No Limits! (Mark 6:1-6)

A sermon preached on April 11, 2010 at Hebron Baptist Church, Denham Springs, Louisiana by Pastor Joe Alain.

No Limits

Scripture Reading: Mark 6:1-6

God is not limited in what He is able to do or what He will do, but God works accordingly in conjunction with our response to Him. Because of unbelief, Jesus’ mighty works were limited in Nazareth. He still did some works, but the response of unbelief hindered Him from doing a “mighty work” there. Because of the response of the people of Nazareth, one writer has called this account an “un-miracle” story.

Life Application: Responding to God in faith opens our lives to the amazing and unlimited power of God.

Varying Responses to Jesus
The parable of the soils in Mark chapter four is a story about how people respond to the Gospel. Some people respond positively, and in that sense, they are the good soil. The good soil is often found in unlikely places. A graveyard where a demon-possessed man found deliverance, a crowded street where a woman touched Jesus, a child’s room where Jesus healed a child of a synagogue ruler, a toll collectors booth where a weary outcast named Matthew found hope. Good soil pops up in some unlikely places.

However, other people responded negatively to Jesus. The hard, the rocky and thorny soil represents the hardened and unresponsive hearts of the people that rejected Jesus. Religious leaders who said he was demon-possessed, family members who wrote him off as crazy, and here in our text where his home town reception is anything but positive and characterized by faith. It’s said that you can never really go back home and this was certainly true for Jesus. Where there should have been good soil, positive responses – faith, there was unbelief. Jesus certainly wasn’t given the key to the city and there was no sign at the outskirts of town proclaiming “Welcome to Nazareth, home of Jesus the Christ.”

1. Home Coming (6:1-2a)
“To his hometown . . . he began to teach” “Hometown” is a reference to Nazareth (NLT). At this time, Jesus had become well-known as a teacher and He seems to be coming back in more of an official capacity as a Rabbi with disciples. We might say, “it’s home coming and Jesus is the guest preacher.” But this was no home coming celebration! The people were “amazed” or “astonished” (ESV) but the word here has a negative connotation. Amazed but unfazed!

2. Familiarity and Contempt (6:2b-3)
“Isn’t this the carpenter?” The response of the people? They were offended and would not believe in Him. Why were the people offended?
(1) Jesus did not have the proper credentials “Where did this man get these things?”
What the people are saying here is, “how could he have such wisdom and power seeing that he does not have the proper credentials?” Jesus did not study under their Rabbis. He had not been to their schools. He was not qualified! Do not ever feel that you are not qualified. Some Christians desire to be used by God but because someone has discouraged them, they are inactive. Remember, it is God that qualifies us (see Col. 1:12).

(2) Was a working man, a carpenter “Isn’t this
the carpenter?”
The people were ashamed of Jesus. “Carpenter” is “tekton,” which can be observed in the last half of the English word “architect,” although in that day it did not carry such a positive connotation. In biblical times it could refer to any kind of craftsman: mason, smith, shipbuilder, sculptor, and even physician. It is not certain that Jesus was a carpenter in the sense that we think of a carpenter; however, this was the understanding of the early church. About A.D. 155 Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 88, states that Jesus made yokes and ploughs. The point here in this account is that in their opinion, Jesus is just an ordinary craftsman perhaps like themselves. The NLT says, “They scoffed, ‘He’s just a carpenter.” The people of Nazareth despised Jesus because he was a working-man, “just a carpenter.” “Who does he think that he is? He’s no different than us.” Their physical knowledge of Jesus prevented them from having a spiritual knowledge of him.

(3) Jesus had a suspect background “Isn’t this Mary’s son?”
Because this was not the common way to refer to someone, some scholars believe that this was added later by scribes who changed it in order to lend support to the belief in the virgin birth. A simpler explanation is that this expresses the fact that Joseph had already died or an even better, that this expression reflects rumors that he was illegitimate and may have been a deliberate slur by the townspeople. It’s good to know that you don’t have to have a perfect pedigree to be used by God! He’s not concerned with your past and because of grace your past does not have to hinder your present.

