Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire and lighten with celestial fire.
Father, we ask that you would pour out the Holy Spirit upon us
with might and power and deep conviction,
that we might, Father, know that Jesus is Savior and Lord,
that we might trust him more,
that we might be willing, Father, to be in your presence
and receive from you so that we can follow you
in ever greater depths of who we are.
And in the full extent of our life.
And so, Father, only your Holy Spirit can help us to do these things.
And so we ask that the Holy Spirit would move.
And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
Last week I began talking about Mark's Gospel.
We're going to be looking at chapter 1, verses 14 to 20.
And I said that it's a very common thing for people to say
that the Bible is filled with contradictions.
And often this is...
People think this in particular when they look at the Gospels.
And I shared one particular way to look at it.
And I want to share a bit of a different way to look at it this morning.
Yesterday I was watching online a lecture that had been given about seven years ago
on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
And part of the lecture was to...
The person giving the lecture wanted to summarize
basically key themes in the life of...
In the writings of C.S. Lewis.
And he wanted to summarize the key themes of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.
And then he was going to sort of compare and contrast them a little bit.
Now, one of the things about that particular lecture,
which he said,
was that there's lots of different ways to summarize
some of the themes in C.S. Lewis's writings.
And, you know, partly it would be whether you wanted to have seven themes
or nine themes or two themes or one theme.
But there's different sort of ways to put all the things together
if you're a communicator.
You're trying to communicate all the books,
all the things that C.S. Lewis wrote in his fiction,
especially in his fiction, but also in his other writings.
There'd be different ways to summarize them.
And I mention this because if you read the four different Gospels,
you'll see that there's different ways that Jesus...
That each of the writers try to have a time early on in the book
where they summarize or have Jesus summarize
how he's...
what it is that he's going to be saying
and what he is that he's going to be doing.
And they all look a little bit different.
But that doesn't really matter
because just as in this particular lecture
that three different C.S. Lewis scholars
could get up and summarize his writings
and sort of put them together in a bit of a different way
to help communicate it.
Like as long as one of the Gospels summaries
isn't God hates you
and another one is that God loves you,
well then that's fine.
That would be a big contradiction.
We'd really have to deal with it.
If one summary of Jesus' teaching was
you should eat as much as you want,
drink as much as you want
because tomorrow you're going to die
and your life is meaningless,
and another summary is completely different,
then that would be a problem.
But if one person wants to summarize it
with more a bit of a, you know,
very, very short or others a bit longer,
that's just...
I mean, it might very well have been
that many, many times throughout Jesus' ministry
he would try to summarize to his disciples
different ways for them to understand things.
For instance, in John's Gospel
it seems as if a lot of the summary
of Jesus' teaching is around the theme of light
and around the theme of life.
And if you go look throughout John's Gospel,
all that keeps coming up.
It's just sort of the way
that Jesus sometimes talked.
Today we're going to look at one of the ways
that Jesus summarizes his message,
or outlines his message.
So if you turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 1,
first of all we'll look at the summary,
and then we'll look at sort of the first Jesus story,
where Jesus...
I guess we've already looked at one
with the baptism and the temptation,
but the story that comes immediately after it.
And here's how it goes.
We'll just read through it so it's familiar to you
before we try to unpack it a bit.
Now after this, John...
Verse 14.
Now after this...
After John was...
Now after John was arrested,
Jesus came into Galilee
proclaiming the Gospel of God.
And just sort of pause there for a second,
just so you sort of understand what's going on.
There's two primary Johns
that are mentioned in the New Testament.
And one of the things is that
in the Gospels often they'll just use
John, John, John, John, John,
all the way through.
And you need to know the context
to try to figure out
which one of the two it's talking about.
Because in fact we have one John
and then later on we have a different John
it's talking about.
This John is John the Baptist,
who by the way,
I didn't mention this last week,
but historians know that John the Baptist
actually existed.
Josephus, a Jewish historian,
who was writing at roughly the time
of the early church.
He has a variety of stories
about John the Baptist.
So historians know
there really was a true John the Baptist.
And in fact a lot of what is said
in the Gospels is also said
in this Jewish,
non-Christian Jewish historian.
So John the Baptist is arrested.
And later on there's going to be
a time in Mark's Gospel
it sort of goes back
and looks retroactively
at what happens to John the Baptist.
But after John's arrested
Jesus came into Galilee
proclaiming the Gospel of God.
Just another thing here,
two other little things.
The first one is
going into Galilee.
This doesn't sort of mean
very much to us
and we sort of have
very, very fond, romantic
Christian thoughts about Galilee.
But if you wanted to become
good to have you here.
If you wanted to become famous
so what's going on
when he says Galilee?
