Mark 1:16-45
Date: October 30th 2022
Speaker: Samuel M. Crites
Scripture: Mark 1:16-45
Main Idea of Sermon: Jesus restores his people by teaching them with authority and fixing their brokenness.
Jesus restores his people with his people.
Jesus restores his people with his teaching.
Jesus restores his people by fixing their brokenness.
Our God is a God of restoration. The entire story of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, could be described as God restoring man to his former relationship with God. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve lived in a Paradise on earth. It was not a paradise because it provided for all of their needs. It was a Paradise, because God was there. He walked with them in the evenings and spoke with them face to face. He provided for their daily needs and put them in a place where they were safe and free. The Fall ejected man out of that Paradise, separating man from God, putting an infinite chasm between them. The entire story from that point forward has been describing how God has been taking progressive steps to bridge that gap, to restore his relationship with man.
Last week, we saw how Christ walked the path of Israel, succeeding where they failed. At the Red Sea, Israel angered the Lord because they grumbled and complained and wanted to return to Egypt; In the midst of the waters of baptism, God spoke out of heaven and said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” When God led them to the land of promise, they did not believe God could conquer it for them, so God required them to wander for forty years; The Spirit led Christ into the wilderness so he could be tempted by Satan, and he overcame the enemy because he relied on God. When Israel finally entered the land, they did not conquer it fully or usher in the kingdom of God as they were supposed to do; Christ entered into the land of Galilee, ushering in the Kingdom of God through preaching repentance and belief in the Gospel. Christ walked the same path as Israel, but where they failed, he succeeded.
This week we see the first days of Christ ministry begin to take shape. In Chapter 1:2-3, Mark has already demonstrated that the prophet Isaiah is a key reference point in the Old Testament to understand the ministry of Christ. There he references the prophecy Isaiah made in Isaiah 40 about John the Baptist. Let’s take a look at another prophecy in Isaiah 42 about the Messiah. Read with me Isaiah 42:5-9:
Thus says God, the LORD,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
6 “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
7 to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8 I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.”
God promised, through the prophet Isaiah, to call forth someone that he would personally lead by the hand to be given to his people as a covenant. Not to his covenant people Israel, merely, but to all his people from the nations. This person that he called and that he personally leads will open the eyes of the blind and set free prisoners that sit in darkness. This person will be chosen by God to inaugurate a restoration in the people of Israel by healing physical maladies and setting people free from the bondage of darkness. YHWH said these things through the prophet Isaiah, so that the people would know what to look for. They were supposed to be looking for signs of physical healing and spiritual liberation. That God can tell the people what will happen demonstrates that he is God and that the person he has promised is the one that he has personally called and the one that he leads with his own hand.
Isaiah 42 set up our sermon text today. Look with me at Mark 1:16 to the end of the chapter.
Mark 1:16-45
Jesus Calls the First Disciples
16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
Jesus Heals a Man with an Unclean Spirit
21 And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. 22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
Jesus Heals Many
29 And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
32 That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
Jesus Preaches in Galilee
35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Jesus Cleanses a Leper
40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
The restorative ministry that YHWH promises in Isaiah 42 is clearly the ministry that Mark describes in the first days of Christ’s time in Galilee. If they were vigilantly watching for someone to come along, called out by God, led by his Spirit, healing the sick and freeing people from the bondage of spiritual darkness, it was clearly Jesus Christ.
Jesus’s ministry was a ministry of restoration. The question is how was it a ministry of restoration? Here is the main point of today’s sermon: Jesus restores his people by teaching them with authority and fixing their brokenness. [Repeat] Jesus restores his people by teaching them with authority and fixing their brokenness.
There will be three points to the sermon: first, Jesus restores his people with his people; second, Jesus restores his people with his teaching; and lastly, Jesus restores his people by fixing their brokenness, physically and spiritually.
Jesus restores his people with his people.
