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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, hi this is Pastor Tom Holiday and I want
to welcome you to our look today at Mark chapter 3, all this week we're going to
be looking at this incredible chapter. We're going to look at verses 1 to 6 in
just a moment, but before that I'd like to look back at last week for a second
and then also take a moment to look ahead to what we're going to be talking
about this week. Last week we looked at Mark chapter 2 and how Jesus taught us
we could live what I would call a new wineskin life.

You can't put new wine and old wineskins, you've got to have a new wineskin, a
new kind of life that only Jesus Christ can give. And last week as we looked at
the stories of Jesus, we looked at taking up your mat and walking, the
miraculous things that Jesus can do in our lives. We looked at Jesus saying
follow me, the kind of guidance that he can give into our lives.

We looked at Jesus saying to those who were arguing with him that the Sabbath
was made for man and not man made for the Sabbath, a new way of looking at life.
This is all this new wineskin of life, this new way of looking at things that
Jesus gives us because of the new life that he can give us. You can't live a new
wineskin life without new life and Jesus gives it to us.

And this week as we look at Jesus and what he does, we're really going to be
focusing on the relationships of Jesus. The relationship that Jesus had to so
many different people. As we walk these next few days through Mark chapter 3,
we're going to see Jesus' relationship to a multitude who is pressing in on him
and he's teaching them and he's healing them.

We're going to see Jesus' relationship to evil, unclean spirits who eventually
fall down before him as Lord. We're going to see Jesus' relationship to his own
people who doubt him, to the religious leaders who were accusing him. We're
going to see in this chapter Jesus' relationship to his mother and his brothers
as they visited him, as they expressed even some doubts and concerns about him.

And right in the middle of it all in this chapter, we're going to see Jesus'
relationship to some disciples whom he called to follow him. As we begin Mark
chapter 3, we're going to focus on verses 1 to 6 today. Let me read those verses
for you.

Another time he, Jesus, went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand
was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they
watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to
the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone.

" And then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to
do evil, to save life or to kill? " But they remained silent. He looked around
at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the
man, "Stretch out your hand.

" He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. And then the
Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill
Jesus. As you look at this passage of Scripture and what happens that day in the
synagogue, it's very evident that how you see things makes all the difference in
your life.

This is a passage that's all about your perspective on life. It's about how you
see people. It's about how you see God's commands.

It's about how you see Jesus in your life. This is a passage that's about how
you see people. They're all there together that day in the synagogue, and
there's a man who needs to be healed.

He has a hand that has been shriveled by some kind of sickness or by some kind
of an accident. So he's handicapped. And there are some there that day, the
religious leaders.

They see this man with a shriveled hand, and all they see in him is a reason to
potentially accuse Jesus. They don't have any compassion for the man. They don't
see the man's hurt or the man's need.

All they see is a reason. They're looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. And so
because their entire life perspective is built around a reason to accuse, that's
how they see everything.

That's how they see everyone. Jesus, on the other hand, he sees the man as
someone who needs healing. In fact, he's going to heal him.

He sees the man through eyes of compassion. Instead of looking for a reason to
accuse, Jesus is looking for a reason to heal. He's looking for a reason to show
compassion.

Now, it's easy when you begin to talk about perspective on life to get caught up
in other people's perspective on life and to begin to blame them for the way
that they see things. But when I look at my own heart, when I look at my own
life, I can see that there are times when I'm looking for a reason to be upset,
I'm looking for a reason to be angry, I'm looking for a reason to be depressed,
I'm looking for a reason to be doubtful. I'm looking for a reason to allow that
thing that's come into my heart that's hurting me and others to be magnified.

These scriptures remind us that instead of that, you and I can look for a reason
to have faith. We can look for a reason to show compassion on the people that
are around us. I want to see life, not using people to validate my own doubts
and insecurities.

I want to see life seeing people, seeing their doubts and their insecurities and
seeing how God might be able to use me in their life. It's how you see people.
Your perspective on life is going to determine how you see people.

It's also going to determine, we see in this passage, how you see God's
commands. Jesus gets up that day and he says in the synagogue with the man
standing there who needs healing, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Is it
lawful to do good or to do evil?

