The Good News about Jesus – Part 9
By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
Mark 6:1-6 – July 13, 2025
My father grew up going to the United church in Glasgow Station. My mother grew up going to First Baptist Church in Arnprior. For various reasons, I grew up going to the Wesleyan Church in Arnprior. I knew ever since I was young that God had called me into vocational ministry. So, when it came time to go to school, I had various options. I ended up going to the Baptist seminary in Edmonton, which was associated with the First Baptist Church in Arnprior.
When I graduated from seminary in 1985, although I was headed to pastor in a Wesleyan Church, First Baptist Church in Arnprior thought that it would be great to have me preach there – and preach I did. A lot of my friends a family still went to that church. I preached with passion and conviction.
At the end of the service, I went into the foyer to shake hands with the people coming out of the church, as was the tradition. A lady came up to me and said, That was great – I remember diapering you. So, I get it when Jesus said in our scripture today,
Mark 6:4 (NIV)
“A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”
Let me tell you this Jesus story. This summer, we have been working our way through the gospel of Mark. We have seen through his actions that he healed the sick and had authority over storms and even raised the dead. Today I want to tell you about what happened when Jesus went to his hometown.
Jesus had been in Capernaum. There he taught in the synagogue and did a number of miracles, including raising a 12-year-old girl from the dead.
Jesus left Capernaum and travelled with his disciples about 30 kilometres to his hometown of Nazareth.
As was his custom, when the Sabbath day came, he went to the synagogue and taught. Like you have heard before, Jesus really only had one message. The Kingdom of God is near, and God wants you to be a part of it. Repent and believe the good news.
I am sure that day the synagogue was full. After all they had heard about the miracles that Jesus had been doing in other parts of Galilee. They came out to see their hometown boy.
Jesus preached, and the Bible records that many who heard him were amazed at his teaching. We know from earlier in Mark that he was one who taught with authority. It wasn’t just that he knew about God; you could tell from his speaking that he knew God.
Mark tells us that they were amazed. That could be translated as they were greatly astounded or astonished. They were hearing things about God that they had never heard before. But this teaching came from their hometown boy.
Mark 6:2–3a (NIV)
2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.
“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”
The people listening were saying – We know his family. We know his mother, Mary. We know his brothers and sisters. Many of his family are still in our town. We saw him grow up. “Where did he get these things that he is teaching? How did he get the wisdom that he has? How is he able to do these remarkable miracles?
Those are all good questions. Those are valid questions. But here is the kicker. Mark records at the end of verse 3, “and they took offence at him.”
I find it fascinating that when Jesus was calling his disciples, Nathaniel was invited to meet Jesus. Nathaniel’s friends told him about Jesus and that he had grown up in Nazareth. Nathaniel’s response was, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Now the people Of Nazareth are basically saying, we know this guy. We know where he comes from. He came from here. Nothing good comes out of Nazareth.
Australians have this term. They call it “tall poppy syndrome.” It refers to the tendency to criticize, attack, or resent individuals who achieve notable success and stand out from the crowd. It is literally like trimming the poppy that grows taller than the others in the field.
How dare he think he’s somebody? We changed his diaper. Jesus, of course, knew what was going on. He gave a commonly understood quote.
Mark 6:4 (NIV)
4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”
We have a saying, “familiarity breeds contempt.” This is saying that normally, a prophet would be honoured. Someone who speaks with divine authority, amazing wisdom and does miracles as a sign that God is at work in him, would normally be honoured. But that doesn’t happen in his hometown. Familiarity breeds contempt.
“And they took offence at him.”
There are a couple of things that fascinate me about this verse. Jesus self-identifies as a prophet. In other places, he calls himself “the son of man,” the son of God,” the Messiah,” and “The king.” But here he refers to himself as a prophet.
Although prophets often spoke about what would happen in the future, and Jesus did that. The primary role of a prophet was to speak truth into culture. They were to give God’s message to the people. They were to speak for God to the people.
Here, Jesus identifies as a prophet because he is speaking God’s word to the people of his hometown. But the people of his hometown could not hear the words of God because familiarity had bred contempt.
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I wonder how often we miss the words of God because of familiarity.
Some of you had read the stories of Jesus and the New Testament so often that when you read them now, you miss some of what God wants to say because of familiarity.
I have heard John 3:16 a thousand times. I have read the story of Jesus telling Nicodemus that “you must be born again” over and over again.
I have read the scripture so often that I get less and less from it.
If that is you, I get it. If all one does is read with an eye for new content, scripture can become overly familiar. However, if you read scripture to hear what God wants to say to you – you will continue to be amazed at the freshness of scripture.
One of the ways that I combat this phenomenon of becoming overly familiar with scriptures is by changing the translation of the bible that I use personally, every couple of years. The New Testament was originally written in Greek. When you translate from one language to another, there are various words you can use to convey the same idea. That is why we have different translations.
If your Bible reading has become stale because of familiarity, take up a different translation. There are some hazards with that. Sometimes when I am reading scripture from the front of the church, I stumble over my words because I am familiar with the verses in one translation and I’m reading another.
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As you probably know, God can speak to us in many different ways. God often puts people in our lives to speak his words to us. Now I get that, unlike Jesus, we are all shaped by our experiences, and our perspectives are not always God’s perspective. But that being said, God still uses people to speak to us.
