Mark's Gospel Part 8 - Fear and Faith

We are in Mark chapter four and at verse thirty-five.

Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, as creatures who fear and in a sometimes fearful world, we pray that in your word you would show us the Lord Jesus, his power, and his love, cause us to trust him, work in us the right kind of fear.

And we pray that for his name's sake.

Amen.

So let's listen to the word of God.

Mark chapter four, beginning to read at verse 35.

On that day when evening had come, Jesus said to them, Let us go across to the other side.

And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with him, and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.

But he was in the stern asleep on the cushion, and they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace be still.

And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

He said to them, Why are you so afraid?

Have you still no faith?

And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Geresenes.

And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.

He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces.

No one had the strength to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

And when he saw Jesus from afar he ran and fell down before him.

And crying out with a loud voice he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

I adjure you by God, do not torment me.

For he was saying to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

And Jesus asked him, What is your name?

He replied, My name is Legion, for we are many.

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them.

So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

The herdsmen fled, and told it in the city and in the country, and people came to see what it was that had happened.

And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the legion sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs.

And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him, and he did not permit him, but said to him, 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 he went away and began to proclaim in the decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marvelled.

And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea.

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Gyrus, by name, and seeing him he fell at his feet, and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death, come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.

And he went with him.

And a great crowd followed him, and thronged about him, and there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse.

She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment, for she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.

And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments?

And his disciples said to him, You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, Who touched me?

And he looked around to see who had done it, but the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace, be healed of your disease.

While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, Your daughter is dead.

Why trouble the teacher any further?

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not fear, only believe.

And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James.

They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

And when he had entered, he said to them, Why are you making a commotion and weeping?

The child is not dead, but sleeping.

And they laughed at him.

But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.

Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha kumi, which means, Little girl, I say to you, arise.

And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was twelve years of age, and they were immediately overcome with amazement.

And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

But we thank God for his wonderful word to us.

I read the whole of uh the end of chapter four and to the end of chapter five.

For now, we're just going to preach through from chapter four, verse thirty-five to chapter five and verse twenty, and what is put before us here is the reality of fear.

Fear is a fact of life.

Simply to tell yourself, I will not be anxious, doesn't cut it.

And we know that.

We start here a new section in Mark's Gospel, and we are shown here the things that make people most afraid.

In what I've just read, we see uncontrollable nature, we see evil, we see sickness, and we see death.

I don't want to sanitize these passages.

Many of us will be really familiar with these true Bible stories, but they they happened.

They happened to real people.

There was real terror, and they correspond to the real world around us.

The news, our lives, reality.

When a friend tells you I've had really bad news from the doctor, it's cancer.

Now, how does Jesus relate to those things?

What difference does knowing Jesus make in the face of those real and fearful things?

Verse 41.

That question that we read there, that is the key to well, to life, really.

It's the key to the passage, but more than that, it is the key to life.

Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

That question and your answer to it, it will give you your bearings for life, for your fears, and for eternity.

So let's look at the first fear that we meet in this passage.

And it's the storm, chapter 4, verses 35 through to 41.

The storm, for we cannot control nature.

Uh, we cannot control nature.

Uh in the boat uh on the lake.

We'll try to imagine.

There's uh Jesus and his disciples.

Uh Jesus goes to sleep, he's tired.

Uh God became a man, he became a real man who got tired.

Maybe the disciples were tired too, and a terrifying storm blows up, the wind howls, the waves turn into mountains and into valleys, the boat plunges, it starts to fill with water.

These men, uh Jesus' disciples, they were fishermen.

The sea was their place of work and it was well beyond their control.

They wake Jesus.

Do you not care that we drown?

All hope was lost.

Now for us here, you know, sitting in pretty safe Brentwood, we are proofed from most forces of nature.

In the way that other people are not.

We get fooled into thinking we have tamed it, but sometimes we get a massive reminder.

Uh forest fires in Los Angeles, tsunamis, floods.

Well, there's the first fear.

Fast forward on to chapter 5 and verse 1, where we meet legion.

There is an evil that controls us.

So after the storm we get to the other side of the lake, but there is no time to sit down, catch your breath, get your head around what has just happened.

As soon as Jesus steps out of the boat, uh, verse 2, immediately they met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.

