Mark 10:13-16 Childlike Faith

Mark 10:13-16  People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.  When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.  He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Jesus desires to bless little children.  He was INDIGNANT when He saw his disciples preventing the little children from receiving his blessing.  This scene shows the heart of God, who wants to bless those who place their innocent faith in him.  Young children have a simple faith: they believe their parents can do everything and know everything about life.  They believe existence will go on forever and what they are doing in the present will always remain the same.  Their parents will always be big and powerful, and they will always remain small and safe.  Their parents will always take care of them, and they will never be left alone to fend for themselves.  LITTLE CHILDREN have great faith in a consistent world.  Later, probably too soon, we realize our parents are not omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent beings.  Death, weakness, powerlessness, ignorance, sickness, discord, dishonesty, faithlessness, and the like seep into our existence.  Knowledge and experience teach us, and we learn that no one in this finite existence can be trusted to have the ultimate answers to life, not even our parents.  But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."  Jesus was looking for childlike faith as He walked this earth.  When He told his disciples of the man who wanted to tear down his barns to build bigger ones to hold all his crops, and then his soul was required of him, Jesus said they should not worry about tomorrow, what they would eat or what they would wear.  If God takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies in the field, surely He would care for them.  Then He said, O you of little faith!  And He warned them to set their hearts on things above.  (See Luke 12:16-40)  Little ones have the faith Jesus sought, the faith necessary to unlock the gates to heaven or to reveal the way to the Kingdom of God.  And unless we all approach God in this innocent and faith-filled manner, we will not see the gates of Heaven open to us.  I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

Jesus Christ is the gate, the way to light and life in this world and in the world that is to come.  Jesus said, I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.  All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.  He will come in and go out, and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  (John 10:7-10)  Christ alone allows us to enter into the Kingdom of God.  He alone took a fallen creation and made us holy, acceptable to God.  Without passing through the blood of redemption, we cannot enter into the presence of God.  Yet we who were lost are now found.  As Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, In him (Jesus) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.  (Ephesians 1:7-8)  The little children came to Jesus because their parents believed that this man of kindness and goodness, Jesus, could bless their children in a miraculous way.  They had faith, but the faith the children had in Jesus was much greater than the parent's.  The parents believed HE COULD bless them, but the children believed He would bless them.  An innocent child believes life is straightforward, sensible, and stable.  Things are supposed to be eternal and lasting, with a consistency that is predictable. Otherwise, they have complete faith in the way things are and ought to be.  Older children and adults learn life is not alway harmonious and stable and they do not know about eternity, for their experiences often teach them there is little peace or comfort and a great deal of anxiety in their lives.  Doubt and fear eat away at their faith, and they lose track of the childlike wonderment that once held sway over their thinking.

Little children, when they are but babies or toddlers, believe they are at home in this existence because for them this life is eternal.  They have complete faith in this assumption, but adults, Christian or not, know this life as a temporary existence.  Jesus said we must have faith as a little child.  We must believe that our eternal home rests in him.  We must believe without doubting that He is the gate to OUR PERMANENT home.  Jesus spoke these words of truth: I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  (John 14:6)  We must believe that our anxieties and fears will all be satisfied completely when we enter our eternal home, when we see him.  We must trust that He has all the answers to existence and creation.  We must believe that every tear of doubt and fear will be wiped from our faces when we see him.  We must believe He has the answers to the questions for all time.  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)  Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for their type of faith opens the Kingdom of God to all people.  When people put their whole faith and trust in me without doubting, they will see God and be with him forever as his children in eternal bliss.  When the disciples asked who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus brought a child before them and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."  (Matthew 18:3-4)     

Mark 10:10-12 What God Joins Do Not Separate

Mark 10:10-12  When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this.  He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.  And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

