At first glance, the story that we’ve just read is a simple one. It’s one that we tell our children in Sunday school. Jesus sees a need, and miraculously he provides for that need in a way that can’t be explained using just a few loaves of bread and fishes. It’s a story that warms the heart.

But as usual, there’s more than meets the eye in this passage. This morning I’d like to simply look at three things that this passage shows us: what we need; how Jesus meets that need; and what this means about our role today.

First, let’s look at what we need.

The apostles have just returned from preaching and teaching and healing. They were so overwhelmed by ministry that they didn’t even have time to eat. Jesus suggested that they get away to a solitary place. But before they even got there in the boat, verse 33 tells us, “But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.” You can imagine their disappointment. They needed to rest, but what they got was more ministry.

The apostles may have been disappointed, but Jesus saw the crowd and saw their need. Verse 34 says, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

What does this mean, “sheep without a shepherd”? Thousands of years earlier, Moses was a leader over Israel. He brought the people out of Egypt and led them as they wandered through the wilderness for forty years. When Moses was about to die, we read that he said to God:

May the LORD, the God of every human spirit, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd. (Numbers 27:16-17)

In other words, a shepherd was a leader who could lead and care for the people. God answered Moses’ prayer by telling him to appoint Joshua, who led Israel to battle as they entered the land that God promised them. When David was made king, the Lord said to him, “You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler” (2 Samuel 5:2). But all of that paled compared to the promise God had made to them.

For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As shepherds look after their scattered flocks when they are with them, so will I look after my sheep…There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. (2 Samuel 34:11-15)

Do you see what this means? The people came with a need. You don’t go outrun a boat around a lake unless something drives you there. They came wanting more of what Jesus had to offer. Maybe some of them wanted more teaching or healing. Some of them may have been coming for political deliverance. I’m sure many of them didn’t even know what they were looking for.

But Jesus saw them and recognized their real need. He looked at the crowds and he saw there deep hunger for something they longed for but had never experienced. They were starved and impoverished, and nobody seemed to care. Their forefathers had even experienced hints of what they longed for, but they had never experienced the real thing.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes their need this way: “There were questions but no answers, distress but no relief, anguish of conscience but no deliverance, tears but no consolation, sin but no forgiveness.”

Now, I know that we’re a long way from where these people were. But the irony is that this passage also reveals our need. Mother Teresa once looked at the Western world and said, “The spiritual poverty of the Western world is much greater than the physical poverty of our people. You in the West have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness.” Did you hear that? We have everything – success, family, wealth, pleasure – and yet there’s still a sense that something is missing.

Most of us can’t even put our finger on what the problem is. As a result we try all kinds of things to address our deep hunger. One author said:

It is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry. (Simon Tugwell)

We all have this hunger within us. We can’t deny it, because the hunger comes from our most fundamental appetite, one that we can’t eliminate. Because we don’t recognize our deepest hunger, we try to fill the hole our relationships, our careers, our accomplishments, our positions, our experiences. But none of these can fill the hunger, because our need can only be met by God. It puts pressure on ourselves, our careers, our families, because we are putting a pressure on them that they were never meant to bear. Jonathan Edwards put it this way:

The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied…. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends are but shadows, but enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.

So this passage first of all confronts us with our need. We are experiencing a deep hunger that we’ve never had satisfied, and nothing has filled it no matter what we try.

Secondly, then, let’s look at how Jesus meets that need.

Verse 34 says, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” Later on he feeds them miraculously with bread and fish. From this passage we learn that Jesus meets our deepest spiritual hunger in two ways. First, he feeds us with his Word. Then he points us to the future feast in which our deepest needs will be finally satisfied.

When Jesus saw the need of the people, he responded first by nourishing them with his Word. Now don’t forget that we are talking about an ultimate hunger, a hunger that nothing in this world can fill. What Jesus is showing us here is that what they really needed to hear is a word from God. If his teaching was anything like what we read in the rest of the Gospel of Mark, then what they really needed to hear was about the arrival of the Kingdom of God, that God is setting things right, and that they needed to repent and believe. It’s why we spend time looking at God’s Word every Sunday. What we need at our deepest level is found in God’s Word for us. God reveals himself through his Word, and we desperately need it. Jesus himself makes a connection between the Word of God and our deepest hunger. When he was tempted by Satan, Jesus said, “People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). What we long for most can only be met through the God who is revealed in His Word.

So Jesus meets their deepest need through nourishing them through his Word. But then he does something that points forward to when our deepest needs will be met and completely fulfilled. He gets them to sit down in groups, takes a quantity of food that would barely even feed the Apostles, and nourishes the entire crowd so that, according to verse 42, they were all satisfied. Not only that, but there were leftovers. What is all this about?

In the Gospels, miracles are never random displays of power. Jesus never does something to just demonstrate his power or wow the audience. Every miracle is a signpost that points to when the kingdom of God is fully here. So when he heals, he’s pointing to the day that there will be no illness. When he casts out demons, he points to the day when evil will be defeated. When he raises people from the dead, he points to the day when there will be no more death. And when he feeds the people in this miracle, he points to the day when there will be no more hunger. Our deepest longings will be met, and we will be fully satisfied. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

What Jesus points us to is the banquet that we’ve always longed for, the one that’s promised in the ancient Scriptures. Jeremiah had written:

They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion;

they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD–
the grain, the new wine and the olive oil,

the young of the flocks and herds….

I will satisfy the priests with abundance,

and my people will be filled with my bounty,”

declares the LORD.
(Jeremiah 31:12, 14)

And God said through Isaiah:

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare.
(Isaiah 55:1-2)

There will come a day, Jesus said, when our deepest longings will be met, when we will eat and be completely satisfied, and there will be no more hunger, no more illness, no more death, no more evil and injustice. What we long for will finally be true.

And here’s the thing: we haven’t experienced this yet, but we will. And knowing that this is coming is bread enough for today. Knowing this helps us endure almost anything. Paul wrote, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

So Jesus nourishes us with his Word and he points us to the day when our hunger will ultimately be fulfilled. But then there’s a hint of something else. Did you notice verse 41? “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.” Taking bread, giving thanks, and breaking it. In a few chapters, Mark is going to write these words: “Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body’” (Mark 14:22).

Jesus meets our deepest hunger with the bread we’re about to eat. But he did so at infinite cost. Bread must be broken if it’s going to nourish someone. Unbroken bread will never meet anyone’s hunger. Jesus took bread and gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). At the cross, Jesus who is the bread of life was broken so that we may be filled.

In a few minutes, we are going to come to Communion. Jesus told us to regularly celebrate Communion so that we could look back to what he did for us at the cross. He forgave all of our sins, defeated evil, and conquered sin and death. But it also looks forward to the day when we will eat at the banquet we’ve always wanted, to when our deepest hungers will be finally satisfied. The reason he told us to celebrate Communion so often is so that we would never forget what he has done for us, and so that we would never forget that it he is the one who fills us, who meets our deepest needs.

The banquet has an infinite cost, but it’s been paid for. And now anyone can come and eat freely. There’s an open invitation. The only requirement is that you come hungry.

We’re going to come to that in just a minute, but there’s one more thing we need to see in this passage. We’ve seen our need. We’ve seen how Jesus meets our deepest need. This passage reveals one more thing.

Let’s finally look at what this passage says about our role today.

What is the role of the apostles in this passage? They are dispensers of bread. All they do is take what Jesus has given them, and they pass it out. That’s pretty much all we are as well: dispensers of bread. We have nothing to offer people other than what Jesus has given us to give to them.

The biggest thing that we have to offer anyone is the bread of life, Jesus Christ. The kindest thing we can do is tell them about the Kingdom of God and invite them to the banquet where their needs can be ultimately satisfied. That’s all. There’s nothing more. We’re simply dispensers of the bread that Jesus has given us.

But we also need to see that it’s a pretty impossible task. There’s lots of sarcasm in the Bible, but I can’t think of a more sarcastic comment than the one the apostles made to Jesus in verse 37. The ESV gets at the sarcasm better than some translations. Jesus told them to give something to the crowd to eat. The disciples replied, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” Two hundred denarii represented about 200 days’ wages for a laborer. The disciples were being a little testy in their response to Jesus. In their defense, they knew that what Jesus had told them was impossible. They didn’t have that kind of bread, and they didn’t have that kind of money. They were in way over their head.

And that’s just the point. Our struggle ever since then has been to believe that what Jesus offers us is enough, that the little pieces of bread and the little cups we’re about to use point us to what can meet the hunger of the whole world. Our greatest struggle is to do what Jesus tells us to do and pass out the bread, knowing full well that we’re in way over our heads, that what he’s asking us to do is humanly impossible. In the kingdom of God, only the inadequate are adequate. Only the hungry are filled, and only the inadequate get to pass out the bread to others.

I love how somebody put it:

It is not God’s intention that we should in ourselves be adequate for our tasks, rather He wants that we should be inadequate. If we only accept the tasks which we think are adapted to our powers we are not responding to the call of God. The church is always in a crisis and always will be. There will be difficulties, limitations, insolvable problems, lack of people and money, a menacing outlook, endless misunderstandings and misrepresentations. We are not only to do our work despite these things; they are precisely the conditions requisite for the doing of it.

Let’s pray.

Thank you for inviting us to the meal we’re about to celebrate. Thank you that it points us to what Jesus did for us, and to the day when our hunger will be fully and finally satisfied. Thank you for making us dispensers of bread. And thank you that in your kingdom, only the hungry are filled, and only the inadequate are adequate.

So we come hungry.

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

We’ve been looking together at the Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest account of Jesus’ life and ministry. Today we come to a transition in the Gospel of Mark.

When Jesus began his ministry, he called twelve people. Chapter 3 says, “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons” (Mark 3:14-15). From the very beginning, Jesus created a community of followers who would be with him and do the things that he does. Up until now in the Gospel, they’ve been with Jesus, and even that hasn’t been too impressive. They’re still trying to understand who Jesus is and what he’s all about. They’ve been with Jesus, but they haven’t done anything yet. In the passage that we just read, that all changes.

This morning’s passage tells us two things we need to know. First, we learn about our calling to ministry. Secondly, we learn the cost of ministry.

Let’s first look about our calling to ministry.

Verse 7 says, “Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.”

As we’ve just said, up until now, Jesus has been preaching and healing and casting out demons, and the Twelve have been watching. They’ve now spent quite a bit of time with Jesus. He hasn’t always been easy to understand. They still haven’t come to really grasp who this is, but they know that God is up to something in Jesus. Three of the twelve have even seen Jesus raise a little girl from the dead.

Now Jesus turns to them and commissions them to do exactly what he has been doing. Everything that he has been doing, he calls them to do. Anyone who has ever delegated an important task to someone who just may not be ready understands what is happening here. It’s one thing for God in human flesh to go around preaching, healing, and casting out demons. But now God is going to entrust this job to a bunch of nobodies who don’t even get it yet? And yet that’s exactly what Jesus does in this passage.

Now in a sense, as we’re going to see, not everything here applies to us today. Jesus gave these commands to the Twelve and not to us. And yet there are implications for us. God is on a mission, and he invites us to join him. As Jesus is going to say later to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Or as the apostle Paul writes, “We are God’s co-workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9). We get to join God in what he is doing. We have been invited to join God on his mission.

This means that God is on a mission in west Toronto – in the townhouses at Clement and Martingrove, in WillowRidge, in Rexdale, at the Tim Horton’s at Westway and Martingrove, at the Residence, wherever we are. And he invites us as his people to join him in what he is doing. Jesus calls us to carry on his ministry, to do what he did as he travelled around Galilee. This should blow us away. God is on mission all around us, and he invites us to join him in what he is doing.

We learn three things about our mission from this passage.

First, we learn that our mission is comprehensive. Did you notice verse 7, and then verses 12 and 13?

Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits….They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. (Mark 6:7, 12-13)

You’ll notice here that their mission is a comprehensive one. It involves preaching and calling people to repentance, we read. The disciples go out and preach. They have a message that they proclaim, and they are calling people to respond. But that’s not all that they do. They also drive out demons and the heal sick people. They point people to God’s Kingdom, in which God deals not only with sin, but with all of the effects of sin as well.

This teaches us that our mission has to be a comprehensive one. Some churches are very good at preaching. They are excellent at telling people about forgiveness and reconciliation with God. They’re good at calling people to repent. But quite often these churches aren’t good at caring for the other needs that people have.

Some churches are very good at caring for sick people and those who are struggling with problems. They are good at social action and justice. But quite often these churches are not as good at proclaiming the gospel.

