All right, my plan for today, since we finished Mark over the last couple of years, a lot of guys will do an outline of the book before, and we did when we started. I thought, how come we don't do an outline after we're done and go over maybe some of the highlights that we remember? Well, specifically my notes are for what I remember, and I asked, everyone to read it this week. Did anybody do so? Okay, most of it. I'm not sure how it's going to come out or what's going to be made out of it. I would, you know, raise your hand if you, you know, as we go through some of this stuff, if you recall some of the things that maybe we learned through the last couple years. Does anybody want to give something that stood out to them as they read it this last week? There's only a couple that did, but... Well, maybe you'll recall things as I go through. Now, my aim is to seal the Word of God in our hearts, and I think if we You know, we spent so much detailed time going through verse by verse. Now maybe we can look at the whole forest here in the next hour or a little more. Not sure how it's going to go. So let's begin in this way. In the Gospel of Mark, you have the way I see it. This is how I see it. This isn't like what everybody says. You have an intro in verse one right here. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He's given us his main point. This is what I'm gonna talk to you about, reader. This is what it's gonna be about. And then he's gonna explain to us for the next so chapters. I say up until chapter eight. You know what happens in chapter eight? A question gets asked. Anybody know what it is? Who do you say that I am? Mark's gonna present Jesus to us, and then he's gonna ask the question right in the, you know how many chapters are in Mark? 16, right in the middle, chapter eight. The question's asked, who do you say that I am? That's the most important, huh? Jesus asked Peter that, or the apostles that, Peter answers, you are the Christ. That's the most important question that you could ask yourself, who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Because without Jesus, we go to hell, all of us. We need to have Jesus right. And so Mark presents us with that question right in the middle of his book. After that, starting in chapter 11, is just one week, from 11 all the way to 16, one week of Jesus' life. for that many chapters. So that's how we're gonna attack this. Let's pray and ask God's blessing as we go through it this way. Father, we bow before you in the name of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Lord, please teach us this gospel to us. Father, please reveal yourself to us. Father, please send the Spirit to give us ears to hear. Father, please seal this word in our hearts that we went through for so long. Not that we've exhausted it. We could do it for the rest of our lives and never come to the end of the glorious life of Christ. But Father, in this hour, we ask, Lord, that we would develop a passion for the gospel. that we would worship you for who you truly are. Father, that we would see Jesus in a greater light and it would move us to spread the message of the gospel. Father, please bless this church as we endeavor to serve our communities around us, that the gospel would take hold and that men would repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. May your name be praised through your saints in their minds, in their mouths, and in their deeds this day and forevermore. Amen. Well, I'm going to try not to be so repetitive, but some things I'm sure will be a little bit repetitive. My aim is to give an overview of much of the book. So stay with me, please. The beginning, verse 1 is very impactful for us. If you're looking down at it, I'm sorry, we didn't get the Bibles out. We should have done that. Wish you'd had them there to see. The beginning of the gospel, that's the first part. The gospel literally means good news, but it's not just plain good news of nothing. It's the good news of Jesus. You see that there next. the good news of Jesus. And there's Mark's main theme. So everything that we look at, and I remember back, I don't know if you remember, I tried to reference this. I know most of you weren't here when we started, but when you read this account, Mark, and everything we go to, this is his main point behind it all. He's trying to tell you what the gospel is. And it's about Jesus. So every teaching through the gospel of Mark has this in mind. And then you have 16 chapters that Mark thinks he's telling you, this is the gospel, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, all the way to 16. This is the gospel. And so it's more than just a little, you know, 4 spiritual laws or a Roman road and give a decision at the end of it. Those things could be helpful. Sure, but that's not the fullness of the gospel. To Mark, the writer of the gospel of Mark, the entirety of his book is the gospel of Jesus. And but not only that, look down at verse 2, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. So where does he go? Where does Mark think the gospel starts? To Isaiah at least, And