Couple of Hours with Mark & Friends - 4

OK. Sorry this is late. Surgery took a toll on me, but let’s dig deep for a few minutes. Mark 1:35-45

It has always astonished me that Jesus prayed. Why did He have to pray? At the same time, He is the son of God and 100% God. A little clue may be found in us. When I am at my busiest is when I am doing Christian ministry. Some days are running from deep study for a sermon, to meeting with someone about the church plant in Arnold, to meeting with a couple whose marriage is jacked and needs help, to family worship with Kelley, Justin, and Taylor. None of that is sin (like Jesus spending his day preaching, healing, exorcising demons), and it is what I have been called to do - fun neat stuff. However, none of it is just deep time spent with the Father, loving and listening, and maybe whining and praising. Jesus had throughout all eternity past had full access to the Father and the Spirit without a lot of distractions, but now he had put on one of these human tents and was distracted, even by good things. By going to a desolate place and praying, He was getting back to his favorite thing to do - hanging out with the One who is worthy to hang out with. This is more than a battery recharge; this is heading to the deepest purpose of all -- loving God one on one. This is more than duty; this is the deepest calling that the son of God had and that the children of God have.

In the last five years, this has been a great strength of mine at times, and just plain non-existent at others. I am a decent church leader, husband, and father when my prayer life is deep and not superficial. I am downright awful while when there is no time in just deep conversational prayer with a Bible in my hands (not to study and learn, but to hear from God).

So, this begs some questions for you and me:

1. How are you doing at this? Is this only for Martin Luther, or Mark Driscoll, or Jesus (Mark 2:35)? Or, is it for every follower of Christ?

2. Jesus is being a worshiper. His prayer life is vastly more about submission to the Father than a “battery charge” or a “to do” list. Are you a worshiper in your prayer life?

3. Read Romans 12:1-2. How does God say to become a worshiper?

4. Notice Paul’s urgency. “In view of God’s mercy” (NIV) or “by the mercies of God”(ESV) means that you have been regenerated. Now, he is saying, since that is true, with urgency, on a daily basis, present your bodies (which includes your minds) completely to God for His bidding. Does that sound like your prayer life? What was Jesus praying about for all of this time that the disciples were looking for Him? Probably He was talking through the Scriptures with the Father and submitting His body as a living sacrifice for the mission of God for that day and upcoming days, eventually to a cross. What would that look like for you?

5. Do you pray more to talk to God about your world or to listen to God about His? The disciple of the Lord Jesus will migrate to the latter.
Let’s practice this with the Bible.
If you are in cell, get by yourself for a few minutes. Hopefully, it is beautiful outside. Go to a desolate place (like Jesus in Mark 2:35). Open to the book of Colossians, chapter 3, and begin reading, but don’t read for understanding or study or try and figure it out. Go very slow -- you have 20 minutes here (Jesus and Luther would do this for hours). Let the Bible read you. Let God speak into you and then pray your response. Pray your confession, your admiration for Jesus, your submission to His will, your supplication for others, whatever. Praying from God’s heart makes you a humble listener first and then a responder to God’s grace. This makes you a worshiper. This will allow your prayer life to be something that God wants to talk about (inside his will and about living in His Kingdom) instead of your agenda, about your world, and your mission. You will actually be surprised that you will eventually get to what is bothering you or a personal need, but you will pray it from God’s perspective instead of a selfish one. Once again, are you a worshiper on God’s mission or trying to pack Jesus around on your mission? In Mark 2, Jesus models for us that even when we are doing things on God’s mission, we must take to time to be a submitted worshiper of God - a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing.

6. The scene with the leper starting in Mark 1:40 is just gripping. Leprosy was a sentence. A sentence of death eventually, but before that of ostracized (read Leviticus 13:45-46) isolation. This outstretched TOUCH from Jesus in vs. 41 which leads to his COMPLETE healing in vs. 42 is one of the great illustrations of the Gospel in the Bible. Discuss us being “set outside the camp” after the fall (Genesis 3) as we are now unclean. Discuss how the Gospel addresses THIS uncleanliness.

7. Jesus “sternly charged” the man not to tell anyone in vs. 43. Seems interestingly light to us that this man was was so intensely disobedient since he was SO excited about Jesus and what he had done. Jesus was serious (if you study this in the Greek, very serious) about protecting the veil of his messianic identity with this command, but it just seems so fun that the man goes and shares anyway. However, his actions imposed a burden and forced Jesus into desolate places. Can you think of anything that we do that appears to be positive for the Kingdom, but actually it gives an impression opposite of the true Gospel? I was recently with someone that was gravely and possibly terminally ill. A well meaning person came into the room and began to tell the family that because Jesus was the almighty God that he knew that God wanted to and and WOULD heal their child. He prayed fervently and expectantly in the name of Jesus that God do this for this family because he loved this family so much and God wanted ‘good’ things for this family. This was a case of a person being really excited about Jesus, but not in tune with Scripture or God’s will. I loved their excitement over Jesus, but as they talked and prayed, the focus was on what people wanted instead of what God wanted. I believe that God CAN heal this person (he is still alive and I would love to see it); God can do anything He wants. However, just because this man and this family desperately want it AND believe in the right Jesus does not mean that it is in God’s will for this healing to happen. God’s glory is always the end goal. God’s mission is always what is essential. Discuss how the best way to pray for this man would be.

8. Jesus then commands the healed leper to observe the Mosaic law (Lev. 14) and go show himself to the priest which would have been quite a tedious task because there would have been a lot of travel and time to do so. Given his track record of obedience following the healing, do you think that he did as commanded and went to the priest? There are other stories of interesting reactions after healing. Read Luke 17:11-19 and discuss if you think there was healing without regeneration for the nine healed lepers who did not return and worship Jesus. Notice that all ten are being obedient to go see the priest when the one returns to worship. Think about correlations with some of your lives where maybe in your younger years, you had an encounter with God and maybe even did what you were told and got baptized, but then became radically disobedient afterward as someone who practiced unrepentant sin. Do you see any similarities?

Have fun.