Good morning. Welcome to Christ's family.
If you will please turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 1.
! We're going to be reading from verses 29 to 39 this morning.
!
That which can be mimicked. Obviously we're not God in the flesh.
But what can be mimicked of Christ, we ought to mimic Him as much as we can, if we abide in Him.
So, an encouragement as we study through the Gospel, both corporately and individually.
Whenever you see things of Christ's life that you can replicate, strive to do so.
Really strive to do so, because that is the command of Scripture,
and that is our great honor as Christians, is to reflect our God, Christ.
And this is a reminder of the immediate context where we've been.
Nathan, the first sermon that we preached on this series, he preached on Mark 1.1,
which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And the Gospel, as he showed us there, was a reference to Isaiah 40, the coming of the King.
So, whenever we say the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
he's not talking about the crucifixion quite yet.
The pinnacle of the Gospel of Mark is the crucifixion of Christ, is death, burial, and resurrection.
But, thus far, we're talking about the coming Kingdom and the coming of Christ.
In the first nine chapters of Mark, Mark really desires and strives
to show us Christ as the powerful Son of God,
having authority over everything, as we're going to look at and see here in just a moment.
And in the last couple chapters, Mark really slows down,
because as everybody has pointed out when they've preached,
Mark uses the word immediately quite often to hurry the narrative along.
But, the last couple chapters are really shown,
they really show Christ as the suffering servant who dies for sins.
So, with that immediate context in mind,
let's also look at the context of this actual chapter.
Two weeks ago, Clay preached,
and he showed us Christ's absolute and total authority over man,
in that he said to the disciples,
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
He had authority over their will.
They obeyed, and they complied to his command.
Last week, we saw Kyle show us,
we had Kyle show us,
his absolute authority over the spiritual realm,
in that there was a demon-possessed man in the synagogue,
in that he cast the demon out,
and the demon had no choice but to obey.
Even though it wanted to rebel, obviously, as we see that,
he told it to be quiet,
and it still made a loud noise when it left.
And this week, we're going to see quite a few things.
So, let's read our text.
Mark 1, 29-39 reads as follows,
And immediately after they came out of the synagogue,
they came into the house of Simon and Andrew,
with James and John.
Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever,
and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her.
And he came to her and raised her up,
taking her by the hand,
and the fever left her,
and she waited on them.
When evening came, after the sun had set,
they began bringing to him all who were ill,
and those who were demon-possessed.
And the whole city had gathered at the door,
and he healed many who were ill,
with various diseases,
and cast out many demons.
And he was not permitting the demons to speak,
because they knew who he was.
In the early morning, while it was still dark,
Jesus got up, left the house,
and went away to a secluded place,
and was praying there.
Simon and his companions searched for him.
They found him and said to him,
Everyone is looking for you.
And he said to them,
Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby,
so that I may preach the gospel there also.
For that is why I came for.
And he went into their synagogues,
through all of Galilee,
preaching and casting out the demons.
Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father,
we thank you for Scripture.
We thank you that you've given us
four accounts of the life of Christ,
and that we're working through one of them.
Father, I pray as we see your
just absolute sovereign authority
over all realms today,
Father,
and we see the need for prayer,
Father,
that we would be effectual hearers,
and that we do what the Word says,
Father.
As Wes just talked about,
that the miracle of hearing,
and response,
and faith would occur,
Father,
that we would have faith,
that this is the Word of God being spoken,
and that we would have repentance,
Father,
that we would conform ourselves
to what it says,
God.
Father,
we ask that you would move spirit,
if you don't move,
all is vain.
We praise you,
and we worship you,
and we pray all this in the name
and glory of Christ Jesus.
Amen.
All right.
So,
our text is broken into three paragraphs,
I'm sure in all of your Bibles,
at least it should be.
And it says,
And immediately after they came out
of the synagogue,
they came into the house of Simon
and Andrew with James and John.
So what Mark has done,
he's established that we are
in the same day as Kyle preached
about last week.
It's still the Sabbath.
Teaching had occurred,
demon had been cast out,
and then immediately
after they left the synagogue,
they went to Peter's house.
And upon going to the house,
they find out that
Peter's mother-in-law is sick,
that she has a,
Luke,
the physician records
in Luke chapter 4
that she had a high fever,
and that she was sick
to the point where Christ
had to stand over her
because she wasn't able to sit up.
So we see that she is
severely,
severely sick
in this text.
Maybe not super severe,
we don't really know,
but the text came to indicate
that she was really sick.
And we see that Christ
has authority
over the natural realm.
Before we get there though,
in the Gospel of Luke
in the fourth chapter,
Luke the physician,
the Gospel writer,
had already told us
that up until this point,
Christ had already
performed many miracles
and healing.
