When Jesus Was Angry | Mark 3:1-6 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark Series)

Jesus said, when you see these things begin to take place, straighten up, lift up your head, for your redemption draws nigh. And so I am not among those who, seize the calamities of of our time and say, yeah, we've been through this before. Actually, we haven't. Paul told Timothy things would be bad, and they would only get worse. And so though they may have familiar themes, they will intensify in their evil and in their influence.

And so you and I have every right to say, my redemption is coming near. My redemption is almost nigh. It is here very soon, and I wanna be found faithful. I hope you feel the same way. And so let's equip ourselves by God's word in Mark chapter three together.

We read this passage last week. We're re revisiting it this week because there's just so much in it for us to contemplate. Lord, as we come to this chapter in the gospel of Mark, sanctify us. Lord, our hearts need you. Our minds need you.

We are so weak, and we confess it gladly because you are strong in our weakness. And you are gracious. Help us learn. Help us apply. Help us worship.

Help us obey. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Verse one. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.

And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come here. And he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To sit to save life or to kill? But they were silent.

And he looked around them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him. The synagogue is more full than it was accustomed to. The miracle working rabbi from Nazareth is in town, and he is standing in the midst of this assembly who have gathered for the Sabbath.

His disciples, excited, sitting by him closely, anticipating that he is going to do something wonderful. They've been used to his leadership up to this point. When Jesus comes to a place, he is unafraid of speaking the truth, and he has unparalleled power. And across from their leader sits a man, sheepishly, as he is there to worship, but his hand is withered, handicapped, disabled, broken. And he does not realize that in a brief moment, his life is going to be radically altered.

And so on this Sabbath day in this specific congregation, there was a particular atmosphere, a strange one. The air was filled with excitement, and yet it was also mingled with tension because on the scene were the Pharisees sitting on the edges of their seat, hoping and waiting for Jesus to do something that in their minds would break the law so that they can smear his reputation and hopefully even indict him. And so with the sea now before us afresh, I hope that you are prepared to behold something of the majesty, magnificence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Last week, you and I took this text, and we saw how the three parties who were in that house of worship provide a wonderful illustration of just some of the reasons why people come to houses of worship today, and what they should be doing, in some cases, when they come to the house of worship. And so like Jesus, we must come to the fellowship of the brethren ready to serve.

Not looking for the best seat like the Pharisees, but looking for the best in others and for others. And we ought to come to the house of worship just like this man who was withered, but he was worshipful. Come in your brokenness. Don't isolate yourself. Don't reserve yourself.

Don't hide yourself. Throw yourself into the presence of God's people and allow the hands and feet of Jesus to bring healing to your soul. Our brokenness varies, but our solution is the same. Christ works in and through his body. Therefore, you must be with his body to know his power.

And lastly, I pray that there is not even one person in this place who will ever remain in the place of what? Being like the Pharisees who knew enough about Jesus, who watched Jesus, who studied Jesus, who knew the ways of Jesus, enough to be saved a thousand times over, but never came to saving faith. I hope that you are now among those who will say to Jesus on that day, Lord, we ate and drank in your presence. You taught in our streets. And he will say, I do not know where you came from.

Just because you hang out with Christians and you like to have potlucks at churches doesn't mean that you will be saved. With all of this here before us, we still have much more to learn. The Holy Spirit has so much yet to say in this text, especially with the the gospel of Mark. Because in Mark's gospel, he has a detail, significant detail about the Lord Jesus Christ that Luke and Matthew have not etched in their versions. And we will discover that today.

It's it's something about Jesus that that we, for some reason, do not see clearly in the word of God, and I believe it's because of an imbalanced view of who God is. We will do this by coming to this text and looking at three things about the Lord Jesus Christ. Three things about his heart. And the first thing is the heart behind his commands. The second thing is the heart behind his confrontation.

And lastly, his heart as he sees the callousness in some. And so we looked at verse one and two last week. Let's look at verse three and six. We see here that Jesus said to the man with a withered hand, come here. In this place, not knowing how much time has passed, Jesus now breaks the silence.

He breaks the silence by speaking up and took control of the situation. And the Lord did not give a lengthy discourse. Lengthy discourse, he didn't give a powerful parable, at least at this point. Mark tells us that he turns his attention to this man with a withered hand, and he says two simple words, come here. That is a command.

And that is a command worthy of reflection. But before we go into that, realize that in these verses, in this scene, we actually have two commands. Jesus gives two commands to the same man. And when we actually just just look at what these commands say and what they mean, we will know something about the nature of the lordship of Jesus Christ even over us. The first we saw it in verse three.

