I recently had the opportunity to preach at our church again, and decided to focus on a text from the Gospels. I tried to tell the story of Lazarus as story, and the result was better than I expected. The suspense and despair at Lazarus’ sickness, and later the surprise and wonder at his resurrection really came through, as did the greatness of Jesus Christ our Savior. Also highlighted were the perspective of Lazarus’s sisters and their struggle to believe despite their questions and unmet expectations.
I hope by sharing this message, others may be blessed by the living story of Lazarus. If you don’t have time to listen to the entire sermon (48 minutes), please do look over my notes.
Merry Christmas everyone. The wonder of Christmas is that Jesus Christ the Lord stooped to be born as a humble baby in a lowly manger. My wish is for everyone to take time this Christmas and stop to contemplate the wonder and be moved enough to truly worship our dear Savior.
I recently received a new study Bible that I plan to review in the near future. I turned to it this morning and found some encouraging words in the “Thoughts for Personal/Family Worship” following Luke chapter 2. The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible (RHB, 2014) had these poignant thoughts that I leave with my readers this Christmas:
1. As we read about the birth of Christ, many focus on the shepherds and angels. Certainly there are many lessons in what we are told about them and in what they did. Most important, however, is what Christ Himself did in His birth: He came to this lost world to be a Savior. Equally important is what God the Father did in the birth of His Son. He sent His Son in order to glorify Himself in the salvation of lost and miserable sinners like these shepherds. Reflect upon how low God stooped by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin (Rom. 8:3). Why was it necessary for the Lord to come in such humiliation as to lie in a manger rather than in a king’s crib? What does this foreshadow about the manner in which Christ would save sinners?
2. When Jesus was born the angels of God sang “Glory to God in the highest,” and the shepherds were glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Godly old Simeon was moved by the Holy Spirit to give public praise to God, and faithful Anna thanked the Lord and told many of the birth of the Redeemer. Why should Christ’s coming move Christians to sing and praise God? If our hearts are cold and sluggish to worship, what might this reveal about us? (pg. 1457)
Works righteousness is a deadly and false variation of godly obedience. Godly obedience is motivated by love for God and trust in his gracious plan and power. Works righteousness is motivated by unbelief; it is a reliance on our abilities and a desire to control outcomes. Works righteousness eventuates in penance: I’ll make it up to you by redoubling my efforts tomorrow! rather than repentance: Lord forgive me for my sin today. Thank you that you love me in spite of all my failures. In parenting, works righteousness will cause us to be both fearful and demanding. When we see our failures, we will be overcome with fear: I really blew it with my kids today. I’m so afraid that I’m going to ruin them! When we see their failures, we’ll be overly demanding: I’ve already told you what I want you to do. Didn’t you hear me? I must have told you fifty times in the last five minutes. I’m sick to death of your terrible attitude. You need to listen to me and do what I say without any complaints or grunts or eye rolls. Just do it! It’s obvious how both responses feed off each other in a never-ending cycle of anger and despair and penance.
Works righteousness obliterates the sweet comforts of grace because it cuts us off from God, who alone is the giver of grace. It cuts us off because he absolutely insists on being our sole Savior. This is his claim: “I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior” (Isa. 43:11; see also 45:21). We are not nor can we be the saviors of our children. He is the Savior. When we forget this, our parenting will be pockmarked by fear, severity, and exhaustion.
On the other hand, when we rest in his gracious work we will experience the comforts he has provided for us. He delights in being worshiped as the One who “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17). He loves flooding our consciences with the peace that comes from knowing our sins are forgiven and our standing before him is completely secure. When we’re quietly resting in grace, we’ll have grace to give our children, too. When we’re freed from the ultimate responsibility of being their savior, we’ll find our parenting burden becoming easy and light. [excerpted from pg. 55 of Give them Grace, published by Crossway Books]
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I can’t help but adding a side-note here. Most IFBx preachers I know pastor their church by this same false notion that the salvation of their flock depends on them. They encourage parents to be harsh with their kids as being the only way to win them ultimately to the Lord. All the while, God’s grace sits untapped in the corner and the legalism factory churns along with everybody working overtime….
A. Mark’s opening verse gave a title to a new kind of book — a Gospel.
B. The non-inspired titles: “The Gospel According to Mark, Matthew, Luke, John” likely derive from Mark 1:1.
C. A Gospel is not an objective, historically focused biography.
D. They are similar to other “lives” of philosophers and political leaders in ancient times — they are crafted to tell a story with a goal in mind for the reader.
