[0:00] This morning, we're going to do something just a little bit unique, not different. You're not leaving the Gospel of Mark. We're going to go back and revisit a verse that we looked at last time we were together, and then we will also connect it to a verse in the following year.
[0:15] So I know last time we were together, we looked at the end of Mark chapter 7. The guys upstairs already know where we're going this morning. Let's just go, I don't know why it keeps cutting in and out on me, so I'll be still, brother, I promise.
[0:27] I'll try to be still, so if you need to change mics, you can. So, let me get my mind back where I was supposed to be at. No, I don't have any of those letters or any of those things.
[0:38] I just get distracted easily. I don't know what that means. Anyway, so what we're going to do is sometimes in the way I preach expositionally, I preach through larger bulk pieces of Scripture.
[0:50] You know that. Many of you have been with me in numbers. You know we preach in chunks of Scripture. And there are times in preaching through those chunks that I see a verse and I pay attention to it, and I say, wow, look at that, it's going to repeat it.
[1:01] Maybe I should spend a little bit more time on that. Then there are times where I get questions in response, and someone says, hey, I wish you would have spent a little bit more time on that. So it's not that I'm letting anyone ever say, hey, so don't come to me and say, Pastor, you need to preach on this.
[1:14] I mean, I can, but I also try to be sensitive to the leading there and guiding. So there are moments where we have to stop and say, let's spend a little bit more time on this one issue. And this morning is one such case.
[1:26] Where we'll see a verse, actually two verses in the seventh chapter, which we have already seen, but we didn't take the time last time and look at it in detail. But I wanted to do it.
[1:38] So your passage this morning will be in Mark chapter 7, if you have it open there. Mark chapter 7, verses 33 and 34. And then in Mark chapter 8, verses 11 and 12.
[1:50] We are ready to go into the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. We will see it from starting in verse 1, if the Lord allows us to next week when we gather together.
[2:01] But we won't have to take the time to look at the 11th and 12th verse in detail, for we will do that now. So we're in Mark chapter 7, verses 33 and 34. And in Mark chapter 8, verses 11 and 12.
[2:13] If you are physically able and desire to do so, would you join with me as we stand together and we reach out to God of Mark? Let's put it in context.
[2:24] If you remember in context, in the seventh chapter there, Jesus is outside of the Judean region. And there is a woman of Syrophoenician race who comes to him and is begging that he would cast the demon out of his daughter.
[2:37] He does so. He leaves and goes into the region of Decapolis, which again is outside of the Judean region. And he's in this region of Decapolis, and they bring to him a man who is deaf, that's important, and mute.
[2:49] He speaks with, the wording seems to be that he is bound, much like the woman's daughter was bound by a demonic spirit. This man has been bound by something that's holding him captive.
[3:01] So they bring this man to Christ, and they're imploring him or begging him to cast this demon out of him, to release him from that which is binding him. That's where we pick it up in verse 33.
[3:13] Jesus took him, that's that man. Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself and put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue with the saliva, and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, he said to him, Ephaphatha, that is, be opened.
[3:32] Now go with me to the eighth chapter, verses 11 and 12. The Pharisees came out and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.
[3:47] Sighing deeply in his spirit, he said, Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.
[3:58] Now let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the wonderful opportunity it is to gather together with your people. We praise you that we've been able to lift our voices up in song.
[4:10] We've been able to fellowship. We've been able to worship through our giving and offering. Father, now as we come to the time when we read the word of God, we have heard it, we've seen it.
[4:22] We pray now that the spirit of God would speak to our hearts and minds, that the son of God would be magnified and glorified in our midst, that the people of God would be molded, conformed to be more and more like you for your glory and yours alone.
[4:38] Lord, during this hour, may we worship you through the reading and understanding of your word. May our understanding impact our lives for your glory and those around us for their good.
[4:50] We ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. Mark chapter 7, verses 33 and 34. Mark chapter 8, verses 11 and 12, give us something that is unique to the gospel of Mark alone.