In this passage we see that we are called to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom and to care for people in every area of life. We are called to take the whole gospel to the whole person to the whole world. The gospel is comprehensive and touches every area of life. We’re called to point to a gospel in which God not only forgives sins but will also undo all the effects of sin as well. The gospel is good news to the poor and the sick and the imprisoned and the suffering. We’re called to preach the good news and to demonstrate God’s care in every area of life. Our mission is comprehensive.

Second, we learn that our mission is urgent. In this passage, Jesus tells the Twelve that they don’t really have time to waste packing for their trips. These are emergency instructions for a swift and dangerous mission. There’s no time to waste. They can’t get weighed down with extra stuff that will hold them back. Israel is at a crossroads.

God’s mission is urgent. It’s not something that can wait until next month or next year. Over 200,000 people live within five kilometers of where we sit right now. 20,000 of those people are going to move in the next year. 150 people are going to die. Many of those people have never heard about the good news of the gospel: that the Kingdom of God is near, and that God has come in the person of Jesus to bring people back to himself and to set all things right. God is on mission in this community, and he’s commissioned us to join him. But there’s an urgency. It’s not something that can wait. It means traveling light because the mission can’t be delayed.

Finally, we see that our mission involves dependency. When Jesus tells them to go out with no food or money, he’s telling them that they are going to be dependent on others – and ultimately on God – to provide for them. When Jesus tells them to enter a place and depend on the hospitality of others, it means that they aren’t always going to know where they are going to sleep the next night. Jesus even hints that it isn’t going to go well for them. There are going to be villages that do not receive them. There are maybe going to be nights that they don’t have a place to sleep. They are going to have to learn dependence on others – and ultimately they are going to have to learn dependence on God.

One of the subtle and deadly dangers that we face is self-reliance. Jack Miller was a pastor in Philadelphia. He went through some tough experiences in his life that were so bad that he quit his ministry. Miller looked back on those times and believes that God was teaching him to stop being so self-reliant. He came to realize that when we are self-reliant – when we depend on ourselves, our technology, and our skills – it shows that we aren’t dependent on Christ. He wrote to a missionary and said:

What we fail to see is that reliance on people, their capabilities, their keeping their promises is a demonic faith, a cooperation in heart with the powers of darkness. We join the enemy, Satan, when we fail to rely on the promises of God to move on our behalf.

Spurgeon, a famous preacher in Britain, believed that this was one of the greatest dangers facing his church. When the church was doing quite well, he turned to them one Sunday and said:

I tremble for the church of which I am the pastor. I never trembled for it when we were few, when we were earnest in prayer, and devout in supplication, when it was a thing of contempt to go into “that miserable Baptist Chapel in Park Street,” when we were despised and maligned and slandered. I never trembled for them then…But I tremble for it now, now that God hath enlarged our borders…O churches! take heed lest ye trust in yourselves; take heed lest ye say, “We are a respectable body,” “We are a mighty number,” “We are a potent people;” take heed lest ye begin to glory in your own strength; for when that is done, “Ichabod” shall be written on your walls and your glory shall depart from you.

The minute we lose our dependency and think we have what’s needed on our own, we’re in big trouble. Dependency is essential to mission. When a church is just starting out, they are dependent. They have to be. But churches get established, and by the a church gets to our stage it’s easy to lose our sense of dependence. We’re about to be tested in this area in the next few weeks. God is asking us to take on some things that are beyond what many of us think we can handle. When God calls us to mission, he calls us to dependence on him. God invites us to join him on mission.

Before we finish this morning, there’s one more thing this passage teaches us. We’ve learned about our call to ministry.

Let’s now look at the cost of ministry.

Mark describes the sending of the Twelve in verses 7 to 13. Then he switches the topic to the popular reaction to Jesus and the execution of John the Baptist in verses 14 to 29. Then in verse 30 he returns to the original topic. Verse 30 says, “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.”

Question: Why does Mark do this? Why does Mark get us going on a subject, then change the subject, and then continue his original subject all over again? Mark does this all the time. Is Mark easily distracted? Does he have ADD? Of course, the answer is no. Mark does this deliberately. They even have a name for this: a Markan sandwich. Mark takes two seemingly unrelated stories and ties them together, telling us that we have to learn something from the combination.

What could Mark possibly be telling us from these two stories? John the Baptist is the forerunner of Jesus, and here he becomes the forerunner of Jesus and all who follow him. Mark here shows us the cost of ministry. Preaching repentance can be deadly. It cost John his life. Later on it cost Jesus his life. His mission is a dangerous one. What happened to John in his mission will happen to Jesus in his mission, and to the disciples in theirs.

Next Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Today around the world over 200 million are suffering for their faith in Jesus Christ. Paul said that this is part of what it means to follow Jesus. “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Philippians 1:29). When the apostles were persecuted, they rejoiced “because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41).

Jesus calls us to take the whole gospel to the whole person even at the cost of our lives. This is the call and this is the cost of mission.

This morning I have the privilege of standing before you and saying that God is inviting every person here to join him on mission. Every person here has been called. If you look at yourself and feel rather ordinary, then you’re in good company. That’s exactly what each person in the Twelve was: an ordinary person.

God turns to ordinary people like us an invites us to join him in what he is doing. I know there are people here who are hearing God’s call to join him on mission. It involves announcing what God has done through Jesus, and calling them to repent and trust in him. And it involves caring for people in a holistic way.

If this morning you feel inadequate or that you lack the resources, then that’s a good sign. You’re well positioned to realize how dependent you are on God. I have the sense that the problem with a lot of us – maybe the problem with our church – is that we haven’t done anything in a long time that requires us to be dependent on God. We live in safe worlds and we never fail because we never try anything. God is calling some of us this morning to move into his dangerous mission in which it’s clear we don’t have what it takes. He’s calling our church to leave the safety and to join him in mission. It’s urgent. There’s really nothing more important.

Is it dangerous? Well, it got Jesus and John the Baptist killed. Not just them either. Next Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Over 200 million Christians today are experiencing persecution because of their faith. Is the mission dangerous? It could get you killed.

But it’s the only mission that lasts. Herod killed John the Baptist. Herod’s kingdom is long gone, but John’s message is still being heard around the world. They killed Jesus, but Jesus’ death led to our life. God’s kingdom advances despite murderous evil. Nobody wastes his life who gives his life for God’s kingdom.

Let’s pray.

God has been speaking to some of you this morning through this passage. I know he’s speaking to us as a church to leave our places of safety and move into his risky and dangerous mission.

It’s not a safe mission. And it’s not one that we can handle on our own. It requires dependence on him. If you aren’t in the place where you feel your sense of dependence, it probably means you’re not on mission yet.

God calls ordinary people like us to join him. How will we respond?

Thank you, Father, that Jesus came to announce the good news that the kingdom is near. Thank you that he left heaven to enter a dangerous world, and that he gave his life so that we may be saved.

Thank you that he invites us to follow him. May we serve as Jesus served. Move us to the place where we have to depend on you. May we even be willing to risk our lives to join you on mission. Move among us now we pray. We ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.

For the past couple of months, we’ve been looking at the Gospel of Mark. It’s the earliest record of the life of Jesus based on an eyewitness account. In case you’ve missed any of what we’ve looked at so far, let me catch you up. Jesus, according to Mark, is introducing the Kingdom of God to earth. He’s setting things right again, announcing the good news that God is on the move. He’s forgiving sins and healing diseases – but he’s also making lots of enemies. Mark is asking us to consider what we do with Jesus.

This morning’s passage is a long one. In this passage you have four miracles and then a story that concludes by framing a question that we need to answer in response to what’s happened. We could have looked at each of these separately, but then we may have missed what Mark is communicating by tying these stories together.

So let’s look at the four miracle stories, unpacking them a little, and then let’s conclude by posing two questions from this passage.

Let’s look at the stories, which are all stories of hopelessness, of being at the end of human resources.

In this passage, Mark introduces us to four problems, four sets of people who have one thing in common: they face impossible problems. I’m not talking about big problems. Good stories have conflict, and the point of the story is for the character to overcome that conflict or that problem, and emerge on the other side triumphant. We’re not talking about that kind of thing. The people that Mark introduces us to do not face big problems. Their problems are impossible. They’ve exhausted every human hope. There is no where else to turn.

What’s even better is that every one of the situations Mark describes is real. What do I mean by this? Many people read these stories and think they’re wonderful, but that they’re not real. But if you look at these stories carefully, you’re going to see that they have all the marks of being eyewitness accounts. Back in Mark’s day, things were written very differently than they are now. Details were never included that were not crucial to understanding what took place. Now, when we’re writing, we like to set the scene, and we include details that help the reader visualize what things were like. Back then, they didn’t do that. But here in this passage we have all kinds of small details that don’t seem to matter: that Jesus went into the boat just as he was; where he was sleeping in the boat; that he had a pillow; the age of the little girl that was raised; that Jesus told people to get her something to eat after she was raised from the dead. Why did Mark include all of these details? Either Mark invented a style of writing that didn’t exist before this time and wasn’t used again for hundreds of years, or else this is eyewitness testimony. What Mark records here are stories that really took place with actual details, which is remarkable as we look at them.

Each of these stories deal with huge problems, impossible problems, that go far beyond any human help.

First, we see the disciples facing a life-threatening storm. At the end of chapter 4, Jesus and the disciples decide to cross the Sea of Galilee. He’d been teaching from a boat; now they use a boat to get away from the crowds. As they cross, a terrible storm arose. The Sea of Galilee is almost 700 feet below sea level. Nearby are valleys that funnel wind onto the lake. You have coo air from the Golan Heights meeting warm air coming from the lake, which leads to very unpredictable weather, and storms with waves that are over seven feet high.

That’s exactly the situation that comes up in this passage. As they’re crossing, this storm comes up. We read in verse 37, “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.” They ask Jesus, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Don’t forget that you have professional fishermen on the boat. If you’re on an airplane and the person beside you is hyperventilating, you may think nothing of it if it’s somebody who has a fear of flying. But if you’re flying through a storm, and the person sitting beside you is wearing an Air Canada pilot uniform and he’s hyperventilating, maybe you decide it’s not such a bad idea to be scared yourself. Jesus and the disciples are on a storm that’s threatening to kill him. Storms are something that no human can control. We still call them acts of God. Only God can help someone caught in a storm on a lake like Jesus and the disciples were.

Second, we have a man who has an army of evil spirits tormenting him. We live in a modern age. Some of us read stories about demons and think that this is hopelessly primitive. It seems irrational and illogical to believe in demons. But if you believe in God who is both supernatural and good, as most people do, then why would it be illogical or irrational to believe in supernaturally bad forces? C.S. Lewis warned us that there are two mistakes we can make: one is to disbelieve their existence; the other is to feel an unhealthy and excessive interest in them. The gospels tell us that demons are real. They make a distinction between those who have evil spirits and those who are sick or even mentally ill. We still don’t understand a lot about demons, but there is every reason to believe that they exist and that they are destructive and dangerous.

In the case of this man, they were both dangerous and destructive. Demons destroy everything they touch. We read:

This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. (Mark 5:3-5)

Here you have someone who has superhuman strength, who is isolated, self-destructive, and beyond any human remedy. In verse 9, when Jesus asks his name, he replies, “My name is Legion for we are many.” This isn’t just a man with one demon. You have a whole army here. A Roman legion consisted of some five to six thousand soldiers. You are dealing with an impossible situation here. To make it even worse, he was Gentile, which meant that he was not part of the people to whom God had committed himself. He was outside of the community of grace.

Then, finally, you have two stories of people who are beyond medical help. At the end of chapter 5 we have two medical crises sandwiched together. Both have things in common: they’re both involve women; both have medical issues that are beyond human help; both are ceremonially unclean according to Old Testament laws, the woman because of her illness and the young girl when she dies. But what’s even more striking are the differences:

• one has a name; the other is nameless
• one is in a family of influence and means; the other is destitute
• one approaches Jesus openly; the other is hidden and approaches Jesus from behind

They’re different, but they’re not so different. In the middle of suffering, they reach the same place of hopelessness. In fact, the person with the advantages ends up even worse.

The stories are quite sad. The woman has been sick for twelve years. Verse 23 said that she had “suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors.” In those days, some of the treatments for her disease included boiling onions in wine, drinking it, and being told, “Cease your discharge.” The worst was eating barley grain from the dung of a white mule for three days. Not only had she been subject to these bizarre treatments, but she had spent all of her money on them and had grown worse. She would have been socially excluded and hopeless.

Then you have a young girl who dies while all of this takes place. Her father, a synagogue ruler, came to ask Jesus to come and heal her, but before he got there, she died. This is the ultimate person beyond any human help. You can’t do anything to help a dead person. Sadly, her condition wouldn’t have been unusual. Sixty percent of children who survived childbirth died by their mid-teens. More children died than survived. This is the ultimate hopeless situation. It doesn’t get any worse than dead.

