How's Your Heart?

How’s Your Heart?

Mark 3:1-12

Open your Bible to Mark chapter 3.

The earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus was surrounded by disagreement. Controversy swirled around everything the Lord Jesus did. It seems that everything Jesus did made the religious Jews angry. Everything He said and everything He did was put under the microscope of their judgmental attitude. Their hatred of Jesus eventually resulted in His death on the cross.

Just as a reminder, they’re mad because He forgave a man’s sins; ate a meal with a bunch of tax collectors and sinners; refused to honor their rituals; and because He allowed His disciples to pick and eat grain on the Sabbath. Jesus was refusing to play ball by their rules and they despised Him for it.

Our passage again finds Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath. This visit to the synagogue probably occurred on the same day that Jesus and His men passed through the wheat fields and had their confrontation with the Jews. This passage is a continuation of the same scandal we looked at last week.

The Pharisees have followed Jesus to the synagogue. They’re looking for some way to trap Him, discredit Him and destroy His ministry. In fact, as we’ll see, they’ll stop at nothing to see that happen.

As we study this text, we’ll see three different types of hearts on display. As we move through these verses, I want you to examine your own heart and answer this question: How’s Your Heart?

Maybe you have a heart problem and if you do, you can come to Him and He’ll help you overcome it and have a heart like His. Maybe we’ll encounter ourselves in these verses but more importantly, maybe we’ll encounter Jesus.

Let’s pray, we’ll read our text and see what it has to say for us.

Pray!

Mark 3:1–12 ESV

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

The first thing we see are:

Hard Hearts

The Pharisees have hard hearts and they have a

plan

We’re told there was “a man was there with a withered hand.” It just means that his hand was paralyzed. Christian tradition tells us this man was a stonemason who had injured his hand on the job in an accident. As the story goes, he heard that Jesus was in town and he came to seek healing from the Lord.

Others suggest that he is actually a plant. Some people believe that this man was brought along by the Pharisees in an attempt to trap Jesus.

Maybe they said something like, “So, we hear you can’t use your hand because you hurt it. Whew, that looks like it must hurt an awful lot. Why don’t you come with us down to the synagogue today? Yeah, that guy named Jesus will be there. If you go with us maybe He’ll heal you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, come on. Time’s a-wasting!”

And if they hadn’t planted him, they did spot him in the crowd. Either way, they were watching to see what Jesus would do. They’re still upset over the encounter in the wheat field. They want to get irrefutable evidence that Jesus is a law breaker.

They had a plan but they also had a:

problem

See, Jesus knows what they’re doing. So, he calls the man with injured hand to come forward. And then turns to the Pharisees and asks, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?”

And their response was silence, nothing but crickets. They didn’t have an answer to give. Clearly, it wasn’t good to do harm or kill on any day, much less on the sabbath. The obvious answer was that it was lawful to do good or save a life.

The problem with these men and with people like them today is that could have cared less about the needs of a poor, injured man. All they cared about was their rules and regulations.

And Jesus knows their problem. They suffered from hardness of heart.

The Greek word for “hardness” means to be “covered with a callus.” You know how you can get calluses on your hands from hard work and the skin can almost become as a hard as rock. It’s from that constant rubbing and pressure. That’s the way these men’s hearts were. They were hardened, there hearts were callused and inflexible from continually rejecting the truth.

And when your heart is callused, when its hardened, you will get to the place that you won’t hear the Lord or respond to Him.

They had a plan, a problem and a:

plot

The Pharisees were outraged when Jesus healed this man. They considered this healing to be work when the truth is that all that happened was the man stretched out his hand. Jesus didn’t even touch him, there was no work involved and no violation of the law.

But the truth doesn’t matter to people like the Pharisees. The only thing that mattered was their narrow interpretation of things.

It’s like people today who are narrow-minded. They have their point of view and that’s it. They have one source of news; they only listen to the people that they agree with and then surround themselves with likeminded people.

They have no room in their worldview for other perspectives and really other people. You’re either with me or against me.

The Pharisees left and immediately had a meeting with the Herodians who were the secular Jews with little concern about religious matters. These two groups were bitter enemies who differed on just about every issue but were united by their hate for Jesus. And as the came together, they formed a plot to destroy Jesus, to kill Him.

