Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] If you have a Bible, we're going to be in Mark Chapter one again. Today we started a new series on the Book of Mark, which many have called the Gospel of Grace. The Gospel of Grace, the letter, or the Gospel. The Book of Mark was written by Mark, but Mark was not one of the disciples of Jesus. In fact, he was a friend and interpreter for the Apostle Peter. And so likely scholars tell us this is actually Peter's account of the story of Jesus. And Mark shows up a few times in the New Testament. One of the more memorable moments where Mark shows up is there's this time in the Book of Acts where Peter has been put in prison for preaching the Gospel of Jesus. And so all the believers gather in this home in Jerusalem, and they begin to pray for Peter's release from prison. And maybe you've read the story, but miraculously, as they are praying, God responds to their prayers. And an angel is sent to the prison where Peter is being held. And the angel unlocks the door to the prison, and Peter walks out. And so he's wandering through the streets in the middle of the night, and he goes to the house where the believers are praying for his release. And Peter knocks on the door, and it says, a young woman opens the door, sees Peter, and assumes that it's Peter's ghost because there's no way that their prayers were answered. So she goes back to the people. She's like, I just slammed the door on Peter's ghost because our prayers have not worked, and he was killed. I'm so sorry to bring this news to you. Peter's dead, and his ghost is outside. And then I'm sure someone in the room was like, wait a second. Maybe that's. Maybe our prayers worked. So they go back, and of course, Peter's standing out waiting for them to come back to the door. And this happens at Mark's house. Okay, so this is one of the moments where Mark pops up in the story and several other times in the Book of Acts. But this is a companion of Peter. And so Peter, probably in his 50s now, has been arrested once again and is in prison in Rome. And likely Peter and Mark are sitting there, Peter with his interpreter, Mark. And Peter is dictating his account of the life of Jesus. And Mark is writing this down. The audience that this letter is for is for the believers in the city of Rome who are being persecuted under the Emperor Nero. Okay, so you have this mad emperor who is persecuting the church, who is arresting Christians and using them in these coliseum places where they are facing intense persecution. So this helps understand the audience for which this book was written. One of, if not the earliest accounts of the life of Jesus.
[00:02:56] Okay, so that's the background. Now we get into it. We pick up where Pastor Ben left off last week in Mark 1:9 says one day, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and John baptized him in the Jordan River. This is John the Baptist. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, you are my dearly loved son, and you bring me great joy. That is a great thing to hear from heaven. You bring me great joy.
[00:03:27] The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan for 40 days, and he was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him. I hadn't noticed this before. I was studying for this week's message in this verse where it says that Jesus was among the wild animals and angels took care of them. Remember the audience for which Peter and Mark are writing this book.
[00:03:53] You have these Gentile Christians, non Jewish Christians, who have come into the faith at great personal risk, many of whom are now arrested and put into these arena battles in the Coliseum, facing wild animals and going to their death.
[00:04:08] And so you would imagine that in the city of Rome, among this young Christian community, there is great fear for their own lives and for what awaits them if they are arrested and persecuted in Nero's. And so into the story of Jesus himself as he's out facing down evil, Peter writes, he was out among the wild animals, too, and he was never left alone.
[00:04:35] And for all of those who would read that, I wonder if it would just give them that courage that no matter what they face, they would never be left alone. You know, these stories, these books were not written to us. They had a very specific audience. But here, for us in 2025, all these centuries later, we receive this story. We find ourselves caught up in it. Not because it was written to us, but we do believe it was written for us. Right.
[00:05:04] And so I want you, as we continue to work through this gospel over the next several weeks, I want you to look for those places that resonate with your story where this was so far removed culturally and geographically and chronologically. Right. It's a long time ago, and so we could just brush it off as not applying to our lives. But as we look through the text, we find these Little glimpses that say, hey, for what you're facing this week in your family, you're not left alone because God sees you too.
[00:05:36] Come on. We find ourselves in the story 14. It says, later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God's good news.
