From Mark 6:53-7:13 / As we know from 1 Cor. 11:2, 2 Thess. 2:15 & 3:6, there are traditions within the Church which are to be upheld and preserved. But how do we know what is binding and what is not? Jesus provides us with the simple answer – whatever tradition may be under consideration, it must accord with written revelation – the Scripture – to be binding. We dare not “reject the commandment of God in order to establish [our] tradition”. So Paul can refer to traditions taught by the Apostles: “either by our spoken word or by our letter.” But surely there can be no discord between these two, nor nothing necessary omitted from one and not protected in the other. We must always make our appeal back to the Scriptures. Jesus makes those the rule, and not the traditions handed down – by however pious ancestors may be in the mix. The problem really emerges when we make “void the Word of God by” our tradition. No can do.
From Mark 6:45-52 / What is it about the loaves (vs. 52) that they did not understand? Perhaps mainly this – that this Jesus, was God. In feeding the multitude He had performed an act of creation right in front of them. There were only so many molecules in the bread and fish. He could not stretch it per se – new material had to be created right before their eyes. This was no less profound than speaking the worlds into existence. All done with no pomp, no great announcements, no “look at me”. And they didn’t see. They didn’t get it. God was in their midst. And we don’t see either. We don’t get it any more than they did. God is in our midst, indwelling us in the Spirit. And we too are still afraid, still confused, still overwrought. We are fools. More than they, because we have this testimony before our eyes. His presence is always provision enough – if, we will see it.
Heavenly Father, forgive me of my unbelief. Of the poverty of my sin-wracked faith. Take away my hard heart – and let me see Jesus. Let me know you. In all places, and at all times and under all circumstances.
From Mark 6:30-44 / 1. The disciple’s first response was to solve the problem practically. In fact, to tell God Himself HOW to solve the problem, but they made no inquiry of God as to why they may be in this strange situation. We need to go to the Lord with all our situations – right from the start.
2. Jesus then goads them further, but they still only think in terms of their own abilities or constraints but still haven’t asked: “Master, what shall we do?” Providence often has to lead us to our powerlessness before we will truly look to and depend upon Him.
3. Then they are taught the wondrous lesson that their bankruptcy is no impediment to Christ’s provision. And so it is for us as well. Look to Christ.
From Mark 6:14-29 / It is a very interesting thing how some who hear, hear gladly, and yet remain so perplexed and unbelieving. We must not rush to consider such saved, simply because they hear the message of the Gospel with joy. They may even take great interest in it – and yet not submit to it. To attach to all who display an interest more than that, and treat them as converted or even true friends of the Gospel is a grave error. This is the danger with fawning over those who may court or speak kindly to Christians while seeking political power. With a new Presidential election cycle looming over us – this is a very timely caution.
Herod here seems to fit Jesus’ parable of the soils well. He is the rocky ground. He heard the word with joy. But had no root. And at the slightest perturbation, immediately falls away.
Men will be converted only when they understand their need of a Savior from God’s wrath and fly to Christ. Nothing else. And apart from that, when push comes to shove – for the sake of a wriggling teenager, a beheading can be right around the corner.
From Mark 6:7-13 / The Disciples were to make it clear that rejecting the Gospel was not a mere matter of “oh well, you have your view, and I have mine.” They were commanded to be sure there was an impactful statement that to reject the Gospel was to be counted as outside of the kingdom – to be a foreigner and to reject King Jesus and His reign. The Gospel is not one acceptable form of religion among many – it is God’s only acceptable form. Now doing this within a Jewish context would have been scandalous. After all, the Jews WERE God’s people living under His appointed economy. Except that, His Word had told them they would not be under the yoke of foreign powers unless they were in dire sin in having rejected God. They did not see the Roman occupation for what it was – God’s judgment upon their sin. They did not comprehend they were in fact, in exile, while living in the land of Promise. This is a powerful example of Titus 2:15 But in the Gospel, forgiveness and freedom is being put before them, because of Christ’s sacrifice.
From Mark 6:1-6 / There is a common misconception about this passage, that somehow, Jesus (God) NEEDS our faith in order to work. If that were so, He could never have created the universe without our faith first. And Jesus certainly could not have risen from the dead – for who had faith for that? No. The reason why Jesus “could do no mighty work” here, is simple: Only those who come believing, receive. As vs. 6 says: “He marveled because of their unbelief.” Having seen Him grow up; doing “mighty works” (vs. 2) and hearing Him teach – they still did not believe. And in their unbelief, only a few sick people came to Him. And them, He healed. He was and is – always able. We, are so horribly unbelieving. Like the last two cases in the chapter before this one, their faith carried them to Jesus, and Jesus responded. This is what faith always does at its root – carries us to Christ. Turns our eyes to Him.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
A few years ago I was diagnosed with a disorder that includes with it regular intervals of diplopia. If you’ve not heard that word before, it is the medical term for double vision.
