“Jesus At Prayer, Jesus With
People” Mark 1:35-45
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
Gospel of Mark is about Jesus
Christ, Son of God, invading this world.
We see in Mark the greatness of Jesus.
No one ever did the things he did.
INTRO: Several years ago I got to hear, in person, a preacher
who I admire.
He preached an excellent message. It was everything I had hoped it would be.
I was amazed at the gifts and talents God
gives some men.
Later that day I began to
analyze the sermon.
His exposition of the Scripture passage, his
illustrations and application.
His Christ-centered theology.
His delivery and style.
When I was done with that I
was even more impressed by what I had heard—
because I realized how much had gone into
preparing that was not apparent.
It reminded me of one of the
sayings of my own preaching professor—
“Don’t show people the sweat of your labor,
show them the fruit of your labor.”
That is what this preacher had done, but
when saw sweat, impressed.
But after looking at his
greatness, being utterly impressed, humbled and blessed:
I begin to ask myself how I could use what I
had heard to be better at what I do.
You athletes here,
when you go to a game and watch a great
athlete on the field or court—
Or you musicians,
when you watch a great musician pick up his
instrument—
Or whatever your calling or
interest—
when you see someone truly great doing your
thing—how do you respond?
My guess is that you respond
first with awe and wonder.
Wow.
Look at him. Did you see
that? Do you know how hard that is?
You see things that the
uninformed person does not see because
because you yourself have attempted these
things.
But then, after that awe you
say:
Now, how can I glean just a little of that
greatness and grow in it?
As a Christian, that is the
very way you should respond to Jesus in this passage.
Because in this passage we
see Jesus excelling in the two big things
that every serious Christian tries hard to
do—
spending time with God and touching unlovely
people.
Aren’t those two things the
essence of Christian living?
Loving God and loving your neighbor.
You love God primarily by
spending time with Him, communing with Him.
It’s prayer, coming face to face with your
Father.
The essence of loving your
neighbor is not loving your lovely, pleasant neighbor.
It’s touching the unlovely person who God
has brought into your life.
Here we see Jesus Christ
doing both of these things perfectly.
And for everyone of you here this morning
who tries every day
to do these things, and who knows how hard
they are to do—
You should first look at
Jesus and be in awe.
Here is a man like no other man in his love
for God and other people.
Here is a man who perfectly kept the law of
God.
Only a Christian can fully
appreciate this.
Just as it takes a preacher
to fully appreciate the greatness of a great preacher,
or an athlete to appreciate the greatness of
a great athlete,
or a musician to appreciate the greatness of
a great musician.
It takes a person who knows
what God expects of his people,
to appreciate the greatness of One who
perfectly fulfills that ideal.
And then, once you have
worshipped, and stood in awe—
you can ask, now how can I glean some of that
greatness and grow in it?
How can I spend time with God
like Jesus did?
How can I touch unlovely people like Jesus
did?
So that’s exactly what I want
us to do this morning with this passage.
Let’s look at three things:
1. The greatness of Jesus’ time with God.
2. The greatness of Jesus’ touch of people.
(We’re just going to be in awe for a
while.)
3. How we can glean a little bit of his
greatness and grow in these things.
Credit where credit is
due: Tim Keller’s sermon on this passage
tremendous help.
MP#1 The
greatness of Jesus’ time with God.
Every Christian knows that
simply overcoming the physical challenges
to prayer is hard to do—sleepiness and a
wandering mind.
I remember in college being
invited to an early morning prayer meeting,
to pray for specific missionary need—would
get on knees to pray.
And even though I fought it, I would
doze—finally gave up.
But here we see Jesus after
an exhausting day, up before dark,
out of the house to a solitary place, in
countryside, spending hours of prayer.
Simply seeing Jesus overcome the
physical challenges to prayer impressive.
But when you read this more
carefully, see that there is something even
more awe-inspiring about Jesus’ prayer life.
He overcame the biggest
obstacle Christians have to spending time with God—
His busy schedule.
What did Simon say when he
found Jesus? “Everyone is looking for you.”
Jesus was in a time of
extreme busyness.
He had begun his ministry and he was
experiencing incredible
productivity, popularity and opportunity.
People started coming from
everywhere.
People were talking about him.
Luke’s account tells us that
the people of
People were saying: We need you!
There had to have been exasperation
in Simon’s voice when he said:
“Everyone is looking for you!”
Simon couldn’t understand why Jesus was
alone when crowds waiting.
Opportunities were being missed.
But here’s what we see:
The
busier Jesus got, the more he prayed.
That is even more amazing
than overcoming the physical challenges to prayer.
Because every one of us knows that when you
get busy—
the very first thing to go is the time of
quiet solitude with God.
And even though you know it’s
not right—it’s so easy to make excuses.
I’m in the middle of a crucial time in my
business right now.
I’ve got this window of opportunity to make
this happen.
My kids are at time of life when we’re going
wide open, not like this forever.
When I get this or that checked off my list,
things will quiet down.
