Mark 8:1-38 || The Book of Mark || Pastor Diego Mesa

Father, Thank you so much for your word. And we aren't just here

to learn just simply about teaching God and information. And this thing isn't just

about knowledge God, It's about a relationship with Jesus. May we see ourselves

as sitting in front of Jesus right now and he's about ready to talk to

us about who he is through his word, And so that puts a little

bit more of a specialness on us having a hearing ear today God, that

this is more than information, it's more than knowledge of God. It is

Jesus speaking to us. And we honor you today in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, on Wednesday night, we obviously in the book of a Mark

and I'm gonna do Mark one through thirty eight. But we're not going to

read it all. We're gonna I'm gonna break it apart as we go through

it today. But when I was a little boy, there was something called

the Helms Bakery Man, and it was a yellow truck that used to come

through your neighborhood. And what they do is they would roll out drawers and

it be either fresh bread or it could be what we call panduse or ponde

wevel and you'd eat there, but the smell was overwhelming, the smell of

fresh bread. The amazing thing is is that when you open the Word of

God, it's fresh bread. It's called the manner of God, and you

and I should be having. That's why he says to in the Lord's Prayer

in Matthew six, that we should be asking God give us our daily bread.

The essence of your maturity. Yes, deals with worship and can come

to church and fasting and so many other things which your daily intake of the

Word of God. And that's what we're going to work through today. We're

gonna work through the book of Matthew. I'm excuse me, Mark chapter eight.

There are six teachings that go on very quickly that we're going to run

through. This feeds four thousand. He teaches about the leaven of the Pharisees

and the Herodians. Then he does a healing of the blind man at Bethsetia.

Then he does Peter's confession of who he is. Then we see Peter

who speaks the opposite of Jesus' plan and purpose, and he gets rebuked and

he says, get thee behind me. Satan strong terminology is that not a

statement of his love towards us. Yes, because sometimes we can talk like

the devil. I know nobody in this church, but in other churches.

But I'll say sometimes I could talk like the devil, when I talk like

the world, when I talk opposite of God's will, I could talk just

the way the devil is. That's his plan. And then we get into

taking up the cross. But there are three outside of that. There are

three things that stand out in this whole chapter. Number one is the instructions

of Jesus. You have to read the Book of the Bible not as a

book of suggestions. It's a book of direction for your life, your marriage,

your home, how to date, how to make choices, how to

react, how to have victory in your life. It's more than a book

of suggestions or options. It's a book of direction that you and I are

to listen to when we read, and we're to meditate on, which means

to dwell upon. And we're to listen to with the ears of our natural

ears, but the ears of our heart, and we are to obey.

The reality is the instructions of Jesus are found today. As we work through

this teaching, you'll see him doing that. And if we follow his instructions,

here's the reality, we will succeed and we will be blessed and we

will be able to receive. But if we do not receive the word and

follow the word of God, then you and I are going to experience heartaches

and they can be avoided. And last of all, when we don't listen

to the instructions of God, the directions of God, and don't follow just

like we do in the world, if you don't follow the directions, you're

going to get in trouble. Period. You're not that smart to know how

to fix everything and put everything together. Every little thing that's in our life

has instructions and has directions to it. So it is the word of God,

and that is our way of honoring God. Let me follow his direction.

The second thing you'll see in this overwhelming chapter is the emotions of Jesus.

Jesus has feelings, and Jesus feel things. He has desires, he

has passions, he has reactions, and he has responses based upon our obedience

or based upon our disobedience. Based on how we live, what we do,

how we serve, how we be, how we become Jesus has an

emotion related to that. Jesus is not some dormant god, melancholy god,

or fills nothing god. The Bible gives us the truth emotions of Jesus and

how he feels toward us. And then, last of all, you see

the vast activity of Jesus when you see him work through Dalmanuth, and you

see him work through the Sea of Galilee. And all this is in chapter

Mark, chapter eight Vessetti of Cesarea Philippi crowds, individuals, friends, strangers,

believers and unbelievers. It challenges me of the vast activity of Jesus.

His involvement, his participation. His availability is accessibility. His visibility is busyness,

his mobility. He's moving, his enterprisingness, his venturing, his productive,

his projects and his building. Jesus doesn't sit there and do nothing.

