Table Talks Columbia Life Church

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

2010-03-07T13:47:00.000-08:00

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

Last week we looked at the passion of Christ and a brief glimpse into the depths of unrestrained human cruelty amazing restraint and love that Jesus showed us as He suffered.

Today we’re going to look at Jesus’ death on the cross. I mentioned last week that the crucifixion stories communicate the central point of our faith in Christ that Jesus took on our sins and died in our place. He was our substitute, the scapegoat who took the fall for us and He did it all without even trying to defend Himself.

The OT tells us that the ancient Jews would select a goat to become the scapegoat for the sins of the people. The high priest would symbolically place the sins of the people on the head of the scapegoat and it would then be led out of the city and banished to the wilderness. Its only job was to carry the sins of the people away.

There was one problem though, sometimes the scapegoat would wander back into the city which would cause quite a stir because to them it was sign that God had rejected the scapegoat and that their sins still remained.

But Jesus didn’t come down from the cross, He didn’t avoid death in fact He embraced it fully by taking our sin and dying in our place which meant that God accepted the “scapegoat” and forgave our sin and removed it permanently.

Mark, and all of the gospel writers, included the details that were needed to assure the future followers of Jesus that His death had both physical and spiritual dimensions.

Let’s read Mark 15:33-41

There are three things that are stated by Mark that point to the meaning of Jesus’s death on the cross.

Jesus was forsaken by His God and Father because of our sin. King David wrote In Psalm 37:25 I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread. The truth in this passage is that God will never forsake the righteous. All through scripture we see this truth played out in the lives of the saints. Yet, Jesus was forsaken. What that means is that He became ‘unrighteous’ because sin.

Jesus didn’t sin Himself, but our sins were placed on Him and became His sins. He became the scapegoat for us and took all the blame and punishment. But this sin was very real and it separated Him from God.

That’s why He cried out “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me.” Those weren’t just words uttered to satisfy a prophetic prediction, they were real and painful and deeply personal. He was really alone.

Jesus experienced physical death for our sin. Mark tells that after Jesus cried out, He ‘breathed His last’ the words used are clear and unadorned. Jesus died physically. His body hung lifeless on the cross for all to see. The death of Jesus is important because death is the result of sin. When the first humans sinned death was the result. The Bible also tells us that the wages of sin is death. When Jesus experienced death it was because of sin. Sinless perfection can’t die so the only way that Jesus could taste death was by becoming sin for us.

Jesus death opened the way to God for everyone. It’s important to understand that the veil of the temple was torn at the moment that Jesus died. You might wonder why that’s such a big deal.

The veil of the temple was a thick curtain that separated people from the Holiest place, and it was symbolic of the sin that separated human beings from their Holy God. The only humans who were allowed to enter the Holiest Place were the High Priests and they could only enter once a year on the Day of Atonement with the blood of sacrifice. This blood “atoned” for the sins of the people giving them a fresh start with God.

The blood made it possible for the priest to enter God’s presence. When Jesus died on the cross His blood removed the barrier that separated us from God. Every person who by faith is cleansed by the blood of Jesus can enter into God’s presence. The veil wasn’t needed any more because sin had been atoned for by the blood of Jesus.

There’s something else that Mark writes that gives us a hint that this death of Jesus was for all people. Of all the people to be the first to proclaim that Jesus was who He claimed to be after His death the most unlikely candidate would be a Roman centurion. The man who was responsible for making sure that Jesus died was the first one to attach spiritual meaning to His death.

It’s obvious that the Centurion didn’t have the clearest insight because He spoke of Jesus in the past tense, but somehow He knew that Jesus was more than a man condemned to death. If it was possible for him it’s possible for everyone.

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

2010-02-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

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

Last week we looked at why people substitute other things for Jesus. These substitutes are always worse or inferior to the real thing and we’re reminded once again that remaining true to Jesus is important as a community of believers.

When Mel Gibson directed the epic “The Passion of the Christ” he encountered an interesting dilemma. His desire was to tell the story of Jesus ‘passion’ in accurate detail but when he began the process of editing the scenes of the beating and scourging of Jesus they were so cruel and intense they where overwhelming.

Those of us who have seen this film in its entirety know how intense the edited version was and its hard to imagine what it would have been like had Gibson not toned it down.

The passion of Christ gives us a brief glimpse into the depths of unrestrained human cruelty.

Let’s read Mark 15:16-32

Usually when I prepare a message I try to boil it down and give you something that applies to your daily life of following Jesus. But the crucifixion stories are a little different. This is the beginning of the central point of our faith in Christ.

Without Jesus’ death (and resurrection) Christian faith is useless. So it’s really impossible to add anything to boil this down to a practical application. I mean you may someday have someone beating you senseless to the point of death for no reason, but the worst case scenario for most of us will be how to get the coffee stains off our favorite shirt, or how to deal with a difficult boss. But these pale in comparison to what Jesus endured.

I think it’s important that we understand that what we’ve just read are not simply words on a page. Real human beings really did subject Jesus to unspeakable acts of cruelty.

Mark is very brief and simply mentions that Jesus was scourged. In fact none of the gospel writers explain what it meant to be scourged. They didn’t have to because in their day it was so common that people knew how hideous and cruel it was.

I found this description of scourging on the Bible-History website: The Roman scourge, also called the "flagrum" or "flagellum" was a short whip made of two or three leather (ox-hide) thongs or ropes connected to a handle. The leather thongs were knotted with a number of small pieces of metal, usually zinc and iron, attached at various intervals.

Sometimes the Roman scourge contained a hook at the end and was given the terrifying name "scorpion." The criminal was made to stoop which would make deeper lashes from the shoulders to the waist. According to Jewish law (discipline of the synagogue) the number of stripes was forty less one (Deut. 25:3) and the rabbis reckoned 168 actions to be punished by scourging before the judges. Nevertheless, scourging among the Romans was a more severe form of punishment and there was no legal limit to the number of blows, as with the Jews. Deep lacerations, torn flesh, exposed muscles and excessive bleeding would leave the criminal "half-dead." Death was often the result of this cruel form of punishment though it was necessary to keep the criminal alive to be brought to public subjugation on the cross. The Centurion in charge would order the "lictors" to halt the flogging when the criminal was near death.

But scourging had a deeper meaning. Scourging is often a metaphor for divine punishment. In Isaiah 53:4 it says “we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.”

The things that Jesus suffered would have signaled to the people that He was being punished and afflicted by God. They would have seen what was happening and assumed that Jesus was a false messiah that God had turned over to the Romans.

Jesus was literally taking on Himself the wrath of God that we deserved. The prophet Isaiah continues in Isaiah 53:5 But He [was] wounded for our transgressions, [He was] bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace [was] upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

All of these things are happening to Jesus in vs. 16-20.

There were a lot of things that Jesus could have done. He could have called a legion on angels from heaven to come to His side. He could have performed some miraculous sign to change the course of events. At the very least He could have taken the pain killer of wine and myrrh they offered Him. But

Jesus chose to endure the full intensity of cruelty from the people He came to save. Even the criminals hanging on either side of Him publicly ridiculed Him.

Jesus endured the cruelty of the Romans, the Jews, and even criminals. But to me what makes this even more amazing is that He was suffering at the hands of the people He had created. The emotional toll must have been enormous.

There is no way that we can wrap our heads around the pain He must have felt. It wasn’t just people that were doing this. They were His people, His possession. They had rejected Him and now they were executing Him with the punishment they deserved.

It seems to me that the ultimate act of cruelty is to harm others when you’re the one who deserves the punishment.

John 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

Not only did they not receive Him they wounded, bruised, and chastised Him. The things they were saying while Jesus hung there were all things He could have done. He was the King, He could have destroyed the temple and He could have come down from the cross and beat them up if He wanted to.

Jesus showed amazing restraint in the face of cruelty and humiliation. We should remember that when we’re tempted to judge others.

The amazing thing is that He endured it all for us; the cruelty, the pain, the humiliation.

Amazing love….

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

2010-02-21T12:39:00.000-08:00

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

Last week we looked at Peter’s denial of Jesus and how it began when Peter decided to follow Jesus at a distance. That’s a cautionary tale for us to take seriously. When we decide to ‘follow Jesus at a safe distance’ we have made our first decision to deny Him. So we’re reminded once again that staying close to Jesus is important as a community or believers.

Today the story of Jesus’ final night before His crucifixion takes us through His judgment before Pilate.

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘substitute?’ (teachers, ingredients, team sports, foods, etc.) There’s a reason they’re substitutes they typically aren’t as good as the real thing.

Substitutes are usually worse, or inferior to the real thing. We use them when the real thing isn’t available to us or we substitute things of lower quality because what we want seems to be too expensive. People decide on substitutions for lots of things but one substitution is by far the most costly and we’ll see that substitution played out through the eyes of Mark….

Let’s read Mark 15:6-15

One nagging question about this passage comes to mind whenever I read this passage; why did these people choose Barabbas? The Bible makes it clear that they knew he was a convicted criminal.

He was a rebel who had led a revolt against the Romans that included murder. That leads me to believe that those He killed weren’t Roman soldiers killed in a battle. My guess is that they probably killed some tax collectors to get money to fund their rebellion.

This was a bad dude and placed opposite Jesus it should have been a clear choice but for some reason this crowd chose Barabbas. Since Pilate was trying to find a way to release Jesus it seems pretty clear that he thought it was an obvious choice.

What blinded these people so that they would reject Jesus for a robber? Why would they substitute a robber for the real thing?

I guess we could ask the same question today. Why do people reject Jesus for the robber who comes to steal kill and destroy lives? Why do they make this terrible substitution?

I can see three reasons why people choose a substitute for Jesus I in this passage:

Personal bias: choosing to deny the truth vs. 10-11 reveal that the religious leaders had it in for Jesus. They had a personal agenda that was biased against Jesus and they would have been happy with any substitute. In reality they had become so comfortable with cheapo substitutes that it was really easy for them to do it. They had substituted a man made system of rules and regulations for God’s law and they carefully crafted the rules in their own favor.

