There are two ways to get to the top of an oak tree. You can climb it or you can sit on an acorn and wait. We need to actively live the Christian life. To grow in faith and experience the power of God on a daily basis in our lives, we must recognize that Jesus Christ is absolutely Lord of all. We must concede that we cannot call Him savior if we do not call Him Lord. It is the absence of our recognition of His Lordship that causes so many church members who say "Our Father" on Sunday go around the rest of the week acting like orphans. There is an absence of the power of the living Lord in their lives.

Yet as sincere as we may be, there are many obstacles to experiencing the full power of God's presence in our lives in these days.

In Mark 6 Jesus encounters a group of churchgoers who identify for us several of these obstacles. Mark 6:1-6 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. [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, that he even does miracles! [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?" And they took offense at him. [4] Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." [5] He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. [6] And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.

I. Our Misconceptions will Prevent Us From recognizing Him as Lord.

These hearers had the messiah in their midst, but they rejected the notion. They were pleased with Him as a teacher. They accepted Him as a celebrity. His visit was no doubt preceded by news of His miracles. So they sat with bated breath as He stood up and began to proclaim the Truth.

Notice some of the things that prevented them form recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. As Lord.

1. They were distracted by their focus on facts.

They were more interested in their knowledge about Him. They sought merely the "facts" - Intellectual assent.

John 7:25-27 25At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, "Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? 26Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Christ? 27But we know where this man is from; when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from."

37On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 40On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet." 41Others said, "He is the Christ." Still others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" 43Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 46"No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards declared.

When we try to understand the workings and the wonders of God based on the facts alone we will never concede to who He really is. It has been said of some who use this type of mentality in the world of art, "They know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. They did not see Jesus for who He was because they could not look beyond the logical facts.
When Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, returned from his space flight in 1961, he made the remarkable announcement that he had not seen God in the heavens. A Russian orthodox priest in Moscow responded to him by saying, "If you have not seen God on earth, you will never see Him in heaven." Until we look beyond the facts. Beyond reason and logic. Until we can see God in Christ on earth as the Savior of the world and of our own souls, we will never see Him in heaven. We will never understand that not only has He the power to deliver us from the misery and bondage of sin, but He demands to have total control over our lives. We can become so busy arguing about Him and His kingdom that we too may be distracted from the reality that He is indeed still, today, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.

Another obstacle to their recognition of His Lordship is that:

2. They were Darkened by their irreverent Familiarity.

Mk 1:[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?" And they took offense at him.

[4] Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor."

Their familiarity with Him prevented them from recognizing Him for who He was.

Oh how familiar we are with religion and religious things. We use religious language. We know all the answers. We can work through a witnessing tract backwards, and yet for many there is no fear of God. Jesus Christ is not Lord. It is a dangerous place to be. We loose the sense of awe. We forget who He really is. It is so easy to do this. We tend to do that to the people and things that are closest to us. We use the expression, "We've grown so accustomed to your face around here." That can mean two things. Can mean either, "We need you and can't do without you," or , "We're so used to you that we don't even know you're here." Church, we must be very careful. Irreverent familiarity with the Holy leads to dark hearts -

Romans 1:18-26 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, [19] since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. [20] For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. [21] For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. [22] Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools [23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. [24] Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. [25] They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. They were Darkened by their irreverent Familiarity. Thirdly,
3. They Were Distracted By their Emphasis On Fanciness.

There was a lot of pride at work in the hearts of those who heard Him. Listen to their comments. "Isn't this the carpenter?" "Isn't this Mary's son?" "We know that family. Wasn't there a rumor a while back about them? Something about their wedding date and Jesus birthday? I don't know about this." And besides, He is not a Rabbi. He hasn't paid His dues, how could He be so wise? All the logic. He sounded good on the surface, but because of their pride, they could not accept Him. In fact, because of their blind pride they began to ignore the truth and create teaching. John 7:47-52. "You mean he has deceived you also?" the Pharisees retorted. [48] "Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? [49] No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law--there is a curse on them." [50] Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, [51] "Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?" [52] They replied, "Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee." [53] Then each went to his own home.
They were wrong on two counts. They had no basis for saying that there was no Pharisee that had believed Him. It is very likely that Nicodemus had. And then when they realized they may have been mistaken, they made a second false claim. That no prophet had come from Galilee. In addition to the fact that Jesus had come from there, they should have known that Jonah had come from there.