then he quotes Isaiah chapter 40, doesn't he? Talking about the one that's going to prepare the way of the Lord. So you could say that the gospel begins in Isaiah 40, according to Mark, but we're not going to be so stingy that way. We're going to say the gospel begins into the Old Testament, all the way from Genesis 1, all the way through to the book of Revelation. For instance, in Genesis 3, we have the promise of a deliverer coming that's gonna crush the head of the serpent. That's where the gospel begins. So we say, if you wanna know the gospel, read the book. There it is, it's all there. Second word. there after Jesus is Christ. That is not his last name. If you wanted to write Jesus a letter, you wouldn't put Jesus Christ P.O. Box 196 Nazareth Israel 9764. What's his last name? I don't know. They didn't have last names. It would have been Jesus son of Joseph, right? The carpenter's son. Sometimes when it would be Jesus of Nazareth, that would have been his title. Because there are so many Jesus's that they had to distinguish who he was. But we know that we're talking about Jesus of Nazareth, but Christ, that's an important title that we need to keep in focus here. Jesus, it should say Jesus the Christ. That would make way more sense to us. And in fact, if you read it that way, it would make way more sense to you as every single time you read it. Jesus the Christ, which means anointed one or Messiah. That's the Hebrew word for Christ, Mashiach, which is Messiah. When you look at the Old Testament promises of the Deliverer to come, the one that's promised to come, we are confronted with that reality right here in the Gospel of Mark, right out of the gate. That's why I love the Gospel of Mark. He doesn't beat around the bush and he tells it straight up. Here he is, Jesus, this is the one that was promised in Genesis 3. I'm going to make Him known to you right here in 16 chapters. That's Mark's aim. And not only that, you have this title, the Son of God. Now I know we've been deluded and we don't really understand this to the fullest extent. Yeah, not a good idea. The Son of God, we think of it oftentimes because maybe the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses have duped us into thinking it's just a generic term, meaning like children of God or I'm a son of God in that generic sense. But we should read this right here as Jesus... the Christ, the Son of God. If you read it that way, that is way more impactful. He's the Son of God, the one and only Son of God, the preeminent Son of God. That's how that's supposed to be read like that. He is the Son of God. And what that means, if you remember, I've tried to stress this so many times, that what that means is that Jesus is God. Okay, John 5, verse 18, you have the Pharisees and the religious leaders picking up stones to stone Jesus after He's doing all these works. Jesus says to them, for what work are you stoning me? They say, not for any good work do we stone you, but you, being a man, call God your Father. You know what it says right after that? Anybody know? making you equal with God, because when Jesus was calling Himself the Son of God, that's what it means, that He is equal with God. And look at, Mark gives us this thing right out of the gate in verse 1. He's not only promised deliverer and anointed one to come, and He's fulfilling it. And here's the proof in 16 chapters, He's also God. He's also God. And guess what the theme is all the time in the Gospel of Mark? All the way to the end. Remember the centurion? What did he say? Truly this man was the Son of God. Bang! Here's the Gospel of Mark for us. Here's Jesus. I'm making Jesus of Nazareth known to you. Now what are you going to do with Him? That's Mark's theme here. Now you could take that word, Christ, And I tried to emphasize this, maybe you remember some of that stuff. The word Christ also signifies deity of Jesus. For example, we're not gonna look at all of them, but here's an example, Isaiah 9, 6, unto you a son will be born, or a child will be born, a son will be given. His name will be wonderful counselor, what? Mighty God. This is the promise Christ to come. Here's His title, Mighty God, El Gabor, a title given to Yahweh. And so we don't need all the other stuff. It's all neat and it's all there. But right there in the title Christ and Son of God, you have the deity of Jesus. That means God, Jesus is God. Okay. Now, I think in every chapter we were given We were given examples of this. Just look down at verse 3. This is taken out of Isaiah 40. Verse 3 says this, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of what? The Lord. Well, go back to Isaiah 40. Who's he talking about? Lord Yahweh. He's going to make ready the way. And that's literally the word Yahweh, the name for God in the Old Testament. in Mark's Gospel, where he begins it, John the Baptist is going to make ready the way for Jesus, who is the Lord, the same Lord. That's an example. Look over in chapter 2, verse 5. Do you guys want a Bible? You guys want to have a Bible? I'll stop right now and go get your Bibles. Okay, one second. We're gonna, we're gonna, Michael Duggan called when he turned the pages all the time, that's the Baptist air conditioning. That's what we're gonna do today. We're just gonna be doing this a lot. I'm not too sure. Okay, so I'm gonna be in here. It's page 837. Here, I'll take one. Nobody can help. We're prepared. I'm not going to be able to find anything though if I'm not using my Bible. 