Title: Who's In Your Life
Text: Mark 3:1-6
Bottom Line: Our love for God is shown in our love of each other.
Intro
Growing up my dad was a furniture salesmen in New England and he sold one of a kind pieces to a lot of well off people. One of the perks of this job was he knew people that owned local amusement parks and had season tickets to some of the pro teams in the area. One of the guys my dad knew had season tickets to the Celtics, who were just terrible. When he could make a game he would give the tickets to us, so we would go to a few games a year. These weren’t any normal tickets, they were box seats. I’m not sure if you have ever watched a game in box seat, but I highly recommend it… Comfortable, private seats, couches with big screen, catered meals, and best of all they wheel in a desert tray and you get to choose ANYTHING you want. It’s great.
But as a kid that was my only experience at a NBA game. I just assumed that’s how everyone watched basketball. I was in for a harsh reality when we moved to Colorado and I went to my first game Nuggets game, who were equally terrible, and had to sit in the nosebleeds and worse yet there was no dessert tray!
We are in a series called Flipped and we are looking at expectations we have that Jesus flipped. And just as my expectations were flipped, Jesus flipped people’s expectations of who he was and what he came to do. If you were to read the Gospels you would see over and over again people thought the Messiah, Jesus, would be this way, but Jesus showed them over and over again that they had it wrong. This is still true today. So in this series we are looking at the expectations that Jesus flipped and what that means to us today.
If you missed Josh’s message last week you need to go online or grab our podcast and check that out! He gave us a challenge to look outside our circle to see who we can impact. And I don’t know about you, but that was a needed challenge and reminder of our mission.
Tension
Today we are going to take this idea and see what keeps us from living it out. Here’s the reality that we live in, we all have things in our lives that are keeping us from living the life God has intended for us to live.
Some of those distractions are bad things, in other words sin. But a lot of us are distracted by good things. We’ve let something good in our lives, something God intended to be blessing and we make that the ultimate thing. We worship the gift rather than the giver.
When a good things becomes an ultimate thing, ultimately that good thing because destructive.
This happens all the time in our lives, in our relationships, our finances, our families, our jobs… All good things. But sometimes those can distract us from the most important thing.
And we are going to be looking at an interaction Jesus had with the Pharisees and these guys were distracted by a good thing. The law. But they had taken the law, rules, which were a good thing, and made that into an ultimate thing.
Truth
Go ahead and turn over too Mark 3… As you do that let me explain a little of what is going on here… The Pharisees were one group of people that could just not seem to get along with Jesus. The Pharisees pursued righteousness through works. In other words they tried to do enough good deeds to outweigh their bad deeds. They followed the law better than anyone else could, which is a good thing. But when Jesus entered the picture he pointed out that in their pursuit of righteousness they had become distracting. They put their adherence to the rules over caring for people. They cared more about following the rules (which is good) than they cared about caring for and loving people (Which is better)
They cared so much about following God’s law, which is doing what the Bible says, that they created extra rules that aren’t in the Bible just to show how seriously they took it.
The interaction we are going to look at today the Pharisees are following God’s law for the Sabbath, the day of rest… God’s Law said that you couldn’t work on the Sabbath day, but the Pharisees were uncomfortable with the fact that God’s Law didn’t spell out what “work” was. So they came up with their own personal list of 1521 additional rules to follow to ensure that you would be not break the Sabbath.
Here was God’s law for the Sabbath: Do not work… That’s it. You can go read it yourself Leviticus 23 and in Exodus 20. God’s law was to not work on the 7th day. Well what does it mean to work? I don’t know, God didn’t say that. He just said to not work He just told us to rest.
What was intended to be a blessing the Pharisees made into a burden. Ironically they took what was supposed to be a restful day and turned it into a stressful day where you had to work the whole day trying not to work and worrying you might screw up.
And now they are using this stretched law to try and catch Jesus in a trap. Which I think would classify as working on the sabbath…
So let’s jump into Mark 3… I’m going to read this passage out of the ESV because I think the NIV loses some of the emotion in their translation of some of the words.
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.
Right off the bat we see that this is a trap… This guy with a withered hand is either staged or they are just standing close by to him knowing Jesus will stop and talk to him. You can see the Pharisees mindset clearly. They are concerned with one thing… The rules.
