Grace For Your Day July 15

In his commentary on the Gospel of Mark, G. Campbell Morgan writes:

Matthew and Mark tell the story of the second trip of our Lord to Nazareth. Luke records the first visit, about a year earlier, at the beginning of His more public ministry in Galilee… On the occasion of the first visit, He went to Nazareth unaccompanied by His disciples; on this one Mark declares “His disciples follow Him.” On that first occasion He wrought no miracle; on this He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. On that occasion, with madness they attempted to cast Him from the hill, He immediately departed from the neighborhood; on this, He seems to have tarried in the adjacent villages.

During the interval between the first and second visits His fame had grown, and His power had been yet more wonderfully manifested. But recently His mother and brethren had travelled together from Nazareth to Capernaum to dissuade Him from continuing His arduous labors. They said, “He is beside Himself,” and for very love of Him they attempted to persuade Him to return with Him to Nazareth, and to quietness; but He had declined to do so (Mark 3:20-21, 31-35).

Now, just before sending out the twelve who had been with Him in preparation for their work, He returned to Nazareth, taking them with Him. Thus the men appointed to coming service… now saw Him in a situation where “He could do no miracle” (Mark 6: 5)…

Unfortunately, this story is not a strange one to our ears but perfectly natural. Nazareth was a town, probably of a few hundred inhabitants, one of those towns where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. So they said of Jesus; this is the carpenter; the Man we know so well; His mother, and brothers and sisters are here with us… So they surmised that He is not the Messiah and we should reject Him.

What brought them to this decision? The solution is not hard to find. It may be discovered in the words of our Lord upon this occasion, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown.” These are words which we constantly quote, and therefore I need not tarry with them… other than to say that Jesus affirmed that the reason for their unbelief was that of envy, of the difficulty of acknowledging the superiority over themselves of one of their own number.

We understand that sentiment so well because it describes mankind’s inability to believe that the man who worked by our side could ever be our teacher. Why? Because he is on my level. This man who comes from my village cannot come back to my village and instruct me in anything. Why not? Because he is my peer… My companion… My colleague…

We turn form this story and think of our modern unbelief… What causes the modern unbelief in Jesus? The answer is the same thing because modern man names the name of Jesus. He finds Him at the front of his New Testament and reads about Him over and over again. 1,000 times. 1 million times but does He believe in Him? No. Will He repent? Not likely because he sees Him as simply one of us and nothing more too. He has the same wrong, foolish, naïve attitude that the Nazarenes did.

What is the solution? Modern man needs to acknowledge that, even though Jesus was a human being like us, He was different. He is the Son of God (Luke 1:35) and the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14) and we need to remember it by being on guard against letting our familiarity with Christ breed contempt.

G. Campbell Morgan was right because it is so easy to let our familiarity with Christ breed contempt. We all have a tendency to take Jesus for granted because we read about Him in our Bibles. We hear about Him in our sermons and sing about Him in our songs.

But what do we do with that information? We often yawn and shrug our shoulders at it. However, we need to learn how to respond differently because the Bible says “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). It does not say shrug your shoulders at Jesus and you will be saved. It does not tell us to yawn like the people of Nazareth. We need to be broken by it and come to Him in faith and repentance.

Please join us as we talk about that on Sunday morning. The service will begin at 9:30 and it will be recorded and posted on YouTube later for all those who cannot make it in person.

– Jeremy Cagle