Route 66: Mark's Gospel - Discovering Jesus as the Servant King

Good evening everyone.

I'd like to begin first introducing myself for those who may not know me.

My name is Josh Rivera and my wife, carol Nye Carol's a beautiful young lady in the red leather jacket in the back have been members here for almost a year now and I'm absolutely honored to share the word of God with you all tonight.

But I'm also quite ironically, given what we're going to speak about tonight absolutely terrified.

So help me, if you can.

Every couple of minutes, just smile, let me see your teeth, and it'll set me at ease.

So, if you will, turn your Bibles with me to Mark, chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Mark, chapter 4, and let's begin in verse 35.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Mark 4, 35.

I'll read up until the end of the chapter.

It says On that day, when evening had come, he told them let's cross over to the other side of the sea.

So they left the crowd and took him along.

Since he was in the boat and other boats were with him, a great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

He was in the stern sleeping on the cushion, and so they woke him and said to him Teacher, don't you care that we're going to die?

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the sea Silence be still.

The wind ceased and there was a great calm.

And then he said to them why are you afraid?

Do you still have no faith?

And they were terrified and asked one another who then is this?

Even the wind and the sea obey him.

And if you will turn with me to Mark, chapter eight, verse 27.

And I'll read to verse 30.

Jesus went out with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea of Philippi and on the road he asked his disciples who do people say that I am?

And they answered him.

I'd like to begin with a series of questions that we'll revisit at the very end and as I ask these questions now, I'd ask that they kind of stay in your mind as we make our way through the book of Mark, and I'll give some examples as to what I mean.

As I ask these questions based on what I'm feeling at this exact moment, why does fear often feel more real than faith?

Why do our minds naturally focus on the worst case scenarios rather than trusting in the best possible outcome?

Why is it that my mind right now can only think about the fact that my notes may or may not fall from here and I may suffer an embarrassment.

That's the truth.

Why do we trust fear so easily but struggle to trust God?

As much as I can repeat to myself in my mind right now trust God, trust God, trust God.

My hands don't stop being clammy and my heart doesn't stop beating at 200 beats per minute.

Now imagine this.

I ask that you use your imagination, although it's a realistic scenario.

You wake up very early in the morning, before the sun rises, and you're very careful not to make a sound.

The streets of your neighborhood are quiet, as they normally are at this time, but with the quiet comes danger.

Danger lurks at every corner.

Now you clutch a very worn out Bible, small enough to be able to hide but powerful enough to cost you your life.

You begin a treacherous walk that in reality only takes you a few minutes, but in your mind it feels like several hours.

And you're not walking up to a grand church building with a wonderful greeting team waiting for you at the door or padded pews to comfort you during the worship service.

No, you gather in secret in a darkened basement with only a few other believers and you whisper hymns because singing too loudly can mean that you'll be executed before the sun sets.

Every knock at the door sends shivers down your spine.

Is it a friend or is it the enemy?

Is it a friend or is it the enemy?

Every second that you're in that basement, you're making a deliberate choice.

Do you let fear control you and leave, or do you trust in God, who has called you to stand firm where you are Now?

This is the reality for many Afghan Christians today, persecuted in their country, and that is the reality that they have to live in.

They live in a world where faith is not just a belief, but it's a risk.

And yet, despite the fear, they choose faith.

Despite all the fear, they choose faith.

In the Gospel of Mark, jesus constantly asks his disciples why are you afraid?

Where is your faith Now?

We may not face a Taliban in this country, but we face storms of fear in our own lives.

You may fear the future or you may fear the past.

You may fear failure, fear rejection.

In every single one of these moments, jesus asks us the same question he asked his disciples in Mark 4.40.

Why are you afraid?

Do you still not have faith?

This gospel is technically anonymous, but early Christian tradition has firmly asserted that John.

Mark was a first century Christian often associated with Peter, and Paul composed this narrative in conjunction with Peter's memories.

It's been, through a lot of analysis of bible studies, seen that a lot of the order of events that he tells here are very similar to how peter relates his order of events.

