The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God - Brandon Scalf

Heritage Church Tulsa

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Alright everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark, and we will be looking at the first verse again.

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Mark chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. And the title of this evening's message is

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Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible and all -sufficient

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Word. This is the Word of God. The beginning of the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. Amen? Amen.

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Alright, go ahead and put your eyes on verse 1. And as you're doing that,

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I want to remind you something that we picked up on last week, which is this.

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What you believe about Jesus Christ will determine not just this life in here and now, but eternity.

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What you do with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ will be the difference between heaven and hell.

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And here's what you don't get to do. You don't get to just close your ears because the person of Jesus Christ is a weight that is pressed on the world that you live in.

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Everyone does something with Jesus, and the reason for that is because you have to.

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You have to. Every religion has an opinion about him. Every culture seeks to define him.

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And the reality is, every person must reckon with him.

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The reality is, as we examine the Gospels, we're going to see a picture of Jesus that is much different than the way

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Jesus is painted in different churches and in different places.

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Many try to domesticate Jesus, painting him as simply a teacher or a wise philosopher.

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And some, though they can't attempt to ignore him, but are quickly reminded that history is essentially laid out around his birth.

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But the reality is, as Mark is going to show us this evening, indifference is not an option.

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It can't be an option. Mark leaves no room for neutrality because he's going to take

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Jesus and he is going to present him as he is.

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Jesus, the divine son, the anointed Christ, the savior of sinners, and the sovereign king.

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This is Jesus. In fact, the first verse here that we are looking at for a second time really is the original title of this book.

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This book that is filled with the content of Jesus, who he is, and what he has done.

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The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

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And really this title is amazing because it is the gospel of Mark contained in one verse.

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The entire gospel is about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the one who has come, the

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Messiah and the son of God, the one co -equal and co -eternal with the father.

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And he is going to, throughout these 16 chapters, show him off to us.

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Not so that we might be puffed up with more information, but so that we would stand in awe of him.

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And so I want us to look at this text and I want us to break it down. Now, Mark begins,

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John Mark, if you recall, by saying the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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He is starting this gospel. Now last week when we got together, we talked about what gospels were.

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We talked about the reality that they are accounts written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

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The synoptics, of course, being Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because they have overlapping stories, overlapping realities, sometimes from different angles and vantage point, but a lot of similar content.

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Whereas John, no pun intended, is on the island all to himself. He has the most unique story to tell because he's got a very unique purpose and that unique purpose is to show forth the reality that those who have life in the

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Son's name have life. Indeed. And Mark is no different. He has his own purpose, much like John and like Luke, who did it for Theophilus so that he would understand and have a consecutive account of what happened.

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And Mark here is trying to get us to understand that Jesus is the Christ and he is the Son of God.

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And more than that, that he is a man on a mission. Forty -two times the word immediately is used in the book of Mark to show us that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, to be a ransom for many.

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And he came to do it quickly. He came to do it quickly. And the reality is the gospels are much bigger than a biography.

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In fact, they're not biographies really at all. And Mark is the least like a biography in that there is no genealogy, there's nothing to speak of by way of what it looked like when he was growing up.

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Though we know from other gospel accounts he grew up in relative obscurity, hammering alongside

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Joseph, being either a stonemason or a carpenter, and he worked with his hands and nobody knew his name and nobody cared where he had to stay until he was about thirty years old.

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And that's when he began his public ministry. But Mark is not concerned with that. He's concerned about when his ministry started, which really only lasted about three years before Jesus was crucified.

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And here you see the reality that he wants us to understand on the front end that whatever this is, this gospel, it is all about the one we must reckon with.

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The one that everyone has to decide who he is.

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And so this here is not just a gospel, it is the gospel.

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And here that is what's being said. It's not saying that this is another one of those gospels.

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Gospels is just the name that we give these books that speak about who Jesus is.

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But it's actually the gospel of Jesus Christ. This here is speaking of that reality.

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It is the good news of Jesus Christ, in other words. Some of you might be surprised to know that no book was ever written by Jesus and only books were written about Jesus.

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And here Mark tells us that this is the good news about him, the one who had never done any writing and the one who would not do any writing.

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But I want you to understand that this is not just a gospel message, it is the gospel message.

