Urgency pt3

What is the purpose of the Gospel?

That is a real question. Why do you think Jesus came to die. Why do you think the Church was formed? What is the message of our faith?

In our world today, a lot of people are very confused about what we believe. Christianity is associated with a lot of things that it is not about. We see that on display all the time.

We see churches that spend lots of money on buildings and land that are only for their members.

We see pastors and leaders who drive expensive cars and wear expensive clothes (credit preachersnsneakers)

We see pastors who are obsessed with political power and politicians.

We see churches advancing agendas that are aligned with certain opinions of the day.

In short, we see a lot of people making Christianity and the Gospel in their own image. What matters is not what the Bible says, but what people can make the Bible say, to meet our own ends.

And the effect is chilling. It’s how you wind up with a Jesus Saves flag on the steps of the Capitol while a mob breaks in.

It’s how you wind up with a pastor using his position to sleep with women he is not married to.

It’s how you wind up with a church that celebrates when people who are “not like them” feel unwelcome in their building.

When following Jesus becomes about what you like- you lose Jesus!

This is what Jesus is confronting in Mark 3 and it is His response and confrontation of these attitudes that provokes the immediately in this text.

(Read Mark 3:1-6)

So to us this seems like much ado over nothing. We are not Sabbath keepers. Post cross we celebrate on Sunday and that’s a day for worship and celebration. But in Jesus’ time Sabbath was a huge deal. All the laws (recount a couple for those who are not familiar)

Mark Conflict in the Synagogue (3:1–6)

he criticized the Pharisees for holding the Sabbath laws and traditions so rigidly that people became servants of the Sabbath

God had given the Sabbath to man as a gift, but some men had made it a burden. A barrier to seeing God. We do that a lot. We take good things that God gives us and we turn them into curses. We pervert them. We make them hoops to jump thru for people who do not know Him yet. (story of the hat at FBCB)

Every church does that. Even West Metro. And sometimes those rules exist in a certain segment of a church. I think that is more the case here than others, because we have such an outstanding mix of people in our church.

But here is Jesus. He is God. He made these commands. He knows their purpose. And He knows that this man in front of Him is in need of healing and that the only reason anyone would deny him healing is to further their own agenda.

So He hits them where they live. Which is more important? Your agenda? Or God working in this man’s life?

The Gospel according to Mark A Question of Life and Death (3:1–6)

They are, rather, motivated “to accuse Jesus.” Markan irony is again present: the authorities deny Jesus the right to do good on the Sabbath while they conspire to do evil on the Sabbath

The Gospel according to Mark A Question of Life and Death (3:1–6)

A litmus test of true versus false religion is its response to injustice. In the face of the man’s need the religious authorities are “silent,” but Jesus is “angered and deeply distressed” (v. 5). The silence of the authorities is evidence that for them religion is about fulfilling stipulations

That is a question you need to answer this morning. Whose agenda matters?

I will be honest and tell you that I suspect that many of us, if confronted by Jesus in this manner, would respond like the Pharisees. Trapped between two polar opposites. If we say that Jesus’ agenda supersedes ours, then we say that what we have believed, or practiced, or followed is wrong. Our world is shattered.

If we say that our agenda is superior to Jesus’, then we are saying we are better than Jesus.

That is the dilemma that many of us are caught up in today. Whether it be about a practice in our life that we have come to rely on that Jesus is saying is sin, or a calling that God has for us that we do not want to do, or another belief system that is trying to make itself equal to Jesus. or a host of other things.

Jesus is asking us to choose- and we stay silent.

Here is the worst part- you know the right answer. Jesus is better. But you can’t bring yourself to say it, because then your whole world comes crashing down.

Jesus wants to wreck your world.

Because your world is a wreck without Jesus.

And the results of following someone other than Jesus will wreck you and wreck other people.

In this case, the man standing between the Pharisees and Jesus is really in need. Jesus holds the power to restore him. The Pharisees hold the power to keep him in bondage.

If you were Jesus, which would you chose?

If you were the man, which one do you hope Jesus would choose?

What is most telling about what Jesus thinks about their silence is revealed in verse 5. He has 2 simultaneous responses:

Anger- because they refuse to choose Him over their own agendas

Grief- over what that choice costs them, but also those who follow them- he is literally hurt- cut to the heart

And the reason is not just their unwillingness to see the man healed, but WHY- their hearts are HARD- literally calloused- they have become so interested in their laws and rules that they are unmoved by real need- and we become like that when we lose our passion for the souls of men and women, because we want our own agendas honored- and seeing people saved might cost us those agendas!

The Gospel according to Mark A Question of Life and Death (3:1–6)

The greatest enemy of divine love and justice is not opposition, not even malice, but hardness of heart and indifference to divine grace, to which not even disciples of Jesus are immune

And His response is to shatter their worlds. A man is saved.

And then the immediately happens- they immediately start to plot against Him. And they choose to plot against them with their mortal enemies- when you want to plot against someone, observe who you are aligning with- it can be telling!

Mark Conflict in the Synagogue (3:1–6)

The extent of their malice shows in their choice of allies. The Herodians were people associated with Herod’s court, and under any other circumstances the Pharisees would have had little to do with them. The Pharisees were ardent nationalists who resented the presence of Roman soldiers on the land God had promised to give to Abraham’s children. This Herod made a career of courting favor from Rome, and he is the one who had John the Baptist thrown in jail. Seeking an alliance with this Herod was an act of malicious compromise

There are people today who are plotting to defend their personal kingdoms and empires against Jesus. They get angry when we talk about Jesus. Ans yes, some of them do not like Jesus or Christians, but more of them don’t like the Jesus of the Bible. They like a fake Jesus they have made into their own image for their own purposes.

We have to be on our guard for false gospels.

And here is the biggest reason why: there is not a better Gospel.

(Lead thru a time of confession and repentance- where are we staying silent when Jesus asks us to choose?)