March 5, 2023

Mark: Jesus is the Servant and Savior

Speaker: David Jordan Series: Journey Through the Bible Scripture: Mark 1:1– 16:20

Download the Mark Bible Journal Outline

I'm going to be preaching an overview of the entire book of Mark this morning. So, if you would, open your Bibles to the book of Mark. The title of the message is, “Jesus is the Servant and Savior.” “Jesus is the Servant and Savior.”

In 1972, NASA launched an exploratory space probe called the Pioneer 10. According to a man named Leon Jaroff in Time Magazine, the satellite’s primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter's magnetic field, the radiation belts, and the atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan in 1972, for at that time, no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. But pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November of 1973, Jupiter's gravity hurled the Pioneer 10 at a much higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At 1 billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some 2 billion miles, it hurled past our last planet, and at 3 billion past Neptune. Pluto at almost 4 billion.

By 1997, 25 years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than 6 billion miles from the sun, accomplishing far greater things than anyone ever thought. Jesus did so much more than the disciples could have ever imagined. When they looked at him, they saw a man who could teach, but they didn't really know his full capabilities. Mark gives us a description of Jesus to help us understand who Jesus is in a way that we could have never imagined on our own. Much like that little space probe, Pioneer 10, that did so much more than they ever could have imagined. It was only supposed to last for three years, that probe. But 25 years and counting, it was still sending back signals to Earth from billions of miles away. As Mark unfolds who Jesus is to us, we need to know that it's not just a collection of interesting miracles and events; that's not what the gospel is about. Mark wants us to come face to face with God the son, and he wants to show us the power and the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Mark is going to help us think of Jesus's life in two distinct categories. The first is Jesus's servant ministry. This takes us from Jesus's baptism through the start of his ministry, and you'll notice that Mark does not include anything about the birth of Jesus Christ. He starts where he wants us to focus, which is on the ministry of Jesus, his three years of ministry. And then the last half of the book of Mark, starting in chapter 11 and going through 16, that says salvation ministry; that says triumphal entry to the resurrection. So, we're going to follow along and try and understand who this Jesus is that Mark presents to us.

Mark was written around AD 55. For various reasons, that's probably the best idea that we have. So that would put it about 25 years or so after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There are 19 miracles of Jesus in the book of Mark, and only one of those miracles is repeated in all four Gospels (you'll have to read and figure out which one that is). The author, of course, is Mark, though that's not stated in this gospel. Normally, we're used to Paul's letters, “I, Paul, am writing you,” right, “grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Mark doesn't start that way. He wants all the attention to go on Jesus.

But I want you to know a little bit about who Mark is, because although we don't know a lot about him, he's a very relatable guy. We start to think as we go through the Gospels and having gone through all the books of the Old Testament, that anyone who's writing these things must have been super believers in some way. They must have had this audacity about them, and this wisdom that we will never have, but that's not how Mark is portrayed. Mark was a close companion of Peter; he traveled around with him quite a bit. An early church writer Justin Martyr, referred to this book of Mark as the memoirs of Peter, very interesting. His mother, Mary, was a prominent member of the Jerusalem church, you can read about her in Acts 12. And he traveled with his uncle, Barnabas, Barnabas was his uncle on Peter's first missionary journey. So, Mark was in and around a lot of what Peter did.

It was common in those times to be called by two different names. He goes by John Mark in the scriptures. John would be his Hebrew name, and Mark would be his Roman Christian name. So when you see John Mark, as Luke and Peter and Paul call him, that's why there's two first names. But Mark is the guy who later on would desert Barnabas and Paul, in the middle of one of their trips, and he just went back to Jerusalem. We don't know if he was homesick, if he got weak knees, we don't know if he got sick. We don't really know why he left them, but we know it kind of ticked Paul off, to be quite honest. So, the next time, later, Paul actually refuses to take Mark along with them on another journey. And it causes this friction between Paul and Uncle Barney, right, Uncle Barnabas. And so now you've got these two guys who were proclaiming the gospel arguing about who to even take with them. Thank you, Mark.

