The Garden of Agony - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

Click HERE to listen or download this talk...

We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this morning.

The last week we looked at the Lord’s Supper and how it represented the shift from the Law of Moses to the gospel of grace and truth.

Today we come to one of the darkest points in the entire story of the life of Jesus; His agony and betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane. While we’ll never quite endure what Jesus did there is a lot we can learn from the example of Jesus in the garden of agony that night.

Let’s read Mark 14:32-52

Vs. 33-34 tells us that Jesus knew that the time was coming when He would be betrayed, abandoned, and denied by His friends. All of this was weighing heavily on His mind and heart.

We’ve all faced situations that we knew were coming but we dreaded them just the same. I mean does it make the surgery less painful when we know its coming? Does the loss of a loved one hurt less when we know its coming? In fact in some ways knowing what’s coming can make it worse and the dread and anticipation may be even harder to take than the actual event.

There’s an old joke I like to tell it goes like this: “I would rather die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather rather than screaming in terror like the people who were riding in the car with him.” I know booo…., but it does ring true doesn’t it? Knowing what’s coming doesn’t necessarily make it easier. So lets get that cleared up right now.

Just because Jesus knew what was ahead it didn’t minimize the suffering He endured and it didn’t minimize His human need for friendship and His spiritual need for prayer.

Speaking of prayer, Vs. 36 reveals His inner turmoil and struggle to come to terms with His Father’s will. Because He was a man and had walked among the sick and poor He had seen and experienced first hand what He knew; sin had taken a terrible toll on the people and the world He had created and He knew that very soon He would be taking on the full weight of that sin and the full separation that it would bring between Himself and the Father.

Three times while He’s praying He stops and goes to find His disciples, its almost as if His lonely sorrow becomes almost unbearable and He needs the companionship of His friends. How discouraging do you think it was when He found them sleeping? In someway this was just a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Vs. 42-43 is the transition as what was anticipated begins to happen. Looking at the events of this passage it seems to me that Jesus had a general knowledge of what was going to happen but not such clear precision to know exactly where and when. He said “Rise let us be going” as if to flee. Maybe He was trying to protect His disciples, we don’t know but we do know that the very things Jesus dreaded were now upon Him as Judas betrays Him with the words Rabbi, Rabbi. and a kiss. The words Rabbi, Rabbi showed that Judas was betraying Him intellectually and the kiss represents His emotional and spiritual betrayal. In other words Judas’ betrayal was complete and total.

Judas had worked out this sign because he probably wanted to avoid a messy confrontation. At night there would be fewer witnesses, it would be harder to see and it would be easy for the mob to get confused and grab the wrong man. By kissing Jesus and calling Him Rabbi there wouldn’t be any mistakes. The fact that Judas wanted them to take Him away safely showed that He didn’t want anything to do with a violent arrest in the garden.

But Judas wasn’t the only guilty one in the garden that night. Vs. 50-52 tell us that everyone abandoned Him in the hours of His greatest need they all ran away. They ran away in such a hurry that at least one young man left his clothes behind. But leaving clothes behind was the least important thing they left that night.

Looking at this messy, chaotic scene reminds me that if life can be messy and painful for Jesus then we’re not going to be immune to these things. The facts are these: If we haven’t experienced the tragic, chaotic, messiness of life we will and if we have experienced it we can be sure that we will again. So what can we learn from the “garden of agony?”

Jesus’ actions and words tell us that authentic prayer is essential. I think its important to see that Jesus didn’t candy coat or deny how He was feeling. His experience in the garden prayer was raw and gritty. No pious platitudes or denial of reality. If we were to pray this same prayer in our modern speech it would be “Dad and Father, I know you can do anything you want to do and I want you to make this all go away. I don’t want to go through this but I will if you want me too.”

There’s almost this war going on between His flesh and spirit that is mirrored in His words to Simon Peter “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

There's a genuineness to His prayer that we should remember when we're desperate.

Jesus showed us how to stand and face our circumstances. One of the temptations we face in hard times is to try and run away or make a deal to get out of it. But Jesus didn’t try to escape or cut a deal with them. He showed a strong resolve to follow God’s will.

We can't really run away from our problems, even if we try they catch up with us. And making a deal with the devil to try and ease our situation will only make matters worse. But strong resolve to face our trials in the strength that God supplies will see us through.