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He begins, once again, by stating that that's what it is. And this phrase here is pregnant with meaning.

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The Greek word here is euangelion, and that literally means good news.

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But what I want you to understand and what Mark is trying to get across to you is that though he is borrowing a word from antiquity that existed long before he came around, he's not just giving any good news.

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He's not giving an update or an opinion, nor is he interested in giving anyone any advice.

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He is declaring the reality of Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God, who he is and what he has done for ill and undeserving sinners.

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So whatever you do with Jesus, make sure that as you form that opinion, you're going to listen to Mark.

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Listen to Mark. So this gospel here, it is more than just a biography, it is a battle cry for the

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Christian. It is a clarion call to every soul under heaven.

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This title here doesn't just introduce the book. It introduces the King. That Jesus Christ himself, and as I said, it doesn't merely begin a biography.

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It heralds salvation for spiritually dead and physically dying sinners.

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And in just a few words here, Mark sets forth the one who stands at the center of human history.

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Now, if you remember this word gospel, that really had to do with a royal announcement.

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So to bolster what I'm saying here, I want you to understand that the gospel, the word, really originated in the

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Roman world where a herald would really come into the city and speak of some sort of great thing that happened in that kingdom, whether that be the birth of a new king or a victory over war.

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And so why did I say it's a battle cry? I say it's a battle cry because Mark is leaning in and he is saying there is a victory that has been won and it has been won by the

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King and his name is Jesus Christ and he is in fact the Son of God.

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And he is not only Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God, but he is the Son of God who brings with him good news and not just any good news, but the good news, the gospel.

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There is not many gospels. There's not one among many, not a version suited to any one particular person.

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There is no second gospel nor are there any alternative paths to salvation.

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So if you want to travel the narrow road, if you want to be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, you have to come to Jesus Christ and you have to believe his good news, his gospel, or else you would be damned for all eternity.

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Any other gospel other than the gospel of Jesus Christ diminishes his work and adds human effort.

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And those types of gospels are no gospel at all. This is why Paul says in the book of Galatians that there are no other gospels.

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Though people in Galatia had been duped into thinking there were other gospels because he says only there are some who are disturbing you, speaking to the

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Galatian church, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. There are people who want to distort the gospel of Christ and Mark wants to clarify the gospel of Jesus Christ because there is one gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God. This is why Paul goes on in Galatians to say that if anyone even speaks or utters another gospel, even if it's him, he says, let them be accursed.

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Let them be damned. It's that serious. And it's that important that we listen to Mark, John Mark, the deserter who needed

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Jesus grace just as much as we do. Let me ask this.

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Are you keyed into the gospel? Do you understand the gospel?

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Do you know the gospel of Jesus Christ or do you fall prey to counterfeit gospels?

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Do you believe in a gospel of moralism that states that you can be saved so long as you act like this great teacher

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Jesus? Do you hold to a more prosperity understanding of the gospel that if you believe in the

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Lord Jesus, then he will make everything great and it will rain rainbows and unicorns on you for the rest of your life.

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You believe in the gospel of self -improvement that if you, if you just love Jesus enough, he'll, he'll work on you over time and then you'll be worthy of the love that he says he already has for you to understand.

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And what Mark is going to show us is that the gospel is not about what you must do. It's about who you must believe in.

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It's about what Jesus Christ has done on your behalf.

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So the second thing that I want you to see, and this is my second point is the subject, the subject, because what you need to understand is that this gospel here is not just good news.

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It is the good news about a person. The gospel is not just a message.

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It is a person and it is summed up in Jesus Christ. Look, this is in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, comma, the son of God, Jesus Christ.

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In other words is the gospel. He is the gospel.

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And as we look at our text here, it says that this

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Jesus has a threefold towering set of titles,

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Jesus, Jesus Christ, the son of God, and each of these names has with it an ocean of truth.

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And Mark is inviting us even in the title of his book to plumb those depths.

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And so let's plumb them. Let's look at this Jesus, the

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Christ, the son of God, who is the subject of the gospel itself.

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The first word here is Jesus. And if anyone has ever been around a church at Christmastime, you know what

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Jesus means. What you may not know, however, is that it is the Greek translation of the

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Hebrew name Joshua. And it means what?

