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[0:00] Let us know. Okay. Take your Bibles. Going into the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6. We're going to be in verses 1 through 6 this morning! And we'll read down to the 6th verse.

[0:34] The Word of God says, Jesus went out from there and came into his hometown, and his disciples followed him. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue.

[0:46] And the many listeners were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? And what is this wisdom given to him? And such miracles as these performed by his hands Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?

[1:07] 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 hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.

[1:20] And he could do no miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he wondered at their unbelief. And he was going around the villages teaching.

[1:34] Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the grand privileged opportunity it is to be able to gather together with one another. Lord, to lift our voices up in song, to fellowship and encourage one another.

[1:47] What a joy it is together with brothers and sisters in Christ. What a joy it is to have a building which we can congregate in to be able to worship to the extent of our voices, to be able to give to you.

[2:04] But Father, what a great and grand privilege it is to read the word of God with one another. So now we pray that we have read it, we have seen it, we pray that you would give us ears to hear it, hearts to accept it, minds to understand it.

[2:20] And as always, we ask that we would have lives to live it out for your glory and honor. Lord Jesus, lead us as we seek to know more of you and we seek to be known more by you.

[2:35] And we ask it all in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. We've been making our way through the gospel according to Mark. We have seen some pretty astounding things.

[2:47] We have seen Christ do some magnificent works. We have seen the lame healed, the sick cured.

[2:58] We've seen him calm the seas. We've even seen the demons come out on multiple occasions. We've seen the dead rise to walk in new life.

[3:08] And now we come to a point in scripture where Jesus, it says, cannot do anything. We come to a point where it seems that he returns home and he is limited.

[3:21] At least that's what the text appears to tell us. Hopefully we will understand it with a little bit more clarity before we leave here. He is limited in what he can do and what he chooses to do.

[3:33] I want you to see this morning the offended crowd. Everywhere Christ went, we have seen a crowd gather around him. We have seen that multitudes have heard him teach.

[3:46] Multitudes have gathered on the seashore. We will see that multitudes continue to gather around him. He will send the 12 out from him and multitudes will be drawn to him and he'll feed the 5,000.

[3:57] We will see that he will have to pull away and separate himself so that they can even have time to eat. During his physical public ministry, multitudes and crowds were always around him.

[4:09] In his teaching, he often veiled his teaching by teaching through parables so that he could give greater explanation to not just the crowds, but to the people that were drawn to him, living life along beside him, his disciples.

[4:22] We have seen that he did not impart the great truth to the multitudes, but rather it was to those who were in relationship with him so that we do not come to learn by just being near Christ or around Christ.

[4:35] We learn and we grow in Christ by living in a relationship with him. On this side of the cross, it is in living in a relationship with him as our Lord and Savior.

[4:47] But now we come to a point that all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke record for us, in which we find the crowd that is offended or the scripture says they take offense at him.

[4:59] And it really is telling and it's astounding because it tells us that it is in his hometown. It is here that we get the saying and Jesus repeated this saying that was even common during his day that a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown.

[5:13] I'll just be 100% transparent with you when I was really praying through what the Lord was leading me to do some 10 years ago. Actually, that prayer started about 13 years ago. I knew for the last three years of the church I pastored prior to here that God was moving me.

[5:28] And so for three years, I was praying where he was going to send me to. And I thought I had some clarity about where he was going to send me. And some of you know that story. And anyway, it began to change different circumstances.

[5:39] And he began to put this church on my heart. And I remember I was repeating back to the Lord, but a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown. I didn't want to come back to my hometown.

[5:50] And you say, well, I thought you were Billy Joe from Belbo. Well, I was, but I grew up here and I was around all the people that are from here. And many of you know a lot about me because of here. And that was a phrase, but he said, but you're not that prophet.

[6:04] You're just a preacher. So anyway, there you go. And I was trying to get out of it and wiggle my way. I said, Lord, I'd rather not. And he would say, well, you're a pastor. You're not a prophet. So there's a big difference, by the way.

