Mark 6:1-13
I alluded a few weeks ago to the person that I was before submitting my life completely to Jesus, and the person I am today after Him becoming Lord of my life. I ran into a friend from high school this past week, someone who I would have considered myself close to during those years. We’ve kept up on social media, and she knows that I am now pastoring a young church plant. She visited one of our other friends not too long ago, and she mentioned that she had run into me, to which this other girl’s parents asked, “oh, what is Adam up to these days?” She told them that I was a Pastor, to which they replied, “no way! I’d have to see it with my own eyes to believe it.” The reason they responded this way is because they knew me back then, and when we know someone well, and time goes by, we still tend to think of that person as who we KNEW them to be.
In this morning’s passage, we see a tragic story of unbelief in which the people who knew Jesus best, rejected the idea that He might be something more than a humble carpenter from a tiny town of no significance.
Read Mark 6:1-6
Title: The Dangers of Unbelief
1.. Familiarity Breeds Contempt (1-6)
It’s important to note right up front here that this isn’t the first time that Jesus has been to Nazareth after He started His ministry tour. During His first visit, He opened the scroll of Isaiah and read a few verses, the listeners marveled, and said to each other, “is this not Joseph’s son?” Notice the difference there. But after a brief explanation, the people were filled with wrath, and tried to throw Jesus off of a cliff.
Here we are, round 2. They had certainly heard of the miracles that Jesus had been performing, and so they sit under His teaching and are amazed. But, being amazed at the teachings of Jesus is not enough. These people were genuinely amazed at Jesus’ teaching, at His wisdom, and at the mighty works done by His hands. But this was not enough for them. Something was not adding up. And in that amazement, they begin to ask questions, and these 5 questions turn from amazement to contempt. The first 3 questions they ask seem genuine, right?
Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to Him? How are such might works done by His hands?
They recognized that these things were true about Jesus, but they simply could not get past the fact that this was the same Jesus they knew as one of their own. In fact, they had known him as a citizen of their small, maybe a population of a few hundred, town for 30 years, and in those 30 years they had never seen anything like this from Him. And then we see the true nature of their questioning in the follow up questions.
Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary? Remember, previously they had called Him the son of Joseph. This was obviously different. This was meant to be insulting. Back then, you would talk about someone by who their father was. The fact that they called Him the son of Mary was very telling, especially in light of the scandal that surrounded her pregnancy. They were insulting Jesus. They just couldn’t get past the fact that He was one of them!
And so even in the face of wonder and marvel at what Jesus said and what He was able to do, they took offense at Him. Their pride and contempt led them to view Jesus as nothing more than a carpenter from Nazareth, and the fact that He would claim to be more drove them to being offended in His presence.
Jesus answers with an understanding of the sentiment, be it a tragic one, and here’s why it’s tragic: As a result of their unbelief, 2 things happen.
A.. He could do no mighty work there. One of the results of unbelief is a withholding of the saving power of Jesus. This doesn’t mean that Jesus was incapable of doing mighty works. What it means is that He was unwilling to do so. Jesus addresses this in Matthew 15 where he quotes the prophet Isaiah, “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.” He would not heal them because of their unbelief!
B.. He marveled at their unbelief. Jesus looked at these people, who He had known His whole life, and marveled at them. He was struck with wonder over how hard their hearts had become.
We must pause here and ask ourselves the same question that one pastor posed to his church: “Have we become so familiar with Him, having been raised in church all our lives, that His words no longer convict, His miracles no longer astonish, and His death on the cross no longer strikes the chord of "Amazing Grace"?”
I pray that we would never lose the sense of childlike wonder of Jesus.
2.. A Warning of Unbelief (7-13)
Read Mark 6:7-13
Jesus is so timely with his discipleship. It’s time for the disciples to put into practice what Jesus has been teaching them. “It’s your turn now. You’ve seen me do it, now you get to give it a shot.” They are probably thinking though, wait a minute Jesus, we just saw the people who we thought knew you best reject you, and that wasn’t very fun. And now, you want us to go out? We who are not preachers, not evangelists, not missionaries, not good at public speaking? And Jesus is like, “yep.”
And so He pairs them up, two by two. This was for a couple of reasons. One, because it was much safer to travel in pairs than it was to travel alone. Ecclesiastes 4:9 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.” Also, Jewish Law would require two witnesses for accountability. So there were many reasons behind this method.
