Latest / HBCWestminster / The Boys Are Back in Town • Mark 6:1-6a

Transcript

The Boys Are Back in Town • Mark 6:1-6a · HBCWestminster

• 0:12
  A turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Mark chapter six, Mark chapter six, we continue in
• 0:18
  the life of Christ and our study of Mark's gospel, Mark chapter six. And when you've found it in your
• 0:24
  copy of God's word, would you stand in honor of the word? As I read our texts this morning,
• 0:28
  verses one to six, Mark chapter six, beginning in verse one. And the word of God says he went
• 0:39
  away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath,
• 0:46
  he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were astonished saying, where did this
• 0:50
  man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?
• 0:56
  Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon
• 1:02
  and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them,
• 1:08
  approach.
• 1:09
  The prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own
• 1:14
  household. And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people
• 1:20
  and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And Lord, we thank you for rescuing us
• 1:27
  from our sin. And now we pray that you would rescue us from our unbelief. Lord, if there are
• 1:35
  any threads of doubt in our hearts and minds, would you rescue us?
• 1:39
  From any contempt, Lord, we may harbor toward the gospel because we have become so familiar with it.
• 1:46
  Lord, rescue us from spiritual lethargy, from apathy, and from a lack of faith. And Lord,
• 1:55
  would you lead us in life everlasting in Jesus' powerful name? Amen. Amen. Thank you, church.
• 2:02
  You can be seated. Well, to the storm, be still. To the demon, be gone.
• 2:11
  To the father, be leave. To the woman, be healed. To the girl, be raised. And then Christ went home.
• 2:22
  When we share our testimonies on Wednesday evenings for Thrive, and we do this most
• 2:26
  Wednesday evenings, we have people share their testimonies. One of the four questions I always
• 2:30
  ask him is, where did you grow up and what was it like? And so let me tell you where I grew up
• 2:37
  and what it was like. Here is my
• 2:40
  kindergarten picture. There it is. My kindergarten class picture. I don't know who cut my hair.
• 2:45
  Probably me. I've been cutting it ever since. I grew up at First Baptist Church in Lancaster,
• 2:51
  California. I was dedicated in that church when I was a matter of months old. I went to the church
• 2:58
  nursery. I graduated to Sunday school. I attended VBS. Eventually, I went to the church youth group.
• 3:04
  I graduated from high school in 1994. I went to a Christian college and seminary in Los Angeles.
• 3:10
  And then in the year 2002, I came home where I was hired as that church's youth pastor.
• 3:19
  I spent five years as the youth pastor, spent another five years as the adult pastor,
• 3:23
  eventually became an associate pastor before coming to Highland in January of 2015. And my
• 3:28
  point is that I spent most of my life at the same church. Here I am as a 38-year-old in the same
• 3:36
  church with that church staff. This was the day that Hallie and I were leaving to come to the church.
• 3:40
  2015, it was actually the end of 2014 that this picture was taken. Much larger church. You can
• 3:46
  see a much larger church staff, but there was some of our best friends as they were commissioning us
• 3:50
  to come here to Colorado. I spent most of my life in that church from the time that I was born to
• 3:57
  the time that I came to Highland. The old ladies that I eventually pastored there were the same
• 4:05
  ladies that taught me when I was just a kid. It was ladies like Trudy Lewis, who taught me how to
• 4:10
  read a Corbin, Geneva Stone, Martha Barnes. Martha's husband, Carl, was a pilot in World War II
• 4:17
  where he was shot down over France and hid for three days inside of a massive haystack,
• 4:23
  which was repeatedly machine gunned by German soldiers as they passed by.
• 4:28
  I didn't know that at the time. The only thing I knew about Mr. Barnes was that he was the center
• 4:33
  door usher. And he always had those Werther's Originals candies in his pocket. And he would
• 4:39
  give them to us. And he would give them to us. And he would give them to us. And he would give
• 4:40
  one to every kid whose parents said it was okay. I just thought he was the candy guy.
• 4:44
  I didn't know any of that stuff about Carl until after he passed away. When he did, Martha,
• 4:51
  Mrs. Barnes, became a greeter at the same front door of the church. She just took over his door.
• 4:57
  She was in her eighties. She loved shaking people's hands, handing them a church bulletin,
• 5:04
  and then saying, you know, Pastor Danny? And they'd say, yeah.