That’s why they hated Jesus so much. He showed up on the scene and the flimsy curtain they were hiding behind was being shredded by the truth. It really was an inconvenient truth that they didn’t want to admit.

Jesus still poses that same threat. If we really consider the real Jesus, the Jesus of His word, the Jesus of the gospels, He presents us with one BIG inconvenient truth that just won’t go away.

Jesus came as the light of the world, the revealed truth of God and John’s gospel tells us that this Light exposes us for what we really are. Its so inconvenient people will take the substitute rather than life. No one wants to admit that they’re not ‘good.’ In fact there are preachers and teachers that will tell us that deep down we really are good and people flock to them. That’s because they are scratching the itch of our personal bias.

Funny thing is that Jesus came and said we’re all evil and hopelessly lost and separated from God. Never once did He say we’re o.k. just the way they we are. The religious leaders didn’t want to hear that and frankly neither do we.

I think that if Jesus were to come to our churches and tell us the truth we’d find Him to be very inconvenient and we might even cry out for His crucifixion. But as a side note He loves us so much He’d tell us the truth even it if cost Him His life all over again.

Popular will: choosing to follow the crowd vs. 11-14 the people were influenced to substitute Barabbas for Jesus because it was the popular thing to do. The religious leaders started it off by using their influence and pretty soon the crowd was crying for Barabbas to be released and Jesus to be crucified.

People for the most part just naturally follow the crowd, even those who claim to be ‘doing their own thing’ probably aren’t, they’re just following a different crowd.

Popular will has a viral quality to it. It’s starts out small, maybe with one or two people, then they tell some friends and then those friends tells some friends and the next thing you know its spread around the world and it becomes so big that everyone jumps on board.

There’s a strong momentum with popular will that makes it hard to resist. It’s much easier to follow the crowd than to risk being an outcast. Popular will can be fairly innocent but it can also take on a dark, sinister vibe.

One such vibe is what we know as a ‘mob mentality’ that can take hold of us and we’ll actually do something with a group that we’d never do alone.

Jesus warned us that the road to destruction would be really popular and full of people all heading in the wrong direction and that’s what happened to the crowd that day and they chose to substitute popular will for Jesus.

Compromise: avoiding the cost of choosing Jesus vs. 15 tells that Pilate chose to release Barabbas because he wanted to ‘gratify’ the crowd. He could have released Jesus but chose the substitute because it would cost him too much. Pilate knew that if the people rebelled that he would be forced to put them down with violence and it would likely cost him his job or worse. The substitute wasn’t great but in his mind it looked like a less expensive alternative.

Jesus said that following Him would be costly, taking up His cross and being hated by the very people we love. He cautioned us to count the cost because it would be hard.

Like Pilate, when people really consider the claims of Jesus they find it to be too costly and they often settle for a cheap substitute.

Conclusion: It’s pretty easy for us to look at the world around us and point out people who have substituted the things of this world for their relationship to God with Jesus. But, I think it’s important for those of us who claim that we’re followers of Jesus to take a step back and see if there are things we’re substituting in place of Jesus and His desire for our life.

Like Barabbas we stand guilty and condemned. We deserve to die for our sins the things we’ve done to hurt others, ourselves, and ultimately God Himself.

(This is the video we used)

Jesus stands ready and willing to substitute His life for ours so that we can go free

We’re rebellious robbers who are chained together under the authority of a hostile invader who wants us dead.

Like Barabbas we don’t understand it all but when all is said and done if we’ll look back at what has happened we’ll realize that Jesus gave His life for ours and the punishment we deserved He took upon Himself.

Look at Him today and see the joy in His eyes as another one of God’s children is set free.

The Silence of the Lamb - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2010-02-14T09:45:00.000-08:00

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

Last week we looked at Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane and how He provided us with an example for dealing with the messy, chaotic, painful events in our life.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were falsely accused of something or where your actions were misread and it caused a problem? I think most of us in that situation feel compelled to set the record straight and make sure the people involved understand what really happened. Do you ever wonder why we have such a huge desire to be understood? What’s our motivation?

Let’s think of it in another way what if we couldn’t or wouldn’t defend ourselves or attempt to clear up misunderstandings?

Would it be safe to say that the main reason we do it is to protect ourselves and in most cases protect our reputation? Deep down we all care about what other people think about us don’t we? It eats away at us when we’re misunderstood or falsely accused and we can’t stand it.

We’ve seen the fall out from this kind of thing and we know it’s not pretty. People talk and they almost prefer to believe the rumors and accusations. Guilty until proven innocent may be true in the eyes of the law but it’s not true for the court of public opinion.

We’ve all seen the injustice that goes with this kind of thing and if we’re honest we’d have to say we’re guilty of doing it ourselves.

I know that I can be very judgmental at times especially when it comes to people who I don’t like very well or live in a certain way that I don’t like. I think we can all be like that at times and we have a tendency to blur or ignore the line between being informed and gossip.

But even worse than that is when we have the ability to defend someone who is being falsely accused or misrepresented and we shrink back from doing it because we don’t want to get involved or if the person is taking an unpopular stance or has become the subject of ridicule we want to stay away because we don’t want our reputation to suffer.

It’s easier to allow them to take the hit and suffer isolation than to risk being hurt and outcast ourselves.

In situations like this there are always two kinds of guilt the guilt of commission and the guilt of omission. Commission means I did something to hurt someone and omission means I failed to do something that hurt someone.

Today the story of Jesus’ final night before His crucifixion takes us through both of these situations….

Let’s read Mark 14:53-15:5

In vs. 53-65 Jesus faces the first of His accusers. There’s some debate as to whether this was an illegal trial or simply a fact finding inquiry but it doesn’t really matter because the intent of the religious leaders was clear; they wanted to get rid of Jesus. They were so desperate they brought in willing accomplices to lie and give false testimony about Jesus.

The reason they went to this trouble is because not all of the elders were involved in the plot or had knowledge of what was going on. Since this group of people weren’t in on the conspiracy they could stop what was going on so they needed to be convinced.

When you look at this scene it was laughable. The witness didn’t agree on anything and when they finally found something they did agree on they couldn’t even get that story straight. When you look back at the other attempts that were made to entrap Jesus it’s obvious that it would have been easy for Jesus to defeat them but He chose to remain silent.

When the High Priest had finally had enough of the circus in front of him he decided to directly accuse Jesus and he went with a charge that was sure to get everyone’s approval, blasphemy. Jesus had remained silent until this but He knew that answering this question directly would lead to His death. It’s interesting that Jesus answered by saying “I am” which is the covenant name of God but didn’t use that phrase when Pilate questioned Him. To Pilate it wouldn’t mean anything but to the religious leaders it was blasphemous. We know Jesus was the Christ, but they were blinded to that fact.

Blasphemy was punishable by death in the Jewish religion but because they were under Roman control they couldn’t put anyone to death so they had to convince Pilate to do it.

That’s why they take Jesus to Pilate in 15:1-5. But he wouldn’t do it because of a religious offense. The other gospels reveal that the religious leaders changed their accusation from blasphemy to revolutionary. Before Pilate they accused Him of saying He was the King of the Jews. That would put Jesus in direct opposition to Roman rule. That’s why Pilate asks Jesus “Are you the king of the Jews?” and that’s why Jesus answers with “You said it!”

Jesus’ silence in the face of such strong accusations caused Pilate to marvel, or admire Him. I’m sure Pilate had seen plenty of men try to cut a deal or become argumentative. But Jesus remained silent and didn’t put up any defense. Jesus knew that His silence meant a death sentence and that people would turn on Him but He did it anyway. The fact that Pilate marveled seems to say that he knew Jesus wasn’t guilty of the things He was accused of and that there was a certain something about Him that didn’t add up.

Then right in the middle of these two trials vs. 66-72 we see the story of Peter’s denial. It actually starts in vs. 54. It says that Peter followed at a distance. Doesn’t that seem to be where trouble starts for those who follow Jesus? When we make the decision to follow Jesus at a safe distance we’re already in the first steps of denial. We really can’t play it safe and follow Jesus it just doesn’t work out so well.

What comes next in Peter’s story is just the natural outcome of playing it safe. We won’t ever know Peter’s specific reasons for denying Jesus this side of heaven, but I think we all know why because we’ve all done it at some level.

It’s ironic that the man who would put Jesus to death admired Him and the man who followed Jesus denied Him.

Peter knew he had done something that he personally would have refused to forgive. Abandoning and denying a friend in need was disgraceful and Peter knew it and he was moved to tears of remorse and regret. He knew the depth of his sin and it hurt deeply.

We might be able to give ourselves a pass if we’ve never directly denied Jesus but have we failed to speak up when someone if being talked about or falsely accused or mistreated? Jesus said that whatever we do or don’t do for others we do to Him.

But I think we need to understand something, even though Peter denied Jesus, Jesus never let go of him. It doesn’t excuse Peter’s actions but it does show us the depth of Jesus’ love and grace.

So how do we respond? What should we do? I think the best place to start is by staying close to Jesus and to love as He has loved. Refuse to believe the lie that staying out of a situation or remaining silent when we should speak up or defend someone who is being hurt is ok.

Reckless compassion means that I will follow Jesus even when it costs me something especially my reputation. In fact Jesus warned us to be careful when people say good things about us.

We don’t have to be admired or respected but we do need to follow Jesus closely.

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

2010-02-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

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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.

The Table of Grace - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2010-01-31T10:47:00.000-08:00

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

The last week we were challenged to look at whether we are more interested in our personal convenience or in the costly pursuit of following Jesus no matter what.

Today we’re going to look at Mark 14:12-31. This passage tells us about some lasts; the last night before Jesus would be crucified. It’s the last Passover he would celebrate and it’s the last night He would be with the 12 original disciples together in one place ever.

But it also marks a first; it’s the first time the Lord’s Supper is celebrated.

Let’s read Mark 14:12-31

You’ll notice that this passage is broken into 3 sub plots: the Passover, the Lord’s Supper, and Peter’s denial of his future denial.

