Offended by the Ordinary
Notes
Transcript
Honor is the Key
Mark 6:1-6
Honor is the Key
Mark 6:1-6
And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Jesus is a King who came to bring His Kingdom to Earth. That is why He taught His disciples to pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus’s desire was to bring the government of heaven into the Earth. Earth was created to operate the same way heaven operates but the Bible tells us that after Adam sinned, the Earth now operates in futility and calls Satan the prince of this world.
So, Jesus came and is called the last Adam. He came to restore the Earth and mankind back into their natural order. He came to restore all that was lost in the garden, and that includes the Kingdom.
He spent most of his preaching time telling people how His Kingdom operates. The problem is, when we try to teach it here in America, the Kingdom of God is so upside down from the way our culture and our government operates, people have a hard time understanding it and taking hold of it.
Culture tells us to take, take, take and hoard up if you want to get ahead. Jesus says, “In my Kingdom, give and it shall be given to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.”
Our culture looks at people who seem to have all the notoriety and fame as the greatest. Jesus says, “In my Kingdom, the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The servant of all shall be the greatest of all.”
Jesus tells Peter and the others, “I am giving you the keys to the Kingdom.” Everything He has been teaching them, all of the parables that He said, “The Kingdom of heaven is like,” are keys. Keys give you access. Keys open doors.
Most of the time when our life seems out of sorts or it seems like we are stuck and cannot seem to get anywhere, it is because we are failing to understand the keys that Jesus has given us that unlocks the door to whatever situation we are in and allows us access to move to the next season.
What are some things missing in most of the church today? Why is it that when Jesus and the apostles walked the earth, miracles, healings, signs, and wonders were an everyday occurence but today they seem rare and even completely absent in most churches? Has God changed? Has His power diminished over the years? Has the Holy Spirit decided, “Nah, I am just not going to do that anymore?”
Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him.
And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands!
Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”
Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Jesus had been traveling around, city to city, and the Bible says He went about healing all those who were sick and oppressed by the devil. Everywhere He went, there were sick people and Jesus healed them all. Matthew 12:15 “But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.”
Can you imagine the hospitals and the doctors of that time? Jesus walked around putting them out of business. And now he is coming home, back to his hometown.
Can you imagine the excitement that He and his disciples would have had going to Jesus’s hometown where he grew up? Surely He had friends and family members he looked forward to seeing and even some who were sick or maybe blind or lame that He would have wanted to heal. We read the Scriptures and we see all of the things Jesus did as a man. It is easy to forget that He was once a young boy who would have had friends and neighbors and family that He would have loved and been excited to go visit.
We know Him as God. The people he grew up with and around knew him as a boy and a teenager, and then a man.
Mark 6:1 “Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him.”
Who are you most concerned about following?? Tik-Tok influencers, YouTubers, Podcasters, even your favorite preachers? Do we spend more time following what our favorite influencers are saying more than what Jesus has to say? Do we follow politics and news more than we follow Jesus?
We would expect a hero’s welcome for Jesus coming home. Surely word has spread about all of the miracles he had done.
He goes into the synagogue to teach, as he does in the other towns, as a guest Rabbi. And they were astonished but not in a good way.
They say, “Where did this MAN get these things?” They are focused so much on the man of Jesus, they cannot receive the God in Jesus.
Who does he think he is? Mark 6:3 “Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.”
They remember Jesus the boy. They saw him build things. They knew him as the carpenter and they knew him as the Son of Mary.
Mary - 15 year old unmarried pregnant girl - It has been 30 years but how many know that a story like that does not die easy in a small town? we get the advantage of knowing the whole story, that Mary was a virgin with a baby conceived through the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine what the people back then thought though?
They knew his brothers and sisters. They knew all of the ordinary and the ordinary offended them so much they could not receive the extraordinary!!!
They refused to honor him as the Son of God because they knew him as the Son of Mary!!! Even His own brothers do not believe He is the Son of God until after the resurrection. The people that knew him the best were the ones that rejected him the most.
Mark 6:4 “But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.””
Matthew 13:44 ““Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
To the people in Nazareth, Jesus was ordinary. He was the carpenter. He was “Joseph’s boy.” He was nothing special. Therefore, they refused to honor Him as the Son of God. All they saw was the field. So they could not receive the treasure.
DO NOT LET JESUS BECOME COMMON TO YOU!!!! DO NOT LET JESUS BECOME ORDINARY!!!!
Old Testament Joseph - hated and rejected by his own brothers. Saw him as “daddy’s favorite, a tattletale, nobody special.” But because Joseph showed honor everywhere he went, when he got to Pharoah’s house, he gained access to everything Pharoah owned. He was placed second in all of Egypt. When his brothers came there and did not recognize him as their brother, they showed him honor as the second in Egypt and he was able to bless them.
Honor is one of the things missing most in our culture, even in the church and we sit and wonder why we do not see miracles, healings, signs, and wonders. Not only do we not honor God like we should, we do not honor people.
Children do not honor parents - “Honor your father and mother so that your days may be long in the earth.” Wonder why we have so many people dying so young?
I would never have dishonored my mother in front of my dad. I have heard kids talk to their moms like dogs.
Students do not honor teachers - People do not honor Law Enforcement - They do not honor people who have served our country - Husbands do not honor their wives - wives do not honor their husbands.
Most marriages end in divorce because spouses become so familiar with each other, they see one another as common and stop honoring each other. Once the honor goes, the marriage falls apart.
A lot of times, people go into marriage thinking they are just getting the treasure. When you get married, you are getting the whole field. If you cannot handle the field, you will never get the treasure.
We do not honor pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets, or apostles anymore. We treat them all like ordinary people.
Pastors are treated like hirelings - We act like we believe God sent them to us to pastor us but then when we get tired of them or they don’t do what we want, we take a vote and fire them. That is not honor. We only honor them as long as they keep doing what we want them to do. and they cannot operate fully in what God has called them to do because of the threat of being fired if we are not happy.
Mark 6:5 “Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.”
Why could Jesus do no mighty work? Had he stopped being the Son of God? Had he somehow lost his power?
This is not inability - It is self-imposed limitation. God will not operate where He is not honored.
Because they only perceived Jesus as Mary’s boy the carpenter, they could not receive from them.
You can only receive from someone at the level you perceive them.
Woman at the well.
“I perceive thou art a prophet.”
“Come and see a man that told me all that I have ever done.”
When we see Jesus as common, we will not receive from Him all that He has for us.
When we perceive people God has placed in our lives as common and fail to honor them, we cannot receive from them all God has for us inside of them.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
You can never receive the treasure if all you see if the vessel. If you can never get past the dirt in the field or the brokenness of the earthen vessel, you will never receive the treasure.
When the people in Nazareth saw Jesus, all they saw was the field. All they saw was the dirt. Since they could never get past the dirt, they could not receive what all the other villages had received.
God likes to hide beauty in dirty stuff. He likes to hide treasure in dirt.
When we look at people, we spend all of our time focusing on the dirt. “I know what they did. I know their family. I remember what they did to me.” When you start to honor people, you will find treasure hidden inside those earthen vessels. Do not let the dirt stop you from receiving the treasure!!!
When you start living a life of honor, you will begin to access things in your life that you never even knew were there from people you never expected to be holding them.
