Well I would ask you this question this evening: do you live, in the details of your everyday experience, with the big picture in view? God's Word is the ultimate big picture, that before origin and beyond destiny view of all things. And that Word of God is given, that big picture is given, to orient you so that you would know your world, you would know yourself, you would know God, you would know the meaning and purpose of life. Let me explain it to you this way. Pretend that we are in Manhattan, and we're at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue where Macy's is, and we have to get up somewhere near 76th and Park, and we are lost.
Lost in Manhattan
We know we're on Earth. We know we're in Manhattan. But we're lost. We don't have a clue where we're going. And there's a man who walks up, he's got the swagger of a typical New Yorker, and your heart is lifted as you see him coming, and you say, "Sir, we're lost, could you help us?" And with skill he gives you exact directions to where you need to go. Now why is he able to do that? That man is able to do that because he's got the helicopter view of Manhattan embedded in his brain. He knows how every neighborhood touches every neighborhood.
He knows how every street crosses every street. You can't get this man lost. That's what the marvelous narrative of the Word of God is meant to do to you. It's meant to give you that kind of wisdom, that kind of understanding, that kind of guidance, so you don't get lost in the middle of your own story. I would like you to turn again to Mark 6, page 842 in your church Bibles, to those four little (what seem to be unremarkable) verses. The storm has settled by the command of Christ and the disciples land in Gennesaret.
Gennesaret is between Tiberius on the south, Capernaum on the north. It's a very fertile part of Palestine and so it's very heavily populated. Although Jesus wasn't expected there, he is immediately recognized and the word gets out, the crowds begin to gather, and the frenzy of mayhem that has accompanied the ministry of Christ begins. And in this account of this moment in Christ's ministry there are embedded in this the summary of the narrative of redemption. This passage has a lot more in it than you would imagine, and it's a bit of a summary.
Chapter 7 is probably the most theological chapter in Mark, where Mark is really going to go after the centrality of the heart and the necessity of heart change, and then from Mark 8, the narrative of Mark begins to march us toward the cross. That's the book Let me just pull some elements out of this. What you're immediately confronted with as Jesus and His disciples land on the shore is the dramatic brokenness of this world. There surely in Palestine is no want for need. I have tried to imagine what it's like when the word gets out and these dear people began bringing to Christ crippled and lame people who are not able to get off beds, the demon possessed, the suffering of all kinds.
Imagine the cries and the wailing and people pushing and shoving to get next to Christ, if perchance somehow, some way, his touch would heal them. Let your mind think of this. That is a stark picture of the world in which we live. Sin has left this world dramatically broken. And if ever for a moment, you would ever have a delusion that grace isn't necessary, that restoration isn't necessary, look around for a moment. I'm hit by this as I walk to Tenth on Sundays and I see broken lives here in the professional part of Philadelphia.
And I think about the stories of these people. I think how they got to the place where they are. I see insane people standing in the middle of the street walking back and forth just repeating the same thing over again. I see a young woman with no legs beneath her knees holding out a dirty cup that she's held out for months begging. This is a broken world, this world has been ravaged by sin. As we've heard from Romans 8, those of you who were here in the morning for that series, "The whole world groans waiting for redemption"
Why is there, in this moment, such hope? Well because although the people don't know it, God understands that the only way that what is broken will be fixed is if he sends his Son in the flesh to invade the brokenness. And this crowd doesn't know who they've encountered, but it's God Almighty who is in their midst. Jesus has come and the Creator is able to touch his creation and renew it by his power. How amazing is that? It doesn't take months, it doesn't take years, it doesn't take a medical degree.
Only His Command, Only His Touch
It takes only his command, only his will, only his touch because God Almighty has come. And that means there's hope! And these dear people come running. They have no theology, they have yet no understanding of who they've encountered. But the fact of the matter is it's God in the flesh that they've encountered. That's why, in their miserable condition, they would have any hope whatsoever. Incredible. And this cultural phenomenon that we know as the Son of God alters what he touches because he's God Almighty.
This is his creation. He has the power to restore it. Your hit thirdly with the amazing compassion of Christ. He really does care, and whether it's a woman who has suffered much for many years at many physicians, whether it's a prominent man whose daughter has died, whether it's a hungry crowd who can't feed themselves, whether it's doubting disciples in the midst of a cruel storm, this is a Messiah of glorious compassion. He really does care. And when it says here that "as many as touched it [his garment] were made well" don't think that that was some kind of incident or accident.
Every person who was healed by Christ was healed by his command and his will. A couple of weeks ago, I gave you that gospel equation. Do you remember it? Divine Power plus Divine Compassion equals Everything You Need. D.P. + D.C. = E.Y.N. Put it on your refrigerator. There's another thing that you begin to see pictured, it's pictured in all the gospels, is this: that redemption is a work of total restoration. Yes, the epicenter of that is the salvation of souls, that sacrifice of Christ that provides forgiveness and righteousness and acceptance, that conquers sin.
But God's zeal is that everything that is broken by sin will be restored. You love, like I do, that great Christmas hymn that says, "He makes his blessings known far as the curse is found." And every healing pictures that Jesus cares about his broken creation. And there will be a day when all of his children will live in the new heavens and new earth that will be fully and completely and utterly restored. There will be no more sin, there will be no more suffering, there will be no racism, there will be no disease, there will be no brokenness.
