Mark 6:5 No Mighty Work 4/4/2004 < >
#1. is
Not This the Carpenter? (Mark 6:3-4, Gal 1:18-19, Acts 1:14, Rev
22:18, 14:11)
#2.
What Can God Not Do? (Mark 6:5. 1John 4:8, Num 23:19, 1Sam 15:29, Heb 6:18, Jam
1:13,
Mai 3:6, James 1:17, 2Tim 2:13, John 6:37,
44)
#3. He Went Round About. Teaching (Mark 6:6. Jer 2:12-13. 1Cor
13:4-7, Jer 3:14)
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Please open your Bibles to the
Gospel according to Mark 6:1 (2X). While He was on earth, the Lord Jesus
did many mighty works. But there were occasions when He did not do any
mighty works. Today we are looking at one of these events. The sermon today is
titled, "No Mighty Works" (2X). In Mark chapter 6,
the Lord Jesus visited His hometown Nazareth for the second time.
Perhaps you remember that when He visited Nazareth the first time after He
began His ministry, they tried to throw Him off a cliff. So Nazareth was
not a country that was friendly to Jesus. The Lord Jesus just came back from
Gadara, where He had healed the Gadarene Demoniac, and where the people
from that region begged Him to leave their country. So the region of Gadara was
also unfriendly to Jesus. In fact, we can apply this principle to every country
in the world. Everyone of the human race comes into the world as an enemy of
God. No one in the world desires to be close to Jesus. This is how we have
been born, as sinners who are enslaved td sin and Satan, and who do not want
God to meddle in their lives. Don't rock the boat. We are doing just fine
without you, Jesus. We read here in Mark 6:1,
Mr 6:1 And
he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples
follow him.
Mr 6:2 And when the
Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying,
From whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such
mighty works are wrought by his hands?
Mr 6:3 Is
not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and
of Juda, and
Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?
And they were offended at him.
Verse 1 refers to the history that He went out
from the country of Gadara. and He came into His home
country of Nazareth. His disciples followed Him as soldiers who follow
their leader. Can you see that this is an
example to us? We are in the army of Christ. He does not send us atone into the world;
Christ goes before us and we follow Him. He meets the enemy head on. He
fights for us, He teaches us how to fight
and He teaches us by His example. He goes before us and we follow Him. Then
we read in verse 2, "he began to teach in the synagogue".
Jesus had not forgotten what they did to Him 2 years
earlier. Therefore, Jesus taught them in their synagogue because they needed to be
taught what salvation is. But how did they react? They were astonished
at His wisdom, and they were astonished at the
mighty works that Jesus had done outside of Nazareth. But in their souls, they were not touched by His presence, or by His teachings, or by the
miracles that were performed by Him. They were not
impressed at all. This shows us the essence of the human heart. God says in Jer 17:9, "the heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked, desperately wicked". Even the presence
of God Himself, and the gracious Words from God, and the threat of Hell, is not
able to make an impression on the human soul, unless
God's grace comes along and changes our soul into one that is friendly to
God. This is the condition of a human soul, a totally depraved soul, unable to
do anything that is pleasing to God. In 21st
century language they would have said, "Where did this man
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learn all this wisdom, where
did he go to school, where is His diploma? We do not believe Him unless we see
His diploma from a school that is certified by our council of the Sanhedrin". And they were
offended at Him. We read in verse 3,
#1. Is Not This the Carpenter? (Mark
6:3-4, Gal 1:18-19, Acts 1:14, Rev 22:18, 14:11)
Mr 6:3 Is not this the
carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended
at him.
This is what many people in the Roman Catholic
Church would say, and they would be offended at a Jesus who has half
brothers born from His mother Mary. Their Jesus has a mother who remained a
virgin all her life. Their entire church would fall apart if the "Virgin
Mary" would not be a virgin. Well, then they have to write their own
Bible and worship another Jesus. But the Jesus from the Bible has half brothers
from His mother Mary. The Bible declares that God wrote the Bible. God used the
hands and mouths of holy men of old, and God moved them to say and to write
exactly what God wanted to say. That is why the Bible is called "The
Word of God". Let me read to you what God said in Gal 1:18, Ga 1:18 Then after three years I went up to
Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. Ga 1:19 But other of
the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. James was
one of the half-brothers of Jesus. According to Mark 6:3 Jesus had at least 4
brothers and two sisters born from Mary and Joseph. These brothers eventually
were saved. We read in Acts 1:
Ac 1:14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication,
with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
Jesus was the Son of God and the Son
of Mary. His half-brothers were sons of Joseph and Mary. And the Bible is
absolutely clear in many places that Mary had more children after the birth of
Jesus. But when a church has decided to make more of the mother of Jesus
than the Bible declares, and to elevate her to a status of "Mother of God",
then that church has "added to the words of the prophecy of this Book",
and this means that "God, shall add unto them the plagues that are
written in this Book". (Rev 22:18) What are those plagues? "The
smoke of their torment ascendeth up ascendeth up forever and ever"
(Rev 14:11). It is a dangerous business to declare the Word of God. And if I,
or anyone of us, is inadvertently making more of those things that the Bible
declares, let us remind one another that we are treading on dangerous ground.