There is a bit of irony and a lot of hypocrisy in this story. They’re angry because Jesus healed a man on the sabbath but they have absolutely no problem plotting murder on the same day.

Their hearts are hard. And that callus around their hearts led them to be calloused toward God and men. They were in a dangerous place.

If you’ve never accepted Jesus, there is a danger that your heart might become hardened against the gospel. Every time that you say no to God, your heart becomes harder and more callused. And after a while, the gospel won’t speak to your heart.

If He’s calling, you need to come while you hear His voice, while your heart is tender and while you still can. The more times you say no to something, the easier it gets to keep on saying no to it. But when we say no to God, we’re headed for trouble.

And you need to understand that even if you’re saved, your heart can become hardened. You can get to the place where you refuse to listen to Him and be obedient to Him. Your heart can become callused and unfeeling.

A callus is really just scar tissue. Scar tissue is insensitive to feeling. When a heart becomes callused, it loses its sensitivity to the Lord.

We can’t ever let ourselves get to the place where we lose our compassion for those who need Christ. It’s so easy to become like the Pharisees in our thinking. Far too many Christians get to the place where they’re happy just the way things are. They forget that there was time when they needed a Savior. They forget all the people around them who still need a Savior.

We can’t let our hearts become so callused that that they don’t ached for the lost in the world.

We’ve seen the hard hearts of the Pharisees. Next let’s look at the holy heart of the Savior.

Holy Heart

The holy heart of Christ stands out in striking contrast to the hard hearts of the Pharisees. Let’s look at His heart in action. The first thing we see is:

His command

Jesus knows what they’re up to. He knows it’s a trap. They think they have the upper hand in this situation. But Jesus also knows that this man needs healing.

So, He motions the man forward and says, “Come here.” He’s calling him to come and stand before the crowd. What He is about to do will not be done in a corner or in isolation. He wants everyone to see the power of God at work.

Just a little side note, that is His intention in our lives. He wants to use your life to display the glory and power of God to the world. If you’re saved, He wants to use your life as an advertisement to the world that shows He has the power to change lives and make lost people into new creations. He wants you to show a lost a broken world what he can do through Jesus!

There is His command and:

His confrontation

He can’t help but to confront the obvious hypocrisy of the Pharisees by asking them two straightforward questions.

“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?”

It’s almost like He is telling them, “Bad things happen and people die every single day. If evil and death don’t take a day off, why should goodness and life cease on the sabbath? Your rules and regulations don’t make any sense.”

William Barclay gives us some insight into the mindset of the Jews regarding medical treatment on the Sabbath.

“Medical attention could be given only if a life was in danger. To take some examples—a woman in childbirth might be helped on the Sabbath; an infection of the throat might be treated; if a wall fell on anyone, enough might be cleared away to see whether he was dead or alive; if he was alive he might be helped, if he was dead the body must be left until the next day.

A fracture could not be attended to. Cold water might not be poured on a sprained hand or foot. A cut finger might be bandaged with a plain bandage but not with ointment. That is to say, at the most an injury could be kept from getting worse; it must not be made better.”

The man Jesus is facing would have been no worse off if He waited until the next day for healing. But for Jesus, this was an opportunity to address the hypocrisy of their belief system.

And just maybe, Jesus called this man to the front of the class was an effort to try and awaken sympathy, to soften the hard hearts of the Pharisees. He tried to touch their hearts and failed.

We’ve seen His command, His confrontation and next

His consternation

When they refused to answer His question, Jesus got angry. This is actually the only explicit reference to His anger in the gospels. He may have been angry when he cleared the temple but it doesn’t actually say it.

So, what was it that made Jesus so angry?

First, He’s angry because their hearts are hard. They keep on refusing to acknowledge the power and presence of God. Second, He’s angry because they have more concern about a bunch of manmade rules than they do for a man who needs help.

We’re also told that He was grieved. Their attitude toward another human being broke His heart.

I think it still breaks His heart when people have no concern for others even if they’re different than we are. I think it breaks His heart when we have an inward focus as a church or even as a country, when we have more of let’s take care of us before we take care of them.

It’s not Christians first. It’s not America first. It’s people first. People made in the image of God regardless of their sex, their race or even their beliefs. All people matter because all people need Christ. Every single person on this planet needs a Savior.

