Introduction: Follow The Son

Transcript

Our scripture reading will be from the Gospel of Mark, so if you open to the Gospel of Mark chapter one, we’ll be reading from four different passages, but three different chapters. You can find it in your pew Bible on page 785, 785.

Mark 1.1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, the son of God.

— Mark 1

(ESV)

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Page 792 on your pew Bible. And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they told him, John the Baptist. And others say, Elijah. And others, one of the prophets. And he asked them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered, you are the Christ. And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. Mark 15 on page 801, verse 37. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood facing him

saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, it happened gradually. There were many steps to losing my faith, but there were big questions I remember dealing with. Leaving my faith was a very conflicted exercise. I never wanted to have a hard heart. And I still feel that way today.

The Ex-Christian Generation

These are the words of David Bazan, the lead singer of Page of the Lion, about his walking away from the Christian faith. You see, his story is a familiar one. Especially these days, it seems that almost every week there’s another platform to Christian walking away from his or her faith. Now, why does this happen? Why does it seem to happen so often? And to be completely honest, there are a lot, a lot of reasons. And to really understand them, you must meet with the individuals. You must speak with them openly and honestly about their struggles with the faith, with Jesus, and what he has called them to do. But I think at a comprehensive level, you can actually find two central issues, two central issues at the heart of this trend. Though, of course, and I wanna be clear, there are many more. First, everyone in this world is constantly struggling.

With either not knowing who Jesus really is, or with losing sight with who Jesus really is. You see, the noise and the chaos of the world is constantly trying to drown out Jesus’s words and Jesus’s own explanation of himself. And oftentimes, again, when we’re honest with ourselves, we can’t hear him over the opinions of others, and we certainly have a hard time understanding him over the opinions of our own hearts, and our own feelings and emotions. So that’s the first issue. We struggle to know who he really is, or to hold on to knowing who he really is. But there’s a second issue too. I think everyone, everyone, including myself, is consistently struggling this side of heaven with how to connect, how to connect who Jesus really is with who they really are. And not only do we struggle with that connection, we also struggle with keeping that connection alive.

See, if you’re like me, you’re gonna have a tendency and a temptation to know who Jesus is, and to separate the reality of who he is from your own identity. We’re honest. We sometimes don’t want to let Jesus speak into our lives, or portions of our lives, because we really just don’t want him, don’t want him changing us.

See, I think that’s because many of us have been tempted to follow the culture’s new faith-based programs. You know, you’ve heard it, it’s the have it your way, you do you mentality of the world. So what do we do? What do we do? Oftentimes we stop listening to Jesus, and we listen to the one authority that the world is telling is true, and that is the authority that’s inside our heads, and inside our feelings. So we listen to Disney, and we follow our hearts, right? We follow our hearts, instead of following the Savior who has come to transform our hearts into something better. Now, before we move in, before we go in, I don’t want you to get me wrong here either. See, it’s not just a cultural issue, the church struggles here too. The church struggles here too. You see, the church can lose sight of who Jesus is,

and what he attempts to make of us, just as fast or faster than the culture does. And more often than I like to admit, the church doesn’t do a good job of listening to, or walking with the skeptics, the troubled, nor do we try to help them with those big questions that seem so insurmountable.

So what do we do? Where do we go? How do we find answers for our ex-Christian generation? How do we speak to our own hearts? And how do we speak to a closed off city of Portland? Well, in a word, we need the gospels. So if you wanna know who Jesus really is, if you want to counter these main issues in our ex-Christian generation, if you wanna know who he is, and what that means for you, then we need to start with God’s own words. We need to hear what God has to say about God, what God has to say about his son, Jesus. And this is why this morning, I wanna try to push back against the noise and the chaos of the culture. And I wanna push back against the silence of some churches, and I wanna push into a still, small voice,

that still, small voice of God’s word. See, I want us to hear, not from the modern day thought leaders, I don’t even want you to hear from me, but I want you to hear from the spirit who speaks through a man who once upon a time wrote and recorded God’s perspective on who Jesus is.

