July 23, 2023

The following transcript has been electronically transcribed. Any errors in spelling, syntax, or grammar should be attributed to the electronic method of transcription and its inherent limitations.

He meaning Jesus went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were astonished saying, where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? And how are such mighty works done by his hands?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching. So this is a story of rejection. Rejection is at the center of the story. And this is a story about rejection. In many ways, this is the deepest and the most hurtful rejection that Jesus has received so far. Jesus has received much rejection by way of the Pharisees, by way of the religious leaders, those who oppose him openly.

But those were all people that were, in a sense, separated from him, insulated from him. This is rejection in Jesus's hometown. This is rejection. At its core, this is rejection on the part of those who should have celebrated Jesus the most fervently who should have embraced him the most vigorously. And yet these are the ones who, who will reject him the most resolutely.

So Mark places the story here for a reason as he's placed all of his stories where they are for a reason, for a thematic reason, and part of the reason the story is here is to prepare us for what's coming up to prepare both the reader for what's coming up to follow. But in addition to this, to also prepare the disciples for the story that is to follow for the episode in their life.

That is to follow because immediately after this story is when the 12 disciples, the apostles, are sent out on that first initial mission in which we'll see next week. They will experience much rejection as well, so it to prepare them for the rejection that they will receive. We see this story of Jesus' rejection and not just any rejection, but a deep and personal rejection.

Then that also prepares the reader not only for the story of the apostles being sent out in the next story, but also the following story of John the Baptizer and his ultimate rejection as he's arrested and executed. That prepares us for that story. And then ultimately, we're being prepared for the ultimate rejection, which comes in chapter 14, as Jesus will be rejected by his own, he'll be rejected by Pilate, he'll be rejected by the Sanhedrin, he'll be rejected by his own people and he'll be, he'll be put on a cross.

So all of this is preparing us for that ultimate rejection because rejection really is the context in which the entire. Christian life takes place, which the entire kingdom of God exists in this age. It exists within the context of rejection and much of it, there's a sense in which the reader should feel a common bond with Jesus.

Through this story, we, we should feel a bond with Jesus in all stories, but in this story, we should feel a common bond with Jesus, with the dis, the disciples. We should feel in some way, something like the disciples must have felt on those boats a few stories ago, as they are commanded by Jesus to get into the boat and then cross the sea.

The sea again, being a metaphor for the rule of e evil in this world, the age of evil, the chaos that evil brings, and as those disciples are being, Held aloft held a float on those boats in this sea of evil with the only thing saving them was the floating boat that Jesus put them in. We should feel a certain kinship with them because we too live in a world that is a sea of rejection, just as Jesus is experiencing.

The crowds could not be more numerous. They could not be more excited, they could not be more aggressive. Yet they also, at their very core, are rejecting him resolutely. They are curious, they are interested. They are here for the miracles. But we've seen time and again that Jesus', true and genuine followers are small in number.

And these small in number disciples must feel something like Jesus feels as he goes to his hometown and is utterly rejected by them. So this is the context of what faces us this morning, the context of rejection and how the kingdom of God in this age is a kingdom that lives in the midst of full outright rejection.

So the rejection begins in verse one. He went away from there. And came to his hometown. So as he comes to his hometown, mark never tells us what the hometown is, but we know from Matthew and Luke that the hometown would be Nazareth. Nazareth was known as his hometown. He was called Jesus the Nazarene. He was, and of course, born in Nazareth.

He was, as we know, born in Bethlehem, and he lived the first few years of his life away from Nazareth. He lived for between one and two years there in birth in Bethlehem after his birth. Because as the Magi, the wise men come to see him. He's between one and two years old. And then after that comes the dream.

The angel tells them to flee to Egypt for safety. They flee to Egypt for a time. And then when King Herod dies, another angel comes by way of dreamed, and Joseph is told to now return because Herod is dead. So they return to Nazareth, the hometown of both Mary and Joseph. And this will be all that Jesus knows as he grows up.

He, he won't have likely any memory, maybe the earliest memory, but most likely no memory at all of living in Egypt. And certainly no memory of living in Bethlehem. But all of his memories will be of Nazareth. Nazareth will be where all the people are with whom he grew up. The people that he, , was, was children with who played together, playmates, adults that he looked up to.

All these, all those people are there in Nazareth where Jesus will be returning to. This is about 25 miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee. So it was a good long day walk from Capernaum. There were the area of Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum, where Jesus was before this a good day, maybe even two days walk from there.

And so as he travels to Nazareth, let us just put a little bit of a mind picture in our mind of where Jesus will be returning to as he re as he returns to Nazareth. We're not told why he returns, and we're not specifically told if this was the first time in a long time since he's been there. But as he returns, just to sort of put a picture in our mind of what he's returning to, we should not picture a lush.

Farmland sort of place when we think of Nazareth. Nazareth was really and truly like an armpit of Israel. It was a barren, dry place that was a very rocky. Craggy sort of place on the side of hills. It was about 60 acres. And if you have an idea of what 60 acres is like, that's, that's not a very big area and less than 500 people live there in Jesus' lifetime.

It's a small place. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody knows everybody's business, and it's a place that is not particularly wealthy at all. It's very sparse in resources. It was not a place of good farmland. And in addition to that, it was a place that was known for having a high gentile population since the days of about six centuries before the birth of Christ, when the Assyrians invaded.

Since that time, the Gentiles have populated this part of Galilee, particularly the part around Nazareth, so that even Matthew calls this area the Galilee of the Gentiles. So Jesus would've grown up knowing lots of Gentiles, Jesus would've grown up, and this sort of area truly as in the words of Nathaniel, can anything come good come from Nazareth?

We kind of see where he is coming from. Nazareth was not exactly an attraction type of place, so as he returns here to his hometown of Nazareth, we're told that his disciples followed him, which reminds us that that's why they were called out. If you remember back in chapter two, as Jesus calls the disciples to himself, He calls them to himself, we're told so that they may be with him.