[00:05:48] The time promised by God has come at last, he said, the kingdom of God is near. Repent of your sins and believe the good news.
[00:05:58] It's such a quick footnote that John was arrested. This is the John who has baptized Jesus, one of the first people to correctly identify Jesus as the Messiah, the Promised One, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. And no sooner has John baptized Jesus and brought him up out of the waters.
[00:06:21] This says, well, then John was arrested, and the story goes on.
[00:06:27] In Matthew's account, we get a little bit more of the detail of what was happening with John the Baptist when he was arrested.
[00:06:33] As he was taken and put in a prison cell of his own, he began to have doubts, and rightfully so.
[00:06:42] I mean, just a few days prior, he's baptizing the Promised One, the Messiah. And there would be a sense, like, if you're there and you're John the Baptist, you're thinking, finally, all the good things are coming true.
[00:06:56] Finally, now that he's here, now that Jesus has come, now that the Messiah is present with us, everything's smooth sailing from here, right? It's up and to the right from now on.
[00:07:08] And no sooner does he experience that moment with Jesus on the shore of the river that he's rounded up and he's put in a prison cell and he's isolated and he's alone. And so he gathers his followers and he says, can you get word to Jesus and just ask him, are you really actually the one?
[00:07:26] Because this is really isolating. This is really not what I was expecting. I feel very, very left alone. And I just got to know if he's really who he said he was. John experiences doubt in his prison cell, as I think we all would.
[00:07:46] And what is interesting is that John's doubt does not remove him from the story, and neither does it stop the advance of what God was doing in that time and place.
[00:07:59] And I think it is a mistake to think that if we experience doubts that we are removing ourselves from faith and God's story.
[00:08:07] In fact, as we will see again and again in the story, those closest to Jesus experienced periods of intense doubt. And yet that did not stop Jesus work in their lives or the grace that he extended to them.
[00:08:20] No one more than Peter, no one more than the one who would deny Jesus three times. And yet Jesus would come back to him and say, I still got purpose for you to accomplish. You see, our doubts don't disqualify us from the story, and they by no means stop the advance of the kingdom that Jesus came to bring.
[00:08:41] And so we have this parallel doubt from John in his prison cell and now Peter writing this whole book from his prison cell. And their experience about who Jesus is couldn't be more different. Where John is saying, I actually don't know if you are the one who you said you were. I don't know if you're the one we've been waiting for. I don't know if you're the promised Messiah. And we have Peter, who had the opportunity to walk beside Jesus. Now he's in his prison cell, he's not gonna see the outside ever again. And yet he is gonna write a book that declares boldly without flinching. Jesus absolutely is the one we've been waiting for. This is the effect of walking with Jesus. It doesn't change outcomes every time. It doesn't promise a smooth where nothing goes wrong. But it does promise this, that when you find yourself in a prison cell not of your own making, that you will have this confidence that Jesus is who he said he was. And that if he is who he says he is, then maybe you are who he sees you as. Loved and accepted and known and forgiven by his grace and his mercy.
[00:09:51] This is what Peter knew and experienced when he walked with Jesus. And now some 30 years later, he is sitting in a cell and saying, no prison cell can stop what I know to be true. That, my friend, Jesus was the one we've all been waiting for.
[00:10:09] And if you're listening to that and you're like, well, that's great for him, I guess. What does that have to do with me?
[00:10:15] We have to understand that the kind of work that Jesus announced so long ago is the kind of work that God is doing and continues to do today in our lives and in our families and in our situations and in our nation, that God is at work breaking down barriers that keep people from him, even as Jesus did so long ago.
[00:10:40] As we go through this chapter of Mark, there's several very rapid fire engagements or interactions that Jesus has hurting people. And I'm going to summarize some of these for us for time's sake. But in verse 40, a man with leprosy comes to Jesus. And if you had really any kind of skin affliction and were labeled with this label of leprosy. You were kept so far out of society and community, you were kept at arm's length because it was seen as contagious. You were seen as unclean and sinful. And you were kept as far away from all the clean, happy people as possible, right?
