Stubborn Inflexibility (Part B)

What happened when Jesus said to his apostles the Last Supper? He says, One of you will betray me. And they all said, Is it I? They cared.

They didn't want to be that guy. Go, Is it me, Lord? Just let me know. I'll change anything.

Just tell me. Well, we are supposed to retain some of this. We come to the description, we read about these things we're supposed to say before the Lord. Is it I?

Am I doing this? Am I this narrow-minded that I cannot receive the light from heaven? This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Gospel of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick with his study called Stubborn Inflexibility in Mark chapter 2. Verse 15, Now it happened as he was dining in Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many, and they followed him. First it was Peter's house, now it's Matthew's.

These two men would never forget that. I think that you would never forget Christ is in your home also. Those of us who were born again know that Christ is in our homes.

No matter what goes on, the struggles that we may face, it doesn't mean he agrees with everything, but we try to get it that way. This calling of Levi led to a trilogy of complaints against Christ, and that's why this section is hard to divide, the verses that we have from verses 13 through 28. Because out of this calling of Matthew comes division, comes conflict, because these religious leaders were so stubborn and inflexible. They were looking at the miracles, they were listening to the sermons, and they refused to receive it because they were so stuck on trivia that truth meant nothing.

And it is loaded, it is fraught, we might say, with instruction for us. Verse 16, and when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, how is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners? The first time when Christ forgave the sins of the paralytic man in chapter one, well it was chapter two, they were silent in their opposition. They did not verbalize it. Jesus read them like a book, he called them out on it.

Here, they mouth it off. When the scribes and the Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, now at this point, they're not coming to him face to face, they're going to the disciples. This is a different group of Pharisees and scribes than Jesus had already dealt with in Jerusalem. Mark again picks up the story almost a year into the ministry of Christ, and so when he gets to his ministry in Galilee, John goes back further into the ministry in Jerusalem, where it says Jesus knew what was in every man, because when they were all saying, you know, they were all impressed by Jesus, but John says, yeah, but Jesus knew what was in men. He knew that many of them were not interested in his teaching, they just wanted a miracle.

He still knows the difference. Well, this time they verbalized their protests to his disciples. You see, the scribes were the custodians of the scriptures. They were the ones that kept them in print and circulation by writing, you know, by handwritten copies of God's word down through the ages. The Pharisees, they were the custodians of the traditions, the oral traditions that had eclipsed the scripture in time, in this time of Christ.

Together, these two were the part of the leadership, spiritual leadership. You had other groups like the Sadducees and then the lawyers, of course, but here it is, the scribes and the Pharisees that are singled out, and they isolated themselves from such people like the tax collectors and sinners. The very people that needed to hear the word of God the most, they refused to be around.

You could say they buried their talent. This is a rookie mistake for us today, to be isolated from those who need us. There's a huge difference between outreach and fellowship. When you, you know, sometimes you have to get close to people and to minister to them, it doesn't mean you agree with them. You may even sit down and have a meal with them. It doesn't mean you agree with their theology. Certainly there are boundaries to that. You would not go with them to their church and pray with them to their gods and things like that.

That's not what's happening here. Christ has called Levi to follow him. He sort of has this big gala to celebrate his, you know, exit from tax collecting and his entrance into public ministry, and he calls all his friends to come, and Christ is just sitting there with them all, and it says they followed him.

He wasn't casting pearl before swine. These people were not hostile to him. The Pharisees were hostile to him. These people were not inflexible because of stubbornness. Sometimes we have to be inflexible, but not because of stubbornness, because of truth. That is not the case with these scribes and Pharisees, these custodians of the scripture and the traditions. They were just stubborn.

They wanted Christ to help Judaism along, and he had come to make it obsolete, and they just weren't interested in this. And sometimes in ministering the gospel to the lost, not until you find someone. Once you identify somebody's not receiving it, they're not interested, you move on. You don't make them your pet project to overcome.

