July 12 "When Bad News Is the Best News Ever" (Mark 8:31-33)

Pastor Jeff Manning continues the series, Mark: Living With Gospel Urgency

Transcript

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Mark chapter 8. My title this morning is When Bad News is the best news ever. April 13th, 1970. The crew of Apollo 13 radioed a message that probably all of us have heard. We've heard it repeatedly. Houston, we have a problem. Their oxygen tank exploded. It crippled the lunar module. It would prevent them from going on to land on the moon. And of course, all of America is collectively holding their breath, wondering, will these astronauts make it back home? So when they said, Houston, we have a problem, that was some of the worst news they could have possibly shared back at Houston at the headquarters. And so that put the thinking mind, the engineers back at uh control center, along with the astronauts, trying to figure out how in the world can we possibly get our astronauts back home. Well, thankfully, four days later, they did make it back. They splashed down, all were safe and sound. And so what had been some of the worst news ever, and what was close to being one of the worst events in NASA's history turned out to be one of its proudest moments. A moment where ingenuity and problem solving was absolutely excellent news. Well, we're going to hear Jesus share some bad news that will turn out to be some of the best news ever. You're probably familiar with the phrase the passion of Christ. That is a theological term that we have assigned to the last week of Christ's life before his crucifixion. The word passion comes from a Latin word, and it's a word that describes everything that Jesus experienced from the Garden of Gethsemane until the cross, going up the Via della Rosa and dying for our sins. In our biblical text this morning, Jesus is going to talk about his passion. And when the disciples hear it, all they hear is bad, bad news. Listen to what Jesus said, Mark chapter 8, verse 31 and 32. And he, Jesus, began to teach them that the Son of God must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise again. And he said this plainly. Now, before we launch further into the text, I want to draw two things to your attention. First, it says that Jesus began to teach about his passion. He would talk about this over and over and over again. There are at least three distinct places in Mark's gospel alone where Jesus pretty much says the same thing. One of the reasons why Jesus would have to repeat this is because it just didn't make any sense. The disciples, all of Israel, all they had ever thought coming from the Old Testament scriptures and what it had to say about the Messiah, all they thought it represented was the establishment of a kingdom and the elimination of their tyranny that they were experiencing under Roman oppression. And so Jesus, they're just not going to get it. And so he began to teach about this, and he will do it over and over again. Notice with me, lastly, at the very end of the phrase, or the very end of these verses, he spoke this, he said this plainly. Now, this is not the very first time Jesus says anything about his passion. He's talked about it before, but it was kind of veiled. There was on one occasion when Jesus said, Listen to me, just as Jonah was in the great in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. He's talking about his death and his burial, but they didn't get it. On another occasion, Jesus is talking to the temple authorities, and he said, Tear down this temple in three days I will build it again. They mistakenly thought he was talking about the literal temple, but he was talking about his body, the temple. So now, Jesus, for the first time, as Mark's gospel records it, he's being very plain. We're not using any figurative language, we're peeling back all the curtains, we're peeling the onions. Plain English. There are certain things that are going to happen to me, and I'm going to tell you plainly what those things are. And so, with that clarity in Jesus' teaching, I want to spend the next however many minutes sharing with you six characteristics of Christ's passion. Now, folks, as we go through this, I don't want this just to be mental. Our passage is so theologically rich. Um, the passion of Jesus is so theologically deep, we can't fully comprehend it. We'll we'll learn that in a minute. But just think about this as we go through it. We're not just describing an historical event, we are describing the greatest series of events in human history. What we're about to read about and study, it makes salvation possible. It gives us a reason for existing, it gives us hope beyond the grave. So, first, the first characteristic of Christ's compassion just knows with me simply the necessity of it. The necessity of it. Jesus said the Son of Man must suffer many things. The word must, it carries over and describes everything