But listen, this division was reconciled fully, fully! It's a wonderful example of how God doesn't just take someone who makes a big mistake and throws them to the curb. God doesn't do that. God is in the business of restoring people. No matter what your sin, you can be forgiven. No matter how much you messed it up the first time, God can help you through the second time; you can read about this in Colossians 4:10. Paul even says, when he's writing to Timothy, he says: bring Mark along, “for he is useful to me for ministry.” [2 Timothy 4:11]. Not just for carrying the luggage, but actually for ministry. You know, you want to entrust ministry to faithful men who will entrust it to others also. So, Mark was a guy who at one time wasn't trusted anymore. But now he's restored, now he's brought back.

So, I just want you to think through that as you're reading the book of Mark; how he could have appealed to his incredibly close relationship with Peter, but he doesn't do that. He could have said a lot about all of the things and the miracles he’s seen, and all of the wonderful teaching that he had a part of, but he doesn't do that. And what makes him useful for ministry is that he regresses, and Jesus is brought forward. It's just a beautiful example on every line of Mark of how we are to live, and I didn't want it to go unnoticed. And I think that's what makes Mark so relatable as he's writing this Gospel. He wants to be effective. He wants to be useful. He's later in life recognized as being useful. And here we are reading a letter that he wrote 2000 years ago. I think God can do more with us than we sometimes imagine.

So now that we know Mark a little bit, Mark wants us to know Jesus. Would you open to Mark chapter one, verse one. And this is the first section, chapters one through 10. It's the compassionate, powerful ministry of Jesus Christ. Mark 1:1 says this, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Don't let those words pass over you. If I would pull one person up here, and introduce them as the Christ, the Son of God, right, that's the way it would shock his audience. He's writing primarily to what we think is a Roman Christian audience, people unfamiliar with all of the Jewish customs, and there's multiple times in the book of Mark where he explains customs; they have no idea what the Sabbath is, or the Passover, and Mark kind of gives annotations towards that. So we think it was mostly a Roman Christian audience, and he starts with a home run.

He follows it right up as you can read there, with a fulfillment that John the Baptist is coming announcing this Jesus (who I just said was the Son of God), that's the fulfillment of Isaiah the prophet—the most revered prophet in Jewish culture. Mark intentionally loads up this chapter. And if you want, just like Matthew did, an incredible summary of just the start of Jesus's ministry, you can read through the first chapter and see all the amazing things Jesus does. I'll summarize. His name is Jesus. He is the Lord spoken of by Isaiah the prophet. Mark, God the Father, and even the demons call him the Son of God. His recognition of who he is, is not even in dispute by those who would try and tear him down. Jesus then demonstrates in chapter one his power over demons as well. He has the power to heal disease. He is not limited by disease, like I said last week, right, not limited by any particular disease that comes on to people. He has followers, and he teaches with authority. That doesn't mean he's yelling, that means he has intrinsic authority. “You have heard it said, but I say.” He's saying the source of truth, you've heard from the prophets. But I am the new source of truth, I am giving you new truth and I'm going to explain who God is more fully to you.

Now, much of Mark is in the book of Matthew so I'm not going to read a lot of it to you, although we will hit a couple of very unique sections, but why does Mark cram all of these amazing things into this first chapter? Well, we kind of do this when a new speaker gets up. Next week when Gianluca Pollutri is here I'm going to share about him and tell you where he ministers, and tell you something about him, and to embarrass him I'll tell you some of his degrees and things like that, and what's going on in Italy in Florence, where he ministers. It's just a bio, it's normal. But Jesus's bio is one of a kind. So Mark starts out with that in chapter one. That's the reason for this incredible grand introduction.

Look down in Mark chapter one, verse 14 [Mark 1:14], “Now after John was arrested,” notice Jesus did not free John the Baptist from prison. Notice he didn't do that. “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Repent and believe in the gospel. Jesus didn't stay in the safe circles that society wants us to stay in. There were no safe spaces to articulate our own personal views; Jesus Christ was all about taking us from the domain of darkness and transferring us to the domain of light, and he started his ministry with that. Why? Because he loves you immensely. And he wants to get to the point that we need to believe in the gospel; the life transforming message that Jesus came to give. And not just to believe in it, but to follow it. That's why he says to repent and believe. Jesus said that.

