Bread Basket... Recent Sermon Notes

Pursuing intimacy with God: Jesus and intimacy with the father – Mark 1:35-39

Mark 1:35: the importance of prayer

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

For Jesus, intimacy with God included prayer. He went early in the morning - having been working past sundown the previous day. He got up and went out to a desolate place.

So, he made it a priority right at the start of the day and he went and did it somewhere far away, perhaps so that he wouldn’t be disturbed, perhaps so that people wouldn’t be ‘impressed’ by his praying – you may well know what Jesus said in Matthew 5 about people who made a great show of standing on street corners to prary.

So, from this verse we learn something about prayer – part of intimacy with God - and that Jesus made time for it and he went somewhere where he wouldn’t be disturbed. I generally make time first thing in the morning – over my cornflakes – when everyone else in the house is asleep. Perhaps we could ask each other over coffee afterwards when we make time for prayer?

More than prayer

But these verses aren’t just about prayer. If you look at what’s going on around these verses, you will see that that Mark 1:35 isn’t just about prayer, it tells us something about two other things – both of which begin with P. In fact, they both begin with PR.

This last part of Mark 1 isn’t just about prayer: it’s about preaching and priorities. We can see that early in his ministry Jesus had competing calls on his time.

We all have competing calls on our time, all sorts of different things we have to do, schoolwork, work, friends, family and perhaps for some Christians recently involvement in the elections - and all of these can be good legitimate things to spend our time on.

But here Jesus seems to be at some crisis point early on in his ministry and he needs to get away, in prayer, and work out what he should be doing.

And Jesus sees preaching as his priority and he goes on, from a town full of sick people because he wants to preach – look at verse 38. And, dare I say, the world will love us when we go around meeting people’s needs – homeless shelters, soup kitchens, working with abused children, AIDS hospices, debt advice - and all those might well be good things.

But the church is less popular when we make preaching a priority, and if we say, there might be less need for homeless shelters, soup kitches, AIDS hospices, debt advice and work with abused children, if people submitted to the rule of God in their lives, we become less popular.

You can imagine the headline in Capernaum Sun or the Metro the next morning, “Healer does a runner” and there would be a picture of a Mum with her crippled baby saying, “Yeah, if he really cared he’d do something about my kid but all he cares about is praying and preaching”. And let’s not forget the reality, there must have been many disappointed people like that around Capernaum.

But we then get the story of the leper. Jesus does pray, he does give preaching a priority, but he’s not going to ignore a real need right under his nose – and perhaps that’s something there for us as gospel people, as people who believe that the most important need in society is for men and women, girls and boys to be put right with God, to be forgiven.

This doesn’t mean we ignore people’s immediate physical needs, take a look at Jesus in v41, what drives him – compassion. This incident tells us something of the compassionate tender heart of Jesus and we should be that way too – as Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians, let us do good to all people.

Do note in passing, Jesus tells him to be quiet about it – what’s called The Messianic Secret - but what does he do, v45, result? If Jesus has done something you can’t keep quiet about it.

So Jesus needed to sort out his priorities.

Asking for wisdom

Turn with me to the book of James. James 1:5. Here James, an apostle of Jesus, someone who spent a lot of time with him, tells us that if we lack wisdom we are to ask God, who gives generously.

So, if you have competing priorities in your life ask God for wisdom – and James doesn’t say how the answer will come, but he does say what a life controlled by that sort of wisdom will look like, James 3:17.

Spend your time doing things, with people that help you to become these things and help you to demonstrate these things. And pray that God will give you the wisdom to do so.