[00:11:22] And so this leper makes his way to Jesus and falls on his face before this Jesus, and he says, listen, I believe that you can heal me. I'm not sure you will, but I've come here and Jesus says, I want to heal you. And he takes his hand. And this is what is so fascinating and what is so disruptive is you have this Jewish rabbi who is bound by these ritual purity laws, right? There's very specific things that keep you kosher, right?
[00:11:56] And one of the big no nos is don't put your hand on leprous people, right? That's like, you know, page one of your textbook. Let's open our textbooks. Don't touch lepers. Okay? Got it.
[00:12:09] And here comes a hurting man, falls before Jesus. And I'm sure all the disciples are around Jesus are like, okay, just speak a word of healing. We've seen you do that before. Just speak a word at a distance. Actually, you know, they're pulling Jesus back a little bit, and Jesus shakes them off and he takes his hand and he puts it on the man's head. He says, I'm willing be clean.
[00:12:31] And the man is healed. And I would like to think everyone was cheering for the healing, but, you know, there were some of the disciples who were like, oh, man, the paperwork we're gonna have to do.
[00:12:42] Like, now we gotta go. We have to walk all the way back to Jerusalem. We have to get to the temple. We have to make a sacrifice and present ourselves so that Jesus can get his credentials back because he just became unclean.
[00:12:55] And I would think they would probably have this conversation with Jesus, like, hey, Jesus, are we going back to fulfill all the law requires? Because you just touched a leper, bro. They probably didn't say, bro, teacher.
[00:13:09] And Jesus simply moves on to the next hurting person. Because when the kingdom of God comes, Jesus was showing that the old way and the old rituals and the old methods for how to stay right with God were being radically turned on their head because the king of that kingdom was now in the room.
[00:13:30] And so Jesus has no problem leapfrogging over the religious restrictions and regulations and rules to get hurting people to experience the mercy and the healing of a good God.
[00:13:44] He just doesn't have Any problem with it?
[00:13:48] Story goes on.
[00:13:50] Jesus is in a home in Capernaum, and no one can get to him because the crowds are just pressed in in this home.
[00:13:59] And we find that these four men have a friend who's been paralyzed. And so they carry him on a stretcher. And they've evidently come from some distance. They get to this house and there's just crowds on crowds. There's no way they can get this guy and his stretcher through that crowd to Jesus. And so somehow they walk up onto the rooftop of this house and they begin, stone by stone, brick by brick, opening a hole in the roof.
[00:14:28] And I always thought of this story from their perspective. Like, how would they even get all those stones moved to create a space big enough to lower their friend down? But can you imagine being with Jesus and watching that as it's happening? Like, what is. We've got rats. What is going on up there?
[00:14:46] And slowly, you know, this space opens in the ceiling and a man is lowered down. I hope slowly. It could have been fast.
[00:14:56] Jesus catches him. You know, their faith was such in Jesus. Not only that he could, but that he would heal their friend, that they would do anything to get their friend to Jesus. And the man is there before Jesus, laying on his mat.
[00:15:15] And Jesus, in front of all the religious leaders who are gathered in that space, he says, just so that you know that I have the power to forgive sins, watch this. And he says, son, your sins are forgiven. And I would imagine the man on the mat is like, that's really cool. Actually, I was here for something else.
[00:15:35] Thank you for that forgiveness. Teacher. Can we talk about my legs? Can we talk about healing?
[00:15:41] That's what I need actually today.
[00:15:44] And then Jesus says, actually, yeah, we can talk about that too. Take up your mat and walk. And he's healed on the spot.
[00:15:52] And what the takeaway from that is. This is fascinating.
[00:15:57] That Jesus healed is his kindness. That he forgave is his disruption of everything that had to do with how they understood God.
[00:16:06] Amazing that he healed. What a kindness, what power, what authority he operated in, but the fact that he would have the audacity to forgive sins and say that he had the authority to do so. It changed everything.