Neither should he expect his followers to sit there and do nothing. In one

chapter, he's moving, He's all over the place, and that's the way

a Christian should be active until they go home to be with him. Now

we begin to read, Let's go to Mark and read the first one,

and in those days and I won't read the whole point but I'll give you

enough to write your notes or to get points to think about. In those

days, there was again, notice the word again, a large crowd,

and they had nothing to eat. That means they are hungry, they are

starving. He called the disciples and said to them, I have compassion or

I'm concerned on the crowd, because they've already stayed with me how long three

days number next, and they have nothing to eat if I send them,

if I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way. And

some of them have come a long distance. You see all that, and

there are about four thousand people there that he fed, and he dismissed them.

Let's work through this. Teaching number one, you see the word again

again applies to the fact that, remember, he fed five thousand, now

he's feeding four thousand, which means to me that he's a god that will

do it again in your life. He's not a one time god. He's

not a one time healer. He's not a one time miracle. He's not

like you go to a store and just say, you know what, there's

only one per customer, and I'm sorry, you're not going to get another

one. I remember growing up When I was early in the Christian Church,

there was a famous song and it was called He'll do it again. You

may not know how, and you may not know when, but He'll do

it again. And somebody needs to hear today that he will do it again.

Whatever you need from God that he's done in the past, he could

do it again. And he was able to multiply and make fishes and loaves

to feed multitudes of people. He could do it again in your life.

The next thing I reck reized is that Jesus is so concerned with details.

I love the details. He's mindful, he's thorough, and he's aware.

It gives you four things that he's aware of about these people. He knew

that they were with him three days. He knew that they had not eaten

in those three days and were hungry. He knew if he let them go

they would collapse and not make it home. And he knew that some of

them had come long distances. Who is this God that knows the details of

your life and is concerned about the details. Oh, God, don't care

about that. Yes he does. He cares about what worries you, what

fears you, what concerns you. He cares about every bill you have to

pay, every emotion, every disability, every insecurity. He knows everything.

And if he knew everything about the crowd, you know what you makes.

What makes you think he don't know everything about you? He's completely aware of

the details. And last of all, which we didn't read the Bible says,

is that he broke the bread and he gave thanks and then he bless

the bread. The miraculous thrives in an atmosphere of thanksgiving and blessed. Miracles

thrive in an atmosphere of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an attitude. Yeah, you'll

you will never. You will never participate in the miraculous or thrive in the

miraculous. If you are ungrateful and ingreat unthankful, unappreciative, a complainer about

everything, then you're probably going to struggle with the miracles of God and receiving.

But miracles thrive in an atmosphere and an attitude of thanksgiving, and they

thrive in an atmosphere of blessed. And blessed is a confession. He had

the and he blessed the bread. He blessed it with his mouth. And

you need to speak blessings over your marriage, over your health, over your

job. That is your confession of faith. I'm not gonna speak curses over

my life. I'm gonna speak blessings over my life. And all of that

happened in the story. The second thing that I want you to look at

now and we'll read is in Mark. Now. This deals with the leaven

of the Pharisees and the Herodians. Then he gave them strict orders watch out.

How many of you know if Jesus says you better pay attention, you

better be alert, better be watchful, You better be attentive than how many

of you know? You better. It's better than a sign telling you to

watch out. He's saying you better watch out and beware to two words of

distinction. Why do we get in trouble often because we don't watch out and

we're not a beware How many of you know? So some times children,

teenagers get in trouble because they don't listen to what you tell them. You

said, now, be watchful when you cross the street, beware of strangers

around you. And God forbid that they don't listen because they think they're all

grown up, and then something happens. It could happen for us today.

He says, watch out and beware what of the leaven? The word leaven

is the word yeast. Yeast can rise and take over like cancer. So

remember that. So he's saying, beware of this thing that I'm about ready

to tell you, because it could spread like wildfire, and it could take

over your life and you won't be able to control it. What's he talking

about? He says, the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod, which is

the Herodians. They were discussing among themselves that they did not have any bread.