So we only have
the casting out of a demon
and the calling of disciples
according to this Gospel account,
but according to the Gospel of Luke,
they had seen many,
many,
many miracles
already occur.
So,
obviously they had trust
in the authority
and the power of Christ
and His ability to do
as He pleased
in the natural realm
as well as the spiritual realm.
So,
as we've looked at,
and the emphasis
that Mark is making here
is he's wanting to show
the absolute and complete
and total authority
of who Christ is.
Like we just said,
He has authority over man
as we saw
whenever Clay preached
and He told the disciples
to come.
He has authority
over the spiritual realm,
over demons,
those who rebel against Him
from the beginning,
in that He casts them out
and they have no choice
but to obey.
And we see here
that He has authority
over the physical realm as well.
Look what happens
in verse 31 with me.
And it says,
And He came to her
and raised her up,
taking her by the hand,
and the fever left her
and she waited on them.
So Christ came,
simply takes her by the hand,
raises her up,
and she is completely healed.
I'm sure everyone in here
has had a fever
of various kinds
and whenever you have a fever,
you feel like drunk.
And even after the fever's
kind of gone
and the fever's gone down,
you still feel ill,
your body's still recuperating
and recovering.
But notice how Christ
has healed her
in such a way
that she was immediately
able to wait on them.
And the wait on them
in this context
is more than likely
that she served a Sabbath meal.
They had a special meal
on the Sabbath,
the Jews did.
And I'll remind you
that they didn't have microwaves
and freezers
and refrigerators
and ovens back then.
So it was quite an ordeal
to get fresh food
and to prepare a meal
for four burly fishermen
because we see that
Peter and his brother
and James and John
had gone in there.
So four burly fishermen,
whoever else lived in the house,
and herself.
So that was quite a meal
to prepare.
So there's a great joy
in seeing that Christ
has the authority
over the natural realm
and that he is able
to heal so much so
to the point where
there's not even
a recovery phase,
but she is immediately well,
automatically.
And something that's
really interesting
and worth noting
in the text,
I'm sorry,
in Luke chapter 4,
is that Christ rebuked
the fever with a word
in Luke chapter 4.
So we see then
that Christ has the authority
and power over
the natural realm,
not just in terms of
how God has blessed us today
with various types of medicines,
surgery of various sorts,
but by his word
he's able to cure.
And what's really cool
is whenever we see
the correlation here,
we see that in 115
of the Gospel of Mark
that Christ spoke
to the disciples
and told them to follow
when they did.
We see that Christ
spoke to the demon,
told him to be quiet,
and cast out,
and it was.
And we see here,
whenever we look at
the parallel accounts,
that Christ rebuked the fever
and by his word
he had absolute authority.
In the same way
that Hebrews talks about
that he sustains all things
by the word of his power,
the word of God
is powerful,
both the Bible
as well as Christ's authority.
And one thing
that we should note
from the text
that we should pull
from the disciples
seeing as we are
disciples of Christ
is the fact that
they had seen
Christ's authority,
they had seen
his ability to heal,
his ability to cast out demons.
These are miraculous things,
by the way,
I'm sure you all deduce that,
but these are really big deals.
There's things that hadn't happened
for 400 years,
more than that actually,
since the days of Elijah.
And he's speaking with authority,
and they had noticed
all these things,
and let us note
in verse 30 what it says.
It says,
Now Simon's mother-in-law
was lying sick with the fever,
and immediately
they spoke to Jesus about her.
The first thing
that disciples did
whenever they had a problem
in their life,
a situation occur,
they didn't rely on themselves
or anything like that.
They immediately went to Christ.
They went and spoke to Christ.
I'm not saying this is prayer,
because Christ was there,
so they probably spoke to him.
But we nowadays
have the gift of prayer.
And we would do well
to learn,
like the disciples did,
because of who Christ is,
because of his authority,
to immediately speak to Christ
in any temptation or trial,
whether it be sickness,
financial,
temptation,
in terms of being led to sin,
being led to,
in various ways.
So we would do well
to learn,
as the disciples did,
to look at the authority of Christ,
because he is absolutely authoritative.
He has sovereign dominion
over all the areas
that he had created,
over both man
in his own little realm,
the whole nature,
and the demonic forces.
And I've repeated this
like four times now,
because it is that significant,
that he has absolute authority
over every single realm.
And the disciples,
knowing that Christ was kind
and loving,
they came to him
knowing that he would help.
Now,
let me qualify this real fast.
We see two natures
of our Savior's office.
We see both his nature
as Savior,
in that he was kind,
and willing to help.
And we see both,
and we see also
his nature as Lord,
in that he was able to do
what he wanted to do.
So we see that
when something was brought to him,
he was kind enough
to hear their petition,
he was kind enough
to hear their request,
and to go and do it.
And he had the authority
and the absolute ability
to do it.
