Hello, you're listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
This epiphany in Lent, we're back in the Gospels,
specifically the Gospel of Mark. We are seeing
the revelation of God in Jesus. Mark is showing
us the true King becomes a servant for us. He
says right at the heart, the Son of Man came
not to be served, but to serve and to give His
life as a ransom for many. And Mark is nearly
always asking his audience, what do you make
of that? So, what do you make of this good news?
We'd love to meet you and we hope you'll consider
coming and joining with us each Sunday morning
at 10 a .m. in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg.
You can find us online at SecondCityChurch .org
and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We hope
you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Lord in heaven
we thank you for your word. We thank you for
this mark and We pray that we would listen we'd
be those who have years to hear Even next week
how your word goes out like see that's being
sown and sometimes it falls on different kinds
of soil We pray that we would be so that receives
the word and bears much fruit So speak to us
Lord. We are listening and we desire to be brought
more and more into the life of Christ His name
we pray Amen. All right. This is the first Sunday
in Lent, as has been mentioned. And so I might
give you a little bit of a history lesson, both
because it's interesting and because it will
lead into my sermon, OK? So Lent has a 40 -day
practice. didn't really spread into the known
Christian world until probably the early fourth
century. I'm actually going to get to why that
was at the end of my sermon. But it really didn't
develop until widely as a practice the 40 days
preceding Easter other than Sundays, until about
the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. We
know that actually it wasn't something that was
sort of encouraged to the whole church more broadly
actually. until the late sixth century with Pope
Gregory the first. And I know some of you are
saying, aha, I knew it. The Roman Catholic practice
of works, righteousness, these kinds of things.
And I want to say, well, not exactly. There are
concerns we should have. Some of you know the
great Puritan theologian in England, John Owen,
writing in the seventh century. And he warned
people how even Good things that we do to seek
to put to death sin can be those things that
we actually say, look at, look God, look what
I did. And Jesus of course tells us that that's
the same temptation that we should always be
careful of in the Sermon on the Mount that we
heard on Ash Wednesday if you were here. Anyway,
that kind of approach certainly is not good,
but what you have to understand is that from
the earliest days, and many of you have heard
me say this, Easter was really the great day
of Christian baptism. That does not mean that
there were not other days in which Christians
were baptized. There were. But the practice of
the early church was to primarily have baptisms
on Easter. And fasting before baptisms was practiced,
as far as we know, from the earliest Christians.
Fasting as a way of preparation. Are you going
to give yourself to the life of Jesus? So this
is kind of interesting. We know that the early
church father Irenaeus wrote about the practice
of fasting before Easter because he actually
taught how there was a debate going on about
when that started and actually to what extent
you would fast before Easter. Here's an interesting
thing the debate at the time when Irenaeus was
writing was not whether or not you fasted before
Easter It was to help for how long you fasted
before Easter. And so he wrote in the letter
he wrote this Variations and observance did not
originate in our own day, but very much earlier
in the time of our forefathers Anybody know what
our own day for Irenaeus was Well, people think
he was born in the year 130, and he died in the
year 202. We do know that much. So our own day
is mid -late second century for Irenaeus. So
when he talks about the forefathers, who's he
talking about? Well, we know Irenaeus was a disciple
of Polycarp, and we know Polycarp studied under
anybody? John, the Apostle John. So it is very
likely that when Irenaeus is talking about the
debate around how long you fast before Easter
did not originate with him in his day in the
mid -second century, he's telling the forefathers
he very likely could be meaning the Apostle John.
Pretty interesting. That also makes sense actually
of why we find the practice of fasting commanded
before baptism in the Didache. The Didache is
one of the earliest church documents that we
have. The Didache is also known, because this
is how it begins, as the Lord's teaching through
the twelve apostles to the nations. We don't
really know exactly when it was written, but
people think that it was written either as early
as AD 70, meaning before probably the Gospel
of John and the Book of Revelation, or possibly
up to like AD 150. Either way, it's one of the
earliest documents we have of the life of the
church. And the Didache says this regarding baptism.