Aware of this, he said to them, why are you discussing the

fact that you have no bread? Now this is pretty much after he feeds

four thousand with seven baskets left over, and now they're worried about not having

enough bread. Don't you understand or comprehend? Do you have heart in your

heart? How quickly unbelief could come into our lives? Do you have eyes

and not seeing? Do you have ears and don't hear? And do you

not tell somebody? You better remember? So now we work through this topic

of what he's talking about when he talks about the eleven You and I need

to live a life where we are paying attention and alert to what to what

we're watching, to what we're listening. But more than that, he's talking

about what is influencing us, what is affecting us in our lives, what

we are hanging around that affects us, so that we have stress in our

lives, or we feel insecure in our lives, feel fearful in our lives,

or worry or anxiety, or now all of a sudden, I'm judgmental,

or I'm compromising, or I'm conforming to the ways of this world,

or i have a scarcity mentality. Who is influencing you? It'd be like

God telling Adam and Eve, who have you listened to? Who have you

been hanging around? And he's saying you are being influenced or possibly could be

influenced by the teachings of the Pharisees and the Herodians. So pay attention to

what you hang around, what you listen to, because it will influence you.

It's like eleven that rises up quickly and it takes over. So sometimes

you can't watch all the news that you want to watch, and sometimes you

need to shut off all the Instagram and all the Facebook that you're listening to

all the time, because you're looking at someone's beauty, and then when you

look at yourself, you look at someone's perfect edited life, and then you

judge yourself. You see all these people getting all this stuff fast money,

and you think you're gonna get that, or that you should do that.

Stop it. He's saying, you're being influenced by social media. You see

somebody dressed real fine, look a certain way, and so you think that

that's acceptable to get men, or to have babies, whatever it is.

Pay attention to what is making you feel and think a certain way. Well,

then he goes on and says, pay attention to the leaven of the

Pharisees and the Herodians. So what was he saying, Well, the Pharisees

is the doctor and or the teaching of legalism, ritualism, tradition, and

what we would call just religion. And he says, you gotta watch out

for that because you could be a Christian, but you could be a very

legalistic Christian, and you could be a Christian, but you're a very traditional

Christian in a negative way, and you're a very ritualistic Christian. And that's

what the Pharisees were all about. They would dot their eyes and cross their

tee's, but their heart was not close to God. They'd like to boast

about their religiosity, about their spirituality to become greater in the eyes for the

approval of man, but they didn't do it to the glory of God.

He says, you got to watch out for all that. Watch out for

the teaching of the Pharisees, which is very ritualistic, very ritualistic, very

ceremonialistic. And then he goes on the traditions whatever that might look like.

That is so legalistic in your life. I grew up in a legalistic religion,

and people think they're pious and they're holy because of that. But they'll

cuss you out when you walk out of the church, and they'll fornicate with

everybody. Not everybody, but I know what I'm the people at least I

hung around with. But they had the signs of godliness, and that was

the Pharisee. They have the look of godliness, they put something on their

forehead, they go and get holy communion, They genu flex now and I'm

saying everybody, now, go don't get offended with me now. But it's

all it's outward appearance, not an inward conviction or transformation in their lives.

They have a relationship with a religion. They don't have a relationship with a

person. And that's what I had. I knew all the johns and tittles

of the religion. I studied the religion, I did the duties of the

religion, but it was not a behavior. It was not a relationship.

And then there's the Pharisees, I'm assume you. Then there's the teachings of

the Herodians. The Herodians were politicians. They were people that trust in man

or in a party. And I should leave it at that right now,

because I think the teachings of the Herodians are getting right into the church right

now. And I shared with you this weekend that the latest statistics say that

people put politic persuasion above faith when it comes to marrying people. Now,

so it doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus or not before it should be

the highest standard. Not to be an equal. I can't even date you.

I can't even date you. I'm disobeying the Bible to date a non

Christian, let alone marry a Christian. Okay, but Now people are choosing

are you a Republican because I can't marry a Republican? Are you a Democrat?

I can't marry a Democrat, and they'll choose who to marry based on

that is so silly. It is so silly for that to be. I

won't even tell you the conversations that me and my wife have say se y'all

holy and hush it got in here because we may disagree, but we'll stay

married. We love each other, We hear each other's point of view,

but that has nothing to do with our marriage. Now, when going to

heaven, we're not gonna be talking about that stuff. That stuff does not

pass into glory. Doesn't mean we don't pray, doesn't mean that we shouldn't

vote. But I'm just saying, we make it an idol, we make

it a god. We wear T shirts now, we wear butmper sticker.

We stand on the side of places. And I'm saying too much. I

mean, shut down, now, shut it down, diego shut it down.

