Park Bible Baptist Church: Recent Episodes
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The sermon addresses the recent death of a public figure, framing it as an opportunity to reaffirm the church's role in proclaiming truth and combating evil, drawing heavily from biblical passages like 2 Corinthians 10 and Psalms 18. It emphasizes that while anger and fear are natural responses, Christians must handle them biblically, understanding that persecution ultimately strengthens the church and fulfills God's plan for life and salvation. The message encourages believers to actively engage in speaking truth, overcoming evil with good, and recognizing that the ultimate victory belongs to God, mirroring the promise of abundant fruit from a single kernel of wheat.
The sermon explores the current reign of Christ, evidenced by the wise men's journey to worship a newborn King and Herod's desperate attempt to thwart His rise. Drawing from Matthew's account of Jesus' birth and subsequent flight to Egypt, the message emphasizes that Christ's kingship is not a future reality but an active force, demonstrated through divine protection and the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. The narrative underscores the importance of recognizing Christ's authority, living as faithful citizens of his kingdom, and engaging in cultural transformation through righteous living, ultimately trusting in His saving power and advancing his reign.
The sermon traces the lineage of Jesus through the Old Testament, emphasizing its significance in establishing him as the rightful king and fulfilling ancient prophecies. It explores the concept of a kingdom, highlighting that it requires a king and that the kingdom of God is characterized by righteousness, redemption, and the ultimate victory over sin and death. Drawing from Old and New Testament passages, the message underscores Jesus' role as the King of Kings, who delivers his people from bondage and establishes a kingdom that will endure forever, ultimately restoring creation and bringing glory to God.
The sermon explores the prophetic vision of a coming kingdom, drawing from Daniel chapter two to illustrate God's sovereign reign over earthly powers and the ultimate triumph of His kingdom. It emphasizes that this kingdom isn't merely a future hope but a present reality, inaugurated by Christ's life, death, and resurrection, and manifested through the liberation of individuals and creation from sin and evil. The message calls for believers to actively participate in this kingdom by aligning their lives with God's will, recognizing that it promises restoration, freedom, and an enduring dominion that surpasses all other earthly powers.
The sermon emphasizes the transformative power of reconciliation through Christ, asserting that believers are no longer judged by outward appearances but are new creations whose minds grasp reality through God's truth. It explores the concept of 're-'—reconciliation, regeneration, redemption, renewal, rebirth—highlighting God's active role in remaking individuals and creation, reversing the effects of sin and restoring them to their intended purpose. The message underscores the importance of understanding that true change comes not through human effort but through God's grace, and challenges listeners to embrace this new reality by sharing the message of reconciliation with others, ultimately leading to the fulfillment of God's plan to unite all things in Christ.
The sermon emphasizes that grace restores humanity to its original, intended nature, moving beyond mere salvation to a transformative change that impacts every aspect of life. Drawing from Scripture, particularly Revelation 21 and Romans, it asserts that while sin can be overwhelming, God's grace offers complete forgiveness and enables believers to live purposeful lives, fulfilling their earthly vocation and reflecting God's image. The message highlights the example of the Apostle Paul, illustrating how grace can liberate individuals from the burden of past sins, empowering them to embrace their true identity and actively participate in God's work in the world, ultimately demonstrating that God's restorative power is available to all.
The sermon emphasizes that the fundamental distinction between humanity lies not in relative goodness, but in whether one is alive in Christ or remains spiritually dead. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 2, it asserts that true wisdom originates not from worldly intellect but from the Spirit, revealing God's hidden plan and empowering believers to engage in cultural restoration. The message challenges the notion of avoiding worldly involvement, instead advocating for Christians to actively build a culture that reflects God's truth, embraces the cultural mandate, and ultimately glorifies Him through good works and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.
God has sovereign rule over the rulers now and of antiquity. Their success is a factor of worship because what you worship is what you live; politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from worship.
Meekness was a key characteristic in Jesus. He understood that victory was assured and therefore lived as such. The Christian can be assured of the same victory and can live a victorious Christian life.
Paul begins with humility as the chief ethical characteristic to master as we grow towards unity.
There are two families and only the family of God will receive the heavenly blessings that Paul prays for believers to have. Are you in God's family--
The authority of the church-what is the extent of that authority and how do we wield it to love and save the world--
You are the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through you God's displays His infinite wisdom.
God's plan is the church and no sin nor evil will overcome what He is doing in Jesus Christ.
The Mystery, The Man, and The Magnitude. How a people who were not God's people became God's people and a man who was not God's man became God's man.
Paul understood that the revelation of the mystery of Christ was of more value than his life. He suffered for the sake of the gospel and the glory of Christ and took full possession of the promise.
Paul urges in this epistle that the reader can perceive and have insight into the revelation he received of the mystery of Christ. What a glorious truth.
S. M. Baugh writes in his commentary on Ephesians, -Paul pauses to assure his Gentile audience that his imprisonment does not mean that God has rejected him from his apostolic office so as to compromise their inheritance in Christ- -p 211-. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. Rather, Paul shows how much God can do when we live if as we have, A Life To Give.
Church Arise - God builds out of materials no one else would use a building no one else could build.
Thinking man -homo sapiens- cannot know God and because thinking man cannot know God, he cannot know truth.
Christ is building His church on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets -Eph 2-20- and God is faithful to raise up men in each generation to lead His people to the covenant promises.
Our apologies for the lack of video this week, all there remains is the full audio stream.
Increasing in wisdom, revelation, and knowledge of God the believer's soul is increasingly filled with light and can comprehend what is the hope to which He has called.
God's sovereign plan before the foundations of the world in Christ must have a logical conclusion. Today, we see that conclusion as God brings together all things in Christ. -Note- Last week's sermon in Ephesians was unusable due to an error in operations. Please forgive us.
Without faith in God man has no hope in a world where evil exists. That is to say that evil is beyond man's ability and God is pressing the enormity of evil here for a reason-not to exasperate Job but to give him hope-to bring him to the end of himself and total dependance on a sovereign God.
The disciples had allowed their grief to lead them to unbelief instead of faith, and friends we need to see this tendency in our own hearts as well. When bad things happen, when people we love die, when providence takes a dark turn in our lives and grief overwhelms us, we must beware the danger of letting our sorrow lead us into unbelief. How many times have we heard stories of professing believers who lose their faith because something bad happened to either them or someone they love. This is the tendency of the human heart. Grief can either drive us to Christ in faith or away from Christ in unbelief, so friends, don't let grief pull you away from Jesus. The power of his resurrection can dispel the darkness that hovers over our souls, just like it did with the disciples once they finally believed. They were brand new men restored by grace, ready to go to work for the cause of Christ, and by the same grace, we too can be restored and go in his name.
If someone were to ask you what makes Christianity different from any other world religion, how would you answer that- There really is only one answer to that question -- resurrection of Jesus Christ. If he is not raised, then he is no different than any other religious leader, teacher, or prophet. The entire Christian faith hinges on the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus. His substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection is, as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15-3, a matter of -first importance- because if Christ is still in his grave, then we are still in our sins, and our faith is in vain. But if Christ has been raised like Mark describes in this passage, then everything changes. If he is alive, then he was exactly who he said he was- the divine Son of God who came to rescue us from our sins, and friends that is good news this morning, because apart from his life, death, and resurrection for us, we have no hope of being declared righteous before a holy God.
Many of you have told me over the years how much you love the hymn -The Old Rugged Cross- which we just finished singing. It is a powerful hymn that reminds us that the cross is one of the most provocative symbols in human history. It is, as George Bennard wrote, -an emblem of suffering and shame.- But over the centuries the cross has been sanitized, and you may even be here today wearing a cross of gold around your neck. Or you may have a cross hung on the wall of your home, but the cross around your neck is polished and clean. The cross on the wall at home is not soaked in crimson blood. But more important than the image of the cross's brutality, is the message of the cross -- that Jesus suffered and died in the place of sinners. He was forsaken so that we might be forgiven, and that is what Mark shows us in this passage, so let's look at these verses together and behold again the sin-bearing wrath-satisfying death of Christ in our place.
