When Jesus Comes Over | Mark 1:29-34 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark Series)

Welcome to all our visitors here. If this is your first time, we bless you in the name of the lord Jesus. If this is home for you, welcome home. If you're home here, then you know that we're in the gospel of Mark as a series. But before we turn to Mark, I I ask you to turn your attention to the to the prophet Zechariah.

I wanna make a brief comment about the atrocious event that took place in Highland Park, the massacre at the parade where several lives were lost because of a man who clearly was influenced by a devil and had no fear of God. I just turned to Zechariah. I'm not gonna take too much time here because I I can spend this time explaining biblically why these things happen and why we're seeing what we're seeing, but I wanna give a message of hope. Zechariah chapter eight. In verse three.

This is a prophecy of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. That means that we believe Jesus Christ will return, and when he does return physically, he will establish an earthly kingdom for one thousand years. And in that, we see so many prophecies in the Bible that give us a little window into what that world will look like. And here is a snippet of what the millennial reign will look like under the perfect dictatorship, yes, dictatorship, of Jesus Christ. Now dictatorship intimidates us, and the reason is because we've had evil dictators, but he's a righteous dictator.

And in Zechariah eight verse three, I want you to see something. Thus says the Lord, I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Now look at verse four. Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age, and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Isn't that wonderful?

We saw elderly people shot in their backs. We saw children scrambling. Have you seen any footage on the news? Children with their little bicycles and their little lawn chairs running, not knowing what's happening. And this prophecy tells us that when Jesus comes and he rules and reigns, there will be safety in our streets again.

There will be no fear of looking and wondering if something will happen or if something will do somebody will do something. There will be total serenity, trust, comfort because the world will know Christ is king over our earth. And so I want you to understand that this is what we're headed to. This is what we will know one day. But I wanna I wanna use this text to say, if if any politician is listening, that if you want this reality in America again, make Jesus Christ king of this nation.

Submit to his word that you may know peace like a river, that you may know righteousness that will rule this land only until you submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, or what we have seen over the past weeks and months and years will only grow and increase. Because you push God out, you invite the devil in. It's plain and simple. But I praise the Lord that when he comes, even children will be able to play in the streets again. Isn't that an amazing thing?

Jesus, when he rules, he wants kids to play. That's why I love seeing little children run around in church sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes it makes us nervous. We don't want them to hurt themselves or do anything crazy, but Christ himself loves the little children when they feel free to play in his presence.

Turn with me to the gospel of Mark in chapter one, please. Mark chapter one, and we're beginning here together in our bibles in verse 29. Verse 29. Here's what the word of God says. And immediately, he, being the Lord, left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. That evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door, and he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him.

Pray with me, please. Lord, this is your word. We revere it. We cherish it, and we ask by your grace that you would help us understand it. And that, Lord, everything that the Holy Spirit intended to say through these verses would be communicated clearly in this place.

Lord, we have heard of the authority of your son, Jesus Christ, while he was on the earth. We've heard of his anointing. We've heard of his power. We heard that when he speaks, he did not speak like the scribes who are void of conviction and unction. But, Lord, in this place together, we we urge and we plead with you, Lord.

Please, let us know something of your authority. Let us know something of that anointing, the anointing of the Holy Spirit that brings about a great force behind ministry, a great power that reaches beyond the mind but touches the soul. We ask, Lord, as we submit to you with great eagerness that we would know something of your presence in our midst, and we give you maximum praise and honor through our submission to what we hear today. In the precious name of the resurrected Christ we pray. Amen and amen.

At the end of the gospel of John, John leaves us with an interesting phrase, an interesting statement after giving us the account of his perspective of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm paraphrasing, but he says something along the long lines of Jesus did many, many things. And if if all the things that were written about him were to be recorded in books, there would not be enough books, not enough space to tell us every single thing that the Lord himself had done when he was in his three year itinerant. And that statement is is incredible, but it's realistic because when you and I come to this text that we just read today, we have to understand that what we learned last week, if you were here last week, and what we are about to hear today happened all in one day in real time. And so you can almost say that in the morning of the Sabbath day, Jesus was casting out a devil, and for lunch, he was healing the sick.

