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

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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

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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?

Things Aren't What They Seem - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

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

The last time we looked at the Triumphal Entry but specifically the evening that Jesus went into the temple to look around and how that parallels how He enters and looks around in our life.

This morning we pick up the story of Jesus’ final week as He returns to Jerusalem.

The theme that stood out to me for this passage was how things weren’t what they seemed to be.

Jesus wasn’t who He seemed to be, the fig tree wasn’t what it seemed to be, the activities in the temple weren’t what they seemed to be, and prayer wasn’t what it seemed to be.

So let’s read Mark 11:12-26….

The first thing I noticed was that Jesus wasn’t acting like a Messiah should act. He was coming in peace, but then all of a sudden He takes up this violent attack on the merchants in the temple. Can you imagine what His disciples were thinking? They probably didn’t know what to do. Should they stop Him or join Him? They’d never seen this side of Jesus and they had to wonder what had gotten into Him. It certainly wasn’t what they expected.

He turned over their money tables, and set the animals free, and Mark adds that He even made the people who used the temple courts for a short cut stop.

But Jesus’ words give us a clue to why He did this. First He said “My house…” He didn’t say God’s house – This is a quote from Isaiah and Jesus is taking action as if He owns the place. In fact He does own the place because He is God! So in this statement He’s showing His authority as Messiah and God. The rest of the quote says that this place is a house of prayer, communion with God but they had turned it into a den of thieves.

The problem wasn’t that they were selling sacrificial animals. That was necessary for the pilgrims who had traveled several miles to get there. It would be difficult to bring an animal that far so having sacrificial animals was helpful. But these merchants were selling imperfect animals and cheating people on the exchange rate for their out of town currency and an even bigger problem was the priests who should have kept this from happening were profiting off of this themselves probably from kick backs or fees for booth space.

Either way it was a huge violation of the temple and a sign of the corrupt core of the religious leaders.

Then we come to the whole fig tree thing. Anyone else ever wonder what that was all about? I mean the whole cursing the tree because it didn’t have any figs is kind of strange. One thing this passage show is Jesus humanness. He was hungry, frustrated, angry, and He cursed a fig tree.

Doesn’t that sound so like us? How many times have you been hungry, cranky, and got mad at an inanimate object and yell at it like it could even hear. The interesting thing about this is that the fig tree incident reveals Jesus divine power. His curse actually caused the tree to wither and die.

Do you ever wonder why Jesus got mad at the tree because it didn’t figs even though He knew it wasn’t the time figs? Well the best explanation I’ve heard is that it wasn’t the season for leaves either. So if this tree had leaves it should have had figs and since it didn’t it was a hypocrite and served as an object lesson for the religious leaders of Israel who had the ‘leaves’ to look like they had the truth, but inside there wasn’t anything of value.

But even at this there’s something else that’s odd about this encounter. When Peter notices the dead tree he points it out to Jesus and you’d expect Jesus to explain the tree is a symbol of the religious leaders of Israel, etc. But instead He goes into a lesson about faith and that with faith the disciples could kill trees or even cast mountains into the sea. What? Didn’t see that one coming did we?

Now if the tree was to be a symbol of the religious leadership wouldn’t Jesus have said that? Maybe, maybe not, because He seemed to confuse His disciples a lot but I have an additional thought about this. The OT law (Deut. 21:23) said that anyone who was hanged on tree was cursed. By the end of this week Jesus will have been hanged on a tree becoming a curse for us and could it just be possible that the mountain He’s talking about is the mountain of sin that separated us from God that would be removed by faith in His power to reverse the curse that the tree represented?

Turn with me to Gal. 3:5-14 and look at how it seems to affirm this idea.

It all ends with vs. 24-26 and a quick lesson on prayer. Normally we place vs. 24 separate from vs. 25-26 but I think these verses go together. You may ask what you want but if your heart isn’t right with your neighbor it’s not right with God and your prayers won’t be answered. But there’s something else to consider, not will an unforgiving heart hinder your prayers it will prevent your forgiveness.

Do you get the idea here that God takes this forgiving each other thing pretty seriously? With so many other ‘worse’ sins why would He throw down on this? What’s the harm in a holding a little grudge here and there, it’s not that big a deal, right? I mean everyone does it so it can’t be that bad.

Well let’s look at those verses again. Nope, don’t see any loopholes. So if you’re holding a grudge or unforgiveness in your heart toward someone then you need to take care of it so God can move on with you.

When we boil it all down…

Faith is the one constant that we need when things aren’t what they seem. I think if anything Jesus was saying to them and to us that this world is a crazy place and not everything will go as you expect it to but if you have faith in God you’ll find the source of hope you need to transcend the confusion and enter into His rest.