What you need to do
is put yourself in the...
Because this is very important.
It reveals a lot about Jesus.
If you met somebody
at church
and they said,
by the way,
I really think
I'm going to be like the next...
I'm going to be the next
Dwayne Johnson.
I'm going to be the next
The Rock.
Or I'm going to be, you know,
the next Tom Cruise
or something like that.
I think I really have
a future in movies.
And you say,
well, I mean,
you might think that's sort of
a weird thing to say.
But then if they say,
and so I've decided
I'm going to move
to South Porcupine
to pursue my career.
And you'd go,
what?
Like nobody goes
to South Porcupine
if they want to be
a famous Hollywood actor.
You'd say,
well, they should be moving
to L.A.
or New York City
or maybe Toronto
or Vancouver,
but not South Porcupine.
Galilee is an unimportant area.
It's a completely
and utterly unimportant area.
It's not where you go
if you want to become famous.
It's not where you go
if you want to make an impact.
I mean, really,
if God wanted to make
a big impact,
you'd say he should have
sent somebody to Rome.
If not Rome,
maybe Alexandria
or maybe Ephesus.
And if not one of those places,
at least it should be Jerusalem,
but not Galilee.
That's the sticks.
That's the South Porcupine,
which I think is a suburb
of Sudbury, by the way.
So in case you're wondering
where it is.
So that's a very significant thing.
Here we have
that the gospel opens
with Jesus as the Son of God,
that all of the Old Testament
is being fulfilled.
And then you see
when we're going to get talking
about Jesus' teaching
and ministry
that he's not going to Jerusalem,
he's not going to Rome,
he's not going to Alexandria,
he goes to Galilee,
which is a mixed area
of Jewish and non-Jewish people,
and it's definitely
not a very important place.
So once again,
you look at it,
it says,
after John the Baptist
was arrested,
Jesus came into Galilee
proclaiming the gospel of God.
And what that means
is that there's,
we'll unpack it more in a moment,
that God has good news.
The source of the good news
is God.
And this is what Jesus says,
verse 15,
and saying,
the time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God
is at hand,
repent and believe
in the gospel.
And we're going to circle back
in a moment,
but it's a very, very sort of a,
like,
if you're studying the gospel
for yourself,
one of the things
that you can ask yourself
all the time is,
how is this particular story
showing that the time
is fulfilled,
or does it show repentance,
or does it show something
about the kingdom of God,
or does it show something
about the gospel,
or about what it means
to believe.
But Jesus here gives
a bit of a simple outline
of how you understand
the rest of the book.
How, in a sense,
Mark has put it in,
the words of Jesus
to help you understand
the rest of the book.
And just one thing
before we move on
from that is
that the word time
is very significant.
The Greek,
which is what this is written in,
there are two principal words
that are used for time.
One is chronos,
and one is kairos.
I'm probably not
pronouncing them correctly.
And chronos means
one dang thing after another.
It's like a lot of your work days.
You know,
it starts with this,
then it does this,
then you do this,
then you can unplug,
and time is your own.
It's just chronos.
It's one thing after another.
The other word,
kairos,
isn't the same at all.
It talks about time
being significant.
It talks about
significant time,
time that in a sense
is thick with meaning,
with purpose.
Like,
if you think about it,
in our culture,
there's this constant struggle
at a high end
of philosophy
of seriousness
is this understanding
that basically
all there is
is chronos.
There's just one thing
after another,
after another.
But at a more popular level,
there is this sense
that there must be
some type of meaning
to life.
There must be some sense
or purpose to life.
We are encouraged
to try to find some meaning
or make our lives
more meaningful.
And this is sort of
embedded in the very,
very language
of the text.
And what it's saying is
that the kairos
is fulfilled.
Now,
this also is important
in another way.
And this has to do
with trying to understand
how the different Gospels
can put together.
One of the things
that you might not notice
when you read the Gospels
is that there's actually
very few
time markers.
You know how
in the newspapers
sometimes
there may be
a terrorist attack
or some other
big event
that goes on.
And so they
talk about it
but then maybe
they'll have somebody
who gives you
a little bit
of a timeline
for it.
That at this time
this happened
sometimes with a map.
You know,
they were here
at this moment
then they were here,
here,
here.
And there's a brief
description
so you can get
a bit of a sense
of what happened
one thing after another.
And that in a sense
is all kronos.
They're all trying
to get the timeline right.
What happened,
then what happened,
then what happened.
But one of the things
about the Gospels
is that they're not
very interested
in kronos.
They're interested
in kairos.
They're interested
in meaning
and significance.
And so one of the things
then is that a lot
of times,
like if you look at it,
look again at how
it goes from verse 15
to verse 16.