I’m drawing your attention to this because it’s an important transition.

It’s no coincidence that God’s plan would include the sacrifice of His only Son to occur during Passover. Everything is in place and the time has come for Jesus to pour out His life and in these two meals we see the symbols of this in vs. 12-26

The shift from the Passover to the Lord’s Supper marks the transfer from the Law of Moses to the gospel of grace and truth; from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.

John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The Passover was celebrated in remembrance of God delivering His people from Egyptian bondage and the Lord’s Supper is to be celebrated in remembrance of Jesus delivering all people from the bondage sin.

The Passover was remembered with a meal focused on a sacrificial lamb that was killed and eaten. The Lord’s Supper is a meal to remember the Lamb of God who was slain for our sins.

The Passover brings to remembrance the blood of a lamb that was placed on the lintel and door posts so that death would pass over the people. The Lord’s Supper brings to remembrance the blood of the Lamb, Jesus, which was shed on the posts of a cross to allow people to pass over from death to life.

There’s something else to consider. The Passover meal was to be shared with others and Jesus, on this night shared the meal with others and who He shared it with showed the move from the law to grace.

As Jesus sat with these guys He knew that He’d be dead the next day and even though He had told His disciples 2 or 3 times before hand what was going to happen they still didn’t connect the dots. But that’s not all Jesus knew. He knew that one of the men who sat at the table with Him that night was in the very process of betraying Him and He also knew that everyone else would abandon Him or deny they knew Him before dawn.

Jesus’ heart had to be aching knowing that He would be betrayed by a friend, denied by His followers, and forsaken by His Father. Luke’s gospel tells us that at this very table Jesus had to listen to His disciples argue about who would be the greatest among them.

Do you know what I think is the most amazing thing in this story? Even though His friends were acting like jerks and knowing what they were all going to do before the night was done He still invited them to sit as His table and eat with Him.

The disciples were invited to the table and not one of them was worthy to be there.

We all know that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the men who would have him put to death. Jesus knew He was doing it and He could have told Him not to show up at dinner. But the same could be said for all of the others. Jesus could have eaten this meal with others who would have stood by Him to the very end. The women who showed up at the cross: His mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome to name a few.

But Jesus chooses to eat with those who would betray Him, abandon Him, and deny that they even knew Him.

It says in John 15:16a "You did not choose Me, but I chose you……

Do you realize that Jesus has chosen to be in a relationship with us?

When I was a kid is school I remember there were popular kids and I wanted to be their friend. But my choice to be their friend didn’t matter because they ignored me. It seemed the harder I worked to gain their acceptance the more they rejected me. It just made matters worse because they didn’t choose me because I wasn’t up to their standards, what ever they were.

The amazing thing is that Jesus the perfect Son of God chooses people like us. Look at vs. 29 and vs. 31 and notice Peter’s and the other disciple’s promises (FYI Judas was already gone). Promises that Jesus knew would soon be broken. That reminds me of me. I know I’ve made lots of promises to Jesus and His Dad. Some of them I intended to keep and some of them I made just to get out of whatever hot water I was in at the time. I don’t think I’ve kept any of them completely and you know what? Jesus knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t keep them and that I was lying through my teeth on some of them and the incredible truth is that Jesus still chooses to call me His friend and disciple and He invites me to come to His table and share this meal with Him.

Romans 8:1 [There is] therefore now no condemnation (judgment against you) to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

There is no condemnation because Jesus chose to be our friend and savior. He chose to shed His blood on the cross for us to forgive our sins and all He really asks in return is for us to be His friends and to follow Him. Like the first disciples it means we’ll have to leave our old life behind, but who needs that old sinful thing anyway when Jesus offers us His kingdom, His life, and His love.

Imagine how things would have turned out for Judas if he had chosen to stay at the table as Jesus’ friend that night. If there was a place at the table for a traitor like Judas there’s a place at the table for us and Jesus invites us to come.

This first step is to say yes to His offer to follow Him and leaving our sinful life behind. But there’s so much more as He invites us to His table as His friends to stay close to Him and share in His life.

It really doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how many promises you broken. If you’ve betrayed Him, denied Him, broken promises to Him He still invites you to come to the table as His friend.

Costly or Conveniently? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2010-01-24T13:15:00.000-08:00

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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 the ‘end times’ warning that Jesus gave His disciples in Mark 13. He warned them, and us, about 4 spiritual dangers that we will face as time draws to a close. They are Dependence on religious or political power for security. Deception by false messiahs, Distraction by world turmoil and being Discouraged by the severity of persecution. In addition to that He gave them the best promise of all He would return someday to establish His eternal kingdom on the earth and to right every wrong.

Today we’re going to look at Mark 14:1-11. Mark 14 is the turning point in the Passion Week story. We know that Jesus will be crucified by the end of this week and this chapter marks the final turn toward that moment in history.

Let’s read Mark 14:1-11

When I was reading over this passage there were two words that jumped out at me. The first word is costly. That’s the word in vs. 3 that is used to describe the oil that the woman, most likely Mary Magdalene, poured out on Jesus’ head.

The second word was conveniently found in vs. 11. That’s the word that is used to describe the actions Judas would take to betray Jesus.

This passage starts out in vs. 1-2 with a little back story about what was happening behind the scenes out of public view. The religious leaders had stopped trying to test and trap Jesus and now they were going full out to plot a way to kill Jesus without inciting a riot among the people. For them it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Their minds were made up; Jesus was too much of a threat. They couldn’t ignore Him. They couldn’t defeat Him and they couldn’t discredit Him. It was clear to them that Jesus had to go when there was a convenient time.

In vs. 10 and 11 we see that they had an unexpected friend in Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples. It appears that Jesus’ response to what Judas considered a waste of money by the woman who poured the costly oil on Jesus was the straw that broke the camel’s back and sent Judas off the edge.

He went to the chief priests and made a deal to turn Jesus over to them for some money. It might be just me, but doesn’t it seem that those who love money also love convenience? It’s almost as if one feeds the other. A desire for things that will make life more convenient and comfortable leads to a desire to have more money to get those things and what ends up happening is we get on a treadmill that we can’t seem to stop.

Both the chief priests and Judas were looking for a convenient way to get rid of Jesus. They wanted some way that would keep their actions and motives from being discovered. They didn’t care about the legality of what they were doing. They weren’t even concerned about the spiritual implications of their actions. All they cared about was making sure that they got rid of Jesus and that they looked like they were doing something good and righteous. They didn’t want to have to deal with a big mess.

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths we will go to try and cover up our sin. Why is that we work so hard to look good to people when what they think of us really doesn’t matter when it comes to things eternal.

We need to keep that in mind. What they didn’t realize and we need to remember is that…

Convenience in Spiritual things usually looks good on the surface but in the end it costs more than you bargained for.

Let’s be honest don’t we fall into this trap? When we know what the Bible says we should do but we do something else aren’t we taking what seems to be the convenient, easy way out? We all do it. We make excuses and rationalize our sin when we should repent of them. That’s the convenient thing to do, but we fail to consider the true cost. If I read my Bible correctly that convenience will only lead to pain and alienation from God and others. That’s not a good trade if you ask me.

Now let’s turn our attention to vs. 3-9. Jesus is sharing a meal with His disciples and the family of Simon the leper when a woman comes in with a very costly flask of oil. It was a fragrant perfume that probably cost her a year’s wages. How she got that much money isn’t known but there were very limited options for a woman in those days which has led some to suggest she was a woman who sold herself to others.

Jesus is sitting at the table of a man who is possibly an unclean leper, and having His hair soaked in perfume by a woman who was possibly a sinner. Now there’s a picture for you. The convenient thing for Jesus to do was to stay somewhere else and tell the woman to leave. The costly thing was to do what He was doing and risk the hits to His reputation. But this was only one aspect of this costly situation.

If we didn’t know what was coming later in this passage we might be inclined to agree with the disciples about this whole scene. On the surface it looks wasteful and strange and Jesus allowing it and even defending it would have seemed awkward. I mean how would you feel if some woman came in off the street while I was preaching and started washing my hair with perfume? I can assure you that I’d feel weird and not a little freaked out.

Jesus took it in stride because He knew that there was a deeper meaning to all of this and it was so important He made sure that what she did would be remembered forever.

What did it all mean? The woman’s actions were remembered for two reasons: In vs. 8. Jesus said that she had done what she could.

She gave a costly gift to Jesus simply because she could not because she had to. Her devotion to Jesus compelled her to offer what she could.

Remember the widow who put the two small coins in the treasury in ch.12? Jesus said she gave more than anyone else because she gave everything she had. Her ‘costly’ gift was only 2 small coins but she gave it because that’s what she could give. Giving one would have been more convenient and giving three was impossible. She gave what was costly. Jesus admires both of these women because they gave what they could.

Why did this woman’s gift impact Jesus like it did? The second part of vs. 8 says that she came to anoint His body for burial.

Her costly gift was a symbol of Jesus’ costly sacrifice. She broke the alabaster container symbolizing how the body of Jesus would be broken by the cruelty and beatings He would endure. She poured out the perfume symbolizing His blood that would be poured out for our sins as He would be nailed to a cross and pierced with a Roman spear.

It’s interesting to note that those who thought it was a waste were the same ones who thought His crucifixion was a waste. There was no way that any of them could have known the powerful witness her actions would provide or even how they would have a ripple effect on the heart of Judas to betray Jesus.

The woman (and the widow) offered what was costly to them because they could and they weren’t concerned about what they would have left over.

The priests and Judas wanted to get rid of Jesus conveniently because they were worried about what they would have left. The priests their reputation and position and Judas the money he would have when he was done with Jesus.

When we’re more concerned with what we’ll have left we miss out on what could have been. We trade our opportunities for convenience when we could offer what is costly to Jesus. While they may not have much value in the eyes of the world….

When we offer our costly things to Jesus (our time, our talents and our treasures) we bless His heart and they become tools in His hands to touch people beyond ourselves.

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

2010-01-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

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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

2010-01-10T15:20:00.000-08:00

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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?