Marriage is an act or institution of God's will, not man's: "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”  (Mark 10:9)  In the pristine environment of his making, bathed in his love, God planned for a sinless creation.  Man was to be perfect: any other condition than perfection was considered sin, waywardness from the perfect will of God.  No condition or thought OTHER than God's could be considered, for it would contaminate his perfect world.  But, as we know, man fell completely into degradation and sin by disobeying God's instructions on how to live in the Garden successfully.  God's creation strayed, placing their will over God's will.  Because the will of mankind--his ways, wisdom, and ideas--is less than perfect, degradation, wickedness, selfishness, lust, corruption, pride, arrogance, competition, and more, came into his daily life.  Concomitant with the fall from all that was good came God's judgment to deal with this rebellion.  Divorce, a product of man's will, is classified by God as adultery if one marries another, something He hates.  His intention for man was for him to be in a permanent union with one woman.  There were to be no second thoughts or alternative relationships in this plan of one union.  Marriage would be the perfect bond between a man and a woman, completely satisfying Adam's need for companionship.  Together, they would make the human condition of existence whole, complete.  But this arrangement was dispensed of because of sin; therefore, such a separation will always be against God's perfect will for men and women.

Now consider what Jesus meant regarding the realities of this world's fallen state, full of violence and disruption, far from the perfection of the Garden of Eden.  As humans, we sometimes behave contrary to God's will, but we do so to survive in a wicked and dysfunctional environment.  Such as, to protect ourselves, we commit violence against another even though that was not God's purpose from the beginning.  The Old Testament is full of violence, even violence used to correct difficult situations, to overcome evil and to restore righteousness.  Do these situations make violence good or is violence contrary to God's perfect will for mankind?  Jesus told Peter, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."  (Matthew 26:52)  We see God asking Cain: “Where is your brother Abel?”  Cain slays Abel for his own personal reasons.  He chooses other than God's perfect will for mankind.  He slays Abel, he is classified as a murderer, and God gives him punishment for his deed, one Cain thinks is too harsh.  Today when we kill each other, even for good reasons, we are still out of the perfect will of God for mankind in the Garden.  In this world, we are now murderers, for even if we do not kill our brother, we have murder in our hearts, whether for what we think are good reasons or bad reasons.  In God's economy, Jesus said, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  (Luke 6:27-28)  Galatians 5:22-23 tells us, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.  Notice, there is no law against such positive attributes in mankind.  If men would display this fruit, there would be no need for laws or policemen, but this perfect world is not the one we live in.  We live in an imperfect world where there is aggression, violence, abuse, selfishness, lust, disharmony, criticism, chaos, and the like.  Therefore, we do have policemen and soldiers to ameliorate the works of the flesh.  

Christians ask, What about divorce?  Is divorce always wrong?  As with the above paragraph, Is killing always wrong?  The answer is: Yes, in a perfect world, these choices are not God's best for us.  But we live in a corrupted world.  If a woman is being beaten and threatened with harm or death by her husband, does she not have a right to divorce him or sadly even to shoot him to protect her life or her children's lives if they are in danger?  That kind of decision is a personal one, not based on desire but desperation.  Of course, in a good or satisfactory marriage, divorce should never be an option.  If sin such as lust or dissatisfaction with one's mate is the reason for divorce, we must evaluate our walk with Christ and seek him.  Moses gave a certificate of divorce because of sin.  Jesus said the people were making a decision outside of God's will for them, yet divorces were permitted under Moses, and as we know, he was a man of God.  When God did not destroy mankind during Noah's time, He allowed the condition and vicissitudes of sin to exist.  We all live under that umbrella of a corrupt world.  WE ALL HAVE SINNED and come short of God's glory: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Otherwise, we are all adulterers, all killers, all liars, all imperfect.  The Bible says if you have sinned in one situation, you are guilty of all.  Divorce is not the perfect will of God; therefore, it is classified as sin.  In a perfect world, believers should not even have a concept of separation from their mates, but we are not in a perfect world.  We should strive for harmony, we should go the extra mile in all situations, we should be long-suffering; but sometimes conditions are such that the only solution is a violent one, contrary to God's intention of harmony and peace.  God is mighty to empower us and strengthen us when we yield to him.  He will help us center our marriages on his will and his nature.  No situation is too difficult for him.  Lord, let your love be manifested through our lives and through our marital relationships.  We need you: we need your grace and mercy to live in us in this alien, wicked world.  

