Mark speaks today

This transcript has been automatically generated

Mark has a twofold message. It’s really very simple. You’ve got to be coming back to first principles with Mark over and over again. His first message is to those who do not yet know who Jesus is. His first message to those who do not know the Lord.

And his message is that this Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the King, the Lord of glory, the Son of God.

Now that must control everything, mustn’t it, in Mark? Not only in part 1 but also in part 2. Herod did not know who Jesus was, the family did not know who Jesus was, the Pharisees did not know who Jesus was, and the disciples did not know who Jesus was.

So we’re taking through them. Really it’s very simple. We have been able to cover nearly all the major material of the first part in these 3 days together. And once you see it in its sections, you see that it’s comparatively uncomplicated. They are simply led through the various groupings and see them face to face with this astonishing Jesus.

And out of darkness and hardened hearts and ignorance and faithlessness, the disciples are led. By the Spirit to acknowledge who he is. So that’s the first message. Secondly, the message is to those who do know who he is but don’t know, understand sufficiently who he is so that they don’t know how to serve him. I can only serve my boss properly if I know what he wants, what kind of person he is.

So the second half in particular carries on with this, what kind of a king and what kind of a Lord he is.

In that paper, which I won’t now read to you, but there’s a very extraordinary passage where John Rhee, talking about his wife and him, his visit to America in the early part, in California, he was saying that All these vast churches growing there. Of course, California is not characteristic of necessarily the best evangelical churches. Some of them are slightly quaint, but nevertheless they’re very successful. I mean, hundreds of people going, thousands of people going, and yet he says in this paper that they were faced with appalling problems in society around of mugging and so on. Let me just read that bit.

We experienced culture shock in many ways, not least in our concern for the protection and welfare of our 3 young children. Kidnapping and child molestation have become a major problem in California. We were told never to allow the children out of sight even for 1 minute. Children regularly are kidnapped and sold for adoption. It was very unwise to go out alone at night.

Jean— when Jean attended college meetings in the evening, she would be escorted home by one of the team of Fuller escorts. Escorts, equipped with 2-way radios. People never answer the door or the telephone after 9. Now that a theological college like Fuller, of the character and standard of Fuller, in the middle of these tremendously successful churches have to provide escorts after 9 o’clock gives you some idea of the problems in society. So you’ve got this extraordinary the thing which we feel in the West, don’t we, and especially in America where the church is growing faster and where some of these churches seem to be so vital, that you’ve got this terrific growth of the number of Christians but it doesn’t seem to be sought in the society.

Where is it that the piston isn’t working? What isn’t connecting? Now you know that’s ahead of us, isn’t it? We’ve got the beginnings of revival in the churches and renewal, haven’t we? Life’s It is good to be alive, isn’t it, and see it.

It may be strange, it may not be our cup of tea always, but we see life everywhere. But can we honestly say that on Monday morning there is very much connection with the deterioration of the social life in this country, which is going down steadily, isn’t it? I mean, can we say that we think that— we don’t have congregations of 2,000, do we? But can we say that we think our church, living church, in this next 20 years is really genuinely going to make a social impact on our country? I don’t think any of us are confident enough to say that we think it is.

And that must mean that to know that Jesus is Lord is not enough. I’ve got to know what kind of a Lord he is and what he demands of me. I can’t get away without that knowledge.

Let me just illustrate that. This is really a trailer for after Easter, you see, because I want you back. So I’m being cunning now, all right? I’ll just tell you I’m being cunning.

It’s quite obvious, to use John Chapman’s immortal phrase, when I’m cunning it’s like throwing a brick into a firehouse at night. It’s so obvious to everybody. But look at chapter 8.

Will you look at chapter 8 of Mark?

You see, he begins verse 31 to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and killed. And he said this plainly. Verse 34: And he called to him the multitude of his disciples and said, If any man would come after me, this kind of me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. Now we all know the connection between those 2.

He announces for the first time his cross and then he says what it’s going to mean to follow a Lord like that in a very famous passage. Now you know I told you Mark does everything in threes. You may not yet believe me. Look at chapter 9. Chapter 9, verse 31.

He’s going on a country walk with them so that they can have peace. And he’s teaching his disciples, verse 31, his usual thing in Mark. And he’s saying to them, the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after 3 days he will rise. But they didn’t understand.