Somebody said that this chapter should be named after St. Jude, the saint of hopeless causes. Mark is piling up these stories to give us a sample of situations that are beyond any human help, where there is incredible human suffering and nothing that anyone can do about it.

When you think about it, pretty much every type of problem we face is here as well: natural disaster, evil spiritual forces, sickness, financial problems, loneliness and isolation, and death. When I think of the problems I encounter as pastor, that covers pretty much all of them. If we could just get rid of these problems, our lives would be a lot easier.

I love the honesty of Scripture as well. Scripture is honest about the limits of human ability to fix every problem. There are many problems too big for us to fix. Some problems are beyond professional help. Human might, medical knowledge, and money can’t fix many problems. As in the case of the man who has evil spirits, you can’t even explain every problem. If you are facing a hopeless situation beyond any human help, this passage is for you.

So we have five hopeless situations here. But then:

Look at how Jesus shows that he has authority over all the hopeless situations that nobody else can help.

It’s almost humorous to see what happens when Jesus meets each of these situations. They’re hopeless situations, destructive and even deadly, and yet look at how easily Jesus deals with them.

In the storm, Jesus says, “Quiet! Be still!” You could translate this, “Be quiet and stay quiet.” It’s how you talk to a child. Immediately, it says, the wind ceased, and there was great calm. It was dead calm. Even when a storm stops, the water remains choppy. Here the water becomes as still as a pool before anyone jumps in it. Nobody can do this, but God can. Mark is showing us that Jesus has authority over nature; and because only God has this authority, he’s forcing us to confront the question the disciples ask in verse 41: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Nobody can deal with the demons that torment the man we encounter in chapter 5, but Jesus can. Instead of battling against Jesus, they immediately recognize his authority and beg again and again that they not be sent out of that area. These demons were out of control – until they encountered Jesus. Mark is showing us that Jesus has authority over demonic power. Jesus takes someone who is naked and demonized and and transforms him into someone in his right mind, the first missionary to the Gentiles.

Then you have the woman who had a discharge of blood. Jesus didn’t even do anything to heal her. She touched him. She was ceremonially unclean, which meant that anyone she touched would become unclean. But instead, Jesus’ uncleanness made her clean. Mark is showing us that Jesus has authority over disease.

Then there’s the twelve-year-old girl who died. Jesus simply touches her hand and says, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” and she does. What he says to her is remarkable because it’s so unremarkable. He says exactly what a mother would to a child on a sunny day when it’s time to get out of bed. And then Jesus tells them to get her something to eat. This isn’t the first time that a child was raised from the dead in Scripture, but when Elisha was used to raise a boy, it was much harder. Not only does Jesus have authority over nature, demons, and disease, he also has authority even over death. Every person in these stories is a victim of circumstances with no hope apart from Jesus. These problems are all beyond human help, but none of them are problems for Jesus. They almost seem inconsequential to Jesus in these stories that Mark offers us.

Mark is not saying that if you follow Jesus, he will calm all of the storms and heal all the diseases and deal with all of your problems. That’s the last thing he’s saying. What he is saying is that all of these problems came into the world as a result of sin, as a result of what the first Adam did. And now Jesus is the second Adam, who is undoing the effects of sin. He has authority over all the forces of evil that stand against his kingdom. He has authority over all powers that are hostile to God and that destroy us.

Jesus not only has authority, but he used that authority to save us. The one who had authority over evil took on evil at the cross. He was stripped and made unclean so that we could be clothed and be made clean and in our right mind. He who raised the dead died himself so that he could destroy death and bring life and immortality to light through the gospel. He became unclean so we could be made clean; he died so that we may live.

This leads us to the last story, and two questions we’re left to answer.

In chapter 6, Jesus returns to his hometown. Word of what Jesus did has reached them. They basically asked the same question the disciples asked when Jesus calmed the storm, back in Mark 4:41: “Who is this?” Look at Mark 6:2-3 as they react to his teaching and his miracles:

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Jesus has divine authority over nature, evil, sickness, and death, which leads us to ask: who is he? The people in Jesus’ hometown – even in his own family – couldn’t accept the answer. They saw only a builder, the son of Mary, a village son who had returned for a visit. Jesus, we read in verse 6, was amazed by their unbelief.

We’re left with two questions as we conclude this passage. The first question has to do with where we turn with our hopeless causes. Many of us here face situations that are far beyond human help. We’re desperate like many of the people in this passage. We haven’t yet learned what Martin Luther wrote about in an old hymn:

Did we in our own strength confide
our striving would be losing;
Were not the right man on our side,
the man of God’s own choosing.

This passage reminds us that our hope isn’t in human strength. God won’t take away all our suffering and all of our problems, but he has authority over everything that opposes him and destroys us. He has divine authority over nature, evil, sickness, and death. This gives us great confidence as we suffer. We may not have all the answers, but we can know that God is in control, and that he will one day set all things right.

This passage leaves us with a second question. Who is this? We can answer as they did in his hometown – or, like the Gentile man whose demons were cast out, we can tell what Jesus has done for us. Like Jairus, we can come and plead with him, presenting our hopeless case before him and pleading for him to do something with it. Or, if we lack faith, we can approach him quietly from behind trembling in fear. It’s not the amount of faith that matters; it’s that Jesus is the object of our weak faith.

Jesus has divine authority over nature, evil, sickness, and death. Who is he? The answer changes everything.

Father, we pray for those who have insurmountable problems. Some of us have problems beyond human help. We bring them to you today. We thank you that Jesus has authority over nature, evil, sickness, and death. Thank you that he became unclean so that we could be made clean; that he died so that we could live.

Help us to answer the question: who is this? “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” “Where did this man get these things?” May we come to understand who Jesus really is and what he has done. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Elisabeth Elliot is a well-known Christian author who’s written many well-known books, but, as far as I know, only one novel. It’s called No Graven Image. And when this novel was published, people hated it.

It’s the story of Margaret Sparhawk, a godly woman who goes to the mission field full of zeal and high ideals. She is going to completely surrender to God and she is going to give her life in service to him. She does go. She learns the language and creates a large body of work on the culture and language of the tribe. She works to build trust so she can spread the gospel. But after the tragic accidental death of an associate, the tribe of people turn against her and in minutes destroy all the work she has done, a lifetime of dedication taken away in an instant. That’s how the book ends.

You can see why people hated the book. Where’s the happy ending? How could God allow her work to go to waste? Many felt that God would never allow this to happen to somebody serving so faithfully. And yet others found the book to be refreshingly honest and realistic. Many missionaries do serve a lifetime and have nothing to show for it at the end. Many churches do work faithfully but never become what the world would term a success. Many parents do teach their children the gospel, but the children never respond. We’ve taught the youth group or a Sunday school class, but there’s nothing to show for it. And it causes us to get discouraged, and even to give up.

This is exactly the situation that the passage in front of us addresses. This passage teaches us three things that we desperately need to learn. First: what ministry looks like. Second: what’s really happening. And finally: the results. If we pay attention to this passage, it will renew us in our ministries like nothing else. I need to hear this, and maybe some of you do as well.

So let’s begin by seeing what this passage teaches us about what ministry looks like.

When I was a child, I sensed that God was calling me to one day be a pastor. I’m not sure that I really knew what it would look like, but I think I expected that it would be glamorous work. But Eugene Peterson got it right. He’s been pastor for much longer than me, and this is what he says about the people in the congregation:

…this haphazard collection of people who somehow get assembled into pews on Sundays, half-heartedly sing a few songs most of them don’t like, tune in and out of a sermon according to the state of their digestion and the preacher’s decibels, awkward in their commitments and jerky in their prayers.

I almost feel like I have to add what my grandfather used to say: “present company excepted.” But you know what he’s talking about. And here is what ministry is like:

It is like farm work. Most pastoral work involves routines similar to cleaning out the barn, mucking out the stalls, spreading manure, pulling weeds. This is not, any of it, bad work in itself, but if we expected to ride a glistening black stallion in daily parades and then return to the barn where a lackey grooms our steed for us, we will be severely disappointed and end up being horribly resentful.

There is much that is glorious in pastoral work, but the congregation, as such, is not glorious…I don’t deny that there are moments of splendor in congregations. There are. Many and frequent. But there are also conditions of squalor…

Now, he’s talking about pastoring, but I think we need to recognize that what he says is true of ministry in general. I don’t know what type of ministry you’re involved with. You may be a small group leader or a Bible study leader. You may be teaching kids or running the women’s program. Your ministry may not show up on an org chart anywhere, because a lot of ministry takes place under the radar where nobody sees it. But I’ll tell you this: ministry is unglamorous. It often looks insignificant, and the results are hard to measure. This is what ministry is like by its very nature.

We’re going to get to more encouraging news in a minute, but we need to realize this because if we don’t, we’ll give up. But look with me for a minute at this passage. The reason that Jesus told these stories is, I think, to explain what may have been perplexing to his followers. Jesus came announcing that the kingdom of God was at hand. He announced this good news, and he healed diseases and cast out demons as signposts pointing to what the kingdom looks like. You would expect that now that God had come in person that the results would be staggering. But we’ve seen already in Mark that it’s not staggering at all. Many follow him, but the reviews are mixed. The Pharisees, the Herodians, and the scribes from Jerusalem hated Jesus and his message. Even Jesus’ family thought he was crazy. By all accounts, Jesus’ ministry at this point was a failure. And Jesus stops to teach his followers something that they need to know: ministry looks insignificant and often looks like a failure. Even Jesus’ ministry did. But appearances can be deceiving. We should never judge ministry a failure just because it looks like a failure, because something much deeper is going on.

But just look for a minute at the stories Jesus told. In verses 1 to 20, he tells a story about a farmer who sows seed. Although the farmer works very hard, the seed fails three out of four times. Most of the time, it looks like failure.

Then, in verses 26 to 29, he tells the story of a farmer who scatters seed in the ground. If you’ve planted seed you know that it is an act of faith. I bought some grass seed a year ago, did all the prep work in the backyard. I eventually spread the seed. Every day I went out back and watered the dirt. The instructions said that I would start to see something happen in about 10 days. I have to admit that I had a crisis of faith on day 6, and again on day 7, and even on day 8. I’d done all the work and I had nothing to show for it yet, and there were no guarantees at that point that day 10 would be any different.

Then Jesus compares his kingdom in verses 30 to 32 to a mustard seed, which was a small, unnoticed, and insignificant seed that didn’t look like much.

And in these three stories Jesus is telling us that his kingdom and his work often looks small. It often looks inconspicuous. It often seems that nothing is happening. You don’t always see impressive results. The kingdom does not come in strength, but it comes in weakness. Quite honestly, it often looks like a failure.

Question: if this is what ministry looked like for Jesus, why would we expect it to be any different for us? If your ministry feels like a failure, if it feels small and insignificant, and if you don’t have much to show for it at this point, then you’re in good company. Jesus knows what it feels like. That’s the very nature of ministry.

Now, if we ended the sermon here, it would be a little like saying that life is hard and then you die. You’re all dismissed. Have a great week. But the passage doesn’t end here, and neither does the sermon. Jesus wants us to realize what ministry looks like, but then he wants us to see something else.

Let’s look at what’s really happening.

Jesus’ ministry looked like a failure. The religious leaders and even his family rejected him. But what’s really going on?

When something goes wrong, our first temptation is to look at the person responsible to see if there is some fault in what they are doing. So we tend to look at ourselves and think there is something wrong with us, or that we are doing something wrong. This is sometimes the case – but according to this passage, not always. When it looks like we’re failing in ministry, we should look at ourselves, but we should also look much deeper. Something else may be going on.

The first parable in verses 1 to 20 is often called the parable of the sower. But if you look carefully, the sower really isn’t the main point of the parable at all. Others call it the parable of the seed, but even that isn’t completely accurate. You could call the parable the parable of the soils, because the key and determining factor for the success of the crop is not the sower, or the seed. The sower is doing everything he can, and the same seed is sown everywhere. The difference is where the seed lands. When Jesus interprets the parable, he’s saying that the apparent lack of success is not because he has failed, or because his gospel is deficient. It’s because of the condition of those who are receiving his word: the Pharisees, the scribes, and even his family. He even quotes a puzzling passage from Isaiah, which a lot of people struggle over. But his point is that God’s Word and the gospel separate us according to our response. The fact that some people reject the gospel is not a failure of God or his gospel. It’s actually what’s supposed to happen. And given the nature of the soil conditions, failure is not at all surprising. We shouldn’t be discouraged, because even when it’s rejected, the gospel is only revealing the condition of the heart of the person who has rejected it.

