Limitation

We have your Bibles with you today. Turn with you, if you would, to the Gospel of Mark and we're in chapter 6. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 6. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? They took offense at him. Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives in his own household. And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.

He went about teaching among the villages teaching. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray for Fran Ruisi this morning who's fighting esophageal cancer. Help her through the chemo and the radiation. I pray, Lord, for Nicole Lowes and I thank you for the progress that she's making in defeating vertigo and ask that you help complete that process. I pray for Karen Simpson who's suffering with lung and liver cancer.

We pray for peace for her and for healing. Father, we're focusing on a verse today that just blows our minds. It's a verse that teaches us about a limitation that the Son of God experienced. We aren't used to talking about limitations on God. We're reformed Christians. We believe in God's sovereignty. It sounds demeaning to say that Jesus had a limitation.

It was not demeaning. In fact, it is a statement of exaltation. We are being taught of the unchangeable character and integrity of our Lord. Lord, help us to be wowed by this truth. May this truth bring us to our knees with admiration for our Savior. Lord, keep my lips from error this morning and use your word to convict us, to challenge us, and to comfort us for it is in the precious name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. In Mark chapter 5, we saw Jesus do miracles and express power that had Israel's head spinning. He went to the town of Gadara and when he got there, there was a man who was demon possessed. Nobody could control this guy. They would chain him up. He'd break the chains. They'd put him in prison.

He'd break out of prison. The whole town was afraid of him. The men would not approach him. The women would run from him.

The children would hide from him. He was also suicidal. He lived down in the graveyard. And he would take sharp stones and cut himself and bleed. And he would just sit there in the graveyard all day crying and weeping. Jesus came upon this man.

He saw him in his dilemma. And the Scripture says that Jesus cast a legion of demons out of this man and completely set him free. He was a new creation. Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. He went from there to Decapolis. There he met a woman who had been sick with an ailment for 12 years. She'd gone to one doctor after another after another.

Nobody had been able to help. She'd spent all of her money. She had an issue of blood and because of that, she was not allowed to go to the synagogue. She was not allowed to go to the temple and worship. She had to stay away from people, not allowed to touch anybody along with the physical ailment. This was a horrible thing for her.

Finally, she just gave up. She saw Jesus. She went to the crowd. She reached down between two people and she grabbed on to the hem of his garment, the symbol of his authority, and BAM! Just like that, she is made completely and totally well. He goes there to the house of Jairus and Jairus' daughter, 12 years old, had died. And he reaches over, takes her by the hand, pulls her up, and resurrects her from the dead.

After all this, his fame is just exploding. The crowds are multiplying, so he decides to just get away from everything for a while and he goes back down to his hometown of Nazareth. Now, Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

A few days after his birth, King Herod the Great put out a decree that he was to be killed. And so they ran down and fled to Egypt, Joseph and Mary and Jesus. They stayed there for two years. And after two years, King Herod the Great died and then they went back to Nazareth.

Nazareth is where Joseph and Mary had been living. It's a small place. The land area is about 60 acres. Most of our communities are much bigger than 60 acres.

So it's a small little place. 500 people populated that town and they knew everybody. Everybody knew everybody else and everybody knew Jesus. This was the man that was being trained to be a carpenter by his earthly father, Joseph. Now that's the background for the story that we're looking at today. I got four points that I want to share with you. But before we get on with this, I want to read one verse to you once again and I want you just to think about this verse as we're going through this passage.

Let it roll through your mind over and over. It's verse five. It says, And he, that is Jesus, could do no mighty miracles there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Keep that verse in mind.

Alright, point one is hometown wonder, verses one and two. When the Sabbath arrived, the whole town went to the ruler of the synagogue and they asked him if Jesus could teach. The ruler of the synagogue wanted it, so he went and asked him. Why did they want Jesus to teach? Because they'd heard about all these things that Jesus had been doing.

He had been healing the blind and giving them sight, healing the deaf and giving them hearing, healing the lame and giving them the ability to walk. He had raised the dead, he had cast out demons, and what they had heard about his preaching was this. His preaching was phenomenal.