[00:16:20] Because no longer did this mean that the only place you could receive the forgiveness of sins before God was a temple with a pries and with sacrifices and rules and rituals. Now forgiveness is on the loose because Jesus is here.
[00:16:37] And this is the second thing that Jesus disrupts is that all of a sudden everything's changed because now Forgiveness is happening not only in the temple, but on the streets and in our homes. And so it is today that whatever has kept you from feeling like you're acceptable to God because of what you've done or what you've thought or how you've acted, this is great news for us, is that forgiveness finds us because Jesus has come announcing that there's a new king in town.
[00:17:11] And then third, Jesus is just wildly comfortable around sinners offensively. So again, the religious leaders, and we paint them as such bad guys, I think they were trying to do their job really good.
[00:17:27] And it's really hard to process something as subversive and disrupting as Jesus when he comes on the scene. So, you know, a lot of good vibes going to the Pharisees today. But they were wrong.
[00:17:40] They were wrong about Jesus because they thought that in his accepting of those on the outside and those times when he was engaging with awful sinners, that somehow God was displeased with what was going on. And they couldn't have been more wrong because God, for all of human history, was looking forward to this moment when his love and his mercy could break through to those who needed it the most.
[00:18:09] And so Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector, to become one of his disciples.
[00:18:18] He sits down in Levi's home. He's surrounded by notorious sinners. One translation says. And this scandalizes everybody.
[00:18:28] I love Brennan Manning's take on this. He says, the love of Christ embraces all without exception. It shocks, scandalizes, and amazes, but it is true. Jesus came for sinners just like me.
[00:18:44] If you know Brendan Manning's story, Brendan Manning was a priest and an alcoholic and really, really struggled his whole life.
[00:18:57] And yet he was unlike any other author I've ever read, so in touch with his place as the beloved of God.
[00:19:08] And what I would hope for you and for me and for our kids and our kids kids is not that everyone would just behave so good, but instead that we would all know how deeply we have been loved by God and forgiven every single day.
[00:19:27] Because you know what?
[00:19:29] I tell you this, there are sinners in the room.
[00:19:32] You know who you are.
[00:19:35] I can see you from here. Right?
[00:19:40] I was remembering. I was the youth pastor here for many years. And at the end of the year, we would have our senior class, our graduating class. Each of our seniors would get a chance to share their testimony or their story before they graduated and left the youth ministry. And so we would have, you know, maybe three or four kids each evening share during the month of May. And I Remember so vividly, one of our high school boys, he was graduating, and so he was up there sharing his testimony and sharing his story. And then he turns and he looks over and across the front row, there's like four or five of his best buddies, his friends. And he's like, where are my best friends at? There you are. Raise your hand. And so all his friends raise his hand, like, yeah, we're his buddies. You know, he's like, my friends have shared with me what they're struggling with. And he starts listing out all the sins that his friends. And you watch the friends and their hands just slowly go down, like, way to sell us out, bro.
[00:20:47] But that's all of us, right? That's all of us in need of the work of grace, in need of the story of grace.
[00:20:56] The psalm says this, that the mercies of God are new for you today.
[00:21:03] And whenever we have this one and done kind of approach to our faith, it creates a cycle of shame, because we assume, well, you know, I came to faith. I was 25, and that was a long time ago. And I feel like after that moment, I should have had things figured out. But I've screwed up, and I have issues and I have addictions or I have problems, and it seems like I shouldn't be dealing with that. And so instead of going back every day to the source of forgiveness and mercy, oftentimes what we do in shame, we hide from it.
[00:21:37] But listen, the God that met you 15, 20, 50 years ago is the God who shows up every morning and is the source of that forgiveness and that mercy and that grace that we all so desperately need.
[00:21:53] And oftentimes, it is not God who is raising up this barrier to his presence, but it's us.
[00:22:02] And what Jesus came to do was to everywhere he went to tear down the barriers between God's presence and hurting people in ourselves and in our communities, we have the temptation to put up barriers once again between the presence of God and those of us. Us, me, you, those on the outside who have yet to come and understand and experience God's spirit? We have got to stop putting up barriers between his mercy and those who need it. We've got to stop.
