Grace Offers Salvation to All People
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Slides to accompany the sermon from January 4th 2015 on the Grace Rural Wales Chaplaincy channel on Youtube from January 4th 2015
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Grace Offers Salvation to All People
- 1. Welcome to Grace! For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, Titus 2:11-12
- 2. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ...
- 3. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days riseagain. 32 He spoke plainly about this …”
- 4. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a – Son of Man
- 5. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a – Son of Man • Suffering
- 6. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a – Son of Man • Suffering • Rejection “must … be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law,
- 8. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a – Son of Man • Suffering • Rejection • Death “and that he must be killed”
- 9. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a – Son of Man • Suffering • Rejection • Death • Resurrection “… and after three days rise again.”
- 10. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b “… Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”
- 11. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 “But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ he said. ‘You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”
- 12. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 “But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ he said. ‘You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”
- 13. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 “But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ he said. ‘You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”
- 14. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 “But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ he said. ‘You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”
- 15. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 • Lessons to learn – The way of the Messiah is …
- 16. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 • Lessons to learn “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
- 17. Mark 8:31-33 • Unlocking the situation ... • Prediction, vv. 31-32a • Protest, v. 32b • Rebuke, v. 33 • Lessons to learn – The way of the Messiah is … – Set your mind on the things that are above
Editor's Notes
- Did anyone see the poster for this week? Bit of a cheeky word-play on the term ‘Cross Fit’ I’m afraid, but there it is! For the uninitiated, ‘Cross Fit’ was probably the most popular fitness exercise regime last year … From the website: “CrossFit is many things. Primarily, it’s a fitness regimen developed by Coach Greg Glassman over several decades. He was the first person in history to define fitness in a meaningful, measurable way (increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains). CrossFit itself is defined as that which optimizes fitness (constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity). CrossFit is also the community that spontaneously arises when people do these workouts together. In fact, the communal aspect of CrossFit is a key component of why it’s so effective. Today, CrossFit, the company, provides accredited training seminars throughout the world. We publish several websites providing extensive free content, includingworkouts, training and support for becoming fit, as well as a growing Journal of extended instruction. We have a worldwide network of more than 5,500 affiliated gyms and more than 35,000 accredited CrossFit Level 1 trainers. And, we have created the Sport of Fitness, known as the CrossFit Games, where we crown the Fittest Man and Woman on Earth.” That’s not what I mean here by Cross fit in the next two sermons in Mark. Here Cross fit means up for a Saviour Who can carry a Cross, and being up for following Him in His Way. Are you fit spiritually, emotionally, wilfully … for following a crucified Saviour? You see, Jesus has spent eight chapters of Mark’s Gospel confirming the Lord’s opening proclamation in Mark 1:15, that the Kingdom of God is at hand in the Person of the King Who has come. The implication of that is that people should therefore rapidly repent of their rebellion against Him, fall in behind the coming King by following Him … as evidenced by Believing in Him Following Him & becoming (as they follow His example) fishers of men themselves. What’s happened now is that the disciples … lining up behind Peter, their shop steward … have come to the point where they realise INTELLECTUALLY that Jesus is the King Messiah Who HAS come. Jesus now shifts immediately to warning them NOT to tell anyone this (v. 30: “Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about Him”) precisely because whilst they really have caught on intellectually to Who Jesus is … the coming King Messiah … they have completely the WRONG idea about the role of their coming King. And this passage we’re going to be looking at is where Jesus quickly sets about teaching these men their mistake. For people who think the call of Christ is to follow Jesus straight to victory, blessing, triumph, glory … there is NO more poignant passage. The King Messiah that we flee to is first of all the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, and only later the glorious triumphant Son of Man of Daniel 7. The calling to follow Christ in this life so as to be with Him in Glory is the call to follow a suffering servant. Glorious in itself. Gracious in every part. Superabundantly, graciously glorious in days that are to come. Not yet. So in the next section of Mark from 8:31-10:52 Jesus makes three predictions (8:31, 9:30, 10:32-34) which are the hooks the rest of it hangs on. He performs only two miracles in the entire section (the expulsion of an evil spirit in 9:14 ff. and the healing of Blind Bartimaeus in 10:46 ff.), and answers two questions of the utmost relevance: What will it cost Jesus to bring men and women salvation from sin? What will it cost them to follow Him? In these verses that introduce the section, Jesus makes the prediction. It outrages the disciples who, through Peter, protest. And Jesus puts Peter right back in his box … with a reason we’ve really got to watch out for!
