Mark 1: 29-45

Theme: Spiritual Hunger

Series: Getting to Know Jesus

Have you ever been hungry? Have you ever had a craving so strong that you could not concentrate until you got what you wanted? I get this way when I diet. I don’t normally care for sweets but when I am on the Akin’s diet, I develop a craving for very sticky and gooey cinnamon rolls–the kind with nuts and lots of icing! I dream of cinnamon rolls in the middle of the night where they dance around in my head. I am driven by smell of sugar and cinnamon and the warm feel of the bread as I bite into it. It is a craving that follows me until I break my diet and have something sweet. Then it goes away for a time.

I am sure everyone has had such desires. There is something that we want so bad we can taste it? It can be a teenager’s first car or a couple’s first child. All of us know what it means to want something more than anything else in life.

Do you ever have an unswerving hunger for Jesus? Is there a thirst in your soul that cannot be quenched by anything other than Jesus? Ask yourself, do you thirst and hunger after righteousness? Do you seek first after the Kingdom of God? Our answer will make all the difference in the world in our personal lives and in our church.

In our text, we find that people are hungering after Jesus. At this point the disciples consist of Simon, Andrew, James and John. Jesus finds that Peter’s mother is sick and bedridden. She was sick with a fever in a day when there were no antibiotics. He came to her, raised her and healed her. She rose up and began to prepare Sunday dinner for them.

It did not take long for people to hear about this event. When evening came, the whole city turned out and stood outside of Peter’s door. They brought their sick and demon possessed. They came to Jesus because they hungered and thirst after him. God was moving and they were compelled by the Holy Spirit to find Jesus because it was Jesus that they needed

For the first time, Mark introduces a practice of Jesus that we will see over and over again during his three-year ministry. Jesus gets up early and goes to a lonely, quiet place because he desires, he hungers to be with the Heavenly Father. He is in perfect unity with the Father, so it is only nature for him to spend time with God. But, can you imagine how tiring it is ministering to others, giving of yourself and receiving nothing in return? His quiet time with the Father was a time of regaining strength to carry on his ministry.

While he was alone, hidden away with the Father, the disciples hunted him down until they found him. Can’t you hear simple Simon saying, "Where have you been? Everyone is looking for you." He does not even realize what a sacred moment he has invaded.

Jesus’s replies with grace, Lets go some place else. One town could not monopolize him. He came to preach to others. So, they went to the synagogues all around the area of Galilee. While preaching in one of the synagogues, a man with leprosy came to him to be healed. Leprosy was a wide variety of diseases that could range from an ugly rash to the devastating disease that ate away the extremities of the body. Because no one could be sure what kind one had, all lepers were isolated from the rest of the population for fear that it would spread. You had to prove that you were clean to a priest before you could go around others. So, this disease meant social isolation and loneliness. No one would touch a leper. They were starved for human touch, love and compassion. This man had physical needs it is true, but he had serious emotional and spiritual needs as well.

He came to Jesus and "falling on his knees before Him, and saying, ‘If You are willing, You can make me clean.’" Jesus felt compassion on him. "I am willing," he said and he touched him. It may have been his first human contact in years. And he was healed.

The man was understandably excited. Jesus warned him not to tell others. But it was no use, how could he keep quiet. He found what he had been looking for, he found it in Jesus. And word spread and so many people came looking for Jesus that the towns were too small. He stayed outside of town and the crowds came seeking him from everywhere.

There are two kinds of people, those who seek Jesus and those who don’t. In the Gospel of Mark, thousands are seeking Jesus. They don’t understand who he is or what he will actually do for them. But they are compelled by God himself to find Jesus. They need Jesus. However, there are those who do not seek out Jesus. Rather, they turn up their nose at him and particularly at his teaching and healing. Jesus draws the wrong kind of people, He draws sinners to himself. Those who don’t seek him have their customs and they don’t want Jesus rocking the boat. They are terrified of the changes that he brings and want none of it.

What kind of person are you? Are you one who seeks after Jesus? Do you hunger and thirst after him and your soul pants until you find him? Or, are you one of those who thinks you have had your fill? One position is soul liberating and the other is soul destroying. And not only does it affect the soul, it affects all with whom you come in contact. Those who seek after Jesus become contagious and tell anyone who will listen about Jesus. Those who are not seekers, well, they don’t want to be disturbed, don’t bother me, particularly if it causes a change in my life.

When Christians stop seeking after God, it becomes a spiritual sickness. And they are in danger of reducing vibrant, living Christianity into a pointless religion. It always results in the attitude that I have arrived and I need no more. The hunger is gone. Legalism sets in. You want to live by rules and by conventions and are afraid of what God might do should he get a hold of you. So, for whatever reason, you have stifled your desire for God and if you are not careful, you will stifle the desire of anyone with whom you come in contact. I have noticed that such persons will use every kind of excuse to avoid intimacy with God and it causes others to stumble. We must be cautious. We can’t take risks. We don’t do that here. That’s immature. We don’t need to make the effort. I have done my duty. It is time for someone else to work. Don’t change or invade my comfort zone. You need to be more like me. And the sure sign of deadness, we never did it that way before. They become critical of others, often projecting their own spiritual sickness on others. They have become self sufficient and they don’t need anything, not even God.

If there is anything wrong with us as a church, this is it. How much do you desire God? How many of you could not wait to come to church today to worship and to be confronted by the Almighty God? How many of us are consumed with desire to know God and to know him more and more? How many of us crave God’s presence the way I crave cinnamon rolls when I am on a diet?

God cannot bless us when we don’t hunger after him. We have no capacity to receive his blessing when we think our soul is full. It is self worship and idolatrous to think we don’t need God. And no one in his or her right mind really thinks this is an acceptable state of existence.

We need to repent of our selfishness. We need to admit that we have grown self sufficient and we have stopped needing God. It is a lie of course, we always need God but the Deceiver loves for us think otherwise. And we need to ask God to rekindle our desire for him in our hearts. God has promised that all who seek him will find him.

Spiritual hunger is what drove Paul in his quest to spread the Gospel. It is what drives modern Christians to build the kingdom of God. Spiritual hunger is at the root of every growing church in the world. We need to get on our knees and beg God to renew in us a thirst for his Spirit, a hunger for his presence.