Summary 

The people of Nazareth knew Jesus personally - His family, His profession, His background - yet they rejected Him despite witnessing His miraculous works. This reveals a crucial distinction between knowing facts about Jesus and truly knowing Him through faith. Many today have extensive knowledge about Christianity but lack genuine relationship with Christ. Familiarity can become a barrier to faith when we focus on Jesus' ordinary background rather than His extraordinary identity. True faith requires moving beyond intellectual knowledge to personal surrender and trust. The question remains: Do you know about Jesus, or do you truly know Jesus?.

Transcript

Lord, we do ask that you be our good shepherd and lead us in your ways. Would we gladly follow you with all of our being, with all of our lives and now with the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be pleasing in your sight. The Lord our rock and our redeemer. Amen. All right, on on November 23rd in 2004, Rob Howes was going for a swim on the north coast of New Zealand with his daughter, I think it's Nissi N I C c y and three of her friends.

Nissi was 15, a few teenagers and one of their dads. And pretty quickly a bunch of dolphins were coming towards them, which I think was both very exciting and exhilarating and scary. But what quickly happened is that these dolphins encircled them. And fairly quickly afterwards what happened is that Hows realized that it wasn't that they were actually coming after them, but they were protecting them. Because what he saw, which he said when he was actually interviewed by the newspaper afterwards, that it was only about 2 meters away from me, the water was crystal clear and I could see it as clear as the nose on my face.

What happened is that as these dolphins started to herd us up, pushed us together in a circle, the great white shark was coming after them. And according to the newspaper accounts that I read, this lasted for about 40 minutes. The shark trying to come in and actually the larger dolphins, supposedly what he said, the larger dolphins would kind of come out and go out and sort of deter the shark from coming after Rob, his daughter, her three friends. He said that the shark was, according to him, nearly three meters long, nine to ten feet or so. Great white shark coming after you, being circled until you could be safe by dolphins.

I mean, can you imagine having that experience initially? Probably an experience that is full of fear. What are all these dolphins going to do? Why are they all around us?

The sense of the power of other animals around you maybe just being overwhelmed in awe of their brilliance, of their kindness, of their awareness, of their ability, of their almost eagerness to put their lives on the line for these humans.

Of course, the amazement at the dolphins who sensed the shark long before you would have and put their own lives on the line for you. The great amazement was that you were there thinking that I am totally helpless to save my daughter and her friends, and here are these animals willing to do it for me.

It's amazing. And it's amazing on many levels. I'll be honest. When I first saw it, it was on an Instagram account about history. And, you know, when Those things come up.

I'm like, I don't even know if I believe this story. And that was actually my first response. I don't really think I buy it. And so I searched. I was like, oh, actually this is true.

I don't think I believed it. Actually I was very skeptical. Yet there it was. And you can look it up too. In fact, we have eyewitness accounts from the shore, people that say that they looked out and they saw these dolphins circling these folk.

Amazing. It's an amazing story. And probably because I was also preparing for a sermon, the amazement of this made me think of this spot we're in in the Gospel in Mark, because all these amazing things are happening, right, that Jesus is doing. We talked about some of them last week. Jesus is speaking and the wind and the waves are obeying him, listening to his voice and responding to his command.

And of course what happens is that the disciples are fearful, divine presence in their midst. They're also amazed, who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him, right? And then of course, Jesus healing the demon possessed man. And all, you know, the people from the Decapolis, which is the 10 cities in the area, the surrounding area, it said they marveled and probably there's a few different marvelings happening. Marveling because this man who had cut himself up and had lived in chains among the tombs, was thou in his right mind, walking among them, having conversations with them, telling them of this man Jesus who healed them.

And then they were marveling also because what is this again? Divine power, God in our midst, that demons can be cast out. And then of course, last week we looked at another amazing thing. Jesus heals this woman with this 12 years hemorrhage, this bleeding that we read last week. She had consulted other physicians and she spent all she had, she had done all that was humanly possible.

And yet divine interaction, God in her midst, healing her. And of course the 12 year old little girl who had life after death. And of course that also we are told, they were immediately they were overcome with amazement, amazed at being saved, amazed at God in their midst.

