I want to ask you a few questions.
Do you feel that you have experienced all that God has to offer? If not, what would you like to experience that you haven’t already? Do you feel like you have God figured out?
Has God ever done anything that defied your expectations? Has God ever surprised you?
Do you have limits on what God can do? What about God do you have a hard time believing? Are there things about God that you are uncomfortable with?
A Prophet Without Honor
Mark 6:
6 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 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? 3 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.
4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith.
Their familiarity with Jesus put limitations on Him. Because they thought they knew who Jesus really was. They were offended by Him when He did things outside of their expectations. How often do we do that with God? How often are we skeptical of other people’s stories of miracles God has performed because God hasn’t operated that way in our lives?
6 Things that help us build a coffin for God. 6 Things that help us build a crib for God.
1. Jealousy 1. Celebrate what God is doing in others.
2. Our own experience 2. God’s Word
3. Pride 3. Obedience through humility
4. Our comfort zones 4. Follow God as He moves
5. Unbelief 5. Encouraging Faith
6. Our own expectations of what God’s plan is 6. Seek God’s Plan, not your own.
Acts 5 (Jealousy)
The Apostles Heal Many
12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.The Apostles Persecuted
17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 20 “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.”
“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?
How many times do we see God do something amazing in someone else’s life and become jealous at what God has blessed them with? Bitterness begins to settle in and we begin to curse the great things that God is doing simply because we haven’t seen them in our own life. God was doing things through the disciples that made the Sadducees jealous. Instead of celebrating what God was doing, they tried to shut down the disciples. Joe likes to bring up when he met me. You see at that time, life was pretty hard for me. Things in my life just weren’t working out like I wanted. My job was disappointing. My relationships were disappointing. I would go around saying everything was bullcrap. In the story of the prodigal son, I was the brother that stayed home and was jealous of what the prodigal had. For years I had done what God had wanted of me(or so I thought) and yet, many areas of my life were unsatisfying to me. I’d see people get married or get a promotion in a career they loved and it wasn’t like I wasn’t happy for them… but in my heart, I’d ask God, “Where’s mine?” Instead of celebrating what God was doing in other people’s lives, sometimes I gave into bitterness. But my bitterness and my jealousy didn’t stop what was happening in those other people’s lives… no, it made me cynical that God would ever do those things in my own life. Just like with the Apostles, jealousy can’t stop what God is doing. It can only stop what God is doing with you. Celebrate the awesome things God is doing in the lives of others. It enlarges your capacity for those things to happen in your own life.
Mark 9 (Our own experience)
Jesus Heals a Boy Possessed by an Impure Spirit
14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.
17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”
19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
They only saw Jesus in the role of Carpenter because that’s all He had done for them in the past.
In the story of the demon-possessed boy, the father thought that since the disciples couldn’t do it that Jesus might not be able to. His experience with God in the past led him to believe that since God hadn’t done something like that in his life before He must not be able to do it at all. Beware of judging what God can do on your past experiences. Instead, believe in God’s experience. Believe in what God says about Himself. I had a girlfriend once in college… her and her mom went to some church service where apparently gold dust was appearing and people’s fillings were turning gold. Now when I initially heard that, I was taken aback. Where in the bible did God do that? I was skeptical. And it wasn’t like I come from an ultra-conservative background, but it hadn’t happened in my experience and I was trying to wrap my mind around why God would do something like that. But the story didn’t end there. Her father used to be a believer. But for some reason, he fell away from God and hadn’t been to church in 20 years. When my girlfriend and her mom came home from the service they told her father what had happened. That night her father was brushing his teeth and he noticed something… his fillings had turned God. This man who hadn’t been to church in 20 years was touched by an act of God that to my unbelieving eyes didn’t make any sense so how could it be God? But God was glorified when this man saw that He had been touched by God and it melted his hardened heart. We worship a God who made a donkey talk, parted the Red sea, created the Earth and rose from the dead. Just because you didn’t see any of those things in person, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. You serve a supernatural God. He does supernatural things.