[5:04] It is not only unique to the gospel of Mark in connection with the other three gospels, it is absolutely unique to the gospel of Mark in connection to the rest of Scripture. Mark provides something for us here that is said nowhere else in Scripture.
[5:20] If you were to look at the front of your bulletins, you have a verse on the front of your bulletins from the book of Psalms. And in the book, there is a human attribute to a divine being that is God.
[5:34] It says that God hears those who cry out to him. Now, God is not flesh and bones as we are. He is spirit. And those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth, Jesus told the woman at the Samaritan well.
[5:48] And since he is spirit, we know that he does not have ears, but he knows all things. He is omniscient. He is powerful. He is omnipotent. He needs no one to speak so that he can hear them, for he knows the thoughts that are in your mind before you ever say them.
[6:02] Yet the author of Scripture tells us in divine inspiration that God hears. Over and over again, we see these human attributes that are ascribed to a divine being, that is, holy God, so that we in our finite minds can understand him.
[6:17] This is going to be a little technical this morning, but you can stand it. I know you can. It tells us that his arm is not so short that it cannot reach, that his strength is not so weak that he cannot redeem.
[6:28] He sees the burden of his people. He hears their cry. He understands. It even tells us that God changes his mind. These are attributes that we possess, that we display over and over again, that in God's sovereignty, he inspired the writings of Scripture so that we would understand him more.
[6:51] He comes down. He condescends to our level so that we could understand this great being. Because greater are his ways than our ways, and greater are his thoughts than our thoughts.
[7:04] As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his ways. And we would never understand him. He is the great, un-understandable one. We would never be able to comprehend him if we did not have these attributes ascribed to him.
[7:21] If I just told you, well, let's find confidence. God knows what you're saying. But you never had the reality in Scripture where it tells you that God hears you. Because over and over and over and over again, Scripture tells you that God hears you.
[7:36] Over 860 times, it tells us that God hears our prayers. Why does God repeat that refrain so often? So that we can have confidence that God is not sitting here with his ears plugged, but that he hears us.
[7:49] Yet, when we come to these passages in Mark, Mark, the shortest of the Gospels, the one who moves so rapidly, the one whose word, his favorite word is straightway or immediately, depending on which translation you read, Mark gives us something unique about Christ that nobody else does.
[8:06] I wonder if you've caught it yet. It tells us that he sighed. That he sighed.
[8:18] And so what is it with the sigh of the Savior? That's what I want you to see this morning. The sigh of the Savior. Why does Mark tell us not once, but twice in a short amount of verses that Jesus Christ sighed?
[8:39] You say, well, pastor, we're splitting hairs here, right? But there are some hairs worth splitting, right? And if we believe, and we do, and the divine inspiration of the word of God, that the word of God is very words of God, penned through the word of God, for the people of God, to the glory of God, then we pay attention to realities such as this.
[9:04] It tells us there in the seventh chapter that when they bring this man to Christ, and Christ takes this man, goes off by himself, puts his fingers in his ears, spits on the ground, makes saliva, and then it says, and he sighed.
[9:16] And then it tells us in the eighth chapter, verses 11 and 12, when the Pharisees come to him, and begging of him a sign, give us a sign to prove who you are.
[9:31] It says, and he sighed deeply. Just so you know and you understand, the word here used are two different words in the Greek language.
[9:42] This is not the same word. The first word used in the seventh chapter, we will find parallel passages to it, and it will help us to understand it a little bit better, because it is used at least three other times, well, only three other times in the New Testament.
[9:56] Its meaning and weight is used elsewhere in the Old Testament. The second occurrence in the eighth chapter, this is the only time it's used in all of Scripture. The only time. And this is the only time God sighs.
[10:17] I would say that we know exactly what that is. The very last thing that I normally do before I cut my microphone on, as I'm walking to the front, is I take a deep breath and I sigh.
[10:28] For one, I need to fill my lungs with a little oxygen. I need to, many of you know that I eat Lifesavers. I have Lifesavers in my pocket every time I preach.
[10:38] It is the sugar-free Lifesavers now, and many of you know why I do that. I heard from an old pastor a long time ago that if you eat hard candy before you preach, it makes your mouth water so you can talk longer. I said, I need to talk longer, right?