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Yahweh God is salvation. Yahweh God is salvation.

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That is the meaning of his name. And what you need to understand about this name

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Jesus is that it is not just a name, but it is a mission statement.

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It is summed up in this reality that he has come to save his people from their sins.

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This is what Mary is told in the book of Matthew. He will save his people from their sins.

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So he's named after what he came to do. So this name is a savior's name and a savior that is exclusively

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Jesus. Salvation, no matter what you may have heard, is not found in any philosophy.

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It's not found in any moral code or religious system. You cannot do more to be safe.

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You must run to this person because it's in him and him alone that salvation is found.

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That is why, for instance, Acts 4 .12 says, and there is salvation in no one else.

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For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

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Now, you live in a world that offers you, every time you turn on the TV or scroll through your

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Facebook or whatever the case may be, many saviors. They promise you all of these great things.

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Do this and your life will be better.

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But the reality is, though science offers its own type of saviorship, though politics does, right?

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We vote for the right person, then the world will be saved. Or self -help, or we numb ourselves with entertainment.

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All of these things seek to tell us that they are our savior, but there is only one who can actually do the saving.

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And it's Jesus Christ, comma, the son of God. May I ask you this as we come to look at these things?

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Do you know that Jesus is the exclusive route to salvation?

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That he is the one who is the gospel himself? That there is salvation found in no one and nothing else.

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He's the only one. The second word here is Christ, or the

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Christ. And this is not contrary to what some might think.

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I know I did when I was young growing up in church. It's not his last name. It is a title given to him that means an awful lot.

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It is a divine title, and it means

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Messiah, or Mashiach. The Greek word is

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Christos, and it literally means anointed one.

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It literally means the anointed one. Now, in the Old Testament, whenever a prophet, or a priest, or a king were anointed for any type of mission, they were empowered, they would have oil put on their heads.

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This happened, of course, in the New Testament. Even when people were sick, they were anointed with oil.

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But in the Old Testament, primarily, it was to symbolize the task and the position that they had, that God had called them into this thing, and then they were going to be able to do it because God was with him.

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But though these men, these prophets, these priests, and these kings, though they were anointed with oil,

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Jesus was anointed as well. But he was anointed with the Holy Spirit.

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If you look with me at Mark chapter 1, just moving down a little bit, I'm not trying to steal my own thunder, but I think that it's important for you to see.

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It says in verse 9, Now it happened that in those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John by the

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Jordan. Or in the Jordan, rather. And immediately coming out of the water, he saw the heavens opening and the spirit like a dove descending upon him.

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And a voice came out of the heavens, You are my beloved son, and in you

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I am well pleased. And immediately, you see this word here, it's used 42 times in the book of Mark, which is astounding because the other gospels use it less than like 10 times, and they're triple the size of this book.

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And immediately, as a matter of fact, it's used nine times just in the first chapter.

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And immediately the spirit drove him to go out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan.

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And he was with the wild beasts and the angels were ministering to him.

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You see here, he is being anointed and God himself, the Father, is speaking from heaven and he affirms his sonship, which we'll get to in a moment.

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But this is his anointing for ministry. This is his anointing for his messiahship.

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He had been, as it were, commissioned and empowered by God himself through the anointing of the

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Holy Spirit. Now, I want you to pause here and think about this reality. And we're going to dig into this more as we journey through the book of Mark.

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But Jesus was empowered with the same Holy Spirit that you are empowered with as a

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Christian. In fact, the same Holy Spirit is the same Holy Spirit that made his miracles possible and all of these other things.

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Now, he did that as the messiah. And the verse that says that you will do greater things than Jesus is not saying that you will be able to perform the same type of miracles that he performs, do the same things he did, and atone for anyone's sin.

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Not happening. And because he was the messiah empowered by the Holy Spirit.

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And that makes all the difference in the world. But it's the same spirit. It's the same reality.

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And so here we see that Jesus has been anointed. And the reality is he is the fulfillment of every single anointed role that the

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Old Testament has put forth. He is the prophet who speaks God word.

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He is the priest who offers the final sacrifice. And he is the final sacrifice. And he is the sovereign king who will reign forever.

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So he's the last anointed one. He's the last anointed one.