He also would go on to challenge the religious strongholds of the day. He would go into their synagogues, and he would challenge the truth that they are presenting, and he would give everyone an opportunity to be saved, at his own demise. I mean, the more he would do this, the more they would want to kill him. He didn't consider his life to be something that was even for himself. He lived his life for the benefit of other people. That's why we say these first 10 chapters, Jesus is the servant. He is constantly serving people, yes, demonstrating who he is clearly, but he is constantly serving people and it invigorates him. Let me hit some of the highlights. Jesus and the disciples by the time we even get to chapter three, Mark, by the way, is not fully chronological, but by the time we get to chapter three Jesus has healed hundreds, if not thousands, of people already, and his fame was at a fever pitch. And the people just couldn't help themselves. And when Jesus’s fame rises, other people who have fame either submit to this new person rising up, or they don't like him. And so as you know, the Pharisees chose, we don't like this guy.

Right, look in chapter three, verse six [Mark 3:6]: “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” Like we have got to do something with this guy. Why don't we just kill him? Religious leaders are supposed to be the kind compassionate ones. Right? And they say, why don't we just kill him. So, Jesus had pressure during his ministry that surpassed the pressure you and I face. All I get, all the elders get, we get from time-to-time nasty emails or comments. Don't feel bad for us. Don't feel bad for us at all. No one is plotting with giant groups of people to come and to kill us. They just want us to disappear off the social radar. They just want no one to listen to the sermons, maybe come to church, but don't have any influence on the community. They want us to be tame little Christians who stay in our place and stay with our people and don't bother anyone. That's not what we're called to do. As we heard at the men’s study, we're supposed to be salt and light in this world. We're supposed to make a difference, to have a flavor and let that flavor permeate all of those around us.

But here, I bring this up because this signifies a shift in Jesus's ministry. See, he planned out not only just what he was going to say, but the style in which he spoke. So here in chapter four, we see that Jesus begins to talk in parables. And chapter four of Mark is probably the best chapter to study on what is a parable, why does Jesus use them, and what's their purpose. And that's all explained in chapter four. We don't have to wonder why Jesus spoke in parables; he tells us. And there's a very specific reason, as you'll see. Look in Mark chapter four, verse one [Mark 4:1], and let me read the section a little bit to you, “Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into the boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:” verse three [Mark 4:3-4], “listen!” You're going to wonder why he said that as I keep reading, but he says, “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.” Verse five [Mark 4:5-9]: “Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. And he said,” now listen to this, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

So, do you understand the parable yet? Do you understand what all the different soils mean yet?
Well, only if you've read past Mark four in the past, because there's no way for you to know what that means at this point. But Jesus says, he starts it with “listen,” and then he ends it in verse nine with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” [Mark 4:9]. Normally we'd say, oh, Jesus wants everybody to listen and pay attention. And he does, but for different reasons. So, like the disciples, we need to be told; what is this all about? Thank you for this teaching, please explain it to me. So, Mark 4:10: “And when he was alone,” right, the disciples don't want to show that they don't know what he's talking about in front of everyone, “those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.” So, there's still a group and he said to them, quote, “To you it has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.” Why? Why? [Mark 4:12], “so that,” that's a purpose clause. That's called a hina clause the Greek. That is a purpose clause: this is why. So that, “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand,” this is going to get you, “lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

The Bible is not tame. It pokes at us a little bit. It's purposefully given to move us to where God wants us to be. Does this explanation surprise you? It does me. But I'll explain his reasoning in just a minute. Jesus goes on to explain the parable to the disciples, and this helps a little bit. Verse 13, let me read [Mark 4:13-20], “And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable?”’ Like, who does at this point? “How then will you understand all the parables?” He's pointing at something a little beyond linguistic ability here. Verse 14 [Mark 4:14], “The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.” That doesn't mean by the way, that Satan is actively taking away the word from every single person ever who's heard it and rejected it. Verse 16, “And these are the ones sown on the rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” Know anyone like that? “And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” [Mark 4:16-20].

Now, what's amazing about this chapter is that we have a parable, an explanation of the parable, and a reason Jesus even used the parables. So, the parable is explained. The seed is the word, the soils are different responses people have to the gospel. They're different responses the people have to the Gospel. The purpose of the parables: so that some hear and understand, and some can't understand when they hear, purposefully. One commentator notes the reason Jesus uses these parables was to clarify a truth for believers and hide it from unbelievers. Why would he do that? Because truth for believers is a blessing, and truth for unbelievers is a judgment. And Jesus, in one story to the same people, was giving both. The parables are nourishing to those of you who believe, but Jesus is a stumbling block to the unbeliever, whose mind cannot even comprehend the truths of God. Why give the pearls before swine? So, Jesus uses these parables to communicate a great blessing to those who are his children, and to communicate judgment to those who aren't—they don't even have ears to hear.