So the purpose of him, them calling to him was for them to be with him. And they are with him. They are following him. We're told verse two, and on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. Now, Luke adds for us that that was his custom, as was his custom. He began to teach in the synagogue. So we're told that it was Jesus custom to attend synagogue on Sabbath and participate in the worships.

Were in the worship services there. This was what he would have done on every Sabbath, but in fact, This is the last time in Mark's gospel that we will be told that Jesus enters the synagogue. So we don't know if he never enters the synagogue again or if he enters other synagogues, but we're not told in the entire remainder of the gospel of another instance in which Jesus is found in the synagogue.

But he goes into the synagogue in order to teach, and many who heard him were astonished and were, by this point, very much accustomed to that reaction to Jesus's teaching. We've been told since chapter one that when Jesus teaches, the people who hear his teaching are amazed, astonished, astounded. They've never heard teaching like this.

Who is this man who is teaching like this? He's teaching with authority, not like our scribes. He is teaching in ways that we've never heard teaching before. So this is not an unusual response to read that the people were astonished at his teaching. However, we should be careful to remind ourself that astonishment and amazement is not always the same thing with being impressed.

We know this to be true. We know that you can be amazed at something in a way that also says that you're impressed with the, something that you're amazed at. But you can also be amazed in a way that is an insulting, degrading way. You can be amazed at something that's, that is an a type of amazement that strips the thing of its honor and this is the type of amazement that they feel.

So let me just give a, a couple of examples to kind of put some flesh on this. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about by, by way of a couple of examples. If I were to say to you, if you were to come to me and you were to say, guess what, I passed my, my, that big examination I've been studying for, I passed my examination with a hundred percent and I were to respond and say, what you, you received a hundred percent.

You see how that amazement is not. A, a complimentary amazement, that's an insulting amazement because my amazement is that you did such a thing. Or if you were to say, guess what, I receive the employee of the month honor at work, and I were to say, you really, this is the precise kind of amazement that Jesus is receiving in Nazareth and to a larger degree as he's received all along.

So as we've been reading about their astonishment and their amazement as at his teaching, don't necessarily equate that with an amazement that is impressed. But instead we're told specifically that their amazement at Jesus's teaching. It comes from the fact, not, not from the substance of his teaching or the truth, or the reality or the veracity of his teaching or the, the heart connectedness of his teaching, but we're told that the source of their amazement is the source of the teaching.

And many who heard him were astonished saying, where did this man get these things? What is this wisdom given to him? How, how are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this, the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

Do you hear it In their, their questions, they're amazement is coming from the fact that this teaching is coming from him, from the carpenter, from the son of Mary, from the one whose brothers we know. We know his sisters. He's the hometown boy. He's the local Yoko. And he's here pretending to teach these things to us.

Who is this guy? So you see how their amazement and their astonishment is not giving honor to Jesus. It's doing the very opposite. It's taking honor from him. Now, we've already noted that, or earlier in the story, we noted that Nazareth was something of a, of a hotbed for disbelief in Jesus because the only other contact that we've had from with people from Nazareth was the instance in chapter three when Jesus' family came to Capernaum to take him by force against his will because he was an embarrassment to the family.

His teachings, his goings on this whole movement that seemed to have started around him was a deep embarrassment to them. And so they come to retrieve him and take him home. So we've already been introduced to the idea that those who are from Nazareth are not the ones who are on the inside, but those who are, they are on the outside.

So once again, the same theme. The exact ones that you would think would be on the inside. Are actually the ones on the outside and the ones on the outside are the ones that you would've thought would've been on the inside, as Jesus will often say things like, The first will be last, and the last will be first.

This is no surprise to us that the ones whom we would've expected, meaning Jesus's earthly family, his biological mother, mother and his half biological brothers and sisters, that they would've been the ones in his corner. We find that they are the ones who are the most resolutely opposed to him. So they asked this question, who is this man?

Where's this wisdom coming from? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son? So they're asking these questions regarding his identity, and I just want to point out real quickly, just the, this is the culmination of a pattern that Mark has followed throughout his gospel up to this point. This ends the pattern, but I just want to point this pattern out to you because I really.

I enjoy seeing things like this in God's word. I enjoy seeing how perfectly it's put together, how it's not just stories thrown together, but instead there's deep purpose, there's thought put behind it because of course we know that the author of scripture is God himself. So he's put this together in ways that when we recognize this, we can appreciate this.

And so this culminates a pattern that once I show you this, it'll be, it'll be plain as day that Mark has the pattern that goes like this. There is an outburst from a demon regarding who Jesus is. And a few verses later, there's a question from a human about who Jesus is. The A demon will have some sort of outburst.

I know who you are. A few verses later, there'll be a question, who is this man? So look at the pattern. Chapter one, verse 24, from the di, from the lips of a demon. I know who you are, the holy one of God. A few verses later, who is this? What is this? A new teaching with authority commands, even unclean spirits.

They obey it. Chapter one, verse 34, and they would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. So the demons were attempting, at least to speak something of the identity of Jesus a few verses later. Why does this man speak like this? He's blaspheming who can forgive sins but God alone. Chapter three, verse 11.

You are the son of God from the voice of the demon. A few verses, , later of, , paragraph or two later, chapter four, verse 41. Who, what? Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him on the see The disciples say, who is this man that, that the wind listens to him? Chapter five, verse seven. From the lips of the demonized man known as legion, what have you to do with me, Jesus, the son of the most high God.

Then a few verses later, our present text. Who is this? Isn't this the carpenter son? So you see there it's plain as day. This pattern that Mark follows, A demon blurts out something about Jesus' identity. A few verses later, a human asks, who is this guy? So Mark, I think, is prodding us to ask the question, when will these humans.

Figure out what the demons have known all along. When will these humans comprehend who this man Jesus is, the demons have comprehended this all along? When will the, when will the humans and when will the humans see this? So once again, this prominent theme of enlightenment and understanding, understanding of who Jesus is, all that comes in connection with relationship with Jesus.

The, , chapter four verse 10 through 12, remember that passage where Jesus says to you has been given the understanding of the kingdom of heaven. But to those on the outside, it's just in parable. So in relationship and connection to Jesus comes this enlightenment and this understanding that we've been seeing the pattern for all along.

