"UNBELIEVABLE UNBELIEF.”
Rev. Robert T. Woodyard
First Christian Reformed Church, Lynden
July 8, 2012, 10:30am
Texts for the Sermon: Mark 6:1-6
Introduction.
As we return to our study of the Gospel of Jesus as recorded by the apostle Mark, we return also to the text I skipped over so I could preach on Jesus sending out the twelve apostles on the same Sunday we ordained elders and deacons. We come this morning to a very personal text about Jesus and His family and His hometown of Nazareth.
We are reminded that Jesus is very human, and He has what we all have as humans, parents, siblings, a hometown and a home church, people who knew us when we were little and when we were growing up. He experienced all the things growing up that we experienced.
Nazareth was a small hillside village of 200 to at the most maybe 500 people. It was nothing to boast about. It’s never mentioned in the OT or any other ancient or Jewish literature.
Jesus grew up in a construction family, He was a carpenter. He worked six days a week with His hands, He came home dirty, sweaty and tired. He who made the heavens and the earth by speaking a simple word, labored to make things with His hands using wood and nails, saws and hammers. He was a common working man.
This is the story of a “local boy made good.”
The return of a famous son and prodigy was bound to have caused a stir in such a small town. When Jesus returned to His hometown He did what most of us do when we go home, on Sunday He went to church with His family. Since he had gained a reputation as a teacher He was asked to read Scripture and preach.
They were duly impressed and amazed at His preaching and speaking. They were astonished by the stories they have heard about Jesus’ wisdom and His mighty miracles.
Their amazement was that they knew Jesus well, they watched Him grow up and for thirty years live and work among them. He was from a carpenters family, not a family of educated rabbis or priests or scribes. They knew He hadn’t followed a rabbi, He hadn’t done an apprenticeship as a disciple of a wise man. So where did He get His wisdom?
They were amazed, but not in a good way. They had a hard time listening to Jesus. All they can think of was isn’t this the carpenter, the son of a carpenter, the son of Mary, the oldest brother to James, Joses, Judas, Simon and at least two sisters who still live in Nazareth?
None of this other brothers or sisters were wise or powerful or famous. How do you account for this Jesus? All the evidence stacked up against Jesus. People from towns like this, with parents and siblings like this and from occupations like this don’t become prophets or Messiahs. The saying was true, can anything good come from Nazareth?
They don’t mention Joseph’s name, which at the very least was an insult in Jewish culture. There might be a little intentional dig into Jesus’ past. You all know what it’s like growing up in a small town where everyone knows you and remembers your past, what you were like in grade school or middle school or what antics you did in high school.
Jesus had a past too. He was illegitimate, born out of wedlock, and there were some old, wild stories floating around about being conceived by the Holy Spirit, crazy talk like that. And maybe a few stories remembering that time when Jesus was twelve and got lost and left behind in Jerusalem for three days, talking big talk with the rabbis in the Temple.
Jesus said some things about Himself that boggled their minds, they couldn’t wrap their minds around the possibility that He was more than they remember. “He’s just one of us, we know His family. He is no different from any of us, why should we believe all this crazy talk of His.”
And all they took offense at Him.
They took offense at Jesus, He became a stumbling block to them. They were put off by Him. They were amazed by Jesus but in the opposite direction, in the direction of disbelief.
Back in Mark 3:21 His family said He was crazy. In John 7:51 Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in Him during His ministry.
John 1:11He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
Mark 6:4Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”
Jesus applies this old proverbial saying to all three circles of relationships, to his hometown, to his relatives, and even to members of His own immediate family. This is personal.
The old saying is true, familiarity breeds contempt.
The better we know someone the easier it is to find fault with them. It happens among friends, among husbands and wives, among employers and employees, among church members.
We undervalue that’s familiar to us. That can happen with us and our long association with religion and religious things. What’s familiar becomes normal and what’s normal becomes boring and what’s boring becomes neglected and dismissed.
No town on the face of this earth was more blessed than Nazareth. It was Jesus’ hometown, He had lived there for thirty years, walking among them, talking with them. How many of their homes had He been in doing work for them? For thirty years the perfect, blameless Son of God before their very eyes and they were blind to it.
Exposure to the Gospel is no guarantee of faith in Jesus. Apart from faith, exposure to the Gospel often causes an offense to the Gospel.
Does this stagger our imagination? Would we be different if Jesus lived in Lynden?
Think about it. In America the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the very words of Jesus are preached and taught every Sunday in hundreds of thousands of churches, Christian radio stations broadcast hundreds of thousands more sermons and shows, Christian schools teach hundreds of thousands of classes, six to seven thousand new Christian books are written every year, countless millions acts of love in Jesus’ name are done every year, America receives a staggering amount of grace year after year, and yet our country ignores it or rejects it, and completely undervalues the grace given. Has familiarity breed contempt in America?
Let’s bring it closer to home. How much grace has Lynden received this past year and how much have we neglected, ignored or rejected? Are we so accustomed to our privileges and blessings that we have as a community, so accustomed to all the grace that abounds to us that we don’t even think about it? Has familiarity breed contempt in our hearts in Lynden?