Again, Mark is showing us that Jesus has already gone out and preached what? The gospel. He has already gone out and called people to what? To repentance. He's already gone out and he's called people to believe. And we can't just disassociate that from chapter four here and say, “wow, that's really unloving, that must be a weird understanding of Scripture.” Well, I just read to you the whole thing. Right, that's Jesus's words. Jesus wants people to turn, but when they are stubborn and refuse, why give them the blessings that are for his children? Now you know why Jesus used parables. Mark, following a simple plan throughout his book, doesn't just stop at chapter four and give us these amazing reasons for why Jesus preaches the way he does. Mark has a plan; it's a basic two step plan. The step one: assert that Jesus is God. So, he's done that. And he's prophesied from the Old Testament, he's claimed to be God, God the Father spoke his baptism and said what? “This is my son.” When Jesus casted out demons, Mark records, “we know who you are, the Holy One of God.” Right, the demons attest to who he is. So, the question is not really, at this point, the assertions of who Jesus says, that he is God. We want to get to the proof of who Jesus is.

This is step two: Mark proves Jesus is God. God must have power over all things. Right? If God is not more powerful than one single thing in all the universe, then he would not be deserving of the title God. Right, if he is subject to anything, then he is not fully God, he is just close. So, Mark is trying to show that Jesus is not subject to anything. There is no power greater than him. There is nothing that restrains him. And he is not only a master teacher and communicator of truth, he is a master over other things as well. Mark has already showed us Jesus's power over many things: nature, physical and internal disease, he raised Jairus’s daughter, not even being in the same room as her—his powers not limited by location. And when Jesus calmed the storm at the end of chapter four, remember, they're rolling across the sea, they must have been terrified of the Sea of Galilee after a while, because every time they go on it, like weird things happen; so they go on it this time, and there's this huge storm, and Jesus is asleep in the bow. Like, we thought he came to serve, right? He's sleeping and we're rowing. And he's asleep, and then he gets up and rebukes the storm and says, “you of little faith?” Like, who is this guy? Mark chapter four, verse 40 records this [Mark 4:40]. Jesus says to them—they're thinking they're going to die, and so they call out to Jesus. Right? And he said to them, Jesus said to them, “Why are you so afraid?” Well, because we're going to die. That's why we're afraid. And he says this, “have you still no faith?” Not “much faith,” but do you have any faith at all? I mean, that is astounding.

[Mark 4:41] “And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”’ See, Mark is allowing us to see the progression of knowledge in the disciples themselves! “Who is this?” they said, “even the wind and sea obey him?” Well, what did they think God was limited by? They're still understanding the full scope of who this Jesus from Nazareth is. Just like you and I, we're trying to comprehend this as best we can. Who is Jesus? And Mark is allowing us to go in on the journey. After this, Jesus raises the dead, feeds 5000 men in a great miracle, and the disciples seem to be okay with this. There's nothing recorded, like, “wow, he raised the dead.” Like, I would think that would be astounding to them, but they seemed to be okay with that. Or he fed 5000 men plus all the women and children. Like, crowd of 15,000-20,000 maybe. They all had like, eight kids. That would be quite the crowd, right? But the disciples need to be pushed even further. So, Jesus takes it up a notch.

After ministering all day, multiple days after feeding the crowd yet again, it's late at night. Right? We knew it was late at night, that's why they fed them all. Jesus sends the disciples away first, tells them to go row across the lake again, across Galilee. It's like ten miles long and seven miles wide, and he sends them across it. So, it's not like a little tiny thing. And then he addresses the crowd. And then he goes up on the mountain to pray, and he's like, sitting there watching them. And Mark uses the Roman understanding of time he says the fourth watch of the night; the Jews only use three. So, he says the fourth watch of the night. That's between 3am and 6am. Ministry happens all the time, 24/7. So, it's 3am and the scripture say Jesus like, looks out at them. I don't know if they were just 100 yards offshore after hours of rowing, or if they were in the middle and Jesus was miraculously seeing them out in the middle of the lake, but Jesus decides to go to them; to these fishermen who couldn't even row a boat at this point because of the storm. And mile after mile he gets closer to them. And the disciples get more and more afraid, and by verse 50 of Mark chapter six [Mark 6:50] scripture says they are, “terrified.”

