Mark No.3 When Jesus comes to Church

Shall we share the reading? I'll read the even-numbered verses and shall we all join in together on the odd-numbered verses? As we're actually starting with an odd-numbered verse, I'll reverse that. I'll read the odd-numbered verses and we'll all join together on the even-numbered verses. If you've got an NIV, if you would read loudly.

If you have another version, perhaps you'd like to read more quietly. Mark chapter one. The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight paths for him. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.

Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. And this was his message. After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

I am baptized to you in the water, that he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. As Jesus was coming out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit saying on him, I love. Whom I love.

With you I am well pleased. And he was in the desert for 40 days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals and angels attended him.

After John was put into prison, Jesus went into Galilee, preparing the good news of God. The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God is near.

Repent and believe the good news. As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew, casting their necks into the lake for the lame of the fishermen. Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men.

And when he had gone a little farther, he saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. They went out of the lake before them, and they left their father Zebedee in the lake. They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.

The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as a teacher of the law. Just then, a man in the synagogue, who was possessed by an evil spirit, cried out. Be quiet, said Jesus sternly.

Come out of him. The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him to his feet. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, what is this? A new teaching, and with authority.

He even gives orders to evil spirits, and they obey him. He is a fountain of sacred living that overholds the world. May the Lord bless to us that reading from his word.

We pray that as we come around it now, you'll speak to all our hearts and help us to believe that what your word had to say 2,000 years ago, it says with the same clarity, the same forcefulness, and demands the same response even today. For Jesus Christ's sake, amen. Well, we're following the course of Jesus's ministry as outlined in this gospel, probably the first gospel, in fact, I would say definitely the first gospel that was written, giving an account of the three years pilgrimage of our Lord Jesus through this world.

Mark was probably dependent on Peter, the fisherman, and Peter was probably dependent once a fisherman. When Peter was at Rome, it seems as though Mark came alongside and took down Peter's own recollections of our Lord Jesus. And Mark writes them in this gospel, which is so vital that you will discover large chunks of it have actually been incorporated into Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel.

We call the first three gospels the synoptic gospels because they each give an account of the life of our Lord Jesus, a synopsis of the account of the life of our Savior, and they parallel in their presentation of the stories. And when you get to John's gospel, there's supplementary material that's given. But put all the four gospels together and you get a wonderful recounting of the activities of our blessed Lord and Savior.

Now, as I tried to teach you a couple of weeks ago, supplemented by what Tim had to say last week, the first twelve verses or so of this gospel actually set the scene. They're a prologue. They're introductory verses like you will get in John's gospel, that introduction there.

So you've got Mark setting the scene and referring to John the Baptist, you recall, this charismatic, magnetic figure who attracts people from Jerusalem and all the villages in Judea and they go to listen to him preach out in the desert of just beyond the Jordan River. And I said that that was symbolic. Why? Well, because if you read the Old Testament very carefully, you will discover that Israel was actually born as a nation in the wilderness.

It's when they left Egypt and moved into the wilderness of Sinai that they really became a nation. And there was a sense that in the struggles in Sinai, as they responded to the correctives of God's word, they were prepared then to go into the Promised Land, into Palestine. But as the centuries went by, to use a colloquialism, they blew it.

They didn't follow the way of God. The Ten Commandments, the message of the prophets, the supplementary preaching of other folk whose names are not written in the Old Testament but nonetheless were heralding God's word, they ignored all this. The time came when Israel ought really to have written off as far as God was concerned.

But our God is always a compassionate God. So what does he do? Well, he sends someone who will remedy the situation, our Lord Jesus Christ. But prior to the Savior coming into the world in terms of releasing his public ministry, was in the world at the same time as John, but he started to preach publicly after John, you hear the voice of one in the wilderness calling men and women back to God.