that he's going to be talking about. He must suffer many things. He must be rejected. He must be killed. Now, the reason why all of this must happen, it's not we're not talking about just possibilities, we're talking about certainties. The reason that these things must happen is because before the foundation of the world, God the Father saw Jesus slain, saw Jesus shedding his life's blood to make atonement for us. Prophecies, they're all over our New Testament scriptures. And when God says, I'm going to do something, guess what? It's going to happen. It must happen. So these are divine necessities. Just listen to a couple of incredible scriptures that talk about just the necessity of all that Jesus is saying. Acts 2, verses 22 and 23. Here Peter proclaims that Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. And he's speaking to his Jewish fellow people, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Peter and John, speaking as one voice, in Acts 4, verses 27 and 28, proclaim, for truly, in this city, the city of Jerusalem, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Patius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. Oh, they were wicked. They were culpable. They did what they wanted to do, but without being aware of it, all of it was a part of God's divine majestic plan to redeem humanity. These things must happen. And from our perspective, 2,000 years later, they did happen exactly like God said that they would. Now, when Jesus said he must suffer many things, it's easy for us just to focus on the cross and we're and we're going to look at that. But Jesus suffered a lot of stuff. He suffered Judas's betrayal, three years of investing in his life, and then Judas betrayed him. In his weakest moments, when he needed the camaraderie of his inner circle, his disciples the most, they all deserted him. There's the mock trial, there are the lies. There's the scourging. There's the crown of thorns. There's the mockery, there's the spear. Jesus must suffer many things, and I didn't even mention the worst suffering. We'll get to that in just a moment. Secondly, notice with me the hostility of Christ's passion, the hostility of it. So Jesus said, I must, I must, these things must happen. I must be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes. So imagine a young man thinking that he's under no danger, swimming where he is, and then all of a sudden, imagine, like some of us maybe have experienced off our own state's coast, that undercurrent. And man, sometimes that current can be powerful. And this young man, strong though he might be, that current begins to take him under. And a lifeguard is being very observant, sees what's taking place, realizes swims out to him. I mean, he's about, hey, stop, stop fighting, man. I'm here to save you. Trust me, trust me, just stop, trust me, I'm here to save you. How foolish would it be for that man to say, man, just leave me alone. I don't need your help. I can save myself. But that's essentially what the religious leadership of Israel did. We don't need Jesus to save us. We can save ourselves. And they ended up in their rejection, drowning, if you will, in their own sins. Man, such hostility. They hated him. They loved the notoriety. They loved the publicity. They loved the praise of men. And all of a sudden, Jesus, the new guy in town, the Son of God, is doing miraculous things, drawing attention to himself, and they couldn't stand it. And so they rejected him. Did you know that North Carolina is the leading producer of sweet potatoes in this country? You're probably thinking that sounds kind of random. Hold on. Did you know that 60% of all sweet potatoes grown in this country or grown in our state, we've been the leader, the leading sweet potato grower since 1971. Our own Michael Hill, Michael and Jimmy Hill, Michael is a sweet potato farmer. And he was showing me after the first service a video clip of the production that they have there at his farm. These sweet potatoes, by however many thousands of pounds are gathered, and they go through the process of being filtered, if you will. And whether visualizing and hand picking sweet potatoes out that are rejects, they've also got this optical machine. And I can't remember now how many, how many lenses he said. I think he wanted to say, I think he said something like 250,000 cameras or just analyzing those potatoes. And they're analyzing them if they've got cuts or nicks or if they're odd shaped, rejected, rejected, rejected. If you've gotten sweet potatoes from publics, you probably got them from Michael Hill's farm. That's where a lot of his go. But think about those rejects. The religious leadership of Israel rejected Jesus about like a sweet potato. He did not fit their preference for a Messiah. And so they rejected him. Have any of you rejected him? Are any of you in the process of rejecting Jesus? I'm telling you. The religious leaders would pay the