Year 2 Day 130

Year 2 Day 130

Pray (AC-ts)

Read — Mark 6:1-6 (focus v5-6)

Message Alan Burke 

During the weeks we have gone though Mark’s gospel, we have heard the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We have thought about his teaching, the miracles he preformed, the mighty acts. From the calming of the storm to the casting out the demons, the healing of the woman and the raising of Jairus daughter. But among his own people, their spiritual apathy was such that the words of Jesus fell on deaf ears. They couldn’t believe and they found him offensive, how dare he say things like this, do things, pretend to be something he’s not, after all he’s just a local boy whose lost what reality is (6:2-3. 

To them Jesus had his head in the clouds, look what was the result, he could not do any miracles before them (5). It wasn’t that their unbelief sapped his power that resulted in Jesus not being able to do any micelles there. Rather it was because the miracles that he preformed testified to the truth of who he was, they wouldn’t believe the truth so there would be no confirmation of his identity in the miracles he had performed. The miracles were of no use to change their unbelieving hearts, their spiritual apathy and blindness would prevent them from seeing and in seeing believing.

It’s something that we have seen with the pharisees, the idiom seeing is believing, well they had seen but they didn’t believe and likewise for those in his home town if they had seen they sill would not have believed. He was the local boy who thought too much of himself, nothing was going to change their attitude to him. Other than healing a few sick people, there were no great signs and wonders among them, so Jesus went to the other villages. 

As he left, we are told he was amazed at their lack of faith. Their unwillingness to believe caused amazement. The greatest obstacle to faith is not the failure of God to act but the unwillingness of the human heart to believe and accept what God has done. In how God has condescended to us, in only a carpenter, in the son of Mary, they could not believe what God had done, they could not believe that Jesus was anything more than the local handyman. Their familiarity to Jesus had bred contempt towards the gospel that he proclaimed.  

There is one thing I want to draw to your attention even though as Jesus left Nazareth it seemed all was lost because of their unbelief. Later we learn of James the brother of Jesus would later come to faith and lead the church in the book of Acts (Acts 15) going on to write the epistle of James. Then there is Judas, not the disciple who betrayed Jesus but his brother who would later come to faith and write the epistle of Jude, called Jude because after the betrayal lots of Christians who were called Judas shortened their name to Jude. 

Here James and Judas were part of the unbelieving family of Jesus, they didn’t believe he was the Messiah, they had thought he was out of his mind (Mk 3:21). In John’s gospel (7:5), were told that not even Jesus brother believed him. Yet in the plans and purposes of God, according to his time they were saved and God can do things we never expected in our own lives and those whom we know and love and the community we serve. God can and does work, and for those who are closest to us, the unbelieving spouse or child, a brother, sister, mother, father, friend or who ever else it may be continue to take them before the Lord in prayer trusting in him and is plans and purposes. 

Pray (ac-TS)

Sing

WSC 
Q21 Who is the Redeemer of God’ s elect?
The only Redeemer of God’ s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, (1 Tim. 2:5–6) who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, (John 1:14, Gal. 4:4) and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever. (Rom. 9:5, Luke 1:35, Col. 2:9, Heb. 7:24–25)
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