First, Jesus restores his people with his people. Read with me Mark 1:16-20:
Mark 1:16-20
16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
Jesus is the Son of God, God himself. He does not need the disciples to succeed at the mission that his Father sent him to accomplish. He has the power of the Holy Spirit, and oh, by the way, He is God! So what are you doing Jesus?! Not only does he not need man, but he does not need these men. They are uneducated fisherman! They weren’t the Paul’s of their day; educated by the best Rabbi’s, in the best schools, from the best families. They were lowly fisherman from Galilee.
On the other hand, what were the disciples thinking!? They were generational fisherman, with a family business. They were not wealthy men, but they had a trade. Something their fathers, and grandfathers, and grandfather’s grandfather did. Verse 20 says that James and John left their father Zebedee in the boat! They left to follow a random guy that said he would make them fishers of men? I love the Lord, I have followed Christ for a long time, but this sounds crazy to me! How does all of this make sense?
If you were with us this morning at our Sunday morning prayer service, our sermonette came out of Jeremiah 16:14-21. I will not repreach that sermon today, but let me just take a second to encourage you to come. These are the moments when studying the Old Testament is so crucial to understanding the New Testament.
Here it is in a nutshell. Jeremiah promises that God is about to do something that totally redefines his relationship with Israel. To that point, the greatest moment in Israel’s history was when God led them out of slavery in Egypt. That moment defined their relationship with him. Instead of merely liberating them from Egypt, a new exodus is coming when God will lead all his people, Jew and Gentile, out of slavery in all countries and gather them back to the land he has promised them. This new exodus will totally redefine everything about his relationship with man.
Then he says this in Jeremiah 16:16:
Jeremiah 16:16
Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
Who is the “them”? People! One of the great promises of the New Exodus, the new moment when God will restore his people, one of the signs that this great day of hope has arrived is that God will send out fishermen and hunters to seek out his people, wherever they are hidden, bag them and tag them, and bring them home to be in the land he has promised them! So when Jesus walks along the shore of Galilee and said, “Hey Simon, Hey Andrew, let’s go fishing for some men,” they connected Christ with the great day of God’s restoration of Israel. They knew they were signing up to be the hunters and fishers that Jeremiah had prophesied about. Isn’t that amazing?! These backwater fisherman knew their Bibles well enough to recognize the Messiah when he showed up.
Would that be true of you? Do you know your Bible well enough that if someone gave you a quiz about what will happen in the last day, you would pass? Furthermore, if you knew what the Scripture said about following this Messiah, that it would be hard, it would cost you your job, your family, your comfort, and even your life, would you drop your nets and immediately follow him?
They did. They followed him because they wanted to be a part of the New Exodus that Isaiah promised. They wanted to be used by God to accomplish the restoration of the their people.
God has always done this. He has always used people to accomplish his purposes. Romans 10:14-15 says:
Romans 10:14-15
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
If we take this passage in reverse, we see how God accomplishes the extraordinary work of salvation through the ordinary means of people. A preacher is sent. If there is someone that is sent, there must be a sender. The sender of the preacher is the Church. At the end of every service, we send you out to do the work of ministry. When preachers are sent out, they preach. When they preach, people hear them. When people hear, they believe. And, finally, when they believe, they call out to God to save them and he does save them. This is the way that God has promised in his Scriptures to accomplish the restorative ministry of the Gospel.
So, when we here reports that people are coming to Christ in ways that are not normal, such as dreams or visions, we should be skeptical. We should not automatically dismiss reports that sound odd, but we should always be comparing our experiences to Scripture. Romans 10 is clear that God saves through the verbal proclamation of the Gospel, the ordinary faithfulness of normal people. This does not put God in a box. It takes God at his word.
God has promised to send out fisherman and hunters. We will see that the main focus of Christ’s ministry is not the crowds the flock to him, but the 12 disciples that he is training to do this very thing. He teaches them, he trains, he sends them out to get practical real world experience. He spends three years making a journey to the cross that he could have knocked out way quicker. He spent three years on earth, training the disciples, because God uses people to restore people.
So Jesus’s ministry of restoration is a ministry that uses people to restore his people. We must think of ourselves as hunters and fishers going our into the wilderness of this world to find his people that are in slavery and captivity. What do we do when we find them?
