Rich Lusk (Mark 11)

Rich Lusk (Mark 11)

SUMMARY In his sermon based on Mark 11, the speaker discusses Jesus’ symbolic actions surrounding his entry into Jerusalem, highlighting the event’s significance in reshaping expectations about His role as the Messiah. After Jesus curses a barren fig tree—symbolizing judgment against the temple—He cleanses the temple of vendors and money changers, declaring it a “den of thieves” instead of a “house of prayer for all nations.” This act demonstrates Jesus’ mission not to reform the temple but to fulfill its purpose as the ultimate temple through His sacrificial death and resurrection. The sermon emphasizes that the old covenant structures are rendered obsolete with Christ’s coming, as He becomes the true means of accessing God and establishes the church as His living temple. The speaker warns that just as Jesus judged the temple, He inspects the church for genuine faith and fruitfulness, urging believers to receive God’s blessings actively and with faith, lest they face similar judgment. Ultimately, the sermon encapsulates the transformative nature of Jesus’ ministry and His fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, encouraging reliance on Him as the ultimate Savior. TRANSCRIPTION Choose show more to view the transcription. Transcriptions are AI generated and MAY be incorrect. Rely on the spoken word heard in the audio file. show more Our reading this morning comes from Mark chapter 11. I will begin in verse 12. Now the next day when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, he went to see if perhaps he would find something on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response, Jesus said to it, let no one eat fruit from you ever again. And his disciples heard it. So they came to Jerusalem. And he began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then he taught, saying to them, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves. And Peter, remembering, said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered away. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. I bring you greetings from Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It is a great honor to bring God’s word to you this day, to declare the gospel of our Savior and King, the Lord Jesus, in your midst. That’s my great privilege today. We are very grateful for this church plant in our nation’s capital. We are grateful to minister alongside of you in the CREC and to see what God is doing in our denomination. And we rejoice in what God is doing here in your congregation, planting the flag of Christ’s kingdom here. It’s a wonderful thing. I also want to add you’ve got a wonderful welcoming committee. I’ve never felt so safe walking into church as I did this morning. So your hospitality is wonderful. Also, I know your future pastor, Brooks. He’s a good friend of mine. He has my utmost respect. He is going to be a tremendous blessing to you when he comes. So certainly we join in giving you thanks for that. Well, let’s turn our attention to our passage from Mark chapter 11. We realize our expectations were all wrong. That’s really what Mark chapter 11 is about. The chapter opens with Jesus making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Expectations are high as Jesus rides in on a colt. He is greeted by crowds who are throwing a parade for him. There is psalm singing. There are palm branches waving. It’s a great celebration. There is all kinds of pageantry as Jesus processes into the city. His disciples have already confessed him as Messiah, as the Christ. And now it seems that the crowds in Jerusalem are getting on board the Jesus train. They’re hailing him as Messiah. Messianic fervor grips the city as Jesus rides in. The deliverer is finally here at last. Of course, they are right. They are wrong in their understanding of what that means. And what we’re going to begin to see in this chapter, and it really carries through the next several chapters of Mark’s gospel that cover the events of this week, culminating with his crucifixion, is this. This is what we see. Jesus has to dash their hopes in order to fulfill them. He will crush their expectations and then exceed them. The crowds are using all the right words to celebrate Jesus’ entrance into the city. Hosanna, they cry out. The Lord saves. Salvation is here. But again, they’re filling those words with the wrong content. They’re expecting the wrong kind of savior and the wrong kind of salvation. And so Jesus has to transform their own. Their understanding of what messiahship is all about. Jesus is Messiah, but that doesn’t mean what they think it means. They were right to have great expectations, but their expectations were still all wrong. Again, those expectations would be crushed by the end of the week when Jesus is crucified. Of course, that’s Good Friday. But then on Sunday morning, something will happen that will go far and above even their wildest expectations. When Jesus is raised from the dead. So Jesus has his triumphal entry. Of course, that is Palm Sunday. The next day, this is where our passage picks up this morning. The next day, he sees a fig tree and he expects it for fruit. So he does a little inspection of the fig tree. He does not find any fruit. And so he curses it and he says, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. The cursing of the fig tree is interesting. The only miracle Jesus performed that brought death rather than life. It is clearly a parable of judgment. Jesus performs a miracle of destruction rather than restoration as he usually does. He performs a miracle that brings curse rather than blessing. Now we’re going to come back to the fig tree in just a few minutes because the story of the fig tree is wrapped around the story of Jesus’ action. And Mark often does this. He’ll insert one story inside of another. So he starts a story, he breaks off and tells another story, and then he picks up with the story he had been telling. And when that happens in Mark’s gospel, that structure allows you to use the outside story to interpret the inside story and the inside story to interpret the outside story. So here the story of the cursing of the fig tree is wrapped around the story of his action in the temple. And so obviously they go together. The fig tree is dealt with in verses 12 to 14 and again in verses 20 to 25. The temple cleansing is dealt with in between in verses 15 to 19. So obviously the cursing of the fig tree is supposed to help us understand what happens in the temple, what Jesus is up to when he goes into the temple. Let’s ask that question. What happens when Jesus enters the temple? What does he do and why does he do it? Now this is usually referred to as the temple cleansing. It has headings for different sections. It probably says Jesus cleansing the temple, something like that. And the idea of this seems to be that it’s as if Jesus came to reform the temple, to deal with its corrupt leadership and its corrupt worship and clean things up. And that’s really what Jesus wanted, was a well-running, properly functioning temple. Now I will say that’s part of it. You can certainly say that’s part of it, but it’s not all of it or even the main point of it. Back in Leviticus 14, in the Torah, in the law, in Leviticus 14, God gave rules about leprous houses. Now we don’t know exactly what it meant for a house to have leprosy. That’s kind of an odd sounding thing, but under the law, houses could get leprosy. That’s the language of Leviticus 14. Now it’s interesting, in John’s gospel, Jesus cleanses the temple at the beginning of his ministry. John chapter 2, right at the beginning of John’s gospel. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, inspection, the temple cleansing, comes towards the end of his earthly ministry, that last week, right before his death. And so some have wondered, when did this happen? Is John right? Did it happen at the beginning? And the other gospel writers just put it out of order? Or are the other gospels right? And is it John who puts it out of chronological order? Well, actually, all of the gospel writers are right. Jesus inspected the temple twice, just like the priest inspecting the leprous in Leviticus 14. He does it at the beginning of his ministry and again at the end of his ministry. And after this second inspection, finding the house corrupted, finding the house spiritually leprous, he announces in Mark 13, so later this week in Mark 13, not one stone is going to be left upon another. He condemns the house, he condemns the temple, and he says not one stone is going to be left upon another. Jesus’ action in the temple shows the temple is a leprous house, spiritually leprous, and must be condemned. Note this as well. When he goes into the temple, he sees the money changers there, and he casts them out. It’s the exact same word used when Jesus performs exorcisms and casts out demons. He’s been casting out demons, now he casts out the money changers. It’s as if to us as the reader. The temple has become infested with demons. The temple itself needs an exorcism. The house is not only leprous, it is demonic. And there’s no doubt all kinds of sinful things were going on in the temple. There’s no doubt there was economic exploitation going on with the money changers who had a monopoly on currency exchange in the temple. Jesus quotes from Jeremiah and accuses them of turning the temple into a den of thieves. A hiding place for robbers. In the next chapter of Mark, we get a glimpse of this when the widow puts her last two mites into the temple treasury. And this happens right after Jesus has accused the leaders of devouring widows’ houses. See, in their greed, they are willing to take advantage even of poor widows. The temple has become a den of thieves. Matred, ethnic, arrogance, what you might call ethnic vainglory. Jesus also quotes from Isaiah 56 where God says, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. You go back to when this temple was built by Solomon and when Solomon dedicated it in 1 Samuel 8. When he gives the temple its dedication, one of the things he does is he describes foreigners coming to worship God. Foreigners, those outside of Israel, we could call them Gentile God-fearers. That’s typically what they’re called. They’re not Israelites, but they do fear Israel’s God and they would come to the temple and offer their prayer and offer sacrifice. And Solomon says there, they were to be welcomed to pray and worship at the temple. It was to be a house of prayer for all nations. Gentiles could not participate in the Passover. For that, you had to be circumcised. But they could offer sacrifices at the temple. It was their temple, too, if they were trusting in Israel’s God, in the true and living God. But by Jesus’ day, the Jews had put up all kinds of barriers to keep the Gentiles away, to keep them at a distance. The Jews forgot. They were called to be a nation of missionaries witnessing to the nations. They forgot the temple was to be a base for their mission to the nations. And so instead of seeing the temple as a gift of God’s grace to them, as a house of prayer for all nations, the Jews treated it as a badge of ethnic vain glory. Instead of using the temple to promote God’s glory, they used the temple to promote their own glory. And so yes, you could say Jesus is cleansing the temple because they have corrupted it. They have corrupted it economically and ethnically. But there’s something more going on here. Note that Jesus interrupts temple worship altogether. At least temporarily. Note that he threw everyone out. He doesn’t just throw out the sellers who were practicing economic injustice. He also throws out the buyers, the worshipers, those who are buying animals for sacrifice. There’s no reason to think that the buyers were really guilty of anything. They’re just coming to worship to offer sacrifice. They get thrown out too. He doesn’t let the sacred articles be carried about the temple. He shuts the whole thing down. Think about the fact that he throws out those who were buying as well as those who were selling. It was impossible for those who had traveled long distances to get to the temple to worship, to bring their own animals with them. They just had to travel too far. And so they would come to the temple with their money and they would buy animals there for sacrifice once they arrived. They couldn’t bring the animals with them, so they would buy them once they got there. They wouldn’t buy animals in the temple for sacrifice per se. In fact, again, you go back to the law, you go back to Deuteronomy chapter 14, you see God made provision for buying animals at the temple. There was nothing wrong with that in and of itself. Jesus is not flipping over tables and driving out sellers and worshipers merely because he wants to reform the temple. He’s not just cleaning it of corruption. He’s giving a preview of what is to come. That’s what’s coming, and Jesus previews it here. One greater than the temple is here, and because one greater than the temple has arrived, this other temple must go. On Friday of this week, when Jesus dies on the cross, he will make the temple obsolete. He’s about to put the temple out of business for good. By the end of the week, the temple, with its animal sacrifices and its priesthood, and all that they pointed to will be fulfilled. What do you guess Jesus was thinking about when he saw those animals in the temple being sold for sacrifice? Verse 15 mentions pigeons, which Leviticus 12 allowed poor people who could not afford a larger sacrificial animal to offer. But no doubt he saw other sacrificial animals too. Oxen, cattle, yes, lambs, because it’s Passover week. No doubt when he sees those sacrificial animals, he will do on the cross in just a few days when he becomes the lamb of God and offers himself for the sins of the world as the ultimate and final sacrifice for sin. This is what’s interesting. Throughout his ministry, Jesus has been performing the functions normally reserved for the temple. Jesus has been doing things that Israelites were accustomed to looking to the temple to do. So again, think about this. Under the law, if you had leprosy, you’d have to go to the temple and offer sacrifice for your cleansing. But now Jesus is healing lepers and declaring them cleansed on the spot, apart from the temple. Under the law, if you wanted absolution for your sins, you wanted to hear a declaration of forgiveness and know that you were forgiven, you would go to the temple and you would offer sacrifice, a sin offering. But Jesus has been going about declaring people’s sins forgiven far away from the temple. Under the law, you wanted a meal in God’s presence. You wanted a communion meal with God. You would go to the temple. You would make a peace offering. That was your sacramental meal with God. That’s where God shared his table with you. But Jesus has been having meals with people throughout his ministry and God seems to be especially present in those meals as if Jesus’ table is now God’s table and that’s where you get the meal with God. Jesus does so much eating and drinking in the Gospels. It’s like his ministry is a traveling dinner party and the meals certainly seem to be sacramental. He connects them with the kingdom of God and with the forgiveness of sins and in all of this he seems to be upstaging and replacing the peace offerings of the temple with his own meals. Repentant sinners be welcome to eat with him and this was deeply offensive to the Pharisees who accused Jesus of eating and drinking with all the wrong people. But again Jesus connects his meals to the inbreaking of God’s kingdom. Again it seems that if you want to eat and drink in God’s presence now instead of going to the temple you go to Jesus. You get from Jesus what you would have gotten from the temple. This is the point. Jesus is performing the functions of the temple. Jesus sets up his ministry as an alternative to the temple, as a substitute for the temple, ultimately as a replacement for the temple. Jesus clearly believed he was called to be and to do what the temple was and did. Jesus fulfills the meaning and purpose of the temple. The temple was the place where God was uniquely present with his people on earth, and now Jesus is acting as if he is the one in whom God is uniquely present with his people on earth. Jesus is clearly claiming to be the temple, to be the temple in person, the one who fulfilled all the temple meant to Israel and all it pointed to. Again, Jesus has been upstaging the temple throughout his ministry. He has said one greater than the temple is here in Matthew 12. And with this background, we can now see what Jesus is doing in Mark 11 when he goes into the temple. Even if the temple had not been operating with economic or ethnic corruption, the temple’s days are numbered. It’s not going to be needed. It’s not going to be relevant much longer. Why? Because Jesus is the true temple. And once he arrives in Jerusalem to do his great high priestly work and to offer himself as the final and ultimate sacrifice for sins, he’s going to make the temple obsolete. There can’t be two temples. And so one of them is going to have to go. There can only be one temple going forward, and that is going to be Jesus himself. Jerusalem isn’t big enough for two temples. And so the obsolete temple, that physical, structure, has to be removed. When Jesus interrupts their worship with animal sacrifices, it’s not just an ethical action. It is an eschatological action. An