June 7, 2026 | He Could Do No Miracles There

Mark 6:1-13, Phil Ware

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm gonna try to talk after uh that song. It gets me every time. And uh there are people that weren't sure whether or not they should come here today, but we know you belong because of the songs we've just sung. Everyone is welcome at the foot of the cross. I want to ask you to open your Bibles to Mark 6. I know this is not Ephesians or Isaiah exactly, but it really is. Our prayer just a second ago was from Ephesians 3, and our prayer in a minute will be from Ephesians 1. And this episode in the life and ministry of Jesus is the core confrontation he wants us to have with him so we believe those prayers in Ephesians. I'm so thankful that uh I've been given this opportunity. We love this church, we love you, you're our friends, you're our people. And we thank you. Because you know, when you move to a new place, you're never quite sure if you're gonna connect and meet people and have friends. And when we moved here, we didn't think we knew anybody. We've been coming for 40 years with our kids and grandkids, but we showed up and we weren't here very long, and a couple of folks that are part of our small group walked into our house and they said, We don't care where you go to church, but you're adopted into our small group and you don't have a choice. And that just sucked us right into this great body of believers. So we're thankful to be here. I want to thank Adam and the choir and the praise team. Uh I I leaned on him for one special song, and he filled it with great ones. And I want to thank the choir for being here because you preached the gospel, and you have no idea some of the people that are in here today that needed to be reminded, oh, how great is the love of God. When I was uh a young man, I uh I can barely remember that. It was I was 23, maybe 24, in a little bitty church east of Austin, Texas. We didn't have any kids yet, and there was a sweet little lady named Bertie. She was in her late 80s. Her niece passed away, and she was devastated because she knew she was in the last months of her life. Her heart had given out, they couldn't do anything, it was too weak for her to have surgery, and she knew she was on her way out. And so I went to see her because she had no family except the church family. Bertie cried and she said, Phil, I'm scared, and I don't want to die alone. And you know, I told her all the great stuff that young ministers know to say. Well, Jesus will be with you, and Jesus will be waiting for you, and you'll go into the loving arms of Jesus. And she said, I need Jesus to be real. Reminds me of the little kid before surgery, and they prayed for him, and he said, I need Jesus with skin on. Bertie needed Jesus to be real. And so for the first time in what would be thousands of times, I prayed with Bertie that Jesus would show up and be tangibly real to her. Not someone she just believed in by faith, but someone she experienced. And then I promised that I would be there if at all possible in her last hour. So when it came down to the last few hours, I went up to see her in the hospital. She could barely recognize I was there. And I began to read passages like Romans 8, at the great promises in Romans 8, and that we're never apart from Christ and the love of God that we have in Christ. And then I begin to read about heaven and about going home to Jesus. And somewhere in that time, because she wasn't hooked up to monitors or anything, just a drip, she slipped off to be with Jesus. And I looked over at her, and for the first time in months, her face was relaxed, and she had a big smile on her face. And I knew Jesus had answered our prayer. Now that's an important thing for some of us because some of you are knocking on that door and you're not sure what the future holds. We've got someone in our in our small group that's facing a battle with cancer. And he said, I don't really so much want you to pray that I'll be here, healed. I would like that. But I want you to pray that through this germany, other people will come to know Jesus and believe in him. I want my life to count in that way. So we live in this space, but we also live in another space. Some of us that are, you know, maybe you're like me. Uh you know commercials are geared at you when you go on television or online, and you know, they keep coming up with these Botox commercials. And, you know, let's be honest, I don't need Botox, I need a belt sander. Okay? That's just reality. But I I see the before and after pictures, and I know it's time to get my cataract taken out because I can't tell the difference. It's just a pretty lady that pretty much looks the same to me. Which is why a good friend of mine, in a gathering with other brothers that have known each other since college, every time we would give our story, he would say, because he's dealing with stage four prostate cancer, he'd say, How are you dealing with the limited horizons your body is giving you? I didn't like that question. Aches, pains. Everything has to go a little more slowly. I can't remember names anymore. It's crazy. But isn't that the continuum that most of us live in? I'm sorry if you're young. I don't mean to depress you. We do have Prozac that we'll give out with communion. But most of us live in that continuum between Brian's question, how do you deal with limited horizons? And Bertie's saying, I don't want to die alone. I need a real Jesus. And isn't that where most of us live? And if you don't live there now, you're gonna live there sooner or later? And some that are young in here have dealt with issues that they wondered the same things. So what does the Holy Spirit have to say to us today? Well, Jason's been preaching on it from Ephesians, and before we have the scripture presented to us on video, and it'll be word for word from