Verse 31: They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he said, what were you talking about on the way? They’re silent. For on the way they discussed with one another who was the greatest. And then he works out for them what it means to follow the one who suffers and is humble and lowly. Very striking connection, isn’t it?

Directly after he announces his cross, He rebukes them for living in a way which is a contradiction of the way of the cross.

Chapter 10, the 3rd and last prophecy of the passion.

Verse 32, they are on the road going up to Jerusalem. He is walking ahead of them. They are amazed. Taking the 12 again, he begins to tell them what was to happen to him. This is the 3rd time.

Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests. They will condemn him to death and deliver him, mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and kill him. Now it’s really clear, isn’t it, the 3rd time.

Verse 35. Well, Mark is an artist, isn’t he? James and John, the sons of Zebedee, teacher, well, it’s just something we hoped you might do for us.

It isn’t us really, it’s Mother, you know.

She’s really suggested that we come and talk to you. And, um, a bit awkward about it really, but Mother says, um— Oh, we won’t go on with it. It’s shameful and embarrassing, isn’t it? So we have this long paragraph, and then do you see verse 42? You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it.

It shall not be so amongst you. Whoever would be great must be your servant. Whoever would be first must be slave of all. And the great summary, verse 45. You see, each time, 1, 2, 3 prophecies of the passion.

Each time afterwards, this is how you live and walk if you follow this. It’s intentional, isn’t it?

That’s what I mean by beginning to gear in, isn’t it? It doesn’t gear in if we’re still living as the disciples were living. Unwilling, for example, to do the jobs that are unimportant like looking after the children or wanting to be the greatest, whatever the manifestation is of our selfhood and our selfishness, that’s not following the way of the cross.

So the twofold message of Mark is one to those who do not yet know the Lord.

And right from the beginning the disciples have to come to know who the Lord is. And then those who do know him to be the Messiah but don’t know him well enough to serve him in a way that will please him and will be in accordance with his standards and pattern and example.

Finish today by just glancing, only glancing, at the only passage we’ve left out of the first half. And just so there are no great gaps, turn back to chapter 6. And I’ve only got a word or two about these, partly because I don’t have much more to say.

But you remember we finished up yesterday with 3 great rejections in chapter 6, one after the other. Jesus rejected in the synagogue, the disciples on their way into the villages but ready for rejection, and then John the Baptist. Now then they return to Jesus, verse 30, and tell him all they’ve done. They’re not exuberant like the storey of the 70 in Luke, and they’re told away to come to a lonely place and rest. And as you know, they have a day off, a very good example of a service lesson.

But they don’t have a day off because a vast throng comes when they get ashore, verse 34.

And as Alistair Campbell was saying to me this morning, it’s an illustration of world mission, isn’t it? When Jesus sees the world coming to him, he had compassion on them because they were sheep. Without a shepherd. And it’s a lesson in world mission because Jesus is insisting to the disciples that this need is met. And the disciples, who perhaps are dispirited, they’ve seen the message of rejection, they’ve come back without any very great success to report, and here is their Master pointing to them this great job, and it’s quite beyond them, and he insists you know, that they do it.

And he does insist that they do it. I mean, we all know that they give him their resources and that he multiplies them, but nevertheless they do it. It’s their fish and they distribute it. It’s their job to feed the world. So having given you 3 storeys of rejection, we find Jesus nevertheless facing the world again and saying, you go and feed and shepherd the world.

Then he— I thought that Chris was absolutely right. We’re not to read into Mark’s account the wanting to make him a Messiah. As far as we can tell from Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000, it doesn’t look even as though the crowd knew that a miracle had been performed.

At verse 45, immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side. He dismissed the crowd, and after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. About the 4th watch of the night, he came to them walking on the water.

He meant to pass them by. What a crux of interpretation that is. It seems so odd, doesn’t it? But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought he was a ghost and cried out. Take heart, it is I.

Have no fear. Got into the boat.

Alistair and I were talking about this this morning, and Alistair was saying, surely the lesson here is that the world mission is the central theme of Mark. They are to feed the multitude. They are to shepherd these shepherdless sheep in his name. And he will sustain them in their world mission in 2 ways. He will sustain them first by his prayers.

And that is where he is today, isn’t he? He has taken leave of us and he has gone to heaven at the right hand of God interceding for us. He sustains us by his heavenly intercession, a subject that as evangelicals we talk far too little about, I think.