John 7 (Pride)
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
"And they took offense at him."
How many times are we too smart for our own good? How many times do we think we know it all… that we have God figured out? Beware of thinking we know the totality of God. As humans, our desire is to control everything. We don’t like surprises and we don’t like being reminded that we are less than all powerful. How many times are we offended by people who know more than us purely for the fact that they know more than us? Our pride allows us to be offended. When we are humble, we give up the right to ourselves. Then we cease to be offended. His ways are not our ways. God doesn’t make sense. He will insult your natural mind. Again, He is supernatural. I had a job in LA that at a certain point God wanted me to quit. For 6 months I tried to find another job before I quit. In those 6 months my life got progressively worse. I was anxious. I was full of anger. I felt lost.
And God said to me, “What did I tell you to do?” “Quit my job, Lord.” “Why haven’t you done it?” "Because I don’t have another job to go to.” “I didn’t say, wait till you had another job lined up. I said quit your job.” “But Lord, what will I do? What will I eat? How will I pay my bills? I don’t want to rely on anybody else.”
You see, I didn’t want to be unemployed. I didn’t want to struggle to make ends meet. Those things would hurt my pride. The pride of feeling like I had it all together. The pride of being successful. So finally I was obedient and quit my job. I was unemployed for 4 months. I had no money coming in and no other job to go to. But guess what happened? Money started to come in from nowhere. People I hadn’t talked to in months, sent me checks without knowing what my situation was. My relationship with Alaina, dramatically flip-flopped. It went from us being on the brink of not being friends, to her asking me out and in a week we were planning our wedding. How many unemployed guys do you know that happening to? God wanted me humble, so I could be obedient. And insodoing, He increased my capacity for Him to do amazing things in my life.
Luke 9 (Comfort Zones)
The Cost of Following Jesus
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus didn’t have a home. Our own families. Our own places of comfort can keep God from moving. Unless God moves us out of our comfort zones we may not see God move. Or rather, God will move but He doesn’t always move in a way that you are comfortable with. Again, a God that moves always like you expect is a God that can be controlled. And that is no God at all. Many times God asks us to move out of our comfort zones, out of what is familiar, in order to do the miraculous… in order to show His power. God had Abraham separate from 7 different things. The first one was to separate from his family and his country. We limit God when we only allow Him to move in our comfort zones. God’s power is displayed many times outside of our comfort zones.
I want to take a second to honor some of this wonderful congregation. There are people in this church that have been here since the 50’s. Isn’t that crazy? And I bet if you talked to them, they would tell you that a lot has changed since then. In life. In this church. There have been different buildings. There have been different pastors. There have been choirs. There have been wooden pews. The one constant has been change. And yet these senior saints have been through it all. In whatever ways that God has moved throughout the years, they have been here to see it. That is amazing! Change is hard. Change is uncomfortable. But it’s the only way we grow. No one has ever gotten stronger by not working out. But guess what? Working out is uncomfortable. Why? Because when you work out you tear down your muscle. That’s what you’re doing. And when it grows back, it grows back stronger. Through that pain and discomfort, you become stronger. If we weren’t uncomfortable. We wouldn’t grow. It’s as simple as that. Just like Abraham, God is calling you out to follow Him to places where you don’t know where your going. Follow God as He moves.
Hebrew 3 (unbelief)
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”[c]
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”[c]
16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
"5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith."
The funny thing about this is that the Israelites saw God do mighty things, yet they still disobeyed and didn’t believe. Can you imagine that? "Faith is the evidence of things unseen. The assurance of things hoped for.” It’s quite interesting that God could do a miracle and people still wouldn’t believe. But just like the towns where Jesus couldn’t do any miracles for their lack of belief, Faith is needed to see God do miracles. Faith first. Then miracles. So many times we get caught up telling God that if He’d only do this one thing, then we would believe… then we would obey. God doesn’t work that way. Historically, many that saw God do great things, didn’t believe. But those that believed then saw… God did wonders with them. Not only that, God calls us to have encouraging Faith. Faith that blesses and builds up those around us. When we encourage others, not only is their Faith strengthened, but ours is as well.