There’s one final thought I’d like to share with you. In vs. 32 it tells us that this event takes place in Gethsemane. Gethsemane was a garden that was on the Mount of Olives just outside of Jerusalem. It was called the Mount of Olives because there was a grove of olive trees there. We know that olives can be eaten but olive oil was the real treasure so every olive grove had to have a ‘gethsemane,’ the Hebrew word for an olive press.

Olives had to be pressed and crushed to release the real treasure, the oil that was stored inside. At the right time olives were harvested and placed in an olive press and crushed with a heavy stone. This was done twice with the first pressing producing the purest oil and second pressing was the pulp and it produced oil mixed with water. The collected oil was then used in almost every part of the daily lives of the people. The oil was used as fuel for lamps to light their homes; it was used in their cooking, for ointment to heal their wounds, and in perfumes and beauty treatments. Olive oil was also important in the symbols of their faith.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that Jesus was in “Gethsemane” the olive press on this night. As the weight of that night and the events that were to come pressed down upon Him Luke’s gospel tells us Jesus sweat great drops of blood. But like the olives that were pressed in this place to provide the oil that touched every part of their life Jesus knew that the pain and suffering He would endure would touch lives for eternity.

Jesus showed us that suffering is redemptive. It’s clear from Jesus’ prior words that He knew the greater purpose of His suffering. God's plan for the redemption and reconciliation of His children to Himself ran through the suffering of Jesus. But I think we can forget that our suffering is redemptive too. God allows and uses our suffering for our good. Through suffering we can more closely identify with Jesus in His suffering and God has made a promise to us in Romans 8:28 that God works ALL things together for our good.

If we suffer because of personal sin in our life then God allows it to draw us back to Him. If we suffer for doing good then God allows it be an example of His glory in us that will draw others to Him.

Isaiah 61:1-3 "The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to [those who are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, 3 To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees (olive?) of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."

Beauty for ashes (oil was used as a beauty treatment), The oil of joy for mourning (oil was used in all of their celebration feasts) But this also tells us that this happens so that the people He has redeemed and healed will be His olive trees of righteousness that He may be glorified.

So as we experience the crushing pressure of life’s tragedies and pain we can be sure that the oil produced by our suffering will not be wasted because we’re His trees of righteousness.

It’s been said that God never wastes anything. We may not see the big picture but we can be sure that…

God collects every tear and uses them to water the seeds of His grace planted in our hearts.

Fair Warning - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

Click HERE to listen or download this talk....

Watch live streaming video from columbialifechurchtv at livestream.com

We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this year.

The last time we looked at three themes from Mark 12. Jesus established the guilt of the religious leaders for allowing Israel to fall away from God, then we looked at how Jesus disarmed the traps of the religious leaders and finally we took a look at the danger of reliance on the external signs of success and religion to justify ourselves.

Today we’re going to look at Mark chapter 13 which in the last 40 years or so has become one of the most controversial, and at least in my opinion, one of the most misused passages of scripture in the Bible.

How many of you were active believers in the 70’s and early 80’s? What was the most talked about topic during those years? There was a surge in Charismatic ideas and the health and wealth gospel but both of those were tied to the end times narrative. I can remember ‘rapture drills’ that feeling of fear when you thought the rapture happened and you were left behind. Songs, movies and so many other things convinced us that we were in the last days.

It was at that time that this passage and others became front and center in preaching and teaching. The problem was that they were often used without considering their context and they were often used to support the particular belief or bias of the teacher.

This morning I’m going to attempt to share this passage without allowing my particular bias about the end times influence how we look at it. Of course since I’m not a machine some of my bias will get in there but we’ll give it a go.

Even today there is curiosity about when the ‘end of days’ will come. In 1988 there was a book called “88 Reasons the Lord will Return in 1988” then of course we all remember the Y2K scare.

Now apparently we have a good date to work with thanks to the Mayan calendar. We now know the world will end in 2012, the only question I have about that is if the Mayan’s were so good at predicting the future how come they disappeared? Why didn’t they see that coming?

So here’s what we know: The world will end in 2012, prince Charles is the anti-Christ, and Ronald McDonald is the false prophet. What? You didn’t know that last one? OK so none of these things are true, but one thing we know for sure is that someone is going to get the date right at some point because at the beginning of each year someone will predict its this year.

Enough of that, let’s get to the Scripture.

Let’s read the first section Mark 13:1-37….

Let get something out of the way right now: Jesus was not trying to predict, set a date, or even give a specific list of things that would tell us when the ‘end’ would come. I think vs. 32 makes that clear.

So the question we have to consider is ‘Why did Jesus say this?’ What was the point?

