Prayer

Last week Jesus asked his disciples a series of questions which were our points for the sermon and this week, I’d like to continue that trend by asking you several questions. The big question is this:

Main Point – Do you live with a full picture of Christ?

I don’t know how many of you enjoy putting together puzzles, but I think most of us get sucked into a puzzle at some point. My family did a couple when we were on vacation the other week. But if you’ve ever done a puzzle then you know how important the picture on top of the box is. You’d basically be lost without it. It’s your reference point. It helps you interpret everything that’s laying in front of you. It’s your goal. It shows you what you’re trying to accomplish and because of that picture on the box, you’re able to sort out how everything fits together.

Imagine trying to complete the puzzle without the box. You’ve got 1,000 tiny little pieces in front of you and you’re left on your own to sort them out. What picture are you even trying to make? Maybe you can determine that it’s some sort of forest image. There appears to be a bunch of leaves. Perhaps it looks like there’s a river involved somewhere because you’ve got some splashy water looking pieces. You’ve got no idea what those red fuzzy looking ones are supposed to be. With all these setbacks, your task will likely not be an enjoyable one, but an incredibly frustrating one. It will seem like a horrible chore, not a refreshing experience. You’d end up just leaving it there incomplete on the table. Maybe we’ll come back to it some time, maybe not.

I wonder if this is comparable to many Christians’ experience with following Christ. They vaguely know that he is important. It’s a bit blurry but they have some understanding that the cross was significant and something about our sins needing to be forgiven. The story of the Bible is familiar, but just in bits and pieces. How any of it relates to Jesus though is a bit of a mystery. And as a result of not having a clear picture of Christ, our Christian walk is frustrating. We don’t see ourselves growing spiritually. We don’t see our passion for the Lord intensifying over time. We mostly just coast along saying, “Well, I tried a little bit, but this seems like it’s not going to make any more progress. I’ll just settle where I am and maybe coast the rest of the way through life.

Actually, I don’t wonder if this is what many Christians experience. I’m certain it is. Someone invited us to follow Jesus and we did, but then we never were given a clear view of Christ. So we’ve stumbled along in our Christian walk, just guessing most of the time.

In the text we’re looking at today, Jesus is going to demonstrate that he can heal us from this partial understanding. He desires for us to have a complete knowledge of who he is.

Now as usual, I really hope you have your Bibles open in front of you because we’re going to look back at some of the previous passages to help us understand what’s going on here. Oftentimes in the Bible we tend to read a text in complete isolation. We forget about everything else that has happened up to this point and we just pull out a section by itself and it confuses us.

For instance, Jesus heals a blind man today. Let me read that passage again as we consider what’s going on.

READ VS 22-26

There’s a couple unique things about this miracle. First, it’s only recorded in the book of Mark. No other gospel tells us about this miracle. It’s unique to Mark. Second, and this is the big one, this is the only miracle that doesn’t seem to work at first and Jesus has to give it a second attempt. Isn’t that odd? It appears that Jesus wasn’t able to heal this man with one touch. He has to give him a second one. Is Jesus’ miracle power running low? Was he not quite strong enough to heal this man? Was he doing that thing at the eye doctor where they say, “Which one of these looks clearer A or B?” It’s really bizarre to have this two-step miracle.

To understand this, first we have to recognize that Jesus does this intentionally. Jesus is not “running out of power”. He heals the sick with a word. He cures a leper with a touch. He speaks to the sea and it stops raging. He’s even able to raise a dead girl to life for goodness’ sake. Jesus has already demonstrated that he has all the power in the universe and that nothing is too hard for him. So if he takes two steps to heal this man, it’s not for lack of ability. He’s doing it this way intentionally. So we have to ask the question, why does Jesus choose to do it in two steps.

There is a story extremely similar to this one that we read a couple weeks ago. Look back at chapter 7, verses 32-37. This is the healing of a deaf man. I want you to consider how many parallels there are between this story and the healing of the blind man. Take a look.

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. In our passage it opens with - they brought him a blind man and begged him to touch him. Clearly they start the same way.