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And what's beautiful about this is, in ancient Israel, when a king or whatever was anointed, like I spoke about above, the people rejoiced because they knew that that king or those leaders had been firmly planted and established and were there to govern on this side of heaven the people of Israel.

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But when Jesus was anointed, though people rejoiced when the kings of the

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Old Testament were anointed, heaven itself rejoiced.

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Heaven itself rejoiced because the king of kings, the

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Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the second member of the Trinity, had put on flesh and had arrived.

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What do you do with Jesus? What do you do with Jesus, the one who is empowered, the one who is set apart for a mission to seek and to save the lost, his name having a mission statement built into it, anointed by the

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Holy Spirit to do the works of God. And what are the works of God? According to the gospel, to save, to save his people and to reign over.

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And according to the book of Ephesians, if you remember, to reign with his people.

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So you have Jesus, the Savior, you have the Christ, the Messiah.

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And now I want you to see the deity of Jesus Christ in this third title, which is the Son of God, the

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Son of God. And this puts forth his sovereignty. Mark here is dropping, as you've heard me say before, last week, a claymore bomb.

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Because maybe people who are reading this could get behind the fact that his name was Jesus. That he would save his people from their sins, whatever in the world that would mean.

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Maybe he was anointed with the Son of God. That's a whole other thing all together.

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But you see, Mark here leaves no doubt about the divinity of Jesus, that he was, in fact,

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God. Which blows up a lot of people's perception of who

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Jesus is. Jesus is not merely a great man.

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He's not a great teacher. He's not a great philosopher. In fact, C .S. Lewis has said, if that were true, he would actually be evil.

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He kind of, you know, erects this, you know, kind of famous thing is like, you got to do something with Jesus, obviously.

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Either he's a liar or he's a lunatic or he's Lord. But those are the only three options. Either he's crazy and he lost his mind, which by the way, his family thought.

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Which I don't even understand how that's possible. I remember being in seminary and I don't usually do this.

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I'm a guy who sits in the front row and I keep my mouth shut because I'm paying money and I want to hear what the smart guy has to say.

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But I remember being blown away in the gospels that Mary at one point is fearful because people are trying to kill

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Jesus, right? He's going out, he's saying things and people are like, this dude's crazy and he's equating himself with God and we've got to get rid of him.

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And of course, as any mother would be, she was fearful of the fact that he might actually be injured or killed and it says that they went out,

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Mary and his other family members to try to get him to quit saying such stuff, thinking that he was a little loony.

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How does Mary forget what happened to her? That's what I want to understand. Like if you had a baby as a virgin that was prophesied ahead of time in the entire

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Old Testament, an angel visits you in the night. Guess what I'm not doing if I'm Mary telling

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Jesus what to do? He obviously knows something

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I don't, but they go out, they go out.

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But the reality is everything that you read about Jesus proves that he's not crazy.

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He's logical from beginning to end. He's outsmarting everyone. His progression of thought is not like that of a lunatic or he's a liar.

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Think about it. If Jesus is not real, C .S. Lewis postures this, and he's wicked because so many people have given their lives for this

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Jesus. Not just the 12 apostles, but countless people in the first century.

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When things get bad, we say, don't worry about that. Trust the Lord Jesus. Family members of us, of ours might be dying.

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We might be dying of some ailment and instead of trying to do something else, we're praying and begging this

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Jesus to heal us and to help us and to set us free. You're wanting to go party maybe later.

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I don't know, but you won't because the Jesus has his marks on you. And so you're missing out on everything that this life has to offer, the drink, the sex, whatever.

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Why? Because of Jesus? No, no, that's not a good man. That's not a good philosopher.

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That's not anything. That's a wicked man who has tricked millions of people who have literally given their lives for falsity.

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But you know, Jesus is no liar. He's been proven right again throughout history.

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You know that his word bears its weight on your life if you love him and it has produced fruit in your life.

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And you know that apart from him, you'd be nothing. You are nothing.

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And you'd suffer eternal hell, fire forever. That's what eternal means.

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But Jesus can't be a liar. And so if he's not a lunatic and he's not a liar, then what is he?

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Well, what he claims to be, Lord, Lord.

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Beginning again, the alpha and the mega. God, him, self.

