Why do challenges, hurt, discomfort, and hostility exist?
Why can't we live a tranquil, easy, worry-free life? Well, today on Living on the Edge, we'll look at how Jesus responded to the first significant conflict of his earthly ministry and what we can learn from his example. I'm Dave Drouy, and I'm so glad you're with us as we continue our series, The Road to Calvary. Now, we're only on day three of our journey through the Gospel of Mark, but I hope you've been blessed by it so far, and let me encourage you to invite others to listen as well, either through the Chip Ingram app or at livingontheedge.org.
Well, Chip has a lot to share today, so let's join him now in Mark chapter 2 for his talk, The First Opposition. You know, there's a lot of Jesuses floating around, if you will, right? There's a lot of pictures of Jesus or projections, caricatures of Jesus, and one of them that's probably the most disturbing to me because I've seen so much of the pain is this picture of Jesus, that if you really love him, that everything goes your way.
I mean, you'll never get sick, and if you're not having a lot of money, you just don't have enough faith, and it's all this message about just believing, and everything will be up and to the right and wonderful. And when Jesus was recruiting his early followers, one of the first things he does is he takes them into seasons of opposition, and I talked in the first time we got together on day one about authentic Christianity, an authentic relationship with Jesus. We all have a warped view of who our Lord really is to some degree, and so all this journey that we have in life and the reason we get into God's Word and need to be in fellowship so that Jesus living in fellow believers impacts us and we impact them is the clearer that we get on who Jesus is, who he really is, who he said he is, what the Gospels teach he is. That makes all the difference in the world because left to ourselves, we just kind of dip into the Bible here and there. We hear what other people think, and we come up with this composite picture of Jesus that's not true, and that composite picture isn't faithful, and it's not the God of the Bible. And the promises Jesus made and the calling of Jesus is clear, and that's why I am so excited and I wanted to do something I've never done before is to just sit down, invite you into my study, and just say, let's actually study the Scriptures together. So what I want you to hear is this is a section called the first opposition. The first half of the book, there's three separate oppositions, and he wants the disciples to understand how to handle opposition and what they learn about him and what they learn about following him from that.
I'm in chapter 2, and what I'm going to tell you in advance is there's five scenes, one, two, three, four, five. Each one of them have a major lesson. Jesus has healed a leper. He is now famous. He has to stay out sort of in the lonely places because masses of people.
I mean, he's bigger than any rock star you can ever imagine, and now we pick up the story. A few days later when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that Jesus had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four of them. Since they could not get in to see him because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus, and after digging through it, they lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith—notice plural, not just the man—when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately, Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, take your mat, and walk, but that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. He got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all.
This amazed everyone, and they praise God saying, we have never seen anything like this. Now again, he comes back to Capernaum. Everyone knows about him, so the whole town, I mean, the place is packed. Everyone's, I mean, you can't get a seat anywhere, and there's four guys that they have a friend who's a paralytic, and they say to themselves, we've got to see him.
We've got to see him. Application, desperate people do desperate things to see Jesus, to meet him where they're at. Loving people do desperate and radical things to help people they love get connected to Jesus.
I'll let you run with that and think of all the implications for you and for me. Jesus is teaching God's Word, and out of the blue, this guy comes down, and Jesus says, son, your sins are forgiven. And the religious leaders, notice, we're conflict now. What and who does he think he is? And see, Jesus wants his disciples and all those people he's teaching to know, when you follow me, you need to know who I am. So he says, okay, which is easier. You want me to, you want to prove it, basically? And so he says to him, get up and walk, and he does, and they're amazed.
And then here's the point. I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, and only God can forgive sins. Now, if you're his close friend, there's two things going on. One, awesome, wonderful, great, and boy, this guy just rocked the boat. Where are we going to go from here?
Scene number two. Once again, Jesus went outside beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began, notice what he keeps doing, teaching God's Word. So he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. By the way, tax collectors were public enemy number one.
They were Jews who had betrayed their country. They're working for Rome, and here's a guy in a booth. People would come, and they usually were overcharged.
They would usually rip people off. So Jesus walks by, sees this guy in the booth, and notice he says, follow me. Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. And so, again, opposition, controversy.
Remember we talked in our last time together about the status quo and that leaders have to break the status quo in order to launch movements that make a difference? Well, Jesus is going out of his way, and it's not just the public. Notice it says many are following him now, but these closest disciples that are going to change the world, they're now experiencing things that make them very, very uncomfortable.
