What's So Awesome About Jesus? A Chapter by Chapter Study Through Mark - Chapter 11

   Last week we looked at what was so awesome about Jesus and it was serving. He didn't come to be waited on but to wait on mankind, and the ultimate act of serving was giving His life. Skeptics of Christianity would say that Jesus was a prophet or a good teacher and that His death was an inspirational example of how we too should be willing to give our lives sacrificially out of love for others i.e. Mother Teresa. Tim Keller gives an illustration of how nonsensical this view is. "Suppose I was walking along the banks of the Hudson River with some of my congregation and suddenly I say to you, 'You know how much I love you? I'll show you.' and I proceed to jump into the freezing cold river and drown. Would you say, 'Wow, I never really knew the extent of his love' or would you rather say, 'Wow, I never knew how deranged he was'. You see, giving my life to show the extent of my love only makes sense if you were in the river drowning and I jumped in to save you and drowned in my attempt." Thus, Mark 10:45 says that He served us by giving His life as a ransom for us.
   Our whole premise of our race through Mark has been that by finding out what is so awesome about Jesus we will fall deeper in love with Him and find that living the Christian life with this motivation makes it fun, easy, less stressful, less draining, a case of wanting to not having to. All the other character traits of Jesus have seemed attainable but why is this serving one so hard? As I think about the marriage illustration compared to the Christian walk it works in so many areas. I love my wife so I call her all day long and love to talk to her - prayer. I love to show her picture to everyone and have it displayed prominently in many places in my office - witnessing. She texts me, sends me emails, writes me cards and notes and I can't wait to read them - reading the Bible. She tells me to clean the gutters, take the dog for a walk, mow the lawn, backwash the pool, pick up my clothes, take out the trash - serving the Lord by serving others, GRRRR. This isn't as easy. There is something deep inside me that needs to be undone and serving, more than anything reveals that our love needs to deepen and challenges us in our spiritual complacency of thinking that we have arrived.

                                     CHAPTER 11

  Up until this time we have seen Jesus avoiding conflict.
1.Read Mark 8:8-13 and John 7:1-10 and explain how these 2 illustrations indicate the avoidance.



2.  Read the following "near misses" and speculate why God didn't allow these to happen
      John 7:30


      John 8:58,59


     Luke 4:28-30


3. Read Exodus 12:1-23 and 43-49 and give 7 reasons why Jesus had to die on the Passover feast
     A.

     B.

     C.

     D.

     E.

     F.

     G.

  4. Although this is not easily intuited, Daniel 9:24-27 gives us a divine timetable of these events that determined the precise time Jesus needed to arrive in Jerusalem and why He avoided conflict and death until this point
     Read Nehemiah 2:1-8. What is Nehemiah requesting that correlates with Daniel 9:25?


     Sixty nine sevens of weeks occurs until the anointed one, Jesus enters into town and is cut-off. If the issuing of the decree, according to historians is  3/14/445BC  and the Jewish calendar is 360 days/year, we have Jesus arriving 69x360x7 or 173,880 days later which comes out to 4/6/32 AD and we know from history that good Friday that year is 4/11/32. Thus, Jesus entered on Palm Sunday and the people recited Ps. 118:24-27a  and acted out 27b with boughs in hand (NIV 84)

    Read Ps. 118:24 and Luke 19:41 and 42. In light of the Daniel prophecy, how does that give you new insight into the word "day" in both these passages.



5. Back to Mark 11:1-11, how did Jesus enter the city?


      Why on a baby donkey.(Zech 9:9)


       Read Rev.19:11-20. How will He be arriving next time?

       How does this scene from Shrek relate?

    


6. Read Mark 11:12-21.
      This fulfilled these 3 prophecies. Read them and explain
      Isa. 56:7

     Jer. 7:11

     Ps. 69:9

    Is this the first team He cleared out the temple? (See John 2:13-16)

    Read Luke 13:6-9. In light of the 2 clearing out of the temples and the parable, how is Jesus' apparent impatience with the fig tree in Mark 11 explained.


     If you look at Jesus' only destructive miracle in the Bible, how is this actually a parable of what he is to see in verses 15-18 of Mark 11?


