SOUL CARE
MARK: THE SERVANT WHO WAS OUR SAVIOR • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 59:12
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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.
And Simon and those who were with him searched for him,
and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.”
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.”
And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Mark’s gospel moves at a blistering pace. He had used the “euthus” which means immediately or at once 7 times in 28 verses. Reading Mark’s gospel is for our soul what an elliptical is for our heart. It takes our breath away as Mark compresses three and a half years of Jesus ministry into 9 chapters.
Today’s text does something quite interesting. It so subtle that we could easily miss it’s importance due to Mark’s pace.
Look at verse 35. There is Mark’s favorite conjunction “and” but notice the subtle shift. The adverb “immediately” has been replaced with the verb “rising”. We have a break in our pace. Is Mark tired? Why the change of pace?
MARK 1:35
Mark slams on his writing breaks to show us a truth. A truth that is needed for our spiritual well-being. A truth so often ignored that its effects are not felt until its fruit is eaten.
Jesus is showing us how to care for our souls. Soul care is an epidemic that plagues most all churches today. I’m not talking about another book to read, or bible study to attend. I’m talking about soul care. This is foreign for most of us.
Soul care is found in those spiritual discipline that we often do not know much about or just do not practice.
The idea of spiritual discipline has disappeared from our minds, our mouths, our pulpits, and our culture. We hardly know what discipline means in modern American society. And yet, there is no other way to attain godliness; discipline is the path to godliness.
If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.
Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;
for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
Mark’s recording of this account is by no means incidental but instructive. He wants us to see the pattern and the purpose of soul care.
PATTERN OF SOUL CARE.
PATTERN OF SOUL CARE.
“The Bet,” is a story by Anton Chekhov, a Russian writer of the last half of the nineteenth century. The plot involves a wager between two educated men regarding solitary confinement. A wealthy, middle-aged banker believed that the death penalty was a more humane penalty than solitary confinement because “an executioner kills at once, solitary confinement kills gradually.” One of his guests at a party, a young lawyer of twenty-five, disagreed, saying, “To live under any conditions is better than not to live at all.”
Angered, the banker impulsively responded with a bet of two million rubles that the younger man could not last five years in solitary confinement. Convinced of his endurance, the lawyer announced he would stay fifteen years alone instead of only five.
They agreed on the arrangements, and the young man moved into a separate building on the grounds of the banker’s large estate. He was allowed no visitors or newspapers. He could write letters but receive none. Guards watched to ensure he never violated the agreement, but were stationed so that he could not see them or any other human being from his windows. He received his food in silence through a small opening where he could not see the one who served him. Everything else he wanted—books, certain foods, musical instruments—was granted by special written request.
The story develops with a description of the things the lawyer asked for through the years and the observations of the guards who occasionally stole a glance through a window. During the first year the piano could be heard at almost any hour, and he asked for many books, mostly novels and other light reading. The next year the music ceased and the works of various classical authors were requested. In the sixth year of his isolation he began to study languages and soon had mastered six. After the tenth year of his confinement, the prisoner sat motionless at the table and read the New Testament. After more than a year’s saturation of the Bible, he began to study the history of religion and works on theology. During the last two years his reading broadened to cover many subjects in addition to theology.