And my personal favorite: “I have a sermon to write.”
What was Jesus right in the
middle of? What was he busy with?
Only saving the world. Only transforming lives.
But not even the busyness of
saving the world kept Jesus
from spending time with his heavenly Father.
But that’s not the end of
it. Our awe for Jesus’ prayer life goes
one step deeper.
Not only did he overcome physical challenges
to prayer,
and obstacle of busyness,
he prayed for the right reason.
Why do we usually pray? Usually we pray to get things from God.
That’s why we pray harder and more often
when we are in a crisis.
That’s why we tend to slack off when things
are going fine.
But Jesus was not in a time
of crisis—in fact, just the opposite.
Things couldn’t have been going better. Everywhere he went, crowds followed.
We think about Jesus praying
in
and we can identify with that. We’ve all had sleepless nights, crying out to
God.
But this was a time of great
success, things going well, early days of ministry.
So why did Jesus pray?
He didn’t pray to get things from God, he
prayed to get God.
Jesus prayed to commune with
his Father, to enjoy the Fatherly smile.
To be reassured of those words spoken at
baptism: You are my son whom I love.
Tim Keller said in sermon
that the engine of Jesus’ life was the joy of his sonship.
The knowledge that the great God of all was
His God and Father,
gave him power and joy in his ministry.
That’s why he was able to
spend hours with God, because he wanted God.
Even though he was in the middle of the most
exciting, successful, positive
times of his ministry when everything was
going well, he wanted God above all.
Now if that doesn’t fill you
with awe—then you have never tried to pray.
Look at the greatness of Jesus time with
God—
overcoming lack of sleep, demands of people
and schedule and success,
all so that he could spend time with his
heavenly Father.
MP#2 The
greatness of Jesus’ touch of people.
One of the interesting things
about studying Mark is that all four Gospels
have been preached on and commented on more
than any other parts of Bible.
So you get to see what has
captured the attention of God’s people
through the centuries.
And without any question it
is Jesus touching the leper that Christians are drawn to.
For example, there is a wonderful sermon
“Christ’s Touch”
by Alexander MacLaren,
great 19th century Baptist preacher.
Every Christian who reads
this story knows how hard it is to touch unlovely people.
We know we are to love our neighbor.
We know we are to meet people’s needs.
But it’s hard. It’s almost as hard as praying.
Last week I was at the
hospital and a woman I didn’t know came up to me
and asked if I was a minister. When I told her I was she asked me if I would
come and pray for her friend. In a coma, not coming out, she was
distressed.
He looked terrible: His eyes half open but unseeing, labored
breath stunk,
forehead and hair wet with sweat.
Put my hand on his head to
pray for him, more for her benefit than for his—
but inside, I’m ashamed to say, I recoiled.
And that was just a physical
reaction.
How much harder it is to touch a person who
you have social or racial
prejudices against, or to touch a person who
morally repulses you.
Or to touch a person who you
just don’t like,
or to touch a person who you think will
cling to you in their
desperation for human affection.
You understand that touching
a person does not just mean physically
reaching out your hand, it means to extend
yourself to them to meet needs.
It means to respond in
compassion.
Not just to throw money or advice at their
need, but to draw close to them.
The thing that fills us with
awe about Jesus’ touch is that his compassion
for this man overcame enormous barriers.
Leprosy was not just a
disease for a first century Jew—it was a total condition.
Physically, the person was
falling apart as disease took its toll
on the extremities of the body, leading to
grotesque deformity.
Socially, the person had to
live in lonely places, in virtual isolation
apart from the community of other
lepers. Dead to his family and friends.
Spiritually, the person was excluded
from the worship of God.
Leprosy was symbolic of God’s judgment for
sin.
And there were severe social
and religious penalties for touching lepers
or even being close to them. You would be declared unclean.
That’s important to understand.
We tend to think it was all
medical, just a fear of the disease—but much deeper.
There was a religious and spiritual
revulsion as well. .
It’s hard to think of a person more
untouchable than first century Jewish leper.
But Jesus touched him. Jesus could have just said, “Be healed.”
But he was filled with compassion for this
man who had not felt for years
the touch of another person as his way of
communicating—I am with you.
Listen to Alexander MacLaren:
“And here comes a Man who breaks down all
the restrictions, stretches a frank hand out
across the wall of separation, and touches
him. What a reviving assurance of love
not yet
dead must have come to the man as Christ
grasped his hand.”
But this compassionate touch didn’t
really cost Jesus anything. Or did it?
How does the story end?
Jesus told him not to tell
anyone, just go to priest to be declared clean.
The man told everyone and as a result, the
leper and Jesus trade places.
Leper, who used to have to
stay in lonely places, was able to go into the city—
But Jesus, who wanted to go to the cities,
had to stay outside in lonely places.
What is this but a
foreshadowing of Jesus’ death.
Because he touched you, identified with you
in your leprosy of sin—
he was crucified in the place of outcasts,
so that you can some in.