It was passionate, it was authoritative, and it was deeply, deeply captivating. So the ruler came to Jesus, asked him if he would teach. Jesus agreed. And Jesus on the Sabbath day went into the synagogue, the same synagogue that he had been going to every Sabbath day for 25 years. He went over and he picked up the word of God in his hand and he just reared back and let me tell you, he preached. He preached with power. People in Nazareth had never heard preaching like that before. I mean, they were convicted in their heart of sin like they had never felt before. Jesus preached and it was a powerful thing. When they heard others preach, it was different. Others would just kind of give their own opinions or they would just kind of recapitulate things that other theologians had said, not here. Jesus preached and it knocked their socks off.

I mean, man, they were saying, what in the world is going on here? Who is this man? Where did he get this stuff? How did he get his knowledge? How can he do miracles? They had all these questions.

Why? Because they knew Jesus. Jesus had built cabinets for them. He had built tables and chairs for them. And they knew that he had never been to a theological seminary.

They knew that he had never sat under the teaching and mentoring of a learned rabbi. And so they were filled with wonder. Alright, point two.

Hometown skepticism. Look at verses three through four. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?

Or are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. They were amazed at his teaching. They were astonished at the miracles that Jesus had done. But yet skepticism and unbelief were ruling the day here. And they said, wait a minute, wait a minute.

We know who this is. This is Mary's son. And why didn't they say it was Joseph's son? Some think because Joseph had already died by this time.

I think it's more than that. I think this was an attack on the virgin birth of Christ. They knew Mary from 30 years back when she was 15 years old and they found out that she was expecting a baby out of wedlock. And they said good old Joseph married her anyway. That they had doubts about that and they laughed at Mary about that. And they were attacking, I think once again, attacking the virgin birth of Christ. Then they said, and we know his brothers and sisters too, just a couple of weeks ago, his brothers and sisters went out to find Jesus and bring him back home because they thought he's doing crazy things. One of his brothers said he has lost his mind. Scripture says that they took offense at Jesus.

I want you to think about this. They have just heard greater preaching than they've ever heard in their lives. They have just felt deeper conviction of sin than they have ever felt before.

They have heard about miracles like they had never known before. The blind sin, the deaf, hearing, the lame, having mobility, people raised from the dead, people having demons cast out from them. And yet they pushed Jesus away and the Scripture says they were offended at him. Brothers and sisters, that is the insidiousness of unbelief.

Intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically, they knew that Jesus was the Messiah. But spiritually, they put up a roadblock. They say, no, we're not going to believe in Jesus. We're not going to repent. We're not going to turn to him because if we do, it's going to cost us more than we want to pay.

So they rejected what they knew to be true. There may be people in this congregation right now who are doing the very same thing. You know who Jesus is. You know he's the Messiah. You know he's the Son of God. You know there is no other hope of salvation outside of Christ. And yet your sin is so sweet to you that you're not willing to repent.

You're not willing to say no because you know if it does, it's going to cost you more than you want to pay. Let me tell you something. I want you to think again and I want you to think eternally. This life is like a vapor. It's like a puff of steam. It's here and before you realize it, that life is gone. Compare this life to eternity. It's like comparing a drop of water to the Atlantic Ocean.

There is no comparison. I would encourage you to think eternally. And if this is where you are today, repent and come to Christ. Jesus said a prophet is not honored in his own country.

Alright, point three. Can an all-powerful sovereign God limit himself? Verse five.

And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. If you've been around me for very long, you know where I stand on the issue of God's sovereignty. I believe that Jesus is King. I believe that he is Lord. I believe that he is sovereign over all things. He is sovereign over nature. He is sovereign over nations. He is sovereign over people. He is sovereign over the devil. He is sovereign over our salvation.

He is sovereign over absolutely everything. There's a great passage of scripture that I love to read in Daniel chapter 4 where King Nebuchadnezzar had just been so filled with cockiness and pride that the Lord chastened him. The Lord put him out in a field and took his mind away. And he was out in the field like an ox eating grass out of the field. And his hair grew long and his fingernails became like claws and his toenails were the same way.

And it was just a horrible, terrible thing. After seven years of that, God gave him his sanity back. Let me tell you, he is a humbled man at that point in time. And listen to what he says in Daniel chapter 4 verse 34 and 35.

All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or to say to him, what have you done? Psalm 115 verse 3, it was David said this. He said, but our God is in heaven.

