SERMON on MARK 7:24-37

SERMON on MARK 7:24-37 September 7 & 10, 2006

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

In chapter 7 of the gospel of Mark, Jesus heals a man who is deaf and nearly mute. In chapter 8, he heals another man who is blind. You just heard the account from chapter 7. Listen to the chapter 8 account:

“[Jesus and his disciples] came to [the village of] Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people; they look like trees walking around.’ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly” (Mark 8:22-25).

If you and I are to be true followers of Jesus, “real” Christians, “good” Christians (as people say) we have to embrace what these accounts show us about God’s will for us.

One translation of the oath sometimes connected to the medical profession includes these words: “First, do no harm.” In other words, “If you’re not sure you can fix things, maybe you should just leave them alone.” But, Thank God, there’s a key difference between what human beings can do and what Jesus did: There are no accounts of Jesus refusing to tamper with a problem he thought he couldn’t solve, and there are no accounts of Jesus merely treating the sick. Every time Jesus aims to heal, he does so completely. Why do you suppose that is?

The earthly life of Jesus makes God’s nature and His ultimate goal clear: The essence of the nature of God is not merely to leave you as you are while He helps and supports you. He doesn’t just want to bandage your hurts and give you a fresh start. Oh, that’s what we sometimes think Christianity is all about, and what we sometimes advertise it as being all about: “Come unto us, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and we will give you a nice place to sit on Sunday mornings, we will give you a sense of well-being that you’re doing the right thing, some nice, supportive people to hang around with.” But merely keeping you and me comfortable is not what Jesus Christ came, died, and was resurrected for.

GOD DOESN’T WANT THE SAME OLD, SAME OLD FOR YOU AND ME.

GOD WANTS TO DO THE RADICAL THING IN YOUR LIFE:

HE WANTS TO FORGIVE YOUR SINS, BRING YOU INTO HIS FAMILY, AND START A WHOLE NEW LIFE IN YOU.

Why does Jesus heal the deaf/mute man in Mark, chapter 7, and completely heal the blind man in chapter 8? Why doesn’t he just give them hearing aids and glasses? Why doesn’t he just ask them to start traveling with his disciples as a way of getting into some good company and feeling better about themselves?

He doesn’t, for the same reason that ~

· He moved Abraham away from his family and everything he knew, thousands of miles into a land where he then asked him to kill his own son;

· He had the teenaged Mary wearing maternity clothes, even though she had never been touched by a man;

· And he met Saul on the road to Damascus and knocked him to the ground with a blinding light and an arresting voice from heaven.

That is the kind of RADICAL THING God wants to do in you! Can you imagine how your life would be if you were accepting the new radical thing that He wants to do in you?

Sometimes that’s hard if you’ve grown up in Church. It’s a lot easier for someone who’s been “down and out,” who came to Jesus when life fell apart—it’s easier for that person to believe something radical has begun in their life. When you get up out of your seat in a big Billy Graham meeting in the midst of thousands of people or walk down front and kneel on mud or sawdust during a tent revival or raise your hands and your prayers during a Christian rock concert—it’s a lot easier to believe then that something new and radical has begun in your life. But hear this carefully, there are not two kinds of Christianity. Whether you accepted Jesus as your Savior during a dramatic moment or whether you’ve been accepting him all your life—GOD WANTS TO DO A RADICAL THING IN YOU.

God may not want to knock you to the ground or move you out of town. But God does want to (and will, if you let Him) move you away from the old things that bind up your life and move you toward a new freedom. He wants to ask you to give up the life you want, to live the life He wants you to have. He wants you to confess and repent of your old sins and give birth to the new life He wants to plant inside you.

And when God begins doing that RADICAL THING in you, here’s what it will look like:

v First of all--You’ll know it!

v Second of all—The people close to you will know it!

v Your Christian faith won’t just be a Sunday morning gloss over the same old life you’ve always lived.

v You will stop—or, at least, make a serious attempt to stop—doing things that you know are against God’s law. Check the Ten Commandments for that list.

v You will spend time praying, read & studying the Bible, asking for forgiveness of those you have sinned against, and building strong relationships with other followers of Jesus.

v And, thereby, most important, you will start becoming more like Jesus Christ every day.

How do you think the healed man lived after he met Jesus? Do you think he wasted the rest of his life listening to the same old silence and muttering the same old sounds, as he had always done before Jesus. No, you know he didn’t! Because for him, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If any one be in Christ, that person is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

GOD WANTS TO DO A RADICAL THING IN YOUR LIFE.

So, if God wants to do a radical thing in my life, why doesn’t He? Why doesn’t He just do what He wants to do with me? Well, in old country churches, they have an answer for that question: “God is a gentleman.” He will not knock down the door into your life. He will not force himself on you. He will not insist that you remain deaf, mute, and blind, if you will not be healed. If you will not accept what He offers, He will leave you to your own devices—living always in sight of the Promised Land, but never crossing over into it.

BUT IF YOU’RE TIRED OF THAT AND YOU WANT GOD TO DO THE RADICAL THING IN YOUR LIFE, HERE’S WHAT TO DO:

v Do what the deaf, mute man did. Do what the blind man did. Let me—like their friends—present you to Jesus. (You can close your eyes if you’d like.)

v Be still in His presence.

v And now, if you want to, accept what Jesus has in store for you.

v And, if you do accept it, tell Him that. Tell Jesus that, even though you don’t completely understand how it will all happen, you want and you accept with gratitude the radical thing He wants to do in your life. Use your own words. This is a time to pray … Amen.

NOW GET READY—

THE RADICAL THING MAY NOT HAPPEN ALL AT ONCE,

BUT IT LASTS FOREVER!