[10:48] So you make your mouth water. And I take a deep sigh, so none of you are going to steal my Lifesavers. I'll find some. But anyway, this is something that each one of us know, but think very often of.
[10:58] But have you ever wondered, why did Christ sigh here? I believe that many of us may have the conception, and maybe even the misconception, that when Christ sighed, it was because he was tired of what was going on.
[11:13] He was fed up with the being. We know a sigh. That when you have to do something and you don't want to do, then you sigh. Or when somebody asks you to go somewhere and you don't really want to go, but you want to be polite, so what do you say?
[11:25] You take a deep breath and you kind of get yourself together so that you don't appear rude. Or if you're like me, expressions on your face, you take a deep breath so that you can control what is going to be shown to everybody around you.
[11:36] Or maybe you're a little fed up with what's going on and you're frustrated, so the best thing you can do is you can take a deep sigh. Is that what is going on? Is Christ upset? Is he mad?
[11:49] But really, what do we see here from the sigh of the Savior? The first thing I want you to notice here is that this simple act records an astounding reality for us which we cannot ignore.
[12:03] The first thing that we notice is we see the humanity of Emmanuel. Remember the key verse of the Gospel of Mark, right?
[12:18] Mark chapter 10, verses 44 and 45. But in 45, it tells us the Son of Mark did not come to save but to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
[12:31] The Son of Man did not come to serve but to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. When you study the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it is very important that you understand who Christ is in that Gospel.
[12:48] There's a reason why we have four of them because we do not get a three-dimensional view of Jesus. Rather, we get a four-dimensional and that is we get a full picture of who Christ is. In Matthew, he is the King of Kings.
[12:59] He is the descendant of David who has the right and only he has the right to set up on the throne of David and reign eternally based upon the decree of the Lord God Almighty.
[13:10] So he is the Son of David. When we get to Mark, he is the Son of Man. He is writing to a Greek audience, Gentiles by nature but Greek in mindset and so they are used to God's becoming man and exhibiting themselves.
[13:23] So he is the Son of Man and he shows his humanity over and over again. By the time we get to Luke, he is also the descendant of, but he is the Son of God because he takes his genealogy not just back to David, not even back to Adam, but he takes it all the way back to Adam and says, and he was the Son of God.
[13:44] So now we have the Son of David, the Son of Man, and the Son of God and then by the time you get to the Gospel of John and I love the Gospel of John, there are no genealogies recorded. There is no description of him for he is God.
[13:56] In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. Right? And he understands he goes all the way back not to the Garden of Eden but he goes back before anything was created and he shows us that in the beginning was God and God became flesh and dwelt among us and we call him Emmanuel which means God with us.
[14:14] So when we read those Gospels we pay attention to the reality that this is who they are painting Christ as and they are divinely inspired to do so and this is why we have to be thankful for them for apart from the four Gospels we would have a very limited understanding of who Jesus is.
[14:31] But with them we get a full picture that he is the Son of David, he is the Son of Man, he is the Son of God and he is God in the flesh. Stay with me for just a little bit for we see the humanity of Emmanuel here.
[14:46] Though Mark presents Jesus as the Son of Man over and over again when we introduced the book we saw that the very first verse in the Gospel of Mark refers to him as the Son of God.
[14:58] This is the beginning of the Gospel of the Son of God. And when he dies upon the cross and he's hanging there it is the Roman centurion who declares surely this was the Son of God.
[15:10] So at the beginning and the end even the book that refers to him as the Son of Man makes this unashamed declaration that he is also the Son of God. Now these are important matters by the way this is what we would call big rock theology here.
[15:26] These are things that have to be settled. You know at least I hope you know because you're sitting in a Baptist church this happens to be a Southern Baptist church but it is Baptist by declaration that the Baptists are not creedal they are confessional.
[15:40] Now we don't have really time to kind of flesh that out a little bit it just means that we exist upon confessions but our confessions are rooted in creeds. There are churches which are creedal and they have these creeds and they publish them and all these other realities but we make a confession as Baptists by joining the church you are acknowledging that you admit and agree with the confession and that confession is confined in history throughout things but creeds have formed our confessions.
