The Gospel of Mark: On the Road With Jesus (5)

“Called to be Followers”

Mark 1:14-20

1. Mars Hill Church in Seattle is driven by a mission to reach the postmodern culture of Seattle for Christ. In the mid-to-late 1990s its pastor, Mark Driscoll, engaged in an extensive philosophical & theological study of postmodernism. The bibliography he studied takes up 2 full pages of endnotes in his recent book. His conclusion:
I simply moved on to preach the bloody death and triumphant victory of Jesus. For my fellow young Christian pastors prone to jump on faddish bandwagons like I did, I would simply urge you to at least do your homework and see if you can find anyone wiser than Jesus to found your life and ministry on. If not, stick with him.

2. Driscoll stuck with the bloody death and triumphant victory of Jesus – that catapulted Mars Hill into its greatest season of growth & kingdom influence.

3. again this Sunday, it’s back to Jesus via Mark’s gospel.

there is a cost to following Jesus (1:14a)
1. Mark does not candy-coat the gospel. After John was put in prison begins our section today. John, the forerunner of Christ & his cousin. The one who was filled with the Holy Spirit while he was in his mother Elizabeth’s womb. The baptizer of Christ. Herod locked him up in prison and later ordered that his head be served to him on a platter.

2. Now that will preach – Come follow Jesus. Become a prisoner for the Lord. Lose your head for Christ! John the Baptist died. The apostles were martyrs. Stephen was stoned. The Apostle Paul died for his faith. And Jesus Himself was crucified for our faith.

3. many of us have come to believe an Americanized version of the gospel – Jesus is our “ticket” to finding happiness & fulfillment, achieving financial freedom, losing weight, having a better sex life, better kids, better marriage or living a stress-free life. We want to good things & we want Jesus to give them to us.

4. question – what does that have to do with the bloody death and triumphant victory of Jesus?. Truly following Christ will –
* add stress to your life
* move you to give away your money
* demand that you lose your life
* summon you to serve others with your life (especially the poor, forgotten, disenfranchised)
Following Christ always means dying to self & sometimes means suffering & death.

Jesus begins his calling of the disciples with theological urgency (1:14b-15)
1st the coming reign of God is at hand.
1. Mark reports that the first public words of Jesus were – the time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Christ is the true King of the universe. When he comes near, His kingdom comes close. With these words Jesus inaugurates the beginning of the end.

2. the kingdom of God is the rule of God in our lives, in the church & in our culture. The kingdom of God is God’s will being done on earth, in history, with a forward light cast beyond this life (Brian McLaren).

3. the kingdom of God will outlast the church – the church is temporary for this space & time until Christ returns. The church is the community of the faithful that teaches people to live in & for the kingdom. The church is to form Christ’s followers to be agents of the kingdom in their daily lives, in their jobs, among their neighbors, and even their enemies (Brian McLaren).

4. here’s what the kingdom of God looks like in the workplace (Henry Blackaby’s Joshua) –
* the Christian business owner who refused to downsize his company when the economy plummeted, a good business decision, in order to spare 100s of families financial hardship
* the founder of a software company who established a charitable foundation with a portion of his earnings to promote Christian education around the world
* a businesswoman who used her personal resources to found & fund an orphanage in an impoverished area in Asia
* some CEOs give of their personal wealth to provide aid to the poor & to sponsor mission projects such as building houses for impoverished families
The kingdom of God in action, God’s will, words, heart, deeds being done on earth as it is in heaven!

5. Jesus is on a mission to establish the kingdom of God & make God King over all.

2nd the coming of the kingdom calls for repentance
1. repent means to have a change of heart, turn from your sins, or change your ways. This is a call by Christ to all of us to make radical value shifts & different choices in how we live our lives.

2. this call to repent is driven by the coming kingdom of God. The call of repentance is made forceful by the immanence of the Kingdom (Rick McKinley).

3. this is a call away from what is. The assumption is made that people were not, are not, living kingdom lives. We are traveling the wrong way, living opposite lives to what lines up with the kingdom.

4. this is a call to a sense of eternal urgency. The reality of the Kingdom of God is this – the kingdom is real & near & its opposite is real & near as well. There’s God’s kingdom & Satan’s kingdom to choose from. One of is heaven & one is of hell. Our only hope lies in the kingdom of God.

