Jesus, The One Who Meets Your Needs- Part 2

From curing the sick to casting out demons, Jesus met people's needs wherever he found them, and thousands followed, hoping for a touch of his power. Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah continues his special profile of Jesus in his role as the servant of all, and the only source of true meaning in life. With the conclusion of his message, Jesus, the one who meets your needs, here's David. Today we're going to finish up what we started yesterday as we look at a portion of the Gospel of Mark in the first chapter, and we're going to talk about the one who meets your needs, Jesus, the one who meets your needs. Friends, we are so excited that God has given us this privilege to share the Word of God with you every day on the radio, and most of us will agree that it's been more important recently than ever before.

For one thing, we notice the incredible uptick in the responses to everything that has happened on the radio. You're listening, you're hanging on to the truth, you're trying to follow the Scripture and the Word of God in designing what's next for you in your life as we pull out of this pandemic. I'm so grateful that the one thing that I know that can make a difference, the Word of God itself, is what we major on, what we've always majored on, what we will continue to focus on going into the future. God's Word never ceases to accomplish the goal for which he sends it. That's the promise of the Scripture. And I'm hoping and praying that that will be true for you today as you open your heart to the Word of God, Jesus, the one who meets your needs. God selects and recruits from people who are already diligently doing what they know to do.

Have you got that? These men weren't in a class on discipleship. They weren't in a prayer meeting asking God what they should do, although that's sometimes very important to do.

They were fishing because fishing is what they knew. Now, let me just remind you that Jesus had already met these men. He'd already met all four of these guys. He had met Peter, Andrew, James, and John. If you go to John chapter 1, the other gospel, you will see that he's already met them.

They've already become, as we would say today, Christians. The call to salvation for those four men has already happened. This isn't a call to salvation.

This is a call to service. This is a call to discipleship. And so he comes to where these men are diligently serving, and he calls them. God's given you intelligent mind.

He's given you a great engine, as they say in sports. God wants to take what you have and employ it for his purposes, and if you'll listen, Almighty God will put his call on your life. He calls diligent men. Then he calls decisive men. He comes to these men and he says, Follow me, and immediately they left their nets and followed him. And it says down in the next verse about the other two guys, they left their father Zebedee in the boat and went after him. By the way, I've already gone through the first chapter and underlined immediately. It's in the first chapter 11 times.

I mean, this book is an immediate book. It says Jesus came to where these men were. Two of them were casting their nets.

Two of them were mending their nets. And Jesus just looked at them and said, Hey, you, you, follow me. And they didn't say, Lord, could we have a week to pray over it? Lord, can we talk to our rabbi?

Could we talk to our preacher? No, the Bible says as soon as he called them, by the way, he didn't invite them. The word follow me is in the imperative. It's a command.

He didn't say, if you would like to, why don't you check me out? No, he said, follow me. And these men understood the authority of Almighty God in Jesus Christ. And the Bible says immediately, the first two it says, they left their nets and they followed Jesus. That means they left their occupation. The second two left their nets, their boat, and their father.

They left their relationship. Sometimes God calls you out of the career you're in and out of the family relationship you may think is so important. He calls you to be his disciples. And the Bible says these men immediately followed him.

Let me suggest something to you that I think is very, very special here. God always calls us so that he can lift us up to better places than we would ever be without his calling. He never calls us to demote us, although he may call us to serve in menial places. But I want to tell you, when he called these disciples, they were involved in trivialities, like what kind of bait to put where the net was, how much fish they could salt down for the winter. I mean, they had all of the fishing thing.

As much as it was a good industry, it was a trivial industry. Jesus said, I want to call you out of the trivialities of your life and give you some important work to do. And indeed he did. What we have in the New Testament, a great portion of it, is the result of God having called some humble fishermen to be his disciples, and he lifted them up to what they could be because he saw in them the potential they never saw in themselves. God calls diligent men, and he calls decisive men. And thirdly, he calls disciplined men.

Notice what he says. He says to them, follow me and I will make you to become fishers of men. And that was a common phrase in those days for people who followed a leader, who got involved in some sort of task-oriented response. Jesus said, if you will leave your nets and follow me, I will give you an occupation that will make fishing seem like you hadn't lived one day of your life. Now, fishing was an arduous task.