  Summary

 The word for the day is King. We see that Jesus came as the meek king this time. Instead of paved roads he came on roads smoothened by cloaks. Instead of a fine steed he had a donkey and a baby donkey at that! I wonder if His feet were dragging? Instead of a coronation celebration He went back to Bethany and made an early night of it. Isaiah 53:1-3 says

  Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

This is the kind of king that He came as the first time. The next time according to Revelation He will come back flying in on a White Horse with His heavenly army and just with the word of His mouth His foes gathered against Him will melt. These years between the meek king and the conquering king are described in 2 Peter 3:8-10


   But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare

Just like the parable of the unproductive fruit tree getting some extra pruning time before destruction and the three years between the cleansing of the temples with the judgment on the fig tree the second time, God is patient wanting to give people chances to repent. The time between the two comings no one knows. However since God is very mathematical as seen by the day literally predicted of His entry by the Daniel prophecy, my guess would be somewhere around 2232/2233 AD which believe me depresses me tremendously. I get this from the fact according to The Feasts of the Lord by Marvin Rosenthal who discusses the Jewish dating system. He states that creation, according to tradition, happened 3761BC in the fall. If the calendar starts there, that would make this year, 2014, actually year 5774/5775. that leaves roughly 225 years until year 6000. What's so special about 6000? Well, if a day is like a thousand years, God worked 6 days and on the seventh He rested - The Millennium! Then subtract 7 years from the millennium which would be the rapture and you get 2232/2233 AD. For more thoughts on this see  http://thoughtsfromtherightbrain.blogspot.com/2011/04/im-going-to-predict-day-of-rapture.html  . Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm right on the Feast of trumpets being the rapture but the year thing is just a guess and I hope He comes this year and we need to live that way, too!

   Look at Romans 15:8

⁸ For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed

  Remember Mark 10 where we discussed Jesus the servant or Diakoneo? This verse in Romans discusses another way Jesus was a servant that we haven't discussed yet. Jesus was a servant to all the prophecies! He had a divine timetable calculated from Daniel 9. He came in on a donkey from Zech.9. He had to clear the temple according to Jer. 7. He had to die on the Passover from Exodus 12 and be our Passover lamb and these are just prophecies from this chapter. Below is a picture of a chart in my Bible on how Christ fulfilled the Passover. (I got tired of typing)

   

Do you know anyone famous? Does anyone famous know you? I think the most famous person I know is the AA pitching coach for the Toronto Blue Jays! Scratch that; I know the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and He knows me!! In fact I am His brother!! (Mark 3) And if I interpret Revelations somewhat correctly, I am mentioned in Rev. 19:14,19! That's a lot of exclamation marks!!

     Thank you Father that you sent Your Son, the King, to be my friend, my Brother, my Savior. I am so unworthy to be included in His family, His army, His wedding feast. His fame is unmatched in history yet He walks with me day by day. May I be cognizant of that as I go through my days here on Earth and realize He is so much more worthy than anything/anyone else I desire.

What's So Awesome About Jesus? A Chapter by Chapter Study Through Mark - Chapter 12

         My wife confessed , as she taught this chapter in Sunday School to loving the show "The Bachelor". She gave this clip as an illustration that I thought was awesome.

      
       How can we say we love Jesus if we don't want to spend time with Him and when we do, all we talk about is ourself? How can we say we love Him and we never read the Bible? The other way to look at this also goes along with what we have been emphasizing in this jaunt through Mark is that if we love someone, which Juan Pablo obviously didn't, we want to spend time with them, get to know them, listen to them, etc. If we fall in love with Jesus, the Christian life becomes a great adventure rather than a huge chore. So lets look at what's so awesome about Jesus in Mark 12 so we can fall deeper in love with Him this week.


               CHAPTER 12

1. Read Mark 12:28-34. What are the two most important commands and why?


     When the man agreed with Jesus, what did Jesus say to the expert in the law?


     What do you think was keeping the man from the kingdom of God? (Matt.7:21-23, 1Cor.8:2,3)


     Let's look at the 4 descriptions of how we are to love God
       1. With all our heart. The greek for heart is Kardia which means the middle. What does it mean to love God with your middle?


       2. Soul is that immaterial part inside us that communicates with God and is essentially who I am. What do you think it means to love God with all your soul?



