The Danger of Familiarity - Trinity Church of Medina

How Familiarity Can Dull What Should Still Matter I'm sure you've heard the saying that familiarity breeds contempt. You know that's true by our experiences. You can see this from early life. A child begs for a new toy and it's all this child can think about for months. Well, finally kids, you get the toy and you have this great joy. You're excited. You you are just satisfied. But what happens over time? That joy fades. The toy becomes ordinary. Actually, it becomes boring, and eventually you ignore it and you may even give it away to somebody. What once thrilled the child now barely registers in their brain. It's not because the toy changed, but because the familiarity did. Adults, we do the same thing in marriage. The honeymoon ends. The gadget lose its its shine. What once was so dear and exciting to you becomes expected. What was once treasured becomes barely tolerated. Familiarity has a way of dulling what should still matter. And that familiarity doesn't just stop with relationships. It reaches into our faith. That's what we see here in this passage before us. In Mark Six one through 6, Jesus returns to his hometown. The people all know him. They recognize his wisdom. They've heard all about his power. And yet their familiarity with him becomes the very reason they refuse to believe in him. Mark is going to show us that being close to Jesus is not the same thing as trusting in Jesus, and that familiarity without faith can quietly harden your heart. And and to see just how serious this danger is in our lives, in our church, we need to zoom out a bit and we need to remember what has Mark shown us about Jesus? We just finished chapters four and five where Jesus says and shows, I am God, He has real authority. He's calming the storm, casting out demons, healing incurable medical conditions, and even raising the dead. All of these expose the natural unbelief of man and the supernatural faith of God's people. And now Mark is going to zoom in on this unbelief, and he's going to tie it directly to the concept of familiarity over familiarity. And it's going to show the danger of being too familiar. Hearing Jesus Regularly But Never Truly Trusting Him And so to help us this morning, I'm going to use three simple points. First, in verses one through 2, we'll see familiarity without faith. Then in three, we'll see familiarity that actually breeds contempt. And then finally, unbelief that withholds blessing in four through 6. So let's begin with the 1st and we'll go through the passage familiarity without faith in one through 2. And and this is where the story is really set up for us. Verse one, he went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him. You see Jesus reputation has been growing. There's more crowds following him and Jesus decides to take them back home with him. He wants to show them something to teach them something. And per his usual MO, verse 2 says, And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were astonished, saying, what did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? His hometown where he grew up. They heard all these miraculous stories in chapters 4 and five. They noticed that his teaching came with authority. He wasn't just some rabbi. And they were astonished. Don't miss this in the text. They are not unimpressed. They recognize the wonder of His miracles and His words, and they begin to ask good questions, but frankly, they don't accept the answer. Their questions show awareness. They are aware of what's going on. They're not confused. But as we'll see, they have recognition without true faith. They hear Him, they admire him, they just don't trust Him. And Mark is leading up to the tragedy of it all in this text. He's teaching us that you can have exposure and recognition and familiarity, but just not faith. And this is really important for us. This, in this passage, is not Pagan unbelief. This is covenant unbelief. These are church people who knew the Scriptures. They kept the Sabbath and they still refuse God in the flesh standing right in front of them. Now we need to stop here and apply this to ourselves for a moment. Friends, kids, adults, it is entirely possible to hear Jesus regularly and yet never trust Him. You can even be moved by the truth. You can be impressed by the teaching and yet still not trust Jesus, still not have your life changed by Jesus. Familiarity with Jesus can create the illusion of faith without the reality of it. We all know what I'm talking about. Many, many unbelievers in America exemplify this. They come to church, some of them weekly. They hear the gospel, though deluded often. Maybe they're even really impressed by the aspect of it. Perhaps they cry. Perhaps they raise their hands. Maybe they come forward and they make a profession of faith and they begin speaking Christianese. They know the hymns and the prayers and the songs. What? They don't trust in Jesus Christ. They know him, but they don't know him. They profess him, but they don't possess him. And their lives show it on a broad scale. This is terrifying. Kids especially. You need to be aware of this growing up in church. Just because you grow up in church does not make you a Christian who trusts in Christ. Who personally trusts in Christ. Just because mom and dad trust Jesus doesn't mean you automatically trust Jesus. You cannot just be familiar with Jesus. You can't just recognize His power and His wisdom. No, kids, you need to come to an end of yourself and you need to personally call upon Him to save you. Scripture says whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not whoever goes to church and says their prayers, but whoever personally repents and believes in the only Son of God sins that you actually have and are aware of and you know you deserve condemnation for. You're not just talking about generic repentance. You're acknowledging kids. I'm an evil person. I feel it, I know it, and