Notice also in verses 26 to 29 something we need to see. The farmer scatters seed. It’s not that the farmer is unimportant. He has an important role. But notice what the farmer doesn’t do. The farmer doesn’t make the seed grow. He sleeps and gets up. Life goes on as it always does. It seems routine and mundane. But he contributes nothing in between sowing the seed and eventually harvesting it. All he does is wait. Jesus is telling us that we have a role in his kingdom. We have an important role. But the growth and success of his kingdom does not depend on us. It doesn’t depend on human effort, and human insight can’t even explain it. The seed grows, and so does the kingdom. God will take care of the results.

And then notice the mustard seed in verses 30 to 32 which looks small. But you see that the smallness of the mustard seed doesn’t tell the whole story.

What is Jesus saying? He is telling us that his kingdom does look small and insignificant. It even looks like a failure. But beneath the surface, it is accomplishing exactly what it should. Jesus gives us the confidence to see that we have a role in ministry. It’s an important role. He’s chosen to use us. But the growth doesn’t ultimately depend on us. He is in charge of the results. To human eyes, it looks futile and fruitless, resulting in repeated failures. But God is at work beneath the surface. It’s not up to us. God is at work. Ignoring all failures and against all odds, God is carrying on his beginning to completion. God is at work despite appearances.

So we’ve seen what ministry looks like: small, insignificant, and often like it’s a failure. We’ve seen what’s happening below the surface: that we have a role, but God is at work despite all odds and despite the appearances. That’s all good, but it still leaves us feeling like maybe things won’t turn out well. But there’s one more thing we have to see in this passage.

Let’s look at the results.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that if three-quarters of a farmer’s labor is wasted, that the farmer would be discouraged? But notice that story of the sower and the seed ends on anything but a sad note. Jesus says in Mark 4:8: “Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”

You would think, wouldn’t you, that a mustard seed doesn’t hold much promise? It looks small. But Jesus says in Mark 4:32: “Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

The kingdom begins in a small, unnoticed way. It mostly goes on unnoticed. It often looks insignificant. It’s weak and unglamorous. Things don’t go as we expect. But never look down on small beginnings. Never mistake apparent failure for true failure. The kingdom is growing. God is at work. He will bring about results that go beyond our asking or conceiving. The kingdom often meets with adversity, rejection, and delay, but Jesus says the results will be astounding in spite of inconspicuous beginnings. God is at work in hidden and unobserved ways. Despite discouraging odds, the harvest in Jesus’ ministry – and in ours as we join him will be beyond compare.

Years ago, G. Campbell Morgan visited a cemetery in Italy. And he noticed a huge marble slab right in the center of the cemetery. It was massive and thick. Yet, somehow, almost 100 years earlier, a small acorn had fallen into the grave where the man was buried. Over the years that little acorn grew and grew until one day it broke through the surface and cracked that marble slab into two pieces. Eventually, that tree grew up and rolled the marble slab into two pieces. With some good soil, a little water, and just a hint of light, that seed released the power to crack that massive marble slab in two.

When that acorn dropped, nobody said, “Bombs away!” It fell in weakness. But that acorn had the power to break through the thickest slab. Despite appearances, the strength of that acorn prevailed over the apparent strength of the marble.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson commissioned two men to find the source of the Missouri river. They kept following the river. They kept following until 15 months later they came to its source. The journal of the explorer records that a member of the expedition “exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked God that he had lived to bestride the mighty and heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”

Where we stand may look small, but as we trace things back we will find that we are a small tributary connected to a large river that would stagger us if we saw it. David Neff writes:

Is our gospel too small? From what Jesus says, I think that God likes small. Small and hidden, actually.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It is like yeast. It is like a perfect pearl. It is like finding just one lost sheep. Or just one lost coin. It belongs to little children and others who were “small” in the estimation of Jesus’ contemporaries.

God likes small beginnings. He likes to work in hidden ways that are easily overlooked. He loves any lost individual, even when he has 99 percent of the others safely under his care. He passionately cares for the socially unimportant whom others trample as they rush toward worldly prominence…

Small doesn’t mean “insignificant” or “of no consequence.” Indeed, the Good News of Jesus Christ is the most consequential news bulletin in the history of the world. And the individuals for whom he died are, as the old Sunday school song says, his “precious jewels.”

God offered us something that could have been small, obscure, and forgettable. He didn’t offer us some grand universal principle. His gift was the life and death (and resurrection!) of just one person in a small country repeatedly crushed and occupied by foreign powers. He does not give us love or peace or brotherhood. He gives us Jesus, who died like a common criminal.

But when we pay attention to the small thing God gives us, it changes our entire approach to life. We see the world differently. What had seemed insignificant now demands our full attention. What had seemed ordinary now seems interesting. What had seemed a dead end now promises great potential–the redemption of the whole world.

Let’s pray.

Father, may we see you at work even when it’s hidden and even when it’s small. As somebody has said, “At the end of the life of Jesus, he cried out from the cross, ‘It is finished.’ So it must have been a success. But by human standards, his ministry at that point would have been judged a failure.”

May we see that Jesus’ work on the cross changes everything and offers hope to the weakest here. And because of that work, and because of Easter, may we be stand firm, letting nothing move us, giving ourselves fully to the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor is not in vain. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

You can say a lot sometimes without coming right out and saying it. In this morning’s passage, the gospel writer presents a series of vignettes. He’s skillful in how he arranges them, and if you look carefully and meditate on them, you begin to realize exactly what he’s saying.

So what’s going on here? Mark presents three stories – about his disciples, the scribes from Jerusalem, and his family. And the picture he creates using these stories is of two groups of people.

• The first group are the insiders: those who are close to Jesus. Mark says in this passage that Jesus is creating a new group of people who may be the most unlikely group of people.
• And then there’s a second group of people: the outsiders. There is another group of people who are opposed to Jesus and his purposes, and it’s not who you would expect.

This passage is all about describing these two groups of people: insiders and outsiders. Mark intends for those of us who read this passage to ask which group we belong to. He wants us to see that those who assume that they are close to Jesus should think again; those who assume that they are far from him should take hope.

So let’s look at this passage, and ask two questions: what’s it like to be an outsider? And what does it take to become an insider, one who is in relationship with Jesus and on track with what he is doing?

Outsiders

The ultimate image of what it means to be an outsider in this passage is found in verse 31: “Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.”

When you read this verse at first, you may think that Mark is simply describing the physical location of the people in the scene he describes. He is doing that for sure, but he’s doing more. Mark has just told us stories of people who are part of what Jesus is doing, but he’s also told us stories of people who are not getting it. The last story that Mark tells, in verses 31 to 35, tie the stories together, and give us a vivid image of what it looks like to be an outsider: standing outside. The contrast, of course, is found in verses 32 and 34: “A crowd was sitting around him” and “he looked at those seated in a circle around him.”

What is Mark telling us? He’s saying that there are two categories of people, two categories that apply to us today just as much as they did when these events took place. There is no third option. This morning you are either standing outside, or you are inside seated in a circle around Jesus Christ. One or the other.

Even more than that, this image is surprising, because Mark includes Jesus’ own family in the group of outsiders. We see in verse 21 that his family wanted to seize him because they thought that he was out of his mind. These are Jesus’ own brothers – those who knew Jesus best. I’ll grant that having Jesus as your older brother would not be the easiest thing in the world. I don’t know how many times they were told as they were asked as they grew up, “Why can’t you be more like Jesus?” It wouldn’t have been easy, but as they saw Jesus grow and as they began to see and hear what Jesus was doing – preaching, healing, casting out demons – I wonder if they recalled stories they may have heard as they were growing up about the birth of Jesus; of their mother being visited by an angel, and of her realization that this was no ordinary child. We don’t know, but we do know that at this point his own family stood outside. Even the holy family – including his brother who would one day be the key leader in the early church – are placed under question.

What this means is that relationship with God is not a matter of genetics. You can be a blood relative of Jesus and still be an outsider. You can grow up amid the trappings of Christianity, grow up in a Christian home, attend church regularly, be baptized, and give sacrificially, and still stand outside. You can think you’re in and still be out. Mark is asking us to consider where we stand, keeping in mind that sometimes those who are close to Jesus should think again, because they in fact are outside even though they think they’re in.

What does it mean to be an outsider? What does it mean to be an outsider? The two groups of outsiders in this passage give us two ways of being outsiders. They’re not exhaustive. There are lots more ways to be outsiders, but Mark highlights two especially that are relevant to us.

The first type of outsider is typified by Jesus’ family. Notice verses 20 and 21, and verse

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

…Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.

We don’t know why Jesus’ family sent someone in to call him, but it’s possible that they were still trying to seize him, believing that Jesus had somehow become unhinged.

It’s impossible to know exactly what Jesus’ family was thinking in this passage. We should notice, by the way, how remarkable it is that Mark included this account. Later on, Jesus’ brother James became a key leader in the early church, and wrote the book of James. Jesus’ brother Jude wrote what we have in our Bibles as the second last book in our Bibles, the book of Jude. If Mark was simply making stuff up, he would never have included such incriminating and embarrassing information about the very family of Jesus. He’s clear that Jesus’ very own family, including those who became key leaders in the early church, were at one time completely wrong in their understanding of Jesus no better in a sense than his enemies.

What this tells us is that you can be an outsider if you are sincere but misguided about Jesus’ identity and mission. This is scary, because Jesus’ family were no doubt very sincere and well-meaning in their efforts. They weren’t willfully disobedient. They just didn’t get it. This means that some outsiders are people who in fact are very sincere, who actually like Jesus and want the best for Jesus, but who don’t completely buy in to what he’s doing. Outsiders are sometimes people who like Jesus quite a bit, and are very sincere, but are a little uncomfortable – maybe a lot uncomfortable – with some of what we read in Mark.

On one hand, this makes total sense if Jesus isn’t the Son of God. C.S. Lewis argued this very well. You can’t simply say that Jesus was a good man and a good teacher. Jesus Christ was one of three things; a liar, a mad-man or the son of God. You have to admire that Jesus’ family at least had the courage to face up to the only choices that exist. If you don’t believe that he is the Son of God, then you have to conclude that he’s completely off his rocker, or else a baldfaced liar.

But consider if Jesus is really who he says he is. To sincerely disbelieve would be a tragedy. A recent promotion by H. R. Block offered walk-in customers a chance to win a drawing for a million dollars. Glen and Gloria Sims of Sewell, New Jersey, won the prize, but they refused to believe it when a representative phoned them with the good news.

After several additional contacts by both mail and phone, the Sims still thought it was all just a scam, and usually hung up the phone or trashed the special notices. Weeks later, H. R. Block called one more time to let the Sims know the deadline for accepting the million-dollar prize was nearing and that the story of their refusal to accept the prize would appear on an upcoming NBC “Today Show.” Mr. Sims decided to investigate further. A few days later he appeared on the “Today Show” to tell America that he and his wife had finally gone to H. R. Block to claim the million-dollar prize. His final words were: “From the time this has been going on, H. R. Block explained to us they really wanted a happy ending to all this, and they were ecstatic that we finally accepted the prize.”

The Sims were sincere but misguided, and it almost cost them a million dollars. You can be sincere but misguided about Jesus, and end up an outsider at an even greater cost. Even Jesus’ family was in that position in this passage.

Mark describes another way to be an outsider. You can be an outsider by deliberately scorning the power and forgiveness of God. You see this verses 22 to 30. Jesus has now come to the attention of the religious establishment in Jerusalem. They can’t deny his power. There’s no questioning that he’s performing miracles. There’s only one way to dodge the issue: they attribute his power to Satan. Jesus easily refutes this charge, of course. “How can Satan drive out Satan?” he asks (Mark 3:23). Someone strong has arrived – Jesus – and has bound Satan and is plundering his house. It’s clear that Jesus’ power comes from the Holy Spirit. But the teachers of the law miss it.

This is not a case of sincere but misguided beliefs. This is not a mistake. This is informed and willful rejection. It’s a clear and intentional rejection of Jesus by people who should have known better. It’s a second way to be lost – one that continues to today. Some people are outsiders, even though they know better, simply because they are not ready to yield to what is obviously true about Jesus. They suppress the truth, and they deliberately reject him.

Jesus says that this is a sin that won’t be forgiven. Some people get worried when they read this, because they wonder if they’ve committed the unpardonable sin. The fact that you worry about this is probably a sign that you haven’t. It’s a sign that you probably haven’t deliberately scorned the power and forgiveness of God. What Jesus is talking about here is being so out of touch with God that you attribute his works to that of his archenemy Satan. If you persist in your deliberate rejection of God and his work, you are an outsider, and you won’t be forgiven. Your problem will be the same as the person who goes to the doctor who has medicine that can cure an illness, but that person refuses to take the lifesaving medication and dies.