the scriptures, I want to read another prayer from Ephesians. And this is my prayer for us, but even more, it's the Apostle Paul's prayer for you. Let's pray. I pray that the God of our Father, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glorious of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of his the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Far above rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the age to come. Amen. I want to invite you to open your heart, your eyes, and your spirit to this event in the life of Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. Where did this man get these things? They asked. What's this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives, and in his own home. He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village, calling the twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions. Take nothing for the journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals, but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Now, what's interesting about this episode is that it occurs after four incredible demonstrations of Jesus' power. His power over our primal fears. He stills the storm. If you look back in chapter 5, he steals the storm. Then he is met by a demoniac having a legion of demons. And if you read that story carefully, I don't see anything that suggests the apostles ever got out of the boat. It's just kind of like, okay, Lord, you're kind of on your own on this one. And he casts out those demons. And the man that's healed, Jesus says, Go tell your friends and neighbors. And everyone was astonished that he was healed. And then there are the two tender stories. And then there's a woman with an incurable flow of blood that made her unclean. She couldn't go out in public. She couldn't go to the synagogue. She couldn't really be close to family. She touches his garment. She's healed. Completely. And then Jesus restores her to community. Go in peace. Your faith has saved you. And then they say, Jairus, Jairus, just tell him not to come. Your daughter's already dead. He goes in and he throws out all the mourners, throws out the crowd, only takes Peter, James, and John and the parents, and they go in. And we have even his exact words in Aramaic. He takes her by the hand and says, Talitha kumi, little girl, arise. And she's raised from the dead, and it's an incredible miracle. You don't see those things. And Jesus just treats it as an everyday thing. Hey, she's hungry. Get the little girl something to eat. And he goes home. And he he's from a dump water place. It was the equivalent of Toadsuck. Okay? If you're from Toadsuck, I'm sorry. But that was a revelation to us when we moved here. There was actually a town named Toadsuck in Arkansas. Well, that's what Nazareth was, except it was worse than that. They didn't have a festival. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Jesus goes home. And he goes in the synagogue and he reads from the scriptures. We know that from the other accounts. And the people acknowledge, look at verses 2 and 3. They acknowledge he's done all these great miracles. He's done these incredible things. And yet, in the process, they didn't believe. Instead of believing and being astonished at what Jesus could do, they go, We know who you are, boy. Isn't that what they're doing? We know who you are, boy. You don't even know your daddy's name. They were using a slur that's a word that I shouldn't use in public, so I'm not going to. And oh, here's his brothers and sisters. We know them. They're just local yokels. They ain't any bigger than we are. He who's this too goodie two shoes that's too big for his britches. And they took offense at him. And look at verse 5. He could do no miracle there. Now Matthew softens it a little bit. It says he wouldn't do a miracle there. In Luke, they take him and they're going to throw him off the brow of the hill. But Mark has a point, and he sharpens that point. The Holy Spirit has a message for him because he's writing about 30 years after Jesus has died, and the people there are going, the apostles are all going away. They've left the center of faith. Some have died, and everybody's passing away from that first generation. We don't have that same power that they did. And Mark, I believe, is led by the Holy Spirit to speak to them and to speak to us about that blasphemous heresy. He could do no miracle there. And instead of them being astonished at their miracles, you notice the word astonished or marvel is used. Verses five and six. He marveled at their unbelief. And then what's interesting is we go to the end of the episode, we see the apostles are commissioned to go spread the message of Jesus and to do healings and casting out demons. And to make sure everybody knew they didn't do it because of their power or status or prestige. No bag, no extra clothes, no money, no nothing, no place to stay. So if they do something amazing, it ain't them. And so when they go out, look at verse 13. The guys Jesus sent out with nothing were able to do more than Jesus could in his hometown. It's not an accident that it ends that way. That's the exclamation mark. People Jesus sent out had more power than he could release among his own families who didn't believe. Well, that's a that's a nice message. But you know, when you study the gospels, you uh need y'all to there we I can't get this to advance, Chris. There we go. When you read the gospels, it's not enough to just know what Jesus says and does. For four decades, I've gone into churches all over America and in other plot parts of the world, and I've quoted the Great Commission. And I misquoted it. In fact, I'd kind of like for us to correct the one on the way out of the parking lot to be the real Great Commission. But I said I quoted Jesus and I said, Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them