Believing for the Miraculous (Mark 6:1-6)
by Pastor Cesar Crisostomo | July 15, 2018
Mark 6:1-6It is probably safe to say that everyone has their own opinion about the miraculous. Opinions about what God does, why and when He does what He does. And even opinions on why He doesn’t do what we think He should and when He should do it. Everybody has opinions of the miracle power of God, the supernatural touch of the Lord. In our Scripture passage, this is now the second time Jesus returned to Nazareth. Remember that Jesus has been in Nazareth before this account (Luke 4:14-16). In the meantime, He was preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the broken hearted. He had been preaching deliverance to the captives and had healed the blind and all manner of sickness. He was doing what He proclaimed He would do (Luke 4:17-21; Isaiah 61). He had even raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead. On this visit, the disciples were with Him. He is now returning to His home town once again, the very town that had rejected Him before and even sought to kill Him (Luke 4:22-30).
Once again when the people there in Nazareth heard Jesus teaching, they were amazed. They were surprised or baffled because they knew Him to be the carpenter, the son of Mary. Someone who is familiar to them. Someone they knew to be a common man, the son of an ordinary carpenter. Now I don’t think the people disagreed with His teachings, but I think they could not believe the wisdom that was coming from this man who they knew growing up. I think they questioned His qualifications. Jesus’ wisdom, power and authority surprised everyone. As a child growing up, Jesus to them was just like the other village kids and in growing up apparently became the village carpenter. So, because Jesus was too familiar to them, they took offense at Him. They were offended at Him and so they rejected and would not accept Him. They just could not overcome their prejudice.
He could not do any miracles there.
- Why couldn’t the Lord do much in this place? Why was the power of God hindered? We know very well the scripture tells us that it is because of the unbelief. The people just did not believe. But what produces unbelief? What hinders God from doing great things in peoples lives? What hinders the Lord from moving mightily in a person’s life, in their family, in their home, in their situations? What hinders the Lord from doing a great work?
1. We hinder the work of God when we treat Jesus as just being common (v. 3).
- We live in a nation who has made the Lord just common. Yes, we go to church, involve ourselves by volunteering and go to prayer meetings, Bible studies but still treat the Lord very, very common. We move with unbelief because the Lord has become common to us.
- We never come to realizing and experiencing the intervening work of God in our lives because we treat the things of God just common and ordinary. We treat Jesus as just an ordinary carpenter.
2. We never get to experience the intervening work of God in our lives because of unbelief, lack of faith. (v. 5-6)
- It means, “I will not believe.” They did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They did not believe He can do the miracles. They refused to believe even in the presence of great truth and miraculous signs. The result of their unbelief is Jesus could not do no mighty works in that place. Does it mean that their unbelief restricted His power to do miracles? I don’t think so. Does it mean that Jesus just decided to reject them because they had rejected Him, so He retaliated? I don’t think so. I believe that the unbelief kept people from coming to Him.
- During the most critical time in our lives, can we believe that God is able to do the miraculous? Sometimes what happens when problems come, when sickness overcomes our bodies, instead of believing that God can do the miraculous, we choose to just live with the problems. We say, “You know what, I will just live with it.” Instead of believing that God can change things, we learn to live with things that God has said, “drive it out.” I need to believe that God can deliver, that God can heal.
- We need to accept and understand that there are things that we will ask God to do and there will be times He will do it right away, but there are times He lets us wait. In the waiting we need to keep believing and serving with surrender. (Isaiah 40:31; Hebrews 11)
What are some of the things I should do to believe?
- Decide the I am in trouble without the Lord’s help. I need to recognize that I am dead without God. I need to make a decision that I can’t do anything on my own abilities, nor by my own power but only with Spirit of the Lord Almighty (Zechariah 4:6). And in the moment that I think I can do things alone or work things out on my own, there won’t be the miraculous.
- In humility and surrender I need to confidently petition God and have Him confirm it with signs and wonders. I think signs and wonders is God confirming that which have been spoken in faith. It is God agreeing (Mark 16:15-18).
The Lord gives and takes away but blessed be His Name.
3. Remember what Jesus has done for us.
- 2 Timothy 2:8-13 “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we disown Him, He will also disown us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.”