The wilderness, the place where Israel was first born as a nation and from Jerusalem and Judean villages, people went out in their hundreds and they were baptized by John and they were responding to his message as though Israel wanted to start all over again. Born in the wilderness, forgiven, prepared for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, ready for this new message. And so John, on one occasion, as these people have come out to him in the wilderness of the Jordan, in the wilderness of Judea, he spies the Lord Jesus, you recall.

And he acknowledges that the Lord Jesus' message is superior to his. He is the king and the king is coming to establish the kingdom. And the message of the kingdom is so wonderful that it is referred to as the gospel, the good news.

And Jesus, after he has been baptized in the Jordan, goes into the wilderness, and when he hears that John has been imprisoned, the cessation of John Baptist ministry, Jesus comes into his own. Anointed by the Holy Spirit, he starts to preach. Look at verse 14.

Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come. The kingdom of God is near.

Repent and believe the good news. So there's the possibility of a new start for a nation. But not just for a nation, because the good news that Jesus Christ brings, though for the Jew in the first instance, is also for the Gentile.

I gave you the reference of South Africa, a country very beloved by my wife and myself. It's got a new start, President Mandela, and the people at the moment are holding their breaths and hoping that a new South Africa may be born. Now that's just a microscopic illustration, but it helps us to grasp.

Just what was happening in history at the point when the Lord Jesus started to preach the gospel of the kingdom. It was a new start for the world, and the king was coming, and he wanted subjects. He is taking the territory that belonged to him originally back to himself, reclaiming it.

And as men and women respond to the message of Jesus, so they become members of his kingdom. Now, the first thing our Savior does, realizing that he's not going to be on earth for longer than three more years in terms of public ministry, is to get associates. So he calls disciples, and Tim took you through verses 14 through to 20 last week.

Our Lord Jesus calling men and giving them a particular commission. Now what were the original disciples? The majority of them. Certainly these four whose names are mentioned.

The answer is they were fishermen. And Jesus says, for Jesus is a master teacher, and he'll always pick an illustration at the point of someone's experience and then develop it so they can understand. They're fishermen, all right, he says, lads, stop mending your nets.

Stop fishing for fish. Follow me and fish for men. Have you ever asked yourself if fish had a card vote as to the most popular profession, fishermen wouldn't be in the top three.

For what reason? Well, fish are disturbed by fishermen, not so? So here is our Lord Jesus, and he's speaking to these men, and he says, you disturb as you trawl the sea of Galilee, you disturb the waters, you disturb the fish. I am going to enlist you in a ministry of disturbance. You won't fish for fish, you'll fish for men.

Immediately in Galilee, then back down in southern Palestine, and then eventually you'll get a commission to trawl the world for men and women. Well, that's just to set the context. This is what you find, in effect, in summary fashion in those first 19 or 20 verses.

So our Lord, having met up with these four who are sort of typical of the 12 that will eventually closely follow him, he takes them back to Capernaum. Capernaum has become the sort of headquarters of our Lord Jesus. He was brought up in Nazareth, but it seems as though they shifted the household to Capernaum.

And what does Jesus do on the first Sabbath that he is there with these newly appointed disciples? And the answer is he takes them to church, which gives us the title for the address this morning. When Jesus comes to church. Here's a question.

Why did Jesus come to church? They went to Capernaum, verse 21, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue. Why go to church? Well, why do you come? Well, because my wife nagged me. Because, well, you know, my granddad used to come here or my parents used to come here or I happen to have come from America and I've got a lovely daughter and she said, you've got to come next door because, well, my husband has got an interest in the church here.

Well, you see, there are a variety of reasons that perhaps we could put together as to why people come to church. What do you get out of coming to church? Well, I don't really get very much at all. Here's another question.

What do you put in to coming to church besides parking yourself on a pew? You see, the person who says that I never get anything out is probably telling you more about himself or herself than what he or she is telling you about the church. Here is our Lord Jesus and he goes to church. All right, poetic license.