I committed crimes against a holy God and I need a perfect substitute. And you realize that perfect substitute is Jesus Christ and Him alone. But friends, it's not just unbelievers who fall into this trap. In one sense, I think we do this many Sundays. We have this familiarity with Jesus. We come to church, we sing, we pray, we hear, we eat, and we leave. We do this week after week and year after year and decade after decade, and it becomes very, very familiar. A bit too familiar. So much so that it becomes a danger to us. We know it's coming next. We know the order, the liturgy. We know the songs. We know when to stand and when to sit. We know what the sermon is probably going to say. We know the Gospel preached. And suddenly, slowly, this familiarity dulls us. It numbs us. It's no longer awe inspiring. And then we stop coming hungry because we're full. We stop coming expectant because we know. We stop coming desperate because we have what we need and church turns into a routine. Jesus stops amazing us. We're not hostile to Him. We're just entirely unmoved by Him. And, and that's the danger here. We don't reject Jesus outright like the pagans. We just stop listening to Him closely, eagerly anticipating him, deeply repenting. We stop expecting Him to confront parts of our lives that we don't want Him to touch. We hear His word even now, and we filter it. We nod along, but nothing changes. This familiarity gives us the sense that we're fine because we're in church when we're actually not at all. And Mark gives us a warning here. Familiarity with Jesus can slowly numb us to his very presence. To be near him without actually depending and seeking him to know the truth without even trembling at it. It's just been doing this for years. I'm numb to it. That kind of familiarity doesn't deepen our faith, friends. It slowly erodes it. And this is where familiarity becomes dangerous to us. When recognition doesn't turn into faith, personal faith, it doesn't just sit there, it goes bad. It turns sour. When you got converted, what began as genuine amazement and Jesus Christ becomes subtle rejection. Just whatever. Another day at church and we'll see in the next verse where this leads. Reducing the Son of God to a Local Nobody Familiarity that breeds offence. In verse 3, their questions evolve into something more sinister. Verse 3 Is not this the Carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon are not his sisters here with us and they took offence at him. These people go from amazement, genuine amazement to offence. That word offence is scandal on a stumbling block, something you trip over. It's where we get our word scandal from. Jesus doesn't just confuse them, He actually offends them. And notice how they speak of him. They say son of Mary. That's a slight. That's an intentional slight. It's a reminder of the rumors that follow Jesus from birth to them. He's the Carpenter, a poor man's trade, the son of Mary, a man they assumed to be illegitimate because they don't think Mary was a virgin. And he's brother to very ordinary people. And their question underneath it all is very clear. Who does this guy that we grew up with think he is? They just straight up reject him, not because they think his teaching is false, but because he's so familiar to them. They think they know where he came from, and so they refuse to believe who he is. Their familiarity becomes the excuse for their unbelief. They reduced the Son of God to a local nobody. And here's the real scandal. It's not that Jesus lacked credentials. It's that God came too close to them. close enough to be known, close enough to be touched and heard, and close enough to be just dismissed. Friends, that reaction didn't just stay in Nazareth 2000 years ago. Do we not see this in America today? People aren't offended at Jesus because they've never heard of them. They're offended because they have heard of him. They've heard his name their whole lives. They heard the Christmas story. They've heard Jesus loves you. They've heard the claim that Jesus is God and instead of believing they get annoyed with Jesus. They say things like I grew up with this, I've heard it all, I know who your Jesus is, and because they think they know him, they feel free to just dismiss him altogether. Jesus becomes background noise to them. Just a childhood memory from past times, maybe a cultural symbol across something they've already decided about. And familiarity becomes the excuse for their unbelief. They don't argue that Jesus claimed to be God, many of them. They just don't care. And that indifference hardens into offence when when Jesus actually demands their repentance, their allegiance, their obedience and his lordship over them. That's what we see in the church today. That's what we see in America, and we see it in ourselves. As Christians, we do the same thing as them, to lesser degrees. We refuse Jesus, of course, not all right, but we do it suddenly, don't we? Why? Well, we think we already know Jesus. Jesus has become predictable to us, manageable, safe. Again. We know how church goes right now. And so we stop really listening. We take a nap, and here's how that shows up. We hear a sermon, maybe like this, and we immediately think of someone else who needs to hear it. We don't think, well, I need this. We think that person needs it. You begin to feel a slight hint of conviction and we just explain it away. Well, that's not really my issue or I'll handle this later. This can wait. And then the moment of conviction passes. We build lives that keep Jesus at a distance without ever outright saying no to Him. We stay busy enough that prayer just rarely, if ever happens. We fill our days with so much activity and busyness so that we don't have to be alone with God and our thoughts. Each of us knows exactly which sins God keeps putting his finger on and we dodge them. We avoid them instead of killing them because it's more comfortable. It shows up when we