Mark's Gospel Part 25 - Christ, Our Obedient Saviour

Rob Hudson, our guest speaker from St Peter's Harold Wood, continues this series from Mark's Gospel.

This sermon is from Sunday 20th July 2025.

The bible reference is Mark 14v26-42

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Green greetings, comes and pieces. So those who know us and those of you who don't, we are gospel partners. We pray for you regularly and it's a joy to be in partnership together. And I'm good to bring God's word to us this morning. So I'm going to read from Mark's Gospel. You'll find that in your order of service, or in the Bible if you've got one. Mark 14, and I'm going to start reading from verse 26. Mark chapter 14, starting at verse 26. Speaking of Jesus and his disciples. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said to them, You will all fall away. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter said to him, Even though they all fall away, I will not. And Jesus said to him, Truly I tell you, this very night before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. But he said emphatically, If I must die with you, I will not deny you. And they all said the same. And they went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. And going to the father, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet, not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough, the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Right, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Thank the Lord for his word to us. Our eldest daughter followed secondary school last September. She had to travel to Breadwood, so she had to travel one stop month on the train to get there. Now for the first week, I did that journey with her, and then after that, we just sort of waited off the front door and left her to it. It felt terrifying for us, not for her. She was very pleased to have more independence to get the train by herself over enough things we do. And she said what we all know that that is what maturity looks like for young people, isn't it? As they grow, they become more independent, that they begin to stand on their own two feet. And because we know that that is what maturity looks like for children as they grow, we easily assume that it looks the same for Christians as we grow. More maturity, more ability to stand on my own two feet in this Christian life. But for Christians, that is deadly. And Mark 14 shows us a different way. The big message of this passage, and you can follow along in the loose outline of your book if you want, the big message of the passage is that Jesus is the perfect saviour for sinners. Jesus is the perfect saviour for sinners. We're going to spend most of our time really gazing at Christ this morning, and then we'll draw some applications towards the end. Jesus is the perfect sinner for saviours. Why? Well, first, because he controls events, as Will was praying at the start of the service. He was recognizing that we don't control events, and hence why we're in this room this morning. Well, Jesus controls events. Now, if you've been here in recent weeks, you'll know where we are in the story. We're on the last night before Jesus is crucified. He's just had supper with his disciples. And now in you can head out to a place locally called the Mount of Olives. In a few hours' time, Jesus is going to be arrested, condemned to death, and killed. And it's going to look when that happens for all the world, as though his accuses, the bad guys, are in charge. It's going to look like that for all the world, but that appearance will be deceiving. Mark wants us to see that it's Jesus in control of all the events here. So have a look at verse 27 again. Jesus says to the disciples, you will all fall away. When he's arrested, that's what he says is going to happen. They're all going to run away from him, scared. No way will that happen, Jesus, verse 31. But just jump ahead a little bit. If you've got a Bible, I realize some of you perhaps haven't. Verse 50 of the same chapter says this. After Jesus is arrested, and they all left him and fled. Just like Jesus said. For Peter, though, things get worse. He insists, you notice that he at least will not leave Jesus. But verse 30, Jesus said to him, Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. And if you have got a Bible, you can go on to the very end of the chapter and verse 72. And you'll see there, once again, Jesus is right. Now notice verse 28. Jesus, still talking to the disciples, he says this after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. That is an extraordinary verse. I mean, it trips from the tongue, it reads normally to us. It's an extraordinary thing to say. Jesus knows that he's about to be killed tomorrow. What's he doing in verse 28? He's making plans for the week after. Now that is either the action of someone who is crazy or someone who is in complete control of events. Even the event of his own death and what happens next.

unknown: 7:49

It's one of those two, and we know it's the second one.