3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Mark 3:1-6 (ESV)
One of the things that fascinates me about Jesus is that he experienced a full range of emotions that we experience today. The picture we have of Jesus today is often this calm, good looking, soft spoken, blue-eyed, emotionless guy, and for some reason he is always holding a lamb… But that’s not the picture of Jesus we get in the Bible.
Jesus experienced a full range of human emotion, in this case anger. Mark describes Jesus as full of anger. This is not an emotionless, calm, and soft spoken guy. Their gaze must have dropped when Jesus’ angry eyes pierced deeply into their souls. Jesus rarely got angry. But when people place tradition and regulation over human need, his anger is predictable.
The other word that Mark uses to describe Jesus in this moment is grief. Many of your Bibles will read “Deeply Distressed”. But the word the best describes the original intent is that He was grieved by their hardness of their hearts. Think about this for a minute. Jesus was grieved. I think we understand why he was angry, but He’s also grieved.
The Pharisees had missed the point, they put their adherence to the rules, which were mostly made up, in front of helping someone in need. We get why Jesus was angry. But he wasn’t only angry, he was grieved.
To grieve means to be full of sadness, to be in distress, to be hurt. Don’t miss this… In this moment Jesus is not only angry at what is happening to a person in need, he’s hurt. He’s grieving that his people, the Pharisees, don’t get it. They followed the rules, but they got so distracted by their adherence to the rules that they didn't see to what the rules are pointing too. God put the law in place to protect us and to help us love God and love those around us. But the Pharisees had taken the rules twisted them into something else.
Jesus is grieved in this moment not just over the person in need, but for the hardness of heart of the Pharisees. Jesus is legitimately sad. He’s sad that his people didn’t catch the purpose of the law. He’s sad that his people are ignoring the needs of others. Like a parent that sad when their kids fight, Jesus is moved in this moment.
I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to take this emotion Jesus experienced and apply it to us today. We often view God as this angry judge that is just waiting to pronounce judgement on us when we screw up. And listen, God is angered by evil. But this passage gives us an unique glimpse. When we screw up, specifically when we make choices that hurt someone else. God is angered by the sin, but he is grieved that we missed the point. He is grieved that in our actions we did not show love to Him or to someone else.
Don’t miss this, Jesus did not want to condemn the Pharisees. He could have, but he didn’t want too. What he desperately wanted was for them to love each other, to care for each other, and to provide for each other. That’s true for us today too.
When we choice to tear someone down behind their back. When we refuse to help someone in need. When we cheat someone out of something that is theirs. When we never tell anyone in our lives about the relationship we have with Jesus. When we slander, gossip, and just flat out yell at someone in anger. God grieves. He’s grieving that our words that express our love for Him don’t match up with our actions toward those around us.
Jesus desperately wants us to love one an other. So much so that when we don’t, he grieves.
Listen… How you treat your family, your coworkers, your neighbors, the stranger at the store, matters deeply to God. What you say about people, what you post online. How you interact with people that have different views. Matters to God.
We need to be reminded of that. If you say that you love God. If you call yourself a Christian. Then how you treat ALL people should reflect that. You cannot love God without loving the people He created. You just can’t.
Jesus stresses the importance of this later in his life when he’s ask what the greatest commandment is in Matt 22…
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40
Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God. But before he even takes an other breath he tacks on, and love you neighbor.
He doesn’t give one, he gives two. Why? Because you cannot differentiate the two… The Pharisees thought that by following the rules they had were following the greatest commandment by loving God. But you can’t love God without love those around you. And when they choose to not help someone in need because they had to “rest”. They were showing the good thing of following the law had been come an ultimate thing. And ultimately that lead them away from doing what God wanted them to do.
If you are sitting here this morning and you are following Jesus then you have to show love to everyone you come in contact with. It’s never love God or your neighbor. It’s always love God and your neighbor.
Application
If we were to take a poll my guess is everyone in this room says that they at least believe in God, or believe in a god. Most of us in this room would say that we are a follower of Jesus. And my guess is though we are far from perfect we probably do a pretty okay job at loving God. We try to not sin, we read our Bibles, we believe that Jesus saves us, heck you even all made it to church today… We all at least understand that as a Christian we should love God by following what he says. We try to love God with all our heart soul and mind. We get that.