- Here’s a major shift in the direction of the Gospel of Mark … from the point at which Peter confesses Christ in 8:29 and the Lord’s admonishing them not to tell anyone in v. 30 the purpose of this Gospel now changes. It has been focusing on the identity of the Messiah – proving the announcement of 1:15 that the Kingdom of God is at hand in the person of the King, and identifying that person with Jesus. And the focus of the new content from the outset still concerns the person of the Son of Man, but highlighting that He’s not quite Who you think He is. Now that contrast gets pointed very colourfully …
- The bouncer gets bowled with this first bit. The identification of Jesus with the Son of Man is not new here. In this NT context there is absolutely no doubt what the Lord’s here referring to … It is the description of the authoritative, Heavenly figure in Daniel 7:13-14. As He has done, clearly, since AT LEAST chapter 2, Jesus lays firm claim to the character of Deity.
- So here’s the shocker. The first thing that this Divine, Heavenly figure MUST encounter is suffering. Firstly, what do we mean ‘must’? How can it POSSIBLY be ‘must’?! NOT ‘must’ because the Jewish leaders are stronger than He is. ‘Must’ because that is God’s plan for the salvation of the world. And so, for the Christian, there are times when we bear with something from someone NOT because that other person is stronger than we are, but because our love for the Lord is stronger, because His love for ME proved stronger. Does that make sense to you? Really, if we are anything like longer term followers of Christ, it truly should. The Divine ‘Son of Man’ in Daniel 7:13-14 who appears to heavenly acclaim in the throne room on high and takes up His seat alongside the Ancient of Days on the throne of the Universe, He does so explicitly because the Beast is overcome by Him in vv. 11-12 … But at this point, the Son of Man’s suffering is the outrageous thing Jesus highlights. The Messiah, the Coming King, the Son of Man, must suffer. To contemporary ears, in Roman occupied Palestine, it is utterly unthinkable. They can’t bear it. They have suffered long and deeply. They are oppressed … just as the Roman church Mark seems to be recording this Gospel for is sorely oppressed even as Mark writes this for them. I mean, we think we’ve got a recession going on, we think we have a government that is increasingly unsympathetic to the cause of Christ and oppressive in its strictures and legal developments against the cause of God and the Gospel. We know NOTHING. Yes, we have our pains but, really, the people Jesus was speaking to here and the people Mark records this for were HURTING and had been hurting some time. The Messiah they wanted was a CONQUEROR! The saviour they GOT embraced suffering. And they should have known better because He’d TOLD them so! Pss. 22 and 69 seak of the sufferings of the Messiah.
- Zech 9-14 carry the repeated theme of the rejection of the Messiah Who is pierced and smitten. But look here … Jesus is saying that He is going to be rejected by. Who are they? They are the three formidable power groups that make up the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling Council. They are the most powerful religious and political group in the Land … subject to the occupying Romans. Israel has no more powerful, authoritative body of its own. And they will reject Jesus. For the this-worldly mind-set … how UNSETTLING do you think that will be?
- The unrecognised Messiah goes unrecognised by the otherwise deeply divided authorities in Israel … Josephus tells us plenty about their factionalism … yet they are united in almost nothing as much as their rejection of their Messiah. Their mind-set is too this-worldly to live with the implications of accepting Him. Following Jesus requires a radical revolution in the way you view the world, and the thing is … it doesn’t prove to make you popular.
