Spiritual Progress – Mark
8:22-26
1. A group of tourists was visiting a picturesque village.
2. As they walked along the lane, they met an elderly man sitting on
a worn rock.
3. One of the tourists asked, “Where any great men born in this
village?”
4. The old man replied, “Nope.
Only babies.”
1. Spiritual maturity is something that takes time to develop.
2. But time alone doesn’t guarantee spiritual growth.
3. It isn’t the passage of time itself that sees us
conformed to the image of Christ.
4. It’s God’s Word & Spirit at work through the experiences of
our lives that mold & shape us.
5. That truth comes out powerfully in this story only Mark records.
22 Then He came to
1.
a. in Jesus’ day it was lush & verdant.
b. we’d call it a great resort location.
2. This blind man lived in the midst of great beauty but could not
enjoy it because he couldn’t see.
3. V. 26 makes it clear he didn’t live in
4. There’s a great lesson right there.
a. these friends of the blind man knew
Jesus could heal him.
b. and though it meant a bit of work for them,
they were willing to invest it if it would mean their friend would gain his
sight.
c. so they brought their blind friend to Jesus.
5. Jesus is The Answer to all men’s &
women’s needs.
6. But they will not come to Christ on their own, they need someone
to bring them to Him. Bring them,
Christian!
a. Jesus is the answer to your friend’s troubled
marriage.
b. He’s the solution to your relative’s emotional
dilemma.
7. The first & best way you can bring the lost to Jesus is by
bringing Jesus to them through the testimony of your own changed life.
8. You can invite them to come to church with
you, or invite them to a special outreach event like a Harvest Crusade.
9. Notice that once these friends brought the blind man to Jesus,
they then urged Jesus to heal him.
a. as important as being faithful to present Jesus
to the lost through our example & witness,
b. is the need to present the lost to Jesus
in prayer.
10. Pray for your friend’s salvation. Lift them up before the Lord in
intercession.
a. make their turning to God the object of your
most fervent desire & request.
b. when you do, then you’ll find your heart
beating in time with God’s own – for this is His passion, His
desire.
11. Did Jesus want to heal this blind man? [YES]
a. was Jesus able to heal him? [YES]
b. did those who brought him believe Jesus could
heal Him? [YES]
c. did they have reason to believe He would
heal him? [YES]
d. the last verse of ch. 6 tells us that as many
as come in contact with Jesus were made whole.
e. and yet, in spite of all this – these friends
pleaded
with Jesus to heal the blind man.
f. this begging for favor wasn’t a sign of a
lack of faith, as though they thought they had to talk Jesus into
doing something He wasn’t inclined to do.
g. it was evidence of their faith that Jesus
could
& would heal their friend.
12. Here’s what they knew with absolute certainty:
1)
Their friend was blind.
2) Jesus
heals all those who come to Him.
13. They put those two things together &
concluded – let’s get our friend to Jesus & ask Him to heal him.
14. Our prayers for the lost will probably be a lot more earnest &
fervent when we approach them with the kind of clarity these men had.
a. we need to keep 2 things in mind
1)
The lost are doomed to the unending torment of a Christ-less eternity.
2)
Jesus came to save them from that fate & He is their ONLY hope!
b. being a good person won’t excuse them, even
being religious won’t be enough.
c. faith in Christ is their one & only hope.
15. If anticipation of the joy & bliss of heaven isn’t enough to
energize our prayers for the lost, then let the prospect of the indescribable
agonies of hell stoke our fervency to pray for them.
23 So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out
of the town.
1. The reason why Jesus left
2. He intended to use this man’s healing as an object
lesson for the disciples so He left the city with its crowds so He
could have some privacy with them.
3. All 4 of the gospels make it clear there was a wild-atmosphere
that characterized the crowds around Jesus at this time.
a. they were excited by the miracles &
healings He’d performed.
b. it had become something of a show,
though Jesus had never intended it to become such.
c. in fact, as we’ve seen repeatedly in Mark’s
gospel, when Jesus healed people, He sent them away with the command, “Be quiet
& don’t say anything to anyone!”
d. He tells this man that in v. 26 after he’d
been healed.
26 Then He sent him away to his house, saying, “Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone
in the town.”
4. This is a problem all too common when the power of God moves upon
people.
a. the crowd of on-lookers gets all excited and
starts looking for more; more healings, then more dramatic
healings.
b. it’s been interesting to watch some of the popular
healing ministries today & see the show they make of the touch of God.
c. listen, God still heals! But what’s presented today on so many stages
as the power of God looks very different from what we see in the ministry of
Jesus.
d. He didn’t work a few miracles then form the “Jesus Christ Healing Ministries, Inc.”
e. when He healed the needy, He told them to be
quiet, & to return to their homes and families & to live the rest of
their lives in light of their new-found faith in Him.
5. Jesus took this man outside the hubbub of
6. What that lesson was becomes clear as we read further. V. 23 goes on . . .
And when He had spit on his
eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything.