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He's not a noble teacher. He's God. And that's what it's saying here. He is the son of God. He is co -equal and co -eternal with the father.

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He was fully God and fully man. This is what theologians in the history have called the hypostatic union, that he was truly

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God and truly man. There was never a time when Jesus was not

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God and there was never a time when while on the earth, he was not man.

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There's never a time when he was not the beloved son of God.

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And we see that this is testified throughout the scriptures. This is testified by the father himself.

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You just saw that as we looked at his baptism, right? Verse 11, the father says, you are my beloved son.

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And of course, we've been walking through the book of Ephesians. And what does Paul call Jesus in the first chapter?

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It's in the beloved that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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This is the son of God who is co -eternal and co -equal with God because he is

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God. And this is the witness of God. Not only has

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God made this testimony clear in scripture, but demons as well. Hell testifies to this very reality.

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If you turn with me to Mark chapter one, verse 24, actually 23, and immediately there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit.

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And he cried out saying, what do we have to do with you, Jesus the Nazarene? Do you understand is they're shaking in their boots.

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And how do I know that? Listen to the next words. Have you come to destroy us?

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It's good theology right there. They knew that Jesus not only was coming to dethrone

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Satan, to plunder his house, but that he would come back after having already put his foot on his throat, do away with the kingdom of darkness forever, throwing them into the lake of fire.

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Have you come to destroy us? And this is what they said.

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They knew what to do with Jesus. I know who you are, the Holy one of God.

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That's better theology than most churches in Tulsa. We know who you are, the

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Holy one. See what those demons understood, what they comprehended, what they saw was what

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Isaiah saw in Isaiah chapter six. In the year of King Isaiah's death,

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I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. With the train of his robe filling the temple, seraphim stood above him, each having six wings.

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With two, he covered his face. And with two, he covered his feet. And with two, he flew.

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And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is

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Yahweh of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called out.

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For the house of God was filling with smoke. Those demons saw that,

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Jesus. And though they understood and though they comprehended, they did not apprehend that truth.

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And when they should have fallen prostrate in front of him, they decided to wear their own self -made crowns.

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So as we look at Mark, and as you think about the question that I began with, and the statement I began with, that you have to do something with Jesus, don't let it be the something that these demons did.

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Don't see the beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in your Bible, the beauty and the majesty of Jesus as he's preached from this pulpit, and look the other way.

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Because you can know who Jesus is. And you can know what he's done, and not know who

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Jesus is, and not know what he's done. And that's alarming. So give your everything to this

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Jesus. But not only does the

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Father testify this reality, that he is the Son of God, not only do the demons say he is the

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Holy One, but Jesus himself gives this very testimony.

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We don't have to get very far into Mark before we see this in Mark chapter two. Jesus is beginning a situation where he is going to heal a paralytic.

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And it says in verse five, and Jesus seeing their faith, the ones who had brought him to him, he said to the paralytic, child, your sins are forgiven.

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Now there's a hard left turn. They want him to heal their best friend.

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And instead of healing them in that moment, he turns to them, he turns to him and says, your sins are forgiven.

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But that's not exactly what they wanted to hear. It's not exactly what they wanted to see.

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They've been hearing stories about Jesus was going from town to town and healing people. And they thought this is what's up.

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Jesus isn't interested in putting on a show. But what he says is very important.

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Your sins are forgiven. And what people heard when he said that is the same thing that you should be hearing.

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And that's this. Only God can forgive sin. And if he's not

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God, he can't do anything. And Jesus was not interested in helping this paralytic get back on his feet.

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Though he's going to. He was interested in his soul. Child, your sins are forgiven.

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Verse six, but some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Who does this guy think he is?

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And they said this in verse seven.

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Why does this man speak that way? He's blaspheming.

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I thought he just said that he would forgive sins. Yeah, they got it. Good theology, but they're going to apply it in horrible ways.

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Who can forgive sins but God alone? Rhetorical question, no one. And so immediately, here it is.

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One of the 42 times he's getting to work. Immediately, Jesus aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves.

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So this son of God, the one co -eternal and co -equal with the father is now hearing, perceiving, seeing what's going on in their minds.

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And he was right. See, we try to do that, but we're wrong all the time. But not

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Jesus. He said to them, why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?

