All Things are Possible with God

Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark, which we call Following Jesus. And today we're going to cover all of Chapter 10, which is Week 8 in your study guide. And I think it's time for a little change up with how we do our roadmap. And so for this week, what I want to do is I want to talk about paradoxes. And maybe you haven't handled the word paradox for a while. So let me give you a definition and tell you what a paradox actually is. A paradox is an idea or a statement that seems wrong or seems impossible, but actually it makes a lot of sense given some deeper thought on the matter. So now we're going to put up our roadmap, and I'm going to show you how we're going to take this chapter and label it with these five paradoxes. And it goes like this. The two shall be one. Adults should be as children. The impossible becomes possible. The least shall be greatest, and the blind are able to see. Jesus seemed to have really loved to teach in a way that caused people to have to think a little bit more deeply. That's what we talked about with the parables. There was a very simple story on the surface, but then it really required more thought to interpret and apply the story. There are actually zero parables in this chapter, but I've made these five distinct teachings that are paradoxes covering topics like marriage and children and eternal life and being a servant and spiritual sight. So we're going to keep this chart handy as we move through the chapter. The first thing that we learn in the first verse is we have a geographical change with the movement of Jesus and his disciples. They are now leaving Galilee for the last time, I should say, and moving south into Judea. Look at verse one. And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds gathered to him. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. And that is our key when it says he taught them. Everything that we're going to read today is a teaching, an understanding for us to grasp. So here comes the first paradox, which we said the two shall be one. Verse two. And the Pharisees came up, and in order to test him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. Now, have we ever known yet in the Gospel of Mark the Pharisees to come up to Jesus and ask a question because they really wanted to know his answer? Because whatever he said, that's what they were going to take for gospel truth. No, we have not. That was not what the Pharisees did. They would come up to Jesus with an angle or a criticism or an agenda of some kind. And I think we can be fairly certain that that's what's going on here. Now, maybe their agenda was to stir up controversy about the issue of divorce because there was controversy. There was two schools of rabbinical thought, and they had differing opinions about what actually constituted grounds for divorce. So maybe they were just bringing up that controversy. But I wonder if the question was actually a hope that Jesus would challenge Herod the way that John the Baptist had challenged Herod. I want to remind you about something that we read way back in chapter three. I'll put it on the screen. Mark 3, 6 told us. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Now, who were the Herodians? OK, well, you see the word Herod in there. These were actually Jews who were supporters of Herod and his family. Now, that seems like almost impossible to believe. But we have people today that have political views that we find kind of impossible to believe. It's like, how can you think that way? People did 2,000 years ago, too. There were Jews who were supporters of the Herod family, and they were called Herodians. And now Jesus has moved down into the region of Herod Antipas, down into Judea. And if the Pharisees could get Jesus to condemn Herod's marriage with his brother Philip's wife in the same way that John the Baptist had done it, well, maybe Jesus and would come along just like John the Baptist had. I just wonder if that's maybe what they were after. But anyway, Jesus was way too smart to fall into their trap. And rather than condemning anyone, what Jesus did was he provided a very succinct teaching on what marriage was supposed to be. And that's where we get our paradox. The two shall become one. OK, verse five. And Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this command. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate. In these verses, Jesus taught multiple things. Number one, that God designed marriage from the very beginning. This wasn't something that people made up along the way. Jesus said from the beginning of creation. So marriage was God's plan from the beginning. Next thing, he said that God made humans in two genders. His words were God made them male and female. Next, we learn that marriage trumped and replaced previous family structure. When he said a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. Actually, it's not just the man that is to leave the father and mother, but the woman is to leave the father and mother. The marriage creates a new structure that trumps previous structures. This is important for us to hear again as mothers and as grandmothers, because we naturally like to think that we are drawing the married kids into our family structure. That is true to a certain degree, like knock yourself out and have your holidays and all that. But we must hold intention that when our grown kids are getting married, they are leaving their father and mother to begin a new family structure. And we need to do everything that we can to honor that, to uphold that, to make that work in the way that it should. Jesus taught that the union of a marriage was special because it was spiritually stitched together. He said what God has joined together, let man not separate. What God has stitched together, let not man separate in human courts. And then finally, Jesus used this to teach this paradox, that the two are no longer one, excuse me, that they are no longer two, but one flesh. The two shall become one. And this is very unique. And there's some symbolism