• 5:09
  Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he wonderful?
• 5:10
  She would say, I guess. And then she would say, you know, I used to change his diapers in the
• 5:18
  church nursery. I came to her one time and I said, Mrs. Barnes, will you please stop telling people
• 5:25
  that please? And she said, nope. A pastor has no honor in his own hometown. You know, the problem,
• 5:39
  the problem is they remember when you were just a kid. They remember the times that you
• 5:45
  messed up. They remember the times that you failed. They remember all of the times that you
• 5:50
  wish they would forget. They remember the time you brought a big circle magnet to Sunday school
• 5:55
  because you thought it was cool. And the lesson that Sunday was going to be on David and Goliath.
• 5:59
  And so you tied that big magnet to a string and swung it over your head because you thought you
• 6:04
  were King David about to slay the giant. And when you threw it on the playground, instead of it
• 6:09
  going forward, it went backward through one of the church windows. They remember that day.
• 6:15
  Don't let you forget it. Now, Jesus up to this point has been traveling the countryside in
• 6:20
  Galilee for 18 months. He's been teaching and listen, the people have been marveling at Jesus
• 6:26
  over and over. It says that they are amazed. They are astonished at his teaching and his miracles.
• 6:35
  He was able to heal a man with a withered hand. Do you remember that? He was able to heal the
• 6:40
  man let down through the roof. He claims authority over forgiveness.
• 6:45
  I forgive your sins. They're, they're marveling at him until he went home.
• 6:53
  His childhood friends and neighbors had every intention of putting Jesus back in his place
• 6:59
  of knocking him off of that pedestal. Remember they had not forgotten childhood Jesus and they
• 7:06
  weren't about to let him forget either. And what we have in our text, what it describes are four
• 7:12
  fallacies. A fallacy is like an error in thinking.
• 7:15
  It's a mistake in your thinking. It's a mental heresy for fallacies, which the people needed to
• 7:22
  be rescued from if they were to think rightly about Jesus. And honestly, friends, these same
• 7:27
  four fallacies probably bounce around in our heads sometimes too. We need to be rescued from these
• 7:32
  same four mental mistakes. And the first one is this fallacy. Number one, that Jesus somehow has
• 7:41
  to live up to my expectations on him.
• 7:45
  What I expect Jesus to do or to be is more important than who he actually is. And notice
• 7:53
  verse one, he went away from there. That is Galilee, that region and came to his hometown
• 7:57
  and his disciples followed him. Now we know where Christ was born, right? Where was Christ born?
• 8:04
  Bethlehem, but Bethlehem is not where he grew up. He grew up the scriptures say in Nazareth. In fact,
• 8:09
  the parallel passage, Luke chapter four of this same text says that he went to Nazareth,
• 8:15
  where he had been brought up. And so, although he had been born in Bethlehem, he was raised
• 8:20
  in Nazareth and Nazareth wasn't much to look at. You didn't brag about being from Nazareth. Notice
• 8:29
  first where it is. Okay. So here's the map we keep looking at. Here's Israel, right? All of Israel,
• 8:35
  Judea down here, Jerusalem, right there, all the way up in the north. There's the sea of Galilee.
• 8:40
  That's where Jesus has been doing this ministry better than a year. He's been based out of
• 8:44
  Capernaum, right?
• 8:45
  The north side of the sea. That's our anchor point. That's where Jesus has been doing all of
• 8:48
  these things. He leaves one day, Mark says, and goes to Nazareth. There is Nazareth. Now let me
• 8:55
  ask you, has anybody ever dreamt about owning waterfront property? Anybody else want to own
• 9:00
  something on the water? You see ocean front. You're like, I'll take it. Lakefront, riverfront,
• 9:06
  waterfront property. Guess what? That is nothing new. Everybody in all of history,
• 9:15
  has wanted waterfront property, including 2000 years ago in Israel. So as you look at the sea
• 9:21
  of Galilee, guess where the most expensive homes and cities are. They're all around the sea of
• 9:27
  Galilee. Honestly, if you lived in Israel, this is where you'd want to live right there. I mean,
• 9:31
  this is it. It's beautiful. Everything grows. The soil is fertile. I mean, it's, it's beautiful.