3rd repentance leads us into the good news.
1. the good news is the gospel – the life, death, resurrection of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

2. this word gospel began as a non-religious word. For example – ancient Persia invaded ancient Greece. The Greek soldiers defeated the Persians in battle. Heralds (evangelists) went sent running from the battle field to Athens & Sparta with the gospel (the good news) – we have fought for you & we have won the battle, the victory is ours, you are free!

3. so what is the gospel? The gospel is 1) something that has been done in history 2) for us 3) that changes our lives.

4. the Christian gospel is 1) Jesus the Son of God died on the cross in history 2) for us 3) so that we can be forgiven & freed of our sin.

5. the gospel is NOT something that we do – the gospel is something that we receive. The gospel is grace, free grace. We are accepted by God on the basis of Christ’s past accomplishments, his death & resurrection that defeated sin, Satan & death!
4th the good news is accessed by belief
1. this is total life belief – not just with our minds but with our hearts, hands & will. Believe means to have confidence that the good news about Jesus is true, reliable, can be depended upon. And this then leads to action.

Jesus hand-picked people to begin his mission (1:16-20)
1. who did he pick? Jesus invited blue collar, tobacco spitting, sand-paper hands fisherman to join him & help fulfill his mission. We learn from the book of Acts that these guys were unschooled. They might not have finished high school. Maybe some found a way to get their GEDs. College, forget it.

2. their favorite place to go hang out was GI Joes Not Borders or Barnes & Noble. They got excited about new nets, rods & reels, the latest in fish bait & boats.

3. Simon (Peter), Andrew, James & John. This great world-wide movement that we are a part of today got started with these 4 unlikely fishermen.

4. we need to take our clue right here – Jesus is not bound by our standards of success & power when it comes to building his kingdom. There’s hope for each & everyone one of us.

5. what did his call involve?

1st I will make you fishers of men with the emphasis on make.
1. Jesus tells them that he is going to do something radical in their lives. He’s going to remake them. The word “make” here is also used of Jesus performing miracles. Jesus is going to perform a miracle of change & transformation in their lives.
2. to be what he calls them to be, means that they can’t remain what they are. The essence of following Jesus is found right here – to follow Jesus is to be changed by Jesus.

2nd I will make you fishers of men with an emphasis on fishers of men.
1. what will now get them out of bed in the morning is not perch or bass BUT men, women & children who live their lives outside of God’s kingdom. This is nothing less than a shift of their values.

2. values are inner beliefs that determine our behavior. The daily choices we make come from our values. Your check book & your daily schedule reveal what you value most.

3. what’s the primary value shift that we see here? They are being called to live a life of mission. And the people outside the kingdom of God define their mission.

4. how much time, effort, prayer & money do you invest in people outside of God’s kingdom? Do we invest as a church? This is always an area where we are in need of conversion. By nature we are selfish & resist being chiseled & shaped by God.

5. I want to bring this home today by zeroing in on our money. How much money do we invest in reaching people who are outside of God’s kingdom? This morning you are being presented with 7 different places to invest:
* the Food Panty – next week’s benevolent offering or an extra check to help out
* Greg & Aggie Tharp in France – 30 years writing, translating & publishing Christian books for children & youth in France
* Pregnancy Care Center – take a baby bottle & fill it up with change so keep the sanctity of human life message going out in Canby
* The Center – a community center meeting the needs of the needy in Canby in the name of Christ
* Rising from the Ashes – we are trusting God to rebuild debt free; this is going to take a huge miracle of giving on our parts; I’m convinced that we can do it if we connect with the heart of Jesus
* Great Commission Fund – support of Alliance missions where….
> every 2 minutes someone says “yes” to Jesus as their Savior through the work of our missionaries
> every hour 3 people, many ravaged by AIDS, receive physical & spiritual care through our missionaries
> every day 45 radio broadcasts from Asia to Africa tell the good news
> every week 2400 new believers are baptized
> every month 250 new churches & groups are established
> every year 10,000 students are equipped for service in 120 Alliance theological schools
That’s a pretty good kingdom return on your investment!
* CAC general fund – the money that allows us to keep existing as a church body for ourselves, our community & our world

6. great followers of Christ who are committed to the advancement of the kingdom of God are generous & sacrificial givers to his work. Our giving is a picture of our hearts. As Christ himself said, it is better to give than to receive!

the Gospel of Mark: On the Road With Jesus (4)

“Jesus Starts”
Mark 1:4-13

1. Friday Sony Pictures released the film version of Dan Brown’s bestselling book (40 million copies in print), The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks.

2. though a work of fiction, Dan Brown has gone on record stating that he believes all the claims he inserts about Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene (to Charles Gibson on Good Morning America, 11/3/03).