We'll see that in the rest of the new testament.

Perhaps this was written between 50, the years 50 and 60 ad, as during this time peter and mark would have been alive to most surely have had opportunities to collaborate.

We don't know this for sure, but there seems to be quite a bit of common acceptance towards many Bible scholars.

Not much is known about Mark's personal life, but he's quite infamously known for causing a rift between Paul and Barnabas.

If you remember, in Acts 15, we discovered that Paul no longer wanted to travel with Mark because Mark had deserted them on a mission trip.

Now, eventually, it seems like they were able to patch things up.

As Paul speaks about Mark quite favorably in Colossians and then in 2 Timothy he says very specifically that Mark is useful for him in the ministry.

It seems like they were able to patch things up, which is always good to know, but sometimes other than the fact that he wrote a gospel.

He's quite infamously known for that rift that he caused.

Mark never explicitly states who he was writing to in his letter, but based on a couple of second century theologians named Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, it was most likely written in Rome and this makes sense when you consider the fast-paced nature of the letter.

We only cover 16 chapters of this gospel narrative, much shorter than the other three gospel narratives and even much shorter than the two synoptic gospel narratives.

It's hard to miss, as you read your way through the book, the repetitive use of the word immediately.

You see it from the first chapter till the end and it appears in the original language approximately 41 times in the entire gospel.

Now, to put this into context, you only see the word immediately about 10 times in the rest of the New Testament.

So quite a heavy use of this particular word.

But it serves, and it kind of becomes a hallmark of Mark's expedited narrative style.

He's serving to emphasize an urgent tone.

He has a sense of urgency as he's writing to his intended audience.

Now we see a lot of major themes throughout the book, but the primary thing that we see in this gospel is Jesus portrayed as a servant king that we see in this gospel is Jesus portrayed as a servant king.

Although his gospel is very concise because it's so concise and expedited there's a few main themes that are hard to miss.

He leaves a lot of details that, for example, we'd see in Luke, especially when it comes to geography and historical context.

He hammers home a couple main themes through the entire book, and mark 10, 45, chapter 10, verse 45, offers perhaps the key text in the entire gospel, and I'll read it for you and it for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Mark portrays Jesus as the savior who came to serve and give his life as a ransom, and throughout the gospel we also see Jesus do the following things amongst many.

He demonstrates his divine authority through his teachings and miracles.

We'll see that.

We'll see him reveal the hidden yet powerful nature of God's kingdom through his parables and teachings, especially compared to a human, earthly kingdom.

We also see him predict his death multiple times, showing that the path to glory comes through suffering, and we also see him prove his victory over sin and death at the very end of the gospel narrative.

Now, although Jesus is the sole protagonist of this letter, his story cannot be told in isolation.

Throughout the entire book we frequently see the disciples, his followers, who are always accompanying him and through whom he uses to teach valuable lessons on discipleship, but also failure, redemption and spiritual responsibility.

The disciples provide us with perhaps the most important question that Mark aims to address in this letter, and hopefully we'll be able to answer that question too at the end and we find this in Mark 4, 41, and we read it at the beginning, and this is a question by the disciples when they say who then is this Speaking of Jesus?

Of course, who then is this?

Even the wind and the sea obey him.

Now I sincerely hope that, as we briefly look into the treasures of the word of God found in this gospel narrative, that the themes of fear and faith can pierce our hearts and minds to genuinely attempt to answer this question for ourselves.

Who then is Jesus?

Who then is Jesus?

Whereas Matthew, luke and John seem to kind of eat us, ease us, ease us, the readers into the narrative, a mark immediately bombards us from the first chapter.

He he does not play it easy with us to readers.

In the first chapter, he bombards us and portrays Jesus in many different manners.

He doesn't just portray Jesus as a teacher and a healer, but also which may seem kind of heavy for a first chapter of a gospel narrative an exorcist.

Jesus drives out an unclean spirit from a man and we see this instance of fear maybe the first instance of fear in this gospel and amazement in the disciples when he does this, and they respond and they say what is this?