It was back-breaking. People that I've read about who tell me about the kind of fishing they did then, this was no task for people who didn't have energy and discipline. But Jesus said, if you think you're working hard now fishing for fish, I'm going to show you how to fish for men, and you ain't done nothing till you fish for men.

That may be the hardest work you'll ever do, but it's also the work that will bring the most joy to your life. Christ took these men out of the things they were doing, busy as they were, called them, decisive in their response, and then he created them to be what he always had in mind for them to be. Notice he says, I will make you to become. That's what God is up to, isn't it? He takes us from the lowest levels of life. What is it that Paul said to the Corinthians? He said he doesn't choose many wise and many noble, but he chooses the simple things of life.

Someone would say, well, I'm not a PhD, or I don't have a master's degree. God can't use me. Let me tell you something. Do you know that Jesus Christ had 12 disciples, and all of them but one came from Galilee, and seven of them were fishermen? Jesus Christ built his kingdom on a group of men who started out in life doing a menial task, fishing. And as I've observed the church now for over 40 years, I've watched Jesus Christ, a noble people who thought that they were not worth anything to him and didn't have anything to offer him, and some of them become the greatest saints I know. Don't ever use what you do or where you are in life as an excuse for not being involved in the things of the Lord.

Just remember, God wants to take you from where you are. Now watch this, and make you to become what you always dreamed you would be for the Lord. Jesus and his message, and Jesus and his men. Now notice thirdly, Jesus and his ministry.

Let me read these next verses. It says in verse 21, and they went into Capernaum, and immediately, there's that word again, on the Sabbath, Jesus entered into the synagogue, and he taught, and they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. The Bible says that when Jesus was in Galilee, he went to the city of Capernaum, which is a Galilean city. He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he began to teach. Now how many of you know what a synagogue is? Most people think the synagogue is just another name for the temple, and it is not. A synagogue is what happened during the exile in Babylon, when the temple had been destroyed.

The Jews had no place to meet. So they set it up so that at any place where there were 10 males 12 years and older, they could meet together regularly on the Sabbath. Obviously, they didn't bring any sacrifices, but they met to do three things. They met to read the word of God, to hear people comment on the word of God, and to worship, and those places where they did that were called synagogues, and in all the cities throughout the Roman Empire where the Jewish influence was felt, there were synagogues everywhere. If you read the story of Paul's writings, you will see that wherever Paul went, he ended up in one of two places, either in the synagogue or in jail.

Have you noticed that when you read about Paul? And when he would go to the synagogue, he would stand up and speak. You see, the synagogue would often invite guest rabbis to come. If there was a teacher who was coming through Capernaum, and they knew about it, they would say, normally we just have lay people who teach, and we read the Scripture, and three or four will say, this is what we think this, and we'll read the Torah, but if you're here and you're a teacher, why don't you come and speak? So Jesus went to the synagogue that day.

And the Bible says that when Jesus stood in front of the synagogue people that day and he began to teach, they kind of looked, they kind of backed, I can just see them backing up, whoa, what is this? They said he taught as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And the word authority is a word from which we get the word author, and it's a really interesting word because it literally means out of the original stuff. Authority means that Jesus taught not about the authorities of others.

He didn't bring the authority of others to bear on his message. He was the authority. He taught with authority. When you heard Jesus speak that day, the Bible says in John, he spoke as never man spoke before.

They were astounded when they heard Jesus speak. He spoke with authority. Men and women, I think when we preach the word of God and we speak on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, we ought to speak with some authority, don't you?

I mean, we don't have the intrinsic authority that the Lord Jesus had because he's self-authenticating, but we have the authority of the word of God, do we not? And when we preach from the word of God and we're accurate in teaching the word of God, we can speak with authority. Jesus and his message. Jesus and his men. Jesus and his ministry.

And then finally, Jesus and his miracles. Now, let me continue the story in the synagogue. The Bible says that while Jesus was preaching this authoritative message in the synagogue, that something happened.

Notice verse 23. And there was a man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit and he cried out saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us?

I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him and they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, What is this? I mean, what kind of new doctrine is this? For with authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. I mean, that would have been some church service to visit that day, wouldn't it? Jesus shows up to preach for the first time and a demon-possessed guy shows up in the synagogue service. How did he get in there?

