Sermon Tone Analysis

PASTORAL PRAYER

Praise for the ACP numbers and debt reduction this year.

Prayers for healing: Donny and others.

Prayers for our country.

Facebook Politics, food, family, hurt and sorrow.

INTRODUCTION

Thank you all for being here today.

I am glad you are all here today.

If you are just joining us or have missed a couple of weeks we are exploring the book of Mark.

So far Mark has been setting the stage for Jesus’ ministry.

We have learned about the ministry of John the Baptist as he prepared the way for Jesus.

Then we looked at the baptism of Jesus and how it was a coronation of the King to announce Jesus.

We saw this wonderful scene where Jesus came up out of the water He saw the heavens torn open and the Spirit descended on him and God spoke “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”

After that, Jesus was then taken into the wilderness and tempted for 40 days by Satan.

Then Jesus went to the region of Galilee.

Where he proclaimed his message of

While he was in the region of Galilee, He called his first disciples Simon, Andrew, James and John.

This is where we pick up today.

Open your bibles to Mark Chapter 1 verse 21.

We will be covering verses 21-28 this morning.

WORDS OF AUTHORITY

Capernaum was a village of about 1500 people on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

It was home of Jesus and the center of his ministry.

Many of the accounts in the gospels are accounted to be in Capernaum.

Matthew tells us this as well,

When Jesus got to town he went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath.

Synagogues were common in many towns of Jesus’ time.

They are believed to serve many purposes but it was the place where Jews would publically read the scriptures, explain what they mean and how to apply the scripture to their lives.

The written copies of the scriptures would be brought to this place on the Sabbath.

Jesus would routinely teach at the synagogues.

This is the first time he taught in Capernaum.

Jesus came in and read scripture and explained it to them.

This would not have been uncommon.

Visiting Jews would have opportunities to read and teach.

What is unique about this time was the reaction of those that were listening.

“They were astonished” translated as “to be utterly amazed” by his teaching content.

There reaction would not have been based on his charisma or his great teaching voice, it was not his creative use of alliteration, or of theatrics, it was not his fancy slides or his fancy suit or the size of his church or how it made them feel about themselves.

They were astonished because he taught as one who had authority.

He taught with a ruling authority.

Not like the scribes.

The scribes were expert interpreters of the writings.

They were men who were experts in writing, coping and teaching the writings of the Jewish people.

They were respected and looked to as leaders in the Jewish community.

So what was different?

What made his teaching so amazing compared to the religious experts of the day?

Scribes could only quote or reference rabbis or other scholars for their teaching.

Jesus didn’t quote people He spoke directly and quoted bible.

He spoke with a first hand knowledge of them.

He would stand up and make very definitive statements about what scripture ment.

Jesus spoke with such confidence and boldness to the crowd because he is the Word of God.

No person can ever teach the Scriptures the way Jesus did.

There would have been no error, no hesitation, no mixed meanings it would have left the room speech less for a moment.

After he spoke with authority that astonished the them he then proved the power of His Authority.

DEMONSTRATION OF AUTHORITY

After His teaching a man with a unclean spirit cries out.

This would be like someone standing up and screaming at me in the middle of the sermon.

What is this unclean spirit?

There is a lot of speculation and questions around them.

But there are some things we do know.

The scripture says they exist and are also called Demons in the bible.

The word “with” tells us that this person was under the power of this spirit.

This spirit starts screaming at Jesus.

The spirit knows who Jesus is.

It knows where Jesus is from.

It recognizes that Jesus has the power right there to destroy it.

The spirit communicates a certainty that if Jesus decided to destroy it right there He could.

There was no suggestion of fighting back or winning.

The spirit even defined Jesus publicly as the Holy One of God.

Not “a” holy one but the Holy one.

Jesus doesn’t even respond to the spirit other than to rebuke it to be silent and to remove the spirit from the man with just his words.

Jesus proved his ruling authority of His kingdom by driving out this spirit.

It can be easy to be side tracked by the things that are hard to understand.

Like spirits and demons.

Because we have a hard time wrapping our minds around them we can put more emphasis on understanding the demon than focusing on Jesus.

Our Lord and savior, the one we say we serve is so powerful that even the spiritual realm is powerless to fight the command of his word.

This includes the power of Satan.

Jesus willing submitted to the temptations earlier in Mark.

He could have defeated Satan at any moment if it was His will.

This purpose of events like these were to give evidence and to confirm what Jesus was teaching was truth.

They pointed people to God and to reveal who Jesus was.

These signs would continue through the ministry of Jesus and into the ministry of the disciples for the same purpose.

REACTION TO AUTHORITY

Let us look at their reaction.

Again it says they all are amazed.

I can just see a room of people in complete silence and then everyone starts talking at once and asking each other.

Who is this?

What is this teaching?

What did we just see.

Even the unclean spirits obey him.

I can see people running out of the synagogue to tell their friends and family about what just happened.

Because it says at once the news about him spread through then entire vicinity of Galilee.

The people recognized it as a new teaching.

What they had just heard and seen was new to them.

They got excited and curious.

We will see as we continue through Mark that people will start coming to see for themselves what this new and powerful teacher was all about.

To hear this new teaching.

but was it really new?

No it was just truly true.

Jesus is the Word and he taught is clearly and purely.

As we look at the Jews assembled and their reaction, we can ask ourselves some questions: