Jesus is Our Example

Good morning

Praise for Friday night success!!

I have a joke for you.

Where do pirates buy hooks? The second hand store!!

Today we are going to be in Mark 3:1-6. Last week we looked at Jesus and the Sabbath. We saw that the Sabbath day was made for man. It was a gift from God to us. We learned that the Sabbath is a day of rest, reflection, and worship. It is a day for us to focus on God and get recharged for the coming week. We saw that people trump ceremony, ritual, and tradition. The Sabbath was never meant to be a heavy burden. It was meant to help us rest and focus on God.

Today we are going to look at Jesus as our example. We are going to look at what He did so that we can know what we are supposed to do.

Let’s pray

Please stand as we read God’s Word.

Mark 3:1–6 (NASB 2020)

1 He entered a synagogue again; and a man was there whose hand was withered. 2 And they were watching Him closely to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. 3 He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” 4 And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do harm, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent.5 After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.6 The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might put Him to death.

Jesus Went To Church

We can first see that Jesus entered again into the synagogue. Jesus made it a habit to be in the synagogue. He new the importance of it. He went to church. He made church a priority. We also must make church a priority.

Today we work so much, so many hours and days of the week. To many people Sunday is the only day off. It is the only day that they don’t have to work, they want to rest or go do something fun, like go to the lake or stay at home and relax. We chase the American dream, of owing a house and vehicles. Trying to advance as fast and as far as possible in the career. We try to hard to not only keep up with the Jones’, but to one up them. But at what cost do we do these things? We can get so focused on the things around us that we lose site of what is eternal, what really matters.

I work two jobs. I have a 40+ hour a week job and I am pastor here at Liberty. I know what it means to be tired and not want to get out of bed. We are all in trouble if I don’t come to church. But I also know that if I had to chose between my 2 jobs, I would chose Liberty. This work is so much more important than any other job I could have. This is the job that God has called me to. God may not have called you to be a pastor, but He does tell us not to forsake the gathering of believers. God wants us to make church a priority, just like Jesus did. You that are here today, you are following Jesus’ example. You are being faithful children of God.

Next we can see that there was a man with a withered hand. In Luke’s account of this he tells us that it is his right hand that is withered. We are given any other details. We don’t know why his hand is like it is. It could be from birth, an accident at work, or maybe a disease. We don’t know.

The Pharisees are watching Jesus. They wanted to see if He was going to continue to ignore their Sabbath traditions. They wanted to accuse Him of breaking their laws.

Jesus Calls the Lame to Him

Jesus seeing the man, called him to come forward. I can only imagine what was going through the lame mans mind. I can just see him when Jesus called him. He looks at the Pharisees and then to Jesus, then back to the Pharisees and the to Jesus. Most people with a disability do not want to be in the lime light. They do not want to be the center of attention. So, this man was probably very nervous when Jesus called him to come forward. Regardless of his nervousness, he obeyed and came forward.

Jesus calls people to Himself. Now, we obviously don’t call people to ourselves, but we are to call them to Jesus. We are to tell them about Him and all that He has done for them. We are to point them to Him. We should never try to be Jesus to people. When we do that, we fail Jesus and we fail the person we are talking to. We can never be Jesus for them, we can’t save them, only Jesus can do that. We are to point people to the cross and the empty tomb. We are to tell them the Good News of the empty tomb. The only way we can do that is if we call them to a conversation and build a relationship with them. Christianity is all about relationships. Our relationship with Jesus, God, Holy Spirit and each other. There is no church of one. We must call people to Jesus, just like He did and does still today.

Next Mark tells us that Jesus asks the Pharisees a question. “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” Jesus knew He was going to upset them with this question and with what He was going to do, but He did it anyways. The truth always trump feelings. Love always tells the truth. Love doesn’t let someone continue in their sin without telling them the truth. Now that doesn’t mean that we are rude when we tell someone the truth, we tell the truth in love and with compassion. Jesus never thought this is going to make them mad so I will just bite my tongue. No! He always told people the truth, to the point that it cost Him His life. We need to have that same conviction. We need to be so broken when we see someone in their sin, that we are compelled to tell them about it and Jesus. We need to have the eyes of Jesus, to see the people the way He sees them. To love them the way He loves them. It is hard for us to do that, but with the Holy Spirit, we can do it. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. That is one of the most miss quoted verses in the Bible. Jesus doesn’t strengthen us to hit home runs, or score touchdowns, climb the corporate ladder. He strengthens us to do His work. He strengthens us to be able to in love tell people the truth. We need to be like Jesus and not worry about what they are going to think about us. The truth is more important than what they think. We are not called to change people. We are called to love on them and to tell them the truth of the Good News. The rest is up to God.

In verse 5 we see that Jesus was angry with them. This is the only time that the Bible specifically says that Jesus was angry. He was angry with their sin and their love of their rituals and traditions. I can only imagine what the look was that He gave them! He was grieved at their hardness of heart. They were so self righteous that they didn’t care about the person anymore. We can see that there is a difference between studying Jesus and knowing Jesus. They knew the laws and the OT, but they didn’t know Jesus. They were anxiously waiting for their Messiah. He was standing right in front of them and they couldn’t see Him because of their self righteousness. They should have been the first to recognize the Messiah, but they never did know Jesus, they put the one they were looking for to death. It is one thing to study the Bible, but if you don’t know Jesus, it won’t make any since to you. Jesus is the key that unlocks all the mysteries of the Bible. He is the truth. He is the way. He is life. If we don’t know Jesus, nothing else matters.

When Jesus tells the man to stretch out his hand, again he probably looked at the Pharisees and then back to Jesus. He probably was saying in his head, I don’t want to be in the middle of all this, I have gotten used to my hand being like this. What is a couple of more years. He reached out his hand and Jesus healed it. Immediately the Pharisees went out and conspired with the Herodians on how to destroy Jesus. The Pharisees hated the Herodians. The Herodians were a Jewish political party that loved Rome and opposed the Pharisees on nearly every issue. But the old saying a enemy of my enemy is my friend, they united forces in order to destroy Jesus. Church the world already hates us, because they hated Jesus. We should worry about if we offend the world. We must tell the truth in love. We must follow the example that Jesus lived for us. To do that we must so some things first.

We must know Him. To do that we must repent and believe in Him.

We must study about Him. Study the Bible

We must tell the truth no matter the cost. It cost Him His life.

We must love people more than traditions and ceremonies.

Jesus gave us the example, it is up to us if we are going to follow it.

Let’s pray