here. Obviously, we understand that naturally a man and a woman come together and they become one flesh. But there is a symbolism here that what do we say in our Women of the Word studies when this comes up? We say marriage is a symbol of the union of the church and Christ. And this is a New Testament understanding because we stand on this side of the cross. And so now we can see from this side, it's like, yeah, Jesus and his bride, he would never cast aside his bride. And the men that Jesus was talking to, also, he wanted them to walk in that same path. Just don't cast it aside. And then verse 10, in the house, the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Now, I find myself in a challenging situation for this week and for next week, because for the first time ever, I think, in doing our Women's Bible studies, Pastor Paul's teachings on Sunday morning are dovetailing exactly with what we are studying and teaching as well. And we just covered this passage on Sunday. I want to read you from Matthew 19, 9. I'll put it on the screen. It says, I tell you the truth. Anyone who divorces his wife, and Matthew adds this, except for marital unfaithfulness and marries another woman, commits adultery. Now, I wrote in the study guide that there's probably not one woman doing this study who has not been affected in some way by divorce. Because this isn't heaven. This is earth. Marriage vows are broken. Sin happens. Things happen. And it's difficult. It is a difficult path to negotiate. But what I want to say is this passage that we're studying isn't so much of a table of contents of divorce is OK for this, this, this. If B is true, go down to number seven. That's not the point. What is the point that Jesus is doing here? He's upholding what marriage is in the first place, how God ordained it. And that is how we should read this and understand it. So we're going to move right on to paradox number two. Adults should be as children, verse 13. And they were bringing children to him that he might teach them and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he took them in his arms and he blessed them, laying his hands on them. I think the disciples were being really practical here and I can't blame them at all because they were busy. They had things to do. They're on their way to Jerusalem and children slow things down. Isn't this true in life? If you've ever been a mother, you know this to be true. Whenever there's children, things get slowed down. And so the disciples were trying to shield him. But I think Jesus was also making the statement here that sometimes the slowdowns are some of the most important work that is happening and a slowdown oftentimes presents a serving opportunity. And so his words were meant to teach this paradox that adults should actually be more like children, not childish, but childlike. How are children childlike? Well, children naturally depend on adults. They're humble that way. They know they need help. I have never known a three-year-old who gets in the car, goes to the store, buys the groceries, come home, prepares the meal. They just don't. They expect that somehow food is going to show up for them. They are dependent on the adults in their world. And in a healthy home, the adults in their world take care of their needs. And that's the way it should be. Rare is the child, I've never known this child, that gets hurt, gets a really bad scrape outside, comes in quietly, goes into the bathroom, cleans up the wound, puts on triple antibiotic, puts on a Band-Aid, and then quietly goes back out to play again. No, that's not what my kids did. My kids wanted sympathy and they wanted help and they wanted me. They wanted someone bigger in their world to help them out of this situation that was painful. And yet, sometimes in our lives, we have stopped being childlike in our relationship with God. And so we get into a painful situation and rather coming to God and saying, look at what's happening. I need help. I need to work this through with you. We quietly go into the bathroom and we clean ourselves up and we put a Band-Aid on and then we move along in our day without ever having a conversation with God about it at all. That is not being childlike. That is being self-sufficient. And Jesus was saying, with this paradox here, adults would do well to be more childlike in their faith. What does this not say? When Jesus said, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it, that does not mean that a human being has to get in and enter the kingdom of God when there's still a child, like by being baptized or something. Otherwise, it's all off. There's no chance anymore for them. And I think that there are some groups that just actually believe that. I have had some relatives that have believed, hey, if a child is baptized, they're good, they're golden, all is well. That is not what this is teaching at all. So we move to paradox number three, which is the impossible shall be possible. Verse 17. And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. But he goes along with him for just a moment. You know, the commandments do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. It almost sounds like Jesus is giving him a recipe for what to do for eternal life. But we got to keep listening. And he said to him, teacher, all these I've kept from my youth and Jesus looking at him. And I feel the slow down here that Jesus looked at him and loved him. He had a heart of compassion and he said, you lack one thing. Go sell all that you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. I think that this man is the first man in our entire Bible study, the gospel of Mark, who approached Jesus and left Jesus in a worse condition than what he came. As he was coming, we see his sort of youthful zeal. He ran up, he knelt down, he called him good teacher. The sense I get is that he was so excited. Maybe he felt like he was actually going to ace this test. Do you ever have that feeling? Maybe you were the kind of student that actually studied and there was maybe that one test where you felt pretty excited about it and you