There are a lot of characters in this passage, and I wonder, which ones in this scene might we identify best with this morning- Are we like Pilate, and just want to pragmatically serve our own interests- Are we like the crowd, easily swayed by deceptive people- Are we like the self-righteous chief priests- Are we like the soldiers who just pretend to worship Jesus- Perhaps there's a little of each of them in us, but if we really want to see ourselves in this passage, look no further than Barabbas- the guilty sinner who goes free while the righteous Son stands condemned. We are Barabbas, and oh what mercy has been shown to us here, so that we might by faith in our suffering king be sinners saved by grace. In his great hymn, -Man of Sorrows,- P.P. Bliss writes- Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood- Sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah- What a Savior-
Over the past few years in our culture, there has been considerable renewal of attention surrounding the notion of injustice, and regardless of how we may evaluate the alleged injustices that have brought so much unrest to our nation, there is no denying that injustice does occur. Individuals and even entire people groups are at times wrongly accused and unjustly treated. We could talk at length about all the injustices throughout human history, but I want us to focus on one particular injustice this morning - the one we find here in Mark 14. Jesus, the eternal Son of God has been arrested, and the finite creature will now sit in judgment over the infinite Creator -- just let that sink in for a moment. The epitome of holiness and righteousness is now standing before men whose hearts were filled with only hypocrisy and self-righteousness. This is the very worst injustice our world has even seen. This is the trial of Jesus.
Something happened in the heart of Jesus in Gethsemane and there is no telling what took place in the heavenly realm during that time. Every hellish evil stood against him, the angels in heaven supported him, he cries out to his Father because he knows this is it, and now, his will is surrendered, his heart is ready, and he says, -It's time, let's go.- Hebrews 12-2 says, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Could it be, that in the garden, the Father set this joy before His Son- As if he said to him, -This is going to be hard. You will bear their shame, but you will sit down at my right hand soon.- Is it possible that Jesus remembered the prophet Isaiah's words, -Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied-- We'll never really know what went on between Jesus and his Father that night, but he came out of that garden ready for the cross. Oh friends, this is love.
Friends, turn away from self-confidence and throw yourself on Christ, and not if, but --when-- we fall like Peter and the disciples did, know that Jesus is not finished with us. Look at verse 28. I held it for the end on purpose. In all this talk of betrayal, sacrifice, and abandonment, hope is hiding in plain sight. Jesus says, 'after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.' So after telling his disciples that they will all do the unimaginable and forsake him, he says, 'This is not the end of your story guys. You will see me again. When this is all over, I will meet you back home in Galilee.' Oh friends what a promise- When we go through the darkest night of our lives and do the unthinkable-even things we swore we'd never do, Jesus will come to us again, not with condemnation but with grace -- a risen Savior whose righteousness restores us to fellowship with him. Oh what grace- Brothers and sisters, take hope in this today-
-How do we live through the unpredictability of life- When the world is falling apart around you, and the roller coaster of life is stuck, hanging you upside down, and nothing is turning out how you thought it would, just do the next right thing. Keeping reading your Bible. Keep praying, keep going to church. Keep going to work and school. Do your homework, clean your room. Do what you know to do, because if you don't, that is disobedience, and James says it is sin. Brothers and sisters are you at a place in life this morning where things aren't working out- Maybe you've been there for a while and have no clue what's next. Keep your eyes on Jesus and just keep moving forward. Trust in the faithfulness of God. Psalm 27-13 says, 'I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord.' Friends do not despair, you will see the goodness of God again.-
-The Sanhedrin treasured their control more than Jesus. Judas treasured money more than Jesus. John 12-6 says that Judas 'was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.' That's why he got so upset when he saw what Mary did, and I wonder, was this what sent him over the edge to betray the Lord- Was this the decisive event that erupted his greedy heart- He treasured money, but Mary just treasured Jesus. Oh what about us this morning- Is he worth more than anything to us, today- What about it young person- Is he worth more to you than whatever you hold closest to your heart- Will we break the flask of our lives and pour it over Jesus or will we betray him to worldly pursuits and affections- If you're here and do not love the Lord Jesus like you should -and honestly friends, that's likely all of us-, then let us come to him today in repentance and take whatever we're treasuring more than him and pour it out at his feet.-
-Finally, we come to the crux of the Olivet Discourse- Jesus is coming, so be ready. Four times here the Lord says to be 'awake.' So the question is, are we awake- Jesus is coming, but is there something in this world making you spiritually drowsy, so that you are not fully awake, sober-minded and ready for the increasingly turbulent times ahead and his return- It is the trials and uncertainties of our day- Is it treasured pleasures or temporary comforts that are making us spiritually sleepy- Friends I hope not. I pray not. Romans 13-11 says 'You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone- the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.' Time is short friends. Let us use our days to be awake and ready for that moment when the sky splits open with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and he returns.-
If what we believe about Jesus doesn't lead us to submit to his lordship, then what we believe about him is wrong, no matter how theologically correct it is. If our Christology doesn't bring us into submission to Christ's reign over our lives so that our driving focus in all things is obedience to him, then our Christology is errant, our doctrine is deficient, and it is insufficient to save. You see friends, you can believe the right things about Jesus and still not know Jesus. He can be standing in front of your face through his word and you miss him altogether because he is not the Messiah, not the Christ, not the Savior you expect, or more accurately, he's not the Savior you want.
Astrology was widely practiced at the time of Jesus' birth, and the ancients believed that the stars predicted the rise and fall of rulers, so the appearance of this star was a significant reason for Herod, who was notoriously paranoid, to be concerned at the report of the birth of a new king in Israel, and further down Matthew tells us that Herod had all boys in Bethlehem under two years old killed. Herod deceived the wisemen under the guise of seeking to worship the Christ-child, and the chief priests and scribes were complicit in his sin by giving him the information to that would lead him to the birthplace of the Messiah. So Herod and the religious leaders rejected the Christ, but the pagan astrologers sought to worship him.
For all the sentiment that images of a baby in a manger surrounded by angels and shepherds brings, Christmas actually confronts us every year with something that is increasingly offensive to the modern scientific era -- and that is the reality of miracles. The idea that a virgin girl could conceive and give birth is ridiculous to the naturalistic mind, and in a day where all we hear is -follow the science,- we must admit that science will not lead us to Bethlehem's manger, because what happened there is scientifically impossible. Virgins do not conceive and give birth. Yet the virgin conception of Jesus has been a core doctrine of the historic Christian faith for 2000 years. The ancient Apostles Creed says -I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord- who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.-
Some of the most absurd ideas come from those who approach the claims of Christ and Scripture in arrogant unbelief. Take for instance, the idea of the -big bang- - an explosion out of nothing in an attempt the origin of the universe, or molecules to man evolution to explain the origin of life on this planet. R.C. Sproul said, -Nothing could be more irrational than the idea that something comes from nothing.- We claim to be the smartest the human race has ever been, but if we reject the Lord Jesus Christ, we are, like that little table-top puzzle at Cracker Barrel says when you leave four or more pins, -just plain dumb.- In Romans 1-22, the Apostle Paul says arrogant ignorance is characteristic of the heart that rejects truth -- -Claiming to be wise, they became fools.- Yet in our arrogant unbelief, we would rather persist in ignorance than submit to the reality of divine Creator who lays claim on every cosmic square inch of his universe - including our lives.
For the Jew, the denarius coin represented the tyranny and idolatry of the Roman empire and for them to have to use this coin was offensive. Notice that Jesus did not have this coin, but the Pharisees and Herodians did, and Jesus springs a trap of his own. Here they are in the temple of the one true and living God with an idolatrous coin bearing the image of a pagan emperor who claims to be divine -violations of the 1st and 2nd commandments-, and by already having the coin in their possession, they show that their objection to what that coin represented was just superficial piety. In effect, Jesus was saying to them, 'if you guys have no problem carrying around Caesar's idolatrous money in the house of God, then you shouldn't have any problem paying Caesar's taxes.' Jesus saw straight through their self-righteous piety and exposed their hypocrisy. They had fallen into their own trap. I wonder friends, what kind of hypocrisy does Jesus need to expose in us-
The testimony of God's saving grace toward Harvey Gross, converted from Judaism to Jesus Christ - Yeshua HaMashiach.