- In the first three sections of this Gospel Jesus has not spoken at ALL openly about His death. Isaiah had, of course, in ch. 53 where the death of the Messiah is linked to the salvation and restoration of His people. But in Mark’s Gospel, only now (when the disciples have firmly grasped that He IS the Messiah) can Jesus begin to explain to them what kind of Messiah He is going to turn out to be. In NONE of the three predictions in this section of Mark’s Gospel is that forthcoming death the subject of embarrassment or concealment. It gets talked about openly and unashamedly. Please notice that this death is not meaningless, neither is it a tragic fate. This death is freely accepted and purposeful. Without this pain there’s not going to be gain. Jesus EMBRACES this suffering, sucks up the pain. It is PURPOSEFUL and it’s getting US Glory. It’s not to be bewailed but embraced … when you see it from the mind set of God. Now that’s an alien idea to those early followers. You can see it simply doesn’t show up on Peter’s radar. People have expectations of Jesus to this day. They have all manner of preconceived ideas about Who and how and what He is. It is eminently possible that He’s got surprises in store for MANY of us. Here’s a HUGE, unbelievable one for these disciples who are shocked and stunned and unable to cope with it … He is the sort of Saviour that MUST be killed. But then there’s ANOTHER shocker coming. Controversial. Hot topic in theological disputations of the day …
- Each of the three predictions of Christ’s forthcoming suffering and death in this section is going to be differently worded, but equally each of them ends with the prediction of Christ’s subsequent resurrection. He must suffer. He must be rejected. He must die. The basis for this NECESSITY isn’t spelled out here, but it gets handled more fully in 9:12, 14:21, 49 … France: “It is in the divine purpose revealed in Scripture, rather than in the inevitabilities of Palestinian politics, that Jesus finds the pattern for what is to happen to Him.” (He views His world from within the mind-set of God, and not the surface-deep appearances of His circumstances). He MUST die because that is what God decrees … But all of it pointless unless He rises again … death is the penalty for sin, and once the penalty is paid it is over. How do you know it is over? You KNOW when you see Jesus is back. Now this has become clearly all too much for the disciples.
- Peter is having NONE of this talk. Peter is primed for an outburst. He takes the same One he’s just hailed as the King Messiah, the King over the Kingdom of God, takes Him aside and Peter REBUKES Him … the Lord of all. He just can’t cope with what the Lord has just said. Jewish expectations of a political Messiah were just built into the disciples thinking in the first century A.D. They couldn’t think otherwise. The defeat of the Romans was their desperate daily desire. It filled the screen of their thinking on their suffering. Peter understandably shares in all that. But having recognised Jesus as God’s promised Messiah, it’s embarrassingly the case that Peter takes the Messiah aside for a lesson in just how He should carry out God’s will. Tell me you’ve never tried anything similar! Peter takes JESUS aside and tries to rebuke Him, because Peter doesn’t ‘get it’ at all … and what He doesn’t get is that the way of salvation comes through the Saviour’s (prophesied) suffering, rejection, death and resurrection. MANY religious people don’t get that. Many religious people WON’T embrace it … either from Jesus, or by following in this way themselves. Don’t you GET that we follow a crucified Messiah? If you don’t GET that means suffering, rejection and death before it ever means resurrection to life … then you REALLY haven’t got it at all! You’re still in danger of being stuck where we find Peter that day … rebuking the Saviour over the plan of salvation, and refusing Him if He walks in that way … as well as steadfastly refusing to follow the One Who went there. Now just in case you’re still stuck in pre-school Sunday School class and you’ve not figured out Jesus means business, I have to let you know that He’s NOT meek and mild. LOOK at the way He turns on Peter …
- Jesus’s rebuke of Peter in SHOCKING. But by opposing the will of God for His Messiah, Peter lines himself up to be doing the work of God’s greatest enemy … Satan. Who’s that? Wikipedia: “Satan (Hebrew: שָּׂטָן satan, meaning "adversary";[1] Arabic: شيطان shaitan, meaning "astray" or "distant", sometimes "devil") is a term, as well as the name of a figure appearing in the texts of the Abrahamic religions[2][3] who brings evil and temptation, and is known as the deceiver that leads humanity astray … In the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Satan is primarily an accuser and adversary, a decidedly malevolent entity (a.k.a. the devil) who possesses demonic qualities.” Humanly speaking – by the strength of the language chosen for this rebuff - you can see in it how intensely the temptation afflicts Christ … His flesh must DEARLY want to avoid going to the Cross! (Doesn’t ours?!) But that’s not quite what seems to have motivated Jesus here … will you look at those first few words of v. 33?