He said, come here, then you scroll down to verse five. And we see in the middle of verse five, he says, stretch out your hand. Two commands for the same person. And again, it would do us good to realize that there's something behind these commands that deal with us. And if we would respond appropriately in understanding the nature of Jesus' lordship, we will know what this man knew.

What did he know? Healing. What did he know? Wholeness. What did he know?

Life. This is what's available. This is surely for you and I. When we understand that behind Christ's orders and his charges is our good, our blessing, his glory, and he seeks to heal you. He seeks to heal you.

In what way? Well, look at Matthew's version. Go to Matthew chapter 12 and look at verse 13. Oh, it shall be the same for us who trust and obey. In Matthew twelve thirteen, we read after the man was healed.

Look at this. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand, and the man stretched it out, and it was restored healthy like the other. Matthew includes that detail. Healthy like the other. Implying what?

Why why would that even be given to us? Why is that even necessary? Because it's a statement that Jesus wants us to be completely whole. Completely whole. Not partially sanctified.

Not some aspects of your life that had been influenced by the work of the spirit and others that are still deadened by the flesh. Christ wants to complete his work in you. He wants to bring fruit in every aspect of your existence, in every arena of your day to day life. And so if you long for that, if you yearn for that, if you're tired of saying, you know, yeah, like, since I became a Christian, this changed, but I I could not shake this off. This is just something.

It's I guess it's my nature. It's my culture. This is how we are. Forget that. Christ wants to come and do a complete work, make you completely whole.

And what that's going to require is us to understand his commands and what is required of us in responding to those commands, and we will arrive to the fullness of the life of the spirit. And so let's examine these two commands, shall we? The first one in verse three, come here. What's so significant about that? Well, this man was obviously sitting in a way in the synagogue that he was outside of the full view of the congregation.

And so Jesus, in wanting to display his power before all who were there, brought him into the the center of the room. Come here. And what's amazing is when when Jesus says come here, he did not see it necessary to explain what he was going to do. He didn't say come here because, he just told them what to do. Come here.

And this man who is silently compliant gets up and I'm sure there was thoughts going on in his mind as he was taking those few small steps. What's this all about? He listened. And I wonder if it's because Jesus taught in the synagogue, and this man realized there there's something different about this man in comparison to the teachers who have walked through this place. And I wonder if it was the authority and the compassion yet with the power that compelled and convinced them to trust in his voice.

Come here. Alright. And so he comes, and he approaches Jesus, and Jesus is going to do something wonderful for him. And I want you to understand that there is a lesson here even in these two words when we understand the lordship of Jesus Christ. Our obedience to him should never ever be influenced by our inability to perceive what will happen on the other side of that obedience.

Our obedience to Jesus should never be influenced by our inability to see what will this bring about in my life if I say yes or if I say no. There are many who feel this unholy hesitation to actually follow Jesus in particular instructions for their lives. And though Christians have this general understanding, yes, trust and obey for there's no other way, God will bless your life if you walk in his ways. For some reason, that's not enough to give him the confidence to actually move forward when it comes to real life situations. And so these crashing thoughts come in different ways.

Well, what if what if my friends see me as a fanatic? What if my coworkers realize that I am so serious about Jesus that they begin to criticize and even determine the environment of my day to day job? What what if, what if if I if I do what Jesus said and lovingly confront a brother or sister that I will make this relationship that I cherish awkward? Right? What if my faithfulness cost me financial loss?

Well, what if I preach in a certain way and people don't come like the church? Right? All these thoughts. All these hesitations. But I wanna tell you something.

Jesus does not owe us a personalized outline of what will happen if you just trust him. He doesn't. He doesn't owe us anything. He doesn't have any reason to tell us this will play out in this way because that's not what obedience is about. The sole motivation for our total submission to the sovereignty of Jesus and the simplicity of his word is what?

I'm just doing what he told me to do. It's as simple as that. Full stop. No matter what comes out of it, no matter what comes out of it, knowing that I've done my part in obeying him suffices, whether it's praise or persecution, promotion or eviction, life or death, smiles or frowns. When Jesus says, come here, I will come.

And when he says go there, I will go, and I will trust that the reward or the lack thereof in this life will be his bidding, his doing, not mine. You see that in so many ways in the Bible. I think of the apostle Paul. One day he's thrown into prison with Silas. There they are chained hand and foot, and they begin to pray and sing in that midnight hour.

