Mark 7:24-37

Please take out your copy of God's Word. Turn to the Gospel according to Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

! Often during an offering there's a choir special at a larger church.

! And I'm a fan of the choir special.

I think it's enjoyable to hear large groups of people singing God's praises.

But I will take that over a choir special any day.

So thank you, Wes and Liz. I appreciate that.

Mark chapter 7, as we continue to work through our preaching of the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Every week when one Sunday sermon closes down, I turn my attention to the next week and begin to prayerfully consider where we should go next.

And as we believe in verse-by-verse exposition as a general habit, of course my mind immediately goes to what's happening next in our text.

And how far should we go?

And I'm very apt every week to take some time to stop and ask the Lord if this is what He would have us do.

I think it's also okay to take a break from our verse-by-verse exposition and do that.

And I've got to tell you that this week I had the hardest time finding bearing on this morning's text.

And figuring out what it is exactly that God wanted to communicate to us from it.

And so I asked a couple of times, Lord, are you sure this is the text?

Mother's Day, should I preach a sermon about women and being mothers?

And was convinced that this was the text for us this day.

So I hope that you'll enjoy it as we join together.

At least there's a mother in it as we preach through it today.

Let me remind you though, before we read, we're going to look together at verses 24-37 in chapter 7.

But before we get there, remember that Jesus has just had this encounter with the scribes and the Pharisees.

The Pharisees, kind of the legalistic Jews of this day, they were apostate in every way.

They had really walked away from God and God's ways and His commandments, although they thought they were following Him to the letter.

But we see here as He confronts them, He quotes from them this prophecy from Isaiah.

And He says, in vain do they worship Me.

Speaking of both the Pharisees and the scribes, as well as all of Israel, as He says to us here.

They worshipped Him in vain as hypocrites with their hearts far removed from Him.

Placing above the commandment of God the traditions of men.

Giving evidence of their defilement or their uncleanliness, their unholiness.

By participating in the activities that we saw listed in verses 21 and 22.

And so we see that it is possible to worship the right God, but to worship Him wrongly.

And this is a fearful thing.

We ought to draw our minds and our hearts to worship Him properly.

Because God desires of us heart worship.

Deuteronomy 6.5

God commands, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

And hearts that are changed by God are hearts that worship God.

And this is what God desires of us.

And so as we look at this next text together, it would seem that Mark was inspired to record these events in this order

to stress this very point, what Jesus was speaking about defilement.

That it is a matter of the heart that matters mostly.

So look in your text and your copy of God's Word as I read to you verses 24 through 37.

And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.

But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.

Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth.

And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

And he said to her,

Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to dogs.

But she answered him,

Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

And he said to her,

For this statement you may go your way.

The demon has left your daughter.

And she went home and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis.

And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.

And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears,

and after spitting, touched his tongue and looked up to heaven.

He sighed and said to him,

Ephphathah, that is, be opened.

And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

And Jesus charged them to tell no one.

But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

And they were astonished beyond measure, saying,

He has done all things well.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

This is God's word to us, written for his glory and our good.

We would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.

Let's pray together.

Father God, we do thank you for your word to us.

And Father, we recognize this morning that while this is an ancient book,

written in ancient pen,

that it was inspired by your spirit,

that Mark was carried along by him as he recorded the life of Jesus for us.

It has meaning and it has bearing on us this day.

And we believe that you brought us here together with purpose and meaning.

And so I pray, Father, we are all making ourselves available to what you would say to us by your word.

This is accomplished by the power of your spirit,

so we ask for a great deal of blessing in the preaching of your word

and the hearing of it as well,

to the great end of your glory.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

So we see here that Jesus has concluded his time in Galilee.

His Galilean ministry has wound down.

And he leaves the region altogether and departs to go to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

Now, if you're not familiar with the geography of this day,

these two cities were located on the coast of the Mediterranean.

And this was far outside of any Jewish dwelling.

Now, to be clear, the Jews were interspersed in a number of places.

So there's not an area that Jesus travels that there were no Jews.

But by and large, this is now a Gentile region, right?

Which is a generic term for people who are not of Jewish descent,

which I would assume includes all of us in this room.

Maybe not, but most of us in this room would be counted in that number.

And this is the place that he travels to.

And it appears that he travels there to rest.