It wasn't church, it was synagogue, but it was the equivalent. And it wasn't Sunday, it was a Saturday, but it was the equivalent of the Sabbath day. The day made special now changed in our Christian culture because, well, our Lord Jesus was raised the first day of the week and therefore we keep Sunday as special.

Why did he go to church? Well, it was his custom. I mean, you've lived through the early chapters of Mark's Gospel and you find him in the synagogue on each Sunday. It was also the place where someone went if he had got something particular to say about God and the Jewish nation.

You see, synagogue services were not like worship services in the temple. There they have the Hebrew Philharmonic Orchestra and the dancing girls and goodness knows what, but not the synagogue. That was much more square.

You remember on one occasion a man, you read of him in Luke's Gospel, called the ruler of the synagogue came along and spoke to Jesus. Each synagogue had a ruler and the ruler was the man who was really appointed to work out who would do the preaching. Now there were no professional preachers in those days, at least not in the synagogues.

So anyone who seemed to be reasonably well qualified, reasonably well versed could come along and sit down and open a scroll and declare a scroll being one of the Old Testament books and tell the congregation, the assembled congregation, something about God. And that's one of the reasons why our Lord Jesus went to the synagogue. He wanted to make a contribution.

You see, he really did have something very important to say. Of course he did because he's the king and he's looking for subjects, though he does not put it quite as bluntly as that. He's a fisherman looking for fish.

He has got something to contribute and what he contributes will be actually in terms of a disturbance, but more of that in a moment or two. Why did Jesus go to church? Because it was his custom. Because it's something to say and because he wanted to make a contribution.

But you know, the Lord Jesus still comes to church. No, I'm not being romantic or sentimental in my comments. The Bible tells us that where two or three believers gather together, there Jesus is in the midst.

One of the reasons why we thank God that Jesus actually was taken away from this world was that in his public ministry, in his corporeal, that means in his bodily form, he couldn't be in two places at the same time. And so he said on one occasion to his disciples, and they didn't understand what he was on about, you know, it fell as it'll be good for you when I've gone away because when I've gone away then I can come back again. And they thought, well that's like a puzzle from the Telegraph Hebrew newspaper that you get on a Saturday, a Friday.

How can it possibly be good for you to be away when to talk to you now surely is much more beneficial and Jesus is predicting the scene when all the disciples will be in various parts of the world and they will spiritually know his presence because corporeally he's not there. But wherever they are, he will make himself mysteriously known. And that's why although it was presented in a joking fashion, Gavin made his point with the kids this morning.

The Lord Jesus in this place coming to the church because if he isn't here, then it is pointless you being here. What's more, when you come to church you should hear the Lord Jesus speak. How does he speak? Well he speaks through his word.

You see, the Apostle Paul will tell you in Ephesians that when our Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven, as he poured down his Holy Spirit, he engifted certain people within the church with the ability of proclaiming his word. That doesn't mean to say that they will be as good as he was. It doesn't mean to say they will be as articulate.

It's amazing what God can do with the most unqualified person. I mean there's hope for every preacher when you remember that in the Old Testament God spoke through an ass. There's hope for every preacher when you realize that in the New Testament God actually spoke through someone who got an evil heart towards the Lord Jesus because the high priest prophesied.

When Charles Spurgeon was converted, he was converted as a result of a ministry of a man who could hardly hold any sentences together. You see, it's not the eloquence of the preacher. It's the wonder of the message of God is that he uses the most inadequate vehicle.

I can honestly say, and this Sunday commemorates 24 years at the tab here, I have never heard a sermon. I have never been in a Sunday school class. With my hand over my heart, I tell you I've never been to a woman's fellowship or to a subsidiary meeting here at the tab and listened to someone else speak and never got anything out of it because I do believe that the person who says I've never got anything out of it reveals far more of himself or herself than she reveals about the person who's doing the communication.