In verse 15 it says
the time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God
is at hand.
Repent and believe
in the Gospel.
Then the very next verse
is passing alongside
the Sea of Galilee.
Well,
so some of you say,
and by the way,
if you read
academic commentaries,
they pull their hair
out at this type of stuff
because it's as if
a lot of academics
in the modern academy,
when they write things,
they're addicted
to kronos.
They're addicted
to trying to figure out
when one thing happens
and then another thing
and then another thing.
They love that.
And so
they'd say to themselves,
well,
is Mark saying
that this happened
like immediately
after this
or did it happen
like six months later
or three months later?
And the different Gospels
will sometimes put
some of these things
in different places
and people assume
that because it goes
from one thing
to the next in the story
that Mark is trying
to write something
from the perspective
of kronos,
of one thing
happening after another.
But
they're not really
interested in that as much.
They're interested
in meaning.
They're interested
in significance.
Like,
if you went back
in time,
they'd probably say,
oh yeah,
okay,
well,
sure.
And then,
you know,
you'd get Peter
and James
and Andrew
and John
and they could
all sit together
and say,
no,
that happened
on this date
and then that
and that.
They could tell you that.
They're not trying
to mess with your head.
But even the way
it begins
is we're interested
in meaning.
And so sometimes
what they do
is they connect
different stories
that aren't necessarily
one thing
after another
in time
and then they go
to another few things
but they're trying
to show us
how things are linked
in terms of you
getting a sense.
Here's another way
to explain it.
Those of you
who like reading
mystery novels
where there's a murder,
one of the things
that happens
in a mystery novel
when there's a murder,
so, you know,
they have the dead body
and some of the detectives
and the police officers
sort of examining
the body
and the crime scene
and others go
and start trying
to figure out
a little bit
about who the person was.
And that's actually
literally what they're doing.
They're trying to figure out
who is this person.
And so often
what happens
in that part
of the novel
or that part
of the movie
is they start
asking questions
because they want
to get a feel
of who the person is,
right?
Who is this woman
whose body
we've just found
who's been murdered
because we want
to find the murderer?
And so they just
start to ask a little bit,
well, tell us
about the person.
You know,
like, does she have
a boyfriend?
Does she work out?
Like, you know,
what's her job?
How does she spend
her time?
Like, what's she like
as a person?
But then at some point
in time
they start to say,
oh, okay,
now, okay,
that's interesting.
So she's like this
and she's like this,
like this.
Okay, but what about
the chronos?
And then all of a sudden
they go in
and they try to get
the little time details right.
But first what they want
to do is they want
to get a sense
of the person.
And that's what Mark,
that's what all
of the apostles,
all of the gospel writers
are doing.
They're trying to give you
a sense of the person
and the meaning
and significance
of what's going on.
So,
back to verse 15,
the time is fulfilled,
kairos.
There really is,
there is in fact
the possibility,
you know,
we all know
that people can ruin
their lives.
And some of us
here today
might actually be
sort of sitting here
and on one level
amidst the rubble
of their lives.
I remember
when I was training
to be a minister,
there was a,
one of the people
I had to talk with
was a person
who was in a drug
rehabilitation program,
a halfway house.
And it's always
sort of struck me.
It's been one of those
conversations
that stuck with me
for all of these years,
all of these decades.
And he'd lived
his entire life
in such a way
that,
you know,
because of his addiction
he'd stolen
from family,
stolen from friends,
lied to family,
lied to friends,
lied to people
who tried to help him.
Just,
he had made his life
a complete and utter ruin.
And he said,
it's,
you don't know
what it's like
when you have free time
and you leave the house
and you come to a corner
and it makes absolutely
no difference to you
or anybody else
whether you turn
left or right.
You have nowhere to go,
no one to see,
nothing to do.
So the Bible here
isn't saying
that each individual
is guaranteed
that their life
has meaning.
It is possible
to miss out
on the meaning
of life.
It's possible
that your life
is a tragedy.
But what the Bible
is saying
with this word
kairos
is that in fact
there is a meaning
that does exist
and part of the good news
is that whatever it is
that's gone on
in your life
and you might,
from a human point of view,
your life might be
in fact just
rubbles
and shards
and ruins
of what you've made of it.
But that there is good news
that in Jesus,
no matter what has gone on
in your life,
that your life
can begin again
in a sense,
that there can be meaning
and purpose
in your life.
I've jumped way ahead.
The time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God
is hand.
Repent and believe
in the gospel.
Now we have
the very first story
that Mark chooses
to put right after it.
He says,
Passing alongside
the Sea of Galilee,
Jesus saw Simon
and Andrew,
the brother of Simon,
casting it in
into the sea
for they were fishermen.