The second half of the story focuses on the night before the noon deadline when the lawyer would win the bet. The banker was now at the end of his career. His risky speculations and impetuosity had gradually undermined his business. The once self-confident millionaire was now a second-rate banker, and paying off the wager would destroy him. Angry at his foolishness and jealous of the soon-to-be-wealthy man who was now only forty, the old banker determined to kill his opponent and frame the guard with the murder. Slipping into the man’s room, he found him asleep at the table and noticed a letter the lawyer had written to him. He picked it up and read the following:
Tomorrow at twelve o’clock I shall be free, . . . but before leaving this room, . . . I find it necessary to say a few words to you. With a clear conscience, and before God, who sees me, I declare to you that I despise . . . all that your books call the joys of this world. For fifteen years I have studied attentively the life of this world. It is true that I neither saw the earth nor its peoples, but in your books I lived. . . . I sang songs, I hunted the deer and the wild boar in the forests. . . . In your books I climbed to the summit of Elburz and Mont Blanc, and I saw from those heights the sun rise in the morning, and at night it shed its purple glow over the sky and the ocean and the mountain-tops. I saw beneath me the flashing lightning cut through the clouds. I saw green fields, forests, rivers, lakes and towns. I heard the song of the sirens and the music of the shepherd’s reed-pipes. I felt the touch of the wings of beautiful [angels] who had flown to me. . . . Your books gave me wisdom. All that had been achieved by the untiring brain of man during long centuries is stored in my brain in a small compressed mass. . . . I know I am wiser than you all. . . . And I despise all your books, I despise all earthly . . . wisdom. All is worthless and false, hollow and deceiving like the mirage. You may be proud, wise and beautiful, but death will wipe you away from the face of the earth, as it does the mice that live beneath your floor; and your heirs, your history, your immortal geniuses will freeze or burn with the destruction of the earth. You have gone mad and are not following the right path. You take falsehood for truth, and deformity for beauty. To prove to you how I despise all that you value I renounce the two millions on which I looked, at one time, as the opening of paradise for me, and which I now scorn. To deprive myself of the right to receive them, I will leave my prison five hours before the appointed time, and by so doing break the terms of our compact.
The banker read these lines, replaced the paper on the table, kissed the strange, sleeping man, and with tears in his eyes quietly left the house. Chekhov writes, “Never before, not even after sustaining serious losses . . . , had he despised himself as he did at that moment.” His tears kept him awake the rest of the night. And at seven the next morning the watchmen ran in to say that they had seen the man crawl through a window, go to the gate, and then disappear.
Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (pp. 221-224). NavPress. Kindle Edition.
There is something both appealing and transforming about silence and solitude.
When we consider it in the light of Scripture, we realize that it would be neither right nor desirable to be cloistered from our God-given privileges and responsibilities involving other people. Biblical reality calls us to family, fellowship, evangelism, ministry, and other aspects of life together in the local church for the sake of Christ and His kingdom. And yet, sometimes our souls crave separation from noise and crowds into silence and solitude. Just as we must engage with others for some of the Disciplines of the Christian life, so there are times when we must temporarily withdraw into the Disciplines of silence and solitude.
Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (p. 224). NavPress. Kindle Edition.
Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (p. 224). NavPress. Kindle Edition.
In her book Finding Focus in a Whirlwind World, Jean Fleming observed, “We live in a noisy, busy world. Silence and solitude . . . fit the era of Victorian lace, high-button shoes, and kerosene lamps better than our age of television, video arcades, and joggers wired with earphones. We have become a people with an aversion to quiet and an uneasiness with being alone.”
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
We are commanded to set our minds of things above. This verse could also read this way; “think with your minds about things above”.
Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (pp. 225-226). NavPress. Kindle Edition.
Without silence and solitude we can be active, but shallow. Without fellowship we can be deep, but stagnant. Christlikeness requires both sides of the equation.
Jesus after a day of intense ministry willfully and purposefully pulls away to invest in his soul.
SOLITUDE
SOLITUDE
Solitude was a pattern by which Jesus lived.
And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them,
You and I cannot conduct the type of ministry that Jesus did in verse 32-34 but this does not mean that the ministry we have been given is any less taxing.
Jesus shows us in verses 32-34 that he is fully God but in verses 35-36 he shows us that he is fully man. He establishes this pattern for his own humanity and for us his human instruments.
Consider for a moment this mind blowing truth. The God who never sleeps rose early from his bed. The who never grows weary nor slumbers withdrew for strength.
The Australian astronomers used some of the world's most powerful instruments to measure the brightness of all the galaxies in one sector of the cosmos - and then calculated how many stars they must have contained.
From that measurement, they proceeded to work out a figure for the whole of the visible Universe, which they believe is much more accurate than previous estimates.
That figure - presented to the International Astronomical Union conference in Sydney - is the kind that really can be called astronomical: 70 sextillion, or seven followed by 22 zeroes.
That is more than the total number of grains of sand in all the Earth's beaches and deserts. But that is only the stars in the visible Universe within range of our telescopes.