Now, just to continue on, they say, how are such ma mighty works done by his hands? So that tells us a couple things. First of all, it tells us that the people in Nazareth have plainly heard about what Jesus is doing. Jesus doesn't come home to Nazareth. And everybody say to him, what have you been up to?

Jesus, we hadn't seen you in a couple years. And he says, well, you know what, , there was this one. I turned the water to wine this one time. And, and you know, there's, there was a storm on the sea and I, I calmed the storm and I've, I've, you wouldn't believe how many people I've healed. And they say, what? We can't believe it.

Get out of here. Jesus. That's not what happens at all. Because they've heard all along. In fact, the whole country has heard all along of what Jesus is doing. So they've heard of his mighty works. But once again, we're given reminder after reminder, after reminder that miracles change. No one's mind about Jesus.

Miracles change nobody's mind. If someone is un in unbelief, then a miracle will not change their unbelief to belief. Miracles will only affirm the faith that already exists. But if there is no faith, if the soil of the heart is not good, then miracles will harden. Not confirm. So they've heard all along about what he's been doing at his hands.

How are such mighty works done by his hands. , now verse three is not this, the carpenter is not this the carpenter. So Matthew tells us that they say, is this not the carpenter's son? So that tells us that both Matthew, I'm sorry, both Jesus's father, Joseph and Jesus were carpenters by trade. So this word carpenter, it's the word.

Tekton is the word that we get our word, , technician from, or architect. And literally it just means someone who makes things so much has been thought about Jesus's occupation, his trade as a carpenter. And we often think of that through the lens of our modern-day carpentry, which has to do exclusively with woodworking.

But in Jesus' day, a carpenter literally Teton, just literally somebody who makes something and the things that they make. Could be anything. It could be anything from a, a plow to a yoke for a team of oxen to, , a ditch. To, , a pile of dirt to a building or a structure, anybody that made something, and it could be made from any sort of material.

So it was, it covered a wide range of things. So Jesus was, was someone who made things, and that doesn't mean in any way that he made important things or big things. He was just, He was a person who worked with his hands to make things. He was a tekton or translated carpenter, someone who would make, make something in some way.

Now today, when we think of those who make things with their hand who are craftsmans or artisans, we have a certain regard for someone who has the skill to make things, whatever they may be with their hands. But a couple things really come to the surface here for us to be careful about. One, the first thing for us to be careful about is this, to not take our modern perception of our culture and our society around us and transport it back to Jesus' culture and to not look at Jesus' culture as though we're looking at it through our own.

Because a couple of important differences come into play here. One is that our culture has a basic sort of fundamental respect. For those who make things with their hands, especially quality things or things that require skill or a know-how to make, not so in Jesus' culture. In Jesus' culture, a tekton or one who made things was regarded as just a menial laborer.

Now, the Jewish culture didn't disdain menial labor, but neither did they respect it either. So Jesus' occupation, though his type of occupation would have carried with it some degree of respect. Think of maybe somebody that, that you know who builds houses or someone that you know who, who builds anything with their hands and with that, if that person is competent in what they do, that there comes a certain regard for that person, not so in Jesus' culture.

In Jesus' culture, he would've been known as just a menial laborer, not on the level of a shepherd. We've have, I've often heard how shepherds were sort of the lowest guild, the lowest trade of the society. Not at quite that level, but on down there, a type of occupation that would in and of itself, garner no respect.

That was the Jewish culture. But remember, mark is writing not to Jews. He's writing to Roman Christians. And so when we transport that from the Jewish culture, which had a type of respect, at least for menial labor, they certainly didn't disrespect it. When we go over to the Roman culture, the opposite is true.

The Romans had a disdain for anyone who worked with their hands. The Romans had a sharp disregard for anyone who worked in sub any kind of a physical way. Same thing with the Greeks. The Greeks and the Romans both had a disdain for those who worked with their hands. And so Mark is writing to Roman Christians and is careful to tell them that.

They say to Jesus, is this not the carpenter? Is this not the one that works with his hand? So that's the first thing to make sure that we understand. Here's the other thing, to make sure that we don't import back into the story. This, this sort of 21st century perception that we have today and this perception is this.

We tend to sort of romanticize people in the past, don't we? We, we have that tendency, we have that tendency to think of people in the past, particularly people who were engaged in lifestyles or occupations that were very menial or very rudimentary or, or close to the earth, so to speak. Don't we have this tendency to sort of romanticize occupations in the past and give to them some sort of a, a modern-day notion that didn't really exist in reality in their culture?

The best example I can think of is how we today have mis, have reinterpreted the whole Native American culture. The, the culture of Aboriginal Americans, native Americans, we have sort of reinterpreted that as the noble savage, the one who was close to nature, the one who had respect for animal life and respect for the environment around them, right?

That is a modern-day notion, that whole, that cannot hold water against the straightforward, open-eyed view of historical facts. They were people like we were people. And so there this idea that just because they lived in the past and they lived in ways that were close to nature, that somehow we've romanticized that, that they were so, had some sort of nobility to their character.

That that's a, that's a modern invention and we can do the same thing for many people in the past, and we can do it for Jesus. We can take our modern notion of someone who builds things and, and works with their hands, and we can put into that a, a modern nobility. And we can import it right back to Jesus.

And we can give to Jesus' occupation a respect that Jesus didn't have. We can give to Jesus a respect in his occupation that he didn't want. So this shows up in all kinds of ways, particularly if you watch any of the movie or film adaptations of the gospels, which I don't recommend that you watch, but if you, if you were so often, I have seen Jesus portrayed in his occupational time as something that was so far from reality as, as this sort of noble person making these intricate craftsman sorts of things.

I remember seeing one portray Jesus as making a wooden version of a modern-day door lock. That had a, a wooden key that, that moved these little clinkers and oh, and knocked and they imported that back into the first century. Nothing of that was anything to do with what Jesus did for a living or another one.

