Well, let's turn together in God's Word to Mark 6, and we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 6 together. Mark 6, verses 1 through 6, where God's Word reads as follows, And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching. So far, the reading from God's word this evening. May he add his blessing to our hearts. Well, in our families, we're typically known as we are. Even if your family isn't really close or maybe you don't have a good relationship with the people in your family, you've still grown up around each other and you understand what makes the other person tick and that can be used for good and for ill, of course, in families. your siblings, your spouse, your parents, even your good friends, they have seen the best and the worst of you. They have lived around you when you have blown it and you have to walk back into the room after you've blown it and face them and plead with them that they would accept you. And in this familiarity that we have with our family members, at times that can cause us to take them for granted. In some sense, because we know them so well, we assume that they are going to be there for us when the harder times come. And so apart from of course seeing the best and the worst of Jesus, there is no sin in Christ, so there's nothing ill that they have experienced at his hand, the people of Nazareth kind of had this attitude towards the Lord Jesus Christ when he returns to them. Their familiarity with him, in some sense, breeds contempt. In our text, we read about how they reject Christ. And we even see the consequence of what it means to reject Christ. The consequence actually puts the people of Nazareth in a very terrifying place. What we see in this text is that the man who despises the gospel of salvation forfeits the blessing and presence of Christ. And to learn that lesson, we want to look at these six verses in three points. We first want to see the familiarity of the people of Nazareth with Jesus in verses one through three. We want to see how Jesus is rejected at home in verses three through six. We want to see how Jesus then goes and teaches abroad in verses five and six. So the man who despises the gospel of salvation forfeits the blessing and presence of Christ. We want to see three things, familiar with Jesus, rejected at home, and teaching abroad. So let's begin by looking at how familiar the people of Nazareth are with Jesus. When we looked at the miracles of the previous chapters, we noted that there was a pulling back of a curtain. Jesus in Mark's gospel is presented as truly a man, and yet he is never to be seen as merely a man. That's the objective of Mark's gospel, to present Christ as a worthy mediator between God and man, and to be that worthy mediator between God and man, we must see Christ as truly man and truly God. And as we read through Mark's gospel, the lesson that we learn is exactly that, that Christ is no ordinary mediator. But that doesn't mean that everybody who encountered Christ while he walked on the earth believed that to be true about him, or even learned that to be true about him. And our text today is really one instance of how people knew who Christ was in terms of an academic understanding and even maybe a personal familiarity with him, and yet they rejected who he claimed to be. They encountered his works, they knew who he was, they knew where he grew up, what house he grew up in, and yet they had no faith in him. They had no trust in him. And as we look at their response to Christ, it serves to warn us as we come face to face with him as well. Now, when we come to verse 1 of chapter 6, Jesus has just left Jairus' house from raising his daughter from the dead, and he goes to his hometown. he goes to Nazareth. It's not mentioned that Nazareth is his hometown in our text, but all throughout the New Testament it is known that Nazareth was the hometown of Jesus. Nazareth is still in Galilee, so still the northern part of what used to be the nation of Israel. It's not that far from Capernaum. It's about 20 miles southwest of Capernaum, and it was the place where Jesus grew up. It is the place where Jesus moved after Joseph and Mary returned from Egypt when Jesus was a child. It's the place where you would really expect the most support for Jesus because they would have known him the best. He should have been a hometown favorite. But what we see in this text is that the opposite is actually true. Now, the stage of the story is set. Jesus goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, so Saturday at that time. He goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath day to proclaim the word. He gathers with God's people. He joins them for corporate worship, and he preaches there. Now, the people to whom he is preaching would have watched him grow up, some of them. Some of these people would have known exactly who he was, and where he came from, and who his family is. Because from Luke chapter 2 and verse 4, we know that Joseph, when he went to Bethlehem in order to be numbered during the census, he came from Nazareth. It was where Joseph and Mary lived before Jesus was born. And as we saw already, it was the place where Jesus went and lived after his parents returned from hiding in Egypt when they feared for his life after all the children in Bethlehem were slain. In Luke 2 and verse 51, we see that Jesus returned to Nazareth after he was found in the temple by his parents. You remember that event? The family goes to Jerusalem. They go as a group, and everybody starts going back home, but going back home to Nazareth, and Jesus isn't with the crowd, and Joseph and Mary have