So,
those are the two main points
from the text.
And there's a third point,
which I think is very significant,
that we draw from verse 31.
It says,
And he came to her
and raised her up
and took her by the hand
and the fever left her
and she waited on them.
The last five words there,
and she waited on them.
What the Holy Spirit is doing
through Mark
in this gospel
is he is showing us
a proper response
to those who have been
touched by Christ,
for those who have been
moved by Christ.
It is to wait on them.
And there's two
kind of branches
within this them.
There is obviously
she waited on Christ.
In this situation,
as I said earlier,
she probably prepared
a Sabbath meal.
She probably prepared
food for them to eat
and something for them to drink
because it had been
a long day at that point.
Christ had been teaching,
casting out demons,
walking around and stuff.
So we see that
she waited on Christ
and we also see
that she waited on them,
meaning the disciples
and those who were with him.
In the same way today,
us who have been
touched by Christ,
us who have been healed,
because we've been healed
in a far greater way, beloved.
She was healed of a fever.
We had sin-sick souls.
We were dead in our sin
and our trespasses,
rebelling against God,
completely and totally
against him.
We had a malady
that wrath was due us.
The wrath of God
was to be poured upon us.
So we have a much greater healing
than she did in this scene.
We have been healed
from our sin,
both in terms of
the wrath of God
and from the bondage to it.
So if she was so eager
to wait on them
in the text as we see
that she immediately
waited on them,
should not we
who have been cured
and forgiven of so much more
seek to serve our Christ
in all ways that are possible?
Beloved,
there are many, many ways
that one serves the church.
Ms. Barbara,
I told you I was going to mention you today.
Ms. Barbara is very diligent.
If you ever show up
around like 9 o'clock
and just watch her,
she does like everything around here.
It's crazy.
It's pretty awesome.
But in all seriousness though,
there are many, many ways
that you can serve the church.
Romans 12, 6-8 reads,
Since we have gifts that defer
according to the grace given to us,
each of us is to exercise them accordingly.
If prophecy,
according to the proportion of his faith,
is service and serving,
or he who teaches and is teaching,
or he who exhorts and is exhortation,
he who gives with liberty,
he who leads with diligence,
he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.
So we see that Paul here
is saying that the Spirit gives us
many gifts in terms of
how to serve the church.
Perhaps God has given you
some of the gift of preaching.
Perhaps God has given you
some of the gift of teaching.
Perhaps God has given you
the gift of music.
Those are the more public things.
There's also the things
that no one sees.
You know, the financing that occurs
to keep everything running smoothly.
The administrative aspect
to keep everything planned.
Even things as small as
making the coffee in the morning.
All these things are done
and they bring us great fellowship.
Think about it.
The coffee seems like a small thing,
but everybody's gathered
around the coffee,
drinking it,
and enjoying fellowship.
So all these different forms of service
add to the church
in a way that God has chosen.
And an implication therein
is that if you are not serving
in a way that God has gifted you,
then the body is neglected.
The body is missing
an aspect of service
that it could have.
And that is to the detriment of the body.
But the greatest way,
and above all else,
the way that we can
serve this body,
serve the believers,
serve the church,
both visible,
which means here in this congregation,
and invisible,
meaning the whole church,
is through prayer.
It is through praying for the service,
praying for the worship,
all aspects of it.
The preaching,
that God's word would be proclaimed
through the hearing,
as we've talked about
several times already today,
that the people that are here
would respond in faith and truth
to what the text shows.
They pray for the singing aspect
and the music,
that God would be greatly glorified
through the worship of His name
and through the praise of His people.
Pray for the Lord's Supper,
that it would be the solemn
and joyful event
that it's meant to be.
Pray for one another
as we bear one another's burdens.
The greatest service
that you can do for the church
is to pray.
And that is a service
that we can all do,
that we are all gifted in.
We all have the ability
to sit down,
get on our knees,
lay down,
have a pace,
however you want to,
to pray,
and to pray for the beloved.
So,
don't tell me
that you don't have the ability.
Don't tell anybody
that you don't have the ability.
I think we're very blessed here
with a body who does serve
and serves very fervently
in a lot of ways.
And for that,
I'm very thankful.
I know Nathan is thankful.
I've heard him say it many times.
So,
but if you're not serving,
there are ways you can serve.
And I would encourage you
to seek them.
And I know we have many teams here
that do the audio,
the service,
and other stuff.
Maybe Wes can make an announcement.
I don't know.
But,
so,
okay,
so that concludes
verses 29 through 31.
We've seen that Christ
has absolute authority,
just to emphasize again,
that the disciples
had seen his absolute authority
and felt comfortable
coming to him
with their request
that they may be made known to him
and that he may do
as he pleases.