[6:14] We can do that later. And he said, that word is not for you. You can't name and claim that one. You can't use that one on me. And he began to humble me and say, you need to obey me no matter where I send you. And I am so thankful that I chose to walk in obedience.

[6:27] But yet we see Christ is repeating this. So it's kind of telling because even in this repetition of this phrase, Jesus refers to himself as the prophet. Now we know that according to the Deuteronomy passage, that he is a prophet according to the likeness of Moses, who came to be greater than Moses.

[6:45] Because Moses declares in Deuteronomy 18 that a prophet would arise from his children that would lead them. And here we find him. But yet we find him when he quotes this among some people who take offense at him.

[6:56] So what does that mean? Or what do we see here? There's some telling things in these short six verses. One of these passages in which Mark does not use the word immediately or straightway or right away.

[7:09] He kind of slows down and shows us just something briefly about Christ. So I want you to notice these things. Number one, I want you to see the life that he lived.

[7:20] Look at the life he lived. Because too often, I think, we understand. You know, we have the hindsight and even the foresight. When we open up scripture, we know who it is we're reading about.

[7:33] We know, at least in our region, living among people who have heard about scripture or people who've told us things over and over again.

[7:44] There was a day and time where biblical literacy in our land was really great, but now biblical illiteracy in our land is running rampant. And so not everybody has this opportunity, but there's some familiarity, right?

[7:55] We live in a land that has X number of Christian music stations. You watch all these things on television. You have all this media and you have access to things, which are great. So we have at least some assumptions about what it is we're reading about.

[8:08] And especially when we come to Christ and we open up scripture, we know we're having eyes to see and ears to hear. We're reading about the Son of God. We're reading about Jesus Christ, the Savior, who is both Lord and Savior.

[8:20] And we ought to read that way. But I think too often, because we have that understanding, we forget how much he laid aside his glory and came and dwelt among mankind.

[8:33] The theme in the Gospel of Mark can be found in Mark chapter 10, verse 45. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark never departs from that theme.

[8:45] The reality that Christ, Jesus Christ, the one who created it all, who's spoken into existence, that all things were created by him, through him, and for him, came to serve.

[9:00] And we notice this even in this passage where we look at the life that he lived. It says, and Jesus went out from there and came into his hometown. Just the reality that Christ would have a hometown confined to a point geographically on earth is astounding.

[9:22] Now, many of you do not have the freedom, if you did, please tell me how you did, to dictate where you came from. I love going to major cities to represent the church.

[9:35] I love it when people ask where the church is. And I love saying that we're in War Trace, Tennessee. And I love that confusing look that people give me. And what do you mean, War Trace, Tennessee? And we have a saying everybody in my family knows.

[9:46] It's about 60 miles south of Nashville. That's what we tell everybody we run into. And then when they get confused, they say, well, I'll take it a little bit further. I'm from Bell Buckle originally. And that's my hometown, right? That's where I originated from. Now War Trace is my hometown.

[9:57] This is where I've chosen to make myself at home. And I love the reality that when I'm in these major metropolitan cities, they have no idea where that's at. This past year at the convention, when we were in Dallas, one of the guys I was talking to, he didn't believe me, so he looked it up on his phone.

[10:12] And he looked at the guy beside him. He said, there is a dot on that map, if you zoom in far enough, that says War Trace. He said, that dot is me. That's where I'm at. And he couldn't believe it.

[10:22] He had no idea. But when we consider this, it says, and Jesus went back to his hometown, which would have been Nazareth. And if we go back and we read the gospel according to Matthew, we would know that Nazareth was chosen intentionally, not by Joseph and Mary, but by the Lord God Almighty.

[10:43] For out of Nazareth I will call my son. He should be called a Nazarite. But we also know the reality that we find in the gospels where it declares, can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

[10:53] So the town in which Jesus was born, a town of derision, not thought highly of, a town rather of insignificance.

