If you have a Bible, please turn with me to Mark chapter 6. We're going to continue our sermon series on the Gospel of Mark called the Cross-Shaped Life. And we're going to look at verses 1 through 6 this morning. It's on page 1,069 if you're going to use one of the Bibles that we provide underneath the chair in front of you. Mark chapter 6, 1 through 6, here now God's Holy and true Word. He went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him. And on the Son of a Thie began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished saying, Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? And they took a fence at him. And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went out among the villages teaching the Word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we do thank you that you have given us this morning to sing your praises and to look into your Word to see the glory and majesty of our Savior and Lord Jesus. Father, we do pray that you would now fill us with your spirit that we would have ears to hear, that you would speak to us through your Word and that you would transform us and equip us to continue to proclaim and demonstrate. The good news of Jesus to our neighbors and to the nations where we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This passage, it kind of comes as sort of an abrupt change in the rhythm of Mark's gospel. And it's almost like when you hear the record skip and it disroper and you're just kind of, wait, what's happening here? And the reason for that is we've just seen over the last several weeks this barrage of amazing things that Jesus is capable of doing. We saw his power over nature in calming the storm that was about to destroy the disciples. We saw his power over the supernatural forces of evil by casting out the demons, the demons, Legion. We saw his power last week even over sickness and death. And then after this incredible display of Jesus' power, really of Jesus' divinity, he goes to his hometown and just gets shut down. They reject him. So it's very interesting, very interesting in the story of Jesus' ministry. The first one, it says he went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him. And that's the key here. To remember that the disciples were in training, just like you and I are always in training to be disciple makers, to be people who know how to proclaim with our words and demonstrate with our deeds that Jesus is Lord. That's what's so powerful about this passage is we see Jesus intentionally leading his disciples to a place where he's going to experience rejection. They needed to see him being rejected. You and I need to see him being rejected because the reality is you and I have experienced rejection. We will continue to experience rejection as we seek to advance the gospel. Because that's what we are about as a church. Not only are we worshipers of God, but we are messengers for God. And just as David said, we've been talking more and more about equipping one another to be proclaiming this good news and that means we're going to face rejection. And so we need to remember that amidst the rejection, we also have God's incredible acceptance and that's our gospel fact for this morning. As we follow Jesus, we can expect both the bitter pain of rejection from the world as well as the sweet delight of full acceptance from God. Let's say that again as we follow Jesus, we can expect both the bitter pain of rejection from the world as well as the sweet delight of full acceptance from God our Father through faith in Christ. So to see this this morning, we want to talk about three things. We'll talk about being ready for rejection and then the real issue and finally the reason we press on. Ready for rejection, the real issue and the reason that we press on. Let's jump in here. Keep your bottles open. We're going to walk right through this passage. I would love for you to be looking at the word as we learn from it this morning. We're going to look at verses two and three first just to see that we need to be ready for rejection here. Jesus wants us to be ready to be rejected on his account because of our faith in him. There's a readiness that you and I need. Look at verse two. And on the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished. We're here for a second and think about this. We've seen people astonished by Jesus teaching in Mark's Gospel so far, but it so far has been a positive astonishment. They're excited about it. But now given the context of what happens here, we can see that that has shifted. The astonishment is more of a negative feeling here. So let's continue here and look what they were saying. What's interesting here is these next three questions that they offer about Jesus are very similar objections that people will offer to you and me as we seek to proclaim the Gospel, showing that nothing's changed. The same ways that people would reject Jesus back then are the same ways that people tend to reject Jesus now. Let me show you. Look at that first question there in verse two. It says, where did this man get these things? These things, they're talking about what he's teaching, the information that he is giving to them. And they're wanting to know where it comes from. Normally when a rabbi would come to teach in a synagogue, you would know or he would tell you who he trained under, who apprenticed him, who taught him everything he knows. For example, you may remember from Acts 22, Paul's talking about how he was trained at the feet of Gamaliel. There was that idea that if you were going to be teaching, you had to have somebody who was over you that taught you all these things. And they know that he was trained not to be a rabbi but to be a