It's as though Mark gives us just a glimpse on a particular day of what an average day looked like for the Lord Jesus Christ when he walked through those streets in Jerusalem and beyond. And that is exactly what is happening here in Mark's account. What Mark is doing by the spirit is that he is shifting our focus away from Jesus Christ possessing authority over demons and unclean spirits and is now showing us that the same Jesus Christ has authority over sickness and disease. That there is nothing in the body, no matter what the doctor report is, no matter what people have said, no matter who signed off on who, Jesus Christ, when he speaks, even disease, not just demons, have to bow to his rebuke. And so that's what's happening as we come into these verses here.

We are seeing the Lord showing us that there is nothing that can resist his power and his authority. But a passage like this that we just read has more to offer us than just a topical study of how God operates in the realm of sickness and ailment and infirmity. We can take these texts and speak about how do we understand God's will for suffering and for healing, and does he heal all? Why doesn't he heal all? That's true.

We can touch on that, but there is something here in Mark throughout the gospels that is that is important as well, beyond that. If you look at Mark, which is a great emphasis on miracles as you heard so many times before, with every miracle, there is a message. And the message is beyond just the fact that it's a declaration of the deity of Jesus Christ. That's important. But the circumstances around the events of his healing and the different diseases that he's dealt with, the situations before and after teach us something else.

There are there are other nuggets. There are other jewels there that would require meditation and say, okay, Lord. What else are you saying beyond the fact that you have the power to heal? And that is what you and I will explore in in a very short way, though we can expand greatly on them, of what these things here, the the house and Simon's mother-in-law and the response and the reaction. What does that have to say for us as believers today beyond the fact that Christ is sovereign over sickness?

And we will endeavor to do that by understanding three simple points. We're gonna organize our thoughts here in three simple ways. The first one is we are going to consider the residence of the healing. The residence of the healing. Where did this healing take place?

Why is that important? What does that say to us? Secondly, we will explore the request for the healing. How was it how was it asked for? What's there for us to understand in terms of how Christ leans and listens to the way we request something from him?

And lastly, you and I will also see, you get the you get the point here, the third r, I'm sure, the response to the healing, the reaction to the healing. First, the residence of the healing. We read here in verse 29 that immediately, he being Jesus, left the synagogue and enter the house of Simon and Andrew. Remember, Jesus called a pair of brothers to follow him. They did.

They surrendered everything. Then we're told by Mark that Jesus goes into Capernaum and he stands in the synagogue and he speaks with authority and a demon manifests in the middle of his preaching. And with one simple word, this this man possessed with a devil falls and is rescued and is saved from that oppression. And you see that Simon and his brother, James and his brother, they see this. They witnessed.

They were in attendance of that particular service. And this this obviously moved their heart to see this is unlike anybody else that we have met. And so after church, so to speak, that day, they invite Jesus. They invite Jesus to come over, to be in their home, namely Peter and Andrew. And we see here that Jesus is a type of servant through that.

I love this. When you look at it through Jesus' perspective and you see the kind of minister that he was. You see, when Jesus preached in that synagogue, it was a very public thing. It was a spectacle. And it had such an effect that when you look at verse 28 very quickly, what you'll see is that his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

He did something very, very known, and it became even more known. But I love the Lord Jesus in this because when he was asked to come to a home, he gladly went to that home. When he was about to be asked to serve within a Galilean house, he was willing to serve within that Galilean home. In other words, the demonstration of Jesus' compassion was not limited or strictly reserved for large platforms. His spirit empowered ministry was ready to be exercised wherever the opportunity presented itself.

