The Cosmic Authority of Christ (Mark 3:7-12)

Introduction

Jesus had left Capernaum and headed in the direction to the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

But our text this morning tells us that He didn’t go alone. He went with His disciples and a great crowd followed Him.

Jesus had been working many miracles in His early Galilean ministry and news of Him and His ministry had spread to the point that His popularity had gone beyond just the regions of Galilee. Look at the popularity of Jesus in verses 7-10 of our text:

I. The Popularity of Jesus (7-10).

A. Now there are 2 observations we want to make about the popularity of Jesus in this section.

First we want to take notice notice that His popularity had reached beyond the region of Galilee.

They came from Galilee and Judea but they also came from Jerusalem and Idumea (120 miles to the South) and from beyond the Jordan, as far as Tyre and Sidon which would have been about 50 miles to the North.

So people were coming from over a hundred miles away. But don’t think of it as being just a measly 2 hour drive in an automobile. It would have taken them many days to make such a trip using the primitive means of their day.

And it is certainly worth pointing out that Idumea was at the time a mixed community of Jew and Gentile but Tyre and Sidon were largely Gentile communities.

This is telling us about how Jesus ministry is fulfilling the Messianic prophesies from Isaiah that make reference to Gentile regions in Isaiah 9 and Isaiah 49. This reminds us that the Kingdom of God goes beyond the ethnic identity of the Jewish people.

Second we want to take notice of the motivation of the people. The people had heard about the miracle working power on display in the ministry of Jesus and those who were sick wanted to touch Him.

This is why Jesus told His disciples to get a boat ready so that He wouldn’t be crushed by the crowd. The people were largely driven by their physical need for healing. This is why they traveled such far distances and were pressing in around Him so tightly.

It doesn’t seem to be His identity that made Him popular near as much as what He was doing in alleviating sickness and suffering. They were fine with their need for healing to define His identity for them.

This is still popular today when it comes to the identity of Jesus. Many still define Jesus in His identity in regards to how He fits with one’s personal need that they believe that Jesus can meet.

When we do this we are actually asserting our own preferences of perceived need into the identity of Messiah. This can be hard not to do because we tend to measure the relevancy of something based on how it effects us experientially.

When we are motivated by the perceived needs of what we experience in the temporal in the world. This can make the eternal aspects of the Christian faith seem irrelevant at least for the moment.

Christian there is little doubt that the Kingdom of God and the gospel has an application to our desire for our physical needs in the world. But that is only a piece of the pie and not the whole pie of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

There is a missing component to our Christianity if we only focus on the felt needs of our individual experience in life. And that component is in the area of our understanding of the preeminence of Jesus Christ. Look back to verses 11-12 in our text:

II. The Preeminence of Jesus (11-12). (His Supremacy)

And the great irony is that the demons or unclean spirits as they are called here had a better understanding of this than the people did. Theologian James R. Edwards in his work on Marks gospel states the contrast and comparison this way: “The crowds may fall upon Jesus, but the evil spirits fall before Him.”

The point is that the demons understood the identity of Jesus from the perspective of who He actually was as the “Son of God” and not from the perspective of what He was doing in the exercise of His working of miracles. They fall before Him in utter terror and reverence because they know who He is. James 2:19: “19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

Christian if Jesus Christ doesn’t ever work a miracle for you He is still worthy of your worship simply because of who He is in His preeminence. If this is not true you are the one who attributes worth and value to Christ based upon your own subjective perception.

The preeminence of Jesus Christ is directly tied to His identity as the second person of the Godhead. We may attribute that to Him in worship but His value and worth does not depend on us. It is fully tied to His identity as the eternal Son of God and His eternal place in the Godhead.

His greatness and glory is not dependent on human beings and their ascribing value and worth to Him. When we do this in worship we are merely declaring and acknowledging what is most absolutely and irrevocably true about Christ.

Sometimes you may hear people say about the Bible: “God said it, I believe it and that settles it.” Though I know why someone may make such a declaration about their pragmatic and experiential faith; the truth actually is, “God said it, and that settles it” and it makes no difference whether you believe it or not. The Bible is not dependent upon your belief for to be true. It is true because it is the word of God.

If you don’t hold to the supremacy of Scripture as the word of God, you will always be tossed on a sea of moral relevancy taking on the belief system of a fallen world. This is a worldview that is being derived from this world system under the influence of the evil one instead of what God has revealed (consensus of the whole).

So it may be easier for us to understand when it comes to the Bible but the same is true about the identity of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is really the Son of God then He is preeminent and if He is then there is nothing more supreme than He is in our relationship to the Godhead.

If these things are true it would mean that we live the Christian faith out through the context of Christ and His identity as the eternal Son of God. I believe this is why the Apostle Paul comes to the conclusion that He does in Romans 11:36 “36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Again the Apostle Paul states in Colossians 1:15–20 “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

That would mean Christian that living by faith is living through our Christology. This is why theology is not optional for the Christian life. Even if we want to just be happy and experience real joy in the world we must be living our faith through Christology.

Example of glasses that cause color-blinded people to see color.

Christian the truth is, the greatest challenge to this is living through my own sense of felt needs and letting that govern my Christianity instead of my Christology. I try to make my sense of what my greatest need is govern my Christian faith. And what I most often believe to be my greatest need is usually determined by what it is that is causing me the most discomfort in my life.

Christian our greatest need is to be reconciled to God in right relationship through Jesus Christ. That is what God says our greatest need is and that is what Christ came into the world to do on the Cross. The gospel is foundational to the Kingdom and our place inside of it.

If you do not know Christ as your Lord and savior you have no greater need than to know Him by grace through faith alone for your salvation. Unbeliever, believe the gospel.

Conclusion:

Christian this sermon is not a sermon about how we focus on Christology in our faith and be in self denial about our felt needs as if God doesn’t care about our pain or our sickness or our trials.

That would be an utter denial of this text. But what we see here is a contrast set up to make the point of the preeminence of Christ but what is it that we see this Preeminent Christ doing? Ministering to the needs of the people and in doing so He is showing us the heart of God at the very basic level of human relationship.

You see when you know His identity, you know He is sovereign and at the same time He is good to His people. When life happens and the felt needs of trial hit us the Christian is caught in the tension between God’s sovereignty and His goodness and you can’t negate one for the other.

Kind of like trying to step from the dock to the boat and the boat moves out a little and you got one foot on the dock and the other on the boat and you don’t perceive that you have enough stability to move one way or another.

And at that moment you feel so vulnerable to getting wet. When we are in the tension with one foot on sovereignty and the other on the goodness of God, it is our faith in the stability of the dock and the boat and the anchor that holds it that confronts the the fear of getting wet.

How do we know we can trust a God like that? Because the Lord Jesus didn’t send the people away. They may not have had their theology right but He still had mercy on them in His grace He still healed many of them.

Christian your sin today is in contradiction to your Christology and yet He calls you to Himself in light of His love, mercy and grace to you. It is He who began the good work in you and He will be faithful to complete it. His grace to you is not dependent upon you performance but upon His. His covenant goodness and sovereign rule is what keeps the dock and the boat steady in the tension of the trial.

Come to Him and find your rest and your security on His covenant grace. That is what this table is all about Christian.

Call to examine our hearts. Confess your sin. Let’s Pray! Everyone together and all baptized Christians are welcome.