3. many believe that The Da Vinci Code is a fictional distortion of 2 of the main pillars on which our Christian faith rests – the divinity of Christ & the inspiration of Scripture.

4. The Da Vinci Code presents us with a great opportunity to brush up on the core beliefs of our Christian faith. One place to start is the gospels – who is Jesus? what did he teach? what does he expect from us?

5. I have 4 words I want to explore today as we crack open Mark’s beginning section on the story of Jesus: language + dilemma + worldview + Trinity.

(1) language
1. these 10 verses introduce us to some vocabulary that we need to understand in order to understand Jesus & the Christian story:
* desert - 4
* baptism - 4
* repentance – 4
* forgiveness – 4
* sins – 4
* confession – 5
* (Holy) Spirit – 8, 12
* Jesus – 9, 10
* voice (God the Father) – 11
* temptation – 13
* Satan – 13
* angels – 14

2. biblical words count. Each word is an important puzzle piece in piecing together God’s revelation. If we don’t know this vocabulary, we won’t understand the Bible.

3. for example, let’s look at the word desert (1:3,4,12,13). Desert is a spiritually, theologically charged word in the Bible. Things happen in the desert – God shows up & lives are reborn.
* Jacob wrestled with the angel in the desert
* Moses met God at the burning bush in the desert
* the children of God wandered in the desert of Egypt for 40 yrs for their disobedience
* after his baptism the Spirit sent Jesus out into the desert for 40 days
* after his conversion Paul spent some time seeking God in the Arabian desert

4. literally, deserts are places of thorns, thirst, terrible loneliness & hunger. Survival is difficult in the desert.

5. figuratively, deserts are those life experiences where our wells run dry – health, finances, marriage, job, faith, relationships.

6. in the desert we are brought to the end of ourselves & learn that we desperately need God. Hope is found in our desert experiences:
* 1:3 the voice of help originates in the desert
* 1:4 new life is found in the desert
* 1:12 Jesus knows the desert well & can help us
* 1:13 God doesn’t abandon us in the desert
7. is this a desert time for you? Rejoice, be thankful. God is with you. Join God’s refining, changing, growing, rebirthing desert work in your life.

(2) dilemma
1. Mark uses a key Biblical word that alerts us to a problem – sins (1:4-5). Something is not right. This word & its real-life equivalent is a major clue.

2. Friday night I was at a Starbucks. A young guy came in with a backpack. He ordered a drink. While waiting for it he checked out the CD display. He chose 5. I watched him walk into the bathroom with those 5 CDs. 30 seconds later he walked out, picked up his drink & left. As I watched him run away from the store it hit me that he had stuffed the CDs & his backpack & made a run for it. I asked the barista if he bought any CDs & she said no.

3. something is wrong with that scene. It’s called sin – breaking trust with the laws of ethics & business.

4. solution – repentance, confession, baptism. Repentance speaks of a lifestyle change (I am no longer going to steal CDs). Confession speaks of naming & owning our sins (I have taken these CDs & owe Starbucks an apology & $60-$70). Baptism speaks of joining ourselves to someone who will remedy our sins (I am going to follow Christ & ask for his help to start buying my CDs).

5. for John it was a baptism of repentance, an incomplete solution. But with Jesus it is a baptism with the Holy Spirit – a baptism into Christ & his life-giving power over our sins.

6. outcome – forgiveness. John’s baptism pointed to Jesus. His life, death-cross-blood-sacrifice & resurrection paved the way to be forgiven. Things made right with God – guilt taken away.

7. this formula of problem – solution – outcome will be repeated by Mark over & over again throughout his story of Jesus.

8. what about you? Have you identified the problem of sin in your life? Have you applied the solution? Are you experiencing the outcome of forgiveness in Jesus?

(3) worldview
1. lets look closely at Jesus’ baptism. What we find is a picture of heaven & earth meeting.

2. earth =
* Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee
* John the Baptist
* Jordon river
* water
* words

heaven =
* Spirit descending like a dove
* voice from heaven

3. how do we make sense of this? There are 3 basic ways to imagine God’s space & our space relating to one another.

1st – God’s space & ours are basically the same
1. God is everywhere & everywhere is God. God is everything & everything is God. This view is called Pantheism.

2nd – God’s space & our space are separated
1. God is in heaven – we are on earth – and never the 2 shall meet. God created the world & now has left it to run on its own. God does not intervene in our world. This is called Deism. Some of our founding fathers were Deists.