All their life, their view, their prejudice, their bias was tax collectors are the enemy. And Jesus says to one of them, follow me. But now it gets worse. Not only follow me, but we learn from one of the other gospels, you know, Matthew says, why don't you come over for dinner because you've changed my life and I've got a lot of friends.
How about I put on a meal and you come over and you tell them what you told me. I mean, that's really what happens here. So, you know, you're his followers and you follow Jesus and you imagine you go, oh my gosh, he sits down. In this culture, eating with a person was a sign of acceptance and valuing them.
Pharisees and good Jews would never eat with the Gentile. Jesus, it's like he's breaking all the traditions. He sits down and he eats with them. And notice it says the disciples were there too.
So, have you ever been with someone where they're taking some steps that make you uncomfortable and you need to do it with them, but you're really uncomfortable doing it? That's what's happening here. And so, what happens? So, he eats with them and the Pharisees ask this question. And so, what Jesus ends up doing is he's saying again and again, your religion is keeping people from the love of God. I'm going to go to people and I'm going to meet them where they're at.
Application. Who do you know that you're uncomfortable going to and associating with that needs to hear about the love of Christ? What group, what people that dress differently or look differently or have a different color skin or maybe are theologically different or maybe you're actually related to them and they've treated you in a certain way. Jesus goes out of his way to meet people where they are and he doesn't think anyone is beyond hope. Scene number one, he has authority.
He's proven he's God. Scene number two, God loves everyone. Scene number three, he's questioned about fasting. Now, John's disciples, I'm in verse 18 chapter 2, John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And some people came and asked Jesus, how is it that John, here is John the Baptist, John's disciples and the disciples of Pharisees are fasting but yours are not? You know, we've been following you, you do all this teaching, rabbis have followers, followers have sort of different ways and rules and every rabbi we know, like Pharisees or even that radical John Baptist, they had followers and disciples and they all fasted. That was sort of part of drawing closer to God but we've all noticed yours don't do that.
Basically, what's the deal? Jesus answered them, how can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he's with them? They cannot so long as they have him with them but the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and on that day, they will fast. And then he gives them an illustration which in their culture at their time, the lights would come on, it would be crystal clear. He says, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old making the terror worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. In that day, a wineskin was very, very valuable and new wine wasn't fully fermented and so if you put new wine in old skins as it begins to expand, what it would do is it would ruin the wineskins, you'd also lose the wine. So he goes, you know, practically no one does this so what you do is you take a new wineskin that's going to be able to have elasticity and you put new wine in it so they sort of go together.
And what he's really saying to them is there's a new paradigm and the bridegroom, right, we've got a lot more information than they had. What's the goal of fasting? Now, I don't know how many of you fast or how often. I don't meet a lot of people, honestly, that fast very often.
My own personal confession is I'd like to do it more. But the goal of fasting is to draw near to God. The real goal of fasting in essence is how do I clear away distractions, food, take that time or sometimes you fast from media, maybe you fast from other things. But the goal of fasting is to stop doing certain things that will allow you to focus on God, have time for prayer, and then, you know, I don't know how it works for you, but when I get hungry, it reminds me of how dependent I am. And so in really big decisions or times where we've gone through some really, really challenging times, whether it was a big decision about marriage or whether it was one of our kids or a friend with cancer or sometimes in the ministry, we've had things happen and we're just desperate for God and we'll just all come together and fast.
Or actually, right now, we're looking at opportunities in Africa and the Middle East and there's some meetings and some organizations that are coming together. And as a staff, we are fasting and saying, God, we are coming before you because we're in desperate need of you and we want your power and your wisdom and your work. We want you to block all the evil and work in a powerful way and show us anything we need to hear from you. And so the goal of fasting is to enter into God's presence in a more intimate way. So what's Jesus saying? He's saying the presence of God is with them. Why would they fast? God incarnate is with them. I'm here. They can't get any closer.
There's no need for them to fast. They are with me. They just learned he can forgive sins. They just learned he came for any and all. And now he's saying, could you all please get a life and understand that all of God's plans from the very beginning were about a relationship.
It's not the rules. It's not religion. It's not doing specific things that make you right with God. The entire goal from the garden and after the fall is that we would have deep, intimate relationship with him. And Jesus is saying, I'm the one who came. I'm going to bridge it. And actually he's going to create a way where tax collectors and anyone far, far away from God will have a bridge to the living God by what Christ says not on the cross. And so he's beginning to foretell, this is why I came.