keep refusing to forgive that someone who we think doesn't deserve it, even though Christ has forgiven us for far more. It shows up even now when we nod our head at Jesus Lordship on Sunday and then we live all week long as if he has no say over anything. Not our money, not our time, not our marriage, not our parenting, not our private habits that no one can see. And that sets in and we stop trembling at His word. We avoid his confrontations and we don't want to change because we already showed up, decided. I know I already know it all. I'm. I'm already settled. I'm already unmoved. And what began as familiarity slowly turns us into resisting Jesus Christ. Not with our mouths, of course. I can say, Jesus, I resist and reject you. We just do it with our lives, with our habits, with our excuses, with our refusal to let him disrupt our lives. And the most dangerous part of this is that none of it feels like rebellion. Why? Why? I'm in church. I'm doing what God commanded. In fact, it feels reasonable. It's irresponsible to hide. It feels mature to not be exposed. But it's resistance and our our faith that is genuine and real begins to wither like a flower. Once these people decided who Jesus was, everything else was settled for them. There was nothing left for them to hear or to receive. How Unbelief Leads to a Withholding of God's Blessing And now Jesus is going to explain the cost of that kind of unbelief in verses 4 through 6, unbelief that withholds blessing. Beginning with verse 4, Jesus is going to name what is happening right there. That verse 4A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. Jesus put his finger on the nerve and he quotes this well known proverb that everybody knew, and he applied it to Israel's long pattern of rejecting God's messengers. This is how God's people have always treated God's messengers, not because their message was unclear, but because the message was too close to them, too familiar, too ordinary in their lives. Prophets were rejected precisely because they are too well known. Jesus, tell him you're not doing anything new here. This is how the covenant people have always treated God's messengers. God is standing right in front of you and you think you know enough to say no. And then verse 5 shows us the consequences. And he could do no mighty works there work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Now this doesn't mean that Jesus lacked power. Mark has just spent the last two chapters proving the exact opposite. It's not that he couldn't, it's that he wouldn't. Jesus held back because they wouldn't believe and yet he still showed mercy. It says some are healed, but the fullness of the blessing was withheld. Boy, there's a lesson there for us. There's still a blessing to coming to church. We might be missing something bigger. Friends. The the Kingdom doesn't break in with power where the Messiah is rejected and ignored and resisted. Notice that this this is not judgement by destruction. He didn't destroy the people. It's a judgement by withdrawal. God doesn't strike them down there, He just steps back. We see this in Romans one people suppress the truth in unrighteousness and God just gives them over. He says, fine, have it your way, let's see how that works out for you. And then he just lets them go. This is terrifying for the non Christian and for the Christian. And then verse 6 brings the passage to its climax. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. This is one of only two times in the gospel that Jesus has said to marvel once at the great faith of a Gentile. And here at the great unbelief of his own people, all throughout Mark and the other Gospels, people are marvelling at Jesus time and time again, at his teaching, his authority, his power. But here Jesus is marvelling at them. To marvel means to be struck with astonishment. Jesus is shocked in his humanity. He's not shocked at pagans or outsiders, but his own covenant people, people who grew up with him, people who heard him teach, people who saw enough to believe and yet would not. John sums this up well. In John 1. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. And that's where Mark leaves us. He continues to teach. At the end of verse 6, Jesus was right there and they wanted nothing to do with him. So what does this mean for us friends? Jesus doesn't lose power when we stop believing. We just lose the benefit. We lose His nearness, His work in US, the joy of living under his gracious rule. When we stop trusting in Jesus, even as Christians who are regenerate, Jesus steps back, much like in the Song of Songs where the bridegroom disappears. It's not because Jesus can't act in your life or mine. It's because we're not seeking Him. He doesn't force his blessings on people who have already decided they don't need him. And friends, this is not just about them. This passage is about you and me in real time. I I think one of the scariest part is how quiet this judgement is. Nothing dramatic happens. Nothing explodes. Life just keeps on going. Same routines, same sins, same distance from God. Jesus comes, Jesus speaks, Jesus leaves, and everything stays the exact same. And this is where it's so dangerous for us. Our unbelief doesn't usually look angry or hostile. Most of the time it just looks like being familiar. It's it looks like hearing a sermon, even this one, and not being changed in the slightest. Reading our Bibles and not believing them, or not even reading our Bibles. Not obeying the Bible. Coming to church on the Lord's Day and not repenting. We're not rejecting Jesus out loud. We heard him. We just stopped listening when he tells us what to change and and that forces a hard question on us. Back to the scandal. Is Jesus embarrassing to us? Not in what we say here, but in how we live out there. Friends, do we keep quiet about Jesus online or with family because it's just easier to not be misunderstood? I don't want people to think I'm a kook. Do we keep