just kind of ran into that room like I'm going to ace this test. The teacher is going to be so proud of me because I've got the answers. I kind of feel like that's who he is right here. But Jesus could see through his pretense and he knew that the man didn't have the answers and he was in fact relying on two things. He was relying on his possessions and earth and he was relying on his self-determined righteousness for eternal life. And these were his little gods that he had created in his world. So what was missing? The understanding that his self-achievements were in fact not enough, not as great as he thought. So Jesus made a simple suggestion to prove it. He said, sell all that you have, give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. When Jesus said that, he wasn't saying it because that is the recipe to actually procure eternal life. No, he was saying it to reveal the gods in this man's life. The suggestion that Jesus was making would mean a shift in faith, a shift away from what he had placed his faith in, which was rule keeping and cash collecting, and a shift in faith toward what God could do through his son, Jesus Christ, as a ransom for his sins. So the question is, was he willing in that moment by faith to let God do the impossible in his life? Did he even know yet that eternal life was impossible for him on his own? Because it seems like he kind of thought that through his achievements it was possible. So I love here that Jesus didn't merely say to him, so go sell your stuff, but he added something else. He said, and then come and follow me. And Peter listened to that and Peter perked up and he's going to say something about it in just a minute. But the man went away sorrowful because his hope for eternal life had been placed in something else. It had been placed in his personal attainments to follow the law and his hope for natural life had been placed in something else. It had been placed in his wealth. So here comes Jesus's deeper teaching to his disciples. Verse 23, and Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God, which was difficult for the disciples to hear because for the Jews, wealth was often a sign of God's blessing. So this turned everything upside down. And the disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them again, children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And because of this hyperbole of a very large camel going through a very small needle, it says they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, well, then who can be saved? And this is why I labeled the section, The Impossible Shall Be Possible. Jesus looked at them and he said, with man, it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. And the greatest lesson that we learn from this section is that eternal life for us, ourselves, Salvation is impossible for man, woman. It is impossible for us to achieve on our own, but Jesus taught. But not with God, because God makes the impossible possible. And of course, Jesus is on his way now to his crucifixion, his death and resurrection, in order to pay the atonement for everyone's sin. And so God was making this possible. So that's the greatest lesson from this, but there's another lesson that we can take as well, and that relates to not salvation or eternal life, but other impossible situations in our life. Because don't we come across impossible situations? And I think that we can take that sentence, for all things are possible with God. And through prayer, we can layer it over those impossible situations. And we can say, but with God, all things are possible. And I think that the Lord, that delights the Lord for us to do that as well. Now remember, Peter had keyed in on this, when Jesus said to the man, come, follow me. Those are the same words Jesus used for Peter and James and John. And so in verse 28, Peter began to say to him, see, look at us, we have left everything and followed you. And Jesus said, truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. Jesus simply affirmed what Peter had said. Yes, it was true. You have left these things, but you will receive so much more. And the same thing is true for you and for me. Sometimes God calls us to leave certain things in order for us to fulfill the purpose for which he has called us. Sometimes God calls us to do hard things in order for us to fulfill the purpose for which he has called us. And sometimes God sets boundaries in our lives and certain things are excluded from our lives and certain things are included in our lives so that we can follow Jesus better. But I like how David said in Psalm 16, certainly the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. And I think that's true. I don't think that any sincere follower of Jesus Christ will get to the end of their life and look at the boundary lines and look at what was excluded and look at what was included and say to themselves, well, that wasn't worth it. That's just not going to happen. At the end of their life, they'll say, that was absolutely worth it. All right, we're going to move on to the next paradox. The least shall be greatest, verse 32. And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him. This is the third and final time that Jesus will predict his coming suffering and death. And he said, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after three days, he will rise. And of all the questions that could have surfaced with absorbing statements like that, verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said, well, what do you want me to do for you? And they said, grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory. And Jesus said to them, you do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those whom it has been prepared. Now, we just covered this in Matthew's account on Sunday as well. And Matthew gave us a little more information that was actually the mother that had asked this, which Mark omitted. But we wonder still if they had even been listening to Jesus's words about being delivered over to the religious leaders and thus to the Gentiles, condemned to death, mocked, spit