These are two ways that you could be an outsider. They’re very different at first glance, but in the end they’re not that different at all. Whether you’re sincere but misguided, or willfully scornful, in the end you’re united as outsiders. You’re united in your opposition, even if you are a Bible teacher, or even if you have family connections. Those who think they’re close to Jesus need to be careful, Mark says, because they may in fact be outsiders. Remaining an outsider when Jesus is in the house is a tragedy beyond belief.

Insiders

What, then, does it mean to be an insider? The good news is that the insiders in this passage kind of look like outsiders, which means that you can be an insider even if you don’t feel like it. The image that Mark gives us is a contrast to that of the outsiders. Rather than standing outside, they are sitting around him, seated in a circle. And they’re not the Bible-believing religious crowd or blood relatives of Jesus. Those people are outside. Who is on the inside? The crowds. The rift-raft. Those who assume that they are close to Jesus should think again. Those who assume that they are far from him should take hope. They just may be insiders.

Jesus actually tells us what it means to be an insider. Verses 34 and 35 say:

Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

The core family of God, Jesus says, are those who do God’s will. They’re the ones who obediently listen to Jesus and obey him.

Mark gives us another picture of those who are insiders. In verses 13 to 19 Jesus calls twelve out of the crowd to take on a special role. Israel had twelve tribes; this is like the formation of the new people of God.

They have a twofold job description, according to verse 14: “they might be with him.” Secondly, in verses 14 and 15: “that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons” – that they may be an extension of Jesus’ ministry. Later on, Luke described people’s reactions after observing some of these apostles: “they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Being an insider means that we take our place before Jesus; that we commit to doing his will; that we enter into relationship with Jesus, spend time with him, and become extensions of his ministry. Anyone can be an insider who sits at Jesus’ feet and does the will of his Father, and no one can be an insider who does not. And if you’re an insider, Jesus says, you’re closer to Jesus than family. You are his family.

Mark wants us to realize that there is no middle way. He’s either the Son of God who’s bringing God’s Kingdom, or he’s a madman. And based on what you do with Jesus, you’re either standing outside, or you’re inside doing God’s will.

What you need to know is that, at the cross, Jesus became the ultimate outsider so that he could make us insiders. He became rejected by God so that we could be accepted by him. No middle ground. Some that you’d think would be in are actually out. Those who have no in actually are in – not because of who they are, but because Jesus has made them insiders.

I’d like to pray with two groups of people this morning. The first are those who, like the teachers of the law and Jesus’ family, have every reason to think they’re insiders. Some of you know the Bible well. You go to church regularly. You grew up in a Christian family. You are generous with your money. But you’re an outsider because you haven’t dealt with Jesus. Pray that God would reveal to you this morning that you’re an outsider if you really are. It’s far better to know. God prevent us from ever thinking we’re in when we’re not.

I’d like to pray for those here today who know they’re outsiders. Jesus became an outsider so we could be brought inside. He looks around today and says to the most unlikely people: “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” You can be part of Jesus’ new and larger family circle because of what he has done to bring you in.

Father, thank you that “now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). May this be true of everyone here. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

A couple of summers ago, our family went swimming in the ocean. It was a beautiful day, and we had a blast. It was one of those days that makes you wish that summer could last forever – beautiful rays, great water, and complete relaxation.

It was only when we were leaving the beach that we read the sign that was posted at the entrance to the beach. The sign warned of extreme danger. The water was indeed beautiful, but underneath the surface there were strong undercurrents that could sweep you away.

I’m used to ignoring warnings that can seem a little over the top, but this warning seemed to be the real deal. We wondered later if we would have been so carefree if we knew the danger that existed right where we were swimming.

The passage we’re looking at this morning is a little like that. At first glance, it’s beautiful. This morning we’re going to see things that should make our hearts sing for joy as we read about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark. At first glance, it’s all beauty. It’s one of these passages that make you revel in the Word of God.

But not too far below the surface, there are dangerous undercurrents that threaten to sweep us away. This passage, which really should be all good news, ends up leaving us a bit unsettled. This morning I want to show you the beauty. I don’t want us to miss seeing the very good news in this passage. But then, as we come out the back end, I want to point to the warning in this passage that alerts us to a very real danger that could sweep us away.

First, though, let’s look at the beauty.

You can’t look at this passage without seeing the very good news. The passage that we just read contains five stories. We could camp out at any of these stories for a while, because each one contains so much.

Let’s look at the first story, found in the first 12 verses of chapter 2. In this story we see that Jesus offers far more than we ask for. The scene is a house in Capernaum, a small town on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. This may have been Peter’s house, but verse 1 leaves us wondering if this was Jesus’ home. At the very least, it was Jesus’ adopted home town. Jesus was preaching the Word in this packed house that could hold up to maybe 50 people, and people are packed even outside. It’s unbelievable.

But what’s even more unbelievable is what happened next. As Jesus preached, parts of the roof began to fall on people’s heads inside. You can imagine everybody looking up. The roof would have been flat, overlaid with reeds, palm branches, and dried mud. This group of people dug through the roof, and lowered a paralyzed man on a cheap mattress, a poor man’s mat, through the opening in the roof down to where Jesus was.

What happened next boggles the mind. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5). Why would Jesus talk about his sins instead of just healing him? We know that sickness is in general a result of the sin that entered the world, but the Bible is very clear that sickness is not always a direct result of sin. Perhaps Jesus knew that this paralyzed man was struggling not only with his paralysis but with a sense of guilt. Maybe Jesus or this man saw the link.

But remember what we said last week? Jesus’ miracles are not just displays of power. They point to what the world will be like when the kingdom comes in its fullness. So Jesus does more than this man asks for: he not only heals this man, but he forgives his sins. It’s a picture for us of what life will be like in the kingdom. Not only will our bodies be perfectly healthy for the first time, but our souls will be healed as well. We will be forgiven – completely forgiven. Jesus offers far more than we even expected.

Then there’s the second story found in verses 13 to 17. There was a major trade route near Capernaum. As Jesus walked and taught the crowd, he saw a tax collector at what was probably a toll booth.

Now, you and I aren’t fans of the tax collector. If you’re at a party and you ask what somebody does for a living, and they say they’re an auditor for the Canada Revenue Agency, you’ll probably say, “Oh” and walk away. We may not like the tax collector today, but you have to magnify this many times to get to the way people felt about tax collectors back then. In that day tax collectors were seen as traitors and cheats. They were Jewish and yet were collaborating with the enemy. They’d sold out to a hostile and culture. They were also known for their dishonesty – you could even say extortion. Tax collectors were seen so negatively that rabbis taught that it was permissible to lie to them.

So you can picture the crowd coming to this tax booth. There were maybe glares. Others looked away. Some might have been ready to insult the tax man as they passed by. But Jesus looked at him and said, “Follow me.” Not only that, but he then went to his house and, according to verse 15, had dinner with “many tax collectors and sinners”.

Meals in that culture were a big deal. In eating with these tax collectors and sinners, Jesus wasn’t just sharing a meal. He was expressing his acceptance of them. The meal was a concrete expression of God’s forgiveness and acceptance of them. Jesus doesn’t just tolerate them or reluctantly accept them; he sits and eats with them. He befriends them. Jesus befriends and feasts with those that others consider not worth saving.

This is great news for those of us who sometimes wonder if we’re beyond God’s reach. You probably know the hymn Amazing Grace. You may know that the person who wrote that hymn, John Newton, was a slave trader. In 1750, at the age of 25, he commanded an English slave ship. He purchased slaves in Africa. He put them on board below deck in two-foot-high pens to prevent suicides. As many as six hundred lay side by side like fireplace logs, row after row. There were no facilities and there was no ventilation. The ship had chains, neck collars, handcuffs, and thumbscrews, a torture device. Newton allowed the crew to rape female slaves, as he did himself. Sometimes a quarter of the slaves died on the journey. Newton blasphemed God and engaged in brutality and immorality.

So when John Newton wrote, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me,” he knew what he was talking about. Years later, at the age of 82, shortly before his death, he said, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” Jesus befriends and feasts with those that others consider not worth saving.

Then there’s the third story, found in verses 18 to 21. It’s a shorter story. Basically, Jesus was asked why he didn’t fast more. Jews were only required to fast once a year, but some of them took it further and fasted twice a week. They wanted to know why Jesus wasn’t more solemn.

Jesus answered this question using three pictures. First, he uses the picture of a wedding to say that the coming of the kingdom is a time for celebration. I’ve been to some solemn weddings, and it doesn’t work. Weddings are supposed to be celebrations. In that day, a wedding party could take seven days. That’s how you celebrate! Jesus says that the coming of the kingdom is not a time for solemnity. It’s a time for celebration and joy.

Jesus then uses two pictures of putting a patch on old clothes, and pouring new wine into old wineskins. What he says in these pictures is that he is doing something completely new. The old forms of Judaism are incompatible with the new, he’s saying. It’s not that the old forms are bad; it’s just that what Jesus is doing is so new and packs so much power that the old can’t contain it.

There are some people who think that Jesus is not that different from the religious practices of other faiths. Jesus says here that his ministry and his gospel don’t fit at all with anything else. They can’t be plastered on to the law. He is doing something that is completely new, that the world has never seen before.

Not only that, but some people think that piety is all about solemnity. There’s a place for solemnity, but solemnity and godliness are two different things. To quote Tony Campolo, the kingdom of God is a party. What God is doing should cause our hearts to rejoice like nothing else. When we really understand what Jesus is doing, it should fill us with joy that we can’t get anywhere else.

Well, two more stories quickly. In verses 23 to 28 we see that Jesus sees past religious rules to the freedom that is found in truth. There are all kinds of rules that religious people teach. If you ask them why, I’ve found that they’re sometimes pretty vague about the reasons. Later on as you read the Bible you find out that there’s no biblical basis for many of the rules that they live by. Have you experienced this? Jesus has no time for this.

In that day, people had a concern about keeping the Sabbath. This was good: the Sabbath was a command, a way to honor God, and a profession of faith. But some people had taken things so far that they went way beyond what God had said about the Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples walked along and picked some heads of grain as they walked. This didn’t violate any law in the Old Testament. This didn’t dishonor God in any way. But it violated religious rules that people had created. Jesus sees past the rules and even finds Old Testament precedent for what they’re doing. You could say that Jesus rules over the rules.

This is great news for those of us who can’t stand rules. God’s laws are not burdensome; they are for our good and for our joy. Jesus breaks through religious rules and leads us to the freedom that is found in truth.

Last story in the first 6 verses of chapter 3: Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath despite the objections of the religiously scrupulous. This time, verse 5 says, Jesus gets angry and distressed at the reaction of the religious. Jesus cares far more for people than he does for religiously uptight rules.

No wonder so many people followed him. We read in verses 7 to 12 that a large crowd followed him. Jesus’ ministry is remarkable. There’s such a beauty in this passage as we see what Jesus is up to:

• He restores people’s health and forgives their sins
• He isn’t put off by sinners, but he welcomes and befriends them
• He’s doing something new and full of celebration
• He can’t put up with rules but he brings freedom
• He really cares for people

This should all be good news. It is all really good news. It was certainly good news for a lot of the people who began to understand what Jesus is all about and who followed him. You can’t help but read these stories without sensing the beauty and newness of what Jesus is doing.

But there’s an undercurrent in these stories.

Each of these stories is a story of opposition. It’s really a warning to all of us who are gathered here this morning, because the undercurrent generally tends to affect people just like us.

The people who struggled the most with Jesus in these stories are people we would have guessed would get it. If we were around back then, and we worried about the spiritual condition of people, these would have been the last people we would have worried about. We may have prayed about the sinners and the masses, but we wouldn’t have been too worried about these people.

These were the scribes (learned and devout Jews who really knew the Hebrew Scriptures), and the Pharisees (a group of devout followers who were rigorous in their obedience to the Law). In each of these stories, these two groups struggled with Jesus. They’re on a collision course with Jesus. It reaches a climax in Mark 3:5: “Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”

This passage, these stories, are a warning sign to us of the undercurrent that can sweep us away, because we are just like these people. What are the warning signs?

Refusing to recognize who Jesus is – I know all kinds of religious people who believe that Jesus was a good man and a great teacher, but they have a hard time accepting that he is God. They believe that Jesus never claimed to be God.