to return to Jerusalem in a panic. They find Jesus in the temple. Well, when they take him home, they take him home to Nazareth. And actually, at the beginning of Mark's gospel, in chapter one and verse nine, it tells us that when Jesus came to be baptized by John the Baptist, he came from Nazareth. And beyond that, there is this specific reference to this record of where Jesus grew up in Luke 4, verse 16, where it says that Jesus had been brought up in Nazareth. Jesus actually is often identified as Jesus of Nazareth. Even at his resurrection, after his resurrection, when the angels speak to the women who come to see him at his grave, The angels say to these ladies, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen, he is not here. That's in Mark 16 in verse six. So the people of Nazareth knew who Jesus was. He had grown up there. He is identified with this town. And they of all people should have been able to see that he was worthy of praise. But what we see in our text is that knowing Jesus isn't the same thing as trusting in Jesus. When it comes to this account of Jesus preaching at Nazareth, there is a parallel account in Luke's gospel, and there it talks about how first the people praised him. Well, there's nothing of the initial praise for Jesus in Mark's gospel. Mark goes immediately to the scorning. That's because Mark's point is probably different. He's contrasting the wonder of those who had been healed by Christ with the hardness of heart of the people of Nazareth, those who knew him and should have known him the best. He is contrasting belief with unbelief, trust with skepticism. And though Christ is not merely a man, Mark here notes that the people of Nazareth did not recognize him as not merely a man. And you see that in the questions that the people of Nazareth ask about Christ in verse two and three. Where did this man get these things? What is his wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? And if it stopped there, you might say, okay, these people are trying to understand just who this Jesus is, but the questions go on. Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary? And Brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon aren't his sisters here with us? And what does it say in the text? The text says that they took offense at him. See, these questions could be asked in sincerity. You could ask those questions of Jesus and be sincere, trying to, by faith, understand who this Jesus is. But here, these questions are asked in a way that they reject Christ. They show that they despise Christ. They want nothing to do with Him. And that's what we see next. We see how Christ is rejected at home. Well, the last course runs strictly of knowledge. It includes knowledge. It's not only knowledge. But knowledge is never a replacement for a real living and abiding faith. The life of faith includes knowledge, but it doesn't include knowledge that makes you overly familiar with Jesus Christ. And of course, that in some sense is the problem of the North American Christian mindset. The approach of the North American Christian is that Jesus is my buddy, Jesus is my pal, Jesus is my friend, I'm Jesus' peer. And whenever you over-casualize the relationship between yourself and God, it has the same effect as what happened in Nazareth. The questions that are asked at Nazareth could be asked out of faith, they could be asked seeking to understand, they could be asked seeking to make sense of what he has done, but that's not what Nazareth does. Nazareth isn't seeking to understand how Jesus received these gifts. They're not trying to understand where his wisdom came from and how he did this miracle so that they might adore him. They're not asking the question so that they could worship Jesus, but they are asking it for a very different reason. In fact, they're asking it for the opposite reason. The motivation behind the questions in Nazareth is not that Jesus would be adored, but it's that Jesus would be despised. They took offense at him, it says in verse 3. And that happens when you put yourself on the same level as God. When you put yourself at the same level of God, His word becomes less authoritative. His presence becomes less majestic. His commands are less compelling. And the end result will always be, when you make yourself an equal of God's, that you will take offense at the things that He says. You will take offense at the commandments that He gives to you. The first step towards sin, is always a failure to think of the holiness of God, the exaltation of God, the majesty of God, and in some sense, to treat God as if He is common. And that's how Nazareth thought of Jesus. They thought of Him as someone who was common. They talked about Him as Joseph's son, the carpenter. He's lived here all his life. In some sense, they're asking themselves, who does this Jesus think he is to talk to us in this way? We know him. We know his family. We know the name of his brothers. His sisters are here with us. Who does Jesus think he is? Jesus isn't special, or that's what they say to themselves anyway. And Jesus recognizes the problem. In verse 4, Jesus actually addresses them about it, and he says, this is Jesus' synopsis of the problem. The people of Nazareth are asking the question. It says in the text that they take offense at him, and Jesus notes the problem. The problem is that the prophet is without honor. They fail to honor Christ. That is the crux of the problem in Nazareth. Though Jesus isn't merely a man, they refuse to honor him because they are familiar with him. There is no sense of deference to Christ in Nazareth. No sense of respect