If you look at the second half of verse 24,

he goes and he hides himself away in a house,

but he is found out just the same.

So it seems that he's withdrawing.

And as is always the case, the crowds seem to follow him.

His reputation precedes him.

And there's a request that's made of him.

After this encounter with a Syrophoenician woman,

he makes a journey to the Decapolis, which he's been in before.

But this time to get there, rather than crossing the Sea of Galilee,

he goes through Sidon, which is on the northern area of this region that he's in,

and makes, it seems, we don't know this for sure,

but it seems that he makes a rather circuitous route

to get to the Decapolis, going all the way around Galilee.

So he is done with Galilee.

He has laid out his ministry.

He has preached the gospel there.

He has healed countless numbers.

And he's now going to go all the way around it

to get to this region called the Decapolis.

Now remember the last time he was there,

he crossed over the Sea of Galilee,

and he was encountered by a man as soon as he lands

that was possessed by a legion of demons.

And he casts him out into a bunch of pigs

who run off and are drowned into the sea.

And after this, the man wants to follow him.

He asks that he can get back in the boat with him and go with him.

But Jesus doesn't permit him to do that.

And in chapter 5, verse 19, he says to the man,

go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you

and how he has had mercy on you.

And then Mark accounts that this man went away

and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.

And everyone marveled.

So it would seem that the man traveled far and wide in this region

that was east of the Sea of Galilee

and shared what Jesus had done for him.

And he was apparently successful in telling his friends what the Lord had done

because now we see this crowd gathered.

You see the mention of that in verse 33 that's gathered to him.

And then we note at the summation of all of this,

in verse 36, that Jesus charged them,

those who were his friends,

those who witnessed the healing of this man who was deaf

and had some form of blockage in his speech,

to not tell anyone.

But the more he charged them,

the more zealously they proclaimed it.

So he had entered into a region where he had no fame.

He cast out a legion of demons out of a man

and now he's suddenly famous.

And he's in a region now where this fame is growing

and it's growing.

And as seemed to always be the case,

as Jesus is led along by the Father,

he's trying to keep his popularity down a bit,

I believe to waylay his crucifixion,

that he might complete his time on earth

before it is that he's crucified.

So here's kind of the background

of where we see him moving as these events take place.

And I'd like for us to notice two things,

two primary things from our text this morning.

Number one, Jesus' compassion to non-Jewish peoples.

Number one, Jesus' compassion to non-Jewish peoples.

Praise God were the recipients of that.

And number two, the faith of the Syrophoenician woman

and the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.

So these are kind of the larger things

that we want to notice together today

as we talk through these stories together.

So when he goes to this region of Tyre and Sidon,

he's encountered by a woman and she's called here a Gentile,

verse 26, now the one was a Gentile,

a Syrophoenician by birth.

Another way to say that would have been a Syrian Phoenician,

which speaks to her ethnicity being Syrian,

as well as the region in which she lived.

A larger area of the region of Tyre and Sidon

would have been known as Phoenicia.

And that is to say she was not of Jewish descent.

She was of a different ethnicity, a Syrian ethnicity.

These were people that were enemies of the Jewish people.

These were people that had carried them off

hundreds of years earlier into captivity

and they had later been released.

Much calamity had come upon the people of Israel

as a result of a Syrian attacks.

So she was of that descent.

That was her ethnicity.

And she didn't live in what was considered the Holy Land.

She lived outside of that realm in the region of Phoenicia.

And that's why this is being established for us.

Because the Jews thought that the blessings of God

just came to them because they were of a blood descent from Abraham.

That the promises to Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant,

was just theirs because of their bloodline.

And this was some of the arrogance that the Pharisees, the scribes,

and the people at large possessed in their worship of God.

So remember that.

We're coming just off the heels of this confrontation

and we're going to see many more as we progress through the Gospel of Mark.

But they were basing their merit before God

on something that was exterior

and that is their blood lineage,

which I get doesn't feel exterior.

But just the same.

It was a thing that was tangible,

not an issue of their heart.

So Mark establishes that for us, right?

Both by ethnicity and region,

that she was not Jewish.

In addition to that,

she was a woman

who would have been very much more lowly thought of

in this very patriarchal society.

And she had not a son that had a demon possession,

but she had a daughter with an unclean spirit.

So as far as the Jews were concerned,

the odds would have been really stacked up against

there being any blessing of any kind given to this woman.

