The Proper Response to Answered Prayer

Mark 1:29-34
Gregory Perry | Sunday, October 27, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Gregory Perry

Mark 1:29-34: As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon- possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

 

People ask us for favors—friends, children, neighbors, co-workers. Some favors asked of us are bigger than others—they require more personal sacrifice. While other favors are barely an inconvenience.

Whether the request is great or small, we naturally expect a grateful response from the one to whom we have granted the favor requested. In fact, we are at least slightly annoyed or sometimes even offended when we do not receive the expected thankful response.

This all should cause us to examine how we are responding to the grace God regularly shows us through answered prayer. How are we responding to God’s granting us our requested favors?

From our passage this morning (Mark 1:29-34) we not only learn that God answers prayer, but Peter’s healed mother-in-law shows us the proper response to answered prayer.

We will look at four points from this passage: Intercession, Answer, Service, and Silence.

A. Intercession—v. 30

Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her.

The first thing we learn from this passage is the importance of intercessory prayer. The disciples come to Jesus and tell Him that Peter’s mother-in-law is sick with “a fever.” Luke the physician calls it in his account a “high fever” (or literally “a great fever”), indicating that this fever was much more menacing and threatening than your average low-grade fever.

The disciples had just come from the synagogue, where they witnessed Jesus drive an evil spirit out of a man. They joined the crowd in marveling, “What is this? A new teaching–and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him” (Mark 1:27).

Now these disciples do not come to Jesus just to inform Him of the problem of Peter’s sick mother-in-law; rather, they are asking Him to solve the problem. They ask Jesus to do what they cannot do because they know that He is able. They have seen Him work miracles. The apostles interceding for Peter’s mother-in-law is made even more explicit in the Luke account: “Now Simon’s mother- in- law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her” (Luke 4:38). This is called intercessory prayer—to go to God and intercede in prayer in behalf of another.

The Bible speaks of various intercessors:

• Jesus Christ, our great high priest, is our great intercessor: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Heb. 7:25). The Son of God regularly intercedes with the Father in our behalf.
• The Holy Spirit also intercedes for us: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Rom. 8:26-27). The Holy Spirit intercedes for us because He has perfect knowledge of what we need.
• We too as believers are called to intercede for others: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). Our gracious God hears the prayers of His people in behalf of the body of Christ. The Father listens to the prayers of His children for their brothers and sisters.
  Paul exhorts, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). There should be a consistency and persistence in our interceding in behalf of all our fellow believers.

But to intercede for others, first requires that I have an interest beyond myself. I must have a personal interest in others: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:4).

Self-centered people will not intercede for others. They suffer from spiritual myopia (or nearsightedness). They are keenly aware of their own needs & desires, but they cannot see beyond that. They are totally unaware of the needs and desires of others. And we pray according to need. The one who is blissfully unaware of the needs of others will never pray for those around them.

Paul commends Timothy, his companion and fellow worker, for not being self-centered: “I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 2:20-21). The one not interested in others is simply not interested in what Christ is interested in.

To pray for others you have to first love them. Peter and the other disciples love Peter’s mother-in-law—they feel her pain— so they go to Jesus and intercede for her.

And one who is born again will have an interest in others. After all, the first fruit of the Spirit is love, so the regenerate man who has the Spirit dwelling in him loves others and regularly prays for them. Those who are truly born again have a burden for others. When one member of the body of Christ suffers, every other member suffers.

Epaphras is another model of a faithful and earnest intercessor: “[Epaphras] is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured” (Col. 4:12). It is one thing to be earnest in praying for your own needs, but Epaphras was “always wrestling in prayer” not for himself, but for others.

The Bible says that we are to intercede for all sorts of people: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone” (1 Tim 2:1).

We should pray for our fellow believers, that they would grow in Christ and persevere in faith. We can pray that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit and shine as lights and be effective workers in God’s harvest field. We can also pray for their practical needs—good health, to do well on a difficult midterm, to find a godly spouse, for grace to safely deliver a healthy child, for safety for our law enforcements officers at home and for our soldiers abroad, that they would get a job that would provide daily bread.