Meet Mark

In short, I want to introduce you to Mark. And that’s what we’re doing this morning. We’re looking at Mark as a whole. I want to introduce you to Mark because in this ex-Christian world, we need to read, listen, study, and meditate on his words of life more than ever. Because Mark, like us, was living in the cross pressures of his own society. Now, his wasn’t a post-Christian society like ours, his was a pre-Christian society. He wrote most likely during the reign of Nero, one of Rome’s most sadistic and maniacal emperors. Nero was known best for his persecution of the Christians, which he threw out as scapegoats for all of Rome’s problems.

So what makes Mark reliable too? It’s not only the audience he’s speaking to, but who he’s writing for. He’s writing for the Lord, but he’s also writing for the apostle Peter. You see, Mark is Peter’s pen. He uses his God-given, spirit-led gifts of storytelling to compose Peter’s firsthand experience of Jesus. And he does it in a way that crafts it and is what is likely the first gospel ever written. So what Mark is doing is he’s creating a whole new type of literature. He’s blending Greco-Roman biography tradition with this person, Jesus. I mean, he has to create something new, right? Because there’s never been one like this Jesus.

But you see, it’s not enough. It’s not enough for Mark to gather historical facts and to present them to you. You see, Mark’s writing with a stronger, more direct purpose. Yes, he writes to introduce his audience, an audience with very little Old Testament background, more than likely a Roman audience. He writes to introduce his audience to Jesus, but he is also writing to confront them with who Jesus is and what he says about their life, how he will change them.

I mean, what Mark is doing, what Mark is doing is he is writing exactly what you and I need to hear, need to read, and need to see today. He writes so that everyone who reads his words knows exactly who Jesus is. And he writes so that everyone who knows who Jesus is now can begin to finally know who they are. Now, this is it, this is it. This is the point of Mark. God uses this gospel to help you know Jesus rightly so that you can follow him completely, not just start and stop, start and stop, but to follow him to the end, to the end, which is a better beginning. So let me say it again, let me say it simpler. God uses Mark to show us how to know Jesus rightly so that we can follow him completely. See, that’s why Mark’s gospel,

Mark’s gospel hinges on two massive questions, the questions that still haunt our world today. The first question is this, who is Jesus? Simple, but massively important. Who is Jesus? You see what Mark is doing, and we’ll see this as we walk through these ideas, Mark is trying to clarify to us who Jesus is, and he’s clarifying, and he’s also correcting our misconceptions of him. So who is Jesus? He’s clarifying and he’s correcting, and we’ll see these, we’ll keep walking through these. And then there’s Mark’s second question. Mark’s second question is this, so who are you in light of who this Jesus is? Who are you? You see, what Mark is trying to do is he’s trying to tell you that Jesus changes everything. He changes your life, he changes your identity, he turns you from rebel to disciple, from one running away to one who is following him.

And the way Mark does this is he tells us who Jesus is, not just to say, hey, here’s some nice things about him, hey, here’s some nice things about him, he does it in order to confront us, to confront us and to call us to follow him as our master.

Who Is Jesus?

Okay, so those are the two main questions. Now let’s dive in. Let’s see briefly in an overview how Mark answers these questions. The first one then is who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Now what I’d like to do is I’d like to give you an overview and then we’ll dig down into the very specifics. So who is Jesus according to Mark? And more importantly, who is Jesus according to himself?

See, Mark summarizes his answer in his first sentence, the sentence that Jan just read for us. And he summarizes this answer in the first sentence of the gospel as well. You see, the first verse of Mark reads like a thesis statement, which let me just say, it makes my teacher’s heart sing. Mark gives you a thesis statement. He tells you what he’s all about, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. So from the first line, Mark tells a confused, and a persecuted audience that Jesus is the Christ. And what that means is that Jesus is the Messiah. Christ is just the Greek equivalency to the Hebrew word Messiah. And as the first sentence continues, not only is he the Messiah, he is the very son of God. So we know him Messiah and he’s son of God.

