful than the person who owns the stuff all right when he overpowers him then he can rob his realm and release the enslaved victims so in other words Jesus is the strong one he’s the one empowered by the Holy Spirit his mission is can to confront and overpower not to cooperate with Satan but to deliver those enslaved by him and how does he do that by the gospel so see Jesus is saying you’re thinking this is going on this is what’s really going on I’ve been preaching the gospel and I’ve been snatching people from Satan’s kingdom ever since matter of fact that’s what the church has been doing ever since because that’s our job too all right and we don’t do it by casting out demons by binding Demons by doing those we have no power to do that we do it by preaching the gospel of the kingdom and when you preach the gospel of the kingdom and someone believes that the demons can’t stay they have to leave and they’ll go somewhere else but in the midst of that Jesus also says something very very very strong to them a very strong warning to them matter of fact that warning is to us too this is probably one of the most scariest passage of scriptures I would know in this part of the Bible and look what it says and I want to read it to you because this has to do with blasphemy against the Holy Spirit or the unforgivable sin and it says this truly verse number 28 I say to you all sin shall be given the sons of men and whatever blasphemies and whatever blasphemies they utter but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of Eternal sin why verse 30 because they were saying he has an unclean Spirit now let me just back up for a minute because this is really an important text I want you to misunderstand it blasphemy can be used in a very general way and blasphemy can be used in a very specific way well right here in our text it’s used in a specific way all right so but let me just give you the general sense of blasphemy blasphemy in general is a verbal sin it’s one committed with the mouth or with a pen it involves speaking a word against God one theologian um said this it is a desecration of the Holy character of God it can involve insulting him mocking him dishonoring him and in a sense it is the opposite of praise it is the opposite of any worship even casually using the name of God by saying and everybody does seems to do this oh my God or OMG if you’re texting I I would encourage you to stop doing that and stop saying that uh because that even constitutes General blasphemy because God is cannot be brought down to that level to some casual language that we kick around like just anything else if we have reverence if we understand God is Holy if we understand that God does not take a neutral position against sin that either God forgives sin or he judges judges sin there’s no in between then we would be more careful how we would use this kind of slang cultural language that slips off our tongue like it’s all right so be careful about that particular phrase now we can be thankful that the unpardonables the unpardonable sin the unforgivable sin is not just any kind of blasphemy because it is uh if it were none of us would have any hope of eternal life but we would all be damned so General in other words General blasphemy can be forgiven but there is a specific sin that cannot be given so specifically what has blasphemy against the holy spirit in the context of our passage Jesus opponents charge him with doing his work by the power of the devil rather than the by the power of the Holy Spirit however they were not slandering the spirit not quite according to RC Sproul and I believe that because see Jesus says any blasphemies against me can be forgiven but any blasphemy against the spirit of God cannot be forgiven so right now the blasphemy that was being committed by them was really against Jesus himself all right now that’s that’s important because this these statements are directed against Jesus so he said to them you can blaspheme me and be forgiven but when you question the work of the spirit you are coming perishly close to the unforgivable sin you’re right at the line you are looking down into the abyss of hell one more step and there will be no more hope for you so Jesus In this passage is giving a strong warning to be very careful not to insult or to mock the spirit or to say the spirit is doing something evil Jesus warns them now I don’t think they were ready for that I don’t think anybody’s ready for that the idea of of the unforgivable sin has haunted the minds of sensitive people All Through the Ages however Jesus warn is Jesus is warning against disregarding his message by calling it Satanic and that is a specific deed I believe that Christians are prevented from saying that and doing that now I could pick it up in Hebrews chapter 6 and go a little further with that but I have no time to do that so if you remember back in the first capillar of the Gospel Mark the Bible already told us the source of Jesus ministry right at his baptism what does it say that the heavens opened and the spirit like a dove descended upon him for what reason so he can carry on the work of God in the fullness of the power of the spirit of God so see these guys got it wrong they got it completely wrong and they were right on the brink of committing the unforgivable sin so when Jesus stood up also in the synagogue to read the scripture he remember open up the book of Isaiah and what he said what did he say there he said and he took the book and this and he said this he opened the book and found the place where it was written in Isaiah the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me what to preach the gospel to the poor to proclaim the release of captives and to recovery of of sight to the blind to free those who are trodden down to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord see so in the word of God the Bible is telling us here that God Jesus Christ was doing everything by the spirit of God and you can add tribute attribute anything to the to that of anything evil or demonic so The Source by which Jesus carries out all his ministry was the Holy Spirit now that’s the second group now the here’s the sandwich here’s the bottom of the sandwich and that means the first group shows up again look at verse number 31. all right the first group shows up and of course that is his family who still misunderstands him and notice what it says in verse 31 then his mother and his brothers arrived and noticed the language notice Lang I want you to see the specifics standing outside they sent word to him and called him now see that word outside why wasn’t his family near him inside because they weren’t yet believing that’s why they were still on the outside they were still in the crowd that was his opponents and against him all right so Look what Jesus says and here’s the third group and remember the third group is the only group that you want to be in and here it is look at verse number 32.

and now notice this a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him behold your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you there’s that outside again look at how he answered verse 33 and answering them he said who are my mother and brothers look about at those who are sitting around me he said around him he said behold my mother and my brothers and he said he was doing this everybody sitting around you were saying these are my mothers and my brothers why is that so look at it look at the last verse it says verse 35 for whoever does the will of God he is my brother and sister and mother so what was he saying here one Theologian rightly concluded that these words were not a repudiation by Jesus of his mother and brothers instead they are a profound teaching about the union someone has with Christ that Jesus declared that those who believe in him and do God’s will have a relationship with him that is closer than any blood relationship between parents and children and siblings so what is the response of this third group it’s the only correct one here’s the response it’s those who sit at the feet of Jesus as disciples these are doing the will of God and are treated favorably as Jesus true family what were they doing sitting around him you know what they were doing they were listening to his teaching they were hungering after everything that came out of his mouth they were watching everything he did and they have concluded that this is someone greater than a man this is someone who’s fulfilling Old Testament prophecies this is someone who is doing something by the power of God this is someone I want to follow that I’ve never met before this is someone that when you meet Jesus you can know go nowhere else there’s no one else to go to that’s what they concluded so here’s the point if you want to be considered in to be an Insider you have to be spiritually related to Jesus and that entrance into the kingdom of God is gained by doing the will of God so how does such obedience begin well I’m glad you asked that it’s by hearing it’s by believing it’s by following the Son of God now if you remember back in the first chapter of Mark in verse 15 it says the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe the gospel so the human obligation was to hear the gospel to obey the gospel and how did you obey it by repenting of your sin and turning from it to believe and that means you turn to someone and that’s someone and that object of your belief is Jesus Christ so to believe in something is to accept the truth value of that proposition and the person who gives it and it changes then your thinking and it changes your behavior and it changes your direction the direction of these particular disciples that sat around Jesus wanted to follow him they were in The In Crowd so by the preaching of the word of God the scriptures revealed the status and dignity and significance of Jesus Christ by the gospel by believing the gospel means to obey the message concerning our Lord Jesus Christ that he is the Son of God he is God’s Own Way of Salvation that God sent Jesus to the cross that God put all our sins on him and punished them in him now that message is going to become clear soon in the gospel of Mark but believing the gospel means that you stop all self-justification and every lie Reliance upon your good deeds and all your own efforts either you are dependent on your own righteousness or God’s righteousness most think that entry into the kingdom of God is predicated on the prerequisite of human righteousness and obedience however the kingdom of God is not a matter of human effort it’s a matter of God’s grace it’s a matter of receiving the gift that he offers us to offers to us so no one can enter the kingdom of God without repentance and without fleeing from sin and putting trust in Christ alone but the key here is that to be in The In Crowd you cannot waffle on these imperatives to enter the kingdom of God once you enter you will be the crowd who is forever sitting around Jesus you are the crowd who is Ever following Jesus you are the crowd who is ever learning from Jesus you are the crowd who is Ever worshiping Jesus you are the crowd who is Ever growing in love for God and others because of what Jesus has done that is the group you want to be in you don’t want to be on the outside group and remember even those nearest to him his family weren’t considered in his group yet they will will later on when they believe the gospel after the resurrection so getting he’s getting his disciples prepared to go out to be servants in this world to live and proclaim the gospel to continue to plunder Satan’s kingdom by rescuing souls for Christ by the gospel preaching the gospel and the source of power for believers is the spirit of God not their own and so I must ask what group are you in are you in the inside group or are you in the outside group so I think you need to make sure today that you’re a disciple of Jesus Christ because if you are you will continue you will march on through difficulties and problems through ups and downs in valleys and on mountain peaks you will continue because you’ll continue in God’s power and God’s strength and he will take you someday you and I into the Eternal kingdom of God where there will be nothing but righteous no sin no crying no death none of those things that we’re used to here no curse and we will be with Christ forever and ever in a new Heaven and a new Earth and that day is coming so now though is the day to make sure you’re sitting at Jesus feet let’s pray I prayed this morning Lord for your people I pray Lord that they really understand the gospel I pray Lord that they would not straddle the fence and live a duplicit life while saying they believe because we know Lord when someone comes to believe in you as their lord and savior Everything Changes in their life not that they become perfect immediately but they the direction of their life means they want to follow you and serve you they want to put off sin they want to confess and they don’t want to live the way they used to so I pray Lord that you show everyone here this morning where they stand with you as far as discipleship and I pray Lord that they would have believed in you by repentance and faith and that they would be the ones sitting at the feet of Jesus learning the rest of everything you want us to know and I just asked you Lord you would use this in a way to bring those who don’t know you to Christ those who are who think they’re near you but are not to you and those who Lord uh have not yet believed just to come and confess you as their lord and savior and follow you the rest of their life I pray that you would do that today and use this message for that purpose and I pray in Christ’s name amen