Let us continue with Mark 6:4,
Mr 6:4 But Jesus said
unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own
kin, and in his own house.
A prophet is given honor, except in his
own country and in his own house. We can see that clearly today. The Lord Jesus
Christ is called a prophet by Moslems, and by Mormons, and by Jehovah's
Witnesses, and even secular authorities will honor Him by giving holidays like
Christmas and Easter. But the nation of Israel refuses to acknowledge Him as
their favorite Son, and the household of Mary and His brothers did not believe
in Him until after His resurrection. But now we read in verse 5,
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Mr 6:5 And
he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick
folk, and healed them.
Now, this is strange language. The Lord
Jesus Christ is God. Could God do there no mighty work? I
checked the translation, but the translation is correct. What then are we to
make of Gen 18:14, where God says, "Is
any thing too hard for the LORD?" Is God not able to do whatever He
pleases? Of course, our God is omnipotent, which
means our God is all-powerful. What can we say about the power
of Almighty God? The mighty power of God is demonstrated in the works of His
hands. What do the Scriptures
say about the omnipotence of God? The Scriptures say: He is the creator of
heaven and earth. He created this great wide universe.
He created us, and He created everyone else here on this
earth. He created not only the beautiful flowers and the sunshine,
but also tornados, and hurricanes, and earthquakes.
He also created the good angels and the angels that fell into sin. And so,
in an absolute sense, He created Lucifer who became Satan. God says in Isa
45:7, "I form the light, and create
darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do ail these things." Yes, God is responsible
for creating both light and darkness, and for creating both peace and evil,
such as war. Nothing escapes the providence of God, which are
the hands of God, because He has the whole world in His hands. God
says in Isa 54:16, "Behold, I have created the smith that
bloweth the coals in the fire, and that
bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to
destroy." Historically
"the waster" refers to the kings of Assyria and Babylon. But
"the waster" here could just as well refer to Adolph
Hitler, who caused the 2nd world war where over 40 million people
died. God says in Amos 3:6, "Shall a trumpet be
blown in the city, and the people not be
afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath
not done it?" The trumpet call is a sign that an enemy is approaching. It is also
a warning to the church that the enemy is knocking at her doors. This is the
God of the Bible. Will we give in to the
popular notion that God is love, and that is all He is: only love? Or will we
listen to the Bible? When God says in Deut 32:39,
"See now that I. even I, am he. and
there is no god with me: I kill, and I make
alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of
my hand", will we
believe that God's
providence is in
control of everything,
including salvation and condemnation? Will we
believe that we have a God who is sovereign? He calls the things that are not yet
in existence as if, they already exist. We read that in Rom 4:17, where
God says, "Even God, who quickeneth the dead
(spirits), and calleth those things which be not as
though they were." Yes, this is the sovereign God of the
Bible. And God accomplishes whatsoever He pleases, so that nothing is too wonderful
for Him. God says in Psalm 115:3, "But our God is in the
heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased."
All this is clearly seen in all of God's creation, so that His eternal power is
seen in all the things that have been made. But mankind does not believe it.
God lays down the
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principle of Reprobation in Rom 1:19-20,
where God says, "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in
them: for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead: so that they are
without excuse." Please turn in your Bibles to the Epistle to
the Ephesians 1:17 (2X). This altogether unique and divine power of
God's omnipotence is even more wonderfully revealed in God's marvelous work of
salvation, and in His work of redemption through the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in the future glorification of all things. This is the prayer of
the Apostle Paul for the church. It is also our prayer for each other
and it is also our prayer for all those throughout the world who are
listening to this message. God says in Eph 1:17,
Eph 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him: (Knowing
Him is all we need to know.)
Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye
may know what is the hope of
his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints,
Eph 1:19-20 And what is
the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to
the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him
from the dead, and set him at
his own right hand in the heavenly places,
Eph 1:21 Far above all principality, and power, and
might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but
also in that which is to come:
The
greatest measure of the omnipotence of God is revealed to us in the
distance from the depth of Hell into which the Lord Jesus Christ
descended, to the height of power and glory to which God has
exalted Him. It is true that His power is revealed in the creation of the world
and of this universe, and His power is also
revealed in His providential government of all things. But His power is
revealed even to a greater degree in the
resurrection of Christ from the dead and His exaltation at the right hand
of the Majesty in the heavens. He is the Lord of creation, but He is also the
Lord of life and death. And so, we may define God's
omnipotence as that attribute of God according to which He is able
to accomplish whatsoever He pleases. For example, today is "Palm
Sunday", which means that people in churches all
over the world celebrate the triumphal entry of the Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, 5
days before His crucifixion. God determined to let all the
world know that Jesus is the King of Israel, the
Israel of God, and that He is "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin
of the world". And so, God orchestrated this
triumphal entry of the Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, and God's power overruled the enmity
of the Pharisees and the enmity of the Devil. God did what He pleased to do. Having
said that, we also realize that there are many things that
God cannot do. God cannot do those things that are contrary
to His nature, or contrary to His other attributes. For example, here in Mark
6:5, God said,
Mark 6:5, And he could
there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and
healed them. (Let us
turn again to Mark 6:5, (2X).)
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In other words, Jesus healed some people
from their physical illness, but God did not call these miracles "a
mighty work". Before we answer the question, "What is a mighty
work of God", let us see: #2.
What Can God Not Do? (Mark
6:5, 1John 4:8, Num 23:19, 1Sam 15:29. Heb 6:18,
Jam 1:13,
Mal 3:6, James 1:17, 2Tim 2:13, John 6:37, 44)
Do the Scriptures teach that God is limited in
what He can do? Absolutely Yes! God cannot lie. God
cannot contradict Himself. Therefore, what we read in the Bible must be read as
one harmonious whole, because God cannot lie, nor contradict
Himself. If we believe that "God is love" according to 1John 4:8, but we do not believe Rom 9, or John 6, or Eph
1, then we have declared God a liar and then we would be
obligated to write our own Bible with another god, but it is not the God of the
Bible. We read in Num 23:19, "God is not
a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man,
that he should repent: hath he said, and
shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and
shall he not make it good?" Also, God will not repent,
meaning that God will not retract what He has decided before. God will not be sorry
for what He has done. We read in 1Sa 15:29, "And also the
Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not
a man, that he should repent." Now, that is a
great comfort to us, because we who have put all our
faith and hope on the Lord Jesus Christ shall not be disappointed. We read in Heb 6:18, "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible
for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who
have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." God cannot lie, nor
can He retract His promises to us who have been saved by His grace. Another
thing that God cannot do is this: God cannot sin, and God
cannot be tempted with sin. More than that, God cannot tempt anyone to sin, because sin is an abhorrence
to God. For example, the sin of Adam and Eve to eat
of the fruit of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" was part
of God’s plan for redemption of His elect, but God did
not tempt them to sin. God only set the stage, and since God made Adam and
Eve good, not perfect but good, and since God knew what was in their heart,
God's plan for the fall of Adam and Eve was
a certainty. We read in James 1:13, "Let no man say when he
is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth he any man." Moreover,
God is immutable, which means God cannot change.
God says in Mal 3:6. “For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Because God
cannot retract His promises to Jacob, therefore the
children of Jacob have not yet been consumed. Concerning the immutability of God,
He says in James 1:17, "Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning."
We can depend on God as on a solid rock. He cannot deny His
love on those whom He chose to love from before the foundation
of the world. God says in 2Tim 2:13, "If we believe not, yet he
abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself." The words "if
we believe not" refer to the time before our salvation. God will not abandon
His elect for leading a sinful life before they were saved. That is expected of
unsaved people And so we see that God's
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attributes God has. All these attributes of God are infinite.
God's omnipotence is infinite, and all those things
that God cannot do are things that God ordained to be done, according to
His counsel and according to His will.
There is not an outside force which prevents God from lying or from sinning. God
decided that within Himself. God's hands, or God's
providence, testify of the infinity and eternity of the Godhead and all His divine perfections.
God's infinite power is revealed in the highest degree in the actual work of His hands. And so, God cannot save anyone
who was not included in the number of the elect, chosen from
before the foundation of the world. God says in John 6:37, "All
that the Father giveth me shall
come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." And then He said
in Joh 6:44, "No man can come to me, except the Father which
hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last
day."