If you look at what is happening here Jesus is going to be crucified in a couple of days and His disciples won’t have His continued physical presence to guide them. In fact they will have to rely on a new ‘Helper,’ the Holy Spirit to guide them (vs. 11) and it will take them some time to get used to this new way of doing things. Add to this that people have an addiction to their own flesh which fights against the Spirit and life can get very confusing sometimes. Jesus knew what they were facing and He takes this time to give them some warnings about what to watch for in the future.

But this passage is interesting in another way because it’s clear that Jesus is speaking to a larger future audience than just this group of 12 disciples. He’s speaking to His disciples of all ages to come because He knew that we would all face scary and confusing times and the things mentioned in this passage would be true of every age to come.

With this in mind I believe Jesus is giving His disciples fair warning of 4 spiritual dangers:

Dependence on religious or political power for security. Both are man made attempts to create security. The Jerusalem temple represented both of those things to the people. The other name for the temple was ‘Herod’s Temple’ because he was the one who used his political skill to gain permission from Rome to build the temple for the people to use in worship. It was a symbol of the merging of religious and political power.

Jesus warns the disciples that this temple and all it represents will be torn down and destroyed leaving all of those who look at it for their hope devastated, crushed and without hope.

This warning is just as important today. If our faith is placed in anything or anyone but Jesus we are in trouble.

Deception by false messiahs. False messiah’s have been around for 2,000 years. Paul encounters a false Messiah named ‘Bar-Jesus’ on His first missionary journey and that was only 20 or so years after Jesus ascended to Heaven. Today we have cults all over the world who claim to have a new revelation or a new way deceiving many, even some that were followers of Jesus. Be careful who you listen to and make sure they are teaching and living the Bible. They won’t be perfect but they will be honest, accountable, and humble.

You need to consider carefully what the teachers you follow are saying in the light of Scripture. Keep in mind there will always be some differences of opinion about some things but a trustworthy teacher will never claim that their ‘truth’ is above question.

Distraction by world turmoil. This week in Haiti, and for that matter these past 8-9 years we’ve experienced some of the most traumatic events we’ve ever seen. Unless you consider the Great Depression, the Dark Ages and black death that wiped out almost ½ the population of Europe, 2 world wars and the Holocaust, the Civil War and slave trade, etc. etc. The point isn’t to dismiss or diminish the tragic and turbulent times we’re in now but to show that there will always be tragic and turbulent events in the world that can either distract and consume us or help us to focus on being salt and light in dark times.

Discouraged by the severity of persecution. In America by the grace of God we’ve been spared persecution for our faith. The thing we fear the most in America is people making fun of us or being disrespected. But there are places in our world where people face real persecution, and even death for their faith.

Again we aren’t dismissing the possibility that things will get worse and more widespread, but persecution of Jesus’ followers has been around since Jesus came. In fact the first persecution was when Herod murdered the infants in Bethlehem trying to kill Jesus.

The early church believed they were living in the last days. The apostles all lived and taught that Jesus’ return was immanent and they based that belief on what Jesus had warned them about. The apostles continued to remind the church not to hide in fear or get caught up in the distractions and the deceptions of their day.

This created a sense of urgency and gave them a laser-like focus on taking the gospel to the ends of the earth and serving the sick and poor in their communities.

Jesus promised 2 things in this passage: The world won’t get better and Jesus will return. His return could be today it could be in 2012. No one knows the hour or the day and the Church, the followers of Jesus have a choice to make. Will we be absorbed in self pity and self protection because we fear the future OR will we be compelled to follow Jesus into the harvest fields of hurting, abused, and troubled people?

We have no excuse to be afraid or caught by surprise because Jesus has given us fair warning about what to expect but He also gave us this promise:

Vs. 26….. they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.. 

What Do You Know? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

Click HERE to listen or download this talk....

Watch live streaming video from columbialifechurchtv at livestream.com

We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this week.

The last time we looked at Jesus’ confrontation with the religious leaders over who had real authority and we compared that to our struggles with Jesus’ authority in our life.

Today we’re going to look at Mark chapter 12 together as a group. As I was looking this over I had a hard time breaking it into sections so we’re going to take it all together.

From our past weeks we know that this event takes place during Jesus last week before His crucifixion. Up to this point Jesus had tried to steer clear of confrontations with the religious leaders, but now He has entered Jerusalem and is pushing the leaders to do something about Him.

Jesus had exposed their hypocrisy and established His authority and now in chapter 12 He’s exposing their self serving interpretations of the scriptures and their impure motives.