837. No, it's okay. We're looking at Mark 2, verse 5. Jesus says, remember the guy gets let down through the roof, they tear the metal roofing off, they cut some purlins, they drop the guy down right on Jesus' head. And Jesus says, son, your sins are forgiven. They say, what? Only God can forgive sins. Good job, you guys got it. Congratulations, you understand. That's right, only God can forgive sins. And then Jesus says, so that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Take a big towel and go home. Jesus forgives sins. Only God can forgive sins. Chapter 3, verse 27, you have the story. And this is how I'm going to do this. So you're going to have to kind of keep up. Okay, just going to be flipping. 327, you have a story about the strong man. Jesus enters. Well, the guy wants to break into the strong man's house. You can't plunder his goods means take all his goods. Satan is the strong man. Jesus enters into the world. Basically, here's the picture, ties the hands of Satan behind his back, sits him in a chair, wraps rope around him, ties him in there and ties his feet to the chair too. And then he steals all this stuff and he walks into the kingdom of darkness and he transfers his people out of the darkness into light and he plunders the strong man. That's God. God defeats Satan right here and that's Jesus pictured in there. Chapter 4, verse 38, you have God creating a storm. He turns the switch on, storm. Jesus turns the switch off, hush be still, and turns the storm off. Only God has control over nature, not Satan. I know that's a common teaching. It's not Satan that causes it, it's God who causes it. And God can also shut it off when He wants to. You can look at Psalm 107, we did way back when. Chapter 5, verse 19, this is the demon-possessed man and the Gadareans, the ones that get thrown into the pigs, remember the story? And he tells the guy, don't follow me, don't come with me right now. You go back to your people and say what? Go tell them what good things the Lord has done for you. And then if you look down at the end there, I think it's verse 20, what's it say? So he obeys, he obeys Jesus. I'm gonna go tell him what the Lord God has done for me. And he goes out, if you remember this, and he tells everybody what Jesus had done for him in perfect obedience. So Jesus, again, is God in chapter five. Chapter 6, He feeds 5,000. That's men, not including women and children. That's chapter 6. That's like the bread from heaven coming down miraculously in the wilderness. Jesus is creating bread from nothing. Who can create from nothing? Not evolution. Only God, because Jesus is God. In chapter 7, you see a statement. This is going to be, I think, verse 19. Just a little statement Mark includes in his writings. Let me find it. Sorry. Thus he declared all foods clean. Go ahead, eat the pig. Eat the shellfish. You can eat the camel now if you want to. I don't know why you would. Jesus changed the dietary laws given by God in the Old Testament. I forgot to mention, I think it's chapter 2, where he says, I'm the Lord even of the Sabbath, the same idea. He has authority to change things only God has authority over. He declares foods clean. That should be blasphemy. We would say that's bad to change God's Word. But here we have Jesus. changing the whole dietary system. Why? Because he's God. He has the authority to do so. Then he raises a little girl from death. At the end of that same chapter, in chapter 7, he also kills a guy that's deaf and can't speak. And in Exodus 4, It says, who has made man's mouth? Who has made the mouth to speak or to be quiet? And obviously that's Yahweh in Exodus 4.11. And yet you have Jesus making the man's mouth being able to speak. Again, in chapter 8, He feeds 4,000. I think that was the 7 loaves one, not including women and children, again, signifying bread. being made from nothing. Chapter 9, we had the transfiguration where he's talking with Moses and Elijah. Remember this one? He's transfigured in his glory before the inner circle. They see him in his glory to the point where when he comes back down later in that chapter, chapter 9, they're amazed at what they see. Remember they're arguing with the demon possessed guy and the guys can't heal him and all that. Jesus walks up right after coming down from the mountain. The crowd sees him. They're like, whoa, who is this? because He's God and He was revealed in that way on the mountain to them. Chapter 10 is where that one guy says, Hey, good teacher. Why do you call me good? There's none good but God. Testing them. Do you really think that I'm God? Is that really what you think? That's what he was saying. Chapter 11, you see the omniscience of Jesus. Go do this in the city. Tell