And we see also
that a proper reaction
to being touched by Christ
is to serve both him
through the work of reconciliation,
sharing Christ in the gospel,
which is not exactly
what this text says,
but it's an implication,
and also through various ways
of serving the church,
both physically and spiritually.
So,
let's look at verses 32 through 34.
It says,
when evening came,
after the sun had set,
they began bringing to him
all who were ill
and those who were demon-possessed.
And the whole city
had gathered at the door,
and he healed many who were ill
with various diseases
and cast out many demons.
And he was not permitting
the demons to speak
because they knew who he was.
So,
verse 32 starts off
with a kind of interesting phrase.
It says,
when evening came,
and after the sun had set,
they began bringing.
And the reason this was so
was because you weren't allowed
to carry anyone or anything
on the Sabbath.
In the Gospel of Luke,
in the 14th,
sorry,
the 13th chapter,
in the 14th verse,
one of the leaders of the synagogues
rebuked some Jews
who had brought someone
to be healed by Christ.
And he's saying,
there's six days
where work can be done.
Why do it on this day?
So, obviously,
the people had been taught
that doing anything
that was like that on the Sabbath
was a negative thing
that shouldn't be done.
So,
they waited until the sun
had gone down,
and the reason that was
was because the Jews
didn't understand days
as we do
from 12 a.m.
to 12 a.m.
They understood days
as from sundown to sundown.
So,
whenever the sun had went down
on the day of the Sabbath,
which would have been a Saturday,
not a Sunday,
by the way,
just so you all know
from Jewish culture,
the day would have been over.
So,
they would have been able
to freely bring people
to Christ.
And let us see
the kindness of Christ,
and once again,
the greatness and grandeur
of who He is,
in that He's able to heal
all who are brought to Him.
Mark records that
He healed many.
The Gospel of Luke
in the 4th chapter
records that He healed
each one,
indicating each
individual person.
So,
we have a Savior
who is both willing
and able to heal.
Now,
I want to make a
clarifying note here
about healing.
I'm not saying that
God heals all the time.
This is a very specific
and special time
in redemptive history
when Christ was in person
in the flesh.
What we would do wise
to learn
is that though God
can heal,
He's in no way
obligated to heal.
He heals
at His sovereign choice.
At this time,
in the Gospel,
I'm sorry,
the Gospel of Isaiah,
in the Prophet Isaiah,
we see that He had said
that Christ came
to take the infirmities
of them all,
meaning Israel.
So,
this was a very specific time
and Christ was fulfilling
a very specific role
as the Messiah
at this time period.
So,
though Christ is
and though God is
so able to heal,
and I believe
does so occasionally,
that's a whole other sermon
that can be discussed,
He is not forced,
His hand is not played
by us to do so.
So,
if you go to Christ
and pray for healing
and it doesn't come,
take comfort in knowing
that God works out
all things for the good
of those who love Him
and are called
into His purposes.
That if you are not healed,
it is for your good.
Even though it may seem
bad to you initially,
in the long run,
you can take comfort
in knowing that God,
who is infinitely wise,
infinitely knowledgeable,
knows the future
because He plans it,
has decided that it is not
good for you
to be healed
at this moment.
So,
let us observe
though Christ did here,
He is not obligated to today.
even though
many people would say
He might be.
Alright.
So,
let's move on
to the last portion
of our text.
We've kind of gone
through the first two portions
relatively quickly
because I want to spend
the most time
in the last portion.
I think that's where
the meat of what God
has for us today
is at.
And it says,
in the early morning
while it was still dark,
Jesus got up,
left the house,
and went away
to a secluded place
and was praying there.
The first thing
that Christ did
with His day,
the very first thing
that this text shows us
is that in the early morning
while it was still dark,
the KJV translated
long before dawn,
that Christ went out
and He prayed.
And what this shows us
about Christ
and His view of prayer
is that He saw it
as a priority.
He is the first thing
He wanted to do
with His day.
Before He saw the face
of any man,
before He had an encounter
with any person
or other thing,
He wanted to see His Father.
He wanted to see God the Father
and interact with Him
and be with Him.
And also,
it's really cool to see how,
as we're kind of exploring
a little bit here,
that Christ's prayer
was wedged in between
His two forms of ministry.
You know,
He was healing
and preaching the Gospel.
Oh yeah,
that's what I wanted
to point out.
Okay,
real fast,
backtrack with me
for just a moment.
This whole time,
everything that we have
been talking about,
all the healings
and miracles and whatnot,
the emphasis is found
in verse 15 of this chapter.
It says,
The time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God
is at hand.
Repent and believe the Gospel.
So Christ's main focus
in His ministry,
as He's about to say,
and we've already read once,
was to preach the Gospel.
And all these other things
were happening
because they were foretold
that they would.
