Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally Proclaimed: 01/27/19

Intro:

• In our day we are probably very familiar with the concept of a stress test.
• Originally stress tests were primarily used in certain fields of engineering.
• Wikipedia defines that kind of stress testing as “a form of deliberately intense or thorough testing used to determine the stability of a given system or entity. It involves testing beyond capacity often to a breaking point in order to observe results.”
• In more recent years many different fields have developed and utilized stress tests from software and network engineers to cardiac doctors, and financial institutions.
• For any field, the desire to perform a stress test comes due to the need to assess a system or structure’s soundness.

Hook:

• In many ways the ministry of Jesus became a spiritual stress test for the world He entered.
• Mark portrays this both with the oppressive crowds seeking miracles and the rising opposition from Jewish leadership.
  • To the crowds desperate for help, Jesus’ ministry stressed for them looking beyond their immediate needs to see their need to receive His offer of eternal life.
  • To Jewish leadership, with the self-righteousness of law-keeping, Jesus’ ministry stressed for them looking beyond their current comfort to see their need for His offer of eternal life.
• But even now there are those who come so desperately to the gospel that they see Jesus as a kind of genie in the bottle, rather than a Savior; while others come with such success and comfort in life that they see him as nothing more than an insurance policy.
• Today we want to test ourselves, especially as we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s supper, that we might see our own need for Jesus by examining the three indicators in today’s passage of spiritual help.

Message Points:

