The End of Mark

The End

Intro:

Wrapping it up. In school we get taught to write or speak in a particular fashion. The movies we watch or the books we read should have a beginning, middle, and end. Papers you wrote, or news articles you read or speeches or talks you give should have an introduction, a body, and conclusion. And so it is with the Biblical books. And also the end of our series in Mark.

We are using Mark as a guide to help us be more mission focused. His writing style is quick paced,

So what did we learn, what do we remember and what Does Mark and more importantly God want us to do with this Gospel. How do first century writings apply to our life today as we

Read Verses

MP: Mark’s Gospel is about being on a Mission. We are to Go into all the World and proclaim the Gospel and make disciples.

As we have gone through the Gospel, there are four major areas that Mark highlights and are recurring throughout

I. Believing

Verses 9-19 tell us small snippets that confirm people saw Jesus after his resurrection. I mentioned last week that Most experts think that Mark’s writing stops at verse 8. It also ends with a preposition in the Greek. The word “for” comes after the verb “they were afraid,” so it seems like a possibly odd or poor way to end a book. There is a different writing style in Verse 9-20. These verses do not appear in the oldest reliable manuscripts but they appear in man many others afterward.

Possibly Luke and or Matthew, that most likely used mark’s Gospel for their source material, may have added to it to make it flow a little more, perhaps to get people who did not know what happened a little more information. Verse 12 and 13 are most assuredly the story of the men on the Road to Emmaus which only shows up in Luke’s gospel and the mention of the 11 in verses 14 and 15 may be from Matthew’s Gospel. We know from other Early church father the long ending was around fairly early on. It is attested by Justin Martyr in his writings dated about 150. Irenaeus who lived from about 130 to 203 AD, also attested to and quoted parts of the long ending of Mark. We know that God was in charge of writing the Bible so he oversaw everything. One main theme in the long ending is and throughout all of Mark’s Gospel is believing.

Jesus talks about faith and believing him and in him many times over. They are the same word in the Greek. In , Jesus came into Galilee saying “Repent and Believe in the Good news.” People are healed because they believe. The Apostles followed him because they believed, albeit reluctantly or even when they did not understand.

In Chapter 6 Jesus who traveled back to Galilee, marveled at their, the towns people, unbelief. The Pharisees, Sadducees and many others in the religious class did not believe as well.

Just in these few verses of 9-20 the word belief is used 6 times. Four of the 6 uses are in the negative meaning they have unbelief or did not believe.

But two are in the positive. In verse 16 we see the key to Mark’s point, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” Now Baptism does not save. You are not believing that Jesus was baptized.

What are you believing then? You are believing that he is Lord of all and that he died on the cross for your sins. Baptism is a natural progression of becoming a believer. It is an outward sign and it is something that we should want to show.

Application point #1 You must believe in order to help others believe.

We see this in Mark’s writing. We see it in Paul’s writing, and Peters and James and Daniel’s writing and the all of the Biblical authors. They believed what they wrote. They had faith they were following the one true God.

What does Faith do for us?

1) It unites us

We are called believers. God is using Mark’s Gospel to help build the community of Christians. God is still using it to do this. Several times in the Old Testament the people gathered together to hear the reading or reciting of the law and they would all proclaim they would follow god, they would be His people and he would be their God. This happened in Exodus, Jeremiah, Ezra. The people learned to share in their commonality that they followed God. God extends this idea from the Jews to include the Gentiles. We are united in Christ.

The tax collector, the fishermen, Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin, Jairus was a Roman, Paul was a persecutor of the Christians. Lydia was a European successful business woman. They were all different, but they all became the same in Christ.

When we enter into a community we trust others to take care of us. your family, your job, if you were in the military, and the church is a community of some kind. We trust Christ and take him at his word. When we can do that it strengthens our convictions

2) It Convicts us

The conversion of those who were convinced by Paul’s preaching. People wept when Ezra read the law. Beliefs are convictions based on reasons or evidence.

defines faith as “ the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

3) It strengthens us

Our Faith propels us to keep going. It keeps us wanting to stay next to Jesus. It sustains us because the object of our faith is God. The smallest amount of faith is al that it takes. The faith of a mustard seed.

says 22 And Jesus *answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. 24 Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.