Interestingly though, our passage this morning has a different kind of amazement, different kind of amazement. All these stories are mentioning these different ways in which people come face to face with the reality of God. And they're marveling and they're declaring, oh my word, who is this that even the wind and waves can obey him? And all these people saying, we're amazed, what is this Jesus, God in our midst.

So we have a different kind of Amazement. In our passage this morning, Mark 1 tells us that Jesus went to his hometown with his disciples. And what we read is in some ways that he does what he pretty much always does. He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And then verse two, and on the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue, which is.

Was it. We know that Jesus made it his habit to go to worship on the Sabbath day. And we know that he probably taught quite a few times. Most people don't think this is the exact same account as what happens in Luke chapter four. If you know that story.

It may be, but there's a little bit of differences. He didn't always probably teach when he went to the synagogue, but this time he did. And we're told that many who heard him were astonished. You were astonished at it. And if you have.

If you opened up your Bibles and you followed along, maybe you opened up to a version that didn't translate it. Astonished. Because that word actually astonished could also be translated amazed. Amazed. The word could mean astonished or amazed.

And yet the English Standard Version, the one that we use, translates as astonished. And I think that's probably a good idea because it's actually a different word than the word that was used two verses earlier, chapter 5, verse 41. But it has sort of the same, pretty much the same meaning, which is this amazement at Jesus. They hear him teach, they have him in their presence, and they're amazed. They're astonished.

And what I'm suggesting to you this morning is that Mark is putting all of these stories that we've just been, you know, that we looked at last week and then we looked at last year that we picked back up on. And then he's putting this story right there at the beginning of chapter six, intentionally, altogether, Mark putting these stories of people seeing and hearing and experiencing and knowing, in a sense, Jesus in their midst and being amazed by it, being amazed by the words and works of Jesus. And here's the thing is that some, for some people, that leads to deeper belief, an eagerness to follow, a desire to be taught, a desire to be changed and healed and made new.

And yet for others, unbelief.

Which is to say you can engage with Jesus.

You can even in a way, know Jesus without believing in him, without a changed life.

So I want you to see this morning that there's a knowing of Jesus, knowing of Jesus that does not lead to life in Jesus. So first, just knowing Jesus. Okay, look me back at verse two. We'll read two and three, and on the Sabbath, like I said, he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were astonished, saying, where did this man get these things?

What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty deeds done by his hands? First, all statements of astonishment, amazement. But it continues on verse 3. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?

And are not his sisters here with us?

And they took offense at him.

There were many, it said, that were astonished with him. There were many that were astonished with him who knew him. Right.

And I want to suggest to you that it was maybe because of their knowledge of him that they wonder, where is this guy getting his teaching? Where is he getting his wisdom? What's going on here? How can he do such mighty works?

This was not the first time these people had engaged with Jesus. Right. He was familiar to them. Oh, yeah, we know what he looks like. Yeah, we can tell you a little bit about him.

Oh, we know his mom. I know his brother's names. They grew up playing T ball with me. We know this guy. I know his sisters.

By the way, people think that likely because of Jesus age, his sisters would have been married. And that's maybe why they were referred to as his sisters. They were kind of in this different stage of life. They know his profession. This is the carpenter, which, by the way, is not an offensive thing.

A carpenter was actually a very good job. The word technon there, Tecton, sorry. This is a very skilled person. A tecton would have been somebody who could use many different materials and create great buildings. I mean, think about our own building here.

We have bricks on the outside. We've got stained glass made. We've got these carvings that have been done out of wood. This is a very skilled person who has lots and lots of ability.

It would not have just been sort of a woodworker, but also a mason and a plumber and probably could do a lot of things. It would have been a finish carpenter, somebody who could finish the whole work and do it well. So he probably could have also built a house and built the furniture for the house. Very skilled person.

Which is to say that they may be thinking, Jesus did my dining room table when I had that roof, you know, that those guys sort of tore apart. He's the guy I was going to call to fix it up.

Jesus, the carpenter. He put the deck off the back of my house.

He was the sculptor who created that sculpture for my house. He would have been incredibly skilled and they would have Known him again. They could have talked, probably how Jesus ran around with their own kids. He was the one. He kept making goals.

I don't know why he was that good at soccer.