[16:06] You say Pastor why does this matter? Stay with me you understand. Early church fathers had to work out what it is we know about God. It was easy when the apostles were still alive because the apostles had walked with Christ and lived with Christ and done life with Christ and they didn't have to work out who he was because they saw him right?
[16:24] They saw the risen Savior. Paul himself says more than 500 were present on that day so we get what are referred to as the apostle creeds and the apostle creeds are this declaration that he was born the perfect birth he lived the perfect life that he died the substitutionary death he rose again on the third day and lives forevermore to intercede for us.
[16:43] They knew who he was. As time and history goes on we come up when just a couple hundred years into the birth of the church into the 300 ADs and you get the Nasean Creed and the Nasean Creed is the reality that exists in Trinity by the way you just professed that as you sang it when they were bringing the offering plates up.
[17:00] You say no we don't we sang the doxology. Right but do you know why we sing the doxology? Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. You are declaring the reality of the Trinity that is something unique to Christianity that we believe in one God who exists in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we sing it as a declaration a public declaration that we believe in the Trinitarian view of the Lord God Almighty.
[17:26] You say pastor explained that to me I can't and no one else can but we accept it by confession. We confess because he has revealed himself that way in scripture and so we declare that.
[17:39] The third creed the Chancelodonion Creed came about in 451 AD and this was something very early in the church that had to be acknowledged and had to be declared and it was this something by the way that is still being argued today from 451 until now.
[17:59] Was Jesus Christ a good teacher? Was he a prophet? Was he just a good role model? Who was Jesus? And it is that creed which by the way we acknowledge with our confession that declares that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior was fully God and fully man.
[18:26] Friend listen to me that is an absolute necessity. For if this is just a man who hangs upon a tree then he atones for his own sin.
[18:39] But if this is God in the flesh then it is God atoning for our sins for only a perfect human being. Only God himself can atone for the sin of the wicked and the unrighteous and the unworthy.
[18:51] If he is just a good man then he died for his own place. Many people throughout history still argue this reality. But without a shadow of a doubt scripture testifies to the reality that he is fully man. Yes and he is just as man as anyone else.
[19:04] It tells us in the book of Hebrews that he learned through suffering and groaning and moaning and the weight of sin yet he did not sin. But he is also fully God for he calms the seas. As Psalm 89 says the Lord God Almighty can do.
[19:16] He speaks things into existence like turning water into wine as only the creator can do. He declares that he is the light of the world that he is the way the truth and the light. He is fully God and fully man and the simplest act of humanity is just to sigh.
[19:33] And so here we see a savior who is Emmanuel God with us and even he has to take a moment to take a deep breath for he is fully God.
[19:48] And without a shadow of a doubt God has become man and dwelt among us that he may redeem us. And it is there that we say praise be to the Lord God Almighty.
[20:03] God took on flesh became as we were we are. It tells us in the book of Hebrews that we do not have a priest who cannot relate to us for he was tempted and tried in every way.
[20:17] There were moments in his life where he had to sigh and take a deep breath. The very things that we have to do he came and he was obedient and perfect. Why? So that he could daily live to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father.
[20:33] He is God. He is the creator and sustainer of it all. He spoke it all into existence and he puts his feet upon the world as his footstool. He is also fully man.
[20:45] And we see the humanity of Emmanuel. For in this moment he has to sigh. And he takes a deep breath.
[20:58] Second, we see the hurt of sin. We see the hurt of sin. And we ask ourselves why did he have to do it even in his humanity?
[21:11] Why did he have to do it? Well first, let's kind of look at what is not going on here. When they bring this man to Christ and to Capelus which by the way someone a couple Sundays ago rightly pointed this out to me as we were discussing it that this is the very same region in which the man had the demons was cast out of and all the pigs ran into the water.
[21:30] Remember that? And then Jesus told him to go back home and tell everybody about it so the word of Christ had gotten out in the Capelus. It was not a secret so when he shows up they bring this man and say hey if you can take care of the naked man in the tombs who could not be chained surely you can take care of this man.