• 9:36
  The sunrises and sunsets are incredible on the sea of Galilee. Guess where nobody wants to live
• 9:42
  right here. Nazareth,
• 9:45
  Nazareth is hilly. It's rocky. Nothing grows. The soil is shallow. Nazareth. The only reason
• 9:51
  you lived in Nazareth is because it was cheaper to live. In fact, if you go to Israel today,
• 9:57
  and I would encourage you to go to Israel, you're going to drive on this weird little
• 10:01
  windy road. It's probably the only time in all of Israel. You'll get car sick on the bus
• 10:06
  going up to Nazareth because it is steep. They're climbing up over these cliffs in order to get to
• 10:11
  this place where you're like, why would anybody live here? The only answer is,
• 10:15
  it's cheap. Here is a picture of modern Nazareth. If you were to go there today,
• 10:19
  modern Nazareth, notice no skyscrapers, no big building, no big corporations, no big money.
• 10:26
  The only building, the building that dominates the skyline is that one church. Do you see it?
• 10:31
  That is the church of the annunciation, the church of the announcement. This is on the spot. It is
• 10:37
  built over a rock Gretto grotto that you can still climb down into a rock grotto where Mary received,
• 10:45
  the announcement from Gabriel. And honestly, I think archeologists nailed this one. I think
• 10:50
  they got the actual spot. So you can go into that church. It's massive. The church of the
• 10:54
  annunciation. You can see the actual spot where Mary found out that she was pregnant with the
• 10:59
  son of God. That church is built over it. But honestly, the entire ancient village of Nazareth
• 11:05
  probably would fit inside of that church precinct. That was the whole thing. When Jesus grew up there,
• 11:14
  there were talking dozens, maybe a couple of hundred people. That was it. The reason people
• 11:21
  lived there is because it was cheap. It became that bedroom community to places like Tiberias
• 11:26
  down the hill, a much wealthier area. And honestly, what most people did there was become
• 11:33
  craftsmen. The scriptures say that this is the carpenter's son, right? Joseph, we know from
• 11:39
  church history and tradition was a carpenter, but honestly, he probably wasn't a carpenter.
• 11:44
  The Greek word is tectone. Tectone is like a craftsman. And if you go even to modern Nazareth,
• 11:51
  there are no trees, no trees at all. Trees can't even grow there. Most of the time that any that
• 11:59
  you see in the picture have been planted recently. Okay. These are not 2000 year old trees. There
• 12:04
  are no woods. There are no forests. What they had a lot of was rocks. And so probably what Joseph was,
• 12:09
  was a stonemason. That's probably what he did. He probably worked in other things as well,
• 12:14
  maybe even wood, but there's not like there was just a lumber lying around. He was probably a
• 12:18
  stonemason. Jesus probably was too. And so what they did along with Jesus's brothers was probably
• 12:25
  commuted to work. They commuted down to Tiberias where they would spend the week working, get paid
• 12:30
  and then come back to Nazareth. But Nazareth, like I said, was nothing really to look at.
• 12:38
  He didn't brag about being from there. When Jesus began calling his disciples, one of the first ones
• 12:44
  was Nathanael. Philip, John chapter one says found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom
• 12:50
  Moses in the law. And also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Guess what
• 12:56
  Nathanael? We found the Messiah. The one we've been waiting for all of these centuries has finally
• 13:01
  been found. And you'll never guess where he's from. He's from Nazareth. And you see Nathanael's reply
• 13:11
  false. Nothing good comes from Nazareth.
• 13:14
  Nothing good can come from Nazareth. He can't be from Nazareth. And yet that's exactly where the
• 13:20
  scriptures say he was from. Nazareth became his hometown. And you would think if Jesus was going
• 13:28
  to be received anywhere, it'd be at home. If he was going to get support and love from anywhere,
• 13:34
  it would be at home among his family and his neighbors, his childhood friends. I mean, if he
• 13:41
  was going to be cheerleaded,
• 13:44
  by anybody, it would be his childhood friends and neighbors over the last two chapters in Mark's
• 13:52
  gospel, Mark four and five. Remember that question was asked, who is this guy? Do you remember that?
• 13:58
  Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? The disciples asked this question
• 14:05
  after Jesus calmed the storm, who in the world is this? And then Mark five follows up. Who is this?
• 14:12
  Who can command demons?
• 14:14
  Who is this? Who can heal a woman? Who is this? Who can raise a little girl from the dead?