May 3, 2015
Perseverance in the Midst of Opposition and Problems

In this sermon, Pastor Babij examines the unique challenges that arose in Jesus’s Galilean ministry and how Jesus overcame them. These challenges were: people misrepresenting/mistreating Him, people imposing upon Him, spiritual forces seeking to hinder Him, and ministry needs beyond the capacity of one person. Pastor Babij also explains how these circumstances were instructive to the apostles and ought to be instructive for us.

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Note: This rough transcript was automatically generated by YouTube’s AI algorithm. We provide it here for your convenience, but know it will surely contain errors as it has not been proofread or edited by a human.

all right let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to Mark chapter 3 Mark Chapter 3 The Gospel of Mark and we are going to continue on in this great gospel as we are learning as the main thrust of this gospel is to learn learning who Jesus is and uh correcting anything that we could be thinking about him that’s wrong and most things that we do think about the Lord God Christ before we become Believers is usually wrong and um so the Bible has to adjust this as to who he is so we can truly understand him and truly come to worship him and so we’re going to be looking at verses 7 through 19 this morning and as we think of that um let me just uh have a word of prayer and then I’ll get into it let’s pray father this morning as we come before the word of God we thank you holy spirit that you have been given to us to give us understanding as we open up the word of God as we hear it preached that you teach us what it says and that we can know the prescriptive will of God found in the word of God and Lord for this we’re grateful I pray that we would always give ourselves to your word so we can truly grow by it truly become strong with it and then ultimately Lord that we may become soldiers as believers in this life so we can Stand Up Against The Wiles of Satan and deal with the problems that is that are thrown at us as Believers and I pray that you would help us to see some of that today and I pray in Christ’s name amen now before I read the text I just want to go back and and just let you know that in this particular passage of scripture it’s going to be dealing with opposition and problems that arise really from faithful Ministry the widespread Fame of the Lord by this time in his Galilean Ministry brought people from all walks of life from all over the place and they came to find out what was going on for all kinds of reasons now because of this they experienced growth of different crowds of people that came to see him and because of that opposition Rose from that instances of crowds coming and problems came now Jesus of course could no longer go uh any place anymore he in fact going to the synagogue was very dangerous at this point in his ministry and we saw last time that the five conflictive narratives that led up to this passage climaxed in a growing antagonism toward Jesus and so Jesus was not going along with the status quo of the religious leaders the the Pharisees and scribes consider themselves remember righteous men who did not see any spiritually healing effects of uh from Jesus teaching or his ministry according to them he just had abhorrent behavior and of course they quickly became his enemies Jesus had been continually undermining the religious leaders to their Traditions to their rules to the status of their the go-to religious men they consider Jesus as a violator of the Sabbath a self-proclaimed holy man who fraternized with sinners and of course he presumed to forgive sins uh and then it becomes very clear at this point in the word of God that the religious leaders just are against him they are not for him at all so the religious leaders did not see that they were uh themselves the worst of sinners than those they despise their blindness closed themselves off to uh the righteousness of God and the reason why is because they established their own righteousness by written in oral law keeping so they saw themselves as strong as able as spiritually healthy and as discerning and of course as far as they were concerned they were not sick they didn’t need any spiritual physician like Jesus but don’t forget Jesus mission is that he came into the world as a physician of Souls and as a physician Jesus was deeply conscious of the sin disease gripping the spiritually dead Souls of those to whom he ministered they were dead and so it’s like Mark said in Chapter 2 of verse number 17 it is not those who are healthy who need a physician but those who are sick I did not come to call the righteous but Sinners so the irony of that text was that the Pharisees the religious moral and upright were just as needy of a spiritual doctor of healing of Medicine just as the tax collectors that they considered Sinners and the wicked so the healthy cannot condemn a doctor for going to the sick so Jesus came to bring healing to the ungodly to the Unholy to the spiritually blind and dead sinners of his ministry and of course those are like you and I we’re the same kind of people we all need Christ so as I already said because of the widespread Fame of the Lord Jesus the spiritually and physically Six Sick are now coming to him he’s no longer going to them they are coming to him so there’s a switch in the ministry so in the next section with the section we’re going to look at this morning we will see Jesus dealing with the problems as they arose during the ongoing forward forward movement of his mission to bring the gospel of the Kingdom to those who have not yet heard it so now the focus of our attention this morning is is Upon Jesus as he models a stick-to-itiveness in in the ministry while dealing with opposition and problems because any time any one of us are going to Faithfully minister and serve Jesus Christ believe me there will be opposition and problems you can mark it on your calendar and it’s going to come from all kinds of places all right so in a sense he’s now teaching his disciples who are watching that listen if you want to follow me If eventually we’re going to see that he picks his Apostles In this passage if you want to be someone who serves me as a servant leader then you have to deal with problems and you have to deal with opposition now if you don’t want to deal with problems in opposition don’t follow me because you will that’s part of the turf as a Believer you’ll you already found out it’s part of the turf to become a believer that you you uh found out that being a Believer you came into and were confronted with problems in opposition that you never had before before you came to Christ from family from co-workers from Associates from Neighbors From out of the blue people and they come they have come against you in some way because you now bear the image of Jesus Christ so now let’s let’s focus our attention on that and I want you to notice I would call it four common problems that arise while Faithfully doing Ministry or or I can say it like this Faithfully living your Christian Life all right so let’s look at read the text verse number 7 of chapter three I’ll read down to I’ll read down to verse 12 and then I’ll pick up the other part when I get there verse 7 Jesus withdrew to this to the sea with his disciples and a great multitude From Galilee followed and also from Judea and from Jerusalem and from I do MIA and Beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of tire and sidon a great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him and he told the disciples that a boat should be should stand ready for him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd him for he had healed many with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him whenever the unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and Shout you are the Son of God and he earnestly warned them not to tell who he was and then verse 13 says and he went up on the mountain and summoned those who he himself wanted and they came to him now let me just stop there and I’ll pick it up when I get there so here we have in verse number six and seven the first problem that arises of course I have to go back to verse 6 to pick up the problem is going to be those who will try while you’re ministering Faithfully to mistreat you to misrepresent you so after the last crisis narrative the Pharisees and the herodians began to plot against Jesus so Jesus just did not fulfill the religious and political expectations concerning who they thought the Messiah should be which of course centered on an anticipation of his glorious rule of overtaking the political leaders of Rome and then bringing in the kingdom of God that didn’t happen that’s what they were expecting so the religious estab establishment totally missed the messiah’s spiritual saving Ministry and his identity as the son of man so Jesus constantly ministered in the shadow of unbelief and open hostility he was misunderstood attacked rejected by the very people that he came to save and that would have been the nation of Israel he came to save them specifically and bring the gospel to them and of course the Gentiles too but in this case the religious leaders were now rejecting him and so if you go back up to verse number six of chapter 3 it says the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the herodians against him as to how they might destroy him now if you remember from last week the religious and the political parties united against Jesus now this was very strange because they were definitely not bed fellows they were it was a strange partnership because they both held hated each other in a very zealous way but nonetheless they came together because they had a common Mission and that’s the destroy Jesus so these two unlikely parties plotted not just to stop Jesus or to slow him down but the text says that they may destroy him that means they wanted to assassinate him they wanted to get rid of him once and for all they were called Jesus was calling causing all kinds of problems within the religious realm of his day and they just couldn’t take it anymore and so Jesus gives us a good understanding of their character in The Gospel of Mark where he says about them they caused the scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites and he says the reason why they are is because they have learned to clean out clean up the outside of the vessel of the cup of the dish but inside and he’s talking about their inside is full of robbery and self-indulgence and he goes on to call them blind guides and that when they went out to make a disciple they made their disciple uh twice as much fit for hell than hell than they themselves because they were not teaching the truth they were teaching their rules and their regulations not the word of God and so therefore Jesus finally says about them so you too outwardly appear righteous to men but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness so that’s how the Lord diagnoses uh the Jewish religious leadership of the day and now after several events watching him they’re against him they are so against him and as I mentioned last time these religious leaders had no qualms of plotting murder on the Sabbath remember they had a problem with healing on the Sabbath but no problem with planning murder on the Sabbath and so you can see the hypocrisy blaring in that particular text so how does the Lord the prop so the problem is this the Pharisees and the herodians were plotting to kill Jesus and possibly do harm to his disciples so how does he solve that problem well he solves it um by prudence by wisdom it’s a simple solution actually he what he does is that he moves to a safer place of ministry it’s common sense that’s all he does look what it says in verse number seven this is what Jesus does after that events it says Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples that’s it he solved the problem it was a simple yet wise solution no and and sometimes that solution we ought to take too there are times than we when people would meet mistreat us or come against us as Christian The Simple Solution would be uh to go where they’re not all right and these are not people that when you witness to to them they are listening to you these are people who are against you who want to