The parable of the tenants is bleak - there is a vineyard neglected, servants rejected, a Son murdered, and judgment rendered, but here in verses 10 and 11 there is an anchor of hope- even the murderous and wicked actions of man are part of the sovereign plan of God to bring his Son to his rightfully exalted place as the chief cornerstone -- the one who holds all things together by the power of his word -- and it is marvelous in our eyes. The mysterious plan of God that sovereignly reigns over the sinful deeds of man is a beautiful hope for all who have eyes to see it.
The Sadducees' problem wasn't John. Nor was it that Jesus didn't offer enough evidence to be the Messiah. Their problem was that no matter what John said or what the evidence pointed to, they rejected Jesus because he was a threat to their self-sufficiency, and friends, that's still the problem today. There are a lot of Christians who try to convince unbelievers of the reasonableness of Christ through evidence, but evidence is not the reason why people don't believe. Just like Jesus did with these Sadducees - you can meet people half-way, ask the right questions, present the best evidence, and they still won't believe. The reality is that there's an abundance of evidence for the person of Christ, but the stubborn heart of unbelief resists it all. Why- Because of the driving theme of this passage- the rejection of his authority over our lives. We reject because we don't want to submit to Christ. Bottom line. Reason and evidence have nothing to do with it.
The context of this often misunderstood verse on prayer is Christ's judgment on faithless Israel - signified by the cursing of the fig tree and cleansing of the Temple, and once we start to see these verses within that context, it becomes clear that Jesus is not promising that all of our prayers will be answered if we just believe. Instead, he's calling his disciples to true believing faith in God, not the empty faith of external religious forms that the faith of Israel had become, and this is a reminder of our own need to have this kind of true believing faith in God today, lest we become like the barren fig tree and corrupt temple, having confidence in our own works and religious acts instead of the living God.
What about the church in America- Is she a tree with full leaves but no fruit- Oh friends I think so. We are rich in beautiful buildings and programs for every conceivable need and demographic. We have spectacular services with engaging public speakers and professional musicians -even though most Christian worship songs today are the same four chords over and over, but that's beside the point-. We have all this production value in the American church, but we are barren of real fruit. We're watching Christian leader after Christian leader denounce the faith, we're seeing our young people reject Christianity and embrace the religion of secularism. We're watching once conservative Bible-believing churches and seminaries compromise with the unbiblical ideologies of our culture, all while we're the richest and biggest we've ever been. We've got full leaves but no fruit. And friends, if the American church doesn't repent, Jesus will say to us, -May no one ever eat fruit from you again.- Perhaps he already has.
The temple is introduced in verse 11, and as ordinary as it seems, Mark is setting the stage because it's about to go down in the temple -- the final showdown between Jesus and the religious leaders. Here in this verse, after the making the 17 mile journey from Jericho to Jerusalem, it's late, they're tired, and Mark says that Jesus walks into the temple and looks around. I wonder if Jesus' mind traveled back to when he was 12 years old in the temple, astonishing the teachers with his wisdom, telling Joseph and Mary who were frantically looking for him, -Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house-- -Luke 2-49- Now 20 or so years later, he knows full well these will be his last trips to his father's house. That sacred place that was so central to the life of the people of God would now be central to the death of the Son of God.
This pitiful man at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder that no one else would give the time of day arrested the attention of the Son of God. Jesus stopped and said, -Call him.- This was a veiled rebuke of those who told the man to be quiet - Jesus is like, -No, I have time for him. Bring him to me.- And so verse 49 goes on - And they called the blind man, saying to him, -Take heart. Get up- he is calling you.- -Amazing how quickly the crowd changed their tune, right- They went from -be silent- to -take heart, he is calling for you.- And friends, you may feel as if Jesus is passing by and you can't get to him. You may think he can't hear your cry for mercy among a million other voices crying out for help. There may be people in your life telling you to give up, people who don't have time for you, but I've got good news for you- Jesus is passing by this morning. Take heart, he's calling today-
Jesus says to his disciples, -You guys want greatness- You want to sit beside me in glory- Watch what I'm about to go do in Jerusalem- -- where the only two on his right and left were the criminals crucified with him. Friends there is no greater humiliation than to see the divine Creator and Lord of the universe, the Son of God and Son of Man hang naked and bloody on a cross bearing the sins of all who would believe on him. Jesus is the ultimate model of sacrifice, but he far more than our model, he is our substitute. You see, no amount of personal sacrifice or serving can atone for sin. That infinite price has to be paid by an infinitely valuable substitute - that's what it means for him to be our ransom. His life was the price paid to free us from the just penalty of our sin.
Jesus loved this young man to tell him the truth. I wonder, do we love people enough to tell them the truth, or do we just stay silent because we don't want controversy. Friends, that not love - not the way Jesus loves. Love demands truth, and Jesus loved this young man enough to cut past his external righteousness and get to the true idol of his heart- money. This young man had -great possessions,- and his wealth was his true god. Jesus called him to give it up, not because it was sinful for him to be wealthy, but because it was sinful for him to value his earthly treasure above obedience to Jesus, who called him to give it all away and follow him, but he was unwilling.
We need to walk away from this text this morning feeling the sacred gravitas of marriage. Friends it is not ok to leave just because you are unhappy. The world might tell you that. After all, you only live once so why should you have to spend it in an unhappy marriage, right- We've all heard that one before. But we live under the lordship of Christ, who calls us to a deeper way of living, and whose love for his bride the church should be reflected in our marriages. You see marriage is a living breathing witness to the gospel -- a Savior who gave his life for a chosen bride and who loves his people even in their sin and unfaithfulness. No, our marriages don't measure up to Christ's sacrificial love for his people, but friends make no mistake- good, bad, or somewhere in between, they all point to that reality. Marriage points us to Christ.
We need to understand that sin is at war with us and Jesus is calling us to take an aggressive attitude toward it. He's not saying we should literally mutilate ourselves if we sin, but to get on the front lines and do whatever it takes to win these daily battles with temptation, which are uniquely different for every person. If internet pornography is a temptation for you - and it is for at least 94- of American men who admit to having looked at porn within the last 6 months - if porn is a problem for you, put a filter on your computer and phone, confess your sin and get accountable to someone. If drunkenness is a problem for you, stay away from alcohol and the people who entice you to drink it. If it's pride, envy, self-righteousness, anger, unforgiveness, disobedience to parents, out of control lust, greed - whatever your particular temptation is, we need to get serious about it because sin's singular objective is our eternal ruin in hell.
Notice the tragic irony here- while Jesus was teaching his disciples about his own suffering and death, they were busy arguing about who among them was the greatest. I imagine Jesus may have thought, -did they not hear anything I just said- I'm telling them about my suffering and they're worried about their greatness-- You see friends, the fundamental human sin is pride. We are a self-absorbed people. We live to please ourselves and advance our own agendas. How often do we get offended because we don't get the recognition we feel like we deserve- That's pride. How often do we get upset when things don't go our way- That's pride. It's in our homes, our churches, our workplaces. It's everywhere because every one of us has a natural fallen predisposition to pride, but we must die to ourselves, our own ambitions and agendas, because humility is the path to true greatness.