• 14:20
  And last Sunday, I answered that question very specifically with this statement.
• 14:24
  It's the last thing I said last Sunday. I left us with this. Who is this guy? This is Jesus,
• 14:31
  the son of God, the timeless one, the savior, the one who was paid the penalty for our sin
• 14:38
  on the cross. But honestly, the residents of Nazareth had a whole different answer lined up.
• 14:44
  That is not who they thought he was. Timeless? Nah. I remember the day he was born.
• 14:57
  Savior from what? I remember when he was too young to swing a hammer. I remember getting him a
• 15:03
  stepstool to look over his father's workbench. I remember when he was not strong enough yet to
• 15:08
  pick up his own tool belt. He's the one who needs saving. I mean, take away sins.
• 15:15
  These are his brothers and sisters. Let's ask them. Here are the ones that he grew up. Let's
• 15:21
  talk to them about what they think. They don't even believe in him. In fact, John chapter seven
• 15:27
  says he had at least five brothers and two sisters. So after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had many
• 15:33
  other sons and daughters, at least five that are named in the scriptures, five brothers, two
• 15:39
  sisters, none of whom, according to John seven, none of whom believed in Jesus. None of them. In
• 15:45
  fact, John chapter seven records his brothers mocking him, mocking him. You're the Messiah,
• 15:52
  huh? Why don't you go up to Jerusalem and do something cool? I mean, just openly, flagrantly
• 15:59
  mocking him. Go present yourself. Let's see what happens. You're the Messiah. You're the one
• 16:06
  mocking him. You know, after, uh, after Jesus died, rose, and then began appearing to many,
• 16:12
  he did appear to two of his brothers. At least two of them did become believers.
• 16:15
  But it doesn't say they all did. At least two of them became believers. One was James who wrote
• 16:21
  the book of James. The other was Jude who wrote the book of Jude. Good. That was the hardest thing
• 16:27
  I'm going to ask. The two hardest questions on the test today. You guys nailed them both. Those were
• 16:31
  half brothers of Jesus belong to the same mother, obviously had a different dad, Joseph, not even
• 16:38
  his own brothers and sisters believed the son of God. No.
• 16:45
  You know, Luke chapter four says that some in the crowd accused him of being the son of Joseph.
• 16:53
  That was certainly a derogatory term that was meant to cut because was he the son of Joseph?
• 17:03
  Well, I mean, adoptive son. Yes. But biological son. No. And so when they accused him of being
• 17:09
  the son of Joseph, what they were saying was we are not buying the whole virgin birth thing.
• 17:15
  Nope. Here in Mark chapter four,
• 17:17
  others in the crowd call him Mary's son. Isn't this Mary's son, not even connecting him to a
• 17:24
  father. In other words, a fatherless boy. We have another word for that in our culture,
• 17:31
  right? That's what they're saying. You are the illegitimate bastard son of unwed Joseph and Mary.
• 17:42
  Who was he? Anything but the son of God. In fact, it'll take 10 more
• 17:47
  chapters. It'll be Mark 15 before finally somebody looks up at Jesus and says,
• 17:53
  surely this was the son of God. And man, if you enjoy irony, you know who said that
• 18:00
  was a Roman centurion holding a hammer. Finally looks at him and says, surely this was
• 18:09
  the son of God. What's the point? The point is this, the Jesus of the scriptures
• 18:17
  does not be the Jesus you expected. In fact, he, in some ways might even be a disappointment.
• 18:24
  There are some times that Jesus, our Jesus makes demands on his followers.
• 18:30
  There are some times where he draws lines. There are some times when he says things,
• 18:34
  which may be considered counter-cultural and socially unacceptable. And then he is going
• 18:39
  to command us to follow him in that there might actually be rejection waiting for us outside of
• 18:45
  these walls.
• 18:47
  Because after all, we are serving and following a savior who was crucified outside the city.
• 18:53
  It may not, it may not go super well for us all the time. If we attach ourselves to that Jesus,
• 19:00
  but don't forget, it was Jesus who said in Mark chapter 10, don't think I've come to bring peace
• 19:05
  to the earth. And you're like, wait, that's exactly what I thought he came to bring.
• 19:09
  Don't think I came to bring peace. I came to bring a sword.