on. Because in light of all that information, it seems astonishing that what they were asking for was the best positions to be had, the right and the left. And we're astonished until we think about ourselves and how we think through life and how we want people to perceive us. And then we realize, look, that's just human nature. It is just how we feel. We do want people to see us at as high a level as possible. That's what makes us feel good about ourselves. We would rather be the ones giving orders than the ones carrying out the orders. We would rather be the ones that people serve rather than the ones doing the serving. And so it was time for another teaching here, this paradox that we're talking about. The least shall be greatest. And Jesus just very sweetly and gently explained this to them, verse 41. And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called to them and he said, look, you know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave at all. You don't have to think about the best positions, right or left hand. All you have to think about is serving. That's what you should be fixed on. He said, for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. If there was anyone ever in the history of the world that deserved to be served, it was Jesus. But he came as a suffering servant in order to model this for his followers. So the least shall be the greatest. In our natural world, we see things happen just the way Jesus said. This is how our political system runs. People lord it over others. They make the rules. They say you can do this. You have to do that. You can't do that under this situation. Don't do this. It's just this matrix of kind of controlling people. But the point is for us in the body of Christ, we should remember these words. It shall not be so among you. Don't attain to that. Don't try to grasp that. What you should be trying to grasp is how to serve others around you. And this is the model that Jesus used with great men who were leaders in the Old Testament. We hardly see any of men that God raised up to lead. And look, we need leaders, right? Okay. It's not bad to be a leader, and it's not bad to aspire to be a leader. But think for a minute about how God raised up leaders that we see in the Bible. First we see Joseph, who spent these years and years in prison, unfairly imprisoned. Brave of all, right? And then we think about Moses, 80 years of training, those hidden years where God trained him to be a very humble and willing servant. And the same thing happened with others, with Joshua and with David, this training ground where first there was learning how to be a servant so the least may, in fact, become the greatest. So that's the lesson for us as well. We might be interested in being a leader, and that's good, but then we need to be the most interested in serving and serving the way that Jesus modeled for us. So the last passage we labeled the blind are able to see, verse 46, and they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, call him. And they called the blind man, saying, to him, take heart, get up, he's calling you. And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and he came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Now this is our last physical healing miracle that we will encounter in this gospel, except when we get to the night of Jesus's arrest and the cutting off the ear and then Jesus restoring that. But it seems as we read this, that this man had once had sight because what he said of Jesus is, help me, let me recover my sight. So this isn't like the man born blind that he was never able to see. He once saw he knows what he's missing and he asked Jesus to recover his sight. In this study, we've often made the link between physical blindness and spiritual blindness. We've talked a lot about spiritual deafness, spiritual blindness. So as I close this up, that's what I want us to take a look at here is when we say the blind are able to see, I want us to consider spiritual blindness and spiritual sight for a moment. And to think about our own lives, because is this not true? And does this not happen in our own lives as well? That we can spiritually see maybe quite well. And then something happens along the way, maybe just time, maybe business, busyness, maybe whatever it is. And our spiritual eyesight becomes more and more dim. And you know what, if we're honest with ourselves, we can feel it. We know that we're not spiritually as sharp as maybe what we once were or what we want to be. If that's where you're at today, or if that's where you've ever been, and this resonates with you, I think what we can do is take a page from Bartimaeus's playbook here. And we're not going to improve it by just working harder and, well, I'm going to just double down on all the spiritual things that I do. I like what he does here. He just calls out to Jesus, help, let me restore my sight. And I think that that is so wise of us when we feel spiritually dull, spiritually blinded, is to call out Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And I want my sight restored. And that's what I'm going to wrap this up with, because, you know, we live in the natural world, but we have a lot of spiritual things going on around us for which we need understanding and for which we need spiritual insight. So I'm just going to pray along those lines as we just wrap this up. Father, I do pray that you would take these things that we have studied in this chapter, customize them, Lord, for each of our hearts, so that we would hear from your Holy Spirit and take action accordingly, whether it's learning how to be a servant or whether it's trusting you to do the impossible or having more childlike faith. Or Lord, maybe it's like Bartimaeus is admitting, we don't see as sharply as we once did. And so, Lord, we just come humbly to you like children, and we ask that you would do that work in our lives that needs to be done as we yield to you, that you might get the glory and that we might be able to serve you better. And I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.