John 18 (our expectations)
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
"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?”
They could only see the natural. Our expectations of who we think God is supposed to be gets in the way of who He actually is. The pharisees and sadducees thought that God was going to bring an earthly Kingdom… but Jesus came to bring a Heavenly Kingdom… a Spiritual Kingdom. They weren’t looking for what Jesus was offering. They wanted to rule the earthly realm around them. They thought the Messiah was to bring about a natural kingdom where they would be in power. They expected the Messiah to elevate them and they weren’t prepared to elevate the Messiah. Our expectations in life many times are not built on what God has told us but on what the world has told us. What culture has told us. What our own desires have told us. Ever since I was a little boy, I prayed for my wife. I had a strong desire to be married at young age. As I got older and the years passed by I got more depressed. I said, “Lord, where is my wife? I’m getting too old. Why is this taking so long? You must not love me like you say you do or else I would be married by now.” And God said to me, “When did I tell you that you would be married at a young age?” I said, “Never Lord.” And He said, “Then what makes you think that was my plan?” I said, “I don’t know, Lord… I just always wanted to be married. And I thought that if you wanted me to be married, you wouldn’t wait till I was old.” You see, my life was on the path it was supposed to be on. But because my expectations of who God was and what He was supposed to do for me wasn’t based on who He was, it led to me being disappointed and bitter. I thought that as a Christian, God would bless me in the natural over and above everyone else in the world that wasn’t a Christian. I thought that because I did what God wanted me to do, I could circumvent God’s plan with my own. Because I believed and because I did good works, I would get what I want. It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about Him and His plan. I was disappointed because MY PLAN wasn’t working. But God’s was. Beware of shaping your expectations about God on what you want. God’s plan is bigger and more supernatural than yours. Trust Him.
Mark
Jesus Has Risen
16 9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.
14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
I want to encourage you. Even the disciples struggled with unbelief. Even the disciples struggled with coming to terms with Jesus doing something they had never seen before… with Jesus doing something that He hadn’t shown them previously. So you are in good company.
But
1. Jealousy
2. Our own experience
3. Pride
4. Our comfort zones
5. Unbelief
6. Our own expectations of who God is
These are how we construct the box that we keep God in. And that box is a coffin. Dead people lie in a coffin. They are constrained. They cannot move. They have no life in them. People talk about what they used to do but cannot do today. The dead cannot surprise us.
What kind of God do you serve? What kind of God do you have a relationship with?
The God that I love… the God that has captured my heart… is alive. You never know where He’s going to show up. You never know what He’s going to do. A God that can be controlled will never surprise you… will never move… will never breath life into your situations. Into your heart.
God is alive and doing new things all the time. He is alive in us and has said greater things than He did will we do. Our God is powerful. Beyond measure. Let go of being jealous at what God has done in others lives. Let go of what your experience has been. Be open to new experiences in God. Be humble… don’t act like you have God figured out. Realize that God will take you out of your comfort zones. And if you don’t go with Him… you will limit what He can do in your life. Believe that God can do all He has said… in His Word… in your heart… Get rid of all the pre-conceived notions of who you think God is that is not rooted in His Word.
Because if you don’t… it’s not a coffin for God you are building. It’s a coffin for yourself.
But if we
1. Celebrate what God is doing in others.
2. Believe God’s Word
3. Obey through humility
4. Follow God as He moves
5. Have Encouraging Faith
6. Seek God’s Plan
We will build a crib in the manger of our hearts for Jesus. A place where His new life can grow and flow out of us. We just celebrated Christmas at the end of the year… but really it signifies the beginning. The beginning of God Almighty moving in and through each one us.
Mark 16
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
That’s the God we serve. A God who is alive and capable of anything. Let us be a church that follows where God leads. Your heart can be a coffin or a crib? Which one will you choose to build?
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