But this whole time,
while He's doing
all these things,
He has continued
to preach the Gospel.
that the kingdom of God
is at hand,
that God is literally there
at that moment
in terms of Christ
and the Carnet,
that the kingdom of God
and that the people of God
need to repent and believe.
As we've already established,
that the Gospel,
in terms of Jesus Christ
crucified,
buried,
and resurrected,
obviously not occurred
at this point.
So He was telling them
to repent,
turn from their sins,
forsake their evil,
wicked ways,
and believe unto God.
So that is the context
in which everything else
is occurring.
And we need to keep that in mind
because it shows the focus
of Christ's ministry.
And it shows the focus
when we do various kinds
of ministry,
what we will be doing
and how we should be focusing.
All right.
I don't even know
what I'm at in my notes.
I haven't been using them.
Anyways,
let's continue on
with verse 35.
Yes,
let us know,
this gives back
where we were.
He went out early
in the morning
because He saw it
as a priority in His day.
It was the very essence
of His day
to start it off that way.
He gave it the top priority
because it was first.
And also,
while it was still dark,
Jesus got up,
left the house,
and went to a secluded place.
So why did Christ
go to a secluded place?
Why did He go to be alone?
He went to be alone
because He wanted
to be alone with God.
And I know that seems
like an obvious statement
based on what the text
is saying,
but we have to take
a step back
and think about
what that really means.
He didn't desire
to be interrupted
by the distractions of men,
by the distractions
of our society.
He sought to seek God first
and for that to be
a priority in His life.
And He sought to do it wholly,
to be separated
from everybody else
and be wholly devoted
to God in this time period.
What's interesting here
in the text,
the word secluded,
that's translated right here
in verse 12
and other places
in the text,
is also the word
that is translated wilderness.
So in verse 12
where it says,
immediately the Spirit
impelled Him
to go into the wilderness,
the word wilderness there
is the same place
for secluded place here.
So if you look at a map,
which I don't expect
you all to do,
but if you look at a map,
you'll see that there are
no wilderness,
how it's generally used
to describe in Capernaum
in the immediate area.
So Jesus would have gone
a relatively good ways
away from the city
to get away
from everybody else,
to go and pray
and be alone with God
and to spend time
with the Father.
And let us also see,
wait,
whenever you look
at the rest of Scripture,
you see Christ's prayer life
continually.
Let us remember
that mark here
in these first nine chapters
and especially in chapter one
as he's continually
showed the authority
of Christ,
is showing Christ
as the God-man,
He who is powerful,
who is far more able
than we are
in our own human flesh,
in our own human selves.
And yet Christ took
the time to pray.
It was His priority
in His life.
And the lesson for us
as we looked at
1 John 2, 6,
obviously we can't replicate
the first part of the text
that we looked at.
We don't have the ability
to heal the way that Christ did.
We don't have the ability
to do all those miracles,
although Christ does do
miracles today still.
We don't have the ability
like He did.
But we can replicate
this aspect of His ministry,
of His life.
We do have the ability
to continue on in prayer
alone and making it
a priority.
So that's why
whenever we look at
what Christ is doing
here is significant
that we take note
and that we notice
what He does,
so that way we can do it too.
If Him who was perfect
sought to pray,
how much more so
do we who are imperfect
need to?
Christ had no sins
to confess,
which would take up
most of our time in prayer,
based on how sinful
we are.
He had no...
Well,
He didn't deal
with temptation
the same way
that we did,
in that we have to
bitterly seek freedom
from temptation.
If Christ,
who was God
in the flesh,
sought the face
of His Father,
probably praying
for the ministry
that occurred
the day previous,
that the word
that had been sown
would remain,
that Satan
wouldn't snatch it up
and be on good soil,
and praying for the
next day,
which was His preaching,
if He sought
so vigorously the Father
as to make it a priority
to rise early
long before the sun rose
and to go somewhere
far away from everybody else
after a long day
of ministry,
should not we as well?
You told me that...
You told me you're too busy
to really sit down
and take time to pray?
That's crazy,
because Christ was way
busy than any of us.
Look at His day.
32 through 34
is really just a summary
of a day of Christ,
that He killed many,
many people,
and that the whole town
had literally come to Him
and He healed all
who were sick
and demon-possessed.
You told me that
you are distracted?
I understand, beloved.
Whenever I seek to pray,
that's like the only time
I get text messages,
the only time I get
phone calls.
It's really strange.
People knock at the door.
I'm really tempted
to check Facebook.
And various things.
I can relate to your temptation,
but far greater,
far greater than my ability
to relate to your distraction,
your ability,
or your tendency
to be distracted
is Christ's.
Look here.
Look at us in verse...
Look at us,
with me,
in verse 36 and 37.
It says,
Simon and his companions
searched for Him.
They found Him
and said to Him,
everyone is looking for you.
