Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

  What does it mean to follow Jesus? Mark 10:35-45 Introduction : A couple of weeks ago, on FaceBook I cited an article written by Justin Poythress for the Gospel Coalition (I know I am getting old, Justin is the son of one of my professors from WTS, Vern Poythress!). Here is a quote, Jesus tells his followers to take up their crosses, not their crowns ( Matt. 16:24–26 ). Historically, the church has thrived during some of its bleakest winters of cultural power. We can see modern examples of this in Iran and China. Though our faith may be increasingly marginalized and devalued in the West, losing cultural battles with grace, dignity, and love can persuasively display Christ’s cruciform beauty. Conversely, there’s nothing persuasive about chasing the perks of power. In our study of Mark, we’ve considered this Gospel through the lens of three crucial questions: 1) Who is Jesus? 2) Why did He come? 3) What does it mean to follow Him? You have memorized those questions by now, ...

  Where He Leads, Will I Follow? Mark 10:32-34 Introduction : Mark is presenting his concise account of the story of Jesus, revealing that He is the One promised in the Scriptures, the Rescuer of whom the prophets spoke. He has been correcting the partial and inadequate understanding of who Jesus is by showing that He is the Son of God, God incarnate. Now, on this final trip to Jerusalem, He again shifts to his answer to a second question: Why did Jesus come? Here, for the third time in three chapters, Jesus explicitly details, before the event, what is going to happen in Jerusalem . Each of the three predictions includes the common thread of His death and resurrection, but each also adds something to the picture. What is being described is really the heart of the Good News that is the Gospel: Jesus came to carry out the Father’s plan, to lay down his life so that sinful humans could be reconciled to holy God, and experience new life, life as it was meant to be (cf. John 10:10...

  Kingdom Blessings Mark 10:28-31 Introduction : What does it mean to follow Jesus ? In our context in Mark, the Lord has cautioned would-be followers to consider the cost of discipleship. Scholars are fairly convinced that Mark is writing his gospel to Roman Christians who are experiencing persecution. What we know about the brutality of Nero makes it clear that believers there would experience cruel and barbaric treatment at his hands. They knew there was a cost to discipleship – they were seeing and experiencing some of that every day.        During this final trip to Jerusalem, Jesus has been teaching His followers about the cost of discipleship, but they seem a little slow to grasp what he is saying.   Even as He explicitly told them in chapters 8 and 9 about His approaching rejection and death (along with the promise of His resurrection), they seem incapable grasping the plain sense of His words. It was too much of a contradiction for...

  In Christ Alone, our Hope is Found! Mark 10:23-27 Introduction : The previous context showed a rich man walk away dejected, unwilling to release the things that enslaved him, and to trust in Christ alone. One sermon I heard on that text was entitled, “The Poverty of Riches.” Our passage today continues that story, as Jesus teaches his disciples in light of the departure of the rich, young, ruler.   As he teaches, Jesus uses a striking illustration, one that we have all heard, of a camel passing through the eye of a needle. By the way, I’ve got two books that deal with problem passages, one by F.F. Bruce, perhaps the best known New Testament scholar from the second half of the twentieth century, entitled Hard Sayings of Jesus , and another by Robert Stein, a preeminent interpreter of the Gospels, entitled Difficult Passages in the New Testament . This saying of Jesus makes them both ! I don’t see such great difficulty in the meaning of the passage as it seems pretty cl...