A Personal God

Mark 7:31-8:9

One of the greatest desires of God is to have a relationship with you; to know you personally and intimately. That is the story of the bible. It is God’s love letter to you about the redemption of man. It begins with God creating a world that is good and right for man, man rebelling against God and God sending His Son into the world to fix it.

     The story is summed up in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” The story is consummated in Romans 5:8 where Paul says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this; that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

     The bible is a story of a God who loves us and wants what is best for us. It is a story of a God who desires to show grace, forgiveness, mercy and kindness to all people. Love is the very nature and character of God, and He is benevolent toward His entire creation.

     But the bible also teaches us that we can have a deeper relationship with God. We can know Him as our Father, that we can live and abide in Christ and that His life can be seen through us when we walk by His Spirit. That is what we see in our passage this morning. We see a God who has compassion on the world, but He becomes personal with those who seek Him.

              31        Again He went out from the region of Tyre, and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of Decapolis.

            32        They *brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they *implored Him to lay His hand on him.

            33        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;

            34        and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He *said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!”

            35        And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly.

            36        And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it.

            37        They were utterly astonished, saying, “He has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Chapter 8

Four Thousand Fed

            1          In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them,

            2          “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat.

            3          “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.”

            4          And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enoughbread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?”

            5          And He was asking them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.”

            6          And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people.

            7          They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well.

            8          And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.

            9          About four thousand were there; and He sent them away. (Pray)

      I have combined these two stories today because they teach us a great lesson about God. I want to begin with the story of the feeding of the 4000 in chapter 8 Vs.1-9, because this story should sound very familiar to us. I mean didn’t we just read this same story in Mark chapter 6?  Didn’t this same thing already happen? And In fact, it did, Jesus fed 5000 in Mark chapter six and many people confuse these two stories or try make them one event. But, they are two completely different events that teach us a great lesson about God.

     As similar as these two stories are the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000; the difference is in the details. First, the amount of people fed are different. Second, the amount of bread He uses is different. Third, the amount of leftovers picked up by the disciples is different, but probably the most important detail and difference between the stories, is the location. The feeding of the 5000 was in Galilee, and He fed the Jews. The feeding of the 4000 takes place in Decapolis, and He feeds the Gentiles. So, the point that Mark is making is that Jesus is the bread of life to the world. God is the provider for all people both Jew and Gentile.

     And really that is the point of my message today. He is the God of all Creation. There is a general grace of God that goes out to the world. A grace that touches the lives and has an impact on everyone regardless of whether they are a believer or not. The bible says, “God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust.” He is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. If you were to remove the world from God, He would continue to exist within Himself, but if you were to remove God from the world, the world would cease to exist.

     So, there is a general grace of God that goes out to all people everywhere because of His compassion for His creation.  But, there is an intimate, personal love God wants to share with His children. That is what we see in these two stories we have read today. We see God showing compassion through Jesus to the crowd but, becoming very personal to the deaf and mute man. It is the story of the deaf and mute man in Vs. 31-37 of chapter 7 that I want to hone in on today, What we learn is that God has compassion for the world but becomes personal with those who seek Him.

     The first thing I want you to see in this story is:

 the Journey, Vs. 31.

     Jesus is on the move again and we see Him taking this unusual route among the Gentiles. The last time we were studying the Gospel of Mark we were in Vs. 24-30 of chapter 7 and we saw Jesus walk 35 miles to the northwest to the region of Tyre, and leave the country of Israel. And it was there He healed the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter.

Now, He leaves Tyre, and He travels 20 miles further to the north to Sidon, then at least 30 miles to the east through the region of the sea of Galilee, but making sure to avoid Galilee, and He comes to the south to Decapolis. This is an unusual route. It is unusual because He could have just walked back the way He came in the first place, but what we see in Jesus is on a mission to the Gentiles and He is avoiding the Jews altogether. Maybe that is because of the growing tensions between Him and the Jewish leaders, we don’t know. We have to assume that.