I'm not making this up. Another one I actually portrayed Jesus making this really high quality, nice looking chair. I kid you not looked exactly like the Amish made it like one of the, the nice spindle early American chairs. You know what I'm talking about? Actually, pictured Jesus making one of those. The thing was made on a lathe and, and sanded with a belt sander and Jesus was, and it's, that is exactly taking our romanticized version of what we view as people, people who are craftsmen today, and importing it back, Jesus most likely dug ditches, moved rocks, piled stones.

That was some that was closer to what Jesus did than this idea of this ancient craftsman who was respected by those around him. Jesus was not respected for what he did, and that's why they draw attention to it. This guy's a carpenter. Now, the third thing to make note of that, we can also import back. So you see how our, we've, we've got to take the effort and the time to make sure we're not reading the scriptures with a 21st century bent.

That causes us to misunderstand the point. So the third thing that we got to make sure we don't import back into the text is our modern day notion that someone can reach down, grab the bootstraps, and pull themself up and be something else. We have a basic sort of respect for that, don't we? When someone has humble beginnings, when someone has lowly beginnings and they make something of themself and they, they climb that social ladder, so to speak.

We have a respect for that. In Jesus' day that didn't exist. There was no changing of social classes. In fact, in Jesus' day, that sort of attitude was viewed not as something respectable or admirable that was viewed with disdain. Here's someone who thinks that they're better than their place in life. Now, that's a totally foreign concept to the modern day American, but that's how it was understood in Jesus' culture.

Anyone who is just a carpenter who thinks themself now to be a rabbi, they're not worthy of respect. They're worthy of disdain. So those three things will help us to view this well. This was not some sort of idea of Jesus as a carpenter, having respect from those around him. In fact, just the opposite is not this, the carpenter, the Son of Mary.

So there's another insult. Jewish custom was to refer, especially if a person was a male Jewish custom, was to refer to every male as the son of their father, not the son of their mother. Isn't that the son? Isn't this the son of Mary? Now, many commentators will make note of the fact that probably at this point, Jesus' father, by way of marriage to his mother, Mary, not his biological father, but Joseph was most likely dead at this point.

And that's probably true. And so some commentators will say, well, that's, that's why he was referred to as the Son of Mary, because there is no more Joseph. Joseph is not around. And that's just hogwash because a man was referred as to, as the son of his father, long after his father had died. That was just the accepted, respected way to refer to a male in this culture.

And so by saying, isn't this the son of Mary? Here's what they're saying, we're not even sure who his dad was. You see, this is a stab. At the supposed illegitimate birth of Jesus. The whole virgin birth thing. This is sort of a stab at that like, like what happens in John's gospel when they say to Jesus, or at least we know who our father was.

That was a little bit more blatant right there, but this is the same sort of thing. This, this dig at Jesus that, that he doesn't even know who his father was, who knows who the father of, of this man was, isn't the, so we don't know who the father was. So we just got to say, isn't this the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?

So his sisters are unnamed and that most likely means that they were married by this point because in this culture, once a woman was married, she would then not be named by name, but only referred to as the wife of her husband. That was the way that culture worked. So his Jesus' sisters of whom there were at least two, probably more, his sisters are most likely married at this point, which doesn't say a whole lot, because that could still have meant that they were 12.

But his sisters are, are likely married with us, but he says, they say, isn't this the brother of James and Joseph and, and Judas and Simon and his sisters who are here with us. Here's another dig who are here with us. Meaning they haven't gone off to start some kind of crazy movement. They haven't left home and left their mother and gone off to start some sort of crazy movement and gone off across the sea of Galilee and these, these crazy adventures into gentile lands.

They're still here with us Now. This also is speaking to us of something that I think, I think that we can see this, if it's not explicit in the text, we can probably understand that's it is implied in any sense that Jesus' brothers, we know that Jesus' brothers did not believe in him. That's stated for us explicitly in John chapter seven, verse five, that Jesus' brothers did not believe in him and it's also made plain to us in chapter three of Mark when his brothers and his mother came to take him home against his will.

So they did not believe in him, but when they came to get him in chapter three and to take him home, we remember that instance. The whole scenario there was that Jesus was in Capernaum and you remember the crowds, you remember the attention that Jesus was drawing. And so Jesus was there inside the house and he has his.

Called out ones around him and he's teaching them. And Jesus' family comes and they come outside because there was too many people they couldn't get inside. And so they send word to Jesus, tell Jesus that we're here for him. And you remember Jesus's response, my mother and father, my brothers, or not my father, my, my, my mother and my brothers and my sisters.

My mother and my brothers and my sisters are the ones who hear the word of God and do it. So they received from Jesus a rebuff. And remember we talked about all about how inside and the outside, the contrast right there. But they received this rebuff from Jesus and they couldn't do anything about it because they were in Capernaum.

That was Jesus' backyard, so to speak. The crowds were huge. The enthusiasm was enormous. He was inside with his called-out disciples. And so this rebuff from Jesus, all they could really do was go home. But now they're in Nazareth. And so we can imagine what has happened when they got back, when they got back home from Capernaum.

I can imagine that they've spread the word that they have told those in Nazareth. There, remember, it's less than 500 people. They've told those people in Nazareth who are, they're good family friends. You know, my older brother, he's sort of gone off the deep end. It's sad, it's sad he's gone off. He, he's teaching these crazy things.

We tried to help him. We, we went to get him and bring and he wouldn't come. He, he even said that the mother, that, that Mary's not his mother anymore, he even said we're not his brothers anymore. That his new brothers or this, this new brotherhood of, of his teaching and all these sorts of crazy things, can't you hear how they would've stirred up animosity against Jesus?

How they would've poisoned the well against Jesus and invoked even greater disbelief. Now as Jesus returns here to Nazareth, this is what he's meeting. Just by the way, later on, we're told in Acts chapter one, verse 14, as the early church, as the called-out ones, the disciples are there in the upper room awaiting the coming of the Spirit.

We're told that in that room, Luke tells us were his brothers, Mary and his brothers. And the way, the way that Luke phrases that leads us to believe that Luke means all of his brothers. We know that certainly James, Jesus', half-brother, goes on to be the leader of the church in Jerusalem and the first martyr.