7. Okay, this seems just plain bizarre & a bit disgusting. What is going on here?
8. Spittle was believed by the people of the ancient world to hold
healing properties.
a. it’s not hard to understand why they would
think this.
b. if you get a cut on your finger, what’s the
first thing most people do almost instinctually? They put it in their mouth. [ex: paper cut]
9. When Jesus spit in this man’s eyes, He wasn’t insulting Him, He
was employing a form of medicine for that time.
10. Of course Jesus knew there was nothing in the spittle which had
medicinal value. He was simply putting
His seal of approval on the use of medicine in the treatment of
illness & disease.
11. God has ordained & designed 3 means by which our bodies can be
healed.
1)
First is the body’s own, natural, built-in healing mechanisms.
a)
when you cut you finger, immediately the tissue around the cut engorges with
blood and the cells go to work fighting infection at the same time they begin
to build structures that repair the wound.
b)
the scab that forms is like a little triage tent the body puts up over the
wound to heal the breach into the body.
2)
Second is the discovery and use of medicine which really only assist
&
supplement the body’s healing mechanisms.
a)
while it might be tempting to attribute the discovery of medicine to science
& the ingenuity of man,
b)
we know it was God who designed & created man’s brain & placed within
him an insatiable hunger for exploration & discovery.
3)
Third is the intervention of God in affecting a miracle of healing.
12. For this man’s recovery, Jesus used both 2 & 3; medicine &
divine healing.
13. It’s interesting to note that the man’s healing through the use of
the spit wasn’t complete.
14. Jesus asked the man to describe what he saw . . .
24 And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees,
walking.”
25 Then He put His hands on his eyes again and
made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly.
1. This is the only healing we’re told Jesus performed that wasn’t
instantaneous.
2. It seems this man had had his sight at one time because he was
familiar with what trees looked like.
3. After Jesus’ first touch, his vision was blurry
& indistinct so that people were only discernable as slender upright forms,
much like a tree.
4. The only difference was that he perceived motion & knew they
couldn’t be trees.
5. Jesus then touched Him again, no spit this time, & when the
man looked, his sight was made whole; he could now see Jesus & the
disciples clearly.
6. Jesus then sent the man home.
1. What lesson was Jesus teaching through this miracle?
2. The progression of this man’s healing was not due to the fact that
this was an especially hard one so Jesus had to do it
twice!
3. He’d done much more dramatic things with less apparent effort
before this.
a. walking on the water, feeding the thousands
with a sack lunch
b. calming the storm, raising a 12 year old girl
from the dead.
c. & delivering a man possessed by a whole
legion of demons.
d. all of these were far more dramatic in
their demonstration of the power of God than healing some guy who’d become
blind.
4. So what’s going on here?
5. Where Mark places this story gives us the answer.
a. twice now Jesus has feed thousands with just
a meager supply of bread and meat.
b. yet despite the obvious demonstration of
His power, the disciples are still in doubt over just who He is.
c. right after this, Jesus asks them Who they
think He is. Peter rises to the occasion & declares He is the Messiah and
Son of God!
d. then, in the very next moment, as Jesus
begins to tell the disciples He must go to Jerusalem where He will suffer &
die, Peter rebukes Him for such a negative confession!
e. how can Peter call Jesus the Messiah one
moment, then turn right around and rebuke Him for revealing the Messiah’s
mission?
6. The problem is this – the disciples, all of them, were just like
this blind man Jesus healed.
a. they’d been blind, but at this moment, their
spiritual sight had been awakened.
b. the problem is, it wasn’t wholly
restored.
c. just as the blind man mistook people for
trees, they mistook Jesus for something other than Who he was.
d. the day would soon come when He would touch
them again, & their spiritual sight & discernment would be made clear.
e. that day came on Resurrection Sunday when
Jesus breathed on them & they were born again.
f. as Luke says it in 24:45, He “opened
their understanding” to the reality of Who He really was.
7. At this point in Mark’s gospel, the disciples were blind to the full reality
of Who Jesus was because of their own ideas about what the Messiah would
be like. They could only see
Jesus through the lens of their expectations.
8. The story’s told of Cary Grant walking down a street one day when
a man locked eyes on him with excitement.
a. the man said, “Wait a minute, you’re . . .
you’re—I know who you are. Don’t tell
me, you’re uh, Rock Hud . . . no, you’re . . . ”
b. the movie star decided to help the guy out &
said, “Cary Grant.”
c. the man said, “No, that’s not it. You’re
. . . ”
d. there was Cary Grant, identifying himself
with his own name, but the man had someone else in mind and wouldn’t accept his
word.
9. Jesus knew the struggle the disciples were having with figuring
out Who He was, and used this man’s healing as an object lesson to teach them that
while their views & opinions of Him were blurry & uncertain, the day
would come when they would see clearly.
10. Instead of sending them home with the command to be quiet, He would
send them into the whole world to shout it from the housetops.