Mark 10:1-9 Two Become One!

Mark 10:1-9  Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan.  Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.  Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  “What did Moses command you?” he replied.  They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”  “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied.  “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’  So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” 

In the above excerpt, Jesus addresses the general sinfulness of mankind in the area of marital fidelity.  In the beginning, God planned for men to leave their mothers and fathers and unite with their wives in a union of one flesh: two will become one flesh.  However, because of the advent of sin in the world, creating a hardness of heart in mankind,  Jesus gives a legitimate reason for divorce in Matthew 19: I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.  This condition of adultery was not even conceived of in the Garden of Eden.  The Garden's environment was pure, pristine, without any understanding of the idea of sin, of the subsequent hardness of the heart.  But after the fall, because humans possessed the knowledge of good and evil in their daily walk, people could make impure decisions.  Self-interest, self-indulgence, and disobedience became a central part in man's daily experiences.  As we see in the day of Noah, God was so disturbed by man's penchant to do evil that He entertained the thought of destroying all people and in addition all living things on the face of the earth.  The world had become contaminated by the cancer of sin, affecting not only mankind but all living creatures on Earth.  The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.  So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them.  (Genesis 6:5-7)  This condition of sin not only made man violent and disruptive with others, evil also creeped into the most intimate relationship man can have outside of his relationship to his God: marriage.  Mankind's hardness of heart corrupted the marital vows: permanency was lost in this relationship.   

God did not create man as a selfish, disobedient, and eventually violent creature.  Such violence pained the heart of God.  The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.  (Genesis 6:11)  He did not make man to be unfaithful in marriage.  A lack of fidelity expressed in adultery reflects man's capriciousness in loving others, even God.  Throughout the Old Testament, we see God's judgment of the Israelites because of their infidelity to God.  Constantly, God beseeches them to return to him, so they might have peace and harmony in their lives, but they would not.  Jesus expresses this desire of God when He looks at the city of Jerusalem:  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!  (Luke 13:34)  But the self-will of the Israelites kept them from experiencing the full love of God in their daily lives.  They sought other gods to comfort them, to sustain them through their lives.  This kind of existence led them to destruction.  As with violence, God has allowed men to go their own way in marriage and make their own decisions by giving them a certificate of divorce through a law of Moses.  As sure as men can use violence to get their way, they can also disallow their vows to God and to others.  Of course in both situations, sin has corrupted relationships.  As we know, violence can keep a dictator away from our borders and protect our families.  But this is not the way it was from the beginning when there was no fighting and no war.  Also in marriage, a divorce can save someone from a horrible life of degradation and abuse.  Divorce can allow children to escape a dishonoring and abusive parent.  Divorce in some situations is necessary, but this is not the way it was in the beginning when purity and peace ruled in the heart of God's creation.  Through the love of Christ, homes are meant to be safe harbors where parents love each other and protect their children.

Fellow breakfast companions, as with violence, divorce is sometimes the only avenue we have to make things right, but we must always remember that violence or divorce was not God's intention for mankind from the beginning.  He created us to live in peace and in harmony with each other.  When life breaks down to the point that our lives no longer reap the peaceable fruits of righteousness, we must run to him with our breaking hearts and ask him to restore in us the strength, peace, and harmony of the Lord that we need to live happily in his presence.  He alone can restore and heal us.  He alone can help us take the next steps in our lives.  In this dark world, we must find our life IN HIM, hide IN HIM.  As we read in the Word: Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.  (1 Peter 5:8-9)  This dark world contaminated by sin will someday pass away.  Until then, the Bible tells us our lives are hidden with Christ in God and his mercies are new every morning.  Divorced or not, we live IN CHRIST, and we can live this life victoriously through the same resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead.  From the beginning, God planned we would all be perfect now through his beloved Son, Jesus.  Sin did come into the world and contaminated us all; therefore, we all needed a Savior; we all needed the cross.  Jesus shed his blood at the cross as the perfect sacrifice for sin.  His perfection covers us all, so we might enter into God's holy presence, eternally known as his children, joint heirs with Christ Jesus.  Divorce was not the plan from the beginning; neither were any of our sins planned from the beginning; but God made a way for us through Jesus Christ who said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life!  (John 14:6)      

Mark 9:50 Be Salty and Shine for the Lord!