So we know that at least belief and re regenerate and conversion come to them later. But for now, they are steeped in their unbelief and they most likely have, as I said, poisoned the well here in Nazareth against Jesus. And so, surprise, surprise, they took offense of him. They took offense of him. Now, in modern day vernacular, that would be, he got above his raisin.

He's done, gotten above his raising, or sometimes you hear words like this, he's gotten all uppity. You know what that means? He's gotten all uppity. That means there's somebody from a humble beginning, from a, from a roots sort of beginning that now has gone on to something else in life, and now they think that they're better than what they came from.

They've gotten all uppity. They, they've gotten above their raisin, so to speak. So in, in a strange sort of way, it's almost like Nazareth is confirming the words of Nathaniel in John chapter one, verse 46, when John, when Nathaniel says, can anything good come from Nazareth? It's almost like they're confirming that, oh, He's from Nazareth.

He can't be this rabbi sort of thing. He's just from Nazareth. So notice here the change in, in scenes. Notice the change in context. Jesus now takes us from a context in which there is the context of true and genuine faith. Those four episodes, those those three miracle stories, those four episodes where each one of those took place in the context of true and genuine faith.

The disciples in the boat, their faith was small and weak, but it was faith. The Gerasene demoniac. He didn't have faith in Jesus as he was possessed of the demons of Legion. But when Jesus cast them out, he then clearly became a person of faith because he then expresses his love for Jesus and his desire to go with Jesus.

Then of course there's the, the, the two miracles of the woman with the flow of blood and jairus's daughter, clearly four stories of faith contrasted against such a story of unth, such a story of disbelief. So they took offense at him. The word there is scandal on, it's where we get our word scandal from, and literally scandalon just means stumbling block or to put something in someone's way that'll make them trip.

That's what a scanlon was if somebody was walking. And you know the old trick that everybody does in elementary school where you stick out your foot to trips? That's a scanlon when you put something to trip somebody up. And so this stumbling block, this offense is what Jesus is now called. They, they took offense at him eight times in Mark's gospel.

He'll use this word and all eight times he uses it the same way, which is to say some sort of. Objection to faith. Something that's brought up that restrains faith that that does, not that that prevents belief. So all this once again, is preparing us for the next story. The disciples, they'll be sent out and they will be scandalon.

And then of course, John the Baptizer, he will be scandalon because he will be killed. And then all this, of course, is preparing us for the ultimate scandal on the ultimate scandal, which is Jesus and the cross. So now just think about the comparisons here between Jesus and Paul. Jesus returns to his hometown and he receives just utter disrespect.

This is just a carpenter. This is the son of Mary. His, he was probably born illegitimately. This is his sisters and his bro. Even his brothers don't believe in him. You expect us to believe in him when even his brothers and sisters don't believe in him. Think of Paul's words as Paul writes to the Corinthians, particularly the Corinthians, in both letters to the Corinthians, how Paul writes to them that the whole issue there in Corinth was the issue that the, the believers in Corinth were having these super apostles.

Paul calls 'em, these super apostles come and they're saying to the Corinthian believers, this guy Paul, he's okay. But I mean, really he's Paul after all, and the guy's always getting thrown in prison. Look at what he wears. I mean his clothes are horrible. They don't even fit him. Right? Looks like hand-me-down clothes.

He's always getting beat up. I mean, you really going to believe what he says. And Paul's argument is to say precisely that's God's way. God's way is always to choose the way of the messenger. Being such an ordinary messenger that no attention is drawn to the messenger. Instead, the attention is given to the God of the message.

That's all Paul's whole point. That's what he says in two Corinthians four, verse seven, that God has put in these jars of clay, this glorious, precious gospel so that nobody will look at the jar and say, wow, that's a great jar. What's inside of it's pretty good too. But the jar was such a wonderful jar.

Paul says, that's not the way God does this. He puts the precious message in inside such an ordinary container so that no one will say, what a beautiful container. What an impressive container. Instead, they'll say, what a God, the God who is the God of that message. So that's, that's God. That's God's whole point there.

That's God's whole methodology. And so even in this way, Jesus is still our example. Now, Jesus, of course, is the son of God. Jesus is the only one with a dual nature, fully human, fully God perfectly, and dwelt by the Spirit. Yet at the same time, in his humanness, in his humanity, his humanity is so utterly ordinary as to be a scandal.

Hi. His humanness is so utterly unremarkable as to present a stumbling block to those who would come to Jesus with superficial belief, and that's the whole point. Those who would come to him with superficial belief stumble over the ordinariness of the messenger, so to speak. Now, we know that the messenger here is also the message, but can you see the parallels?

Can you see the parallels of Jesus' utter ordinariness and how they stumbled over his Aries? The New Testament tells us of three stumbling blocks to faith, three stumbling blocks that people trip over, that people stumble over, that prevent faith. The first stumbling block we're told is the stumbling block of wealth.

Remember the whole parable where Jesus tells about the, the camel passing through the eye of the needle? And Jesus says it's, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a person of wealth to repent and be saved, or the rich young ruler. So we're told that wealth is a stumbling block to belief.

Wealth is a stumbling block to faith because wealth instills within a person a type of self-reliance. That's the enemy of faith. The second stumbling block that we're told of is the stumbling block of the, the shame of the cross, the scandal of the cross. Paul says, that's, that's a stumbling block. It's a stumbling block for Jews and its foolishness to Gentiles to think of a king of a Messiah hanging on a cross executed on our behalf.

And so that's a stumbling block. But then the third stumbling block is the stumbling block we're told of loneliness. The loneliness, the ordinariness, the lack of outward glory of Jesus the man. Do you know how do you know how a, sometimes an impressive messenger. Can sort of override a mediocre message.

You know how that can work sometimes. You know how someone who is a really skilled presenter of a message can take a very ordinary sort of message and present it in a way that makes you think it's a much better message than what it really is. We see this all the time in our culture, all around us, and you know this to be to be true.