And what does God do? He brings an earthquake. I would like a few earthquakes in my life. He shakes things up, the prison doors swing open, and the jailer who was on shift that night gets saved, and not just him but his household. Glory.

And another time he gets arrested. Well, I mean, Paul was a frequent visitor to prisons. But this time he's not leaving prison, according to second Timothy, without his head being cut off. And God was glorified in both ways. I love the that story of those three Hebrew boys.

We were talking about them. We were hearing about it through pastor Daniel just a couple weeks ago. And I'm paraphrasing, but they looked at Nebuchadnezzar and said, okay. Do what you want. We're not doing what you say.

Throw us in the fire, and if if God saves us, he saves us. If he doesn't, we're not doing what you're gonna tell us to do. Those men were worried to be those those guys were ready to be, rather, cooked alive, and instead, they were promoted. You can't determine these things. All you can determine is I will trust what he says.

He doesn't have to explain what my life is gonna look like if I do it. I will just trust and obey. But we come back here to the second command in verse five, stretch out your hand. Stretch out your hand. What a strange command to give somebody who was incapable of doing the very thing that was asked of him.

This man's hand was paralyzed, and here's Jesus telling him to move and extend it forward. Impossible. It doesn't make sense. The man doesn't have life. He doesn't have ability.

He doesn't have the grace to be able to do this simple thing no matter how much he wanted to do it. And yet Jesus, in his lordship, in his wisdom, in his grace, looks at this man and he says, would you stretch it out? And we look at this and we think, how can Jesus ask this man to do something that he could not do? And that's how many believers feel about many of the commands of Jesus. Impossible.

Lord, how is it that I look at these truths and I hear what the preacher is saying? You're asking me to live like this? You're asking me to be sexually pure. I can't even walk a week without indulging in filth. You're asking me to to be genuinely free from bitterness and to forget what people have done in the sense of forgiving them, though I may rehearse it and the pain is still real.

You're asking me to actually go beyond just forgiving, but loving such people that if they were to show up at my front door and ask for a meal or ask for help because their car broke down, you want me to actually extend grace? You want me to rejoice always? I can't even rejoice at all. Rejoice always? I'm trying to be a godly mother.

I'm trying to be a godly wife, but it would be really easy if you gave me a better husband or better children. And you're asking me to do this with nothing in view of return, with no help here? But here's the hope in this miracle that applies to our spiritual paralysis. The glory of Jesus Christ being Lord is that he always enables us to do that which we cannot exercise in our own strength. That's the point of this miracle.

Stretch out your hand. And this man, as he did it with the little effort of faith that he had, would sense an infusion of power that would make it possible. Jesus is not a cruel master that dishes out unrealistic prescriptions and smiles while you painfully perform. He is an empowering savior. And all he says is give me your faith, and I will give you my power.

That is the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's it's a truth woven from cover to cover in this Bible, especially when you seek to understand your inheritance in the new covenant, what Jesus' blood purchased for you in tapping into that power to live and walk as he walked as we sang. And here's an example that we have before us. Let me give you another one. Not with a man with his hand, but with a man with his feet. In the Old Testament, one of this blessed me when I read it, and I and I just chewed on it for days.

How is it that this man experiences this grace in the old covenant, and I myself would dare to even complain that these things in the Christian journey are not realistic? Go to Ezekiel chapter two verse one. I want you to see this with your own eyes. Ezekiel's in the presence of God in a measure that was overwhelming, like an unimaginably holy atmosphere. In Ezekiel two, after being thrown to the ground, laying prostrate by the glory that was before him, God calls us prophet to do something so simple, but yet so impossible.

Ezekiel two one, and he said to me, son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you. And as he spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. Stand on your feet. And this servant of God cannot even lift his face from the dust that his nose was buried in because of the blazing majesty of God. And yet God would say and commission him, get up.

And here's how Ezekiel writes of his experience. Once I heard that command that seemed so impossible, in that same moment immediately came a supernatural help that entered into me and lifted me up and placed my feet on solid ground. And when you see that, you have to understand that that is a picture of what you and I have permanently in Jesus Christ. See, what we celebrate as Christians is that the spirit's enabling work is not reserved for some prophets or special servants of God. Jesus purchased this access for all of us to know the energizing assisting work of the third person of the godhead, the holy spirit of God.