How else does he sustain us? He sustains us because he is constantly watching over us and he sustains us when we get discouraged and make headway slowly, painfully, he sustains us by his presence as well as his prayers. But he meant to pass them by. Well, of course, that’s Mark, isn’t it? It isn’t his rule to manifest his glory.

That’s the exception. We don’t see him suddenly coming into our situation when by having a really tough time in the ministry, many of you must have had in your experience, when we make headway painfully, yet we know by faith that he is with us and we take heart. How often, isn’t it, when you have been really, had a tough time and perhaps you have a really good time of prayer and Bible reading or you go away for a day and you perhaps and your wife or you and a few elders pray it out and the Lord manifests himself to you and says, Take heart, it is I. Be not afraid.

So he gives them the world mission. That’s the centre of the storey. He sustains them by his prayers and his presence. And then the third section in this part possibly fits together like this. I’m not quite sure, but it possibly fits together like this, that when they come to the shore, unlike the beginning of the chapter where no one recognises the Messiah, He’s too familiar here.

Immediately the people do recognise him and the whole neighbourhood comes and he picks up this picture from the woman with the haemorrhage in chapter 5 and he says, verse 56, all who touched him were made whole, were saved. Now their understanding was inadequate. They are still looking to him as a healer and nothing more. And yet there is something tremendously encouraging, isn’t there? That though in the synagogue they refused him, yet out there in the country there is a whole multitude who recognise him as the only one that can help them.

And those who touch him are made whole. So it may be that that is the balance of chapter Rejected, rejected, rejected, but Jesus doesn’t give up. Straight from that lonely place he sends them on a world mission. He insists that they feed the multitude, however inadequate their resources. He watches over them in prayer.

He sustains them with his presence. And out there in the world there are thousands who still recognise that he is their only hope.

Right, well, let’s have 5 minutes in which— yes, we’ve got 4 minutes till 3 o’clock. Who’d like to tell us something they’ve learned?

Who’s ready? John.

Get an overview and begin to work. That’s right. That’s right. Ian?

Ian, that’s right. Don’t go on studying Mark and feel you can’t teach it until you’ve studied it more. Give what you’ve got and you’ll be given more. That’s it. That’s what we’ve been doing here.

If you could see our original notes, they’re pathetic. Chris was talking to me about them, the original notes on the second half. They’re only fit for the garbage can. But we went on giving what we had and we got some more. Now who else has been taught anything this last 3 days who’d like to say so?

Yes, we’re certainly sent out by Mark, aren’t we? Raj?

As dim as— isn’t that encouraging? Thank you, Roger. Well, we all need that at times. Christopher?

Yes, and then to teach it. That’s right, Christopher. Thanks to Michael, that very long and— well, such high standards Michael has set us on that, hasn’t he?

Right.

Hallelujah. This brother says that his college training says that Mark was the eldest and made a bad hash of it. Well, that’s grand to find, isn’t it, that it’s a masterpiece?

Stephen, anything you’ve learned?

Bless you.

There is an earthiness about the gospel here which is very relevant to our situation today. Go on, John, that’s a helpful comment. Well, I feel the needs are so great, we have so little to give them. That’s right. And yet Jesus is waiting.

That’s right, absolutely.

Even though we may have been rejected and have had failures Still he insists that we go out.

There’s no excuses there.

Raymond and I were talking this morning. The church that is kept safe is not the church that is full of the right doctrines and the right elders and so on. It’s the church that goes out with what it has got. When I was in the Christian Union at Cambridge, I don’t know, they dropped every brick in the book it’s possible to drop because students will. But the Lord kept the CICU safe down the years because it was evangelistic and often the only thing in Cambridge that in those days before there were good churches as there are today, often the only thing that was going out was the gospel.

And so the fact that one silly student in his first year had asked the Dean of Divinity of his college if he was saved, you know, and been a colossal row in the college, didn’t matter a bit. God kept the Christian Union safe. Probably did the Dean of Divinity a lot of good.

Go on. I think I’ve gained the courage to— I had it before, but now I know why I should have it— to myself and to teach others, to teach the gospel. I think Mark and what I understand from Mark shapes a whole evangelistic method. That’s right.

Michael Hobbs, why don’t you commit us to the Lord, will you? Jane did this today very kindly. Let’s pray.