A new teaching?

With authority, he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.

Now they said these words with a lot more fear and amazement in their voice.

So try to picture that.

But from the first chapter, mark makes it very clear and reveals to us Jesus' authority, and we'll see that authority throughout the entire gospel narrative.

But he leaves it very clear from the beginning and, as would happen based on the things that Jesus was doing, news about Jesus spread all over the land and it wasn't long before Jesus couldn't enter a town openly.

That's actually how our version says it.

He couldn't enter a town openly as people from all over flocked to be near him with different reasons, some perhaps out of need, some out of curiosity, some perhaps out of fear, some out of amazement, or some perhaps out of need, some out of curiosity, some perhaps out of fear, some out of amazement, or some perhaps out of doubt.

But everyone flocked to be near him.

And as quickly as we're presented with Jesus' authority, we begin to see that authority being questioned and challenged and eventually rejected.

The fact that Jesus not only healed but also forgave the sins of a paralytic man, or the fact that he sat and ate with tax collectors and did things that, particularly within the scribes or the minds of the scribes and the Pharisees didn't sit well, the fact that he did all these things we see produces a reaction in people.

His teachings begin to evoke different reactions, and not just his teachings but also the things that he's doing.

His miracles produce different types of reactions towards all different people around him.

We see his own family, for example, react by becoming suspicious and thinking that he had gone insane.

His own family that was their reaction.

His friends, the disciples and followers were encouraged to follow him.

That was their reaction.

The community, the people, galilee and everywhere that he traveled, they chased after him in just amazement, maybe not quite comprehending what they were looking at, but they just knew that they had to see it.

But the leaders, the Jewish leaders, their reaction was to oppose him and to reject his teachings.

And so, as we continue, in the following chapters, a series of terrifyingly magnificent events occur.

First, jesus calms a raging, a raging storm of waves and of wind, which exposes the disciples' fear and lack of faith.

But in all honesty, it probably would have exposed our fear and lack of faith as well, given the circumstances.

But immediately after this, jesus' mere presence, just the fact that he was in the vicinity of this man filled with many demons, causes the demons inside of this man to go crazy.

And he cast the demons out and the demons began to beg to Jesus to be sent to pigs.

Calming a raging storm and having demons beg to him Terrifyingly magnificent, but seemingly without a moment of rest, as Mark doesn't give us throughout this gospel.

Jesus is surrounded by a large crowd of people, and among them we have a synagogue leader named Jairus, and he comes and he pleads to Jesus to rescue his young daughter who's on the verge of dying, and Jesus agrees.

But as Jesus is walking with Jairus towards this young lady and trying to get through this crowd of people, everybody just chasing after him and trying to navigate this crowd.

A suffering woman plagued with uncontrollable and incurable bleeding for 12 years touches Jesus and she's immediately healed.

Now we're going from one thing after another.

These are not regular things that we see every day, not even every month, not even every year.

It may seem normal to us because we perhaps you have read through these narratives or you've heard these stories so many times, but if you were reading this for the first time, just back to back, it would take you a while to move from verse to verse, just to understand the magnitude of what's really going on.

And you ask yourself well, who is this Jesus?

Is he actually doing these things?

Is this actually real?

Because they're so magnificent, but they also inspire fear.

That is a lot of power for a man to have, and so the faith of this bleeding woman immediately caused Jesus to realize and he noticed this immediately that power had gone out of him.

He wasn't, you know, kind of oblivious to the fact that a miracle had just happened.

He knew it immediately.

And as the reader we might look at this, we might want to celebrate with this lady, right, twelve years of just anguish and pain.

But Mark doesn't even let us celebrate for too long, because we quickly find out that where he was en route to to heal this young lady, this young girl, jairus' daughter.

Well, it turns out now she's died.

When the story began she was about to die, but now she's died.

So we can't even celebrate for too long because we're dealt just tragic news.

And Jesus shows up, but he's laughed at and he's mocked.