Who's In Charge Here? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2010-01-03T16:41:00.000-08:00

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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 the significance of the events surrounding the time when Jesus cursed the fig tree and threw the merchants out of the temple. What they showed us was that in each situation the way things appeared on the surface were at odds with what was really going on deep inside.

For us it’s a warning not to allow ourselves to become satisfied with surface “religious” appearances when Jesus is much more interested in a deeper personal relationship with us and He desires us to have honest, accountable fellowship with each other and when we wear that mask of religious ‘goodness’ we prevent that from happening.

The challenge for us is to be honest with God and each other, tear off our masks and be genuine followers of Jesus without pretense and prejudice.

This morning we pick up the story of Jesus’ final week as He returns to Jerusalem and I walking in the temple after having gone in and turned over the tables and open the animal pens.

What that shows me is that He was definitely trying to provoke a response from the Priests and elders. It also shows that He assumed the authority to do what He did.

Today’s confrontation is all about who’s in charge. If Jesus is allowed to continue unchallenged then the religious leaders knew their authority would be undermined and they would be out of power. Jesus knew their dilemma and was pushing their buttons and forcing them into a confrontation.

But Jesus didn’t stop with the religious leaders of His day. He continues this part of His ministry today. Through the Holy Spirit we’re asked ‘Who’s in charge around here?”

Let’s read Mark 11:27-33….

Jesus and His disciples are walking through the temple and they are approached by the Jewish religious leaders. Mark says they were the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. I thought it was interesting that it doesn’t specifically mention the Pharisees. The term elders must then include representatives of both the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

The Pharisees and Sadducees made up the Sanhedrin, which were the rulers of the religious establishment. The interesting thing here is that these two groups didn’t get along, kind of like Democrats and Republicans. They didn’t get along, that is, until they faced what they considered a common threat.

To them Jesus was a threat to their authority so His presence in the temple would require them to respond. They couldn’t just let this rustic ‘rabbi’ from some outlying province come in and take over so they had to challenge His authority. That’s why they asked Him the two questions they did.

By asking who’s authority was behind His actions they were trying to minimize and label Him. If Jesus was operating with secular authority from the Romans they could appeal to Pilate to have Him stopped and labeling Him a Roman sympathizer would undermine Him before the people. If Jesus were the disciple of some radical rabbi then they could label Him a heretic or radical and use that to dismiss Him as just another in a long line of pretenders. And if Jesus is the disciple of a duly recognized rabbi then they could have His rabbi talk to him and settle Him down. In essence their asking Him “Who do you think you are?”

But Jesus answers them in a way that forces a very unexpected response. Instead of provoking Jesus into an argument that would distract Him, they were forced to ‘reason among themselves.’ They reasoned that the tables had been turned and now Jesus held the upper hand. If they were to say that John’s baptism was from God then they would be exposed as hypocrites because they were against John. If they said John’s baptism was his own idea then the people would reject them because the people believed that John was a prophet.

What they had was a gift and they didn’t want it. Jesus was giving them an opportunity to come clean, to quit hiding behind their religious masks and return to God, but the leaders allowed their fear of exposure, their fear of the opinions of people to build an even higher wall to hide behind and Jesus lets them go.

It’s easy for us to look at this story and take great pleasure in how Jesus put these guys in their place. We know that Jesus is really in charge and these guys just didn’t get it or didn’t want to admit it.

Of course if we turn the camera around and put ourselves in this story where would we be standing? While I can’t speak for everyone I know that there are a plenty of us who would be standing alongside the religious leaders. The difference is that we’ve been at this a long time and we don’t directly question Jesus or ask ‘Who He thinks He is?” but… We tend to be a little spiritually hard of hearing.

Deep down we know what He’s asking but we don’t want to surrender to His authority in our life. We like calling the shots for ourselves yet we don’t want to be label as rebellious. So instead of saying ‘We don’t know” like the religious leaders we spiritually plug our ears and say “We can’t hear You.” Somehow we think that fake ignorance will be judged less harshly than rebellion. But it’s the same thing and until we’re ready to confront our fears and answer Jesus honestly He’ll give us room to decide.

What are we afraid of? Sometimes we’re afraid of what other people will think. We don’t want to be considered religious fanatics or weirdoes. Sometimes we fear losing control because if we surrender to His authority we’ll have to give up our control to Him. Sometimes we fear giving up the things we’re attached to and like. We’re comfortable with the way things are and we don’t want to change.

The enemy will use our fear against us just like He used it against the religious leaders. He’s the master of lies and deceit and he uses our fears of loss of control to control us and keep us resistant to Jesus’ authority. When we think we have control we’re deceived and don’t realize that we’re under the control of our sin nature which resists the authority of God in our life.

That leaves us to face this question: Who’s really in charge of our life?

If it’s anyone but Jesus we’re in trouble. The disciples could do anything with Jesus’ authority in their life and they could do nothing without it. If you’re feeling like you’re on a treadmill going nowhere spiritually you might want to ask your self “Who’s really in charge?”

The way to Spiritual maturity and freedom is to surrender to Jesus. That’s counter-intuitive and goes against our natural grain. We want to take more control, to do more but it’s clear that surrendering to Jesus authority is the way we should go.

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

2009-12-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

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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

2009-12-06T16:59:00.000-08:00

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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?

Hardened Hearts in Holy Hands - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-11-29T13:08:00.000-08:00

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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 in trying to maintain purity we can actually sow the seeds of our own destruction. Not that purity is wrong or the pursuit of personal purity is worthless. But if we settle for external rules and regulations to maintain purity we’re going to discover that we miss the mark and end up farther away than when we started by having a form of godliness but no real power to change our heart.
Now in some ways the first verses of chapter 10 are a continuation of this idea.
So let’s read Mark 10:1-16….
Now after reading these verses, especially vs. 1-12, does anyone want to come up and take over for me and teach on this? It seems to me that the only people who would volunteer for that duty are ultra conservative or ultra liberal in their theology. Let me ask “Why do you think this passage is such a hot potato?”
If you’ve ever been divorced and remarried you’d have to admit that this passage causes you some discomfort. You can’t ignore such a direct statement can you? We all, at the very least, know someone who is divorced and remarried and when this topic comes up it can make us swallow a little harder than usual. Am I right?
Let’s start off by looking at the purpose of this passage. Jesus didn’t sit down on a hillside and start teaching on divorce and remarriage. The Pharisee’s decided to test Jesus on this topic because He had taught about it way back in the Sermon on the Mount. At that time Jesus had said that divorce was not allowed except for the cause of adultery yet the Law of Moses clearly said that divorce was permissible for cause.
The Pharisees reasoned that if Jesus affirmed this teaching then they could accuse Him of despising the Moses and if He backed away from His original teaching they would accuse Him of being inconsistent and not worthy of being followed. Which means that Jesus saw through this situation and saw the hardness of their hearts. They weren’t interested in the truth about marriage and divorce they wanted to use this heart rending issue to create division.
That doesn’t mean that Jesus was ducking the issue. He means what He says it is God’s intention that marriage is forever. But it’s also God’s intention that people not steal, covet, take the Lord’s name in vain, etc. The fact that other people do it doesn’t excuse the sin, but it does point out that….
Because of the hardness of our hearts we will sin and we need the grace and love of a savior who has made a way for even the worst of our sins to be forgiven, even the sin of divorce.
Divorce isn’t the unpardonable sin and because someone remarries it doesn’t make them a perpetual adulterer. I’ll also admit that I don’t have all of the answers but here’s how I council those who come to me considering divorce. Unless your spouse has been unfaithful, deceptive (like saying they were single when they were actually married), or abusive (that doesn’t mean they’re cranky, stubborn) then you have an obligation to do whatever it takes to work out your differences and make your marriage work because God hates divorce. It violates His desire for a man and a woman to live as one.
I’ve been around long enough to know that just because one spouse wants to reconcile it doesn’t mean that both do. It may end up that no matter how hard you try it just won’t work out, but as a follower of Jesus you are obligated to patiently wait for them to come around. Yes, it’s the harder way, but Jesus told us that His way is a like a difficult, narrow road with limited options.
Following Jesus means that we go the extra mile to work things out with others especially our spouse.
However, in the event that things don’t improve and divorce happens, then remarriage needs to be pursued with the same prayerful consideration. It may be that your former spouse may have an encounter with God that changes their heart making reconciliation possible. If you rushed into a new marriage it would only make matters worse.
I realize that I haven’t covered every possible angle here and I’ve probably raised a few more questions but this isn’t an episode of ‘Divorce Court’ so some things will have to be dealt with at another time.
Then we come to vs. 13-16 and Jesus reveals another type of hardness. The disciples were getting in the way of children who were coming to Jesus. This happened after Jesus had already taken a child up in His arms as an example, one that the disciples obviously didn’t get. Parents wanted their children to be blessed by Jesus and He gave no indication that they weren’t welcome but the disciples were so engrained in their own past that they assumed children were not welcome in the presence of such a great teacher.
Jesus once again points right to the hardness of their hearts. He was angry at them and tells them not to get in the way, and that their hearts had to become like a little child’s in order to enter the kingdom of God. A child’s heart is soft and vulnerable toward others, especially toward God.
The real issue is always our heart…
Is our heart soft and pliable toward God and others or hard and bitter causing division and pain? The reason for divorce and for causing children to stumble is hardened hearts. There’s only one cure for a hard heart.
Ezekiel 11:19 "Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh”
The fact is simple we can’t change our own hearts; we can’t make things all better. The best we can do is throw ourselves on God’s mercy and ask Him to change our hearts.

Why Can't I....? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-10-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

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

Last we looked at the transfiguration of Jesus – the moment His glory broke through the veil of His human flesh – the holy glow.

Today we’re moving from the glorious mountain top experience back down to the valley of daily life.

So let’s read Mark 9:14-29….

I know we’ve all experienced that moment after we’ve been exposed to a glorious mountain top experience with Jesus where life’s reality reaches up and smacks us in the face. Often it’s just having to go back to work on Monday morning.

