Mark 1:35-45

35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”

38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

40 A man with leprosy[a] came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

41 Jesus was indignant.[b] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Listening guide

We need _______________ to do good work.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” 

Run Hard Rest Well “group norm is overload and exhaustion”.

Powerful work comes in part from ____________, ______________________, and _________________.

Nick Vujicic

God turns our _________________________ into power to work. 

Discussion questions

Sermon

I remember a phase when I went overboard tracking tasks. I had something like 700 tasks in this task manager. I felt pretty exhausted and powerless. There was no way I could get that all done.

I’m not the only one.

After finishing her psychiatry residency, a young doctor was working at a New York City hospital. She was friends with a doctor who was a few years ahead of her and who was pregnant with her second child. “Do you know what I love most about being pregnant?” the older doctor said to her friend one day. “I love being pregnant because it’s the only time where I feel productive all the time. Even when I’m sleeping, I’m doing something!” It struck the young M.D. that her friend based her self-regard so completely on productivity that she seemed relieved to finally find a task she could do incessantly . She reflected, “For many of us, being productive and doing becomes . . . an attempt at redemption. That is, through our work, we try to build our worth, security, and meaning.” (Keller, Timothy. Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work (p. 226). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

That sounds a little ridiculous, but I know it’s true.

Talk to plenty of you. We feel drained. We feel empty. We feel powerless because we are looking to constantly work.

This is common. (We are often robbed of the power to do good work.) We need power to do good work.

Maybe like that doctor we get glimpses now and then to have the power to do all the work in our lives. I’ve felt that way lately. I think some of it has been coming off vacation. I look down at my to do list. Almost everything is done. That’s a great feeling.

That’s the promise today. To have this power all the time.

Adventure

Over the last few weeks, we’ve taken a look at the work we do.

First, we changed the story of our work. We heard the call of God. That is what moves us to work. 

Second, we found a partner for our work. Our work is meaningful and valuable with Jesus.

Third, we considered the people of our work. We work for ourselves, for family and friends, and for society at large.

The last thing we’re going to do, today, is the power for our work. I think in many ways, if you’ve got a better story for your work, a partner for your work, you know who you are working for, that is going to give you a lot of power. But let’s take a look just at the power for our work.

Let’s get the power for our work. Both the physical power and the spiritual power – power in our spirits.

Development

Jesus doesn’t provide any particularly stunning insights when it comes to a good way to gain the physical power to do our work. For example, no specific workout routine. No special diet. No special vitamins or health practices. Not that any of that stuff is unbibilical.

Here is one example of this. In the Bible, there was a man named Daniel. He was chosen to be part of the king’s court. He was specifically chosen because he ate a good diet and he was in good shape. Jesus recommends something even more basic.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

He “got up”, which means he had been asleep. He prayed. He rested. Three basic things: sleep, pray, and rest. And I don’t think it is a stretch to say, you need these three things for the power to do your work.

I know there is this sentiment out there, and maybe there is some anecdotal evidence of it, that young people are lazy. Who knows, maybe you think I’m lazy. I appreciate those of you who say, pastor, I’m not always sure what is going on, but you, work hard.

I want us as Christians to lead with this conviction. What is that conviction?

The group norm in America is overload and exhaustion. Brenda Jank from Run Hard Rest Well says that. “group norm is overload and exhaustion”. Ministry Impact • Run Hard. Rest Well.

So sleep, prayer, and rest are going to seem counter-cultural. If you are a person who rests well, it’s going to look radical. It’s going to look crazy. But that is the key to make you more effective. I’m fairly convinced that if you do them well, you’ll actually work well.

Some of you are probably saying, pastor, that doesn’t sound very spiritual. This is spiritual. This is biblical. Both science and the bible tell us sleep prayer rest.

For example, I’ve been reading Greg McKoewn’s Essentialism. He helps people focus on the things that are essential to their life. He spends this entire chapter on sleep He says that there is so much data that demonstrates the vast majority of us need about 8 hours of sleep.

Similarly, prayer. James says, “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” If you want things to happen in life, pray. I can’t tell you how many of my problems are solved simply because of prayer. Let me address this last one. Rest.

I don’t know how you pray well if you don’t rest well. When God created the world, he rested on the 7th day. God worked, then he rested. That’s the rhythm of creation. We’ve got to follow it. When we refuse to, we violate creation.

