This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our look together at Mark chapter 7, day 5, last day of this chapter,
verses 31-37 today. Yesterday we began a look at Jesus going into a different
region, the region of Tyre and Sidon and how he began to do his work in the
lives of the people that were there. Let me just give you a geography thing that
happens in these verses at the very beginning of today before we get into the
miracle that Jesus worked.

In verse 31, here's the geography, "Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and he
went through Sidon down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of Decapolis.
" Now here's something interesting, Galilee, Jesus is in Tyre, just get this in
your mind's He's in Tyre and Galilee is to the southeast of Tyre and Sidon was
directly north of Tyre. So if you read these verses again, "He left Tyre, went
to Sidon directly north in order to get southeast.

" Why did he go that direction? Because it was Gentile territory. And just after
talking to the teachers about being clean, Jesus went to the places the scribes
and the Pharisees, they thought everybody was unclean in these places.

You see, Jesus wasn't just going the most direct route to get to the most direct
place. He was going the route that most directly fit God's plan for his life.
We've all had this happen in our lives.

God sends us north in order to get south and we think, "Well, that was a waste
of time. " No, it wasn't. It wasn't because of what God wanted to do in your
life when you went north in order to get to the southeast.

And it wasn't a waste of time because of what God wanted to do in somebody
else's life when you went north to Sidon in order to get to Galilee. That's just
how God works. Not the most direct route, but the most effective route in our
lives.

So what happened in Sidon? Verses 32-37. "There some people brought to him a man
who was deaf and could hardly talk.

And they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away
from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. And then he spit, and
he touched the man's tongue.

He looked up to heaven, and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha," which
means, "Be opened. " At this, the man's ears were opened. His tongue was
loosened, and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they
kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement.

He has done everything well, they said. He even makes deaf hear and the mute
speak. Here is this miracle of Jesus Christ that he's working.

When we read these verses, we see the miracle, but we also see how Jesus did it.
And it's interesting to us, there's this thing of him putting fingers in the
man's ears and actually spitting and putting that on the man's tongue, and we
wonder, what is this all about? And asking those questions is good, because it
leads us to the point of thinking about why did Jesus heal the way that he
healed?

And in these verses, you see some major life lessons about how Jesus Christ
works in our lives, how Jesus Christ meets the needs of our lives. Four major
life lessons. Lesson one is, he meets our needs in different ways.

He met this man's need in a different way than he met the needs of other people
that he healed. He touched this man because he couldn't hear, so he touched him.
He touched his ears to show him what he was about to do.

He spit because people believed in that day that spit had healing qualities. And
he touched the man's tongue to show him, "I want to do this for you. " He looked
up to heaven.

Remember, this man can't hear, so he looks up to heaven to show the man, "I'm
talking to God. I'm trusting my Father. I'm praying.

" What was Jesus doing here? He was talking to this man. He was communicating.

He was saying with his hands and with his spit and with his eyes turned up to
heaven, he was saying, "I am willing to heal you. Are you willing to trust me? "
He meets our needs in different ways.

To me, one of the most interesting studies in the New Testament is how Jesus
healed different people of the same illnesses in different ways. It just shows
that he loves to work in different ways. And for you and I to put Jesus in a box
and say he has to work the same way every time, he has to work the same way in
your life as he did in my life, I've often thought about the people that Jesus
healed of blindness.

And if you read the New Testament carefully, you see that he healed some with
just a word. He healed others by touching them. He healed some by spitting on
the ground and making clay and putting it on their eyes and asking them to go
wash it off.

Which was the right way of healing? They all were. But I've imagined at times
these people getting together later to talk about how Jesus heals blind people.

And one person's saying, "Jesus heals blind people with just a word. That's how
he heals blind people. " The other one's saying, "Oh no, Jesus heals blind
people with a touch.

That's how he does it. That's how I've experienced it. That's how all of us need
to experience it.

" And then the other one stands up and says, "Oh no, no, no, Jesus heals blind
people by spitting on the ground and putting the clay in your eyes. He is a
spitting God. He spits and he puts the clay in your eye and then you go down and
you wash the mud out of your eyes.

" And I just imagine this guy starting the "here's mud in your eye" denomination
of churches because that's the way that God heals. That's the way that God
works. God meets our needs in different ways.