And so if Christ was on the hilltops where you saw a sea of people, and he could have just with one word saw multiplication of of food, he would do it out of compassion. But when a family would invite him over to his house, and the only audience can be counted on one hand, he was still with the same compassion and eagerness willing to bless that family and bless that household. What we see here is just another example of the awesome humility of Jesus. This is not a man who is moved by honorariums, how much you can give him, what kind of what kind of press he would get, who knew what he was doing. He served with the same vigor, the same zeal, whether people saw him or they didn't see him.

And we see that his compassion for people was the same privately as it was publicly, and this is our example. Jesus is your example. If you long to serve the Lord, know that this is your your example to look to. Shouldn't we be just as passionate about serving and honoring the Father in private? If nobody's willing to even witness our sacrifice, are we still willing to sacrifice?

Are we content in honoring God regardless of whether crowds hear about it or not? This is the perfect servant, capital p, capital s, perfect servant, who not only gave himself when he was invited to synagogues or he was invited to the homes of of Pharisees or in a regularly held worship service. This was a man ready to demonstrate the the character and the nature of God at all places and all times, and may we be by his grace like him. But I'd like to see this verse from the perspective of Peter and his brother Andrew. Yes, Jesus was a humble servant, but look at these two brothers here.

After the meeting of the synagogue, we see that they they didn't they didn't want Jesus to be encountered just at the synagogue. They wanna take Jesus home. They wanna know more. They wanna know greater blessing. And so they call Jesus over to their home.

And that's an incredible thing to see because, unfortunately, what you have is many people who attend their local church, maybe even regularly, to worship Christ or at least in the name of worshiping Christ. I hope that's not you today. And they're content with that only to dismiss Christ and leave him at the church that they were just at. That nominal kind of faith doesn't only rob God of glory, it will definitely rob you and strip you of blessing. I mean, look at these eager disciples and learn from them.

The testimonies that await, the life that awaits that could be known when we intentionally and mindfully practice our faith beyond the walls that you and I are in right now, when we say, lord, I'm not just coming here to visit you for a couple of hours. Would you come home with me? Would you come home with me? I'm about to shock you with a statement, but brace yourselves. We don't come here to worship God.

Take a breath. We come here to worship God with God's people. You and I worship God, we should at least throughout the week. We should love him, adore him, pursue him, be mindful of him. And when we come here once a week, we do it with other people who also have been doing that throughout the week.

That's what it should be. And these men here, they they want Christ to come. They they don't wanna just say, thank you, Lord, for the service. That was powerful. And then just walk out not thinking about him, not engaging him, not seeking him, not obeying him, not being mindful of him, not practicing his presence, only to come to the synagogue and hopefully Jesus will be there again.

That is not the Christian life. That is a defeated life. That is a less than ideal. That is not the standard for you and I. And you see this principle throughout the scripture that whenever Christ, whenever God is intentionally invited into any setting, there is always blessing.

Consider John chapter two. A family wisely invited Jesus to their wedding. That's a wonderful thing. We almost have these events and things in our minds where we say, okay. This is sacred.

This is not. This is religious and this is not. That is foreign to standard Christianity. Christ goes wherever you go. If he lives in you, then he goes where you go.

And so don't be ashamed. Right? Don't be ashamed of his name. Wherever you are, whether it's celebratory or it's somber, Christ is with us, and Christ longs to be with us. Let me give you an example of this in the Old Testament.

At one point in Israel's history, the symbol of God's presence, which was known as the Ark of the Covenant, was missing. The Philistines took it, and they brought it to their land. Bad idea. God began to curse them. So they send it back to the nation, and there is no sacred place where the Ark should be.

And so it was kind of hopping around in different places. And at one point, it laid in the home of a man named Abinadab. And it stayed at Abinadab's house for twenty years. Finally, David becomes king. And one of the first assignments that comes to David's mind because he he longed for God's presence, he said, we need to go back, and we need to get that ark, and we need to bring it back to the city of worship where he belongs.