The graphic above gives you a pretty good idea of what that looks like. Needless to say, when that is happening, reading is a pretty tough slog. After all, we are designed to only be able to focus on one thing at a time.
This second image depicts how that works. You can focus on the woman’s hands, but not on her face. And if you were to focus on her face, her hands would be blurry.
But make no mistake, this is how God designed us. We are meant to be people of single focus. One of the lies of our age which eds up fragmenting, exhausting and frustrating us is the lie that we should all be multi-taskers. I don’t think that’s a good thing.
So it is I note from our text today 2 quick things:
1 – We cannot focus on the news of the day, regardless of the outlet, and do what our text calls us to at the some time. One or the other will have to be blurry. And it is up to you and me to make the choice. Continually. What will we give our hearts and minds space and time to focus on? And if is network, internet, print, radio podcast or whatever platform “news”, if that is what we focus on, be sure that whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, excellent and worthy of praise – will be blurry, out of focus, and growing less and less distinct in the soul.
2 – What a privilege we Believers have to live lives with souls fed from the Fountain of life. That when we are drinking from the rivers of living water, we lose our thirst for the polluted streams of this fallen world and age. Think for a moment how peace, joy, confidence, love, compassion and steadfastness in heart and mind spring from training ourselves to “think about these things” that the Apostle Paul says we have learned, received and even seen lived out in the saints. i.e. what it means to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
If you are a person of little peace today – filled with the dread of everything your news outlet pours into you – stop and focus on something else. “Think about these things.” Set your mind on the person, finished work and promises of Christ.
You can only truly focus on one thing at a time. What will it be today?
“My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
I so love coming back to this passage in my regular reading. I love being reminded to “keep” this commandment – to not let “steadfast love and faithfulness” be forsaken.
The idea here may be, to be sure to be a loving and faithful person as the Father’s commandments lead us. But some posit too to think of it in terms of resting in the love and faithfulness of our God. The one who rests content here, who lavishes in knowing these graces are poured out upon them, will live a life far different than those languishing in the hopelessness that captures so many. It is a pre-echo of “keep yourselves in the love of God.”
It is a call to never let the wonder, the mystery, and glory, the reality of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness toward you ever escape your consciousness.
When we imagine His love to be vacillating or indistinct – or when we doubt the absolute certainty of His commitment to see all of His promises to come to pass – faith suffers its most devastating blows.
We MUST see our God as constitutionally incapable of any of the defects of human love. In the darkest of hours, He cannot love you any more, nor can He love you any less. See Him as ontologically unable to fail to keep His word, or to break His promises. He does not merely carry out His promises faithfully, He IS faithful. This is the One with whom we have to do. This is our God. Loving and faithful beyond anything the human mind can imagine. This is the One in whom we place our trust.
Know for yourself Believer, and remind yourself often, of the steadfast love of the Lord, and of His faithfulness. That He cannot fail. And in that, you will become one of steadfast love and faithfulness yourself.
This belongs to all who are in Christ. And it is a treasure we begin to enjoy even here and now – part of the “down-payment” of the Holy Spirit that is ours.
Pr 30:12 There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.
A number of years ago, I had the privilege of spending a couple of days interacting with Jerry Bridges. If you’re not familiar with his books, you are missing something indeed. Titles like “Respectable Sins”, The Pursuit of Holiness” and “The Joy of Fearing God” are as close as you can get to Puritan reflections on the Christian life by a modern author. A profoundly humble, sweet and studious man, he impacted me (and countless others) powerfully through his writing and preaching ministry.
Dr. Bridges (he didn’t like being addressed that way because his doctorate was honorary – but I cannot speak in lesser terms out of respect) was invested in campus ministry all of his life. Well into his 80’s when he came to speak for us, he had a great heart for youth. Discussing that in a drive to a speaking engagement, I asked him what had been the biggest challenge in evangelizing collegians over the years – and he didn’t hesitate in his response: He said that people no longer have any concept of themselves as sinners in need of a sin-bearer.
In the words of our text, they are clean in their own eyes, while at the same time, not washed of their filth.