We also pray for fellow believers in the midst of severe trials: people with serious health problems, those suffering loss of loved ones, those facing death. We pray both for those we know by name and for believers around the world that we do not know personally. We pray that our persecuted brethren throughout the world would either be delivered or have strength to endure.

And we intercede for even unbelievers—family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, classmates, who do not know Christ. We pray earnestly for their genuine salvation. We pray because salvation belongs to the Lord. Only He can raise the dead to life and bring a soul to true repentance and saving faith in Christ.

And we also know that we are, have been, and will be helped by others praying for us. Therefore, we should seek the prayers of God’s people. The apostle Paul repeatedly asked for prayer from others: “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should” (Eph. 6:19-20; see also Col 4:3; 1 Thes. 5:25; 2 Thes. 3:1). If the apostle needed the prayers of others, surely so do we.

Finally, we pray for others for their good, but the truth is that we ourselves also benefit from interceding for others. We will be blessed by God when we take an interest in others. The Puritan Samuel Rutherford once said: “I seldom made an errand to God for another but I got something for myself.”

The famous hymn tells us to “Take It to the Lord in Prayer.” We are to take to the Lord, not only our own needs, but also the needs of others. We must always keep on praying for all the saints and for everyone.

B. Answer— v. 31

So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her…

We serve a mighty and gracious God who hears and answers the prayers of God’s holy people. C. H. Spurgeon said: “If there be anything under heaven that I am as sure as I am of the demonstrations of mathematics, it is the fact that God answers prayer.”

He has proved this to us over and over—personally and corporately. He does not always answer in the way and time that we want or expect, but He very often answers in a way that makes it unmistakable that it is from Him. Knowing that God answers prayer ought to spur us on to pray, to pray more, to pray more earnestly, and to persevere in praying more earnestly.

We can pray for someone all we want, but the real blessing is not the prayer, it is the answer. Yes, it is a blessing to have people pray for you, but the much greater blessing is that the one to whom they pray answers. Put another way: The miracle here is not that the disciples asked Jesus to heal Peter’s mother-in-law; the miracle is that Jesus answered their prayer and healed her.

In fact, the way this healing is described emphasizes the initiative of Jesus: “He went to her.” Jesus is the moving force here. He comes to her; she does not come to Him. This is a picture of the divine initiative of salvation. We are lost and helpless, dead in our transgressions and sins. Then by His grace God comes to us; we do not come to Him: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him” (Ps. 98:1).

Our salvation is all about the wonderful things He has done for us by His right hand and holy arm.

We do not come to Him first because we cannot come to Him on our own. God must work in us in order for us to have an interest in coming to Christ. As Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him” (John 6:65). We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

The text goes on to say that Jesus “took her hand and helped her up.” We see this throughout the Gospels: Jesus reaches out and touches the sick. He is not stand-offish. He does not hold people at arm’s length.

This picture of Jesus helping Peter’s mother-in-law is a reflection of how God helps His people. The Scriptures make clear that God is our helper:

• 33:29: “He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword.”
• 118:7: “The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies.”
• 18:6, 16: “In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears…. He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.”

We pray to God because we know that He hears us, and He will help us in our times of need. If He is not a God who helps, then there simply is no reason to pray to Him.

Jesus is particularly helping Peter’s mother-in-law by healing her of her fever. In this, we are reminded of God’s grace and help especially in answering our prayer for healing: “O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me” (Ps. 30:2); “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits– who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Ps. 103:2-3).

We tend to fixate on all our maladies and we quickly forget our many blessings, but we should never forget the myriad of healing mercies that we have experienced. Not only has He healed us from past sicknesses, but He has also kept us from many diseases: “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you” (Ex. 15:26).

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, Jesus’ power to heal is a clear indication of His divinity. Follow the logic:

1. God is the one who heals
2. Jesus heals
3. Therefore, Jesus is God

A medical doctor cannot heal. At best, he can be an instrument that God uses to help bring about a natural healing. But if God has determined someone to have a disease, no doctor can change what God has determined. Every honest, humble doctor will admit that he himself lacks the ability to heal. He is not God.