mistreat you who want to malign you and so the common solution could be um go where they’re not all right so Jesus Retreats out of fear and not out of not out of a fear uh but out of providential Providence I’m calling it right and the reason why uh his time had not yet come all right it wasn’t time for Jesus to die that’s going to be off almost another year from this point in scripture maybe more than that all right depending on what where he’s at from where he started his ministry so Jesus still has much to teach and to do before his time of final Conflict comes so Jesus ministry has become a magnet to people but that led to another problem and so here’s the second problem that we see in verse number 7 through 10 and that’s the problem of those who actually want to impose upon you all right and they will now so that the influence of the servant Jesus and his ministry definitely had an element of Attraction Jesus was attracting all kinds of people now look at what it says in verse number seven it says that he went to the seashore all right and so he’s preaching now on the seashore and it says a great multitude From Galilee followed now of course Galilee was where he was ministering all this time this has been his Galilean Ministry so those in the local area knew all about what he was doing they were there probably for all the things that happened from chapter one till now and so they were aware of his character they were aware of his power they were aware of his authority that he had over diseases over demons over all kinds of things and so they were there right on the seashore they probably were in the front rows but maybe they weren’t maybe they were on the side and letting the people who have not heard him yet get close up but notice that was the local crowd but notice the distant crowd that came this is very interesting you may miss it if you read through the scripture too quickly it says there uh it says and also from Judea and from Jerusalem that South Israel and that’s 100 miles away now that that’s that to me that blows my mind they came from they Journey from Jerusalem in Judea to see him and listen to him some 100 miles away and then it says from dumia that’s the Deep South that’s 140 to 160 mile Journey up to Capernaum I to me it was an ancient realm of Edom between the southern borders of Palestine and Arabia so see the message had gone far and wild Travelers were taking you down the main roads now one thing that’s interesting that you may miss here there was good roads from north to south because the Romans built the roads all right now but of course not only uh did they build those roads but those roads were roads that the people were able to use and the people were able to uh get on and move from one place to another so see they and then it says there beyond the Jordan the Eastern crowd came from the other side of the Jordan River and and then of course the vicinity of tire and sidon was the foreign crowds that came from The Phoenician cities of tires some 50 of course that was Northwest of Galilee and tire was about 50 miles and uh side on about 70 miles which lie of course on the Mediterranean Sea Coast in the north from the areas outside Palestine and that would be Northwest of Galilee so like a magnet Jesus drew the sufferers from all these countries and none of them of course reached him in vain however the crowds could be quite imposing and overwhelming that preparations had to be put in place to accommodate those who would take advantage and impose on the goodness and the mercy of a servant such as Jesus Christ so before we see how this problem of the great crowds will solved there must be another question that is raised why did the crowds come from such distant places especially when traveling in those days was dangerous and difficult for you and I to travel a hundred miles maybe uh it would be about in what an hour a hundred a couple hour and a half maybe an hour and 45 if we’re driving about 60 miles an hour all right so things that a couple hours but for them to travel 100 miles would be almost a week to do about 20 miles a day and to take all the remember along the way there wasn’t you know you stop off the road and get a have a market there could have been certain markets set up because they knew they were going to make money along the way but you had to bring a certain amount of provision with you as you go to uh actually Minister um see Jesus preaching so these crowds came and why did they come it says right there in verse number eight notice what it says it says and from Jerusalem and from idemia and Beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tire inside on a great number of people heard all that he was doing and came to him all right so why did they come because they heard they heard some heard different things about what Jesus was was doing some heard about his authority the authority of his teaching uh a teaching that they’ve never heard and known before some heard that leopards were made clean some heard that Jesus care in healing a woman with a high fever some came because they heard demons being exposed and cast out of their victims some came because they heard about a withered hand being restored like new some came because they heard about a paralyzed man who was forgiven of all his sins and then was completely healed some came because they heard A Man Called Jesus was acting like the Messiah as the prophet the prophets had written about long ago they heard that they acted he Jesus acted like the god of creation who spoke and it was so they heard that he had compassion like the god of the Old Testament they heard that Jesus displayed his Holiness by judging sin like the god of the Old Testament they heard that Jesus exercised his authority and will as God does some heard some of those things some heard part of those things some heard one of those things some may have heard all of those things so when they heard all these things people from the north the South the East and the West came seeking Jesus and they brought with them those riddled with diseases those burdened by sin and those wearied by legalistic teaching that made life more burdensome than it already was they came with the hope that Jesus Christ could be the Savior announced in the Hebrew Prophets not all came for that reason but some did so okay how did Jesus solve the problem of the great crowds that could impose upon him well he solved the problem by planning a small boat to escape again a simple solution to a problem but look what it says in our text in chapter 3 verse number nine and he told his disciples that a boat should stand ready for him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd him now that’s kind of a Kind way of saying it it’s because the great crowds and their zealous desire to hear and to see and to touch Jesus just kept increasing the so the disciples were told to provide a small boat close at hand so that he could escape from the pressure of the crowd now why such measures well because word got out about the power of Jesus to heal in fact many people saw it look at verse number 10 it says for he had healed many in verse number 10. all right and then but but there was something else in this passage I want you to notice once the crowd got word and realized that Jesus healed many and all the person needed to do was touch him what did they what do you think they started doing it says look at the rest of verse number 10 for he had healed many with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him again a nice way of saying it in other words those who had diseases scourges afflictions continued to fall on him to fling themselves at him and practically throwing themselves at Jesus the verb is durative in force describing a continued action this was going on and on and on this wasn’t stopping and the Lord of course knew this was going to happen so and all that they wanted to do is touch Jesus now we know later on in the gospel when the woman with the blood issue touches Jesus he felt power go out of him and she was healed remember that so see this is this is what they found out hey all I got to do is touch the guy and I’m going to be healed of whatever disease I have and so see what happened this this caused really the people who came for the right reasons ended up being the wrong reasons because Jesus could Escape into a small boat onto the Sea of Galilee actually it means to avoid the crush of the crowd and so the crowd now really did not care about Jesus but only what they can get from him so there’s a switch in the in the Zeal of the crowd the servants that really servants will some way be taken advantage of that’s just the nature of being a servant and if the gospel of Mark is about being a servant then servants have to be imposed upon and they are going to be misunderstood and oftentimes mistreated so in a sense as disciples are looking on this and learning these problems and lessons of course Jesus is going to call them to be Apostles right and of course the question is do you really want to follow me because you know what if you follow me it’s not going to be easy if you are going to follow me you are going to run into problems in opposition if you are going to follow me you’re definitely going to have these things happen so Jesus of course was in this case willing to heal them all and so that means truly the kingdom of God had come upon them however because of this situation Rose another situation all right it’ll almost in Rapid Fire and that situation is now of course we are looking at the Physical Realm now the spiritual realm Rises up and attacks Jesus all right so we come to a third problem and the third problem is those who will seek to hinder and obstruct our forward movement in ministering the Gospel of Jesus Christ now before I look at verse number 11 and 12 so scripture displays the spiritual world as being very active when Jesus is present in other words the demons can’t hide themselves when Jesus is present they have to be exposed they have to be exposed in some way or another they could not be covert when Jesus was around Jesus very presence draws out the unclean spirits so Jesus goes head to head with the power structure of evil so the problem we see in this these verses is that demons give no help to the crowd as to who Jesus is and the reason why is because the nature of demons the nature of demons is not to give truth the nature of demons is to always deceive now what’s interesting about that is that they are always undermining what is true even when they make a truth claim their motives are all twisted and deceiving now look at verse number 11 it says whenever the unclean spirits saw him they fell down before him and shouted you are the Son of God now is that true yes it’s true that is absolutely true um but even though the demons recognize the deity of Christ by shouting you are the son of God there’s something else going on all right by the very behavior of the Demons what is the behavior of the Demons they fall down before him and then they shout this truth claim so by the very behavior of the Demons to prostrate themselves before Jesus as if as if Jesus was there a vowed master and they were his obedient servants that could give the crowd the impression that Jesus was their prince that he was their leader in fact I believe that this is what exactly is going on that the behavior and the verbal demeanor of the Demons were intentionally orchestrated to give that impression to the crowd right that Jesus was the the leader of the Demons because they’re so obedient to him and they’re always bowing down as it to worship Him right now in fact if you look at Chapter 3 of Mark in verse number 22 one made deduce that there were some there was some success to the attempts to accomplish this impression where look what it says in verse 22 of Mark chapter 3 the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he’s possessed by Beelzebub now Beelzebub is another way of saying Satan right and he cast out demons by the rulers of the Demons so that’s the impression that the demons were trying to accomplish amongst the crowd they accomplished amongst the Jewish leadership from Jerusalem and of course we’re going to look at that at a later time but see in other words the demons even when they make truth claims are not truthful they have another motive going on they were thinking