You see, even believers can have unbelief, and I wonder, how often does the Lord just look at us and shake his head because no matter how many times he's shown himself faithful and true, our faith is still so off target. It's time to repent of our unbelief friends. But, thanks be to God, Jesus is merciful, and he steps into our messes and brings hope. Look at the end of verse 19. This episode is about to take a dramatic turn with these four hope-filled words- -Bring him to me.- Friends it doesn't matter what situation you're in this morning, bring it to Jesus. Feel the healing sting of his rebuke for your unbelief and then run to him with your mess. Run to him with your marriage. Run to him with your heartache. Run to him with your children. Run to him with your sin. He's saying to us this morning- -Bring it to me.-
With the Father's affirmation of the Son, the transfiguration event ends, and verse 8 says, -suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.- Let's camp here for a moment and consider those two words- Jesus only. 19th century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, who once preached an entire sermon on those two words, says, -This was the last sight the disciples had upon the mountain, and it seems to me to have been the best. They saw Jesus only.- After the dazzling splendor of the Lord's transformation was over, the thrill of seeing Moses and Elijah had passed, and the terror of Christ's majesty had subsided, Peter, James, and John were left with Jesus only. There is a convicting truth for us here, because friends I wonder, when all the excitement of whatever spiritual mountaintop we've been on has faded, is it enough that we are left with Jesus only- Yes it's awesome to experience the sweet presence of Jesus in tangible ways that move our emotions, but friends, that buzz doesn't last forever. Is it enough that we have Jesus only-
This is a lesson in spiritual economics. Jesus says all the things that we invest our lives in-comfort, pleasure, personal success and happiness-none of that is worth the ultimate price of our souls. If we gain all that this world has to offer, but at the expense of our soul, then we have gained nothing and lost everything, and embedded in this verse is the truth that we can't pursue both Christ and the world at the same time. They are mutually exclusive, so we need to make sure that what we are spending our lives on is going to follow us into eternity. That means we need to be making spiritual investments - like the priority of Lord's Day worship, the priority of daily Scripture and prayer, the priority of sharing the gospel with others. These are the investments that will yield an eternal return. Nothing else will.
Jesus is not simply a moral example, great prophet, or compassionate teacher-he is all that for sure, but much much more, he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. You see anyone can acknowledge Jesus as a great teacher or model of ethics. Even Ghandi said, -Jesus to me, is a great world teacher among others.- But Ghandi also said, -I do not accept the orthodox teaching that Jesus was or is God incarnate in the accepted sense or that he was or is the only Son of God.- You see the unbelieving world doesn't have any problem with the -What Would Jesus Do- vision of Christ - that's why that notion falls short of who Jesus is. Anyone can confess him as a good teacher or model of ethics, but to confess Him as the divine Son of God--that confession has to come from heaven, as it did here with Simon Peter.
Friends I want to urge you this morning- watch out for leaven, and we're seeing all kinds of leaven infect the church today to draw us away from the centrality of Christ. It's coming from everywhere - from progressive ideologies like Critical Race Theory which is nothing more than rank racism cloaked as anti-racism, there's the complete redefining of the biblical sexual ethic to accommodate the LGBT movement, there's the redefining of biblical gender roles both in the home and the church. There's the undermining of biblical authority by trying to force millions of years of stellar and biological evolution into the Genesis creation account, there's this profane syncretistic mixing of Christianity and American nationalism. I could go on but I'm all out of time this morning. Friends, if I could apply the words of Jesus to our day, I would say -beware the leaven of American Christianity.- Don't let this stuff into your hearts. It will lead you down the road to total apostasy, which is exactly what we are seeing in the church today.
if God is doing some unexpected and strange things in your life this morning, trust in Christ friend, he does all things well. And if you're a hard case, I have good news for you, he takes the hard cases. Maybe you're here thinking that you're too far gone. You're not. Maybe you think someone you love is too far gone. They're not. There is on Calvary's cross a divine Savior whose blood still drips upon the deaf ears of our hearts and frees us from the enslaving power of sin and Satan. Friends we are all hard cases. The unbelieving heart that each one of us is born with is impenetrable apart from sovereign grace. But thank God that we have a Savior who comes into the unbelieving territory of our spiritually deaf and dead hearts and awakens us to life through faith in him.
This was God in the flesh acting like God in the flesh. Having mercy on whom he will. Saving whom he will. His power not bound by space and time. His person and work not bound by ethnic distinctions, and all Gentile Christians hearing and reading the Gospel of Mark would have been uniquely comforted by this encounter, and friends so should we. -You see, we are the Syrophoenician woman this morning. We have no right to appear before a holy God and ask anything of him. In our natural fallen sinfulness, we offend him. But will we, like this Gentile mother, unwilling to be denied, fall down at his feet and say, -Yes Lord, I know I don't deserve anything, but would just give me the crumbs from your table-- Oh friends, the crumbs from his table are more than enough, but he has much more than that for us. He offers us himself - his body broken and blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins to all who would believe.
We see sins like murder, rape, or child molestation and say, -I could never be capable of such an act.- But we when say that, we are denying the very thing Jesus is teaching here - that the human heart is the soil bed of every form of depravity. The seeds of the most wicked of impulses may lie dormant or be restrained by common grace, but make no mistake friends, the same root of evil in the pedophile's heart lives also in ours. J.C. Ryle says, -We have within us the beginning of every sin under heaven.-
Jesus burns these religious leaders with the truth - they were hypocrites, and the essence of hypocrisy is doing all the externals from a heart far from God. That is what it means to be a hypocrite - it's when the life is clean but the heart is dirty. The original word means to be a pretender, and the prophet Isaiah said this about God's people 700 years earlier but also prophetically about the religious leaders of Jesus' day. In fact, Isaiah speaks to those in every generation who profess to love God with their lips but from hearts that are cold and dead toward him. BUT, they look good on the outside. They live by their own man-made rules that make them feel righteous. Oh Lord have mercy, friends Isaiah is talking about us.
In this age of unbelieving naturalism, we need to come to terms with the reality that Christianity is a supernatural faith. We can't explain away the miracles of the Bible as if they were merely the superstitious or mystical claims of a pre-scientific culture. No friends. This book is miraculous from cover to cover- from creation to consummation and we need to embrace the Bible's supernaturalism, because without it, Christianity doesn't exist. This miracle backs the reader into a corner- there is no explanation except what Mark has been trying to get us to see all along- Jesus is doing things that only God can do, because he is God.
The feeding of the 5000 is a great comfort to us, especially in these uncertain times, because it shows us that no matter what we have or where we are, Jesus loves us and he will provide for us. Bishop J.C. Ryle says, -We live in the midst of an evil world, and see few with us, and many against us. We carry within us a weak heart, too ready at any moment to turn aside from the right way. We have near us, at every moment, a busy devil, watching continually for our halting, and seeking to lead us into temptation. Where shall we turn for comfort- What shall keep faith alive, and preserve us from sinking in despair- There is only one answer. We must look to Jesus. We must think on His almighty power, and His wonders of old time. We must call to mind how He can create food for His people out of nothing, and supply the wants of those who follow Him, even in the wilderness. And as we think these thoughts, we must remember that this Jesus still lives, never changes, and is on our side.-
Too proud to appear weak in front of his party guests, Herod succumbs to the evil plot of his wife and step-daughter and verse 27 says, -immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.- The brutal deed was done - John the Baptist, this fearless prophet who called out the sin of Galilee's ruler, was finally dead and gone. You see friends, taking a public stand for truth is a dangerous thing. God's prophets have always been persecuted. They've been mocked, imprisoned, tortured, stoned, murdered, and Hebrews 11-37 says some were even sawn in half. This is the high cost of truth.
God's plan has always been to dwell with his people. The garden of Eden, the tabernacle, the temple, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the New Covenant indwelling of the Holy Spirit of all believers all show God's desire and intent to be with his people, and they all point to this final and ultimate reality in which God will fully dwell with his people in the new Jerusalem, the crown jewel of new creation the OT prophets foretold. All of the covenant promises of God's eternal presence with his people are ultimately fulfilled in the new Jerusalem, which is not just merely a place in the new creation, the new Jerusalem -is- the new creation and the eternal home of God's people where he will dwell with them in everlasting fullness. It is the completion of what God began in Eden. God longs to be with his people, but the question is do we long to be with him-
Take care, brothers . . . that you do not fall away. He says, BEWARE - this is a flashing red-light warning us to be on guard against those things which creep into our hearts and lead us away from the living God because this verse is clear- the root of apostasy is an evil unbelieving heart. Consider some of the reasons former Christians give for their deconversion- They may say it was intellectual - that modern science disproves God, or that the Bible has been proven to contain error. Or they may say it was an experiential reason - something that led them to question the goodness of God - perhaps a personal loss or tragedy. Or they may say that all Christians are hypocrites or that Christianity just doesn't work. But ultimately, the root of every excuse we may give for turning away from Christ is unbelief in our hearts. What's in your heart this morning friends- Is there a seed of unbelief growing there that will lead you to fall away from the living God-
Imagine his mother Mary, who watched her sinless son hang on this cross for 6 hours while the religious leaders mocked him as they walked by. Now she finally understood the words of Simeon some 30 years earlier from Luke 2-35 - -through this child a sword will pierce your own soul.- Her son was gone. Everyone who loved Jesus was disillusioned. -How could it have ended this way-- they thought. Their hope was gone. Oh but Jesus never felt this hopelessness. He knew his Father would not leave him in the grave, and so in the early morning darkness of the first day of the week, the same Spirit that hovered over the formless waters at creation now hovered over the human body of the eternal Son of God and divine breath filled the lungs of the Creator of the universe once again.