God has somebody else for you. You don't want to be those who try to jam the gospel down somebody's throat. We win souls because the Holy Spirit's doing all the work, and we're just showing up to close the deal, and it's a good system. So the gospel, when you isolate yourself, is actually buried. It is not out there for people to receive, and the Pharisees and scribes were habitual in this, and they were not willing to understand what was going on. They never gave Christ the benefit of the doubt. I mean, we read it in Nicodemus, he did. Joseph of Arimathea, and there were probably others unnamed, but the bulk of them, they never looked to say, well, maybe he is the Messiah. Maybe he is the Messiah.

Maybe this is the right way to do it. The capacity for human beings to be stupid is big, and you know, whenever we say that, of course, we have to include ourselves in that humanity. Well, not me, of course. That would just be a waste of time, but overall, the essence of this Pharisaical religion was self-righteousness without righteousness, and Christ called them out. Matthew chapter 5, for I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's pretty severe stuff. He's saying, those guys are doomed. They're going to hell.

If you want to behave like that, no matter what your position is, no matter what you call yourself, what others call you, if you want to be a nasty customer, then you will not go to the kingdom of heaven. They were meticulous in keeping countless man-made rules and regulations added to the 613 commandments of the law of Moses, where this pile of rules and regulations, at least 39 things you couldn't do on the Sabbath, and they would just add to that. They knew better. They couldn't attack Christ on his miracles. They couldn't say, oh, that's not a miracle. It's just a fluke.

They couldn't do that. Too many people were getting healed. So they attacked his morality. He's with sinners. How can he possibly be a messiah if this man knew what kind of woman that was that was touching him?

And they were just, you know, stubborn. We say as we consider these men, am I this way? What happened when Jesus said to his apostles the last supper? He says, one of you will betray me.

And they all said, is it I? They cared. They didn't want to be a messiah. They cared.

They didn't want to be that guy. Go listen to me, Lord. Just let me know. I'll change anything.

Just tell me. Well, we are supposed to retain some of this. We come to the description. We read about these things. We're supposed to say before the Lord, is it I?

Am I doing this? Am I this narrow-minded that I cannot receive the light from heaven? And I believe the great many Christians are not narrow-minded, that they do receive, that they listen to these lessons and they embrace them, or else Christianity would have been long gone.

But I also know that empty barrels, when beat on, make the most noise. And oftentimes in Christianity, those loudmouths seem to be the majority amongst the Christians, and they may not be. Verse 17, when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. That reads as though he's saying, he heard them, and so he says, you're talking about me. You're asking my disciples about me.

Here's my answer. Could have been that he heard about it from the disciples. You know, they asked us this, and he says to them, here's the answer. But I think he's addressing these Pharisees, because that's what the series, this trilogy of conflicts that he faces in this chapter, have to do with him directly standing up against them.

He was not interested in their rules. He never quotes their rabbis. Not once do we hear Jesus say, well, Rabbi Schmerson says, never. He quotes the Father in heaven. He quotes scripture. And he's about to deal with their babble with the Bible. And that's why he brings up David. He goes to the scripture, and he's saying to us, this is how I want you to do it.

I want you to do it just like this. So I mentioned Paul would lock horns with them. He'd go into the synagogues, and he'd preach.

And when they protest, he'd deal with this. Both of Christ and Paul would say, well, we'll move on then. Jesus told his disciples, I want you to go, and I want you to preach the gospel.

I want you to preach the good news. Why weren't the Pharisees and scribes doing that? Why did Jesus have to deputize apostles to do this when they should have been doing it?

Because they were too stubborn. So he sends them out, and he says, oh, by the way, if they don't receive you, knock the dust off your feet. I know. The guilty will rise up and say, how mean. It's not mean.

It's not mean. The alternative is to be sucked into the nonsense and no longer preach the gospel. Listen, if you're listening to the scripture being preached, and it hurts your feelings, that's God trying to deal with your wound. If you're guilty of something, the way to handle that is not to say, well, I just think that's narrow-minded and bigoted, or some other thing. The way to handle it is, Lord, I'm guilty. What are we going to do with this? How are we going to address it?