SPEAKER_00: 7:52

Jesus in complete control of everything because that planmates in verse 28 happens. Accorded for us in Matthew's Gospel, the end of Matthew 28. He meets the disciples in Galilee, just like he says he will, a week after he's killed. A week again, and able to meet with them and speak with them there. What we're supposed to be picking up on this, friends, is that Jesus controls events. At the very moment when it looks like things are most out of control, Jesus is absolutely in control. And that makes him the perfect savior for us. Because it means that we can be sure nothing can stop Jesus from keeping all his promises to us. If even killing him couldn't stop him, if even his own death couldn't throw his plans for the next week out of Kilta, you can be absolutely certain that nothing else possibly can. I don't know what you worry about at times. Global warming, nuclear war, failing your exams, losing your job, losing your health. Nothing can possibly stop Jesus from saving you and holding you fast and keeping every promise he makes to you alive. We are surprised and blown around by events, having to remove location at the last minute, but Jesus is not. Circumstances get too big for us. Maybe you feel a little bit of that this morning, and you never get too big for him. And that means he is the perfect savior for sinners like us because he controls, or we can't control it, he controls events. And second, because he obeys the Father. Because he obeys the Father. As his death brought near Jesus is in emotional torments. Have a look at verses 33 and 34. Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. Let's keep going. And going to the Father, he fell on the ground and prayed that if possible, the hour, he means his death on the cross, might pass from him. And he said, Habba, Father. Abba means father in Aramaic, Abba, Father. All things are possible to you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. He knows he's going to rise again on the third day. There's nothing else troubling him, and he tells us what it is. There in verse 36. It's what he calls his cup. The cup is a picture in the Bible, it's come up a number of times in the Bible before this point. A picture of God's just anger and our sin. It symbolizes God's fiery judgment on sinners. And Jesus knows that he has to drink it all to the last drop, this cup of God's right anger and sin. He's going to the cross for that reason to carry our sin, to bear our punishment, to face the divine anger that we should face. And while I and perhaps you often make light of our sin, thinking that little thing is not a big deal. Jesus knows better. Jesus knows that our sin and God's judgment on sinners is overwhelmingly awful. Do you notice that in what Jesus is saying here? This, if I can put it this way, daunts Jesus. This weighs heavily on the Son of God. Our sin and God's punishment that follows. Let us not fall into the trap of thinking it's only a small thing. It's not that big a deal. He won't really follow through. Jesus sees this clearly, and yet, seeing that, seeing that carp, he says, not what I will, but what you will, Father. The Father wills Jesus to go to the cross for us. Why he was sent. And Jesus chooses to obey his father even in death, even to death. And that makes him the perfect Savior for sinners like you and me, because I often don't obey the Father. Sometimes Christians think that the good news of Jesus is that his death wipes our slate clean. Sin cancelled. We get given a fresh start. Maybe you've heard that, thought that, said that is true. And it's good. But it's not nearly enough. That'll be like my six-year-old coming in from her mud kitchen with a filthy t-shirt. I take it off, stick it in the wash, give her a clean t-shirt, and she heads straight back up to her mud kitchen again. If Jesus just gives you and me a clean slate, well, I'll muck it up again within minutes. And if that's how the Christian life works, clean slate, mucked up, clean slate, mucked up, I will feel that God's moves towards me depends on how clean my t-shirt is at any given moment. Maybe God's happy with me on Tuesday morning and angry with me by lunchtime. Instead of all that, Jesus gives us his t-shirt. And he's got a special t-shirt that can never get mucky. It is perfectly clean forever. He dresses us in his t-shirt, his mud-proof t-shirt, his sin-proof clothing. He gives us his obedience, his perfect record of obeying the Father. Not that we cannot sin, of course we can, but that we are clothed in the sinless one. Clothed in the perfect obedience of Jesus. Even in Gethsemane is perfect, it's obedience of Christ. And that makes him the perfect Savior for sinners. Because it means that in Jesus, if your faith is in Jesus, God is always perfectly delighting in you. He's always perfectly delighting in you. Jesus is the perfect savior for sinners because he knows us. Let's just zoom out from our passage for a