But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast,
meaning the one who's doing the baptizing fast,
and the baptized, the one who's being baptized,
and whoever else can. So as a community, Consider
what is taking place in baptism. This person
is giving their life to following Jesus, which
is say they're putting off an old way of being
repenting and turning and giving their life to
Jesus. And the Didache, again, one of the earliest
documents we have from the life of the church
says, the person doing the baptizing should fast,
the person being baptized should fast, and the
whole community should if possible. And it says
specifically a fast of one or two days, which
goes along with Irenaeus saying, The amount of
time is not necessarily specified. Anyway, the
earliest church writings, these earliest church
writings encourage fasting before baptism and
specifically before Easter. And that developed,
and I'm gonna get to why this developed, to mirror
our Lord's own fasting in the temptation in the
wilderness of 40 days. Okay, why am I sharing
this to introduce to you this? incredibly long
passage from Mark. It's for this reason. There
was a connection from the earliest life in the
church of giving up some level and for some period
of time of earthly comforts before being baptized
because you were to count the cost of following
Jesus. Is it worth it? Do you really believe
that to do the will of the Father and following
Jesus is worth it? You were to ask yourself whether
or not you would follow Jesus to the end. Will
you give your life, all of your life, over to
Him? And as is often the case, will you give
your life, all of your life, over to Him? When
your friends mock you? When you might lose your
jobs? And frankly, when you might lose your life?
When you have so much taken So we have this long
passage before us and I mean genuinely it almost
feels like it's too long to give a sermon on
and it's already 1056, right? Just think of it
as 956 and I have a lot longer Yeah, all right
somebody's clapping I maybe that was to keep
awake We have this long passage before us and
And so I want you to open up those Bibles, okay?
Grab a few Bible in front of you. If you did
not, bring one. And don't do this with your phones
as much, because I do think you're not going
to be able to see some of the stuff that's going
on if you have it on your phones. I think there's
a great gift of the technology that we have in
having our Bibles on our phones. But we lose
something, I think, with being able to see things
and how they work together at times, okay? So
please have your Bibles open. And let's just
jump into the first paragraph there, okay? The
first paragraph begins in verse 7. And what we
see, it says, Jesus withdrew with his disciples
to the sea and a great crowd followed him. And
then it says specifically from Galilee and Judea.
So Galilee, think of Galilee as the northern
part around the Sea of Galilee, right? Sea of
Galilee kind of off to the west and to the northwest,
that's Galilee. And then Judea is on the other
side of Samaria, right? Down near where Jerusalem
is, it's a ways down south. And so you have the
immediate region, then you have a farther region
that's down in the south. And it says, and Jerusalem
and Edomia. So Jerusalem's the main capital city
that's been important to mention. The capital
city of the history of Israel. And Edomia would
have been actually the region across from the
Dead Sea from Jerusalem, more or less. It was
the whole region. Sort of think of Judea on the
western side of the Dead Sea, Edomia on the eastern
side of the Dead Sea, okay? And then it says,
and from beyond the Jordan, that's the Transjordan,
that's like the region across largely from the
Jordan River going from the Sea of Galilee down
to the Dead Sea, that region over there. And
then it says, and from around Tyre and Sidon.
Tyre and Sidon are sort of all the way on the
west coast and then the northwest coast from.
Gali, the region of Gali, which is to say, in
some ways, what he's doing is he's saying from
all over the place, all of the sort of, what
am I thinking of? Orientations of the compass.
But here's what's even more important, actually,
for you to understand. He is describing all of
the region of the 12 tribes of Israel, right?
Because a couple of the tribes were on the other
side of the Transjordan. I mean, he's describing
all the regions of the 12 tribes of Israel in
this description here. Okay, so there's such
a large crowd around Jesus here that Jesus tells
the disciples to get in the boat because they
might be crushed. All these people are coming
to him. And why are they doing this? Because
he had healed many. He'd done great miraculous
things. He had done what nobody else had possibly
ever done and people would hurt and of course
if you heard that somebody was you know healing
somebody especially before any kind of modern
medicine you would have you would have done all
you could to go and to see that person and actually
it says Specifically even that they might touch
him right verse 10 Yeah, they so that he so that
all who had diseases pressed around him to touch
him Which is to say they wanted his power I could
just touch right they wanted to get something
from Jesus. They wanted something out of him
Listen, okay 45 % of high school students say
they are persistently hopeless and despondent
45 % of high school students That is a sobering
statistic Since the year 2000, the number of
Americans without one close personal friend has
gone up four times. It's gone up four times without
one close personal friend. Let me hit noses.