That’s exactly the mindset that tripped these people up. All through this passage, Jesus confronts us with who he is. He calls himself the “Son of Man” in 2:12 and 2:28. The term Son of Man comes from the Hebrew Scriptures. Daniel 7:13-14 says:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Jesus claims to be this one. He also claims to have authority to forgive sins, and he says he is the Lord of the Sabbath.

You may be a very religious person this morning who is willing to accept Jesus to a point, but unless you see Jesus for who he is – as God himself come as a person – then you are in danger of being swept away by the same undercurrent that swept these religious people away.

Not liking the people Jesus loves – Jesus loves people that we think are beyond saving. We wish he wouldn’t be so extravagant with his love.

Westley Allan Dodd tortured, molested, and murdered three boys. He was scheduled to become the first U.S. criminal to be hanged in three decades. At dinner that evening, two Christian girls, aged eleven and thirteen, prayed that Dodd would repent and believe in Christ before he died. The father, also a Christian, agreed with their prayer – but only because he knew he should. His heart wasn’t in it.

After he died, eyewitnesses to the execution reported Dodd’s last words: “I had thought there was no hope and no peace. I was wrong. I have found hope and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ.” The idea that God would offer grace to someone like that offended many. That father who prayed half-heartedly said that he came to realize that in God’s eyes, “I am Dodd…Only by the virtue of Christ can I stand forgiven before a holy God” (Randy Alcorn, If God is Good). We dare not be offended at the people God forgives once we see our own need for grace.

Tim Keller says:

Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.

Missing Jesus for all our religion – The thing we discover in these stories is that our religion can help us miss Jesus rather than find him. The thing that kept the religious leaders from seeing who Jesus is, and entering the celebration, is that they couldn’t see Jesus for all their religious traditions and preferences. The people who missed God when he came were the people who were most convinced in their hearts that they knew God. They couldn’t see him for all their rules and religion.

This morning, it’s like Mark has taken us to the ocean of the gospel. He’s showed us the beauty and he invites us to enter in and swim and revel in what God is doing. But he’s also warned us that if we’re not careful, we’ll miss what God is doing, and we’ll be swept away. You’ve seen the beauty and you’ve heard the warning. How will you respond?

Father, the people who should have welcomed Jesus missed him. They were swept away by the undercurrents and were ultimately destroyed.

This morning you invite us to see Jesus, the Son of Man, and to revel in the newness of power of what he is doing. Help us not to miss it. Especially help those of us who think we’re religious not to miss Jesus, like the religious of his day did. Instead, may we see Jesus for who he is. May we love the people he loves with his scandalous grace. And may we never miss him because of all of our religion. We pray and plead this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Last week we began to look at the Gospel of Mark. Mark is the written record of an eyewitness account of the ministry of Jesus Christ. It’s short and punchy. I really encourage you to not just read the Gospel of Mark, but to listen to it. It was designed to be heard, and when you hear it, it grabs you.

Today we come to really the heart of what Jesus is all about. Many people respect Jesus as a moral teacher or as a prophet or a great man. Today we have, through Mark, the heart of what Jesus is all about. We have one of the shortest and most important summaries of his ministry in this passage, and then we have some stories that show what his ministry was like. This is almost like Jesus’ whole ministry and message in a nutshell.

So let’s look at the passage we just read and ask: What is Jesus all about? Secondly, what does it look like? Finally, what does this have to do with us?

First question: What is Jesus all about?

Before we decide to accept or reject Jesus, we really have to understand: what is Jesus all about? What was his message? If you had just thirty seconds to get to the heart of who Jesus is and what he came to do, what would you say?

Right off the bat, Mark gives us an incredibly important summary statement of the message of Jesus Christ. This is the most important summary statement in the whole book, and maybe one of the most important summaries in the whole Bible. Verses 14 and 15 say:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

What is Jesus all about? Whatever it is, Mark says that it is good news that is proclaimed. We need to stop and camp here for a minute, because this is a point that we sometimes missed. Some of us are wearing ties this morning. If you’re wearing a tie, it’s because someone probably put a tie around your neck one day and stood behind you or beside you, and demonstrated exactly what to do to tie it. Take this end and wrap it around here, and then flip it over here, and then slide it through here, and so on. I guarantee you that nobody ever handed you a book of words that explained how to tie a tie. Why? Because some things are best taught through demonstration rather than words.

Other things, however, are best taught through words. The news is a good example. When Obama won the election last November, the news was announced to us with words. Even if you watched TV, the news came through words. You saw people smiling and happy, and you could maybe guess why they were celebrating, but somebody had to explain the news. Some things are better demonstrated; other things need to be spoken.

We’re going to see in this passage that the good news of Jesus Christ is something that is both announced and demonstrated. But here we see that the gospel is about good news. Tim Keller puts it this way:

Suppose a king goes out to defend his lands from an invading army. If the king is defeated by the enemy, he sends back military advisors to advise the people how to shore up the cities defenses and save themselves. But if the king defeats the invading army, he sends back messengers (heralds, good-newsers) with the news: “We have defeated the enemy. Rejoice and live in that victory.”

Now apply that to religion: Every other religion sends military advisors to put in place rites, rituals, and laws so fearful people can try to save themselves. Christianity sends “good-newsers” to say, “Jesus has won! Rejoice and live in light of that victory.”

Unfortunately, advice is not found only in other religions, there are people in the Christian Church who think the gospel is good advice and are fearfully trying to save themselves and others by obeying Jesus. That is not the gospel! The gospel is the news that Jesus has saved us and obeying him comes from that joy!

Advice is counsel about what you can do about something that hasn’t happened yet. News is about something that has happened. The gospel is good news.

What is this good news that has to be announced, and that will change our lives? Verse 15 says: “The time has come…The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Here is the central message of Jesus: the waiting is over. The time has now come. God is doing something new, something that the whole world has been waiting for centuries to see. What is it? The kingdom of God has finally come near. God’s reign has finally arrived.

Imagine for a minute that you own a house and rent it out. But then you discover that the tenants have been mistreating the place. They have kicked holes in the walls. They have broken the windows. The heat’s been turned off because they didn’t pay the bills. They have junk all over the yard. The place is an absolute disaster. The house that you owned, that was in perfect condition when you rented it out, has been all but destroyed.

You try to take the house back, but they get a lawyer and fight the eviction order. But finally, after months of waiting, you take back possession of the house. You repair and paint the walls. You clean up the mess. You fix the windows. You get everything fixed to the way that it should have been.

The believers in the Old Testament looked around and saw that the world had been good, but that sin had destroyed much of what was good. The world around them was far from the world that God intended. The world is filled with violence, wickedness, death, and disease. But they believed that one day God would once gain take over, and that he would repair all that is broken, and that he would reign unopposed over the transformed universe. All that is crooked would be made straight; all that is wrong would be made right.

Jesus came and said, “The time has come. The reign of God has come near. God is setting things to the way they should have been in the first place. He’s restoring things to the way they should be.” This is good news that has to be announced.

But it’s also news that requires a response. In a way, we’re like the people who lived in that broken-down house and have been party to its destruction. Now Jesus invites us – those who are responsible for the destruction in the first place – to turn around and join him in the restoration. Jesus says in verse 15, “Repent and believe the good news!” Repent literally means to change one’s mind in a way that affects your whole life – to change your way of thinking and living, to turn the direction of your life. Repentance and belief is the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Jesus wants us to understand that his ministry marks the coming of God’s kingdom – that through him, God is beginning the process of restoring all of creation. How will you react? The only way that makes any sense is to change your way of thinking and living; to believe what Jesus said and live in light of that reality.

That’s what Jesus is all about. This helps us understand Jesus’ whole life and ministry in a nutshell: the kingdom of God has come near. Mark doesn’t leave it at the abstract level, though. He answers a second question:

Second question: What does it look like?

Verses 21 to 39 essentially give us a day in the life of Jesus. We see Jesus teaching, casting out a demon, healing, and preaching. This is more than a random collection of stories. Mark is giving us a sample of what it looks like for the kingdom of God to come near in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus has proclaimed the coming of the kingdom; here he demonstrates the coming of the kingdom. What does it look like?

Verses 21 and 22 show us one aspect of what it looks like. It involves people understanding the truth. You see this also in verses 38 and 39. Jesus teaches and preaches, but it’s not just like any preaching or teaching. Jesus doesn’t get his authority by quoting other rabbis, as was common in synagogues. But when Jesus preaches, he amazes them. His preaching has authority.

You may wonder why there’s such an emphasis on teaching and preaching, not only in Jesus’ ministry but throughout the New Testament. It’s because in the kingdom of God, people come to know and understand who God is and what he’s up to. Sometimes we think that it’s more important to do than to know, but Scripture corrects us: both are important. We need to love and serve God, but we must also know him and what he’s up to. Habakkuk foretold a day when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Jesus preaches and teaches so people understand what God has revealed about himself, so they can know and love God.

But then we see that there’s more. We’re going to see what can only be described as two miracles that take place this day. Miracles are not random displays of God’s power. They’re much more than that. They are actually foretastes of what life will be like one day when God’s kingdom is fully here. Every miracle we encounter in the gospels is a foretaste, a pointer, to what life will be like when the kingdom arrives in its fullness.

So when Jesus casts out a demon in verses 23-28, we see that Jesus has authority over the supernatural forces of evil, and that points us to the day that

the devil and his powers will be completely defeated

. The Bible teaches us that the devil is a liar and a murderer (John 8:44), and that he comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). We’ve seen Satan and his works. Jesus shows us that the announcement of the kingdom is the announcement that he was authority over evil, and that evil will be completely declawed and defeated.

And then Jesus shows us that what’s broken will be restored. The account of the miracle in verses 29 and 30 is the shortest miracle account in all the gospels, and I love it. Jesus encounters sickness and immediately heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Once Jesus heals her, she doesn’t even need a period of recovery. She’s up serving the guests. She’s completely back to what she would have been doing. Jesus even cares for mothers-in-law.

Verses 32 and 33 say:

That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases.

I love the miracle recorded at the end of this chapter. Not only does Jesus heal a leper, but he touches the untouchable. Instead of the leprosy making Jesus unclean, Jesus’ touch makes the leper clean.

Jesus points us to a day that there will be no need for hospitals, nursing homes, or the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He will straighten everything that’s crooked. He will restore everything that is broken. The world will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God; Satan will lose all his power; everything will be restored to the way it should be. Everything sad will become untrue.

The Jewish people prayed for the day that the kingdom of God would be established over all the people of the earth; that God will reign unopposed over the universe and transform all things. Jesus says that the waiting is over, and the kingdom has come near. The restoration has begun.

This leaves just one question: What does this have to do with us?

You may have noticed that I skipped over the very first thing that Jesus did in his ministry. He called Simon and Andrew, James and John to be his disciples. We read that in verses 16 to 21.

The first thing that Jesus did in his ministry is to create a community of followers. As he announces a kingdom, he calls people to follow him.

Jesus called these first disciples, and they serve as a kind of pattern for the response that Jesus expects from us as well. So as we close this morning, we close knowing that God is up to something new. It began with the ministry of Jesus: the kingdom is coming. God is setting everything right. He’s returning things to the way they should be. And he invites us to be part of what he’s doing. He’s created a community of followers who will join him in what he is doing.

On one hand, this is very good news. The fact that Jesus chooses us is remarkable. I’m really encouraged as well that Jesus didn’t call superstars. We’re going to see in the coming chapters that Simon, Andrew, James, and John are flawed and imperfect. God doesn’t call perfect people to himself. He calls imperfect people like us to follow him.

But there’s a cost. You see this all throughout this passage. John the Baptist is in prison. At the end of the chapter we have a small hint of the conflict that is going to break open very soon in the ministry of Jesus. Not only that, but Jesus calls the disciples to follow him by leaving their small but prosperous businesses, their families, and their homes.

Jesus also shows us the type of dependence that’s required. He’s busier than ever, and yet at his busiest he slips away and spends hours praying. Jesus is showing us the type of relationship that we will need to have with the Father if we are to follow him.

As the Gospel of Mark begins, Mark gives us an introduction to who Jesus is. And he then gives us the central thrust of Jesus and his ministry through summary and example. Best of all, he invites us to join the community of his disciples and to follow him.

It’s not going to be without cost. But the invitation is extended to ordinary people to join Jesus in his extraordinary mission. The good news is that God’s kingdom has come in the person of Jesus Christ. But the good news demands your response.

Father, thank you for clearly revealing in Mark who Jesus is and what he is up to. We thank you that the kingdom has come near, and that you have begun the work of restoring all things.

Thank you also, Father, that the first thing Jesus did is to invite a community of followers to join him in what he is doing. May we revel in wonder that you’ve invited us to follow Jesus; but may we also count the cost, knowing that following your Son demands our all.