It all you have to do really is just to look at just about anything that comes out of the mouth of a Hollywood actor or actor, actress, or pop music star, any of those people, anything they say it. It can be the most ordinary, silly nothing. And people will hear that and say, wow, did you hear what he said?

Did you see what he tweeted? And you're like, yeah, it's pretty dumb. But because it came from that messenger, or we also see this within the circles of false faith, don't we? We also see this within the circles of, of sometimes false faith or at least those preachers of the message of Christianity, that, that perhaps stray off the beaten path, so to speak.

And what I mean by that is you, you ever hear, or you ever see the people sharing things, social media, tweets and sort of thing where this, this one really famous, really well-known preacher or pastor or somebody will say something and it's just the most common ordinary thing. And people are like, wow, that's deep.

You're like, that's just every, we all get that. We all know that. But because the messenger is a flashy messenger, is a popular messenger, is an attractive messenger that can take a weak message and make it something that it's not. That's not what God does. God wants to focus on the message, not the messenger.

And so God wants his message brought through the most ordinary means, the means that are so ordinary that to even these Nazarenes, it's a stumbling block to him that this man is just the carpenter. Now, fortunately for us, we have the Old Testament that helps us to, to guide us through this. In places like Isaiah 53 verses two and three, for He meaning Jesus grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him, not so the ordinariness. Of Jesus, as in his humanness is a stumbling block, is a real stumbling block for these Nazarenes.

Now, verse four, and Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. So here comes with another aphorism, or in the language of scripture, a proverb or a proverbial statement. And this is an aphorism that Jesus uses. That was a very common aphorism of the day.

In fact, it was not just a Hebrew aphorism, it was, it was known throughout the Greek world and the Roman world. It was, this was a very common saying, and the saying is, A prophet is not without honor except at home. Now understand carefully what Jesus says and what he means by this proverb or this aphorism and, and make sure that you don't make him say, make it say more than what he said, because what Jesus didn't say was, a prophet has honor everywhere except home.

That's not what he said. Jesus didn't say that everywhere. A prophet goes, he's honored except when he comes home. That's not what he said. What he said is if there's one place that a prophet will not be honored, it's at home. It's in his hometown. And to honor a prophet is to recognize that they are the spokesman for God, that they are sent of God, and that they're speaking the words of God.

Jesus is dishonored at home and he's dishonored in the opposite way that he would've been honored. They say, where'd this man get this? Where'd he get this wisdom? The implication is there's two places he could have gotten it. He could have gotten it from God above, or he could have gotten it in the same place that the Pharisees spelled out plainly in chapter three from Beelzebul, from Satan.

And so the implication, they don't go as far as the Pharisees went and saying it right out, but the implication is we don't believe that he's from God. So he must be getting this from somewhere else. So you see how dishonoring that would've been to a prophet. But here's the first time in Mark's gospel that Jesus is called a prophet.

And so we're being prepared here once again, we're being prepared for what's going to come, two stories later to the other prophet in Mark's gospel, who is John the Baptizer? He's the other prophet. The other prophet will be killed. And let's all remember that that happened before. Now that that's already taken place, John the Baptizer was killed before Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.

John, John the Baptizer was killed some time ago, but remember we said that Mark saves that story for this point. He saves it for this place in the gospel for this reason, because Jesus now declares a prophet is not without honor except at home preparing us for the other prophet to be killed, which in turn prepares us for the profit.

To be killed and to be killed by his own. So in a larger sense, Jesus is in Nazareth right now, but in a larger sense, his people are the ones who will kill him. So we're all being, we're being prepared for all of that as foreshadowing it for us. Now, verse five, and he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few people and healed them.

So there is the elephant in the room. He could do no mighty work. There is that saying to us that Jesus was unable that he did not have the ability to do a mighty work there because he lacked something that he needed to do a mighty work. And the thing that he lacked was the people's faith whom he wanted to do the work for.

Is that what Mark is saying? He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief. Jesus has power over demons. He has power over the, over the wind and the waves. He has power over leprosy. He has power over blindness. He even has power over death. But somehow he stymied when it comes to his hometown, folks who don't believe him.

Is that what Mark is saying? That cannot be what Mark is saying. Mark cannot possibly be saying that Jesus lacked the ability to do any mighty works there. Because if Jesus lacked the ability to heal people because they didn't have faith, then what are we to make of all the other stories in which Jesus heals people whom we know had no faith.

See, that's, that's faith healer type teaching right there. That's faith healer doctrine that says God can heal you if you have faith, and that's absolutely false because if Jesus requires your faith to heal you, then what do you make of all the other healings in which the person absolutely had no faith, the kerosene pc, the the demonized man, and, and in the region of the Gerasenes Jesus cast the demons out.

He could not believe in Jesus before that. Or a more explicit place to see. This would be John chapter nine. The man born blind. Jesus heals the man born blind. And then there's a whole long story of how they're, they're trying to figure out who did it. And the Pharisees are asking the man and they're asking the man's parents.

And the parents are like, we don't know because they don't want to be kicked out of the synagogue. They're like, ask him because we don't know. So they ask him, and then he turns Jesus in. And then later on he and Jesus meet on the street again. You remember that? They meet on the street and Jesus asks him straightforwardly, do you believe in the Son of man?

And he answers Jesus by saying, who is this son of man that I may believe in Him? You remember that so clearly When Jesus restored his sight, he did not have faith in Jesus. He didn't even know who he was. So it is absolutely false. Our theology, our doctrine would absolutely go off the rails if we understood Mark to be saying that Jesus lacked what he needed to heal because he lacked the faith of the people in him.

So what is Mark saying here when he says plainly that Jesus could do no mighty work there where this hearkens us back, we touched on this same thing in chapter one, when Jesus were told was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness for his time of tempting. And we said there that what we are, we are being shown is that Jesus's will is so submissive, so in tune, so connected to the father's will that when the father's will is made known to him, it's just as if the spirit we're driving him, or in this instance, if it's not, the father's will to heal in Nazareth.

Then to Jesus, I can't do that. There's no way I can do that. That's not the Father's will do. You see, that's plainly what Mark is saying. If it's not, the father's will then to Jesus. He can't can God do anything Now? He can't be clear about that G. God cannot do anything. God cannot do anything that's contrary to his nature.