And if you’re not okay with that, if you think you’re more important, if you think that somebody needs to come first and it isn’t the lost, the downtrodden and the hurting of the world, maybe your heart is hard just like the Pharisees.

We see His consternation, His dismay, but we also see

His compassion

Despite their attempt to trap Him, despite their hard hearts, Jesus tells the man to stretch out his hand. And when he did it, it was healed! Even though Jesus was angry at their hypocrisy, He still had compassion on the man with a withered hand.

Jesus didn’t come into the world to have religious debates about manmade rules and regulations. He came into the world to show compassion to those who needed help. This poor man could not solve his problem but Jesus could. And He did!

I was in the same condition. I didn’t have a withered hand but I did have a withered soul. I was dead towards God and spiritually paralyzed. Jesus had compassion on me and brought healing and life into my soul. He loved me when I was unlovable. He was willing to save me in spite of my condition.

Don’t let a bunch or religious hypocrites keep you from coming to Jesus. He loves you in spite of what people do or say.

We’ve seen the hard hearts of the Pharisees, the holy heart of Christ and finally the hopeful hearts of the needy.

Hopeful Hearts

Jesus has officially been rejected by the religious leaders but there is great crowd of people who see the answers to their prayers and the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams in Him. Let’s look at their hearts. First:

What they saw

The people saw what He had done for others and believed, by faith, that He could do the same for them. When the Pharisees looked at Jesus, they saw a rebel, someone trying to undermine their authority and position and take away their power. But when the crowds looked at Jesus, they saw a healer, a Savior and the Messiah. They saw all the promises and plans of God fulfilled in Him.

What they sought

The crowds pressed around Him because they too wanted to experience His healing power. They wanted that power unleashed in their lives. What they were really seeking was the life-changing power of Christ. They had seen how other lives had been changed and they wanted it for themselves.

What they said

The Pharisees were plotting to kill Jesus and the common people were spreading the word about Him. People all across the nation of Israel were talking about this man from Galilee and what He could do. Even the unclean spirits were talking about Him.

The poor, uneducated, common people and even demons had more sense than the religious leaders of the day. The religious leaders saw Jesus as a threat to be taken out and the average person saw Jesus as someone who offered hope.

What do you need in your life today?

Do you need salvation? Do you need forgiveness? Do you need a fresh start? Do you need to have your sins washed away? Do you need help? What do you need?

What do you see when you look at Jesus?

Do you some guy who got Himself crucified on a cross? Do you see a strange man who preached about loving not just your neighbor but your enemy? Some guy who said we should turn the other cheek?

Or do you see the Savior? Do you see a Man who died for your sins and is calling you to come to Him so that He can share your burden? Do you see Jesus as the only hope and help in the world today?

The Pharisees couldn’t see their own need so they found no help. They couldn’t understand that Jesus truly was the Messiah and that He could have changed their lives that day if they had only come to Him.

What about you?

Is your heart needy? Are you ready to come to Jesus and get the help you need? Don’t wait any longer. Come to Him allow Him to change your life forever!

A. W. Tozer used to tell the story of the governor of a mid-western state who disguised himself and went into prison for a day to learn of the conditions. While speaking with a likable young convict, he felt a strong desire to pardon him.

“What would you do”, he asked casually, “if the governor were to offer you a pardon?”

The convict said, “The first thing I’d do is cut the throat of the judge who sent me here.”

The governor was saddened as he broke off the conversation and left. That convict stayed in his cell.

What was his problem? He had been convicted, but he had allowed his heart to become hard. He could not be helped because of a hard heart.

What is the Lord telling you today? Is He calling you to come to Jesus Christ to be saved? Then come and do not harden your heart.

Is He calling you to repent of some sin and to turn back to Jesus? Then come and do not harden your heart.

Is He calling you to be more like Jesus in your compassion toward the lost and needy? Then come and do not harden your heart.

Whatever it is that He’s calling you to do, come and do it. Hardening your heart against the call of God is a serious matter.

You’ll eventually reach a place where you no longer can hear Him calling.

You’ll reach a place where He’ll abandon you to your decision.

You’ll reach a place where He’ll will allow you to go your own way.

Is He calling? Listen to His voice and do whatever it is that He is calling you to do. Do it today. Do it now.