Make us into a community of disciples who will join Jesus in what he is doing. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

This morning we’re beginning a new series that’s going to take us all the way to Easter. I’m very excited about this series, because we’re going to be looking at the Gospel of Mark. Of all the subjects that we could look at as a church, there is no better subject than the one Mark writes about: Jesus. And Mark is a great person to tell us about Jesus, because his account is the earliest account of Jesus’ life that was written. What we’re about to read was written just twenty or thirty years after the life of Jesus, and is based on eyewitness accounts. Tradition says that Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends, told stories of these events. We read:

The hearers of Peter…were not satisfied with a single hearing…but with every kind of exhortation besought Mark…seeing that he was Peter’s follower, to leave them a written statement of the teaching given them verbally, nor did they cease until they had persuaded him, and so became the cause of the Scripture called the Gospel of Mark.

I’m sure that all of us, whether you are a Christian or not, would have loved to sit down with someone who actually knew with Jesus, who had lived with Jesus, and who had seen the stories we’ve heard about take place firsthand. We’d have questions about what it was like and what it felt like to see it with your own eyes.

We can’t do that, of course, because all the eyewitnesses are now dead. But Mark is the next best thing. Mark is the written record of an eyewitness account of someone who was there and saw it all happen. I’m very excited about the subject matter of Mark, and I’m also excited that we get to read the written report of an eyewitness account of somebody who was there and who saw it all.

The passage we read this morning is like a decoder ring. Before the action begins, and before the body of the story begins, Mark gives us a framework, a way of deciphering what’s about to happen. In this opening passage, Mark gives us a preview of the gospel by telling stories that answer three questions: What’s happening? Who’s involved? And what is it going to look like?

So let’s look at these three stories and the questions they answer, beginning with this one:

What’s happening?

Mark 1:1-8 reads:

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way” –

“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,

’Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.’ “

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

If I were to ask you what your week was like this week, a lot of us would say, “It was okay.” If I asked you for more details, you’d probably just say, “It was like almost any other week. Monday came, followed by Tuesday, followed by Wednesday, and so on.” Most of life is the numbing routine of getting up and repeating the same actions, brushing the same teeth, getting stuck in the same traffic, washing the same dishes, over and over and over again.

When the events we’re about to read took place, life was pretty much like that. You get used to the daily rhythm of life no matter how good or bad it happens to be.

For the people who lived at that time, things were more bad than good if they looked at them closely. They had heard stories of how God had moved in the past: how he had spoken to Moses from a burning bush; how he had sent plagues on the Egyptians to rescue his people out of slavery; how he had parted the sea in two so that his people could pass through; how we had spoken from Sinai and made a covenant with his people. But that had been a long time ago. That was then and this is now. And now looked nothing like that. God had not spoken in hundreds of years. There had been no miracles in recent memories. No prophets had spoken. What’s worse, God’s people were once again under foreign rule.

You get used to this. You never quite stop believing in God, but you sure don’t see his hand in the present. You speak of God, but more as a memory than as a present reality. And you believe the future promises of what God is going to do, but you sure don’t expect it to happen in your lifetime. You’ve settled in, and it’s hard to believe that tomorrow is going to be much different than today.

It’s in that context that we read these opening verses. The first thing that strikes you is that it’s a new beginning: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah…” It almost takes you back to Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is almost like a new creation account. God has broken into the sameness of everyday life, and something big is about to happen.

What exactly is it? In verses 2 and 3, Mark quotes from some Old Testament prophecies. These prophecies spoke of a day that God would break into human history and shake things up and return them to the way that they ought to be. Both Isaiah and Malachi had spoken of a day that God himself would come. His glory would be revealed; the suffering of God’s people would end; the whole world would be made a place fit for the coming King to reign, God himself.

But first something would happen in the wilderness. The wilderness in the Bible is a place of hope and new beginnings, but also a place of struggle. Charlene and I honeymooned in Quebec City, so Quebec City is a place for us that represents the joy of new married love. The wilderness was that for Israel: it was the place where God brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and where they initiated their relationship together. Through the prophet Hosea God had said:

Therefore I am now going to allure her;

I will lead her into the wilderness

and speak tenderly to her….

There she will respond as in the days of her youth,

as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

(Hosea 2:14-15)

So see what Mark is doing in the passage we just read. He’s saying that God is creating something new right in the middle of the numbing routine of everyday life, in the middle of people who had given up hope that anything could change. It’s a new creation.

What’s more, he’s doing this in the wilderness, we read in verse 4. Something is happening that is also like a fresh start for God’s people, a new exodus of sorts. He’s calling them back to the wilderness to reinitiate a relationship with them.

And then, according to Mark, something else is happening as well. The promises of God, made through prophets like Isaiah and Malachi, that God himself would come to set things straight – those promises are being fulfilled as well. All the hopes, all the desires that God would come and set things straight, are being fulfilled as the Gospel of Mark begins.

So as we encounter this strange character in verses 4 to 8, we’re tipped off that something pretty big is happening. This John, who’s dressed funny and who eats locusts and wild honey, brings back memories of Elijah the prophet. He is, according to Mark, the promised forerunner who gets people ready for the coming of the Jehovah himself, who is going to set everything right. John preaches repentance and baptizes people, and predicts points to one who will come who is mightier than John. According to John, he is going to pour out the Spirit. This means that God himself is going to be present among his people; that what God had promised – “I will pour out my Spirit on all people” (Joel 2:28) – was now coming true.

So what does this tell us? Mark is preparing us so that we realize that something big is happening in the book he’s writing. No less a person than the Lord Jehovah is showing up. It’s a fresh start, a new beginning. God is stepping into history and setting things right. Everything that’s been hoped for is now coming true.

What Mark is doing is giving us a decoder ring so that we can make sense of what’s about to follow. This is the answer to the first question: what’s happening? No less a person than God is arriving to set everything straight again.

Second question:

Who is involved?

If you really believed what John the Baptist was saying, you would have been preparing yourself for the Lord himself to show up. You would have had no idea what this would look like, but you wouldn’t have been prepared for what happened next. Verse 9 says: “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”

If you are expecting God to show up, you wouldn’t be expecting this. God has appeared many times in the Scriptures. He appeared as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night when he led them out of Egypt. He appeared to Moses at Sinai on the mountain with thunder and lightning and a thick cloud and a loud trumpet blast, and we read that all the people trembled.

Mark has told us that this same God is now showing up, so when we get to verse 9 we are surprised. Because God does appear, and Mark’s already tipped us off in verse 1 that God appears as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Rather than coming in pillars of cloud or fire, or with thunder and lightning and trumpets so that people tremble, he comes just like everybody else comes to be baptized. Even more surprisingly, he comes from Nazareth in Galilee, a city so unimportant that it’s not even mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament.

If you were expecting God to show up, you never would have guessed that he would come like he did in Jesus.

That’s just the thing. Mark’s tipped us off that God has broken into history and is doing something completely new, and that he’s fulfilling all of his promises, but nobody guessed that it would happen like this. Very few people in the coming chapters are going to guess either. So Mark lets us glimpse behind the scenes so we can know that this is, indeed, the Messiah. The other characters aren’t going to know this, but we get tipped off on who Jesus is. Verses 10 and 11 say:

Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

What happens? The heavens part. God is about to say or do something. Then God himself speaks, commissioning Jesus to undertake his God-given role, announcing that this is his Son, with whom he is well pleased. And the Spirit marks him as the one anointed to bring good news, giving him power to accomplish his mission.

Nobody knows this, but Mark tips us off so that we know. As we start the book of Mark he wants us to understand that God is breaking into history and setting all things right, and he’s doing so through Jesus.

One of the biggest questions we’re going to encounter in the book of Mark, and which still is the key question you need to answer, is this: Who is Jesus? This really is the key question of your life. If Jesus is indeed God who has come to set this world straight, then it changes everything.

Here, right at the beginning, Mark is already forcing us to grapple with the question of who this Jesus is. Later on Jesus is going to ask, “Who do you say that I am?” Here we have that question answered by the highest possible authority: God himself has spoken. Jesus is the Lord himself come to sent to save his people and to set this world right.

There’s one more scene, which leads us to our last question:

What’s it going to look like?

I’ve told you that Mark is giving us a decoder ring so we understand what’s happening and who’s involved. Just so that there are no surprises, Mark tips us off to what’s going to be happening in Jesus’ ministry. Verses 12 to 13 tell us:

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Here, without any human contact, we get a preview of the coming conflict. In the coming chapters we’re going to see lots of people with lots of reactions to Jesus, but here we get a glimpse of the supernatural conflict that is going to take place with Jesus. In fact, it’s a conflict that continues today.

Here we get a glimpse of the real conflict. On one side are Jesus and the angels. On the other side, we have Satan and the wild animals – the dogs, wolves, leopards, jackals, and bears that lived in the wilderness at that time.

There, away from everybody, we see that behind the coming triumphs and conflicts we’re going to read about is a supernatural conflict. All the forces of Satan are arrayed against Jesus. But Jesus is not alone in his conflict. The powers of heaven are with him.

This gives us a hint that we’re not going to read a quaint story. We’re about to witness a battle. In a sense, we’re part of that battle depending on what we do with Jesus.

We’re not even into Mark yet. This is just the preamble, the preparation, the decoder ring for what follows. But already Mark is forcing us to wrestle with the most important questions you will ever answer. And he’s telling us that God has acted decisively in history to keep his promises and set things right. He’s done so by coming in the form of Jesus. He’s warning us that it’s going to be a battle. And he’s already calling for a response. This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for giving us a glimpse, as the action begins, of who Jesus is and what he came to do. The gospel is not a nice story. It is, according to your Word, the story of the Lord himself coming to save his people and fill the earth with his glory. When your Son came, you spoke from heaven authenticating his identity and his work.

I pray that every person here would confront the question: Who is Jesus? It’s a question that changes everything. And I pray that, as we study the book of Mark, we would encounter Jesus in a way that changes our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

a sermon at the launch of a resource for Christian women and church leaders on abuse and family law by METRAC

It’s my privilege to be here with you today. I’ve been excited to learn about your work, and the resource you’re launching today is an important one.

I want to be sensitive to the time constraints, so today what I what to do is to simply tell two stories. The two stories come from two different worlds, but they have one thing in common. Both are about women who faced abuse in very different ways, and yet found hope in the most unexpected of places.

Hagar

The first story is from the Hebrew Scriptures. If you ask me why I believe the Bible is true, one of the many reasons is that it is painfully honest about the people it describes. The first story I want to tell you is about Abram and his wife Sarai. They are two heroes, a patriarch and a matriarch. Yet the story I want to tell isn’t about their greatness. The story is about how their actions led to a brutal situation for a woman called Hagar.

The true story goes like this. God promised Abram that he would have a son, and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and that they would be a great nation. There was only one problem: Abram and Sarai were old and they had no children.

It’s very hard for us today to understand what being childless was like in those times. Infertility is still a big problem today, and many know the pain of not being able to have the child that you long for. Compounding the pain in those days was the fact that children were literally your security and your future. If you didn’t have children, you had nobody to look after you in your old age.

Not only this, but the stakes were even higher when it came to Abram and Sarai. God had promised they would have a son. As someone has written, “Her inability to conceive is no longer just a thorn in their marriage or a grief to her heart, but now is an obstruction to the promises of Yahweh!” It’s a horrible situation.

So Sarai took the initiative and suggested that she and Abram fulfill this promise themselves by using a surrogate mother. This wasn’t uncommon in that culture. Sarai offered her servant Hagar to Abram. Hagar became pregnant. But things went horribly wrong between Hagar and Sarai. Hagar displayed a bad attitude towards Sarai, and Sarai became fed up with Hagar. Abram told Sarai to do as she’d like, and we read, “Then Sarai mistreated Hagar” (Genesis 16:6). I don’t know exactly what she did, but the verb there means things like “to afflict, to oppress, to treat harshly, to mistreat, to humiliate.” The same term is used later to describe the suffering endured by the Israelites in Egypt.

So, we read, Hagar fled and ended up in the desert, alone, pregnant, and forgotten, presumably on her way back to her native land. It’s a total disaster for everybody concerned. Hagar has lost her home, Sarai her maid, and Abram his second wife and newborn child.

But something happens that has been called a severe mercy. At her lowest point, a stranger came and addressed her as Hagar, Sarai’s servant, and asked, “Where have you come from, and where are you going?” It turns out that this is an angel, and the angel told her to return and submit to Sarai, but then made a remarkable promise. The angel said, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count” (Genesis 16:10). Not only that, but the angel told her to name the child Ishmael, which means “God hears.” And the angel also promised that this son, Ishmael, would not be servile, but would be aggressive.