price for that with their souls, and so will you if you stay in a state of rejection of Jesus. A third characteristic of Christ's passion. Let's just focus on the agony of it. The agony of it. So we're told here that Jesus, the Messiah, must be killed. It does not say Jesus would die of old age. It does not say he would die of renal failure. It does not say he would die of a brain tumor. No, he would be killed. Murdered. You've probably heard of Belle Gibson's 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ. Probably a number of you have watched the movie. When The Passion of the Christ came out back in 2004, it was met with quite a bit of resistance for two reasons. Number one, some people were just completely taken aback at how violent it was. Other people were taken aback because they viewed it as being anti-Semitic. Now, I've not seen it, and that that's it's not for any kind of a principled reason. I just I just have never watched it. But I've had some of you tell me about your experience watching it. Now look, I do not know how close Mel Gibson was able to portray the physiological agony that Jesus went through, but I do know two things. Number one, his death on the cross and the process thereof was violent. It was violent. But number two, Mel Gibson, nor not even the scriptures, not even, hear me out, not even the scriptures can fully portray to us what happened when Jesus on the cross cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We can't fully comprehend that. That's when he who knew no sin became sin for us, then we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Folks, there on the cross, God the Father in His holy, righteous, hot wrath, punished Jesus as if he had told all your lies, if if he had committed all your sexual immorality, if if he had spoken all your curse words, if he was guilty of all your anger, all your pettiness. God the Father treated Jesus like he'd committed all our sins so that we could be treated as if we were the righteous Son of God ourselves. It's not possible for us to comprehend that Jesus, the God man, could experience the equivalency of an eternity in hell for us so that we could enjoy the realities of an eternity in heaven with him. Oh, folks, the agony of it. When it says that he must be killed, don't think just about the blood and the broken body and the bloodshed. Think about him who knew no sin, becoming sin. He was never a sinner, but praise God, he was our sin bearer. And what agony he experienced doing that for us. No wonder that even despite adverse circumstances, we can sing, it is well with my soul. It's all made possible because of the agony that Jesus experienced. So that we won't ever experience it. A fourth characteristic of Christ's passion: the victory of it. The victory of it. He must suffer many things. And he, after three days, must rise again. You see, Jesus had to die. He had to absorb God's righteous wrath. It was the only way of salvation, the only way possible. He must suffer many things, must be rejected, must be killed, and he also must rise from the dead. And God's people said, to the fact that he did rise from the dead. Oh, he died. A very violent death, but he didn't stay dead. And because he lives, we who know him can face tomorrow. A fifth characteristic of Christ's suffering or his passion, the absurdity of it. Now notice I've got absurdity in quotation marks. The absurdity of it. Verse 32. And Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him. Peter, here's what Jesus has said, he thinks is one of the most absurd things he's ever heard. Matthew tells us a little bit more. Matthew 16, 22, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you. Now, in my sanctified imagination, here's what I see taking place. Jesus says that, and Peter and disciples look at each other like, What? And I can almost see like Peter saying, Hey, hold on, I got this. Jesus, come here for a minute. And I can see come over here. Come here. Um, Jesus, I I I I don't know where in the world you're getting this notion from, but I'm just here to tell you, that ain't gonna happen. You're talking about dying? That's not gonna happen on my watch. And folks, I do believe that Peter loved Jesus and had good intentions behind what he said. Those good intentions, misplaced, but good intentions, they would also rise again at the end of the Garden of Gethsemane scene when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, and man, old Peter, I tell you what, I'm gonna take somebody's head off to protect my Savior. And instead, Malchus ducks and takes his ear off. And so Peter here is rebuking Jesus. That's the same word we've seen on at least two other occasions in Mark's gospel when Jesus rebuked demons and denounced them. Peter rebuking Jesus, the one who's never ever needed rebuking, not even by his parents. And Peter's going to rebuke him. What gall, what gall for him to do that? Oh, and for clarity, um