[21:44] And so when the legion of demons went out now we're bringing someone who just has a tongue that is bound by demonic activity. And so they bring this man to Christ Christ is not making a spectacle.
[21:55] I want you to notice really the details that we miss here. Look at what it says there in verse 33. And Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself. So I want you to get this picture.
[22:07] Here is Jesus Christ. Here is this man who is deaf and mute. Don't miss that. And he takes them aside and he's by himself.
[22:19] No one else is around. So what you notice here is that when he sighs he's not making a show. Listen, to put it bluntly the only person near him was deaf and couldn't hear him sigh.
[22:35] So it's not like he was doing it like oh I'm tired of this because this man nobody there could hear it. Nobody could carry the weight. He's not doing it because he's frustrated.
[22:45] He's not doing it because he's upset. He's not doing it because he's just I gotta do it again. There's none of that that is going on. There's no disdain because nobody present can hear it.
[22:58] And just for context in the second sigh when there are a number of people present it says that he sighs to himself within his spirit. That's not an audible sigh.
[23:09] He doesn't do it. So we understand this is something that we get with the sigh. Jesus is not making a show. He's not calling attention to what he's doing and he's not doing it to show anyone else I wish these people would leave me alone.
[23:21] That ought to make you go glory, hallelujah, thank you. Because he's not upset at the reality that now once again coming to the same region they bring him someone with a problem.
[23:32] Oh here's another guy who has a problem. Here's someone else who has an issue. Everywhere I go people show up and they have an issue. You know it and I know it. Let's be honest. In our humanity there are times we want to be left alone.
[23:43] That's okay to admit. And there are times when you see somebody coming and you sigh. And you do it because you just want to be left alone. Don't try to be more righteous than you are.
[23:54] Okay we are redeemed. We can be honest. There are moments you're just like I just don't have the energy to deal with that right now. And that's okay. It's okay.
[24:06] Because we are limited in our abilities. But that's not what Christ is doing. Because if we believe that's what he's doing then we would say well he might not want to hear from me right now.
[24:20] He might not be I may upset him if I take this burden to him. Or what if I'm the one that sends him off the edge and it causes us to be a little reserved and even fearful or ashamed to bring our mess to Christ because we're afraid we may be the one who makes him sigh.
[24:39] The man that was deaf didn't know he was sighing. No one did. No one heard him. So he is not displaying here an annoyance with the individual.
[24:54] That should give us comfort. But what is he doing? Thankfully we have in the 7th chapter when this man is here and he says and he sighs New American Standard says he sighs deeply.
[25:05] We have some parallel passages but it doesn't say sigh. So when you read it you read it in Romans 8 verses 23 and following and then you read it in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verses 2 and 4 but the word is not translated sigh there.
[25:19] The word is translated groan. You go oh so he's groaning but now wait a minute let's put it in context because it says in Romans 8 23 that because we have received the fruit of the spirit we groan until the day of adoption which by the way go read Romans 8 22 and 23 you don't have to do it right now but if you read 8 22 you will see that it says that all of creation groans until the day of redemption and in verse 23 it says and since we have received the first fruits of the spirit we groan until the day of adoption you say oh so we're doing the same thing that all of creation is doing no two different words there the English language just cannot keep up with the Greek and it means in the first verse in verse 22 you didn't know it was going to get so technical this morning but that's okay in verse 22 it just means that all of creation has come together and they've been pressed together and they're being funneled together and creation is hurting and moaning and groaning until man's redemption that's what it means it's the word imagery to be pressed together the second verse means something totally different in 23 of the 8th chapter of Romans it says since we have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit that is since we have received the Holy Spirit when we were saved and redeemed we know that glory is better than what we have now and since we know that something better is waiting we're not being pressed together we're wanting to push out of this burden of sin right we're not being pressed and confined we're going oh I want it oh I long for it oh I can't wait