Let me try to help put this in perspective. If we took only one quintillion of the stars and simply count them [from 0 to quintillion] one count per second, day and night, this will take 32 billion years! That is how long it will take to just "count" them.
We can appreciate the vastness of our universe if we imagine going on a journey through space at the speed of light (670,616,629 miles per hour). When we leave the planet Earth towards the sun, at the speed of light, in only 8 minutes we reach the sun, which is 93,000,000 miles away. If we wanted to leave our galaxy (the Milky Way) it would take us more than 50,000 years! 'Are we there yet?' It would take 2,000,000 years to reach the next galaxy and 10 billion years to get to the outer edge of the universe.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Colossians
SILENCE
SILENCE
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is near; the Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.
Zephaniah
Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
Z
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.
Recorded in the journals of the great evangelist George Whitefield is an incident of silent worship that he once had in the solitude of his home. He wrote that in the May 9, 1739, experience,
Recorded in the journals of the great evangelist George Whitefield is an incident of silent worship that he once had in the solitude of his home. He wrote that in the May 9, 1739, experience,
“God was pleased to pour into my soul a great spirit of supplication, and a sense of His free, distinguishing mercies so filled me with love, humility, and joy and holy confusion that I could at last only pour out my heart before Him in an awful silence. I was so full that I could not well speak. Oh, the happiness of communion with God.”
“God was pleased to pour into my soul a great spirit of supplication, and a sense of His free, distinguishing mercies so filled me with love, humility, and joy and holy confusion that I could at last only pour out my heart before Him in an awful silence. I was so full that I could not well speak. Oh, the happiness of communion with God.”
Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (p. 229). NavPress. Kindle Edition.
SUPPLICATION
SUPPLICATION
This withdrawal was not only for solitude and silence but for supplication as well.
What did he pray about during this time? Mark does not tell us the content of his prayer. However, tells us that Jesus had already taught his followers how to pray. Remember their request; “Lord teach us to pray.” Men who had been trained in their synagogues to pray. Men who had heard the best theologians of their time pray. Asked, “teach us to pray.”
I imagine that if Jesus taught them to pray this way he must have prayed likewise.
I imagine his prayer begin with worshipping his Father for all that he is.
This would be followed by submitting to his Father’s will in all aspects of life so that His kingdom would be reflected on earth as it is in heaven.
This would have been followed by confessing his dependence. Did you know that Jesus was the most dependent person that ever lived?
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
Our first parents failed to live in absolute dependence on the Father and likewise this is our greatest sin.
His prayer would conclude with not his asking for forgiveness of sin but for the Father to forgive those who had sin against Him. Followed by strength to resist the temptation to sin.
The secret strength to Jesus life was secret prayer. The secret to prayer is secret prayer.
Prayer is not a list of demands but a life of dependence.
Prayer is not a list of demands but a life of dependence.
PURPOSE OF SOUL CARE
PURPOSE OF SOUL CARE
PROVIDES PERSPECTIVE
PROVIDES PERSPECTIVE
Do you have problems prioritizing your life? Do you have a problem saying no to good request?
Notice what Jesus is able to do after this time of solitude, silence, and supplication.
In verse 37 his disciples tell him “that everyone is looking for you”. This phrase in Greek means an attempt to determine or control rather than to submit and follow.
SIDE BAR - In Mark seeking is not a virtue nor are clamoring crowds a sign of ministry success. Also, enthusiasm should not be confused with faith as it can oppose faith.
Jesus will not allow himself to be controlled by others agendas and ideas. Time with his Father reinforces his purpose. He is controlled by his purpose. His duty drives his day planner. He has come to preach. He stated the subject of his sermon’s in
and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
His purpose not only provides perspective but propels his preaching.
PROPELS PREACHING
PROPELS PREACHING
He tells his disciples
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.”
His message was repentance and this is our message. This is not a cruel message but a kind message.
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
It is not a rude message but a refreshing message.
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,
It is not a religious message but a restorative message. See .
The time Jesus spent with his Father deepened his determination to preach repentance because all men are dead in trespasses and sins. It is not mean to call people to repentance but ministry.
When we seek to care for our own souls we will seek to care for the souls of others.
If we care not for the souls of others it could mean that we are not caring for our own souls.