carpenter. And so they're saying, where did he get these things? Where is the source? They're ultimately saying, we cannot trust you as a source for this type of information. And that is exactly what a lot of people will say regarding Christianity, the source being the Bible. That's our source for God's truth today as God's word. And a lot of people will just say, well, I reject Christianity because I can't trust the source. I don't trust the Bible. I don't trust what's in there. The same rejection today as it was back then. Look at the next question. What is the wisdom given to him? And here they're looking at what he's actually saying. He's giving them divine wisdom. He's speaking on behalf of God. He's speaking as God. And this wisdom, they're basically asking, wait a minute, what is this all about? This is different than what I know. This is different than what I believe they're challenging him. Basically, they're saying, I don't agree. Part of their rejection is they say, I don't agree with what you're saying, so I reject it. And if you talk to people about Jesus, one of the things you've probably heard people say is, well, I don't know what I know about Jesus, but the Bible says this thing, and that thing, and I just disagree with those things, so I'm just going to reject it all. Again, same type of rejection today that Jesus experienced back in his day. Look at the third question. How are such mighty works done by his hands? Now it's interesting here is they're asking this question. They're offended by him. We'll see that shortly. And so they're not taking the route of the scribes and Pharisees and saying that he must be doing these by the power of the devil, but they're also not willing to suggest that he's doing them by the power of God. So they're really just kind of putting it out there. How are these things happening? In other words, it's almost like they're saying there's probably some explanation for this stuff. Because they've heard a lot of amazing things that he's been doing. And so it's most likely that they're just thinking, I'm sure there's some sort of explanation. And that will, that's another type of rejection that we will experience that people say, well, there's got to be some sort of explanation for the things that the Bible says that tend to be miraculous, or even when we talk about some of the ways that God has blessed us or done amazing things in our lives. And we're celebrating those things. Sometimes people will actually just say, well, it's probably just a coincidence. There's probably an explanation for it. So again, these three things, people can't trust the source. They disagree with what the Bible says so they reject it, or they are sure that there's some sort of explanation for these things that happen in our lives. Those types of rejections are what Jesus experienced, and we still experience those same types of things today. It's amazing. Now, here's what's hard about this. Those type of standard rejections, not so bad, we can handle those. But what we also see in this text is those who reject, who were rejecting Jesus went from sort of standard rejection to hurtful rejection. That looks like they were trying to attack him personally. Look at verse three, is this not the carpenter? Now, there's nothing wrong with being a carpenter and Jewish culture. Carpenter was a respectable profession, but what they're refusing to refer to him as is some sort of teacher. You're a carpenter, man. You don't know what you're talking about. And then, moving on, look at, it says they call him the son of Mary. And most of the commentators looking at this passage assume that that is meant to be an insult. Because in this culture, you would never refer to someone as the son of their mother. You would always say the son of their father. And so it's very likely that the reason they said the son of Mary is to insinuate that Jesus was an illegitimate child. Like Jesus knew, and we know that his real father is God, and that he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. But they knew that Joseph was not his real dad. And so they're casting some doubt. They're saying something that could be considered very negative, very insulting, suggesting things about his mother, suggesting that even he is an illegitimate child. So, you can see how there's these standard rejections. And then there's the way that sometimes when people are rejecting what we believe, they intentionally try to hurt us and attack us as individuals. Look at the rest of that. It says, and the brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon, and they talk about his sisters being there. Interesting, if you think about the fact that in chapter 3, we saw Jesus' mother and brothers going to get him because they thought he was, quote, out of his mind. So here's another way that they are trying to get at Jesus, trying to hurt him personally by showing that they know that his own family does not believe him. They know that even his mother and brothers think he's out of his mind. So the reality is you can see that sometimes people who reject Christianity will give you standard rejections for their disbelief, but sometimes they will attack us. Sometimes they will intentionally hurt us, and we need to be ready for that. Because it actually really hurts us. This is pretty interesting. They did a study on rejection, and they were studying the brain activity for people who are experiencing rejection. And what they did is they set up this virtual sort of game of catch where they had three people, and they were virtually playing catch with two other people, one person playing with two other people, and then after a period of time, as they're virtually throwing this