And how quickly there's no love in that. How quickly we forget God's

power in God's provisions and God promise says because of present circumstances, situations and

conditions. They were hungry, and they just forgot about the miracle that he

did not too long ago. And we forget yesterday's faithfulness and goodness of God

because of the present circumstance. In the present situation, we let the present

noise and sound and voices drown out Yesterday's blessings. In our lives. There

used to be an old song would go like this, counter many blessings and

number them one by one. I would rename it and say, recount your

blessings and number them one by one. Do you know that an elephant's memory

is long? But do you know that the key to the survival of an

elephant is his memory? Because in times of famine, where there is no

water, he has a memory of where the ponds are and the the holes

are. He has memories of trees that bring shade. He has the memory

of vegetations, of things that were done decades ago. His memory can remember

where places are to go. We have such spiritual amnesia based upon today's problems

that we forget about how God brought us through yesterday. And we can't survive

today because we forgot about what God did yesterday. You're telling me, God's

never healed something like this. I think God's never turned to heartlight that God

never provided for some God's never intervened. He has and you need to remember

them. Mark eight and verse twenty three, number three. Moving along,

pick it up, pick it up, pick it up. And he took

the blind man by the hand. He brought him out of the village,

spitting on his eyes. Yeah, he he spit on him. Jesus spit

on the dude's eyes, and he laid his hands on the spitted eyes,

and he asked him, do you see anything? He looked up and he

said, I see people. They look like trees. In other words,

it's blurry. And again there is a word. Again, Again Jesus placed

his hands on the man's eyes. The man looked intently, and his sight

was restored, and he saw everything clearly. He's the healing of the blind

man. Healing can be instant, but sometimes healing takes time. Two ways

in God heals. When he heals instantly, he just needs your belief.

When he heals instantly, he just needs your faith. When he heals instantly,

he just does it on his own sovereignly. But when it's done through

time, it takes another recipe, and that recipe may look like a confession

of the promise of God. That may be exercising your faith and living out

your healing and doing something that the condition told you not to do. It

may look like obedience. God is now telling you to do something. And

it may be now you minding your mind because all the thoughts are lying to

you, telling you you're not healed. People. People can lose their healing

by going back to beth Setia. He said, Notice he he read those

story. He brought him out a Besetia by the hand a blind man.

How many of you know blind men, that blind people, their life is

around familiarity. It took faith to have this rabbi, this teacher, this

messiah lean me out to a place I've never been before. That he heals

me, and he tells me, don't go go back to your house,

but don't go back to that town. What was in that town? And

so what you need to understand is this people, I've seen it over and

over and over. God's healed them, and then they lose their healing.

Why because they go back to Besetia, They go back to their former lifestyle.

They backslide. They walk and disbelieve, and they don't stewart the hell

that God gave them. They go back to toxic lifestyles. Why would God

heal you? What will you do if God heals you? I don't have

the answer. I'm just telling you. Sometimes Jesus has to take you somewhere

different and difficult so that he could heal you, so that you can see,

so that you could get vision and to get something you've never had before.

Why didn't he heal him in that town? That man had to trust

Jesus and let him take hold of his hand and lead him out. And

sometimes God needs to do that. He needs to just remove you, take

you somewhere you've never been before, so you'll have vision now and you can

see clearly. I know there's been a time in my life when early when

we were building this church, forming the vision of the church. I grew

up and we all are by part of party. We are who we are

today and a byproduct of our experiences and our associations and our environments. That's

who's made up every one of you today, Me and you, your environment,

your experiences, and your associations. That's who brings you today here today,

And I had a certain mindset of what I thought Christianity was and how

I was going to do church. God led me to a church of that

was a Christian church, but it believed differently than we believe. And I

stood there in that service by myself, talking to myself, and I was

so judgmental, and I was so critical because I thought I knew what the

Christian church should look like, and because it was so different than what I

was used to, I was demeaning it in my mind. And God had

to take me out to go there to expose the sin and the error of

my life and deliver me and heal me and bring me back so that I

could start building a healthy church with a different mindset. But if I wasn't

willing to go to a place I had never been before and be uncomfortable,

so if the Lord could judge me and rebuke me, I would be the

same. In this church. I promise you would not look the way it

looks today, because I could go through the list of what this church would

have looked like. Yeah, so next one, very quickly, I'm sorry,

I'm sorry. Next point, go to the next church. Jesus went

out to his disciple of the village systory of Philippi on eroding. He asked

his disciples, who do people say that I am? Some say they are

John the Baptists, some say there are Elijah, and still others said,

you're one of the prophets. But you He's ask them, who do you

say that I am? And Peter spoke up and answered, you are the

Messiah or you're the anointed one. You are Christ. So here are two

questions that are in this story. Who is Jesus to others? And who

is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus to others? Well, here's a