Christ had taken
this great effort
to arise long before
everybody else,
so that we hopefully,
I imagine,
that He didn't want
to be seen,
gone to this far-off place
to be secluded,
to be alone with God
and to seek His face.
And then disciples,
wanting to do a good thing,
I imagine,
saying,
everybody's looking for you.
They go and distract Him.
They go and take Him away
from the Father's presence.
So, beloved,
listen,
this is really, really important.
Christ can relate
to your weakness
in this area.
Christ knows
what it feels like
to be distracted
while you seek
the Father's face.
It is no surprise to Him.
It is not something
He is unlearned in.
And let us learn
to look to the beloved,
the beloved crucified
Son of God
who is risen
and who knows
our weakness
to learn to cope
with these things.
Beloved.
Let us also note
that Christ in His flesh
did not have
infinite energy.
It was not something
that we see
continuing in the Scriptures
at moments like
when Christ says,
I thirst,
and moments like that,
that Christ did not have
infinite amount of energy
and that Christ
had had a very busy day,
far busier than
what most of us
experience on our regular day
previously.
And as we see
from the following verses
that He was going to go
and continue to do
the same thing continually.
Yet He made the time
and the priority to pray.
So, if you feel tired,
distracted,
like you don't have energy
to stay awake
and sit there,
beloved,
Christ knows how you feel.
Look to Him for guidance.
Look to Him for wisdom.
Look at His example.
In Luke 5.16 it says,
But Jesus Himself
would often slip away
to the wilderness and pray.
One of the beauties
of this text,
as a man named
Brother Paul Washer
points out in a sermon,
is that Christ slipped away
to pray in the wilderness.
And you slip away
to that which you love.
You slip away
and go off
to that which is
most cherished to you.
Maybe you slip away
to play music
or you slip away
to read a book.
Those aren't intrinsically
bad things to do,
by the way.
I'm not saying those are sin.
Those are good things to do
and God refreshes
our spirit to them.
But Christ often
slipped away to pray.
And that shows us
in the text,
Christ slipping away,
that was the most valuable
to Him,
was seeing the face
and beholding the face
of the Father in prayer.
It was the great joy
of His day.
In the context of that passage,
He had been doing
many miracles.
It says that He was
healing many lepers.
It says,
but Christ would often
slip away to pray.
So let us learn,
like our beloved did,
to slip away to God,
to make prayer a priority,
to make beholding
the face of God
such a joyous thing
in our hearts,
that we long for
to the point where,
in spite of our busy day,
in spite of our hectic schedules,
in spite of our tiredness
and all these things,
that we slip away to it.
That it becomes
our source of strength
and joy in the ministry.
Because we're all called
to the ministry
of reconciliation.
In 2 Corinthians 5,
Paul talks about
all who are born again.
And then he continues on
and he ends the passage
with a great exchange,
justification by grace
through faith.
But in between that,
he says that God
has given us
the ministry
of reconciliation.
Going out
and proclaiming to men
the good news
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And let us learn, beloved,
as Christ did,
as he went about
this same ministry,
let us look at his example
and see how he did it.
He slipped away to pray.
And my prayer for this point
in the sermon
is that y'all really see
the value of prayer.
Because Christ did it.
Christ who was God
made a common practice of it.
If Christ,
who was God in the flesh
made a practice of it,
we ought to.
Because he is our
perfect example.
He is the captain
of our faith,
our elder brother,
who we should look after
to repeat.
And let us also note
in this text
involving Christ's ministry
and how he was,
how he worked,
how he shunned the comfort
and popularity
of the world.
His disciples walk up to him
and they say,
everyone is looking for you.
All men seek after you.
This is a great,
joyous proclamation.
It would have been so easy
to say,
I'm popular here.
I'm well received here.
I'm going to stay here,
continue preaching,
continue healing,
be loved by the people
and continue on in my ministry.
But what does Christ say?
He says,
let us go somewhere else
to towns nearby
so that I may preach
there also.
For that is what I came for.
Christ knew the work
that God had set before him
and refused to rest
in the comfort of works
already accomplished.
And I know myself,
and I'm sure many of you
can relate to me in this,
that often I find
the opposite to be true.
I find myself only referring
back to past experiences
instead of continually
pushing forward
oftentimes in the work of God.
I take comfort
in what God has already
used me for
and what God has already
done in me
rather than striving forward.
And we would do well
to learn as our Savior did
to not rest
until we have done
what God has given us to do.
And as you all know,
what God has given us to do
is the Great Commission
to go into all the nations,
all the world,
and preach Christ.
And that has not been done,
as we all know.
So let us learn,
as our Savior did here,
not to rest in the comfort
of our friends,
the comfort of those
who receive us well.
Let us continue fighting on
for the glory of God,
advancing the flag of Zion.