He also gives them authority over the unclean spirits. Matthew gives us a little more context by telling us the purpose was to “cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.” Another really important side note here: The Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on the disciples. That will come later in Acts 2. The power that Jesus gave them was a temporary power. Think of it like a short-term mission trip. All the fears that they might have felt. All the hesitation of going out on mission on behalf of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, could be calmed by the fact that they went out with the same power to bring about spiritual, mental and physical freedom that Jesus had shown.
And then he says, “don’t take anything with you. Take a walking staff, you’re going to do a lot of that. But don’t worry about money, don’t worry about food. I’ll take care of you. Oh, you can also wear sandals I guess, but only 1 tunic!” Seems like an odd thing to say, not to wear 2 tunics. Two schools of thought on this, one being that 2 tunics would symbolize wealth, but perhaps a better thought would be the fact that travelers would carry an extra tunic in case they ended up sleeping outside under the stars. The extra tunic would be to protect from the rain, or the cold. But they won’t need that, because Jesus will provide a place to sleep.
The point is this. Jesus says to go, and to trust that they were going to be taken care of. He is going to provide their food. He is going to provide their lodging. They don’t need to worry about any of that, just the mission on which he is sending them.
And then some more specific instructions. When you get into a village, and someone offers you their home for lodging, take it. And as long as you are doing ministry in that village, stay there. If someone comes along who has a bigger house, more money, then politely refuse.
THEN, Jesus gets to a really important part. Let’s read it again. Read vs. 11.
The idea of shaking off the dust would have been one that the disciples were familiar with. It came from a requirement of old in which Jewish travelers or businessmen who would enter a Gentile country, upon returning home to Israel, would literally have to shake the dust off their sandals so that they wouldn’t bring any “contaminated” dirt into Israel.
Taken into the context in which Jesus is sending them out, we have to look at Matthew’s account to get a more full picture of what Jesus is really saying. Matthew 10:14-15 - “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”
And here’s the warning! There is judgment coming for those who hear the message of the gospel, and refuse to believe. And we don’t like to talk about judgment in our churches. We don’t like to talk about the wrath of God in our churches. Do you remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Those 2 towns were marked by evil, more specifically sexual debauchery. It was so evil in fact, that God told Abraham “if I find 10 righteous people in the city, I will not destroy it.” The next day God rained down fire and sulfur on those cities, and no one and no thing survived.
And Jesus says to His disciples, “if you come into a town or a village that rejects you, shake off the dust from your feet, there is nothing else you can do, judgment will come upon them worse than what happened to the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And so they go, without Jesus but in His power, proclaiming the message of repentance, casting out many demons and healing many diseases along the way.
So what do we, church, do with a passage like this?
1.. Longevity of knowing Jesus. Think about your own life, and if you are a Christian, how long you have been one. Do you still get excited about Jesus like the first time you really experienced Him? Are you still awestruck when you think about what He did for you? Or, as time has gone by, has your relationship become so routine that you’ve fallen into complacency? Is Jesus so familiar to you, that you sometimes feel like you know everything about Him, so why continue to pursue Him? There is a great danger in this, and I would say that we should be asking God to keep us excited and passionate about Jesus. In fact, I would submit that our goal should be to grow more passionate the MORE we get to know Jesus!
2.. What do you believe about Jesus? Remember, it isn’t enough to be amazed at His teachings. It isn’t enough to be blown away by the stories of the miracles He performed. It isn’t enough to be enlightened by His wisdom. We have to get past all of that, and to a point of believing that He is the Son of God, God in flesh, and that His death on the cross actually satisfied the wrath of God, turning His judgment away from us, and putting it on His Son. We have to believe that Jesus truly took our sins to the cross and died in our place, and that it was sufficient to cover the sins of the world, past, present and future. We have to believe that when Jesus rose from the dead that He defeated physical death and gave us access to an eternity with the Father. Then is our belief in Jesus enough.
3.. Context is critical. This was a specific instruction for a specific group of people and we need to be careful not to read ourselves too much into it. Prescriptive vs. descriptive. BUT, there is judgment coming for those who insist on unbelief. And the part of this context that we cannot miss is that those who face the judgment, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, are those who have heard the message of the gospel, but have chosen and continue to choose to reject it. And so we take this in 2 ways this morning:
Don’t ever give up on anyone. Don’t ever think that anyone is too far gone. Don’t ever stop talking about Jesus to those who refuse to believe. However, understand that it’s up to the Holy Spirit to change someone’s heart, and there may come a point where your witnessing becomes more about praying for that person than it does continuing to talk to them about Jesus.
Check your heart. If Jesus is breaking down the walls of unbelief, do not resist Him. Submit to the Spirit’s leading and bend your knee to Jesus, and I promise you it will be the best decision you ever make.