3rd – God’s space & our space overlap & interlock
1. this is the Christian view. We live in an open universe. God is present within our space & time but he’s not confined to our space & time.

2. we can’t understand the Bible, our Christian faith, prayer, healing, God’s protection UNLESS we understand that God’s world & our world overlap & interlock.

3. we see this most clearly in Jesus. Jesus is the intersection of heaven & earth. We will see this on every page of Mark’s gospel.

4. and when we say “yes” to Jesus as our Savior he brings God’s world to ours & our world to God. God’s life overlaps with our lives – our lives interlock with God’s life.

5. I want you to think about this this week. I want you to evaluate if this is how you actually live your life.

(4) Trinity
1. we have mention here of the 3 persons of the Trinity – God the Father Son & Holy Spirit. Christian Theology 101 teaches us that we worship 1 God displayed to us in 3 persons.

2. what does this mean? The triune relationships of the Father Son & Spirit cause us to marvel at…

1st – the unity of the triune God
1. the 3 persons of the Godhead live in perfect unity & harmony. They don’t fight. There’s no jealously between them. They all agree. Their minds & wills are united.

2nd – the diversity within the triune God
1. the Father Son Spirit have distinct roles:

2. Scripture presents God the Father as the grand architect & wise designer of creation, redemption & consummation

3. Jesus is presented as the Father’s Son who comes to earth to carry out God’s plan of salvation

4. the Spirit is presented as the Son’s presence on earth to continue Jesus’ work of salvation

3rd – the social relationality of the triune God
1. God is never “alone.” In other words, God has a “life together.” God is a community within himself. From all eternity God has existed as Father Son & Holy Spirit. God has never been lonely.

2. God is both a unity of Being & a community of Persons.

3. within the person of God (Father Son Spirit) is love, support, honor, communication & respect. The Father Son Spirit are in need of nothing but each other throughout all eternity

4th – the authority-submission structure that exists eternally in the 3 persons of the Godhead, each of whom is equally & fully God
1. Scripture teaches us that:
* the Father possesses the place of supreme authority
* the Son submits to the Father’s authority
* the Spirit submits to both the Father & the Son

2. all human authority structures outlined in Scripture flow from God’s own person. This is a positive & wholesome view of authority & submission that our culture has lost & needs to recover.

wrap up – desert experiences
1. at once the Spirit sent (Jesus) out into the desert, and he was in the desert for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him (1:12-13).

2. after his baptism the Holy Spirit sent Jesus to the desert. There he encounters Satan, wild animals & angels.

3. in our spiritual lives what makes us think we will be any different? We will experience blessings (baptism). We will experience temptations (Satan). We will experience hardships (wild animals). And we will experience encouragement (angels).

4. God is with us in all circumstances. Where are you at today – blessings? temptations? hardships? encouragement? Has it been a week of wild beasts or angels? Satan at your heels or the affirming voice of God your Father?

5. be still and know that God is God. His world overlaps & interlocks with ours. That is our hope, peace & strength.

the Gospel of Mark: On the Road With Jesus (3)

“Jesus’ Family”
Gospel of Mark

1. the first observance of a Mother's Day in the United States took place in 1872 when Julia Ward Howe, social reformer and poet who penned the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," suggested a day to honor mothers. This day, which she felt should be dedicated to peace, was celebrated by gatherings that she organized and held in Boston. This tradition spread, and was later organized in other areas of the country as well.

2. In 1907, Anna Jarvis took Howe's idea a step further and began to campaign for a nationally recognized Mother's Day. In the late nineteenth century, Jarvis's own mother had tried to establish "Mother's Friendship Days" as a way to heal the scars of the Civil War. Persuading her mother's church to celebrate Mother's Day on the anniversary of Jarvis's mother's death - the second Sunday in May - our Mother's Day holiday as it is now celebrated was born. Jarvis also began the tradition of wearing a carnation in honor or memory of our mothers - a colored carnation if your mother is still living, a white one if she is deceased.

3. Jarvis's push to make Mother's Day a national event involved letter writing to ministers, politicians and businessmen. By 1911, Mother's Day was being celebrated in almost every state in the country. On 9th of May 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made the official proclamation that Mother's Day would be a national holiday to be celebrated annually on the second Sunday in May

4. Jesus had a mother, Mary. She was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. He was conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit. His father was Joseph.

5. Joseph & Mary had other children besides Jesus. Matthew 13:55, Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 4 brothers.