Now just for those of you
who aren't that familiar
with the Bible,
Simon is later on
renamed
and Jesus gives him
a new name
and that new name
is Peter.
So most people
are familiar
with the apostle Peter
if they're a bit familiar
with the gospel story.
And so this person,
Simon,
who will be renamed
as Peter later on,
he's the same one
if you go and you look
in your Bibles
and you see 1 and 2 Peter,
he's the one
who wrote that.
And in fact,
in much of the early church
it was believed
that when you're reading
Mark's gospel,
you're really reading
Peter's gospel.
that Mark was Peter's friend,
his young confidant,
his young disciple,
and that Mark hung around
with Peter
and basically
when you're reading
Mark's gospel,
you're reading Peter's gospel.
So in some ways,
Peter puts himself
in the story right here
and Andrew's his brother.
And Jesus said,
verse 17,
Jesus says to them,
follow me
and I will make you
become fishers
of men and women.
And this has
evangelistic overtones
and that's what
my blog is about.
I'm not going to say
anything about it
in my sermon,
but if you're curious
about that,
you can read the blog
that I wrote this week.
And immediately
they left their nets
and followed him.
So you just notice
that bit.
Jesus comes up to them.
He says,
follow me
and I will make you
become fishers
of men and women.
The heart of it is
to follow me.
And immediately,
verse 18,
they left their nets
and followed him.
And going on
a little farther,
he saw James,
the son of Zebedee,
and John,
his brother,
who were in their boat
mending the nets.
Now just pause here
for a second.
There's three different
James in the New Testament.
It's easy to get
them confused.
This James
is the first
of the twelve apostles.
Well,
the first apostle
of the twelve apostles
to die,
of course,
is Judas,
who betrays Jesus
and commits suicide.
But the first
of the twelve apostles
who die
as a martyr,
they die
maintaining
saying that
Jesus
had died,
was buried,
that the body
was gone,
that they didn't
steal the body,
that nobody
stole the body,
and that they
saw Jesus
risen from the dead.
And the very,
very first one
to die for that
is this James
who's mentioned here.
After the death
and resurrection
of Jesus,
James is to become
one of the most
important people
in the Jerusalem church,
and he becomes
the first of the apostles
to be martyred.
And going on a little,
verse 19 again,
going on a little further,
he saw James,
the son of Zebedee,
and John,
his brother,
who were in their boat
mending the nets.
And John
is the same one
who wrote the gospel
of John,
first and second
and third John,
and the book
of Revelation.
And by
most
people's understanding,
he was the only
one of the
eleven
non-betraying
apostles
who didn't
die a martyr's death.
So it's very interesting,
his brother
is the first
to die
a martyr's death,
and John
is the only one
who didn't die
a martyr's death,
but he died
in exile.
In a sense,
he was sent
to the equivalent
of Australia
back in those days,
how the British Empire
used to send
some of their criminals
to Australia.
He died in that case,
once again,
maintaining
who Jesus was.
Verse 20,
and immediately
he called them
and they left
their net,
they left
their father Zebedee
in the boat
with the hired servants
and followed him.
If you,
Claire,
could switch
back up
to verse 15.
Here it is,
the summary,
the outline
of Jesus' teaching.
The time is fulfilled
and the kingdom
of God
is at hand.
Repent
and believe
in the gospel.
So we'll look
at it a little bit
from the backwards
going,
from the end
going to the beginning.
gospel just means
good news.
It was a common word
in the ancient world.
It was often used
to announce
the birth
of a new,
or that a new emperor
had taken a throne,
or that some,
Rome had won
some mighty victory,
and it would be,
there would be a herald
who would go out
and proclaim
to everyone
this particular
good news.
And that's
what this word means.
And this actually
is one of those things
that we can't remember
enough that it says
good news.
It doesn't say
good advice,
it doesn't say
good rituals,
it doesn't say
good therapy,
it doesn't say
good,
you know,
good yoga,
like,
good diet,
like,
it doesn't,
it's not rules,
it's what,
it's the very thing,
one of the very things
that makes Christianity
different from
all other religions,
is that all other religions,
these are the rituals
you need to follow,
these are the practices
you need to follow,
this is the,
these,
this is the yoga
that you need to follow,
this is the diet
you need to follow,
this is the dress
that you need to have,
and that's,
in a sense,
you know,
Buddhism will say
something different
than,
different types of Buddhism
will say different things
and will be a little bit
different from Hinduism,
which will be a little bit
different from Islam,
which will be different
from Judaism,
and which will be different
to different ways
that Christians have tried
to turn the gospel
as if it's not about news
but about rules,
and the advice
and the commands
and the therapies
and all will all
be very,
very different,
but they all have
this pattern
of,
they're saying
these are the things
that you need to do,
you need to pray this way,
you need to dress this way,
you need to spend
your time this way,
you need to spend
your money this way,
you need to do this,
and if you do these things,
then God will accept you,
you need to do these things
if you're going to have
the right type of kids,
you're going to have
the right type of marriage,
you're going to have
the right type of job,
like even in our own society.