       3. Mind basically means intelligence. What do you think it means to love God with all your mind?



        4. Strength means physical power. What do you think it means to love God with all your power?


    How is your Love for Jesus doing?


Throughout this chapter 12 which marks Tuesday and Wednesday of the Passover week, Jesus is teaching in the temple. Meanwhile, the enemies of Jesus, who normally were enemies of each other, joined together to get Him arrested, discredited, exposed as a fraud or whatever they could do to end His popularity. Let's look at how focused Jesus is in these passages on teaching loving and believing in Him in the midst of questions meant to get Him sidetracked. He kept bringing the discussion back to what really matters.

  Read Mark 12:1-12

   How does the following video relate?

        

The first meaning behind the parable is obvious. Read Isa. 5:1-7

    1. Who is the vineyard?

    2. Who is the owner?

    3. Who are the tenants?

     4. Who are the messengers?

     5. Who is the son?

          How does this answer the question they never got an answer to in 11:28?

     6. Who are the new tenants?

The second meaning is more personal. Read Acts 17:24-31

     1. Who is the vineyard?

     2. Who is the owner?

     3. What did the tenants do? (see Rom. 1:18 - 25)

     4. What is their punishment?

  With this interpretation in mind, Read Mark 12:38-44. When it says that the widow says "she gave all she had to live on". The greek word for that is bios which means she gave her life. She entrusted her life to the owner of the vineyard to take care of her.

      According to this passage, who does it appear the Pharisees are living for?


   Read Mark 12:35-37. Who had their hero David surrendered to?


    Read Mark 12:13-17?  According to verse 17, what should they give Caesar?

    What should they give God according to what we have learned?



Summary

      When the teacher of the law repeats Jesus' answer (vs. 29-31) in verses 32-33, he leaves out one thing that is easily glanced over - Jesus says "love the Lord your God..." and the teacher, who is close but no cigar leaves that out. All the knowledge, good deeds, saying the right words doesn't get you to Heaven. It is surrendering your life to the owner of your life and living in a love relationship with Him. I went fishing in Canada once and we drove all the way to the northernmost part of Minnesota but we still weren't in Canada. We had to cross through a narrow gate, humble ourselves to the border guards, and then live under the rules of Canada such as if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down. (I got yelled at at the first filling station in Canada we stopped at) Although this illustration has flaws because I didn't love Canada nor did they love me, you get the point. This teacher was close but yet he missed the narrow way which is a personal love relationship with Jesus attained by surrendering Lordship of our life to the one who deserves it and demands it.
      The Pharisees, Saducees, Herodians also missed it because they weren't looking for the truth they were looking for a way to get rid of the Truth. In the end of Chapter 11, when Jesus asks them about "John's baptism - was it from Heaven or men?" -  they didn't even ask themselves "what is true"? They were just concerned with their own reputation and saving face. The Pharisees who heard his parable missed the most crucial part of the parable - that Jesus was the vineyard owner's Son - and just looked for a way to kill Him because He told the parable about them. The tax question was a hot potato because the Romans instituted a census in order to tax all the Jews, in addition to all their other taxes, one Denarius for the pleasure of and in deference to the honor of living under Cesaer  and the coin's inscription said that he was king and God. People had revolted against this and been executed (Acts 5:37) and the Pharisees, with Herod and Cesaer in town were hoping for a wrong answer and a quick execution. Jesus, without being distracted kept focused on the point - Give God your life!
     The Saducees then tried to make up a nonsensical question like who was Cain's wife or could God make a stone so big He can't move it? - but Jesus focused on God is the God of the dead and living. Since you are living, is He your God? Even their hero David called Him Lord and the widow surrendered her whole life to Him and was publically praised by Jesus.
      The word for this week is focused. Jesus didn't get distracted by secondary issues but focused on the Lordship of Jesus Christ and our need to surrender fully and completely to Him and to love Him with our whole being. The important questions in life aren't your eschatology, predestination, which day to worship on, contemporary vs. traditional worship, but rather what have you done with Jesus? What is your relationship with Him like. That's the eternal question that even the rich young ruler missed. He said what must I do to receive eternal life and Jesus recognized this and told him what it costs to follow Him. He was looking for heaven rather than Jesus! Do you love Jesus?