ball between the three of them, they would tell two of the people to leave the third one out. And so the ball would be virtually going back and forth between these two, and that third person would just sit there, sort of waiting for the ball, and it would never come. And so they would monitor the brain activity, and what they found is pretty interesting. They found that the brain activity in a person who's experiencing rejection is actually almost identical to the brain activity of somebody who is experiencing actual physical pain. So that means that you and I need to know that when we experience rejection because people reject what we believe they reject Christ, it hurts. We need to be reminded that Christianity is not easy. There's so much that is hard about being a Christian. There's so much that is hard about following Christ, trusting the Bible, believing what it says, and following Christ into mission. It is not easy. We are up against a big challenge. But the thing is, when you know it's going to hurt, when you know something is going to hurt, it's more tolerable. Like you can get yourself psyched up. Like, okay, I know this is going to hurt. I know this is going to be tough, and then you run. Like, I don't know, this is probably not the best illustration, but sometimes people do that. The polar bear swim where they cut a hole in the ice, and then you go out in the middle of winter. This would be up north. You know what ice is, you've seen that down here, and your fridge is okay. From Minnesota, see, I know ice very well. But, you know, they cut a hole in the ice, and then because we're crazy, I guess people jump into the ice cold water. And when you're ready, like if you're walking and you just fell into the ice cold water, it's horrific. But when you know you're going to do it, when you know how it's going to feel, you kind of get psyched up, and you just go do it. And somehow you can tolerate the frigid cold water. And it's kind of the same thing here in the way that Jesus is graciously showing us that just like he was rejected, we will be rejected. Like his disciples were rejected. And when we know it's coming. When we know that it's going to hurt, and that it's coming, it's part of our life as followers of Christ. We can be more ready for it, and we know what to do when it happens. We know to run to Him who accepts us fully, and as well as each other. This is why it's so important that as a body of believers, we accept one another based on what Christ has done, so this can be a place of acceptance. So that as we're faced with rejection out in the world, we come here, and we just know that everybody accepts us for who we are. It's a very key thing. We need Him, we need His acceptance, we need community. And so that's one of the reasons why it's important that as a body of believers who are looking to grow more in our ability and desire to be out sharing this good news with people, we need to know that we're going to get rejected. It's going to hurt, but we have this community that we've been given to run to for acceptance from God and from each other. But let's talk about the real issue here, because in this text we see the real issue when it comes to unbelief. So look at verses, actually the end of verse three, and then verse four. And here's what we want to see here. The real issue is that fallen human beings reject God's rule. Apart from the work of God's grace, human beings reject God as their ruler. That's the key issue here. Let's take a look. Look at that last little sentence in verse three, very important sentence, and they took offense at him. So yeah, they're questioning who he is, where he's getting this information. They're even taking some shots at him in order to maybe insult him or hurt him. But the real issue here is they are offended. They are taking offense at him. And what's interesting about that word, it is the Greek word scandal leadso, which you can hear in that scandal scandalized. And that's another way that you could translate this, that they were scandalized by him. But look, it's by him at him. The offense is directed directly at him. Their rejection is really based on the fact that he's doing all these amazing things, he's saying these amazing things, he's giving them a picture of the fact that he is the Messiah and therefore the king. And they do not want to submit to a king. Human hearts, fallen human hearts, do not want to submit to God's rule. We do not want to bow to a king. That is the real issue. It is scandalous to the fallen human heart, the idea of submitting to an all authoritative king. And this has been the problem since the beginning. When Adam and Eve were in the garden and God said, do not eat from this one tree. There's tons of other ones, have at it but stay away from this one. When Adam and Eve took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they plunged the world into sin and misery and humanity, human beings from then on have fully rejected. We reject God's rule. We see that all through the Old Testament. That's the story that we see in the Old Testament is the ongoing rejection of God's rule. For example, in 1 Samuel 8, God is dealing with Samuel as a prophet and the people want a human king and God is saying that I'm your king and they keep saying no, we want a human king and eventually God gives them a human king to show them that a human king just can't cut it. Not a merely human king. And so in 1 Samuel 8, 7, God says to Samuel, they have rejected me from being king over them. That's the issue. That it's scandalous to the fallen human heart, the idea of submitting to a king. So all through the Old Testament, all these prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and