" According to their law, healing was work and work couldn't be done on the
Sabbath. Now certain kinds of work for healing to save a person's life so they
wouldn't die could be done, but this man, he just had a handicap so that wasn't
important enough according to the law, important enough to be healed on the
Sabbath. By their laws, Jesus could not do the good of healing this man.

Jesus is here talking about matters of life and death. He's talking here about
matters of good and evil. In light of that, these religious leaders were stuck
on what could and couldn't be done on a Sabbath day.

They couldn't see life and death. They couldn't see good and evil. All they
could see was could you or could you not do this on a Sabbath day?

We can do the same thing. Let's just be honest. People's eternity is in the
balance in church.

They're making decisions about life and death, about good and evil, but we get
stuck on whether they sang the songs that I like to sing in church this weekend.
Let's just be honest. We all get stuck on little things.

For them, they'd become so stuck they'd codified it into the law, not God's law
in the Old Testament, but their laws about God's law, and we can do the same
thing. But more often than not, for us, we haven't codified it into a law. It's
just a stuck place in our hearts where instead of seeing the good that God can
do, all I can see is that I was made a little uncomfortable in this situation.

Instead of seeing the great thing that God can do, I'm stuck on the fact that
this didn't work out like I wanted it to work out. How do I see God's commands?
Do I see?

Here's the question. Here's the core of it. Do I see the heart of God in his
commands?

The Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, is filled with the commands of
God, and Jesus taught us that those who love him will live out his commands, and
that those who live out his commands will deepen their love for him. Do I see
the heart of God in his commands, that he gives commands not to limit my life,
he gives commands in order to direct and guide my life into the joys that he
has? And yes, sometimes I don't want to follow his commands.

Sometimes I'd rather be stubborn. Sometimes I'd rather be selfish. But do I see
the heart of God in his commands?

Instead of pushing back at those commands, do I accept them into my life as a
gift that he has given because he loves me? I want you to notice something that
happened here. When Jesus saw that these religious leaders were not willing to
see this man's need, were instead stuck on following their own rules, when they
remained silent, Jesus's reaction was anger and deep distress.

Is it ever okay to be angry? Yes, Jesus was. Jesus was angry when people's
hearts kept them and kept others away from God.

That brought out the anger of Jesus. And it responded in anger. He said, "Why
would you act this way?

Why would you allow this to come into your hearts? " You see, these verses are
all about how you see things. They're all about how you and I see people.

They're about how you and I see God and his commands in our lives. And at the
core of it, they're all about how you see Jesus. Because in the end, how I see
Jesus is going to determine how I see God's command and having a heart for God's
command.

How I see Jesus is going to determine how I see people and whether I have a
heart for people. Because Jesus loves God's commands, because Jesus loves God's
people, I'm going to love him if I see him in the right way. And the question in
these verses is, what am I going to choose?

Am I going to choose to accept him or reject him? Because Jesus is going to
challenge things in my life and in your life that you don't like sometimes. And
when that happens, am I going to accept him or am I going to reject him?

There's no in-between in that moment. I can't pretend like it's just okay to
think Jesus is just a good guy who lived 2,000 years ago. But the challenges
change in my life as he was doing in the lives of the people in that day.

I've got to choose. Will I accept or will I reject? Let's take a moment to talk
to him right now.

And Jesus says, "We talk to you right now. We want to accept, but we know we
have stubborn hearts sometimes. It is so easy to have a stubborn heart.

" God, I admit it, it's so easy to get stuck in my ways of thinking or my ways
of acting and then to justify that I've been stuck by staying stuck. That is so
easy to do. God, I pray that you'd open my heart to you today.

In fact, I invite you to pray this prayer with me. Open my heart to you today,
Jesus, to your love, to your grace, and to your power. And help me to see things
through your eyes, to see God's word, God's commands through your eyes, to see
the people in my life through your eyes.

Help me to see things in a fresh, new, joyous, and freeing way today. Pray this,
Jesus, in your name, amen. Join us again for drive-time devotions tomorrow.

We're going to talk about what you and I can learn about the ministry of Jesus
from a day in the life of Jesus.