A Word in Season: A Sense of Purpose (Mark 1:38)

It may sometimes feel as if everybody else knows exactly what you ought to do.

Now, there is wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, we know that. It's quite proper to take good advice from wise friends, under the right circumstances, we're not denying that.

But there are many people who think they know precisely what you ought to be doing, and especially when that seems to come from a number of people, all of whom have made the same assumptions, that pressure can be quite powerful.

The Lord Jesus was under such pressure early in his ministry in Capernaum. He'd just been performing some miracles of healing and had been teaching there in that place, and the people were eager for more.

He had risen a long while before daylight in Mark chapter 1 and verse 35, and was in a solitary place praying.

And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and when they found him they said to him, Everyone is looking for you.

They've all got their own agenda, they're all confident they know exactly what you ought to be doing,

Jesus of Nazareth. You need to be coming back into the town, and you need to get on with this healing ministry that God has given to you.

The people are waiting, the lines are forming, you need to get on with the work.

And you'll notice what happens in verse 38. But he said to them, The Lord Jesus Christ knew why he had been sent.

I don't think it's any accident that this kind of resolution and determination came about following this season of prayer.

The Lord Christ was no ignorant man. He could see those pressures building. He knew the appetites of the people.

In fact, he'd have to face similar conflicts in the course of his public ministry.

But even here at the beginning, he's not just a traveling miracle worker.

He hasn't come first and foremost to perform these deeds of power.

He hasn't come just to be a local helper. He has come to preach the kingdom and to lay down his life for his people.

And so when the pressure builds, and everybody thinks they know what's best, perhaps thinking more in terms of their own immediate benefits and what seems to them the obvious course,

Christ Jesus, this man of earnest prayer, knows that the popular wave of opinion is not one that he is going to serve.

Rather, he is going to obey his father's commands, he is going to walk in accordance with his father's will, and he is going to embrace the purpose that his father has given to him.

Now we might say that in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was very obvious to him what he ought to do.

There's such clarity, such evidence in the scriptures for what he was supposed to pursue.

And yet for him, the pressures were also real. The path that had been laid out before him still needed to be discerned from the word of God and independence on the

Holy Spirit. And the attraction, perhaps, of some of these other options, as evidenced in the way that Satan tempted him, is real as well.

But what you have here is a man who is prayerfully purposed to do what

God has given him to do, and he's not going to be swayed by popular opinion of the men and women who are very confident that they can see what's best for him and, incidentally, for them too.

Now, how committed are we to that same principle? How determined are we to, under God, properly determine the path that he has appointed for us?

To understand the purpose for which we have been sent into this world? To grasp that God has a work for us to do, that we may bring glory to his name?

If we are faithful in that, there will be at least times when that is probably unpopular.

There may be times when people, not wise counsellors, but men and women who desire perhaps an easier path for themselves or think it's very obvious the way to go in order to bring benefit to them and doubtless to others also, will be confident that they know what is best for us.

And it's at those times that, using all the proper means, we need to be persuaded that we have grasped the purpose of God for us and we will not be swayed.

And that comes in prayerful dependence upon God and it comes in walking in righteousness before him.