Verse 33 - And taking him aside from the crowd privately… Jesus leads the deaf man away from the others. Then in our passage He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village

With the deaf man, Jesus spits and touches his tongue. With the blind man, Jesus spits and touches his eyes. He doesn’t use spit anywhere else in the whole gospel. This is clearly an intentional connection.

Next Jesus heals him. With the deaf man it reads, And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. With the blind man it reads, he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. It’s very similar phrasing.

Lastly, Jesus ends by telling the deaf man, not to tell anyone about it. And he concludes by telling the blind man in our passage, not to even enter the village, but to go straight home. Meaning, don’t tell anyone about this.

It’s very obvious that Mark wants us to see the connection between these two stories. But why? Is it just a fun way to write a book to make parallels like this? No. It has a reason. What story is it that took place directly between the healing of a deaf man’s ears and the healing of a blind man’s eyes? It’s the story we covered last week. Jesus does a miracle, but the disciples don’t understand it. And what does he say to his disciples afterwards. Look at 8:18.

“Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?”

Jesus heals a deaf man’s ears. He heals a blind man’s eyes. And he looks at his disciples and says, “You know who else has eyes and ears that don’t work? YOU! Clearly you need me to heal your eyes and ears too.”

As we talked about last week, the disciples can’t see anything beyond the physical. They think a miracle about bread is about bread. They think the healing of someone’s ears is just about ears. They don’t see that Jesus is doing something deeper here.

So when we look at Jesus healing this blind man’s eyes, we shouldn’t see this merely being about eyes. It is about something deeper. Jesus is doing a miracle in a specific way to demonstrate a spiritual lesson. He takes the blind man from absolutely no sight to a place of partial sight. And the fact that this miracle takes place in the very center of the book of Mark is no accident.

It’s been quite a while, but do you remember what the major outline of the book of Mark is?

It has two halves. The first half is Jesus demonstrating his authority. The second half is Jesus demonstrating his suffering. Our passage today is exactly in the middle. It is the transition point of Mark. Jesus has given his disciples partial sight of who he is. They understand that he has authority over all things. He has demonstrated that through the variety of miracles he performed, but they don’t see him clearly yet. Look at what Jesus does with his disciples. Look at verse 27 of our passage.

READ VS 27-30

He took the blind man away from the village and asked him “What do you see?” Now here he takes his disciples away from the place they were ministering. They had mostly been around the Sea of Galilee, but now he takes them far up to the north away from those villages and he asks them, “What do you see?”

First he asks them, what do other people say about him - and they give some replies. But then he asks the absolute most important question. It’s the question that every single person on the face of the earth has to reckon with. It’s the question that you have to answer for yourself - “Who do YOU say that I am?” Who do you think Jesus is? If someone asked you who is Jesus, how would you answer them?

Peter responds by saying, “You are the Christ.” Great answer Peter. That’s correct. But then just like he does with the blind man and the deaf man and many others in Mark, Jesus says, “Don’t tell anyone about me.” Why? Why does he not want people to tell others about him? It’s because at this point - they only have partial sight of Jesus. They know he is strong. They know he is important. They know he will save them somehow. But they don’t have the complete picture yet. They only have some scattered puzzle pieces and a few good guesses as to what’s going on.

They’ve reached the same place where I believe the majority of Christians in churches is today. We have partial understanding of Christ, but we don’t have the full picture.

Before your heart starts to justify you and you begin to immediately assume that you’re different from everyone else and you are someone who does in fact see Christ clearly. Let me ask you three probing questions.

Question #1 – Does your mind see Christ partially?

What I mean by this is, how much time have you spent engaging your intellect with Christ and who he is? Do you study the Scriptures to understand Jesus? Are you actively reading about him and listening to others explain deep truths about him? When you hear words like doctrine and theology, do you cringe and try to stay as far away from that as possible? Or are you drawn towards every opportunity to learn more of who Christ is?

I’m fascinated by how so many people in our day don’t like thinking and they only care about feeling.

Have you ever seen those videos where someone will interview random young people on the beach or at the park? They will ask them simple questions that you’d expect every semi-intelligent person from America to know and these people can’t answer anything. They’re absolutely absurd. It’s hard to believe these aren’t staged. I saw one recently where a man asked some college students, “What is the capital of the United States?” And the girl responded saying, “There’s a capital?” Another man asked, what two countries border the U.S.? The answer was “I think it’s Venezuela and Alaska.” Or this one was pretty awful, he said “What country is the queen of England from?” And the man said “I don’t know. Maybe Europe?”