1. The lesson you & I can glean from this
story is that spiritual growth is a process.
2. All true spiritual growth is based in the knowledge of God.
3. And His revelation is an unending process of deepening
intimacy.
4. When Lynn & I met, I was attracted to her both because of her
obvious physical beauty & because of the inner beauty of her love for
Jesus.
a. in my estimation, her “babeosity” was total,
both on the inside & outside.
b. as we began our friendship & I got to
know her better, my attraction to her increased because I had a chance to
discover her values & priorities. I
admired her determination to be holy & follow Jesus.
c. over the last 25 years, my knowledge of
d. and because of that I can say the love I have
for her is more solid, more meaningful, & more effectual than it was
when I first asked her to marry me.
e. my relationship with
f. but it’s taken the backdrop of the last
quarter century for those changes to occur.
5. The same is true of our relationship with God & how it impacts
our lives.
a. it’s only as we grow in our knowledge of Who
God is that we understand who we are.
b. and in His mercy, God only imparts His
revelation to us as His grace prepares & equips us to receive it.
c. I can honestly say after nearly 30 years of
walking with the Lord that if God had shown me in the first hour of my Christian
life, everything I know today about Him & what it means to be His, I would
have probably blown up!
6. Spiritual growth is a process that unfolds with the passage of
time.
7. But let me say this, please don’t think that time alone is what
makes change.
8. God, not time, makes saints.
It’s just that God works in & through time to make them.
9. The crucial issue for us to grasp today is that just as this man
found his sight restored by the touch of Jesus, that’s where we’ll find our
spiritual sight made clear – at the touch of the Lord.
10. If you would press on & grow in grace, spend time with the Lord.
a. note the progression in this story: people
brought this man to Jesus.
b. then Jesus then took him by the hand outside
the city to a private, quiet place.
c. then He touched him, & again; -- then his
sight was clear.
11. Christian, you’ve already been brought to Christ.
a. and He’s faithfully led you by the hand into
faith in Him.
b. now it’s time to pursue His touch, not of
these eyes, but the eyes of your heart.
c. the key to your growth in life is the touch
of Jesus.
d. listen to the Apostle Paul’s most fervent
prayer for Christians – [Eph. 1:16-23]
16[I] do not cease to . . . make mention of you in my
prayers: 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him, 18the eyes of your understanding being enlightened;
that you may know
e.
then listen to this list of what he wanted them to know -
·
what is the hope
of His calling,
·
what are the
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
·
19and what is the exceeding greatness of His
power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
f. he describes that power that’s ours in
Christ . . .
·
20which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the
dead
·
and seated Him
at His right hand in the heavenly places,
·
21far above all principality and power and might and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that
which is to come.
·
22And He put all things under His feet,
·
and gave Him to
be head over all things to the church, 23which is His
body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
g. that’s us!
The Church, His Body, His fullness!
12. I must confess that when I read Paul’s words here & compare my
spiritual awareness to it, I realize that I’m much like the man who saw people
as trees!
13. But I want to see clearly! I
want to know as I am known.
14. “Jesus, Open the eyes of my heart – let me see You as You truly are.
15. Then let me see myself, not as I am, but as You see me.”
1. There’s one last thing for us to take away from this story.
2. When the man said he saw people like trees, the disciples didn’t
guffaw or criticize him for his lack of faith or less than perfect healing.
3. They left the matter in Jesus’ hands & waited to see what He
would do.
4. Healing in this man’s case was a progressive thing.
5. As a picture of spiritual growth, it teaches us we need to be
gracious in dealing with others when they don’t seem to be maturing on a time-table
more to our liking.
6. It’s not uncommon for believers who’ve walked with the Lord for
many years to become impatient with young believers who
don’t possess the same commitment to holiness they do.
a. they forget that when they were young
believers their view of holiness was fuzzy.
b. their victory over the obvious sins of the
flesh is a struggle long forgotten.
c. and they grow impatient & judgmental with
those new to the faith who are struggling & stumbling.
7. Christians who’s background has seen less involvement in the
things of the world can become frustrated with new Christians
who’ve just recently left a life of grave worldliness and who are a bit slow to
lay aside the habits of their past.
a. these might be patterns of dress, of speech,
of behavior.
b. and this frustration can express itself in a
kind of subtle legalism that wants to start enforcing rules.
8. We need to remember that we all grow at a different pace.
a. some are quick to change,
b. others have a greater struggle with sin &
take longer to learn the lessons of grace.
9. Even in the parable of the sower, Jesus said that some would bear
fruit at a 30-fold rate, while others produced 60-fold, & still others 100-fold.
10. His criteria was simply growth & fruit, its abundance was a secondary
matter.
11. As we all grow in Christ together, some of us will mature quickly
while others lag behind.
12. The important thing – what we need to look for is growth,
spiritual
fruit,
13. Not it’s abundance, but it’s presence.