the crowd that Jesus was in somehow In Cahoots with the demons but he was not and only his true disciples would know that so our Lord did not desire the testimony from an obviously Evil source so just keep in mind Jesus is ministering in a context of substantial misunderstanding and constant conflicting Messianic expectations on what he’s supposed to be and what the Messiah is actually supposed to do so Jesus avoids his identity as Messiah being misrepresented especially by demons and the demons wanted to hinder Jesus in order to advance their own diabolical agenda and that is to mislead and deceive people away from the kingdom of light and keep them in the kingdom of darkness that’s what they always do they still do that today so how does the Lord solve this problem well it tells us in verse number 12. all right Jesus Jesus by his authority does not allow the demons to spread the message about who he is so Jesus holds back demonic testimony and solves this immediate Problem by strongly rebuking the unclean spirits look at verse 12. it says he earnestly warned them not to tell who he was all right that’s what he told them and of course they are not given a choice they must listen to him because Jesus is their creator lord judge and King of the Kingdom of Light That overcomes the kingdom of darkness remember what it already says in scripture but if I cast out demons by the Finger of God in the kingdom of God has come upon you Jesus mission is not just to defeat one demon or lay waste in but to lay waste the entire demonic power structure and that is what he’s going to do before it already told us in it tells us in the New Testament in uh the gospel of First John it says the Son of God appeared for this purpose he came into this world for this person that he might destroy the works of the devil all right so for Christians we are not called to cast out demons we have no authority over demons what we are called to do is to resist them in the truth and put on the whole armor of God so we’re able to stand up against demonic warfare all right that also means again disciples looking on problems troubles fighting with demons I don’t want that you know what if you don’t want to follow Christ then those are some things that are going to take place even for believers today and all throughout history Believers have run into these kind of problems and remember the spiritual world is very active and when you become a Believer you begin to see that some of the things that are going on in the world are are see they talk about this in the news and that in the news there’s demonic manipulations in that are going on behind the scenes in governments that we don’t see but the Bible of course shows us like in Daniel in in the great nations of this world that demonic influence was behind the scenes going against the nation of Israel all right so and of course against Believers today but remember we don’t have to fear those things because Jesus Christ defeated Satan on the cross he defeated our greatest enemy on the cross so we have no fear of that so don’t live in fear of that we are to fear God right and we are to fear the God who loves us and who cares for us who died in our place who rose again who gives us eternal life who gives us his Spirit who gives us his word who tells us the truth we are to live there that’s where we’re to live and so you and I with this going on there’s a widespread expansion of Jesus ministry and the crowds are growing and of course When the Crowds grow what usually happens here’s the next problem in the last one this morning the problems of multiplying work more people means what more work that means if you have more people you need more servants right but you need real servants you don’t need just people that are going to use servants or use Jesus or impose upon him you need people who really understand who he is are getting to understand who he is and his mission is and get in there with them in spite of the problems that will come in the opposition that will come and the spiritual forces against us that are already there in spite of those things so what does Jesus do now with this problem of multiplying work well in verse number 13 and 19 you know what he does he solves this problem of needing more servants in three ways and I think this is these are things that we ought to be doing in our own life too here’s the first thing he does he prays now look what it says in Mark chapter 3 13 it says and he went up on the mountain and summoned Those whom him he himself wanted and they came to him now the parallel passage to this is in Luke chapter 12 verse 13 and Luke tells us this it was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray and he spent the whole night in prayer now Mark doesn’t tell us that but Luke tells us that all right so Jesus here’s this all these crowds these issues that are coming up the work is increasing and so what does he do he goes into a solitary place a mountain and he goes and he prays to the father about what’s going on in his life about what’s going on about the great need and the great need is going to be that he spends all night in prayer to pick the apostles to pick the 12 men that are going to represent him and if it was not for this happening you and I would not be here today you and I could never be saved because these men actually carry down the work and the work is still going on so what they did and what God ordained them to do is still happening today now there’s no more Apostles don’t get me wrong but there are the disciples because there was only 12 of course and then if John was the last one he died all right Judas had to be replaced all right but in the end the the number was 12. so he prays and he prays all night to pick the apostles and of course Jesus prayed because he was a man uh he prayed because he needed fellowship with the father and he needed to ask the father about uh the work that he needed to do while he was on the earth and he prayed because he was dependent on the father for all things and especially uh to be obedient to the will of the father while he was on Earth because Jesus Christ remember had to be obedient perfectly obedient that along with him being the perfect sacrifice those two things had to come together I preached on that several messages ago so between the times of servant work there is alone time with the father in prayer and I said already that if you are are giving out in in service then you must be taking in if you’re going to give out you’ve got to take in and how do you take in you take in by prayer so we gain spiritual resources and wisdom and strength by of course uh continued and joyful prayerful times before God if we meet with people we must first meet with God so a servant is to pray because Ministry is riddled with difficulties and problems of course this is only in this section we’re going to get to the joyful part of it too all right I don’t want to paint such a picture today that I say oh I don’t want I would never want to do that because we must also pray to the Lord for those who wish to be next Deacons and those were next to be the next elders and pastors if we are to continue the unfinished work of the church to make the Disciples of Jesus Christ so prayer of the gathered body is part of how we set people aside and recognize yes they should do this and then of course if you notice in our passage in verse number 13 Jesus does something else he summoned those who he himself wanted and they came to him now what is interesting about that passage is that Jesus picked those he wanted to spend time with he did not let anyone into his inner circle only those who he specifically chose in verse number 13. he only wanted those that he knew would be those who were be Ministers of the Gospel but remember he also chose Judas who would betray him he also chose him Judas did not just stumble into the crowd he was chosen all right and um so for you and I we as a church must call Those whom the Lord gives us to be our next deacons and elders and pastors of course all Elders passage the same thing and test their character to see if they are qualified and willing to do the hard work of ministry not just anybody could do it only qualified people are to do it now everybody’s to be a servant but not everybody’s to do those tasks and then a third thing Jesus Does uh in solving this problem of ministering to the great crowds is it says in verse number 14 and he appointed 12. so that they would be with him and that he could send them out so what is he what he does is he appoints servant leaders to send out to do the work to minister to the crowds that’s what he does and that’s the pattern today we pray we summon workers and we ordain or appoint them to go and do the work so we must we want really Jesus was committed to invest in them and prepare them to carry on a difficult Mission so we also must ordain those who are called and place them in the work of service to the Lord and his people in order to continue to make disciples of Jesus today the work is still going on now what is interesting about where this leads is he picks 12 men to do two things matter of fact he picks them to do the same two things he’s doing and if you remember there are two words that summarize Jesus ministry it’s the same two words that summarize the apostles Ministry now back in chapter 1 and verse 39 of Mark the main activity of Jesus was preaching it says and he went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee preaching and casting out demons and then he says also in Luke chapter 4 I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also for I was sent for this purpose and he kept on preaching so one of the things that Jesus was to do was to preach the kingdom of God that’s how people will get saved and as other activity was found in verse 39 and that was too cast out demons so two things preach the gospel of the Kingdom secondly dismantle the kingdom of Satan and how was the kingdom of Satan dismantled by preaching by rescuing people with the gospel of Christ right they come to Believe In Christ and what happens they get rescued from the kingdom of darkness and once you’re rescued by Christ from the kingdom of darkness to the king of life he has you Satan can no longer get you he has no authority over you anymore but if you look in our text in Mark chapter 3 verse 14 that’s exactly the same thing the apostles are to do the main activity of the Apostles verse 14 to preach he appointed 12 so that they would be with him and that he could spend time spent send them out to preach and then in verse 15 to have authority to cast out demons the same thing so preaching dismantles disrupts disorganizes the kingdom of Satan it is that powerful I don’t know if we always think of the Gospel as being that powerful but you know what for anyone today any one of us today who are saved it took the power of the Gospel of God of Heaven to rescue you from his Dominion there’s no way you could have rescued yourself no one else could have rescued you only the Gospel of Jesus Christ could rescue you from such a dark kingdom in which Satan’s main goal is to keep you there and to deceive you that all is well with you you don’t need Jesus Christ you don’t need his cross you don’t need his resurrection you’re fine go along in your own religion have your own philosophy of how to live life you’ll be all right it’s all be all all the goodness in your life that you’ll come before God and God say oh you’re such a good person come in no no no there’s no goodness there’s no amount of that we can offer God to equal what happened on the cross you had to be per you have to be perfect to be before God perfect and the only one who can make you perfect is Christ himself and once you are made perfect by God that God Nails your sin to the cross and he puts his righteousness on your account and the father sees the righteousness of Christ that’s how you get into heaven that’s how you’re kept saved but if you notice as we go along and almost finish here that the 12 are specifically appointed Servants of the kingdom of God to help carry out the work of Jesus Christ Jesus says I want these guys around me so for the time I have here I’m going to teach them everything they needed to do to go into the world a hostile world and preach the gospel and it says in verse 16 to 19 look what it says and he appointed 12.