Christ restores his people with his teaching.
This brings us to our second point. We follow the example of Christ and restore them by teaching them all that Christ taught. Christ’s ministry of restoration was a teaching ministry. We see this in a couple places in this text. Jesus teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum, but it is really clear in verse 35ff.
Mark 1:35-39
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
The ministry that Jesus does in Capernaum, teaching in the synagogue, casting out the demon, and healing Peter’s sick mother-in-law made Jesus so popular that he had to retreat into the wilderness to escape the crowds. Here we see the value of prayer in the life of Christ and his devotion to the Father, but we also see very clearly Christ’s own confession about the purpose of his ministry. He says in verse 38, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”
He did not say, it is my job to heal people or it is my job to liberate people from demons, so we got to get out of here so that I can find more people who need those things. He said, “I came out to preach.” Teaching was one of the primary focuses of Christ’s ministry. So when the disciples find him in the wilderness, he says, “Let’s get out of here, because there are a lot of people that need to hear my preaching.”
Why is preaching so essential to the ministry of Christ? Asked a different way, is learning an essential component of Christian maturity? Many of you have heard that God is love. Or something like, if the greatest commandment is to love God and love my neighbor, then I don’t need all those books. I don’t need a seminary degree to be effective in ministry. I just need to get out there an love people and love God and I’ll be good. Don’t you bring that theological mumbo jumbo in here preacher. You can keep that in your ivory tower. We have simple faith here. We just love people and love God and that is good enough for us. Theology, that’s boring.
That’s not what Christ thinks. He preaches, so that people will come to understanding. He seeks to transform the mind, so that the mind can guide the heart to worship God. This is exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 12:2, he says:
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Your mind has been corrupted. Sin has infected your whole body and your brain is a part of that corruption. Your very ability to reason has been inhibited by sin. As the lost person is presented with facts about the world, they will reason to a place that rejects God, because sin is a cancer on the mind that prevents it from seeing reality clearly. Romans 1:18 and following says that God has clearly revealed himself in creation and the ungodly and the unrighteousness in men immediately suppresses that truth. We cannot trust our minds. They must be renewed through the sanctifying work of the Word of God.
If we are going to see God clearly, we must have our minds transformed. This is one of the primary tasks of Christ, and it is one of the primary tasks of the shepherds in his Church. It is the job of the elders to deliver to you constant, nutritious, meals from God’s word, so that your mind can be reprogrammed to see reality for what it really is. This transformation is slow. It is hard. We have to grow in our reading skills, our listening skills, and our reasoning skills. We have to consume good books, good music, good entertainment. We have to tune out the influences of the world and tune into the teachings of Christ and his Church. And when we do, Romans 12 says that we will begin to be able to “discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable, and perfect.”
We are going to continue to see that teaching and learning and having our minds transformed is a constant theme in Christ’s ministry. The disciples started out uneducated, but eventually, we will see them standing before the Sanhedrin in Acts astounding the wisest men of their age with the wisdom of Christ. If we are going to love God, we have to love him with our minds.
So here is one of the most practical points of application I can give you. We are a Church that loves books. If you have received a book from me, read it. Dedicate one night a week to not watching Netflix and instead read a good book. If you don’t have a good book, come back to the office after the service. Max and I have four whole shelves of free books that we have bought to give to you. Come learn about God, so that you can love him.
We have seen that Christ’s ministry of restoration uses people to restore people. We have seen that it is primarily a preaching and teaching ministry that begins with the mind. Now we will see that Jesus Christ’s ministry of restoration is a ministry that fixes people’s brokenness.
Jesus restores his people by fixing their brokenness.
In Isaiah 42:7, God promised that his ministry of reconciliation would
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
The promise was physical healing and spiritual liberation. This will not be a unique point to this week’s sermon text, but something we will see Christ continue to do.
He will heal people’s physical maladies: blindness, lameness, leprosy, sickness, deformities, and even death. The ministry of Christ restores the physical needs of his people.
He will also free them from spiritual bondage. He heals demon possessed people that are totally dominated by the demon that possesses them. Not only that, we will also see him liberate people that are in the bondage of sin.