Jesus had no reason in their thinking

to show her any compassion whatsoever.

And we see that she comes to Jesus

and she begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

She knew,

probably because she had heard of the work that he had done,

she had probably heard of the many exorcisms he had already done,

that he had the power to do this very thing.

But it's interesting that she thought

that that was something that he would do for her,

a woman with a daughter

who was not found to be part of Israel.

And so I wonder why,

and we don't know for sure,

but maybe,

maybe she knew the Old Testament Scriptures.

Maybe they had been taught to her at some point.

A scripture like Isaiah 5, 26,

which says,

He, being God,

will raise a signal for nations far away

and whistle for them from the ends of the earth

and behold,

quickly,

speedily,

they come.

Maybe she was like the Sumerian woman

that Jesus met at the well

found in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

The woman says to him,

Jesus,

Sir,

I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped on this mountain,

but you say that in Jerusalem

is the place where people ought to worship.

Jesus said to her,

Woman,

believe me,

the hour is coming when neither on this mountain

nor in Jerusalem

will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know.

We worship what we know,

for salvation

is from the Jews.

Remember,

Sumerian people were

an interbred people.

They were a people that existed

apart from the pure bloodline of Israel

because these were people that

were the result of intermarriages

between Babylonians

and the Israelites.

Verse 23,

But the hour is coming

and is now here

when the true worshippers

will worship the Father

in spirit and truth.

For the Father is seeking such people

to worship Him,

worship Him from the heart.

God is spirit

and those who worship Him

must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to Him,

so here's where we are,

maybe this Syrophoenician woman

was like the Samaritan in this way.

The woman said to Him,

I know that Messiah is coming,

He who is called Christ.

When He comes,

He will tell us all things.

Jesus said to her,

I who speak to you am He.

And so she knew,

the Samaritan woman knew,

that the blessings of God

could come to her in Christ.

Maybe the Syrophoenician woman

thought so as well.

Maybe she was familiar

with Psalm 145,

8-13,

which says,

The Lord is gracious

and merciful,

slow to anger,

and abounding

in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all,

and His mercy is over

all that He has made.

All your work

shall give thanks to you,

O Lord,

and all your saints

shall bless you.

They shall speak of the glory

of your kingdom

and tell of your power

to make known to the children

of man your mighty deeds

and the glorious splendor

of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and your dominion endures

throughout all generations.

Maybe she was aware

of the mercy that God had shown

the Ninevites

by the message of Jonah.

She saw that God has always

been about the work

of making Himself known

among the nations.

Israel used to be

the vehicle

by which that happened.

This was the way

that God displayed

His majesty

in a people.

Now the church

is that vehicle.

Praise God.

Which includes Gentiles.

And this is why,

as a church,

we have a vision statement

that includes

peoples.

We even use this language

to draw our minds

simply beyond the people

that we encounter

day to day,

but peoples,

meaning people groups,

people of different ethnicities

and backgrounds,

nationalities.

So Christ Family Church

exists to glorify God

by experiencing,

proclaiming,

and displaying

the supremacy

of Jesus Christ

in all things

to all peoples.

Because God wants

to be known

amongst all peoples

to the ends of the earth.

He is a global God

who deserves

global glory.

I would say to you

this is likely

what she knew

to be true

of Jesus

because of the way

she approaches Him.

She probably knew

that she wasn't excluded

from the blessing

of God in Christ

because of her ethnicity

or nationality.

The only thing

that can possibly

exclude anyone

from the blessings

of God in Christ

is their own unbelief.

Let's get that straight

in our minds.

The only thing

that can possibly

exclude anyone

from the blessings

of God in Christ

is their own unbelief.

There's nothing

that we have done.

There's no part

of who we are

except for our unbelief

that excludes us

from the blessings

of God in Christ.

Now as a side lesson

for mothers today,

if your child

has some spiritual malady

and the problems

that our children

experience

are only either

physical

or they are spiritual,

they have some

spiritual malady,

Jesus is the one

you should go to

for the remedy.

Our children need

doctors and Christ.

We don't need

child psychologists.

It's only valuable

psychology

if it points people

to Jesus Christ.

So let's go to Christ

for the spiritual maladies

of our kids.

I'm sure this week,

mothers,

you have felt

like your children

might be demon-possessed.