• 19:13
  There is a good chance that the savior whom we all love so dearly has said in the scriptures,
• 19:18
  as we read in the scriptures, that Jesus is the one who is going to bring peace to the earth.
• 19:18
  At least one thing we aren't going to like at least one thing that we're not going to be
• 19:22
  comfortable with, that he is going to command us to do something, which will force us to take a
• 19:27
  step of faith, a step that we don't want to take a stand that we don't want to take. And the question
• 19:33
  is this, this morning, the brothers and sisters, will we sit in judgment on him
• 19:39
  or will we allow him to sit in judgment on us? This last week was historic
• 19:49
  in us history, because for only,
• 19:51
  the third time in American history, 250 years of history, only the third time has a British
• 19:57
  monarch even visited the United States. No doubt you heard about King Charles for only the second
• 20:03
  time in us history, 250 years, that same monarch, King Charles addressed a joint session of
• 20:09
  Congress. It's only happened two times in us history. During King Charles's speech,
• 20:14
  he referenced the value of Christianity in the history of the world. And it's interesting. He
• 20:19
  did this to a round of applause. He did this to a round of applause. He did this to a round of
• 20:21
  applause. He got a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle. And I thought that's kind of
• 20:25
  funny. I thought we didn't like Kings, but nevertheless, they all stood and they applauded.
• 20:31
  But then, and it was really weird, you guys, he kind of undid all of those comments
• 20:37
  by calling interfaith understanding. That's what he called it. Interfaith understanding as even
• 20:43
  greater Christianity has been great. And then he said, you know, what's even greater all religions,
• 20:52
  everything, this big melting pot of everything, all in the same bundle. And I quote, Mr. Speaker,
• 20:58
  this is King Charles just last week for many here. And for myself, the Christian faith is a firm
• 21:02
  anchor and daily inspiration that guides us not only personally, but together as members of our
• 21:07
  community, everybody stood and applauded. And then he said, having devoted a large part of my life
• 21:13
  to interfaith relationships and even greater understanding, you're like greater than what
• 21:17
  greater than Christianity is what he's saying. It is that faith in the triumph of life,
• 21:22
  over darkness, which I have found confirmed countless times through it, this greater
• 21:27
  understanding. I am inspired by the profound respect that develops as people of different
• 21:32
  faiths grow in their understanding of each other. Now, dare I say that King Charles
• 21:38
  monarch of the United kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms. I looked up his title
• 21:44
  leader of the association of 56 independent nations. And here was the part of that title
• 21:49
  that I found most interesting defender of the faith,
• 21:52
  of the church of England. He is not only the head of state, the King, he's also the head of the
• 21:58
  Anglican church. And that same head has substituted the savior of the scriptures for a savior of his
• 22:06
  own making. He didn't like what Jesus had to say. And so just swapped it out. Honestly, I think
• 22:17
  people do this all the time. I think people are confronted with who Christ is and say, no, that's
• 22:23
  not the Jesus.
• 22:24
  I wanted. That's not the Jesus I expected. And so I'll just fabricate a Jesus of my own making.
• 22:31
  But here's the point of Mark chapter six. And the story we learned from him going home
• 22:35
  is that who you believe Jesus to be doesn't matter as much as who Jesus actually is.
• 22:43
  We cannot expect Jesus to change based on our understanding, our perspective
• 22:48
  and our expectations. That's fallacy. Number one, that we have to scrub
• 22:53
  a fallacy. Number two, that we have to scrub a fallacy.
• 22:55
  Number two, are you ready? Here's a second error in thinking fallacy. Number two is that the gospel
• 23:00
  never loses its luster. I will remain as passionate and zealous for the gospel for the remainder of my
• 23:06
  life. As I began with from day one, the day I gave my life to the Lord Jesus. And I was so excited
• 23:12
  about the gospel, that gospel luster will never fade. But can I ask you church has the gospel
• 23:18
  luster faded? Does it fade? Are there times when the ebb and the flow of the gospel will never fade?
• 23:25
  Just begin to take a kind of a toll on you spiritually and the zeal you felt for evangelism.
• 23:32
  The day you gave your life to Christ eventually wears off. Does that happen? You guys all right?
• 23:39
  It happened to me. Certainly look at verse two on the Sabbath. He began to teach in the synagogue.
