TITLE: Tell Jesus
Mark 1:29-39 (NIV)
29 And immediately He [or, they] left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
The Greek word translated as "immediately" is significant in the gospel of Mark. It is used 42 times in Mark's fast-paced version of Jesus's story abruptly and moving quickly from one of Jesus's actions to another.
Jesus can be unpredictable in good ways. He specializes in surprises. He sometimes moves quickly through our lives rearranging things and bringing things back into their intended order.
In Mark, Jesus has just entered the synagogue on the Jewish day of worship, served eviction papers to a demonic spirit that was possessing a member of that synagogue, and stirred up the religious crowd who didn't understand.
He entered Simon and Andrew's house immediately. They didn't have time to clean the house as we often do when we know guests are coming.
We sometimes say things like Jesus is a gentleman and he won't impose upon us, but I am not sure that is true. Tell that to the wayward prodigal prophet Jonah. I am grateful that there have been moments in my life when Jesus insisted on coming over to my proverbial house even when things were not all tidy and neat!
In a story in the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus inviting Himself over to Zachaeus's house for dinner. "When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today" (Luke 19:5).
In the book of Revelation Jesus gives one of the greatest invitations to the church that nobody wants to admit that they are a part of, the lukewarm church at Laodicea. His invitation is, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev 3:20 KJV). Things were not tidy in the church of Laodicea and Jesus said I want to come over anyway!
Early this morning I was reminded of a song sung by the Davenports that speaks of someone's heart being like a house that Jesus enters but contains one little room that is off-limits, even to him. A small, insignificant room, an area that is not tidy or neat. Something that we are sure Jesus doesn't want to see. We may have a junk drawer, a little room, a closet, a glove compartment, or a medicine cabinet that is crammed with stuff we do not want to see, but if Jesus is going to help you fix it you've got to let Him in.
When Jesus taught about prayer in the sermon on the mount, He admonished His disciples to enter their "closet" (Matt 6:6). The word for closet can mean "a store-chamber, secret chamber, closet; a granary, barn." Luke 12:24 speaks of the way the Lord provides for the birds who have no "barns" to store their food in. This is the same Greek word. Sometimes it may not be the areas that we are ashamed of that we do not want Jesus to see, but the safe behind the picture on the wall where we hide our favorite secret sin or nurse our grudge or resentment. He wants the combination to that too! Luke 12:3 says whatever is whispered in the "closets" will be proclaimed upon the housetops.
We should make sure that we talk good about people behind their backs. I can remember one of the lessons that my wife and I learned from Mike and Leona Talley. They always talked good about people, always. There is something powerful about blessing people in secret, it will come back to you in public. Be careful.
When we pray we should enter into the areas where we usually don't take anyone and invite Jesus in.
He walks the line between chaos and order and as He walks through our lives, just as He walked through the Gospel of Mark, He has a way of bringing order to our chaos and overthrowing the old order with a little new chaos in order to progressively bring about change. God brought order to the waters of chaos in Genesis 1, but he brought chaos to the old order of Egypt when their order was oppressing the children of Israel. He is Master of both our order and our chaos!
Invite Him in! Get him there!
30 Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
We read the entire little seemingly insignificant story this morning, but Simon and Andrew did not have that privilege as they lived the story out. The narrator of Mark is omniscient. He often tells us what people are thinking, even what Jesus Himself is thinking, and the entire story, but the characters int eh story don't know what is going to happen until it does. All they knew was they were on a journey with Jesus (Who they had just met and didn't know very well) and He wanted to come over to their house. Someone said, "We live life forwards, but we only understand it backward." Hindsight is 20/20.
We do not always know what lies ahead, but the narrator of our life does. Psalm 139 says,
Psalm 139:1-18 (NKJV) O Lord, You have searched me and known me.2 You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.3 You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways.4 For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.5 You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me.6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in [Sheol], behold, You are there.9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me;12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.
We make plans, but at the end of the day there is one Author WHo has the power of the divine pen of our lives (Proverbs 16:9).
Phillip asked Him once what the way was. Jesus replied, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6).
Someone said, "Jesus is the Way, without Him there is no going. He is the Truth, without Him there is no knowing. He is the Life, apart from Him there is no growing!"
I'm not sure if Simon (Peter) knew that his mother-in-law was sick when Jesus decided to come over, but Jesus knew. We never completely know the next act or scene in the play of our life, and it moves from one scene to the next almost immediately sometimes, like the Gospel of Mark. Having the Author along has its benefits!
In the first and second books of the Kings of Israel are stories of two of Israel's greatest prophets, Elijah and Elisha. They were both miracle workers. And both of them were shown hospitality by women who had a deep spiritual sense. Oh, call it intuition, or a hunch, or a gut feeling, but these women knew that these prophets were different. Elijah and Elisha represent the Presence of God. The widow woman at Zarapheth believed Elijah when he rudely invited himself into her life and asked for her final meal and some water to quench his thirst during the famine that was plaguing Israel. Customs of hospitality dictated that she should take care of him. She did. She didn't know that later her child would die and because she had taken care of what represented the Presence of God, God would intervene in her life and raise the child up.