But what about others in the Bible who heal? Didn’t Moses heal Miriam of leprosy? Didn’t the disciples of Jesus heal the sick? No, it was God who brought about these healings through the intercessory prayers of these saints.

Let’s look at the example of God’s raising to life the Shunammite woman’s dead son through the prophet Elisha: “When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord” (2 Kings 4:32-33). And the Lord brought the dead child back to life. Surely Elisha would have been horrified to hear someone declare that Elisha raised the Shunammite’s son from the dead. Elisha prayed and God raised.

But Jesus does not pray for God to heal Peter’s mother-in-law. No, He does so himself. He touches Peter’s mother-in-law with His own divine hand. Jesus, being God in human flesh, has power to remove the woman’s fever. Not only is He able, but he is also willing.

But when we approach God in prayer, we must do so with the faith that He hears and answers our prayers. He does not answer the prayers of the skeptic doubter who pretends to believe in Him. Jesus taught us to pray in faith: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matt. 21:22); “Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed’” (Luke 8:50).

Do not believe in the power of prayer; rather, believe in the power of the gracious God who hears and answers prayer. Pray with an expectation to see God glorify Himself through answering your prayer. 

C. Service— v. 31

The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

This here is the meat of what we want to say from this text. This is where Peter’s mother-in-law demonstrates for us the proper response to answered prayer.

We can learn a lot from the fact that once Peter’s mother-in-law was healed, the first thing she did was “she began to wait on them.” Pastor Mathew once preached a sermon series on Romans 16 entitled “Saved to Serve.” And that is what we see here in Peter’s mother-in-law. Having been rescued by Christ from her disease, she sees it now as her duty to serve her Healer, Redeemer, and Savior. One commentator put it this way: “She used her renewed health for renewed service.”

The Christian life is a thanksgiving offering. We serve and obey Him out of love for Christ and thankfulness for what He has done for us. We are ever thankful because “when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Even though we were sinners and enemies, Christ died for us. We no longer live for ourselves; we now live for Him who died for us and was raised again.

We are to serve Christ thankfully because it is by grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God—something we have freely received, not meritoriously achieved.

Perhaps some encouraged Peter’s healed mother-in-law to lay low and recover, but the love of Christ compels her to serve. She is overwhelmed by thankfulness and cannot help but serve and do good works.

As we have heard many times, but it bears repeating: my good works do not result in my salvation, but my salvation results in my good works. We are not saved because we serve, but we serve because we are saved. A faith without good works (obedience) is not saving faith. Faith without deeds is dead.

Too often, instead of serving, we take on a rancid “take care of me” mentality. We look to be served, rather than to serve. We look for what we can get, rather than what we can give.

We need to not be like that guy at work who is always looking to use others for his own advancement; rather than looking for how he can be helpful to advance others. We need to not be like that child who loves the concept of sharing—but whose view of sharing is to always be the one borrowing but never lending.

But if we are unwilling servers, it is primarily because God has not changed our hearts. We have not yet experienced what Peter’s mother-in-law experienced. We have not been saved; our soul has not yet been healed. The man who has been truly born again has a heart that has been set free to serve Christ and His body.

Paul counted it to be a mighty privilege to be a servant of God. Paul gloried in being a slave of Christ. In fact, he introduced himself as “a slave of Christ” (doulos tou Christou) in the first verse of Romans, Philippians, and Titus.

Notice that Peter’s mother-in-law not only serves Christ (who healed her), but she also serves the other disciples. The text does not say she waited on “him,” but it says she waited on “them.” This is because Christ is united with His people. In order to serve Him, you must also serve His people. The two go together—they are vitally linked. The church is the body of Christ, and He is the head.

The disciples were willing to serve Christ, but in their pride they often refused to humble themselves and serve one another. In John 13, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet for the expressed purpose of setting an example of what we should regularly do for one another. Christ was the model of service: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). If Christ served us, how much more ought we, who are saved by Him, to serve one another.

And this is certainly what we have done in this church for over 45 years. We manifest our love for Christ and thankfulness for our salvation by pouring out our lives in loving service for one another.

Likewise, the apostle Paul exhorted the saved believers to serve: “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love” (Gal. 5:13).