so on and so forth, all of the prophets constantly saying to God's people, stop rejecting God as king. That's one of the main messages that they were constantly saying. Stop rejecting God as king. Turn back to God. Trust in God. Obey God. He loves you. He's your creator. He knows what's best for you. Stop rejecting him as king that carried through all of the Old Testament and into today as well. The reason that things, everything they went wrong in the nation of Israel was a result of them rejecting God as king just like everything that's wrong with the world. Is the result of human beings rejecting God as king started at the fall and it's the work of the devil but it is the truth. The real issue is that we as human beings apart from God's grace, we reject God's rule over us. That's what the prophets were saying and that's why I look at verse 4. Jesus marks himself out as a prophet, not only a prophet but he was a prophet as well as other things and he says a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. Jesus is actually an adaptation of a sort of a proverbial saying from the time and Jesus is using this to show that he is being rejected. He knows that he's being rejected. The disciples needed to hear that. In fact the people needed to hear that because that shows that he is actually the Messiah. Not only can he do all these amazing things but he's also rejected like Isaiah in Isaiah 53 said would be the case. Isaiah said that the Messiah would be rejected and despised. So even their rejection points to the truth of Christ being the true Messiah, the true Savior. And what's amazing about how Jesus uses that proverbial saying is he really paints the larger picture for us as well. It's not only helps us make sense of what's happening in Nazareth, his hometown but it makes sense of what's happening the larger picture with the whole world because if you think of the hometown as being the world and relatives as being all the people on the earth and then the household as the chosen people of the Jews we see the picture. That God came to the world he created and was rejected by all people even his chosen people the Jews. This is how messed up human beings are. We reject the rule of our loving creator who knows us, who made us knows exactly what's right for us. We reject that rule. That is what sin is. John says in John 111 he says he came to his own and his own people did not receive him. It is the constant message that God has been rejected by you and me. That's the real issue the idea of submitting to an authoritative king is scandalous to the human heart that is apart from the work of God's grace. Why do we want to obey him? We forget that the reason that we want to obey even though we fail a lot we confess that earlier this morning. We want to obey and the only reason we want to obey is because God has done a miracle within us. He has given us new life through faith in Christ. He has given us new birth. He has put his Holy Spirit within us and that is what makes us want to obey him. Apart from God's grace you and I would continue to reject his rule completely but that's the key. That's why faith is so important here. It's only through faith that we can see that God loves us knows what's best for us and through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can actually want to obey. But that's the real issue. It's not wanting to submit not wanting to submit to the rule of God and that's why we see in this passage there's so much grace and patience. I mean think about the fact that Jesus is teaching and if you engage in teaching someone it just automatically shows that there's some patience there's some time for stuff to set in. It's amazing and also notice he's not simply just their condemning and judging or destroying them as he surely could have rather he's allowing himself to be rejected. That is amazing. Why does he do that? Why does he intentionally take the disciples and therefore you and I as well on this journey and let us see him being rejected and the reason is because the rejection foreshadows the ultimate rejection that he's going to receive on the cross. And what's true is that no matter how bad this rejection was in Nazareth and no matter how bad the rejection of even the people that were nailing him to the cross was all that pales in comparison to the ultimate rejection that Jesus experienced the rejection of God the Father God chose to reject his son. And that doesn't make sense. This is what should be scandalous that God would reject his perfect son. The Bible says that he never sinned. He never made one mistake. Why would Jesus be the one who is rejected? The people, the sinners, that's who should be rejected. But that's the beauty of grace and the cross is that God chooses to reject Jesus. Jesus was willing to take your sin and mine. Those of us who believe place it on his account, his record so that God could pour out his wrath full rejection onto him instead of upon you and me. That is the gospel. Some of you may know that out in Colorado in the fall, there was a lot of landslides and a lot of major damage done to many different areas out there. And there was a story of a man named Dwayne from Buena Vista, Colorado. He was back in September of 2013. Dwayne was out hiking with his two daughters and his wife and he's an electrician and a football coach. And they were hiking and tragically, although the day started out wonderfully, suddenly there was this massive rock slide that was coming down. They're all looking for a place to take cover. They can hear and see this rock slide coming. And what happened was eventually Dwayne, who was in a place where he was probably safe. He looks and he sees his 13-year-old