Let us not rest in ease
and peace
while men are out there
not worshiping God
as he ought to be worshipped,
praising the Lord
as he ought to be praised,
and they are dying
and condemned to hell as well.
We should have a burden
and urgency about us
to continue pressing on
because God deserves glory,
both being bowed to
as Lord
and being rejoiced
over as Savior.
Because Christ deserves
these things,
let us press
and press and press
and rely entirely
upon seeing the face
of the Father
in prayer as Christ did here.
Verse 39 of our text says,
And he went into their synagogues
throughout all of Galilee,
preaching and casting out
the demons.
This shows us that
what Christ had said
in verse 38,
what he came to do,
to go and preach,
he did,
and he accomplished.
It's obviously a curse
to the rest of the Gospels.
I'm not saying
at verse 39 it was done
because it wasn't.
Obviously,
we have the rest of this Gospel
in the Gospel accounts,
but it shows that
Christ continued on
and pressed on
with what he came to do.
He,
we see that Christ,
ah,
I'm trying to word this properly.
It's not in my notes.
That was a bad choice.
We see that Christ
is entirely dependent,
as we've actually covered,
and that he accomplished
what he came to do
because of the work
that he had done previously.
The power of his ministry
was in prayer.
The power of his ministry
was in prayer,
my beloved.
We are not going
to accomplish things
because of our wit,
our own ability,
or anything like that.
We will accomplish
because we behold
the face of God
and act as Christ did,
as our great brother.
So,
last page of the notes.
Good.
So,
we're at the finally
and the conclusion.
Oh,
yeah,
I remember what I was going to say now.
Sorry,
I apologize for that distraction.
But,
what Christ came to do,
he said,
was to preach the Gospel.
That was the focus
and main aspect
of his ministry.
Um,
oftentimes,
you hear about
social work these days
and social justice
is an area
that has been
often neglected
by the church,
especially among
the evangelical church.
And that's the tragedy
because God loves
social justice.
He desires for it
to be brought out
and accomplished.
But we see here
that Christ's primary ministry
was preaching the Gospel.
What Christ came to do
and what we are to push on doing
is to preach
the Gospel of Christ.
We are to love
as Christ loved,
to walk as he walked
as we looked at
that first verse
that I read,
which includes
looking after
those who are sick,
those who are destitute,
those who are poor,
unable themselves.
But his primary focus
was to preach
the Gospel
in all the places
that he was going.
For him,
it was Israel.
For us,
he has expanded it
to the whole world.
So as we go forth,
I know many of you
are called to missions.
I know many of you,
whether it be
missions overseas
or missions
in a different state
or missions down the road
or however it is
that God has called you to do,
let us not lose focus
of the main thing
in our time of going,
that we not ever see
the Gospel
as less than an end
and all these things
as a means.
Using these things
to extol God.
So,
I want to,
we've kind of looked at
a bunch of like
spider web strings
and I want to show you
how the web actually looks
in light of the whole passage
that we've been looking at.
So we see the first
that Mark has at this point
established Christ's
absolute authority.
I hope you all
have walked away with that
because I've said it
like ten times.
So we see Christ
as absolute authority
and we see that
the disciples
were compelled
by that absolute authority
to go to Christ
and to present
their needs before Him.
That
they had comfort
knowing that Christ
would hear
and faith knowing
that He was able
to do as He pleased.
And then we see
that Christ continues on
with a really busy day
and we see an emphasis
on prayer
in that Christ prayed
and we see how Christ prayed.
We see the emphasis
of how Christ prayed
being alone
to be completely
shut off to God
and early
showing a priority.
So beloved,
what God is showing us
through Mark,
one of the many things
is the importance
of prayer
and turning to God
in all things
for ministry
and for all.
Whether it be
the ministry
of being a husband,
a father,
a son,
a daughter,
or the ministry
of preaching the gospel
to those who don't know Christ.
God is showing us
this great,
great,
great need
for prayer.
And beloved,
Hebrews 4.15
says that we do not have
a high priest
who is unable
to sympathize with us
but in all ways
was attempted
as we were
yet without sin.
And then it goes on
to say,
now let us boldly
approach the throne
of grace,
receiving grace
as it is for the need.
And beloved,
listen,
this is really important.
We see
that the emphasis
of that passage
shows us
that because of
who Christ was,
we have boldness
before the Father.
We can come
and make bold requests
of God
in our prayer,
present bold things.
That's why we have
the ability to pray
for things like revival
because Christ
is our token.
His righteousness
has paid for us.
Our union with Christ,
being one with Him,
has made the road
for us to be
at the throne room
of God.
And we have the ability,
the great and glorious,
precious ability
to walk before God,
say Father,
and present our requests
to Him
because of Christ,
because of who He is,
because of what He has done.
