If you had to describe the Lord Jesus to someone who knew nothing about Him, what words would you use? What pictures would you paint? What things about Jesus would you emphasize? There's a real way in which what we're going to look at this evening is this multiperspective portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to, yes, look at all of chapter 3; because in 6 vignettes, we get this glorious picture of who the Lord Jesus is. But we're also confronted with the fact that, as you stand in front of this portrait, as you look at His self-declaration, as you look at the things that He does, it's impossible to be neutral, and you see a variety of responses to Jesus.
How Were You Responding to Jesus?
I would ask you, "This week, how were you responding to Jesus?" I told the elders and pastors, as we gathered upstairs to pray before the service, that as I studied this passage, my thought was for myself, "Lord I believe; help my unbelief." C.S. Lewis writes these words; I think these are some of the most powerful and important words this man ever wrote, from The Case for Christianity. I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish things that people often say about him, Jesus Christ.
Here's what people say, "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God." That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sorts of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make a choice; either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something else. You can shut him up as a fool; you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to. What powerful words. Mark doesn't leave that option open to us. Look at Mark 3:1-6. We see, first, that Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. Again as He's in the synagogue, there is a man with a withered hand in front of Him. We don't know if this was a set up by the Pharisees, but they were surely there; they're tracking Christ; they're there to accuse Him to set Him up; they want to bring Him down.
And they actually think that this will be a moral quandary for Christ. Would he, on the Sabbath, heal this man? You can see how ridiculous their legalism is. And so Christ beckons this man to come to Him; and as the man stands before Christ, before Christ reaches out to heal the man, He says this to the Pharisees, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or do harm, to save life or kill it?" He says, "You guys have it completely wrong! You have such a legalistic view of the Sabbath that something that would be an act of God-honoring good isn't inside of your definition of what is legal on the Sabbath."
What an indictment! I mean, think about this, if the Sabbath was made for man, then what could be more honoring of the Sabbath than to heal the hand of this man. If the Sabbath is made for worship of God, what could be more honoring to the Lord Creator than to restore His creation? Because, what is the Sabbath about? The Sabbath is about God reaching into our weakness and our limits, and giving us a day of rest and God's zeal for His own glory, and calling us to worship Him. And on the Sabbath, the humanness of people and the glory of God come together in rest and worship.
There could be no better way to honor the Sabbath than what Jesus is doing. And yet the legalism of the Pharisees would put this act of good outside of their definition of what is right on the Sabbath, and Jesus would say, "Your view of the Sabbath harms, your view of the Sabbath kills, instead of honors God." You can look at the words next. Mark says that Jesus looked with them at anger, grieved at the hardness of their hearts. I want you to hear what I'm about to say: legalism is not first a matter of theology.
Legalism is not first a matter of Biblical interpretation. Legalism is first a condition of the heart. It's rooted in self-righteousness. It's rooted in pride, and that pride and selfrighteousness always leads to the condemnation of others. Legalism would rather celebrate principle than meet the needs of people. Legalism, in its pride of self-righteousness, lacks mercy, lacks grace, lacks compassion. And Jesus looks at these men with righteous anger and says, "You are the religious leaders of your day, but you get it all wrong!
Self-Righteousness Gets It Wrong
And rather than weep for the brokenness of the fall appearing on the hands of this man, you see this as a moment to advance your legalism." Selfrighteousness gets it wrong. Listen, before we stand too far away from the Pharisees, let's admit this is in us. Parents, would you agree it's often easier to beat your kids with a law than to rescue them with grace? It's easier to have a judgment and condemning spirit toward a husband and wife than it is to look at them in their struggle with sin, with compassion, and grace, and perseverance, and Gospel ministry.
