“When it was evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Jesus’ final week before His death was pretty action packed. And we have studied all of it in nearly endless detail. I don’t necessarily mean that we as a church have, but scholars have done this work several times over. We can pretty well piece together what happened on every single day of Jesus’ last week.
“But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
As we prepare for the great celebration of Easter, there are a lot of different things to which we give our attention. We’ve already covered a couple of them in the last couple of days. Jesus’ death really was necessary because sin really is that big of a problem. We talk through various apologetic defenses of the crucifixion and the resurrection. We talk about the implications of the resurrection. That one alone provides enough material to keep us going for quite a long time. Just when you think you’ve run out of material, more shows up. The ramifications of Jesus’ walking out of His tomb on Sunday morning are vast beyond reckoning. But in the midst of all of these important conversations, there’s one that often gets missed. I want to see if we can thread a needle this morning and talk for just a second about something we don’t often consider: None of this had to happen.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
One of the bits of hope more seasoned parents often give to parents who are busy navigating their way through the teenage years (count me in on that journey) is that there will come a day when your kids say to you, “Dad, you were right.” That statement will pretty much always be framed in the past tense because in the present they’re never going to admit that anymore than we would have done when we were their age. But someday – or so they keep telling me – they’ll finally reach the place of agreeing with us. Getting to that place, though, isn’t easy for either party. In a similar kind of way, one of the hardest parts of the Gospel is having to get to the point that we agree with God. Let’s talk today about what that means and what makes it so hard.
“According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
A little something different this week seeing as how we are just a few days from the single most significant day in the life of the church. This Sunday morning (at least in the Western church) we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. This one event is the pivot on which the whole of human history swings. There is literally no more significant event in all of recorded history than this one. In order to get us ready for the day when it arrives, let’s do just a bit of thinking about how and why things had to go the way they did in order for the way to a right relationship with God to be made open to us. We’ll start this morning with a bit of context about how to get right with God in the first place.
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.
The Nexus 