• 23:45
  Many who heard him were astonished saying, where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom
• 23:50
  given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of
• 23:55
  Mary, brother of Jesus? Is this the carpenter, the son of Mary, brother of Jesus? Is not this the
• 23:55
  James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and his sisters here with us. And they took offense.
• 24:02
  They were offended by him. Offended. Imagine the advantage of the Nazarenes.
• 24:09
  For 30 years, Jesus lived and worked and ate and slept among them. For 30 years, they had the son
• 24:17
  of God living in their town, walking amongst them. But you know what had happened to them? Their eyes
• 24:23
  adjusted. You know how sometimes you go to the movie theater on a summer afternoon and you crash
• 24:30
  out those doors after the movie is done and your eyes have adjusted to being in the dark for so
• 24:35
  long. And then you go out into the parking lot. It's always this really like perfectly white cement
• 24:41
  right outside of those doors. And you go outside under the Colorado sun and you're just blinded.
• 24:46
  You know what I'm talking about? You have to squint and like shield your eyes, but eventually
• 24:51
  your eyes adjust.
• 24:53
  And it just becomes normal again. That's what had happened to the Nazarenes.
• 24:58
  Their eyes adjusted. So they couldn't see the brilliance of the gospel anymore. The brilliance
• 25:04
  of the presence of God in their midst anymore. It just became commonplace. Philemon in verse six
• 25:13
  says it this way. The apostle Paul writing to Philemon. Philemon was the pastor of the church
• 25:17
  at Colossae. He says, I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith
• 25:23
  so that you may be active in sharing your faith.
• 25:25
  Now, I don't know what you would put after the so that I might expect it to say, I pray that you may
• 25:29
  be active in sharing your faith so that many hear the good news and believe, but that's not what he
• 25:33
  says so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. If you have
• 25:40
  forgotten how good you have it in Christ, if the gospel luster has faded, if your eyes have adjusted.
• 25:47
  And so now you don't have to squint anymore. You don't have to shield your eyes with the glory
• 25:52
  because of the glory of God anymore. If that,
• 25:54
  you don't have to squint anymore. You don't have to shield your eyes with the glory because of the glory of God anymore. If that,
• 25:55
  has happened to you, then Paul says, I pray that you would be active in sharing your faith. Go start
• 25:59
  sharing the gospel again. You need to rub elbows with people who are on their way to hell.
• 26:05
  You need to be reminded of what you've been saved from because we've got it good in Jesus, don't we?
• 26:12
  And yet over the course of many years, sometimes decades, everything just becomes old hat.
• 26:20
  Even fellowship with the saints were like, no, no, no, I don't really want to go today.
• 26:25
  I don't really, I don't just don't have, I'm just not up for it today.
• 26:28
  Right? Even singing praises to his name and hearing from his word become commonplace.
• 26:35
  Now listen to the response of his neighbors. When he finished, this is the parallel passage,
• 26:42
  Luke chapter four. It says the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled
• 26:46
  the scroll. He found the place where it was written. And this is Isaiah 61. The spirit of
• 26:50
  the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
• 26:55
  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind,
• 26:59
  to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
• 27:02
  Can I ask you guys who gets offended at that? That doesn't make sense. Why would you be offended at
• 27:09
  that? I've come to do all kinds of good things, set prisoners free, give sight to the blind,
• 27:17
  proclaim good news to the poor. You're like, why would you be offended by that? And then he said
• 27:21
  this, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, sat down.
• 27:25
  And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. What's he going to say next? And he began
• 27:30
  to say that to them today, the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. You want to know what
• 27:35
  was so offensive? It was not that God was willing to heal and bring good news. It was that Jesus
• 27:42
  was the God who was sitting in front of the, making those claims and his neighbors. Maybe
• 27:49
  you remember Luke chapter four, his neighbors got so angry at him that it says they laid hands on
• 27:54
  him.
• 27:54
  And dragged him out to a cliff to throw him off of the cliff. They were going to execute him as a
• 28:00
  false prophet, not in our town. We don't want any of that here. Needless to say, it didn't go over
• 28:11
  well. His childhood friends eyes had adjusted. They no longer had to shield them from the glory
• 28:20
  of Christ's presence. And if that is you this morning, can I encourage you?