Maybe they were on that singular trip that we know Jesus made in his youth down to Jerusalem with his parents. Maybe at the very least, Nazareth. We know it's not a very big town. Four to 500 people.

I bet his, you know, not coming back with everybody and his parents going, oh, my word, we left Jesus, who is the Christ who was call Jesus, because he would save people from their sins back in Jerusalem. We better go get him. I mean, it probably would have been the talk of town, right? This youth that was left by his parents back in Jerusalem, they would have all heard the stories.

Maybe if his sisters were married, these were the folk that maybe attended their weddings. Maybe they made toasts roasting the bride and groom. Maybe Jesus was there at some of those celebrations, which is to say they knew Jesus. Is this not the son of Mary? Aren't these his siblings?

Is he a carpenter?

In French, and I would assume many other languages. But that's. This is the one I know best. Other than English, there are a couple different words that mean to know, to know something. One word is savoir, like savoir faire.

Like, you know how to do something. You know, he has the savoir faire, which literally means to know, to do. Putting them together.

And that kind of knowing is like the person. Well, they know facts about something. You know, brown balding hair, brown eyes, just shy of five, ten. You know, I know Peter. That's what he's like.

This is somebody who knows information. Maybe they also know a skill that'd be kind of a savoir. And so if you sort of knew somebody who knows Savoie's France, they're like, well, they know the capital is Paris. Maybe they know, as you all no doubt know, of the nicknames for France, is the hexagon, because it's shaped like a hexagon.

Maybe they know that France is known for its museums like the Louvre and the Orsay, so many others. Maybe they know that it's known for its food and its wine, Savoie.

That's a kind of knowing. There's another kind of knowing, which is the word connet. And let me sort of illustrate this way. If you told me or if you asked me, peter, do you know Melisse? I would not say Ouijusez.

I would say Ouij Conner. Because it's not a knowledge that is strictly Sort of the outside. I know the facts, but I know the experience. I know the reality. I know the truth, a deeper truth.

Not just knowing the facts about one's wife, but knowing them. Or if you said, oh, do you know France? You could say, oui, je lucet. Or, which would just mean the stats. We could say, oui, je connetre.

Which would mean, I have walked the streets, I've tasted a 60 cent baguette that would go for a fortune in the United States. It just breaks and it crispy on the outside, it's chewy on the inside. It's fantastic.

You know it.

Which is to say, to know Jesus is not just to know. Oh, he's the carpenter guy. Ah, that's his mom. I know his siblings, names, his brothers and sisters. But to experience him, his heart, his presence in the midst of the storm, his ability to speak and creation itself is listening.

His knowledge that he can take the time with the woman who's reaching out to touch the hem of his garment and to heal her and to hear her story, and yet at the same time know that he is going to care for the young girl and her family and her friends. Know that he has power not just over the physical world, but the spiritual world. The man oppressed by demons, living among the tombs is safe in the arms, in the presence of Christ.

Now, here's the thing. Mark is writing this knowing that his audience, his original audience and his continued audience, like ours today, is going to fall into these categories. There's going to be those who are amazed at Christ because they know him in the deepest sense. They know his power, his ability. He knows that he could say, stand up and be well or your sins are forgiven.

He says, which one's easier? Both are in my domain. He also knows that there are going to be plenty, just like it was on that day long ago in that synagogue, on that Sabbath, that say, yeah, I know him. I've got the stats, I've got the facts. I've heard of the miracles, I've heard His teaching.

Nobody's denying that he exists. He's not who he says he is.

Maybe you're here and you find Jesus wise.

You want to maybe want to have him teach you, but maybe it's precisely because of your knowledge of him already. You won't give yourself over to faith. Surrender to belief, cling to him in need and find him to be sufficient. Which is to say that again, there is an amazement, there's a knowledge about Jesus that does not lead to life, to belief.

Think about this. We keep going in our passage. This is pretty interesting. I think this is really interesting. If we keep going in our passage, what we find is that it's not just that there were many there on that Sabbath long ago that heard Jesus and were astonished.

Or we could say it translated amazed. But there's a part of our passage where Jesus himself, well, it says marveled. Let's look down at it. The first part of verse six. If you look down there, verse six, and he that's Jesus marveled because of their unbelief.