Jesus so close on Sundays, but then we keep Him out of all of our decisions Monday through Saturday? This, This is how it happens. We decide which parts of His Word apply to us and which don't, which are off limits to us. We obey where it's easy and we ignore him where it's very hard. And and slowly Jesus becomes part of our lives instead of the Lord of our lives. That behaviour from us astonishes Jesus. It shocks him. These are atheists. These are outsiders. We're people who are close to him, who belong to him, people who know enough to believe and yet in a way don't, even as Christians who have real faith, real saving faith. Mark is warning us from this passage, Familiarity can do the same thing in US. It can leave us near Jesus, like right now in church, and yet so far away from him, still unchanged. That's the danger near him, but totally unaffected. Jesus Died for Our Unbelieving Familiarity and Calls Us Back Now if Mark stopped the story here, it it would be devastating. A rejected Christ, a hardened hometown, judged, blessing withheld. But Mark doesn't stop in this chapter. Mark keeps writing. Jesus leaves Nazareth, but he doesn't leave his mission. The same Jesus who steps back from unbelief continues towards the cross. And this is where the gospel comes into view. Because as Mark continues, we learn something crucial. Jesus is not rejected in Nazareth because he's weak. He's rejected because he's too close. That's the shock of it. The scandal isn't that God stayed far away. The scandal is that God came near to us, close enough to touch and close enough to offend. close enough for us to ignore him. And as Mark writes, we see this good news, the same Jesus that they dismiss as just. The Carpenter didn't hold back when he went to the cross. He didn't withhold mercy from sinners who rejected him. On the contrary, he bore rejection for them. As Isaiah says, he was despised and rejected by men pierced for our transgressions. He was mocked, cast out, condemned so that overly familiar sinners could be brought near. Not just strangers and outsiders, kids, but people who know the story and have heard the truth. Nazareth shut him out. Jerusalem nailed him up and he still stayed there. He didn't get down and walk away. Say these people reject me, so I reject them. He didn't hold back. His grace said he absorbed the punishment for their unbelief and paid for it in his own body. Friends, what that means for us is that He didn't just die for open rebellion and overt wickedness. He died for our unbelieving familiarity. Kids, especially Jesus died for the sin of coming to church, born for sitting under the ward totally unmoved and totally unchanged, for hearing the gospel week after week and just being unfazed at all. He died for showing up out of habit instead of true hunger. That that kind of unbelief looks OK to us because it's respectable. But that is what nailed him to the cross. The gospel isn't that you need to become less familiar with Jesus. It's that Jesus refused to become familiar with our sin. He confronts it as a risen Lord. He bare. He bore it, He kills it through His spirit, and then He wrought. He rose to give us new life. The one who had this time marvelled at unbelief still offers mercy to unbeliever and believers alike, even to those of us who are so over familiar with church to the board, even those here who might be offended at Jesus, the gospel is this the Jesus that you may have grown tired of has never grown tired of saving sinners and he has never grown tired of sanctifying us, his people. So here's the passage that this I want to leave us with from this, from this passage, the question it it, the question is that do you know about Jesus? We all know about Jesus. The question is do do we trust him? Right now? It's not are you familiar with him? It's are we following him actively really. Because familiarity doesn't save anyone, ask Judas, And it doesn't sustain anyone. Recognition of Jesus is not faith. Demons have a demonic faith. They recognize you're the Son of God. We saw that last chapter. Our nearness to Him is not obedience. And be clear, believe in the perseverance of the Saints. Every Christian who's been regenerated will endure to the end. God is the author of that faith. He's the finisher of that faith. You doubt your salvation, you're looking at yourself. Stop. Look at Christ. Trust in him. He completed the work. This isn't just for unbelievers, guys. This is a warning for the church, God's people, for us, people who know the liturgy, who know the songs and the scriptures and the routine. That kind of familiarity can just dull us. I've experienced it so many times. I'm sure you have as well. And if that's you, and that certainly has been me, that's you right now, don't, don't despair that that's you. If you feel any pain over your dullness to Jesus, any at all, it means you're not dead. If it bothers you that you're bored in church, that means you're alive and the Spirit of God is still at working you. He's still stirring you, still refusing to leave you comfortable in your apathy. Remember, dead hearts don't ache for Jesus. They don't feel bad that they're not close to Him. They don't feel lost if you sense the distance between you and Jesus. That's His mercy towards you. That's His love towards you. That's Jesus once again calling you back to Himself. So let's not tame Him. Let's not explain Him away. Let's just come back to Him right now. Come back in repentance now. Perfect repentance, but genuine repentance. Come back in genuine dependence on Him. When we come back, let's come back expecting to hear from the living God who speaks to us, who confronts us, and who, yes, restores and encourages us. And let's continue to follow him. When we fall down, we get up again. The same Jesus who confronted unbelief in Nazareth is still the same Jesus who gladly receives repent sinners to himself even today. Lord God, we thank you for Your grace and your mercy to us.