• 28:25
  Begin to rub elbows again with those who are on their way to condemnation. Begin to remind
• 28:30
  yourself again of what you've been saved from and let the glory of the gospel. Let the glories
• 28:36
  of Calvary again, begin to burn your retinas. That's fallacy. Number two, fallacy. Number three
• 28:44
  is this, that exposure to the gospel automatically illuminates. All we've got to do is expose
• 28:52
  ourselves and others to the gospel. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to expose
• 28:54
  ourselves to the gospel and we will automatically begin to believe the gospel, but that's not how it
• 28:59
  works. Look at verse four. Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor, except in his
• 29:05
  hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. Jesus here quotes a proverb that was
• 29:11
  actually commonly used in antiquity among Jews and Romans, that a prophet is honored everywhere,
• 29:17
  but at home. And he takes that simple piece of wisdom and then he applies it to three concentric
• 29:22
  circles. My town,
• 29:24
  he says, my relatives, and even in my own house. And it's interesting. And I want to talk to parents
• 29:32
  for just a minute here, because this is it. There, there's an interesting parenting technique.
• 29:38
  I've seen a lot of people use, and that parenting technique is this. It's good for thee, but not
• 29:43
  for me. It's good for thee, but not for me. And I'm saddened sometimes. And how many parents just
• 29:55
  come and drop their kids off and then leave?
• 29:59
  I always wonder what's going on out there. That's better for your soul than what's going on in here.
• 30:04
  Like I do wonder that sometimes, and I'm not trying to be judgy and I'm not trying to be
• 30:08
  mean or anything else, but man, I will tell you that the idea sometimes is all I've got to do is
• 30:14
  just get my kids into church. If I can just shove them over there, then they will automatically
• 30:18
  become disciples of Christ. And that is not how it works. That's not how it works.
• 30:24
  You are making a disciple. It just might not be a disciple of Christ.
• 30:29
  Because mere exposure to the gospel oftentimes inoculates as often as it illuminates.
• 30:38
  Inoculates means it like it vaccinates them against it. And so what your kids are seeing
• 30:42
  you do is actually treat the gospel in Christ and the church with disdain. It's good for you,
• 30:49
  but it's not good for me. You should memorize verses, but I'm not going to. You should read
• 30:53
  your Bible, but I'm not going to. Screen time is bad for you, but I'm going to spend all day on my
• 30:57
  phone. It's the same thing.
• 30:59
  And what you may be inadvertently doing is actually making them long for the day when
• 31:04
  they don't have to go anymore, when they can be like us, us. And so we begin to think, well,
• 31:12
  maybe if I just shove them at the church, they'll automatically become disciples. But listen,
• 31:17
  mere exposure to Christ is not enough. In fact, if we don't honor Christ above all,
• 31:26
  we don't honor Christ at all.
• 31:30
  At all. We're actually teaching them to have a low view of Christ and his church.
• 31:37
  Finally, this is fallacy number four. And with this, we end
• 31:42
  somehow unbelief is not a ruinous sin. Look at verse five. He could do no mighty work there,
• 31:48
  except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled at their unbelief.
• 31:53
  And thus far in the gospel, the crowds have stood amazed in the presence of Jesus of Nazarene,
• 31:59
  do you remember that hymn we used to sing? I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus,
• 32:05
  the Nazarene, but in Nazareth itself, it was Jesus who stood amazed at the unbelief
• 32:13
  of his neighbors and family. Can you imagine if one of the verses from that song went,
• 32:20
  he stood amazed in the presence of the unbelieving Nazarenes
• 32:27
  and wondered how he could,
• 32:30
  how he could help them. The callous, unbelieving, unclean people who just refuse to believe who
• 32:40
  refuse the help of the healing savior will remain in their unbelief and sorrow. We serve such a
• 32:48
  gracious God that he will not force himself on anybody. If you don't want him, he'll leave you
• 32:57
  alone. He, if you don't want forgiveness, you, he's not going to force it on you. If you don't
• 33:02
  want his grace, he's not going to force it on you. He's not going to force it on you. He's not
• 33:03
  going to force it on you. He's not going to force it on you. If you decide you want to remain in
• 33:08
  your sin and under the curse of death, the Lord will allow it. Such is our God. He is so gracious
• 33:14
  that he says, okay, I will give you what you want, but can I encourage you not to play that
• 33:20
  kind of game with your eternal soul? It'd be like playing roulette, but with your soul
• 33:28
  on Thursday evenings, Hallie and I host a college Bible study.