[26:51] I mean I hope that the first fruits of the Spirit you have been giving when you were saved gets you to groan until the day of redemption friend listen I can't wait until I'm fully free from this bondage called slavery and sin I cannot wait until I am perfect and complete and fully adopted into his family and now I'm completely made new and I stand in the presence of his glory it's not a groaning with remorse it's a groaning with expectation and a groaning with anticipation and something knowing that there's something greater ahead of me and just in case we miss it there Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 in the second and the fourth verse he says in this flesh we groan longing to be clothed with eternity we groan not because we want to be unclothed but we want to be fully clothed it is the groaning of the believer who says it's not supposed to be this way but I know that in Christ one day it's going to get better and I can't wait until it gets better you see the difference it's not groaning because something bad's happening that's what that's what creation is doing it's the groaning of the believer who says oh there's a better day coming there's a day where there's no aches no pains no sorrow no tears there's a day where there's no concerns that I'll see my Savior face to face and I'll be made new that this heart of wickedness will completely be wiped out that I will see him that my faith becomes sight and I will stand in his presence and cast my crown at his feet and worship him for all of eternity it is a longing and friend if you don't have that type of groaning
[28:40] I'm just going to go ahead I don't mean to be harsh here but if you don't have that type of groaning then you don't have the first fruits of the spirit which means you do not have salvific faith because that's what scripture tells us it testifies to the reality that as believers we long for what's going to be not what is we're not trying to make better what's around us because we know that this is all going down but what we're going towards is so much better it doesn't mean that we always feel that way because feelings are subjected to circumstances but that just means that when we're in the spirit and we're content and we're in the presence of Christ that he shows us you know it's not supposed to be this way that's what Christ is doing when he has this young man or this man we don't know if he's young or not this man who is deaf and mute he is sighing until the day of redemption why?
[29:46] because it's not supposed to be this way it is this reality that creation when God created the heavens and the earth because by the way if you were here Wednesday night you understood that it says in the beginning God created in the beginning Elohim which Elohim is a plural form of the word El which means there's a plurality of God there and that Jesus is present at creation for let us make man in our own image that after the creation of man God looked at creation and said it is very good and sin comes in and mars God's very good creation and man made this choice and then things start going very bad and it leads the creator to sigh knowing this isn't how it's supposed to be it is not saying I wish this person wasn't here it is that sin has so marred my creation it was never supposed to be this way and so now when you go to the one who sighs over that and he groans over this reality that it wasn't who better to run to than the creator to let him renew it and restore it he may groan and sigh because it's not supposed to be that way but he alone in his sighing can renew and restore it and make it what it was intended to be this man's ears begin to work and his mouth begins to speak all of a sudden he has been made new why because the one who was sighing in his presence is also the one who understood the hurt of sin in the world third and finally we see not only the humanity of Emmanuel the hurt of sin number three we see the heart of the savior to the man who was marred by sin there is a display of compassion and mercy and grace there's no displeasure there's no disdain there's no leave me alone never once did Christ tell anyone to leave him alone when they came to him with their problems you ever notice that as a matter of fact sometimes he would interject himself in people's messes when he was going through the city of Nain and there's the widow who only son is being carried by the pallbearers
[31:57] Jesus did not have to intervene in that situation but he stopped the funeral procession to raise the son of the widow of Nain he delayed his going to the tomb of Lazarus so that he could get there when it was all messy over and over again Christ makes himself available puts himself in place we have to wonder if the only reason he went to Tyre is because there was a woman of Syrophoenician race who had a daughter who had a demon because we know of nothing else that happened there why would he go to the capitalist other than there's a reality of a man here who is deaf and mute and is bound by Satan we see mercy and compassion and grace being displayed understand this friend when you come with all of your problems and all of your troubles and all of your mess Jesus has time for you he displays that over and over again he will grieve with you over what sin has done to you and that is another place that someone should have said amen because what sin does to us he groans over it but he can change it and transform it he does not say take your mess and go over there rather he says bring your mess to me and let's see what we can do with it we see the heart of the savior who's longing and waiting for people to bring this to him whosoever will but on the other side of that in the 8th chapter verses 11 and 12 we see the pharisees the religious elite those who come to him and test him and we see the other side of his heart here as well now by this time in scripture