It's a high likelihood

of that.

Now Jesus responds

to her,

verse 27,

and it seems so harsh,

doesn't it?

It seems so very harsh.

Let the children

be fed first,

for it is not right

to take the children's bread

and throw it

to the dogs.

And this was,

on the surface,

pretty harsh.

This would have been

the appropriate

ethnic response.

This is the type of thing

that a Jew would have said

to a Gentile

who was asking

for some blessing

from God.

They would have seen

themselves as special

and set apart

and called,

in derision,

called people dogs.

Now Jesus was not

without compassion

at this point,

but this was rather,

he said this as a testing

of her faith.

So he gave to her

a harsh statement,

a statement that may have

caused her to turn away

altogether,

to say this couldn't

possibly be the man

that could do this thing

for my daughter,

but instead,

she gives to him

this beautifully

humble response.

And beloved,

humility is the beginning

of our faith

when we realize

that we are,

in fact,

broken.

That having once been

image bearers of God,

that has been destroyed.

Not made a little worse,

but destroyed

by sin.

That we have no capacity

for that whatsoever

apart from Christ.

And so we come to him

humbly.

And look what she does.

She answers him,

verse 28,

yes, Lord.

Yes, she is in

agreement with him.

It would be wrong

to do this thing.

I am a dog,

is what she's saying.

I am the very thing

you have accused me

of being.

Yet even the dogs

under the table

eat the children's crumbs,

which is so clever

of her.

But it is her faith

that elicits

Jesus' response.

It's not the cleverness

of her argument.

She didn't get him.

He didn't go,

oh, you got me.

You got me.

You tricked me into it.

Now I must heal

your daughter.

But it was this response

of faith.

For this statement,

you may go your way.

The demon has left

your daughter.

You see,

faith is what brings

to us

the blessings

of God.

I think she understood this.

If she didn't get it,

this is the thing

that Mark is trying

to communicate

to us.

Now remember Abraham.

Remember the Abrahamic covenant

that God said

to Abraham,

I will make you

the father

of many nations.

And he was very old

when this happened.

If you would turn with me

to Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

Let me show you

a bit of this

before we move on

in our text.

Romans 4 beginning

in verse 18.

Paul writing here

is speaking of Abraham

in hope he,

Abraham,

believed against hope

that he should become

the father of many nations

as he had been told

so shall your offspring be.

He did not weaken

in faith

when he considered

his own body

which was as good

as dead

since he was about

100 years old.

Those of you who are

approaching that,

I'm sorry for the offense.

Or when he considered

the barrenness

of Sarah's womb.

Sarah had not born children

in many, many, many years.

No unbelief

made him waver

concerning the promise

of God

but he grew strong

in his faith

as he gave glory to God.

Fully convinced

that God was able

to do what he had promised.

That is why

his faith

was counted to him

as righteousness.

Now here's the key for us.

But the words

it was counted to him

were not written

for his sake alone

but for ours also.

It will be counted

to us who believe

in him

who raised from the dead

Jesus our Lord

who was delivered up

for our trespasses

and raised

for our justification.

So if we believe

in the God

who raised Jesus

from the dead

we believe

in that reality

it will also be counted

to us

as righteousness.

It is by our faith

that we are saved.

That is the great

treatise of Romans.

Right?

Salvation by grace alone

through faith alone

in Christ alone.

Right?

So Jesus' response

in verse 29

is because her statement

evidenced her faith

and therefore

he exercised

he cast the demon

out of the daughter

and we get the affirmation

of that in verse 30.

She goes home

and yes indeed

Mark records for us

it happened.

Jesus spoke it

and it did in fact

happen.

What a beautiful

beautiful response

of humility

and faith.

He then leaves the region

making the circuitous route

and going to the region

of the Decapolis

and we see the man

who was deaf

and had a speech impediment.

Some of your texts

might say that he was mute.

I looked a little bit

just for interest

into that this week

and the Greek

really seems to be

more properly rendered

speech impediment.

Couldn't speak clearly.

A stutter.

Something of that type.

It doesn't really matter though.

He couldn't hear

and something was wrong

with the way he spoke.

This region of the Decapolis

was a region containing

ten prominent Gentile cities.

It was made up

of many more cities.

It's a big region

if you get curious

and you want to flip

to the back of your Bible.