Elisha was invited by another woman into her home where she prepared a place for him to stay when he passed by. She wasn't looking for any benefit, she just wanted to be a blessing. Oh, God has called us to hospitality and sometimes we are entertaining the angels of mercy and blessing that will save our children later, if we are willing to let them into our secret space. Lot didn't know that the men he showed hospitality to that night in Sodom would drag his family out the next morning! The woman who took care of Elisha didn't need anything, but she wanted a son. She never asked but because she had been hospitable to Elisha and built space for him, she got a son, and later when that child died, she was able to carry him into the little closet of a room she had built onto her house and go to the prophet and bring him there and the child was raised up.
Jesus came home with Peter.
While our goal is to live an integrated life, each of us has three selves: our public self, our private self, and our secret self.
The public self is the person that everyone sees. It's our game face, the person we are on the first date and at the interview.
The private self is the self that our family sees. Our hair is down, we wear what we want, and our breath stinks in the morning.
The secret self is the little room in our hearts that only God and we see. It can be a darker place.
David prayed in the Psalms, "God search me and know me."
Jesus had just done a public miracle casting out a devil in front of everyone, but now he does a private miracle healing a loved one of a fever.
Not every difficulty, or sickness, that happens in the world is related to a demonic spirit. There are some things that are just par for the course of living in a world subject to futility because of sin and hope.
The idea of the devil controlling someone in Scripture has the connotation of him riding an individual like a person rides an animal. We should never let the devil ride. If we let him ride, he will want to drive, and if we let him drive our car he will always take us too far.
The Bible was not written to make us devil-conscious. Some people look for the devil under every rock. Look for Jesus. Walk with him and if the enemy shows up you can partner with Jesus in casting the adversary out. Jesus brings order to chaos and upsets the order of the enemy!
We need to all allow Jesus to sit in the driver's seat and take the wheel!
When we allow Jesus in, He may fix things we have not anticipated in the future. Further down the road.
Invite Him in!
Simon's mother-in-law was sick with a fever. I am not sure when she got sick or what exactly it was that made her sick. The gospel of Luke says that she was oppressed by the fever. There are oppressive powers in the world of chaos all around. They may be spiritual, they may be natural, they may be anything, but whatever they are Jesus can handle them.
I want to encourage you this morning that if Jesus wants to come over, let Him!
Jesus said faith (trust in the faithfulness of God) the size of a mustard seed could move mountains. That seems like an insignificant amount, but there are forests in every tree. It just takes planting and watering and cultivating and trusting.
Although this miracle is surrounded by Jesus casting out devils and upsetting the applecart of the religious world, and crowds of people coming to Jesus in public, it matters to Jesus that Simon's mother-in-law is sick! There is nothing too small to bring to Jesus, no need. And so they tell Jesus.
In Mark's account, they just tell him. Simple. In Luke's account the "besought Him for her" (Luke 4:38). The verb would imply a questioning about her. Whether we bring our needs, small or great to Jesus, with statements or questions, making Him aware is the most powerful thing we can do. I want to encourage you to talk to the Lord.
The prophet Isaiah said that Israel was like a maggot, small, insignificant, but they would be made into a heavy equipment earth mover (Isaiah 41:14-15 KJV):
Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.
The power of the tiny worm is in its mouth. Telling Jesus about it can change everything.
John tells us that the miracles that Jesus did were to help us believe in Who He is (John 20:31). But the miracles were also an outflowing of Jesus's compassion for those around HIm. In this case, Jesus took pity on Peter and his mother-in-law and granted her immediate healing. Sometimes healing takes time. Sometimes it's a journey. Imagine the man born blind that Jesus made clay and put it on his eyes and sent him blind to find the pool of Siloam to watch in. His healing was a journey of stumbling towards something He couldn't see.
Be assured, Jesus knows what we need in order to become whole and He will work it in the way that He sees fit. In this case, He does it immediately.
Later, after Peter had messed up and denied Jesus, relapsed, backslid, whatever you want to call it. He had denied Jesus with an oath. Jesus met Him on a beach and invited him to serve Him by feeding His sheep, meaning minister to His people. Peter asked the Lord about John's journey. He said, "What about him?" Jesus said, "Don't worry about him, follow me." We would do well to sweep our own doorstep and take care of our own issues.
The fever left with a simple touch. We sometimes think we need more than what God is giving us, but we do not. In another gospel Jesus speaks strongly to the fever. Either a gentle touch or a loud voice, either works. You can't put Jesus in a box. And a little touch from Him is enough to meet every need!
But, notice finally that when the fever left Peter's mother-in-law got up and immediately served.
God does not heal us just to say we are healed, He heals us so that we can participate in His mission.
Jesus and His disciples needed food, and she was anxious to supply their needs. The Greek word for serve is the words used by Jesus Himself where he says that He came to serve. He came to care for others. It is related to the word for deacon. Those servants of the first-century church.
God empowers us to do what He has done for us toward others.
We are not healed to sit, we are healed to serve. What is God calling you to do? Get up and do it!
