Category: Sermons

You Are Not Alone

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Jesus’ journey to the cross in Mark’s Gospel is almost complete. This week we are walking through the rest of Mark 14 from where we stopped last time. We left Jesus having announced the arrival of His betrayer to His sleepy disciples. As we pick up this week, Jesus does indeed get betrayed and abandoned. He is subjected to all kinds of abuse and injustice. And in the end, He is left alone to face it. It’s a pretty dark chapter, but it’s one that reminds us that Jesus has been through it. When we are going through it ourselves, we’ve got a friend in Him. Let’s explore all of this in more detail as we take the next step on our journey to the cross with Mark.

You Are Not Alone

Misery loves company. Have you experienced that? When we are miserable, we want to know that we are not alone in our misery. This desire manifests itself primarily in a couple of different forms, one of which is more helpful than the other. The less helpful way that misery seeks company is for us to try to drag down the people around us so they are as miserable as we are. Have you ever been around somebody like that? They’re like a gloomy Eeyore all the time because they secretly hope that can make the people around them as morose about life as they are so there’s at least one other person as miserable as they are. 

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Faithfulness in the Face of Unfairness

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This week we take another step forward in our journey to the cross with Mark. In this next part of the story, things begin really heating up. The plot to arrest Jesus and put Him to death is beginning to take shape. Yet in the midst of all of these things, Jesus is patiently, steadily moving forward to bring God’s plans to completion. There’s a lesson there for us. Let’s dig in together and see what it is.

Faithfulness in the Face of Unfairness

I want you to think about a time when something happened to you that you knew in your bones wasn’t right. Whatever this was completely justified every thought you’ve ever had that the world really is out to get you. You were just minding your own business, not bothering anybody, and from out of nowhere, your whole world blew up. What did you say in that moment? My guess is that it was some version of, “That’s not fair!” 

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Humility > Greatness

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As we continue our journey to the cross with Mark this week, we are taking a look at a series of debate Jesus had with the religious leaders of the Jews. These guys were convinced of their own self-importance and were doing everything they could to catch Jesus in a trap. Unfortunately for them, Jesus was smarter than they were. He was never impressed with greatness anyway. What really got His attention was something else entirely. Let’s talk about what that is today and what it means for us.

Humility > Greatness

When I was growing up, one of my family’s favorite places to eat was a pizza place around the corner from our house called Pizza Shoppe. We were there often enough that the owner knew who we were. I loved the place because it was close, it was familiar, and it had two tabletop arcade games that I got to play while we waited for the food and while the adults were visiting after dinner when we went with friends. Oh yeah, and the pizza was really good. I remember one time when the owner came out and was talking with us. I’m not sure what prompted the conversation, but I remember his talking about the process of making pizza and making sure that it looked as good as it tasted. He said that people eat with their eyes first. If he was to make a pizza that looked like a bunch of slop on a plate, even if it was the best-tasting pizza that had ever been created, no one was going to be interested in eating it. 

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Jesus Clears the Way

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This past Sunday we kicked off a brand-new teaching series. For the next few weeks, we are going to be taking a journey to the cross with the Gospel of Mark. From now until Easter, we are going to be taking a fresh look at the stories that took Him from a triumphant ride into the city, to hanging on a Roman cross, and finally to an empty tomb. These are perhaps stories you have heard before, but join me in taking another look in order both to remember why they are so good, but also to see what new things the Spirit might have to teach us along the way. We’ll get started today with a walk through Mark 11.

Jesus Clears the Way

Have you ever had someone clear the way for you to do something? Maybe someone who was an advocate for you? I had a guy do that for me several years ago. He took me under his wing and created a number of opportunities for me that I would not have otherwise enjoyed. Having someone like this can be a real blessing. Well, what if I told you that everyone has access to an asset like this who can give us the greatest opportunity imaginable? This person not only can do this for us, He wants to. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that this person’s name is Jesus, and today we are going to take a look at how His efforts to give us the opportunity to have a real relationship with God got started. 

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How Many Times?

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This week we are wrapping up our series, Leverage. For the past few weeks, we have been working through Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question about greatness in the kingdom of heaven. The short version is that if we want to be great in God’s kingdom, we have to follow His example of leveraging our resources for the sake of the people around us. Last time we looked with Jesus at a very specific example of how this can work in practice. We learned that when we leverage our resources for those who have hurt us, redemption is always the goal. But what if redemption doesn’t happen? What then? That’s what we’re talking about today. Let’s dig in to this together.

How Many Times?

Last week we talked about the fact that when someone hurts us we gain a kind of power over them. I want you to think for a second this morning about a time when you were hurt by someone else. I don’t just mean a little hurt either. I’m talking about a big, bad, ugly hurt; a hurt that was soul deep; a hurt that you carried with you for a long, long time…maybe you are still carrying it today. What did you do with all of that power? If you’re like most people, you probably didn’t do anything particularly productive with it. Maybe you made the other person pay relationally, especially when they reached the point of realizing their sin and seeking to repent of it. Maybe you’re still making them pay. How’s that working for you? Perhaps you used your power to build yourself some armor. This kind of armor can take a lot of different forms. Sometimes it is a prickly personality. Others, it is a refusal to let anyone get close. Armor like this makes us strong. It protects us from getting hurt again. But it also makes us lonely because it doesn’t let anyone really get close. It could be that you used your power to hurt someone else so you knew you weren’t the only one hurting. You wouldn’t have admitted that in the moment, and you may not have even realized it, but it was there all the same. There are all kinds of different things we can do with the relational and emotional power we gain over another person when they hurt us. What we should do with it is another matter. 

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