They were terrified in Mark chapter four on the lake, now they're terrified again in Mark chapter six on the lake. And Jesus just, like, gets in the boat. The wind ceased and he says, “take heart, it's me. Don't be afraid.” Like, that's it? I guess that's it. And then they go to the shore, and they're at the shore and the storms gone. Well, what did you expect to happen? You saw God. Notice Mark doesn't even give the account, this is the account where Peter would have walked on water, Mark doesn't even give that account of Peter. That would have boosted the pride of his close friends, so he leaves it out. So, it's just Jesus like, hops in the boat. And he says, “take heart” and he uses this phrase, ego eime. I am. “Take heart, I am.” And it can be accurately translated “it is I.” Could be a common phrase. It just happens to be the phrase that God used in the burning bush to describe to Moses who he was. “I am” sent you. “I am” got in the boat. Why do we think the storm is still a problem?

Jesus was constantly teaching the disciples the extent of his power. Some commentators take these first 10 chapters and just say it's literally the power of Jesus. That's what we see over and over again. You see in walking on water towards the disciples, Jesus walked only where God could. He was demonstrating, he was showing. He wasn't just talking. Right? So, Paul came in a demonstration of the spirit and power. “I will tell you; I will demonstrate when I come to you. I don't just have words; power comes with it.” And as he continued to feed people and heal people and teach his disciples, he's leading them all to a question. Who do you say that I am? And we need to answer that question. Who do we say Jesus is? And are we more like the disciples as they're rowing? “Okay, God, you said row, so I'm rowing, but I'm terrified.” Are we more like the disciples after Jesus hops in the boat?

Where are we at in our progression of knowledge and understanding about who Jesus is, and just how impactful is that knowledge in our daily lives? Does it make a difference that we've got pictures, you know, of walking on water, and we've got stories of healing disease? Did that comfort us when the whole world was terrified of disease? Does it comfort us to know that our heavenly boss is greater than our earthly boss? Or are we petrified of our earthly boss? Or are we scared of being fired, as though God's only resource for us in all of the world is our current employer? You see, Mark is allowing us to think through Jesus with the disciples. And it's such a humbling way, notice he's not talking about himself. He just keeps putting Jesus forward and allows us to see him. And I want to ask you, do you see him? There was another lesson more significant than all of this that they needed to yet learn.

Go back to the Pioneer 10. The capability of this probe was greatly underestimated. Not just in the distance that it would travel, or that it didn't get destroyed by asteroids. When it was about 6 billion miles from the Sun, a man from NASA wrote, “perhaps what is most remarkable about the signals we get back from this probe is that they emanate from an eight watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom nightlight.” Call it the little satellite that could. It was only supposed to last three years, and maybe get past Mars without being destroyed. But now if here's the sun, and pioneer 10 is way over here some nine plus billion miles, it currently doesn't have enough power to charge back a signal, so they don't know if it's still going up. But last count it was about 9 billion miles away from the sun. Over here are other satellites patterned after that one. This little eight-watt radio transmitter accomplished more than anyone thought possible, and it showed NASA what could be done. Jesus needed to show them that there was a whole lot more he came to do.

And this takes us to chapters 11-16. Turn to chapter 11 verse nine [Mark 11:9]. Up until now there's three different times when Jesus told them, “The scribes are going to kill me, and after three days I will rise.” In only one time in Mark's account, when he healed the paralytic being let down from the roof—Mark gives that account—Jesus says, “your sins are forgiven.” That should have been the most astounding thing they ever heard or saw Jesus do, but he needed to show them. And so, in Mark 11 we pick up Jesus is coming into the city. He's just come over from Bethany, traversed the Mount of Olives, is coming into the city. When we studied this from other Gospel accounts in the past, there could easily in this Passover have been millions of people just scattered all over the place. The crowds following him right now could have easily been 100,000 or more. I mean, they're in a frenzy to see Jesus.

