Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Jean Paul Sartre in No Exit has three characters in the play who are one by one ushered into hell.

To their surprise it is not a place of punishment.

There are no demons torturing and inflicting pain.

They are left in a moderate size room with a few articles.

There are no widows or mirrors, but only each other to look at.

They are, at first, quite pleased with their good fortune.

But then it dawned on them, none of them had eyelids.

They were condemned to live forever with their eyes open, and under the gaze of one another.

"It is a life without a break."

This endless lack of privacy was their hell.

The lack of privacy was part of the cost that Jesus paid to be the Messiah.

He descended into hell in His death, but He also did so in great measure when He left heaven and descended to live the life of a man in a fallen world.

Aristotle said, "The ideal man is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy."

Jesus was the ideal man and He loved privacy.

But He had to fight for it, and live an unusual life style to get it.

The only two ways that Jesus succeeded in getting some privacy was by getting up early and going off by Himself to pray, or by getting in a boat and going out into the sea of Galilee.

But then He was still with His disciples, and so Jesus had a hard time being alone.

In Mark 6:32 Jesus departed into a desert place privately.

He thought by going to a remote place He could be alone, but the people ran around the lake on foot, and when Jesus landed the crowd was there already waiting for Him.

That is when He had compassion and fed the 5000.

Imagine trying to get away from it all and ending up hosting 5000 for supper, and all of them unexpected guests!

In our study of Mark 3 we discover we are in Mark's crowd chapter.

He uses two words to refer to the vast crowds around Jesus 5 times in this chapter.

He no where again refers to the crowds so often, even though Jesus is in the midst of crowds all through this Gospel.

The crowd here, however, is very specifically described as no where else.

It is unique and impressive.

The popularity of Jesus had spread across the land.

Jesus was no local preacher, but had national and even international fame.

The crowd from Galilee in the North was joined by many from Judea in the South.

They were coming from Maine to Florida is what we would say using our geography.

From one end of the country to the other people were flocking to Jesus.

Mark adds, from Jerusalem, to show that though the leaders of Israel were out to kill Jesus, the people saw Jesus as a friend.

Sometimes people know more than their leaders.

Mark adds that people came from Idumea and the region across the Jordan.

It is surprising to note that this is the only place in the New Testament where Idumea is used.

It is the land of the sons of Esau; the land of the Edomites, the traditional enemies of Israel.

Yet the fame of Jesus had spread across the Jordan to those people, and they came over the Jordan to expand the massive crowd that followed Jesus.

Finally, Mark records that the people also came from Tyre and Sidon, the two great cities of the Phonecians.

The crowds were a mixed multitude of both Jews and Gentiles.

There was no discrimination in the ministry of Jesus.

He healed people of all races and nations.

He was a friend to all, and He died for all.

Jesus is getting a taste of what He will experience in eternity.

In Rev. 7:9 we read, "..there was before me a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne."

John goes on to say they were shouting, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."

Jesus will be popular forever among people's of all the world.

We see it already in His life on earth in this crowd chapter of Mark.

Jesus was the most popular person of His day, and He will be the most popular person for all eternity.

There was a price to pay for this popularity, however, and that price was loss of privacy.

This is one of the costs involved in the motto, we will follow the Lord to win the lost at any cost.

We tend to think in terms of time and money, but these are even easier to give up than to give up privacy.

But this is what it takes to break down the walls between the Christian and the world in order to reach the world.

Billy Graham learned this, and it is a major price he had to pay to be used of God.

"Billy is often asked, "Does being a public figure bother you?" "Yes," replies the evangelist.

"One of the most difficult things I have had to face was the loss of personal privacy.

I did not seek the publicity, and how it all came about I truthfully don't know.

I'd much rather be the minister of a small parish somewhere, but Ruth I and decided long ago that as it was this way, we'd go ahead with it.

Years before I discovered that if your wife is behind what you are doing, the path becomes much smoother."

Graham often comes home after a long time away in crusades, and even though he lives in the mountains, tourists find him and he has to visit with them.

But over the years he has led scores of individuals to Christ in his own study.

In every eight hour period there are fifty long distance phone calls to his home.

This, of course, is beyond human endurance, and so most of them are diverted to assistants.

He has to eat alone because if he tries to eat in public he is recognized, and people want to express their gratitude and get his autograph.

It may sound glamorous, and we all think we would love such attention, but the fact is, it gets old very fast, and is a burden rather than a blessing.

When Graham tried to visit Disneyland he had to give up in half an hour, and when he took his son to the New York World's Fair they only got to three pavilions before the friendly mob made it impossible to go on.

The price Graham has paid to win the lost is his privacy, and that is no small price.

Every once in awhile he says to his associate T. W. Wilson, "Wouldn't it be a tremendous relief just to have a little pastorate and preach three sermons on Sunday and visit a few people, and see lots of our families and play plenty of golf?" Envy is a two way street, and many who envy Graham are also envied by him.

It is a heavy price to pay when you have to sacrifice your privacy to serve Christ.

But that is the price Jesus paid to save us.

Once He began His public ministry Jesus was seldom able to find privacy.

His life was so hectic that His family seriously felt He was having mental problems from the stress of it.

Verse 20 says the crowd so filled the house where He was that He and His disciples were not even able to eat.

What a reverse of the feeding of the 5000.

There He fed the crowd, and here the crowd is keeping them from being fed.

Jesus did not feed every crowd, and here was a case where He was so busy He didn't even feed Himself.

The next verse tells us His family was fed up with the whole business of His perpetual business with the crowds.

They came to restrain Him, for they said He was out of His mind.

If your son or brother worked from morning to night day after day dealing with masses of people pushing and shouting, and trying to get near Him, and He was so dedicated He didn't even eat right, or get His rest, what would you think?

I have a hunch most of us would say, "Son, you must be out of your mind."

They didn't know that He only had a short time to live, and He just as well use His strength in service rather than conserve it for no good reason.

Jesus was burning the candle at both ends, for there was no end to the human needs about Him, and He knew He was going to die in the prime of life.

But for those who loved Him, He was running a 24 hour three ring circus, and they felt He was losing it and cracking up.

The fact is, Jesus did experience a lot of stress, and when His disciples were able to stay awake and keep going, He needed to sleep.

He would send them into town for supplies, and He would stay by the well and rest.

Jesus pushed Himself to the limit, but He did not demand the same from His disciples.

He would rise and pray long before their day began, and He did not scold them for not rising with Him.

His plan was not that they all die at 33, but live on to spread the Gospel to all the world.

Jesus did not expect any of His followers to burn out in 3 years, so there are some things that Jesus did that are not for our example.

If you know you are going to die in the prime of life, then it would be legitimate to be fanatical and burn the candle at both ends, but Jesus does not demand that of us.

Jesus is our example in the area of privacy.

There are two things He did in relationship to privacy that are guidelines for all Christians.

He searched for privacy, and He sacrificed privacy.

This sounds paradoxical that He would both search for it and sacrifice it, but this is what the record shows.

It is part of the whole battle for balance in the ideal life, and Jesus was able to keep that balance by both finding and giving up His privacy.

We want to look at each side of this struggle, and start with-

I. HIS SEARCH FOR PRIVACY.

Jesus taught His disciples to enter into their closets to pray, and to not be like the hypocrites who love to pray in public and make it a matter of public display.

God hears the private prayers of believers and rewards them.

Public prayer is a high risk practice, for it leaves you open to pride.