Jesus and the three disciples who were on the mountain with Him experience the same thing in this passage. This reminds me of the story in Exodus when Moses and Joshua are coming down mount Sinai after Moses received the Decalogue (10 Commandments) in a mountain top experience and as they were walking back to camp they hear a loud noise that Joshua thinks is caused by battle but Moses hears it and says “it’s not the sound of war but the sound of a wild party! What are these people up to?”

As they get close to camp they see the people not only partying, but worshiping a golden calf idol that they had made! Can you imagine what kind of a Monday morning experience that was?

Jesus faces that here. The first thing He encounters when He returns from the mountain is a huge group of people standing around watching a big argument between the other disciples and those nifty scribes. I think that’s the reason Jesus took Peter with Him, He probably expected something to happen while He was away and figured it was better if Peter was where He could keep and eye on him.

This argument started because the disciples couldn’t cast an evil spirit out of a young boy. They had tried but nothing happened and that gave the scribes an opportunity to try and undermine them and their teacher. Of course when you try to upstage someone they get all defensive and the next thing you know there’s a fight. That’s just great.

But let’s face it we’ve all felt that way at times haven’t we? You know what I’m talking about, those times when we pray from someone and nothing happens?

Sometimes we feel like God’s left us hanging out there on a big ol’ limb. Am I right, isn’t that how it feels?

Do I have your permission to be even more blunt? O.k.? For some, if not all of us, it has at some level caused a crisis of faith. Not to the point where we’re thinking about abandoning the faith, but it has caused us to question some of what we believe about divine healing and other miracles. It may have even caused to hesitate to pray for others, or even changed the way we pray.

Don’t we sometimes feel like we have to make excuses for God? Am I crazy here or am I on to something….

Then you read a passage like this and you may have an idea what the disciples were feeling. But the interesting thing to note is how Jesus responds. He doesn’t try to make them feel better about their doubts; in fact His response is almost like rubbing salt in the wound. How would you feel if you asked Jesus “Why?” and He answered back “How long do I have to put up with you?” That’s kind of rough isn’t it?

When we feel that way only have a couple of options: we can quit or we can get aside with Jesus and learn from Him. This happened in two ways.

Look at the father of the boy in his first request in vs. 22 where he basically showed a lack of faith and said to Jesus “if you can…” Then after Jesus challenges his faith in vs. 23 with an ‘if you can’ question of His own the father gets it and says in essence according to R. Alan Cole “ok then help me just as I am, a doubter.”

The father learned to approach Jesus with faith no matter how small it seemed to be. Don’t come to Him with doubt; come to Him humbly and honestly with whatever measure of faith you have. You might as well what have you got to lose!

Then we see the disciples learning from Jesus. Still hurting and humiliated by what they had just experienced they asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out the demon. I think their question says a lot about where they were coming from. Based on their question “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” who were they more concerned with? Themselves and their reputation. If they had asked “Why couldn’t we help that boy and his father?” it would have shown a mature level of compassion and humility.

So Jesus sees right through this and gives them a quick lesson in humility: This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting (some mss. leave out and fasting but there’s strong evidence that it should be included).

I’m not discounting the importance of prayer and fasting, it’s obvious that Jesus meant what He said, but why did He say it? In the past Jesus had sent out the disciples in twos and had given them authority to cast out demons. They had done it before so they were completely confused as to why the formulas of the past didn’t work this time.

I believe Jesus answer was intended to show them that they couldn’t rely on a method or formula that worked in the past.

The disciples had to learn to rely on an abiding, humble reliance on God’s power. Prayer and fasting isn’t about a formula for ministry success, it’s about setting everything aside and drawing near to Jesus and drawing in His strength and power. It’s admitting that we’re weak and He is strong and through His strength we can do all things. (Phil. 4:13)

If we pull back from doing powerful works of compassion because we’re afraid of how we’ll look if we fail then we need to go back to Jesus for an attitude adjustment and prayer and fasting is a great place to start.

So let’s ask ourselves this morning do we care enough about the hurting people around us to get on our faces before God and ask for His help to make a difference? Are we willing to put aside everything else so that we can encounter our loving and powerful savior in such a way that we can then serve others with His compassion poured into our hearts?

The Holy Glows - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-10-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

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

Last we looked at the cost of discipleship and how Jesus puts us all in an awkward place where we have to confess who we believe He is. It’s not good enough to have a family background of faith, or even to have a religious background. Those things can help us come to the point of belief, but what ultimately matters is what we personally believe.

Today we arrive at one of those places in this journey with Jesus that is a great part of the story, I’d say even an important part of this story of Jesus, but one that is a little challenging to convert to helpful truth for our daily life.

It’s the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. Now with out looking at your Bibles (no cheating) I want us to re-tell the story of the transfiguration. Here’s how this is going to work (or not). I’m going to start it off then I want someone else to tell the next part, etc. etc. until we finish. Then we’ll read it and see how we did.

Jesus takes 3 of His disciples up on a mountain. The 3 disciples were………(feel free to make something us if need to.)

So let’s read Mark 9:1-13….

We don’t know much about this event but we do that…..

The Holy glowed….

So let’s cut right to the chase here, the most amazing thing about this story is that Jesus glowed. The word ‘transfigured’ come from the same Greek word where we get metamorphosis. If you remember j. high biology you know that’s the big word for what happens to a caterpillar when it goes into its cocoon and comes out a butterfly.

Something amazing happened on that mountain that we can’t quite explain but we know it happened. There were 5 witnesses. Peter, James, John, Moses and Elijah who saw it and since 3 of the 4 gospels mention it we have assurance that it happened. For a brief moment the divine glory of Christ broke through the human veil that was hiding it.

The holy glow symbolized the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. They saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, and the gospel of Luke tells us the topic of conversation was Jesus’ suffering and death. In fact the word used in Luke means exodus, or departure from this life. The presence of Moses the law giver and Elijah the prophet conversing with Jesus about His death which fulfilled the penalty of the law was a picture of what Jesus came to do.

What the law was unable to do and what the preaching of the prophets couldn’t do, Jesus, is His death, accomplished. It was on the cross that Jesus said “it is finished” and the veil of the temple was torn revealing the Holy of Holies for everyone to see.

This moment of holy glow was a symbol of what was before and what was still to come.

Phil. 2:6-8 tells us that Jesus set aside His glory to take on human flesh and that in death He would be glorified.

The holy glow revealed the hidden glory of Jesus. The disciples saw the glory of Jesus in plain view right before their eyes. It’s no wonder that Peter wanted to build three tabernacles on the mountain. Once you’ve seen the glory you want to stay there and enjoy it!

But what we see here is that Jesus isn’t content with His disciples staying on the mountain because there’s still a mission to run in the valley. Jesus spent much more time with His disciples in the valley than He did on mountaintops.

We long for holy glow revelations of Jesus but we walk with Him in the valleys of life. The mountain top experiences open our eyes and hearts to fresh revelations of His glory, but the walks in the valleys are where the kingdom of God intersects with our daily life. Another way of thinking about this is that Jesus only reveals Himself to His followers then we reveal Him to others by the way we walk with Him every day.

When we walk with Jesus in the darkness His holy glow shines through us. That’s why Jesus made the disciples leave the mountain and that’s why He makes us leave the mountain. The mountain top limits the exposure of the glory only the followers of Jesus experience it, but the glory of Jesus is revealed through the lives of those who walk with Jesus in the valley.

True Colors - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-09-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

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

Last week we looked at 5 ‘snapshots’ from the gospel of Mark that reveal an insight connected to living in a dynamic relationship with Jesus.

Today we’re going to see a sequence of events that ups the ante on the disciples. They had seen Jesus doing good works, taking on the religious establishment, and performing miracles. It was clear to them that He was greater than any of the other messianic pretenders who had come before Him. But as we can see by the disciples reactions to the various events that occurred they still weren’t completely sure just who Jesus was and what it meant for them.

They’re about to find out.

So let’s read Mark 8:27-38….

The idea that Jesus might be the Messiah was being floated around by this time but Jesus had never been explicitly said that’s who He was. He had never said that He was the Christ or the Messiah? But all of the signs were there.

Jesus was beginning His journey toward Jerusalem. He knew what awaited Him there. Jerusalem would be the place where He would suffer and be crucified. So it’s at this point that the story line of the gospel of Mark begins to shift. He performs 2 more miracles after this, but His focus changes to preparing His disciples for what was to come and teaching them how to carry on His ministry.

As they are walking along Jesus asks a fairly simple question: “Who do men say that I am?” Of course the disciples would have answer to that because they worked the crowds with Jesus and heard what people were saying about Him. I’m sure some of their family members had opinions that they shared. So the answers they gave weren’t all that surprising. John the Baptist, Herod thought Jesus was a resurrected John. Elijah, he was the prophet that was most closely linked to the Messiah, then the prophets.

It’s interesting that many today are content to label Jesus as a prophet of God. That’s pretty safe and in some ways a comfortable title.

But then almost as if Jesus Himself is testing the waters to see if it’s time to shift into this new phase of ministry and preparation asks a follow up question that’s loaded with meaning “But who do you say that I am?” I think it’s important to note that Jesus didn’t say “Who do you think I am?” The word ‘say’ suggests that He was asking them who that said He was during the moments when they were talking around the campfire in the evenings, or walking along the roads as they traveled from place to place.

But it’s also important because no one can know what you think until you say it. By asking this direct question Jesus is putting the disciples on that spot. There’s no place to hide and no one to hide behind. I’m sure there was a moment of awkward silence.

There are two sides to revelation: what it reveals about Jesus and what it reveals about us. We all face that awkward moment where we have to confess what we believe instead of repeating what someone else believes.

Then Peter as the leader answers “You are the Christ.” Since Jesus had never used that title or even said anything about it how could Peter have known? In Matthew’s gospel Jesus points out that the only way Peter could have known is if God had revealed it to Him. The time had come for the turn toward Jerusalem and it was important that even though they knew His true identity they didn’t understand it enough to share it with others.