But what about that next thing Jesus says. How are you doing in that area? Because my guess is we could all stand to do a little bit better with loving our neighbor as ourself.
Here’s how this is going for me… We’ve lived in our current house for a little over a year. We know one know one neighbor really well and we just know the names of most of the others. And I’m pretty sure an other neighbor hates me…
When we first moved in I noticed our neighbor from across the street painting our next door neighbors shudders. I thought, he must be a nice guy so I went up to introduce myself. After a minute or so of small talk he asked me when I was going to paint my shutters. Now look, my shutters look brand new, they look that they had just been painted not long before we moved in. So I said, maybe next year. He went on to inform me that the HOA rules stipulate that you have to paint your shutters every year. I told him, HOA’s are a joke and it’s not like they will even be able to tell. My shutters look the same as the fresh coat you just put on. And I told him I can’t stand HOAs… Well as it turns out he is the HOA president. And our first interaction did not go very well…
So I haven’t gotten off to the best start. I’ve got some work to do. If I’m going to stand up here and say that I love Jesus. Then I have to love those around me. I’ve got to figure out how I can show them Jesus’ love. And if you are sitting in your seat today and you say you love Jesus. You have to love the people in your life.
If we are honest we all have some work to do.
Many of you are probably familiar with Penn and Teller, the famous magic duo. Penn Jillette is a staunch atheist and a few years back here’s what he said about Christians proselytizing, sharing their faith with others.
“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”
We have a very twisted view of what it means to show love to someone. We think love is letting people do what they want. But that’s not love. Jesus flips that perception that we have.
If you really believe what the Bible says, if you really believe in the hope that Jesus brings, if you really believe that Jesus has a better way for life, if you really believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation, if you really believe that Jesus loves everyone, if you really believe that Jesus brings peace, joy and love into our lives, if you really believe that Jesus came to bring life not just eternal life but life here and now, then how can you say that you love someone if you never tell them that?
If all this is true, which I’m convinced it is… How much would you have to hate someone to not tell them that your life has been changed, your sins forgiven, peace has replaced worry, and joy now fills your life? Listen if you want to show love to those in your life you've got to tell them about the impact Jesus has made in you.
In a study conducted by Lifeway research that polled regular church attenders they found that 61% of Christians have not shared that they are a Christian in the past year. Let that sink in 61%. Another 25% have shared once. We are sitting in this building and the vast majority of us believe that Jesus is the way to God and that He brings hope, life, peace, and joy into our lives now. But we will walk out of this building and tell NO ONE about this good news.
Just like the Pharisees that walk by people in need everyday on their way to the temple and do nothing, we too walk by people in need at our jobs, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, and even our own families and we do nothing.
I’ve got to believe that Jesus is not angry with us, he’s grieved. We’ve let other, mostly good things, in our life distract us from the ultimate thing of loving God and loving those around us. We often follow what society tells us that we can’t force our beliefs on others. Which is true, we shouldn’t. But we take that to mean that we can’t ever tell anyone the truth we’ve found in the Bible. Jesus broke the Pharisees rules, we cannot let these rules and distractions keep us from helping others.
We’ve got to go tell others about Jesus’ love for them. And don’t miss this, we’ve got to do it in a loving and non-creepy way. We often don’t know where to start or how to do it. So we either do nothing or we do something weird, creepy, or insulting.
Here’s what I mean…We go door to do and ask our neighbors if they died today were they would spend eternity. We call out sin in others lives and tell them they are going to hell, but we never bother to tell about grace. We hop on Facebook and try arguing people into belief. Or every time we see a co-worker you invite them to church or bring up religion but never ask about their life.
I just think there is a way to tell people your faith without being weird and creepy. And that starts with building a relationship first. People are not projects they are people. And they should know that you are interested in them and not just getting them to Church. The goal is not to convert them, the goal is to love them as God loves them and then point them to the love that Jesus has for them.