There are three empty things that make our faith full:

The empty manger
The empty cross
The empty tomb

Jesus didn't stay little and He didn't stay dead.  He was born to die so that we could have life.

Taking a Look Around - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

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

The last time we looked at how the hardness of our hearts can cause deep divisions in families and relationships. Some examples that Jesus discussed were divorce and missing out on entering the kingdom of God.

Mark 11 begins the phase in Jesus’ ministry known as the ‘Holy Week’ the last week before the crucifixion. Every phase of Jesus’ ministry was pointed toward this moment. It’s the culmination of the reason He came to the earth as a baby and took on human flesh. All four gospels record this last week in great detail. 1/3 of the gospel of Mark is devoted to this last week of His life.

Chapter 11 begins with the Triumphal Entry.

So let’s read Mark 11:1-11….

Jesus had been to Jerusalem at least 7 times that we know of from scripture. But this return is very different. This time Jesus is intentionally going to stir things up in Jerusalem. He’s forcing the hand of the religious and political leaders to do something about Him. The way He went about it was not through violent opposition or military invasion. He came as the Prince of Peace.

There always comes a point when Jesus places Himself in the way so that we have to respond to Him.

In Zechariah 9:9-10 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He [is] just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion [shall be] ‘from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.’

Jesus was clearly entering Jerusalem to fulfill this prophecy and Luke’s gospel account tells us that this entry into Jerusalem caught the attention of the Pharisee’s and they wanted Jesus to rebuke the people who were praising Him. They knew the scriptures and they understood what Jesus was doing and they knew Jesus knew it too and when He refused to stop the people it was a big deal because Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah by His actions. This event set in motion everything that was going to happen in the week that followed.

This moment had to have been awe inspiring as the people rose up in spontaneous praise and offering their clothing down and spreading palm branches for the colt to walk on euphoric at the sight of their Messiah entering Jerusalem.

Something else was different about this event. In the past Jesus always left when the crowds started to gather and He avoided situations like this. Remember how often He told people not to tell anyone what He had done for them so that He wouldn’t draw an extra attention. That’s all changed now.

There is another scene in this story that caught my attention. In vs. 11 Mark tells us that in the late night hour Jesus went into the temple to look around. The temple would have been quiet and still with all of the day’s activities done for the day. He most likely would have seen the empty stalls of the merchants and money changers with some animals caged and ready to be sold to the people for use as sacrifices.

It makes me wonder what Jesus was thinking about. He had been coming to this temple every year to worship at the Passover. Can you picture Him walking those corridors and pondering the stories His mother had told Him about how the Prophet Simeon and the Prophetess Anna both recognized Him as the Messiah. I wonder if He thought about words of Simeon that a sword would pierce her soul and how that would be fulfilled by the end of the week as His mother experienced the agony of watching her son being beaten and crucified.

I wonder if He went by the place where He and amazed the teachers when He was just a boy and recalled the worried looks on Mary and Joseph’s face when they found Him there after leaving Him behind for three days.

He might have looked up at the pinnacle of the temple and thought about the last temptation when Satan tried to get Him to throw Himself down from the temple so that the angels could rescue Him. Jesus resisted and the devil left but He knew that He would face Him again. Would it be here again?

I wonder if He went to the place where He had cried out that thirsty souls who would come to Him would have rivers of living water pouring from their hearts.

In some ways this moment reminds me of another man who returned to a place full of memories and spent some time there meeting with God. Jacob had seen many hard years and He returned to Beth-El where He had met with God years before.

Could it be that Jesus was soaking in this moment knowing it would be the last time He would be in this temple in peace before His death?

In all of this there is a parallel to our lives. We all experience great joy when we find the Messiah for ourselves. We remember that day, that moment like it’s seared into our memory in vivid detail. We celebrated with joy and sharing the moment with others rejoicing because Jesus has entered our life.

But in time there comes a point when things calm down and Jesus takes a look around in the temple of our hearts.

What does Jesus find as He walks the corridors of the temple of your life? In our time with Him we can remember moments of joy and trials of pain. He looks at the things we’ve tried to hide in the corners where no one can see them. We know they’re there but if others knew about them it would be embarrassing to us.
As He considers the things in our life what will He discover that we’ve traded away for cheap substitutes instead of the fullness of His presence?

Will He recall moments of joy with you spent in the harvest fields working together?

What does He see in your life when He looks around?

Will He find a heart that’s willing to endure the cross for the joy that is set before us?