Sometimes, he says, it's going to take a long time. I'm going to leave a lot of this on you. I have asked this question before, and I'll ask it again. What would happen if Christ took from us the capacity for sin, the ability to sin? Because we're born in sin, because we are born defective, I am sure that we would become the most smug, self-righteous, condemning people on earth. We would not love anybody that was struggling with sin. We would condemn.

Why can't you be like me? So Christ leaves a little bit on us. I think that's part, a big part of it.

It's not all of it, but I do believe it is a part of it. Well, Matthew, when he tells the same story, he adds an interesting note, a word from Christ, for Matthew 9, verse 13. Christ says this to them when they're challenging his authority. He says, go learn what this means.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Go learn. They're supposed to be the teachers of the Lord. He's saying, you need to go back to school.

Everett Henley, you missed that class. And what could they say? Because it was true. The merciful God stoops down to minister to those who are lying wounded before him. May we be careful.

Now there's a fine line here. You cannot promote sin, especially as a ministry, as a church. You cannot facilitate sin and promote it. But on the other hand, you look for opportunities to show mercy. When we don't look for opportunities to show mercy, we end up shooting our wounded. We don't want to do that.

We want to care for them. Now if they're wounded, pull out a pistol and start shooting at you, refusing, I am not coming, and then they have to deal with church discipline. Jesus gives that story. Take them to the elders. If the church, if they don't receive the church, and eventually, you know, at the end of the process, boot them out.

And this is, you know, it gives the individual a chance to receive. Judas Iscariot never gave the Lord a chance to rebuild him. Peter did. The thieves on the outlaws on the cross, one submitted, the other did not.

These lessons are patent. They're obvious. They're all over the New Testament, clear as a bell. No one is too bad for the Lord Jesus.

That's what he means. I have come as a physician to minister to those who are sick. However, some think they are too good to need a physician. They're too spiritually healthy to be bothered with a Savior and His salvation.

So they stay lost. They die in their sins because they do not repent. They think that the standard of righteousness is somewhere in man.

Romans chapter 2, Paul says, in that day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel, quote unquote, Christ is the standard, not you, not somebody else. You can't say, you know, well, I'm not that bad of a person. Look, I'm not in jail. Those people in prison, they're bad. They're going to hell. But I've never done that, or I've never been convicted, caught. Well, that would work if the inmates were the standard.

But they're not. God is the standard. You have to have righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees and is matched with Jesus Christ, and you can't do it.

So you need Him to help you. As we read in 2 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 5, His reconciliation, His righteousness, His reconciliation is based on His righteousness becoming our righteousness. He is the one that saves us. We cannot save ourselves. So sinners that He is dining with, that's everybody. We're all sinners, and we can be sinners saved by grace or not. It's up to us. That part is up to us. Mary, in chapter 1 of Luke's gospel, in that beautiful song of hers, she says, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

That's right. What would be wrong with that? Who would find a fault with that? The only sour note comes from those who are sick of the who are stubborn and inflexible, who refuse to hear what the Bible says so clearly. Instead of receiving the blessings, they look for ways to counter them. Instead of receiving Christ and saying, wow, that's, what He just said is pretty deep. What He just did is amazing.

It's miraculous. Maybe I should start listening to Him and stop trying to find ways to point out that He's wrong, or trying, or maybe I should stop trying to find ways that He agrees with sin, as we see today, all over the internet. People taking the word of God and telling you it doesn't mean what it clearly says. And unfortunately, the vulnerable little lambs, they lap up the poison and the war is on. Verse 18, the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast?

Would your disciples do not fast? So now, He says again, verse 18, the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting. Now, we cringe when we hear that John's disciples and the Pharisees together are challenging Christ. We would like to have read that John's disciples said, well, we'll ask, but we're not with you, because John was raised up to go against the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the religious element that was crushing their own religion with their man-made rules.

