Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Mark 13.
Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Mark 13.
Bobby: Welcome to the Midweek Checkup. My name is Bobby Gilles and I’m joined by Lindsey Blair. This past Sunday, Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Mark chapter thirteen
Lindsey: Jonah said that Jesus is with us and will make a way for us. If you missed the sermon or need help remembering, you’re in the right place because it’s time for the Midweek Checkup.
Bobby: Jonah began by pointing out the prophecy of Jesus in this chapter that the Jerusalem Temple would be destroyed. This could only mean the end of the world in their eyes...what else could destroy this beautiful, most-important-building-in-the-whole-world? Jesus is speaking to the deep allegiances of their souls, in this case their devotion to a building and a religious system, by sneaking in through their imaginations. He’s saying that what we have is temporary.
Lindsey: The invitation is to learn to hold these things more loosely because the second lesson is equally uncomfortable: What we must do will, at times, be painful. Near the end of the Temple, people will claim to come in Jesus' name. They will deceive, just as people coming in God's name in Jesus' day deceived. There will be wars. Natural disasters. Famines. There will be persecution, unfair trials, beatings. He says this is what's coming as you follow me. And it will be difficult. It will be, at times, quite painful.
Learning to hold who you are and what you have as temporary will be the same.
Bobby: This is some of what Jesus means by denying ourselves as we follow him. Denying the way you've learned how to be you, or in some cases how you learned to follow Jesus, will, at times, be quite painful. We must become a people who have a category for Unavoidable Suffering in the Christian life. But even in the pain there is invitation. And here is the main point of this passage. Verse 9 says: This will be your opportunity to tell them about me.
Lindsey: There is a way of knowing Jesus, understanding who he is, who you are to him, what his life and death means...there's a way of knowing that that only comes through suffering in the same ways Jesus did. Times of pain are invitations into solidarity with Jesus, and in those times we are uniquely capable of TESTIFYING to the presence of Christ in our lives.
Bobby: The third lesson of this passage is that what we must do, we must do together. In other words, we do this with God, and God does this through us. The pressure is off. We can face our darkness, journey into night, because we know we do not go alone. We don't have to figure out what to say and perfectly strategize because Jesus says the Holy Spirit will speak for us and through us.
Lindsey: We must learn to pray things like "Lord show me you are with me" just as much, if not more, as we pray "Lord take this suffering away from me." This passage is about the end of all things, but it's more so about the sweet promise that Jesus is with us and he will make a way for us.
Bobby: And so, with Jesus, we take our journey into the night. And this Sunday, we will begin our series called Finished from the final chapters of the Gospel of Mark. And in Bible Fellowship we’ll talk about our relation to the Father, Son, and Spirit from Romans 8. Join us, and bring a friend.