But it’s even more personal than that. I am coming up on 400 sermons preached here at First CRC, is it getting to be old hat? I have preached all those sermons from the same book, are we getting tired of the same old book? We must guard our heart from taking for granted the gifts God has given us and placed right here in our midst, right before our eyes. Don’t be like the people of Nazareth. Guard your heart by prayer and fight the work of the devil who tries to spread contempt for all the things of God.
Do we think that if we had been with Jesus we would not have been so doubtful, or undecided, or wavering, or half-hearted about Him? The people of Nazareth are a warning to us, are we really any different than them?
Are the mercies of God so plentiful that they have become cheap to us? When we have everything in abundance do we not take it lightly? Don’t we undervalue whatever we have a great supply of?
I notice how excited we get about sunshine. We don’t take it for granted because we don’t have it all the time. In Kansas and Oklahoma we didn’t think anything of it, we had it 300 days a year. There rain was a really big deal.
Do we marvel when a grain of truth bears so much fruit in some corner of our world that doesn’t have all the light we have? Do we marvel when a village goes crazy just to receive a translation of the Gospel of John in their own language for the first time?
There are two staggering statements at the end of our text.
“He could do no mighty work there.” And “He marveled because of their unbelief.”
Up until now Jesus displayed His great power and authority and Lordship over demons, disease, death and nature. Up until now people had been amazed at Jesus, now Jesus was amazed at the people’s disbelief.
The thing that amazes God the most is not our sinfulness or the evil we do, it’s the hardness of our hearts and our unwillingness to believe in Him.
God being God and knowing all He knows is still amazed that people refuse to believe. There are three great enemies of our souls, pride, worldliness and unbelief; and the greatest of these is unbelief (J.C. Ryle, Matthew, p. 157).
Regarding, “He could do no mighty work there.”
Matthew’s gospel states it this way, “He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58).
Jesus knew their hearts and didn’t waste His signs and wonders on their hardened hearts. Clearly Mark wants to show that the guilt and shame rest with the people of Nazareth. They were obstinate and resistant and they shunned God and pushed back God’s hand. Their hearts were closed and hard. They weren’t just offended, they flat refused to believe.
Lord’s Supper.
We are so familiar with this table, with the words said, with the little piece of bread and the little cup. We are given treasures in earthen vessels (II Corinthians 4:7). Are we in danger here of familiarity breeding contempt or boredom or apathy?
Scripture warns us not to eat or drink without discerning, without seeing, without hearing Jesus Christ here in our midst, here among us, here with us, spiritual present. Are these symbols increasingly rich in meaning to us, or increasingly less important?
32 years ago this past Thursday a beautiful young woman slid this ring on my finger. It could just be a meaningless circle of metal, it could be forgotten and ignored, or it could be a constant reminder that I am loved and that I belong to someone and someone belongs to me, that I am not alone. A promise was made and a covenant entered into.
And if she should die before me, it will be a reminder of how many years of God’s grace I received through her.
This piece of bread, this cup, constant reminders that I am loved, that I belong body and soul to my faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that someone loved me so much that He died for me, even while I was yet a rebellious sinner, a reminder that I am never alone, that I am always forgiven, that eternal joy in heaven awaits me, that the very best is yet to come, that these light and momentary trials and troubles in this life are all worth it and are nothing compared that weight of glory that awaits me. The signs and seals of a promise and a covenant.
Don’t come to this table with any contempt in your heart or mind, don’t come with any boring familiarity, come with a fresh sense of the profound and abundant grace that is yours, come with a renewed love for Him who loved you first, come with a deep sense of His forgiveness that washes away all your iniquity.
Don’t provoke God to take away the blessings He has so generously poured out. Take full advantage of every means of grace and goodness form the Lord.
Unbelief has the power to rob us of the blessings of God. Where faith is absent not much happens. If we won’t listen to and receive the message of Christ we won’t receive the blessing of Christ.
Is faith present or absent in our thoughts, in our prayers, in our actions? Do we have faith for the miracles of salvation, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of changes of heart, of victory over sins and addictions?
Everything Jesus did was meant to give us faith in Him and to increase our faith and trust in Him. Everything Jesus said and did was a call to faith and a call to action, to follow Him and imitate Him and proclaim Him.
What excuses are we using? What hindrances are we allowing Satan to throw in our way?
Application and Conclusion.
Mark 4:24-25“Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. 25 For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Guard your heart from growing lukewarm or even cold toward worship and the Word of God and the sacraments. Guard your heart from becoming dull or complacent or disinterested. Fight the lies and efforts of the enemy of your souls. When you feel the joy and fervency and interest waning fight it, fight it with earnest prayer.
Don’t take a vacation from God with summer, rather press in, further up and further in. Don’t give in to laziness and idleness. Guard your hearts by stirring them up with renewed affection for the gifts of God.
Pray the prayers of Scripture for yourself and your family as pray them for you now:
Prayer:
Ephesians 1:16-19I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might…
Philippians 1:9-11 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Colossians 1:9-10 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.