In this chapter Jesus sets up the confrontation with a parable that challenges and exposes the corruption of the religious leaders which provokes the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes to try and entrap Him.

Let’s read the first section Mark 12:1-12….

This parable is based on Isaiah 5:1-7 which portrays Israel as God’s vineyard. One of the interesting images from Isaiah is of God’s desire for a fruitful vine, but the vineyard produces wild vines instead and God promises to clean it out.

In using this parable Jesus is saying to the religious leaders that they are guilty of allowing the vineyard to become unfruitful because they wouldn’t listen to the word of God sent through the prophets and they actually persecuted them because they wanted to be in control. Jesus was also saying that they were even more guilty than the previous generations because they are about to kill the Son of God.

But Jesus is also telling them that His actions are the start of God’s judgment on them and Israel. He has come to start the vineyard cleaning work and He’s starting in the temple which represents the heart of their religious life. When they crucified Jesus they set in motion the very thing that is mentioned in vs. 9. They intended to remove Jesus but they actually removed themselves and opened the door of God’s vineyard to the gentiles, people like us.

As a side note I thought it was interesting that the OT was written for the people of Israel and the last word’s that God spoke to them are through the prophet Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 6 And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."

Then God goes silent until the Apostle Paul comes along and is inspired to write the letters to the churches. Up to this point God had communicated to Israel, now God communicates to the church and the church to the world.

We are the fulfillment of verse 9! So turn to your neighbor and say “It’s nice to meet a fulfillment of a prophecy.”

As you can imagine the leaders weren’t very happy with this and they were even more angry when Jesus asks them if they even read the scriptures (they were after all the teachers and interpreters of the scriptures). While there is probably some plotting going on behind the scenes the religious leaders feel forced to entrap and silence Jesus because they sense the people beginning to move toward Jesus.

In vs. 13-17 the Pharisees try to trip Him up with a political trap about taxes. The Herodians represented the political lobbyists who were helping the Pharisees trap Jesus. If Jesus says taxes are not to be paid then they could turn Him in to the Romans. If Jesus said that taxes were to be paid the people would reject Him as a Roman puppet. But Jesus doesn’t allow Himself to be pulled into this political argument.

In vs. 18-27 the Sadducees try to tangle Jesus in a theological trap. The question they ask Him isn’t a major issue of concern to them, they just want to force Jesus into an endless no win discussion. If you’ve ever been in one of those you know how frustrating it can be. The Sadducees believed that the 5 books of Moses (Gen. Ex. Lev. Num. Deut.) were the only true Scriptures so if Jesus was going to turn this around He would have to use the Scriptures they accepted. Jesus uses Exodus 3:6 to prove that they were mistaken and discredits them.

In vs. 28-34 a Scribe is next and asks Jesus a question of interpretation. It’s not clear if this Scribe is genuine or trying to trap Jesus, but even if He is honest those listening would use Jesus’ answer against Him. Jesus again uses Scriptures from the 5 books of Moses that everyone accepted and answers wisely.

Jesus gives us the example for responding to challenges to our faith that we have to deal with.

First we have to be led by the Spirit because if we lean on our own understanding we’ll get tangled up in a mess that will end in nothing good. John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

Second, we have to be wise about the challenges we take on because if we enter those kinds of endless winless arguments we’ll be distracted and led away from the things we should be focused on. Titus 3:9 But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless.

Third, we need to know the Word of God. In each situation Jesus used Scripture to disarm the traps. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

Finally Jesus draws a comparison that we need to pay attention too. In vs. 35-44 Jesus reveals that the Scribes who look very spiritual and all religious are actually just hiding the corruption that’s really in their heart. There’s a key phrase I want you to see in vs. 40 that connects it to the story of the widow’s two mites. It says they devour widow’s houses. They take from them to line their own pockets and could care less about what happens to them.

Then as Jesus is watching the hypocritical show of the offerings in the treasury when one of the very widows who the Scribes have devoured comes in and gives an offering of what she has left and Jesus points out the purity of her actions. What she did was far more than give and offering, she was in that act of giving surrendering herself into the care of her God.

The phony hypocrites were all about what they had left for themselves and the widow was all about Who she had left.

Are we more concerned with what we have or Who we have?

The Wave Walker - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

Click HERE to listen or download the mp3...

Click HERE to watch the webcast video...

We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this morning.

Last time we looked at a story that presented another challenging situation that stretched the disciples. It was the feeding of the 5,000. This miracle was so important that it’s the only one of Jesus’ miracles that is mentioned in all 4 gospels. One of the reasons for this is that it so clearly identifies Jesus as the Messiah. If you weren’t here last week I’d like you compare the story in Mark 6:30-44 with Psalm 23.

