THIRD QUARTER 2024
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #2
JULY 13, 2024
“A DAY IN THE MINISTRY OF JESUS"

 

A day in the life of Jesus. I imagine no two days were quite alike. One day He was called to enter the wilderness and on another day He was conversing with a demon. Did He know what was going to happen each day? Or was God’s plan and direction for His life revealed as needed and in Heaven’s perfect time? Jesus says of Himself “I can of Myself do nothing…I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30). Each new sunrise presented a path for our Savior to follow as His Father led Him in this life below. The Creator of all things lovely chose to be led by the hand of His Father. He chose to be led as a little child. 

Let’s take a look at what stood out to Mark about the ins and outs of Jesus’ day. According to Mark 1:16-45, He made friends and interacted with His community, He was active in church, He taught and had conversations with people, He was not a slave to darkness, He traveled, He sought guidance and wisdom from His Father, He spent private time in communion with His Father, and He brought complete healing and restoration to whomever would accept His help. He worked tirelessly for the joy and healing of His creation and sought to show us the path to everlasting restoration to Himself. Everything He said and did was centered around a sole purpose: to communicate  the gospel of the Kingdom of God and to call His wayward people to repentance. 

As followers of Christ we strive to follow His example set out in His daily life, to carry on and live out the Great Commission in our lives (Matthew 28:18-20). And for the most part, we do all those things. As a people we are very good at doing the Great Commission. We do missionary work, we give philanthropically, we give tithe faithfully, we give offerings, we study the Bible, we pray, we attend church, we are involved in church, we preach and share the gospel. We do it all. 

In some ways, a slice of Jesus’ life seems identical to mine and starkly different all at the same time. I go through the same motions, I do similar if not the same things…yet I lack the power that attended Him as He walked this earth. Jesus said in John 14:12, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” When I typically think of this verse, I tend to focus on the power to perform miraculous miracles. I think to myself, “When I reach the level of faith, surrender and dependence on the Holy Spirit to perform supernatural healings or preach and see thousands converted…then my Christian walk is complete.” But maybe we are missing the point. Maybe the miracle isn’t so much the supernatural events and actions that flavored Christ’s walk (don’t get me wrong, those are important!) but maybe the miracle is in the very life Christ led. His life was sinless and mine is not. Why? Why is this our reality when we have been promised so much more? Where are the greater works? Where is the life that truly reflects and mirrors Christ’s in motive, spirit, word and action? They key lies within the very same verse in the phrase “he who believes in Me.” Maybe we do not truly believe in the heart and word of God. We must learn to believe the gospel if anything is to change.           

Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, 

“If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction. Mark 1:40-45.

Lepers—infected by a disease that caused physical disfigurement and rejection by society. They were considered incurable and under the displeasure of God. They had to fend for themselves and, unable to mingle with others, had to announce their uncleanliness wherever they went to prevent others from becoming contaminated. Lepers couldn’t attend synagogue and or enter the sanctuary to offer sacrifice. They were people considered cut off from God and unable to atone for their sin.

Jesus’ fame as a miraculous healer had spread like wildfire, and the leper in Mark 1 had the guts to defy societal and cultural restraints to approach Jesus for healing. Healing meant he could rejoin society, he would be restored to favor with God and he would be able to seek atonement for his sin again via the sanctuary services. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose. He believed Jesus could heal him. However, he was unsure of Jesus’s willingness to heal him. 

The leper believed in the power of God but not in the love of God. What a beautiful revelation of the character of God! What a sense of relief and joy that must have washed over the diseased man as Jesus approached him, touched him, cured his illness and spoke into his reality the true nature of God, a God full of love and compassion who was able and willing to cleanse from this disease that was believed to alienate from God Himself.

The work of Christ in cleansing the leper from his terrible disease is an illustration of His work in cleansing the soul from sin. The man who came to Jesus was “full of leprosy.” Its deadly poison permeated his whole body. The disciples sought to prevent their Master from touching him; for he who touched a leper became himself unclean. But in laying His hand upon the leper, Jesus received no defilement. His touch imparted life-giving power. The leprosy was cleansed. Thus it is with the leprosy of sin,—deep-rooted, deadly, and impossible to be cleansed by human power. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.” Isaiah 1:5, 6. But Jesus, coming to dwell in humanity, receives no pollution. His presence has healing virtue for the sinner. Whoever will fall at His feet, saying in faith, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean,” shall hear the answer, “I will; be thou made clean.” Matthew 8:2, 3, R. V. —Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 266.