action that points to the arrival of a new and better covenant. It’s a way of indicating the new age is dawning. The new creation is arriving. The kingdom of God is here. The temporary interruption of temple worship points to its permanent interruption that will soon take place. Or maybe I should put it this way. The temporary interruption of temple worship points to the permanent termination of temple worship that will soon take place. I said Jerusalem isn’t big enough for two temples, and so when the true and eternal temple arrives in the city in Jesus, the old temple has to be removed. Look at what happens with the fig tree. Let’s circle back around to the fig tree here, verses 20 to 24. This is the next day after Jesus has cursed the fig tree and gone into the temple. Now they see that same fig tree again. And Peter says, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered. The fig tree obviously is symbolic of the temple. But what Jesus says is the key. In verse 23, Jesus tells his disciples, have faith in God. That is, trust God’s plan as it’s unfolding this week. Have faith in God. Now what is this mountain Jesus is talking about? This mountain that’s going to be cast into the sea in answer to their prayers. It has to be the temple mountain. There’s no other mountain. There’s no question about this. It is the mountain on which the temple rests. Jesus cursed the fig tree and then he tells his disciples they can pray prayers of imprecation against the old covenant temple and those prayers will be answered. The temple will be destroyed. That mountain will be cast into the sea. Of course, for a Jew at this time, like the disciples, to pray against the temple would have been unthinkable. But Jesus is about to make it thinkable. The temple was the heart of Israel’s life, but now Jesus is saying it’s obsolete. Why is imprecatory prayer against the temple about to become thinkable? Well, because on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, unbelieving Jews will be the biggest persecutors of Christ’s father. Just read Acts and you see that. They set themselves in opposition to Christ and to his disciples. In Mark chapter 13, Jesus will prophesy against the temple at length and he says the temple will be destroyed not when stone will be left upon another before that generation then living passes away. And of course, that’s exactly what happened in 70 AD. The temple was destroyed just as Jesus foretold. The temple mountain was removed, so to speak. See, their expectations were high on Palm Sunday when Jesus made his triumphal entry. His death will shatter those expectations, but his resurrection and his destruction of the temple will completely transform those expectations and fulfill them beyond anything they could have dreamed of. New wine is being poured into the old wineskins. New wine is flowing. Three lessons I want us to draw from this passage as we wrap this up this morning. First, the text makes it clear that Jesus did not come to reform the temple, but to destroy the temple. And that’s a crucial point. He was not a temple reformer. He came to be a temple destroyer. Yes, he does cleanse the temple, but the point is not just to expose their corruption. It’s to show the temple’s planned adolescence. The temple in Jerusalem was good, but it was only a temporary good. It’s like milk is good. Milk is good up to its expiration date, and then it goes bad. Jesus is announcing and demonstrating that the temple’s expiration date is near. It’s about to go bad. It’s about to be obsolete. But it’s not enough to say Jesus is a temple destroyer, and this is really the point. He is also a temple builder, and the rest of the New Testament makes this clear. What is the temple? Jesus builds the temple. Jesus builds is you. It is his church. You are the temple Jesus is constructing. The church is his new temple. So in 1 Peter 2, Peter says to Christians, you are living stones being built into a spiritual house, a spiritual temple. He says to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Cornerstone, and we are all being built up into a holy temple in which the Lord dwells. We’re all being built up on this cornerstone that is Christ into a holy temple. Now understand, this doesn’t mean there are two temples. Jesus is one temple, the church is another. No, there’s one temple, and we are a temple because we are in union with him, because we are united to him who is the temple. That’s why we are the temple. We are God’s new covenant house. Obviously, Jesus is with us in all times and in all places, but Jesus is present with us in a special way when his people gather together as we’ve done here this morning. When a local congregation gathers, it’s like all the living stones coming together to form the temple, and we know Jesus is in our midst. Wherever even two or three gather, there Jesus is amongst them. And so here’s really the first application. Jesus is building his church into a temple. What does that mean? We have to seek Jesus where he has promised to be found, and that means especially seeking him in the means of grace, in the word as it is preached, and at his table where he gives himself to us in bread and wine. See, this is so critical to understand. Jesus continues to perform the functions of the temple in the life of the local church. Here, your sins are forgiven. You’re cleansed. You’re restored. You’re transformed. Here, you get a meal with God. Here, you offer up sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving as a royal priesthood. Jesus continues to do the functions of the temple in the church, which is his temple. And of course, the church is to be like the temple before it, a house of prayer for all nations. Jesus’ judgment on old covenant Israel and the temple in Jerusalem serve as an object lesson for the church. Learn the lesson of the fig tree. The new covenant is vastly superior to the old in every way. The book of Hebrews, of course, is all about that. But the new covenant does not make God’s people immune to judgment. In fact, some of the Bible’s fiercest warnings to the people of God are found in the new covenant. Again, read the book of Hebrews. Even in the new covenant, covenant breaking remains a possibility. It’s interesting that when Jesus quotes from Jeremiah when he goes into the temple, if you know anything about the book of Jeremiah and the ministry of the prophet Jeremiah, you know that the prophet Jeremiah announced judgment that was going to fall on Jerusalem and on the temple in his day. Of course, this is centuries before Jesus. Judgment coming on the temple in Jerusalem and on Israel. And Jeremiah was persecuted because he was speaking out against the temple, even as, of course, Jesus will be persecuted for speaking against the temple. There were false prophets in Judah who contradicted Jeremiah’s message. They said, peace, peace, when there is no peace. The people said, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They thought there was no way God would let them be judged. They had the temple. Surely they would be saved. They thought that because they had certain objective blessings, like the temple and circumcision, they would be safe no matter how they lived. And of course, the temple and circumcision were blessings, objectively speaking. They were gifts God gave his people, signs of his covenant faithfulness and mercy to them, markers of their membership in his covenant. But here’s the key lesson. Nothing objective guarantees subjective faithfulness. Objective blessings do not guarantee subjective faithfulness. Receiving covenant blessings in and of themselves will not guarantee covenant keeping. Objective covenant blessings that are not received with a living, active, and obedient faith turn into curses. Hear that. Covenant blessings become covenant curses to covenant breakers. And so you must receive God’s gifts, God’s covenant gifts with a living and active faith. Just as Jesus inspected the fig tree for fruit, he comes to our churches and he inspects them for fruit each Lord’s Day. And if he finds we are all fig leaf and no figs, he will judge us. He will curse us. We will wither. Fruitless branches on the covenant tree are cut off and cast into the fire. Go read John 15. Read Romans 11. Read Hebrews 10 and so many other passages in the New Testament that tell us, that warn us about the dangers of covenant presumption and covenant breaking. It is a privilege to have God’s word in our hands and to have his word preached in our midst. It is a great privilege to have baptism and the table. But these gifts must be received with and mixed with a living and active faith or we too will be judged. We must be vigilant. We must fight the good fight. We must make every effort in striving to be holy for without holiness, no man will see the Lord. The lesson of the fig tree applies to us. If our churches devolve into dens of thieves, Jesus will flip over our tables and drive us out of his house with a whip. That’s the warning. The whole idea that Jesus is just a nice guy, always sweet, never judgmental, that’s not biblical. This passage shows us no more Mr. Nice Jesus. Jesus is not a pushover. He’s not an indulgent Santa Claus in the sky or a first century Mr. Rogers. Jesus is judge and judgment begins with the house of God. And finally, third lesson here, we must see that Jesus brings about our salvation by fulfilling the types and shadows of the old covenant. You can’t understand what Jesus came to do if you pick up the story of the Bible. Three-fourths of the way through. You’ll hear people say, oh, we’re New Testament Christians. No, we want to be whole Bible Christians. You can’t understand the story if you pick it up three-fourths of the way through. The old covenant scriptures lay the foundation for the new. They give us the categories we need to understand what Jesus came to do. The Jews did not understand Jesus’ mission because they did not understand their own scriptures. And that’s why their expectations, high though they were, were still so far off. Jesus is God in the flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the true Israel and he is Israel’s God in his person. He is the temple in person. He is our great high priest. He is our sacrifice. He is the promised Messiah. All of these categories come from the old covenant. The old covenant is full of types and shadows. Jesus is the one they’re pointing to. This is how you understand who Jesus is. By seeing those types and shadows that pointed ahead to him. The old covenant is full of promises. Jesus came to fulfill them. The old covenant, the Old Testament scriptures are a story in search of an ending. Jesus came to complete it, to write that ending with his own life. And that is our hope. Trust in Jesus. Fear Jesus. Obey Jesus. Hope in Jesus. Look to Jesus as your savior and your king, as the one who bore judgment for you. Look to Jesus as your temple, as your priest. As your sacrifice. Trust in him to be the one who gives you access to God. Trust in him as your great high priest who gave himself as a sin offering for you on the cross. The righteous for the unrighteous. Trust in him to give himself to you in his word and in baptism and at his table. Jesus is our all in all. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. And now we pray in the words Jesus taught us to pray, singing. Amen. Amen. show less

Gene Liechty (Mark 10)

SUMMARY In today’s sermon on Mark chapter 10, the preacher highlights key themes of spiritual blindness and the nature of true discipleship through various encounters of Jesus. Jesus teaches about divorce, emphasizing God’s original intent for marriage based on Genesis, countering the Pharisees’ legalistic interpretations. He welcomes children, illustrating humility as essential for receiving the kingdom, and addresses a rich young ruler who struggles to abandon his possessions for eternal life, symbolizing the difficulty of wealth in faith. The sermon culminates with Jesus’ call to servanthood, contrasting worldly notions of greatness with true greatness in God’s eyes, emphasizing that service and humility define true leadership in the kingdom. As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he prepares his disciples for his impending death and resurrection, reinforcing the theme of following Him through suffering before glory. TRANSCRIPTION Choose show more to view the transcription. Transcriptions are AI generated and MAY be incorrect. Rely on the spoken word heard in the audio file. show more Our sermon for today comes from Mark chapter 10, all of chapter 10. That’s a lot of verses. And when I preach through the gospel of Mark, I don’t know how many years ago it was now, maybe eight years ago, but I divided Mark chapter 10 into four sermons. And I asked the elders here, the leadership here, if it’d be okay if I do about a two-hour sermon. We’re here, so anyway, buckle up. We’re going to move through this passage fairly fast. I’m going to read all 52 verses, and then we’re going to jump in, and we’re going to make some application, and God’s name be praised. Here we go. Then he arose from there and came to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan, and multitudes gathered to him again. And as he was accustomed, he taught them again. The Pharisees came and asked him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife, testing him? Did Moses command you? They said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to dismiss her. And Jesus answered and said to them, because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. So then they brought the little children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased and said to them, Now, as he was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before him, and asked him, So Jesus said to him, And he answered and said to Jesus, But this man was sad at the word and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, Children, how hard it is for those who have trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, With men it’s impossible, but not with God. For with God all things are possible. Then Peter began to say to him, See, we have left all and followed you. So Jesus answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brother or sister or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. Now they were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was going before them and they were amazed. And as they followed, they were afraid. Then he took the 12 aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to him. Behold, we’re going up to Jerusalem and the son of man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill him. And the third day he will rise again. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. And Jesus said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us that we may sit one on your right and the other on your left in your glory. But Jesus said to them, you do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with? They said to him, we are able. So Jesus said to them, you will indeed drink the cup that I drink. And with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized. But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared. And it is for those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. Now they came to Jericho, and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples in a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, stood by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Then many warned him to be quiet, but he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, be of good cheer, rise, he is calling you. And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to him, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. Then Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road. Let’s pray together. Father God, as we approach your holy scriptures, deliver us from coldness of heart and wandering of mind that with steadfast thought and kindled affection, we might seek you where you may be found, right here in your holy scriptures, here in Mark 10. It’s in Christ we pray. Amen. Verse 52, really quickly this morning, but we see that Jesus and his disciples, they’re also on the move. They’ve been up near the Sea of Galilee at Peter and Andrew’s home. This is where they’ve been. This is where they were largely where we left them last in chapter 9. And Jesus now begins, he sets his eyes on Jerusalem. He sets his eyes on his death and he swings toward Jerusalem together with the disciples. Jesus is about to lead a great exodus. Just like Moses did. He just met, Jesus just met on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah. They led exoduses, but nothing compared to this exodus that Jesus is about to lead out of the bondage of sin and death for all people, for all time. So as Jesus leaves the Sea of Galilee, as he leaves Capernaum, and he heads toward Jerusalem, scripture tells us that he swung east, the Transjordan. The East side of the Jordan, that’s where we find him today, largely where we find him today. And it’s interesting, as we just talked about Moses, this is the very place where Moses preached his last sermons, the book of Deuteronomy. I don’t know why that’s hard to say this morning. The book of Deuteronomy is largely comprised of three sermons that Moses gave to the people before he went up on Mount Nebo and was taken up into heaven. So the two men that Jesus just met with on the Mount of Transfiguration, it’s interesting, there are all these