He does whatsoever he pleases. In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 11, the scripture says he works all things according to the counsel of his will. Isaiah chapter 46 verse 9 and 10, it was God who said this. Remember the form of things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that have not yet been done and saying, my counsel will stand and I will accomplish my purposes. The Bible is replete with passages of scripture that leave us with no doubt that our God is the holy, omniscient, omnipotent, ruler of this world, ruler of all that there was, all that there is, and all that there will be. Then I read a passage like Mark 6-5. What does it say? Now Jesus could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

What? Son of God? This is the creator of heaven and earth. This is the one who put the stars in the sky.

This is the one who made you and me. John chapter 1, John said, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him. Without him was nothing made that was made. Folks, how could it be that a sovereign Lord with unlimited power could be limited, could be held back that he could only do certain things?

How could that possibly be? And the scripture does not say, and he would do no mighty works. It says he could do no mighty works. But you know Mark wrote this gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Every word of it is infallible and true, so he didn't mean to write would and just wrote could. He wrote could because exactly what the Holy Spirit inspired him to write. So the question has to be, how can a sovereign God who's in total control of all things be limited?

Here's the answer. He limited himself. By what? By his word, by his character, and by his integrity.

Let me give you an example. Before I became a Christian, I used to question why Jesus had to go to the cross. For it seemed to me that if God was a God of love and if he had all power, if he wanted to forgive somebody, he could just snap his fingers and forgive them.

What was wrong with my thinking? My thinking was I was only considering one of the attributes of God, and that was the attribute of love, but I was not considering the attribute of God's holiness. The attribute of God's holiness tells us that God can't even look upon sin, that all sin must be punished, that God can't just snap his fingers and forgive us, that justice must be served, that sin must be punished.

That's the only way it can happen. The only possible answer for that is the sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. 2 Corinthians 5 21 says, Atonement had to be made, so God limited himself by his impeccable character.

One attribute would not overrule another attribute. The attributes of God are never working at cross purposes against each other. Another attribute of God is truth. Jesus said in John 14 6, Hebrews 6 verse 18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20 the scripture says, So if God gives a promise, rest assured of this, he's going to keep it. God limits himself by what he promises in his Word. So how can a person be saved? He must come to God in true radical repentance and faith.

It's the only way. Believing that Jesus is his only hope and trusting that God will take the payment that Jesus made on the cross and then credit it to our account. What is faith? The writer of Hebrews says that faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Who's going to express faith? Can anybody just express faith?

No. It doesn't come from down inside of us because we're dead in our trespasses and sins. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9 explains it, I want to take just a minute and read you something that Thomas Manton, great old Puritan said.

And to me this is just absolutely glorious. Listen carefully. He said, Man is blind with a hard heart. He is an enemy to the law of God and cannot please God. He does not even desire God.

If someone directs him in the right way, he becomes angry. He is dead in trespasses and sins. He is worse than dead. His life is alive to resist and rebel against God.

What a miserable, wretched creature man is. There is nothing in man's nature to carry him to grace. In conversion, God must work or he can never be renewed. To remedy so great an evil requires almighty power. God must open our understanding in our hearts. God does not only knock at the heart by his word, he also opens the heart and enters to take possession. God uses different keys to unlock the door of our heart. He uses one cross, another affliction, a sermon, one message after another. It is not, however, and listen to this, until God puts his finger upon the hole of the lock that we open. Salvation is expressed by regeneration, resurrection, creation, and light out of darkness. We are called new creatures and overcome by God's power. What a mystery is grace and the power of God that works in us. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus.

Amen. A great example of this is the Apostle Paul. Paul was filled with unbelief. He was headed down the road to Damascus with an anger against Christ and an anger against God's people, hatred for Christ.

And he was going to Damascus to get permission letters to persecute more Christians. As he was going, the risen Lord and his resurrected glorified body appeared before Paul. Paul fell off his horse, trembling and shaken with fear, looked up to Jesus and he called him Lord. It was there on the Damascus road that he repented of his sins. It was there that he trusted Christ and Christ alone for his salvation. God took that man whose heart was so filled with nasty unbelief and turned it into faith and changed his heart.

Paul went on to do what? He started churches all over the Middle East. He led thousands of people to Christ.

