The Gospel of Mark Part 31
The Gospel of Mark • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewOur knowledge of God should produce actions that are approved of by God.
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How much do you know about God?
If you were to be asked to sit down and write down everything you know about God, what would be the contents of that document?
Most importantly, what difference is that knowledge making in your life?
Our knowledge OF God (who He is, what He is like, etc.) should be directly connected to our action FOR God.
In the Bible, knowledge and action are almost always inseparable.
The Bible assumes that when one receives knowledge from God about God, it will be directly preceding one’s actions in living according to that knowledge.
Do your actions reflect your knowledge?…or are they disconnected?
We need to learn about God so that it directly influences how we live.
Let’s open our Bibles to Mark 6:53, and see this concept in action.
As we read, take your pen and underline all the action words in the passage.
<READ Mark 6:53-56>
Look at all the ACTION words that came as a result of the people RECOGNIZING Jesus:
Mark 6:53–56 (NKJV)
53 When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and anchored there. 54 And when they came out of the boat, immediately the people RECOGNIZED Him, 55 RAN through that whole surrounding region, and began to CARRY about on beds those who were sick to wherever they HEARD He was. 56 Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they LAID the sick in the marketplaces, and BEGGED Him that they might just TOUCH the hem of His garment. And as many as TOUCHED Him were made well.
Everything these people were doing was a direct result of what they knew to be true about Jesus of Nazareth.
As we gain more and more knowledge about God, it should compel us to take action according to that knowledge.
Grow In Knowledge of Jesus
Gather Around Jesus
Grasp On to Jesus
1. Grow In Knowledge of Jesus
1. Grow In Knowledge of Jesus
53 When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and anchored there. 54 And when they came out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him,
This passage is so integral to its context!
We just read about the 12 disciples, those closest to Jesus, NOT recognizing Him when He was walking on the water.
Now we have a cross-section of the general population that IMMEDIATELY recognized Jesus.
They had seen Him much less than the 12, and many had likely never spoken to Him…yet they KNEW it was Him.
The word “recognized” originally meant:
ἐπιγινώσκω epiginōskō: to be recognized (state)† — to be or become discerned clearly and distinctly, or as true and valid; often with a personal acquaintance that necessitates a reaction.
The people’s knowledge of Jesus necessitated a reaction - all the action words that we read in the text.
We cannot physically see Jesus today, but do we KNOW Him?…and what difference is that making in our daily lives?
The knowledge of Jesus “necessitates a reaction”!…we should DO because of who we KNOW.
Knowledge without a purpose leads to pride:
1 Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
Of course, there is a greater context here, which we will not dive into today, but the principle remains: knowledge can lead to pride when there is no purpose - here the purpose is loving others…in our main text today, the purpose was healing from Jesus.
If these people only learned about Jesus, heard about His healings and the woman touching the fringe and the blind seeing and the lame walking, and wrote it all down and had a whole “Jesus’ Library of Miracles” at their house…and then went to the sick and the lame and told them all about Jesus’ miracles, but they never actually to action to bring them to Him to experience His healing power for themselves, then what good did all that knowledge do them?…it only served to puff up their pride and left them in the same condition.
These people recognized Jesus and used their knowledge of Him to take immediate action, and people were healed.
We have seen this before in Mark:
33 But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him.
This is immediately before the feeding of the 5k.
Notice that the people “knew Him” - they had taken notice of Jesus and had some knowledge of His patterns and whereabouts.
And this knowledge caused them to run “there on foot from all the cities”.
As we grow in our knowledge of Jesus, the Incarnate Word through the inspired written word, we must allow it to compel us to action.
God does not reveal His knowledge for it to remain like dusty books on the shelves of our minds…it is ACTIONABLE knowledge!
18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
The grace and the knowledge of Jesus should be evident in the way that we live…and we should be changing and growing in this as the days, months, and years go by.
An Peter had already written this earlier in this epistle:
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
God’s power is contained in His knowledge, and this power is practical power - it pertains to our daily lives!
God expects us to grow in our knowledge of Him so that we can grow in our power from Him.
2. Gather Around Jesus
2. Gather Around Jesus
Mark 6:55–56 (NKJV)
55 ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick to wherever they heard He was. 56 Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces...
First of all, et’s jump to the beginning of verse 56, where we see that Mark is compressing the timeline…making a short statement that represents a much longer period of time.
