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“The sooner we accept God’s sovereignty, his reality as it really is, the sooner we will understand that all that the world is running after the wrong things, in fact they see everything backwards to how it really is. Here’s a quick list: God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, our weapons of warfare are not of the flesh but spirit, the first will be last & the last will be first, and if anyone wishes to save their very life they must lose it.”
“Do you know what the word prodigal means? In modern English we only hear that word in one place…And that’s unfortunate, because the word prodigal doesn’t mean rebellious or wayward. In fact, prodigal means lavish, generous, bountiful, even irresponsible. The prodigal son lavishly scattered his father’s money like the sower sows the seed. So here we meet the prodigal sower…
If you look at this as the parable of the sower, where’s your focus gonna lie?…Sowers are important…critical… we are to be sowers of the word - but it’s not the sower that makes the difference. It's the seed.”
“But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house (Mark 3:27). Satan is the strong man in this parable, and by the actions and intentions of the Pharisees, it’s clear that Satan is mighty and hard at work and not divided. But God is stronger, and we have seen repeatedly through these first three chapters, that Jesus has entered the devil’s turf, broken into his home and is pushing back. Christ ultimately has come to defeat Satan and all forces of evil, showing the unmatched glory of the Father who sovereignly rules all, and has only allowed the devil some chain for just a short time..”
“Now there’s just too much here to look at in one message, so next time, I’ll go through the family-Pharisees-family sandwich, as it relates to the whole chapter, but I had to have Mark read through the whole thing today, so we could get see how the crowds and the call of the apostles relates to the whole of the chapter. And all this brings us to the main question: Who are my mother and my brothers? Essentially Jesus is asking: Who are the people of God?”
“…the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. (Mark 2:28) And this reveals the crux of the issue between Jesus and the Pharisees, one theologian put it this way: The clash with authority was not over the rules, but over who rules…Only God is Lord of the sabbath…Jesus is claiming his equality with God.”
“Fundamentally the real question is: How will the dead become alive unless the Spirit breathes life into them. As sinners we weren’t able to lift a muscle toward God, because we were dead…Friends the bible is very clear, the dead can not wake themselves, but because God is the giver of life, he can and does choose those he desires to be made alive by his Spirit.”
“And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ (Mark 2:5)
And with those five words, Jesus set in motion his crucifixion…Those five words put him on a collision course with the scribes and Pharisees…Even today those five words divide true religion from all other man made religion. And for you and me, those five words are the very foundation of our faith, having placed our trust in the saving work of Christ on the cross.”
“Today’s reading centers on the absolute authority of Christ Jesus, displayed again and again in this passage after he announces that the kingdom of God is at hand…Under Christ’s authority we are called to both repent and believe. Repentance means death, an utter turning from who we once were, but death to self becomes life in Christ, and repentance is followed by a new life - directed by our belief in Jesus.”
“Mark is a man in a hurry. But in the last sermon, we found that Mark’s breakneck speed is a deliberate strategy, employed by an expert communicator, to fulfill a twofold purpose. Mark wants his readers / listeners to know ‘Who Jesus is’, and ‘What it means to be his disciple.’ That’s it, his little book is laser focused on addressing only those two things. The Gospel of Mark is completely shaped with this in mind. He reorders events in Jesus life, omits things the other guys include and crafts an orator’s narrative that is exciting and fast, compelling and simple.”
Pastor Leighton introduces us to a new series through the Gospel of Mark:
“…this is how the book of Mark starts. And it’s actually really exciting. Mark is fast paced, it’s a race to the climax. He moves us from snapshot to snapshot at full gallop. Some 40 times Mark jumps to the next scene with the words and immediately as if to say Jesus never slept. In fact, Mark has Jesus sitting down to explain himself to his disciples only twice in his entire gospel...Mark drops us right into the action, there’s no birth narrative, no escape to Egypt, no preteen Jesus schooling the scholars while his parents search desperately for him, there's no background story for any of the other characters either, nothing about John the Baptist's miraculous birth. We just begin where Jesus’ ministry begins, and we end where his earthly ministry ends, and it’s an exhilarating flight.”