Today we’re going to look at another miracle that is unusual. I guess by definition all miracles would be unusual or they wouldn’t be miracle, right? I guess what I mean is that of the miracle of Jesus this one is unusual in that the most amazing part of it wasn’t necessarily for the direct benefit of another person.

In Mark 6:45-53 we find the story of Jesus walking on the water. Let me see some hands if you could tell me that story from memory. Lot’s of hands. It’s probably not surprising that this story is told in 3 of the 4 gospels and it’s probably even more well known than any other miracle that Jesus did because it’s taken on a ‘proverbial’ meaning in our culture. When people sometimes come across and arrogant you will often hear someone say “They think they can walk on water,” or something like that.

But remember this event really happened and it has more meaning than just the sum of its parts. So let’s read it together this morning. (Read passage)

Now I want to start with the end. Is that ok?

What does vs. 52 have to do with what just happened? If this idea of bread only came up here in this account we could chalk it up to a mystery, something we might ask Jesus on the other side. But in the gospel of John, Jesus talks about the bread from heaven right after He walks on the water. So there’s some kind of link between walking on water and feeding 5,000 people.

In Mark’s and John’s accounts Jesus challenges the motives and faith of the people involved. So this is a very important thought that Jesus is trying to communicate to the people and ultimately to us.

Jesus wants His followers to do two things:

Learn the spiritual truths revealed by God’s physical intervention. Jesus diagnoses the condition of the disciple’s hearts by their reaction to this miracle. Keep in mind that Jesus knew that their hearts were hardened. It was clear from their actions on several occasions. They just weren’t making the connections between what Jesus was doing and what they needed to learn.

They had already seen Him calm a storm so why did it amaze them this time? They saw Him feed 5,000 people with almost nothing but they were amazed that He could walk on water. Just look at their reaction when they first saw Jesus. They thought He was a ghost when they could have just as easily assumed it was Jesus.

It seems they had more faith in the mythology of the sea than in the Messiah who could heal the sick, raise the dead, feed 5,000 and calm the sea. But doesn’t that describe us sometimes? When we’re faced with frightening and difficult challenges do we automatically assume the worst instead of trusting the God who is able to do all things well?

Why do we doubt? We all do it, don’t we? Why? I’ve been reading Job lately and this man lost everything, actually God allowed everything to be taken from him, and Job says “Even if He kills me, I will trust Him.” Sounds like Abraham. When God told him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, Abraham believed God would raise his son from the dead if He had to in order to keep His promise.

The stories of these two OT men should have revealed that God’s ways man be perplexing to us, but they stretch us search deeper for His heart so that we can more clearly understand His ways.

Apply their knowledge of God’s ability to their present circumstances. Jesus allowed the disciples, actually pushed them into a situation where they would be tested to apply the lessons from the past. In vs. 45 it says he ‘made’ or forced them to get in the boat and go. Then later on in vs. 48 it says Jesus saw them ‘straining’ at the oars. The Greek word used here means testing.

Let’s not move too quickly past this point. Jesus intentionally put the disciples in a situation that would test them.

Popular teachers today will promise you that if you follow their ‘teaching’ and do what they tell you that you won’t face trials in life. What’s interesting to me is that Jesus seemed to intentionally put the disciples in very difficult situations forcing them to deal with their baggage, doubts, and fears.

They struggled to apply what they knew of God to their situation and all of these years later we have the benefit of learning from the disciples experience in the boat that day.

Here’s what we know about Him….

Jesus intercedes for us vs. 46 He went up to the mountain to pray but did He pray about? One thing we know based on all of Jesus’ other recorded prayers is that He prayed for His disciples. It says in Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He (Jesus) is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Jesus has His eye on us vs. 48 Jesus had His eye on them long before they were aware of Him. Like a mother who watches her child from afar. The little one is unaware of their watchful eye, but when a threat appears mom comes to their side. Psalm 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy…

Jesus will be with us (even if He has to walk on water to do it!) vs. 48-49 It certainly didn’t happen the way the disciples would have wanted, but it all came together just the way Jesus did and there was nothing that could separate them from His presence.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Knowing the stories about Jesus wasn’t what He wanted. He wanted them to learn what it meant to follow him and see that truth transform their thoughts, actions and ultimately their life.

What’s your trial today? What impossible situation are you facing that God is allowing so that you can apply what you know about Him?