Our society might say that they've rejected religion and spirituality,
but what they've rejected is just they might have rejected the triune God,
but they're completely and utterly addicted to advice and to rules.
Wear your mask.
Wear your mask this particular way.
Get your vaccines.
This is how you invest this way if you want to make a lot of money.
Listen to my advice about how to have a better marriage.
Listen to my advice about how to have a less stress-free life.
We're completely and utterly surrounded all of the time by people telling us what to do.
And frankly, there's different times in our life when we're really, you know,
people and the diet's really working and the weight's going off,
and you say, whoa, and they like it.
But at some point in time, doesn't it just get tired?
Don't you just get tired?
I mean, that's what happens to everybody.
They cheat or they just give up.
You see somebody and they've lost the pounds and they're really happy about it.
And then either one of two types of things.
I was just talking to a fellow that,
I just had a long talk with a fellow the other day,
and he had a daughter who was sort of quite overweight,
and then she lost a lot of weight.
She really got down on diets and on positive thinking and exercise.
She lost a ton of weight.
But now she lives in terror that she's going to fall off of that and put the weight on.
Like she literally lives in deep fear of it.
She literally is struggling regularly with bulimia.
I don't know if I pronounced that correctly.
Because she gives up.
She just gets so tired and she just wants to eat.
And then she feels terrified that she's going to put the weight on.
And so she makes herself throw up.
And with that, all of the feelings of despair,
and in some cases it goes along with cutting to numb the pain.
And so in a world which is addicted to having people tell you what to do,
Jesus shows up and says,
I have news for you.
And how you have to understand this news,
years ago when my kids were all young,
I was never very good at telling my kids stories,
but occasionally they wanted me to tell them a story
that I would make up out of my own head.
And usually it would just be,
I would take some movie theme or some other type of thing
and I'd plagiarize it terribly
and put their names into it or something like that.
Maybe as an animal or maybe as a person.
And so what I would do is,
okay, I'll tell you a story, I'll tell you a story.
But sometimes what I would do is I would tell you,
I would tell them a Bible story just from my memory.
And every time I did that, I'd always tell them,
okay, I'm telling you a true story.
This is a true story.
All the other stories I'd tell you weren't true.
This is a true story.
And then I would tell them a story about,
you know, whatever, something in the New Testament,
something about Jesus.
So what is going on here is that,
remember Mark,
most of the early church thought that when you're reading Mark,
you're hearing Peter speak.
And Peter died a martyr's death,
maintaining the truth of what he said.
And Matthew, who wrote the Gospel of Matthew,
he died a martyr's death
because he maintained that what he'd written was true.
And it would be a lie if he said that it was wrong.
And he died because this was true.
And so what Mark has Jesus saying is,
I want to tell you good news.
And part of the good news is that it's not more advice.
It's not more therapy.
It's not more rituals.
It's not putting more heavy burdens on you.
Because you see, that's the problem with advice, isn't it?
The advice doesn't feel very heavy
when you're very good at following it.
But when you start to mess up in following,
it just feels heavier and heavier and heavier.
And it makes you feel more and more guilty
and more ashamed
and more like a failure.
Because somehow or another,
either you did it and it wasn't working,
or you just got tired of it,
or you worry that you'll stop doing it.
And then you'd be like that dad
who was telling me about his daughter
who lost the weight
and now she's terrified of putting the weight back on again.
and it's just messing up her life.
And so Jesus says,
the good news is about me.
And the good news is
that in a world where you
have to justify yourself,
you have to make your family proud,
you have to make your mom and dad proud
by your accomplishments,
you have to make yourself proud,
you have to have friends,
and you have to have the money,
and you have to have whatever it is
that our culture,
you know,
you have to follow the right rituals,
you have to do all of this.
And in a world
that is always telling you
of all of the things you have to do,
I have this profound good news for you,
is that
I
came to die for you
because I love you.
And that,
that's,
you see,
that's,
that's the good news,
is that you can't justify yourself,
you can't be good enough
for a holy God.
Even the attempt to be good enough
for a holy God,
I mean,
often what eats people up
is that inside themselves
they know that that's not true.
that they,
they're very good at putting on
a good face,
and they're very good at,
at looking the part,
but at night they
can't sleep.
And they're maybe bolstering
the way they want to appear
to the world
with,
with drugs
or some other type of thing
to numb.