He wrote over half the New Testament. Then he was martyred for his faith. He was martyred for being a Christian.

They chopped his head off. Wherever there was a man whose heart was filled with faith, it was the Apostle Paul. And what did God do? God took that nasty unbelief and then filled him with faith. That's what God does every time a person comes to Christ. So how do I balance my responsibility with God's sovereignty? Should we say, well, if God is sovereign, then I can just sit back and do nothing? If God is sovereign, then if he wants me to repent, he'll make me repent.

If he wants me to believe, he'll make me believe. No, this is what God tells you to do. He says you obey.

You obey and what you have to do is you have to repent and you have to trust in him as your Lord and Savior. And when you do, then you turn right around in absolute wonder and amazement and say, God, you did this. This was not something that I worked up. This is not something I did in my own power. This is something you did by the power of your grace.

Folks, that's a glorious thing to me. And yet how often in Scripture does God refuse to overrule the unbelief of groups of people? How often does God say to an unbelieving bunch, you will not enter my rest? You will not enjoy my presence and my blessing. The people of Nazareth knew Jesus better than any other people in the world.

They were his hometown folks. I use this passage often when I'm witnessing to a person who is reared in a Christian home and is living in rebellion. When that person is living in a home where they have parents that are teaching them the Word of God, parents that love the Lord Jesus, they're going to a church that's a Bible-believing church, and they have witnesses all around them at all times, and yet still they're not repenting, and still they're just living out their own life as if there is no God to account to. I will share with that person, I want you to know that when you stand before God in the final judgment, your judgment will be greater than the murderer.

It will be greater than the adulterer, the rapist, and the pedophile. Now say, what are you talking about? Because you are more accountable. You have had greater truth. You have had more witnesses than in a home day by day where you have heard the gospel, and you need desperately to repent. For it was Jesus himself who said, The servant who knew to do his master's will and did not do it will be beaten with many stripes. What do the people of Nazareth know? They knew of his miracles. They knew of blind people that were seeing, and deaf people that were hearing, and lame people that were walking. They knew of dead people that were raising the dead. And they had heard Jesus preach, and when they did, there was this deep, deep conviction. And so the problem in Nazareth is not stupidity. They knew where Jesus was born. He was born in Bethlehem.

What does that matter? It's one of the prophecies of the Old Testament, that the Messiah would be born Micah chapter 5 verse 8 in Bethlehem. They also knew what Isaiah chapter 7 said, and that is that the Messiah would be the virgin born Son of God. And they knew that Mary claimed to be a virgin. They knew that Joseph said the very same thing, and Joseph and Mary never backed off of that. Now they mocked them about it, but you have to know, down in their hearts, there had to be some conviction there that what Joseph and Mary were saying was absolute truth. You see, they watched Jesus grow up, and they never saw Jesus sin.

You know why? Because Jesus never sinned. Other little kids would go out and they'd steal an apple, or they'd say a curse word, or they'd get in an argument with their parents, and they got to be teenagers. They went out and started drinking and would look for an opportunity to be immoral. Jesus never, ever did that.

His life was perfect sinlessness. The people of Nazareth had the facts in their head, but there was rejection in their heart. You want to know what unbelief is?

That's what it is. It's not that you don't know the facts. Unbelief is that you know the facts, and yet you reject those facts in your heart.

It's not a lack of knowledge. It is heart rejection. The Lord sovereignly hardened the people of Nazareth, just like the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh. You ever read that passage in Exodus where it's talking about Pharaoh's hardening?

It starts off this way. It says, Pharaoh hardened his heart. You read a little further down, it says, and God hardened his heart. Read a little further on it, it says, Pharaoh hardened his heart. Read a little further, it says, God hardened his heart. That's what's going on in Nazareth.

That's what's going on. They rejected Jesus and they missed out on the grace and the power of Christ. That's why Jesus could do no miracle here.

It's because He was limited by His own sovereign authority. My fourth and last point is messianic astonishment. Look at verse 6. And He marveled because of their unbelief. And He went about among the villages teaching. There were not many things that Jesus marveled at. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, mobility to the lame, He raised people from the dead, cast out demons.

He never marveled at any of those things. But the Scripture says He marveled at their unbelief. I wonder how many times God marvels at our unbelief.