when Peter said what he said, he was thinking the same way the whole nation of Israel was thinking. This idea of Jesus suffering and dying was completely out of sync with human reasoning. Think about it. Why would who who would design a method of saving the world that would include disaster, despair, and death? No one except God. And that's why Peter and all of Israel pictured the Messiah coming as a political ruler to deliver Israel from Roman tyranny. You see, Peter pictured a Psalm II Messiah, who would come and be installed as king upon Zion, the Messiah who would come and break his enemies with a rod of iron, the Messiah who would come and shatter his enemies like clay pots, the Messiah who would come in his righteous wrath and fury and right all wrongs. Peter, he pictured the Isaiah 9 Messiah, the Messiah who would be the mighty God and sit on the throne of David and rule with justice and righteousness. Peter pictured the Psalm 110 Messiah, who would have all his enemies placed as a footstool under his feet, the Messiah who would rule in the midst of his enemies and shatter kings on the day of his wrath. Now, folks, all of those prophecies, they're going to be fulfilled. One day, the lowly Jesus, who suffered and was killed on the cross of Calvary, he is going to rule and reign forever. But that's not the reason that he came the first time. That's not the reason he came the first time. The first time he came, in the perfect sovereign will of God, he came to suffer many things, be rejected, and be killed to make atonement for our sins. So think about this a king who dies is not what they expected, it's not what they wanted, but it Is however what they desperately needed. And so, therefore, Jesus knowing what they needed, God the Father from the foundation of the world, knowing what we would need, therefore, Jesus is painting himself as the Isaiah 53 Messiah. The suffering servant, the one who was despised and rejected by men, the one who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, the one who was oppressed and afflicted, the one who was pierced for our transgressions, the one who was crushed for our iniquities, the one who was cut off from the land of the living. That's who Jesus was on his first coming. Isaiah 53, Messiah. Peter didn't understand this, neither did any of the other disciples. And so when Jesus started applying these suffering servant prophecies to himself, they were shocked. It made no sense. Furthermore, furthermore, they understood that if Jesus is going to be mocked and scorned and mistreated and killed, we probably will be too. And they didn't want any part of that. And so Peter rebuked Jesus, expecting him to change course. What Jesus said must happen, Peter said must not happen. And the same Peter who said you are the Christ is now implying you are crazy. And this does not need to happen. Oh my dear friends, don't ever think that you know better than God does about anything. Don't ever ask the Lord to fit your agenda, instead, humbly submit to his about everything. You see, Peter the clay talks to Jesus as though he knows better than he does, and he's the potter. But we sometimes do the same thing. Do you ever question God's timing? God seems to delay his answer, and you assume he's either late or maybe he has completely forgotten you. God, you should have answered by now. And frankly, if we we don't say it this bluntly, but do we ever think in the privacy of our own heart and mine, if I if I had it my way, things would be different. Do you ever question God's allowance of suffering in your life? You see, it's amazing how when we're healthy and prosperous, man, thank you, Lord, you've been so good. And yet when the health breaks or the finances or alters, like, God, what in the world are you doing? We're clay people. We're not the potter. Do you ever do you obey the commands that you like and ignore the difficult ones? The ones like forgive people who've mistreated you, regardless of how hard it is? Like, do you do you think you know better than the Lord about sexual purity and generosity? Do you sometimes kind of just follow your heart and you just do what you think is right, forgetting that your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and cannot be fully trusted? Do you ever buy the same lie that Adam and Eve did? That God's holding out on you? And then if you keep trying to be a good little boy, a good little Christian, a good student, a good whatever that God's holding out on you if you keep living like that? And why don't you go ahead and bite the fruit? Do you ever make decisions without praying, plan your future without seeking God's direction? Do you ever trust your own abilities instead of trusting Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do you reject God's teaching about marriage? Sexuality, gender, the sanctity of human life? You see, whenever you believe your wisdom is superior to God's word, and your plan is better than God's plan, or your timing is wiser than God's timing, you're standing right where Peter is in Mark 8 rebuking Jesus. I know better than you do. May the Lord help us to not be that way. Peter well-intentioned, but he's thinking according to the ways of man, not according to the ways of God. So how did Jesus respond to this rebuke of Peter? In a way Peter would never forget. Look at verse 33. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. I don't care if Peter would have had 117 spoonfuls of sugar, this would not have tasted good. Folks, these are the harshest words Jesus ever spoke to one of his followers. Most of the other harshest things he said were for the religious frauds, the scribes and the Pharisees. Peter loved Jesus, and Jesus knew that, but get behind me, Peter. Get behind me, Satan. Harshest words. Now for clarity, Jesus did not say, Peter, get away from me. No, he said, get behind me. In other words, I must needs go to Jerusalem. I am going to go to Jerusalem. I will go. I will suffer, etc., etc., etc. You need to get behind me, get out of the way, stop impeding the fulfillment of God's will for my life. Now, who's the last person in the world you'd expect to be guilty of name calling? It'd be Jesus, right? When it comes to name calling, it takes me back to a midsummer's day when I was about 12-ish. And if I was about 12-ish, my brother Rex would have been about eight-ish. And on this particular Midsummer's day, Rex has been calling me names. And in the brother hierarchy, you don't do that and get away with it. So after calling me the name that he called me, I still remember it, but I'm not going to repeat it. Would not be suitable for a Sunday morning sermon. I body slammed him. WWE, baby. He got up, called me another name, I body slammed him again. Now he's kind of gotten wimpy and crying on me, and he walks out of the den into the kitchen. I thought, that's right. Next thing I know, Rex comes back in. He had opened one of the drawers in the kitchen. He had grabbed a steak knife. He came back in, I'll never forget it. I'll cut you, man. I'll cut you. You do it again, I'll cut you. So Rex and I, we refrained from name-calling and body slamming from that day forward. Here, Jesus calls Peter Satan. Why would Jesus say, get behind me Satan? Because Peter unwittingly is acting a lot like the devil. We already saw this in Mark's gospel. Jesus begins his earthly ministry. There's the 40-day of fasting, and Satan tempts him, obviously with lies, but he tempts him, if you will bow down to me, I'll give you it all. The whole world, the whole universe will be your kingdom. In other words, let's bypass the Via della Rosa. Let's bypass suffering. Let's just wear a crown by flexing your muscles and worshiping me. And that's basically what Peter was doing. Let's just bypass the cross. Let's bypass suffering. Just flex your muscles and establish your kingdom. And that's not what Christ came to do. So would Jesus give you a similar rebuke today? For focusing on the things of man rather than the things of God? Can I ask you, what's your chief concern? Are you preoccupied with the things of the world instead of the things of God? Are you seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness or your own kingdom and the establishment of it? Is there some priority that drives you, some ambition that compels you, or some earthly goal to which you're devoting all of your energy or a large part of it and giving God hardly any? Finally, let's conclude with the beauty of Christ's passion, the beauty of it. So, Lord willing, in a few weeks, Jennifer and the kids and grandkids and I, we're going to take our annual beach vacation. And I can assure you that unless it is super cloudy all week long, Jennifer is going to come back, and her camera roll is going to have scores of pictures of sunrises and sunsets. They are beautiful. She loves them. Jennifer and I, we we've been privileged, thankful to see some of the beauty of God's creation, like at Banff, some of the national parks we've been to, Hawaii's Oceans, Denali National Park, per your graciousness just a few weeks ago. Beautiful. Jennifer, my wife, beautiful. Inside and out. But now, folks, I don't think there's anything more beautiful than forgiveness of sin and salvation that comes to people who put their faith and trust in Jesus. Is there anything more beautiful than that? Think about the beauty that is described in those concepts. Colossians chapter 1, verse 13 and 14. God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Psalm 103, verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, all those sins I've committed, he's separated me from them as far as the east is from the west. Romans 8, verse 1, there is now no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus. Man. How beautiful will it be to hear our name called when the role is called of yonder, right? So let me tell