     The Decapolis is an area of ten cities. “Deca” means ten, and “polis” is just like saying Minneapolis. These are ten Gentile cities or villages He is ministering too. That is important for us to know because these are not God’s people. These are not the chosen covenant people of God. The Jews are called God’s elect for a reason, because it through the Jews that the Word of God and the promises of God came into the world.

     But Jesus is in the Decapolis among the Gentiles performing miracles and healing those people. This speaks to the fact that He is the God of the world, and He is making salvation available to everyone, by preaching and teaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles.

     There are those today that teach that God has predetermined who will be saved and who will be destroyed, and I don’t find that in the scripture at all. The Bible says, It is not His will that any should perish but that all would come to the knowledge of the truth and that whosever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And what we see in this passage is Jesus going to the Gentiles to make God known to them because He is the Savior of the world.

     But He takes this very unusual route to the Decapolis and what it teaches us is that Jesus was willing to go out of His way to show people the love of God. He was willing to go to a people who were not His people. A people who lived and acted very different than the Jews. That is something we need to learn as a church. We need to be willing to be like Jesus and go out of our way to show people the love of God. We need to be willing to speak to people who don’t act like us or live like us. We need to be willing to go to people outside of the church, so we can minister to them.

     It has always been amazing to me that Christians are so surprised by people who don’t Jesus, acting like people who don’t know Jesus. Paul tells us in 1 Corr. 2:14, “The Natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” In many ways we are just like this deaf and mute man in our story; we cannot hear or speak the things of God until He says, “be open.” God moves on our lives through the power of the gospel and when we respond to Him He makes us alive.

     God has compassion on the world, but He becomes personal with those who seek Him. The next thing I want you to see in this passage is:

II. The Intercession Vs. 32

Vs 32 begins with the word “they.” We don’t know who they are, but we know they are Gentiles, we know they come to Jesus on behalf of the deaf man who couldn’t speak, we know they is plural, so there are more than one of them, and we know in the economy of God that is what makes this powerful. The bible says, where any two or more are gathered together, there He is in their midst. In other words, God’s presence is powerful when God’s children come together in agreement.

     We see this throughout the book of Acts; before the Holy Spirit comes on the day of Pentecost there are 120 of God’s people praying of one accord. When Peter was in prison waiting to be executed, we see God’s people praying for him together in a home and Peters chains fall off and he walks away free. God’s presence is powerful when God’s people come together in agreement with one another. It is a principle common in our homes; when one of our children ask for something it is easy to dismiss it, but when they come to you together, they are more likely to get what they want.

     Now I am not saying God will give us whatever we ask for if we just come together and ask for the same thing. What I am saying is that there is power when we come together and intercede on behalf of one another according to His will.

     Vs. 32 says, “they implored Him.” In other words, they begged Jesus to heal their friend. This is the same word used of the Syrophoenician woman who begged Jesus for her daughter. These people were not going to give up and they were not going to give in, they implored Jesus for their friend.

     I don’t know who the people are in your life that you need to implore Jesus for, but I know if they are that important to you, you shouldn’t give up. You should bring them to the altar. You should bring them to the attention of the church. You should get a hold of the prayer warriors. We should have their names written down on a piece of paper and we should be praying for them together every time we come together as a body. Each and everyone of us have people in our lives that are not saved or need to be healed, yet every Sunday the altars are empty.

     God has compassion on the world, but He becomes personal with those who seek Him. Are you seeking Him today? The next thing I want you to see in this passage is:

III. The personal touch Vs. 33-35.

Jesus gets intimate and personal with a healing touch.

     We have seen Jesus heal people in many different ways. We saw Him heal people from a distance with a word. We saw Him cleanse a leper with a touch. We saw a woman healed when she touched Him. We have saw Jesus heal a lot of people in a lot of ways but, never like this.

     Vs. 33 says “He put His fingers into his ears.” This doesn’t do it justice; The Greek literally reads, “He thrust His fingers into his ears.” Then He spit in His hand and He touched the mans tongue.” (demonstrate)

     Why does Jesus do this? He could have just spoken the word and the man would have been healed. He could of walked over and touched him if that’s what He wanted to do. So, why does He heal him like this? Because He wants to show this man that He cares about him and what he is going through.