[11:05] You go, I would challenge you to go do a study about the town, you can't call it a city, of Nazareth. You'll find a dot where people think that it might have been. You'll find some kind of nation.

[11:16] But it's not really well known for anything at that timetable or anything of significance at that time. But he made it a place of significance because it was his. It was his hometown. And he went there and he confined himself.

[11:28] He humbled himself. He laid aside the weight of his glory and chose to make this his hometown. And he went. And we see a little bit more about this life that he lived because reading the gospels, and rightly so, we focus so much of our attention on the three and a half years of public ministry.

[11:45] We forget about the 30 years that preceded that, the supposedly 30 years, or could have been 30 plus years that preceded that of solitude and quietness, where he grew in favor and wisdom with God and with man.

[12:00] And it was his custom to go into worship in Jerusalem. And then he would go back to Nazareth. And then he would go worship and he would go back. And he would go worship and then he would go back. But what was he doing?

[12:11] This ought to be encouraging to every one of us, by the way. Matthew tells us that when the town folk heard him teach, they say, is this not the son of the carpenter? And this is why we have to be so thankful for the synoptic gospels, for the reality that we have more than one gospel.

[12:26] For Mark tells us that he's not just the son of the carpenter. In the gospel of Mark, it tells us, is this not the carpenter? But the reality is that the majority of his earthly existence was lived as a carpenter.

[12:43] Now, I love that, by the way. Do a word study on that word carpenter. Because it's not just what we would envision. When you think carpenter, there are historians that speak of plows that Christ made.

[12:58] And people were plowing with these plows. I mean, you know, farm tools. He made household instruments. But the word study, if you look at the word, the word that is used is, it is a creator.

[13:13] So, isn't that astounding that the creator lived as a creator? But yet, it was a common occupation. Not one which, I mean, it was a respectable trade, but it was a trade in which you worked and you labored and your hands got dirty and there was dust all over and it took time and meticulousness.

[13:34] And he constructed a multitude of things. Possibly, really, if you read the history of it, when Jesus is teaching this, he is standing in the synagogue when these things happen, right?

[13:47] Possibly, he could have been one of the carpenters that worked on the synagogue. And then he went and talked in the synagogue. Because carpenters also, their trade included the cutting of stones and the furnishings of buildings.

[14:07] And yet, we forget that, that reality. And why is that important? Because to everybody from his hometown, he was just another guy.

[14:19] Is this not the carpenter? Is this not the one that we know as brothers? We know as sisters? So notice the humility of Christ.

[14:35] Because before we can ever be astounded at the position that he holds, we must first stand firm in the reality that he laid that aside to come for us.

[14:56] He lived the majority of his earthly existence confine to the occupation of a common job. Which is good news, by the way, because if you say, well, all I am is this.

[15:12] Do all that you do as unto the glory of the Lord and not unto man. Because Christ himself lived the majority of his earthly life doing that.

[15:22] He's laboring and working among the crowds and among the multitudes and humbling himself and being used of even the Heavenly Father to grow in favor with God and with man.

[15:35] So we need to be reminded of the life that he lived, the life that he lived among them. Even so, they say, is this not the son of Mary?

[15:47] And we say, yes, that's the son of Mary. Absolutely. It is not the son of Joseph. It's the son of Mary. But let's take it in context because when the town folk were saying that, they were not fulfilling scripture by the way they were, just not knowingly and willingly.

[16:00] To say that he is the son of Mary is actually a comment of insult or derision. Joseph was probably dead by this time, but every male was always referred to as the son of his father in Jewish culture.

[16:13] And therefore, to say he's the son of Mary is to be putting him down. And he took that. Because the reality is that he is the son of Mary.

[16:24] He never was the son of Joseph. And we see, just like Isaiah, Isaiah tells us that he had no stately form that men would look upon him and say, oh, there he is.

[16:40] That he was marred beyond recognition. Isaiah speaks of this coming king, and when he speaks of this coming king, Isaiah says, he will look so average that none would take notice.