These are horrible right? You can’t help but put your face in your hands and groan with disappointment. We have become so incredibly disinterested in knowledge that we don’t know very simple basic things. It’s not that we don’t know anything though. We simply learn about the wrong things. That same interviewer asked these people who don’t know what country the queen of England is from “What are the names of the three Kardashian sisters?” and without fail and without hesitation they all knew.

These are a bit embarrassing. And I’m hoping they are outliers and do not represent the average American. But let’s say we take that same interviewer and he catches Christians in the parking lot of their churches and he holds the microphone to them and says, “Why did Jesus have to die?” I wonder how many people could answer that simple question. What if he asked them, “Why was it important that Jesus rose from the dead?” Or another question, “Why did Jesus have to become a human?” or “Why is it important that Jesus was God?” I’m afraid we would look just as silly as those college students. The generation of Christians who have gone before us would watch our interviews and put their faces in their hands and groan with disappointment. And maybe we don’t know much about the Kardashians, but I’m sure there are enormous trivial facts about movies and sports and politics that are bouncing around our heads because that’s where we’ve invested our minds instead.

If you feel that your Christian life has stalled and reached a plateau, if you’re willing to admit that maybe you are only seeing Christ partially an enormous factor could be that you haven’t spent any time engaging your mind. This is why on Wednesday evenings and also during our Sunday school hour, I’ve started teaching a class on theology. I want us to be seeing Christ clearly. I want to help you engage your minds in your pursuit of Jesus. If you don’t know where to start or how to begin doing studying Christ, I’d encourage you to attend one of these classes. Pray that God would capture your mind.

Also, for those of us who are parents, are we engaging the minds of our children with the truths of God? Do we think that our most important responsibility is to teach them how to shoot a gun, how to make a meal, or how to have good manners? Or do we think our most important responsibility is to teach them the truths about who Jesus is? If we never show them the clear picture on the top of the puzzle box, we shouldn’t be surprised when they get frustrated with the pieces and walk away.

Second question regarding seeing Christ clearly:

Question #2 – Does your will see Christ partially?

Are you willing to submit to Christ fully or only partially? This again is a place where so many Christians find themselves only partially seeing Christ. We tend to invite Christ into our lives to rule for a time or to rule a portion of us. Mostly we’re hoping that by inviting him he will help us and give us all the good things associated with faith in him. We tend not to be as interested in submission to him.

There are parts in the Bible that we like a whole lot. We enjoy the parts that tell us to love our neighbor. We enjoy the parts that tell us about heaven and the hope we have in the future. We enjoy the entertaining bits where we see examples of courage and faithfulness. But when it comes to the parts that we’re called to something difficult, our interest tends to drop very quickly.

When Jesus says things like, “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you,” we start to make excuses. This one doesn’t really apply to me and that person. This case is an exception to that command because they hurt me really badly. Or when James tells us, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another” some of us immediately say, “Nope!” Many of us won’t even apologize to anyone for things that we clearly did wrong, much less confess openly sins that they don’t know about. That command is a little too much. I’m sure again, that our specific situation must be an exception to the command. How about when Jesus says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” and “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy”? Are we willing to consider God’s commands in how we spend all of our money? Or do we think, “Well certainly it’s ok to have some treasures on earth. Afterall, it seems like everyone else has these treasures.”

Do you see how when it comes to our will in following Christ we’re only seeing him partially? We stubbornly believe that we’ll be happier, more satisfied, more content, more successful if we obey Christ partially instead of obeying him fully. Would you ever say that out loud? It is the clear undisputed reigning thought in our hearts - there is more joy in obeying Christ partially than there is in obeying him completely. We would never say that out loud, but we think it every time God calls us to anything.

I’m going to ask you to do something unusual this morning, because I really want this truth to settle on your hearts instead. There is always more joy in submitting to Christ fully than there is in submitting to him partially. I’m going to ask you all to say that out loud with me. I want it to echo in your ears and work its way into your heart and I want it to work its way into my heart. I’ve put the words on the screen. Read them out loud with me.