• This passage occurs in six scenes and while we will not have time to cover each scene in its entirety, we will briefly look over all six scenes pausing to identify our three indicators of spiritual health.
• Remember that Jesus, in the verses (1:35-39) just before this says to his disciples that he must move his ministry of Word and deed to the other towns in the Galilee.
  • Even though many crowds had gathered to him, Jesus knew that his mission was to go and tell, not settle into a ministry of come and see.
  • And notice that Jesus did not say that he would stop healing people, but that he needed to go to places where he could also preach.
  • This indicates that the crowds, once they gathered began to demand miracles rather than listen to His teaching.
• Mark introduces this tension into his gospel in the first chapter.
  • Commentator J. Sergeant says that Mark speaks of the “two currents of mounting trouble which combine to overwhelm the Galilean ministry: the opposition of the authorities, and the suffocating pressure of the crowds.” (Sergeant, Lion, 40-45)
  • Having already introduced the pressure of the crowds, Mark as we move into today’s passage has as his purpose to introduce the opposition of the Jewish authorities.
• So onto our six scenes.
  • We begin with a leprous man coming begging on his knees to Jesus asking “if you are willing you can make me clean.”
    • Verse 41 tells us that Jesus was indignant. While we understand this word to be indicated annoyance or anger, in this case we should say that it indicates Jesus’ resolve to help this man.
    • Jesus was move so greatly that he defied Jewish law and actually touched the man. To him he said “I am willing” and “be clean!”
    • But notice that Jesus does not disdain the traditions wholly. He asks the man not to tell anyone other than the priests as was required by the Jewish law.
    • But the man was so overjoyed he told everyone so that in verse 45 we read “Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to Him from everywhere.”
  • In our next scene we find Jesus in Capernum, where he would famously heal the paralyzed man lowered through the roof.
    • Jesus was attempting to preach to them according to verse 2, but the crowds pressed in and gathered even outside at the doors and windows.
    • Showing the kind of resolve people had to have their desperate situations resolved, we see the paralyzed man and his four friends dig through the roof and lower the man before Jesus.
    • To their resolve and faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man in verse 2:”Son your sins are forgiven.”
    • Here we see the beginnings of the opposition from the authorities. At first in verse six they are “thinking to themselves”
    • But Jesus knowing their thoughts asks why they speak such things, and then “which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘get up, take your mat and walk’.”
      • This is a loaded question, because it certainly was easier to say your sins are forgiven.
        • After all, who could inspect and see if that man’s account before God had been cleared.
        • But this fact points to the reason the teachers were shocked. Look at their thoughts in verse 7, “who can forgive sins but God alone?”
        • They realized that, if in fact sin was forgiven, that Jesus must be God, which was a thought they could not accept.
      • The harder words would be those that commanded the man to walk.
        • If the man did not get up and walk, Jesus would be proven a fake.
        • But as we know Jesus says in verse 10, “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”.
        • Thus he commands the man to rise up and walk, thereby confirming his divinity and his authority.
    • Notice that Jesus’ focus is never on the temporary relief that healing provides this paralyzed man. Jesus’ focus from the first is spiritual. He desires that this man and the teachers look to him for forgiveness of sins.
• In these scenes we see our 1st indicator of spiritual health: When our problems are greater than our pride we will turn to Jesus (1:40-2:12).
  • For the leper every ounce of pride that he may have possessed, had long since been chipped away. His disease left him isolated, rejected and outcast both by law and by common human response.
  • For the paralyzed man he too had long since lost his pride. Though we do not know exactly how he was paralyzed we can assume he had to have help with many of his everyday activities from eating and drinking, all the way to being able to relieve himself.
  • On the other hand the teachers of the law had not problems that humbled them. In fact they were so sure of their own opinions that they could not conceive of their God dwelling with them in the flesh.
  • Proverbs 16:18 says that “pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
    • Pride is like a blockage that would sooner kill us than allow us to humbly serve any other person, but especially God.
    • It can build up in our spiritual life in certain areas like our relationships with other people as we refuse to forgive, or ask for help.
    • It can build up in our own life as we refuse to look past old faults, or refuse to allow ourselves to move on after a tremendous loss.
    • It can build up as resentment when we think God or others have not treated us as we ought to be treated.
  • God’s remedy to pride is problems. Our problems are like God’s heart medicine. He uses them to dissolve pride blockages and lower the built up internal pressure that resists outside help.
  • When we begin to have problems we will often turn to others seeking legitimate help.
    • And look at what Jesus does for both these individuals. He solves their immediate problems.
    • And He helps both of them to focus upon the spiritual and eternal aspect of their healing rather than their renewed bodies alone.
  • It is healthy for us to take all kinds of problems to Jesus for help.
    • That is what faith is all about. It is our belief that God, not our works, or our pastor, or the other godly people we know, or some special activity; but God alone can truly help us.
    • When we turn to others, we know they are the right guides and helpers when they make sure to help us to consider God and His Word, not try to fix us with their wisdom or advice.
    • It is unhealthy to try to solve our problems by ourselves.
• Back to the next scenes.
  • We now see the call of Levi or Matthew.
    • Again the crowds follow Jesus as he walks beside the lake. As he walks he seeks to teach them.
    • There he sees Levi, a tax collector for the local toll road. Such Jews who annually purchased their office from Rome and collected taxes as they saw fit were seen as traitors to their people.
    • But Jesus calls Levi to himself. And Levi responds, not only by immediately leaving his toll booth, but by throwing a feast where Jesus came to eat with sinners and other tax collectors.
    • Again we see the resistance from the authorities, but this time they confront his disicples to ask why he eats with such “low lifes”