So let us pray boldly.
Let us pray often,
alone,
and boldly
to our God
who hears us
and graciously,
ever so graciously,
condescends
to answer our prayers.
I have a confession
to you all.
As Nathan preached
through the book of Nehemiah,
he often talked
about the value
of prayer
as we see in the book.
And I so often
found myself saying
yes and amen
in my heart,
but so little
had been changed
by hearing
what he was preaching about.
And I promise you,
until preparing
for this sermon,
God has birthed
a greater prayer life
in me
through this text
than before.
But my confession
is that
it is not enough,
brethren,
brothers and sisters,
to say yes and amen
to these truths,
to say that prayer
is important
and we need to do it
and we need to push on.
We must back
our words
with actions
because
in the letter
to Corinth,
in the first one,
Paul talks about
those who are reviling him
and he says,
well,
I will come soon
and they can have
the words
because the kingdom
of God comes
in word and deed.
So, brethren,
as we encourage
one another
to pray
and to seek
God's face,
as we say yes
and amen
to these truths
because they are
beautiful truths
found in scriptures,
the righteousness
of Christ
enabling us to pray,
let us back
our actions,
let us back
our words
with actions.
I've been doing
a lot of meditation
on Christian liberty
recently
and something
that God
has really shown me
through the meditation
and the word
is that there are
two kind of people
and James talks
about this.
There are the effectual
hearers and those
who do.
There are people
who say these things
that will say
yes and amen.
Yes,
these are true statements.
We need to pray more.
We ought to act
as Christ acted
in that way
but then nothing
changes in their lives
and I'm fearful
for that
for many of you
and for myself
above all.
Trust me.
James 3.1
says,
let not many
become teachers
for held to a higher
judgment.
So,
I fear
to sit here
and preach this to you
to say these things
to you
and then not change myself
but I fear for you also
because you have heard
the word of God
regardless of how
poorly or well
this sermon has been delivered
you have seen
that Christ prayed
made it a priority
and went to do it
by himself
and did so
for the sake
of his ministry
and if you do not
follow suit
with what Christ has done
you give an account
for it
because you have knowledge
brethren
I pray that the fear
of God
would press upon you
in that regard
and it would myself
that we would know
that God has called us
to be these kind of people
people of prayer
people that seek him
and that we would not stand
before God on judgment day
and give an account
for all the truth
we heard about prayer
all the truth
we heard about
these beautiful
glorious truths
and also
let's look at the beauty
and the truth
of who we get to pray to
we get to pray to Christ
who had absolute authority
as we've seen in this text
and over the past couple sermons
over both man
the will of man
the nature
nature
as well as the demonic world
and the spiritual realm
what a joy to bring to him
our troubles and peace
our troubles
and seek peace from him anyways
but
I want to end
with
talking to any of you
who are not in Christ
who do not know Christ
I tell you people
that
this sermon
has very little
to offer you
because God is not
obligated to hear your prayers
God is not
I mean
he knows what your prayers are
because he knows all things
but he's not obligated
to hear them
in the sense of
as a good friend
listens
to you whenever you talk
in the book of Daniel
in the 9th chapter
in the 18th verse
Daniel tells us that
he is not praying
based on his righteousness
based on his own merits
but on the great compassion
of God
and in the context
of what happens there
the next thing
that Daniel says
is forgive us
forgive us oh Lord
for our sins
he's making
he's praying
for the transgression
of his people
so
what that shows us
is that
whenever we talk about
having such confidence
and boldness
and prayer
being able to go
to God Almighty
and present our request
is not because of who we are
but is who Christ is
and what he has done
and the compassion
that Daniel was talking about
in that passage
the compassion of the Lord
is the work of Jesus Christ
that he came
lived a perfect
sinless life
never committed a single sin
never lied once
never had an impure thought
everything
if you are outside of Christ
that you have done
that is wrong
he never did
and that he died
for his people
he completed the work
for his people
and that he made redemption
for their sins
and that is the merit
that we come and pray
before our God with
and if you are not in Christ
I tell you
and I invite you
to join us
Christ said
that he will
I'm sorry
the scriptures teach
that all who call
on the name of the Lord
will be saved
all who call
on the name of the Lord
will be saved
and you will also
have this joyous access
to this great God
let me emphasize once more
and now in my sermon
we're in the preaching
section of worship
that God is not obligated
to answer your prayers
he is not obligated
to do as you ask
we do not force God's hand
God rejoices
to use the prayers
of his people
to accomplish his means
but he has a far
greater view
and a far greater wisdom
than we
in many things
so sometimes
we may ask things
and they may not be
they may not be given to us
they may not be granted to us
by the Father
but it is not because
the merit of Christ
is insufficient
it is because
God has a better
and greater plan
for his beloved
to make them like Christ
let's pray