the guys the Lord has need of it. You're going to find a colt tied, all that sort of stuff. Remember that. Jesus can see into the future in chapter 11. And not only that, remember when he was, after he fed him in chapter six, he was on the mountain praying and they were in the middle of the sea, straining at the oars, right? That's when he walks on the water. But before that it was dark and he's on the mountain and says he could see them straining at the oars miles away. How can this be? How can this be? And then the most clear chapter 12, you want to prove the deity of Jesus, you turn to chapter 12 and you see Jesus' speech with the religious leaders, quoting Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, this is verse 36, The Lord said to my Lord, crystal clear, here He is. Remember, this is after chapter 8, where I said, He's trying to get us to answer the question, who do you say that I am? And now He's exposing Himself in a higher way. Right here, chapter 12, the Lord said to my Lord, Psalm 110, what's it say? Yahweh said to Adonai, And here Jesus is in the conversation, because Jesus is God. Chapter 13, that part where it says He's coming in the clouds and all that sort of stuff in great glory and on the right hand of God, later on in chapter 14, quoting Daniel 7, showing that He is God. Straight out of Daniel 7. Can't be missed. unless you're biased to Jesus not being God. Chapter 14, He changes something that's been around for a couple thousand years, whatever it is. The Passover. He abolishes the Passover and then fulfills it, right? He's the fulfillment of the Passover and changes it to something else. What did He change it to? Instead of the Passover, we do what? Communion. How can that happen? How does He have authority to do such things? No longer do we do the Passover, here's the Lord's Supper. This cup is the new covenant, my blood. And then chapter 15, we already made the remark, truly this man was the Son of God. And then in chapter 16, what do we see? We see a dead man enter a tomb, and then the dead man's gone. And he said, destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up. Did Jesus raise himself from the dead? Yeah, he said he would. Did God raise himself? Did God raise Jesus from the dead? Yes. No problem. That's what we're presented with. So Jesus in every chapter in the gospel of Mark. Now, secondly, I want to look at this, unless somebody has anything they want to say right now, I'll pause for that. Did you remember any of that from our time in Mark? Caleb says yes. Janie? Yes. Do you remember some of that? Good. Thank you. Here's my second thing that I want to, when I re-read this this week, this is how my mind works. I get to be the one up here speaking, so you've got to follow me. What is Jesus' mission in Mark? Now, Mark has provided us his main theme. Here's Jesus. Here's the Christ. Here's the Son of God. Now, what is his main mission? As we look at chapters 1 through, you know, if you want to say, you could say 10, his public ministry. I kind of cut it off there at 9, but his main mission. Look at chapter 1. Now we're back to the beginning again. This is how it's working. Chapter 1, verse 15. This is Jesus' main mission on earth. Remember, He was 30 years old or something like that. And then He enters public ministry for the first time. He gets baptized by John the Baptist. Then he goes into the wilderness for 40 days, and here's his first message to the world. This is his first thing that he says in his public ministry, and this is the theme that's going to carry on till the end. He said, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand, or in your midst. It's right here. Repent and believe in the gospel. There's the message that we, too, as Christians present to people. Here's Jesus. Here's what you do with Him. Repent and believe the gospel. If you have a gospel message without repentance in it, you don't have the right gospel. This is the example we have, but this is what he came to do. He came to preach. Verse 14, he was preaching the gospel of God. And this is what he was saying. And this theme continues. Look down at verse 21 of the same chapter. Chapter 1, verse 21, they went into Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and began to teach. He began to teach. Look at verse 38 of the same chapter, chapter 1. Remember, all the people were coming to get healed. We want healing. They're in Capernaum. The whole city's at the door. He says this. He said to them, let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I can heal more people and so that they can have a better life now. Is that what it says? So that we can have friends and influence people. So we can have another healing ministry? No. Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby that I may preach there also." And then he adds this, "'For that is what I came for.'" He didn't come to give you your best life now. He came to preach the gospel. And now, interesting, as I looked at this and thought about it, there's a verse I think it's in chapter 10. Let me read this. Chapter 10, verse 45. Maybe you should look at it. 10-45. I think it would be good if you saw the words. In light of chapter 1, verse 38. For this is what I came for. For this is what I came for. Chapter 10, verse 45. for even the Son of Man did not come." See the same type of phrase. This is what I came for. I did not come to be served. Right? That's what he's saying. But I did come to what? Serve. Yeah, he came to serve. And what did he come to do in chapter 1? preach. Connect them now. Serving people. It might be nice to dump a thing of soup in a can for a homeless guy downtown. That might be great to do. But that is not the main message of the thing that Jesus did. He came to serve people by how? Teaching them. Teaching them. You can do the soup thing, but you better be teaching them too. Okay, that's the main mission of Jesus and the apostles and us. Yes, ma'am. That's right. Yeah, so I'm not sure. Am I missing something? What do you mean? Yeah, that's okay. Culmination of the of the everything of his life Yeah. And so I'm saying that Jesus is teaching that. Maybe I'm not doing a very good job. I must not be doing it. That's OK. I'm sorry. Jesus atones for sin. Obviously, he gives his life a ransom for many. That's part of the message that we now take to the world. OK, so that's included. So I'm trying to say that Jesus was teaching that same message. He actually did something. He actually accomplished salvation, which we can't do. Obviously, but that's that's our message that we're presenting to everybody the same way He's he's coming to do that. He did it. We tell people that he did it, you know, does that make sense? I Don't know. Sorry if I'm sorry if I confuse that I'm trying to I'm trying to say that serving people is telling people The main the main way we can serve people is telling people the gospel and save their souls from hell through Jesus through Jesus Correct. That's what I was trying to get at. Thank you. Chapter 2, verse 2, look what it says. He was speaking the Word to them. Now, which Word was He speaking to them? Did He have this Old Testament Bible open or something like that? No. As Jesus speaks, He's speaking Scripture, because He's the Word made flesh. He's the eternal Word. He speaks, it becomes Scripture. He was speaking the Word to them. Maybe He was using the Old Testament too. 2, verse 2. 2, verse 13, you have the same thing. He was teaching them. He went out by the seashore. People were coming to Him. What did He do? He was teaching them. Over and over again. Chapter 4. This is going to be his main style, but I want you to see what this says. This is also verse 2. It's pretty redundant for verse 2. As he begins the parables, it says this, and he was teaching them many things in parables and was saying to them in his teaching. It's redundant. What word do you see there twice? Teaching. He was teaching them and is teaching the parables. That's what the verse is saying. Mark is emphasizing the importance of preaching the message of Jesus, because that's what He's doing right here for us. I'll just quote these 6, 6, 6, 12, 6, 34, 10, 1, all have something to do with Jesus teaching. He goes and sees, for instance, in 6, 34, He sees the people are like a sheep without a shepherd. Yeah, He ends up feeding them, but first He teaches them. That's what it says. He begins to teach them many things, and in the end, He ends up feeding them. His main source is to expose himself to reveal himself to men. And I think that's a pretty common theme in the Gospel of Mark. His main source or his main style of doing this, look back at if you're still in chapter 4, it actually starts in chapter 3. I can't find where it says it. 323 maybe? Oh yeah, 323 it says, he began speaking to them in parables and then the Satan casting out Satan thing. And then the soils one, right? Remember the four soils? That was one that was impactful for me as we went through it. One thing I remembered from that is you have the four soils, one doesn't even listen, right? It's taken away by Satan. Three other ones hear it though, right? One, then they fall away or something like that, or the things choke it out, the worries of the world choke it out, and then the one good soil. The only thing I remember is that everybody thinks they're the good soil. So you're left with this parable about this sowing of the word, by the way, that's the main theme. And what are you going to do with it? That's the same thing that Mark's trying to do for us. He's presenting Jesus. He asks us, who do you say that I am? Here he is, believe him or not. the same thing. Which soil are you? In fact, if you're there, it's so important, this sower of the seed one, that he says, sorry, I don't have it. Where is it? Oh, in chapter 4, verse 13, he says, Do you not understand this parable? The parable about the sowing of the seed. He says, How will you understand all the parables? If you don't understand this one, how are you going to understand the rest of them? Because this one is the one that kind of unlocks the rest of them about the true and false conversion of people. Right? Are you a good soiler? Are you just one that