Now that the disciples knew who He was Jesus has to prepare them for what this means for Him and for them. In vs. 31-33 Jesus tells the disciples that He will have to suffer and die, but that He will arise from the dead in 3 days.

But that was just too much for Peter, that didn’t match up with his image of the conquering Messiah He was looking for. With all of Jesus’ miraculous power how could He possibly be subjected to suffering and death? That sounded too much like losing to Him. So Peter took Jesus aside and decided to correct Jesus.

But Jesus needed to send a strong message to Peter and the disciples. That’s why he looked around at them; He wanted to make sure they were all listening. Jesus would not allow anyone to try to persuade Him to abandon His mission.

Do you remember at the very beginning of Jesus ministry when He was tempted 3 times by Satan? At the end of the temptations the Bible says that Satan left Him alone until a more opportune time. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jesus points out that Peter’s actions were being orchestrated by the Satan. It’s almost as if Jesus is speaking past Peter as He’s speaking to him.

While the ‘Satan’ thing gets all of the attention I think the most important line in this whole exchange is “You are not mindful, or you don’t have your mind set on, the things of God.” Peter, and frankly the other disciples were more focused on their own ambitions for themselves and Jesus than God’s. Jesus stern rebuke was a warning to them, and us, that..

Survival as a follower of Jesus demands that our minds be firmly established on the things of God. Because things won’t always look the way they we thought they would. Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Now Jesus reveals to them the true cost of discipleship. In vs. 34-38 Jesus spells it out clearly. If we have a desire to follow Jesus it will cost us everything. It will demand the complete and total surrender of our life to Him. We can have the things of this world or we can have Jesus, but we have to choose.

When we receive the gift of salvation, the forgiveness of our sins, we give up eternal separation from God and inherit eternal life with Him. That life starts the moment we say yes to His offer. But we also receive a new life that we live here and now. That life is as a citizen in God’s kingdom and as His people we now live for Him and not for ourselves. We give up our crummy old life and get a brand new one, but this new life demands that we live it entirely for Him.

The enemy will try to convince you that that’s a raw deal, a bait and switch. He’ll try to convince you that following Jesus demands too much and isn’t fair. But think about it for a minute. That’s exactly what Peter and the other disciples must have thought. They were following Jesus and they understood He was the Messiah, the savior of the Jewish nation and now Jesus tells them He’s going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. That’s not what they signed up for. They must have thought it was a raw deal too. But that was because they were listening to the wrong voice. Satan wants us to focus on what we will lose instead of what we will gain and God is shouting through Jesus that if we will die to our self we will gain eternity and…

The start of dying to self is admitting that we really don’t have a better option

Funny thing is that we seem to think we do. What’s the better option you keep turning back to?

Hungry? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-09-08T11:18:00.001-07:00

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After a month’s hiatus we’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this morning.

Last time we looked at how Jesus created a ‘holy’ tension in people by challenging them to search their hearts by showing them how they were relying on traditions and religious rules to keep them ‘holy’ instead of a living and dynamic relationship with God.

That’s easy for us to do too if we’re not careful. It seems much easier to create a list of “do’s” and “don’t’s” to keep us on the straight and narrow, but in the end if those ‘rules and traditions’ aren’t grounded in our relationship with Jesus and guided by biblical truth we’re no better than the religious leaders that Jesus was so critical of.

Today we’re going to look at 5 ‘snapshots’ from the gospel of Mark that reveal an insight connected to living in a dynamic relationship with Jesus.

I’ll admit that this ‘connection’ came to me while we were sharing this past Wednesday evening.

So let’s read Mark 7:24-8:30….

Other than the fact that Jesus spit on two men there’s a underlying theme that connects all of these events. They all wanted something from Jesus.

The gentile woman kept asking Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter.

The deaf mute man’s friends begged Jesus to heal their friend.

The 4,000 were hungry.

The Pharisees sought a sign from Him.

The disciples wanted bread.

The blind man’s friends begged Jesus to touch their friend.

I thought it was interesting that:

Those who recognized that Jesus was their only hope were the ones who went away having received what they desired.

I also thought it was interesting that the people who had been blessed with the most insight and understanding of God, the religious leaders and the disciples came away empty handed.

What this suggests is that:

We have to be careful not to become overly confident in our own ability to provide what we think we need.

The Pharisees were seeking a sign to compare Jesus to their traditional ideas of who the Messiah would be. As we know Jesus did plenty of things that were clear evidence that He was the Messiah, but those things didn’t match up with what the Pharisees were expecting and they were content to stay with what they knew and controlled.

The disciples were another story. Even after seeing what Jesus could do they became distracted by their failure to bring bread for their trip. Jesus then took the opportunity to sneak in a little lesson to show them that their emptiness for lack of bread was the spiritual equivalent of the emptiness of the Pharisees who trusted in their knowledge instead of looking to Jesus for help.

But the disciples missed the point and figured that Jesus was mad at them for forgetting the bread. That’s when Jesus got mad because the disciples were missing the forest for the trees. They had seen Jesus provide for multitudes with only a few loaves of bread but they were sure Jesus was mad because they only had 1 loaf.

The disciples were trusting in their own ability to provide for themselves then they assumed that Jesus would be mad at them because they didn’t do enough for Him.

Jesus doesn’t need to defend Himself or do anything to prove Himself to us. What we think about Him doesn’t change Him. If He never did anything for us it doesn’t change who He is.

Jesus doesn’t need us to do anything for Him either. He’s gotten along just fine for eternity without our help, thank you very much, but He sure wants us to do things with Him. Remember Jesus said in John 15:5 “without Me you can do Nothing.” He really means that.

So those who are content to have things their way come away empty because inside they don’t really think they need anything.

The people who came away full were the ones who fell on the mercy of Jesus. They came in humility knowing that they couldn’t do anything about their circumstance without Him.

They came with faith because they heard that Jesus could help them.

They came hungry because they knew Jesus could fill their need.

Are you really hungry for what Jesus can do in your life today?

Is there something burning inside that’s telling you there’s more for you than what you’ve settled for?

Only Jesus can satisfy the emptiness we feel inside. We try to fill it with everything but Him sometimes, but deep down we know it won’t last.

I want to invite you to search your heart and see if you’ve become content with less than the fullness of the Spirit that Jesus offers. What have we substituted for our relationship with Him?

Here’s the truth if you’re not hungry enough to seek Jesus then you’re full of something else. You’ve allowed your soul to become hostage to something that will leave you empty, battered, and separated from the only One who can help you.

There’s only one problem you can’t create this hunger. When you’re full you can’t make yourself hungry. Something you can’t control has to happen. When it comes to things of God you can’t make yourself hungry the only thing you can do is be honest with yourself and confess that you’re really satisfied, and ask God to create a hunger in your soul that only He can fill.

Are you hungry?

The Inside Out - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-07-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

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

Last week we looked at how Jesus brought healing within reach of everyone. By simply touching the hem of His garment, something that possible for even the most broken could do, they could be healed. What Jesus started all of those years ago is still possible today. Healing is within our reach through faith in Him.

This week we have the first direct confrontation with the religious leaders for their emphasis of their man made traditions over the law of God.

The scribes and the Pharisees had created a comfortable relationship with Romans that allowed them to maintain their power over the religious life of the Jewish people. The Romans didn’t want anything to do with sorting out disputes and arguments over what they saw as a strange religion. So they gave the religious leaders freedom to do what they wanted as long as there wasn’t any trouble.

What they did with this power was create rules that looked good on the surface but were corrupt to the core. Of course we can only reproduce what we really are and when we have a corrupt heart our rules will be corrupt too. Before this point Jesus was willing to defend Himself and His disciples from their accusations of wrongdoing, but in this passage Jesus goes a step further and turns the tables and points out their rotten core.

Let’s read Mark 7:1-23….

On this trip they tried a new tactic, instead of attacking Jesus directly they went after His disciples. Their thinking went something like this: if Jesus is such a great teacher why can’t His disciples follow the simplest rules about holy living. If they could get the people to question the disciple’s actions it would give them a way to accuse Jesus.

But they started in the wrong place when they accused the disciples of not following ‘the tradition of the elders.” The ‘traditions of the elders’ were man made rules for following the commandments of God. For example God said to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Simple enough, but because people are hardwired to break the law the religious leaders made up rules that would help them decide if someone was breaking the law. Not a big deal there, except over time the rules to keep the law became more important than the law itself.

Not only that but the ‘elders’ created traditions that would give them loopholes allowing them and their friends to ‘legally’ break the law. Sounds kind of like congress doesn’t it? That should tell us something about the real problem. Jesus goes right after that issue.

The corruption that resides in our heart is our real problem.

He starts off by calling them hypocrites, two faced phonies, and uses scripture to back up the charge. Then He points out an example that sums up the entire issue perfectly. They allowed people to give Corban, and pledge to the temple, even if it meant allowing someone to neglect His duty to their parents. They would allow their rich friends to give them money so they didn’t have to give it to their parents in need. If their parents were in need its obvious they had been neglecting them for some reason anyway, so this Corban simply gave them cover to make their sin look good. It was a conspiracy to undermine the law of God and create a new one that they liked better.

Doesn’t that sound terrible? But let’s be honest we’re prone to do the same thing, maybe not quite so blatantly, be we do it all the time. When we accuse someone of being a gossip by telling someone else aren’t we trying to whitewash our own sin? When we get all condemn someone because they have trouble breaking a bad habit that’s not even mentioned in the Bible and we go through the buffet line 4 or 5 times every time aren’t bending the rules to suit our sin?

Having helpful guidelines is good. We need those things to help us get along, but when we start to make the rules to give us an out and allow us to condemn and control other people then we stepped over the line.

Jesus is clearly tells us that the most evil place on this earth is the human heart and no amount of rules and laws will change that. Changing the rules was useless, the only hope was for the heart to change but no one can do that for themselves. That’s why we’re so tempted to make the rules suit our sin we know we can’t change our heart.

You’ll notice something in this passage. Jesus points out the problem but He doesn’t offer a solution.