It's really horrifying, isn't it?

A man among the tombs, he's living like a dead man.

Cannot be chained, he cannot be controlled, he cries, he howls, he's in a kind of torment or agony, he's harming himself, he lives apart, he is alienated, he is utterly unclean, cut off from God, cut off from people, and he comes and falls down before Jesus.

Now what has happened to this man?

Well, simply he is controlled by Satan.

Did you notice how the singular and the plural mix?

He, we, his name, Legion, reminiscent of the hundreds of soldiers in a Roman legion.

You cannot distinguish between the man and this demon army living in him.

All of us have some experience of evil, probably not quite like this, but maybe through occult activity or satanic worship.

We'd be naive and foolish to think that such depths of evil and the Satan who stands behind evil are not real.

Now, this man he is very unusual, he's under a particular kind of control, but he's also very typical.

So don't think that this man and you and me have nothing in common.

Until you become a Christian, you are under the control of Satan.

Okay, by nature, we are all under the control of the devil.

It's not that we are all possessed by demons, but we are still all controlled by the Lord of the demons.

Legion, he illustrates what people are like, slaves to sin.

We see the harm it causes, and the isolation, the uncleanness, cut off from God, cut off from God's people.

And then we come to Jesus and we fall down before him.

Or rather, Jesus comes to us, he comes to our world, to these things that we fear.

And here is the Jesus who we meet in this passage.

Here is the Jesus who comes to us in our fear, and he is a Jesus full of power and love, a Jesus who is full of power and love.

Get back in the boat with Jesus and the disciples on the lake.

Well, they say to him, don't they, Teacher, don't you care?

We're so often the same.

We allow the storm to come between us and an assurance of Jesus' love.

We feel those words of the disciples flowing through our minds, maybe even out of our mouths.

Teacher, don't you care?

Is the providence of God leading us into the valley of the shadow?

Well, he does that sometimes.

He quite deliberately leads us into trials and perplexities, and we should not be surprised when that happens.

The presence of suffering does not signal to the Christian Jesus doesn't love you.

But the thing about Jesus' love, it is shown here not only in his amazing deliverance, but in Jesus' presence with his disciples.

They're familiar words, aren't they?

But let's listen to them.

This tired man who had been asleep, he's not only a tired man, he is also a limitless God.

Verse 39.

He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

It's glorious, isn't it?

Absolute power, total authority, commands the winds and the waves, and they obey him.

Miraculous, instant calm.

And it's a glimpse of what heaven is like, what Jesus' renewed creation will be like.

We're not there yet.

We still live in a world under the curse, and the Lord in his providence chooses to bring us into the valley of the shadow, but it will not always be so.

Now what are the man in the tombs?

Jesus shows to him too limitless power and wonderful love, casts out the demons, gives them permission to enter this great herd of pigs, two thousand of them, and the demons destroy them.

And there, there's the man, verse 15, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.

Now that is beautiful, isn't it?

Clothed and in his right mind.

It is wonderful.

Jesus has brought life and love to this man by his extraordinary force and his wonderful love.

This man he is made human again.

He's restored to relationships with people and with God.

When Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed.

The slavery and the chains of evil are broken, and the Lord Jesus becomes your master.

The Lord Jesus became this man's master.

Every single Christian knows something of this deliverance.

Not saying that everyone has a demon, but every Christian has had the slaving power of sin, evil, and Satan broken.

Yeah, we still struggle with the presence of sin.

We battle and we fight against it.

Actually, that is what precisely this man was unable to do.

He was so gripped he could not fight.

What Jesus does for us, he frees us from the slaveries and the domination of sin.

He frees us for him, for holiness, for the fight.

That little description of the man, clothed and in our right mind.

That is a wonderful description of the Christian.

Remember that of yourself this week.

Clothed and in your right mind.

And this work it will be completed by Jesus one day in glory in heaven and then in the new creation.

And this is what we long for, isn't it?

A new order of things, no disasters, no storms, no famines, but also no evil, no Satan, no sin.

So how do we respond?

Well, the right response to Jesus simply is faith and fear.

All through this section, both in this passage and in the rest of chapter 5, there's a repeated theme, faith and fear.