you about a young woman in 2015, a young woman by the name of Heather Krueger. She received devastating news. She was dying from liver failure. And she would die within however many months unless she had someone to donate a part of their liver. Unfortunately, nobody in her family, extended family, were a match. So at her place of work, a guy by the name of Chris, he doesn't even hardly know who she is. He overhears co-workers talking about her health crisis and her need of a liver transplant. He thought, well, I wonder, I wonder if I wonder if I'd be a match. He goes through the extensive testing. Lo and behold, he was. So Chris, somebody who hardly knew Heather, donated a part of his liver to her. The surgery was a smashing success. Both of them recovered well from the surgeries. And over the next approximately 18 months, when they're kind of rehabbing together, little sparks started flying. And next thing you know, Chris goes from being a donator of his liver to asking her to be his bride. And they got married. Now, imagine how foolish would it have been if Heather would have said to Chris, I don't know you. I don't know you. I don't, I'm not accepting what you're offering me. If that had happened and no other donor had come into play, she would have died and she would not have had a husband. And yet, there are some people who reject Jesus. I don't know you, I don't need you. And if they die that way, they forfeit having Christ as their heavenly husband and they perish for all eternity. People are doing that to Jesus all day, every day. Don't be one of them. My assumption is that on a Sunday morning like this, like it was in the 9 o'clock service, the vast majority of you probably know Jesus, right? But it's also possible that somebody, somebody in here, somebody watching online, you don't know Christ. The greatest shame in all the world is for Jesus to have experienced his passion to make salvation, the beauty of forgiveness of sins possible, and then you turn it down. So would you put your faith and trust in Christ today, if you don't already? Let's power our heads together. Every head bowed and every eye closed. Just gonna ask a question. If because of the glorious passion of Christ and what he did for you, and you've put your faith and trust in him, if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is your Savior, would you mind just raising your hand? The Bible says, let the redeemer of the Lord say so. If he is, just raise your hand. Alright, just glancing around, you can put them down. It's not, it'd be hard, it'd take a while for me to look real, real closely to see if everybody raised their hands. But if if you did not just raise your hand, A, if you heard my question, you understood it, and you answered correctly that you don't know Christ, thank you for your honesty. And what what about making today the most momentous day of your life? It's wonderful perhaps if you've been married already. It's wonderful if you've got kids or grandkids, or maybe you've graduated from high school. The greatest thing you could ever do is put your faith and trust in Jesus. Think about all that he did for you. Don't push him away. And so, Father, I'm asking you through the convicting, compelling work of your spirit to bring to a saving knowledge anybody in this room, listening online, anybody to a saving knowledge of yourself. Convince them of the truth, convict them of their sins, draw them, Lord, compel them, Lord, I pray. Right now, anybody, would you say, Jeff, would you pray for me? I don't know this savior you've talked about. I need Jesus. I admit my need, and I just want you to pray for me. Anybody just just just raise your hand up long enough for me to see it, then you can put it right back down. Thank you. I appreciate your honesty. Somebody else? Jeff, would you pray for me? I tell you what, let's do this. Okay, I see at least, I've seen more than one hand at least. Right now, I'm I'm gonna pray a sample prayer. We sometimes refer to it as the sinner's prayer. I'm gonna pray at a phrase at a time. And if you will pray that after me, silently, but sincerely, the Bible says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So either of you ladies that I know I saw or anybody else, right now, I'm gonna pray at a phrase that you've got to mean business. You mean business and you pray with me now. The Bible says you'll be saved. Today will be the day of your salvation. Dear Lord Jesus, you you pray that to yourself silently but sincerely, dear Lord Jesus. I admit that I'm a sinner. And Lord, I believe that you did for me what the preacher preached about this morning. I believe you died so that I could be forgiven of my sins. And Lord Jesus, I'm asking you now, please forgive me, please cleanse me, Lord. I accept your sacrifice to make atonement for my sins. I put my faith and trust in you and will do my best to live for you from this day on. In Jesus' name. Amen.