Hardened Hearts Grieve The Lord

Hardened Hearts Grieve the Lord

Mark 3:1-12

Good Morning,

In 2015, the Washington post reported that roughly 22 million Americans, which is 8.9 percent of the adult population, have impulsive anger issues.

A Christian is said to be in a love relationship with Jesus. When we truly love someone; we do not want to intentionally anger that person

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. NKJV

We are told in Ephesians not to grieve the Holy Spirit; but it is not because the Holy Spirit is oversensitive that He is grieved.

As followers of Christ, we are called favored ones; we are called chosen, we are called special and even above reproach; so how then, can we grieve the Holy Spirit?

Please open your Bible to the Gospel of Mark 3 as we continue in the verse by verse study of that Gospel.

Last week Jesus explained the reason His followers were not fasting and He also claimed to be Almighty God in the flesh.

Jesus told the Pharisees it was more important to celebrate the Bridegroom than it was to follow rituals at that time.

Then Jesus described the new wine skins, as He taught that any religious activity fails in comparison to a true work of the Holy Spirit, because religion is unfit to contain a work of the Lord.

Jesus did not come to put the new work of His Spirit into the old wine skin of Judaism.

We learned the Sabbath was a shadow to show true rest in the Lord was coming. We have Jesus who’s better than a shadow.

Our rest is found in the finished work of Jesus Christ because of what He did on the cross. Now He wants us to sit at His feet and experience supernatural rest and fellowship with Him.

This morning, we will learn three things within these first twelve verses of Mark chapter 3.

• Jesus gets very angry with the hardened hearts of the religious leaders;

• The religious leaders will align themselves with a group of their enemies in order to defeat Jesus;

• Jesus, once again, tells the unclean spirits to keep His true identity from the crowd.

I. When is the right time to do right?

Read Mark 3:1-4

This takes place on the Sabbath and Jesus once again goes to the place where the people went to worship God; the Synagogue.

Immediately upon entering the Synagogue, Jesus sees a man with a withered hand.

We can call the man with the withered hand, “the Broken Man”; but, if we were to be honest with ourselves, we were all broken people prior to salvation in Christ.

Jesus not only gives rest from the brokenness of life in our broken world; but, Jesus can also make whole, the things that have been broken in our world!

Just as we learned from last week; the compassionate, gracious, redeeming plans of God are sometimes met with opposition.

vs. 2 says so they watched Him closely. But who are “they”?

This points back to Mark 2:24 And the Pharisees said to Him, "Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?"

The Scribes and the Pharisees were the self-righteous religious leaders within Judaism.

Their false sense of righteousness was from their interpretation of the Law of Moses and the man-made rules they invented.

The Pharisees and Sadducees fully believed that their outward appearance of good works would earn them God’s favor.

Notice how they are watching to see whether Jesus would heal this man on the Sabbath, breaking their man-made law.

These men knew Jesus could heal, which means they understood that Jesus had the power of God and was able to heal.

The Pharisees wanted to find something to accuse Jesus with rather than worshiping Him for Who He is.

Luke tells us about this same account in Luke 6:8, But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Arise and stand here." NKJV

Again, Jesus knows their thoughts; and this is so much more than discernment, because Jesus also knows their hearts.

David Guzik said, “They also knew Jesus would do something when He saw this man in need. In this sense, these critics had more faith than many of us because we sometimes doubt that Jesus wants to meet the needs of others.”

So Jesus knowing their hearts so He did what He often did to critics and answered them with a question to force them to think.

Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? His point; it is always right to show compassion, no matter what day it is.

Wiersbe, “Since evil is at work every day, including the Sabbath day, why should good not be at work as well? Death is always at work, but that should not hinder us from seeking to save life.”