And,
and they,
they worry that they're going to get caught out.
They,
they worry that people will figure out
they don't belong.
that they're
not really like that
if you saw beneath the mask
and you saw it beneath the face
and you saw it beneath the facade,
that,
that inside there
you'd see that there's
this stuff
just boiling
and rumbling
and cracking
and falling apart
and you're desperately
trying to hold it together.
either,
either that
or you,
you just become
so completely
and utterly
dead to all of those things
within yourself,
just so completely narcissistic
and filled with pride.
But,
but when you do that
it,
it means you can't love people.
It,
it means you can't just be vulnerable
and let another person
into your life
and,
and if,
if you just always
are just holding together
and keeping that pride
to,
to keep your life together
then,
I mean,
that never works well
with loving another person
because you end up feeling
indifferent to them
and,
or you're not really
sensing what's going on
in them
because you're just always
looking into yourself
to try to hold yourself
together
and it,
it seems as if
there's just these
two different things
and,
and neither of them
really work,
they all work in the short run
but they don't work
in the long run
that either,
either you're trying to numb
and you're worried
about people
actually piercing into you
and getting to know
who you really are
and realizing that
you're not as successful,
you're not as kind,
you're not as nice,
you're not as gentle
or,
or else you hold on
to all that stuff
with pride
but then that makes you
numb to other people
so why is it
that all you can do
is either numb yourself
or numb yourself
with other people
and that's life
and in a life like that
Jesus comes and says
I have good news,
I know every single thing
about you,
I know everything about you,
this is why it's so significant
that it's the son of God,
I,
I'm closer to you
than your very breath,
I,
I know the dreams
you have at night
that you don't remember
when you wake up,
I know the nightmares
that you have,
I know how many fronts
and faces that you have
and I know how you can shift
from one front
to another front
to another front,
I know your secret drinking,
I know your cutting,
I know your bulimia,
I know,
I know all of that about you,
I know every single thing
about you
and knowing every single thing
about you,
I've never stopped loving you,
I mean the one thing
we can truly say,
not just because
it's therapeutic moral,
moralism,
is that for every human being
there has never been
a time in their life
that they have been unloved
by the triune God,
I mean they,
they might,
you might go to your grave
not knowing,
not wanting that to be true
or ignoring it
or just throwing it away
but in fact,
Jesus knew every single thing
about you
and he knows every single thing
about your future
and yet knowing all of those things,
his response was,
I will go to them.
God,
the son of God,
knowing every single thing
about you
and seeing everything
there is about you,
seeing the different ways
you either use your pride
to hold yourself together
and use your masks
or,
and the ways you sort of
either hold yourself together
so perfectly
that now you can't love
because you're numb
to other people
and he sees everything
about you and says,
I will go to them,
that's what he says,
I will go to them
and he comes to us
and the news is
that he sets aside
his glory
and his splendor
and his prerogatives of God
he takes into himself
our human nature
and as I talked about
last week a little bit
he identifies with us
as human beings.
He lives amongst us
and knows what it's like
on the inside as well
about what it's like
to be a human being
and experiences
the temptations
that we experience
only rather than succumbing
to them
and giving in to them
he is able
to withstand
the temptation
until the temptation
has lost
all of its power
that in a sense
he knows the depth
of your human experience
as well as he knows
the depth of your sin
and who you really are
down to the very very core
of who you are
deeper than you will
ever know yourself
until you die
and appear before
the face of God
and he reveals it to you
and knowing all of this
he still loves you
and the good news
is that he loves you
so much
that he
he dies
in your place
and that what you see
upon his life
is you're seeing
the perfect life
you're going to see
in the different miracles
you're going to see
a man who can walk
on water
if a man could walk
on water
how could that man
ever allow himself
to die
you're going to see
Jesus raise dead
people to life
and if Jesus is able
to raise dead people
to life
then how could he
ever die upon the cross
and you're going to see
Jesus be able to
control the wind