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Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and pick up the mat and walk?

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Well, yeah, it's simpler to say the words, your sins are forgiven. But it's just as easy to say, get up and pick up your mat and walk.

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It's another thing to get them to get up and walk so that it goes on.

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You're thinking it's harder for me to get this paralytic off the ground. And what

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Jesus is saying, it's actually harder for sins to be forgiven. And I can forgive sins. And so he goes on and says, what?

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But so that purpose clause. So just because we get to the gospels, doesn't mean that we're going to, we don't read them like epistles.

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You know what I'm saying? Let's do some surgery here. So that purpose clause, you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

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He said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up, pick up your mat and go to your home.

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And then in response, he immediately does the thing that the immediately Jesus does.

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And he got up and immediately picked up the mat and went out before everyone so that they were all amazed and were glorifying

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God saying, we have never seen anything like this. Why?

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Because he's the son of God. Sovereign King. Because he's the

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Christ, the Messiah, the Moshuach. Because he is Jesus, the savior himself.

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See, Jesus knew and testified to the reality that he was

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God. Right? He can forgive sins.

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This is why when standing before the Sanhedrin before his crucifixion, he says what? Before Abraham was,

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I am. Jesus never claimed to be God. Do you even read?

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Jesus is God, friends. Jesus is God. Do you believe that?

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The third thing that I want you to see, and this is my third point. And it's really an extrapolation. And it points to another point in Mark, but it bears visiting now.

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And that is this. It's a question. Go figure.

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Who do you say that Jesus is? Mark says that Jesus brings with him good news and that he is savior.

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That he is the anointed one empowered by the spirit to do the works of God. And that he is the son of God, God himself, co -eternal and co -equal with him.

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And that means a lot of stuff. That's who Mark says he is. Who do you say that he is?

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In Mark chapter 8, verses 27 and 29, Jesus is speaking with the apostle

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Peter. He's actually speaking to all of his disciples, but it says this.

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And Jesus went out along with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way, he was asking his disciples, saying to them, who do people say that I am?

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Everybody does something with Jesus. Everyone. And they told him, saying,

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John the Baptist. And others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets.

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Everyone has their opinions of who Jesus is. And he continued asking them, but who do you say that I am?

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And Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ. Heritage, who do you say that Jesus is?

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Because how you answer that question will determine not just this life, but eternity.

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It's the difference between heaven and hell. It doesn't matter what

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I say. It doesn't matter what anyone says behind any pulpit, unless they're right.

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It doesn't matter what your family believes or what culture thinks. What matters is what you believe, because you will reckon with this

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Jesus. Because not only is he the son of God, he will stand in judgment over the people of God on the last day.

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And it's to him that you will give an answer for whether or not you dealt with Jesus.

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Whether you dealt with him, whether you fell prostrate at his feet and worshiped him as the one who saves sinners, as the one who reigns over his people and who is

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God. So what do you do with Jesus?

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Who is Jesus? Who do you say Jesus is?

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And your eternity hangs on that question. So listen to Mark, because if you don't have it figured out, he's going to help.

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And so as we close, remember that Mark 1 .1, the title of the book, is not just telling us that a biography is about to begin, but it's a trumpet blast that echoes and reverberates throughout all history.

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And it cannot be ignored because it's about Jesus, the Christ, the son of God.

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And this son of God cannot be sidelined. He won't be sidelined.

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He's the king who demands allegiance, the savior who offers redemption. And he is the judge before whom all we will stand and give an account for the deeds that we have done in the body.

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Pilate, before Jesus was eventually crucified for our sins, says, what shall

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I do with Jesus who is called Christ? And that is the question that every man, woman, and child has to answer.

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The reality is you either bow to him now or he will push you to the dirt later and make you worship him.

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Because as the demon saw, he's bigger than you think he is.

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Today, we begin the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the question is, where will you stand at chapter 16?

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Pray with me. Father, we love you. And we thank you for sending your son,

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Jesus Christ, to seek and to save us sinners, all.

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And we ask that you would help us this evening to wrap our hearts and our minds around your beloved son.

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And that you would help us to live and love out of that reality, Lord, and that you would help us to believe

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John Mark's words and help us to be more faithful because Jesus deserves everything about us.