He will make it all new. That makes it worthwhile for you to get up in the morning and press on, because the kingdom that you've been welcomed to is marching toward this kind of renewal. There's another thing that Mark makes very clear, and it's so sad in this moment that these people miss it. It's this: that every miracle of Christ was meant to be declarative, every miracle of Christ was meant to be instructive, that every miracle was meant to teach his identity that they would begin to understand this is the Messiah that the prophets talked about, that the physical miracles would begin to point to them to a deeper disease that could only be healed by this great physician.
Remember the words of Mark after Christ calms storm, that "the disciples did not understand the loaves and their hearts were hardened." They didn't understand what they were being taught, that there's a metaphor in every miracle. there's a metaphor in every provision that would point us to a deeper need and a deeper hope. But there's something that jumps off the page in this moment that almost every commentator who writes on these four little verses talks about. It's sad and it's clear that as this crowd presses toward Jesus, as the word gets out that this miracle worker is now in our region, as he moves from village to village and people gather and the sad broken frenzy builds, there is no evidence of any sense of need for Christ's teaching, let alone his forgiveness.
How sad it is that by the sovereign plan of God, these men and women and boys and girls are now in the physical presence of the Messiah, the Savior, the one who absolutely does have the power to forgive sin, and all they care about is temporal healing, temporal feeding, temporal provision. There's no sense of crying for, no sense of need for, that deeper salvation that Jesus is able to provide. They're not after him because of the liberating wisdom of the gospel of the kingdom. They're not after him because he has the power to forgive sins.
They're after him because he has the ability to make physical life more comfortable. Now lest you think I am a heartless man, it is not wrong to cry out for physical healing. It's not wrong to cry out for Christ's provision for your physical needs. Not at all. But it is sad if that's all you want. Because guess what? Every person Christ healed someday died. That's the reality of this moment. And how sad it is when you're in the presence of Christ and your problem is not that you want too much from him; your problem is that you would settle for way too little.
A Deeper Need
Now you have to say this: that if your eyes are ever open to that deeper need, if you ever hunger for something more than physical comfort and physical pleasure and a life that's predictable and easy, you hunger for more because grace has visited you. Because sin is deceitful, and apart from Christ we're dead to relationship with God. And so whenever I experience that deeper need, I experience that deeper need only because of the grace of Christ. But I would ask you this evening: what do you want from your Messiah?
When are you tempted to question his goodness? If you look back on a good day or a good week or a good month, why do you name it good? How hungry are you that the work that grace has begun in you would be completed? How zealous are you that your life would be formed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ? How much do you pray that your heart would be ruled by Jesus and Jesus alone, that you would be progressively delivered from all those socially acceptable idols that dominate Western culture? How much do you live with the narrative in your mind that says as long as sin still lives inside of you, you are deeply needy and you are still broken and you are needing of the rescuing, forgiving, delivering grace of Christ.
That is your greatest quest. That is your greatest need. That is your biggest dilemma, and Jesus is your only hope. Does the gospel shape the way you think about you, the way you think about your needs? I would ask it this way: what owns the desires of your heart? What owns the desires of your heart? Not on Sunday morning when you're thinking in a more self-conscious spiritual way, but on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, what is it that you actually want? What is it that you actually live for?
What is it that your heart actually cries out for again and again? What is it that you look at in someone else and you envy? Where are those moments where you don't care so much about being holy, you just want God to make your life easier? Could it be that after glorious grace has opened our eyes to deep spiritual need, our eyes would close up again and we would be those who don't ask too much from our Father who sadly would settle for too little? Maybe this is a bit of a nasty way of asking the question: would you want to be in heaven if Jesus wasn't there?
What is it that you celebrate this evening in the work of your Messiah? What a sad moment this is. The Savior has come. He's zealous to preach a gospel of repentance. He has already demonstrated and declared his ability and willingness to forgive sin, and there's no hunger whatsoever for that work in the crowd that's so aggressively pursues him. If you're God's child, you're God's child because grace has opened your eyes to that deeper need. Praise God for that. But we can forget, and we can slip back into desires that rule our heart that are more for temporal things than eternal rescue.
May God help us. May he open our eyes. May our hearts celebrate the redemption that only can be found in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Let's pray: Lord, there are all kinds of warnings in your Word about what we've just considered. You talk about us, you call us not to live for earthly treasure, you tell us to invest in a purse that won't wear out. Paul talks about fixing his eyes not on things that are seen, because things that are seen are temporary, but things that are unseen. You tell us not to love the world nor the things that are in the world.
You call us to flee idols. Lord, we are thankful that it is your work to open blind eyes. And we would pray for anyone in this room whose eyes have never been opened to that deeper need, that you would open their eyes, that they would see that apart from you, they are on a sure pathway to death, that only in you is forgiveness found, only in you is life found, only in you is righteousness given. Lord, we pray for those of us that know you, that we would continue to hunger for your work in our lives, that we would celebrate your grace, and that we would hold on to that grace with both hands so that grace has completed its work. Thank you for your power, your compassion, your forgiveness, your grace. In Jesus name, Amen.
