The Urgent Gospel of Mark
What if the good news of Jesus wasn't something that could be waited on, but something that was happening now? What if the news was so good and so compelling that it required heralding, and not at a later date, but as soon as possible?
That urgent Gospel is the Gospel that Mark writes about in his account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Mark uses the word "immediately" forty-one times in his Gospel. The book opens with a short prologue of John the Baptist, and then by the middle of the first chapter Jesus is on the scene, declaring the urgency and the "nowness" of the good news of the kingdom of God. It was time to turn from the old way, and start walking in the new way. The kingdom had arrived!
It's easy for us to forget that the good news of Jesus is an urgent message, but it's one we need to be reminded of. Complacency and apathy are prevelant in our lives, and in our churches, when it comes to the good news. Join us as we go through the Gospel of Mark and tackle that complacency and apathy head on to remind ourselves why the gospel is an urgent gospel that demands action now, and not at some later date.
"The Urgent Gospel of Mark" series will run from January 1st, 2012 through Easter Sunday on April 8th.
Jesus tells a parable of some tenants in a vineyard, and the religious leaders know he's talking about them. In the story, the tenants refuse to give the owner his just due, and when the owner sends his son to them, they kill him hoping to obtain the inheritance. The tenants end up being removed from the vineyard, they are destroyed, and the owner gives the land to someone else. If we understand that the Father is the Owner, and the Son is the heir, how should that impact the way we live in this new vineyard built on Christ?
What is the chief sin of humanity? Idolatry. Jesus comes to break the grip of the idols of our hearts that we believe are more precious than Jesus. The rich young ruler asks Jesus, "What must we do to have eternal life?" Jesus' implicit response is this: You must have no other gods before me.
Our default setting is to believe that we are the greatest. Jesus comes and introduces a new way: in the new kingdom economy, it's "last is first", not "first is first". In this message we'll consider why it is so difficult for us to grasp this teaching, and why it is so important that we do.
All of us experience moments in our faith journey where we face a crisis: do I really believe what I thought I believed? Is what I believed really true? In this message, we'll consider how Jesus responds when he comes face to face with a faith crisis moment.
Every person has a desire to know that their actions are just or right. We have some standard by which we measure whether what we are doing is good or whether it is bad, and like a scale, we weigh our good deeds against our bad deeds to see how we measure up. In this message we'll consider the scale that the Pharisees used, and what Jesus thought about their system and how a person can truly be justified.
In this message we'll consider two types of fear. The fear of the known, and the fear of the unknown. Jesus stands between the two and promises to make the unknown, known. "Don't fear, just believe."
We either observe the sabbath because it is something we must do to please God, or something that we get to do because God is already pleased with us in Jesus. In this message, we'll consider Jesus actions on the Sabbath day and how he redefines for us what it truly means to rest.
Jesus calls his first disciples to be fisher's of men. But what if they never caught any "fish"? What if they never even went to the lake?
Is the Gospel the beginning of the story or is it the conclusion? How you answer that question will determine how you live in 2012.
