Mark 1:21-34

21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24 “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

25 “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26 The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” 28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

Jesus Heals Many

29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Listening guide

Mark 1:21-34 = Jesus works

for (to benefit) _________________________
for (to benefit) ________________________
for (to benefit) _________________________

Good work is work done well for three groups of people: ______________, ________________________ close to me, and ______________________________.

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:22-24)

We’re only going to work well for ourselves, family, and society if we’re _________________________________________.

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58

Work for the Lord and you will work well for yourself, your family, and the world

Discussion questions

Sermon

Do you recognize this?

Even if you aren’t into the stock market, I would guess most of us have a sense of what it is. Now that I’ve said stock market, do you know what it is?

It’s the stock chart, it’s the price chart if you will of a very significant stock of the week. That being, yes, GameStop.

Despite the politics, the pandemic,

People on Reddit and elsewhere got together and made the stock jump in value by 400% or 500% in one week.

Biggest point the people are saying to the Wall Street elites, who are you working for?

I’ve had a bunch of those wake up calls at times. People who have said to me, what about us? Are you actually serving us, these real people? And I know other people who are asking the same question.

One man in particular (JS)

Who am I working for? Not so much which employer, but in terms of working for myself, having a sense of satisfaction and pride in my work vs working for the people around me vs working for the benefit of society in general, he says, what am I really doing this for?

Adventure

We’ve watched Jesus get to work and we’ve asked ourselves the question, how are we supposed to work.

First week we said, “hear God’s call and get to work”. The most important thing to do good work in all of life is that we hear God’s call. We trust him and we follow him with our lives. Hugh Welchel said, “how do integrate our work and our faith in a way that is pleasing to God? First, we must rediscover that our primary vocation is the call to follow Jesus.”
Second week we said, “when we work with Jesus, then our work is worth it.” The path to valuable work in the world is not our own effort or success. The path to meaningful and valuable work is our partnership with God.

This week we want to ask a very simple question. For whom do we work? Because whether it’s this GameStop fiasco, just losing focus on our job, or a redirect after 30 years of work, if we aren’t working for the right people, we aren’t going to do good work.

Promise when you work for the right people you will do good work.

Development

One of the things I think that helps us understand the teaching today, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, is to remember this: the paragraph breaks and the headings in your Bible are not inspired. Sometimes they are helpful, sometimes they aren’t.

If you look at verse 20 in Mark 1 and then verse 21, you realize Jesus called those 4 disciples we heard about 2 weeks ago, then went straight to work in Capernaum. There is basically no delay. What we are seeing then in the rest of Mark 1, the first work he does as a public teacher. It’s not like he called these disciples to follow him then took them away to school for 5 years to teach them. He called them and got right to work.

This is the first work he does.

There are three events all on the same day. Again, paragraph breaks and headings aren’t inspired. In verses 21-28, Jesus is in the synagogue. He drives a demon out of a man. Verse 29 says as soon as they left the synagogue. The same day. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Remember, Simon was the name of Peter before Jesus renamed him. Then in verse 32, that very evening, whole crowds of sick people come and he healed them. This all happened on one day.

You think, I feel busy sometimes. Talk about a lot to do.

Little longer section but it shows Jesus at work so well. One thing we could talk about here would be how Jesus work let people recognize who he is. People saw him as a divine figure. Another thing would be the kind of king he is. He uses his power to heal. He is a healing and restoring king. I want us to ask this, who does Jesus work for? Who does Jesus benefit or help? Does he go and find kings? Does he find the poor? Is it Jews? What categories or kinds of people?

The first thing Jesus does is drive a demon out of a man. I think we are rightly wowed by that authority and power. The people are too. So much that the focus is not on the man. The focus is on Jesus displaying who he is.

The demon says, you are the Holy One of God. And the people say he is a new teaching – with authority.

Jesus reveals who he is. This fits exactly with our spirit of expressive individualism. Just show yourself to be who you are. This is one reason why we work. Why people in general work. To have a sense of fulfilment. To be themselves. I asked someone one time, why did you switch jobs. The answer was something like, I needed a chance to grow, to be me.

The first person Jesus works for is kind of himself. He works to express who he is.

The second thing Jesus does is heal Peter’s mother in law. This is a little more straightforward. Jesus also serves the people closest to him relationally. He serves family and friends.

And the last thing he does, he heals “all the sick and the demon-possessed". So he serves society and the community at large.

We've got these three groups: Jesus works for himself. I really don’t think that is a bad thing to say. He works to show who he is or to be who he is. He also works for the people relationally closest to him and to society at large.

He does all three of these things. And it really is good work. JRR Tolkein has this great little line that “the hands of the king are the hands of the healer, and thus shall the rightful king be known.” Jesus really does good work for specific groups of people.

This is our first point today: Good work is work done well for three groups of people: myself, people relationally close to me, and society at large.

This is right where what God says runs right into our lives. Start with this. One of the most common things I hear from people why they work is that they work to pay the bills.

Is that wrong?

If a person mostly works to pay the bills, they are taking care of the people relationally close to them. Family and maybe friends. Good.