And so they make this whole campaign where they go and they fetch for this ark, and there's a whole sermon on that by itself because they did it in the wrong way. Eventually, because they didn't do it according to the protocol of God's word, God judges them. David is afraid and angry at the same time, and he goes, I I can't handle if this is how holy God is, I gotta retract here and and rethink this whole thing. So he sends the ark to the man named Obed Edom. And here's what God's word says.

The moment the ark came to this man's house in second Samuel six eleven, and the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edom the Gittite, three months. And the Lord blessed Obed Edom and all his household. The blessing of God's presence being in that man's home was so obvious that outsiders recognized it. They were able to see it. So much so that word gets to King David in verse 12 and he says, let's get it.

I want that. I want the blessings that Obed Edom is experiencing for my life and for the nation's life. And so he goes and he does it according to God's word this time. But I what I find so amazing is that when the ark was in Abinadab's house, there is no mention that that there was blessing there. For twenty years, you don't get one verse, one hint that Abinadab's household was being over overwhelmed with God's blessing.

It's silent. In fact, one of his sons died for irreverently touching the ark when he shouldn't have. But for three months, Obed Edom experiences a shower of grace, And the only explanation that comes to mind is that surely Obed Edom practiced and walked and lived with an awareness of the presence of God in his home, unlike Abinadab. Abinadab and his sons had an irreverence, and I think part of the irreverence is part of the irreverence that you see a lot of people who grow up in the church. They become so comfortable with the presence of God, with the name of Jesus, with his word that they are able to handle it in a way that actually violates the word of God.

For twenty years, they grew up with the presence of God. And what happens? You have kids, and God forbid that it would be true here, who grow up. And because I'm sure it came from their father who did not know how to reverently act around the presence of God, it translated to the children perhaps, where now they were judged instead of blessed. But Obed Edom, I'm sure, he had this ark and God saw his heart posture, A man who intentionally lived with the knowledge that God is in my home.

God is with us at dinner. God is with us at family vacation. God is with us when guests come over. The Lord saw his heart posture and blessed him, and blessed him, and blessed him, and blessed him, and blessed him. In the Old Testament, the emphasis of blessing is physical.

The number of children you have, the wealth that you have, the crops that you have in the New Testament, it's spiritual. And you and I have an opportunity to so live with an awareness of Christ in our day to day living that people can actually see. There's a peace in your home. There's a joy in your life. There's a harmony amongst yourselves.

And maybe that our answer would be because Christ lives here. He doesn't live in some guest room. He has the deed of this home. He is the one who is the king of this house. And so you see example after example of the times when people make an intentional effort to say, Lord, you are here.

We will obey you. We will walk in the fear of your presence and reverence to your name that God cannot help but overwhelm them with his blessing. And so we see that here. So here's my question to you before we move on. In love, I ask this.

In my desire for you to know great joy in life in your walk with Christ, does Christ abide with you, or do you just visit him once a week? Come on. Be honest. Please. Be honest.

Does Christ live with you, Or do you just visit him? And then maybe once a year, you skip a year or two, you you go on vacation with Jesus at a conference. Does he live with you? You alone can answer that. And if you're not sure, I beckon you to ask him to come home with you today, and that you would live with him day after day, that you wake up with him, that you go to sleep with him in your mind, and Christ will bless you, I'm sure.

The residence of the healing. Consider now the request for the healing. We see here in verse 30, Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. Mark loves that word immediately. And we see here that Peter and Andrew with their friends come over.

They're aware of the condition of Peter's mother-in-law. And after they come from the service in the synagogue, these men had a strong faith, obviously, of what they just perceived, to bring Christ to a situation that was also beyond their control. Therefore, Peter and the rest here immediately came to the house, and they immediately told their rabbi about a loved one's need for relief. And if we were encouraged by the fact that Peter and Andrew brought Jesus to their home, be further encouraged by the manner of their supplication. They told them about their precious loved one when?

Immediately. Not later. Not next week. Immediately. There was no hesitation on their part.