It's easy to look down on a brother and sister in Christ who doesn't seem to be as far along as you are. Seeds of that legalism are still inside of all of us. As Jesus heals this man, what's the response of the Pharisees? This is the dead giveaway! They commiserate with Herodians to destroy Jesus. Now, you've got to understand what this is. The Pharisees are the protectors of Palestinian Judaism; their mortal enemies are the Herodians, those who are sympathetic to the Roman protectorate. It is shocking that they seek out the help of these guys in order to crush the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That tells you everything you need to know about their hearts. May God preserve us from this dangerous legalism. These are the religious insiders of the day. Mark immediately takes us to this vignette that's hard to describe. It pictures, for us, Jesus as the Great Physician, Jesus as the Great Deliverer. The word has gotten out that He has awesome power and glorious compassion, and broken humanity is running to Christ. Imagine this scene as Jesus tries to get away along the shores of The Galilee; but He can't get away because this crowd of needy, broken, suffering people is pressing in on Him.
Brothers and sisters, I think if we could watch the video of this moment, we would weep. Imagine them carrying the crippled and the diseased and the suffering and the wailing; they're pushing themselves at Christ so much that He's afraid that He will be physically crushed. And He asked the disciples to hire a boat for Him so that He could get away a little bit from the shore. Hear this, while the Pharisees are seeking to destroy Him, broken creation is running to His feet. As I was reading this, I was thinking about the first time I was in northern India.
I was on a four-day research tour of Hinduism, and I had taken, with my guide and teacher, one of those wild Indian trains up to the base of the Himalayan mountains. It was a trip like I had never gone on before. And I was in full-blown culture shock in every way. It was about to get worse! We got off the train, and we came through the station, and we went out from the station, and the closest experience I had to the scene that Christ must be looking at was in that station, all the broken and withered bodies and suffering were outside that station.
I can't describe the scene to you. And I can remember standing there with a man who pulled around a platform with rusted wheels; he had one arm that was basically club and one good arm; he had no legs and a twisted body, and he pulled himself up to me, and he was yanking on my pants, begging. And the only prayer I could pray was, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!" That's the scene that you have here in Mark. And what you see in the healing power and the healing compassion of Christ, in this moment, is a declaration of who He is and what He will do.
He hasn't come just to minister to disembodied souls. He hasn't forgotten that all of creation has fallen. He will make His blessings known far as the curse is found. And this Lord Christ will restore every aspect of His creation. Revelation says, "He will make all things new!" He is the Great Physician. He is the Deliverer, and He had healed so many that anyone who was in a desperate condition was finding their way to Him. It's a beautiful picture; and one day there will be no more sickness; there will be no more suffering; there will be no more sorrow; because this Healer will complete His work.
Even the Demons Recognize Him
Praise Him! Even the demons recognize who He is. His power has been so clear that, as He came in the presence of these demons, they fell down and cried, "You are the Son of God." You know the church is in trouble when demons have better theology than the pastors! That's exactly what was going on here. And then Mark presents to us Jesus the Great Discipler, the Savior of the world. He pulls away from the crowd, and He makes a step in His ministry that's incredibly important. There's much mystery and much purpose to this next vignette.
We don't really have a lot of information about these disciples whom He called, "Apostles," from Mark. We have a little bit about where they're from; we have some nicknames; we have some family associations; but could that be because Mark's focus isn't on these men? His focus is on the Christ who calls them. It says that He went up to the mountain and called to them those whom He desired. You see, the qualification of these men is not found in where they came from, and who their family is, and what their portfolio is, and could they fit the ministry profile that Christ had written.
Their qualifications are found inside of Christ. He sovereignly chooses them. He qualifies them. He teaches them. He enables them, and He is going to send this company of ragtag guys around the world to preach the Gospel and to do hand-to-hand combat with evil. And what you see here is Christ's first step in building His worldwide church. He will not be content with evangelizing Palestine. The Gospel will blow way beyond Palestine! When I was on another trip to southern India, I began to notice that there were many Biblical and Christian names.