There may be times in our spiritual walk where we have no trouble believing in the power of God to cleanse us from sin yet struggle to believe He is willing to do so. We may bemoan our unworthiness and cry of our uncleanliness as we stand afar off from the throne of mercy and grace. Our disbelief in His willingness holds His love for us at arms length and we come short of experiencing the depths of who He is. His power to restore and to save us from all unrighteousness will remain untrue in our lives as long as we hold on to our unbelief. In Lessons on Faith pages 83-85, A. T. Jones says:

Can every believer have grace enough to keep him free from sinning? Yes. Indeed, everybody in the world can have enough to keep him from sinning. Enough is given, and it is given for this purpose. If anyone does not have it, it is not because enough has not been given, but because he does not take that which has been given. For “unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of  the gift of Christ.” Eph. 4:7. The measure of the gift of Christ is Himself wholly, and that is the measure of “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” To the fullness of the Godhead there is, indeed, no measure; it is boundless. It is simply the infinity of God. Yet that is the only measure of the grace that is given to every one of us. The boundless measure of the fullness of the Godhead is the only thing that can express the proportion of grace that is given to everyone who is in this world. For “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” This grace is given in order that “as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord,” and in order that sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are under grace. 

It is given also “for the perfecting of the saints.” The object of it is to bring each one to perfection in Christ Jesus—to the perfection too, that is fully up to God’s standard, for it is given for the building up of the body of Christ, “till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” It is given to “every one of us,” “till we all come” to perfection, even by the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Again, this grace is given to every one where sin abounds and it brings salvation to every one to whom it is given. Bringing salvation in itself, the measure of the salvation which it brings to every one is only the measure of its own fullness, which is nothing less than the measure of the fullness of the God-head. 

 As boundless grace is given to everyone bringing salvation to the extent of its own full measure, then if any one does not have boundless salvation, why is it? Plainly it can be only because he will not take that which is given. As boundless grace is given to everyone in order that it shall reign in him against all the power of sin, as certainly as ever sin reigned and in order that sin shall not have dominion, then if sin still reigns in anyone, if sin yet has dominion over anyone, where lies the fault? Clearly, it lies only in this, that he will not allow the grace to do for him and in him that which it is given to do. By unbelief he frustrates the grace of God. So far as he is concerned, the grace has been given in vain. 

But every believer, by his very profession, says that he has received the grace of God. Then if in the believer grace does not reign instead of sin, if grace does not have dominion instead of sin, it is plain enough that he is receiving the grace of God in vain. If grace is not bringing the believer onward toward a perfect man in the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, then he is receiving the grace of God in vain. Therefore the exhortation of the Scripture is, “We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” 2 Cor. 6:1. 

The grace of God is fully able to accomplish that for which it is given, if only it is allowed to work. We have seen that grace being altogether from God, the power of grace is nothing but the power of God. It is plain enough therefore that the power of God is abundantly able to accomplish all for which it is given—the salvation of the soul, deliverance from sin and from the power of it, the reign of righteousness in the life, and the perfecting of the believer unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—if only it can have place in the heart and in the life to work according to the will of God. But the power of God is “unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” Unbelief frustrates the grace of god. Many believe and receive the grace of God for the salvation from sins that are past but are content with that and do not give it the same place in the soul to reign against the power of sin, that they did to save from sins of the past. This, too, is but another phase of unbelief. So as to the one great final object of grace—the perfection of the life in the likeness of Christ— they do practically receive the grace of God in vain.

            May we not receive the grace of God in vain. Whatever the root of our unbelief, whether it be disbelief in the ability or the character of God, may we seek Him earnestly and ask Him to root it out of our hearts. May we be bold enough to present ourselves before the throne of grace because of who we know to be sitting on that throne. May we hang our very lives on His matchless love and unlock the power that was present in Christ’s walk. He will by no means cast us out. The Spirit of God that was a living, breathing reality in the daily life of Christ is to be ours as well. And when we come to Him and let Him banish every ounce of unbelief in our hearts, we too like the leper will not be able to contain Him in us, and the world will be lightened with His glory. Our experience will be elevated to a higher experience and we will step into a slice of life that is like that of Christ’s.

Our confession of His faithfulness is Heaven's chosen agency for revealing Christ to the world. We are to acknowledge His grace as made known through the holy men of old; but that which will be most effectual is the testimony of our own experience. We are witnesses for God as we reveal in ourselves the working of a power that is divine. Every individual has a life distinct from all others, and an experience differing essentially from theirs. God desires that our praise shall ascend to Him, marked by our own individuality. These precious acknowledgments to the praise of the glory of His grace, when supported by a Christ-like life, have an irresistible power that works for the salvation of souls.—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 347.

 

~ Anya Kinsley