The Condition of our Faith

--- Welcome to our women's Bible study on the book of Mark, which we're calling Following Jesus. Usually when I begin, I like to post a roadmap of the passages that we're going to go through, and I put a simple description, and I am going to post a roadmap, but it's going to be very different today. So take a look at this. What we're going to look at today is going to describe, in the passages that we go through, people's faith. And in fact, I'll title this The Condition of Your Faith. So look at what we're about to study through. The faith of the Pharisees, which we'll find was hypocritical. The faith of a Gentile woman, which is bold. The faith of the disciples, which was initially forgetful. The faith of the Pharisees, second time demanding. The faith of the disciples, which was confused. And then look at this. What we're going to do at the end is look at these three interactions with Jesus that transcend the moment in time. And that's going to be Jesus opening the ears, Jesus opening the eyes, and Jesus opening understanding. So I thought this was kind of a neat way to sort of categorize what we are to study today. And that's the theme that we're going to put behind it. Well, we have enjoyed a two-week break from the Pharisees. They haven't been around for a while, but here they're going to come back in again. And our first passage is going to show us how tradition can steer people into hypocrisy. And when we read this passage, we're going to think to ourselves, oh, those Pharisees. But if you read what I wrote in the study guide, I reminded us that there's a little baby Pharisee living in each one of our hearts, just waiting to take control of our thoughts and our lives. So let's not just say it's for them. We'll say it's for us, too. So let's start reading. This is in chapter seven, verse one. Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him, some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. Excuse me. When the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. OK, remember what we said about these scribes from Jerusalem? Corporate came to town. These are the big guns coming in from Jerusalem. They saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. Now, this gives us a little context, maybe that Mark is telling us we could see in our minds, Jesus and the disciples just having come from the marketplace in Gennesaret. That's where we recently were. And the Pharisees this time, the Pharisees have had problems with Jesus about a lot of things. But this time it's all about hand washing, according to them. So and there were many other traditions that they observed, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk? Here's the important part. According to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands. From their own lips, they were admitting that their problem wasn't with God's law. Their problem was with what they called the tradition of the elders, which the scribes knew very, very, very well, because over the previous centuries, their role had sort of developed into this religious bureaucracy, if you will, that took that created these traditions and these practices that were compiled in writing and required for people to do. And at this point, it's still called the tradition of the elders later became known as the Mishnah. OK, and so here we have it. Now, we have to remember that not all traditions are bad. OK, we have traditions. They may start out fine and all traditions, some tradition can stay fine. But some of them create a problem when they're mixed with religion. OK, a good tradition easily can become a religious gold standard for people. And they think as long as I do this thing or as long as other people think that I'm doing this thing, you know, I'm good. And so a tradition can sort of depend on outward appearances. And in our women, the word studies, we've taken that word hypocrisy. A hypocrite is one who plays a role, an actor, if you will, someone who fits into a role. That is the important thing. It's not the matter of the heart. It's the matter of fitting into a certain role. OK, let's keep moving on. And he said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? And as it is written,

You leave the commandment of God and you hold to the tradition of men. And Jesus was spot on with this prophecy from Isaiah that he pulled out. And just to prove his point now, he's going to launch into a specific example of how they're doing what he said they were doing. Look at verse nine. And he said to them,

There is God's heart. We know that to be one of the Ten Commandments. Right. Honor your father and mother. So Jesus said, this is the heart of God. But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Corban that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do. So the specific example here that Jesus gave was this tradition or this practice of Corban, which he interpreted for his Roman hearers, which wouldn't have maybe readily known that Hebrew word. And he said it means dedicated to God. It doesn't even mean necessarily given to God, just dedicated, just that's like this piece of property or these resources. They're dedicated for the Lord's use. So they're not available to carry out my responsibility to take care of my parents in my old age. So after so Jesus is calling them out on this. And then after that specific example, he goes back to the topic, which was the problem with the handwashing. And he called the people to him again. And he said,