hears it for a time? It could be years and then fall away. You've got to pay attention to which kind of soil you are. That sounded like you're tired of me talking. Then you have a bunch of other ones, the mustard seed. It also says there in chapter four, speaking the word to them. Chapter seven, chapter 12, the vineyard growers, you remember that one. And then you also have in the gospel of Mark. Now we're going back to chapter one. What authenticated his message? The miracles and signs. I wanted to set the standard of, we preach the message. We preach the message. That's the important part of our life. We get the message right. We get the person of Jesus right. We present it to men. And then Jesus authenticated His message by doing things, by healing people, by casting people out. You can see this in the first chapter, casting demons out, I'm sorry, verse 23. There was a man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what business do we have? And then he says, be quiet and come out of him. Notice, I don't know if you remember this, I sure did. Where are they when he does this? In the synagogue. That's in the church building. That's in the church meeting with the people of God. And that happens a couple other times, and there sits a demon-possessed man. Whoa, that was heavy. It wasn't like it is today. They probably knew the guy from their local town. But on and on, you have Peter's mother-in-law in chapter 1, verse 30, who's sick with a fever. He takes her by the hand. She rises up and serves him. You have people in Capernaum in the same chapter. Again, in 39, the synagogue's casting demons out. You have the leper. You have the paralytic in chapter two. You have the man with a withered hand. Remember, he just said, stretch forth your hand. That's all he said, and he stretched it forth. And then they tried to kill him right after that for some reason. On and on and on. When he stills the sea, after he was sleeping, remember on the cushion, I remember Brad and Ramona, I learned two things. Brad came to me later and said, They had to keep rowing or they would have smashed into the rocks. Remember, that was when he was walking on water. That was one thing. And then Ramona, you had one where you told me later... Where is that one? I might be getting a... Oh, this is the walking on water one too. It turned over to chapter 6, verse 51. I was confusing the stilling of the sea and the walking on water one. Brad said they had to keep rowing or they would have been smashing the rocks. Remember that? When you came and told me that? That's something I didn't even know. And so that helped me understand the Bible later. And then Ramona said with verse 51, remember you raised your hand and said, and he got in the boat with them. And you said, that's like the Emmanuel, God with them. Anybody else remember that from then? No, but I sure did. I wrote your name down in my Bible. Lots of authenticating of the gospel in the life of Jesus here. You also have the confessions of demons. Not that he needed testimony of demons, right? But look at what they said to him or said about him. Chapter 1, verse 32. Um, oh shucks, no, it's 20, 20, 24. I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Okay, Mark, Mark wanted us to read that. Mark wanted us to know that the demons said that, so I'm telling you also that the demons said that. The Holy One of God. Um, 32. Oh, there was another one that I can't find. We'll look at chapter 3, verse 11. Whenever an unclean spirit saw him, they would fall down before him and shout, You are the Son of God. They're speaking truth. They're demons speaking truth. Chapter 5, verse 7. This is the demon-possessed man in the Gadarene. The demons go into the pigs. He shouts out with a loud voice, What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Wow. Some profound statements that I remembered through the preaching of this. Simple. Chapter 1, follow me. And they got up and dropped their nuts and followed Jesus. Matthew did too. Follow me. Only one person did it. No. What? Follow Jesus, Peter and Andrew, and James and John, chapter one, and then Matthew did it. What do you mean? Never mind. Okay. Profound statements and acts by men. Jarius, the synagogue official. Somebody that was risking his job comes to Jesus and falls down at his feet, right? And pleads with him, please come and heal my daughter. In chapter 9, that's after the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus says, believe... Ah, shucks, I can't remember how it said it. I'm sorry. I've got to look at it. Well, the guy says, I believe, help my unbelief. That's the one I'm looking for. 924. Thank you. 924. Jesus said, if you can, all things are possible to him who believes. The father cries out, I do believe, help my unbelief. 