And then there’s Jesus’s first words. Just a few lines below in verse 14. Jesus says, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So in about 15 verses, Mark’s already laid out for us who Jesus is, he’s already answered the question. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the son of God. And Jesus is the king of God’s kingdom.

So now the question becomes, what does any of that mean? What does any of that mean? And so to understand who Jesus is, and to set ourselves up for understanding Mark as we walk through it over the next few months, and I’ll be honest, next few years probably. But let’s listen to Mark, let’s begin where Mark begins and let’s see what he says about Jesus the Messiah. Jesus the Messiah, we’ll start with that. Now remember Mark’s MO here. He wants to do one thing. First, he wants to clarify who Jesus is. He wants us to understand who he is. And then secondly, he wants to correct our misunderstandings about Jesus. The Jesus we think we already know. See, when Mark says Jesus is the Messiah, he is clarifying that Jesus is God’s anointed one. He’s clarifying that Jesus is God’s anointed one. Jesus is the one that every Israelite is looking for.

Because his text and tradition tell us the Messiah, the Messiah was Israel’s last gasp for hope. See, this promise one from God was supposed to come and to restore all of God’s people to all of God’s promises. He was supposed to bring them back to their former glory while defeating their enemies once and for all. Now he’s clarifying that this Jesus fulfills that, but he’s also coming to correct that reality. You see, Israel’s sitting in the midst of the Roman Empire and they’re saying, we want our Messiah to look and act and be as powerful as Rome’s emperor. They want him to come and turn the world upside down to get rid of all their enemies, to take the seat on the world’s most powerful throne. Yeah, for God, but most likely for their own glory.

But Jesus comes to correct that vision. And what he’s doing, he’s actually coming to surpass, to surpass their vision, which is why Jesus came first as a secret Messiah, a secret Messiah, what scholars call the Messianic secret. Now don’t get scared, don’t get scared of that. All that means, well, if you’ve ever read, if you’ve ever read Mark, you’ve probably tripped over Jesus’s commands, his continual commands to keep his identity hidden, right? I mean, it’s kind of seems weird, seems kind of antithetical to what he’s coming to accomplish. He tells everyone from those he’s healed to even the demons he’s cast out to tell no one else about him. I mean, why would he do this?

Well, it’s because he first had to transform and correct the people’s expectations of the Messiah before he could take that title upon himself. See what the gospel show us, and this is sort of, you know, we got the Cliff Notes version, we’re back here after the cross and after the empty tomb, we’re able to read it. But what the gospel show us is that to know Jesus as the Messiah is to know him through the lens of his suffering and death. But those walking with him, those seeing him doing the miracles and hearing his teaching couldn’t understand this because his cross wasn’t on the horizon yet. See what Jesus is doing is he’s using secrecy to show everyone how much more their Messiah could actually be. Jesus, he’s not after some socio-political restoration, he’s not after Rome’s throne, he’s after the world. He’s after cosmic redemption.

He’s after so much more than our minds can even imagine. Yes, yes, he comes to turn the world upside down again. In fact, it’s probably better to say to turn the world right side up again. And he does come to lay waste to his enemies. I mean, Mark is a gospel of conflict. But hear this, hear this, his target isn’t first and foremost physical or global or political, his target is spiritual and supernatural and focus. The Israelites don’t get a pass, God’s people don’t get a pass, he comes in to everyone’s life to correct and to overcome. He doesn’t put Rome or Herod in his crosshairs only, he puts everyone’s heart in his crosshairs.