for him. They simply view him as their peer, their fellow citizen. Now isn't that the same thing when people talk about Jesus as if he is just a good person, or just somebody to be imitated, or even not someone to be feared, someone with whom you speak as if he is just somebody that you grew up with in your family. No, Christ is to be honored. A failure to honor, brothers and sisters, is simply a symptom. When Nazareth fails to honor Christ, they're simply showing something about their heart. They're showing that they have failed in knowing Him, truly knowing Him, in trusting in Him, in worshiping in Him. To fail to honor Christ, in other words, is a failure of faith. Because if you believe that Christ is the Son of God, who has come in the flesh and who has lived a perfect life, who has suffered on the cross for the guilt of your sin to satisfy divine justice. If you know that he was raised, that he ascended into heaven, that he will one day return to judge the living and the dead, you will praise him and you will serve him. So to dishonor him is a failure of faith. And so that's why our understanding of Christ must be protected. Our knowledge of Christ must be preserved. And he must not be corrupted by our own imagination. Christ is to be honored by his people as he is. We are neither to bring him down to us, neither are we to lift ourselves up to where he is. And then there's this difficult phrase that shows up in our text when it talks about Christ's rejection in Nazareth. It says that Christ could do no mighty work there. It even explains to us why he could do no mighty work there. It says that he couldn't do it because of their unbelief. Now that's a curious phrase that requires some explanation. What is Scripture saying? Is Scripture saying that Jesus' ability to heal was really up to the faith of the recipient? Are we saying that the person on earth could control how much Christ could do? It doesn't seem right. Think about when Jesus healed the demoniac. How much faith did the demoniac exercise before Christ healed him? The demoniac didn't even have control of his own senses. So it can't be that the person's faith triggers the healing. That Christ is only able to heal those who exercise faith. So what does it mean that Jesus could do no mighty work there? Well, we let the clearer parts of scripture explain the less clear parts of scripture. And the clear part of scripture says that God's powers can never be restricted by man in any way ever. God is omnipotent. God is almighty. He calls himself that in his word. Christ could have done miracles in his omnipotence. Christ had done miracles despite the lack of belief of other people around him. but he did not do them here because the unbelief of the people of Nazareth had locked the door from the inside, so to speak. In their hearts they have said to themselves, we'll not ask this Jesus for help. They cast aside what Christ might have done and he did not do it because they would not ask. That doesn't mean that he always operates that way. That means that's how he operated this time. And so when it says that he could, part of his being rejected at home, that Nazareth forfeited the blessing of the miraculous healing works of Christ because of their own unwillingness to seek his face. That's not always how it goes, but that's how it goes here in Nazareth. And as this text concludes, you see how Jesus begins to teach abroad. And as we look at that, we see that this text is not completely without hope. The hope is not found in Nazareth. Nazareth does seem to be a fairly hopeless place where people rejected the one they should know to be most qualified. But in Jesus' response, you do see that hope. You see in Jesus' response hope in the face of that kind of unbelief. And you see that because Jesus is gracious. There's no belief in Nazareth, and yet he lays his hands on a few sick people and he heals them. He doesn't do any mighty works, but he does heal some. Now in the past couple of chapters, we've been looking at people marveling over the works that Christ did. Whether it be his calming of the storm, or his casting out of the demons, or his healing of the woman with the discharge of blood, or raising Jairus' daughter. For all of these things, people marveled over the works that Jesus did. And here, in this text, you have a remarkable contrast, because what does it say in the beginning of verse six? It's not the people who are marveling, but Jesus is marveling. He's marveling over their unbelief. He's marveling that they don't have any trust or hope in Him. There's a lack of faith in Nazareth. And Jesus' response is still to heal some. Jesus is gracious in the face of this unbelief. He didn't do any mighty work, but he did heal a few people, and that is the cause for our hope. Because the reality is that if God only acted when presented with faith, we would still all be dead in our sin and trespasses. Think about The description of a person made alive, spiritually speaking, from the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 37. There's that vision of the valley of bones and all the bones come together, covered with flesh, but there's no life in them. And then God breathes life into the bones. And as part of that prophecy, the prophet Ezekiel says, writing down as God's prophet, you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people, and I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live and I will place you in your own land. What happens first? Before a person can do anything, God puts life in them. Apart from the work of God, there is no faith. If God doesn't make you alive first, you remain dead in your sins and trespasses. So what you see from Scripture is that God's mercy and grace is always applied uninvited. Never does a person invite God first and then he makes them alive. That would be ridiculous and impossible. When you're dead in sin and trespasses, you can't do anything. And so God to those who are dead in sins and trespasses first makes them alive that we might have faith in him. He always first acts when he is not invited. And you see that also in the New Testament in Ephesians 2, verses three through three and four. Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul begins by describing the natural man and how the natural man is a child of wrath and how he's dead in his sins and dead in his trespasses and there's no hope. for the natural man. And then in verse 4 it says, but God, being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ. And so anytime man is alive, you know that an uninvited work of God has first taken place. Jesus also Shows that same thing here in in Nazareth where there is no belief, but he yet shows mercy he yet shows compassion to the people who who reject him But Jesus doesn't only give hope he also gives this warning he for the first time in some sense sets a pattern for the scoffer when the scoffer persists when the person who rejects him persists Jesus removes his presence and God does not continue to offer himself to the fool who despises him, to the fool who rejects him. The next time we're in Mark by Lord willing, we'll see Jesus instructing his disciples not to pursue those who reject them. He says, And if any place will not receive you, and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. And that's the Apostle Paul's approach too. When Paul is establishing churches all throughout Asia Minor and so on, in Acts 18 and Acts 19, there are several places where he is rejected by the Jews. The Apostle Paul in Corinth preaches to the Jews. When they revile him, it says, the Apostle Paul declares to them, your blood be on your own head. I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And he begins preaching right next door to the synagogue in the house of a man called Tidius. In Acts chapter 19, the same thing is true in the city of Ephesus. In Ephesus, Paul preaches in the synagogue, and when they don't believe, he begins to preach somewhere else, in a place where he can reach other people, those who are eager to hear. And Jesus does that here as well. He doesn't continue pressing in Nazareth, however much he might know those people. And however much he might love those people, he doesn't keep pressing in the same place. He leaves Nazareth, and it says at the end of our text that he went about among the villages teaching. So there's a limiting factor to the proclamation of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ proclaims the gospel freely. But when he is rejected, he moves on. That's the limiting factor of faith. When there is no faith, there is no message. It's not that God can't override. It's not that God can't change a human heart whenever he wants. It's that he doesn't. He doesn't override the human heart in their rejection, in their hostility against him. And so as we come together and think about Jesus Christ and Nazareth, we see how they despise him because of their familiarity, how they reject him, and how he then takes the message of the gospel outside of Nazareth itself. There's several things that we can see as the people of God, and it's really all part of the same point. The thing that we learn from this text primarily is that we should stand in awe of God, including his Christ. You see, Nazareth fell in that they thought Christ as a common person. They thought of him as truly a man, but only a man. They didn't think of him as God in the flesh. And there are many ways where we also might begin to think that way of him as well. How does a Christian protect himself from thinking commonly of Christ? How do you protect yourself to think rightly of him? Well, there's many ways that you can do it. I want to set a couple of them before us today. First, consider that Christ is the one who created the world. When Jesus of Nazareth, who is also Jesus Christ, proclaimed in Nazareth the word in that synagogue on that Sabbath day. It was the voice of the Creator that spoke. The people of Nazareth thought they were rejecting Mary's son, the carpenter. And who did he think he is? But they rejected the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He is so far above humanity and power that he spoke and the world formed. In six days, he made all the things that we see around us and all the things that we can't see around us which are there. He made all of those things without any raw materials, without anything to start with. He simply speaks and all of it comes into existence. One of the, and it's famously quoted by other people as well, but one of the most remarkable parts of God's work of creation is on the fourth day, when it talks about how he made the sun and the moon, oh yeah, and he made the stars. Billions of stars. He spoke them and they just became brothers and sisters. Jesus Christ is not your peer. He is the maker of heaven and earth. Consider also that Christ endured God's infinite wrath. He satisfied God's divine justice on the cross. When Jesus was on the cross, all of the wrath of God for your sin was poured out on him. Now think about the guilt that you've accumulated. When you sin against God, You have sinned against an infinite being and you have dishonored him infinitely. That means your payment is infinite. And so the wrath that Christ endured on the cross was an infinite