right Simon now you say you know if you look at this list and you heard the list before you say well some people think that these apostles were a bunch of wimps Simon who would later be called little Stone John and James are called by Jesus in verse number 17 as the sons of thunder these guys were no wimps these were special operators for the Lord Jesus Christ in fact if you go down to James right James son of alphaeus in verse number 18 he was finally known in history as camel news because he spent so much time on his knees as a prayer Warrior and then look at Simon the Zealot in verse number 18. the last part it says Simon dezel you know what a zealot was it was somebody who was in a group who want to overthrow the government of Rome these guys were no Fly by Night sissies these were tough individuals who are willing on to understand the mission of the kingdom of God and go out into the world and take it to a world that was dying in sin these were tough and they became tougher in fact if you notice when you’re reading the word of God were to be good soldiers that learn how to please our commanding officer Jesus Christ that’s who we are supposed to be soldiers are people who are expecting Warfare they’re expecting battle they’re expecting trouble and they’re trained for it they’re ready for it and they’re ready with the word of God the spiritual the word of God is our sword it’s our weapon against spiritual wickedness because why we have the truth and the truth exposes all deception and all lies that’s what it does so see these 12 Apostles that are listed here were men Thaddeus it says here his name means praise actually the name pointed to the heartiness and Thanksgiving of this particular Apostle hence to his character so in the midst of toughness there was people who can praise who can give Thanksgiving to God who can pray who can carry out the work and of course along with that Judas expect ascariot is chosen and and of course he is disappointing there’s always going to be someone disappointing he he betrays Jesus with a kiss that’s how he betrays them and he betrays them because he loved money and he loved the world and he had no confidence in Jesus mission he wanted the Roman government to be overtaken too so he missed out on it so how narrow after all was this Apostolic Circle and how closely connected most of his members were and those members were gathered around Jesus Christ and those men Faithfully almost all of them lost their life by being persecuted and keeping I mean how how could it be that these these people these men were definitely chosen by God but were they ready they have been watching Jesus they have been following the crisises they have been realizing the problems they have seen the opposition and they were still willing to put it all on the line for Christ aren’t you thankful for that but you know what God’s still calling disciples today and we need Christians that have that kind of character that are willing in this world to give up some things and to realize the problems and oppositions that will come to Faithfully carry out and live the Christian Life and do the work of God and bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet heard it in your own family where you work your neighbors and the people that are around you you know don’t know Christ and they may be nice fine Pleasant people but nice fine and pleasant does not get you into the kingdom of God and you know that they don’t and Satan wants to keep them comfortable comfortable with that truth you can’t let it be comfortable but I tell you as soon as you open up your mouth and decide to live your life for Christ you will run into opposition don’t worry about it though Jesus says um I’ll never leave you or forsake you I’m with you to the end of the age all his disciples he’s with us to the End of the Age so he’s going to be with us Christ takes sinful tough men and makes them Godly who are not stopped by problems who are not stopped by difficulties but continue to grow grow to be servant leaders and those servant leaders become very very powerful influence against toppling the kingdom of Satan you wouldn’t think that would be the way to do it why isn’t it by swords and tanks and planes it’s not it’s by the gospel so if you want if you want to win over Al Qaeda if we want to win over Isis get the gospel to them somehow pray the gospel gets to them and the Lord will win them one by one and then the whole whole world yield their whole uh perception of what life’s all about will all change see that’s how to do it right so that’s what the Lord has done here he’s taken us through a time where we’re seeing that problems in opposition will come but he is our Lord he will teach us he will strengthen us we can put the whole armor of God to stand up against the wild of Satan and we will have we already have the victory now let’s go do the work let’s pray Lord this morning I do thank you again for the gospel Jesus Christ I thank you Lord for its Clarity I thank you Lord for it s availability to us and I pray Lord that we not forsake it but we would be prepared also always to be in it and Lord to Proclaim it and to live it so Lord we would be found to be faithful disciples like the apostles make us those kind of people I pray in Christ’s name amen