Tell me simply that Jesus loved me and though I've heard it a thousand times, I'm glad for every reminder. Jesus comes to the church, makes his presence felt and speaks through his word. All right, what did Jesus do in church on this particular occasion here that we're looking at in Mark's gospel? Well, he preached a very radical message.

Now, Mark has very little to say about its content. Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed.

In other words, he doesn't give us any idea as to what Jesus was saying, or does he? I think you have to qualify that statement. I think that in shorthand form, in summary fashion, Mark has already told us what was the substance of the ministry of Jesus. Look at verse 15.

Here are the words of John. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.

And we know that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to expound further what John was predicting because the gospel about Jesus Christ, verse 1, is good news. It's the good news of salvation. Our Lord Jesus is telling the people in Capernaum that it's possible for their sins to be forgiven.

He's telling them about remission. He's telling them in an authoritative fashion that there is possibility for the rebirth of the nation and indeed for the rebirth of themselves. Do you remember what I gave you as a definition of the word gospel? Now, the word gospel is not essentially a biblical term.

The word gospel has its antecedents, has its origin in Latin, Roman culture. When the Caesar had his birthday, that was the gospel. It was good news.

Hooray, hooray. A historical event which introduces a new situation into the world. That was the Roman connotation of the word gospel.

Mark takes the idea of gospel and attributes it to the Christian message. A historical event which introduces a new situation into the world. Jesus is the historical event.

The new situation is that men and women in Capernaum and in Worthing can have their sins forgiven because of what he is going to achieve in his life. And that becomes the substance of the message of our Lord Jesus. The kingdom is at hand.

Respond to what he has to say and you become a citizen of the kingdom. Now, not only does he proclaim a radical message, but in this appearance in the synagogue at Capernaum, he meets with a remarkable response. This is new teaching.

Look at verse 27. What is this? What authority? You know, it doesn't happen like this every Sunday, but we wish it did. Quite frankly, going to the synagogue could be a bit of a bore.

I mean by that, the people who took part, they did it in a sort of debate fashion. You wouldn't get one of the scribes, one of the religious leaders getting up and speaking authoritatively. He would quote you what somebody said 100 years ago and then somebody else would get up and quote what somebody else said 150 years before that.

And they would sort of untie theological knots and then tie them back together again. And the average person would be looking as though it was, you know, Hebrew equivalent of Wimbledon. But Jesus never quoted anybody.

I mean, he doesn't get up and say what Hillel says or what another school of rabbinic thought says. He said what he thought. He doesn't apologize that our Lord Jesus speaks authoritatively.

There never was a time, or maybe there is today, when an authoritative message needed to be heard by Jewish people. And Jesus came and he spoke as the king about the kingdom. He spoke as the fisherman to the fish about them being trawled by him.

Well, how did Jesus cope with the congregation? Now, you may never have thought of that particular question, but not only does the congregation have to cope with the preacher, the preacher has to cope with the congregation. One of the things that I tried to bring out in the book I attempted was the importance of the congregation as far as the preacher is concerned. See, the inspiration of the Spirit, the anointing of the Spirit falls on the congregation as well as upon the preacher.

Or if it doesn't, the congregation can create such a great difficulty for the preacher if it's not a sympathetic congregation. I mean, our Lord Jesus might well be unnerved by what happened in the congregations where he first went in his ministry. I mean, if you go to Luke's gospel, Luke puts in a little anecdote which tells us more about the initial ministry of our Lord Jesus than you get in Mark's gospel.

For example, in Luke chapter 4, we have the story of Jesus not just going to Capernaum, you get that as well, but beforehand he goes to Nazareth, verse 16 of Luke 4, and there he's really bounced by the congregation. They don't like him at all, do they? His hometown. They got up, verse 29, drove him out of the town, took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him down the cliff.

No one suggested that, at least to my face, as far as Cicero Hill and I am concerned. But nonetheless, here is our Lord Jesus not having the same sort of sympathetic treatment that you have given me over these years. But our Lord Jesus walks through the crowd and goes on his way.