It takes humility to serve others. I only serve others when I put others before me: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).

And we should especially keep this truth in mind when God heals us physically. When we are sick and asking God to heal us, we should be prepared to answer His probing question to us: why should I give you health? What will you use your health for?

Why does God give us strength and health? So that we may serve Him. Is that really what we are using our health and life for? That is why you are given life and health. Don’t waste your life and health by serving yourself. Serve the one who gave you your health and live for the one who died for you and was raised again.

D. Silence (vv. 32-34) 

He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. (v. 34)

Jesus drove out many evil spirits, but He refused to allow them to reveal who He was. The parallel Luke account tells us more specifically what these demons were saying: “Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ” (Luke 4:41).

This demonstrates that the demons know who Jesus is—they know that He is the eternal, only begotten Son of God. We saw this in the last section of Mark when the demons declare: “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!” (Mk. 1:24).

Interestingly, in Mark the most orthodox statements about the identity of Jesus are often spoken by demons: “Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God’” (Mk. 3:11; see also Mark 5:7).

Jesus’ own disciples often demonstrate inferior knowledge. After they witnessed Jesus calm the storm, they were terrified and asked, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mk. 4:41).

Yet the demons knew who he was. They had no doubts about it. All that is to point to the insufficiency of having a mere orthodox head knowledge. This is known as dead orthodoxy or mere mental assent.

It’s not enough just to be able to accurately identify who Jesus is—even the devil can do that: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that –and shudder” (James 2:19). We must not just know who Jesus is, but we must repent of our sins and surrender our lives to Him.

The fact that Jesus orders the demons not to speak about who He is, also shows that Jesus has complete authority over the devil. Jesus Christ is the sovereign Lord; He is in control of all things. Even the devil is under His sovereign rule.

The devil and the demons cannot do what God does not allow—not even one thing! This is why in the first chapter of Job, Satan must seek God’s permission before he puts Job to the test.

We ought to rejoice that Christ has authority over the devil. There is no equal ultimacy here—there are not two almighty sovereign powers in the universe. The devil is powerful—undoubtedly, much more powerful than us; but filled with the Holy Spirit, we can know that “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

The devil aims to steal, kill, and destroy God’s people, but the truth is that no one can snatch us out of God’s hand (John 10:28-29). Jesus is Lord of all—and “all” includes the demons. When he orders them to be silent, they must obey. They must depart, and they must do so quickly and quietly.

A part of the reason why Jesus silenced the demons surely was because of their malicious intent. Sinclair Ferguson says: “Their purpose was to create conflict for him before his time to die had really come. So he exercised his royal power and commanded them to be silent.”

A more general reason why Jesus orders the demons not to speak is because of what is known as “the Messianic secret.” It is a common theme in Mark that Jesus was not going to make His identity clear until the proper time.

In Mark 7:36, Jesus heals the deaf and mute man and commands those who witnessed the miracle not to tell anyone. In Mark 8:30, after Peter’s confession of Christ as the Messiah, Jesus warns his disciples not to tell anyone about him. In Mark 9:9, after Jesus showed His glory on the Mt. of Transfiguration, he gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

It was not yet time to make plain who Christ is. Once He is clearly identified as the Messiah, He will be arrested, tried, and put to death.

I have good news: the time of the Messianic secret has long since passed. In fact, it ended at the triumphal entry at the beginning of Passion Week. We, as God’s redeemed people in this church age, are not commanded to be silent. On the contrary, we are not to be ashamed of acknowledging our Lord before men.

Instead, we are commanded to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything [Christ has commanded us].” We do this through sharing and preaching the gospel, which is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. We read in 1 Chronicles 16:8-9: “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.”

Indeed, God gives us power from on high and fills us with the Holy Spirit so that we can be His witnesses in our homes, at our schools and workplaces, in our neighborhoods and communities, and throughout the whole world.

Our heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask. So ask for the Holy Spirit for yourself and for others, and know that God will graciously answer that good prayer.

And when we are filled with the Spirit, we will open our mouths and in faith we will speak this gospel; and we believe that God will hear our prayers, and He will add to His church daily (including today) those whom He has chosen from all eternity, those who are even now being saved.