April 26, 2015
Lord of the Sabbath: Doing What is Good and Right

In this sermon, Pastor Babij further explains how Jesus confronts the Pharisaic understanding of the Sabbath in the account of the man with the withered hand. Jesus’s exchange with the Pharisees shows us that, when we add to God’s commands and teach others to do the same, we miss the original intention of God’s laws and end becoming even worse transgressors.

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okay let’s take our bibles this morning and turn to mark chapter three mark chapter three and we’re going to be looking at today verses one through six mark chapter three verses one through six let me read that verse 1.

he entered again into a synagogue and a man was there whose hand was withered they were watching him to see if he would heal him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him verse 3 he said to the man with the withered hand get up and come forward and he said to them it is written it is lawful to do good or is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath to save life or to kill they kept silent after looking around at them with anger grieved at their hardness of heart he said to the man stretch out your hand and he stretched it out and his hand was restored the pharisees went out immediately began to conspire with the herodians against him as to how they might destroy let’s pray lord this morning as we again look at your word i pray that you would show us what is in this text so lord you would teach us how we should respond and w what we are to understand about who you are and i pray lord jesus that as we do that we would become stronger in the faith and more and more able a more able vessel to be used in your hand and i just prayed this morning that that would be the case for us use us lord to be christians who are ready for action and i pray this in christ’s name amen all right so just to give you uh go back a bit and just remind you that remember the purpose of the gospel of mark was to encourage the gentile church in rome the gentile church in rome was under persecution john mark wanted the people to see christ they wanted to see christ as the suffering servant savior and so he arranged his material to show christ as the one who speaks as the one who acts as the one who delivers in the midst of crisis so the gospel of uh mark is known as the go gospel it’s the gospel of miracles it is the gospel of power it is the gospel of service and so that’s going to be the main theme throughout it and we see jesus christ serving in all kinds of ways uh that displays to us who he is and what his mission is so maybe that stuff could rub off on us as we study through it because there’s so many opportunities to serve within the body of christ matter of fact the opportunities are uh are pretty much overwhelming so we need to take advantage of that so as we move into our narrative on this lord’s day i hope that you have prepared for this day so that will turn out to be a blessing and not a burden and especially not a curse jesus did say i if you love me you will keep my commandments and he also said my commandments are not burdensome so it should never be a burden surely coming to this time of the week each week to gather together with other believers should never be a burden and just as the admonition was given to us in the book of hebrews where it says there let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds and how when and where do we do this well it says in hebrews not forsaking our own selves our assemblies ourselves are assembling together as a body as a habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as we see the day drawing near and so as we look at our narrative this morning we we see that this is what jesus is doing he’s doing the same thing and he says in verse number one of chapter 3 he entered again into a synagogue so we see that jesus is now entering the synagogue and of course remember the synagogue was a place of assembly it was a place where people came together to hear the teaching of the word of god to worship god to fellowship with one another and to stimulate one another to love and good deeds that was part of why they had the synagogue service but for jesus going to the synagogue was becoming increasingly dangerous in fact today in our text we will see the last of five conflict narratives the incident here in mark chapter three verse one through six forms really a climax to these accounts of growing and antagonism towards jesus so jesus on another sabbath day a different one from the one mentioned in the previous paragraph probably the next the following sabbath the next sabbath so jesus is still in capernaum capernaum that’s northern israel on the sea of galilee and so jesus enters the synagogue and there is someone there who’s given special attention and if you notice in verse number one it says a man was there whose hand was withered now of course that’s right there in the beginning so it’s setting up what we’re to see in the text some traditional records actually say that the man was a stone mason and could no longer make a living and was too ashamed to beg in fact in luke chapter 6 verse 6 which is the parallel passage this he had a it says that it mentioned there that he it was his right hand that was withered now this could mean that his dominant hand was his right hand and of course uh actually the greek term withered uh in the perfect tense means that it was dried up it was dried out his hand all right so that indicates that something happened to his hand most likely it was not a congenital defect but occurred by some accidental accidental injury or possibly by some disease so now this man is there he’s in the he’s in the synagogue jesus is there the scribes and pharisees are there the people are gathered there the disciples and those who have been following jesus christ they are there they are all there all right now i want to back up a bit because i want to try to get a sense on remember meeting together to worship god there’s a certain attitude that goes with that right now the attitude of these scribes and pharisees was an attitude we surely don’t want to have when we meet together in fact the attitude not to have when we meet together for worship is to gather together to scrutinize to accuse and to do harm this is the attitude that their religious leaders had as they entered into the synagogue that day the scribes and pharisees continually eyeballed jesus and if you notice what it says in verse 2 they were watching him to see if he would heal him on the sabbath so they came there not to learn not to worship god but they came there specifically to watch jesus in fact this word watch means to watch very closely to watch observe very carefully and of course it includes a malicious kind of waiting to get him type of watching see they were not concerned with man’s need they were concerned concerned with their legalistic prescriptions about their own law and remember when when you have a legalistic spirit you become critical uh always on the prowl for what’s wrong hardly ever on the prowl for what’s right and they were eyeballing jesus and if you notice at the end of verse 2 what it says this is why they were eyeballing him that they might accuse him so already their attitude for worship is out the window this is no attitude to have at all to worship together of course remember that the scribes and the pharisees were there and the question does come up at this point as to whether this man who with the withered hand was a plant was planted in the middle of uh in in the in that synagogue service by this pharisees now in his massive work on the life and times of jesus the messiah alfred ettersheim wrote this i quote he says whether or not the pharisees had brought the man with the withered hand on purpose or placed him in a conspicuous position or otherwise raised the question certain it is that their secret object was to commit christ to some word or deed which would lay him open to the capital charge of breaking the sabbath law and he said this it doesn’t really appear whether the man with the withered hand was consciously or unconsciously aware of he was a tool of the pharisees he could have been there because he heard about jesus he has a withered hand and possibly he would get help but one things that the pharisees and scribes did get judge rightly was this that christ would not witness disease without removing it or as we might express it that disease could not continue in the presence of him who was life jesus read their inner thoughts which were evil but he proceeded to do something good and that was his purpose so the very fact that this man with the withered hand was not in a life-threatening position that according to pharisaical law did not qualify him as an exception to the sabbath rule so it raises the likelihood that this man was planted in the synagogue that day by the religious leaders now what the jews view about healing on the sabbath i think is important to bring up at this point kind of trying to get into their heads like what they were thinking about this whole situation all right now sabbath what what do they view on healing on the sabbath well it’s not really clear what they believed it’s it’s definitely not consistent to what they’re trying to do here and it’s very complicated for example in their view the view of the scribes and pharisees actual danger to life warranted a breach in the sabbath law that’s it now how that falls out a little bit for example a woman in childbirth might be helped on the sabbath all right she’s starting to give birth and you know it’d be good hey you know remember no working on the sabbath right so if that’s considered work she’s in big trouble right but so they allowed for that boy they’re so kind some said that it could be for the disease of an of an ear infection that can be very painful and debilitating some uh also believe it could be for a throat infection that you can receive some kind of treatment now while according to others a disease of angina involved possible danger and so superseded the sabbath law so things like this if a person fell into a ditch or or let’s say a building fell on a group of people you can clear out the error to see if anyone is still alive and get them out but if anyone is dead in that rubble you you have to leave them until the next day until the sabbat’s over in fact if someone had a wall fall on them and they fractured their ankle according to the law of the scribes and pharisees um they could not do anything about that matter of fact they couldn’t even pour cold water on a sprained foot so all applications to the outside of the body were forbidden on the sabbath and so that becomes a problem because this man with a withered hand right it was not life-threatening you could wait till monday i mean excuse me to sunday to do it right you can wait the next day to do it i forgot this is the sabbath so this is a saturday so as regarding the internal remedies uh for example a person suffering from a toothache might gargle with vinegar this is this is in their with what’s called the gemara and and this was a set of hebrew uh actually the mark gemara was a an aramaic uh commentary on what you could and could not do on the sabbath it was connected with another group of books called the mishnah which was a book that explained or gave teaching containing the collection of jewish traditions on and the oral law and what to do and what not to do on as as a jew and especially on the sabbath now uh so the gemara adds that listen if you have a tooth toothache you can gargle but you can’t spit it out you have to swallow it so see you can see how ridiculous it got and it got very complicated to follow these things external lesions also might be attended to if they involve danger to life so the bottom line here is the man with the wither hand could not be classed as having a dangerous illness so therefore to be healed on the sabbath was not in their rules and their law all right so that’s what’s going on here in their minds and that’s what they’re seeing so clearly their principle implied that it was lawful on the sabbath to do that which you had to do to save life and prevent death and to have otherwise said that would be virtually to have involved in harming or even murder but if that’s true and you go through to its logical conclusions it would imply a far wider principle that it must be lawful to do good on the sabbath no matter what’s going on for eventually the omission of such good would have involved in doing evil in other words if you were on in the in the sabbath day according to the lord according to the word of god and you were able to do good that day and you did not do it that would be evil so they’re in quite a predicament here with jesus and jesus is in control of this whole situation here he is leading everything in fact if you take your bibles and go back to matthew chapter 12 because in matthew uh matthew includes another thing in the same uh parallel narrative that was not in the gospel of mark i thought i’d just give it to you to show you what christ says to them and as in addition in matthew chapter 12 in verse number nine it says this it says departing well verse number nine is just sets up the same thing and they were departing went to the synagogue and there was a man was with withered hand there and in verse number uh 11 it says this and he said to them what man is there among you who has a sheep and if it falls into a pit on the sabbath will he not take hold of it and lift it out right so that’s what the lord adds to or matthew adds to this in this narrative to just fill it in but as you think about that the rabbinic law said that if your sheep fell into a ditch you could feed the sheep food and drink and it could be lowered to the sheep so they could have some nourishment but you had to leave it there the talmud discussed cases in which it was lawful to lift an animal out of the pit on the sabbath a man would have found some device by which he could recover the solitary sheep which constituted his possession in other words it was lawful to retrieve a sheep that fell into a pit on the sabbath now all kinds of scenarios are listed in the mishnah the gemara the mishnah and other books and so to sift through all these things it was tense to go to the day of uh place of worship on the sabbath and have a nice peaceful time because you were frantic oh no did i break this did i not do this was i was like clean was i unclean and crazy stuff was going on so there’s a lot of tension going on so according to jesus if you’re right there in matthew again look at matthew 12 verse number 12 it says and how much more valuable than jesus says right is man than a sheep so then it is lawful to do good on the sabbath so see that’s what matthew adds uh in his narrative on this particular subway subject so surely then the bottom line would be on the sabbath day it was lawful to do good according to jesus and yes to do good and to neglect it would have been to do evil so then the attitude that we ought to have when we gather together on the lord’s day is not to gather to scrutinize to accuse or to do harm noah our attitude uh to have on the sabbath is to worship to learn and to do good so the christian christians are exhorted in scripture to have a proper concern for others and are really continuously to be attentive to the welfare of other believers whether it be spiritual whether it be moral whether it be physical whether it be some wants or infirmities some temptation some temptations they’re going through are dangers and then to administer some kind of assistance some advice some caution some administration some help some consolation so the the love is always the driving motive for doing what is good as a believer and good deeds are the practice of love doing good deeds adorn the gospel and glorifies the father in heaven and good deeds also does something else it exposes evil it shows what doesn’t look right and good to do as a christian it’s like it says in titus so that those who have believed god will be careful to engage in good deeds these things are good and profitable for men so so then so we’re free to do anything for christ but we’re not free to do anything we please nor to act any way we want however we are free to do anything that is needful that is helpful and while we are doing any service to christ one thing that is definitely important is to do what is right and to do what is good now that is setting up back in the gospel of mark let’s turn back there in verse number three because what we do what we see here is jesus shows what is the good and right thing to do and he shows us four actions we see it in four actions that jesus performs and here’s the first action in verse number three and it says this and the action is this it is the action of compassion anytime we’re going to do good as a christian it must be motivated i said by love but love also has this understanding of compassion compassion is this thing that drives you and so look what it says in verse number three it says that jesus said he said to the man with the withered hand get up and come forward now jesus intent is to make this situation a theological confrontation and he it’s evidenced by this very command here come forward get up and come forward now i’m sure this man with the withered hand didn’t want to be centered stage of attention especially with having a a handicap i’m sure this is not what he wanted maybe he didn’t view this at this point as compassion but just imagine the scene in the synagogue it’s crowded the tension is as at a fever pitch christ probably occupies a prominent position where he can see and he can be seen by all in the synagogue the pharisees are ready to measure every word and action with malice and cunning everyone is now looking at the man with the withered hand and also they’re looking at jesus and under their breath the pharisees whisper is he going to heal on this sabbath day will he do it if he does we got him if jesus healed the man they could accuse him of breaking the sabbath and that offense was punishable according to exodus of course exodus is what it says in the law of