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them,

The condition of the heart is the main point. Have we heard that before? Yes. It started with the parable of the sower. The condition of the heart is so incredibly important. And here's where Jesus again is expressing that to them. So that's a look at the hypocritical faith of the Pharisees. Now we're going to move on to the second look at a condition of faith, and that is the faith of a Gentile woman, starting in verse 24. And from there he arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. On your map, if you looked on your map to see where Tyre and Sidon was, you saw it was quite a distance, quite a travel. We wonder if this trip was another attempt at getting some rest, like we talked about last week, or if it was to dodge the Pharisees, because they would not follow into such a Gentile region. So like it's a twofer, like, oh, maybe we can go get a little break and they're not going to come and follow us and bother. But what we also learned last week is that ministry always follows Jesus. And so that's exactly what happened. Verse 25. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now, the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. That basically means from this area. By the way, Jezebel was also Syrophoenician. And she begged him to cast this out. the demon out of her daughter. Now, in the Gospel of Mark, this is the third time that we have had an interaction with someone that was referred to as a daughter. And this is the fourth time that Jesus has had an interaction with a woman, which is quite a bit, really, to be recorded. That's quite a bit for Mark to have exposed to us. But this one is a little bit different because this woman was not among God's people. She was a Gentile. In fact, I'm gonna show you in a minute, she was a Canaanite, completely outside of the family of God. Yet she approached Jesus because she had a problem in her life that was impossible for her to fix. And so she comes to Jesus. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put the passage from Matthew, from Matthew 15, that shares the same story. I'm gonna put it on the screen and we're gonna follow the Matthew version for just a little bit, starting in verse 22. It says, and behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, have mercy on me. Oh Lord, son of David, my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. So again, let's think about this. She is a Canaanite woman, but look at her respect and her honor toward Jesus compared to the Pharisees. Look at how she addresses him. She says, son of David. Okay, that's a messianic title. That means Messiah, son of David, to address him that way. And she boldly comes to Jesus expecting him to do something. It says she begged, which this word means a continual action, an ongoing, persistent, continual action, okay? And the disciples begged too. Look at this, verse 23. But he did not answer her a word and his disciples came and begged him saying, send her away for she's crying out after us. So the woman is begging for help and the disciples are begging for her to go away. Jesus ignores the disciples and he addresses the woman. He answered her, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, first time here, you're gonna go, what? Just do her a favor, would you? But what's this business about? This is basically sounds like a no, maybe a soft no. It's like I was only sent to the lost sheep or to the, yeah, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What Jesus is expressing in the woman's hearing and for the disciples to hear him too is his priority in ministry. He is the Jewish Messiah. Okay, God had promised that the whole world would be saved through the seed of Abraham. Jesus came first to the children of Abraham. This is his priority and we can understand this by reading through the full account of the gospels. But yet the woman is persistent and she says, she came and knelt before him saying, Lord, help me. Do you see her persistence? Now we're gonna go back to our passage in Mark so you can look at your Bibles again where Jesus explained what he just said with a little parable. He comes up with a little parable to reply to her. In verse 27, this is Mark 7, 27. He said to her,

So in Jesus' parable here, the children represent the children of Abraham, Israel. The dogs represent those that are outside, okay? They are the Gentiles. Now, Jesus was not calling her a dog because she was a woman. He was putting her in the category of the Gentiles, okay? And this might still seem harsh. We might still be offended at his words. It's like, that doesn't sound fair, but it was common. And there's some nuances here that we can't understand in English that we need to look at in order to fully understand Jesus' heart. First of all, there is a Greek word for dog that is pronounced kuon, and it means the wild dog. It means those that are outside. It means kind of a more terrifying, ferocious thing. This is often used in the Bible to express those outside of God's family, those who are Gentiles. For example, in Revelation 21, I didn't put it on the screen, but I'll just read it.

Do you see the grouping there? Do you see what it means? That's not the word Jesus said to this woman. That is not the context. Jesus called her a kunarion, meaning a little dog or a pet dog. In other words, a dog that could potentially be inside the house, not the dogs outside, the ones inside. And so she fully understood what Jesus was saying. She didn't argue with him. She agreed with him. She's like, yes, it is right. In fact, let's read her words, verse 28. But she answered him,