This is what we have. This is what we sell. This is what we rejoice in. Christ now made a way for the spirit not just to enter into me, but to live in me. He sealed me and he is always ready to fill me and to help me and to meet my meager efforts by bringing about such a grace that I myself would give him glory for any kind of stride of holiness.

And that's something that you have to believe. We need to recover the supernaturality of our faith. We we got so caught up with people criticizing us for not being rational or scientific. I believe we went to the other extreme. And now we promote psychology and philosophy, and we have almost drained this thing from the supernatural element of it.

Christ can set you free. He really can. So here's my question to you brother. Here's my question to you sister. What part of you is withered?

Yes. Christ did a work in you. Praise the Lord. He saved you. Hallelujah.

But what part of you is still lifeless that that can't seem to to to become a branch where there's fruit hanging off of it? Is it your lack of love? Is it your lack of patience? Is it your rage? Is it your purity?

Is it your humility? What is it that you need God to do? Well, here's what I say to you. Stretch it forth by faith. Inquire of the spirit of God and ask him to infuse the power that you yourself can never ever ever come to on your own, and he will meet you there.

He will meet you there. I'm not ashamed to give such simple advice. I'm not ashamed because I see the simple promise here. I believe that Jesus purchased that for you and I, that he can actually change you. I I does not matter what your history is.

It doesn't matter what generationally a pattern might have been. Doesn't matter if you're a hot blooded Middle Easterner. Doesn't matter. Christ can change. He sanctifies our personality.

He can do something with your attitude. He can do something with your mindset. He can do something with your habits. Believe. Believe.

We believe him by faith and justification. Is that where it stops in Galatians three? No. Your faith continues in your sanctification. What you have begun in the spirit, continue in the spirit, Paul says.

Don't rely on the power of the flesh. There is no power in the flesh. Give yourself to the Holy Spirit's work. A great price has been paid for us to tap into such a mercy. So we see these things with these two commands.

Do we not? Come here. A veiled command that doesn't give us all the details, but such as the nature of Christ's leadership. He doesn't owe you any explanation. Just know who he is and let him lead the way, and then stretch forth your hand.

Whatever you deem impossible, whatever you see that seems to be such a challenge, he is right there behind every command with a promise to help you every single time. This is the heart behind Jesus' commands as we see here. But let us now move forward to the heart behind his confrontation. In verse four of Mark chapter three, and he said to them now he's looking at the Pharisees. He he takes his attention away from this man.

I wonder if he was hiding his hand. I wonder if he was showing his hand to give Jesus a clue that he wants to be healed. Regardless, Jesus oh, with that authority. With that authority. What a man Jesus was.

Come here. This man moves into the crowd and he comes forward, and he looks at this man oozing with compassion. Then he looks at the Pharisees. I'm sure they were maybe sitting on either side. And he asked them a question.

Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life, or to kill? In Luke six eight, you don't have to turn there. We are told that Jesus knew their thoughts. So he knew why they were sitting there. He knew exactly why they attended on that day to witness a miracle.

Yes. But not for the same reason that you and I would wanna see Jesus heal somebody. Right? That's out of desire and love and compassion. These men wanted to try to find a reason to criminalize him.

Evil ambition to condemn him for breaking one of their silly traditions. And so the Lord asked a question. It's really a brilliant question. He says, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill?

You you can't like, either way you answer that, you're gonna look like a fool. What are you gonna say? It's it's evil to do good? It's evil to save life? So they don't know.

They can't, and that's why they are literally silent. The breath has been sucked out of them. But it's even deeper than that. It's deeper than that because this is what Jesus is saying knowing their thoughts. He knows that they're there to kill him or at least trying to reason find a reason to kill him.

And so in essence, what he's saying in this question is, here I am on the Sabbath wanting to heal this man and to do good to him. And here you are on the same Sabbath, and you wanna kill me. Who's really fulfilling the law of God here? I wanna restore this man. You wanna destroy this man, me.

So who who's really observing the heart of God behind the Sabbath? You or me? You can imagine that this simple question created a deafening silence. I mean, if you thought it was tense before this, add the awkwardness, add the embarrassment on their part, add the the fury and the anger that was just coming out of their ears. Actually, do you wanna know how I know they were angry?

Go to Luke, and I'll tell you exactly why. And it's enlightening for us because I wanna make a strong point with this. Luke six, this is Luke's version, and he says in says in verse nine to 11. And Jesus said to them, I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life or to destroy it?

And after looking around at them notice he doesn't mention the anger of Jesus. We'll get to that in a moment. After looking around at them, he said to him, stretch out your hand. And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury.