Through the sacrificial substitutionary atoning work of Jesus, God has now raised us up out of our deadness and now as Christ lives, so do we. And this is not something we can do for ourselves friends, it is all of grace - the undeserved goodness, kindness, and favor of God toward his enemies - that's you and me. By nature we are his enemies bound for eternal hell -- but God. Oh friends those two words are grace, and Good Friday is the day -but God- was stamped on the pages of the human story. If you are hearing my voice tonight, God has not closed your story yet. There is still time to find that chapter that begins -but God.- But oh friends, you must trust in Christ. You must turn away from your sin and your self-righteousness and flee to Calvary's cross where the holy blood of the Lamb of God still flows freely for all who will believe.
Friends, do we feel the urgency of our gospel mission this morning, or are we too content in our comfortable American lives to notice that every person who comes across our path every single day is a person with an eternal soul that will face a holy God on that great and final day of judgment. Are we too busy share the gospel of Jesus with our family and our neighbors- Do we feel the weight of this mission- I worry sometimes about us - myself first of all - that we're a little too comfortable just coming to church and having these great Christ-exalting worship services, but then don't take his gospel beyond these doors. We have a mission. It is given to us and empowered by Christ, and it is requires urgent faith.
These Nazarenes knew precisely who Jesus was and they were likely remembering the scandalous rumors that had no doubt circled around a young virgin girl named Mary who had become mysteriously pregnant around 30 or so years earlier and -this man- was -her- son. Their questions presuppose that the wisdom and power of Jesus did not come from his unique identity. They did not recognize him as from God and certainly didn't recognize the displays of his divinity as the Son of God. His own disciples were just starting to connect those dots.-These Nazarenes didn't even recognize him as the great teacher and prophet that he was. To them, he was just ordinary. A carpenter, just one of them and the end of verse 3 says, And they took offense at him. Friends this was the day that Nazareth committed spiritual suicide.
-Jesus ignores the naysayers and speaks directly to this father in the most painful experience of this life and says, 'Do not fear, only believe.' He takes his inner circle of disciples, goes into the man's house and puts out the doubters. Sometimes friends, we need to put out the doubters don't we- There will always be those who say that your situation is too far gone. There will always be those who scoff at the idea that Jesus can actually change things. Put those people out and get some people around you who know what Jesus can do. He can save that son or daughter from their homosexuality. He can deliver that person you love from their transgender confusion, and want to tell you that Jesus Christ, the divine eternal Son of God is a willing Savior and no one is beyond his saving, delivering, and healing grace. Do you believe that this morning--
While the people were sending Jesus away, Jesus was sending this man out as a witness to the transforming power of a Christ who radically saves to the uttermost. And so here we are 2000 years later, on a cold morning in New Jersey still marveling at this man's glorious testimony. What a witness he has been for Christ. Maybe you feel eerily like this man once called Legion. You may not be demon-possessed, but you are no less in bondage to the power of sin and Satan. Indeed as Charles Spurgeon said, Our sins may rightly be called legion- oh, how many they are-- Maybe it's a secret addiction to pornography- Or maybe you're dominated by of out-of-control emotions, chronic insecurity or fear- Maybe you are held captive by the opinions of others- Perhaps it's the tyranny of self-righteousness. Friend if that's you, you need to be delivered most of all because you're enslaved to your self-righteousness and can't even see your need of Christ.
This is the whole point of the storm- that these disciples would tremble in the presence of the high king of heaven and say -Who then is this-- And we will never get this revelation of Christ's glory for ourselves until we learn to embrace the storm, because that's where it's found - when we've come to the end of ourselves and have no hope to stay afloat except for the voice of Christ saying -Peace, Be Still.- The Lord will bring us into perilous circumstances of our own and we will miss Christ if all we want to do is stay safe, so let's be done with the idol of safety, and embrace the storm so that we might gain a fresh vision of Christ that causes us to say, -Who then is this--
We live in a celebrity-driven culture that now has what is called -influencers.- These are people with large internet followings who post videos of themselves online talking about all sorts of things, but friends listen to me - the greatest influencers walking this planet today are those who scatter the seed of God's word. You don't know their names or recognize their faces. They work at the post office, or Wal-Mart, or in an office cubicle, but these insignificant seeds, sown by names unknown will, over time and through many storms and hard seasons, grow in unexpected ways to produce a harvest, and that is the hope we need to take away from this text this morning.
You see everyone here this morning or watching online will respond to the message of the gospel differently. Some may rejoice in the truth preached. Others, not so much. They may think what a close-minded message - that Jesus is the only way to eternal life. What about all the sincere basically good people who have never heard of Jesus- Or who were born into another religion- I mean Jesus loves everyone the same right- So to them I'm just another extreme fundamentalist who thinks my way is the only way. Some will be convicted of their sin and flee to Christ. Others will be indifferent to the word preached, and leave thinking, perhaps another day. Friends have you ever wondered why you responded positively to the gospel but members of your own family have not- Is it because you have a higher I.Q. or you are wiser than those who reject the gospel- Why all the different responses to the same message- Enter with me into the parable of the sower to discover the answer to that question.
If you want to draw intense criticism from within the American church in 2021, just challenge the evangelical status quo. But this shouldn't surprise us because Jesus faced his greatest controversy and criticism from within his own religious community - even from his own family down in verse 21 who said he was out of his mind. If only Jesus had kept silent about all his crazy beliefs like being able to forgive sin or being Lord over the Sabbath, and just stayed in sync with Rabbinic status-quo, there would have been no controversy, but Jesus who is the truth, could only speak the truth, and friends, so must we.
There is no rest to be found in meticulous obedience to man-made interpretations of God's law. True rest is found only in Christ, who is Lord over all things, including whatever we hold most sacred, and friends if Christ is not who and what we hold most sacred, then we will never find true rest. His disciples could pluck grain and eat on the Sabbath day because they were with the true Sabbath. The disabled man could see his withered hand renewed and restored on the Sabbath day because he encountered the true Sabbath that renews and restores. Jesus is the true Sabbath rest for those tired of trying to earn their own righteousness and who finally acknowledge that it's a task they can never accomplish, and my message to you this morning is not do better, or do more, but stop doing and start resting.
The church is caving in at every cultural challenge because we have lost our confidence in the word of God. It is no longer authoritative and sufficient to address the social problems and moral evils of culture. We must now look to scientism, psychology, education, and government for the answers to the problem of the human beast. But friends, if the church is going to remain the church in this age of bold hostility toward Christian truth, then we are going to have to regain our confidence in the word of God. It is divinely inspired, wholly without error, absolutely authoritative, and fully sufficient.
In this passage we have one of the most spectacular miracles in all of Scripture. We live in a culture of scientism here in America and in the modern West that scoffs at the reality of miracles. We think we can explain everything by natural processes, so the supernaturalism of the Bible is dismissed as pure myth, but this is where the naturalism of modern man is stopped dead in its tracks. In fact, the truthfulness of Christianity and the very possibility of salvation at all depends entirely on the virginal conception of the Lord Jesus Christ. If Jesus was not conceived by the Holy Spirit, then he is not divine. If he is not divine then he is not God, and if he is not God, then he cannot be our Savior because only God can save. Isaiah 43-11 says, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.