He was standing at the door. And right in the middle of Jesus' sermon, this guy stands up and the demon within him shrieks out and says to Jesus, Why don't you leave us alone? I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God. Now let me just back up for a moment and remind you that in the book of Mark, the writer is authenticating who the author is and who Jesus is.

Remember John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God, and that takes away the sin of the world. The God the Father said, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The devil took him to the desert and tempted him for 40 days and 40 nights and left him because he couldn't touch him. And now here he is in the synagogue and a demon is showing up to give credit to Jesus. The demon shows up and says, I know you.

You're the Holy One of God. The Bible says, The devils believe in God and they tremble. The demon that day in the synagogue service knew exactly who Jesus was. Actually, the demon was more correct than many of the people who are sitting around in the synagogue listening to Jesus preach.

He understood that he was dealing with divinity, and it's almost like Mark wants to throw this little part of the story in so we can see. No matter where you go, you're going to find the testimony of who Jesus Christ is. John the Baptist affirmed it.

God the Father anointed it. Satan the tempter acknowledged it. And now we have a demon saying the same thing. The Bible says that when the demon was cast out, that the word got out.

I guess it would. I mean, in the little city of Capernaum that day, everybody left that place running around the... Do you hear what happened in church today? I mean, you're not going to... You know, we don't have much of that these days, do we? Most of us say, well, yeah, I went to church. I mean, I'm not saying we need demon-possessed people in church, at least... And we may have some we don't even know about. I'm not sure, but what I'm saying is, when Almighty God is at work among his people and things are happening and baptisms are being recorded and people are being saved and men and women are being built up and the enemy is being defeated, let me tell you something.

You can't keep that quiet. It's the best testimony a church could ever have. A testimony of a church is a great testimony when people say, I went to church today and I heard the word of God. You might think that's common today.

Not so common as it once was. His fame spread abroad. He showed that day that he had power over demons, but he's about now to show that he has power over disease. We're talking about Jesus and his miracles. In verse 29, it says, Now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John, and Simon's wife's mother lay sick with a fever, and they told him about her at once. So he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and immediately the fever left her, and she served them. The Bible says that after the synagogue service, where the demon had been exercised, when the service was over, Peter, Andrew, James, and John decided to go back to Peter's house. It appears in the text as if Peter's house was sort of a headquarters for Jesus while he was in Galilee. So they go back to Peter's house, and on the way back, Peter says, Oh, by the way, my wife's mother is sick with a fever. So when the four of them showed up at Peter's house, Jesus walked in and said, Where is she? And he went and found her, and he took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she was healed.

And the Bible says that when that happened, Capernaum was on fire with the message. This man came to Peter's house, and he walked in, and this woman was seriously sick, perhaps even at the edge of death, and he walked in and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the Bible says she was healed so much so that if you read the text carefully, she began to serve them because that's what mothers-in-law do when you come to their house. You serve.

You serve coffee, tea, whatever, and she began to serve them. How do you know that whenever you get saved, it's to serve, and whenever God raises you up from some difficult experience, it's the same purpose, to serve. And so the mother-in-law's now serving, and the Bible says, again, his fame spread so that this is now the end of the Sabbath day, which ends at night, and when the Sabbath was over, the Bible said, well, let me read you what it says. It says that when the Sabbath day was over, the sun had set. They brought to Jesus all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed, and the whole city was gathered together at the door, and he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons and did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him.

Now, let's just review for a moment. Jesus performs a miracle in the synagogue. Then he performs a miracle in Peter's house, and then it's the end of the Sabbath.

He walks out in the street, and the whole city of Capernaum shows up at Peter's front door, and the Bible says that, I don't know if this is just one of those summary statements. It says the whole city came to Peter's house, and the Bible says that throughout the next hours, Jesus healed them. He healed them of everything. Jesus wasn't just able to cure one sort of disease. It says he healed them of various diseases.

I think the old King James calls it diverse diseases, and the Greek word is the word panpharmakon, all pharmacy, all medicines, all. Jesus is the salve for every disease there is, and that day they brought all the sick people to Jesus. Some of them had palsy. Some of them were lepers. Some of them were sick unto death. Some of them were wounded. Some of them had limbs that didn't work, and the Bible says when they came to Jesus, he touched them, and he healed them all.