[00:22:31] And so what replaces that inclination, that impulse to put up barriers and religious restrictions and rules to protect what we got from sinners? What replaces that is a radical kind of embrace of hurting humanity. It looks like hospitality. It looks like opening our homes, opening our hearts. It looks like experiencing what Jesus came to bring, which was healing, freedom, and acceptance that we would experience it. And then model it for the world around us, that this is the coming of what God sent Jesus to do, which was to announce the kingdom is here.
[00:23:12] This reign and the rule of God that is breaking into our world, and the barriers that have always kept us from God would fall down. Amen.
[00:23:23] So what are the barriers today for us? We all have them.
[00:23:27] We all have barriers to God's presence. Sometimes that's doubt. And we assume that doubt actually is the thing that should disqualify us from engaging in our faith at all. If I don't know exactly what I believe, how could I experience Jesus? Well, here's great news. None of his disciples really believed that he was who he said he was until the very end. They walked with him for years, not knowing who he was, not even really wrestling with it, just missing the point. And yet, in the kindness of Jesus, he didn't require perfect belief before he gave belonging to them.
[00:24:07] So if doubt is the barrier today, I've got great news. You can belong even as you doubt.
[00:24:14] Maybe the barrier between you and God's presence today is shame or feeling of unworthiness.
[00:24:23] And as I said, we are fully known by God and fully loved. And if that shame has kept you from experiencing something in God's presence today, and just know, I'm going to pray for you, that that shame would cede control over your life and your direction, that you would be able to embrace the way that God sees you today.
[00:24:45] Maybe it's a fear that you'll never really fit in.
[00:24:49] You feel alone, man. My prayer is that we would find belonging for everyone who's hurting, everyone who's isolated that comes through these doors.
[00:25:02] Because I think that's what Jesus would do.
[00:25:06] And, you know, I think Peter experienced a lot of these emotions, too. His story's, you know, all up and down. He has good moments where he's like, you know, getting things that none of the other disciples are getting. He's understanding better than everybody else. And then he has moments where he's just out there and Jesus is shaking his head and he gets rebuked more by Jesus than any of the other disciples.
[00:25:32] And yet it's Peter who Jesus turns to and says, I'm going to build my church actually on you, Peter.
[00:25:38] So I think that for those of us who don't feel the most consistent or faithful in our walk with Jesus, that Jesus has a great deal of kindness to extend today, that the kingdom of God comes to find us because Jesus is coming to find us.
[00:26:01] So what is our response? How do we respond to this in the Gospel of Mark. There's really three simple things that were the response of those who experienced Jesus as he taught and healed and preached. First was to repent. Repentance can sound like a very antiquated religious word. Really all it means is if you're walking one way, turn around and see what's there, that God has come close.
[00:26:30] It's a turning towards the presence of God. And it requires no great labor to get somewhere. It doesn't require a certain destination to be achieved. It simply requires a turning. I think that is such a beautiful invitation for all of us if we're headed in the wrong direction, to simply turn and face the coming of God's goodness and his reign and rule in our hearts. Second was to believe. He asked us to believe not because it's the default or the natural thing to do, but because at some point we have to choose and say, God, I want to believe. Help my unbelief. This can happen even alongside doubts. And number three is to follow to do something about it.
[00:27:11] Faith is really poor and underdeveloped when it just lives in our heads.
[00:27:18] An intellectual only kind of belief in Jesus is good, but it's not at all.
[00:27:25] It's not the whole thing.
[00:27:27] This faith is an embodied one. This faith is one that requires us to walk into places that we wouldn't have walked otherwise. It requires us to integrate practices in our lives that we just wouldn't normally do.
[00:27:41] It calls us to pray prayers that we wouldn't pray. It calls us to meditate on God's presence in ways that we wouldn't have before. To follow Jesus is to do the kinds of things that Jesus did. And so today our invitation is maybe one of those three, maybe it's all three of those, but that we would respond to the call of Jesus.