This is what I'm going to do. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and I hope you're enjoying our newest series, The Road to Calvary. But before Chip continues, I want to quickly tell you that we've created a free digital devotional that masterfully complements our journey through the book of Mark. This resource is crafted to enrich your spiritual growth and strengthen your relationship with Jesus this Easter season.
So stick around after the teaching to learn more. But for now, let's get back to Chip. Scene number four. One Sabbath day, verse 23, Jesus was going through the grain fields. And as his disciples were walking along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what's unlawful on the Sabbath? He answered them, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar, the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread which is lawful only for the priest to eat.
And he also gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Do you see what he's doing here?
Get the picture. And by the way, his disciples were breaking the law on the Sabbath as the rabbis viewed it. Actually, I mean, if you do some research, there's some extra biblical resources that the Jews made.
It's called the Talmud. And they had all kind of rules. One was if you had false teeth, they actually had false teeth in that day, on the Sabbath, you couldn't wear them. On the Sabbath, you could only walk, I forget what it was, but you can only walk so many feet. And after you walk so many feet, then it would be work.
They had literally rule after rule after rule after rule after rule. And now they have this relationship with Jesus and they're walking and I'm pretty sure Jesus was the first one to break off the grains and start eating it as they're walking. And John and the guys are going, you know, Jesus can do it.
I guess we can. And so they do it. And then the Pharisees confront him. And what he wants them to understand is that new wine demands new wineskins. And he takes an Old Testament passage. Many of you might be familiar with, but David was being pursued by Saul. And so he goes to the priest and there's no bread. And so David, there's the showbread. And I mean, it was very holy.
Only a priest could eat it. But here's the point he wants to make. The spirit of the law is far more important than the letter of the law. In other words, behind every commandment that God gives us, that's the actual thing to do. But behind the to do, there is a why.
And the why, the spirit, the motivation, the intent is more important than the to do. And so Jesus says, in that situation, yes, he broke the letter of the law, but the why behind it, he was God's anointed king. And so the spirit of the law wasn't broken by the priest or by him. And he used that as an illustration to say, you all have taken the Sabbath and you've made this list of rules, huge list of rules, and you tower over people and you manipulate them by guilt. And he said the whole purpose of the Sabbath was for man. The purpose is God in his kindness realizes that everybody needs a break.
Your body needs to be refreshed. You need to have a day where you could celebrate and look back on, wow, look what was accomplished. You could have a day where you could worship and a day to enjoy one another, a day to have a great meal and enjoy family. Jesus wanted him to understand the Sabbath was a gift. It was for refreshment.
It was for help. It wasn't some duty that if you do X, Y, and Z, then you get approval for God. He's breaking the status quo. He's showing the Pharisees and more importantly, his followers, the why behind the what of the law. Notice scene number five. It's just the first six verses of chapter three. Another time he went into a synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, people in the synagogue and especially the leaders, which is lawful on the Sabbath? To do good or to do evil?
To save a life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around at them, notice, in anger and deeply distressed at the stubbornness of their heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. And then the Pharisees went out and begin to plot with the Herodians, the other religious group, how they might kill Jesus. And this is the end of the first opposition and you got to get this.
I mean, pause and think. Here's someone claiming to be the Messiah. People are getting healed. Demons are leaving people.
People's lives are getting better. But he is messing with your religion. He's messing with your status quo. And so he comes into a synagogue and I think of this and they're watching him in the synagogue because they know this man has a shriveled hand. We're going to catch him working on the Lord's day. I mean, is that perverted? I mean, how warped can you get like? You can love people, but you don't love them today.
I mean, that is absolutely ludicrous. And I think one of the emotions we see, this is so helpful to me because I grew up where the picture that people gave of Jesus was meek and mild and passive. And, you know, we had little lilies, you know, at Easter time and you had little baskets and you go to church.
And I remember my sisters would get their little patent leather shoes and their new little dress. And we go through all these ceremony and, you know, Jesus, thank you. He rose from the dead. Where's the power? Where's the real Jesus of the Bible?
He's right here. He looked at the tradition, the meaningless tradition that did not lead to real relationship. And he says he was angered and it was deeply distressed. I wonder if Jesus is angered and deeply distressed at some of what he sees in our lives and in our traditions and in our religiosity that don't lead to relationship. That we, when we get opposition, we whine and complain and why are people treating me that way? And God, if you really love me, why did you let this happen or let that happen? As opposed to we are following a revolutionary who breaks the status quo, who cares for the least of these, who has authority, who is God himself, who brings new wine.
