“A Pharisee in the first century was not scorned as a legalist. No, he was looked up to as a model citizen and a person of piety and religion. Unfortunately, Pharisees had (as Paul says) a ‘zeal for God, but not according to knowledge’ (Romans 10). Amazingly we can have a passion for God and yet not know God. We can be deceived, captured and enslaved to the deadly allure of legalism. And tragically those who have been raised in the church are the most susceptible to this deception…”

Pastor Leighton continues taking us through the Gospel of Mark, by looking at the well known story of the feeding of the 5000. He shows us that this is so much more than a well-known Sunday school story, but a story of how Jesus was like a shepherd was providing food for his sheep (v.34). Leighton shows us how Jesus is the fulfillment of: a)’The Lord is My Shepherd’ from Psalm 23, b)the ‘Rejoicing Shepherd’ from Luke 15 who searches for the lost sheep, c) the ‘Good Shepherd’ from John 10 who lays down his life for his sheep, d) the ‘Chief Shepherd’ from 1 Peter 5 who honors his servants, and e) the ‘Great Shepherd’ of the sheep from Hebrews 13 and Revelation 7:17.

“Crazy story…can’t make a movie about this one. It’s everything, right: It’s seduction, it’s murder, it’s adultery, and stupidity…all the vices wrapped into one story. But here it is. It’s scripture. And we are charged to read it and to find its meaning for us this morning.” Mark intentionally puts these two accounts together. The beheading of John the Baptist, sandwiched by the sending out, and return, of the twelve apostles. Tune in to find out more.

Pastor Leighton takes us through the connected stories of the death of Jairus’ 12 year old daughter, and the nameless woman who was afflicted with 12 years of bleeding and sought to steal a miracle, in Mark 5:21-43. One had life begin 12 years ago and had it tragically cut short, and the other began the process of dying 12 years ago and stands as a social outcast due to her affliction. He shows us how the Gospel of Mark repeatedly emphasizes that when Jesus touched unclean persons rather than making him unclean, like the Jewish Law dictated, he makes them clean. How this duet of stories demonstrates that both persons of means (the synagogue ruler) and persons without means (the impoverished nameless woman) are all in the same boat: death awaits us all - and we are all in need of a rescuer.

“From one test to another, Jesus purposely leads his disciples to greater and greater levels of trust. Jesus does this for us too. Because he is the author of life, and is sovereign over all events, he as the good shepherd leads us to and through trials and struggles, in order to strengthen our faith and grow our trust in him. Faith is not downloaded, it’s not presto. In general, our depth of confidence in God is hard fought, slow, a long-suffered growth. But, God creates a faith filled people by again and again being a faithful God...”

“…Our passage this morning contains the word ‘greater’ in three places. The Greek word is ‘Mega,’ which we have appropriated into English as mostly representing big gulps, lotteries and haircare products…But, Mark describes 3 things in this account as Mega, or Great.

1) The Storm: ‘And a great windstorm arose.’ (Mark 4:37)

2) The Calm: ‘And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.’ (Mark 4:39)

3) The Fear:  ‘And they were filled with great fear.’ (Mark 4:41)

You would think that the order of things should be different. That a great storm would cause great fear, and when it is quelled, there would be great peace. But as we’ve touched on earlier, the great storm only excited some fear. But, the calm — the great calm elicited great fear.…”