Since the year 2000, the same year, the number
of Americans who say they are in the lowest category
of happiness has increased 50%. Those are just
deeply sad statistics. Interestingly, maybe some
of you know this, but in 2019 the Pew Research
Center did a large, large study looking at eight
different indicators of happiness. specifically
was asking the question does religious practice
and belonging to a religious community influence
these eight indicators of happiness and You probably
heard it's kind of you know news at the time
and maybe you still know this That they asked
are they are these indicators negatively affected
positively affected or neutrally affected by
religious adherence All of them were positively
affected. Oh Right. It was just overwhelmingly
positive. People are more likely to have friends.
They are more likely to live healthier lives.
They are more likely to be generous with their
time and with their money. All these things that
actually promote happiness and a better life.
It's actually kind of amazing. I'll say this.
In fact, if you're not a Christian, I would strongly
consider you just go to church. I mean, like,
even if you think it's all a joke, like, you're
likely to live longer, you're likely to have
better friendships, you are actually likely to
be happier. Okay. It's a weird kind of apologetic
for sort of Christian practice, but, you know,
just try it on. And that's kind of what is happening
here, right? That just like, hey, maybe I can
get something out of this dude. Let's all go
check him out. Let's go see what's happening.
He'll heal me if I just touch him. I have to
fall down and worship him. I have to give my
life over to him. Why doesn't he touch me? They're
going to Jesus because of what he can give them.
But an interesting thing happens in this. It
seems as though Mark makes this big shift actually
in this story. Near the end I want to seriously
hope hopefully show you how all these sections
here tie together. But what happens is that Jesus
then moves from the sea and he goes up to the
mountain, and of course there's a lot of people
with him, but there he appoints his disciples,
and all the people are listed there, right? The
sons of thunder and all the rest are listed there.
But there's a phrase that he mentions twice,
and it's this, that he appoints the twelve. That's
mentioned in verses 14 and verse 16. And he appointed
12, beginning of 14, and then 16. He appointed
the 12. And why does Mark have to draw this out
for us? He says it twice. He's like, this is
part of the point of the whole thing. Well, to
a Jewish ear, that would have been absolutely
radical. You know, you better go up to the mountains.
Flee to northern Idaho, where no one will know
what kind of craziness is happening. You know?
The point of the 12 for a Jewish audience would
have been like saying all of Israel all of this
life where all of these tribes lived and that
have been so desperate all of their life together
is being reformulated around me I Mean Jesus
doing something in naming these 12 and mark is
highlighting for it for us for this to this to
us by mentioning it twice by saying He's saying
all of your sort of political endeavors all your
social endeavors all your economic life all of
your life It's now under me Now this is interesting
actually I literally I just I just learned this
So there's a group of us, you know, and I would
encourage you to maybe jump in you don't have
to jump in at the beginning But there's a group
of us who are trying to read the Bible through
together over the course of two years We're getting
together for a monthly breakfast. So some of
us did this yesterday And Will had a great question
when we were talking about Genesis about some
of the genealogies. And so I was reading a little
bit about some of the genealogies, and he and
I were talking yesterday before the breakfast
with others. And it's really interesting. What
I learned was that actually for quite a few of
the major figures in the book of Genesis, 12
of their descendants are listed afterwards. Okay,
so this is the case, not just for Israel. Of
course, Jacob is renamed Israel because he read
wrestles with God, which is how we get the name
Israel for the tribes of Israel, the 12 sons
of Israel. But this is also the case for Esau,
for Nahor, and for Ishmael. And what's happening
is that 12 at least appears to have been sort
of a cultural thing. There's 12 descendants and
that would have been the people of that kind
of main leader. and their descendants would have
fallen under that main leader. This is what Jesus
is grabbing onto. All of your life is reordered
now around me. It would have been a massive statement
to make in the community in which he found himself.
Everyone would have understood this. Many would
have known that the prophecies of the Old Testament
said that when God acted definitively, Israel
would be reunified. How many of you have heard
of the prophecy of the Valley of the Dry Bones
being brought back to life? I bet a lot of you
have heard that story. Maybe you've heard of
when the Holy Spirit would descend and be given,
right? Talk about Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 37.
