Sr. Pastor Gene Hauser shared with us today out of Hebrews 10:23-25.

The Bible makes it clear that as Christians we are to make disciples. We call this missional living. In the passage today, we see Jesus sending his disciples in groups of two into the cities to teach and preach God’s Word. The fact is the more time we spend with Jesus, the more we’ll be inclined to live missionally. As one person said, “The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.” So, how can we live missionally according to this text?

In this passage, Jesus teaches in his hometown of Nazareth and is rejected. His rejection stands in stark contrast with what we saw in Mark 5. The people in Capernaum accepted Him. In two cycles of stories, Mark demonstrates that we must all respond to Jesus. In chapters 5 and 6, Mark invites us to look at different kinds of hearts. There are the receiving hearts, like we saw in chapter 5. There are the hardened hearts of Jesus’ followers, who could not seem to grasp the meaning of what they saw. And there are the distant hearts of Jesus’ enemies, who refused to even look.

Today we are looking at Mark 5:21-24; 35-43. Jarius, a ruler in the synagogue, approaches Jesus to ask Him to heal his daughter, who is sick back home. Jesus’ delay was a severe test of Jairus’ faith. His fears that his little daughter would die before Jesus got there were confirmed by the report of some men (unidentified friends and relatives) from his house that she had died. They concluded that her death ended any hope that Jesus could help, so they suggested that it was futile to bother the Teacher any further. Jesus overheard what the messengers said and accepted the reality of the child’s death, but he refused to accept the finality of death. Though he did not tell Jarius how the crisis would end, Jesus urged him to believe that all would end well. Mark’s account demonstrates the power of Jesus in hopeless situations.

The third and fourth miracles (5:21-43) now demonstrate Jesus’ power over sickness and death—his power to bring salvation even to hopeless situations. Not every physical sickness is healed on this earth, but remember that everything Jesus did in the physical realm foreshadows life in the Kingdom. There is more going on here. There’s a spiritual side to this. Today we are looking at Mark 5:21-34, where Jesus heals a lady with a bleeding issue. While we may not all share the same physical illnesses, we all have a sickness in common far greater than any physical ailment----sin. We will compare her physical ailment with our sin as we move through the text.

Today we are looking at Mark 5:1-20, where Jesus cast out many demons from a person. The demons go into a herd of pigs, who then run into the sea and drown. As unusual as this story may sound, we will see today that because of who Jesus is, the kingdom of darkness (our oppressor) does not have the final word. It is no secret that in our world today, it often feels like the kingdom of darkness has the upper hand. When we turn on the news, or read the headlines, we see a constant stream of acts of terrorism, hate, war, natural disasters, and never ending conflict. In our families and personal lives, we or someone we love may be facing diseases, illness, marriage trouble, financial trouble, and the list could go on and on.

Today we are looking at Mark 4:35-41, where Jesus calms the storm on the sea of Galilee. We will see today that because of who Jesus is, storms in our lives do not have the final word. Jesus’ ministry is being carried on in Galilee. His basic headquarters is in Capernaum, at the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee. He has been moving in that area, and teaching in the villages and towns of Galilee. On this particular day, He has spent the whole day in that area, on the edge of the sea. At the end of the day, Jesus and His disciples cross the sea of Galilee. The sea is very unique. Its geographical location makes it susceptible to sudden harsh winds during certain parts of the year. The best calculations would put this story likely in the winter of AD 29. This would be the time of the worst winds, cold air furiously funneling down the ravines and the slopes, gaining speed as it descended, colliding with the warm air in the low basin of the lake, creating violent turbulence that began to whip and swirl the water, turning it into foam and very high waves.