Now, if that doesn’t fill you
with awe at Jesus’ greatness,
then you have never understood your sin.
And you have never been amazed at what it
cost him to touch you.
And you have never really
struggled to love your neighbor as God commands.
You have never experienced
the reluctance of getting close to an unlovely
person because you know that in some way, be
it your time, or your comfort,
or your emotions, it’s going to cost you.
But here is Jesus, touching
the unlovely. Let’s stand in awe of him.
We’ve seen Jesus’
greatness. Now let’s consider . . .
MP#3 How we can
glean a little bit of his greatness and grow in these things.
1. Regarding time
with God . . .
Like Jesus, you must orient your prayers around the
Fatherly love of God.
We’re not told the words of
Jesus’ prayer in the solitary place
as we are some other times, like the
But we know how Jesus always
prayed: “Abba, Father.”
When his disciples asked him to teach them
do pray he said:
This is how you are to pray: “Our Father . . .”
For Jesus, prayer was first
and foremost time with his heavenly Father.
We know Jesus asked his
Father for things.
Children ask things of their parents—that’s
normal.
In many of Jesus’ prayers he asks for
things.
But his prayers always start
by coming to his Father.
That is the orientation of his prayers—
this assurance that his Father sees him,
loves him, committed to him.
From that knowledge, Jesus
prayed.
That has to be your
orientation as well—the love of your heavenly Father.
To the degree that you know that He loves
you,
to that degree you will be able to spend
time with him in prayer.
If you don’t know the love of
the Father,
you will scrounge around for love and
approval in other things.
When things are going well, when
those things that you seek your approval from
are buzzing along, keeping you busy,
delivering on their promises—
it will be very hard to pray anything more
than perfunctory prayers.
But if things start to go
bad, you will pray—
but your prayers will be more panic than
fellowship with your Father.
Panic because import things seem to be going
bad.
Martin Luther’s habit was to
pray the Lord’s Prayer, meditate on each line.
Times when he would get no farther than “Our
Father.”
Wonder of that would overtake
him. Things that seem so worrisome,
would fade into insignificance.
If you know that the God of
the universe is your Father, will start to pray like Jesus.
2. Regarding
touching unlovely people . . .
You must orient your love toward your neighbor around
Jesus’ touch of you.
What this means practically
is that to the degree you see yourself in your sin,
as a repulsive, rejected leper, touched by
Jesus’ grace—
to that degree you will be able to touch
unlovely people.
Lady Huntington was an 18th
century British aristocrat, and a Christian.
She invited her friend the Duchess of
Buckingham to hear the evangelist
George Whitefield preach—
This was her response:
“It is monstrous to be told that you have a
heart as sinful as the wretches that crawl the earth.
This is highly insulting and offensive and
I cannot help but wonder that your own ladyship
should relish sentiments so much at
variance with high rank and good breeding.”
We’ve all got some of the
Duchess of Buckingham left in us—
that’s why it’s hard to touch the
unlovely.
We know we’re sinners,
but we aren’t as low as some wretches that
crawl the earth.
It’s easy to compare yourself to other
people. Good rank and high breeding.
But when you focus on Jesus’
touching you, in the leprosy of your sin,
and when that fills you with gratitude—that
he not only touched you,
but took your place, it will empower you to
touch the unlovely.
Listen to Alexander MacLaren again:
“He is high above us and yet bending over
us; stretching His hand from the throne as truly as He put it out when here on
earth; and ready to take us all to His heart in spite of our weakness and
wickedness, our failings and our shortcomings, the fever of our flesh and
heart’s desires, the leprosy of our many corruptions, and the death of our
sins—and to hold us ever in the strong, gentle clasp of His divine, omnipotent
and tender hand. This Christ lays hold on
us because He loves us, and will not be turned from His compassion by the most
loathsome foulness of ours.”
That’s the key to loving like
Jesus loved.
Seeing your loathsome foulness—knowing he
has touched you with compassion.
Bringing that to mind when he brings the
unlovely across your path.
CONC:
I mentioned at the beginning
how a preacher sees a great preacher—
and he is not just in awe, inspired to be
better.
Or an athlete sees a great
athlete, or a musician sees a great musician—
and there is awe that leads to inspiration
to try harder.
Well, with Jesus and his
people, there is more than inspiration—
there is the powerful work of the Holy
Spirit—
somehow, gazing at Jesus, actually
transforms you.
You look at Jesus in prayer
with his Father,
Look at Jesus touching the leper—and you
worship Him for that—
and that makes you, in some mysterious way,
more like him.
In fact, 1 John tells us that
ultimately, the great work of glorification—
which is simply your sanctification carried
to perfection—
will occur when you see Jesus at his second
coming.
When we see him we shall be
like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
The vision of Jesus in his
glory, and the awe and worship it inspires—
will complete your transformation into a
holy child of God.
So let’s look with awe upon
Jesus as he is presented to us in the Gospels—
amazing in his time with the Father,
and amazing in touch of the unlovely.
And let’s desire to be more
like him every day.