Ishmael. God sees. And then Hagar says words that have been remembered for thousands of years since:

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13)

Hagar literally called the Lord “the God of seeing.” Ishmael – God sees. And, Hagar says, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” This is remarkable. In fact, this is the only time in Scripture that a person confers a name on God. God is the one who sees those forgotten by everyone else.

I won’t go into all the details, but a similar thing seems to have happened 17 or 18 years later. The tensions boiled over, and Hagar and Ishmael were sent away again. This time they wandered aimlessly in the desert. When they ran out of water, Hagar walked away from Ishmael because she couldn’t bear to see him die. We then read:

God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt. (Genesis 21:17-21)

From this true story we learn two things. We learn something about us and something about God. First, we learn how horrible it is to be the victim of abuse. Hagar’s situation breaks your heart. Humiliated, mistreated, ostracized, powerless, alone, afraid for her own life and the life of her child. What’s even more horrible is that Hagar’s story has been repeated countless times since then. It’s why METRAC exists. It’s why the resources you offer are so important.

But Hagar’s story also teaches us something about God. God is the God of seeing. God sees those who are invisible victims. He hears the cries of those who are not heard by others. God sees and hears, and he takes action. God is concerned with the afflicted, whoever they may be, even if they are downtrodden foreigners living in Israel.

This becomes a major theme throughout Scripture: the Lord looks after the oppressed.

Hagar heard the words, “You will give birth to a son and name him Ishmael, for the Lord has noticed your oppression.” Thousands of years later, another woman, “Behold, you will conceive … and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” In Jesus we learn that God not only sees and hears the afflicted, but that he willingly became afflicted. God not only sees and hears suffering; God himself suffers. God himself became a man and willingly experienced the full force of evil on our behalf.

As Tim Keller puts it in The Reason for God, “God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself…We can know that God is truly Immanuel – God with us – even in our worst sufferings.”

We don’t have easy answers for the suffering that people go through. But it does mean something – a lot actually – that God sees, God hears, that God himself suffered in the person of Jesus Christ for our sakes, and that he will set this world right. He is the God of seeing.

One More Story

My second story is brief. It’s about a mother, a recent immigrant, with four children: two teenagers and two young children.

It’s a story of emotional abuse: days, without explanation, of her husband not speaking to her. It’s also a story of physical abuse: young teenagers hiding the knives when they go to bed at night out of fear of what could happen. One night he pins her down on the living room floor with the entire family watching. The oldest son crawls out a basement window to get help from the neighbors, and is never forgiven by his abusive father.

It’s also the story of a church that had never had to encounter domestic abuse or divorce before. If you were to guess how the church would react, you would have guessed that they would be judgmental and cold. They tended to be on the strict side, and as I said, they had never encountered a situation like this before.

This terrified mother one day put an end to the abuse. She called the police, changed the locks, and took her family to a hotel for safety. She now faced an uncertain future: no car, no job, a husband who refused to pay the court-ordered support. She had almost no resources, but she did have a mortgage, bills, and four very hungry children.

The story is a gritty one. At one point she was hospitalized for a couple of weeks because of the stress. Her days were filled with endless work. At times it was unclear how the bills were going to be paid.

But she learned that God is the God of seeing and the God of hearing. And her church, which was supposed to not know what to do, was there for her in ways that nobody could have expected. And they did this without making her feel like a charity case. They offered emotional support, legal support. They offered food. Mysterious envelopes of money would show up. Rides were offered. The kids were almost adopted by people in that church. Men were put on call to deal with things if the abusive dad ever showed up looking for trouble.

That woman was my mother. That church became a visible demonstration of a community that is shaped by the Son of God, who gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins. We literally could not have survived without that church’s help.

Two women, separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years. But both who found that God is the God of seeing.

I am so grateful for the resource that you’re releasing for Christian women and church leaders. I wish we had had it years ago. My prayer is that our churches would be places that help those who are victims of abuse in every possible way, proclaiming that God is the God of seeing and hearing; that God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself at the cross. Amen.

This morning we’re finishing our series on the Ten Commandments. You may be tempted to think that the least important commandment has been saved for last – that it’s an afterthought, rightfully placed at the bottom of the list.

It is an unusual commandment. Most of the previous commandments have to do with actions; this one is all about the heart. We tend to see coveting as good. In fact, we see it as the route to personal fulfillment.

Despite the fact that this commandment is last, and despite the fact that it seems strange to us, I want to show you that it is a profound commandment. It’s the climax of these commandments, kind of a bookend. In the tenth commandment, we come full circle and are back to the first. All of the other commands are restatements and applications of the first and the last commandments.

So this morning let’s see what this command says; what problem it reveals; and what solution we need.

First, let’s look at what this command says.

Exodus 20:17 says:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Deuteronomy 5:21 expands a little on this command:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

We have to really look at this to make sure we understand what it’s saying. The word covet here simply means desire. The word isn’t bad in itself. The Bible never says that desire is a bad thing in and of itself. The problem in this passage is that the object of desire is off limits because it belongs to someone else. To desire what belongs to someone else means that my desire becomes more important than the relationship that I have with that person. It leads to all kinds of other problems to. I may lie or steal or kill in order to obtain what rightfully belongs to them. The focus in this command is relationships. Coveting kills relationships.

There’s more as we look at this command. God could have just said, “You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.” But he was very specific. He lists the things that we’re likely to covet: our neighbor’s house and property, wife, and donkey. It’s only after listing specifics that the command says “or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” The specificity of this command is very realistic. It anticipates the things that the Israelites were likely to covet. Today we might say, “Don’t covet your neighbor’s house or family, cottage, job, bank account, or car.” You can’t get off the hook with what this command teaches. We’re likely to look at our neighbor’s possessions, positions, and accomplishments and want what they have.

If you think about it, these are the things that many of us desire as more than just things. These are the very things that form our identities. We think that if we live in the right house or have the right spouse or drive that car or get that job that we will really matter, that we will count as someone. So coveting, we see, is a problem because it disrupts our relationships with neighbors. But it’s also a problem because our coveting is really a sign that our hearts are overvaluing some things.

In fact, when ancient scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, the used a Greek word for this word covet. The word is epithumia. It’s a word that also appears throughout the New Testament to talk about coveting and desires. It’s often translated lusts or passions. What does it mean? It’s sometimes used in a positive sense, like a strong desire. But most often it’s used negatively. In these cases it means inordinate desire, that we want something too strongly.

What does this mean? It means that the problem isn’t really our desires. The problem is when our desires are disordered so that we desire some things too much and other things not enough. I love ice cream. I love my job. I love my family. There’s nothing wrong with loving any of these. The problem is when I love any of these in the wrong order – if, for instance, I love ice cream more than I love my job, or if I love my job more than I love my family, or if I love any of these more than God.

Centuries ago, Augustine said that our fundamental problem is that our loves are disordered. We desire the wrong things. It is wrong to set our affection on anything or anyone as if that thing or person was God. We will never find our fulfillment in that person or thing no matter how good or noble it is. The real problem with us is that our desires are out of order, and our greatest need is that our desires are reordered so that we desire the right things in the right order.

So putting all of this together, our problem is that we want what rightfully belongs to other people. What’s more, we tend to base our identities on these things. The problem is that these desires become inordinate desires that begin to control us so that we’re held captive by them. That’s what this command means.

Well, let’s ask what problem this reveals about ourselves.

At first glance, you wouldn’t think that this is such a big deal. Many of us would agree that it’s wrong to murder and lie and steal, but we don’t see what’s wrong with just thinking that we want what someone else has. But actually, this command reveals that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. This command gets to the heart of what’s wrong with us. It identifies the fault line that runs through all of our hearts.

We don’t think this command is any big deal, but James says that breaking this command leads to many of the problems that we experience. James 4:1-2 says:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

James says that behind church battles and even unanswered prayers are a big problem: that we desire what we do not have. James 1:14 says that our over-desires are the sin beneath other sins:

…each of you is tempted when you are dragged away by your own evil desire (epithumia) and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

So these over-desires are not just one sin among many. Inordinate desire is the sin beneath the sin. The other sins that are more visible are the result of the inordinate desires of our hearts.

It gets even more serious than this. The Apostle Paul writes that our coveting – our inordinate desires – are really violations of the first command, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). So the first commandment and the tenth commandment are really the same. Paul says in Ephesians 5:5:

For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person–such a person is an idolater–has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Again in Colossians 3:5-6:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.

What is Paul saying? Paul is saying that when we see that someone else has something, and we begin to desire what they have in an inordinate way, that we are not just committing a little sin, as if there was such a thing. When we just have to have something, when we won’t rest until we’ve got that new car or house or job, and when we continually want more than we have right now, then we are no different from the person who goes to a temple and bows before a carved statue. We are idolators. We have stopped worshiping the one true God at that moment, and we have instead begun to worship whatever it is that we long for.

This week I read about a child who was having a conversation with his mother about the gospel. The conversation went something like this.

Mother: “Why did Jesus die?” Son: “To save us from our sins.” Mother:  “Have you sinned?” Son: ”Yea, like when I scratched Cole last night.” Mother:  “What is God’s punishment for sin?” Son: ”He says we have to die.  Like, in hell.” Mother:  “How can you be saved from your sin?” Son: ”Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.  Hey, Mommy. You know what would be really great? Like, you know what would be really, really cool??” Mother: ”What?” Son: ”If we could have, like a million billion boxes of macaroni and cheese in our cupboard!  Wouldn’t that be awesome??”

Now, I don’t want to be too hard on this boy. Who doesn’t like macaroni and cheese in their cupboards? But as I thought about this, I began to realize that you and I are not all that different. We can repeat all the facts about the gospel. We could say, “Jesus died for our sins, but do you know what would be really cool? A high-definition TV in the family room.” We believe in the gospel, but what really excites us is something else. We covet, we long for, something else – maybe not a million billion boxes of mac and cheese, but something. Whatever it is that excites us most, whatever it is that we long for the most, that is our idol.

This brings us back to the first commandment we looked at: “You shall have no other gods before me.” You see how the first and tenth commandments are bookends. Every other commandment is a variation of these two. These are the sins beneath all sins.

But this means we also have a very serious problem. The problem is that you can be a very moral person who goes to church and always does good things, and still break this commandment, because it’s a commandment of the heart. You may honor your parents, refuse to steal or lie or kill or commit adultery, but in your heart your affections are disordered. You have over-desires. And these over-desires mean that you are an idolator, which really makes you guilty of the command that is the foundation for all the others.

Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul, was a very moral man. Reflecting on his life, he mentioned this commandment as an example. He said that the command not to covet exposed his lost and sinful condition. The problem isn’t with the commands, he said. The problem is the human heart. Soren Kierkegaard said, “It is the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God.” We all have covetous and idolatrous hearts. This leads us to ask:

What is the solution?

What will reorder our affections so that we love God most, and love everyone and everything else in their place? What will keep us from committing the sin of idolatry, which is the sin beneath all sins?

I mentioned earlier that the word for desire means a strong desire. When it’s for the wrong things, then it’s a bad thing. When we make good things and turn them into ultimate things, then our desires are idolatrous. But the word desire can be used in a very positive way as well.

Jesus said in Luke 22:15, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” For centuries, the Passover meal pointed forward to the true Passover Lamb who would be sacrificed for the sins of his people. Now Jesus sat down with his followers, and he longed to as the true and better Passover Lamb. Jesus said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.” There’s that word: epithumia. From this we learn that Jesus has a strong desire, a good desire: to give his life for his people as a sacrifice for the sins of his people. What can set us free from our over-desires? Seeing and grasping what Jesus did for us when he offered his life for our sins.

There’s another passage that uses epithumia in a positive way. This time it’s about angels. In 1 Peter chapter 1, the apostle Peter talks about “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” – the gospel. He concludes with this stunning statement: “Even angels long (epithumia) to look into these things.”

As Tim Keller says: Angels are smart, much smarter than any of us. Angels have been around a long time. They are much older than anyone here. And yet angels long to understand what Christ has accomplished for us through his death and resurrection.

The bad news is that we are idolators. We set our highest affections on people and things other than God, which leads to bondage, conflict, and death. What should we do? Understand that Jesus has set his affections on us. Long to grasp the gospel and to understand all that Jesus did for us through his death and resurrection.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1)

Father, please reveal to us this morning the things that we over-desire. Help us to realize that this sin is the sin beneath all sins.

Most of all, take us to the one who desires us, and who gave his life for us. May we desire him above all. In Jesus’ name, Amen.