moment and turn back to verse 18. If you've got a Bible with you, don't work, I'll read it to you. Jesus and his disciples are sitting down to supper, they're climbing at the table and eating, and Jesus says to them, Truly I say to you, one of you twelve will betray me, one who is eating with me. That's the bombshell that Jesus drops at dinner. And if you know the story at all, you'll note he's talking about a man called Judas Isarius, one of the twelve disciples who will go on to betray Jesus in a couple of hours' time. Now let's look at how our passage starts with verse 27 of Mark 14. Once again, Jesus said to them, You will all fall away. Verse 30, Peter, you will deny me, Jesus says, three times. Can you see what's happening? Mark is giving us a sandwich. He's giving us a sandwich structure. Now, and when we um preach the Bible, we have to top it up into smaller bits, and uh there's no perfect way of doing that. And this sandwich happens to straddle two patches, two weeks that you've spent uh here at ICV. But it's important for us to see because we're drawing together for Mark, he's giving us this sandwich I mean, he's giving us two doses of disciples failing GS. Disciples betraying and denying Jesus. That happens twice. Two, if you like, slices of bread, both the same, but with something else in the middle, like a sandwich. That's where the idea comes from. We're going to see what's in the middle of the sandwich in a minute. But first, notice this bread, these two bits that are the same. Jesus, seeing that his disciples will betray and deny and fail him. That starts and ends this little section around the Lord's supper. That's what Jesus had his eyes on at this moment in the story, and that is when Jesus chooses to die for his people. He sees them. He sees us too. He knows exactly what we're like. Nothing we do ever takes Jesus by surprise. None of our sin is unexpected by him. That means there's no point hiding our sin from Jesus, and there's no need to hide our sin from Jesus. He sees it already, and he chooses to love us anyway. What's that wonderful verse in Romans 5? God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The most powerful moment of Christ's love comes at the lowest moment of his disciples' faithfulness. And that is why Jesus is a perfect Savior for sinners like us. No matter what sin we do, no matter how badly we mess up, no matter how deep we fall, Jesus' love is deeper. It has plumbed the debts, whatever debts we might suit to. Sometimes as Christians, we talk as if we disappoint Jesus when we sin. As if when I sin, I'm letting God down. Like God had high hopes, but I dashed them again by sinning. But the Bible doesn't quite talk that way. Because in Christ, God's view of you does not go up and down like the roller coaster. High hopes one day you dashed by our sin the next. The Bible says God's love is steadfast and sure. You don't let him down, he holds you up. Our sin is a problem in all sorts of ways as Christians. But it does not send God careering emotionally in his relation to us. He already knows all of your sin, past, present, anyone you haven't done yet. And he chooses to love you. He saw it all before he went to the cross. The moment of his most profound love is the moment of their most profound failure. That is how he loves us. He's the perfect Savior for sinners because he knows us and loves us because he gives us himself. So when you see a sandwich in the Bible, always ask what's in the middle. That's why this structure is used, to draw attention to the bit in the middle, the filling of the sandwich. So, surrounded by these two slices of disciples failing Jesus before the supper and after, we find that the supper itself, the Lord's Supper, the Last Supper, the passage you saw last week for here, is the filling in this sandwich. And what's happening at the Last Supper? It's a moment when Jesus explains that he is going to give his very self for disciples like them and like you and I this morning. His very self, his body, his blood, himself given for us. Now I'm going to assume that that idea is familiar to most people here. But if it is, don't skip over this crucial point. Salvation is not a treat in Jesus' cupboard that he pulls out for us, like I pull out the biscuits if things are kicking off our home. Jesus doesn't save us by giving us something he has in the locker. Jesus saves us by giving us who he is himself. He gives up himself in his death, and he gives us himself in his resurrection life. What's on offer in Christianity, if I can put it that way, what's on offer in the Christian faith is Jesus. You get Jesus. Forgiveness and transformation and eternal life, they are not the headline. They're not the best bits. They're pretty good, and they're all true, but they are all a consequence of getting Jesus himself. When you trust Jesus, you get eternal life, not as some sort of special reward or treasure, but because Jesus is eternal