Mark 9:50  “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?  Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” 

Salt is a preservative that in the ancient world was often more valuable than gold.  Many times rather than gold or silver, salt was used as a medium of exchange in commercial transactions.  Many cities in the ancient world were named after the salt deposits in their area.  Therefore, when Jesus is talking about salt, he is talking about something that the people know is very valuable, essential to their existence.  But salt was only valuable to them if it possessed the property of saltiness.  If it had lost its saltiness, it would be worthless because it would not preserve anything.  Salt that lacked saltiness would not make their lives better by ensuring that they would have food to eat.  That kind of salt is only worthy of being discarded, thrown out, dismissed from their lives.  In the Bible, when Jesus speaks of salt, He is comparing the lives of people to how salt works.  In the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples to rejoice when they are persecuted or insulted, when people speak evil against them because of their walk with him.  He says their reward in heaven will be great.  He goes on to say, 

You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.  (Matthew 5:13)  The salt within a Christian, the ability to show forth the love of God in all situations, is the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of God makes us conformable to the image of Christ. 

Jesus did not say that we are the salt of the earth because it sounded good to those who were listening to his words.  He was saying to his followers, you must be like salt: preserving the life of God in people wherever you go.  When people taste of your life, they should have a taste of God's interaction with you.  They should taste the Holy Spirit's work in your innermost being.  They should see a transformed human being with a harvest of the fruit of the Spirit coming forth from his or her life.   Believers love people: they are joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled in the midst of life's many different circumstances, even in trials.  The people we know, our families and our friends, should taste of the peace and joy we have IN CHRIST when we interact with them.  They should know our personalities are clothed with goodness and gentleness.  They should understand we are faithful in revealing the words and works of our Lord to everyone, even to the least of these.   We have said this before, and we will remind you of this again: Jesus said, "A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."  (John 13:34-35)  If we are salty Christians, we will go about sharing the love of God.  In other words, our mission as ambassadors of Christ's kingdom is to show forth his likeness.  If we fail in this mission, we fail miserably.  As the apostle John wrote, How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  (1 John 3:1)

God has not transformed us to fail.  He has sent the beloved Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.  When Jesus prepared his disciples for his crucifixion, He said He must go away so the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, could come and teach them all things.  As believers, we are to listen to the Spirit and to react to people as the Spirit directs.  The Holy Spirit is the essential guide in our lives.  He gives us wisdom and spiritual insights.  Through the resurrection power of the Spirit we are made conformable to the image of Christ.  Paul wrote to the church at Rome, And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.  (Romans 8:11) On the other hand, if we begin living a fleshly life where our choices revolve around ourselves, we will find ourselves falling outside of the Spirit's control, and then we will fail to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.  We should be alert and sensitive to any activity or situation that focuses our attention on our selfish desires and away from the Lord's desires for us.  When we live for the flesh, we  lose our saltiness.  That kind of living is not concerned with the will of God but with the will of man.  But we are new creatures with new spiritual ears and eyes.  We were called to walk in freedom: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  (Galatians 5:1)  We have the abiding presence of God within us.  We have the still, small voice of the Spirit constantly speaking to us.  Therefore, let us live by the Spirit, preserving life rather than destroying it.  Let our testimony be so strong that others will want Christ, the only true life.  When Jesus said we were salt, He also said, You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  (Matthew 5:14)  Therefore, let the salt be salty to preserve our testimony before all people, and let our lights shine brightly that people will see and glorify our heavenly Father.  Amen!