and the waves
and you say to yourself
if Jesus can control
the wind and the waves
how is it that he
would ever die
upon the cross
and you're going
to see Jesus
have profound insight
into human beings
and you'd say to yourself
if he has profound insight
into human beings
does that mean
he has a profound insight
into me
but if that's the case
why would he die for me
you see because
the whole gospel
is going to continue
to reveal who Jesus is
and reveal who he is
leaving it
as the only way
to understand
why it is
that he dies
upon the cross
is because he loves you
and not the you
that you like to put
as a face
but right underneath
everything
in terms of
who you really are
and the depths
of who you are
and the secrets
of who you are
not only the secrets
that you're ashamed of
but your secret glories
and the secret longings
and yearnings
that he knows you
and still he dies
for you
and in his death
upon the cross
what you see
is that he is going
to take your place
it's as if he says
George
if I was just
to show everybody
in this room
all of the thoughts
that went through
your mind
in the last week
and the things
that you've done
and the things
that you've said
and your emotional
responses to how
you've reacted
to things you've heard
and if I was to put
those all up
in front of everyone
they would wonder
why you could still
be a priest
and the fact
of the matter
is
I might be worse
than a lot of you
but he could do that
for every single one
of you
and put it up
on the screen
and we would just
be horrified
there would be no
crack too small
for us to crawl into
because we would never
be able to look
another person in the eye
again ever again
for the rest of our lives
we would be so
completely and utterly
humiliated
and Jesus says
to me
and to you
you can't
withstand
that
and so
George
I'm going to offer
you this exchange
this is the news
I'm going to offer
you this exchange
if you put your hand
in mine
if you hear me
when I call you
to follow me
and you
turn from all the
things that you've
been following
and you turn to me
and you believe
this news
that I will die
for you
and I will make
you right with God
and I will never
leave you
and I will never
forsake you
and I
that I will
take you
into myself
and take you
into my person
and I
I will
George
I will
I'll make
this trade
it's as if
all of the
things that you
are
and all of the
things that you
have done
you take my
hand
George
and when you
take my hand
it all
all of that
goes to me
and all
all of the
punishment
that people
would think
I deserve
and all of the
shame that they
think I would
have
and I
will take
that all
on me
and I
will die
in your
place
and George
not only will
I die
in your
place
but when you
put your
hand in mine
and I
I take
your hand
not only
is in a
sense
all of those
secrets
and all
that shame
does that
get laid
on me
and I
bear the
consequences
of that
and if
and that's
why you see
when if I
if you were
to know all
of those
things about
me there'd
be no
crack too
tiny for
me to go
into
to hide
from you
and that's
why later on
in the Bible
it will talk
about how Jesus
tastes all
there is to
taste of
death
he goes
into that
tiny crack
for you
in his
death upon
the cross
but when you
put your
hand in
Jesus
this is
the news
I who
have never
sinned
I who
have enjoyed
unbroken
fellowship
with the
Father
I who
am the
beloved
son
I
the one
that God
the Father
has just
said
with you
I am
well
pleased
I will
take your
sin and
shame
upon
myself
and
me
being
the
beloved
that will
clothe
you
that will
stand
for you
I will
take your
place
and you
see that's
the news
that's
the news
that's
the news
of what
Jesus
who he
is and
what he's
done and
what he's
accomplished
that's
the news
and the
news isn't
just sort
of news
that you
can now
say well
George
that's
alright
George
that's
alright
for you
but the
wonder of
the gospel
is and
that's
why the
next
story
is so
important
and if
you're
either here
and listening
in or if
you're here
and listening
in is that
Jesus
is calling
you
you see
that's
the
there is
no person
so bad
there is
no person
so broken
there is
no person
so much
a failure
there is
no person
so filled
with shame
that Jesus
doesn't love
them
and that
Jesus
isn't
calling
you
to follow
him
and be
his
disciple
there's
no one
and that's
the news
listen to
myself
I'm not
good enough
to tell you
that
all I can
do is
tell you
this is
what Jesus
says right
here
that's what
gospel means
it comes
from God
himself
and so
what does
it mean
it means
you turn
repent
doesn't
mean
necessarily
feeling
anything
it just
means you
hear him
call
and rather
than ignoring
his voice
ignoring his
voice
I know
when I
became a
Christian
it was
as if
I knew
that Jesus
was calling
me
and was
calling
me