Indeed, as the popular preaching of God’s Word in our generation (at least in American Evangelicalism) has become increasingly fixated on a Gospel of the American dream – “Come to Jesus so He can make life what it ought to be” – and at that, the kind of life even those are far removed from Christ as can be, would want too. The preaching of Jesus has become the religious equivalent of Hamburger Helper. Jesus will give you more money, a prettier wife, a more attentive husband, a faster path to career objectives, healing from every discomfort and above all – will demand absolutely nothing of you. Just pray the prayer and MAGIC!
What is missing? No conviction of sin. No sense of being the enemy of God as one seeks to live life only for themselves without a moment’s concern for who made them and for what purposes. Errant at times? Sure. After all, no one’s perfect. Broken? Yeah, but in ways therapy can fix easier and faster than reconciliation to God. But sinful in the sense of truly guilty and deserving of Hell before an ineffably holy God? Nope. I just need Jesus to add the right spices to life to make my macaroni and ground beef a savory dish. All of which, de-gospels the Gospel. Makes the substitutionary death of Jesus on the Cross a mere emblem of some kind of odd love, but not the taking of my guilt and shame upon Himself so that I might be cleansed from cosmic rebellion and made a new creature – acceptable to God because of Him.
The preaching of the Cross necessarily fixes upon Christ dying in the sinner’s place, because apart from it, we stand guilty, condemned and justly on our way to an eternal Hell.
Beloved, we dare not lie to ourselves so as to be clean in our own eyes – or we cannot be saved. Because in the final analysis, the thing we need to be “saved” from, is the just wrath of God upon us for our sin. And until we are washed from our filth in the blood of the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World”, we remain under that wrath – on death row, awaiting the carrying out of the execution order.
Those who set themselves to continue in rebellion against the right of God to exercise His supremacy over their lives – by refusing the salvation and Lordship found in Jesus Christ alone – will perish in an eternity of judgement. That is what the Bible teaches.
But to those who own their guilt and sin, and who flee to Christ for forgiveness – there is cleansing, reconciliation to The Father the transforming Spirit to restore Christ’s image in them – eternal life!
Where you stand this very hour in regard to either condition, has its stated and inevitable consequence.
Unbeliever – won’t you come to Him today? This is the truly good news of the Gospel – there is forgiveness of sins in Jesus.
Christian – won’t you glory in your king who has become to us: Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption? (1 Co. 1:30).
Proverbs 29:1 “He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.”
The Father is patient, and does not chasten without warnings and reproofs. But when those warnings and reproofs are repeatedly rejected, He does finally move. In those times, His action is swift, and decisive. Better to hear these rebukes and learn, to confess and repent. To take whatever measures we need to. For when He is forced to act like this, we seldom emerge without permanent damage. Proverbs 28:14
Now the stiffening of the neck in the face of reproof most ordinarily manifests itself in 3 things.
1 – The Word. The Word warns, warns, and warns again. And it never warns without also giving counsel on the better course, and God’s indwelling Spirit grants both power to pursue that course, and repeated inward promptings to walk in the path of righteousness. This is why some fail to make searching the Word a part of their necessary and daily spiritual life.
2 – Preaching. This also is often why we fail to be sure we sit under the solid and consistent exposition of God’s Word; Why Church is treated as optional. We would rather have our ears tickled than be consistently confronted with truth which would challenge us and call us to repent of sin.
3 – True Fellowship. And it is often why we withdraw from relationships where we might need to manifest the character of Christ in the face of difficult people and circumstances. We don’t want to put up with them and risk being hurt. And we don’t want to be exposed regarding faults and failures – let alone un-Biblical attitudes, decisions and practices.
How far is too far when testing the patience of God? No one knows. That is the point. Some take God’s patience as a sign He is simply pleased with them as is. Others think it simply impossible to provoke Him. The wise man knows “the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience…is meant to lead you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4).
So what has God been dealing with you about, that you continue to put off? Don’t wait until it is too late.
Heavenly Father, grant me a repentant heart. Grant US repentant hearts. Nothing is so wicked as confessing our sin and seeking forgiveness, but not turning from it. It is how every form of idolatry works – just go through the ritual, but no real change is expected or needed. Father, I want my heart to hate the sin that is in me as you do – and love your holiness as you do. I want to want other things – to have sinful things appear as wicked, heinous and as repulsive as they really are; and to see and be attracted to the beauty of holiness as you really are. I plead with you Father – do not leave me as I am. I am so easily fooled and deceived by my own sin. Let me truly walk in the love, light and wisdom that is ours in Christ. Grant me your gift of true repentance from my sins.
ResponsiveReiding 