There is a sweet irony of divine grace here in these verses. The dishonest reputation of shepherds made their testimony as witnesses inadmissible in any legal matter of this culture, and yet here God had come to them with the most important news this world will ever hear. The eternal Son of God laid aside the privileges of his glory in heaven and come to earth, and the only witnesses who had any idea clue what was really going on was a group of outcast shepherds, but they didn't let the stigma of their way of life stop them from sharing their experience of God's grace, and friend, the world might just shrug off your testimony to the saving power of Christ as foolishness, but keep sharing anyway. Don't let something you've done in your past or some personal or social stigma keep you from making widely known what God has done for you.
Last words are important and the last words the resurrected Jesus gave to his church in his word were -Surely I am coming soon.- John wrote these words in Revelation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit around 95 A.D. so almost 2000 years have passed, which means that we have never been closer to his return than we are at this very moment. But this text challenges us doesn't it- Because can we truly say with John, -Amen, Come Lord Jesus-- Do we feel the longing for Christ this morning- Does he so consume our hearts that nothing here in this world would give us a split-second pause about leaving it behind- Friends there is nothing here that our hearts should hold on to. We must long to be with Christ, and if we don't, then we should pray until God kindles our hearts with a zeal for his return.
Jesus doesn't trample on the smoldering wick, or discard the bruised reed. He will not put your last little bit of light out, but invites you to trade your sorrows for his joy- to trade the bondage of besetting sin for the sweet freedom of his grace. The Lord's chosen servant is gentle and compassionate. He aggravates the religious folk by calling tax collectors to be among his disciples, by eating and drinking with sinners, and by healing on the Sabbath day. In love he comes into the mess we've made of our lives and saves us, making us a testimony of his transforming grace.
The gospel of the kingdom of Christ cannot be integrated into the existing forms of human effort to be righteous through acts of piety such as the Pharisees practiced. You see Jesus collided with their man-made notions of piety and righteousness, and friends he still collides with our man-centered efforts to be righteous today. Every other religion on earth and even some segments of Christianity are based on the notion that we can -fix- ourselves through human effort, but friends, Jesus doesn't mix with human efforts to -fix- us. There is no righteousness apart from faith alone in Christ alone and we need to be emptied of our own man-made traditions and efforts at righteousness and be covered with the garment of Christ's righteousness and filled with the new wine that is Jesus.
The self-righteous Pharisees looked on others with pious condescension, and it was scandalous that Jesus, who had just essentially claimed to be God by forgiving the sins of the paralytic in verses 1-12, was now feasting with tax-collectors and sinners. You see, there was something about Jesus that made sinners comfortable around him, and friends this is where this passage gets super challenging for us because can the same be said about you and me- Or are we wound up so tight in our pious list of do's and don'ts that an unbeliever doesn't want to get within 50 feet of us for fear of being judged and condemned-
We need friends and deep friendships because we need help getting through the difficult days and afflictions of life. Proverbs 17-17 says, A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity and Proverbs 18-24 says, there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Life in this fallen world is hard and the best friends are not the ones who take you to the bar to numb the pain, or who tell you to divorce your spouse because you deserve to be happy and give you all sorts of unbiblical advice. The best friends are the ones who take you to Jesus because we each have a need that only Jesus can meet, and it's not the need that's most visible in our lives, or the one we think we need met the most, and the account of the paralytic in Mark 2 teaches us a number of things about ourselves because friends, the paralytic in this account is us.
The gospel principles of the Protestant Reformation didn't just rescue us from the errors of Catholicism--they continue to be just as relevant for us today in an age of compromise and confusion in the church. You see of all the uncertainty that 2020 has brought us, one certainty is that the church in America is once again at risk of losing the gospel, not to the corrupt indulgences of the Roman Catholic Church, but to the idea of salvation through social justice through a very dangerous movement making waves within conservative Christianity called -wokeism,- and friends it the enemy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, it is the anti-gospel, so the gospel principles of the Reformation that rescued the church from the Roman Catholic errors of the 16th century must once again rescue the 21st century church from the false gospels of our time, and nowhere in Scripture do we see the power of the gospel more clearly explained than in Romans 1-16-17.
Brothers and sisters, make no mistake- if the progressive left ideology of the modern Democrat party comes to power, especially in all three branches of government, Bible-believing Christians in this nation will be singled out, censored, and persecuted in ways we never thought possible in a nation established on principles of Christian morality and religious freedom. So then, our vote in this election should be determined by which ideological platform or political administration is most likely to foster a society in which righteousness can flourish. When the righteous increase, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan.
There is an interesting textual issue here in verse 41. Some of the earliest Greek manuscripts of Mark contain a word that translates as -anger,- so some translations say here, -Jesus was indignant.- But why would Jesus become indignant- Was he bothered by the leper's begging- As a father, I sadly admit that sometimes I get irritated when my children bug me about something, but Jesus is never irritated by our needs, and he wasn't bothered by the leper. He was angry at the suffering that sin had brought to this man's life, because anger is God's default reaction against sin and its curse on his creation. He hates it, and his anger toward sin was never more pronounced than at the cross because there, all the holy anger of God against sin was turned toward his own Son for all who would believe on him. So yes, Jesus was angry that day -- angry at the devastating effects of sin on this man created in God's image, and so he reached out his hand, touched the unclean leper, and cleansed him.
The demonic realm is real and while Satan's approach to mankind is primarily to deceive us into sin, there are occasions when the realm of supernatural evil crosses over into our realm in very physical and visible ways, and in the New Testament, we see this through numerous accounts of demonic oppression and possession, one of which we find in our passage today. Mark's purpose in this episode is not to provoke curiosity about demons and the supernatural realm, but to show that Christ has come with ultimate authority and power to rescue broken and enslaved people from the grasp of Satan. This is the good news of the gospel-that this Nazarene Rabbi called Jesus is the one the prophets foretold would come to usher in the kingdom of God and rescue those in bondage to sin and Satan.
You may be surprised to find that the New Testament only uses the word -Christian- three times. By contrast, it uses the word -disciple- 268 times, and there is one important verse where both terms appear together- Acts 11-26 says in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. So what is the significance of these two terms appearing together in the same verse- It means that the New Testament understanding of what it means to be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus, and a disciple in the New Testament is one who comes under the instruction and example of a teacher in order to learn their particular set of views and values and to imitate their life. So this is why it is impossible to be a Christian as the Bible defines it and hold views and values that are contrary to those of Christ, and this applies across every societal, cultural, political, or religious spectrum. To be a Christian is to be a disciple, and to be a disciple is to be a follower of Christ, and this is what our passage today in Mark sets before us- an invitation to discipleship.
The idea of substitution is at the very heart of what the Bible teaches about how sinful man is reconciled to a holy God, but it's not just a substitute on the cross that we need to die in our place for our sins. -We need a substitute in life, to live in our place and earn for us a perfect righteousness so that we can appear before a perfectly righteous God as perfectly righteous, so Jesus didn't just die in our place- he also lived in our place, and we often miss that don't we- -19th century Scottish pastor and hymn-writer Horatius Bonar, in his hymn -Christ for Us,- wrote these words- -Upon a Life I have not lived, upon a Death I did not die, Another's Life- Another's Death, I stake my whole eternity.- You see friends, it's not just the death of Jesus that saves us- it's his life--a sinless, blameless, perfectly righteous life, supremely pleasing to his Father, and this is where Mark brings our attention today in our text.
There are a lot of gospels being preached in our day that promise deliverance from the world's ills, and all the preachers of these gospels are pointing to something or someone other than Christ. But there was once a man--a man who wouldn't be welcomed in the majority of churches in America today. A man who came out of the desert wilderness, because that's where God meets with his prophets. A man clothed in camel hair who ate locusts and wild honey. His name was John. We know him has John the Baptizer or John the Baptist, but friends, John was a preacher. Verse 4 says, John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The word -proclaiming- here is often translated as -preaching.- It's the same word in Greek and Mark uses it 14 times in his gospel-more than any other gospel-writer. What's the implication- It means that Mark's gospel is all about the proclamation of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Ages before God spoke this universe and everything in it into existence by a word, glory belonged to God alone. Throughout human history, all the kings, all the rulers, all the emperors, all the presidents who have thought themselves worthy of honor and majesty, glory has belonged to God alone. Into the vast reaches of eternity, long after sin, Satan, death, and every unbeliever are thrown into the lake of fire, long after every believing saint is glorified and reigning with Christ, long after the renewal of all things, glory will still and forever belong to God alone. So friend, in these hard and uncertain times we're living in, are you putting your focus where it needs to be-in praise to God- Or is there something of this world that tugs at your heart more than him- He is glorious. He is our Savior. He is the one who keeps us from stumbling, and he is the one who deserves our praise.