We start off in the boat with the disciples, and the most striking thing, the disciples they are still scared after the storm is stilled.

It's really noticeable, isn't it?

If you look down at verse 40, he said to them, Why are you so afraid?

Have you still no faith?

And they were filled with great fear.

In fact, they're more scared.

Who is this?

Now you shouldn't have doubted my love or my care for you.

That's what Jesus says.

It's a sign of unbelief.

But that statement in verse 41, is it wrong?

They were filled with great fear.

Were they wrong to fear Jesus?

At this point that is left unanswered.

Because there is a wrong fear of Jesus, we'll see that in a moment.

But there is also a right fear of Jesus, our God who controls nature and the elements, who hates evil and destroys demons, it is right that we fear him.

Let's go on to the tombs, or rather, to the man who used to live in the tombs.

There are shockingly different responses here.

You've got the man himself, but you've also got the townspeople.

And in chapter 5, verse 15, we read this, and they were afraid.

What kind of fear is this?

We learn, well, they see this man who is wonderfully saved, and in verse 17 they say, We want you to go away.

They began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

There's actually three lots of begging in this passage.

The demons beg Jesus.

They know that Jesus has got authority over them.

The townspeople beg Jesus, you know, go away, we don't want you here.

Now why?

I don't think it's just the pigs.

Yes, they lost a lot of bacon that day, but it's more than that.

They were so blind, they were so willfully blind to Jesus' power and Jesus' love.

They did not need realize their need of Jesus.

They were really no better than legion, just as enslaved to evil.

They did not want Jesus to rule them, to exercise power.

They saw the power and the love of Jesus at work and they actually found it hateful.

Now, have you ever seen that in a person?

Imagine someone gets saved, they get freed, they get transformed, and so obviously they are brought back from death and slavery.

They're human again, but there's someone in their life, it's a friend or it's a family member, and they look on, and they would almost rather that nothing had happened, because Jesus is in the picture now, and they just want Jesus to go away, just like those townspeople, and that is because when you meet Jesus, you are encountering power.

The gospel of Jesus is about a king who says to us, give yourself over to me.

If you imagine that life is like driving a car, when you become a Christian, you give the steering wheel to Jesus, you give up control.

Things like money or decisions or relationships and sex or children and family, you say to Jesus, I want you now to drive the car of my life.

And many people simply don't want it.

They would rather say no to Jesus' authority, even if it means they also say, go away to the love of Jesus, this love which clothes us and gives us back our right minds.

Now, what about the man, the man who used to be called Legion?

It's wonderful, isn't it?

Does he not encourage us?

He's received Jesus' power and Jesus' love.

He has done nothing.

He was dead, enslaved, and condemned.

He is now alive and free and welcomed into the family of God.

And his example, it says to us, Come to Jesus with your sin and your evil.

And someone listening in.

Maybe for the very first time, someone needs to yield up their sin to Jesus.

Only he can break the power of sin in a person's life.

You can't do this yourself.

You don't need to improve yourself before you come to Jesus.

Just think what this man was like when he met Jesus and loved him.

This is why Jesus came.

And especially it is why Jesus died, to break the power of sin and to pay the penalty of sin.

Now I said that three lots of people beg Jesus.

The demons beg him, the townspeople beg him, but also the man begs him.

Chapter 5 and verse 18.

The man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.

It's lovely, isn't it?

He loves Jesus and he wants to be with him.

And it is fellowship that Jesus gives to anyone who repents and believes.

He comes and he says, I will be your God, and you will be my people.

Now Jesus did not grant this man his wish, at least not immediately.

He gives him a job to do, which he joyfully obeyed.

Go and tell people about the Lord's work and the Lord's mercy.

And he does.

He still lived in the same world that we do.

Things that make us scared.

Nature and evil and sickness and death.

But we live life with this Jesus.

And when the storms rage, maybe it's nature or evil or sickness or death, there is all power and all love in him.

All power, all love.

Remember that.

We can lean on him.

We can fear him, that right fear, and we trust him and we love him because he does all things well.

So Lord, do this word in us, we pray, that as we face fears, we would do so in union with the Lord Jesus, who loves us and is full of all power.

Help us to trust him and to give to him the right kind of fear and adoration.

In Christ's name.

Amen.