Sermon Tone Analysis

A Contrast in Faith

Parallel Passages: Matthew 9:35-11:1, 13:54-58; Luke 9:1-6

Thesis: Our reaction to rejection exposes our faith’s focus.

Introduction:

Over the past few weeks now we’ve looked extensively at faith - Saving, Biblical faith in the last couple of messages from Mark 5.

Faith is vital to the Christian.

Having faith means to trust, or believe - to relinquish trust in ourselves and transfer that trust to someone or something else.

The Hebrew word, such as we see in Psalm 20:7

it’s the word “Kaw-Saw”, and it means that we take refuge in it, some translators take it to mean we find our identity in it, or take pride in it.

But the Christian, the follower of Christ, puts our trust in Him, and our identity is found in Him.

Because that’s where our faith is.

How do we react when our faith is challenged?

When its outright rejected?

Or we are rejected because of Christ?

What did Jesus do when He was rejected?

The passage today makes it clear, rejection does happen - “If they rejected Jesus, they’ll reject His followers”.

But how we react to that rejection, and how we refocus as we move forward makes a world of difference.

Rejection

This ties us back to what happened previously in chapter 5.

Last week we tied up what had happened as Jesus went to a synagogue leader’s house, a man named Jairus.

On the way, a woman with an issue of blood quietly worked her way through the crowd to just touch the edge of Jesus’ robes in order, she believed, to be made whole - to be saved.

The Greek root word being Sozo, not just physically saved, but saved completely.

Jesus stopped the crowd, as the woman had been healed, and He said to her,

The word Jesus uses in that instance, in the Greek, is “pistis”, it’s faith, it’s true, saving, Biblical belief.

This woman believed Jesus could not only heal her physically, but He told her that her faith saved her eternally.

Then Jesus encounters the crowd of professional mourners at Jairus’ house, if you remember, and He kicked them out, raised the girl from the dead, and told them not to tell anyone about it.

Jairus, all throughout this narrative, exhibiting humility, consistent, courageous faith as he watched and waited for Jesus to do something - and at one point being encouraged by Jesus to not fear, but to continue believing as he had at first.

So this is the scene Jesus has just left, and he travels to His hometown of Nazareth, taking the disciples with Him.

The text seems to indicate that some time must have passed both as they travelled and as they came into Nazareth.

So it’s possible Jesus stopped in to visit his siblings, perhaps see His little nieces and nephews, visit with His mother - we don’t know.

But the text does seem to indicate Jesus did not teach publicly until the Sabbath.

On that Sabbath as he began to teach, many who heard him were “astonished”.

This is the same word used back in Chapter 1, when Jesus began teaching in the Synagogue at Capernaum.

But the attitude that follows is much different here.

In Capernaum, it was:

Here, they are astonished, and begin to question Him.

The Greek word is (ἐξεπλήσσοντο) exeplessonto - meaning they’re amazed!

They’re astounded!

They’re shocked.

But in one region, they’re amazed and impressed, in His hometown, they’re amazed and resent Him.

“Where did this man get these things?

What is this wisdom that has been given to him, how are these miracles performed by his hands?”

Here’s the mistake so many people make when they see your faith at work.

They think it’s something you’ve picked up, you’ve been taught, something you do - and they’re not completely wrong.

We do receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon us - as Acts 1:8 makes clear.

We are to be taught - we are to be disciples as much as we are to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).

Again, Acts 1:8 also makes this clear because we receive the power AND we are His witnesses.

And we have been changed - a real miracle has taken place in your life and I’m not just referring to a healing of the body, I’m talking about the healing of your heart!

Performed by Christ.

When He did what He said in Ezekiel 36:26

There is no greater miracle than that.

There is no greater change that can be made than that.

Anyone who says differently hasn’t truly experienced it.

Because we were sinners, we were destined to a place called hell, but we heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it changed us, and it shaped us, and it CONTINUES to shape us as the Holy Spirit does His work within us, and people will reject that because it confronts the lack of Jesus in their life.

That’s not the words of Pastor Jeff, that’s what the Bible tells us.

There is a contrast in faith when it comes to the follower of Jesus and those who want to be friendly with the world.

It doesn’t make sense to them.

Especially when they think they’ve got it but they never had - and that’s the problem in the Midwest today, the same as it was in Nazareth.

They think they know Jesus, but they only know their own idea of Him, they only have their own memory of Him.

They’ve been spoon fed the “you’re saved because you went to church as a kid” message, they’ve been told because they said a prayer at church camp once they were saved, but I hope you understand different.

The Holy Spirit must continue His work within you or You don’t belong to Him.

The people of Nazareth were never going to accept this adult Jesus.

He’s blowing their minds with teaching and healings, and they can’t tolerate that idea.

He was always going to be Joe the Carpenter’s kid that lived down on Elm Street.

He was always going to be that church kid, that synagogue kid, that guy that was a bit different.

Wait, wait, wasn’t He a carpenter, Himself?

Who made Him some rabbi to teach us?

Where’d He get His education?

What makes Him better than all of us?

Isn’t His mom that girl who got pregnant in High School?

Isn’t he a brother of James, Jude, and Simon?

Didn’t some of our crowd marry His sisters?

So who does He think He is???

In fact, the passage goes on to say they were offended by Him.

The English word “scandalize” comes from the Greek word used, eskandalizonto (ἐσκανδαλίζοντο).

It essentially means they were caused to stumble, or become ensnared and fell into sin.

The people of Nazareth were offended by Jesus, as if He was just posturing Himself as some great teacher, but they knew - they knew His secret!

OR SO THEY THOUGHT… that He was just some guy with an ordinary background, He was nothing special.

Not to them.

Because they couldn’t get past who they thought He was.

Church, I can’t say it enough.

Your life imitates your theology.

What you think, what you know, what you believe about Jesus will impact the rest of your life.

If people didn’t accept Jesus then people won’t always accept you if Jesus is in you.

Jesus was meant to be rejected, He was meant to be unaccepted, Isaiah tells us

And as goes the Disciple Maker, so goes the disciples, and if we are truly disciples of Jesus we can expect nothing less.

As a note, while His brothers are separate, still at this point in the story, they will come around.

James being the one who writes the epistles of James and was an early leader in the church (we see this in Acts 12:17, 15:13, 21:18…)

Judas, or Judah, or simply “Jude” will go on to write the epistle that bears his name.

We don’t know much about Joses or Simon, they’re lost to history and Scripture tells us nothing of Jesus’s 1/2 sisters who married these men of Nazareth.

It’s quite possible they continued to reject Jesus, thought their other two brothers were nuts, and went back to their life - still upset their brother Jesus had to go off and get Himself killed by the Romans… never having faith in Him or His message.

But the fact two of His brothers were willing to die for His message tells us all we need to know.

If our faith is in Him, we will face rejection as well, but our reaction will expose our faith’s focus.

Reaction

Jesus addresses those who who have scorned Him.

But notice how He does it.

He doesn’t berate them, call them names, or flip over tables.

Instead, He focuses on the truth of who He is.

He refers to Himself as a prophet.

This aligns with one of His roles.