03.21.2010 Leading to Palm Sunday - Mark 8,9,10

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Today we are beginning our march toward Easter. Next week is Palm Sunday – and then on Good Friday, we’ll have a service at 7:00 and read through the story and have communion. Then on Easter Sunday, we’ll have a breakfast, with a bit earlier 9:00 service.

Mark chapters 8-10 lead us to Palm Sunday – so, I will go through those today. In these 3 chapters, we have 3 predictions of Jesus’ death, three misunderstandings by the disciples – and three calls to discipleship or explanations of what discipleship is all about. At the end of chapter 10, there is another healing of a blind man. Jesus takes these 2 stories of blind people being healed – and in between, disciples who are blind – who lack spiritual vision and understanding.

Let’s pray – Lord, we thank You for the opportunity to be with You – to know that You are a kind and gracious God who loves us – and we love You and want to tell You that we are grateful to have the opportunity to sit in Your presence, to listen to Your word –and we ought to be thankful that we can read, teach, and understand Your Bible. Through the disciples’ misunderstanding, we can have understanding – through their failure, we can have a relationship pwith You. May You touch our hearts in a new way – a way that changes us deeply. In Your Name we pray – amen.

I will touch on some of these verses – this is a famous passage – a shift in the Gospel…
27 And Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?"
He takes a ‘non-scientific opinion poll’ – like they do on the news…and they say, Joh, Elijah…
29 And He [continued] by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter ^answered and ^said to Him, "Thou art the Christ." 30 And He warned them to tell no one about Him.
Matthew expounds on this – but the interesting thing is verse 30 – and he WARNED then - Peter gets the answer right – You are the Christ – but this word ‘warning’ – is a stern warning – to rebuke – Jesus rebukes them – TELL NO ONE! This is, in theological terms, a messianic expectation. The Jews had the wrong expectation of who the Messiah was. As the Jews looked to the Old Testament – they looked at all those verses regarding the KING, who would restore their people – and the disciples had the same thought processes – even into Acts, chapter 1 – they were thinking the same way. Jesus warns them sternly because He doesn’t want to foster the misunderstanding about who He is.
In v. 31, He begins to teach them. He makes this prediction – and we see how Peter had it so right, and then within a couple sentences – gets it oh so wrong!
31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter, and ^ said, "Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's.
Peter’s view was so different from what the real view was to be. He pictured this victorious warring king. But it is not the time for that – Jesus healed people, fed people, and did many miracles – but the disciples missed it.
If you want to talk about how to prepare for Easter – if you don’t have a clear understanding of who the messiah is, you won’t have a clear understanding of how to follow Him. Their wrong expectation about the messiah created a wrong expectation of what it means to follow the messiah.
We have wrong expectations of how Jesus, when we come to Him, is to work. What we expect/demand of God…
Two stories –
One – a guy wrote a book and was doing an interview on the radio – The book was about how he lost his Christianity – how he grew up in the faith – but when he got to college – heard how the Bible had all these problems. But that is not when he lost his faith. When he looked at the suffering in the world, it did not match the expectations of what he believed God to be. A lot of people do this –
Then I heard another story – like on Larry King or something – and they had some televangelists on – they weren’t talking about losing faith – but the ministry – it may be a good ministry – but he was saying – your life may not be what you expect it to be…but things are going to get better! And I thought – Maybe…but maybe not! You don’t know that everything will work out for you! If you think God will make everything work out just fine for you, you will have some expectations that will not be right. Having the wrong expectations of God gives a wrong expectation of what it means to be His followers.
34 And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
I’m going to die – and if you want to be my disciple, I expect the same of you.
When He says to deny ourselves, it is not to deny something to ourselves – like, I’m not going to eat chocolate. It is not that – maybe it should be that! But He is saying you need to deny selfish ambition, protection, interest – to deny SELF. To change the focus and perspective – if you go back to the Forty Days of Purpose’s first words – It is not about you! That summed it up – that’s all you really needed to know – it is not about you. It is not about what you get, achieve, your pleasure, your feelings…if that is what your life is about, you are not about following Him.
Take up your cross. The cross – for them – was simple – they saw it all the time – it meant death, shame, humiliation, and suffering – really not more than that. It is the focus of the gospel and the central requirement of discipleship. Taking up your cross does not mean bearing some difficulty you have been given – and not ‘modest adjustments to life, but a complete overhaul of life.’ It is a complete overhaul of our plans, purpose, and hope.
Deny/Take – if you want to be a follower – at some point you need to switch – and go Jesus’ way. For these guys – Mark was writing his gospel in 60-65 AD – and writing the gospel to the Romans. They would have gotten the cross analogy! One of the emperors kept the pyres lit up at night with martyrs. They got it.