Their man-made rules. Previously, in verse 16, the Pharisees asked Jesus, disciples, to explain Jesus' behavior. Here, they're asking Jesus to explain the disciples' behavior. And so what Mark has captured, Mark and Peter, I think without even trying, just telling the story like it is, what they've captured for us is that no matter what Christ did, He and His people were going to be attacked. Well, that's true to this day. Let's just not make it easy for them.

Peter writes that in the second letter. He said, you know, let's not make it easy for them. Let's not use our righteousness as a cloak to do evil. You want to pull their teeth?

Take away their charges of hypocrisy that are launched against you and other things like that. So now, again, they ask Christ. John's disciples, we understand why they fasted, because they probably ate locusts like John. Any chance to fast, they took it. But really, what business is it of anybody else, whether I fast or not?

I don't fast to you or for you, and you don't fast to me or for me. Why are you even asking me this question? It's none of your business. That should be the act.

I would have said that. Didn't you read Matthew chapter 6? You go in your prayer closet. It's no one's business. Your prayer routine and things like that, it's fine to say to somebody, I've been praying for you. I pray, but it's not like this, being thrown up into your face, being judged by others. You know, the law required the Jewish people to fast only one day out of the year, the day of atonement. That was the, everything else was elective.

You just, you did or you, it wasn't, you know, compulsive. Verse 19, Jesus said to them, can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. Well, one reason why we fast is to, of course, subdue the flesh so that we can draw closer to God, that distractions will be minimized. Well, they were already as close to God as they get in this world. He was walking with them, his apostles, his disciples. So he could have said, well, we fast to draw close to God.

Well, why, they don't need to fast. I'm right here. You can't get any closer, get any closer to get in my personal space. Six feet. Yeah, joke. A hundred years from now, what is he talking about?

Six feet. Anyway, this was a time of happiness, not heaviness. Walk around all solemn and everything like they were doing it. Jesus said, you know, don't be like them. Put oil on your head. Oh, look at me, I'm so righteous, you're not. Oh, oil on your head, huh?

Again, Edgar, right? Thank you. He says it's not appropriate all the time. Imagine Bacon Fest. Ladies, I know you've not been to Bacon Fest, and we're glad. Because it's a guy thing, and there's nothing wrong with that. Feminism has been stealing our women for decades now, trying to dictate to you what a woman should be.

We go to the scripture to find out who we are to be as men and women. Anyway, imagine showing up to Bacon Fest full. We'll beat you up. We'll just take you out back and slap you around. You'd be too, you know, full with food to fight back.

There were just, some things are wrong. We can all understand that. He's saying, look, I'm here now. It's not time for fasting, verse 20.

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. He knew how this was going to end. He had read the Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 and the other sections in the prophets that spoke of this Messiah's death. He knew what Isaiah had to say because he gave it to Isaiah to write. He authored it, rejected by humans but received by God. He knew that he would have a violent death at the hands of religious people and non-religious people alike.

Well, I mean, Pilate was religious too in their own Roman kind of way in paganism. Let's talk a little bit more about this fasting because it has its place in our life. It can put an edge on our prayers. It can help us. But if not handled right, it's a difficult tool to use. When I used to work on bridges and buildings, there was a tool called a power vein, and it was used to ream, to make a hole larger.

So if you wanted to put bolts in the hole to hold the building together, if the holes didn't line up, you'd use this tool. And if you did not use this power vein the right way, it could it could kill you. I mean, it could certainly beat you up.

And I'm smiling because I've got stories and I, you know, I would love to tell, but we're not here to hear my stories. Well, wait a minute. Maybe. Anyway, fasting is that tool. It works in its proper place, but you have to use it the right way. And the consequence of not using it the right way is not good for us.

It's a difficult tool. It can impart a false sense of maturity. I must be mature because I haven't eaten all, you know, in like 80 minutes, which is quite a feat in our society. If you need help fasting, just invite us over. We'll come eat all your food, and then you'll have to fast.

Anyway, it can make the user feel that God is now obligated. Look, I suffered all day. You gotta let me in. This is a serious prayer request I've got before you. How can you say no?

Look at my bumpy eyes. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the Book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the Book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.