(4) Familiarity with his family “Isn’t this . . . the brother of James, Joseph . . .?” The brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned here were not cousins (Jerome’s view) or Joseph’s children by a previous marriage. The children mentioned here were more probably children born to Mary and Joseph subsequent to the virgin birth of Jesus. James is prominent in that he later became the leader of the Jerusalem church and the author of the book of James. Judas is probably the same person mentioned in Jude 1. In Greek the names are the same. We know nothing of Joseph and Simon.

Because the people judged him by his lack of credentials, because they were ashamed of him, because they thought that they knew him, the people “were deeply offended and refused to believe in him” (v.3, NLT). The word translated “took offense” (NIV, ESV) is “skandalizō.” In the NT the word was often translated as “stumbling block” and by Mark’s time was used to describe the Jewish response to Jesus’ crucifixion (1 Cor. 1:23; Gal. 5:11). From this word we translate the English word “scandal.”

Sometimes when familiarity should breed a growing respect it breeds an increasing and easy-going familiarity. The reason his own people did not believe in Jesus was that they thought they knew him so well. It was inconceivable to them that God could be at work in the commonplace, in the ordinary. Sometimes we are too near people to see their greatness.

3. Limiting God (6:4-6)
The words “relatives” and “house” (v.4) indicate that Jesus’ family joined with their neighbors in rejecting his claims (see, 3:20-21, 31-35). The unbelief of the people had a limiting effect on Jesus’ work in their midst. One of the great emphases of Mark’s Gospel is that Jesus performs his miracles in response to faith. Here there was little faith. It is not that God cannot work, he has chosen to limit his working in accordance with human response. This is not to say that we can somehow manipulate God; however, our responsiveness to God is a key to receiving from Him. And if I will not respond to him in faith, I will not receive from him either. It is still true that no man can be healed if he refuses to be healed.

Why do we reject those we are familiar with? And why do we not respond to God in faith? (1) We judge by past experiences and limited knowledge. We think we have people figured out. We size people up, we judge them and we think we really know them. We think we know all there is to know about a person. Because we think we know God, we’re not open to seeing him work in different ways, even ordinary ways.

(2) The human nature part of us disdains those who stand aside as different. Why? People who excel blow the cover off of mediocrity. Or we think to ourselves, “why can’t they just be like everyone else?” “Why do they feel that they are special?” Remember how Joseph’s brothers felt about him and treated him? They despised Joseph because he was a dreamer. So they tried to kill the dreamer. Jesus is the dreamer and the elder brothers are trying to silence his dreams.

A message to the church for we too can limit God. (Barclay) “There can be no preaching in the wrong atmosphere. Our churches would be different places if congregations would only remember that they preach far more than half the sermon. In an atmosphere of expectancy the poorest effort can catch fire. In an atmosphere of critical coldness or bland indifference, the most Spirit-packed utterance can fall lifeless to the earth.”

The clear indication in this text is that if they had believed in him, he could have done a great deal more. The spiritual climate of a congregation, its sense of expectancy, its openness to the power of God at work through Jesus Christ, will in fact have a great deal to do with how much God’s power can accomplish in that particular community.

Jesus is not discouraged by the response that he receives in Nazareth. He continues his ministry of teaching and healing. “And he went about among the villages teaching” (v.6, ESV).

No Limits Living
1. Keep intimacy with God at a high level. Intimacy with God (growing in Christ) destroys preconceived and inadequate notions of God.

2. Keep your heart responsive to God. Faith grows as we respond to him and as our faith grows, we see God’s “might work” in our lives.

3. Don’t allow others to limit what you can be or do in life. You’re not limited by your background, life circumstances, or what people think about you.

4. Don’t ever get discouraged when people do not respond to your ministry, others will.

For His Glory!
Pastor Joe