[33:29] Jesus has raised the dead healed the sick caused the blind to see the deaf to hear and the lame to walk he has done all of this in this region and the pharisees have seen it he has fed the multitudes he's fed in context by the time the pharisees asked this question he has just fed the 4,000 we see that in the first few verses of the 8th chapter so after doing all of these wondrous deeds these religious elite come to him and say what sign do you give us that you're the savior we see all these miraculous events taking place because what did he tell John the Baptist when John the Baptist had doubts John the Baptist is in prison and John sends his disciples to Jesus now it was John by the way don't ever get down on yourself for having a little bit of doubts what we call a little trial of faith John baptizes Jesus and says I saw the spirit descending upon him like a dove and I heard heaven proclaim this is my son in whom I am well pleased John says there in
[34:30] John chapter 3 John the Baptist says he must increase and I must! some of his disciples because John the Baptist had disciples to ask Jesus are you the expected Messiah why because it's easy when we're out in the open on the mountaintop baptizing people to believe it it's hard when we're in the dungeon cell waiting are beheading and so it's okay he says are you the long expected one and Jesus returns what does he say go back and tell them what you have seen that the deaf hear the blind see the lame walk and the dead are raised to life that is all Old Testament pictures of the coming Messiah so what Jesus tells him is go back and tell him that you have seen Isaiah come true in my life and John the Baptist goes okay that's him why because scripture had testified this is what the Messiah would look like and when they looked at Jesus he saw everything that Isaiah said the Messiah would look like you know who knew Isaiah better than John the Baptist the
[35:30] Pharisees for within the school the Pharisees were also the scribes and the scribes job was to hand copy scripture word for word and surely they would have understood now John the Baptist was an Essene that is he went and isolated himself out in the wilderness and lived with a group of other men much like we would call a monastery life but he studied scripture there he understood he was anointed his anointing of God but those who studied it more would have been the Pharisees and the Pharisees seeing these same things happen everything that Isaiah said would happen said what sign do you show us here's the heart of the Savior he has no time for that because if you won't believe the word then Jesus says you won't believe me when Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus the rich man dies and Lazarus dies as well this by the way is not a parable because parables never contain names I know I'm giving you a lot of information
[36:30] I was excited about this message parables never contain names but this one contains names so evidently he's telling an actual account of a rich man who lived in purple and Lazarus was begging for crumbs and the dogs were licking his sores and there was a day when Lazarus died and was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom which is a picture of heaven and the rich man begs out and says Lazarus please just yes Abraham said just tell somebody let somebody go back and tell my brothers tell them read that and then there's this great line there in that account that Christ says though one come back from the dead they would not believe him if they will not accept the scriptures and the prophets Jesus says in that account you won't believe me even if I come back to life because you won't believe what the word of God has already declared and again he's not making a show he sighs deeply within himself that is not disdain but it is a brokenness to the reality that they do not want to see friend if you see all that
[37:41] Christ is doing and you see what the scripture testifies to him but you do not want to see him as he is presented clearly in scripture then that too breaks the heart of the savior but notice he does nothing there you come in your brokenness and you say I have a mess and Lord only you can fix it and you come before him he'll take you in compassion and mercy will be displayed you'll be restored and renewed if you see him as he is clearly declared in scripture living it out for his glory and honor and you say well I still have to prove it to me I don't know there's nothing intellectually I can approve to you there's nothing I can persuade you to at that point Christ does nothing he says no sign will be given why because it is the word of God that testifies to who he is so when we see the sigh of the savior we see the humanity of Emmanuel we see the hurt that sin has caused but we also see!
[38:32] the! of I thank you for your faithfulness and goodness towards us we thank you that you have allowed us to gather together we pray as we have read your word and seen your word that we would be now admonished and challenged by it Lord help us to come before you with confidence that you are a waiting and welcoming savior Lord help us to come before you with the assurance that you are who the word of God declares that you are Lord may our groaning be your groaning and may it be for the glory of the king we ask it on Christ's name amen