list right now. If you were to ask that Jehovah's witnesses, they would

say, Jesus was created. He was created. He's not pre existent,

he was created. Number two. If you ask a Mormon, they'd say

Jesus is the brother of Satan. If you ask Hindus, they'd say Jesus

is a guru, and he's one of many gurus or gods. If you

ask Muslims, they'd say Jesus is a prophet. If you ask Jews,

they'd say Jesus is a rabbi or a heretic, and if you ask Buddhist

Jesus is an enne and being. If you ask the world today who is

Jesus, you'll get those things, and you'll get he's a parable teacher.

He's a miracle worker, he's a moral man. He was a revolutionist.

And those are what other people are saying. At that point, Jesus stops

you, and he says, but I want to ask you something very personal.

Now, Who am I to you? Stop talking about who I am

to someone, your mama, your preacher, your brother, your sister.

I want to know who am I to you? Because I can't be anything

bigger than you tell me or allow me to be in your life. So

tell me who I am to you? And you got to come back with

answering the question. He is the sacrifice for my sins. He is the

substitution for my sins, and he is the sanctifier from my sins. That's

who Jesus is to me. He is the pre existant God. He is

God, and he's always been God. He's created the heavens and the earth.

He's the second person in the Trinity. He came to this earth,

he suffered, he died, he went down to Hell. He was raised

from the dead. He walked this earth for forty days, he ascended,

he's seated at the right hand. He's coming back for a rapture church.

Then he's coming back for a second coming. Then he's coming back for a

millennial reign. And then he'll throw Satan and the Antichrist into the lake of

fire. And then he'll create a new heaven and a new earth where we

will rule with him forever. Why I didn't know all that, well,

now you do. And you better know that because when those people knock on

your door, they know who he is to them, and most cred the

do don't enter the door. Don't enter the door, welcome wing. And

we have the good news, the gospel, and don't can't even share it,

don't know how to articulate it. We just say, you're going to

hell. Now where was I. We need a little bit more than you're

going to hell kind of message. So we need to understand that he is

that to us. And number five, here we go. We're almost done.

He says this. Then he began to teach them that it was necessary

for the son of Men to suffer many things and be rejected. See most

religions don't believe that their Messiah would suffer. They don't believe that their Messiah

would die. They don't believe their Messiah would go to Hell, or they

don't believe their Siah would be resurrect Some do. But those are trigger points

that when you go to them, you have to ask them that question.

You have to ask him that question. So then he began to do teaching.

They suffer many things and be rejected by the elder chief prescribes and be

killed and rise three days. So he's telling them about his future. And

he spoke openly about this, but Peter took him aside. I almost have

to laugh. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Jesus. Come on,

now, just a few moments ago, you said, thou art christ

son of the Living God, who would do something? Now you gotta be

rebuked. But turning around looking at us haveing rebuke Peter, and he said,

get thee I mean be singing like, shut up. Your acting really

weird right now? Shut up, you stupid fool, He said, get

thee behind me. Satan. You are not here's the key thing. This

is the key part. You are not thinking. You are not talking.

You are not acting about God's concerns, but you're more concerned about yourself,

the ways of this world and human logic, and you're leaning on your own

understanding. You think you know better than me. So how vulnerable can you

and I be? How quick we can quickly go from faith to doubt,

hope to fear, revelation to ridiculousness to holiness to the flesh, How quickly

like a chameleon who can change in its environment in twenty seconds. I think

we can almost beat the chameleon in how quickly we can vacillate and be flaky

and be fickle about who Christ is to us. But we recognize we will

be in this place where we have to be rebuked by the Lord. When

we do lean on our own understanding opposite of God, and we do rest

on our own logic of how to do something outside of the will of God

or the plan of God, or reject God's will and God's ways for our

lives, then we stand to be rebuked. What do some of those things

look like today? Well, you can live together, You're gonna eventually get

married, You love each other. That's what people do today when they lean

on their own understanding, their own reasoning. Today they stand to be rebuke.