[16:59] Have you ever stopped to consider what it would take for almighty, holy God to look average? And to live a common life among us?

[17:15] When all of our life, mankind tries to be above average and tries to take notice and tries to garner attention and tries for people to recognize them, here is the creator and sustainer of it all, living a life of common existence.

[17:31] Why? Because he came to serve and not to be served. That's not something that is confined to the cross. It is something that finds its culmination in the cross.

[17:44] His entire life was lived in that manner. So look at the life he lived. Notice, secondly, we see the lies they believed.

[17:56] And this is a lie that if we're not careful that we too will believe, and we say, oh, we would never be that. But look at the lies they believed. It says, when Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. The listeners were astonished.

[18:08] The many listeners were astonished, saying, where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to him, and such miracles as these performed by his hands? Notice the things that are without argument here.

[18:20] The reality that he is speaking with wisdom, and the reality that he is doing some great miraculous deeds. These are things that are not said to be without existence. They acknowledge that the wisdom is present, and the miraculous deeds are there.

[18:35] But the question is, how do we handle that? How do we interpret wisdom and miraculous power? This is where we garner on the edge of the lies that even mankind still to this day struggle with.

[18:45] We must reconcile this, that we're looking at this man who looks to be an average human being. We're looking at the one that we assume is a carpenter, that we know who his mother is, we know who his brothers and his sisters are, and yet he is speaking with wisdom which we do not understand.

[18:59] He is doing things that most carpenters would never be able to do. He is healing the sick. He is causing the lame to walk, and we don't know how to answer this, so we try to justify it in our own mind.

[19:10] The first lie they believe, we almost pass over it because it says, where did this man get these things? The assumption is that he was speaking with wisdom for someone had taught him wisdom, or someone was empowering him to do it.

[19:27] The reason that it's a lie, because you know, when you open up the book of Proverbs, those great short pithy sayings that we like to read over sometimes, we know that the book of Proverbs in the first chapter tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but we also know that in Proverbs chapter 2, it tells us that it is from the Lord God Almighty that you get wisdom.

[19:47] Yahweh, or the Lord, is the giver of wisdom, so wisdom finds its origination in God himself. So understand this, Jesus did not get wisdom from anyone else.

[19:57] Jesus is the wisdom we need. He is the source of wisdom. He was not speaking with the wisdom that was imparted to him.

[20:08] When I stand up before you, it is my job before I stand up to have studied to show myself approved. That is what the scripture says. So it is my job, and it is my obligation to spend the majority of my time in the office studying and seeking to gain and collect wisdom, or what limited wisdom I may be able to, and to look at the passage from an understanding, not of just my own opinions, but looking at historical interpretations of the passage, and to do my work, so that when I stand before you, I hopefully will be able to declare to you some wisdom that I received from my study.

[20:39] It is so different with Christ, for when Christ stood and spoke, he is the source of wisdom, therefore he did not go anywhere else to get it. So when Jesus speaks, he is speaking from within himself, not something that he heard from someone else or something he learned from somewhere else, for he is the source of wisdom.

[20:59] And then we understand this reality. We do not know how he is receiving these deeds and doing this teaching. It says, Is not this the carpenter?

[21:11] In verse 3. Why did they take offense at him? They took offense at him because they thought they knew him. Their familiarity with the individual bred a lack of faith within their hearts.

[21:26] They had become so familiar with him, so numb to his existence among them that they thought they completely understood him. One of the grand dangers within the church, I believe, is that we get familiar with scripture.

[21:44] You say, Oh, you're saying that we don't need to be in tune, that we don't need to know our bowels? That's not what I said. That we get so familiar with it that we quit being astounded by it. That we quit going, and go, There is the word of God.

[22:00] That it becomes common to us. And we remove the power from it, and we think that we know it. No matter what portion of scripture we open up, no matter how many times we've read it, we ought to open up that portion of scripture and say, Yes, here is something new.