- Why did He do this? Well the give away lies in the answer to a different question so let’s ask that one … WHEN did Jesus rebuke Peter? WHAT was it that stirred up such passion in the Saviour? Only Mark’s Gospel (with Peter supplying the information for it to Mark) mentions this critical detail … Jesus looked at His needy disciples before turning to and rebuking Peter. They, His imperfect but dearly loved friends, can never be forgiven their sin if Jesus refuses to die. It is His love for His followers that defeats Peter’s temptation, and carries Christ on to the Cross.
- Here’s the big thing we need to take on board here. The Apostle Peter speaks here out of utter ‘this-worldliness’ … and that is Christ’s analysis of what Peter’s sin is. That tells you just how serious the act of thinking this way is. Jesus could have rebuked Peter for not understanding salvation … although He’d certainly been taught it enough. Jesus could have rebuked Peter for going back on the understanding just reached that Jesus was after all the Messiah. Jesus could have rebuked Peter for tempting Jesus to sin. Jesus could have rebuked Peter for DARING to go against Him. But He didn’t. He rebuked Peter for thinking with merely human concerns … ὅτι οὐ φρονεῖς τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ἀλλὰ τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων Root: φρονέω 1) to have understanding, be wise 2) to feel, to think 2a) to have an opinion of one's self, think of one's self, to be modest, not let one's opinion (though just) of himself exceed the bounds of modesty 2b) to think or judge what one's opinion is 2c) to be of the same mind i.e. agreed together, cherish the same views, be harmonious 3) to direct one's mind to a thing, to seek, to strive for 3a) to seek one's interest or advantage 3b) to be of one's party, side with him (in public affairs) It’s a rebuke about the mind-set of Peter. It’s a rebuke about the inner structure, the inner architecture of Peter’s thinking. He had the mind set from humanity, not from God. When did you last hear that SERIOUS sin preached on? (I repent … I should give worldly-mindedness more significance as a serious sin in my preaching). Not to be willing for the Messiah to embrace suffering, rejection, death and resurrection … to look small in order to do stuff even more glorious … Jesus overlooks the other things Peter could have been rebuked for because this is by FAR the more serious matter. Be careful NOT to view your world through the eyes of humanity but judge and value all things by the values of God.
- The way of the Messiah is suffering in this world, rejection by the religious big wigs, death to this world before resurrection life. Next time we’ll see the implications for those who follow such a Saviour. But this time please recognise that’s the normal, planned for, reckoned on life of our Leader, the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lane: “An inability to accept a suffering Saviour involves the refusal of the will of God, Whose Sovereign disposition of the problem of sin and human rebellion fails to conform to the niceties of human expectations.” And please reckon also on this: what Peter gets rebuked for right after recognising His Messiah is the sin of seeing things, of assessing things, entirely from this world’s perspective. Set your mind on the things that are above … Paul gets it and makes it explicit in Colossians 3:1-4 …
- If there were anything that should teach us the importance of setting your mind on the things above, it would surely be the experience of the Holy One on earth!
- Lane: “Jesus shows no inclination to justify the ways of God to men. He simply affirms that the way of the Cross is the will of God.” It is a worldly mind set in approaching such things that is explicitly rejected. Consistent and faithful followers of Jesus view all their experience through the lens of what they know of eternity. So make every effort this week, my good friends, to see nothing from simply a worldly point of view. You won’t see the point of anything clearly unless you can manage this. Worse you will face the rebuke of your Saviour. You need to live and think as one who is fit to carry His Cross … but we’re going to properly get down to that bit during next week.