You can live together, you could have sex outside of marriage. Ain't

nothing wrong with that. You stand to be rebuked by Jesus today. You

could abhor a baby. That's human logic today. That's the world we're living

in. Today. We stand to be rebuked by Christ. You don't have

to come to church to be a Christian. You stand to be rebuked today

by Christ. Self indulgence, whatever you feel like, whatever you want to

do, and don't deny yourself. You'll stand to be rebuked by the Lord.

You can borrow all you want. You don't have to pay it back,

file bankruptcy, you know, just whatever. Just use the system on

me. It's the ways of the world. You stand to be rebuked by

the devil, or I be rebuked by God. An entitlement mentality. I

deserve this. I deserve that. I don't want no body to help me

other than God. He's giving me a mind. He's given me strainth because

there's a price to pay you when I hold my hand out and you put

something in, and you own me man the borrower serving to the lender.

I ain't calling no one lord Jesus, I'm borrowing the bow my need to

nobody but him, well, I don't think that's right. We'll read your

Bible because David said, I'll take nothing that I've not paid for the way

of the world and entitlement. Man, they owe me. Nobody owes you

nothing. No one owes you nothing. God will give you a mind.

God will give you grace. God will restore, God will rebuild, God

can make amends. You got to trust him now. But there's that mentality.

And the next thing around you'll see it now is AI robots. These

are my sex partners. So I don't even have to have human contact.

Let me just get me a robot. She that is built the way I

want, and she'll do anything I want. Look these robots and they look

just like humans. They're flesh and they're just like that. What's that human

logic? Stand to be rebuked and last point and I'm done, And now

that I've captured your attention after fifty minutes or whatever, calling to the crowd

with his disciples, said to them, if anyone wants to follow me,

let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. And we

talked about this, not a few not too long ago. A few weeks

ago, we talked about cross training, and we talked about cross fit.

But I'll end it with this, Jesus, excuse me. Discipleship, followship

and relationship with Jesus is measured by this. They're on the screen. This

is how Jesus would measure discipleship is by losing self. That's an inconvenience.

If you're gonna walk with Jesus, you're gonna face some inconveniences. That's about

losing yourself. You're gonna have to learn to die to self. That's detachment

to what you want. Sometimes the pleasures of this world, you're gonna have

to deny yourself. That is what does that word it's supposed to be separation.

You have to separate yourself. Sometimes you can't participate. You have to

say no sorry. If I lose friends, I lose a job, I

lose you know, a client contract, So what I gain him? You

gotta shame yourself, you said, if you're ashamed of me, I'll be

ashamed of you. If you read the Bible, you gotta embarrass yourself.

Sometimes, you know what, I'm not telling the truth right now, I'm

not dating quality. I ain't married, I don't have my life together.

That's a distinction. And then last of all, he talks about glory and

honor. To him, that's your identification with Christ. That needs to take

place. All of that takes place when you and I take up our cross.

I hear people say, oh, it's so hard to follow Jesus.

So hard. Was it hard for you to sin? Was it hard for

you to act crazy? Was it har for you to fight with everything out

there? Was it hard for you to lie and connive? Was it hard

for you to be a player? That wore you out sometime? Man,

that wore me out? Got three women going at the same time. Forget

who Lucy, Marcy and Susie is mix the names up. That's hard.

Five to seven with Susie's eight to nine was tiring. That's hard. But

you did it. Now all of a sudden, you come to Christ and

you can't do it. Used to live off of three hours, sleep,

party all night, drink all nine, go to work. But you never

complained about it, did you. It's hard. Tell that to the eleven

disciples that would be martyred or face martyring for their faith. Tell that to

Christians right now and persecuted countries right now that will lose everything. Tell that

to missionarians and don't know when their next warning water about room or bath will

come from. Tell that to them that it is hard compared to what iron

with this picture and iron with this great story that I read today. This

is Maryanne Bevin. Mary Anne Bevin is the same lady to the left.

She has four children and she got married. One year after she got married,

she got diagnosed with this horrendous disease that began to deform her face.

The only thing, because she hadn't no income, she had no husband,

she had to do whatever it took to feed her children. So she went

and joined the circus as a freak. She was known up till nineteen thirty

three when she died as the ugliest woman. That's the way she was advertised

in the circus as the ugliest woman in the planet. But she was willing

to go through the humiliate and suffer for the sake of her family. What

do you do with some Christian who loves Jesus but is a paraplegic today,

who suffers every day of their life, a quadriplegic in their life has cerebral

polesy in their life, a difigurement in their body, and doesn't know what

non pain is for one second, but loves Jesus and worships Jesus. Father,

I thank you for the message today. It challenged our heart today.