Verse nine [Mark 11:9] says, “And those who went before and those who followed were shouting.” This is like one of those unhinged parades where everyone around the main person is so excited, they're just shouting; they're loud. And they're shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” I won't explain the makeup of that word Hosanna, but I will explain to you that in Psalm 118:25 that is the praise that was given to Yahweh. When they say “Hosanna” they are using a combination of a phrase to bring praise to God. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” They're saying Jesus is the one that we are praising, and he's the one who's going to bring forward the kingdom of David that we've been waiting for for over 700 years. “Hosanna in the highest!” And this isn't just a preaching point. In Matthew 21:15 it says at this they became indignant, the Pharisees. They had enough. This would be of course, Jesus's final week before the cross. And the more he was around, the more the chief priests and scribes wanted to kill him, and it's important for us to know that. Remember how I'm saying context is king; we need to understand the context of a passage. That is the setting in which Jesus gives the greatest commandment: when people want to kill him.

Mark 12:29, look there if you would. He's constantly barraged by scribes and they're trying to trip him up. Jesus answered one of their questions: “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” If somebody was trying to kill me, I probably would have quoted “do not murder.” But Jesus says, “love God and your neighbor.” As the hundreds of Pharisees and scribes are trying to kill him. Don't worry, as long as I can talk, we can keep going. If it gets dark, just look and listen. So, Mark is giving them a full dose of the compassion of Jesus Christ. We should never think of that verse in the same way again. We should never just think that Jesus was casually going through the hillside and teaching, and he just had these followers and there were a couple chirping at him and he's like, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. There's nothing greater than these.” No, it's when they were vehemently looking at him to tear him apart.

Mark 13:37 is everybody's favorite verse. It’s every pastor's favorite verse. And as we finish, I know you might be a little tired, so I'll read it to you. “And what I say to you I say to all: stay awake.” The book ends in incredible fashion, and Mark, he leaves us with the main stuff. He leaves us with the main things, and I want you to think about this. This is very, very important. Mark 16, I believe, ends in verse eight. I think 19 through 20, they’re in brackets. If you're not familiar with that, that means most people don't think what are in brackets were part of the original. I’ve also preached on the ending of Mark before which you can get a whole sermon on that if you want. But look what is here, look what Mark ends on. Mark 16 verse one [Mark 16:1]: “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, ‘who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?’”

These women are in distress. The one that they followed and loved has been murdered before their eyes unjustly, there was nothing they could do about it. There was nothing that disciples could do about it. There was nothing the crowds could do about it. They could not challenge the Roman authority and army, and all they could do was helplessly watch Jesus be torn to shreds, put on a cross, and put in a tomb. Verse four [Mark 16:4-8], “And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

That's it. That's it, that's how the book ends. Most scholars think the rest of it was added later. You can get most of what was in the rest of it, if you so choose, is in the other parts of the scriptures. Except for the poisonous snake handling part. But this ending is perfect. It's perfect. Let me give you one last illustration, if I can milk it one more time, from this Pioneer 10. You see, it wasn't just a satellite, billions of miles from the sun, and everybody was like, “yay, this is great.” It established a pattern for the norm of the future. When Jesus came, he established the pattern of the norm for the future. “Go and tell everyone what I have done.” You see, Jesus made a way where there wasn't a way. “I am the truth; I am the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me.” He made a way for you and I to have a relationship with him. You see, if Jesus is still dead, then our faith is in vain, Paul says, and we are of, quote, “most to be pitied.” [1 Corinthians 15:19]. But since Jesus is alive, and Jesus is risen from the dead, then there is a way for us to live and to go forward. There's a way for us to have a relationship with God, to have a grace infused life, to live by the mercy of God. Jesus is risen from the dead. A Christian in the hands of God is capable of changing the world. If you're a Christian, that means you. And I think we need to understand that God wants us to see Jesus and understand that his plan for us is so much greater than we can ever imagine.

If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of Man, Savior of the world, you will be saved. You will become a follower of his and one of his children. Let us rejoice because the path is set. Jesus has risen just as he told you. Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you for this wonderful day. We thank you for the opportunity to praise your name. To honor you, to love you. We thank you that you have made a way for our sins to be forgiven, that we might know God. Father, help us to set aside all the encumbrances of life and run the race to win for your glory.

Lord, now I pray if anyone's here who doesn't know you that they would turn to you this morning and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, for the rest of us… Let's just take a moment and enjoy the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead.

Father, we love you. We praise your holy Name. And I pray that you would help us to proclaim your gospel to all who will hear. In your precious name, Amen.