But the laughter on these people's faces soon turns into astonishment when, at the command of his voice, the young girl immediately gets up and begins to walk.

Who, then, is this Jesus?

Who is this man?

Fear cripples, who is this man?

Fear cripples, but faith moves people toward Jesus for healing and restoration.

In Mark 6, jesus walks on water while the disciples struggle in the boat, but their fear blinds them to his presence, they confuse him for a ghost and they're left absolutely terrified, and people all over are witnessing things happen that they've never seen happen before.

But the people in his hometown these are the people that have seen him grow up for 30 years.

Having witnessed Jesus grow up and evolve from a bright young man into a powerful, now leader of people, instead of acting in faith and following him, perhaps because they themselves were afraid and terrified at what they were witnessing.

They rejected his authority.

They rejected his divine authority.

To the people of Galilee, jesus now seemed like an unknown, and we humans tend to fear the unknown.

And although he was progressively making it known who he really was, they weren't understanding it yet.

And that unknown, that fear of what he can do and what is he going to do next, caused him to react and reject him.

For 30 years, the members of his community most likely only thought of him as Jesus the carpenter, jesus the son of Joseph and Mary, maybe that one kid that got lost one time.

But now he was Jesus the healer.

Now he was Jesus the teacher, jesus the teacher.

Now he was Jesus the commander of winds and the sea, jesus the commander of life and death and Jesus the forgiver of sins.

But this proved to be too much for his community and he was rejected.

And their loss became others' gain, because this caused Jesus to send his disciples out on a mission and he fills them with this power and grants them supernatural authority to preach so that people repent of their sins and turn to him as their savior.

But even as Jesus sent them on this mission, as he sent the disciples on this mission, they were still struggling to truly figure out who he was.

They hadn't understood it yet.

They were obeying him out of faith, but they hadn't quite understood who he was.

And this leads us to the turning point of Mark's gospel, which is Peter's confession.

In Mark 8, 29, we see as Jesus asked his disciples to give an evaluation of who they thought he was, and their answer was very revealing.

Peter immediately answered, speaking for the group, you are the Messiah.

And he was absolutely correct Jesus is the Messiah.

But their understanding of the Messiah was badly distorted.

It was very calming in Jewish culture at the time and had become very widely accepted that the Messiah would be a political military deliverer.

That had become the prevailing thought amongst those awaiting the Messiah would be a political military deliverer.

That had become the prevailing thought amongst those awaiting the Messiah.

But that's not who Jesus was, and the disciples were still struggling to come to terms with that, and so Jesus had to repeatedly remind his followers about the need for him to suffer and, ultimately, the need for him to die, and death scares everyone.

Now the conflict that had been brewing due to the Jewish authorities' rejection of Jesus' divine power is only escalated when Jesus returns back to Jerusalem and his return to Jerusalem marks the start of the conclusion of his earthly ministry.

Because, after he triumphantly enters the city, he zealously goes into the temple, he overturns the tables and he kicks out the money changers.

And this demonstration of supreme authority was too much for the chief priests and for the scribes and they made up their minds.

They said this man, jesus, has to be killed.

There's nothing else that we can do.

How did they come to this judgment?

What led them to decide to kill Jesus?

Fear.

They were simply afraid of Jesus, and they attempted to challenge and confront Jesus, to perhaps expose him to be a fraud or catch him contradicting himself, but they were simply unable to do so.

Who, then, is this Jesus?

We can't trap him.

We can't get him to mess up.

His teachings on the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem were no doubt extremely challenging and perhaps a bit puzzling to understand, but despite all this, jesus' final teachings were clear His followers had to beware deception and they were to be prepared for his return.

And they were to be prepared for his return.

Now this engaging and dynamic letter reaches its climax in its final chapters.

As Jesus' final days loom, mark's account of the Lord's Supper repeatedly emphasizes the fact that it was during Passover, its Passover setting.

But soon after the Passover, jesus is betrayed by Judas.

But soon after the Passover, jesus is betrayed by Judas and Jesus, faced with the threat of losing his life, responds with prayer.