[22:17] Perhaps you've heard when D.O. Moody was away, he had extended an invitation to a gentleman. His last name was Morehouse, and this boy was a pickpocket over in London. He came over, and he met Moody one time, and he wrote a letter back and forth to Moody, and D.O. Moody was kind of like your pastor.

[22:32] He was a little bit absent-minded, so sometimes he said things that he didn't really mean. And this Henry Morehouse had said, I would like to preach in your church, and Moody had flippantly said, because this man's in London. He's on the other side of the ocean, right?

[22:43] He said, Well, if you're ever in Chicago, look me up. I'll let you preach. Didn't think anything about it. Several years later, Henry Morehouse shows up, said, Hey, I'm in Chicago, and you told me I could preach. And he said, I don't even know who you are, but he let him preach, and Moody was leaving.

[22:53] And he left town. He had to go on one of his crusades, and he came back, and he had been gone a number of times, and when he came back, his wife said, You've got to come hear this young man that's been preaching. And he said, What do you mean? She said, He's the best preacher I've ever heard.

[23:04] Now, wait a minute. Think about that just a minute. That was D.O. Moody's wife who said that, right? And he said, He's the best preacher I've ever heard. He said, Well, what is he preaching on? She said, He's preached on John 3.16. What else is he preaching on? Every night, he preaches on John 3.16.

[23:15] He opens up the same verse, and he says, This man has to be crazy. Moody said, There's no way this man could preach on that text. And so he decided that night they were having service because they had it every night. He was going to go, and Moody sat on the front row, and Henry Morehouse says, I have a new text I want to preach to you tonight.

[23:30] And Moody said, Yes, I knew it was coming. He said, If you would take your Bibles and open up to the gospel of John, to the third chapter, and the 16th verse, and he preached John 3.16. And Moody's mouth dropped open and said, I can't believe it. And then the next night, he came back and said, I've got a new text I want to preach to you.

[23:43] Would you open up your Bibles to the gospel of John, the third chapter, and the 16th verse. And for night, after night, after night, the man preached on one verse. And for night, after night, after night, it was opened up new. Moody would go back to say that that was the one again, that you would never get the fullness of the text out of one verse.

[24:05] Or one chapter, or one sermon. That the word of God was so rich that you could never plunge through the depths of it. I wonder, if we approach scripture that way, or if we've gotten so familiar with it, that it becomes common to us.

[24:19] Because we put it on stickers, or we put it on our walls, or we put it on our shirts. And we don't say, there's something new. Because you could preach the same text over, and over, and over, and over again.

[24:33] See, one of the great lies that the people of Nazareth believed is they thought they knew Jesus. And one of the great lies that Satan tries to convince us of is that we already know. That we already know.

[24:49] And it is really a telling encounter. we need to be careful of that lie. The danger of familiarity.

[25:03] We see the lies they believed. Third and finally, we look at the limitation of his work. The limitation of his work. Look at what the word of God says.

[25:15] And they took offense at him, it says in the third verse. And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household. Don't fail to remember that even at this time, Mary knew who Christ was, but even his brothers, his half-brothers, did not know.

[25:37] They had no idea. They were still mocking him. So there was no honor. This is one of the most astounding verses that I have found in the New Testament. It's repeated in the Synoptic Gospels.

[25:48] Look at what it says in the fifth chapter. I mean, fifth verse. And he could do no miracle there. And he could do no miracle there. Except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

[26:02] And he wondered at their unbelief. This is only one of two times in which it says that Christ wondered or was amazed. He wondered at their unbelief.

[26:16] He could do no miracle there. How do we limit the work of Christ? Well, it tells us in Matthew that he could do no miracle there because of their lack of faith.

[26:31] But the question begs to be asked, did their lack of faith or their unbelief as it tells us here cause physical limitations upon the ability of Christ to do the work?

[26:44] And the answer to that is no. There is no one that could ever put any physical limitation on his ability. He did not lose the battle at the cross.