God cannot lie. That's contrary to his nature. God cannot do things against his will. God cannot violate his will. And so Jesus perfectly filled by the spirit of God, the Son of God incarnate cannot violate the father's will. I can't do that. So why would it have been a violation of the father's will? To heal people in Nazareth that didn't necessarily believe in him.

He's done it elsewhere. He's done it in Capernaum hundreds of times. Why would it violate the father's will? Because Jesus' purpose is not to titillate or excite, or especially this to encourage false, shallow, superficial belief. Jesus is not in Nazareth searching for shallow soil. Jesus is not in Nazareth searching for thorny soil.

Jesus is in Nazareth searching for good soil, and he is not there to excite the senses of people who have said they don't believe in him. This is what the story of J Iris's daughter prepared us for. When Jesus put the laughing, mocking people outside. Remember we said then that their laughter, their disbelief meant that they were excluded from seeing Jesus' most powerful miracle so far, their disbelief caused them to not see it, because Jesus isn't here to perform tricks for people who have said they don't believe because Mark has shown us again and again and again that the mighty works of God.

Don't change your mind. Powerful works by God. Don't change unbelief into belief. They simply harden unbelief. Or if true belief is there, they harden that. They solidify that. And so Jesus is not searching for shallow, rocky soil that he can then, in turn encourage superficial belief. Jesus is not here to plant in the shallow soil or the thorny soil.

Because no one will ever come into the kingdom of God from a stance of disinterested curiosity nor more appropriate to this context here. Nor will anyone ever come into the kingdom of God from the stance of sitting back with their arms folded, saying, prove it to me. Change my mind. No one ever comes into the gut kingdom of God like that.

It's like that. I won't mention his name, but there's a famous YouTuber guy that's famous for doing that. He goes around to college campuses, sits up a table, and on the table he puts a big sign on the front with some provocative statement, like the earth is flat, or nine 11 was an inside job. And then he says, his phrase is, change my mind.

I. So he, here's my position now. Change my mind. Come down. Sit down. Sit down and let's debate this thing, and I dare you to change my mind. No one ever comes into the kingdom of God from that stance. No one ever says to God, I don't believe in you. But you know what? If you can change my mind, I'll, I'll believe then.

And so this, this, it would be inconsistent with the manner of God, with the will of God, with the kingdom of God in this age. It would be inconsistent. It would be morally and spiritually wrong for Jesus to go about in the context of people who have declared that they don't believe in Him. For him to then for him to then say, well, let me show you this thing that I can do with the bread and the wine.

Let me show you this thing I can do with the fish and the Sea of Galilee. Or let me show you this thing that I can do with the storm. Maybe you'll believe then that's not how God works. And so Jesus could not do any mighty work there because they had declared their unbelief. Now, this brings us face to face with the most serious, the most prominent, the most elusive, the most widespread, and the most dangerous sin that exists.

What is the most fundamental sin of all? You might be tempted to say pride, but the most fundamental, the most elementary, the most widespread sin of all, is the sin of unbelief. That's where it all started, even in the garden. That's where it all started. You might say, well, Eve's pride and Adam's pride was that that's what caused them to think that they could be Gods themself.

Before that was unbelief. Before that was failing to believe what God had said, and that is the fundamental sin against which we, we must all guard ourselves. Here in Nazareth, the sin of unbelief has taken root and it has grown into a giant tree. But the sin of unbelief knocks on the door of every heart.

Romans 10 of verse 17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. And that faith is not just the faith of conversion. It's not just the faith of regeneration, it's the faith of the Christian life. And all of it comes by hearing and believing. And that is what we brothers and sisters must guard ourself against because the sin of unbelief is constantly trying to creep into your heart and into your thoughts, not in some big, grandiose way where in the period of a couple of days, Satan might convince you that God doesn't really exist, but in small ways in which he chips away at.

Did God really say that? Did God really say that Is, is God really for you in that way? Is God really preparing for you the home that you think he is? Is God really working all these things out like you think he is in your life? Is God really that faithful's the sin of unbelief? Now, here's the paradox of scripture that scripture presents to us.

Scripture presents to us a paradox of faith that goes like this. Faith is two things. Faith is something God gives to you. Ephesians two and verse eight, for by grace have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God and the grammar of that sentence. We talked about this back in Ephesians.

The grammar of that sentence tells us that the gift is the faith. The faith is God's gift to you. He does it. It's His work. And not only does he give you faith to believe he sustains your faith. Second Timothy one in verse 12, I know whom I, in whom I believed, and I know that he will guard what he has entrusted to me until that day.

The context, the grammar of that sentence also tells us that the guarding that God's doing is the guarding of the faith. So God not only gives to you the faith to believe, he keeps you believing. So faith is both something God gives you and God sustains. But scripture also teaches us that faith is something you must work to sustain.

Look at all the ways that scripture tells us this. Hebrews chapter 20, , 10 and verse 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope. Let us hold fast, the confession of our hope, or Colossians 1 22 and 23, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you wholly and blameless and above reproached before him.

If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel. You see? So scripture tells you both. If you believe it's because God gave you faith, and if you're still believing, it's because God is sustaining your faith. If he didn't, you would stop believing. But scripture also says to you, you must hold fast the confession of your hope.

You must endeavor to hold fast. You must guard the faith that is given to you. And so this is the warning that comes to us in this awful, terrible scene of Nazareth. Nazareth was ugly in a physical way. It was far uglier in a spiritual way. The ugliness of Nazareth is the ugliness of place, , a place in which disbelief has run rampant.

Disbelief has taken over again. Verse five, he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few people and healed them. So once again, Jesus never turns away anyone who comes to him, even though the town is disbelieving and mocking him. Apparently there were still a couple. There were still a few who came to him, and Jesus never turned away anyone who came to him.

Verse six. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching. So Jesus has said to Marvel, he said, to be amazed. There are two times in scripture in which Jesus has said to Marvel. The other instance is the instance of the centurion. Who comes to Jesus? My servant's sick.