For the word of the LORD is upright, And all His work is done in faithfulness.

TS: When we believe, even a little bit, it gets us moving because Jesus commands us to Go.

II. Going

Whoever wrote the last part of Marks’ Gospel at least copied or paraphrased the Great commandment. But as we have seen in our time in Mark, that Going is a key theme with Mark. John the Baptist is going out and telling people to repent. Jesus Is immediately brought and goes into the wilderness after his baptism. He was going in a boat with the apostles back and forth across the sea. Jesus was going to preach to the Gentiles and the Jews alike.

All the while, he was Going to Jerusalem. Jesus was Going to the Cross. He was going to the grave. And then at the long ending of Mark, he goes back to heaven.

Jesus was on the move. He had a home base. He came back to Peter’s house or the house in Bethany. But he was not really there that often. Jesus was on a mission

And so it is with our church. It is a base of operations it is a forward operating base. But we do not just sit here waiting. We have to go out on patrol as well.

Application Point #2 We must go out and engage our neighbors and our neighborhood for the Gospel.

We must have a missional mindset. What does that mean?

1) We have to be outward focused

Jesus went out to the people and then people came to find him.

That is the model we should emulate. We go out to meet people, tell them who Jesus is and then show them how Jesus has changed our lives for the better. Then they are directed to the church to see and get closer to Jesus.

“He who rows the boat has no time to rock the boat.” When you are working toward a goal, you want to get there. You don’t want to make waves or derail the mission.

In Mark Chapter 6, the feeding of the 5000, the apostles were hungry and they wanted Jesus to stop preaching so they could go get dinner. Jesus makes them give up their own food. Verse 38, Jesus asked them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” When they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.” Jesus changed their perspective and worked a miracle. They had food left over. He also put them to work passing out food so they forgot about their own hunger. Because God is enough.

How do we keep track? There is a few ways we could do this. One way is our December outreach, we are doing it to show people we are here.

Another way is to be intentional about meeting our neighbors. We could have a map of the neighborhood. We stick a pin in each house we physically visit. We could put names on those houses because they are not houses, they are where people live. That is a tertiary reason that Jesus made the Apostles pass out the food. The people went from being a crowd with a bunch of faces to a bunch of people gather together. They had to look each other in the eye to deliver the food.

We see the people who are made in the image of God and so we see God in the people.

2) Focused on God

In our consumer culture it is easy to just provide a menu of services we provide and let the people pick. But we are not selling God, he is not a commodity to be selected or sold. That does not mean that we just get in a take or leave it mindset. Jesus provided food for the people but he also kept teaching and the larger picture was Jesus connecting Himself to Israel’s history in the wilderness. God provided manna then and he was providing similar bread that day.

When we are looking at things from another person’s perspective or needs, we tend not to whine as much. We are not bothered by little things because we see the big picture.

As we make an impact in our community for Christ, those who do not know Jesus will see that it is not about getting into heaven, rather “it is a real, practical, present, sacrificial, consistent service of other people done because and out of the love of Jesus.” We can’t earn our way to heaven. That happens only from the belief in Jesus. Our motives are out of a way to emulate our Lord. We have peace to know where we are going to end up. We should want others to know and live with the same peace of mind.

In the meantime, our actions, everything we do ultimately must be focused on God. Understanding how Grace works properly motivates us to work for GOs, to emulate Jesus in his sacrifice.

TS: All of Jesus Travels, he was preaching. He came to earth to perform a mission and preach a message.

III. Proclaiming

If we are not going with a purpose we are just hanging out. The second part of verse 15 is to proclaim the gospel.

Its all well and good to go out and talk to people, we should build relationships, but we must also be upfront about the message. We are here to proclaim the kingdom of God is here and the saving Grace of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for us. We must echo Jesus’ preaching in , “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the Gospel” or good news.

“We benefit the world by serving as a preview of God’s coming Kingdom. We proclaim Christ and the gospel with put lips (in our words) and we promote Christ and the gospel with our lives (with our deeds).”