Here’s my assumption, you have people in your life that do not know Jesus that and you see them on a regular basis. Are you showing them the love of God? Are you pointing them to the love Jesus has for them?
We have this damaging view in our culture that in the Church the person on stage is the minister. And everyone else comes and consumes. That person ministers to us and we come and be fed. That’s simply not true. YOU are a minister. If you are a Christian, if you follow God, if you’ve been baptized, then you are a minister. And their are people all around you in your life that need to be loved.
I’m convinced that God has placed you in a spot to make an unique impact on peoples lives that nobody else can.
I know what you are thinking… Yeah but I don’t have all the answers. What if they ask me a question I don’t know the answer to?
You don’t have to know everything. But you do know something. Just go tell them what you do know, what Jesus has done for you. But what if they ask me a question I don’t know the answer too? God hasn’t taught you that yet, just tell them I don’t know, but here’s what I do know. My life was going this way now it’s going this way. I used to worry all the time, now I have peace… Here’s what God’s done in my life. You just tell people what you know. Tell them the impact God has made in your life.
Look at the disciples. In the beginning these guys didn’t know up from down when it came to what it meant to follow Jesus. You had a bunch of fisherman, blue collar workers. You had a tax collector, the guy everyone hated. You had a doctor who probably had a big house. These guys weren’t special, they were normal people who decided follow Jesus. And they made A LOT of mistakes. They said a lot of dumb things. But it was through this group that Jesus built the Church.
You don’t have to have it all together, you don’t have to have all the answers. Just go love those people in your life. Tell them what God has done for you. It’s not complicated and you don’t have to know everything. Just take what God has taught you and your life experiences and go love people, listen to people, help people, provide for people, teach people, and tell them about what God has done for you.
Our challenge is simple. We are to go tell the people in our lives about what God has done for us. Simple. But not easy. In fact if you choose to do this I’ll be honest. It’s going to cost you. Cost some time, maybe an awkward conversation, maybe stepping outside your comfort zone. It won’t always be easy. But we cannot keep this to ourselves. If we truly love God we will love those around us.
Who is the one or two people in your life that you can show God’s love to? We all have one or two people in our life right now that do not know Jesus that we can start loving them and pointing them to the love Jesus has. Who are they in your life? Maybe a coworker, maybe a neighbor, maybe your kid’s friends parent, or maybe someone you see at the store every week. Who are the one or two people in your life that you can impact?
Maybe that means you invite your neighbor over for dinner. Maybe you have that coworker that you’ve built a relationship with over the years and now it’s time to invite them to Easter in a few weeks. Maybe you just need to start praying for opportunities to show God’s love to those in your life. Maybe you need to stop shying away from the religion talk when it comes up. ??We can’t afford to miss this… You are in an unique place to make an impact on people in your life. Let’s not say that we love God’s love in this building. Let’s show our love for God by taking it outside this building. You are a minister and it’s your job to take the good news of the gospel everywhere you go.
Here’s what I want you to do… Write that name down on your bulletin and put it somewhere you will see it this week. Or set their name as a reminder on your phone everyday this week to pop up. And here’s what I want you to do. Pray for that God would start working their hearts. And pray that God will provide an opportunity for you to love them with the love that he has for you. Do this for one week.
Here’s the reality. Some of the people you are going to write down are not ready to hear about Jesus. They need to first know that you care about them and that you don’t just want to convert them. Maybe they just need you to ask questions about their life or do something to help them out or just hang out with them for a little bit.
Other people you will write down they are ready. And an opportunity will come up for you to have that conversation. And when that opportunity comes take it. Have that conversation, invite them over, grab an Easter invite card on one of the tables on your way out, tell them about the impact Jesus has made in your life.
Conclusion
The most important thing you can do, the ultimate thing you can do is to love God and love your neighbor. Jesus entered the picture and flipped the Pharisees priorities. And I believe today that we need to flip ours. We’ve got to make sure that these two things are front and center.
Who are you walking past every day? Who do you need to invite to an Easter service? Who in your life can you minister too? You do you need to have a conversation with? Or Invite over for dinner?
Our love for God is shown in our love of each other. It’s time for us to go show that love to those in our lives.
Pray…
After Song...
5in15… I wrote my name in my phone, have you?