And how will this Jesus complete his mission? How will he complete his mission? Not through war, not through protest, not through storming the castle, but through his own suffering and death. A death that bridges the spiritual separation between God and the world. We see all this coming together so beautifully and so clearly in Peter’s great declaration in Mark 8, the passage again that Jan read for us. And Jesus said to his disciples, who do you say that I am? And they told him, John the Baptist. The other say, Elijah, and others one of the prophets. And he asked him, but who do you say that I am? And that’s a question on which the whole gospel of Mark hinges, and might I also propose your life hinges.

Who do you say that I am? And Peter answered him, good old Peter, answered him, you are the Christ. What Peter is saying is, you are the Messiah. And then what does Jesus do? He strictly charges them to tell no one about him. Now, what’s the next thing that Jesus does? What is the next thing that Jesus teaches his disciples on the heels of Peter’s great declaration? Well, in verse 31, we see it. Jesus explains that as the true Messiah, he must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priest and the scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise again.

You see, Peter’s in it again, right? Right after the declaration, you are the Messiah, Jesus says your Messiah has to die and be raised again, Peter runs right back into it. And he rebukes the one he just named as the Messiah. He sort of pulls Jesus aside. And he says, hey, Jesus, Messiah,

I think you’re getting all this wrong. You see, our Messiah is supposed to be an action hero. Jesus, I mean, have you seen any of Dwayne Johnson’s I think they also call him The Rock. Have you seen any of his movies? Act like him, to which Jesus comes back and it’s very nice and it’s very kind, right? No, no, he’s not. He goes fully in and admonishes Peter. He rebukes him in all authority. And he says, get behind me, Satan. Now, why? Why such a powerful admonition? Because Peter at this particular point was standing between the true Messiah and the true Messiah’s mission. He could rightfully declare, I know who you are, but he’s unable to connect it to his own life and what that means for him and for others.

See for Peter and for Israel, they had no place for a crucified Messiah, but it is exactly, this crucifixion is exactly what all of us need. We need a crucified Messiah because a crucified Messiah deals with the real problems of the world, not with rulers and authorities necessarily, which it does, but even more importantly, it deals with sin and death fully and finally. And what is more, and I don’t want you to miss this. What is more is that the crucified Messiah doesn’t stay crucified. You see, he declares in three days, he raises from the dead to conquer all enemies that dwell in the world, but more importantly, in our own hearts. But Mark isn’t done. Mark isn’t done. Again, he pushes the question, who is Jesus? Yes, he is the secret Messiah, but he is also the son of God. He is also the son of God.

The Son of God

Now this description Mark uses to clarify that Jesus, so here’s his clarification, to clarify that Jesus isn’t simply a really good man. He is God’s very son. In Jesus, God himself is near. He’s near to redeem and to restore sinners. The son of God theme isn’t just in that first sentence as we’ve already seen. It runs like a seam throughout all of Mark’s gospel. And interestingly enough, when it is pronounced, when his divinity is pronounced, it’s more often than not coming from the mouths of the supernatural, those who can actually see and recognize his divinity. I mean, evil spirits that he’s casting out are the ones who call him God’s son. They know him as God’s son, and they know they want nothing to do with him because they know who Jesus really is in all his power and all his rule. But more importantly, we hear this title

coming from God the Father’s mouth. See, God the Father joyfully announces to all creation, listening, at his baptism and at Jesus’s transfiguration, where Jesus’s ministry of authority and of suffering are launched respectively, God the Father announces that Jesus is and always has been his son. Mark also dramatically closes his gospel with this very emphasis, the Roman centurion, the last one you would expect to actually recognize Jesus as the son of God, the Roman centurion breaks in as he watches Jesus take his last breath and declares truly this man, this Jesus was the son of God.

See, but Jesus’s divine sonship isn’t just a title, it’s a way of life. It defines all his actions and all his ministries. See, the gospel of Mark is about movement. It’s about Jesus’s actions, it’s about his travels, it’s about Jesus going someplace. And he does that, he centers his gospel on that because he doesn’t want to just tell you that Jesus is divine, he wants to constantly show you.