Why could he do that? Because he was the Son of God. He was the one who was involved in the creation of all of them in the first place.

How many of you know if you made it in the first place, you can fix it when it's broken? And Jesus touched them, and they were healed. And once again, the fame of the Lord Jesus spread. There are many occasions in the Bible where people gathered together in large groups, and Jesus healed them. Before we close our Bibles today, I want to remind you that there's a danger in this story that you must not miss, and that is that Jesus healed these people, but they did not come to him necessarily for the right reasons. These people came to Jesus for what Jesus could do for them. They heard that Jesus was somebody there who could help them, and so the crowds came, but they came because they wanted something out of Jesus. They did not come because they loved him. In the last analysis, they came because they wanted to use him. How many of you know that sometimes today people want to use Jesus? They don't want to worship him. They just want to use him.

He's kind of like their heavenly bellhop. You know what I'm saying? I run into that more and more. It's so taken the divinity out of Jesus that we treat him that way. Well, I got Jesus, man. I just give Jesus a holler. He'll help me.

And I came across this this week, and I want to help you with this. We must all go to Jesus, for he alone can give us the things we need for life, but if that going and these gifts do not produce in us an ongoing love and gratitude, there's something really wrong. God is not someone to be merely used in the day of misfortune.

He is someone to be loved and remembered every day of our lives. No, we don't invite Jesus into our lives to be our assistant. Does he assist us?

Yes. But we invite him into our lives because he's the Lord of glory. He's the one before whom we bow. He's the creator of the universe. He's the sustainer of the universe. He's the giver of eternal life, and he's the one who alone is worthy of our worship and our honor. He's the one who alone can forgive us of our sins. We invite him into our lives so that we can understand that he is our God, our Lord, the one that we worship, and then we give our lives to serving him as these men did, and then we find ourselves involved in ministry, in God using us, and we find that the missing thing in our lives is the missing ingredient of Almighty God, and I've said this to you so often, that when God created you, he created you with a vacuum in your heart, and you can try everything in the world to stuff into that vacuum. You will never be at home until God is at home in your life, but when he comes to live in your life, then you understand that he's a God you worship, but you also realize that when you accept him as your savior and you begin to serve him, he is with you wherever you go, and he's available to help you with whatever you need.

He's the God of glory. Amen. Amen. Isn't it tremendous to know someone like that, to have a relationship with someone like that, especially in times like this when there seems to be no help coming from any other direction? You know that God is for you. He's with you. He will help you. He will stand by you. He will strengthen you. He will go before you.

He will give you wisdom. You know that. We do know that, and during these days, we have found it to be so true. Well, friends, these last few days for Donna and me, and I'm sure this has been true for many of you, have been really interesting because we have a very difficult time remembering what day it is because all schedules are messed up. Most of the things we do are not done anymore. She was telling me the other day that, you know, for 70 years, we've been going to church on Sunday morning, and then all of a sudden, we don't do that anymore. So you wake up on Sunday, and it's kind of like it's a strange day. We have church on Sunday night now because of the heat.

I have to tell you a little strange story. We were trying to figure out what to do a week ago Sunday for lunch. I wasn't thinking, and I suggested we have Chick-fil-A. So Chick-fil-A is way over on the other side of town from where we live, and I drove all the way over there, and suddenly I had this strange feeling because there was nobody in the parking lot.

You know, Chick-fil-A doesn't open on Sunday. And I should have known that, but I didn't really know for sure what day it was. Well, we have a calendar that we think is going to help you remember what day it is, and I hope you'll let us send that calendar to you as we wave saying thank you for your gift this month. So make sure you sit down today, send your gift, and when you do, ask for the 2021 calendar, Colours of Creation. Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor, Dr. David Jeremiah.

We'd love to hear how Turning Point is impacting your life. Write and tell us at Turning Point, Post Office Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163, or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Ask for your copy of our 14-month 2021 calendar, Colours of Creation, highlighting God's breathtaking handiwork.

It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard and New International versions and in Standard or Large Print in the New King James, with notes from over 40 years of study by Dr. Jeremiah. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Join us tomorrow as David shares a message of encouragement that's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.