1026, the apostles were astonished at his teaching, right? This is a rich young ruler, the camel and the eye of the needle thing. They say, who can be saved? Jesus says, with people it is impossible, but not with God. Blind Bartimaeus on the road to Jericho in chapter 10, 46 and 45 cries out, Jesus, son of David, publicly. And then he gets hailed at in chapter 11, right? With the palm branches and stuff. And then Joseph of Arimathea later in chapter 15, right? It says, remember, he builds up courage to go take Jesus down from the cross. Also risking his life, livelihood, from the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea. That was impactful to me. I thought of this this morning as I was thinking about Joseph. Philippians 4.22, Paul wrote this. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. They just love it. From Caesar's household. He's like, the message went to Caesar's household. The message went to Joseph of Arimathea. You take the message of the gospel, and God's going to do something with it, even into Caesar's household. So Joseph of Arimathea was a great, thing for me. Some famous teachings that we saw. He had the child in his arms in chapter 9, verse 37. Remember, he took up the child. Who does not believe like this child? The children again in chapter 10. The divorce and remarriage. Then the ultimate question by the rich young man, right? How can I go to heaven? What must I do to inherit eternal life? We have that teaching. He says in chapter 11, have faith in God. And the Olivet Discourse, that was fun. Remember that? I didn't mean for you to just remember all the good things. There were bad things. That was the time when Abram yelled out, right? And then there's that big controversy. That was a fun couple weeks. We got through it, though, and we're still friends. The anointing and the perfume. Remember that one pound of perfume? That was a lot. Remember that teaching? And then you have Peter, even if I have to die with you. And then the next two verses, they all fall away. They run away. The last week. The last week of Jesus' life. I'm almost done. Sorry. I knew it was going to be unorderly. I didn't go to seminary, that's why. The last week you have the public, kingly entry, right? Jesus walked, rides in on a donkey. He's praised as... What was he doing? He was praised as King, the son of David. He was praised as King, the son of David. Anybody remember, I had it written on the board. Please, somebody. When he comes into Jerusalem, Chapter 11. Oh, you're going to look at your notes and cheat. I had it on the board. Hosanna. Remember? I had it. What does it mean? Anybody remember? I had it underneath in quotes. What? Yes. That's that's amazing. That's that's that's amazing. Oh, save me. Oh, save me, son of David. Thank you, Jannie. Praise God. Then we had the famous temple closing. Remember, he walks in the day before, after, I don't know if he rode the donkey all the way in or not jumped off, walked in. On the way, he wants the fig tree, the fig off the trees is cursed are you, right? Walks into the temple, looks around, goes back out, goes to the bathroom. Next morning, comes back in. What happened to the fig tree? Withered and dead. When he walks in the temple, what does he do? He closes the temple. He doesn't cleanse it. He closes it. It's over. There's the fig tree, withered up Israel, and then the parable right after. I'm going to take this kingdom from you and give it to somebody producing the fruits thereof. He abolished Israel's independence apart from the Gentiles, didn't he? That's what he was doing. taking it from you and giving it to them. They can't have salvation apart from us. The two are one. And then he goes ahead and reinstitutes the Passover for us. And then he's betrayed. Then he's arrested. You remember that? At night, where is he? Terry, you remember? Where is Jesus when he gets arrested? In the garden, right? Garden of Gethsemane. Then he gets put on trial by the same people that are arresting him. That's a no-no. It's a little biased. Then he's sentenced. These are pretty determined, right? They already were just looking for an excuse. They set up false witnesses. And then he was crucified. He died. He died on the cross during Passover as a sacrificial lamb fulfilling Passover in public amongst millions of witnesses that passed by going into Jerusalem for the Passover. And then he was buried. Remember, if you remember back when we looked at the burial, it's part of the gospel that Paul preached, part of the Apostles' Creed even, and he was buried. It's something that we should remember that it was important that he was buried. And then the resurrection, of course. The Jews made it secure as they could, right? They had permission to do so. But they couldn't keep him dead. He rose from the dead. So, conclusion, Mark's gospel begins Here's Jesus. Here's His life. Here's what He did. Who do you say that He is? Who do you say that Jesus is? In Mark chapter 4, there was also a statement I should have made mention of as we went through right there. I'm not sure who said it. I thought it was Peter, but maybe not. It says this, if you're looking at verse 41 of chapter 4, they became very much afraid First off, look at verse 40. Why are you afraid? They're afraid of the storm, right? And Fred made mention of this. It was after the movie. Remember they were laughing in the boat the other night? Yeah. What? Jesus was sleeping