In the church calendar, we are in the Lenten season – I have talked to a number who are doing this – and I’ve never really done this – until this year, to support some of you who are doing that. Being a disciple is about suffering and sacrifice – and I think, as I don’t get to enjoy this one little thing that is really irrelevant – and I confess, I don’t often think about suffering. These verses are so foreign to our way of thinking. Obviously, we don’t have a real cross or live in fear of death – but there are ways to take up our cross and deny ourselves and follow Him.
I was listening to Rob Bell on my iPod – and he was speaking about Jonah – and how Jonah prayed…think about being swallowed by a fish – and being alive! And his prayer – he goes through psalms of thanksgiving – and you would think, why would someone pray that in the belly of a fish! Rob says, sometimes, we think we need rescued FROM a circumstance, and sometimes, God is rescuing us IN the circumstance. Sometimes God brings things into our lives to rescue us.
I heard a story – true story – I don’t know this person – Bob Baldwin – Texas oil man – made lots of money and retired and bought a ranch outside of Houston – and everything was just the way they wanted. There was only one problem – down the road from the gate, there was an old, run down, but full trailer park filled with immigrants – illegal aliens – and was an eyesore to this man and his neighbors. He was a Christian man – but it really bothered him. Then one day, the sewer system of the trailer park backed up – and spilled onto his property – and they took these people to court to get it closed down. The judge asks – have you ever been there? It is just down the street from me! But have you ever been there? And as they were walking through the trailer park, he heard a voice – he had all the proof he needed to get it closed down – but the voice said – if you don’t like the way this is run, why don’t you run it!
The next day at church, a missionary had just gotten back from the mission field – and was looking for a place to minister – and so the man bought the trailer park and began fixing it up. And eventually the people asked if he would start a church for them – and with them being Catholic and Baldwin being Baptist and the missionaries there, they started the first Baptist Roman Catholic Missional church.
Sometimes God wants us to step into the circumstances.
Mark 9:30 And from there they went out and [began] to go through Galilee, and He was unwilling for anyone to know [about it.] 31 For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later." 32 But they did not understand [this] statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.
(After what happened to Peter, I don’t think they wanted to ask!)
33 And they came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He [began] to question them, "What were you discussing on the way?" 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which [of them was] the greatest. 35 And sitting down, He called the twelve and ^said to them, "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all." 36 And taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 37 "Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me."
Do you want to know how to deny yourself and take up your cross? Serve others.
Dave Brunelle – I was talking to him this week – we had planted their church in 2001 or so – and he had these visions of being this cool, hip, jean-wearing, yuppies – and God put them in an area of REALLY NEEDY people. This church of 150 people serves over 1000 people per month with food. They are doing a 10 week vacation Bible school this summer – every day – feeding them lunch and doing sports and stuff. Sometimes God has to change our way of thinking.
Mark 10: 35 And James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, ^came up to Him, saying to Him, "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You." 36 And He said to them, "What do you want Me to do for you?" 37 And they said to Him, "Grant that we may sit in Your glory, one on Your right, and one on [Your] left." 38 But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" 39 And they said to Him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. 40 "But to sit on My right or on [My] left, this is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." 41 And hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John
Essentially, James and John were asking to be vice-president and secretary of state. They missed it. They utterly missed it. It is almost comical. He shows – these other guys are mad about it – so Jesus calls them together and says…
. 42 And calling them to Himself, Jesus ^said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. 43 "But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. 45 "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
He brings their misunderstanding and lack of willingness to follow to completion – but also brings to completion what it takes to be a disciple.
Abraham was a Cambodian who made his money on the Black Market. He was turned in by a friend and escaped. Then he went to the jungle and became a disciple of Jesus. So much so, that he went to a Bible school – and continued dressing like a criminal – and no church wanted him. One day – he was in a coffee shop across from a slum village. When he was asking, God, was it all for nothing? Trucks came up and told the people they had 30 minutes to get their things together. They took these people to a swamp – and they made a tent village – and God told them – here is your church – and they built their little hut there. And now unbelievable things are happening.
We don’t live in Cambodia, but there are ways in which God wants us to lower ourselves to serve others.
Let’s pray.
Lord, I want to humbly tell You – as I heard these stories – I was very much aware of my lack of what these folks had done – making sacrifices for You. We present ourselves to You as a church to tell You that we are willing to serve You and ask You to reveal for us those things we don’t see. Maybe at work, or in our neighborhood – help us to see the mission before us. Maybe it is an irritation – that You see as a mission – in Your Name we pray.