[26:57] He gave up his spirit on the cross. No one took his life. He willingly laid it aside. Nothing or no power is greater or stronger or mightier not even your unbelief.

[27:11] Nothing overcomes that. Not even the lack of faith in scripture. We understand that when we read scripture. The unbelief of God's people do not stop the purposes and plans of God. So it's not a physical limitation upon his ability to do the work.

[27:27] The limitation is upon his willingness to do the work. He could do no work there or no miraculously. Why? Because he was not willing to.

[27:40] And the question is why? Because we know there are great needs there. You said except that he laid his hands on a couple sick people, right? Because those are needs of humanity.

[27:51] That is showing compassion and care and concern for the sick that he encountered. But what about all these other deeds that he could do? Why not there? Well because the ministry of Christ was never a ministry of miraculous deeds only.

[28:09] That is he did not show up and say let me do the miraculous among you and that's enough. The miraculous works or the deeds were always in connection to the teaching.

[28:23] Even in the book of Acts based upon what they saw and heard. So that is the deeds were done to validate the teaching which had been proclaimed. The truth which had been declared.

[28:34] And the truth was is that he was the savior of man. That he came. That the kingdom of heaven was among them. And that they stood in need of restoration and salvation. And apart from his teaching the miraculous deeds really have no purpose.

[28:52] He said oh well if I could just see Christ do this or that well if we dismiss him as an individual and we are offended at what he's teaching then we dare not stand in expectation of his work.

[29:05] They took offense at his teaching therefore they were not going to be privy to his works. He would not do any miraculous work among them because they wanted nothing to do with the truth that he was declaring.

[29:19] People say well I just want to see Christ do a great deed in my life and don't we all we want to see the miraculous work and we are drawn to the supernatural and the miraculous but the wonderful thing is is those things cannot be divorced from the teaching of Christ.

[29:34] If we have no affinity for the truth he declares then may we never seek the deeds that he does because the greatest most magnificent miraculous thing that God has ever done is he has declared to us the very word of God that we may know him.

[30:00] He has not hid himself in some corner but rather he has come to us and declared to us what we must do to be saved and to be born again. We can read over and over again in scripture what does the Lord our God require?

[30:15] What does he expect? How can we come before him? These questions that long and are to the very depths of our heart are all found right here in the pages of his word. It is the word of God that speaks truth into our life.

[30:28] It is the word of God not because this book is anything special but it is because the author of this book is special and this contains what he has said to us apart from the very word of God that is in it is still just a leather bound book made filled with pages of paper but yet when you put his word across it is the word of God that is speaking to the heart of man and it is the word of God that we ought to have an affinity for.

[30:52] If we take offense at his word then we will never see his work but when we say oh Lord speak to me may I know what it is you're declaring to me and Lord though I may not understand it and though at times I may think I have it figured out may I humbly sit under your teaching and may you declare the word of God to me and may I receive it as it is and friend I'll tell you that when you sit under the word then you will not fail to see the work because you cannot separate the two.

[31:25] Too often man has tried to separate I just want what he does I don't want who he is and that's an impossibility for he cannot because of his own character do any miraculous deed there because he came to redeem man to all man not just to make them go wow if you want to go wow look at the works he's already done look up into the heavens and say wow or look around and say wow but when we get to know him and he speaks to us then we are removing the hindrance and the limitations of his work it is by obeying his word we say yes Lord you've said it I believe it and I will live it out then we will see the work that he will do in connection to it not apart from it may we not be the offended crowd may we be those who say we may not comprehend it we may not understand it but by faith we're going to accept it would you join with me in prayer

[32:36]  Father we thank you for this day we thank you for your faithfulness and allowing us to gather together and we pray now Lord that you would continue to speak to our hearts and minds we pray that as you draw us however it is you draw us Lord that we would be responsive may it be for your glory and honor may it not be for the recognition of man and Lord may you be glorified through all that we do in the remainder of our service we ask it on Christ's name miracle