     Jesus does four things in this healing I want to show you.. First, He doesn’t want to embarrass the man.  Vs. 33 says, “Jesus took him aside from the crowd.” The last thing you want to do to someone who has any kind of physical impediment is make a spectacle out of them. So, Jesus takes the man aside. He gets him alone showing him He cares about him personally. He does the same thing in our life. He comes into our life and deals with us on a personal level as though we are the only ones who matter at the time of our need.

     The second thing Jesus does is He shows the man He knows exactly what the problem is. Remember this man cannot hear or speak. This man doesn’t know what Jesus is saying or doing. He knows Jesus is going to do something but he doesn’t know what.  So, by putting His fingers in the man’s ears and touching his tongue, Jesus is telling the man, “I know what the problem is.” He was identifying with the man’s suffering.

     The third thing He does is Look up to the heavens and deeply sighs. Again, this man is only visual, he cannot hear or speak. So, Jesus does something he can see. He looks up to the heavens and sighs, so the man knows where the source of his healing comes from. He wants the man to know that God is the source of power. The book of James tells us that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. God is the source of our healing and restoration in life.

     Finally, the last thing Jesus does is speak. The power of this man’s healing and all of the power for healing in the world comes from the spoken Word of God. The same power that said “let there be light and then there was light, speaks power into the life of this man and he is healed.

     Jesus says, “Ephphatha,” (that is be opened). Ephphatha is ancient Aramaic, and it was the language Jesus spoke while in the world. The fact that Mark has to interpret this tells us his audience was not familiar with it. They were Gentiles as well.

     God has compassion on the world, but He is personal with those who seek Him. The last thing I want to show you in this story is:

IV. The amazing Disobedience Vs. 36-37.

     After Jesus heals their friend, He gives them specific instructions not to tell anyone what He has done. What is amazing is the more He tells them not to say anything the more they spread the news. How ironic is it that we are just the opposite? Jesus has told us to go and spread the good news to the world and we keep it to ourselves, and He told these people to keep it to themselves and they told everyone.

     But why would Jesus want to keep it a secret? Paul explains it to us in 1 Cor. 2:7-8, “But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; 8) The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Jesus did not want everyone to know who He was because He wanted to make sure He went to the cross.

     Finally, vs. 37 says, “They were utterly astonished by Him.” This is the same “they’ that brought the deaf and mute man to Jesus and interceded for him. And they were blown away by what they saw and heard Him do. And they spoke highly of Him to one another and said, “He does all things well, for He makes the deaf and the dumb hear and speak.”

     The feeding of the 4000 takes place immediately after the healing of this man and what we learn from this story is God has compassion on the world but He becomes personal with those who seek Him. The question is; is He personal in your life? Or are you one of the masses that feed on His provisions without ever really knowing who He is?

     When I first met Tammy, she was about 19 and she was working at the customer service desk at Meijer, in Woodhaven. It was in 1990 and the Bad Boys were huge at the time and I was a basketball fan. The Pistons were in the middle of winning back to back NBA championships.

      Bill Laimbeer was a superstar on the team and the number one Bad boy; the most hated man in basketball. He was coming to Meijer in Woodhaven one night on a promotional tour and he kept getting lost. So, he would call and Tammy would give him directions. This was obviously before cell phones and google maps. When he got to Meijer, he wanted to meet Tammy and take a picture with her, but she didn’t care. She didn’t know who he was. She told me about it the next day and showed me the picture and I couldn’t believe it. I said, met Bill Laimbeer. She has never mentioned it again.

     I can’t help but think about how that reminds me of this story, and our relationship with God. Bill Laimbeer might have been an important person in the world but he didn’t matter to Tammy because she didn’t know him personally. And the same thing is true about God. He is having an impact on the world around us, but He wants to have an impact on us personally. One of God’s greatest desires is to know you and be known by you. He is a personal God.