everything I have commanded you. And I'll be with you to the end of the earth. And I asked people to tell me what I left out. Because we have begun, we have become shaped as evangelical Christians, often more by Freud than by Jesus. Because we think if we can get the data in our heads, we've solved the problem. But Jesus didn't say, teach them everything I taught. He said, teach them to obey what I taught. Train them. So when you look at the gospel stories, you have to ask, why did the Holy Spirit have Mark share the story in this way? Was he just trying to say Jesus folks didn't believe? Well, if you go back to chapter 3, you see Jesus was doing miracles in houses. And they people kept coming and coming and coming. If you watch the chosen, you remember he is exhausted and his mother comes and tends to him and the chosen to show how. But in the gospel itself, Mary sends his brothers to go get him because they think he've he's lost his mind. We know they don't believe. In John 7, Jesus' brothers tease him and say, Hey smarty pants, if you want to prove you're somebody, go to Jerusalem because anybody that's worth anything in in our Jewish heritage does it in Jerusalem. And John says they said this because they didn't believe. So Mark includes it for more than just that. And so I think maybe, don't you? Mark and the Holy Spirit want us to ask the question who makes up Jesus' hometown and relatives and household today. So let's go back and ask earnestly, begging and Our hearts. What are the Holy Spirit and Jesus wanting us to hear? What is it from this story that makes Ephesians so much more powerful? What makes Isaiah and his prophecies so much more dynamic with his great view of God and his promise of a Messiah? I think it's this. Aren't we Jesus hometown? And relatives and household. Isn't that us? In chapter three, Mark tells us that Jesus said, Who are my mother and brother and sisters? Those who hear the word of God and do it. Now, if you're visiting here, we want you to know we take Scripture seriously. We don't try to modernize it. We don't try to make it palatable to the latest political whim. We want to hear it and obey it. We believe the Holy Spirit is in us, and the Holy Spirit not only breathed out the message through the scriptures, but he helps us understand it. So that makes us Jesus' hometown, right? And in case we miss that, in Ephesians 6.10, Paul says, we're the household of faith. Huh. So if we realize this story is about us and for us, it kind of makes our spiritual underwear a little tight, doesn't it? Our Sunday shoes are, you know, two or three sizes too small, like we had to wear when we were kids. I seem you grew up similar to I I had Sunday shoes because any other shoes were going to be destroyed within a week because I was a real little boy. And I got to wear those stinking Sunday shoes for two years. Didn't matter if my foot grew that much. I learned to go to church like a ballerina, you know. Well, that's what this does for us. It's a challenge to us. I still remember a guy named Hollering Hodge coming and speaking to us in seminary, and he said two things that stuck with me. And I didn't agree with his theology, and he'd be uncomfortable with this sermon, I'll just tell you. Especially when we get to the end. But he did say two things. He said, if you're a young minister, you want to be a pastor, you need to read the pastorals, 1st and 2 Timothy and Titus, once a month for your first 10 years. Some of the best advice I ever got. I'm cornbread English, and Paul talked to Timothy in cornbread Greek. I mean, it was just practical. And then the other thing he said is, now, boys, there weren't any women in our classes. Now, boys, remember your definition of your job is this. Your job is to ask questions like that. Your job is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. In other words, everybody's either mad at you or will moan to you. Right? Well, I think he was two-thirds right. I think there's a third one. And that third one is to inspire the faithful. To inspire the faithful. And I believe that's what Mark's doing when he asks us this. I'm going the wrong way, so give me a second to catch back up. Oh my goodness, who is that ugly guy? I'm not getting there. So I'm going to just tell you. What's one thing that you don't believe can happen because of your lack of faith? How do you, how do I disappoint Jesus because I've lost faith in what he can do? And even more importantly than that question, we have to wrestle with living between Brian's question, how are you dealing with limited horizons and birdie's fear of going to death and Jesus not being real? So how do we find our way in that? And we get discouraged. I will tell you, I don't cuss much. Okay. As a preacher, I know I'm not supposed to cuss at all. But I got a good friend I'm looking at right now. And when he didn't heal Brett Pittman, and he didn't heal Don Bacon of their eye issues and blindness, and then Bar Bobo wasn't healed of her cancer. We cussed in front of God for not answering our prayers. And I read the Psalms and it gave me some hope because David was pretty frank too. Now I apologize for God using the wrong kinds of words. But that discourages us too. It's not just our fallen arches and our aching back and our rheumatism or whatever you want to call it, not being able to breathe as well, that discourages us. It's that we don't have all our prayers answered. And we prayed in faith and we begged and we pleaded. And so we just now, if we're not careful, go to church on Sunday where it's comfortable. And if it's a song we don't know or don't like, or it's too slow or it's too fast, we find some folks to complain to, and it gradually gets back to the leaders. Because after all, church is about keeping us happy on our way to the grave while we play and do our things. And then Mark comes along and he says, What