6. Jesus also had sisters, but they are not named or numbered. Mark 6:3, Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary, the Brother of James, and Josephs, and of Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?

7. Jesus was Joseph & Mary’s 1st born. He had 4 brothers & at least 2 sisters. That makes a family of at least 7 children.

8. Jesus’ family comes into play in Mark’s gospel three times. The family dynamics are interesting to say the least.

Mark 3:20-21:
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, He is out of his mind.
1. this brother of theirs had been on a roll – teaching with authority, forgiving sins, offending the Pharisees, healing illnesses, freeing people from demonic possession & calling follower to follow him. And all this as an expression of the Kingdom of God.

2. they didn’t get it. This one they had grown up with, shared a bedroom with, ate countless meals with, played with, worked with, argued with. Who was he trying to be? What got into him?

3. Jesus, come back home, let it go, drop it. We are not comfortable with you being the talk of the town.

Does Jesus have a message for us on Mother’s Day?
1st, sometimes our families are the very ones who misunderstand us the most.
1. Jesus knew who he was. He knew what he was about. He defines the term missional. He lived his life & died his death in a manner that describes the word ‘purpose.’

2. but his family didn’t get it. They had something else in mind for him. A different role. Another career. Something that wasn’t so controversial.

3. families can be famous for squelching the desires that God places us in us…to be a missionary or a banker or an artist or a writer or a social worker or a stay-at-home mom or a lawyer who fights for the rights of the poor. How many kids have caved into the pressure of their parents to pursue a career that escapes their passion & giftedness?

4. Moms (and dads if you’re listening), the greatest gift you can give your kids is the gift of giving them the freedom to be who God has made them to be. Even if their pursuit of that gifting makes you think they are out of their minds.

Mark 3:31-35:
Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."
1. they’ve come to drag him home again. They failed the 1st time. They’re going to give it a 2nd shot. They fail this time too. Jesus will not, cannot be corralled.

2. Jesus bounces from blood relations to God-relations. He says, my real mother, my real brothers are those who do the will of God. The realm of the Spirit transcends the realm of earthly family.

Does Jesus have a message for us on Mother’s Day?
2nd the only thing that transcends our human families is God’s family.
1. our earthly families are temporary – God’s family is eternal. Being together on earth is no guarantee that we will be together in heaven. Physical birth is what defines our everyday family. Spiritual birth is what defines our forever family.

2. Jesus’ point is not that our dads, moms & siblings matter little – its that doing God’s will & entering God’s family is most important.

3. the time has come (Jesus said in 1:15), the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the good news. This is the USA Today version of Jesus’ message & mission:
* now is the time to act
* in Jesus’ life, teaching, person God’s kingdom has come. The way of living life as God created life to be lived is revealed in Jesus
* repent is what we must do to get in on this Kingdom of God life – this is to undergo a complete change of mind, heart & direction – to turn away from all that jerks us away from pleasing God
* this is the news we must believe, the news that life turns on, the news that ushers us into doing the will of God so that we can join God’s forever family

4. on this Mother’s Day let all of us be reminded that our relationship with God is intended to transcend all family & all human relationships. The greatest sadness & grief & pain we will ever experience as family, is to have other family members live & die without their ever having said “yes” to Jesus’ Kingdom & family.

5. the time is here. The time is now. God’s way of life has arrived in Jesus. Turn from casting your life into your chosen mold. Turn to Jesus & let him cast your life into his Kingdom of God mold. And believe him, love him, serve him, follow him, reach for him, listen for him, obey him, hold fast to him, in love.

the Gospel of Mark: On the Road With Jesus (2)

“The Beginning”

Mark 1:1-3
(with thanks to Tim Keller)

1. 10 years ago I interviewed Mary Mannin Morrisey of the Living Enrichment Center in Wilsonville, now bankrupt & dissolved. She claimed to be Christ-centered in her faith. But the Christ she centered on was one of her own making. She conveniently ignored the parts of Jesus that rubbed her the wrong way.

2. 2 weeks ago I attended a reading by David James Duncan (The Brothers K – The River Why books) at Wordstock in Portland. I bought his latest book – God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons. Duncan does the same exact thing as Morrisey. He builds his version of Jesus according to what’s politically correct today. He uses a fraction of the gospels in the process.

3. let’s not be too quick to criticize Mary Manin Morrisy or David James Duncan – we do the same more than we probably realize.

4. and we pay a price for it…because the Jesus that you mold to fit your desires or wishes or projections will fail to truly disrupt your life. A self-manufactured Jesus can’t challenge or change you because he’s a Jesus stripped of his unique person, power & message.