They were not reluctant. Their reflex by being in the presence of a great need was to bring it before a great God. And we see here that for many professing believers, the relationship between a need, a real need, and that causing a faith filled cry is either an afterthought or nonexistent altogether. Why is it that there's so many delays on our laying of our requests down before the feet of the Master? Why is it that we don't think about Him as our shepherd, as the first person to call to and to ask for, to intervene with his wisdom and his power?

Why is it that we sense confusion, or we feel lost, or we feel hopeless, or in danger, that we do not we do not immediately turn to the Lord in our hearts, underneath our breath, maybe even desperately coming before him on your knees as you close your bedroom door and say, Lord, you need to come and you need to help. I'll give you two reasons, I believe. Number one, many believers do not comprehend the capability of Christ. They don't comprehend the capability of Christ. Could it be that the faith of these men was fueled by the fact that they just saw him speak to a man filled with the devil and that devil immediately had to leave and they said, this this is something.

This is something. Do you think he can heal mom? Do you think he can call that fever to come out the same way he called that demon to come out? And they had this image so fresh in their minds that they brought the Lord and they informed them of a personal challenge that they could not control. And I believe the reason why so many Christians do not pray much is because they have a small view of God.

A little view of God. He's the source of everything that we have, and he is able to provide everything that we need, everything. There's not one avenue, not one area in life that Christ says, I don't know if I can help you there. Every aspect, He has a remedy for. Every situation, He has a solution for.

So let me ask you this. Are any of you suffering today, this afternoon, from a broken heart? A broken heart. I'm not talking about a broken arm. I'm talking about a crushed spirit.

I'm talking about emotional distress. I'm talking about something that is so profound that you wish you would have had a broken arm instead. That can be true. Here's what I say to you according to Psalms one forty seven verse three. He heals the brokenhearted, and he binds up their wounds.

He doesn't just heal bodies, he heals hearts. He doesn't just put skin together, he doesn't just put fresh power and legs that couldn't walk for years together, he's able to breathe life into your soul where you can know a joy again, and you can know something of a satisfaction beyond the fact that you are being distressed by something that is lacking. Do any of you need wisdom as you endure trial? Well, James one:five says if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God. Ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and will be given him.

Does fear harass you? Does anxiety attack you constantly? And that precious verse in Philippians four six and seven verse seven says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts. That's your emotional state. Your hearts and your minds.

That's your thought process. He will guard both of those things in Christ Jesus. What's the diagnosis? He has the cure. What's the problem?

He has a prescription. So why is it that we hesitate? I believe it's it's because we don't know the capability of Christ. We don't know how much he is able to zoom in on a particular on a particular situation and deal with it accordingly with surgical position. People do not comprehend the capability of Christ.

And secondly, they don't realize the compassion of Christ. They don't realize the compassion of Christ. I can't help but think that these disciples not only learned something of the power of Jesus, I believe they tasted something of his tenderness. I believe they walked with him, though it was brief up to this point, but they caught on very quickly that this Jesus does not serve people under compulsion. He oozes with compassion.

Like, when you look at him in the eyes, and when you see the way he handles people, you cannot help but think that he genuinely loves those that he serves. And so they did not hesitate to bring this person, their mother-in-law, who was ill, who was sick, because they knew that this would not cause Christ to sigh, but like a great physician, he would be moved in the innermost parts of who he was to provide some kind of healing. Does a good doctor have a patient come in and go, oh, another one? Okay. Come here.

Do this. No. They love what they do, and, yes, they have bad days, but Christ does not have bad days. He is perfectly loving. And we see here that they believe that to some degree, and Jesus is willing to move quickly upon our needs, though he does know, as a great physician would, when to allow for painful resistance to remain, knowing that it will produce a greater strength and maturity as a result.

That's why Jesus doesn't answer every single prayer every single time, because sometimes the best thing is for that burden to stay there. Guess what? Because he put it there. I bring this point up because you have many people who have this thought, this false impression that God is just too big to care about the little things. You know what I love about this?