in the boat. Remember? Where was He sleeping? Remember all that? Yeah, but where was He sleeping in the boat? Huh? In the back. Good. Thank you. And when the boat's sitting in the water, what's... is it tipped like this? Right? So Jesus is in the back, back here, right? So the boat's filling up with water. Jesus is sleeping on a cushion in a puddle. Remember that? Yeah, He's sleeping in a puddle. Well, anyways, that was a side track. They're afraid of the storm, but then in verse 41, They became very much afraid. They weren't laughing like the movie showed us the other night, right? Where they're all laughing in the boat. You guys remember that in the movie? That's not true. They were very much afraid and said to one another, who then is this? This is the same question. Who is this? Jesus just switched off the storm by saying, hush, be still. They say, who then is this? or another version says, what sort of man is this? That's a good question to ask yourself. Who is this Jesus? So who do you say that he is? Before you answer, you should count the cost according to Mark. There's extreme demands to follow Jesus, chapter four, if you're still there. It says, whoever has ears to hear, let them hear in verse 23, right? If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear. And then verse 24 says, take heed how you listen. Think about this. Who is Jesus? Is He the Son of God? Is He the promised Messiah? What does He demand of us? Chapter 8, verse 34. He summoned the crowd of his disciples and said to them, if anyone wishes to come after me, you know what, when this was said, what was right before this, you can see it in your Bibles. What? Look at verse. He says he's going to get killed. Okay. And then you have the confession of Peter, right? Who do you say that I am? Verse 29. You are the Christ. And then he says what's going to happen to him? He's going to be rejected. And then he says this, if anyone wants to come after me, if anyone wishes to come after me, verse 34, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Verse 38, For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Boy, count the cost. You want Jesus, you acknowledge that He's the Christ, the Son of God, according to the biblical definitions of the two terms. If you want to come after Him, Not going to be an easy road, is it? It's going to be a war with yourself, and the world, and the devil. Chapter 9 says the same thing, verse 43. If your hand causes you to stumble or sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than having your two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable fire where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life lame than having your two feet and be cast into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Verse 47. If your eye causes you to sin or stumble, throw it away. Throw it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt becomes unsalty, what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. It's high demands. It's a high demands of the gospel following Christ, but it's worth it. Jesus is the Son of God that came and ransomed His life for many. He gave His life as a ransom for many. You can be saved by placing your faith in Jesus and renouncing your allegiance to the world and your sinful flesh and to the devil. He entered into the strong man's house and tied him up. Who is Jesus to you? I love the gospel of Mark. I praise God we got to go through it and wish we could keep going. Wish it never ended. So I pray that anyone here in the hearing of this will place their faith in Jesus. This life, it will not be easy. It'll be hard. But the eternal life to come will be glorious. in the presence of God. All right, let's pray. Father, you are master. You are the sovereign one who orchestrated all these things. In the fullness of time, you sent forth your son. And while we could have went way deeper into just that alone, You didn't create a son, you sent your son into this world. God in the flesh, who is handled by men. We are thankful that Mark, along with the other writers, you gave grace to record the life of Jesus as if we were right there. We have the testimonies of his words. We have the testimony of his person. We have the testimony of His miracles and all that sort of stuff right before us. Lord, may we live our lives for Your glory. And Father, may You make us into this glorious image of Your Son, Jesus, in whom we are predestined to be. Father, we thank you that your word is true. And we ask, Father, that in the days to come in this church, that we would stay true to the scriptures, that we would be preachers of the word as we saw Jesus's main mission was to explain truth to men, explain what he's about to do for them, and then did it. Father, we love you and pray that you would lead us in paths of righteousness for your great namesake, that this war with the world, the flesh, and the devil, we would be victorious over. Lord, help us to love one another and bear one another's burdens as we go this week. In your name, amen. All right, any questions or protests? Yes, sir. Protests? No. Okay, good.