We need not be shocked by the apostasy we see both in the church and the world, because Scripture warns us that it is coming. In verse 18, we see that one of the chief manifestations of an apostate church or culture that has turned its back on truth is that it will be filled with scoffers, following their own ungodly passions. A scoffer is someone who mocks truth, God, or his people. A scoffer treats the idea of revelatory truth from a holy and sovereign God with contempt. A scoffer, believing himself to be autonomous and free, lives in slavery to his sinful desires, obeying whatever depraved impulse he has while ridiculing those who dare to call him to repentance. Scoffers make light of sin and the holiness of God. They reject the notion that God will judge their sin. And friends, isn't this what we are seeing in our own culture right now-
-Only God can judge me- is the popular slogan of our day. True, and he will. Daniel chapter 7-9-10- -As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat- his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool- his throne was fiery flames- its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him- a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him- the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.- Is this really what we want- To stand in the court of heaven before the throne of this holy God, the Ancient of Days in our own righteousness- Oh friends, Christ was judged in our place on Calvary so that wouldn't have to stand before the dreadful throne of God in judgment. So turn away from yourself. Turn away from your sin and trust in Christ today.
If the church wasn't at risk from false teachers, Jude wouldn't have needed to write this letter, and neither would have Jesus or the other Apostles needed to warn us about apostates. The threat is real, and there are among us even when we think they are not. The 17th century Puritan John Flavel said this, -By entertaining of strange persons, men sometimes entertain angels unawares- but by entertaining of strange doctrines, many have entertained devils unawares.- There comes a point in every believer's life when we need to acknowledge where we have been influenced by false teaching, and the only way out is to ask God to make Christ so gloriously beautiful to us that we are no longer under the spell of these false teachers. The influence of apostates is powerful, and only the awakening grace of the Holy Spirit can move us from error to truth, and the only path to this awakening grace is through the cross of Christ. So friends trust in him today.
Apostates have a spirit of rebellion. Everything Jude has been saying in these verses point to that reality- they have only themselves as authority -their dreams-. They determine their own morality -by defiling the flesh-. They believe themselves superior to the power and influence of evil spirits -by blaspheming the glorious ones-. Friends, we need to be careful to pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to probe our own hearts for these tendencies- of pride, sexual immorality, self-righteousness, greed, and rebellion. No professing believer is beyond apostasy. None of us are beyond falling away.
There was an unbelieving people among the believing people in Israel, and there still is today in the church. there are always those among the believing people of God who depart from the believing people of God in unbelief. You see church, it is possible to be a member of the people of God externally and yet not be a member of Christ. You can walk the aisle, say the prayer, be baptized, go through all the motions, and even appear for a time to be genuine, but true heart transformation has not taken place. This is the danger of false conversion which manifests itself in apostasy.
It seems that a sort of lordship controversy was very much alive and well even in the first century A.D. as these false teachers--these -certain people- that had crept into the church--were denying the Lordship of Christ by not only the lack of a transformed life, but by the continued pursuit of a sinful life. J.I. Packer says, -It is not possible to be in Christ and at the same time to embrace sin as a way of life.- The most basic Christian profession of faith is centered not merely on belief in Jesus Christ, but on submission to his lordship. Romans 10-9 says, -If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.- To say -Jesus is Lord- is to say I submit to his lordship - he is my Master- what he says, I will do.
Caleb said -we are well able- - and friends that's my message to you this morning. We are well able, not because of anything in us, but because of our faith in God's power and firm conviction that he has a future for this church. God always preserves a remnant from which to rebuild. Of the 1st generation of the Israelites out of Egypt, that remnant was Caleb and Joshua - the only 2 of the original wilderness generation who believed God and finally made it to the promised land, and this text is about to get sweet because here is where we see the scarlet thread weave into this episode- Caleb was from the tribe of Judah - the same tribe that Jesus was from. The Hebrew name Joshua is where we get the name Jesus, and it means -the Lord saves.- Friends Caleb and Joshua are in this text to point us to Christ and he is the only hope for not only our church, but he's the only hope for any of us.
In verse 2 we see the second triad in this short letter - -May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.- These are -daily graces- - the blessings of salvation for every true believer which we need every day to live for Christ in this fallen world. This is Jude's prayer for the Christians he is writing to because he knows that during stressful times in the church's life, mercy, peace, and love are what we need most. We're living right now in a world filled with the very opposite of mercy, peace, and love- judgment, conflict, and hate. Which is your life characterized by- Do you respond to others with the same mercy, peace, and love that God has extended to you in Christ- We need mercy, peace, and love more than ever, and this kind of life only comes through genuinely knowing Christ - through true repentance and authentic faith in the person and work of Christ who died so that our sins could be forgiven and we could be reconciled to God.
-In his poem, 'Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day,' American poet Delmore Schwartz writes, 'Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.' Do you feel the fire of time burning away at your life this morning- I do. Every second we live we will never get back, and like the constant hold of gravity, time is pulling us toward that one last breath when our time is up. What we need is the one who is sovereign over time. We need the Alpha and the Omega- the beginning and the end. The one who was, and is, and who is to come. We need the eternal one who stepped into time and split it in half. We need a Savior. We need the Lord Jesus Christ.-
-This scarlet thread of redemption is the central story arc of Scripture because it traces the messianic promise all the way from the fall into sin to the very last verse of the Bible. The person and work of Jesus Christ is the living breathing heartbeat of Scripture, and if we miss this or minimize it in any way, then the Bible becomes no more than a collection of Sunday School stories aimed at making us -good- people instead of the grand plan of redemption aimed at making wrath-deserving sinners righteous before a holy God, and all for his glory--
-In Scripture, Babylon is a historical city-state and one of Israel's greatest enemies, but it's also a spiritual image for human pride and idolatry and all that sets itself against God, and the Tower of Babel is such a monument. But it is not a tower of the glory and fame of human progress and achievement, but of ruins and dirt, and friends this is what becomes of our prideful human accomplishment. God brings it to ruin.-
-While our cultures, ethnicities, and shades of skin may be different, our sin is all the same--we are all by default natural born enemies of God- haters of Jesus Christ. Oh friends how we need to see human nature in this way. We are not good people. There are no good people - Romans 3-10 makes that indisputably clear. What we are seeing going on in our nation right now has nothing to do with skin and everything to do with sin. And that's not an attempt to minimize the problem - that is the problem. We have a sin problem. The oppression, violence, or even slavery we afflict on others is the result of sinful pride and hate in our hearts towards our human brothers and sisters, and friends we need to be so careful to guard against subtle racist tendencies that cause us to look at others differently than we see ourselves.-
-Noah's sin, Ham's sin, and Canaan's curse were powerless to nullify the grace of God in his promise to redeem his creation from the curse and power of sin. The coming of the promised Messiah is the leading arc of the grand narrative of Scripture, and God uses the sin of Noah and the sin of his son Ham to sovereignly accomplish his redemptive purpose. Shem's was the elect line that would carry the promise of God to save to Abraham and the patriarchs, all the way to the birth of Christ.-
-The rainbow points us directly to Jesus Christ, because every arrow of divine righteousness was shot straight at the person of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. He endured the flood of God's righteous wrath so we could be recipients of divine mercy. There, friends, is the gospel in the rainbow--and God did this at his own initiative of sovereign grace.-
-Human life is of infinite value because we have been created in the image of God - that what verse 6 says, and so the only just response to murder - the intentional taking of another human life with malice - is death. Friends, God holds each one of us accountable for how we treat the image of God in another person. Do we value human life rightly- Do we respect a balanced and fair justice system built on the principle being taught here--
-Friend, if you are in Christ, any and all suffering you experience is redemptive, not wrathful. You are not under God's judgment. Christ stood under his judgment in our place so that you and I could be recipients of mercy. This is the grace of the gospel, embedded right here in the account of Noah and the flood.-