There's a debate about what the fever was, how intense was it. Was it was it a deadly fever? Was it just a a mild fever? It was enough for this person not to be able to move. But when we hear fever in comparison to the dead being raised and in comparison to the blind seeing and the deaf hearing for the first time, I mean, if we had a scale of sickness, this doesn't seem that big of a deal.

But it is to the Lord. He cares. He cares about the little things. He cares about the things that hinder us even at a small percentage. And the Lord shows up here, and he wants to prove that he actually does have this deep longing for us to be whole, for us to know something of his touch.

And so this idea that God is too distant and he only cares about, like, big things in our lives is false. It's absolutely false. And what's amazing, I was having this conversation with a couple of brothers last night, is when you look at Mark from the cover of it, in the start to the finish, what you will see is Jesus ministering often with his hands. With his hands. Over and over, you see several times the Lord using his hands to touch those who are in need of that touch.

Let me ask you a question. You don't have to answer it audibly, and I hope we can all agree with this. Can not the Lord heal any disease or cast out any devil by just his word? We've seen it on more than one occasion where he just sends his word. He doesn't need to even be in the same space as the person who is suffering for them to be relieved and rescued.

And yet what you see in the bible is that Jesus intentionally comes close to people, and he holds them by the hand, or he lays his hand. You're wondering why would the Holy Spirit show us that? Let me prove it to you first. You have your Bibles, right? Good.

Mark chapter one, we read it. Verse 31, And he came and took her by the hand. Scroll down to verse 41. Here's a man with leprosy. Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, a leper, and said to him, I will be clean.

Go to Mark chapter five verse 41. Mark five forty one. Taking her by what? The hand. He said to her, talitha kumai, which means little girl, I say to you, arise.

Mark eight, chapter 23, and there are other places, but I'm just coming to just a few of them. Mark eight twenty three. And he took the blind man by what? By the hand, and led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked, do you see anything?

By the hand. By the hand. By the hand. Why? Why does it matter?

For one simple reason. His touch would communicate that he is not only able to heal, but he was deeply willing to be involved. The hand of God willing to be near a variety of fragmented lives shows us that he is willing to be near, not in a compromising way, but in a way in which he is wanting to make us whole regardless of how broken we are. So why hesitate to come broken before the Lord when he is eager to embrace you in that state of brokenness? Why hesitate to come with your concern when he longs to put the pieces together?

This is Christ. We should not hesitate. We should not be reluctant for one simple reason. Through this action alone, we see that he is showing us that he is ready to be near hand in hand, if you will. Here's what Spurgeon said, quote, make a practice.

Spurgeon said, make a practice of telling the Lord all about your family concerns. Bring sicknesses and other troubles to your best friend. Do it at family prayer, but do it also at your bedside alone. If Jesus has come to stay with you, point one, bring him home. If Jesus has come to stay with you, he will not hold himself aloof from your anxieties.

He comes with his great sympathetic heart to be afflicted in your afflictions. Mark here wants us to see the faith of these men by saying immediately, Lord, here's our mom. Would you do something with her, please? We saw what you did in that synagogue. You can surely do something here.

But I love what Matthew does. He tells the same story, but he puts a different emphasis, and I want you to see it because it will encourage you to do something that we call people to practice. Read your Bible slowly. Matthew chapter eight verse 14. Look at this in your Bibles, and it's so comforting when you realize the detail that he adds to the scene.

Matthew eight fourteen. The same story, same miracle, same Jesus, different emphasis. And when Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. Matthew doesn't mention the faith of these men. Matthew doesn't mention their prayer.

He doesn't mention their request. The focus turns to Jesus that when he enters into that same house, he himself sees the mother-in-law who is sick and then acts accordingly. Mark, he was told. He was asked, and then he moved upon their faith. Matthew, he saw it, and he did something about it.

Teaching us what? That in Matthew, we learn Christ is already aware of the situation that you need to be answered. He already recognizes it. He already sees it. He's he's already there with the problem in mind, completely mindful of you as you deal with it.