Here we must be careful. It is so easy for us to fall into the same trap as the people in our sermon text this week. Isaiah made it clear, these physical and spiritual healings are not an end in themselves. Let me remind you what Isaiah 42:8-9, it says this:
Isaiah 42:8-9
I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.”
God’s purpose in healing physical and spiritual brokenness is to demonstrate that he is YHWH. He told us beforehand that the ministry or restoration that he was going to work through Christ would include these elements. He is faithful to do exactly what he says will take place.
So, is it good to pray for physical healing, absolutely. Is it appropriate to believe that God still heals, certainly. We have already said that God accomplishes his purposes through human means, so every miraculous healing is to his credit and every normal healing is to his credit. It is not wrong to desire these things, but is more important to focus on the outcome of the healing and spiritual liberations. There are three things that we can learn from the healings, both physical and spiritual, from our sermon text this evening.
First, in the synagogue, when Jesus heals the demoniac, observe how the crowd responds. Starting in verse 26:
Mark 1:26-28
And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
They were amazed! They immediately are drawn not to his authority over demons, but to the authority of his teaching. This Jesus that teaches us amazing things also has the authority to perform amazing acts of salvation. It catalyzed his ministry and made his fame spread throughout the entire region. So the first thing to learn about the healing ministry of Christ is that when he fixes our brokenness it demonstrates the glory of Christ. Every healing that takes place, from the simplest paper cut to the most miraculous reversal of cancer should make us say, “WOW! God did that!”
The second lesson we learn from healings in our sermon text comes from Jesus’s healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. Look with me at verse 29:
Mark 1:29-31
29 And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
When Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, it almost seems like a throw away story. I mean, we don’t even get her name. He just heals her and she starts fixing supper. But notice something, in one healing, Christ both loves Simon Peter by ministering to the people that he loves, and he restores Simon Peter’s mother to her rightful place of service. Church, there are going to be seasons where you wander. There are going to be seasons where sin takes a root in your life. You are going to become spiritually sick and it is going to prevent you from serving in the role that the Church needs. The restorative ministry of Christ heals us so that we can overcome sin in our lives, makes us healthy again, so that we can serve in the roles God has designed for us.
Lastly, we saw Christ heal the Leper. Read with me Mark 1:40-45:
Mark 1:40-45
And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
Lepers were kept out of the community. The disease was spread through physical contact, so they had to live in their own leper communities far away from those that were healthy. They were not allowed to see their families. They were not allowed to worship in the temple. They were totally cut off from every social interaction given to them by God. In the same way, sin separates us from fellowship with our God given community, the Church. We can sin against each other causing division. We can sin against God, turning our hearts away from him. And we can sin against ourselves, causing harm and pain that no one can see and no one knows needs healing.
But Christ’s ministry of restoration heals the separation caused by sin. Through Christ, we can be restored to relationship with each other. Every Sunday, we take the Lord’s Supper to remind ourselves of the unity we all share in sacrifice on the cross. Scripture teaches us that we are to deal with sin before we take the Lord’s Supper. As you are sitting there, spend some time preparing your hearts. Use that as a moment to be reminded of the healing that Christ has already begun in your life to restore your to a right relationship with him and his Church.
Conclusion
So we have seen that Christ’s ministry of restoration is accomplished through ordinary people. We have seen that it starts with the transformation of the mind as he heals us of the corruption of sin. Now we have seen that he restores us to glorify himself, prepare us to serve, and reconnect us to the community that we were designed to be in relationship with.
As we close, let me remind us one more time of Isaiah 42. God said, through the prophet Isaiah, he does not give his glory to another. Verse 8 said:
Isaiah 42:8
I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
He has promised to heal Israel’s physical and spiritual brokenness. He has also said that there is no one like him that can do this, no one. He will not give his glory to anyone else. So, if Christ is the one that can heal like YHWH said he was going to heal, and we see Christ getting all the glory for the restorative ministry of God. What does that tell us about Christ. It tells us that he is and only can be the one true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Let’s pray