Now Mark shows us a very real and human Jesus who was, I quote, deeply distressed and troubled, falling on the ground over and over in anguished prayer.

But despite his faith being tested, he emerged reaffirming his faith in God.

But he's put on trial and ultimately sentenced to death by crucifixion.

But before he dies, he cries out.

And he cries out my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

And there was a man witnessing the grotesque manner of Jesus' death, a Roman centurion in charge of the execution, who moved in that moment, hearing Jesus' cry from fear to faith.

And he provides us an affirmative answer to our primary question of who then, is Jesus?

The centurion says, truly, this man was the Son of God.

Early Sunday morning, women went to go and visit Jesus' tomb to anoint his body with spices, as was customary, but they received the greatest news Jesus had risen and he was in that tomb.

And they ran away from the tomb because trembling and astonishment had overwhelmed them Jesus, the son of God, was and is victorious over death.

Fear is deeply rooted in our brain's survival mechanism.

This instinct can cause us to run, confront or shut down when we perceive a threat.

Our brain is wired to react to danger with a survival response, but this can also cause us to panic or act irrationally.

Now God calls us to trust in His protection instead of reacting out in fear.

In Mark 4, when the disciples panicked in the storm, jesus was at peace.

Faith teaches us that God is in control even when we feel out of control.

The fear of the unknown is one of the most common and powerful fears that we can experience, and when we don't know what's ahead, our brains tend to assume the worst.

Fear thrives in uncertainty, because the unknown makes us anxious.

God calls us to trust him even when we don't know what's ahead.

In Mark 5, the woman with the issue of blood had suffered for 12 years, uncertain if she would ever be healed.

But despite her fear of rejection, as Jesus could have done, she reached out to Jesus in faith and was healed.

Faith moved her and moves us forward despite uncertainty.

Fear is often magnified by negative thinking patterns.

I'll give you some examples.

There's something called catastrophizing.

This is when you tell yourself this will end horribly.

Or black and white thinking, which is when you say if I fail once, I'm a total failure, there's no in between.

Or overgeneralization, which is when you say this bad thing happened before, so it will always happen this way.

But God calls us to take every thought captive and align it with his truth.

In Mark 6, the disciples saw Jesus and thought he was a ghost.

Fear had distorted their perception, but Jesus told them take courage, it is.

I don't be afraid.

Fear can lie to us, but faith helps us see clearly.

Fear often arises when we feel like we're losing control of a situation, and we fear when we feel out of control when in reality, we were never meant to be in control.

In Mark 14, jesus and his humanity felt distressed before the cross, but he prayed and he said not my will, but yours be done.

Even Jesus surrendered his fear to the father.

So I'll conclude answering the questions that I asked at the beginning.

Conclude answering the questions that I asked at the beginning.

Why does fear often feel more real than faith?

Well, perhaps these are my thoughts.

Fear feels more real than faith because it appeals to our natural fallen instincts and our reliance on physical senses rather than the spiritual truth.

Senses rather than the spiritual truth.

Fear feels more real because it appears to our nature, but faith becomes stronger when we shift our focus from our circumstances to Christ.

Why do our minds naturally focus on worst-case scenarios rather than trusting in the best possible outcome?

Well, perhaps it's because the human mind is wired for self-preservation, but sin has distorted this into a pattern of just worry and doubt, over and over and over again.

Our sinful nature assumes the worst because we want control.

But faith calls us to trust in God's perfect plan rather than our fearful imaginations.

And lastly, why do we trust fear so easily but struggle to trust God?

Well, the truth is that fear is immediate and it plays on our emotions, while faith requires trust in God's unseen work.

Fear is easier to trust because it appeals to our emotions, but faith is strengthened when we listen to God more than our fears.

In the gospel, according to Mark, jesus constantly calls us to replace fear with faith.

Fear is natural, but faith is a choice.

It's a choice to trust Jesus, the suffering servant of the Lord, despite the storms and difficulties of life.

Thank you.