It's the region

that's primarily

the whole region

to the east

of the Sea of Galilee.

And we see again

some evidence

of faith.

We see in verse 32

at least likely

I think

he's got a group

that bring him

to Jesus.

Now I got in a conversation

with this text

with my father

this morning

and he made a really

really great point to me

and I just would like

to bring it up

for you.

We see constantly

throughout the Gospels

we see it here

in the Gospel of Mark

this encounter

with the scribes

and the Pharisees

and it seems to be

a thing that increases.

You see because

Jesus was coming

and he was destroying

the religion

that they had set up.

And this was not

simply a religion

that was something

they did just in

devotion to God

but it gained for them

a great deal of power

a great deal of wealth.

There was a structure

that was in place

that was very beneficial

to them

on this side

of heaven

and that's not something

that they wanted

to find destroyed

and so we see

there's constantly

a little group

of these guys

following around

looking for occasion

to step in

and interject

ask questions

to try to get him

to falter

and to fail

at some point

so they could accuse him

of not being

who he said

that he is.

And my dad proposed

that it's possible

and I have to

mull this over

a bit more

it's very possible

that the people

who brought this man

being the they

we find at the beginning

of verse 32

may have in fact

been a group

of Pharisees

and the reason

that that could be

possible

is because they asked

they begged him

to lay his hand

on him

and this would have

been a Jewish

thing to do

I don't know

it's possible

that this is the case

it also could be

just a group of friends

maybe they were

even Jewish

living in the

Decapolis region

and they brought

to him

their friend

and begged him

that word

is a challenging one

in that view

but they begged him

to do this

so we see

possibly

that they had

faith in this regard

maybe not

maybe they were

coming

looking for a sign

looking to do

something to

bring an accusation

we see

in chapter 8

Jesus is going to

feed 4,000

and the very next

thing we see

is Pharisees

demanding a sign

from him

so questionably

his friends had faith

but we do see

that he does

the man that

they bring to him

this man who is deaf

and has some type

of speech impediment

does in fact

have faith

the beginning

of verse 33

we record

that he went

with Jesus

right

Jesus takes him

aside

he takes him

aside from the

crowd

privately

the man goes

with him

the man was

capable

of not going

with him

and walking

away

but he does

go in fact

with him

and he has

faith that this

man can do

something

for him

now the

interesting

question in

this text

and this

miracle by the

way is only

recorded in the

gospel of

mark

the interesting

question is

why did

Jesus pull

the man

aside

from the

crowd

we know

that Jesus

performed miracles

not as the

primary purpose

of his ministry

but he performed

miracles

to give

evidence to

to give

power

to give

credence

to the

message

that he

was

preaching

it was

constantly

a way

to draw

people

to the

very

thing

he was

trying

to say

to them

and that

was the

gospel

of the

kingdom

of God

so why

does he

pull

this

man

aside

and it

actually

says

he pulls

him

aside

privately

which

I would

presume

!

means it

was just

this

man

and

Jesus

maybe

some

of the

disciples

were

around

him

but

he

gets

them

away

from

the

crowd

so

people

aren't

witnessing

this

thing

that

he's

about

to

do

why

did

he

do

this

well

the clue

is

in what

he

did

the

last part

of 33

verse

34

he puts

his fingers

in his

ears

after

he

spits

he

touches

his

tongue

he

looks

up

to

heaven

he

sighs

says

to

him

which

is

so

he

goes

through

this

interesting

thing

now

this

is

the

Jesus

that

people

have

been

touching

his

garment

and

he's

been

healing

them

he

has

simply

spoken

he

cast

a

demon

just

previously

he

cast

a

demon

out

of

a

little

girl

from

a

distance

we

don't

know

how

far

but

he

said

the

demon

is

gone

he

could

have

done

this

without

going

through

this

practice

of

it

seems

some

!