Marvels at their unbelief. And again, interestingly, I looked this up. Marvel could also be translated amazed. He was amazed. Their unbelief.

Different word, but connoting the same meaning. There's an amazement at Jesus, like in this passage, that does not lead to faith in him. There's an engagement with Jesus, even a way of saying, wow, what a teacher. Wow, what great acts. That doesn't lead to what God actually most desires from you, faith and life in him.

And think of this. This is done, at least in this text, in the context where people would say, I know Jesus, I know him. All kinds of people know things about Jesus. So I was reading this week, in preparation for this, some writing by the famous atheist Sam Harris. Of course, you all know he doesn't believe in Jesus, but he knows a lot about Jesus.

He knows an awful lot about Jesus, actually. If you read his writings, you're like, well, this guy, maybe he knows more than I do.

And he says he doesn't believe in Jesus. In part, not because he hasn't read the Bible. He's read it, and he finds that it's not how he thinks God should communicate. Why would God write this text? Like this part of what he says?

This is what he says. Take a moment to imagine how good a book could be if it were written by the creator of the universe.

Such a book could contain a chapter on mathematics that after 2000 years of continuous use, would still be the richest source of mathematical insight the earth has ever seen. I mean, maybe that's you this morning. You know, it's not that you haven't engaged with the teachings of the Bible, not that you haven't read the parables of Jesus. It's that you read them and you think, this isn't what it should be. This isn't how God should present himself.

It's a carpenter. Come on, can't you do better? Tim Harris goes on, why doesn't the Bible say anything about electricity, about DNA, or about the actual age and size of the universe. This is a true accounting. Why isn't it what I think it should be?

How about this? Maybe this resonates more with you, he goes on after saying, or about the actual age and size of the universe. What about a cure for cancer?

In some ways it's to say, what about the problem of evil and suffering? Millions of people are dying horribly from cancer at this very moment, many of them children. When we fully understand the biology of cancer, this understanding will surely be reducible to a few pages of text. Why aren't these pages or anything remotely like them found in the Bible? Bible is, after all, a very big book.

It's not that he doesn't know, it's not that he hasn't read. And maybe that's your experience. You think I know this? I was raised knowing Jesus, knowing the stories of him, knowing how he went off to Jerusalem and came back and all the rest. I can tell you the facts about Jesus.

And sometimes it's actually that knowing that is actually a hindrance to the deeper knowledge faith, giving yourself over to a committed life, surrendering to the only one who can bring peace and life, protection, care. You may know an awful lot about the Bible. The truth is, at least according to this text, you may be even amazed by a lot of it, may be amazed by it, and yet you can't come to believe, to really confess, that you can only find your life in him.

You may know the doctrines of Christian religion and not actually know the God of the universe. You may find them offensive, like Sam Harris does. Think about this. Isn't this the carpenter? You mean God?

You mean, you guys think that God actually became a human and that's where you find salvation. Think of Paul writing how the cross is a scandal. You think that this God man dying on a Roman cross long ago is the center of life. That's where you find your hope.

You mean your sins are actually so bad that they demand God's death?

You know what that does psychologically to somebody to have that high a view of sin?

It's not that you don't know what it says. It's not even that you don't at times find it amazing, but you just can't believe that that could possibly be true.

Probably many of you have heard of the somewhat recent, though the conversation seems to be waning, but the deconstructionist movement recently in Christianity, and it's largely folk that have been raised in the church. And that's the whole idea, deconstructing what you have been given. And it's significantly more common in sort of evangelical circles, largely left the faith they were raised in. And I want to say this actually pretty clearly, and I'm going to share with you a quote about this, too. There's a lot of good reason for that.

I mean, there is a lot of abuse in church settings. I mean, a lot of people point to sort of purity culture in this movement as a way of actually being taught that their bodies are not lovely and fearfully and wonderfully made by God. Right. Okay. There's something to that.

A lot of people have gone to that movement because the massive abuses of authority found in the church and pastor figures, okay. They are not unfounded reasons. In fact, I would say that there's some really good reasons. Paul Tripp, maybe some of you listen to the podcast the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, but Paul Tripp said this. We should all be deconstructing our faith.