They were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Anger, frustration, vexed. How can this man speak to us in such a way? And I love it because what Jesus does here is what these guys try to do later on. Remember they try to corner him?

It was so cute. They try to try to trick him and put him in a place where he couldn't answer. Like, hey, he did that to us. Let's try to do it to him. Jesus did it so gracefully, so powerfully, so effortlessly.

Then when they try, they just they just fail. It's it was embarrassing part two. You know, I was reading this, and there's many ways you can go about this verse, but I was thinking about this. I made a comment last week. I don't know if you heard it.

As you study the gospels, you'll realize how much real estate the Pharisees take up in God's word. It's really interesting. I mean, the encounters with Jesus, even let the the woes that Jesus has, I mean, they're there from the almost the beginning of his ministry to the end of it. And I thought to myself a very simple question. Why?

Why did the Holy Spirit reserve so much about the details of what Pharisee looks like? And and and how it it was so real in Jesus' time and so obvious in our bibles. And I came to think about it, and there are many reasons, but there is one clear statement that Jesus makes that proves to me why the Holy Spirit has decided to enclose and keep these things for generations to come. You don't have to turn there, but just listen. At one point in Mark, he does it in different gospel accounts.

He looks at his own disciples, Jesus, in Mark eight in verse 15, and he says, watch out. This is what Jesus says. Watch out for what? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod. Jesus warned his own disciples.

Don't let the leaven creep into your life, the leaven of the Pharisees. And that leaven is not just speaking about false doctrine. It's speaking about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. He he's warning his own people.

I'm I'm telling you to be careful. It is easy to slip into superficial spirituality. It's easy, my disciples, for you to become frauds, to to adopt external religiosity, but to have no power of godliness in you. So watch out. And so I look at that statement, and I think to myself, is it possible that the reason why we have so much about Pharisees, what they do, how they think, for the reason that Jesus stated because he wants to warn his people not to be like them.

And if we wanna know whether we are like them, he has all these examples, all these interactions, all these insights so that throughout the generations, I would look at my bible and see, am I a Pharisee? Am I a Pharisee? And you know what the common picture of a Pharisee is to people? Long robes, long beards, incense, bells, traditions over God's word. Okay.

But have you ever thought about this concerning a Pharisee? One of the marks of somebody being a Pharisee is that they are easily offended by the truth. Oh, yeah. So now the picture is it's enlarged. Right?

You don't believe me? That's okay. Don't believe me. Believe Jesus in Matthew 15. Turn there with me.

Because what you see here in Mark chapter three is a common characteristic of a Pharisee. So we think Pharisees are those who come from traditional backgrounds. I'll show you what the holy spirit tells us what a Pharisee looks like. In Matthew fifteen twelve. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard the saying?

He answered, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. I love that. Jesus didn't go around chasing offended people. Let them alone.

They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. There it is. One of the marks of being a Pharisee is that you are easily offended by a truth that you don't like. Disciples said, Jesus, probably concerned that, perhaps Jesus should be on good terms with the religious leaders of his day.

Hey, Jesus. Do you realize after Sunday morning, the whole row of Pharisees left upset after what you said in your sermon? They're all talking. You should see they're fuming. They're they're upset.

She's like, nah. No. Let them alone. They're blind, and whoever follows them is blind also. And I look at this and I thought, wow.

Maybe there are more Pharisees than I thought. Because a Pharisee claims to know the truth and love the truth, but is agitated when the word exposes a particular wrong that is found in a habit or a belief that they've held onto for so long. That's a Pharisee. Their pride cannot acknowledge that they're wrong. My brother, my sister, how do you respond?

Never mind from a sermon standpoint. But when a brother or sister sits with you and opens God's word and says, this is out of line. They cannot accept how God would ever disagree with them, especially with the things that they think is harmless or tolerable? Pharisee. The mark of a true child of God in relationship to the word is that whatever is presented before them, if they know it's God's will, if it's clear, then they joyfully accept it even if it stings at first.

I embrace it. If it's God's will, God's word, God's wisdom, God's precepts, I embrace it. I want it. I will surrender to it. One of the ways that you and we've talked about this at Maranatha that you can actually decipher between false and true spirituality is very simple.

How does that person engage and respond to the word of God? That's all you need to know. Because that's the foundational thing. Even when Paul is teaching the church in Corinth, he ends one of his arguments that would today be deemed as controversial. And you know what he says?