incantation

that

he's

doing

here

but

think

about

the

man

that

he's

doing

this

for

this

man

can't

hear

anything

that

he

would

say

there

may

have

been

some

form

of

sign

language

in

this

day

but

I

don't

think

Jesus

knew

it

so

he

did

the

thing

some

version

of

sign

language

to

show

the

man

what

it

was

he

was

healing

him

from

how

it

was

that

he

was

going

commonly

connected

to

healing

and

medicinal

things

I

did

way

too

much

study

on

that

this

week

and

none

of

the

details

are

important

for

you

at

all

but

there

would

have

been

an

understanding

of

spitting

and

saliva

we'll

see

later

in

Mark

Jesus

spits

in

some

mud

and

puts

it

on

a

blind

man's

eyes

for

the

same

reason

right

so

he

does

this

thing

physically

for

him

so

that

the

man

understands

what

he

is

doing

he

looks

up

to

heaven

so

that

the

man

knows

that

it's

God

who's

going

to

heal

him

and

then

he

commands

that

he

be

made

well

right

so

why

did

he

pull

the

man

aside

from

the

crowd

and

I

believe

the

reason

is

because

he

didn't

want

anybody

in

the

crowd

to

think

that

it

was

this

!

magic

incantation

this

thing

he

did

that

caused

the

man

to

be

healed

that

God

himself

is

the

one

who

healed

and

he

didn't

want

anybody

to

think

otherwise

he

wanted

glory

placed

in

the

proper

location

I

think

that's

why

so

he

so

he

touches

the

man

he

commands

and

interestingly

as he

gives

his

command

in

Aramaic

which

would

be

open

he's

actually

giving

the

command

to

the

ears

which

I

just

find

so

fascinating

and

to

the

tongue

who

commands

even

your

ears

and

my

tongue

be

opened

and

they

obey

what

he

said

to

do

and

then

note

that

he

sighs

he

looks

up

to

heaven

he

sighs

and

I

think

this

speaks

to

the

compassion

of

Christ

as

he

has

pulled

this

man

off

to

the

side

and

he

is

about

to

!

heal

them

as

he

and

felt

a

sorrow

for

the

effects

of

sin

on

the

world

and

I

believe

that's

why

he

sighs

that

as

he

looks

up

to

heaven

he

gives

another

one

another

one

another

created

being

another

child

that

is

being

punished

because

of

the

effects

of

sin

in

this

world

and

so

we

see

this

great

outflow

of

compassion

for

this

man

verse

35

his

tongue

was

released

and

he

spoke

plainly

whatever

was

the

issue

with

his

tongue

he

can

now

speak

very

plainly

and

all

of

this

and

I

believe

the

reason

that

Mark

was

led

by

the

spirit

to

record

this

is

a

fulfillment

of

a

prophecy

he

did

a

thing

that

only

God

could

do

Isaiah

Isaiah 35:5

chapter

35

verse

5

and

6

then

the

ears

of

the

deaf

unstopped

then

shall

the

lame

man

leap

like

a

deer

and

the

tongue

of

the

mute

sing

for

joy

for

waters

break

forth

in

the

wilderness

and

streams

in

the

desert

so

he

had

done

a

thing

that

only

he

could

do

and

it

was

fitting

that

one

of

the

gospel

accounts

that

one

of

the

writers

was

inspired

to

record

this

thing

that

we

might

see

it

take

place

and

the

response

of

the

people

when

he

goes

back

there

was

a

man

that

they

knew

he

goes

back

now

he

can

hear

now

he

can

speak

verse

37

they

were

astonished

beyond

measure

they

were

incredibly

astonished

more

astonishment

took place

than we

could

possibly

measure

and

this

is

their

phrase

this

is

the

thing

they

say

He

has

done

all

things

well

he

has

done

all

things

well

!

He

even

makes

He

had

done

so

many

things

right

He

had

cast

a

legion

of

demons

out

of

a

man

they

knew

about

this

this

news

had

traveled

around

the

area

He

even

makes

the

deaf

hear

and

the

mute

speak

I

think

we

can

hear

in

this

statement

the

echoes

of

Genesis

131

and

God

saw

everything

that

he

had

made

and

behold

it

was

very

good

Jesus

is

God

incarnate

and he

proves

that

to us

once

again

as he

expresses

compassion

for

non-Jewish

people

and works

in them

a responsive

faith

beloved

we

are

now

given

to

the

very

same

task

and

I

hope

as

we've

been

looking

through

mark

as

we

will

continue

to

do

so

as

we

peer

at

the

life

of

Christ

we

will

desire

to

be

more

like

him

compassionately

pouring

out

our

lives

for

the

sake

of

the

glory

of

God

and

the

advancing

of

his

kingdom

let's

pray

together

God