Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

It is always a privilege to be able to serve you and to share the Word of God with you.

If you have your Bibles would you turn in them with me to Mark 1, Mark 1.

You can also open the Bible up on a smartphone or it will be displayed up on the screen in just a few minutes.

I’m also pleased to announce that we are now streaming our service live so if you are joining us via the internet a hearty welcome to you as well.

So now if you’re traveling or the weather turns very poor and you don’t feel comfortable driving to church you can stay current with us as we go through the Word of God.

Well the weather has been changing and it seems all too apparent that we may be in for a very interesting winter.

Talking to Debbie Wuthrich in the office this week she blamed me for this weather - but I promise you it’s not my fault.

Along with the heavy amounts of snow that we are possibly looking at it also has the potential to be a record flu season.

In a New York Times article published on October 4 Australia just had a record flu season and the U.S. tends to follow suit so we could be in for it this year as well.

All that being said - if you haven’t gotten your flu vaccine go and get it.

It’s also the start of the political season as we see the candidates for the Presidency starting to make noise around the country.

One key issue that we’re bound to hear a lot about in the next few months is the issue of health care.

In fact health care is a major issue in our nation that even had the potential to hit your pocketbooks if you didn’t have health care as there are tax penalties for those who don’t have coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Now again before you start checking your programs or wondering if I’ve been body snatched - yes this is Dishman Baptist Church and yes I’m still me.

I mention all of that because today’s message is all about Christ’s sovereignty over our health.

Kyle did a wonderful job last week of demonstrating for us how Mark describes Christ’s authority as He came as One teaching with an authority that no one else had ever taught with.

Mark has introduced us to the Christ, through John the Baptist he has prepared the way for the Christ, he has shown Christ’s coronation and temptation, we’ve heard Christ’s initial Gospel proclamation and seen His authority to call men to Him and His authority over the spiritual realm.

Mark’s Gospel is primarily about demonstrating Christ as Isaiah’s Servant found in the chapters of Isaiah in Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50 and the most well known in Isaiah 53.

But he has started off demonstrating for us that Christ is the promised King and establishing His authority over various realms in the physical world.

This morning we’re going to see another aspect of Christ’s authority - as I’ve already mentioned His sovereignty over health - through His first demonstration of service.

With all of that in mind let’s look now at Mark 1:29-34.

There is no more concerning and no more fragile part of our lives than our health.

In 2017 Americans spent more than 3.5 trillion dollars on health care amounting to more than 17% of our Gross National Product.

To make that large number more digestible that is just over $10,000 a person.

And projections say that that number will rise over the next few years until health care spending accounts for 20% of our Gross National Product.

Now this is not a polemic against the evil health care industry - instead I am making the case that our health is a big deal.

You can lose just about anything else in your life and recover - Satan even makes that case with regards to Job in Job 2 when he says that “man will give up everything he owns in exchange for his life”.

In essence he is saying to God if you take away Job’s health he will curse you to your face.

And frankly there is some validity to that - we cannot live without health.

Now we should certainly follow Job’s example and not curse God to His face - more just understand that our health is a pretty important issue.

God understands that and He routinely demonstrates His sovereignty in the area of our health.

We’re going to see a poignant example of this today as we move through our passage.

We’re going to see three characteristics of Christ’s sovereignty over our health and really of His healing ministry.

We’re going to see that Christ’s healing is total, Christ’s healing is comprehensive and finally we’ll see that Christ’s healing is in His timing.

Christ’s Healing is Total

Our story picks up where Mark left off last week.

Jesus and His disciples have been attending the Synagogue in Capernaum.

Jesus was asked to speak and spoke with such authority that the people were completely amazed.

He was also accosted by a demon possessed man in the service and He cast out the demon.

An interesting point that we should note regarding that event and the subsequent healing we are about to look at is that there is no uproar or outrage at the fact that Christ heals someone on the Sabbath as we will find later in Mark in chapters 2 and 3. Here, the events take place and no one raises a note of protest.

It could be that Christ’s words were so powerful that the fact that a healing or exorcism took place was missed in their daze at the power of His words.

In 1856 Abraham Lincoln gave a speech was one of his greatest ever according to witnesses.

The problem is that we’ll never know because it wasn’t recorded for us.

As the historian Shelby Foote writes “he caught fire and made what may have been the greatest speech of his career, though no one would ever really know, since the heat of his words seemed to burn them from men’s memory, ...even the shorthand reporters sat enthralled, forgetting to use their pencils.”

Lincoln’s words were nothing compared to the power of the words Christ spoke when He taught and they also enthralled men in such at way that, at least at this point in His ministry it seems, they overlooked the healing that took place.

Mark tells us that Jesus and His disciples left the synagogue and went to Peter’s house.

Just like our modern church, the Synagogue services were held in the morning and so they would have been heading to Peter’s house right around noon.