    • Jesus responds to them, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
    • This statement forms the necessary paradigm shift needed by the Jewish leaders.
      • They were self-righteous, trusting in their cleanliness and adherence to Jewish law.
      • Until they could admit that they were sinners, needing a Savior like everyone else, they would not hear his call.
  • In a similar scene we find John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasting.
    • This leads to a question to Jesus about why he and his disciples did not fast. Fasting was a good part of a spiritual life, but not mandated by Jewish law except for specific occasions.
    • Notice that Jesus did not say that his disciples would never fast. No, in verse 20 he assures the questioner that his disciples would have a day coming that they would certainly fast.
    • But Jesus’ response we read in verse 19, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?”
    • He also then adds to the metaphor in verses 21-22 refering to Himself as the unshrunk cloth or the new wine.
      • Fasting, a part of the old paradigm, would tear his disciples away from the one thing they needed, which was Jesus.
      • Jesus, as the new wine, came not to burst the old traditions, but to give new significance to all of life.
• These scenes lead us to consider our 2ND indicator of spiritual health: When our experience of the Savior’s love is greater than our shame we can turn to Jesus (2:13-22).
  • In both of these scenes, people try to shame Jesus and his disciples into conforming to their expectations.
    • In the first scene the problem is Jesus’ willingness to show mercy and grace to sinners and tax collectors. This was a statement of “stop hanging out with them or we’ll stop hanging out with you.”
    • In the second scene the problem is Jesus’ refusal to continue to adhere to traditions that had no real spiritual significance. This was a statement of “we’ve always done it this way”.
  • Shame, used as it is in this passage, is a tool wielded to change behaviors based upon an individual’s hunger to please people.
    • Obesity results as people consume an excess of foods that offer their body substitutes for the real nourishment needed.
    • People pleasing is like the junk food offering little to no real nourishment for a weary soul.
  • But Jesus in both scenes Jesus bolsters his people against shame by seeking to nourish their souls with His genuine loving presence.
    • First he describes himself as a doctor, compassionately caring for the sick.
    • Then he calls himself the bridegroom, who in love comes to betroth himself to his bride.
  • What our souls desperately need is not more people pleasing, but more of the compassionate and grace-filled love of our Savior.
    • By refusing to be shamed into conformity, Jesus acts like a spiritual nutritionist and coach.
    • He refuses to allow his disciples to give in to the empty calories of people pleasing and drives them towards the genuine feast of loving and pleasing God.
    • He retrains us to long for and to desire His compassionate and grace-filled love by allowing us to taste and see that it is good.
  • Jesus does not negate the reality of sin nor does he destroy old traditions.
    • Rather, he reminds us that our goal is not removing ourselves from the presence of sin, but turning towards the presence of a doctor.
    • Jesus reminds us that empty traditions are not our goal, but that every tradition, from fasting, to Sunday School, to prayer meetings, and hymn singing should be infused with the passionate desire to see Jesus in the midst of all of our activities.
    • John Piper says in a Hunger for God, commenting on this passage “the newness of our fasting is this, its intensity comes not because we have never tasted the wine of Christ’s presence, but because we have tasted it so wonderfully by His Spirit and cannot now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives.” (Piper, 43)
  • In other words friends, when we experience what it truly feels like to be loved by God and be pleasing Him through Jesus Christ, we will never settle for the substitute of people please or empty traditions.
• In our final two scenes we have two discussions about the Sabbath.
  • In the first scene Jesus’ disciples pick grain on the Sabbath which draws the ire of the Pharisees.
    • To their objections, Jesus points to another occasion in Scripture when someone did something that broke the Sabbath and the law.
    • He points them to David in 1 Chronicles 24:6 and 2Samuel 8:17.
    • The king after God’s heart convinced the high priests to allow them to take the consecrated bread and eat it.
    • Then he said these words in verse 27 “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
    • While much more could be said, we should note two things.
      • 1st even a law of God, like the Sabbath was created by God to serve humanity, not enslave them. The Sabbath’s purpose was to emphasize the need to rest and reflect upon our relationship with God.
      • 2nd God is still God on the Sabbath, and can interrupt, amend, abrogate, or fulfill that Law. Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath’s purpose by giving all mankind rest from having to constantly work to be righteous.
  • In the second scene in verses 3:1-6 we see Jesus heal a man on the Sabbath.
    • In the synagogue there was a man with a shrivled hand.
    • The Jewsih leaders were already seeking for a reason to accuse jesus according to verse 2. After this scene verse 6 the Pharisees and Herodians two groups constantly at odds began to collude to kill Jesus.
    • The heart of this scene is Jesus’ question about the true intent of the law in verse 4. He says “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill?”
    • The silence of the people distressed Jesus because he knew they had stubborn hearts.
    • But he healed the man’s hand to make His point even to them.
• This leads to our 3rd indicator: When our concern for God’s will is greater than our concern for our checklist we will turn to Jesus (2:23-3:6).
  • Jesus knew the law, and had not come to destroy it. But he also knew the true spirit of God in giving the law.
  • The Sabbath in particular was not a set of rules to be kept, but an opportunity to rest in a right relationship with God.
  • To be more concerned about our checklist than we are about rest in the right relationship Christ has given to us is like insomnia or sleep deprivation. We may be awake, but we are not really living.
  • Today you have the opportunity to have that right relationship with God.
  • Perhaps pride, shame, or your checklist have been keeping you from following Jesus.
  • Jesus came into the midst of our problems, with his grace-filled love, to help us to become more concerned for the will of God than for our checklist.
  • In the next moments consider what God’s will is for your life, and respond to Him by turning to Jesus Christ.