death matter of fact this is what it says in exes therefore you are to observe the sabbath for it is holy to you everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death and then it goes on in exodus chapter 31 whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death so in the mind of the scribes and the pharisees this particular man with the withered hand had no cause to be healed on the sabbath it could have waited to the next day it was not life-threatening and if jesus does anything the penalty is death that’s in their mind so the lord takes up the challenge and the lord wants maximum publicities maximum exposure the man with the withered hands standing in fuel of full view of the assembled congregation but before before jesus does anything he actually accomplishes another action he puts forth a clarifying question specifically addressed at the religious leaders a clarifying question so he has compassion and now he’s clarifying things why does he clarify things because the jewish rules and regulations has so convoluted and confused things nobody knew what to do so jesus of course clarifies things now before we look at verse number four okay we all know that the rabbinical laws were burdensome were unclear and have made things unnecessarily complicated so jesus said i have one simple question and it requires one answer and here’s the question look at verse four and he said to them here’s the question is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath to save life or to kill that’s a simple question right jesus counter question actually elevated the matter from the level of being legal status to the level of a moral and a theological problem of course the religious leaders were not ready to do that they were not ready to do things on jesus terms however what jesus does and what is so interesting about asking the right questions at the right time is that jesus puts the ball in their court and he just stops and waits he’s waiting for a response so jesus knew all they wanted to know is whether it is lawful to heal on the sabbath and when the man’s physical problem was not life-threatening and couldn’t could be done on another day what he would do right that’s what he knew they were up to that day however they had a a one-track law driven mindset and usually judgmental people do never for a moment did they ask is it merciful to do good and to heal on the sabbath what is consistent with the mosaic law to which they acknowledged obedience was this the contents of jesus question was it was the content that could be searched out in the old testament and it could be said yes this is what we ought to do but if you notice the question in verse number four it actually has two parts to it the first part refers to the man with the withered hand it says is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath that has to do with the man with the withered hand of course failure to do good on the sabbath was to do harm but there’s another part it refers to someone else and the second part of the question is it lawful to save life or to kill now failure to save life is to destroy life and to kill now who would this be referring to this is referring to jesus himself so one of them he’s he’s digging out their heart he’s he’s bringing to light the wickedness that is in there he’s bringing he’s bringing it before them and he’s putting the ball in their court and he’s saying listen i want an answer now in mark chapter three and verse number four what’s the answer silence there’s no answer it says in verse number four look at the last part but they kept silent wait a minute this is your opportunity this is the time you can defend yourself you can lay out why you’re doing this you can explain to everybody what’s going on this is your opportunity and silence you know why because jesus has is exposing them and they know it see they say nothing and they keep silent and why do they keep silent well clearly it was not lawful to do it was not lawful to do evil and to do good would be to heal the man also it would be it is good to receive the truth of the gospel of the kingdom and the truth concerning the nature of who jesus really was and they were flat out by their silence denying both they were not committing to anything but remember silence has a way of speaking doesn’t it silence has a way of condemning so their unwillingness to answer actually expose their heart and revealed a tragic flaw in their theology concerning the nature of god now what was the nature of god remember we’re still talking about the fourth commandment i remember the fourth commandment was worship and rest one day at a seventh the sabbath day was for the jews and of course christians when we meet on sunday the lord’s day it’s a day of rest it’s the day of worship we’re setting aside one day from the regular work so we can focus our attention on god but in their minds in the minds of the pharisees they thought they knew who jesus was they planned all this so do the demons but neither understood the real truth of the matter they saw jesus as only a destroyer they saw him as a blasphemer they saw him as a sabbath breaker they saw him as a fast breaker they saw him as one who defiled himself with the contact with contact with unclean things and unclean people that’s who they saw him they saw him as a destroyer of their way of life and their religious system that’s what they saw matt ruker in his work on the ten commandments wrote which should not be lost in the fourth commandment is this the gracious and kind god who established the law in other words he said we worship a god who does not desire that we have a yoke too heavy to bear we are in need of reflection and rest we have that need sometimes we don’t recognize we have that we need because we work and work and work and work and work and never take the time to actually focus on the lord and give ourselves over to worship all right and so we get in this vicious cycle and it just does all kinds of bad things to us but see we’re to break away we are to worship god and that shows us that god is gracious to us see it’s god who built it into the system not us and it’s he built it in there because we need it but we don’t always take what we need and we end up destroying ourselves when we don’t see we think that if we don’t work another hour another day we’ll never get done all the things that we have to get done i say you put god first and he’ll allow you to do everything you have to do and give you more time that’s what he do does when you put him first see jesus shows us that the father in heaven is a god of grace of mercy of love of compassion but he is also a god who does not turn a blind eye to sin and is angered and grieved when it’s there so the answer to the question that they did not give is yes it is right and good to do these things on the sabbath according to scripture it would be right to heal the man with the withered hand it would be right to do that now at that point there’s another action that jesus takes up and it’s this when there’s a misunderstanding of the nature and character of god something has to be said about it something has to be said about it in other words we need to when we hear people talk about god often we have to correct them if we know the word of god that their understanding of the character of god is not right it’s just like somebody who says well god loves you and that’s all they say or somebody says well god’s wrath is on you and that’s all they say no god does love he demonstrates his love especially from the cross but he also is a god of wrath and there’s many other things it says about the lord so balancing out the the character of god is very important so the action of correcting a misunderstanding about the character of god is what happens next in verse number five jesus as jesus accomplished this miracle that he’s about to accomplish he is filled with anger and grief and sadness now we don’t see the pharisees eyeballing jesus now jesus is eyeballing the pharisees look what it says in verse number five it says after looking around at them with anger now i don’t know about you but this is describing a swift piercing and searching glance of jesus upon his friends and enemies that jesus is looking at the sin in their heart that the incarnate christ revealed the holy character of god by his display of righteous anger and holy indignation against evil and sin notice what it says and he says looking around at them with anger grieved at the hardness of their heart see remember don’t ever forget this dad god is always angered by sin always angered by sin he is always angered by sin and along with being angered in our text it says that he also felt sorrow and grief with people because of their willful stubbornness to the truth which of course denoted the process of their heart even hardening more if you reject the truth your heart gets harder and it it becomes unmoldable especially when somebody’s indifferent to divine love and grace see jesus was showing compassion here he was displaying the mercy and grace of god here so jesus was outraged by the religious leaders care more for their tradition than for the welfare of a suffering human being and for their shoving aside of what is really true from from there not reading and studying the word of god like they ought to have been instead of messing and making up more rules and laws they should have been studying god’s word so what does jesus do well then jesus makes a command to the man with the withered hand and notice what it says in verse number five it says it says he said to the man stretch out your hand and then of course he stretched out his hand and the bible says in matthew in mark and in luke it says all the same thing it says he stretched out his hand and it was restored now that’s very interesting how that is placed in the scripture because what it’s doing it’s laying the focus on jesus right in other words jesus didn’t did not break sabbath law or any of their man-made rules or laws he didn’t break anything the man opened himself up to the word of jesus and that’s of course his faith and in exposing himself to jesus he is healed faith is not a private wager but a public risk that jesus is worthy of trust when no other hope can be trusted jesus is worthy of trust this man had nowhere else to go now unless stretching out one’s hand was work then he was in trouble but the healing is performed by a simple word of command he didn’t say be healed he did not touch him he just said stretch out your hand now this time it was not a touch the healing did not have the appearance of work jesus did nothing to violate their trivial sabbath regulations here jesus merely commands the man to extend his arm whereupon the man’s hand is completely totally restored now what’s going on here this is what’s going on jesus is acting like the creator and what does the creator do he speaks and he comes into existence second thing that’s going on here is that jesus had compassion like the god of the old testament and that jesus also displayed the holiness of god by judging sin just like the old testament so here was an act of supernatural power giving overwhelming proof that jesus was more than a man he exercises authority and will as god that’s a slap in the the face of these scribes and pharisees and jesus displayed before them who he really was so the religion of jesus was service it was love to god and love of men and it’s it’s like kind of ironic that jesus is the one who not only saved the life but he came to give his life a ransom for many and so these actions led into a last action but this last action is almost by default it’s a default action that transfer transpired by the by everything jesus did on that particular day that his doing what was right and good exposed evil it brought evil to the head to the to the forefront it brought the evil in their heart right up to the surface and so look what it says in verse number six it says this the pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the herodians against him now let me just stop there for a minute jesus really had been continually undermining the religious rulers as to their traditions their religious rules their status as the go-to religious guys of their day and so that he violated sabbath of regulations he fraternized with sinners he presumed to forgive sin according to them and as the enemies of jesus saw the miracle that day they were not filled with awe that they were looking at the messiah who was promised in the old testament they were filled with madness and rage because they did not recognize jesus for who he was displaying himself to be isn’t that what happens all time it happens in the world all around us in fact the pharisees and the herodians getting together on something they hated each other but it’s interesting that religious and political parties unite against jesus because they have a common reason to that the herodians were not primarily a religious sect they were a political sect instead they were men who were politically devoted to the herodian family consequently they had no real affinity to the pharisees and they both probably zealously hated one another but a common opponent can make enemies strange bedfellows and that’s what’s going on here and they come into a strange partnership and what’s the partnership and here’s where the evil rises to the surface verse number six these two unlikely parties plotted not to stop jesus or to slow him down but if you notice in verse number six it says as to how they might destroy him so in other words immediately they went out from this synagogue service and what did they do they began on the sabbath to plot murder boy does jesus know how to bring sin to the surface see they wanted to assassinate jesus and that is they wanted to annihilate him get rid of him once and for all so it is not surprising when you look at other passages of scripture that describes the scribes and pharisees where jesus said write out to them like for example in matthew chapter 23 he said to them woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful but on the inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness and then he says to them so you too outwardly appear righteous to men but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness and not only that but when you go out to make disciples and you travel over sea and land to make a proselyte to the jewish faith you make that person twice as much a son of hell as yourselves see that’s how jesus sees these people so the religious leaders had no qualms plotting murder on the sabbath and that’s the second part of the question see the second part of the question if you remember had to do with jesus right is it lawful to save life or to kill he was exposing their heart their motive was to kill and to do it yet on the sabbath with a group of unclean people the herodians they were not supposed to be with even other than the sabbath day see hypocrisy all over the place here and so this is what happens so we see the action of jesus now of course there’s another group of people that i didn’t mention here that’s a silent group and it’s the disciples the disciples looked on this amazing sabbath day the sabbath day of worship and learn something that doing good on any day including the sabbath is required by god in fact when you go out there and you go out among the highways and byways when you’re commissioned by me when you understand what’s really going on when you get why i really came to give my life a ransom for many when you get that then when you go out there you have to have the action of compassion towards men secondly you have to have you have to be clear theologically so you can ask the right questions and you can see what’s really going on and then also you have to have the action of correcting any misunderstanding people have about god and what god requires especially about what the gospel is and how a person must come in repentance and faith and believe by faith in the gospel turn from their sin and embrace and live and follow jesus is the only way into the kingdom of god and of course those actions often expose sin in someone’s life but remember when sin is exposed in someone’s life it’s not for us to condemn them but it’s for us to apply the remedy and the remedy is is jesus is the god who’s done the greatest good to all humanity humanity by serving and giving his life a ransom for many jesus is the remedy and so these actions are things we’re going to see all through this gospel and other gospels and actions that we also should take up in our own life are we able to do these things are we looking at people with compassion are we growing theologically that we can ask questions and identify situations are we correctly understanding ourselves the character of god and who he is do we believe who jesus says he is ourselves and can we apply to someone’s sin the remedy for that sin and that’s jesus christ himself can we do that so those are the things that were being observed by the disciples when they were seeing this vent go down now i think you can get a sense how how mark writes his gospel that it pulls you into the narrative it feels like you were there and that you sensed all these things going on and you specifically walked away saying as a true disciple of jesus christ wow i now am seeing who christ is i am now seeing what i need to do now i’m seeing how i need to serve see that’s where it should take us let’s pray lord i thank you again today for the word of god what an amazing gospel this is and lord you have done in this gospel something quite unique you have displayed your compassion you have exposed hypocrisy you have applied the principle of doing good and right on the sabbath you have corrected the character of god and lord you have at the in the end exposed and brought to light sin and i pray lord that we as your disciples we as your children we as those who follow you would be able to grow to the place that we do the same make a servants lord make us people who are ready to do your work make us people who are ready to do right and good no matter when we’re called upon enable us to do as a body as a church and i pray this in christ’s name amen