“There is always more joy in submitting to Christ fully than there is in submitting to him partially.”

Thank you. I pray that each of us lives out the truth.

In addition to seeing Christ fully with our minds and seeing him fully with our will, I have this third and final question.

Question #3 – Does your heart see Christ partially?

Do you have a vague, blurry, and incomplete sort of love for Jesus or do you have a full and clear love for him? Again, imagine it came into your mind to write down the things that you love. How far would you get down that list before you wrote the name of Jesus? Would you write his name out of a sense of duty - “Oh yes, don’t forget to put Jesus. I’m supposed to love him, so I should probably write his name” - or would you write him down because your heart is genuinely drawn towards him all the time.

That’s a good measure of determining what it is you love. What do you find your heart drawn towards? When you have down time, how do you choose to fill it up? Do you find yourself using the opportunity to open God’s Word and read about Christ? Do you find yourself thinking this is a perfect opportunity I have to serve Christ by obeying him in some way? Do you find yourself immediately being drawn into conversations with him through prayer? I think for all of us, myself included, we don’t love Christ with that kind of supreme overflowing love that’s always looking for a chance to have more of him.

Instead our hearts quickly turn towards other things. We run to entertainment. We run to hobbies. We run to certain people. These are the things that our hearts love. It’s important to note that these things are sinful at all and God has blessed us with these good things so that we can know how generous and loving he is. But the heart that sees Christ only partially says, “I’ll continue loving you Jesus as long as you don’t take away X.” “I love you somewhat, but I really love this other thing. I’ll give you a lot, but I cannot give you this.”

Christ has our heart partially, but something else may have our hearts fully. In the Bible these things are called idols. An idol is something that you’re willing to sin order to get it or you’re willing to sin in order to keep it. How many of us would immediately have to identify our reputation as an idol in our lives? We live in a way that says, “I’m willing to obey any and all of Christ’s commands if they’re going to make others think poorly of me. I’ll do the “be kind to your neighbor” commands because that helps my reputation. But if I refuse to engage in crude joking, foul language, complaining, and gossip, I’m going to look like a fool in front of a bunch of people I work with. These things are practically the only way we know how to interact. I’ll be left out. We’re plainly told in Ephesians.

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. - Ephesians 5:4

But I’m willing to disobey that command because I partially love Jesus and I really love my reputation.

Or do we idolize our families? Families are an incredible gift from God. They teach us so much about him and about the church and I love my family so much. But do we occasionally make keeping the family happy and united the greatest goal of our lives? Don’t go to church too often because dad doesn’t like it. Don’t tell the family you won’t join them at the concert or movie they’re going to because you find the content dishonoring to God. That would just rock the boat. Don’t tell your unbelieving family member about their need for Christ because it would just upset them. Family first is a common and even cherished slogan. But Jesus says some wild things.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. - Matthew 10:37

He clearly wants to be the uncontested number one love of our life. Can you or I in honesty say that he holds that spot? Or are there some idols who creep in and take that position from him?

Are you finding yourself frustrated in your Christian walk? Do you consider what your spiritual life is like and say, “Is this the best it gets? Is this all there is?” Christian, if you find yourself disappointed with Christ and what he offers, are you willing to admit that it’s because you don’t yet see him clearly? It is likely that you only know him partially with your mind, you submit to him partially with your will, and you love him partially with your heart.

I don’t say these things to shame you in any way. I merely want us each to recognize our blindness, so that we can call out to Jesus Christ to heal us. We have eyes that don’t see. We have ears that don’t hear. Praise God that Jesus has opened our eyes partially. But we need Jesus to lay his hands on us so that we can see him fully.

Will you consider this morning which one of those ways you only see Christ partially? Your mind, your will, or your heart? Which one has the most blurred and unclear vision? Pray that God would heal you. Pray that God would continue to open your eyes so that you can see. Take the necessary steps of obedience so that he might transform you. A clear vision of Jesus won’t happen accidentally. So go to him, he wants to heal. He wants to save. He wants you to live with a clear vision of him.

Prayer