It is in this sense that we must understand the words of Mark 6:5,
"And he could there do no
mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." It
means that the Lord Jesus could not save anyone of them, because He was bound
to the decisions made before the
foundation of the world. Therefore,
Must refer to the act of
salvation. You can see in Mark 6:5 that the mighty work of God is singular. It
refers to one work of God that stands above ail His other works as the
mightiest work of God. What is that work of God. Weil we read in 1Cor 2:2, "For i
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (2X). What does this verse say, and what does it not say? This verse
does not say that Paul decided to be ignorant of ail other truths and
principles of the Gospel. But it does say that
"knowing Jesus Christ and Him crucified" is the central truth
around which everything revolves, and from which everything is
derived. God says in Rom 11:36, "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom he
glory for ever. Amen." Christ is the central figure in
the Bible and Christ crucified is the central act of God in the Bible.
Everything in the Bible, and everything
in history revolves around this great act of God, which He did on Friday
April 3. in the year AD 33. In the negative, we have seen what God cannot do. But in the
positive, what did God obligate Himself to do? What did
God obligate Himself to in the counsel of God, before the foundation of the world?
God obligated Himself to save His elect, which is a people He chose for Himself
out of all nations, tribes, people, and tongues found on
this world. God says in Matt 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save
"His People" from their sins." The words "His People"
do not refer to the nation of the Jews, but they refer to all those for whom
Christ suffered and died. It was for this purpose
that He came in this world, and it was for this purpose that He
created this world and all that is within, and it was for this purpose
that Christ purchased on the cross the whole world, so
that He has the right to rule over it and to guide the course of history until all
His elect have come to salvation. It was for this purpose that God
ordained Him King of kings and Lord of lords, because He
must reign over everyone and everything in this world, accomplishing what
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God in His Counsel had determined to be done, namely that "He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and
which are on earth". This is what God's providence accomplishes.
It was a mighty work that God imputed the guilt of ail our sins on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Just think of it. If I lead a very holy life, and
I sin only 25 times per day, then the total accumulation of my
sins up until this day is 73x365x25, which is greater than 666000 sins,
only for one person. Now multiply this number by
many millions of people who were saved throughout the history of the world, and
you end up with many trillions of sins. And this is only a conservative
estimate. The guilt of all these sins had to be
loaded on Christ. Most of those sins were future sins, and God could not
forget one of them, because if only one of my sins was
not paid at the cross, I would still go to Hell, and Christ
would be a failure. And so, throughout history, God's providence makes
ail these sins come to pass without making God
the author of any sin. But at the cross, God bypassed quadrillions of
sins committed or to be committed by people who will
remain unsaved. All those people who have been passed by would die in
their sins and they would never have any fear of God, or of Hell, nor would they
repent for any one of their sins. God would simply not give them any
repentance. Please turn in your Bibles to 2Tim
1:9 (2X). Of all the elect, whose sins were paid by Christ on the
cross, God would give the grace of
salvation in this way: God gave them the right to be raised, from death
to life, with Christ at His resurrection, and God would make it
known to His elect at some point in their life that they
have been raised with Christ. How does God make it known to us? He changes our
soul, makes it perfectly clean by applying the payment that
Christ has made on our behalf, and comes to live in our
soul in a special way. From that moment on, we have a desire to believe the
call from God. which has come to our ears
through the words of a preacher, or the words of a Bible teacher, or the words of
a friend. This is the moment of having been "Born Again". God
speaks of this in 2Tim 1.9-10.
2Ti 1:9-10 Who hath saved us,
and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made
manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath
abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel:
Christ "called us with a holy calling",
a special calling, whereby we became "Born Again", or
"Born from Above". Can we make ourselves be
"Born from Above"? No way! Therefore, this calling is "not according to our works". We did not want it and we did not deserve
it in any way. God gave us this gift free of charge. That is
why this gift was "according to His own purpose and grace",
and God decided this "before the
world began". This is the Mighty Work of God: God
afflicted Christ on our behalf on the cross, where He had
to endure the equivalent of all of His elect spending an eternity in Hell, and after
Christ successfully paid for all the sins of all the elect, God raised up the
body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and gave all His
elect the right to be raised with Him, to a new life with Christ and in Christ.
Let us now turn back to Mark 6, and continue
with verse 6.
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#3. He Went Round About
Teaching (Mark 6:6, Jer 2:12-13, 1Cor 13:4-7, Jer 3:14)
Mr 6:6 And
he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages,
teaching.