Jesus creates a ‘holy’ tension that causes people to look deeper than the rules and traditions they had come to rely on.

We seem to be drawn to create religious rules to help us but the problem is that instead of making things easier it makes them more complicated and burdensome. That’s why Jesus said that the entire law could be summed up in two: Love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as our self. But since we’re really powerless to do even that we keep running on this treadmill going nowhere.

So what are we supposed to do about this dilemma? There is help and it’s described by the apostle Paul in….

Romans 8:3-4 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Someone said to me the other day that they were struggling with something in the Bible and my response was ‘good.’ While it’s true that the scriptures provide comfort and peace when we’re troubled…..

The truth creates a ‘holy’ tension in our heart that causes us to seek the help we really need. The epistle of James tells us that the Bible is like a mirror that allows us to see ourselves clearly enough to know how we’re really doing. We don’t need man made rules and regulations to know how we’re doing.

We need to join with the Psalmist and sing “Create in me a clean heart Oh God and renew a right spirit with in me.”

What’s your heart telling you today?

You are thy light unto my path and the footsteps to my path and cross that u died for me to save my life from sins.

Healing Wings - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

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

Two weeks ago we looked at the miracle of Jesus walking on the water and how it revealed that the disciples had failed to learn how to apply the lessons Jesus was teaching them. They had seen so many things but for some reason they couldn’t put the puzzle together in a way that would allow them to put the lessons into practice.

Does that sound kind of familiar? How many times have we had to learn the same lesson over, and over again? You’ve all heard the line “Been there, done that and got the t-shirt” well if you’re like me in some cases you have two or three t-shirts and a couple of bobble heads for good measure.

Jesus wants us to apply what we learn from Him in our daily walk with Him.

This week we’re looking at a summary of miracles that occurred as Jesus was traveling near the Sea of Galilee. Let’s read Mark 6:53-56….

Gennesaret was a region that was very close to Jesus’ home. The area was fed by a natural spring that helped make it very pleasant and fertile. Abundant crops were grown and supplied the people of the area with food and resources. It was a beautiful place that was also known as the “King’s Garden.”

But this place of such bounty and beauty was scarred by the brokenness of sickness and hopelessness. People who were sick were considered defiled which meant that anything they touched or anyone or anything that touched them was considered unclean and had to stay separated from everyone else.

Even in the cradle of plenty people suffer from sickness, pain, and isolation. That’s the way things had always been until Jesus came to them.

I began to wonder why Mark included this particular summary in his gospel account? A while back I had read an article and by another pastor who shed an interesting light on an OT passage that I thought was interesting.

Malachi 4:2 But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall–fed calves.

What this pastor said was that one of the meaning for the Hebrew word translated ‘wings” is the corner or fringe of a garment. Which means that you could read this verse as “The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in the hem of His garment.”

Fast forward now to our story today and as Jesus walks among the people they reach out to touch the hem of His garment and are healed. This passage is the fulfillment of a prophecy that again shows that Jesus is the Messiah.

The presence of Jesus brings healing within reach for everyone.

Gennesaret was close to the place where the woman with the issue of blood was healed so it’s not to surprising that the people recognized that touching the hem of Jesus’ garment would bring healing to them.

Something that caught my attention was that this passage points out that the sick were carried to Jesus by their family and friends. It was also close to where Jesus had healed the paralyzed man after his friends had carried him to Jesus.

Like the friends of the paralyzed man they did this even though it would be very difficult for them. They didn’t have ambulances or mass transit. They would have had to carry them from town to town looking for Jesus. It was hard for them and for the sick but hope compelled them to do whatever it took to get them to Jesus.

When compassion and faith come together there is power. Their friends were motivated by compassion and the sick put their faith into practice based on what they had heard. When compassion and faith came together they were healed.

When we have compassion on other people and bring them to Jesus the potential exists for God’s power to touch them. When they hear about what God has done for other people it can cause their faith to rise. They may experience a physical healing, or a spiritual awakening of their need for salvation. We can’t know exactly what may happen but we can be assured that something WILL happen.

Jesus the messiah is still the healer and it’s possible that you or someone you know needs to touch the hem of His garment today. Reach out in faith and be healed today.

Guest Speaker: Ernie Salinas - Freedom

2009-07-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

No transcript this week.

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

2009-07-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

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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?

You Give Them Something - Mark's Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-06-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

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

Last time we looked at a story that showed us Jesus will stretched the disciples, and us, out of their comfort zones with ministry assignments that challenged them.

Today we’re going to look at another challenging situation that stretched the disciples. It’s the only one of Jesus’ miracles that is mentioned in all 4 gospels, the feeding of the 5,000.

So let’s take a look at it: Read Mark 6:30-44

How many of you could have told me that story from memory? It’s so familiar to us that, like so many of Jesus’ other miracles, I think we lose some of our appreciation for just how radical this was. There’s something about this story that’s so unique, or important that Holy Spirit made sure it was included in each gospel.

Part of me looks at this miracle and wonders why it’s given special treatment, while some seemingly more ‘fantastic’ miracles didn’t. Do you ever wonder why? I sure do.

Here are some thoughts.

Jesus was giving them a glimpse of the coming kingdom of God. (Mark 6:42 So they all ate and were filled.) Psalm 132:15 says this about the coming messiah “I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread.”

In God’s kingdom the needs of His people would be met in Him. While that’s true today, we also feel the effects of sin and there people who are oppressed and hungry. Jesus is painting a powerful picture that in the day that is coming suffering and hunger will be ended by His divine provision.

Jesus was inviting the disciples to participate in His work. (Mark 6:37 "You give them something to eat.") I’m sure Jesus knew what He was going to do, so when He said this to His disciples it was an invitation that came wrapped as a test. Remember the disciples had just returned from their first ministry mission and were full of faith and victory, but now they were faced with a major problem. It’s one thing to be faced with a few sick people, but to face a tired, hungry multitude who needed some food that was another story all together.
It’s clear from their response that the disciples didn’t get it. But notice that Jesus doesn’t kick them to the curb because they weren’t up to speed or asked the wrong question. Instead Jesus asks them another question that invites them to participate on a level that requires less of a leap of faith. Checking around with the crowd to see if anyone had any food with them was probably a little uncomfortable, but it was something they could do.

Jesus wants us to participate with Him in serving others and He will seek ways to help us do it.

Jesus was teaching the disciples to obey in faith not by sight. (Mark 6:39 Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass.)

Now this seems simple enough, but when it’s supper time and someone asks you to sit down that usually means food is on its way. Can you imagine how the disciples felt when they had to answer questions about this?

If the disciples had responded based on what they saw they wouldn’t have had the people sit down, they would have sent them away. 5 loaves and 2 small fish wouldn’t feed these people. But while they didn’t know what Jesus was going to do they did know that if God could provide manna from heaven then He could provide for His people now.

Jesus doesn’t always tell us just how things will work out. Your situation might look hopeless because what you see isn’t enough to meet what you need, but the same God who provided for His people in the past is the same God who fed the 5,000 and meets our needs today. Don’t respond based on what you see, respond in faith to the One who is faithful.

Jesus was showing the disciples that there is provision in brokenness. (Mark 6:43 And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish.) This one is a bit more ‘spiritualized’ and symbolic, but points to a bigger truth. Jesus’ broken body provides for our salvation and when we offer our lives to Jesus to be broken we become useful in His hands to serve those who hunger an thirst for God’s kingdom.

Jesus was revealing that He is the Messiah. (Mark 6:34 ..they were like sheep not having a shepherd. - Mark 6:39 …sit down in groups on the green grass.)

I couldn’t help but notice the parallel between this verses and the 23rd Psalm. Let me read it to you…….

I don’t believe that this is a coincidence. Almost every part of this Psalm is demonstrated in this story.

1. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. This one is very obvious.

2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.

3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Jesus fed them and taught them.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Jesus brought comfort to them in their need.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Jesus was being watched closely and this miracle would make Him in an even bigger threat to the powers that were in authority at that time.

Jesus fulfilled this description of the Messiah.

No wonder this passage was included in all 4 gospels. It clearly points to Jesus as the Messiah. The savior of the world and it also invites us to enter His kingdom and find our place in His service.

OneSentTwo - Mark's Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-06-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

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

Last time we looked at a story that showed us that Jesus can relate to the rejection we can feel when we follow Him.

In the story we’re looking at today there’s a new twist. Up to this point Jesus has been doing all of the ministry with the disciples observing. But today we’re going to see Jesus sending His disciples out on their own.

So let’s take a look at it: Read Mark 6:7-13; 30-32

Now, you noticed that we didn’t read a big section here. It’s the story of how John the Baptist was martyred by Herod and I’d suggest you read it when you have a chance. But today we’re going to focus in on Jesus and the disciples.

Try to put yourself in the place of the disciples. Up to this point they had been serving with their ‘training wheels’ on. Jesus was doing everything and these guys were following along and watching and learning. But now Jesus is going make a radical change. He’s going to send them out on their own. Can you imagine the lumps in their throats and the hard swallows and butterflies?

Jesus used ministry to stretch His disciples beyond their level of comfort. Here are 5 of them. There are probably more here and you are welcome to find your own.

Ministry starts with Jesus not us (He called them to Himself) vs. 7 I think We have a tendency to believe that since we’re American that we have a right to pick and choose what ministry we’ll do and when we’ll do it. But that’s not the way it works. Looking at the disciples I can imagine that if Jesus had given them a choice they probably wouldn’t have chosen the assignment Jesus was giving them in this passage. They probably would have preferred to have more time to prepare or would have liked to choose the place they were going, but Jesus doesn’t give them that option. He didn’t have to.

Here’s the deal, while it’s possible that Jesus may give you a ministry assignment you like He will also give you some that will test you and cause you to wonder why. My advice is to get used to the idea of obedience and things will work out for the best.

Ministry throws us together (sent them out together) vs. 7 I have a hunch but I can’t prove it, that Jesus probably pared the disciples up in such a way that they had to serve with someone who they didn’t particularly want to be with. Not that Jesus was being ornery with them, but He knows that if we’re going to grow in our capacity to serve we have to learn how to serve with other people whoever they may be.