and calling
me
and I
kept
not wanting
to hear
him
and I
finally
turned
to him
and believe
doesn't
necessarily
believe
as a
person
word
just
believe
that
Jesus
is
who
he
says
he
is
and that
he
wants
to do
that
for you
and for
me
and that
he
justifies
me
he
makes
me
right
with
God
he
knows
everything
about
and still
he
does
it
and for
me
to
believe
and trust
that
and put
my
hand
in
his
and then
I
learned to
follow him
but I
learned to
follow him
in the
context
of the
fact
that
everything
he
knows
everything
he
knows
everything
he
has
done
everything
he
has
done
it
all
he
knows
the
all
about
me
and he
has
done
the
all
for
me
and that
when I
I
trust
him
he
I
don't
know
everything
about
him
but I
trust
him
and as
I
follow
him
he
makes
he
helps
me
to
understand
more
of
who
he
is
and
he
helps
me
to
understand
more
of
who I
am
he
helps
me
to
follow
him
I
just
want to
say one
thing
in closing
for those
of you
who've
grown up
in
Christian
houses
and
don't
know
that
there's
been
ever
a
specific
time
and
has
nothing
to do
with
there
being
a
specific
time
some
of
us
can
tell
you
a
time
when
there
was
a
specific
time
some
of
you
know
the
story
the
horse
and
his
boy
in
the
Narnia
Chronicles
and
in
the
book
the
horse
and
his
boy
there's
a
kid
who
knows
he's
going
to
be
the
heir
or
thinks
he's
going
to
be
the
heir
and
he
knows
from
the
very
moment
that
he's
born
that
he's
going
to
be
the
heir
and
it's
this
other
boy
who
grows
up
in
a
very
servant
type
of
situation
and
the
servant
situation
has
to
come
to
a
point
in
time
when
he
understands
that
he's
the
son
of
the
king
but
the
boy
who
grows
up
as
the
son
of
the
king
always
knows
that
he's
the
son
of
the
king
and
just
part
of
his
struggle
is
learning
out
of
life
to
learn
to
be
the
son
of
the
king
and
you
see
the
point
of
all
of
this
is
the
good
news
is
that
every
Christian
parent's
hope
and
prayer
is
that
your
child
will
never
have
a
time
that
they
don't
know
Jesus
and
want
to
follow
him
and
you
don't
have
to
have
a
moment
you
just
have
to
know
what
we
do
in
church
what
we
do
around
the
Lord's
supper
in a
sense
every
Sunday
when
we
gather
what
we're
doing
in a
sense
is
renewing
our
commitment
to
Jesus
not
becoming
Christians
again
but
renewing
when
we
have
the
Lord's
supper
in a
sense
what
we're
doing
is
it's
as
if
we're
remembering
once
again
that
Jesus
died
for
me
that
Jesus
rose
for
me
he
knows
everything
about
and
every
Sunday
when
we
have
communion
that's
in a
sense
what
we're
doing
we're
saying
Jesus
some
weeks
I've
had
a
good
week
some
weeks
I've
had
a
really
bad
week
and
I
am
so
glad
that
you
have
forgiven
me
and
that
you're
the
one
who's
made
me
right
with
God
but
I
come
here
and
I
receive
from
you
and
I
once
again
say
Jesus
I
will
follow
you
it
is
worth
it
to
follow
you
it
is
worth
it
to
follow
you
no
matter
what
people
say
no
matter
what
our
culture
might
say
and
I
father
you
know
how
I
might
be
afraid
to
let
people
know
that
I
follow
you
but
it
is
so
worth
it
Jesus
to
follow
you
because
you
died
on
the
cross
for
me
I
invite you
to
stand
just
bow
our
heads
in
prayer
Jesus
we
give
you
thanks
and
praise
that
you
are
God
the
son
of
God
we
give
you
thanks
and
praise
that
you
know
every
single
thing
about
us
from
the
moment
of
our
conception
to
the
moment
of
our
death
that
you
know
us
down
to
our
very
depths
that
you
know
everything
there
is
to
know
about
us
and
we
give
you
thanks
and
praise
that
even
though
you
know
every
single
thing
there
is
to
know
about
us
that
still
you
love
us
and
you
loved
us
so
much
that
you
wanted
to
come
and save
us
and rescue
us
and
that
you
rescued
us
at
great
cost
to
yourself
we
give
you
thanks
and
praise
that
you
are
willing
to
in a
sense
make
a trade
exchange
with
me
and
each
person
here
that
all
of
our
wrong
and
all
of
our
rubble
and
all
of
our
shame
and
all
of
who
we
are
that
you
are
willing
to
take
that
upon
yourself
and
bear
the
consequences
of
it
for
us
that
you
would
offer
to
clothe
us
with
your
status
as
being
beloved
of
the
father
and
father
we
know
that
we
are
worthy
of
that
we
know
that
this
is
just
sheer
unmerited
grace
love
mercy
and
goodness
that
you
would
do
something
like
that
for
us
and
we
give
you
thanks
and
praise
for
the
news
that
is
who
you
are
that
is
what
you've
done
and
that
you've
done
it
for
ordinary
people
like
us
and
so
father
we
thank
you
for
this
and
once
again
as
we
gather
on a
Sunday
and
gather
to
remember
Jesus'
death
upon
the
cross
we
recommit
to
you
father
we
recommit
to
Jesus
he
is
our
savior
he
is
my
savior
he
is
my
lord
and
once
again
I
commit
myself
to
him
I
commit
myself
to
you
Jesus
lead
me
and
guide
me
and
I
will
follow
you
and
we
will
follow
you
and
I
ask
this
in
the
name
of
Jesus
God's
son
and
our
savior
and
all
God's
people
said
amen