• 33:33
  Bible study at our house, 18 to 26 ish year olds. We met with them again this last Thursday evening.
• 33:39
  It's so fun. You guys, it's so fun. And what a great group, honestly, of young adults we have
• 33:45
  at this church. The Lord is doing a mighty work among our 21 year olds. It really is exciting to
• 33:51
  watch, but as they all come, they get to our house about eight. They usually stay till about 1230 or
• 33:56
  one, but they get to our house at about eight. And we're always looking for some random game
• 34:01
  that we can play when they all show up.
• 34:03
  And it's sometimes it's organized. Sometimes it's completely unorganized. This week in
• 34:07
  particular, it was kind of more organic. One of the guys brought this bottle of hot sauce
• 34:14
  and it wasn't like the little kid hot sauce, you know, like Flintstones vitamin kind of hot sauce.
• 34:19
  It was like a big stuff. Now, whatever those units are that they measure, whatever those are,
• 34:24
  you know what I'm talking about? Six million. That's what it said. And in fact, there was a
• 34:28
  disclaimer on the bottle. You're supposed to read the disclaimer before you even open the bottle by
• 34:32
  opening the bottle. So you're supposed to read the disclaimer before you even open the bottle by opening
• 34:33
  this bottle. I agree. It's like a legal liability. And so one of the guys, and it was one of my sons
• 34:38
  decided that what he's going to do is take these taquitos. How he had made these taquitos,
• 34:42
  these little tacos, right? And he was going to take 15 of them because there were 15 guys in
• 34:46
  the kitchen. And he was going to take this hot sauce, this devil's breath, hot sauce.
• 34:50
  And he was going to open one of those taquitos and fill it full of the stuff and all the others
• 34:53
  will remain untouched. And then it was just handing out to who wants a little taco playing
• 34:59
  taco roulette. That's what we were doing. And guess who?
• 35:03
  You got the taco with the hot sauce. So we all took our big old bites about 10 seconds went by.
• 35:12
  And I just thought, Oh no. Yeah, that's definitely the one. And you guys for probably 20 minutes,
• 35:20
  my eyes were watering. I mean, just stuff coming out of my nose. I was sweating.
• 35:24
  My tongue actually swelled up the rest of the night. My tongue swelled up. So it sounded weird
• 35:29
  when I was talking like my lips, my chin, everything was tingly for the rest of the night.
• 35:35
  Everything tingled. It felt really, really weird. About 1230, Howie and I decided we're
• 35:39
  going to go to bed. We go up. It's after midnight. It's been four and a half hours.
• 35:43
  We go upstairs. I give her a kiss. Good night. After about 30 seconds, she goes,
• 35:51
  what was that? What happened? And I was like, well, I'm 50 years old, but I still got it.
• 35:56
  You know, 27 years of marriage. And I just said, how do you think I feel?
• 36:07
  I had a tablespoon of the stuff. And I know it's a silly illustration, but listen,
• 36:13
  don't play that kind of game with your soul. Make sure there's a way that you can make sure
• 36:20
  if you want the grace of God, if you want the forgiveness of God, it is offered freely.
• 36:23
  You can have it. You can have it. But if you want to remain in your unbelief,
• 36:32
  I mean, the Lord may be amazed. I'm amazed at the hardness of my own heart. Sometimes
• 36:38
  times. What does this text do for us? Number one, it reminds us yet again that Christ, who Christ
• 36:45
  actually is, is more important than the Christ of our own making. Second, it encourages us not to
• 36:54
  become complacent in our faith. Don't let your eyes adjust to the gospel in its glory. Third,
• 37:00
  it convicts us to keep the edge of our religious zeal sharp. Remember, the gospel is not just good
• 37:07
  for thee, it's good for me. I need it too. And fourth, it warns us of the danger of unbelief,
• 37:15
  that we shouldn't play games with our souls. And Lord, thank you for the truth of your word.
• 37:22
  And Lord, I pray that you would reveal yourself to us in it.
• 37:27
  I pray that we, as your kids and your disciples, would follow lovingly and obediently in it.
• 37:35
  Lord, we're so thankful that Christ revealed exactly who we are.
• 37:38
  And Lord, I pray that we would take him for who he is. In Jesus' name, amen.