In first Corinthians 14, don't turn there, verse 37. Listen to these words. He says, if anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that these things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. Because so so do you have some people in Corinth that were going around saying, well, Jesus told me, and I'm and and look at my gifts. So this this is this has to be right.

And Paul says, hold up. Let's just let's just deal with this. If anybody is really a prophet, if anybody is really spiritual, they will hear what I say from this letter, and they will acknowledge that this is from God, and then they will submit to it. And you know what the context of this is when when Paul said it? Woman's role in the church.

That was the context. And I think that is a very, very applicable truth in our day today when you have so many people who are going around saying, well, Jesus appeared to me and Jesus told me and Jesus did this and Jesus if you're really spiritual, the word is what you will submit to. No matter what what your experience was, no matter what your denomination says, no matter how much you were requested, it does not matter. Pharisee and Pharisees are offended by the truth. They cannot tolerate it.

Oh, they, yes, with lip service acknowledge it, but when it touches a nerve, they pull back. Jesus's heart behind his confrontation, you know what the Lord wants to do in you and me? I I believe that there is something here about the heart of Jesus behind his teaching. He always wants to save us from hypocrisy. Really.

And I wanna be like Jesus. If Jesus was a leader and a teacher, I wanna be like Jesus. In what way? I wanna first look at my own life and make sure there's no leaven of hypocrisy, and I wanna exhort others to do the same. Be free from it.

Flee from it. So you wanna know God's heart whenever you hear a word that might be strong? He wants to save you and I from the leaven of the Pharisees. He absolutely hates hypocrisy. I mean, you don't see Jesus dedicating a chapter in Matthew wowing over prostitutes and tax collectors, but religious people?

Woe to you. Woe to you. That says something. There's greater grace for prostitutes and drug dealers and gang members and pimps than people who put on a religious face when in reality they're fake. The heart of Christ in this confrontation lovingly is to save us, to cleanse us, to wash us from that leaven that so easily can come in and make us like a Pharisee, and you don't need the robe or the long beard either.

The heart of Christ behind his commands, the heart of Christ behind his confrontation, the heart of Christ when he sees callousness in our hearts. Verse five of Mark three. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. I'm sure you would agree that Mark's writing style up to this point has been very fast paced. He loves to jump from one scene to the next.

He loves to use that word immediately. But it's as though the Holy Spirit does something in this one verse. It's as though he puts this on slow motion, and he slows the the vehicle down, so to speak, so that we can look into the window and through the window of God's word and take our time to digest the details of this portrait. Jesus looked at them angry and he was grieved. You know, I read that and I read that and I read that and every single time I read that, I cannot help but feel the force of that picture.

It almost makes me just step back and I and and I wonder what his face looked like. Doesn't look like the common paintings that you see on walls today. I can tell you that. Jesus just staring out into the distance. No.

When you see Jesus here, whoever the eyewitness was that helped Mark write this, yes, by the spirit, that person knew, hey, Jesus on that day didn't say a word, and we all knew he was angry. He was angry. Did his eyes widen? Did his nostrils did they did they extend? That that is that that something happened with his face?

Did it become a frown? What was it? All I know from this is that there was a penetrating gaze that pierced in that synagogue. And as I look at this, I think to myself, what we're going to hear today is probably something that you're not gonna hear very often on a Sunday morning service, especially in any service for that matter. Jesus gets angry.

Jesus gets angry. And we could praise God that he doesn't get angry for the reasons that we do, generally speaking. But that doesn't make his anger any less intense. If anything, it makes it more fierce because his anger is holy. It's pure.

It's a reflection of his righteousness. There's a fine line between righteous anger and unrighteous anger, a very fine line. But when it's righteous, anger is actually, to a degree, a manifestation of what you love. What you're angry about can reveal either your pride, your selfishness, your undisciplined attitude, your lack of dependency on the Holy Spirit, or it can show that you hate what God hates. And it moves you to action, righteous action.

And I wanna tell you that although hearing on a Sunday afternoon, especially as we heard earlier that this world is very angry, maybe hearing that Jesus gets angry is not the most edifying thing. But I can guarantee if you understand why he gets angry, you'll love him even more. You'll love him even more. Why did Jesus get angry? We're told at their hardness of heart.

He saw their thoughts. He he read their minds, and his heart was angered by their heart. And here's the thing. Unfortunately, the majority of our anger is stirred by our selfishness. Right?

We don't get our own way. We get upset at minor inconveniences. We don't get the attention that we think we deserve. There's a there's a sense in which it's my way or no way, and if it doesn't happen my way, I get all flared up. That's not Jesus.