I love the teachings of Jesus. This is not something we play with.

I play being a Christian. I pretend to be a Christian. It's a

solid commitment but is the joy of our lives because one day we'll leave this

planet and will enter into glory and it will all be worth it one day

God, not just to hear well done, now, good and faithful servant,

but maybe just to see a smile on your face, to have an

embrace for you to say thank you to us, and then we'll look back

and say you're thanking me. Jesus. I need to thank you. So

Father. May we be challenged by the word of God today, Oh God,

and not take it lightly and listen and obey the directives of Christ and

everything we do and live out the Gospel. Live out the Gospel. That's

what the world needs to see. Somebody living out the Gospel in Jesus name.

As we get ready to leave this place. I'm and ask that nobody

move. We're going to walk out of this place together. You guys did

a good job. You read through the entire chapter of the Book of Mark

eight. That was pretty good. Six different stories. I'm proud of you.

Now, you guys are almost like theologians. Now you've got a major

discourse today in Mark chapter eight, as all the other pastors have done.

Well, here's what I know. People go to funerals, and no one

likes to go to feard. I've never seen someone say, oh, I

can't wait to go to a funeral today. It's gonna be so exciting.

I'm gonna see everybody. I'm gonna be so happy. Nobody thinks like that.

It's actually a very dark feeling. It's a very heavy feeling. Even

though somebody goes to heaven, they're still sorrow, still lost. People feel

absolutely uncomfortable. My fellow preachers know that when they stand behind this bulpit,

there ain't nobody smiling at them. There's nobody a'mmning them, there's nobody hallowloing

them, there's nobody who just like wants to be there. You feel the

urgency of God, So let me get through this thing, and so I

can go home to my family that loves me and have some lunch or something,

because we all have that feeling, so morbid feeling that death is around

the corner for all of us going to happen. And the older you get,

the more you realize how fast it goes, how fast it goes.

Yesterday, I was a teenager thirty years ago, was starting this church.

Where did time go? The reality is is this earth is temporary? How

long do you want to live? Right now? Tell me you want to

live one hundred years? Boom, it's gone? Now what? Because the

Bible says your life is a miss of vapor, blinking of an eye of

breath. Here, I'll let you live one years. There he went there,

where there he went? There it went there, it went compared to

eternity. That's how long you let one drop of water? Is your life

compared to the thousands upon billions of trillions of other waters. And you had

that time to accept Jesus Christ or to reject Jesus Christ. So my challenge

to you is just simply what Jesus said to them. Who am I to

you? Just a moral man, prophet, a teacher, the Son of

God? Or am I God all by myself, the one who died for

years? And who am I to you? Because who I am to you

makes all the difference about where you'll spend eternity. And Jesus will tell you

I came to this earth to ensure that you knew this story, that you

would never be robbed of this knowledge. You can never be fooled or tricked

into following someone else. That's the message today that's brought before you accept it

or reject it, welcome it or deny it. Who is Jesus to you?

Or maybe you need to rededicate your life to the Lord because you've kind

of forgotten and he's now become number two, three and four, He's not

number one in your life today. Or I love God and everything's going great.

I'm born again on my way to heaven, but I'm not fill with

the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. And if this early

church who had become born again seen Jesus resurrected, was asked to wait to

be in fill with the Holy Spirit, in which they would receive the dudamus

and empowerment of God to go out and be witnesses for Jesus Christ. Then

I need everything that God has for me. And the reality is is that

everybody can have the opportunity. You don't need to be spirit filled to go

to heaven. You go to heaven just for accepting Jesus. But being spirit

filled can make all the difference about crucifying the flesh and learning how to pray

more effectively, and just simply building yourself up and being stronger. There's a

purpose. Same way you receive Jesus by faith is the same way you receive

the infilling of the Holy Spirit. When I count to three, you raise

your hand except Jesus, who is it to you to rededicate your life or

to be filled with the Holy Spirit? One two, one two three,

All across this audititorum, wherever you might be, God, love you,

God, bless you see your hands, say this simple prayer with me.

Dear Lord, I'm ready to acknowledge who you are in my life. You

are my Lord, You are my savior. You are my God, and

I will follow you Now. I believe that only through you can I be

saved, and only through your death can I be forgiven of my sins.

I thank you today in Jesus' name Amen,