So Jesus does what only God can do. He heals the unhealable. He reigns over the supernatural world. He cast out evil spirits and demons. He brings forth life from death for a baby girl. He rules over the natural world as the one whom the winds and the seas obey. Jesus in all audacity forgives people their sins. See, this Jesus teaches with no other authority, no other authority that is like any we have ever seen. And the gospel ends with the greatest expression of this divine sonship when Jesus walks out of his own grave because death cannot hold the divine. Death cannot hold the divine. See, Mark uses the title son of God not only to clarify that Jesus is God’s very son, he also uses it to correct their misunderstandings about him. Now, this is really, really fascinating. So, and it can be a bit confusing,

but just follow me with this. I think it’s really, really important. See, Jesus is correcting their understanding of who the son of God is. The first words of Mark’s gospel, they resonate with his Roman audience because who were the Roman emperors? They cast themselves as sons of God. See, in fact, the first sentence of Mark’s gospel seems to actually strategically mimic the way Rome wrote about their own emperors. Just listen to this. So, here’s Mark’s opening line again. The beginning of the gospel of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Now, here are the inscription for the birthday of Rome’s emperor, Caesar Augustus. The birthday of the son of God, Augustus, was the beginning of the good news for all the world.

See, what has Mark done? Mark steps in and challenges Rome’s own assumptions about imperial divinity. Now, why does he do this? He does this because he wants to correct everyone’s view of where their hope comes from. See, Mark is boldly telling us, don’t look to Caesar. Don’t look to your world leaders for hope. They are mere men like you. That’s because, Mark is saying, hope doesn’t come from a man who sits on a throne in Rome. It comes from the God-man who left his throne in heaven to bring real and everlasting hope into our world.

Which leads us to Mark’s final answer to the question, who is Jesus? Who is this Jesus? He is Messiah. He is the son of God. And he is also, oh, excuse me, he is also the servant king. All right. Now, remember, Jesus himself has clarified that the kingdom of God, this is his clarification, he’s clarified that the kingdom of God has come with his arrival. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. See, Jesus is the long-awaited for king. He’s the one who God promised would come from the line of David to restore God’s rule in the world. Jesus is the one who comes with power to overthrow the world’s kingdom and to overthrow Satan’s kingdom. Which is why, again, conflict defines so much of Mark’s gospel. I mean, just think about it. What is the first thing that Jesus does

after his public ministry has been announced at his baptism? Well, he walks into the wilderness to come face-to-face with whom? To come face-to-faith with Satan, to defy Satan’s temptations and to overthrow him with true and joyful obedience in his father. See, Mark is telling us that the true authority of the world has come in Jesus. He is that one true king. And as the father commands at the transfiguration, we are supposed to listen to this king. We’re supposed to listen to him. And why, why are we supposed to listen to him? What is it that he has to say that’s so important? Well, remember, he comes to turn the world right side up again. He brings God’s perfect kingdom into a world filled with our own small individual ghettos and broken kingdoms. I mean, where we’re all trying to turn the earth into our own versions of heaven,

Jesus brings heaven down to the earth, which he plants like a seed to grow and spread from Jerusalem into all the world. So simply put, simply put, we should listen because he is the king of God’s kingdom, of a better kingdom, the only one that matters and the only one that lasts. You see, friends, see, that’s the correction. That’s the correction. The king brings a kingdom that is so far from our expectations, it seems paradoxical. We can’t wrap our mind around it. It’s so strange to us because we are such strangers to God. I mean, that’s the reason for Jesus being such a puzzle to so many. I mean, what do we do with this guy? I mean, think about God’s kingdom in Mark. Demons get it. Disciples don’t. The Jewish elite miss it. The broken and contrite cling to it. The rich see it and understand it,

but they don’t want it because they don’t want to give their lives away for it. As Tim Keller says, the king of the kingdom is simultaneously unpredictable, yet reliable. He’s gentle, yet powerful. He’s authoritative, yet humble, and human, yet divine. See, the kingdom is paradoxical because we need to have our understanding of Jesus corrected. He needs to correct it. And where is the most paradoxical reality in Mark? It’s that the king waters the seed of his kingdom with his very blood. See, he’s not a prideful king. He is the servant king. He comes with a washbasin, not a sword. He comes to wear a crown of thorns, not a crown of gold. Jesus himself summarizes this in chapter 10, verse 45. He says that I came not to be served. You see, that’s the way the world looks at kings. They are to be served.