Rarely do people, even God's people, get angry for the same reason Jesus does. And one of the most explicit verses of Jesus being angry, we're we're we being told and formed that Jesus was angry was connected to an insensitive and an unbelieving heart of another. This is this is what this is what caused him to look with such a fierce, penetrating stare. I wonder if it was for an extended amount of time that made them feel uncomfortable. But understand this, Jesus's anger, he's very patient.

This was not his first interaction with these Pharisees. How many times has he rebuked them? How many time has he taught them? How many times has he displayed his power before them? And yet, time and time again, resist.

Time and time again, reject, refuse. And it's come to a point now where Christ and seeking to even redirect the Pharisees' minds. Do you think Jesus was engaging with these Pharisees just to win an argument? We read in Acts last week that Jesus, in his gospel, saved some who belong to the party of the Pharisees. Yes.

Christ even wants to save a Pharisee. And Jesus here, with his anger, has reached a point where their unbelief was was dangerous. Very dangerous. Because when a person grows in their rejection to a truth, the truth that they are continually exposed by. And two, they're only incurring a growing anger on the Lord of love who desires to woo their souls to be saved.

There just comes a point where after all that God says and all that God does in your life, and you continue to say no to him, and turn your back on him, that a righteous anger arises. And there is something called it's a theological term in the bible called the judicial hardening. Israel is going through it right now. That when you continue to refuse, refuse, reject, reject, that God will accompany that personal hardening that you are responsible for by finishing the job for you. You wanna stay there?

Stay there. We don't know where that line is. I wouldn't play with it. That's why the Bible says today is the day of salvation. Jesus looks at their hearts, and he's angry.

Angry at their unbelief, but angry at the unbelief that caused them to be insensitive to others. In Matthew's version, Jesus gives a little teaching. He says, you're willing to actually go and help a sheep that falls into a pit on the Sabbath, but not help a brother who's suffering? How skewed can you be in your religiosity? And so what angers Jesus also is when when we lack that compassion for others, and and our faith causes to be more self righteous and treat others with contempt, this anger at his heart.

Jesus gets angry at evil, and we should be too. This is the plague of our generation. This is the plague of modern Christianity. Don't get upset. Be neutral.

Don't call things out. Jesus intentionally disrupted their tradition. He intentionally did it. If he wanted to heal in secret, he would have met the man behind the synagogue and healed him. He says, hey.

Hey. Come here. Come here. He was confrontational, and he was holy in doing it. And we have to understand that there is something that is needed today at that same holy confrontation.

So Jesus here is angry at evil and there's nothing that can be more evil than rejecting the gospel that seeks to save evil men. And so we see the reason for it, but notice the grief with it. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. You know what that means? There was genuine, deep, sincere sadness.

That seems like a contradiction, but it's not. Not for Jesus at least, because he's holy and he's filled with love. With this anger, there was a sorrow, and I believe the sorrow is because in realizing the hardness of their hearts, he also knew the fate of their constant rebellion against God. He knew what this was going to lead to. He knew the eternal damnation that they would receive because of the attitude that they were entertaining in that moment.

And so as much as he was angry, he was also broken. There was a pity. There was there was a deep sense of mercy because he knew the cost of not following Jesus Christ. We always talk about the cost of following Jesus Christ. There's a greater cost of not.

In Lamentations three verse 33, it says about the Lord, for he does not afflict from his heart. He does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men. You know what that means? Down deep inside, God's ultimate desire is for us to turn to him and be saved. He finds greater joy in redeeming than in judging.

He finds greater delight in seeing people saved from suffering than seeing people suffer even under his wrath. That is his preference. That is his desire. That is not to say that he will not judge, he will. And it will satisfy his justice.

But we do have an understanding of the complexity of all of this. That if there was a choice on God's part, it would be to save. And to see all come to repentance. Spurgeon had a wonderful way of describing this moment, and it's interesting because it's it sounds almost sounds almost, unfamiliar. Spurgeon says, even when he grows angry with men, he is angry with them because they will not let him bless them.

Interesting, isn't it? Because they will not let him bless them, because they will persevere in opposing him for reasons which they cannot themselves support and dare not even own. You know what made this even worse? I mean, Jesus presents a truth and they could not even defend their position, and they still refuse Jesus Christ. Even when their arguments fell and there was nothing to stand on, they still resisted him, and this is what made him angry.