And that comforts me. Because as I come before the Lord and pray, I'm not asking about something that he is not aware of. He's already there. He already precedes it. He's already calculated it.

He he's actually there. He sees it. Well, then if he sees it, why doesn't he just do something about it? Well, Mark tells us because he moves by faith, your faith, and he awaits for you to call upon him. He waits for you to seek him, to honor him with that request so that he can move and bring glory to himself through that prayer being answered.

But I love to know that the Lord sees it, because even though I pray about something because I'm not going to use a text like this and say everything you pray for, Jesus will immediately answer. But I can be comforted when I come to Matthew to see that even though he doesn't answer it immediately, at least he's aware of it, and if he doesn't answer it, then it means that he knows that it's best to delay it, and I rejoice in the Lord because of that. We see the request of the healing. Lastly, we come to the response after the healing. Let's go back to Mark together as we close in a moment.

In Mark, chapter one, verse 31. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. Do you see the reaction of the woman? Humble domestic service was the response of the woman after she received fresh strength. She got up and she saw Christ, and she realized the healing came from His hand, and she said, I want to serve my healer.

And so she begins to do so, and I believe that the reaction should be no less for those who have experienced way more than healing from a fever. She was raised from her sick bed. You know what you were raised from? The dead. Spiritual death.

And you were raised into new life. How much more should you be willing to immediately say, Lord, you've touched my heart. Now I wanna serve you from the same heart. You are worthy of my life being surrendered for your service, whatever it is. And in the case of this woman, like a good Middle Eastern mom, I'm sure this service had to do something with food.

What else do you do in the home hosting people here? She begins to host, and she begins to show honor and glory to the one that touched her. And I find it very difficult for people who claim that Jesus transformed their hearts while showing no evidence of service to him. How? That would be like this woman being healed, you getting up and leaving the house immediately to go about your own affairs.

It seems almost insulting, doesn't it, when you hear it that way? And yet you have so many people who claim, yeah, Jesus, he's my Lord, and he transformed my life. When? And they just, there's no evidence of service. There's no evidence of gratitude.

There's no evidence of Lord, here's my life, here's an aspect of my life that I want to dedicate to you in a particular ministry, but here's my whole life for what you have done. But what I find amazing here is that Peter's mother-in-law did not only direct her service to Christ, she ministered to his followers as well. What does it say? She began to serve them. Not just the Lord, them.

His followers, his disciples. She spread out a banquet. And how you and I love and serve the body of Christ is a major indication of what Christ has done in you and who Christ is to you. She served them. And for those who are discouraged because they think that they cannot serve Christ unless it's in a particular way, realize that this woman served Jesus in her home.

The very same place where she slept every night, the same place where she cleaned, the same place where she she had many responsibilities is the very same place where Jesus Christ was served and glorified. And I think that is an encouragement to many people who feel limited because they have a desire, a great desire to do great things, but they feel like their life is at home. Moms, pay attention. Future moms, pay attention. Jesus can be served at home.

He can be blessed at home. He can be pleased at home. And I want you to see that these disciples also were blessed at the home of these men. And Peter's family was pious indeed. Peter invited Christ to the house, and his mother-in-law hosted Christ in that same house.

And what became of this home that seemed to be just an average home in the streets of Capernaum look at verse 33. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. Can you imagine that? One day you have a handful of people, and within a few hours, you have the city at your door lined up to meet with the Jesus that is at that house. I'm not saying that will happen every single time, but there is no knowing, listen, what can happen to a person who says, Lord, even my home is yours.

Even where I live is yours. My resources are yours. Whatever it is that you you ask of me belongs to you. There will be no telling what Christ will do as a result of that. For some, it will look like hosting disciples from time to time with good Middle Eastern food.

For others, it may be using that home and blessing ministers who are out there serving on the streets, serving in the synagogues. I am a recipient of many people who have said, I'm sending something to your house. It's at the front door. I hope you enjoy it. And you know who you are.