It means new wineskins and new patterns and new life and new methodologies with every time and shift in culture. And when he says, what's the purpose? Is it to do good or to do evil? Notice they were silent. They didn't have an answer. And then he heals the man and here's what I love. He didn't touch him.
What did he do? He spoke. He's going to teach those religious leaders, but more importantly, his disciples. When Jesus speaks, it's done. There's power in his word. Thirty some years later when John begins to write his gospel and wants to pull everything together for an unbelieving world, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things came into being through him and nothing is coming to being that is coming to being apart from him. He spoke and the word became flesh and dwelled among us and we beheld his glory, the glory, the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth. Moses brought the law. Jesus brings grace and truth. The Hebrew writer would say later that the word of God is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword and piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joint and marrow and able to read the thoughts and intentions of the heart. See what Jesus was teaching them early on was there's power in his word. And I know some of you get tired of me saying this, but you can keep getting tired.
I'm going to keep saying it. If you are not in God's word on a regular basis, your life will not change. If you are not in God's word on a regular basis, your connection and relationship. You can have all these little, you know, spiritual nuggets and I'm not against those. You know, read your 30-second thing and open your phone and read the verse of the day.
All of those things are helpful. They're not your diet. You don't grow deep. You don't become a follower. You don't change inwardly and be an agent of him changing you unless you begin to have a reverence for his word and a relationship with the God who spoke it into existence that allows you to follow the living Christ by the Spirit of God opening the word to you, changing you from the inside out, and then you putting that into practice.
That's what Easter is all about. And Jesus is saying to this group and to us, follow me. And in this day, he said, follow me through opposition and you will recognize that I am God and you will recognize that I care for the least of these and you'll recognize that I'm going to break all the rules if I need to because this is about relationship, not religion. And then at the very end, he's going to say, when your religion leads you to reject and not care for other people, when your religion creates bias so that you treat other people in ways that I would not treat them, when your religion does things that are counter to the person of Christ, your religion stinks and I'll have no part of it. Let's focus on relationship. And our next time together, we'll jump into chapter three. And what we're going to learn is Jesus will help his followers understand what it looks like to be chosen specifically to be with him, to learn from him, and then to be used by him. See you next time.
You're listening to Living on the Edge and the message you just heard. The first opposition is from our latest series, The Road to Calvary. I'm Dave Drouie. And as we wind down our program, I wanted you to hear a bit more about our insightful resources for this study in the Gospel of Mark. So, our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, is with me now to do just that. Chip?
Thanks so much, Dave. You know, as we studied the book of Mark today, I don't know about you, but I was reminded that the road of Calvary is difficult. I mean, Jesus asked them to go to places where there was rejection by family, there was opposition by religious leaders, there was persecution. I mean, there was cost.
John and James left a business. Peter had to be separate from his wife on some of the tours when he was following Jesus. And it's easy to think that it's all about trials and it's all about difficulty. But Jesus shows us as we walk through the book of Mark together, there's joy. We can overcome the trials. He didn't say life would be easy. In fact, he says unless we give up our life, we'll never find it.
But he says he'll be with us. We can experience him. And the heart of this teaching of the book of Mark is that you could meet the real Jesus for the first time or you could renew a view of him that will allow you to experience him, not just know about him. Let me encourage you as we close out today's program to get the notes if you aren't getting them and take some time maybe to read the devotional.
But just ask yourself, how could this Easter be different? How could I really draw near to Jesus? Because here's the promise.
He said if you draw near to him, he'll draw near to you. Take that step today. You'll never regret it. Great challenge, Chip. And our new digital devotional will help you develop that deeper intimacy with Jesus as you read through the Gospel of Mark with us. Each morning you'll receive valuable reflections from the passage we'll study together on the broadcast and some uplifting encouragement to motivate you for the day ahead. So sign up today. Also be sure to download Chip's message notes, too. They're a great guide and resource as you listen to this series.
Check out both of these free digital tools on the Chip Ingram app or at LivingOnTheEdge.org. As we close, I want to thank each of you who makes this program possible through your generous giving. One hundred percent of your gifts go directly to the ministry to help Christians live like Christians. If you found this teaching helpful but aren't yet on the team, consider doing that today, won't you?
Sending a gift is easy. Go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners tap donate and let me thank you in advance for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do. We'll listen to next time as Chip picks up in his series, The Road to Calvary. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.