He says, I came not to be served, but to serve. And that’s King Jesus’ greatest paradox. He comes to serve. And how does he serve? By giving his life as a ransom for many. See, the king and the kingdom only makes sense when we follow the king, when we follow the king, because when we follow him, he’s turning the world right side up again. That’s the corrective. That’s the change. The puzzle is getting put back together for us when we start to see God’s king for who he really is, and we start to give our lives to him.

Who Are You?

Okay, that was a lot, and there’s more. So Jesus is the Messiah. He’s the son of God, and he’s the servant king. But remember, there’s a second question. That’s who Jesus is. That’s who Mark’s telling us Jesus is. And then there’s a second question. Who are you in light of who Jesus really is? See, that’s oftentimes the disconnect. Yeah, I can have everything down about who Jesus is, but how does it change you? How does it transform you? How does it reshape your identity? Now, remember, Mark wants all of the clarifying and correcting he’s done. He wants it to do something. He wants it to, first, to confront us and to call us to follow Jesus. So what does Jesus being the Messiah mean for us? Well, watch what it did to the original hearers. When Jesus breaks in onto the scene, his messiahship confronts them, and it separates them.

I mean, what do the Sadducees, what do the Pharisees, what does the rich young ruler think about Jesus’s messiahship? Well, they get it, but they don’t want to have anything to do with it because it’s hurting their tradition and he’s demanding too much from them. See, Jesus doesn’t fit their messianic paradigm because he doesn’t do things the way they think they should be done, but there are others too. There are others in this gospel that you’ll find, the broken, the downcast, the hurt, those who are in need. See, it’s these who turn into, they turn toward Jesus as their messiah while others turn against him. See, what they’re doing is they’re saying, I recognize that you are the messiah, and I put my faith, I put my life, I put my hope, I put everything I have on you.

He’s the one who has shown them that he can make their world right again and he can make the whole world right again. See, and that is what Mark is calling us to this very morning. He’s calling you to this as well. You see, what he wants you to do is he’s calling you to confront your religious baggage. The first thing he wants us all to recognize, myself included, something I have to remind myself every morning, you are not God’s anointed one. You are not the messiah, and nor is your perception of religion infallible. It is not messianic either, so I have to come and submit. I have to submit myself and my views of him to Jesus so that he can define it and he can correct it. And in doing so, all this, all what Mark is doing is he’s calling us to faith.

He’s saying, yeah, that needs correction, but he’s saying, just like Jesus says, follow me. He says, follow, he wants you to become like your messiah. Jesus wants you to, what, what is it, to deny yourself? Have you heard this before? To deny yourself, to give up your own messiahship, deny yourself, and to take up your cross and follow him. But to do any of that, the first thing we need to recognize is that we are needy people, that we are sinners in need of salvation. See, that’s why others believe in the gospel. If you watch them, they believe because they have a need. And Jesus himself in Mark 2 says, this is why I’ve come. I did not come to those who are well and have no need for a physician, but I have come to those who are sick. Jesus comes not to call the righteous, but sinners.

And friends, that’s the point, right? I mean, that’s the point. None of us are well, none of us are righteous. We all need a savior because we all are sinners. We need him to be our messiah, not for us to try to lead him. Now, what about the son of God? So that’s messiah, what about the son of God? How does Jesus as being the son of God form our identity as Jesus’ followers? Again, what was Israel looking for? They wanted to get their world back. They wanted to stop feeling like exiles in their own land. They wanted foreign leaders off their own throne. They wanted them all the way out of their lives. And remember, Jesus confronts them by giving them more. See, the true son of God comes to bring them back to a relationship with their God, the one they were really and truly exiled from.