How much more do I need to prove to you that you're wrong and that I'm right? But Spurgeon goes beyond that, and he says that the sorrow that Jesus knew was because he really wanted to bless them. And their rejection of his lordship canceled that possibility and only incurred judgment instead. That's that's God's heart. Can you imagine that?

You might disagree with Spurgeon, but I think he has something going on there. But I see something else in a very, very powerful way that is applicable to us. I don't just see the reason for his anger or the grief of his anger. I see the control of his anger. Notice what he's what happens here.

He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and then what happens? And he said to the man, stretch out your hand. Majestic control, mastery over his emotions. He did not lose his composure. Be angry and sin not.

Be angry and sin not. And here's the Lord standing before these men infuriated by their unbelief and by their resistance. And you know what Jesus doesn't do? He doesn't look at them and he doesn't curse underneath his breath. He doesn't cuss them out.

He doesn't give them a unholy attitude or an unholy look. He channels that and he directs it towards even greater compassion to this man. Here's the thing, I look at Jesus and I think to myself, if I'm gonna follow him in all of his ways, then I wanna know how to be angry like him. Have you ever thought about that? Being angry like Jesus?

No emotion of Jesus ever interfered with his testimony or his obedience to the father. Remember that man who was a leper? Jesus healed him, says don't go tell anybody, just go to the priest. And he goes tells everybody and doesn't go to the priest. And we try to figure out why that was.

Maybe he was excited. Maybe he was thrilled. Maybe he couldn't contain himself out of joy, but it still led to disobedience. Our emotions can lead us to disobedience, especially the emotion, the feeling of anger. And yet, Jesus here, we could feel that anger in that room without a word being said, was also radiating the fragrance of the spirit.

I wanna say something to you. A work of the spirit is seen here just as much as in the man who stretched forth his hand and then Ezekiel being stood on his feet. This full circle, is it not? As Christians, we feel. I know some Christians don't like feelings, and they don't want people to have feelings.

I don't know what's wrong with you. Feelings are a gift. They're a gauge. They shouldn't guide us, but they're a gift from God. Jesus felt very powerfully, but he never permitted what he felt to the term from pleasing his father or dishonoring the father.

He was in control. And this was a man who is, as we know from the book of Mark, an example of true servanthood in the name of God. And I want you to know that in these days, if you feel angry, if you feel angry by the injustice and the evil around us and the corruption, be like Jesus and allow that feeling to lead you to do something of good service. Let that channel into something where you bear fruit just as he does here. And what happens?

The Pharisees, in verse six, went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against them, how to destroy him. I don't wanna speak about the Herodians too much. But did you notice what I said about Mark eight fifteen? That there isn't just 11 of the Pharisees, there's 11 of Herod. 11 of Herod.

You know what the leaven of Herod is? You gotta come to church next week and find out. Let's pray. I encourage you in this moment in in silence, not the silence like the Pharisees who were infuriated with the truth that was preached to them, but a silence of adoration to just meditate on these things. It's to speak to the Lord as a response and ask him.

Maybe you don't even need to ask him for anything. Maybe it's just to worship him. Lord, you are beautiful. You are perfect in all of your ways. I thank you that you you are angry at evil and that you will one day do something about evil.

But I thank you that even in your anger, you long you long to see men and women turn to you. And when they don't, it grieves you Because you wanna save them and bless them. Lord, we thank you for this service. And we are moved by by your word. And Lord, in silence, we worship you.

We wanna obey you. When you say come, we wanna come. When you say stretch out, we wanna stretch out. Help us trust your word. Even though it might be a scary thing to move in obedience, especially in this day, help us believe and trust in your word.

For the weak brother or sister, let them know that your power is ready to meet their faith so that they can walk in wholeness. Thank you that, Lord, you love us enough to confront us, to continually confront us, to save us from the leaven of the Pharisees. We are not offended by your truth. We love your truth. It is honey to our lips, water to our souls, finer than gold, even fine gold, more precious than silver.

Thank you that your word, whether it's rebuke or comfort, is our delight. Save us from unrighteous anger. Help us be angry for the things that anger you, and may it lead us to greater holiness, greater sacrifice, greater compassion. May our anger at the evil around us only cause us to preach this gospel more and to serve those who are undeserving even more. Help us know a grief of brokenness for sinners, even a brokenness for those who are in the church but not in Christ, to feel to feel absolutely sad and for that to lead us to pray and to be faithful in preaching truth regardless of the lack of fruit.

Lord, with so much before us today at this feast, we thank you and we worship you. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand and worship the Lord together.