Well, here he is in Capernaum and he's got another problem. They're listening to what he has to say. Yes, but I've gone to the end of the tale.

Right in the middle of this story, this depiction of what happened in Capernaum, you find that Jesus is interrupted. There's opposition. And it's the worst case scenario that you could ever think in terms of disturbing a preacher.

Look at verse 23, why does somebody have to come in on that particular Sabbath to interrupt Jesus in such a fashion? A man who is possessed by an evil spirit and he cries out, what do you want with us? Do you know, sometimes Charles Spurgeon referred to Satan as God's ape. A-P-E. In other words, anything that God does, Satan will ape.

Now, here is Jesus and John has said of Jesus, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? Well, the Spirit of God coming into a man, into a woman, radically changing them, bringing them into the family of God. Well, the devil apes them, sometimes in a very dramatic fashion.

And here, on the occasion when Jesus with his four new disciples finds himself in the synagogue at Capernaum on that Sabbath, Satan apes God's activity and causes his malevolent spirits to be incarnated in some poor, wretched man. Who, when he is in the company of Jesus, as long as Jesus is preaching, if you read Luke's account, he seems to be interrupting. Jesus speaks.

And you get the malevolent force of Satan articulating, speaking out through the lips of this man as the Son of God is endeavoring to preach opposition on that particular Sabbath. But remember I taught you that John, or rather John Mark, in this gospel, he seems to me deliberately not to complete, not to record the three temptations of Jesus, as though he wants to give the impression, and rightly so, that the temptations that Jesus underwent in the wilderness was just the beginning of the barrage of activity, that the devil would range against Jesus throughout the whole of his public ministry. And here he is in Capernaum, you see, and the devil is not on vacation.

He waits, says Luke, writing on the same subject matter, he waits for an appropriate, a convenient season in which to belittle Jesus. And throughout the synagogue there is the unpleasant feeling that something here is happening which is far stranger than most Sabbaths at the synagogue. What is Jesus going to do? And isn't it interesting that this man who is possessed accurately sees who Jesus is? You are the Holy One of God.

And whenever you read the stories of exorcisms, the stories of demon possession in Mark's gospel, or any of the synoptics, you will find that the demoniac always correctly states the name of Jesus. The reason being that the thought was in those days that if you could correctly say a man's name, you would get him under your control. So what you have here is a clash of two worlds.

Our Lord establishing the kingdom, He as the King coming to establish His throne, His regency in this world, and here is this malevolent power who has usurped the authority of God. Here, if you like, is the clash of the titans, and you will find it throughout the whole of Mark's gospel, and it comes to its climax at Calvary. And our Lord Jesus is equal to the occasion.

Disturbed He may be as He tries to preach, but He has an authority, He has a power, He is the anointed One of God, therefore He speaks into the situation, He addresses the demon within the man, be quiet, be muzzled, shut up, says Jesus, verse 25. Come out of him. And that man who was created originally in the image of God like every man, but that image has been fractured, fragmented, and brutalized by Satan.

He finds that the spirit shakes and it comes out of the man, and the people are amazed. We never heard anything like this before. We never saw anything like this before.

They recognize the superiority of the teaching of Jesus and use of Jesus spreads throughout the whole of Galilee. So you see, it wasn't exactly a comfortable Saturday at the synagogue, was it? I mean, this sort of thing didn't happen all the time. If it did, they'd be queuing to get in.

And maybe in the churches today, if there was a more authoritative declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we'd have more packed churches. You see that same Jesus who was there at Capernaum with those four men who were going through an apprenticeship will be with those men after Pentecost. They'll turn the world upside down.

There'll be clashes of the forces of evil and the forces of righteousness, and always the forces of righteousness will prove to be victorious because, well, they're plugged in to the power that Jesus the King has. And right now, as I conclude, there's a battle going on in some of your hearts. Some of you know that this Jesus who comes to offer forgiveness and rebirth is the man with whom you ought to do dealings.