E. They are different in that they focus on Jesus Christ in a unique way — they unpack the theological significance of Jesus Christ and give us the true Good News.
F. They don’t simply give us what happened, they tell us what to believe about what happened. They are in essence, preaching materials. They tell the story of God’s saving actions in Christ Jesus.
G. The Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke and it is believed that Matthew & Luke made use of Mark in the writing of their Gospels. They certainly followed his pattern. Each of the four authors had particular emphases in his writing.
DISCUSSION: What are some benefits to the four-fold Gospel that we have in the New Testament? Why four books instead of one? Why are the books similar and different. What can we learn from that? Record your thoughts.
2. Mark — The First Gospel
A. Author
The Book is anonymous, but from early on it has been attributed to Mark — the John Mark of Acts 12:12, 12:25, 13:5, 15:36-39, Col. 4:10, Philemon 24, 1 Pet. 5:13, 2 Tim. 4:11.
Here’s the earliest attribution of the book to Mark, by Papias in AD 140 (but known to us through Eusebius’ quote in roughly AD 320):
The Elder (likely John) said this also: Mark, who became Peter’s interpreter, wrote accurately, though not in order, all that he remembered of the things said or done by the Lord. For he had neither heard the Lord nor been one of his followers, but afterwards, as I said, he had followed Peter, who used to compose his discourses with a view to the needs of his hearers, but not as though he were drawing up a connected account of the Lord’s sayings. So Mark made no mistake in thus recording some things just as he remembered them. For he was careful of this one thing, to omit none of the things he had heard and to make no untrue statements therein.
Another early tradition (AD 160-180) reads: “Mark declared, who is called ‘stump-fingered’ because he had short fingers in comparison with the size of the rest of his body. He was Peter’s interpreter. After the death of Peter himself he wrote down this same gospel in the regions of Italy.”
Interestingly, Mark received relatively little attention in the preserved writings of the church, up until around the 1800s for the most part. There are aspects of Mark which make it difficult, and Augustine assumed Mark just offered up an abbreviated version of Matthew which was certainly larger, and which Augustine thought was written first. (However, often in the sections Mark shares with Matthew, Mark’s account is more detailed and longer than Matthew’s.)
B. Date
Most put this after the death of Peter in AD 64 and before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. This is our best guess.
This becomes important when we remember the intense persecution of the Christians at the hands of Nero in this time, Paul was martyred in AD 67 near the end of the persecution period. (see 1:12-14, 8:34-38, 10:30-34, 10: 45, 13:9-13)
C. Destination and Place of Writing
Both are likely Rome. Mark is first quoted in 1 Clement & the Shepherd of Hermas, both associated with Rome. Church tradition is almost united in having Mark writing to the Romans from Rome, and Mark is associated with Peter who almost certainly spent the last few years of his life in Rome where he was martyred. Clues in the letter point to a Gentile audience and possibly even a Latin / Roman audience. Grammatical points as well as many explanations of Jewish customs and translations of Aramaic into Greek given in Mark.
D. Purpose
We can only sketch ideas on this and as we study Mark we’ll learn if we are right or not in our ideas here.
1) To make the Gospel accessible to Gentiles (a missiological aim)
2) To encourage those facing persecutions, particularly the beleaguered Christians in Rome.
3) To explain and defend the faith — particularly the nature of Christ being fully man and fully divine (as well as how Jesus fulfilled and superseded the Messianic expectation of the Jews)
4) To explain the significance of the cross (almost half the book is devoted to the last week of Christ’s life– the passion week), and Christ’s death is foretold in 3:6.
DISCUSSION: What other thoughts come to mind when you think of characteristics or traits of Mark. Are there other themes which come to mind?
3. Theme Verse — Mark 1:1
A. Gospel — (Evangel / Good News, from euangelizomai – to evangelize)
1) The “Gospel” is connected by the “as” in vs. 2 to the quotation in vs. 2-3. The intimation there as well as in 1:14-15 is that the “Gospel” is a fulfillment of something foretold in the Old Testament.
DISCUSSION: Can you think of other places where the “Gospel” is rooted in the Old Testament? Is “the Gospel” really in the Old Testament? Jot down your observations and thoughts.