5. what we all need is the real Jesus. And that’s what the Gospel of Mark gives us – the naked, unadulterated, undistilled, straight-up Jesus.

6. today we’re going to begin our exposure to the straight-up Jesus by looking at him from 2 different angles in Mark 1:1-3: who Jesus is & what Jesus brings.

who Jesus is
1. the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2. Mark tells the beginning of the story, not the ending. As we heard last week the story of our world is written in 6 chapters – creation-fall-Israel-Jesus-Church-Eternity. The story about Jesus that Mark begins to tell in his gospel is still moving forward through his church, the chapter we are living.

3. Jesus is a proper name. Like Bill or Bob or John or Frank or Peter. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua – which means “the Lord saves.” There was nothing unique about this name in Mark’s time – a lot of Jesus’ running around.

4. but that’s not true about Christ. Christ is a title from Israel’s rich history. Literally it means “anointed King” & refers to the Messiah. Jesus is no ordinary Joe. He is Jesus the Christ, the long-awaited & much prophesied about Messiah.

5. more than that, and that’s enough in itself, he is the Son of God. This is a divine title. This unmistakably tags the human Jesus to be Divine, God in the flesh.

6. to sum up, the name Jesus pointed to the human being Jesus – he was fully man. The title Christ acknowledged Jesus as the “anointed King” of God, Messiah. And Son of God identified him as God – fully Divine.

7. that’s quite a beginning but it doesn’t stop there – there’s more. Prepare the way for the Lord (1:3/Isaiah 40:3). This is a quotation from Isaiah. The word Lord in Isaiah is Yahweh. This is the personal covenant name that God gave to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3. This name was so holy that the Jews wouldn’t even say it. Yahweh is God’s personal name.

8. and now Mark tells us that the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ the Son of God is really about the Yahweh who revealed himself to Israel through Moses at the burning bush. The Eternal God – the Creator God of the universe – the Rightful Ruler & Judge of the earth! This Jesus is the Lord, Yahweh!

9. and this is nothing short of a bombshell. It explodes all of our categories of thinking. Take philosophy for example. Remember your college freshman class? The questions that amuse philosophers concern:
* real vs. ideal
* particulars vs. universals
* many vs. one
* rational vs. experiential

10. here’s the bombshell – the ‘ideal’ has become ‘real’ in Jesus. God has become man:
* metaphysical has become physical
* immortal – mortal
* unapproachable – can be hugged
* totally invulnerable – radically vulnerable
* impossible – possible

11. Mark’s gospel is going to tell us about this Jesus.

what Jesus brings
1. lets go to this word gospel. At its most basic meaning gospel refers to good news. In Greek & Roman history the gospel was the report of a military victory – once the battle was won, a runner would take the news back to the Emperor – their enemy had been defeated!
2. the gospel writers took this secular-military-political word & converted it to the cause of Christ. Gospel now meant the good news about Jesus.

3. such as – the long-awaited announcement that the Messiah has come. In Jesus God is bringing salvation to a broken world. Sin, death, disease, & Satan have been defeated in the life, death & resurrection of Jesus. Jesus brings new life & hope for a needy world.

4. we are transformed by this good news. This good news can transform our world. That’s why it’s to be taught, preached & shared. The gospel has the potential & power to change everything.

5. Mark tells us that Jesus is the center of the gospel. He is our contact point with God our Creator & Father.

6. the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is the title for Mark’s book, all 16 chapters:
* what begins in Jesus is still alive & moving forward
* the gospel is Jesus himself & his loving response to a broken world
* Jesus is the man, the Jew, the son of Mary & Joseph
* Christ is his title, the anointed King of Israel, Messiah
* Son of God is his eternal Divinity, God in the flesh
* Lord – Yahweh identifies Jesus as the Creator, Sovereign God revealed in the Old Testament

Implications
1. Mark’s title communicates a bombshell truth – God became human. We need to take this truth into the center of our being & let it catch fire. When we do, 3 things can happen.

1st Jesus will change the motivational drive of our heart from fear to grateful joy
1. man’s basic motivational drive is fear:
* of missing out
* not proving ourselves
* not living up to someone’s expectations

2. religions of world aggravate that fear – God is up there & out there & we have to reach him:
* Buddhism – 8-fold path
* Islam – 5 pillars
* Judaism – 10 commandments
This increases our fear of missing the Divine if you don’t measure up

3. God become flesh means that we don’t have to reach God – God has reached us. And it’s possible to have a heart that knows God & lives a life of grateful joy for having been touched by God!