God’s design life so that parents can teach their children what is right and wrong. Some of us have had good parents some of us have had challenging parents. But sometimes God will speak through our parents I and we miss it because familiarity breeds contempt.
As a pastor, I am familiar with this dynamic. I pastored in the same church for 28 years. New people who would come into the church would hear me preach and say, “That’s amazing.” People have been there for a while, wouldn’t say it, but you could tell -ho hum, that’s just Brent. Familiarity can breed contempt.
God often uses the words of children to speak to us. But sometimes we miss it because we are busy. Sometimes we miss it because we are familiar with our children’s voices.
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One of Jesus roles while he was here on earth was that of a prophet. He spoke God’s truth into his hometown and they could not hear it because he was their hometown boy.
I believe that God is speaking to us a lot more than we hear, because we miss what he is saying because of familiarity. The Bible says that the whole earth is filled with the glory of God. Sometimes I just see the heat in the rain.
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Well, the people were amazed at his teaching, but they took offence at him because he was their hometown boy. Whether with tall poppy syndrome or familiarity bred contempt, they took offence.
Missing who Jesus was and who he spoke for brought real-world consequences.
Mark 6:5–6a (NIV)
5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith.
While God can work in the absence of faith, he usually chooses not to work in the absence of faith. In the previous chapter, when a woman intentionally touched Jesus in order to receive a healing, although Jesus did not know that she was doing that, she was healed. After everything came to light, Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.”
The woman’s faith was instrumental in her healing. Jesus often said this. Your faith has made you whole. There is something about faith that allows God to do what he wants to do.
In the case of Nazareth, it says that Jesus could not do any miracles because of the lack of their faith.
Here is what I have learned about living the Christian life. God is not a vending machine. You cannot plug in a toonie’s worth of faith and have God spit out a miracle. Faith does not work like that.
But trusting God, believing in God, having faith creates a context for God to do what he wants to do.
You may remember what the apostle Paul wrote.
Ephesians 2:8–9 (NIV)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
You are saved by grace. Grace means God’s undeserved favour. We did not deserve to have Jesus pay a penalty for our sin. We did not deserve to be loved by God. We did not deserve to be forgiven. We did not deserve God’s mercy. Grace, God’s undeserved favour, encompasses all of those things.
But scripture says that it is by grace through faith that you have been saved. God’s favour, God’s kindness, God’s love, God’s forgiveness and mercy is available to everyone. The reality is that God wants to bestow his favour on you. However, that is not set in motion until there is faith.
This morning, we are going to baptize Avery. Whenever I talk to someone about baptism, I am looking for answers to questions like, “Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins.” Because that kind of faith is what puts God’s grace and action, have you received Jesus into your life? Do you know that he’s in your life? That kind of faith puts the grace of God into action.
Ephesians says that
Ephesians 2:8–9 (NIV)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
You see, no one can boast about their own goodness. No one can boast that they have earned God’s favour. No one can say I have worked enough, or I am righteous enough, or I am good enough to deserve God’s grace. The Bible is very clear that God’s grace is a gift. It is a gift that God wants to give to us.
But that gift is opened by faith. Faith in who Jesus is and faith in what he has done. And faith that he has done it for you.
Whenever someone is baptized, they are saying that because of what Jesus has done for me I believe that I am God’s child. Baptism is a symbol on the outside to everyone witnessing the event that there is faith on the inside. God’s grace, God’s unearned favor, rest on me.
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Back to our story. The miracles that Jesus did on earth were a sign that the Kingdom of God had come near. Jesus went all over Galilee demonstrating the Kingdom.
But he got to Nazareth the gospel of Mark records that he was amazed at their lack of faith. They were amazed at Jesus’ preaching and teaching. Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith. That is not a good trade off.
They didn’t have faith, and they didn’t see many miracles. Faith creates the context for God to do what he wants to do.
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As you might guess, I talk to a lot of people about faith. I have found that there is a correlation between the attitude that says, “I’ve been there, done that,” when it comes to scripture and what God has to say in our lives. There is a correlation between that and a staleness of faith.
When I talk to people about faith, they will often tell me about things that happened a long time ago. There is nothing wrong with remembering what God has done. But sometimes I get the impression that they talk about those things because they are not seeing God do fresh things in their life. Their faith has become stale.
There are signs of this. If you come to church with little expectation of hearing from God, you probably won’t hear from God. This may be a sign that your faith has become stale. Familiarity has bred contempt. Until you deal with that attitude, it is unlikely that God will show up much in your life.
Another sign of your faith becoming stale, is that you read scripture and pray in a way that checks it off your To Do List. You go through the motions, but you miss what God wants to do.
An even worse sign that your faith has become stale is that you failed to go through the motions. You have stopped reading scripture, and you have stopped praying outside of the crisis you face.
If what I am saying rings a bell with you, let me remind you of what Jesus preached while he was here on earth. His consistent message was, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is near.” If your face has grown stale, I want you to know that Jesus is still speaking truth into our culture. Jesus is still speaking truth into our lives. He invites you to reach out by faith and believe the good news.
Choosing to repent and believe the good news is the kind of faith that makes God active in your life. Your faith will become fresh again.
Prayer of silence.
Pray.