See, and this is Jesus’ call. So that’s where he’s confronting. Now he’s calling us, Jesus’ call. Mark is saying, don’t follow worldly rulers. You don’t need to follow the emperor. Follow the son, follow the son of God. In light of his readers’ persecution, Jesus is saying that he is the real son of God, not Nero, not some Roman emperor. So hold fast and know that there is nothing that you are experiencing in your persecution that he himself hasn’t already faced for you.

Now that was for that world, but what about ours? What about ours? I mean, what are you looking for? See, the son of God comes in and directs his attention at where our hopes are. So what about you? Where are your hopes? Perhaps your hopes are in a new election and the opportunity for a new president. Perhaps your hopes are in one more term. Perhaps your hopes are in the American dream. And let me just say this, this flows directly out of my heart. If I just had this, everything would be fine. Or maybe, maybe it’s simpler. Maybe you just want to live the way you feel and you just wanna follow your joy without anyone or anything else getting in your way. See, what Mark is here to do is here to show us that son of God, this Jesus, this son of God

is calling us to something so much better. Jesus is better than whoever is on the ballot. He’s better than the American dream. He offers a better joy than you can ever craft on your own because he’s the one who created you to pursue joy and he is the only joy that can fulfill you. See, that’s because when we follow him, we find not a worldly hope, but a divine hope. That’s because that divine hope has broken into this world through the divine son of man. See, because Jesus Christ is the son of God, he can offer to make you sons and daughters of God through simple union with him, by placing your faith in him, by repenting and believing, by trusting in him, by, as Mark tells us, not just knowing who he is, but by following him.

And now the servant king, the servant king. How does Jesus’ being the king change us into lifelong disciples from beginning to end? See, Mark’s first audience was confronted by his kingly authority and his humble servanthood. Jesus came with undeniable power and authority, but with that authority came a demand on all those who were confronted with him. You see, when someone comes in the room with more authority than you, you have to ask yourself whether or not this person will be that authority. And so everywhere Jesus goes, the question that resonates is will Jesus be my authority?

See, the Roman and Hebrew authorities, they struggled with this kingly claim because it meant that they weren’t the authorities anymore. Where Jesus offered salvation and freedom through his authority, all they could hear were threats to their own self-manufactured authority, their own way of life, their own way of doing things, their own idols.

But not only were they confronted with this authority, they were confronted with his humble servanthood. You see, Jesus enters the story and he doesn’t look like the king they were expecting. Doesn’t look like a king at all. He didn’t play the part of the king and he surely didn’t die as a king. Rather, he died on a cross like a common criminal hanging between two other common criminals.

But here’s the thing, it was the cross that actually declared him to be the true king because at the cross, you see that Jesus has the utmost authority, the only one with authority to deal finally and fully with our sins and to defeat our greatest enemy of death.

And now for us, for us, Mark confronts us, well, if I’m being honest, he confronts me where it hurts. See, he pushes on all of our authority issues too. He’s saying that no matter if you like it or not, you’re not the king. You don’t have authority over the world. The throne doesn’t fit you. The throne doesn’t fit me. It’s reserved for the only one king and that one king is Jesus, the one who has come to establish a new, now and forever kingdom in this world. Now here’s the thing, if you’ve lived long enough or if you’re wise enough, then you know that the idols of your own authority are cracked, they’re broken. They should be sent back to the manufacturer, okay? I mean, just think about it. Does the world really play by your rules? I mean, how’d it go driving here? Was everybody playing by your rules on the road?