In other words, what she's saying is, you are right, children first. The bread should go to the children first. I agree with you, but in my experience, what I see is the little dogs sometimes eat, sometimes eat at the same time as the little children. And all they need is a crumb. And it says, for this, he said to her, for this statement, you may go your way. The demon has left your daughter. And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone. Such a sweet story, such bold faith we see in her. She agrees with what Jesus is saying. She goes, all I need is a crumb. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about bold faith meeting Jesus's compassion and how things happen. Well, that's what's going on in this story. Her bold faith, her persistent faith met the compassion of Jesus. And he goes, for this statement, yes, a crumb is all you are asking for. A crumb is all you need. I'm gonna heal your daughter. Super sweet, okay? And the other thing about this passage is this is one of those healings where Jesus just speaks. He's never, he's not even in the vicinity of this person, but the healing happens because he just speaks it. Now in our next passage, we're gonna go back to Jesus being present with the person. And so we're seeing again, this broad perspective of you can't pin God down about how he's gonna do things. It goes differently, but we're gonna take verses 31 to 37. We're gonna put them at the bottom of the pile and handle that in just a little bit. We're gonna move on to chapter eight. We've looked at the hypocritical faith of the Pharisees, the bold faith of the Gentile woman. And now we're gonna look at the faith of the disciples. And I have called it forgetful faith. Verse one, in those days when again, a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion in the crowd because they've been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. So this time Jesus is presenting the problem to the disciples. It was the opposite way around last time. People were hungry and his disciples answered him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? Here's why I call that forgetful faith. Presumably, if these things are in chronological order, Jesus had just fed 5,000 people with very small resources. And so what they're saying is, well, how can that even possibly be? Well, did you forget? Did you forget what Jesus is capable of? And you know, these guys, they're following Jesus. They are close, but they still have forgetful faith. And isn't that the truth with you and me? We can have forgetful faith. God can do something really big in our lives. And then life goes on. We make a few more revolutions around the sun. And all of a sudden we hit another big problem. We're like, well, I don't know how this could ever. Well, don't you remember what God did before? Maybe you should lean into that. Wouldn't it have been sweet if the disciples had said to Jesus, said, oh, here we go again. I remember what you did last time. Let's do it. Are you gonna do the same thing? It's gonna be a little bit different. Well, it's pretty much the same. Verse five, he asked him, how many loaves do you have? And they said, seven. And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish and having blessed them, he said that they should also be set apart or set before them. And they ate, were satisfied, and they took up the broken pieces leftover, seven baskets full, and they were about 4,000 people. And then he sent them away. So not only did Jesus provide for the need, but he provided abundantly, abundantly to where there was leftovers. There was leftovers the last time too. I love the leftover. live on leftovers. In fact, I cook. We say that I cook so that we have leftovers. Like it's okay the first time, but my husband finds such great joy in opening the refrigerator and seeing the options there. That's why I cook is so that we have leftovers. But in our lives, Jesus provides us leftovers. There is an abundant provision if we have faith to see it, if we have faith to understand that. All right, now we're going to go back to the faith of the Pharisees 2.0. This is in verse 10. And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said,

And he left them, got into the boat again and went to the other side. And I call this faith of the Pharisees demanding. This is what we see. They demanded a sign. It wasn't good enough that they had seen and or heard about Jesus, you know, healing people and exercising demons and raising dead. They wanted a sign from God. The problem is with this kind of faith, there's no sign that will convince them. If you're not, Jesus had already demonstrated his authority over the natural elements of this world, over the supernatural world, over sickness, disease and death. Okay. If that is not a sign from God, what more are you looking for? Raising the dead? Hello. And so that's why I said this is, this is demanding faith, always demanding something, some revelation when revelation has always been given. Now a heart with real faith is going to seek truth. It's going to seek truth. And when it sees truth, it's going to embrace that. But these, these Pharisees at this moment, nothing was they, nothing was going to satisfy because their heart was closed to the truth. So the Pharisees demanding faith would not be able to lead them to, to salvation until that changed. So now we go back to the faith of the disciples 2.0 in verse 14. And now when they, the disciples had forgotten to bring bread and they had only one loaf with them in the boat and he, Jesus cautioned them saying,

Jesus was using an analogy again to warn them about not having the same hypocritical and demanding faith as the Pharisees. And he says, beware of the leaven of that. It's contagious. It's corrupting. It can work its way through the whole thing. Do you remember how we talked about symbolic constancy in parables? Yeast is always a corrupting and an invading sort of an influence. And Jesus is just merely warning them against thinking naturally like the Pharisees were doing. Beware that you think only on the physical plane. You need to have spiritual understanding. And so they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread, which is natural. And Jesus aware of this said to them,