Can you do something about my servant? Jesus says, take me to him. He says, hang on. We don't need to do that because I understand you don't need the, all you need to do is say it and it'll be done. And Jesus were told Marvels at his faith, because his faith is mature and well-rounded and understands, it's not mixed in with pagan beliefs.

It understands Jesus doesn't have to go there to heal anybody. So Jesus marvels at his faith. This is the other instance in which he marvels at no faith. So Jesus, it's like bookends. Jesus marvels at the presence of faith, and he marvels at the absence of faith. So he marveled because of their unbelief, and he went about among the villages teaching.

So the final thing for us to see in this is just one final application, and that's just the application. What I feel is the main point of the passage and the application is the danger of the contempt of the familiar you. You know that to be true, that familiarity breeds contempt. You know that to be true, that the things that are closest to you, the people that are closest to you are the easiest to neglect, dishonor, overlook, fail to appreciate, even have contempt for, that's the, the contempt for the familiar, the familiarity breeds contempt principle.

Nowhere in scripture is that more prevalent than the contempt that Nazareth has for its own Jesus, for three decades, he lived among them for three decades. They saw him. He played there, he worked there. He went to synagogue there. No one on the face of the planet had more access to Jesus, had more intimacy with Jesus than that small village of Nazareth.

And yet no village had more contempt for him, even worse than the Gerasenes on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They just asked him to leave and they were given just a little revelation of who he was. Nazareth has been given much more revelation, and so this takes us back, chapter three, the teaching of the unforgivable or the unpardonable sin, and how we saw in that passage that the unforgivable sin is the sin of enlightened blasphemy.

That when more enlightenment or revelation or understanding is given to you about Jesus and who he is, and yet you say in your heart, I will not yield. That's the sin of of enlightened blasphemy. And that's the sin that so offends the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit will one day will at at some point, withdraw and making forgiveness impossible.

So Nazareth is like the seed bed for this sin of in enlightened blasphemy with the contempt of the familiar. So this is a particularly, I believe, adept warning. All, all of scripture is equally inspired, is it not Every word, every word of the original autographs of scripture were fully inspired by God.

Every word is divine without error. But that doesn't mean that every word is equally applicable. I mean, this is common sense, right? The genealogy passages inspired of God without error have application to our life, yet no one believes that they have the same application as Romans eight or Ephesians four.

So not all of scripture is equally applicable. And in our study through the gospel of Mark, I feel as though this passage now brings to us an application that is closer to home and more important than perhaps many of the other passages, perhaps all of the passages so far. But this is an extremely applicable passage.

And here's the reason. Jesus didn't grow up in America. He didn't grow up in Jonesville. We didn't watch him grow. This is in his hometown. If Jesus, Jesus went to his hometown, it wasn't here. But in another sense, I can think of no culture or no period of time in which the word of God has been more accessible in all its forms, just the straight word of God, as well as the teaching and the preaching of the word of God, both in superficial ways and in deep substantive ways.

There has never been a culture that has had more of the word of God available, accessible at each and every turn, as has our culture. And in the same way that the Nazarenes had this danger, the, the contempt for the familiar, we also face the same danger with the word of God because it is so familiar and it is so accessible and the teaching of it, the substantive quality teaching of it is so available that can it not become something that, if not an object of contempt at least becomes something that we can be complacent about, something that we can lose our amazement over it.

Who's seen that video? It's a couple years old now. Who's seen that video of those Chinese believers receiving that box of bibles? Who's seen that? Probably most of you seen that. You know, in that video, they open this box and clearly it's like the secret video where somebody's hiding a little camera and they open this box and they take out these bibles and their reaction, they, they literally hold it to their chest because they've never had a Bible and they're so excited to get it.

They suffered from the poverty of the word. We suffer from the preponderance of the word. It's so available that we're on the other end of the scale. It's so readily available that it can, to us become something that its familiarity can even breed contempt in our hearts Now. Let me say this as well.

Nowhere is this warning that I can think of. Nowhere is this warning more applicable than right here in this room. And this is by no means a statement to my abilities or anything like this. But, but don't we experience on a regular basis, on a weekly basis, the substantive teaching of God's word? And isn't there a lot of amazement at God's word, not because of me.

You know, it's easy. I'll confess this to you. It's easy for anyone who has a steadfast commitment to the deeper study of God's word. It's easy to stand before you every week and amaze you with God's word. Why? Because God's word is amazing. That that's the, that's the whole point I, I'm opening to you. I'm just simply showing you.

The word that in, in itself is amazing, but doesn't, along with that, doesn't there come a danger that that amazement would just be amazement? Just like we read over and over in Mark's Gospel, how the people were amazed at his teaching, but they weren't changed by it. There is a sense in which we can be amazed at God's word and yet not be changed by God's word.

And in that sense, it has not fulfilled its purpose because God's word comes to us to change us, to make us more loving, more loving of him, more loving of each other, more obedient, more trusting, more steadfast, more like Christ. And there is a danger that can come with the regular substantive study of God's word.

That can make one complacent to it because it is so available. Now, make no mistake, that's the only way. There is no other way. There is no other way for growth in Christ other than the substantive study of his word. But at the same time, we must recognize that that does come with a danger. Proverbs seven, I'm, I'm sorry, Proverbs 30 verses eight and nine.

Remember that proverb where the proverb writer says, give me neither riches nor poverty because if you give me P, if you give me poverty, I'd be tempted to steal. If you give riches, I'd be tempted to forget you. Now that parable is all about monetary issues and the proverb writer is saying, God, with monetary prov, poverty comes the temptation to steal with financial prosperity comes the temptation to forget you.

But isn't there a spiritual application there too? In which the, the cry of our heart should be God in the richness of your word. Guard us from complacency. Guard us from a contempt of the familiar for the, the fa familiar. Guard us from a heart that will grow hard to the richness of your word and instead bless us with that continuing, not just amazement, but amazement that leads to change amazement, that opens the heart to true change to the deep root of the word that grows deep and changes from the inside out.

Let that be the prayer of God's people.