A problem comes up in our life and we whine and we worry and we wring our hands. And God says to us, why don't you just pray? Why don't you seek My face?

Why don't you love Me? Let me share a verse with you that God brings to my mind often. Every time it does, it brings great conviction. Jeremiah 33 verse 3. It says, Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

I want to close with this illustration. After World War II ended, there was a man whose name was Roger Sims who had been discharged from the army. He was headed home and was having a hitchhike home. He was out on the road and he had his thumb up and this big sleek Cadillac comes up and he says, well, he'll never stop, but he was shocked. The Cadillac did stop and the passenger door opened up and Roger jumped in, threw his stuff in the back seat and the car took off. The man that was driving was a handsome middle-aged man.

He was wearing a very expensive suit. The man looked over to Roger. He said, were you home for good? And Roger said, yes, sir, I am. He said, well, my name is Mr. Hanover.

He said, I own a large company in Chicago. Roger was a Christian. And Roger felt immediately compelled to talk to this man about his soul.

He kept putting it off and putting it off until they were about 30 miles from his home. Finally, he couldn't put it off any longer. He turned around to Mr. Hanover and said, Mr. Hanover, I want to talk to you about your soul.

Can I do that? And Mr. Hanover nodded his head. And so he started right then. He went verse by verse through the Gospel presentation. He explained to him repentance. He explained to him faith. He explained to him what Jesus did on the cross. He explained to him the substitutionary atonement. He explained to him the power of the resurrection. And then finally he finished up. And Mr. Hanover pulled his car off to the side of the road. And Roger thought he was going to tell him to get out.

But he didn't. He put his head down on the steering wheel and began to weep like a baby. And he cried out to the Lord and asked for forgiveness, begged the Lord to forgive him. And he repented right there in his car, trusting Christ and Christ alone as his Lord and Savior. Five years later, Roger's married.

He's got a little two-year-old boy. And his company that he worked for sent him all the way back to Chicago. And so he grabbed the business card to Mr. Hanover, said, Well, I'm in Chicago. I'm going to stop by and see. He went to the big Hanover building, walked into the receptionist and said, I'm here to see Mr. Hanover. And the receptionist said, You can see Mrs. Hanover.

Her office is over there. And he walked in. And he walked in. Mrs. Hanover was sitting there and he said, Mrs. Hanover, I'm Roger Sims. He said, Five years ago your husband picked me up.

I was just discharged from the Army and took me all the way home. And she said, Well, that's great. She said, Do you remember exactly when that happened?

He said, Yes, ma'am, I remember it to the day because it was May the 7th, the day that I was discharged from the Army five years ago. And she said, Well, tell me why you're here. And Mrs. Hanover said, I'm a Christian. But I had the opportunity while I was in the car to share the Gospel with your husband. And your husband wept like a baby. And he repented of his sins. He trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior. And he said, I believe with all my heart that God did a work in your husband and that what happened was real.

The wife broke down in sobs. She said, When we got married, we were both unbelievers. Said, I came to Christ 15 years ago. And for 10 years I've been witnessing to my husband.

I've talked to him and I've talked to him and I've shared truth with him. And I prayed for him over and over and over again. And nothing has happened.

I asked God to do that work in his heart that I can't do it. And nothing has happened. And Roger said, Where's Mr. Hanover now? And she said, Mr. Hanover's dead. And she said, He died on May the 7th five years ago. Said, He let you out evidently.

He was on his way home from there and there was a terrible automobile accident and he was killed. She said, I had no idea because he never came home and never talked to him. I had no idea about what you just told me. She said, I have been angry with the Lord for the last five years for not answering my prayer and saving my husband. And now I know, praise God, he did it.

Praise God, he did it. And she quoted Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 3. Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Grace Church, may Jesus never marvel at our unbelief. May we trust him and may we marvel at his grace and power. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we close this sermon today with a wonderful promise from your Word, Jeremiah 33.

Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know. We're also told by James that we have not because we ask not. Lord, we don't pray like we should.

We don't intercede with passion like we ought. Father, help us to be more faithful, more trusting, more excited about who you are, what you desire to do for us, through us, and in us. Forgive our unbelief and build our faith. Help us to get more serious about memorization and meditation on Scripture. Help us to glorify you. For it is in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.