Yeah, no? I see that smile. No, no one’s playing by your rules. Do you really control everyone and everything? I mean, how’s life at work going? How’s it like being under someone? Someone who may not be the best boss? I mean, how does your kingdom look right now? The kingdom that you’re building, is there ever enough? Is there ever enough money? Is there ever enough joy? Is there enough happiness that you can create on your own? I mean, is your kingdom perfect? See friends, that’s why Jesus’s kingdom isn’t a threat. It’s a gift, it’s a promise, it’s a call to something much, much more. See, the King is bringing us into a better kingdom. It’s a kingdom he ransoms with his own humility, suffering and death, which here and now we will feel to a degree as his disciples. But one day we will exchange for full perfection,

Opening Our Hearts

glory and eternal life. Okay. Now, now, now, now here at the end, what I wanna do is I wanna help you as you step out of Trinity, walk straight into the gospel of Mark. I want Trinity Church to know what to do with what Mark says over the next few months or like I said, maybe the next few years or so. Perhaps a better question to ask you here at the end and want to take with you is how do we open ourselves up to the gospel of Mark? How do we open ourselves up to it? And I’ll be real quick, I’ll be real quick. And it follows the four C’s that we’ve already seen throughout this overview. The first is this, and so bring these to bear when you read God’s word, when you read Mark and when you hear Mark preach. The first is clarification.

The first is clarification. Are you open to Jesus clarifying who he is? Or do you want to let someone else determine that for you? Do you want to know Jesus on his own terms? Or are you content with someone else’s version of Jesus? Second, so it’s clarification. Second, it’s correction. Are you open to Jesus correcting you in light of who he is? Not just the understanding of Jesus, but are you open to him correcting you in light of who he really is? Are you willing to let Jesus press into you to define you and to define you on his terms? Will you let Jesus correct you? So there’s clarification, there’s correction. And next is confrontation, confrontation. Are you open to having Jesus question your own authority and your own identity with his better authority? Simply put, will you allow Jesus to smash your idols? Will you trust him with those areas you trust no one else?

Will you let him confront you? And will you trust him as he does? And finally, there is Jesus’s call. So there’s clarification, correction, confrontation, and there’s Jesus’s call. Are you open to becoming his disciple, to follow him no matter where he goes, no matter where he takes you?

See, here’s the thing, we are all following someone or something. Our hearts are wired to do this. So who is it that you are following? Is it Jesus? Is it the real Jesus? And have you connected yourself to him? You see, that is the purpose. That’s what Mark is all about. He wants you to know who Jesus is because he’s calling you to follow him. He’s calling you to transform you into a disciple. And that’s why his gospel is a gospel on fire. It’s a gospel that is a full court press. Mark is the Jimmy Johns of gospels. Mark is the Usain Bolt of gospels. See, while all other gospel writers are running their marathons, Mark is running the hundred meter dash because Jesus is at the finish line. And he wants you, wants to take you all the way to that Jesus. He is burdened that you know Jesus.

He wants you face to face with Jesus all the time. He wants you to follow him. He wants you to follow him no matter where he goes. And that, that’s why Mark’s pace is blinding. It’s why Mark’s favorite word, does anybody know it? It’s immediately, it’s immediately because Mark’s Jesus is so, so important. Mark’s Jesus is so worth it. We should be running after him to follow him. So there it is. And here’s the last question to leave you with, leave you with as we launch into a verse by verse study of Mark. So will you, will you follow the son? Will you come to know who he really is? And will you let him change you and form you into one of his disciples? Not just the beginning, but all the way in to the end of your life. Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word. And we thank you for the gospel of Mark. We thank you for the fact that you haven’t left us here on our own. We thank you for the fact that you have shown us and declared to us through your spirit, using Peter and Mark to tell us who you really are. Simultaneously, to not just leave us there, but to push in, to push in and to ask us, not only to know who you really are, but to follow you, to give our identity to you, to trust in you and to hope in you. We pray that you would help us in this, help us in this as we read the gospel of Mark, and as we are walking through it together as a church, be with us, direct us, shape us and transform us. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.