And they said, 12. And the seven for the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, seven. And he said, do you not yet understand? So Jesus is confronting them through his questioning about their forgetful faith and now their confused faith. And I use confused to be the opposite of having understanding. What Jesus wants us to have, what God wants us to have, is faith with understanding. Faith that has understanding knows I'm living in the natural world. Yes, I need to see things in the natural way. It's snowing. I need to snow plow. This is happening. But also has the faith that sees and understands the spiritual as well. A confused faith only sees in the natural. Only sees what is just perceived right in front of them. So we can be a lot like the disciples as well. Our faith can be forgetful. We can forget what God has done for us as if it hasn't made an impact. Our faith can be confused if we spend all of our time and attention only thinking about what is right in front of us on this earth and not applying ourselves to that spiritual understanding. I like in verse 18, it's that Jesus had asked them, having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? That's a really good question to ask ourselves. That's a good question for me. It's like, Sue, you got eyes. Do you not see spiritually with that? You have ears. Do you not hear spiritually? How is my spiritual hearing? How is my spiritual sight? We could all probably say, I've got headroom there for improvement. I've got room for growth. But it doesn't improve naturally. It doesn't improve by just getting a year older. We won't have spiritual understanding without asking God to help us have spiritual understanding. Jesus has to make the difference in our lives. And so that's why I want to take now these three interactions with people and I've grouped them together because it shows interactions that Jesus had with individuals that transcended that moment in time and even speak to us. So we're going to walk back just a little bit to Mark chapter 7, verse 31, and start with the incident when Jesus opened the ears of the deaf man. Verse 31. Then he returned from the region of Tyre, went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis. Geographically, I just want to remind us where we were. This is coming right back out of Tyre and Sidon. And now he goes into this area around Galilee. It's called the Decapolis. It's very Gentile, saturated too. It's kind of a Rome away from Rome, if you will. And verse 32, and they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers on his ears and after spitting touched his tongue and he looked up to heaven. He sighed and he said to him,