Why did Jesus marvel at their unbelief? Was
He surprised? NO! The Lord Jesus is God, and God is never surprised. But God
has put this in the Bible to express His displeasure with the depravity of
unsaved man, and to let us know how horrible their unbelief was, and is. God
expresses the same displeasure in Jer 2:12-13, where God says, "Be
astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly
afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my
people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living
waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no
water." We must apply this to these people in Nazareth. God
says that even the heavens are astonished at their unbelief. And to
these unbelievers God says, "be
horribly afraid", because in your punishment for your unbelief you
shall "be very desolate". Because they have forsaken
the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who can rescue them from their slippery
slide into Hell, since He is the only one who can give them a Gospel of
salvation. He is the fountain of living waters. But they have
attached themselves to a works gospel, which they learned from their
Pharisees. These works gospels are compared to broken cisterns that can hold no
water; broken cisterns that cannot give any gospel promises, but only lead to
Hell. Let us now leave these unbelievers in Nazareth, and please turn
in your Bibles to the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians 13:4
(2X). We read in Mark 6:6, "And he went round about the
villages, teaching". Why did God put this in the Bible? Jesus left His
hometown Nazareth, and He went to teach in the surrounding villages. Could He
have given up on the Jews altogether? The answer is NO! As long as the
nation of Israel was still the wife of God, God was obligated to love
that nation, because God has laid down the law in many places in the Bible that
the husband must love his wife. The Lord Jesus Christ was bound to obey the
law. That is why He went round about, teaching, because they needed to hear the
Gospel that leads unto salvation. God says,
1Co 13:4 Charity (=
agape) suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity
vaunteth not itself
(= is not bragging), is
not puffed up,
1Co 13:5-6 Doth not
behave Itself unseemly (= indecently), seeketh not her
own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniguity, but
rejoiceth in the truth;
1Co 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
The KJV translators chose the word "charity"
instead of "love", and rightfully so, because charity reflects
a mode of unconditional giving. This is the love that God has for
mankind. God loves His elect people, and God gives to them
everything they need, unconditionally. Grace is God's unconditional favor
unto salvation. Grace is an unconditional gift that we do not deserve. Like
Hosea was commanded to love his unfaithful wife, so the
Lord Jesus Christ had to love the unfaithful nation of Israel,
because she was His wife until the divorce at the cross, brought the final
separation. It is not well known that the OT
church was the wife of God, whereas the NT church is the Bride of Christ. But
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God declared in Jer 3:14, "Turn, 0 backsliding
children, saith the LORD: for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of
a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion". At the cross,
God divorced His wife, the nation of Israel. Until that time there was still a
remnant of faithful believers within the nation of Israel, and therefore she
was still His church. But at the cross, God divorced His wife, Israel, and
God adopted the Bride of Christ, the eternal Church, in her place. The Lord
Jesus gave us here an example. His example is:
To pray for your unsaved
loved ones, and to witness wherever you can. Please turn about
60 pages to your right (<-) to the 2nd Epistle to
the Thessalonians 1:11 (2X). There are many prayers in the Bible. Here
the Apostle Paul tells the church at Thessalonica that he prays for them.
Remember that the language of God to a church is different from the language of
God to an individual. The external church has a mixture of saved and unsaved
people within her. This is what He prays for:
2Th 1:11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would
count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all
the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:
2Th 1:12 That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in
you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and
the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what we need to pray for one another in
this church. This is what every Pastor should pray for
his church, "that our God would count us worthy of His calling",
which means that we will play an active role in the spread
of the Gospel throughout the world, and by conquering territory from Satan. Every
Pastor should pray for his church "that the Name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in us, and we in Him". This is not
something that we can accomplish through our own zeal or by our own efforts.
Only by the grace of God shall we be active participants in His mighty army.
That is why we should always be ready to give account of
the hope that is in us. God says in 1Pet 3:15, "But sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give
an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear". Make the Lord's
business your first priority in this life, and be
always ready to answer every person who asks you: What is the reason for the hope that is in you? Why are you always so joyful? Why are you not stressed out over the war in Iraq, or
over the economy in this country, or over the presidential candidates? How can
you be so joyful when there are 2 million
babies killed every year in this country alone? Why are you not joining other churches
against the homosexual movement that is sweeping this country? The answer is
simple: Our God is in control of world history. We do not
need to worry. We give our concerns to God, and let Him
worry about them. We must concentrate our efforts on the business that He has
given us to do, and that is to pray
always, and to give an answer to every man who asks us what is the
reason of the hope that is within us. And remember to answer
him in meekness and fear, because only by grace does
God give us the words to speak. AMEN. Let us turn to the Lord in prayer.
4/4/2004
Mark 6:5 / No Mighty Work Page 10