During this time, Jesus entered villages, cities, and travelled through the countryside.
This brief, four-verse passage represents possibly several days of ministry for Jesus and the twelve.
Notice again the action words: “ran”, “carry”, “heard”, and “laid”.
These people understood Jesus’ abilities and knew something of His actions in the past…they had seen the evidence and by faith, they acted upon that.
Notice that they didn’t demand a sign, like the Pharisees often did. They had already seen and/or heard enough. It was Jesus of Nazareth getting out of that boat, and nothing else mattered!
Sometimes I wonder, what if Jesus was physically on earth today? What would we do differently than we do right now?
The truth is, probably very little once the newness of having Him here wore off.
I truly believe that:
The way that we treat our Bibles is the way that we would treat Jesus if He were here.
Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, and we have in our hands the written word of God.
<READ Luke 10:38-42>
I think we like to tell ourselves that if Jesus were here, we would just stop everything we are doing and sit at His feet, like Mary did…but the truth is we would eventually find excuses to slip away, distractions and even good things, like Martha was doing…church-y things, ministry things, but Jesus said that one thing is to have the highest priority, which is gathering around Jesus and learning from Him.
42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
I love the promise here for Mary…and for us.
When we make the good choice of gathering around Jesus in His word, it will not be taken away from us.
God will never fail to meet with us in His Word when we choose to gather around it with open hearts and ready minds to learn from Him.
We have been talking about “Biblical Literacy” a lot lately - and rightly so!
Biblical Literacy = Jesus Literacy
There are many reasons to be biblically literate, but the greatest reason is to be “Jesus Literate”.
If we don’t know what is in the written word, we will never really know the Incarnate Word.
3. Grasp On to Jesus
3. Grasp On to Jesus
Mark 6:56 (NKJV)
56 ...and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.
Why the hem?…because they had heard that a woman sick with a hemorrhage for 12 years had been healed by simply touching the fringe of Jesus’ garment.
The “hem” or “fringe” was in reference to the border of blue tassels worn by a law-abiding Jew in his outer cloak.
38 “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners.
And what did Jesus tell the woman?
34 And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”
It wasn’t the tassels themselves that healed the woman, it was the power of Jesus that was accessed by the faith of the woman.
This grasping on to Jesus was an act of faith.
First by the woman in Mark 5, and now by the multitudes in Mark 6. They were all acting by faith…choosing to grasp on to Jesus instead of themselves.
Mark 6:56 (NKJV)
56 ...and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.
Notice that they “begged” Jesus to touch His garment.
This word, “begged”, is a word of passion.
It is an impassioned plea from one person to another or to a group.
This is the same word translated “preached” when the Bible describes the passionate preaching of John the Baptist.
It means to “implore” someone for action - the same word is used of the leper in Mark 1, who begged Jesus to heal him and the same kind of pleading is happening here.
It is the cry of someone who knows that they have no other option…apart from Jesus, they knew that they had no hope.
They were hopeless, and they knew it, which made all the difference.
So many today are hopeless, but they don’t realize that they are hopeless.
They sincerely believe that they can make it on their own, by their own good works and religious activities, but they cannot…and they enter eternity without Christ.
So these crowds in Gennesaret stand in judgement of people today who refuse the offer of Jesus.
But there is also a lesson here for believers. Christians ALSO need to GRASP on to Jesus in their daily lives.
Christians also must realize that the Christian life cannot be lived successfully apart from Christ…apart from the power of the Holy Spirit:
2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Our justification comes by grace through faith.
…and our sanctification comes by grace, through faith.
Spiritual maturity is the goal…and another way to say spiritually mature is having a strong faith in God - living it out day by day.
Spiritual maturity is accomplished not by the measure of our strength, but by the measure of our surrender to the strength of Christ.
That is exactly what these people were doing.
They had to come to Him by faith in Him - not faith in His garments…not faith in themselves…not faith in faith itself…but faith in Jesus alone.
Conclusion:
Growing in the knowledge of Jesus is for the purpose of living out that knowledge in our lives.
Gathering around Jesus is the pathway to growing in knowledge of Him.
Grasping on to Jesus is the act of faith when we rely on Him for not only our eternal life in heaven, but also the power to live out our eternal life here on earth.