And his ears were opened. His tongue was released and he spoke plainly and Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure saying, he has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. The simple point of this story is that the man was deaf and he couldn't hear. Jesus was the one who caused him to be able to hear. If Jesus can make a physical change in the natural to cause a deaf man to be able to hear, he can make a spiritual change in our lives to cause us to be able to hear spiritually as well. And then here's the next interaction. Now we're going to go back to chapter eight, verse 22. This is Jesus opening the eyes and they came to Bethsaida and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and he said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes. His sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him home saying, do not even enter the village. The simple point of this experience is that the man was blind. He could not see. Jesus was the one who opened the eyes of the blind man so that he could see. If Jesus can open the eyes of the blind so he can see, Jesus can open our spiritual blindness so that we can see. Do you see what I think Mark is getting at by combining these two stories? Jesus's words, do you have ears and you can't hear? Do you have eyes and you can't see? And then Mark weaves these two stories to help us categorize them. And there's so many commonalities between them. Here's what I saw. Both of these men, the deaf man and the blind man, other people brought him to Jesus in both of the parables or excuse me, it's not a parable, both of the stories. Both were taken aside out of the crowd by Jesus. With the deaf man it says taking him aside from the crowd privately and with the blind man it said he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. I find it fascinating sometimes that aspect of retreating, retreating away from the narrative, retreating away from the people, retreating away from the responsibilities of the crowds. I kind of caught that, that caught my attention because in my life that has been when changes can happen with me. the Lord off away privately. And then both of the healings contained a spitting and a touching. I don't even know what to say about that, but they do. So again, I think Mark is trying to help us anchor this with these two stories. And then here's the last one. It relates to Peter, verse 27. And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And you can follow that on your map as well. It's interesting to note that this region that they're going into here, Caesarea Philippi, has been a densely saturated pagan god region. This was some of the first Baal worship that we read about and were frustrated about when we studied Second Kings. So first Baal worship, then Israel is taken off, in comes the Greeks, then it's Pan worship, and then the Greeks are sort of dominated by the Romans. And so here's where we get the name Caesar, Caesarea. Okay, so Philip, the guy who Herod stole his wife, he's the Tetrarch of this area. And he renames the town with him and Caesar, which is a great strategic political move. If you're going to rename a town, it's like grab the big guy and me, let's put our names together, you know, Caesarea Philippi. But anyway, they're traveling into that. So I want you to get the picture. They're going into pagan worship area, just saturated, okay? And on the way he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? God's all around. Who do people say that I am? And he told them, they told him, John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, and others one of the prophets. And he asked them, but who do you say that I am? And Peter answered him, you are the Christ, and meaning Messiah. And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. Now, very often Jesus' questions were thrown out because he wanted to do some teaching. He wanted to begin explaining some things. That's where our next lesson takes us into. This was a leading question so that Jesus could begin to explain to them the ministry of the Messiah. And Peter was the one that opened the door. And I call Peter's understanding faith, okay? Understanding faith. Because Peter opened the door here to say, you are the Christ. This is huge. You know, in our American history, we read about the beginning of the American Revolution. And we have that first firing that we call the shot heard around the world, right? Lexington, is that where it was? This was the confession heard around the world. Like, Peter was the one that just said, you are the Christ. And I think Jesus knew, okay, I can begin now explaining to you what it means to be the Christ, what my future is, what lies ahead for me. That's where we're going in our next lesson. But for us, I think the inspiring takeaway from Peter's confession is that our faith can grow and improve and mature into understanding. It didn't happen immediately. Peter's been following Jesus for a while. Sometimes we're following Jesus for a while. But our understanding isn't full. But our faith can grow and mature. But you know what the key is? It's what Jesus said. Having spiritual ears to hear and spiritual eyes to see. How do we do that? We lean into Jesus. We ask him to heal those things that cause us to not have the eyesight and not have the hearing spiritually that we need. It's a process. So we don't lose heart. We don't say, I don't get it. Well, let's keep studying. Let's keep hearing. Let's keep being in fellowship. Let's keep praying. Let's keep following. And God will add those things on. So I'm going to quickly just wrap up with two warnings, two points of inspiration from this lesson. Warning number one, beware of hypocritical faith. You got that little Pharisee in your heart and is just looking for ways to be hypocritical, ways for you to grab onto something and say, if I just do this, I'm sure that God will be happy. You know, it's a condition of the heart. So let's be aware of hypocritical faith. Number two warning is beware of forgetful faith. And we've talked about this, how easy it is for us to forget what God has done for us. And so an antidote for that is to constantly honor what God has done in your life in whatever way it makes sense to you. Journaling, telling your kids, telling your friends, making as, you know, the Old Testament calls establishing an Ebenezer. Thus far has the Lord helped me. And make a big deal of it so that there's even other people to hold you accountable and say, why are you freaking out? Didn't God take care of that for you before? Okay. Inspiration number one to grow our persistence in prayer. This is the Canaanite woman. Her persistence inspires me. It inspires me to keep begging. I'll go ahead and use that word. You know, we say keep praying, but is that continual action of continuing to come to the Lord, even if we don't see immediate response? She continued, she pressed in. And inspiration number two is to know that God actually wants us to increase our understanding. He could say to each one of us, do you have ears that hear? Do you have eyes that see? He wants our understanding to increase. We want our understanding to increase. I don't want to waste my life on this earth being a Christian and not having understanding faith. But in those parables that we saw, what was the catalyst for change? It was Jesus that did it. And so it's not something I don't think that we just like press in. Like, I got to work harder and harder for spiritual. I say, no, I just rest in the Lord. I say, Lord, give me spiritual. I said, I yield to you so that I can see spiritual things. I can hear spiritual things. This should be something we pray before we come to big church on Sunday. Lord, help us to hear the words that you want us to hear. I just want to leave you with one last passage. We already studied from Mark chapter four. I'll put it on the screen to remind us how important this is. When Jesus said,

I hope that's a good inspiration for us to consider faith that has understanding, faith that hears, faith that sees. So let's pray. Father, thank you for all the different nuances in this lesson, in this passage. And Lord, I pray that you would help us to hear what you have given to each one of us individually through this lesson, Lord, that we would pay attention to what you're speaking to us. And if you ask us a question like you did the disciples and ask us how our hearing is or our sight or our understanding, that we would just listen and dialogue with you and that we would grow in our faith. Because without faith, it is impossible to please God. So I thank you for all of this mix of these narratives, Lord. Help us to just really make them make sense for us and useful for us. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. ---