2nd Jesus is a tremendous resource for suffering
1. what if you’re hurting, you share your heart with someone & they respond with a bunch of facts, an attack plan – do this, take this, go here, see her. How are you going to feel? Not heard or understood.

2. what if you go to someone else & share your heart. They say, guess what, I’ve been through the same thing. And what if this person tells that they’ve not only been through the very same thing you are facing, but something far worse. And they tell you they’re going to be with you in your darkness.

3. I’ll never forget Mike Higgs & Tim Gilmer talking to me in the middle of my depression several years ago – they shared as depression survivors. They told me it was going to eventually lift. They told me I would make it. They gave me hope. This is what Jesus does for us.
4. the only religion that tells us that God has been through more suffering than we have is the Christian faith. Our God, Jesus, has wounds. He knows rejection, pain, suffering, being misunderstood & denial.

5. poem of Edward Shillataux –
the other gods did ride
Thou didst stumble to the throne
to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak
and no God has wounds but Thou alone

3rd Jesus is our motivation for peace & justice
1. God becoming flesh in Jesus Christ means that God got a material body. Jesus was raised from the dead with a physical body. Incarnation & resurrection mean that God invented both soul & body & is going to redeem both soul & body.

2. the purpose of salvation is not escape from the material world but the redemption, renewal, healing of the material world. A new heavens & a new earth is where we’re headed.

3. therefore, the gospel of Jesus is for salvation of the soul & forgiveness of sins AND fighting disease, poverty, injustice – they are on the agenda of the salvation of God.

4. grateful joy – companionship in suffering – ‘thee’ reason for peace & justice: this is our Jesus!

The Gospel of Mark: On the Road With Jesus (1)

“What Came Before The Beginning?”
Mark 1:1

1. all of us are born into a world that is already rolling along. At our birth we join life, people & events that are on-going.

2. I was born in 1955. In the world I entered:
* Winston Churchill had just resigned as Prime Minister of England, replaced by Anthony Eden
* West Germany became a sovereign state
* President Eisenhower suffered a coronary thrombosis 12 days after my birth
* Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama
* a first-class stamp cost 3 cents
* the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the NY Yankees (4-3) to win the World Series
* San Francisco defeated La Salle to win the NCAA basketball championship
* Gunsmoke made its debut on CBS
* James Dean died in a car accident at age 28
* fiber optics were developed in England
* Albert Einstein died (I took his place!)

3. the same thing is true of Jesus. The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus was not born into a vacuum. He was born a Jew into a very real historical context.

4. today I start what will be a fairly long series on the Gospel of Mark. I want to map out the historical context that awaited Jesus upon his birth.



The Big Story within all small stories
1. one way to read the Bible is to read it as a story. Because that’s what it is. The bulk of Scripture is narrative. God’s revelation is primarily given to us in the form of a story. Even the didactic parts of Scripture – Paul’s letters, for example, in the New Testament – emerge from the story of the life of the church & her people in Ephesus, Corinth or Rome.

2. there is one Big Story found in Scripture. Our life stories are lived within this one. This story comes to us in 6 chapters: creation – fall – Israel – Jesus – church – eternity. We live in chapter 5 while having 1 foot in chapters 1,2,3,4 & another foot in chapter 6.

chapter 1: Creation…Genesis 1-2
1. here is our beginning. We all of us are created equally in the image & likeness of God as male & female.

2. we are created to love & serve our Creator. We are created to love & serve one another. We are created to care for the earth.

3. we are multi-dimensional people who are meant to have relationships with – God, others, ourselves & creation.

chapter 2: Fall…Genesis 3
1. something goes terribly wrong in Genesis 3. This chapter helps us to understand the world’s brokenness & destruction. Through the creation of “free will” Adam & Eve choose to disobey God & exert their wills. This is the birth of the ‘sovereign self,” which has characterized the human race since – I want to do it my way.

2. humanity’s multi-dimensional relationships are now broken, skewed & disordered – God, others, self, creation. We now walk with a limp. The affects of the Fall surround us every minute of every day.

3. Tuesday I received a letter in the mail from Doug. Doug & I grew up together, played together – he lived across the street from us. I met his mother & sister at my brother Tom’s memorial service. They gave me his address so I wrote him. He wrote me back. Doug is in prison in Newton, Texas.