life. And you get him. He is the great treasure. And he's perfect. And you see that here. In the midst of this most brutal email in his life. He's perfect. That's very nice our simpleness. That's very nice our simpleness. Jesus does. Jesus knows us inside out. When he tells Peter that they will all fall away in verse 27, Peter should believe him, right? But he doesn't. Even though they all fall away, Jesus, I will. It's not a good idea to contradict Jesus. That's what Peter does. Even though they all fall away, I will not. And here's the thing: Peter's not faking that. That's not simply bravado. He really means what he says in the moment he says it in verse 29 and in verse 31. Jesus makes that clear in a moment. We'll see that. Peter's not faking it, but he is overconfident. He basically thinks he's the exception to the rule. Even though they may all fall away, I can believe it without a lot, I won't. I'm the exception to the rule, says Peter. And neither of you. And neither am I. Jesus says in verse 38, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Peter didn't really need what he says. But Jesus says to him, Peter, you don't realize how weak and sinful you are. In other words, be realistic. You and I, we need to watch and pray that we may not enter into temptation. That is how Jesus applies this to Peter and James and John. He's saying, we are weaker than we think. We are more sinful than we realize. So be realistic about yourself. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Notice that. And that's what Jesus does not say. He doesn't say pray for strength to resist temptation. It's not a bad thing to pray for, and at times we need it, but it's not what he says here. Face with disciples like us and like them. He says, watch and pray, but you don't even go there in the first place. You don't even enter into temptation in the first place. Why? Because you are weaker than you realize. You cannot handle as much as you think you can. And so in the Lord's ground that we prayed earlier, Jesus says, pray like this. Lead us not into temptation into a time of testing. Now, I trust that you pray that. Can I ask, do you act like you want that? Do you flee temptation? Which is the Bible's command a little bit later on? You run away from it when you see it on the horizon. Did you actively seek to avoid the wrong crowd? The late-night phone usage, the 18 certificate film, whatever it might be for you. You run away before it gets there. And I'm sure Christian sees more his own weakness. Trust himself less in temptation. So let's recognize our sinfulness. And sometimes finally, let's depend on our Savior. Let's depend on our Saviour. In stark contrast to his failing disciples, Jesus shines very brightly here, doesn't he? He's the perfect Savior for sinners. He is enough for failures. And as we look at this passage, and as he points us to the cross that's about to come, we see our salvation must be all his work. It's got to be a hundred percent Jesus and 0% us. Because look at us, look at them. Look at Jesus. 100% Jesus, 0% us. But when we then say, so we depend upon Jesus, that does not mean Jesus does not mean the Christian life is sit, I can do that. That's not what it means to depend on Jesus. In this passage, it means watch and pray. So Jesus says, depending on him, depending on the Lord means watching and praying. Lots of people have said, the things I pray about are the things I think I need God's help with. The things I don't pray about are the things I think I can manage on my own. But if we're realistic, we realize there's nothing we can manage on our own. Jesus says, without him, we can do nothing. Friends, we should pray for very many reasons. Out of love for the God that we get to talk to, out of obedience to the Lord who commands us to, but also we ought to pray out of a sense of desperate need. The mature Christian is more aware of her weakness and sin, and so is quicker to pray, quicker to depend on Jesus in prayer. We need Jesus, and we express that need mostly by praying. So let me ask you this to you. And it's a question that I have my heart to ask myself. If someone could see your whole week, how much would it look like you need Jesus? What does it all more like look like that really needs Jesus? That's fine. This is what maturity looks like as a Christian. Not growing independence like our children. A dark night of human sin and weakness and failure. And I pray that we feel something of that darkness inside ourselves because we sin and we fail to. We thank you that into the darkness shines the perfect Savior, the Lord Jesus. Just ideally suited to be the Savior for people like us. Perfect for the job we so desperately need. Glorious in every perfection. Tailored for us. We asked that as we see more of what we are like from your word by your spirit. We risk lean, run, depend more and more, more quickly on the Lord Jesus.

unknown: 30:56

We pray in his name. Amen.