Rom. 1:1-4 & 1 Cor. 15:1-4 root the Gospel in the OT Scriptures. Initial Gospel sermons stemmed from OT texts (Acts 2:16-36, 13:16-41). Gal. 3:8, Abraham had the gospel preached to him beforehand. 1 Pet. 1:25 ties the word of Isaiah 40 to the gospel preached in the NT era (as does Mk. 1:1 with 1:2-3 – Is. 40 again is quoted) [cf. 1 Pet. 1:10-12]. OT “Gospel” texts are Ps. 40:9, 68:11, 96:2, Is. 40:9, 41:27, 52:7, 61:1). The Good News of God’s saving reign, and the ushering in of an era of righteousness is foretold in Isaiah. Mark connects Jesus’ ministry with the beginning of that fulfillment. “The beginning of the Gospel…” (Already / Not Yet fulfillment)
The posts in this series include notes from a Men’s Bible Study I’m teaching on the Gospel of Mark every other Saturday morning. I am sharing them so they might possibly be a blessing to others. Feel free to download the lesson sheets and use them for your own purposes.
Sunday Mediations — posts encouraging us all to meditate on the things of our Savior, on His day.
I don’t have a healthy enough view of God. I’ll be the first to admit that. I don’t comprehend his ultimate greatness, his “otherness” and transcendence. His awful holiness. Yes “awe-ful” and terrifying, holiness.
The Bible repeatedly calls on us to fear God. Yet fearing God is foreign to our nature. We live and breathe as if God isn’t. No wonder we don’t fear him.
And for those raised in Christianity (like me), we assume that we can approach God. We assume that we shouldn’t have to fear Him. And isn’t Christianity all happy-go-lucky anyway? What’s this about fear? Why should we tremble before God, don’t we have our ticket to heaven already?
With these thoughts in mind, lets approach a text this morning:
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Pet. 1:17-21)
I’ve been teaching through 1 Peter in our small group class every other Sunday night. This passage was a bit perplexing.
“Conduct yoursleves with fear” is one of four commands in this passage (“set your hope”–v. 13; “be holy”–v. 15; and “love one another”–v. 22 are the others). And I knew that the passage beautifully illustrates the relationship between Biblical imperatives and indicatives. Each command is expressly connected with facts that are true because of who we are in Christ.
So I was puzzled by the connection between vs. 17 and the verses that follow. In light of the preciousness of your redemption, fear God? That didn’t seem to follow, unless we are talking a debtor’s ethic where because of Christ’s sacrifice we should go on and labor in fearing God out of debt.
In looking at the text, it also seems to be disconnected. Fear God, knowing you were ransomed, not with perishable silver and gold, but with Christ. And Christ is like a lamb without blemish, foreknown and manifest for you, who believe in God. The main point of all this is still “fear God” so how does it all fit?
…as faith unites us to God, we shun and dread every access to him, except a Mediator comes who can deliver us from fear. For sin, which reigns in us, renders us hateful to God and him to us. Hence, as soon as mention is made of God, we must necessarily be filled with dread; and if we approach him, his justice is like fire, which will wholly consume us.
It is hence evident that we cannot believe in God except through Christ, in whom God in a manner makes himself little, that he might accommodate himself to our comprehension; and it is Christ alone who can tranquillize consciences, so that we may dare to come in confidence to God.
As I really grasped the glory of what was being said in vs. 21, everything clicked. We are to fear God, and this is impossible in ourselves. So we are reminded that we’ve been ransomed from our futile ways. And not just ransomed with a fool’s gift of gold, we’ve been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ. The very Christ who like the Paschal Lamb of old, was foreknown and chosen to suffer wrath in our place. This Jesus came and died “for [our] sake”. And thus through him we believe in God. And God’s resurrection of Jesus was all designed “so that [our] faith and hope [would be] in God”.
We can fear God, and reverence him, not as a vanquished foe trembles before Him. Rather because of the sacrifice accomplished for us, and because God himself has worked so that our faith and hope are in Him, we reverently fear God with Christ at our side. Because of our mediator we can approach this fearful God. And from Jesus, we can learn the true extent of God’s wrath which should cause us to tremble, while we also learn that all of that wrath was taken away for us in Jesus.
Oh how happy we are to have such a glorious mediator! Let us respect and reverence, yea fear, our Holy God more. Yet we need never shudder at this command, because we remember that God is accepting us, yea welcoming us to come boldly before His throne (which for us is a throne of grace) by the new and living way of Christ our crucified and Risen Savior! (Heb. 4:16, 10:19-21).
I recently had the opportunity to preach at our church again, and decided to focus on a text from the Gospels. I tried to tell the story of Lazarus as story, and the result was better than I expected. The suspense and despair at Lazarus’ sickness, and later the surprise and wonder at his resurrection really came through, as did the greatness of Jesus Christ our Savior. Also highlighted were the perspective of Lazarus’s sisters and their struggle to believe despite their questions and unmet expectations.
Introduction – Mark 1:1