We were in a town called Abraham-pur; that means 'Village of Abraham.' I met several men named 'Moses' and a couple 'David's,' and a few 'Peter's' and I was interested in that. I've never heard the name Raju Moses before. And so I asked, and I was reminded that the apostle Thomas kept making his way east and making his way east, and the apostle Thomas actually evangelized southern India probably before Northern Europe was evangelized. There's a rich Gospel heritage in southern India. That began in this moment.
And these men and the disciples that followed them would ultimately bring this Gospel to all that God had chosen, and there would be a day when people of every language group, every ethnic group, every location from the globe, men, women, boys and girls, every period of history, would rise and call Him blessed. What a beautiful picture! There's poignancy in this moment too because the final identification is Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him. Jesus was willing to be betrayed. He was willing to face injustice.
He was willing to be mocked and beaten. He was willing to hang on a cruel cross so that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be real and true so that God's anger would be satisfied, so that righteousness would be given; forgiveness would be given so that His church would live forever. Well, we have the fourth vignette. We find Jesus at home, probably not a home that He owned. We know that because we're told that Jesus didn't have a home of His own, a home of one of His family. But as is the case, Jesus can't ever get away because He really is the hope of creation, and the crowd always finds Him, and the scene is that Jesus comes out of the house, not even able to take time to eat because He is full of compassion, and He's out there ministering to this crowd that presses in around the house.
Again, let your mind get at the scene. Notice the response of His family; they went out to seize Him and they say, "He's out of His mind, He's crazy!" You see, His family is confronted with this choice, "Is He our natural son and nothing else? Or is this natural son in fact the Son of God?" And sadly they say, "He's crazy. He's actually beginning to believe His press. He's actually beginning to act like He believes what these people are saying about Him. He's so delusional; He's not even able to take care of Himself anymore.
We need to get Him and protect Him from Himself." You hear, in this moment, the words of John, "He came to his own in his own did not receive him." What a poignant scene! There is no neutrality. The next vignette is the most theological of these six vignettes. Here's what's been going on; the power of Jesus is so clear now that it cannot be denied. It's been demonstrated over and over again throughout Palestine; it's been witnessed by so many people; the Pharisees and the Scribes can no longer deny that this One has power.
Developing an Apologetic Against Jesus
So they have to come up with some kind of apologetic that would make Jesus look evil in the eyes of those who are running to Him. And so they are in Jerusalem; these are the theologians developing their talking points so that they go back into Judea and Galilee throughout the crowd and begin to proclaim this theology of who Jesus actually is. And they come up with this wonderful apologetic that He's possessed by Beelzebub, the prince of demons; and by the power of demons, He casts out demons. Now it's not a very hard argument to deal with, and Christ deals with it in two ways.
First of all, He just deals with the logic of what He says. He says, "What you are proposing makes no sense at all. How can Satan cast out Satan? Let's think about this. If a kingdom goes at war with itself and wins, the kingdom ends. If a family fights itself, that's what a house means, and wins, there's no more family. And if Satan rises up against Satan and defeats Satan, Satan's done!" Devastating argument, but Christ is not done. There's something else that He is going to say. Verse 27 is very, very important to understand.
"But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house." This is one of the most hopeful passages in Scripture because Jesus is saying, "I have invaded the house of the strongman, Satan. I have broken down his door in my incarnation, and I am the stronger man; and so I have tied him up, and I can take from him anything I want." Now you say, "What is He talking about?" Well, He's talking about first His incarnation.
His incarnation is pictured by entering the strongman's house. When He's talking about binding him up, tying him up, He's talking about a specific historical event. He's talking about the temptation that is there pictured in Mark 1:12 and 13. He says, "Don't you remember that the evil one threw his best at me for forty days of a multitude of temptations, and I defeated him every time. I'm the stronger man; I have now bound the enemy, and I can do with his kingdom what I will!" Praise God! And He bound him in His temptation; He publicly defeated him on the cross, and He will finally defeat him at the entrance of the final Kingdom where sin and suffering will be forever defeated.