4. he shared a bit of his story – went AWOL from the Army, hid out in Germany for many years, married & divorced twice, “lost my way for awhile after my divorce.” He has 35 more months behind bars.

5. what landed him in prison, on one level, is fallout from the Fall. We face its reality everyday.

chapter 3: Israel (Genesis 12-Malachi 4)
1. this is a long, rambling chapter. Central to the story & plot are 7 characters – God, Adam & Eve, Abraham & Sarah, Moses & David. God & Adam & Eve we’ve already met.

2. in this chapter God forms a “crisis response team” to the Fall. He begins with an elderly couple, Abraham & Sarah, who miraculously conceive in their old age. Give birth to a people who will be known as the Jews, people with a special calling & vocation to know God & make God known. Who will be blessed by God in order to be a blessing to all others.

3. Moses leads this family out of bondage in Egypt. God gives them the Promised Land.

4. they reach a place of stability, peace & prosperity under the leadership of King David.

5. sadly, the kingdom deteriorates in the generations to come. The people fight each other & divide up into 2 groups, the northern & southern kingdoms.

6. things go from bad to worse:
* 721 BC – the northern kingdom is ravaged & conquered by Assyria
* 586 BC – the southern kingdom is defeated by Babylon (the best & brightest are taken in exile to serve a foreign power)
* 537 BC – descendants of Abraham allowed to return to their land in stages
* 333 BC – the Greek armies invade & occupy
* 63 BC – the Roman armies invade & occupy

7. when Jesus steps into history, the Jewish people – called & set apart by God to be his people, through whom God was going to bless all peoples – are ruled by a pagan nation.

8. 4 groups of people rose up in Israel in response to their religious, social & political situation.

9. 1st the Zealots. They thought the Jewish people were too passive & cowardly – this is why they were oppressed by foreign powers. They wanted to rally the people to take action against the Roman army. They wanted to launch a violent revolution.

10. 2nd the Herodians. Named for the supporters of the Roman puppet ruler Herod. They viewed the Zealots’ approach as stupid. To rebel would be to commit national suicide. The best option was to cooperate & play the game. Don’t rock the boat.

11. 3rd the Essenes. Their approach was to check out of the corrupt religious & political systems dominating Israel. They established alternative societies out in the wilderness. They sought to please God by isolating themselves from the culture.

12. 4th the Pharisees. They believed that God would send the Messiah if the people of Israel would live holy lives. They saw too much sin & not enough piety. They called for righteous living – they labeled prostitutes, drunks, tax collectors, Roman collaborators as sinners who were holding back the blessing of God. They called for religious purity & rigor.

13. the questions these 4 groups raised? What are we going to do about the religious, social & political mess we’re in? How can we be liberated from Caesar & Rome’s dominion?

14. the Zealots wanted to act like terrorists. The Herodians wanted to swear greater allegiance to Rome. The Pharisees attacked drunks, prostitutes & sinners. And the Essenes withdrew into the dessert to escape the evil culture.

15. The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He didn’t meet the expectations of either group. In fact, of these 4 groups, the Pharisees hated Jesus the most. It didn’t take long – Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus (3:6). They opposed Jesus because he loved, befriended, and socialized with the very people they labeled as the problem with their country.

16. I wonder how many of us would be scandalized by Jesus if he were to appear today – walk our streets & visit our homes & churches?



chapter 4: Jesus…Matthew Mark Luke John
1. in this chapter we learn all about Jesus. His life, death, suffering, resurrection & ascension. The Jesus story is the climax of the Israel story. The Jesus story is the focal point of the story of God’s redemptive drama. The Jesus story is the foundation of our won stories.

2. for the next several months we’re going to stare at Mark’s gospel & Jesus. We’re going to camp out in chapter 4.

chapter 5: Church….Acts – today
1. this is where we live. This is the part of the story that is still being written. The more we know of chapters 1 2 3 4, the better grip we will have on how to live out our lives in chapter 5

chapter 6: Eternity…Revelation
1. here will come the return of Christ. Sin, evil, death & Satan will finally be, once and for all, destroyed. And we shall live with Christ forever. This is our & history’s final destination.

how shall we then live?
1. as we live in chapter 5 [present], we immerse ourselves in the 1st four chapters [past] & the last, chapter six [future]. All these texts are passed onto us as the grand biblical story of God & his people.

2. we are formed into God people, transformed into God’s character & empowered to carry out God’s kingdom work by means of this story – the commandments, speeches, narratives, poetry, warnings, promises, prayers, proverbs & songs.

3. this is the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.