are you not allowing Jesus to do among you because of your lack of faith? And that's the real question. So as we get ready to walk out the door, I want us to ask this question: What's at least one thing I will ask in faith for Jesus to do that can't be done without his showing up? Let's quit praying these limited box prayers. James says you don't have because you don't ask, and when you ask, you ask selfishly. So let's have bigger prayers. I've put a little prayer guide that has been used by thousands of people all over the world, really, in the in your bulletin, and I encourage you to do that. The second thing, and I'll get my clicker back. What's at least one thing you will do in faith? Living between Brian's question of limited horizons and birdies not wanting to die and go to Jesus without Jesus being real to her now. Because a lot of us have grown up with a theology of it used to be. You know, the last of the apostles died and all those gifts went away with the end of acts. Now, some of you didn't grow up that way. But if you grew up in a Baptist or a church of Christ or a conservative evangelical church, you were told that. Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these, than I do because I'm going to the Father. Do you believe that? Do you expect that? Well, he's just talking to the apostles. That's not what it says, is it? Look at it again. He or she who believes. I went into a coffee shop not too long ago, and on the back of the shirt it had John 3.16, and I'm a whosoever. That's what it says, I'm a whosoever. That whosoever believes in him shall not perish. She was saying, I'm a whosoever. Well, we're one who believes, aren't we? That promise is for us. The prayer in Ephesians 1 is for us. The amazingly great power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to those of you who believe. Ephesians 3, 20 and 21. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly all than we can ask or imagine by his power at work within us. I was blessed to meet somebody on the way in today. I guarantee you, she can testify that Jesus and the love of God can raise people of the depths and mire of addiction and give them new life. And some of you need to hear that today. But we believe that. We expect that. One of the, I won't even say one of the most moving worship services I've been to here was Barbara Bobo's memorial. If you weren't here for that, you missed using quoting an old song that all us grayheads remember, you missed a free stairway to heaven. You see, Barbara wanted it shared at her memorial that as a young woman she got pregnant and had an abortion. And it racked her with guilt. And then she got pregnant again, and she refused to have an abortion because she believed that was a child of God. She needed protect. And then by the grace of God, a Holy Spirit led a big hairy-legged guy named Keith Bobo into her life, and he loved her, and he loved her child, and they became a family. And even in the declining months with cancer, she was determined that we get a sonogram for the Crisis Pregnancy Center, so moms that were struggling with whether or not to have an abortion could see their babies. Because the vast majority that do choose to have those babies. And she's the reminder that whether we live between Bertie's end or Brian's end, the question of limited horizons or want Jesus to be real in our death, we can believe that Jesus will do even greater things through us. If you want to know what some of them are, ask the G-man back here. Gunther, we'll raise your hand. Some of you are older, okay? But he's 87. He goes every week to jail. You know why? Because he knows Jesus didn't want folks just to know facts about Jesus. He wants them to have Jesus in his heart. That's exactly what he told me. He's just one. All you have to look around at, women are doing everything around this place. Every time you look, they're doing something new. Jump in and join them. But most of all, believe. So I'm gonna trouble you not just with the sermon, with communion. So I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna get ready to do communion, but it's part of this message. Let's pray. Father, we believe, but help our unbelief. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're celebrating communion today, and we want you to know if you believe in Jesus, that He's the Son of God and Savior, you are welcome to share in this communion with us. There's a little piece of bread and a little piece of fruit of the vine, a little drink of the fruit of the vine, and we're gonna take those in just a minute. But in that church where Bertie went, that first church I was in, we had communion every week. And I'm telling you, I knew what the prayer and the devotional thought was gonna be every week. They just pulled the chatty Kathy ring and out came the same prayer and the same words. Well, I believe we need to remember Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. I believe we need to remember he gave his body for us. I believe his blood was shed for us, but that's not the only thing communion means. In 1 Corinthians 10, verses 16 and 17, Paul says, and I'm gonna ask you to take the bread with me. This bread is one bread, and as we take it, we are one body. We're making a covenant to be Jesus' presence through our church and the world. And if we don't recognize that, we drink unworthily or take it unworthily. So, Jesus, we promise to the best of our ability to believe you can do more than we can ask or imagine. And we ask you to make us your bodily presence through this bread. Amen. Paul calls the cup the blood of the covenant. Jesus called it that. And this is our sealing, that promise to live for Jesus, an awareness that he died, that he was buried, that he was resurrected, and we do it till he comes. Let's commit to the covenant. God bless you. And we've got an incredible song to finish with.