It's not difficult to get an immediate reaction of need from an ordinary, thoughtful person when you present the gospel. The problem is getting him, getting her to carry it out, not just on a Sunday, but Monday through to Saturday. Change their lives, you see, completely, for this is what the King wants.

He has come to disturb. He's the fisherman that is trawling for fish, and he wants you. He wants you in his net.

Pardon the jumbling of the metaphors, but I have justification for Mark does this. Don't you understand that you'll never be happy in your life? You'll never know full contentment until the King has complete control. Some of you, you've known the King for many a year, but you've tried to move away from his full control in your life, and as a result, you are distinctly unhappy and unfulfilled.

I offer you this morning, through the authority that's given me by the Holy Spirit in the exposition of this word, I offer you in the name of the King the possibility of you coming back under his full control. I offer you in his name the benefits of his life and his death and his resurrection. News of Jesus spread like wildfire in those days, and it always spreads when you hear of people who have been changed by his power, and that possibility is yours right now.

Perhaps in a less dramatic fashion than is illustrated in the story of the demoniac, but nonetheless real and vital. The King has come to establish his kingdom. The King has come to draw fishermen to himself, to trawl the seas of his world, to disturb the human heart, to bring men and women to himself.

Let us pray. Lord, at our gut level, we know that what's been said this morning is true, because when it's stripped away from any of the inaccuracies of the preacher's speech, the essence that is there is the essence of your word, and your word is inspired. Lord, we just ask that for some folk here who need to get back into alignment with your will, that they'll do it now by your grace.

Lord Jesus, we dare to believe that you've been to church this morning, that you're here amongst us, two or three. No, we've got more than that, but here amongst us. Now, Lord, we're asking for your authority, for your power, following the preaching of your word to have its effect on people so that their lives will be completely different as a result of being here, not because of the preaching or the preacher as such, but because of the message that came from you.

Lord Jesus, take supremacy in our lives. Cast out the indolent spirits, the spirit of compromise, all evil thoughts and forces that stop us from being less than what you want us to be. And this we ask for your honor and for your glory.

Amen. Let's turn to 319. In mission praise, it's an old hymn, a very lovely hymn which will bring memories back for some, and for younger people, it will introduce you to an earlier period of hymn writing, the beginning of this century.

I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather be his than have riches untold. Try meaning it if you sing it, because that will make your praise and dedication acceptable before the Lord.

319. Let's stand. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that silver or gold may bring us to be a king like Jesus, and let him be.

And to be the king of the gospel may I stand and stand with thee. And Father, we believe that hundreds here have meant that. Help us to live like it.

We thank you that at the end of life, there's only really one thing that matters. Our relationship to the blessed Christ. What fools we are, Lord.

Some of us, we battle for this honor, for this piece of merchandise, for this car, for this sport. But at the end of the race, these things are so paltry, they're utterly valueless. But our relationship to the Christ, only that really is what counts.

Lord, help us to realize that again you give us another opportunity to bring ourselves into right alignment with yourself, for the Lord Jesus to be the sovereign king. We thank you again for the memory of our sister Hilary, the way in which she was yearning to be with you, but when everything else had fallen away, she had that faith that caused her to be disappointed from time to time when she surfaced from consciousness and saw she was still on earth. Lord, give to her, give to us that similar faith, that right ordering of our priorities.

Lord, help us not to be fools, but to walk wisely and to live out our lives as those that serve the king, that trawl from the ship where Captain Jesus is in control and endeavor to bring other fish to know him. Father, as with some, take their leave, bless them, but those who come around this most holy table, may the bread and wine become to us as the very body and blood of Christ and enable us afresh to show our love and commitment to him again as we take these emblems. For the Savior's sake.

Amen.