In my experience, those people are usually not satisfied with their jobs. They aren’t working to use all their gifts and skills and abilities. They also aren’t working to benefit society at large.

Or this one. In a poll some years ago, 97% of young people said they wanted a job that would impact the world. (Hugh Welchel, How Then Should We Work,

Good. That's fine. I’ve said that myself. Right up until the time where I realized my work broke almost as much as I fixed and I started to say, I don’t want to fix the world and rescue people, I just don’t want to break more stuff. I could be happy if I just don’t cause more problems.

I’m not sure I’m going to have much success at changing the world.

And there is always the example of the starving artist. I’m glad you get to do what you want. I’m glad you get to be who you want to be. What benefit are you providing for your friends and family? Or what about society at large?

Who can do this?

You might say to me, pastor, if I pick one of these things, isn’t that enough? If I can be myself, be who God made me to be, isn’t that good enough? Or if I can take care of my friends or family, isn’t that good enough? Or if I serve society, isn’t that good enough?

One of the things that God makes clear is that we don’t just sin by doing things. A lot of sin is not doing what we should do. It’s a sin of omission, not just commission.

Even people in the Bible failed to do what they should have done. One time David snuck into Saul’s camp. He took a spear and water jug from Saul (1 Samuel 26). He accused the soldiers of failing to do their job.

One of the most shocking verses about work in the Bible comes from the apostle Paul. “22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:22-24)

Realize what this is saying. Paul is telling slaves to work not just because their owner demands. That would be working for those people who are close to us. But he says, do it with all your heart – so do it for your own satisfaction – do it to be who God made you to be.

You’ll never be right with your work if you say, I work for myself and that’s good enough. You can’t say, I’m working to pay the bills and that’s enough. Hear me clearly. I’m not saying, you shouldn’t work to pay the bills. You should work to pay the bills. But there will always be something missing if that is the only reason you are working.

You've got to change your whole life. You’ve got to change all your work. You’ve got to work for yourself, for the people close to you, and for all of society. All of it.

This is our second point for today. We’re only going to work well for ourselves, family, and society if we’re working for the Lord.

So how do this? How do we work well for ourselves and family and society all at the same time because we work for the Lord?

I think Jesus shows us when he heals so many people. I think Paul says it when he tells the slaves, “you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.” One of the best passages about our work comes from Paul in another place.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul talks about our resurrection bodies. He says after the end of all things, we will be raised with a glorious body. And the last thing he says is, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58) Paul says, “give yourselves full to the work of the Lord because your labor is not in vain”. Why did Paul says that?

Because Jesus did not just die for our sins. He also rose for our life!

He rose so that at least a little bit, some of the time, somewhat, you win in your work over sin, death, and the devil.

He rose so that your work at least sometimes lasts.

He rose so that at least some of the time, you would see a little bit get done. For yourself, for your friends and your family, and for society. I think about it a little like this.

Inside the cabinet at my house, my kids have a chore chart. There are 4 chores on that chart. You would think, 4 chores how hard can that be. But some days, it’s like pulling teeth. Admittedly, those 4 chores have to get done many times a day. They are things like, “empty the dishwasher”. In a family of 7 we empty the dishwasher at least 10 times a day.

As my kids get older, they help with more and more stuff around the house. But they also realize just how little they do.

They realize if it wasn’t for me and mom, and really lets be honest, if it wasn’t for mom, they would hardly do anything. They wouldn’t have anything. It’s mom’s work that does everything. And most importantly, our work lets them work for themselves, for their sisters and brothers, and ultimately, for all of us.

Jesus rose from the dead and he gets to say, more than anything else, when you trust me, my work is your work. You can live in my success. You can live in my work.

And he says, “I have not only conquered sin and death and the devil to stop their work. I have begun my work of restoring all creation. I am making it beautiful and wonderful and excellent all again.”

And he says, “I invite you to do your work for me, for my goals, my ends, my way, for my benefit, and you will do good work for yourself, your friends and family, and society.”

When you start to look less at your own satisfaction with your work and more at the satisfaction he had with his work, and when you look less at the bills you are paying for your family and more at the bill he paid for you and for the family of the world, and less at how much you are changing the world and more at how much he changed the world, you really are going to work well.

I bet you know more than a few people who could be a good example of this. One person I thought of was a man named John Magee Jr. In 1940 he illegally entered Canada to enlist in the Canadian Air Force to fight against the Germans. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a Pilot Officer.

Here was a guy, he plainly wanted to make a difference in the world. He felt called to serve society. And there was more to him.

In 1941 he texted a new model of the Spitfire airplane. He wrote a poem about the experience. When you read that poem, you know right away that he absolutely flew for himself. He felt sheer joy and pleasure at his work. He wrote, “

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

He saw the work he was doing was for himself.

He also saw it was for his family. After the flight, he wrote his parents about the experience and sent the poem to him. You’ve got himself, his friends and family, and the world.

And what drove it all? The last lines of his poem...

“And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.” (Hugh Welchel, How Then Should We Work, pg 120-121)

John did not first and foremost work for himself, friends and family, or even to change the world.