Application point #3 We must proclaim the Good News of the Risen Christ and the Power of God

When people saw this church close however many years ago, they probably thought well that figures, another church is closed. Guess he is not a powerful God. But he is resurrecting this building; He has put us here in order to give us a new life.

The world thought they got rid of Jesus when they crucified him. But Mark makes the point to tell otherwise. God resurrected Jesus, we talked about this last week. He has risen. The divine passive, “God has made him rise.” Brought Him back from the very dead. He wasn’t mostly dead, he was all the way dead. But he came back and people saw him. it was attested. They didn’t hallucinate. 500 people can’t have the same vision.

What is the Good news message? What is the Power? and 17 Paul tell us For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.

In chapter 5 Paul continues on, Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, 4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

TS: That is what the good news has for people, HOPE! The belief that Jesus died to make the atoning death for us. the message we preach is one given to us by the King. We are to proclaim it and then bring people in to teach them, to disciple them.

IV. Discipling

Mark tells us numerous times in his narrative that Jesus taught and he taught as one with authority. He knew what he was talking about because he Is God’s Word. We see Jesus teaching crowds. He teaches in parables and he teaches where ever he can.

He knows the material backward and forwards and even when the religious people or doubters try to stump him, he has an answer. The Godly biblical answer.

We also see him in several places in Mark Teaching his disciples. It is a small group if you will. He was givnig them insight into the Kingdom because they were the ones who were going to be furthering the story after he ascended back to heaven.

They didn’t understand at first. They had questions, but what do we see in Mark and then culminating in Acts is the Apostles moving from the student to the teachers. That is why the letters of Peter and John are important it is the final instructions to their students as well.

Application Point #4 Discipleship is vital to the survival of the church

Mark illustrates the discipleship process in three steps

1) Instruction

Jesus spends a lot of time teaching. This is the theory or the correcting of information the apostles and the crowds had received. This happened on the boat, on the road as they walked and in the open fields surrounded by crowds. It is him teaching in parables and then explaining it to the Apostles.

For us today, this is the small group bible study, the preaching on Sundays, the private bible study time. The new members class. The book learning. This is important to learn the basics and the knowledge or the science behind the mechanics. He instructed them on his death and resurrection. The Apostles did not understand the theory just yet. They had to have the see theory in action.

2) Demonstration

Jesus performed tasks. In Mark chapter 5 he cast out the legion of demons. He healed people throughout Mark’s gospel. He finally demonstrated ultimate expectation of our life of service by being crucified.

For us it is demonstrating Christian behavior. How we love one another, how we serve one another. How we help others. How we resolve conflict in a loving way or even disagree without being disagreeable. If we demonstrate it then others can perform it as well.

3) Performance

In chapter 6 of Mark now that Jesus has instructed the disciples and then demonstrated the healing and casting out of demons. They are sent out to perform what they have learned. Sometimes they do it well, but other times, like in chapter 9 when they encounter a sprit that they cannot cast out, Jesus steps in and helps them out. They ask where they went wrong and in verse 29 he says this kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.

So it is when we disciple, because it is an ongoing process. You need help, you ask for help, or clarification. You examine where you went wrong and fix it for next time. Because we are always learning.

But we don’t have to do it alone. Just as says, While the Lord worked with them. He will equip us and provide us with the tools that we need to do these tasks to build his kingdom.

Conclusion

Mark’s gospel is a wrap. Just like Mark’s probably original ending there is more to the story. We can never fully know God but we can always use our time to keep learning about Him. Mark is the shortest of the gospels it is packed with a lot of knowledge. As we continue to grow in Christ and our church grows it is important to note that all through marks gospel and into the whole Bible, it is all God’s doing. He made everything happen and he still is directing his creation. Where will he take us? I have no idea, but whatever it is it will be for His Glory. Along the way, what we have to do is Believe the Good News, Go and Proclaim the Good News and ensure others can repeat the process.

Starting next week, since we are in November and the thanksgiving season, we will start a short series in the Psalms.