And for you and I to take these different ways that God works in our lives and
to allow it to become a cause of division amongst us rather than unity and
amazement of what he does, that saddens the heart of God. He meets our needs in
different ways. And number two, the second life lesson in the way he healed here
is he meets my need in a way that builds my faith.

Did you notice one of the most amazing things in this passage to me is Jesus
takes this man aside, away from the crowd. Here is this man who cannot hear, he
cannot speak. So to be in a crowd was a very confusing place.

Lips moving, things happening, he didn't know a lot of what was happening. Jesus
loved this man. So he got him away from the crowd, away from the confusion, away
from the place where he had felt ignored or left out for much of his life.

Jesus singles him out and he gives attention only to him. It's amazing to me. He
meets his need in a way that builds his faith.

He gets him to a place where he can see, I'm praying to God, I'm asking you to
trust and to have faith. Why does God work in the way in my life that he works?
Because he wants to build my faith.

Why does God work differently in different ones of our lives? Because he's
working to build our faith and we're all different, so he works in different
ways. In fact, the third principle is this.

He rarely does something the same way twice. Even in my own life, when God wants
to build my faith, he does it this way this time, maybe through a relationship,
and then he does it this way the next time, maybe through a lack of finances. He
does it in different ways at different times.

God loves to work in different ways. He's got a lot of tools to work in my life
and he uses those different ways. And for me to expect or to wait on God to work
the same way that he worked last time, I'm going to miss the life lessons that
he has for me.

I'm going to miss the depth of what he wants to do in my life. He rarely does
something in the same way twice. What are the life lessons here?

Number one, he meets our needs in different ways. Number two, he meets my need
in a way that builds my faith. Number three, he rarely does the same thing the
same way twice.

And number four, don't forget this one, he deeply cares about my need. There's a
phrase in verse 34 that is meaningful. He looked up to heaven and then here's
the phrase, "With a deep sigh he said to him, 'Ephphatha.

'" With a deep sigh. That phrase says to me much about the love of Jesus Christ.
He felt the man's hurt.

He felt the man's burden. And with a deep sigh he prayed for the man's healing.
I know that some of us face burdens and face hurts in our lives that we wish
could be healed immediately, but we have to wait until we get to heaven.

I'm sure this man didn't want to suffer with not being able to speak or to hear
all of his life until Jesus came along. I'm sure he would have rather never had
this illness at all, this handicap at all. But he had to wait.

Sometimes we have to wait even until we get to heaven. Does that mean that God
doesn't care? Absolutely not.

He absolutely cares about the hurt that you're going through right now. So why
didn't he change it right away? I don't know.

I'd be a fool to try to explain the ways of God. But I do know this. He does
care.

He does understand. And there will come a day when we get to heaven when he
heals every hurt, every pain, and I will live eternity with that healing. He
deeply cares about your need.

So ask him. Trust him with that need that's in your life. And once again at the
end of this passage Jesus says don't tell anyone.

And once again they kept telling everyone. He has done everything so well, they
said, not just some things, everything. They were giving praise to him as God in
human flesh.

I do maybe one thing well every once in a while, or maybe you do too. But to do
everything well every time, that's a sign of the perfection of Jesus Christ
walking through this earth. And what he wants to do well in my life, in your
life right now, is communicate these very things that we talked about today.

The fact that he knows, and he cares, and he wants to meet the needs of our
lives. Let's trust him with those needs right now. Jesus here it is, here's my
need, and I trust you with it.

It's a relational need, or a financial need, or a physical need, I trust you
with it. And I hear you in my mind's eye, I hear you, see you speaking, saying
that you care. And I trust you, first for the healing of my heart.

Give me joy even in the midst of this. Then for the healing of this
circumstance, change it by your power. And then for the healing, the eternal
healing that I'm going to enjoy for you, with you together forever in heaven.

I trust you Jesus Christ. I pray that you would meet the need of my life. Give
me this day my daily bread.

I trust you in your name, amen. I'm glad you joined us to look together this
week through Mark chapter 7. Next week, Mark chapter 8.

As we look through Mark chapter 8 next week, we're going to be looking at God's
challenge to look at life from an entirely new angle.