If you are God's child, you are the sons and daughters of the stronger man. You need not live a defeated life. You need not live in mortal fear of Satan. You need not think that you struggle with sin by yourself because the stronger man has come, and He has, as the Second Adam, stood in your place and where the first Adam failed the test, He has passed the test, and He has power over evil! Praise Him! And listen, all of that was substitutionary; all of that was for you; all of that was Jesus in your place.
Get up and live in faith and hope and courage; the stronger man is your Savior. And then Jesus says: "Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin" - for they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit." (ESV). Now, sadly, this passage has been terribly misinterpreted. We've ripped it out of its context and we've floated this theology of the unpardonable sin that has led to grief and confusion to many, many people, doubt even in the hearts of believers.
What is it that Jesus is talking about? Well, it's very clear. If you assign evil to the Savior so that, rather than your heart running toward Him, it runs away from Him, there is no rescue for you. If you reject the means of forgiveness, there will be no forgiveness; that's all it means. What is this that He is talking about? It's conscious, deliberate, continued rejection of the saving power and grace of God delivered through the words and actions of Jesus. That's what the Pharisees were doing.
If You Reject Your Only Hope
There was no hope for them because they rejected the power and the grace of the Messiah who is their only hope; and if you reject your only hope, you have no hope. And then there is this sweet vignette at the end. Remember His mother and brothers have come outside to get Him, and the crowd is sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. Jesus, you know your family is looking for you." Pretty typical normal scene. And He answered, "Who is my mother and my brothers?"
And looking about at those who sat around Him, He said, "Here are my mother and my brother; whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother." Jesus says, "Don't you know by my adopting, forgiving, delivering grace, I'm raising up a new family, a family of people who will be liberated from their kingdoms of self, liberated from their allegiance to their own will, a company of people who, by my grace, will find joy in doing my will, and these are my brothers; these are my sister's; these are my mother?"
If you have trusted in Him, if you have sought His forgiveness, if you've forsaken your kingdom for His Kingdom and His righteousness, Jesus is your brother and your friend forever! What a beautiful portrait! Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is the Great Physician deliverer. Jesus is the Great Discipler and Savior of the world. Jesus is the hope of broken creation. Jesus is the stronger man, exercising power over evil. Jesus is the brother and friend to all who believe. You can seek to destroy Him; you can run to Him in brokenness and need; you can give yourself to be part of His worldwide Kingdom purpose.
You can silently, in your heart, name Him as a madman; you can blaspheme His name; or you can celebrate grace that has included you in His family. I would ask you this evening, "What would you do with Jesus?" If you're a believer here this evening and you've placed your trust in Him, maybe you should pray with me that prayer, "Lord I believe, but help my unbelief. I don't always live in the light of the glory that is revealed in Mark 3. I don't always find rest in You. I don't always find joy in Your purpose.
There are times when there are things in life that actually seem more important to me than the fact that I've been included in Your family by grace. I don't always celebrate my deliverance from evil. There are sometimes I actually pursue evil. Oh Lord, I believe; but in Your grace, won't You rescue me in my unbelief, and draw me ever closer to a deeper, more practical trust of You?" If you're an unbeliever, I would say to you this evening, "This Jesus is your only hope. Only in Him can life be found.
Only in Him is hope found. Only in Him is forgiveness found; run to Him; confess your need; seek His forgiveness and rest in His grace. What would you do with Jesus?" Let's pray: Lord, we thank you for this gorgeous portrait of the Savior. That portrait is a hope to us in a variety of ways. Thank you for the recording of the way that people responded to Christ; because in that way, Your Word is like a mirror to us, and perhaps we look into that mirror, and we see the ways that we have and do respond to You.
Lord, may we run to You by faith. Oh, Lord of Sabbath; Oh, Great Healer Deliverer; Oh, Discipler and Lord of Your church; Oh, hope of broken creation; Oh, Stronger Man; Oh, Brother and Friend, we love You, but we are deeply grateful that we have been loved by You. In Jesus's name, Amen.