We bring chaos and disorder into our lives.

Point: Powerful work comes in part from sleep, prayer, and rest. If Jesus rested and prayed, certainly you will need to.

I think we have to ask ourselves then, if this is true, why don’t we pray, rest, and sleep? Why do we keep trying to work? Again, I know some will say there is all kinds of laziness and sleep going on, but that’s not the norm. Why do we keep working? I think Jesus gives us some of the answer.

After rest, Jesus went back to work. He first came to someone with a skin disease. The infected person said, “if you’re willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus had a gut, visceral reaction. He cleaned him. Let’s dig into this for a second.

What we see on the surface here is that this man experienced something that was gut wrenching. He had a skin disease. It may have been something like our modern leprosy. Maybe much worse. What we don’t see, is that leprosy meant exclusion. (“Those whom the priest regards as having “leprosy” must announce their condition and remain outside the community (Lev 13:45–46). It is also true that in the time of Jesus leproi were forced to live outside of cities and were prohibited from having contact with others (see Josephus, J.W. 5.227; Ag. Ap. 1.281–282; 11Q19 XLVIII, 14–17)”

Remember, the ancient world was an incredibly collective society. I hope you can imagine what this meant. Without society, he couldn’t have a sense of identity. He couldn’t know who he was in the world. Without friends and family, he couldn’t have a sense of belonging. He couldn’t know where he fit in, where he belonged. Without work, he couldn’t have a sense of purpose in the world. He didn’t know what he was trying to do.

He experienced significant physical and emotional pain. That robbed him of the power to work and even to live. (Pain robs us of the power to work.)

He makes me think of a man named Nick Vujicic, an Australian man. He is about 30 now. He was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, which is a fancy way to say he has no arms or legs.

When he was 10, he was became depressed. He was bullied. He couldn’t do anything. He was excluded. He said he was so alone, he wanted to commit suicide. He wanted to see someone like him.

About 5 years ago, he met a baby named Daniel. Daniel was born just like he was, without any arms or legs. Nick said, “Not getting a miracle, I can be a miracle to Daniel ... an older brother of Daniel his whole life ... encourage him”. (Nick Vujicic NIck Vujicic - man without limbs shares the Bible verse that gave him purpose | ChristianToday Australia, accessed 02/05/2021)

Nick shows us something. Did you see how in verse 41 it says, “Jesus was indignant” or “Filled with compassion”.

He didn’t feel disgust. He didn’t feel shame. His guts churned. (Wade Johnston, A Path Strewn with Sinners, 13). He was this man’s miracle.

He was the only one who saw this situation for what it really is. He was the only who saw the pain for what it really was. He was the only who saw all the pain this man felt without identity, belonging, and purpose, and he felt it himself.

Nick can be Daniel’s brother but he can never take Daniel’s pain. Jesus cam be the brother who can take the pain himself. He took the pain and gave the man work, gave him life.   

I asked us, if powerful work comes from sleep, prayer, and rest, why do we keep working so hard? Just look at this! You say, if Jesus has taken away my pain, how can I not work?

If I have gone all the sudden from a man who has no place to belong to a person who has a place to belong. If I have gone from a man with no sense of identity to a man with a sense of identity. If I have gone from a man with no purpose to a man with purpose, how can I not work?

If you claim Jesus as your Savior and Lord, then you have to say, he has taken away my pain. I can see it all over his face. I can see it on his face on the cross. I can see it on the face of a man who had done nothing wrong and yet he experienced the incredible anguish of sin.

He was denied his miracle on the cross so that I could receive a miracle! He has made my pain power to work. God turns our pain into power to work.

I want you to notice something. The man in this story says, “if you are willing”. Sounds to me like it hurts. And yet Mark says that Jesus was the one who felt pain. Jesus was the one had that churning in his gut. God is the only one who takes seriously the amount of pain in this world.

I don’t know exactly how much you’re hurting. I don’t know how much physical pain you have. I don’t know who has offended you. I don’t know how lonely you feel. What has made you feel inadequate.

God won’t always take away that pain. But he takes away what our pain signifies. He takes away the death. He takes away the exclusion. He takes away the idea that we are defective, something less than normal.

That’s power to work.