April 19, 2015
Lord of the Sabbath

In this sermon, Pastor Babij explains Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees when they accused His disciples of working on the Sabbath. Jesus’s answer reveals the folly of legalism: how it distorts the true intentions of God’s law and suffocates real worship of God.

April 12, 2015
With the Coming of Jesus, Everything Changes

In this sermon, Pastor Babij explains how Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees regarding fasting actually points to a grand truth: salvation requires total submission to Jesus and His gospel; all other man-made religious traditions and ideas about God must be discarded.

March 22, 2015
The Scandal of Amazing Grace

In this sermon, Pastor Babij examines the conversion of Levi the tax collector and explains how the account not only displays the radical goodness of Jesus toward undeserving sinners but also instructs believers as to how they ought to interact with the lost.

March 15, 2015
The Right and Might of the Son of Man

In this sermon, Pastor Babij explains how Jesus’s healing of a paralyzed man before a group of scribes demonstrates Jesus’s deity. Pastor Babij also discusses why personal evangelism is so important for people to become saved.

March 1, 2015
Compassion Par Excellence

In this sermon, Pastor Babij preaches on the compassion of Jesus Christ shown through Jesus’s interaction with a leprous man. Pastor Babij gives background regarding leprosy and then explains the leper’s humble petition, Jesus’s radically compassionate response, and Jesus’s stern warning to the leper.

February 22, 2015
Service Par Excellence

In this sermon, Pastor Babij explains how Jesus’s servanthood ought to both amaze and instruct us: Jesus personally serves common people with common needs; Jesus serves constantly, even through inconvenience or tiredness; Jesus prays in preparation for more service; and Jesus prioritizes proclaiming the gospel above all other kinds of service.

February 8, 2015
Authority Par Excellence

In this sermon, Pastor Babij explains why the Galilean Jews were amazed at Jesus’s authority and why Jesus’s authority should amaze us today, too, moving us to obedience.

February 1, 2015