It’s also true that ministry together also helps to keep us on track and keeps us accountable. I know for me it helps to have someone along side of me who is counting on me to be there. It gives me incentive and cuts way down on my lame excuses for not doing what Jesus wants me to do.

We may not like each other but we need each other and helps us learn how to love each other.

Ministry makes us dependent on others (He gave them power) vs. 7-10 If there’s one thing that still causes me stress in ministry it’s that I can’t do it on my own. If it weren’t for other people I couldn’t even put our worship gathering together.

The disciples couldn’t do what Jesus was asking them to do without being given the power to do it. Not only that they wouldn’t have had anything to eat, or a place to stay if it weren’t for the generosity of the strangers they would meet along the way.

Can I tell you something? If you can do a ministry on your own then you’re doing you ministry instead of Jesus’ ministry. Look through the NT and see if you can find an example of someone who did ongoing ministry alone. You won’t find one. There may have been short seasons of alone time, but each one was keenly aware of their dependence on others. The apostle Paul even says in

2 Timothy 4:11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.

Yes, dependence on others can be frustrating at times, but the sooner we learn that we’re not Superman the better.

Jesus gathers us to account for our ministry (The apostles gathered to Jesus) vs. 30 Now let’s fast forward to the end of the disciple’s trip. They have done what Jesus told them to do and when they return they had some great stories to tell about healings and deliverance. They told about people entering the kingdom of God when they preached the good news.

There were two things going on here. First they were being accountable to Jesus for their ministry and they were sharing their experiences with each other. Even in this there was a learning process. I can imagine that some of the disciples met more opposition than others. Some of them probably saw more people healed or miraculous provisions while others may have had to sleep in a stable.

But in sharing they came to understand that Jesus was less interested in their results than their obedience and faithfulness.

Always remember that. Jesus doesn’t measure your ministry by the numbers, He’s much more interested with your heart.

Jesus encourages us to rest (come aside ….rest a while) vs. 31 Did you expect to see rest in this list? We’re so culturally brainwashed that we think if someone isn’t going 24/7/365 they’re not up to par. In fact we feel guilty when we’re resting because sick people rest. But Jesus took time to rest after ministry and He encourages the disciples to do the same.

It’s not a sin to rest. It’s a sin to be lazy and slothful (I love that word) but resting is a God thing. In fact God Himself rested after ministry and even set aside a whole day for rest.

Genesis 2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Why is that so important for us? Because when we go aside for rest it allows God to refresh us and we gain strength and perspective. Remember your physical needs affect your emotional and spiritual health.

Rest also allows us to have some alone time with God where we can commune with Him and listen for His heartbeat.

Let’s step off the treadmill and spend some time with Jesus so that we can increase our effectiveness in ministry.

Rejected - Wild Heart: Mark's Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-06-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to listen to this talk..

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

Last time we looked at two stories that showed us that Jesus responds to the desperate people who reach out to Him.

Today we’re looking at something that we all can relate to: rejection. There’s a common thought among Christians that the more people know about Jesus the more drawn to Him they’ll be. But if you look at the Gospel’s that isn’t always what happens. In fact you often see the opposite. Jesus is very popular with people at first, but the closer they get to Him the more difficult it seems to find Him comfortable. Think about John’s gospel when just after feeding the 5,000 Jesus starts off on this talking about things that make them uncomfortable and it says that many turned away from Him.

In this passage another group of people turn away from Jesus.

So let’s take a look at it: Read Mark 6:1-6

Jesus travelled back to His home town. Anyone want to venture a guess at what that town is?

a) Bethlehem,

b) Sephoris,

c) Nazereth.

If you said C you are correct. These are the people who would have known Jesus the best. It’s clear from verse 3 that they knew Him well. Just look at what that verse alone tells us about Jesus:

He was a carpenter

Joseph had passed away and/or there was knowledge of Jesus’ unique birth (Mary’s son)

He had 4 brothers and at least 2 sisters.

His family still all lived in town.

They knew Him so well that when He got up to speak in the synagogue they began to say in essence “Who does He think He is.”

The people knew Jesus the best rejected Him. vs. 2-3

They clearly had heard about His miracles because they talked about them even though He hadn’t done any in Nazareth up to that point.

I find it interesting that everything seemed to be going fine until He began to teach them. Have you ever noticed that with the unbelievers who know you the best? They may or may not like your lifestyle but as long as you keep your opinions to yourself things are fine. But as soon as you start to talk to them about your faith in Jesus all of a sudden they reject you and they start watching you closely looking for any misstep in order to criticize you.

But if we look at Jesus’ example we can learn how to respond when we face these situations.

Jesus had a clear understanding of the issue.In vs. 4 He used a ‘proverbial’ saying to reveal the root of the problem. Being too familiar with someone can get in the way of seeing who they really are. When people begin to rest on what they know about someone they stop trying to know more.

Do we find ourselves being so confident in what we know about Jesus that we stop really trying to re-discover Him? vs. 4 That’s what happened to the people in Nazareth. They were blinded by familiarity. That can happen in our families with our children or spouses can’t it? Suddenly we seem to wake up and find a stranger in our house! What happened? We just grew too familiar and stopped re-discovering who they were.

We can do this with Jesus too. In fact it’s particularly true of children raised in Christian homes. They hear about Jesus so much they reach a point where they ‘know it all’ and stop re-discovering Him. It can happen to adults as well.

One of my hopes for this series is that we’ll re-discover Jesus all over again.

Rejection can cause us to try too hard to change people’s hearts. vs. 5 That’s a trap that the enemy sets for us all the time. Here’s how it goes: you feel the pressure of rejection and it hurts to know that the people you care about the most don’t know Jesus. Then when you give them space to think about it the enemy comes along and tells you that if you really cared about them you’d try harder to convince them making you feel guilty and so it goes.

Jesus didn’t fall into that trap. He recognized that He couldn’t make people believe in Him and while it amazed Him He didn’t over react or start a fight. He did what He could then He moved on.

We can only do what we can and then to move on. vs. 6 But when we move on God doesn’t stop working on their hearts. In time even some of Jesus’ family came to believe. We know because they wrote two of the books of the NT, James and Jude!

We may have to move on but that doesn’t mean we have to give up. When we’re faithful in what God has called us to do the ripple effects will have far reaching influence. Because Jesus was faithful to His calling He had influence that reached the hearts of His family members so that after His death they came to understand who He was.

We may never see the results of our faithfulness, but God is at work to make sure that your faithfulness isn’t wasted.

The Desperate Touch - Wild Heart: Mark's Portraits of a Radical Messiah

2009-06-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to listen to this talk.

Click HERE to watch the video.

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

Last time we looked at two stories that showed us how Jesus provides radical peace. Jesus told the sea to be still and He gave peace to a troubled soul with a word. Because Jesus is the Son of God it shows He has authority over the natural world and the spirit world.

This morning we’re looking at two more stories that show us the power of Jesus. One of the unique things about these stories is that they mingle together into one story. An interesting twist to these two stories is that touch was the active ingredient rather than the spoken word Jesus.

So let’s take a look at these verses: Read Mark 5:21-43

When you look at these stories what do you think the participants were feeling?

The woman: shame, desperation, weakness, fear

Jairus the father: fear, desperation, anxiousness, hopelessness

I want to focus in on desperation.

Desperation will drive people to overcome their fear with action. Mark 5:22 & 27

Both the woman, and Jairus had huge hurdles to jump over to get to the point that they were willing to come to Jesus with their trouble. Jairus was the ruler of the synagogue which meant that he had to deal with the scribes and Pharisees. For him to seek out Jesus would put him at odds with them it could even possibly cost him his position. This was no small matter. But desperate situations call for desperate actions and when your child is dying you’ll do whatever it takes to help them.

The woman was sick, broken, and poor. She had been abused and now was rejected and without hope. Here condition made her ‘unclean’ and to be honest it meant that even being in the crowd on that day was against the law. But again her desperation drove her to overcome her fear. What’s the worst that could happen to her now? The only thing she had to lose was her reputation and what good is that if you’re dying?

Why is it that nothing seems to trigger our faith like desperation? Just take a minute and think about the times when your faith really popped. I’d like 2 people to quickly share in a sentence story of desperate faith….

That day this sick and bleeding woman somehow summoned the faith to reach out and touch the hem of Jesus robe and that single desperate touch brought immediate healing, and the personal attention of Jesus. I think it’s important to notice that…

Jesus responds to desperate people. Mark 5:34-38 The woman was desperate and Jairus was desperate and both encountered a powerful Messiah who was Lord over everything.

In the middle of this scene Jesus experiences a supernatural power drain that caused Him to wheel around and ask who had touched His clothes. The disciples though that was a dumb question, but Jesus insisted on finding the person and this trembling, fearful woman pour out her story still carrying on her body the evidence of her former sickness and Jesus fully accepts her and calls her daughter. Now who would call a woman daughter unless it was a Father, even in this Jesus was claiming equality with God.

But now a larger enemy descended on the scene, because Jesus had been delayed word came to Jairus that his daughter was dead. It’s one thing to heal the sick, calm the storm, and deliver the oppressed, but this last enemy was far stronger. But Jesus was even more powerful. He has authority over death.

Jesus encourages Jairus not to give in to his fear, but to believe. Mark 5:36

Why are we so prone to react in fear instead of responding in faith?

I think one reason is that we are often surrounded by people who seem determined to discourage us. Even Jesus faced this challenge when they ridiculed Him. Now I don’t know if this is the point, but if we’ll trust Jesus He’ll kick the doubters out of the room for you.

Don’t listen to the voices that tell you your situation is hopeless. Don’t listen to the doubters, just get close to Jesus. Follow His lead and trust Him.

In these two stories we see tenderness toward these hurting desperate people. A tenderness that invited them to come near and touch Him. That same Jesus invites us to come near and reach out to Him. If your desperate enough to overcome your fears and doubt you will be welcomed.