During all these months of waiting, Noah was working. In the absence of any clear word or direction from the Lord, he simply had to do what he knew to do. And that's the application for us today. At different points in each of our lives, God puts in seasons of waiting and brings us to places of uncertainty where we don't really have any idea when things are going to change. So what do we do- We do what we know to do.-
-Just as God's grace and wrath converged on the earth in Noah's flood and brought salvation through judgment, preserving a believing remnant and godly line through which the true ark of salvation would come, God's grace and wrath once again converged on Mount Calvary as the sinless Son of God was judged in our place and every sinner who believes on Him will be saved. Friend, you must enter the ark of Christ. One day the door of grace will be shut, and judgment will come. Oh friend please be in Christ on that day. -
-The mediatorial work of Christ in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension has fundamentally changed our relationship to God so that we who were once exiled from his presence now have free and unlimited access into his presence to receive mercy and grace in time of need. Notice that God's throne is not a throne of judgment, but a throne of grace. We no longer have to fear being consumed by the holiness of God because our sin has been covered and atoned for by our Great High Priest. Our confidence to draw near to God has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Christ. That's what this passage in Hebrews 4 so clearly speaks to us today.-
-Paul's life is a model of true and faithful ministry for all of us. We are all called to be engaged in some form of gospel ministry to others - especially in our present circumstances. So who are you ministering to right now- Who are you having gospel conversations with- Who are you praying for- Who are you serving sacrificially and pouring your life out for- Friends this is not a time for us to hunker down in the safety of our homes and disconnect from the dying world around us. How we can be the light that shines in this dark world if we set our lamp under the table Jesus said- We need to use whatever means necessary to shine the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who calls every man, women, boy, and girl to turn away from themselves and sin and put their trust for salvation in him. We have the hope this world needs right now. So shine on.-
-In his sovereign resurrected reign as Judge of all creation, Christ himself will throw death and hell into the lake of fire and death shall be no more. This will be the end of sin, and friends, this will also be the end of sinners- eternal death in the lake of fire under the wrath of a holy God who today offers every one of us freedom from this eternal death through Christ if we would turn from our sin and self and trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins. This is our only hope this Easter, and it is a great and living hope. -
-You see the people gathered in Jerusalem that day wanted a king that would deliver them from Roman tyranny. The Passover feast was the ultimate celebration of deliverance from slavery and oppression, commemorating when God delivered the Hebrews from Egypt with great signs and wonders, so this would have conjured up all sorts of expectations that Jesus was the Messiah sent to deliver the Jews from Roman injustice, but this was not the King Jesus was. He did not come to bring deliverance from Roman oppression, but to bring peace with God. He did not come to conquer the Romans, but to conquer sin and death by offering himself as the perfect sacrifice to satisfy the wrath of his holy Father against sin.-
-Whether it's the coronavirus, global economic collapse, or the wrong world leader with a nuclear weapon, friends, our lives can change in an instant, and if we're putting our trust in the wisdom of man to protect us from these things, then our sense of safety and security is a delusion. Our sinful natures draw us away from God during times of trial. In our arrogance we turn to the arm of the flesh. Isaiah 31-1 says, Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD- You see for all of our science, medicine, technology, and military might, we are always at the mercy of the unknown, and we need a refuge - and the only one who can protect us from the unknown is the one who knows no unknown - the one true and living God who has revealed himself in the pages of Scripture.-
-One night on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was in the boat with his disciples when a violent storm arose and the disciples thought they were going to die. They cried out 'save us Lord, we are perishing.' After Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, he calmed the storm, and they were left in amazement. But who do you think sent the storm- God sent the storm so that the disciples would begin to understand who was in the boat with them. -One modern hymnwriter writes- 'Who holds our faith when fears arise- Who stands above the stormy trial- Who sends the waves that bring us nigh unto the shore, the rock of Christ-' You see friends, it is God who sends the wave that throws us against the Rock that is Christ, so let us not be afraid.-
-Here is the point- we abandon ourselves to God and if he is pleased to vanquish our enemies, all glory to him. But if he is also pleased to use our suffering for a greater purpose and glory, or if he is pleased to let whatever circumstance we're in lead to our death, if this is how he takes us home, so be it. To live is Christ, to die is gain. It always ends well for those who put their trust in the Lord -- no matter the temporal outcome of our circumstance. God is on his throne, the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world has been raised, and ultimate and final victory is the destiny of all who trust in him, because that's really what Psalm 3 is all about -- trust.-
-What goes on in the world around us can have an immense spiritual influence on us. In our own culture over the past few decades we have seen such a shift in morality that what once was accepted as wrong by even those who don't profess to follow Christ, is now affirmed as right by many who do profess to follow Christ. The influence of our surrounding culture often inspires compromise and even apostasy within the church. This is the threat that the Apostle Paul wrote to warn Timothy about in the 1st century and this is the threat that faces us today. You see we have this fallen tendency to drift with the shifting sands of culture, but those who have been redeemed by grace are called to stand firm for Christ, to remain faithful to the truth amidst a world that denies truth.-
-Noah responded to God's grace in obedience. He built the ark. He packed the food. He did what God told him to. This took trust, and friends this is how we must live in response to God's grace in our lives - in faith and obedience. No matter what's going on in the world around us, our call is simple- trust and obey. God's grace has provided a divine rescue in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our ark, and unless we find ourselves in him, we have no hope of surviving the eternal judgment of God.-
-Noah found God's grace in the midst of a world that was filled with unrestrained evil. For 120 years, the Lord waited patiently, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, as Noah preached of the righteousness of God and the coming judgment. Noah was the divine alarm for the ancient world. He was the warning that sounded impending doom, and friends, Jesus is that warning for us. Mark 1 tells us that Jesus began his ministry saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand- repent and believe in the gospel.' Christ says in Luke 13-5, 'Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.' Judgment is coming friends, take refuge in Christ today.-
-Adam was the first man and God's son - a type of Christ. Noah was God's deliverer who would save the believing remnant of humanity from God's judgment through the ark - also type of Christ. Noah was also a -new- Adam through whom the earth would be repopulated, and humanity would once again take dominion over God's created world. But Christ is greater than all of these - He is the second Adam who would conquer the serpent where the first Adam obeyed the serpent. He is the true Noah, a preacher of righteousness who would call sinners to believe the gospel and find refuge from God's coming wrath in the ark of salvation through the waters of baptism. Oh brothers and sisters - if we miss Christ in this genealogy, than we have missed it all.-
-Cain was not the promised serpent-crusher of Genesis 3-15, neither was his brother Abel. Eve's sons were gone, but hope was not lost, because God in his great mercy and grace was about to unfold another chapter in the redemptive story. Another son would be born to Eve, another offspring, and it was through the godly line of Seth that the promised redeemer would come. In Luke 3-38, Jesus Christ is identified through his genealogy as the son of Seth, -who was- the son of Adam, -who was- the son of God. Adam and Eve's family was wrecked by sin, but their story was not over. Oh brothers and sisters, feel the grace here. No matter how we've messed up our lives. No matter how deep the disfunction goes, our sinful choices are subservient to the sovereign grace of God, and no sin can derail his plan and purpose for his glory in our lives.-
-Genesis 3-15 is the scarlet thread that runs throughout all of Scripture pointing to the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great serpent slayer of Revelation 12, the true and better Adam who will undo the damage of the first Adam and make all things new. The curse of sin and death will be lifted through the death and resurrection of the woman's offspring. There is hope for Adam, Eve, and all of us. The God who judges sin is the same God who displays his mercy and grace in our redemption, and he will not leave us in our sinful broken misery. -
The account of the Fall is not about trees, fruit, wisdom, or being like God. It is about lordship. The root of Eve's sin was her desire to simply be able to do what she wanted, regardless of God's command. She wanted self-rule, and this is the fundamental sin of every single one of us here today. We want to live our lives according to our own dictates. We want to be able to do what we want.-