These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." Rev. 2:1-5Are you doing Christianity without a passionate love for Jesus? It's tough; it's a whole lot of work. Besides that - it isn't pleasing to you or God. What if you came home from work one day and said to your spouse, "I've lost my love for you but I will still do all the marriage things and life will go on as usual." Now imagine saying that to Jesus. Do you think your spouse or Jesus would be pleased? Also, how long do you think you would commit to that marriage before you start looking for a passionate alternative. In this study on Mark we are looking for characteristics of Jesus that make Him winsome. What is it that you fell in love with initially that you need to be reminded of. We looked at His meekness in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 we were reminded that He is our rescuer. He dove in to the Human Race to rescue us from then fruitless efforts of religion. I mentioned that in the movie clip Jimmy Stewart dove in to rescue Clarence but unlike Jesus, he didn't give his life. Check out this clip where Tom Hanks gives his life to save Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan.
This is a beautiful clip except for one huge problem if you are relating it to Christianity. Let's look at Chapter 3 and hopefully see the problem and what true rescuing is...
MARK 3
Credit to Tim Keller for a lot of the thoughts below
1. Read Mark 3:20-30. (We will go back next week and catch the verses we missed). Read the following C.S.Lewis quote from Mere Christianity commonly called "the trilemma"
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be GOD.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of GOD: or else a madman or something worse."
C. S. Lewis adds: "You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him LORD and GOD. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
What are the 3 "L's" as seen in the trilemma and Mark 3?
1. ______________ (Mark 3:20,21)
2. ______________ (Mark 3:22,30 and John 8:44)
3. ______________ (Mark 2:28, 3:27)
Some people add a 4th "L" to the trilemma (which I guess would make it a quadlemma) which is Legend. In other words Jesus never made these claims, they sprung up much later as people turned Him into a legend. There are several problems with this;
A. The passages are brutally honest. If you were trying to create a legend would you include that His family thought He was nuts and others thought He was possessed? Would they include all the blundering of the disciples?
B. The passages were written in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses - if they weren't true they would have never even gotten an audience. If I wrote a book on how Elvis isn't really dead it might garner a following 100 years from now when the coroner, family, pall bearers, etc. are all dead but not now while the eyewitnesses are still alive.
C. The details - Look ahead at chapter 4:36-38. Not only do we once again see the non-heroic disciples but we see details that suggest reporting rather than fiction. We see he was in the stern, on a cushion, accompanied by other boats, and He came as He was. (I guess He didn't change clothes). Once again C.S. Lewis states
" I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this text, there are only two possible views. either this is reportage...or else, someone unknown writer...without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative...The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned how to read."
In other words ancient fiction doesn't include details like this. this form of writing didn't come into being for another thousand years.
2. Read Mark 3:31-35. We talked about the fact that Christianity is about a relationship rather than a religion. What kind of relationship is it?
Read Eph. 1:5. What is the legal process by which we become His children?
Read John 1:12. How do we obtain this?
Read Romans 8:14-17.(2Cor. 1:22) What do we receive as down payment that we are children of God?
What emotion should be absent?
What kind of access do we have to God?
What is our future?(Gal.4:7 , 1John 3:2 Rev.21:7)
Read Hebrews 1:14 and John 15:15 What 2 things aren't our future?
Read Phil. 2:15. How should children behave and why? (1John 2:28, 3:10, 5:2)
Read Heb. 12:7. How will God "help" you act this way?
Read 1John 3:1. What kind of treatment should children expect from the world?
Summary.
Even though it wasn't that pertinent to the character trait - or What's so awesome about Jesus?, I would be remiss to pass up the quadlemma as it is seen here clearer than any other place in scripture. These are not Legends and Jesus is either a Lunatic, a Liar, or Lord but don't call him a prophet or good teacher as we saw religions do in last week's study.
The word for this week is Brother. As adopted children of God, Christ becomes our brother in all aspects except DNA (we don't become "gods") But we do share in His inheritance and status. We no longer need to be afraid of God anymore than we should be afraid of a perfect earthly father. We can come boldly into His presence just as the only person that could interrupt a CEO in an important business meeting would be their child. Can you imagine the joy of the Father when His Son entered Heaven after accomplishing redemption through His sinless death and resurrection. Believe it or not, our Father in Heaven is going to be that excited on our arrival!
Picture a construction crew working on a house and you are observing the action knowing that one member of the team is the owner's son who will someday inherit the business. What would distinguish him? Well, the obvious first thing is he probably looks like his dad. Do you think he is a slacker? Probably not. He may work harder and longer because he has ownership and wants his dad to be proud of him if he comes by. How would he take criticism? Probably better than the hired help - they would probably point to others and offer excuses for fear they might not get a raise or even worse lose their job. The son (I'm being chauvinistic with this example - sorry) would want to learn what he is doing wrong because his name will soon be associated with these houses and he wants more jobs. What about attitude? The workers are working for a paycheck and out of fear of the boss. The son is not going to be fired and is working with joy knowing his future is secure and he is loved by the father.
This is what is wrong with the Saving Private Ryan clip. Private Ryan has been saved but the Captain's last words to him are "earn this". Salvation without acceptance. Salvation without sonship. This leads to a life of striving to earn worth which as seen in the aged private made him depressed unhappy and feeling inadequate and unworthy with constant need for reassurance. This was the problem with the Galatians. They lost the joy of sonship and acceptance. I fear so many Christians are working to be accepted by God rather than remembering they are accepted and working in the joy and freedom of that knowledge.
God could have saved us to go to Heaven and serve Him and the Angels. That would have been gracious and readily accepted by myself - but He didn't
God could have saved us to go to Heaven and become Angels. How glorious! But He didn't
God couldn't have saved us to be His children - but He did!!!!
UNFATHOMABLE!!
Lord I am blown away by the fact that I am a coheir with You and I've become your brother. What is this man that You would be mindful of me? What mercy. What grace. Help me to represent you well and to start showing your likeness to a world of spiritual orphans as I offer them a home and family which just happens to belong to the King of the Universe.
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