little details that really enrich the text, but this is where Jesus is at this point. This is also the place where John the Baptist conducted his ministry, and that becomes significant here in the next verses, especially in light of the fact that there’s a question that the Pharisees bring that will take us right back to John. So verse 1 tells us that the crowds gathered to him, the multitudes gathered to him. This is the end of Jesus’ three-year earthly ministry. Everybody’s heard of him. If they haven’t seen him, they’ve heard of his teaching. They’ve heard of his miracles. The crowds gather, and Jesus does what he always does when the crowds gather. He takes advantage of the opportunity. He begins to preach. So the crowds gather, and the Pharisees come. Pharisees come, probably pretty excited that they didn’t have to travel 45 miles north to ask their trick question. Jesus sort of came to them, or at least a lot closer to them, with the question that they pretended to have. They ask, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? And you need, again, to understand that the Pharisees don’t come honestly. They’re not actually seeking an answer here. They’re not seeking understanding. As I was trying to find a common theme to tie all 52, all four of my sermons together, you know, all 52 verses together, I came up with spiritual blindness. You’ll see the title of the sermon in the bulletin. It’s amazing how all the people that Jesus encounters here in most of these verses are suffering from spiritual blindness. The Pharisees are. They didn’t come in the way that they expected, right? So the Pharisees are blind. This rich young ruler is blinded by the lust of the earth and the things of this world. He couldn’t see or he couldn’t give up. The disciples themselves, we’re going to see, are blinded in part because they fail over and over again to understand Jesus. They can’t follow him in his teaching. And then the ironic thing in all of this is that Jesus, at the end of these verses, he’s kind of funny how all this works. The folks with physical eyes to see can’t see a thing. And the blind man knows who Jesus is. He knows who to cry out to for mercy. So anyway, back to the Pharisees, right? They come to Jesus with this question. And you have to remember some things that we’ve already learned if you’ve been following along and if you’ve been part of this congregation for any length of time through the book of Mark. Remember in chapter 3 that the Pharisees and the Herodians conspired together to figure out how they could kill Jesus. And you could hardly find two groups of people who hated each other more than the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees were all about the law. And the Herodians could have given a flip about the law. They were pleasure-seeking, irreligious, power-hungry people. In the case of Jesus, in their blind hatred for them, they were able to come together. Now, why am I bringing this up? Why am I bringing this up here in chapter 10? Well, I’m bringing this up because of the question that the Pharisees ask. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Back in chapter 6 of the Gospel of Mark, we found some detail in regard to the death of John the Baptist, right? What had Herod done? Well, he’d put away his own wife, and he’d taken his brother’s wife, right? He took Philip’s wife, Herodias. And John the Baptist said, he called him out on it. He said, it’s not lawful for you to do this thing. This is sinful. You must stop. You must take your wife back. Give Philip his wife back. So John the Baptist did not hold his tongue. And Herodias, right, she hated him for this. So John the Baptist was thrown into prison, but that wasn’t enough for Herodias. She gets her own daughter to dance a seductive dance. And then Herod asks her, or he grants her any wish she wants, and Herodias whispers in her ear. And before you know it, you have John the Baptist’s head on a platter, right? Well, the Pharisees wanted Jesus’ head on a platter. The Pharisees wanted Jesus’ head on a platter every bit as much as Herodias wanted John the Baptist dished up for them. Jesus aren’t asking a question because they’re interested in learning. They haven’t come to get educated. They’ve come to trap Him, right? They’ve come to trap Him. So what does Jesus do? Well, Jesus appeals to Scripture, right? He turns to the Word of God. He asks them, what did Moses command you? And they go to Deuteronomy 24, okay? They go to Deuteronomy 24. It says, Moses permitted a man to divorce his wife, to write a certificate of divorce and dismiss her. They appealed to that chapter. In that book, in the blindness of their hearts, they’re taking the law and they’re twisting it. They’re trying to get it to suit their selfish demands. Their approach to the law was, what does the law allow me to do? What does the law allow me to get away with? There’s a clause in Deuteronomy 24. We’re not going to turn there today. We don’t have time. But there’s a clause in there. There’s an uncleanness clause. We don’t have time to clean this clause as a loophole to get away with putting away their wife for just about anything. And this preoccupation with loopholes had the effect of causing them to neglect the weightier matters of the law, namely loving God and loving your neighbor. In just a little while, the scribes are going to come to Jesus in Mark chapter 12. In a couple weeks, you’ll be reading this, but they’ll say, what is the greatest commandment? And Jesus says right there, Hear, O Israel, the Lord God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But these men before Jesus were primarily concerned with their rights and not their responsibilities. They were more concerned with what they could do than with what they ought to be doing. So Jesus’ question reveals the sinfulness of their hearts. It reveals their blindness. And Jesus says, yes, I’m familiar with that passage. I’m familiar with Deuteronomy 24. He says, let me take you back just a little bit further. He says, because of the hardness of your hearts, this prescript was written. But Jesus takes them back in Scripture. He says, let’s go all the way back to Genesis. Let’s go back to that first book of the Pentateuch. Let’s go back to Genesis chapter 2. And he says in verse 6, And what Jesus is doing here is he’s giving us a pattern for all relationships, for all human relationships. This is to be the pattern for men and women. And if we’re following this, and it’s not hard to follow because this is pretty plain speak here, this excludes a lot of what society wants to allow for today. This pattern that God gives excludes homosexuality, right? It’s not Adam and Steve. It’s not Adam and John. It’s not Adam and Paul. It’s not Susie and Sally. It’s Adam and Eve, right? This excludes polygamy. It’s not Adam and Sarah and Jane and Joan. It’s Adam and Eve. It excludes bestiality. So we can see here that Jesus is arguing the pattern that God set forth that pleases him one man, one woman, one time. That’s it. That’s what he desires. That’s what he wants for his people. Jesus has been talking with the Pharisees. He’s answering their trick question. But the disciples have been listening, and they have questions of their own. So when the Pharisees depart, the disciples come to Jesus, and they say, can you just hit that one more time? Can you go over that one more time? Because we’re not sure we’re following you correctly, which is an indication that the disciples and probably all of the Jews at that particular time the Pharisees for so long that they thought there was nothing wrong with marriage and easy divorce. But again, the issue is God’s word, his pattern, his approval, his desire for men and women. Again, really the issue is the two greatest commandments, loving God and loving your neighbor, loving God and loving your nearest neighbor, and this is one of the big things Mark is trying to show us here. I mean, look at the next section of scripture as we make our way through Mark chapter 10. Children, what about them? Loving them, loving children, receiving children. And so the question becomes, are you loving your neighbor? Verse 13, then they brought little children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. And this is amazing. Actually, because of what just occurred in chapter nine. Do you remember back in chapter nine? I guess Tyler Hatcher would have preached this last week, but they’re sitting in the home of Peter and Andrew. And Jesus even uses a visual aid. He brings a child into the center. I don’t know if he sat him on his lap, but he brings a child into the center and he talks about how we ought to be receiving children. And he contrasted the way Satan receives or abuses and destroys children. Versus how his followers should receive them. And here we have the disciples, once again, not having really ascertained or understood or been able to comprehend fully what Jesus was talking about just a few days ago. Because here we see them acting like bad-tempered bouncers, right? They rebuke the parents and they block access to the children. And Jesus says no. He says no. And Jesus here makes a very direct application for them and for us. He says you should be like them. Jesus says assuredly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. He says let them come unto me. But don’t just let them come unto me. I want you to watch them. You too must become little. In a very real sense you too must become little. You too must humble yourselves. Which is ironic considering the engagement that Jesus is going to have in just a couple of verses with James and John. Right? And their request. It’s crazy how all these things are tied together. But next comes this rich young ruler. Another blind man. As Jesus continues his journey in verse 17. He encounters this young man. And unlike the Pharisees, this guy really does come honestly. All right? He comes honestly with his question. And he asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do? This man wants to know what must be done. He thinks it’s all about doing. This young man thinks, this rich young ruler thinks it’s all about striving. He thinks this is what makes a man good. Right? And he addresses Jesus as good. And I’m certain he thinks of himself as good as well. And Jesus says, no one is good but God. And no one can make you good but God. Right? We know it’s for grace you’ve been saved. And this is not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God that no man can boast. We know that. This is the word that God tells us over and over again. And this is what Jesus is telling this rich young ruler. This is what he’s showing this young man is that it’s all God’s grace. Rich young man asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus brings the word of God to bear. Do you see that there? He brings the commandments to bear. God determines what is good. He defines it. You know, we don’t like to do that because it’s painful. What we like to do is we like to compare ourselves to others as if God greeted on a curve, right? We want to compare ourselves with our coworkers. We like to compare ourselves with the other women in the congregation or our neighbors. We want to grade on a curve. And compared to some of the folks that I’ve surrounded myself with, I am a pretty righteous man, right? I work harder. I work harder. I’m more diligent, right? I spend more time with my kids than that other guy down the street. I pay my taxes. I don’t cheat on my taxes. I never stole a thing. I covet once in a while, but hey, who hasn’t? So I think I’m pretty good there. You know, you’re always, always, always going to be able to find someone who’s doing worse than you are before the throne of God. As long as you’re grading on the curve, you’ll always be able to find someone doing more poorly than you are. He points him to the standard, God’s standard, his word, his opinion, his desire for nothing else matters. Anyway, Jesus listens to this young man. He presents the second table of the law to this young guy and he says, yes, yes, yes. All these things I have kept, all these things I have kept, remember this guy comes asking Jesus what he must do. So Jesus gives him something to do, right? He gives him something to do in verse 21. Jesus says, all right, let’s just assume you have been keeping the law, right? Not grading on a curve. You’ve just been keeping the law straight up, right? I’m going to give you this one thing to do. One thing you lack, go and sell all you possess and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. So Jesus gives this young man an assignment and asks for something to do. And the fact that he can’t keep the assignment reveals that he hasn’t been keeping the rest of the law either. I hope you can see the irony here, right? He asks for something to do. Jesus gives him something to do and he goes away sad, right? He goes away sorrowful for he had much. Now we don’t really know what happened to this guy. We don’t know whether eventually he was saved or not. We don’t know if the law did its work, sort of driving him to his knees so he’d look to Christ as Savior and Lord and to his Father God. We don’t know about any of that. But we do know it’s possible, and a lot of commentators mention this. It’s possible that the rich young ruler, the man in this story that we’re introduced to in verse 17, is actually Mark, is actually the gospel writer Mark. We know that Mark came to Jesus at an early age, and we know that he was a man of means. So if it was the gospel writer, then we know that he was saved. Anyway, this young man, he leaves, he goes away, and Jesus is left standing there with the disciples, and he says how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. And he even uses a little hyperbole here. He takes the biggest creature in Palestine at the time, right, a camel, a dromedary, about the smallest thing you could find, the eye of a needle. And he impresses upon them the fact that it’d be easier for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. And the disciples, it’s interesting, are just slack-jawed at this. Never heard anything like this before. It tells us they were astonished at his words. They couldn’t believe them. They couldn’t understand because they equated prosperity with blessing. Didn’t everybody? I mean, wasn’t this biblical? What does it say in Deuteronomy 28? What does it say in Psalm 128? What does it say in Proverbs 10? The blessing of the Lord makes one rich. He adds no sorrow with it. So what are you saying, Jesus? This is the second time in this chapter where the disciples have to sort of pull Jesus aside after he’s with the Pharisees, Jesus’ teaching because it’s so contrary to what they know and what they think they understand, right? And we need to be careful here because we too need to bring all of God’s word, all of Jesus’ words to bear when it comes to any given subject, right? In regard to this one, Jesus says in Matthew 6, right? No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon, right? It says that there in chapter 6. You can’t have both God and mammon. It says you can’t serve both God and mammon. God requires us to have money, right? I’m a provider. My wife is sitting right over there, four kids through college and everything else. If I’m not a provider, then I’m worse than an unbeliever. If I’m not a good provider, I’ve denied the faith. So there’s nothing wrong with having. It’s required in Scripture. The question becomes who you’re serving. He requires you to have money, he requires you to work hard, and he requires you to steward things well. Jesus doesn’t say you can’t have money in God. He says you cannot serve money in God. You see, both speak, right? Both have a language. God has his word and his commands, and money speaks too. Money says, well, that’s not financially prudent. Money might tell you that’s not fiscally wise. God’s word says, what he’s voicing, and what money says, and what money’s voicing, they’re in contrast with one another. They’re in conflict with one another. So the question becomes, whose voice are you listening to? Actually, that’s the question. Now, back to the text. Peter, with some self-awareness, says, hey, we’ve left all. I and the boys, we’ve left everything. Our families are far from here. Our wives and our children are far from here. We left our vocation. You remember James and John, they dropped their nets, they hugged their father goodbye, and they went off and followed Jesus. And this is the story for most of them. So they say, we left all. He points this out. And Jesus says, yeah. He says, yes, you have. And he goes on to praise him. And the disciples, you will receive a hundredfold what you have left for my sake, along with persecution. That’s interesting that that’s thrown in here. You see that in verse 30. Speaking of persecution, Jesus then goes on to remind the disciples of exactly what’s going to happen to him in the coming days as they get closer to Jerusalem and eventually enter the city itself. And if you’ve been paying attention in the Gospel of Mark, you’re going to know that this is the third time that Jesus brings up this subject. And for Peter, James, and John, it’s actually the fourth time that Jesus mentions this because he mentioned it to them when they were coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration. And Jesus’ words here are greeted with silence. Isn’t that interesting? Because Jesus talks to them after the Pharisees have this fake question about divorce. They