Jesus does not come to us with credentials. He does not offer fame, fashion or fortune. And so it is easy to miss the savior. Sometimes our own jealousy may be an obstacle to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. How come so and so thinks he or she has so much wisdom? I am just as smart. I can work out my own problems. I also have a degree in psychology. I don't need anyone to tell me how I should live my life. All of that is pride. Most of the time it is because we cannot see past the man or woman who is speaking for God because of our own pride or even jealousy, that we completely miss the fact that Jesus was in our midst. We see this same skepticism at work in the life of one who almost missed out on a blessing because of it.

John 1:44-46. "Can any good thing come from Nazareth?"
When we allow our own prejudices. Our own fancies. Our pride and our superiority come between us and our obedience to God, we are in danger of failing to recognize who He really is. We are in danger of keeping Him somewhere in the back of our minds and living powerless prideful lives. And so we see that in the same way these misconceptions prevented those Jewish worshippers from accepting Christ as Lord, we can fall into the same trap.

There is another truth that Jesus brings to us here, and that is that:
II. His Mighty Works Will Be Withheld When He is Rejected as Lord.

It is one thing to reject Him as Lord, but many times we still expect Him to come through for us like some kind of a cosmic Santa Clause who is at our beck and call. Well, it just doesn't work that way. The Word of God says, "Him who honors me, will I honor."

Mark 6:4-6 Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." [5] He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. [6] And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.

I was struck by these words that were written on the wall of a Cathedral somewhere in Europe.
You call me Master and Obey me not.
You call me Light and See me not.
You call me Way and Walk me not.
You call me Life and Desire me not.
You call me Wise and Follow me not.
You call me Fair and Love me not.
You call me Rich and Ask me not.
You call me Eternal and Seek me not.
You call me Gracious and Trust me not.
If I do not Bless you, Blame me not.
Why are some of us living powerless lives? Because unless we keep Jesus Christ at the center of our lives, we cannot expect to benefit from His power. We may be able to wing it for a season. We may experience some of the ripples of His grace. We may be able to pick up some of the morsels of His favor as we hang around His spiritual kitchen. But we will never sit at His table and feast from the bountiful supply that He has for us.

But! Listen. There is an incredible upside to all of this. We do not have to remain that way. We can reach for the heights of all of His glory this morning because of a final thought that Christ leaves with us.
III. The Keys of the Kingdom Belong to Those Who Receive Him as Lord.

Matthew 16:15-19 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

[16] Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

[17] Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. [18] And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. [19] I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Here we have a similar situation. Jesus Christ before a group of men. In our previous text He had disclosed Himself to the group by telling them that the prophecies He read were fulfilled in their midst. They rejected that. Now He asks this group who they say He is.

And Peter speaks that word of confession that would change all of history. The words that place in the hand of every confessor the keys to the kingdom. That is what it takes. The recognition and confession that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that He can empower us to storm the very gates of hell. He can enable us to bind evil and circumstances of this earth and that all the forces of heaven come to our aid when we call upon them. That is the privilege of a Kings Kid. That will never happen to a miserable orphan by choice.

I once heard about a man who came home from church one Sunday. He ate lunch and then sat down in his easy chair all tired. He got his Sunday newspaper and he started to read it. He was so happy to be home because he had a long hard week and he was totally exhausted. He just wanted to sit down and relax. He had been at church and sat through a long, boring sermon and he just wanted everyone to leave him alone, when his little five year old girl came running into the room.

She ran up to him and said, "Daddy, please come and play with me!" He said, "Honey, not right now. Daddy's tired from working all week and going to church this morning. Let me just sit hear and read the newspaper." Her response was, "Please come and play with me, Daddy." He realized he had to think of something so he grabbed a paper he had gotten at church. Tore it up into many small pieces and said to his little girl, "Honey, take this into your room. If you can put the pieces back together in the right place again Daddy will play with you." She said OK." And off she went. He thought to himself, "I've got it made now. I will take her hours to put that back together." Ten minutes later she came running back into the room. She had taken the scotch tape and put every piece right back where it belonged. The Father thought to himself, "Even I couldn't have done it that fast." He said, "Your Mom helped you right?" The little girl replied, "No one helped me. I did it all by myself." He said, "Well, how in the world did you do it?" He held it up and said, "How did you do that so fast?" She said, "Look Daddy," and turned the paper around. "There's a picture of Jesus on the other side. When I got Jesus in the right place all the other pieces just fit." Family, that ought to tell us something. When we get Jesus in the right place, all the other pieces will fit in our lives.

When we respond to the revelation of who He really is. When we set aside all our own preconceived notions of His majesty and His deity and allow our hearts to embrace everything and all that He says He is. When we respond to Him as Prohet - our truth teller, Priest - our life giver, and King - our law maker, then we will know true freedom and walk in true victory.