We better do it because our faith becomes a culture, a culture so webbed into the purity of truth that it's hard to separate the two. And we better do some deconstructing or we're going to find ourselves again and again in these sad places talking about the abuse that took place in that setting.

But I also want to say that these are largely folk that would say they know Jesus and yet don't continue on. Don't say, I'm giving my life despite the fact I want to push away some of this stuff. I'm giving my life and committing my life to surrendering to Christ.

I want to suggest to you, sort of as I begin to wrap up, that there is a. There's a key in a way, in this text for why so many might know Jesus, the facts about him, but don't want to actually give themselves over in faith and belief to following Jesus. And so Jesus can still be marveling because of their unbelief. I want to suggest to you this many don't want to do this because he shines a light on our need. He shines a light on how big our sin is, shines a light on our rebellion against God.

And he says, you are utterly in need of that which is outside of you. Okay, so verse four, it's kind of interesting, verse four, if you look down there, it says, and Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.

And we think that what Jesus is largely saying is sort of a maxim of his day. A prophet's not without Honor, except in his hometown. You know, all this sort of stuff that it was a phrase that was kind of known. But we have a similar phrase today. It was familiarity breeds contempt.

You can know something so much that you actually don't love it anymore.

And the other thing that I think is key here though is that Jesus is indirectly calling himself a prophet. What does a prophet do? What's the role of a prophet? The main role of a prophet is to call people back to God. Say, if you continue down this road, let me tell you what's going to happen.

But consider there's another way. Come back to the Lord. Most often the role of a prophet was to call people back to God to say to them, you are heading down the wrong direction, you're heading down the wrong way.

Prophet would say that they are going down the way that leads to death. If they're going to continue rejecting God's way and embracing the way of sin, it will only lead to death. That was the primary role of a prophet. Don't go that way. And Jesus is preaching the kingdom.

He's named Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. That the main thing that's happening in the text of scripture is not what Sam Harris wants, right? The mathematic text, the DNA, all that. But the main thing that Jesus is about and the scriptures are about is repent, turn from your ways, embrace the work of Christ. And just like then and just like throughout history, that message has become so offensive that people say, I don't want to be told that I would rather persist in my unbelief, dismiss you with what knowledge I sort of have of you, and continue on with making myself the center of my life.

I'm suggesting to you that this is the reason why so many in Jesus day and in our own day, they might know him, but they will not surrender to him, give their life over to Him. They do not want to receive him as the one that orients their life instead of themselves, him as the true life giving, one who saves us from our sins. And so we read. Jesus marveled because of their unbelief. Think about this with me.

Let's go back to the dolphins.

Were y' all amazed by that story? Did any of you just think, like what I mean, I probably what you did, because I did this too, is I said I want to have that experience. How wild would that be? Have dolphins encircling you, saving you from a great white shark. How exhilarating.

Amazed at how dolphins can save a man and his daughter. And her friends amazed how intelligent they are and how wondrous creation is how they preserved life.

And no doubt these people have heard the stories of what Jesus has done, right? They're marveling at his mighty works. The story we had just heard was that he saved this girl who had died, given her new life.

And I think that what Mark is doing is he's in putting these two stories together is he is saying, don't you want this?

Do you want to continue just saying, you know God, but having no deep abiding faith in him, experiencing him, really experiencing the reality of God saving you when you can't do it? If it was up to you, that shark is getting you, don't you want that kind of belief?

Wouldn't you long to have Jesus who can calm the storm, who can heal the demon possessed man, who can stop the bleeding, who can heal the young girl? Or do you want to brush him off? He's the carpenter, Mary's son. Those are his siblings. I think.

I think what Mark is doing by putting all these stories of amazement together is he is asking us, will you believe?

Will you believe? Will you continue in a kind of belief that is just savoir facts, or will you give yourself over, Find in him your life and your light and your salvation. Let me pray for us, Lord. Thank you for the beauty of your word, God. I pray today.

I pray for each one here. God, would we ask ourselves this afternoon, would we maybe do it around our dinner tables? Would we maybe call up a friend? Would we wonder aloud with one another, what is my belief like?

What do I do with Jesus?

And then would we, Lord, please give ourselves over to faith, to trust, to surrender to you alone who has life and life abundantly. Hear our prayers, Lord. Amen.

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