amount of justice and wrath over the sins that he had not committed. Now do you think that as a finite person, you could endure that kind of judgment, you could endure that kind of wrath. Before you answer that overconfidently, let me ask you, what happens to you when you stub your toe? What happens to you when you bite your cheek, maybe the second time in the same meal? I don't think we're going to bear up well under an infinite punishment of the eternal God. You see, Jesus Christ is not your peer, but he has endured eternal wrath. And then, as a third point of thinking how we might train ourselves to stand in awe of God, consider that your eternal salvation is dependent on whether your name is written in His book. Healthy friendships are a partnership of sorts, isn't that right? When you have a good friend, there is something that one person brings to the relationship, there's something that the other person brings to the relationship, and the needs of each other, the attractions of each other, their benefits in the relationship, and the relationship is in some sense worth it. It's a really mercenary way to think of friendships. But that's really, at the heart of it, that's what human relationships are like. But that's not the case with Christ. That's not the case with your relationship with God. You should never think that in your relationship with God, you bring some things and He brings some things, and it's mutually beneficial. You bring no benefit to the relationship with God. God brings all the benefit to the relationship with His people. And we looked at that a little bit this morning. The Christ who comes and dies on the cross, the only reason He does that is because He loves you. not because you've offered him anything, not because you can provide him with anything that he is missing. He's not your peer, but he gives himself to sinners like us that we would be forgiven of our sin. So those are some things that we can do, meditating on the glory and majesty and power of God, so that we would stand in awe of Him, so that we would not despise Him as they did in Nazareth. It's good to remember these things. It's even good to meditate on these things, to rehearse these things. When you have time to think about God's Word, think about who He is and the glory that He possesses, that you would have a healthy respect for Him, that you would stand in awe of Him. That you would never ask those kind of pejorative questions that were asked in Nazareth. But there are also things that you could do that would cause you to lean towards despising Christ. That would cause you to lean towards thinking of him as someone who is common. And one of the ways that you can do that is to think of him as if he were merely a man. In the world, they talk about Jesus as a great man. People who are into philosophy, they talk about his ethical system as incomparable. Some people will even talk about him as the best man that has ever lived. The world is very comfortable with saying that Jesus is a great teacher. But if you allow yourself to think of Jesus as merely a man, you are not thinking of the biblical Jesus. The biblical Jesus calmed storms, healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, and claimed so plainly that he was God that the people around him were offended at him and wanted to stone him to death because of his claims. So think of, if you think of Christ as if he were merely a man, you will learn to despise him. And then the second thing that you can do to corrupt your sense of the holiness and majesty of Christ is to address him without any sense of reverence or awe. Yes, our relationship with God is as our Father. And our God is not a God who is far away from us. He is transcended over us in the sense that he is greater than us in all sorts of ways that we can't even wrap our heads around. We can't imagine the ways that God is greater than us. But he is also a God who is near. He is also a God who lives among us. It says in his word that he will tabernacle among us even as we think about the new Jerusalem. We look forward to the time when God will live in the new Jerusalem with us and we will see him face-to-face. So we shouldn't think of God as one who is far away, but even though He is our Father, His name should never be on our lips as if it is common. Our jokes should be void of anything that minimizes Him. Show me a place in the Bible where it positively portrays a person who sets himself up as equal with God. And how does your language distinguish him from the common things? Now, a lot of that is gonna be in your heart, to be sure. The way you worship God and the things that you think of him will first take residence in your heart, but they will be expressed in your words. It will come out of here at some point. But when the overflow of your heart speaks, and when it speaks to, or if it speaks of God, Brothers and sisters, it must be filled with reverence and awe, because if it is not, you are learning to despise him in your heart, like the people of Nazareth did. So many people have seen Jesus, and they have read about his works, or in the text that we're reading, the Gospel of Mark, many of them have seen his works. And when they have, Some have wondered about Him. Some have stood in awe of Him. Some have begged that they could be with Him. But not so in Nazareth. They let their familiarity cloud their worship. And may that never be with us, people of God. Let us never despise Christ because we know Him well. But the more we know Him, may our reverence and awe towards Him only increase. Because He alone is worthy of worship, and He alone is worthy of healing.