I say thank you from this pulpit because that has helped me study more. That has helped me counsel more. And your service is unto Christ. For others, it may look like you being at the synagogue regularly and teaching. It may be like the disciples going out into the streets, going out into the cities to preach.

Whatever it is that it looks like, Christ is worthy to be served wherever his providence places us. And in this case, this average Galilean home with no revival in their living room. And that excites me, and that shows me that you have no idea what awaits when you take this thing beyond the meeting. Please do that. I'll end with a story.

When I was in college, I moved into an apartment after I first got saved, and my roommate was a Christian, my first Christian roommate. He was from the young adult ministry that we were part of that was not too far from our church. And so we began to move in, and we began to ask what we needed to purchase and all that, and finally, it came down to the living room. Some of you know this story, some of you don't. I hope it encourages you.

And so we were there in the living room, and he looked at me, and he says, well, I think we need to get a TV. What do you think? And I looked at him, I said, I don't know. Why don't we not? Let's do something.

He says, what? We stood in the empty living room. We looked at each other. He says, why don't we why don't we pray and dedicate this living room to the Lord? And he did not even hesitate.

He says, let's do it. So he grabs my hand, like this, and we put our foreheads against one another. This is the first time for me, but I went with it. And there was an earnestness in that prayer. Lord, this living room is yours.

Not very big, not much, but we're gonna leave it empty for you. Do as you please. Within a few weeks, we had a regular meeting in our apartment. We weren't too far from the college, we weren't too far from the downtown area of Toronto, and five people came and we worshiped in that living room. We read our Bibles, we would go into the college campus and witness.

A few weeks came, 15 people. A few weeks came, 20 people. It became a meeting of 50 people on a regular basis. And not only was there no room for a TV, we didn't even use the TV if we had one, we had to get rid of our couches. And our living room was filled with foldable black chairs, and that's all it looked like.

So if you walked into the apartment, you would just see black chairs stacked up in the living room with nothing else, because we reserved that space for those meetings. We would pray on Friday night, go out on Saturday. And that prayer that we prayed didn't come to mind, but when we were leaving that apartment, we didn't have much to move out. It dawned on me, he heard that prayer. He heard that prayer, and he filled it with people.

And it wasn't easy all the time. It wasn't, because we would have people sleep over a lot to go to church on Sunday morning. We didn't have space. We had to serve people. People would come late.

People would all these different things. People would stay late to be prayed for and all these things. It's just like this. I mean, you you see these people coming to the front door. As much of that, that's a blessing.

There's natural burdens that come with that. So worth it. So worth it. Am I saying if you leave here today and you go to your living room and put your head on somebody else's head and you pray that you have to get rid of your furniture and your I'm not saying that. I'm just giving you one real example that if you really sanctify it onto the Lord, he might blow your mind.

And he is faithful. Bring Jesus home and watch what he'll do with it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this this study in a few verses that has shown your supremacy over sickness, you can still heal today. But thank you for the lessons underneath.

Lord, we ask that with the difficulties of different scenarios, even from this church where you have one spouse who's a believer and the other is not, or you have one sibling who's a believer and the others are not. Whatever the situation may be, Lord, we just ask that on the individual basis, you would be more real in our day to day lives. And that whether or not a spouse wants Christ in that home or the children want Christ in that home, your word tells us in first Corinthians seven that when a believing spouse remains in the house of an unbelieving spouse, they are sanctified. And those children are made holy because of the presence of that believer in that house. We ask, so that Christ would be more real even in the homes where there is not a unanimous decision for Christ to be in that home.

And, Lord, we just ask that you would have your way beyond these meetings, but that, Lord, there would be testimonies in our living rooms, in our kitchens, in our conversations over dinner. And, Lord, we just pray that you would be magnified and that you would be glorified where we sleep and where we eat and where we have memories and where we celebrate Christmas and Easter, Lord. Be there. Today, we make a conscious decision that as we leave this place, you will come with us. You will be worshiped and praised and loved where we do life.

You are the author of life. We give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Can we stand and worship the Lord together?