This was before the days of Cracker Barrel and Chick-fil-a didn’t open on the Sabbath even during the first century so they would normally gather following the morning’s service for lunch.

Archaeologists have unearthed a dwelling not far from the Synagogue in Capernaum that is reputed to be Peter’s home.

It wasn’t a modest dwelling.

It was part of what’s known as an “insula” complex.

A modern day equivalent would be an apartment complex where there were several homes that share a common courtyard.

The dwelling that is pictured is the location that is purported to be Peter’s home.

On the walls there is sacred and devotional graffiti in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Aramaic pointing to the location being used as a gathering place for Christians or possibly a church.

John’s Gospel tells us that Peter and Andrew originally came from Bethsaida.

As you can see from these maps, Bethsaida is believed to have sat far back from the shore while Capernaum sat right on the sea and would have been more advantageous for someone who made their living off of the fishing industry.

There was also a small Roman garrison there and so there would be need for food to feed them opening up business opportunities in Capernaum that may not have existed in Bethsaida.

Whatever the reason for the move from Bethsaida to Capernaum is really immaterial.

What is important for our study today is that Peter did in fact have a home in Capernaum close to the Synagogue.

The scene when they arrived may not have been what they expected.

Or it could have been exactly what they expected.

Peter’s mother-in-law was bedridden with a fever.

In the first century most sicknesses or infirmities were attributed to the person being under judgement by God for having sinned in some hidden way and their sickness is indicative of that hidden sin.

There are several instances in the Old Testament that would seem to support this supposition.

In Exodus when Miriam and Aaron grumble against Moses, Miriam is struck with leprosy.

As a result of David’s adultery with Bathsheba their first child was struck with a sickness and died.

There are also promises in the Old Testament that seem to link sickness to divine judgement.

and then Moses repeats this promise in his final message to the nation.

And then later in the same chapter

In later rabbinic literature on rabbi pronounced this regarding the healing of a sick person: Greater is the miracle wrought for the sick than for Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (also known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego).

For that of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah is concerning a fire kindled by man, which all can extinguish; whilst that of a sick person is in connection with a heavenly fire, and who can extinguish that?

In other words the fire that encompassed and threatened Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was external and could be extinguished by man, but the fire of a fever or sickness is internal and can only be extinguished by God or one who is God.

In reality all sickness is attributable to sin or rather the presence of sin in the world as a result of the fall.

And so the disciples and Jesus come to Peter’s house to find his mother-in-law in bed with a fever.

I remember a few years ago in 2014 just after we had come back from Japan my family was hit by the worst flu illness we’d ever had.

The kids managed to fight it off first and so Bekah and I slept on the couches that we had at the time.

Each of us were extremely weak and feverish but we still had to parent and so we would take turns attempting to do what we could to keep our kids alive for those couple of days until we recovered.

And it was the longest three days of our lives.

A fever can just completely wipe you out and that is what was happening to Peter’s mother-in-law here.

Having seen how Jesus handled the demon in the synagogue, the disciples - most likely Peter alone - thought that of course He could handle a simple fever and so they told Him about her immediately.

Jesus in His compassion for the family went in, took her by the hand and raised her up.

And she immediately began to serve them.

This is the shortest healing miracle recorded in Scripture but it has much to teach us regarding Jesus and His healing ability.

The first is that His healing is immediate.

Even with our modern medicines of tylenol and motrin which bring down fevers there is still a period of recovery for the person afflicted with sickness.

There is no such time period here.

Mark tells us that his mother-in-law got up and immediately began to serve them.

Some have unfortunately taken this passage and used it to emphasize a subservient position for women which is taking the text out of context and too far.

Instead what this passage teaches us is that when Christ heals there is no question and it is immediate.

This is a distinct factor that is missing from many of the modern day faith healings that are touted around the internet and among some of the more liberal and extreme factions of the charismatic movement.

Now before I go any further - there are solid believers among the charismatic movement with whom we share many of the same doctrines and beliefs but with differences on tertiary or secondary issues with regards to the Christian life.

But there are many in the charismatic movement who have gone so far beyond Scripture as to only be able to be referred to as wolves and those who are perverting the faith.

In 2010 I travelled to Dallas Texas for a conference called the Psalm 119 Conference.

Providentially, the night before the conference opened Benny Hinn the popular televangelist and healer was holding a meeting in Dallas so a friend of mine and I went.

We got inside and sat in sadness as he whipped the crowd into a frenzy with music and lights and repeated appeals and then the people came up on stage to be “slayed in the Spirit”.

I’ll never forget one of the women who made it up on stage.

She was on one of those motorized scooters and she was ushered onstage by a couple of men and then they helped her up so she could stand supported.

Benny strutted around stage and then asked her if she wanted to be healed.