daughter, Gracie, who's covering up. She's trying to cover herself but she's not behind anything. She is absolutely vulnerable. And so Dwayne seeing that, he runs out to her and sort of moves her, pushes her behind a large boulder that was sitting there. And at that moment the rock slide came through sweeping him away to his death. And Gracie lives to tell the story. Dwayne had a safe place that he was in, but he chose to leave that safe place because he looks at his 13-year-old daughter whom he loves. And he knows that this rock slide is going to come and destroy her. So he chooses to push her out of the way so that it destroys him instead. And that is such a beautiful picture of the cross that we all deserve God's wrath, God's rejection of us for our sin. We deserve to be rejected for eternity by God, but Jesus seeing us from his safe place chose to come and to push us out of the way to go to the cross where God's wrath, full rejection, the ultimate rock slide of damage coming down and hitting him instead of you and instead of me. Jesus took the rejection that we deserve from God so that through faith we could receive God's full acceptance. That's what should be scandalous to us. How is that fair? How is that possible? But it's true. That's what the gospel is. That Jesus took our rejection. And then the resurrection is the proof that God says I accept, I accept what you have done. Jesus and I accept all of those who have faith in you because of what you've done. So through faith in Christ, therefore we have the sweet delight of God's full acceptance. We got to say that to ourselves all the time. God fully accepts me. God fully accepts me, especially in the face of rejection by the world. The way we weather that storm is through remembering that God accepts us fully. And for nonbelievers, what they need to hear is that animosity, that struggle, that frustration with the idea of submitting to God's rule when we see what God is like through the cross. There's power that God is merciful, that God is gracious, that God chooses to send his son to die in our place. That is what gets the wheels rolling. And that's why we have to be spreading the message of the cross. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the reason we press on. Look at verses five and six. The reason we press on and the reality is we press on for the sake of the few who will believe. Verse five, and he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. One of the things that you see here is that Jesus miracles were not just some magic show. He was doing miracles in order to demonstrate the restoration and healing that would come with the kingdom of God when it came back in full at his return. And therefore people who are not putting their faith in him would not receive those blessings. They would not get to see those miracles. They would not experience the kingdom. But what's so amazing here is it says there's a few people that were healed, which means there was at least a few that believed. And Jesus went through this rejection through that whole experience because there would be at least a few he knew that would put their faith in him and received salvation. It says he marveled because of their unbelief and he went about among the villages teaching. Meaning he pressed on. He continued forward to train the disciples and to do his own proclaiming and demonstrating that he is Lord. He pressed on for the sake of those few. Sometimes there will be hundreds or thousands of people that will come to Christ through a church's work. Sometimes it's only a few. But what we see here is it is worth it. It is right. It is good that we continue to advance the gospel as much as we can for the sake of the few at least the few who will believe. And it isn't amazing. Think about this. We talk about unreached people groups. And what we know is that even in every unreached people group in the world, there's at least a few. And they're out there waiting. And we're the ones who have this incredible message. So we need to press on because Jesus pressed on to the cross setting us free. And now we're the ones with this message that God is gracious. There's a story you may have heard about a girl who was walking on the beach. And she came across a pile of starfish that had been washed up in a storm and the tide had receded. And so they were laying in the sun basically dying. And so she runs into action. She starts throwing starfish back into the ocean. And this man walks by and he says, he stops and he says, darling, you can't help him all. And she says, I know, but I can help this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And that is the vision that we have that we would be ones running to those in need with this amazing news of Christ. And we can't get it to everybody in the world, but we can get it to some of the people. We can get it to the few. And as we see them putting their faith in Christ as we baptize them up here, we say, God worked through us for this one. And this one. And this one. Lord, we just pray that you would hasten the day that we see that happening. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you that we have seen Jesus rejected in this passage as well as rejected on the cross that we could experience your full acceptance. Would you help us to embrace every day more and more the reality of the full acceptance we have in Christ and make us your mouthpieces. Help us to boldly go and proclaim even though we know we will experience rejection. Give us that courage, give us that strength for the sake of the glory of Jesus and for the sake of the lost people in our midst, in our city and around the world. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.