have questions about divorce. They hear about this rich young ruler, and Jesus gives this statement, this hyperbole about camels, going through the eye of a needle, and they have questions there. But Jesus mentions this, the plan of salvation, for the third time, and it’s greeted by silence, right? Why is it greeted by silence? Well, the disciples are afraid, because this plan of salvation doesn’t match their idea of Messiah and how he’s going to conquer. There was a blindness, again, a spiritual blindness that actually was affecting them so that they could not see God’s plan of salvation. Ironically, Christ’s enemies understood and took more literally what Jesus was saying than what they were. And we know this because the chief priests and the scribes, his enemies, determined that it would be a very good idea to have a guard by the tomb because they anticipated that Jesus might arise from the dead. Anyway, no sooner does Jesus finish outlining the plan of salvation for the world, his path to death, resurrection, ascension, and glory, no sooner does he do this than he’s approached by James and John with a question. They come sidling up to Jesus with a request in verse 35. They say, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. Have you ever had your kids come up to you and ask the same question? Promise you’ll say yes. Mommy, promise dad, daddy, promise you’ll say yes. And how do we respond? What’s your question? What do you want? How does Jesus respond here? What do you want, right? And they say, grant that we may sit one on your right and the other on your left in your glory. And this question reveals just how little they’ve understood about what Jesus has been saying. How absolutely little they grasp. Not just here, but over the last several days, Jesus has been talking to them about serving, about giving yourself away, about pouring yourself out. He’s been talking to them about humility and they haven’t been listening. As a matter of fact, it’s just, it’s crazy because back in chapter nine, remember when they’re on the road to Capernaum, right? They’re on the road up there to Peter and Andrew’s house. When they’re on the road, they’re having this argument, this discussion about who’s the greatest. Remember? I think you probably touched on this last week in the service. And Jesus asks them what they’re complaining and grumbling about back there because there’s a bit of a ruckus in the ranks. And that’s greeted by silence because they’re embarrassed. They’re embarrassed to tell their savior, they’re embarrassed to tell their leader what it is that they’ve been arguing about because they know better. They’re embarrassed, but apparently not embarrassed enough, right? They’re still talking about this, obviously. They’re still rumbling about rank and status. And they think, I know that they think that all of this is going to happen when they arrive in Jerusalem. And again, this is so crazy that they would think this after Jesus has been saying plainly what awaits him when they get to Jerusalem, you know? But they’ve been part of this wildly successful ministry, right? Countless exorcism. How many demons have been cast out by now? In this three-year ministry. How many miracles? How many healings? They’d seen Jesus create ex nihilo, right? Out of midair, fish and bread. He fed 4,000. He fed 5,000. They’ve seen him walk on water. They’ve seen him calm the sea. They’ve seen all these things. And using carnal reasoning, what would a man do who could do anything when he got to Jerusalem? After a very successful three-year ministry. What’s he going to do? Well, he’s going to assume the throne, right? He’s going to take a palace. He’s going to start wielding his power. It’s time for awards and victory speeches and whatnot. We’re going to go from strength to strength. And James and John want to be positioned just so. One on the right and one on the left of Jesus. Because surely God’s going to lift him up there, right? Surely he’ll be exalted now. And they’re right. You know, they’re right. Jesus will be, he will be lifted up. And if those disciples had stuck with him, if they’d been true disciples, if they’d remained faithful, if they’d been there with him when he was on trial, if they’d been there with him when he was being scourged, if they would have plainly stated to the crowds that were gathered that, hey, we’re with that guy, then they might have been lifted up. James on one side and John on the other. But this honor went to, two insurgents on that hill called Golgotha. So Jesus looks at these two and he responds with such grace. You’ve got to see that there. He looks at them and he says, you boys have no idea what you’re asking for, right? Are you able to drink from the cup I drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism? I’m about to be baptized, full submersion, right? Incredible pain and sorrow. Well, the other disciples get wind of this request from James and John. And as you can imagine, they’re none too happy. They’re ticked, displeased, indignant. They were furious. And it’s funny, I don’t think they were furious about the sin. They weren’t disappointed for James and John that they would have faltered at this point. And in spite of these two men, I think the other ten disciples were sorry that they hadn’t thought of this first, that they hadn’t come to Jesus just a little bit earlier. You know, here are the disciples. Everyone’s willing to bear a grudge, but no one’s willing to bear a cross. That’s what you’ve got here. And Jesus has been with these men for three years, and still, everybody willing to bear a grudge, and no one willing to bear a cross. And this bickering provides Jesus with just one more opportunity to provide instruction on the nature of true discipleship and his role as Messiah. And this is what we have in verses 42 to 45, and this is sort of where we’re going to camp out. Jesus tries to channel their desire to be great into humble service. Jesus says, you want to be first? You want to be great? You want to be first or great? Then serve. Jesus has already said that it’s the salt of humility that makes all the difference in the world, in everything that we do, in everything that we offer up, in everything we sacrifice, in every endeavor. It’s the salt of humility, right? He says this in chapter 9, have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another. But we struggle with this. We struggle with this so much, because we’re proud, arrogant, absorbed, self-absorbed, grasping people. Humility is so hard to find today. Apparently, not much has changed in 2,000 years, except this, except this. We’ve managed to turn self-centeredness into a virtue. The very thing that Jesus has been preaching against here, has been trying to beat back, we’ve turned into a virtue. And the church has quite honestly led the way in this. Evangelical churches across America have been toting cycle babble as long and as loud as everybody else. You know, before you can truly love others, before you can serve well, you’ve got to figure out how to love yourself. You need to take care of yourself. You need to be careful. You can pour yourself out, but don’t pour yourself out all the way. There’s no way that your strength is going to be renewed in the morning. Never mind what scripture says. Just take a measured approach to all this and make sure you have a good attitude about you and yourself and things. We’ve inverted God’s law and his requirements. He says, love me and love your neighbor and use self-love as the measuring stick, right? Love others as you love yourself, right? Self-worth first. And of course, for many people, this takes a lifetime, right? So they never get around to actually pouring themselves out. They never get around to actually loving others and giving themselves in a way. We live in a culture where the biggest book selection on Amazon is the self-help section, right? You go into a bookstore today, the biggest section in there is going to be on self-help. And Christians don’t think a thing of it. It’s a tricky thing. We have to be careful because we trick ourselves into believing that we’re not proud. And we deceive ourselves. We take pride in the fact that we’re not proud. Humility hates pride. But you know what? Pride hates pride too. The proud don’t like those who are prideful. And you know why? They can’t stand the competition. J.C. Ryle has commented that the world is filled with Jameses and Johns. Go-getters, status seekers, hungry for honor and prestige, measuring life by achievements and dreaming of success. But Jesus’ life and teaching turns the worldly understanding of greatness and success on its head. The greatest work ever done was accomplished by one who gave his life for others. It means to have a servant as a Lord. How can we shamelessly seek after honor and glory when our own Lord gave himself for us in such a shameful way? It also forces us to reflect on our own definitions of greatness and think about how we pursue it, right? Clearly, the world’s notions of rank and honor and privilege are out of step in a church that names Jesus Christ as Lord. Jesus says in verses 43 and 44, he says, you want to be great? Do you truly want to be great? He says, then become a servant. You want to be first in the kingdom? You want to be first in the kingdom? Then get to the back of the line, right? Then become a slave of all. For even I, even I didn’t come to be served, but to serve. And you know how you know if you get it? You know how you know if you get this teaching, if you get Christ’s teaching here? If you really understand how to become first in the kingdom and how to become, great in God’s eyes. You know how you know? Well, you know it by looking at how you respond when given menial tasks to perform that the world would judge beneath you, beneath your dignity. God promises tremendous blessing to his people here, blessing and joy here on this earth. He gives the saints mountaintop experiences, but he doesn’t give his saints mountaintop experiences in this world without having them walk through valleys. There’s always a valley. There are always both. There’s always something that God preserves us through. And then the mountaintop. This is God’s way. First the cross and then resurrection. But we want the glory first. We don’t want trial. We don’t want struggle. We don’t want to be humbled. We don’t want affliction. We don’t want any pain and suffering. We don’t want to be refined. But Jesus says no. He says no. Let’s pray. show less

Tyler Hatcher (Mark 9)

SUMMARY In this sermon based on Mark chapter 9, the speaker emphasizes Jesus’ identity as the great King, Prophet, and Priest, particularly highlighted through the Transfiguration and His miracles, including the healing of a boy possessed by a demon. Jesus instructs His disciples about the necessity of humility and servitude, teaching that true greatness comes from being the last and serving all. He discusses the importance of cutting off sinful behaviors, advocating for a vigilant stance against sin while also reminding them of God’s covenant faithfulness. The sermon culminates in a call to recognize Jesus as the ultimate solution to their internal struggles with envy and disputes over greatness, urging the congregation to maintain a focus on Christ to cultivate peace with one another and live as “salty Christians” filled with His grace. TRANSCRIPTION Choose show more to view the transcription. Transcriptions are AI generated and MAY be incorrect. Rely on the spoken word heard in the audio file. show more Our text this morning is from Mark chapter 9. Before I introduce this, this is another long one. So children especially, give your attention to the reading. Stay with me. These are the words of God. And let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. And a cloud came and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved Son. Hear Him. And so they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising of the dead meant. And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them. Immediately when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him. And He asked the scribes, What are you discussing with them? Then one of the crowd answered and said, So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not. And He answered and said to them, So He asked His father, How long has this been happening to him? And He said, Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Then the spirit cried out, And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out? So he said to them, This kind can come out by nothing but fasting and prayer. Then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and he did not want anyone to know it. For he taught his disciples and said to them, The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And after he is killed, he will rise the third day. But they did not understand this saying and were afraid to ask him. Then he came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them, What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road? But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest. And he sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them. Then he said to them, Whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. And now John answered him, saying, Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us. But Jesus said, Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterwards speak evil of me, for he who is not against us is on our side. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame, rather than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another. These are the words of the Lord. Our Father and our God, we thank you for revealing yourself to us by giving us your word and by sending your Son, our Lord Jesus. We ask as we continue to worship you this morning that you would give us wisdom by your Holy Spirit to understand what you would have us see in this chapter. Guard and guide my tongue and open the ears and hearts of those gathered here. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Please be seated. I bring you greetings from the other coast, from Seattle area, and thank you for orchestrating the weather so I feel right at home. This was very thoughtful of you. It is a pleasure to be with you all, and I do bring you greetings from the saints at Trinity Church in the Seattle area. It is a wonder to see what God is doing here. It is exciting. We pray for you. We are blessed to see you all gathering faithfully to worship in this place, and so thank you. Carry on. It is a wonderful thing. As we dive into this next chapter of Mark, I want to remind us a little bit of what we saw previously. In chapter 8, in the previous chapter, Jesus had asked the disciples who they thought he was. This is towards the end of the chapter, and Peter identified Jesus as the Christ. Jesus asked, who do you say that I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ. This is the Messiah, the anointed one, who would be like a new David, a new anointed king. And he was to be the Lord and king over all the nations. This calls to mind Psalm 2, where we see the Lord setting up his anointed one on the throne. And he says to this anointed one, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance. And we see this fulfilled then in Jesus’ resurrection and his ascension. But at this point, this all hasn’t happened yet, but Peter identifies Jesus as the anointed one, as the Messiah. He identifies him as the one who’s going to become this king. He testifies to this. And so then Jesus goes into, at the end of chapter 8, describing what it looks like to follow this king. He says that it looks like denying oneself, picking up the cross, losing one’s life for the sake of Christ and the good news in order to save your life. In Romans chapter 12, we are to be living sacrifices before God. To pick up one’s cross is a death sentence, and Jesus calls us to do this denying ourselves daily. We are to be living sacrifices, living before God, and wherever we find ourselves, that is the altar that God has called us to, to deny ourselves and to die. This sort of commitment to Christ. And that is the idol of the self. He does this both by, in two primary ways. In the first half of the chapter, we will see that Jesus hints at, it’s not all fully revealed, but he hints at the fact that he is the great king, that he is the great prophet, that he is the great priest. In other words, Jesus is the greatest. And then this is followed by this dispute that the disciples have, talking among themselves, who is the greatest? There’s this great irony here in this chapter. And then this is contrasted. So this claim that Jesus makes, that he is the greatest, is contrasted with this dispute that the disciples have about who is the greatest. And then Jesus corrects this and exposes this idol of the self. This is obviously a long chapter, and there are lots of things in here that we don’t have time to get into. Lots of questions that I think this chapter raises, and there are lots of details here that we won’t touch on. Keep this theme in mind as we go through. Jesus is establishing in types and shadows, it’s not all fully revealed yet in this chapter, but he’s establishing that he is the greatest, that he is this great king, and then you have this contrast with the disciples disputing among themselves with this envious, covetous sort of argument about who is the greatest. This is the main theme I want us to focus on this morning. Following the disciples’ testimony that Jesus was the anointed, and again, keeping Psalm 2 in mind, the psalm where the anointed one is high and lifted up and is declared to be the one who will receive the nations as his inheritance. So following that testimony from the disciples, keeping Psalm 2 in mind, Jesus declares in verse 1 that some from among the people and the disciples that were gathered with him would not die until they saw the kingdom of God come with power. There were some that were present there with Jesus among the disciples and the other people that were gathered around that would see the kingdom present with power. And then Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, three of his disciples, with him up to this high mountain. They witness Jesus being transfigured before them in such a way that his garments are startlingly white. This is signifying that there is a greater glory bestowed upon Jesus in this moment. In Daniel’s vision, the Ancient of Days is described as having garments that are startlingly white. In this story here, we see Jesus himself bearing these garments, and we’ll see that he’s actually the Son of Man that comes to the Ancient of Days. But there’s some hints here that we should have Daniel’s prophecy in mind. Okay, so there’s so many things going on in this vision. Not vision in an unreal sense, but this thing that the disciples see. Jesus up on a mountain. Okay, so what do we have going on here? This is all hinting at Jesus as the great king. Hinting to Jesus as this great king. Jesus is the greatest king. He’s the king of kings and the Lord of lords. This is a preview of his ascension. The Mount of Transfiguration is a preview then of the ascension that Jesus would take after his resurrection. But at this time, Jesus instructs the three disciples not to discuss it. Don’t discuss this until the Son of Man had been risen from the dead. The disciples obey this. But they are confused by what the rising from the dead could mean. It says they obeyed him and they kept this to themselves, Peter, James, and John. But they’re confused by what Jesus means that the Son of Man would rise from the dead. So this first part of the chapter here, we see Jesus hinting at his ascension, hinting at the fact that he is the great king. Jesus, of course, is also the great prophet. He is the great prophet fulfilling Moses’ prophecy in Deuteronomy 18. Moses gives this prophecy in Deuteronomy 18 that there would be this prophet that would come after him, and he is this particular prophet that the people must hear, and if they don’t hear this prophet, they will be cut off. Jesus is clearly here identified with Moses and Elijah, these two great prophets in Israel’s history. As a side note, we also see, many commentators will allude to this, Moses representing the law, and Elijah representing the prophets, and Jesus representing the gospel, all together in unity and communion with one another. But there, Jesus is identified with Moses and Elijah, so his disciples see this, and then as they’re coming down the mountain, Jesus says to them, this is verse 12, he answers, why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? And then Jesus answers, Elijah is coming first and restores all things, and he’ll say that Elijah already has come, and other passages tell us that this is fulfilled in John the Baptist. But in the middle of this part, Jesus says, he asks them, how is it written concerning the Son of Man that he must suffer many things and be treated with contempt? And so he puts in the disciples’ mind that he’s with Moses and Elijah, and he comes down from the mountain, and the Son of Man is to suffer many things, be treated with contempt, which was sort of characteristic of the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus says in other places that no prophet is received in his own country. He’s treated with contempt in his own country. Okay, but not only this, Jesus, so he’s associated with Elijah and Moses. He then says that he’s going to suffer like the prophets suffered, but then Jesus descends the mountain, and what does he find? He descends the mountain, and he finds a tumult. There’s all kinds of commotion going on, and this, I think, is similar to, the golden calf incident with Moses. Remember, Moses is up on Mount Sinai after having brought the people out of Egypt. God is delivering to him the law, and Moses comes down the mountain. What does he find? He finds the people in all sorts of licentiousness, worshiping this golden calf that Aaron had made for them, all kinds of idolatry and immorality, this huge commotion. In fact, it’s such a big commotion that when they’re coming down the mountain, Joshua says to Moses, there’s the sound of war in the camp. It’s that crazy what’s going on down in the camp of Israel. Similarly, Jesus descends the mountain. He finds this big commotion. When Moses comes down the mountain in the golden calf incident, he notes that the people were unrestrained in their licentiousness. They were unrestrained. Look at what Jesus sees here. Jesus comes down the mountain, and he sees the scribes and the disciples disputing amongst themselves, and he asks what is going on. Jesus comes down the mountain, and he’s confronted with this demon, this spirit, who takes this boy and makes him like one who is unrestrained. This spirit casts this boy into the fire and into the water in order to try to destroy him. I think we’re to see here a similarity back to what Moses says about the people as he comes down the mountain. They’re unrestrained. They are possessed with this idolatry in a sense, and they are unrestrained in their worship of this golden calf. While on Mount Sinai, Moses interceded with Yahweh to not wipe out Israel because of their idolatry. Because of this idolatry, this worship of this golden calf, I’m done with Israel. I’m ready to wipe them out. I’ll make a new line just out of you, Moses. And Moses intercedes on behalf of the people and asks God to be merciful to them for his own namesake. So Moses intercedes like a good prophet, intercedes with Yahweh on behalf of the people. And Jesus we see also coming down the mountain, and he calls the people a faithless generation. He finds out what the dispute is about. He says this is a faithless generation. But he asks this question, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Jesus, this prophet, this great prophet, continues to bear with this generation at least for the time being. There is judgment that is going to come upon them. There is the wrath of God that will be poured out upon them. But for now, Jesus bears with them, almost as though he’s interceding on their behalf, Moses did. And of course, we know that Jesus is the one who intercedes now before the Father on behalf of his people. So we see all these parallels with Jesus being identified with Moses. He sees Moses. He’s going to suffer like Moses suffered. He comes down the mountain. He sees a tumult like Moses saw a tumult. He calls the generation a faithless generation, but he bears with them for now. He sees the people unrestrained in at least a type or a symbol. He is like Moses. But he’s also like Elijah. Remember that the story of Elijah, when God sends him out of Israel and he goes to the widow of Zarephath and the widow that he stays with, her son, falls deathly sick. And Elijah, God, through Elijah, works this miracle to revive the widow’s son. When he revives this son, the widow says of him, now by this I know that you are a man of God. And by the fact that you have raised my son back to life, you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth is the truth. Jesus is identified as the great prophet. He’s the one who’s rebuking faithless Israel and demonstrating his authority through a miracle that his disciples, even though they had been given power to cast out some spirits, they were not able to cast out this one. They were not able to perform this miracle. Jesus is the great prophet. He’s the one who speaks the words of God with authority. And this is why the father says of him, this is my beloved son, hear him. He is being hinted at, being shown to be the great king. He’s also being shown to be the great prophet. And these things are, there are types and shadows here, but there’s a sense in which these things are obvious. Jesus is obviously being glorified to be this great king. He’s obviously powerful with the words of his mouth, able to cast out this spirit, able to revive this boy, faithful as a prophet in calling the generation that he is speaking to a faithless generation. But then, in the middle of this chapter, we have something slightly different. Oh, I’m sorry, I neglected one thing. At the end of this, his disciples come to Jesus, and they ask him, why could we not cast out the demon? Why could we not cast him out? Jesus says, this kind can only come by prayer and fasting. It can only be cast out by prayer and by fasting. But Jesus, there’s no indication that Jesus himself took time to pray and fast in order to cast out this demon. Again, his power is so much greater than his disciples. Okay, so then we come to, if you’re following along, we’re now in verses 30 through 32. Jesus travels on with his disciples, but he does so quietly because he wants to teach his disciples. He has something important that he wants to teach them, and he doesn’t want to be interrupted by the crowds that are coming to see him. So he travels quietly, and he doesn’t want anybody to know it because he has something that he wants to teach his disciples. And he tells them plainly, the Son of Man will be betrayed. He will be killed, and he will be raised from the dead. He tells them very plainly at this time. But Mark notes that they did not understand this saying. Just like James, John, and Peter did not understand when Jesus said that the Son of Man will be raised from the dead. Don’t tell about this transfiguration until the Son of Man is raised from the dead. They didn’t understand that. Now Jesus tells all the disciples, the Son of Man will be betrayed, he will be killed, he will be raised from the dead, and they don’t understand this. But not only do they not understand, this is very striking, Mark says that they were afraid to ask him. They don’t understand, and they don’t want to go ask Jesus to explain it to them. Why might this be? We’re not told exactly why. Maybe it was because they were full of shame because of their bewilderment. Jesus is obviously spending some time to teach us something very particular. He doesn’t want to be bothered by the crowds right now. He doesn’t want to be interrupted by the crowds. He’s trying to give us a very important message, and I don’t get it. So maybe they didn’t come to him because they were sort of ashamed because of their lack of understanding. Maybe they’re concerned that Jesus would chide them for not getting it. He said this a couple of times leading up to this, hinted at the fact that the Son of Man would die and would be raised from the dead, and still they’re not getting it. But in any case, there’s this fear that they have. They’re not really with it. They don’t understand. And they’re afraid to talk to Jesus about it. So what is Jesus saying here? Well, while still in types and shadows, again, Jesus is being revealed so far in this chapter as the great king who would have an everlasting dominion. He’s being revealed as the great prophet whose word accomplishes wonders. And here he speaks very plainly about what is going to happen to him. And we know on this side of the cross, on this side of the resurrection, we know that this reveals him to be the great priest. But here his disciples don’t see it. Maybe they could see that he’s the great king. Maybe they could see that he’s the great prophet. They don’t get that he’s the great priest. They don’t see it. And so then Jesus moves on. They come to Capernaum, verse 33. Jesus and his disciples come to a house, and there Jesus perceives that they are disputed among themselves about who is the greatest. They come into the house, and Jesus says, what are you talking about? And it’s very quiet. Kids, have you ever experienced that? You’re riding in the car, and there’s this something going on in the back, and all of a sudden mom says from the front, hey, what are you guys talking about? It’s suddenly very quiet in the car. Why might that be? And so they’re very quiet. They don’t answer. They keep silent because they know. They know. They know that they were disputing amongst themselves who would be the greatest, and they know what Jesus thinks about this kind of thing. Jesus’ response here is very interesting. It says, Jesus sat down, and he called the 12, and then he says to them. So his disciples are these 12 men that have been with Jesus. They’re kind of a rough-and-ready group. They’re arguing among themselves about who is the greatest. There’s this big dispute that’s happening. Jesus calls them out on it, but instead of laying into them and rebuking them because of their idiocy, he calls them to himself, and he sits down like a good teacher. He says, guys, huddle up for a second. If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Jesus doesn’t even tell them, like mom and dad sometimes say, well, actually, I know what you were talking about. Jesus, of course, knows what they were talking about, but he doesn’t come out front and say that. Instead, he gives them the word, the exact word that they need to hear. He gives them the exact word that they need to be last of all. They need to be the servant of all. In the midst of his teachings and his revelations that he’s given to the disciples through this chapter, they’ve been confused. Verse 10. They didn’t understand what Jesus was saying about this son of man who would rise from the dead. They were unable. They had been demonstrated to not be greater than their master. They couldn’t cast the spirit out. Verse 28. They’re confused. They’re unable. And then when Jesus is teaching them privately, they are bewildered and afraid to ask him about it. They’re not good students, right? The good student is the student that’s willing to ask the question when he doesn’t understand. The disciples are too afraid to ask. And here’s this great irony, right? The disciples, we’ve seen them fall short and be confused and they’re unable and they’re afraid. And then they have the audacity amongst themselves to have this dispute about which one of them is the greatest. You can understand maybe why this came up. Peter, James, and John had been kind of selected as this center group of the disciples. They got to go up on the mountain with Jesus. And then Jesus tells them, don’t tell anybody about this. So they come down the mountain. You can imagine the other disciples are coming around. What did you see? Maybe they’re talking about this as they leave. There’s this commotion that’s going on right away. Maybe after they depart and they’re wandering down to Capernaum through Galilee, maybe that’s when the disciples say, so what happened up on the mountain? Peter, James, and John say, well, we can’t tell you. You can see how perhaps there might be a little bit of envy and covetousness being stirred up. And the disciples, all of a sudden, they find themselves in this mess, disputing about who is the greatest. Jesus instructs them, though, that greatness is demonstrated by lifting up the lowly. Right? If anyone desires to be first of all, he should be last of all and servant of all. Right? One who serves. Jesus will say the same kind of thing in the next chapter. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And Jesus himself models this as he leads his disciples on. As he continues to shepherd them. He’s gentle with them. He lifts them up. They are this lowly, ragtag bunch of disciples who are acting like a bunch of kids squabbling in the back of a car. And he’s gentle with them. He says, come here. You need to be servant of all. Jesus himself is modeling this. He sits down. He gets down with them. To show them what it means to serve. And he does this having made it very, very clear that he is the greatest. He’s the great king. He’s the great prophet. He’s the great priest. But it’s interesting that in all these things, it’s the great priest that they particularly don’t understand. They don’t know what it means that he’s going to rise from the dead. And I think here we see they don’t understand it because they don’t understand what it means to serve. Jesus is going to rise from the dead because he gives his life. His disciples don’t see this. John then responds to this in verse 38. And he recounts how they rebuked someone who did not follow them but who did cast out demons in Jesus’ name. Just like Jesus had cast out the demons and just like the disciples had cast out other demons, they see this other guy who’s casting out demons but he’s doing it in Jesus’ name. He’s doing it in Jesus’ name but he doesn’t follow with the disciples. And so they rebuked him. They told him to stop it. And Jesus corrects this also. In other words, Jesus is saying it’s not good for them to dispute among themselves who’s the greatest and it’s not good for them to dispute with an outsider and tell him that he can’t do that because they’re the inner circle of the apostles. Jesus says if he’s casting them out in my name, he’s on our side. This reminds us of other instances we see in scripture of this kind of thing. Moses in Numbers chapter 11. Moses tells Joshua, there’s these two guys, Eldad and Medad, in the camp that are prophesying. And Joshua gets up in arms about it and says to Moses, we should go tell them to stop. And Moses says, no, I wish that all of God’s people received a spirit of prophecy like these guys did. Paul says something similar in Philippians 1. Paul is in prison and he says that there are some who are preaching with contempt for him and envy towards him, but they’re preaching Christ. And Paul says, look, as long as they’re preaching Christ, I don’t care. As long as the gospel is preached, I don’t care what they say about me. I don’t care if it’s done with envy and contempt. At least Christ is preached. What’s the point here? Well, the focus for the disciples should not be on who’s the greatest, on who’s inside the group or who’s outside the group. The focus should be on Christ himself. They are to be looking to Christ or him, denying themselves, serving those that are brought in in order to continue to follow Christ. We can imagine that the disciples would not have denied that Jesus was the greatest. They wouldn’t have denied. If you ask them, okay, disciples, you’re having this dispute about who’s the greatest. What do you think about Jesus? They’d say, of course, Jesus is the greatest. They wouldn’t deny this, but this shows our grasping hearts. Okay, we might know who the greatest is, but we want the next honorable place. We see this so clearly on the playground or on the field during recess, and you’re picking teams, right? Everybody knows who’s going to get picked first, and we’re okay with that. We just don’t want to be picked last, right? And so the guy that gets picked first, that’s okay, and then there’s kind of this jostling and kind of stand up straighter, right? Look tough, because you want to get picked. You want to be next, and it’s okay if you’re not the first. But you just better not be last. These are our grasping hearts. We fundamentally don’t want to be last. We want somebody to be beneath us. I don’t have to be the first, but I’m going to dispute about who’s the greatest because I just don’t want to be the last. But what does Jesus say? Jesus says, no, if you want to be first, be last. Be a servant of all. All sin fundamentally is idolatry. All sin fundamentally is saying that I’m going to break God’s law because I know better than God. Or I want things that God has not given to me because God is not really good. He’s withholding from me. All sin is idolatry. It’s worshiping yourself or worshiping some other God than the true God. But Paul twice says in the New Testament specifically that covetousness is idolatry. All sin really fundamentally is idolatry. There’s something specific about covetousness that Paul associates with idolatry. And keeping that in mind then, we come to the end of the chapter. Jesus strikes at any complacency toward the things that lead us into sin. So first he gathers the disciples in together. He’s very gentle with them. But then he speaks very strongly about any sort of complacency with your sin, with the disciples’ sin. In the Gospel, we have him saying, if your hand causes you to sin, you better cut it off. Because it’s better to go into the kingdom of God without a hand than to go burn in hell forever. And if your eye causes you to sin, it’d be better to pluck it out and not have two eyes and enter into the kingdom than burn forever. And if your foot causes you to sin, you might as well cut it off and go into life lame. Because then as you enter into the kingdom lame, rather than go into hell. And on the one hand, this is of course very clear that we ought to be so vigilant toward our sin, or as Jesus ropes in here, causing the weak to sin, that we are willing to cut off the very thing that causes us to sin. Your fight, your battle against your own temptations should be so strong that you are willing to cut those things off if that would stop you from that sin. that our hand doesn’t really cause us to sin. Right? Go back to the Garden of Eden. Would the problem have been solved if Eve cut her hand off so that she didn’t eat the fruit? We know that that’s not true. The problem is not the hand. The problem is not the eye. The problem is not the foot. The problem is the heart. It is our selfish desires, the worship of oneself that really leads us into further sin. And so what is the solution? It’s interesting in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus makes it very clear, connects these things with the sins of the heart. But here, Jesus doesn’t go there directly. Instead, he starts talking about salt. He starts talking about salt. Jesus says that first, everyone will be seasoned with fire. Comparing this with what he has said before about the fires of hell, the fire that will not be quenched, he says that everyone will be seasoned with fire. So either we will be burned in the fires of hell that are not quenched because we worship ourselves and refuse to cut off that sin, refuse to submit to the greatness of Jesus, or we will be seasoned with his fire. John the Baptist said that Jesus would come and would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. That’s the fire that you will be seasoned with, or you’ll be burned and consumed with the fires that cannot be quenched. But Jesus also, so Jesus first says everyone will be seasoned with fire, but then he reminds the disciples that all the sacrifices are to be seasoned with salt. This is not something random that Jesus is pulling up. In the Old Testament, we’re told in Leviticus and in Numbers that, and then it’s mentioned again in the prophets, all of the sacrifices were to be seasoned with salt. And it was called sometimes the salt of the covenant of your God. So the priests were to actually put salt on these sacrifices that were to be offered to the Lord. This reminds the offerer, because it is the salt of the covenant of your God, this salt, this purifying agent, this seasoning agent on the sacrifice, reminds the offerer and the Lord then, the one who’s consuming the sacrifice, of his promises to his people. Jesus indicates to the disciples that they need this covenantal savor in them. They need this covenantal savor, the blessings of God, his promises in them. Because, again, what are they called to do? What does it mean to follow Christ? It means to deny yourself and take up your cross. It means to walk as a living sacrifice. Sacrifices must be seasoned with salt. Sacrifices must bear the covenant grace of God. That must be evident in them. You need to be a tasty sacrifice before God. What does this mean, though? And how is this connected, then, to the solution of these envious disputes, this covetous argument that the disciples had? Consider how the idol of the self makes the disciples themselves unrestrained. We saw how, when Moses comes down to see the golden calf commotion, that the people were unrestrained. And Jesus comes down the mountain, and he sees this boy who is unrestrained because of this demonic spirit that has him. The disciples themselves are unrestrained. They’ve been walking with Jesus, and he’s been declaring to them that he’s the greatest, and they are unrestrained in their covetousness and their envy, arguing amongst themselves who would be the greatest. We need Jesus to cast out this evil spirit, this spirit, this idol of the self. We need him to cast it out from us. The disciples needed Jesus to cast it away from them. Jesus does this with the boy. We read this at the very beginning. Jesus casts out the spirit. The spirit cried out. It convulsed the boy greatly and came out of him. And the boy became as one dead. So that many said, he is dead. We need Jesus. Jesus tells us to deny ourselves and take up our cross. That’s a call to die, to be a living sacrifice. But you need Jesus to cast down that idol. Of yourself. This is not something we can gin up and do in ourselves. You can’t be salty yourself. This is God’s grace poured out upon you. You need the great priest to cast this salt upon you. We need him to make us fall and be left like one dead. But we serve this son of man who himself died and himself was raised from the dead. And he grabs this boy’s hand and he lifts him up and he brings him back to life. This is the solution to the envious disputes. This is the solution to fundamentally all of our sin as followers of Christ. Yes, you need to do battle with your sin. Yes, you do need to cut off the things that fuel your sin. But fundamentally, you need to fall on your knees with whatever that sin is that is restraining you or making you live unrestrained, not following the ways of God. Not following after His law. You need Jesus to cast down that idol. And so, have salt in yourselves, like Jesus says. Remind yourselves of God’s covenant faithfulness. We’re on the other side of this. Jesus is saying this to His disciples, but we’re on the other side. The death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus has already taken place. He already is our great high priest. He already has poured out His Spirit. That’s why we’re celebrating Pentecost. He’s already poured out His Spirit upon you. And so relinquish those idols. Have salt in yourselves. Remind yourselves of God’s covenant faithfulness and that He is the God who has granted you everything. And thus, have peace with one another. This is how Jesus ends. Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another. The way we deal with those envious disputes and fighting is to remember who really is the greatest. Who really is the greatest. This is what it means to be a salty Christian. It means to have your eyes constantly on Christ. Constantly seeking after him. By means of this then, those sins that so easily ensnare you are set aside. They’re cut off. Not by your own works. Not by your own ginning up the strength in you to do it. But faithfully following after Christ. Trusting in him as you deny yourself and pick up your cross. As James says in James 4, Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, which is a mirror to us. Father, with all this talk about idols and our self and who is the greatest, we need your word to be this mirror to us. Show us where we need to deny ourselves. Where we need to put to death our selfish idols. And Father, we know that we need to deny ourselves. We know that we cannot do these things apart from your grace working in us. And so we ask you to remove the idols in our hearts. And then revive us. And then lift us up. That we might follow more after Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. We sing now the words our Lord Jesus taught us to pray. Amen. Amen. show less

Jared Longshore (Mark 8)

SUMMARY In the sermon from the Gospel of Mark chapter 8, Jesus addresses the skepticism of the Pharisees and the misunderstanding of His disciples concerning bread and spiritual matters. After performing miracles of feeding 5,000 and 4,000, He warns His disciples against the ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees and Herod, prompting them to reflect on their faith. Upon arriving at Bethsaida, He heals a blind man, demonstrating His power and emphasizing the need for spiritual insight. The sermon highlights Peter’s acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, followed by his rebuke of Jesus’ prediction of suffering, death, and resurrection. Jesus challenges His followers to deny themselves, embrace their crosses, and understand the cost of discipleship, as he stresses the importance of seeking the things of God over worldly concerns. The preacher underscores the call to live faith actively, drawing on biblical examples and the necessity of Scripture for spiritual growth, while acknowledging societal opposition to Christ’s teachings. Ultimately, believers are reassured of their identity in Christ, who will not be ashamed of them if they openly profess Him in a sinful generation. TRANSCRIPTION Choose show more to view the transcription. Transcriptions are AI generated and MAY be incorrect. Rely on the spoken word heard in the audio file. show more Our sermon text this morning is from the Gospel of Mark chapter 8. These are the words of God. Here in the wilderness. And he sent them away. And straightway he entered into a ship with his disciples and came into the parts of Dalmanutha. And the Pharisees came forth and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? Verily I say unto you, there shall no sign be given unto this generation. And he left them and entering into the ship again departed to the other side. And the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? And do ye not remember? When I break the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand? And he cometh to Bethsaida, and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. And he looked up, and he said, I see men as trees walking. After that, he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up, and he was restored and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to anyone in the town. And Jesus went out and his disciples into the town of Caesarea Philippi. And he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist, but some say Elias, and others one of the prophets. And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed. Rise again! And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. And when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. A I don’t. I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m Nied I’m I’m I’m Nied I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m And then set your hopes on that resurrection because we’re not only people that die and then go to heaven. That happens when you die. But the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return and He is going to return bodily. And when He does, your bodies are going to come out of the ground. We’re people that believe in the resurrection. Put your hope there, ultimately, in the resurrection. So this life is good as a Christian. To die and to go be with Christ is better, the Apostle Paul says in the New Testament, and the resurrection of our bodies and eternal glory with Christ. And one another is best by far. And if you keep your eyes there, you’re going to be very, very, very productive and useful inside the beltway, for those of you that are inside the beltway. This church will flourish. That’s the way it always works. If you try to grab on to the center, it turns into ashes. It disappears. It’s a figment of your imagination then. But when you go to Christ outside the camp, you find that you own the center. So that’s the first application. The second application is this toy in the text between the things of God and the things of man. Things of God, things of man. First, the disciples really did think that Jesus was talking about bread, which is remarkably funny, but also remarkably concerning. Because the disciples weren’t thinking about bread because they were carnal. They weren’t thinking about doing naughty things. They’re in the boat. They only have one loaf. And Jesus says something about leaven. And it’s so easy for us to go like, silly disciples. He just fed 4,000 people. True. But you have to go, if I were there, this is the kind of thing humans do. This is the kind of mistake we would make because, well, we have bodies and we need bread. We’re located in time and space. And so it’s very easy to drift into the things of man. The things of man is not exactly like, don’t think really, really naughty idolatry. Think the normal kind of idolatry that we do a lot. Something like that. And then Peter is another example of missing it. He rightly testifies to the Christ and then immediately when he hears Jesus saying, so I’m going to go die and I’m going to rise again. And same principle. You can be like, Peter, don’t you know he has to go to the cross? Well, no. If you were with Christ and he said, so I’m going to go and I’m going to suffer and I’m going to die, the instinct is to respond. Peter is a lovable character. It would be wonderful to meet him in glory because he’s always out front. So walked on the water and then started to sink. That kind of thing. And then tries to stop him from going to the cross. Jesus says, and this isn’t the last time he fights with Jesus because Jesus says, you’re going to deny me three times. And Peter’s like, no, I will not. But then Peter went farther than anybody else did. And the thing is, we would have been thinking the same thing when Christ said it. We just wouldn’t have had the courage to stand up and rebuke Jesus. But you’d be thinking, I don’t know if it’s a good idea, the whole dying thing, Jesus. We’d not do that. No one got farther walking on the water than Peter. He’s the one who actually did it. Now, what does this mean? Jesus is not only the Son of God, as we quoted from Nicaea, when it comes to who He is, He is the Son of Man. He is the Son of Adam. He’s the second Adam. But He’s like us in every way apart from sin. So every single one of us, the sons of Adam, born corrupt in our nature, we’ve never known what it was like to not be corrupt in our nature and to not be guilty before God. We’re born that way because of this covenantal reality with Adam. But Christ is virgin-born. Christ is the Son of God. He took upon Himself true humanity, as Nicaea said. He’s truly and fully human. Jesus has, side note, Jesus has two wills. It’s a doctrinal thing. It’s important. I teach the NSA students. I ask them, how many wills? I remind them they’re all heretics. It’s two wills because he’s fully and completely God and he’s fully and completely man. And his humanity is not fallen. He’s like us in every way apart from sin, which means he’s the most interesting man you’re ever going to meet because he’s not dealing with the corruptions of the flesh that we do. Even the best of us that really fought against the living, what does it mean to live by faith? What does it mean to put on the new man? No one’s like this Christ. You must look to Him and don’t expect Him to say things that don’t surprise you. He’ll keep surprising you. This is what Christ does. So if you’re going to avoid the trap of falling into the things of man rather than going into the things of God, you have to pay attention to the Word made flesh. You have to pay attention to Scripture. Now we’re going to find you should not say, man, are obviously bad. No. Grace restores nature. Grace restores nature. You heard this in the exhortation earlier. You are people that are being made fully and truly human. Normal people, as it should be. But that’s happening to you supernaturally as you look to Christ the Word. Where do we find Christ the Word? Two places primarily. First is Scripture. I would challenge you, call you, to ensure that you and your family are meditating upon Scripture. You do not need to do some crazy, I’m going to go away for three days and read the whole Bible. It’s like, I don’t recommend it. You can do that if you want. It might be fine. But a regular diet of Scripture, short text, small text, do it at breakfast or do it at dinner. Do it whenever you can get it in with your family. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Genuinely. You are going to partake of this loaf momentarily, and you’re going to eat the bread, and your soul is going to feed upon the bread. Your soul is going to feed upon the body of Christ. Your soul. Your soul. And your soul really has to eat. Because man doesn’t live by bread alone. He lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And if you don’t have it as a regular part of your diet, then you’re going to get anemic. You’re just going to get sepsis. It’s super bad. You don’t want it. Just regular. And you’ll find God’s always surprising you. And then your mind starts to take shape with Scripture. So Christ is the outsider in this text in the far reaches of Galilee of the Gentiles. And who does that remind you of? If your mind’s saturated in Scripture, it reminds you of David from the Old Testament. Jesus is the son of David. What did David do? David had to flee Saul. He had to go in the land of the Philistines. He had to go away from the power centers. And what happened in the cave of Adullam? All these like riffraff gathered to David. 600 men who were disappointed with the king and disgruntled with the king. You think that was a happy crew? No, it wasn’t a happy crew. What is it? But that’s going to the son of David in the wilderness to be fed. Sinners, what are we? We’re reminded of who we are. We know we don’t deserve to be here. We just don’t. We’re at the table of God. You think we deserve to be at the table of God? No chance. So that’s an example of your mind. You’re saturated in Scripture. Look to Christ, the Word, in order to avoid the problem of falling into only thinking about the things of man and thus being disjointed is in creation. I mentioned to you earlier that you can’t know your thumbs. I really mean that. The Christian way is faith seeking understanding. It’s not understanding seeking faith. Faith apprehends everything that God has revealed to us and all of creation is revealed to us. All of creation is this way. This is how the ancients thought. Performers thought basically ever since the Enlightenment, people don’t think this way. And you have to recover this. This is a deeper, broader, more difficult point. But in all of your sciences, math, and all of it, you have to recover the fact that creation is word. It is word from God. Nate Wilson, an elder out in Moscow, Idaho, has written a book called Notes from the Tilt of the World. It’s a wonderful book. And he says, I see craft in the world. I cannot watch dust swirl on the sidewalk. The world is inevitably art. And it is inevitably art from top to bottom in every time and in every place. God has created ex nihilo. The same kind of thing communicated by G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy. He writes, Jesus says, bread? You know I make that stuff, right? But we’re in a ship. It’s like, what? I make bread. I just did it. But that means he made your children. He made them. He makes your eyeballs and he keeps them going. God is doing this now. You live in him. We live and move and have our being in him. And you will come to know that God as you trust and obey him. Looking to his creation. This happened. I was at the campus of University of Idaho doing evangelism. And there is a particular individual there who flies the asexual flag. And he’s a bit of a strange bird, but I’m very glad for the dialogue. And he asked me when we’re talking, he says, how do you know that God exists? I said, because I obey him. And this brought him up short. He wants a rational argument. But the fact is, it’s faith seeking understanding. Jesus actually says this explicitly in the Gospel of John. He says, my teaching is not my own, but his who sent me. He who does his will will know the doctrine. It’s that simple. He comes from outside the world. He who does his will, that kind of man, will then know the doctrine. You should know that the war between the things of God and the things of man is not the kind of war that wanes. We have been blessed in this nation. The kingdom of God has spread throughout the West. It’s spread remarkably. I was reminded of that when I went to Arlington Cemetery just yesterday with my son. The vast majority of those gravestones marked by crosses. It’s the Christian people. You walk around town, even D.C., crosses. Crosses everywhere. Go look at the back of the Supreme Court. Moses, right there in the center. Two tables of the law. God is blessed. But here is the danger. This war, this need to walk in harmony, things of God, and the renewal of humanity with the things of man, that doesn’t get any easier as the kingdom of God grows. It actually gets thicker and thicker and stronger and stronger. It’s still easy in all of these blessings to slip right into the things of man. It would be very easy to do that. It would be very easy to kind of grow cold in our proclamation of Christ. What do I mean by that? Well, there’s an Anglican priest who was a very honest one. He said, look, wherever the apostle Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea. And that wasn’t because England had become just such a lovely place. No, it was because the church of England had grown soft and weak and was no longer following its master. I was at the hotel right around the corner. The front desk guy was talking to another guest, and he said, there’s a lot of stuff going on over there in the street. He’s like, yeah, there’s a church there, and they protested. I said, oh, yeah, I’m here for that church. And the man, who might be among us because he said he might come stop by, but he said, he goes, they’re angry at Christians? And I was like, yeah. He’s like, why? I was like, well, they’re going to give you a lot of reasons. Well, the reason is because Christ hung on a cross. They crucified his Savior. Jesus makes it very, very clear. They called the master of the house Beelzebub. How much more will they malign those of his household? So what you must do is always lean into the things of God. Be perceptive of the things of God in creation and in Scripture and watch the renewal of humanity on the other side. Third and final application. In this text, it’s very clear that every man has to personally decide to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ demands that a man follow him. There’s no doubt that if you were in the outskirts, Galilee of the Gentiles, and he said, if you’re going to follow me, then take up your cross. Lose your life. There’s no doubt that if you don’t understand who he is, you’d call him a cult leader. I mean, take it in. This man looks at you and he’s like, I’m going to die. And you have to die too. But you’ll rise again. That is what he said. He’s no cult leader. He’s the son of God. This is where Lewis, again, he says some people, and this would be remarkably practical for a renewing and dedicating ourselves to God. Praise the Lord that we are rededicating ourselves to God and that you can draw on all of this history of different proclamations and prayers and being called a Christian nation by the Supreme Court. Justice Brewer back in the late 1800s. You got all kinds of examples. This is what we do. But what is the tendency? Our tendency is to drift into these kind of vagaries and be willing to talk about Jesus as if he was a good teacher. He was a good moral man. So Lewis says, some people say, well, I don’t know that Jesus is the Son of God, but I believe he’s a good moral teacher. And Lewis just calls their card. This is the kind of things Jesus said. He is nothing. He is either a liar. He is a lunatic, on par with being a poached egg, or he is Lord. So I can guarantee you, if we’re looking at Jesus, who just fed a bunch of people, and then he says, I’m going to die, and you have to die. We’re like, metaphorically? Like, can we metaphorically die? Like, no. No, no, I want it all. Like, I want you to die in faith. Be planted in the soil. As a seed that’s going to rise in the resurrection. And then you rewind that clock and you die daily. You make a decision every day. I’m going to wake up and I’m going to die. So men, if you want your wife to be lovely, be twisted on a pike for her. The way that Christ was twisted on a pike for His bride. This is what you’re supposed to do. If you want your children to drink deeply of the grace of God, then you have to pour yourself out for them. That’s all. Every single day, pouring yourself out for other people. This is the call of the Christian. Now, some people want to say, Jesus took care of the cross. Well, praise the Lord. In one sense, He did take care of the cross. And then He says, you take care of your cross. You take care of your cross. You have to lose your life. Which means, I’m not going for all of the greedy things. And you have to work it out with God about when you’re being greedy. That doesn’t mean, don’t get weird and be like, no steak dinner. Steak dinners are great. Barbecue is great. All of that great. God has made a good world for you to enjoy. But the dying says, I don’t. I care about my reputation in the wrong way. I’ll defend myself. You need to defend yourself. But I’m not eager and lusting for the praise and applause of man. I’m not seeking the glory that comes from man, but rather I’m seeking the glory that comes from God. And that means death and resurrection. God always makes his church decide. Egypt or the Red Sea. Esther, go before King Ahasuerus or flake out. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Go into the flaming fire or worship idols. But you must not expect him to permit you to be indecisive. Now, the church eats by going into the wilderness, and the church lives by going to Calvary. So it’s very clear to me that as God blesses this congregation particularly, you saints, individually, corporately, all of that, there’s going to be many deaths and resurrections to go through. So don’t avoid the cross. Watch the magic of God. Watch the power of God. Watch the resurrection that will continue to come. Because if you’re going to testify before this adulterous and sinful generation, and it absolutely is one, then you’re going to be repudiated the way that Christ was repudiated. But Chesterton again said, Now, there are many explanations for why you all are hated so much, although it’s been pleasant and quiet today out there in the street. All of the answers to that are very superficial. The answer is very simple. Answer the question clearly. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is the Son of Man. He is the Son of Mary, who took upon Himself the sins of the world, my sins and your sins. He’s gone to the cross. He has risen again, and we will follow Him. The truth is, you have been unashamed of Christ in an adulterous and sinful generation, and in turn, Christ is not ashamed of you. Our God and Father, we thank You for Your faithfulness and goodness to us. We thank You for Your Christ. We thank You for Your Son, the second Adam, truly God and truly man. We thank You for the forgiveness of sins found in Him. We thank You for His power and His glory. We worship You this morning and give You praise and honor. And as we do, we lift up the prayer. Christ taught us to pray, saying… show less

Brooks Potteiger, (Mark 7)

SUMMARY In today’s sermon on Mark 7, the speaker introduces a thematic exploration of Jesus Christ’s power over sin and its effects on humanity, structured around three key areas: the heart, spiritual warfare, and physical ailments. The Pharisees confront Jesus for not following their traditions, leading to His critique of their legalism and hypocrisy in neglecting God’s commandments. Jesus clarifies that true defilement comes from within the heart, not external factors, and declares all foods clean, signaling a shift in the old ceremonial laws. He then showcases His compassion and authority by healing a Gentile woman’s daughter and restoring a deaf man’s speech, illustrating His triumph over spiritual and physical afflictions. The sermon emphasizes the transformative power of Christ, urging believers to embrace His ability to heal and liberate, while acknowledging the ongoing reality of sin and suffering in the world. Ultimately, Christians are encouraged to walk in faith, confident in the victory Jesus has achieved over sin and death. TRANSCRIPTION Choose show more to view the transcription. Transcriptions are AI generated and MAY be incorrect. Rely on the spoken word heard in the audio file. show more Well, before I read our sermon text today, namely Mark 7, all of it, quick explanation on the series again, because it is admittedly a little unconventional as we’re taking significantly larger hunks of text than would be our custom. And there is a method to our madness here, I can assure you. It’s really twofold. We wanted to go through a gospel, and it turns out that after Amos, there was 16 weeks left officially, and there are 16 chapters in the book of Marks. And so we decided just to run with it and to take a different approach rather than doing a slower, deep dive. You can think of this series as more of a power walk approach to get over four months a strong, broad sweep of the life and the ministry of our Lord. And then after Mark, we’ll slow down again some. But for now, make sure your belt is fastened and your arms and legs stay inside the vehicle at all times today. We behold the glory of Jesus Christ and his power and his compassion in Mark 7, which I will read now. Mark 7. And do give careful attention to the reading of God’s holy and inspired word. Mark 7. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God, but hold fast to the tradition of men. And he said to them, Oh, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandments of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother. And whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, Well, whatever you would have gained from me is actually Corban. That is, it’s been given to God. Then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do. And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about this parable. He said to them, And from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile the person. From there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him, and she came and she fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And she answered him, yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs. And he said to her, for this statement, you may go your way. The demon has left your daughter. And she went home and she found her child lying in bed and the demon was gone. Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. And they begged him to lay his hand on him and taking him aside from the crowd privately. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. And after spitting, he touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and he said to him, And he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for Christ and Holy Spirit. Amen. It exposed us spiritually, now vulnerable to the attacks of Satan and his minions. As the Apostle Paul says, our primary battlefront is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, dark forces. It also had a very physical impact. Our bodies would be afflicted. They would now ultimately die. And in Mark 7, we see Jesus Christ engaging with each one of these sin-wrought realities. The bentness of our hearts, our spiritual battles, and our feeble bodies. But even more, we’ll see that Jesus did not come to worth just to confirm our grim diagnosis. Rather, he came in power. To deliver us from all the maladies of sin that sin had cast upon his people. Or, as Isaac Watts pronounced, he came to make his blessings flow as far as the curse was found. And with that, let’s turn to our text, and we’ll take it with these three main categories in sight that kind of follow the flow of the text. Heart, spiritual war, and body. We’ll see his power. First, we’ll see his power to expose our hypocritical, sin-bent hearts. Beginning in verses 1 through 13, and it starts with the Pharisees teaming up again to confront our Lord. It says they came down from Jerusalem to do so. Now, it should be noticed the distance from Jerusalem to Galilee was 90 miles. It’s this. That Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate. To which I say, if they only knew the eating habits of my four-year-old, they would be totally undone. But of course, there’s much more going on here. This was not about simple hygiene. So what’s that mean? That’s actually a really important question. This is key to understanding the dynamic between Jesus and the confrontation, the hostility with the Pharisees, and their dynamic of lording that over the common people. Understand that the Pharisees were the religious leaders who enforced the laws, namely God’s laws. However, over time, they had come up with hundreds and hundreds of laws that were not actually in the Bible, but which had been added as safeguards against breaking the law of God from the Bible. The problem is, they had then, seeing that this gave them great power, elevated these rituals to the level of Scripture. And side note, a general rule in this world is the more corrupt society becomes, the more laws and regulations increase. Something we might know a little bit about in our day. As Chesterton said, Interestingly, when Jesus came, he did the exact opposite. He took the ten, he boiled it down into two. Love God, love each other. That’s the entirety of the law. If you can do that. But the Pharisees went in the opposite direction. They piled laws on top of laws. And to be clear, to give clarity to what’s happening, this is what legalism is. Legalism is not being too strict about obeying the Bible. You can’t be too strict about obeying the Bible. You ought to obey the Bible. No, it’s making rules that are not in the Bible as authoritative as the Bible. And then judging others when they don’t follow your rules, the fence that you had put in front of the scriptures. For instance, the Bible says, don’t get drunk. So the legalist says, well, if you don’t ever drink, you can never be in danger of getting drunk. Ergo, drinking is sinful. Which is a problem because the Bible says in Psalm 104 that God made wine to gladden the heart of man. Now, of course, you can also get drunk with wine. And you must not do that either. So we have the twin ditches in this fallen world of legalism on the one hand, which says God forbids what in fact he has not, and then license on the other, using that freedom as a cover to actually sin. And the mature Christian sees both ditches and drives down the path of Christian freedom grounded in glad obedience to the word. But back to the Pharisees. Intessential legalists traveling 90 miles to tattletale about something that was not, in fact, a sin, while themselves eaten up all over with egregious, overt lawbreaking and wickedness. Our Lord points to their cleverly running roughshod over the fifth commandment. Honor and care for your parents. They would do this through a practice that was called Corbin. So what’s that mean? Essentially, that meant rather than using the inheritance or the resources that you would use to care for your elderly parents, you’d promise that once you died, you’d offer that to the temple. I’m going to give it to God. I’m so holy that I actually can’t care for you. The financial pinch of having to sacrifice to care for your parents. All while feeling quite spiritually shiny the whole time. Oh, how bent is the human heart. How masterful of a defense attorney. Able to justify our most unjustifiable moments while straining gnats and swallowing camels, as our Lord will say elsewhere. And so our Lord goes hard at them. On their hypocrisy. On their sin-bent, eaten-up hearts. Explaining that Isaiah, their beloved prophet, was actually talking about them when he said this. This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, because they teach as doctrine the commandments of men. Jesus is the truth. And this harsh, exposing light is the grace of God to reveal our great need for a heart transplant that would replace the heart of stone with a heart of flesh that would actually hunger and thirst for true righteousness now. It’s all of us. We see this in verses 14 through 23. Jesus makes the point clear as he now turns to the crowds and his disciples. He says in verses 14 through 16, hear me all of you and understand there is nothing outside of a person that by going in can defile him, but it’s the things that come out of a person that actually defiles him. And in the context, we know Jesus is still speaking in the vein of law keeping. So this is not just a treatise on the human condition generally, but he’s still actively undermining, instigating the authority of the Pharisees who had the power to say who was clean or who was unclean. And Jesus is now sunsetting that entire notion. He’s taking that authority away from them. He cannot blame or point to anything external as the cause of true uncleanness. Rather, it’s what leaks out naturally out of all of us that came from our hearts within us that exposes the real problem with the human condition. Well, the disciples are a little slow on the upstart as we would have been as well. And so after the crowds leave, when it wouldn’t be so embarrassing, they go to the Lord and ask him, what did you actually mean by all of that? We weren’t actually tracking. And our Lord essentially says, really? That wasn’t obvious? Let me spell it out. Consider these two realities about humanity. Contrast these two things. You eat food, the miracle of digestion happens, it converts the good stuff into energy, expels the rest, on you go. Now, so that’s one reality. You’re this reality. You have evil thoughts, naturally. You commit sexual immorality, either by acting out on it or by lusting. Humans murder, humans steal, humans commit adultery, humans envy. So what is the fundamental problem with humanity, ultimately? Something external that goes in or something internal that causes all of that to come out? And when put like that, it becomes crystal clear that the problem is not what’s in your grocery cart, unclean food. The problem is what’s in your sinful heart that leaks out in all of these ways. And to really understand the significance of what Jesus was getting at within this Jewish culture, Mark makes a passing commentary note that might seem insignificant on the surface, but in fact, at an earth-shaking transformation that our Lord was bringing about through these words. Mark says in verse 19, so casually, thus he declared all foods clean. Or to say it another way, he was now sunsetting all of Israel’s ceremonial law. So what does that mean and why does that matter? So bear with me for a second. The Old Testament law had several layers or buckets which fell into three primary, though not airtight, but three primary categories. You had the moral law and the civil law and the ceremonial law. The moral laws are universal and eternal. They’re always in effect. They cannot be rolled back because they are grounded in the nature of God himself. You cannot murder and you cannot lie. That was moral, immutable law because God in his very person is justice, is for life, is truth. And so that’s always in effect. Then there are the civil laws, which were the law of the land for the nation of Israel and which we today can still draw principles from. And how that affected one’s ability to go to worship or to sacrifice. If you got unclean, there was a process to go through to enter back into the life and the liturgical life of Israel. But they weren’t grounded in creational or moral realities necessarily. Rather, they were instituted by God to make obvious to Israel that they were a holy people. It was teaching them with grammar school simplicity that they were set apart from the rest of the world. And with the coming of Jesus, these laws were now sunsetting because he was the fulfillment of them. The cross was the fulfillment of every cleanliness law and every ceremonial law in the Torah. And so Mark helps us read between the lines here. There is no food or drink or lack of hand washing that in themselves defiles a person or can cleanse a person. And even the apostles won’t fully grasp this until Acts 10. This is when Peter has his aha moment. So you can read that on your own time this week. Now verses 24 through 30. Mark mentions how our Lord, in his humanity, was hoping to go there to fly under the radar and to likely see some respites. However, in his sovereign wisdom, our Lord also knows that there is necessary and essential ministry to accomplish there as well. And so it is. And having just looked at the discussion between what makes a person clean and unclean, we see our Lord pressing into this unclean category in a way that expands and transforms our understanding. Of what God intends to accomplish through the gospel. For you do not get more un-Jewish, more unclean, more person to be avoided in that time than a demon-possessed Gentile. So how will our Lord respond to this woman? This woman who somehow has gotten word that this man has the power to do something that I am completely powerless to do. How will he respond? Before we consider that, something else we must zoom out on and acknowledge as straightforward from the text is that the spiritual realm is real. Spiritual warfare is real. Satan and demons are real. And they really do hate God, and they really do hate the image of God and the glory of God, and destroy and disfigure humanity. We see this in Job. We see this in 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul says that he had a persistent affliction, a thorn that came through a messenger from Satan that was sent to harass him. So there is a very real spiritual battle raging in the world around us, even right this second. It will look like, and this is important for reading the story, it will look like trying to obscure and surgically obfuscate. That’s not how you say that word, but you get the point. Trying to confuse, trying to blur the lines between man and woman. And the creational glory of God in declaring them such, it will look like that. Because Satan hates the image of God and the glory of God in that. It looks like calling baby dismemberment health care rights. It looks like vulgar hostility to the proclamation of the pure gospel. So make no mistake. Our primary battle is not against flesh and blood. And this account only further confirms this. Back to the text. Well, initially, he seems to respond somewhat harshly. He says, it’s not right to give the children’s bread to dogs. That is, while the gospel would go out to the Gentiles, we see it all over the book of Acts, Jesus came first to confront Israel and to offer her bread. That is, salvation, manna from heaven through the Messiah. He came first to the Jews, not first to the Gentiles. And some people have stumbled over our Lord’s words here. Isn’t Christ being decidedly un-Christlike by saying this? Why would he do it? Well, I believe our Lord is pressure testing the faith of this woman. He’s pressure testing her faith. Can she be easily dissuaded or does she truly trust? That he is who he says he is and has the power to do what she knows he can. There is one grammatical note that softens it some. The word for dog here is actually in the diminutive. It’s more like puppy rather than mangy scavenger. So that helps a little bit, but it’s still dog. Still not great. At the same time, the point is made clear. I came first to feed Israel. That’s my first priority. We see this Gentile woman’s faith is made of sturdy stuff. And her simple faith towers over that of the professional theologians. And Jesus’ words only cause her to tighten her grasp on him. I love how she responds. She says, yes, Lord, but don’t even puppies sometimes get crumbs when the children drop them. This is an amazing faith. This is a precious faith. This is a beautiful picture of gritty faith that knows Jesus, and Jesus alone has the power to save. Or as he would say in the Gospel of John, when he said to the disciples, do you want to go? Where else would we go? There is nowhere else to go. You alone have the words of eternal life. And we see that in this Gentile woman, and she will not let go of Jesus. Jesus commends her with great compassion, great demonstration of divine power. From a distance of physical miles, he commands the demon to leave. He tells the demon to leave. Now, Mark doesn’t actually recount our Lord verbalizing this. But we know somehow, whether internally or vocally, the command was given because when she got back, the demon was gone. The demon had fled. Jesus Christ is the champion in our spiritual war. And He and He alone can send the demons hightailing it away from His people. And it’s not even hard for Him. Now we turn to the last scene in chapter 7, where our Lord displays His power over the effects of sin on our physical, actual body. Verses 31 through 37, He has now traveled southeast, back nearer to the Sea of Galilee, a region called the Decapolis, the Ten Cities. And word continues to spread about His incredible power to bring relief to our suffering. So that some folks bring to Him a man who is deeply afflicted. This is a deeply afflicted man. Specifically, He’s deaf and He has a speech impediment. Caught up together. And this is an affliction that cuts straight to the core of our image bearing. Our God is a God who speaks, who creates with words, who resounds with singing. And when that is inhibited, when our words are bound up within us, it is terrible suffering. If you’ve ever suffered with a stutter, you’ll have a taste of the strange visceral pain this can cause. But Jesus first does something unexpected. And I think it’s very powerful. The text says that he took the man aside, away from the watching eyes of the crowd. He was not going to make this man a spectacle. He takes him away from the crowds. He deals with him very carefully. Very personally. And with a level of tenderness that frankly makes us moderns a bit uncomfortable. He puts his fingers in the ears of the man. And then he puts some saliva on his finger. And he touches the man’s tongue. That is, he meets this man away from the crowds directly, personally, viscerally, in the place of his greatest pain. And frankly, in the place of his greatest helplessness. And then Jesus does three things. He looked to heaven, the source of his power. He sighed, which is an expression of deep love and sympathy for this man. And then he spoke. He said, be opened. And immediately, at the word of Jesus Christ, this man’s ears were opened. And his tongue was released and loosened and freed and came back to the crowd, healed and made whole. And they were, as Mark says, I love it how it’s translated here, astonished beyond measure at the marvelous things that Jesus had the power to do. And so this is the main thing I want for us today, beloved. Astonished beyond measure, believing beyond measure like the Gentile woman in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. The astonishing manifold power. Power to straighten everything sin bent. Power to make blessings flow as far as the curse is found. From our sinful hearts that no law keeping could ever cleanse, but which he cleansed through his blood and set us free. So that you are no longer a slave to your sin. You are no longer to be tormented by your shame. But you can pursue the joy and the freedom of pursuing righteousness and holiness. And may we stand astonished at his power over Satan and his demons. Where he can send them running with the word. So that you, Christian, need not fear any spiritual oppression in this land. But can walk with a jovial swagger in power. And in victory in the name of Jesus Christ. Because yes, the forces of evil can be a nuisance. They can shriek and they can wail. But they possess no power over those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. And may you stand astonished at Jesus’ power to mend and to repair even our broken bodies. So that we would pray boldly for healing when faced with any affliction in this congregation. He moved with compassion for the suffering of His people as we saw today. He took that suffering man in His arms and in His embrace. And with divine love and power, He repaired him, sighing deeply with His eyes to heaven in His spirit. However, we must acknowledge, even here, that even if Jesus does heal us now, which He has the power to do, we will still ultimately die. In physical healing today. But this is the best part of the story. Because even death has no power over you anymore to tyrannize you with fear. Because Jesus, in His power, He has defanged even death itself. And all the terror it has struck in the heart of man since Adam brought this curse upon our head. And so Christian, behold the manifold power of Christ. Behold what Christ has wrought for you. And walk in the joy and the confidence and the freedom that is all yours through your union with the risen Christ. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Chapter, the power of Jesus. And we say yes and amen and we do believe, but we’ll walk out tomorrow morning and we will be tempted towards unbelief. And so I pray, Holy Spirit, you would strengthen us in faith, in Christ, in practical ways where we need it most this week. That he might be glorified and his power manifested through his church. And now we would pray the way our Lord taught us to pray. Amen. Amen. Let us now arise and respond with a most fitting hymn from Psalm 121. Let us pray. God bless Amen. and the Lord Jesus. God. God. God. I show less