Well, the second half of Ezekiel 37 is saying,
when this happens, when God works to bring new
life to the dead, when the Holy Spirit comes,
There's this image that Rebecca Redforce that
probably was lost on us These two sticks being
brought together what that the 12 tribes will
be reunified. That's what that image is talking
about and She was saying I am doing it and it
demands all of your life All of your life is
to be given over to this new reality of what
God is doing this new community formed around
Christ Now there's a big difference between coming
to Jesus and just wanting to be healed of your
diseases and just being willing to come out and
kind of touch him and see if he gets some power
and Jesus saying no all of your life is now under
me I'm creating a new community that touches
on every aspect of your being and it is under
my Lordship my kingship and What do you do with
that? I mean, some of us want to go into Jesus
and say, can you just give me some stuff? And
Jesus says, you better give me all of your life.
What do we do with that? There's a few responses,
okay? There's a few responses that we can have
from that. And there's a few responses here in
this text. Let me walk through some of them,
okay? So keeping your Bible open. First, the
first response to this is, You're crazy. He's
crazy. Right, right? This is literally the next
thing, okay? So verse 20, when he went home and
the crowd gathered again so they could not even
eat, when his family heard it, they went out
to seize him for they were saying, he's out of
his mind. Right, so there's this response to
what Jesus is doing that comes immediately after
the appointing of the Twelve that is first. You're
crazy. This is crazy. He's out of his mind. Maybe
this is going too far, Jesus. Maybe what you're
inviting us into is too much. And of course,
this is really wild because we have, of course,
very, very good reason to believe that in the
context of Mark chapter three, his family means
his mother and his brother and his sisters, right?
Or at least his mother and his brothers, because
that's who's mentioned later on at the end of
the chapter. Which is to say, Mary even is there.
Who we know at the birth of Jesus was highly
favored Whom all generations were to be called
blessed We also know that she follows Jesus to
the end right at the cross here But it is saying
Jesus. Maybe you've gone too far Maybe you're
asking too much his family together says He's
out of his mind And that's a real response that,
of course, people have when you hear Jesus say,
hey, I'm ordering all things. This whole life
is now ordered around me. All of your life is
to be given over to Christ. And sometimes we
go, that's a little too much. You're a little
crazier. Okay, the second response is this. He's
a demon, okay? So verse 22, look with me down
there. The scribes who came from Jerusalem were
saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul and by the
prince of demons. He casts out the demons. He's
demonic. Now of course we've already seen the
last number of weeks that the scribes and Pharisees
were in opposition to Jesus, right? They weren't
in favor of him. But what I also do want you
to see is that this is kind of a real response
even today still, right? He's demonic. He's gone
too far in what he's demanding and this whole
reordering life around himself. So there's many
religious folk and even many folk who claim the
Christian religion who look at Jesus even today
and they'll say, I like Jesus, but you can't
ask me to do that, right? I'll give you Sunday
morning, but don't ask me to allow my Christian
faith to touch my work life. Don't demand that
I kind of go to you and say, here are my kids
and I don't know how to parent them, so I'm gonna
actually study the scriptures and say, what does
it look like to follow Jesus here? I'll give
you this much Jesus, but don't. This part's mine.
These religious leaders, the scribes here from
Jerusalem, actually say when Jesus says this
much, you've got to say, no way, you're not of
God. He's gone too far. Let's give our religious
explanations. He has the demon. They categorize
them in religious ways. So of course, Jesus again
says, hey, that doesn't work. Houses that are
against themselves, they don't stand. Houses
that are divided don't last he says if I'm casting
out a demon Why would I have one which has already
been his practice and mark right saying this
doesn't this doesn't work this way Anyway what
I think a significant part of Mark's point here
and putting this right here is that there can
be Real responses to Jesus that are a rejection
of what he or what he is doing that are religiously
orient Right. You can be a religious person Still
say I don't want to follow Jesus there The third
response that we have here is I'll just say hardened
hearts Okay, so look with me down at verses 28
and 29. I'll read that again for us Truly I say
to you all sins will be forgiven the children
of man and whatever blasphemies they utter But
whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never
has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.
Maybe you've asked this question. I've been asked
it quite a bit. What is the unforgivable sin?
And I've heard it said, and I think this is probably
true, that if you're wondering, you have a soft
heart to receiving the answer, then you haven't
committed it. So don't be overcome with worry
about that. But it's a good question. What is
it? You know, does God tend to not like all sin?
But man, if you do this one, you're gonna really
get his ire. Is there one sin that if you just
happen to do it, forget it? Well, first, what
did Jesus literally just say, right? This is
what he says, all sin will be forgiven the children
of man. And whatever blasphemes they utter. There
is just an unbelievable grace. Right? That's
the first thing that's going on. So much grace.
But he does give this warning, so what is it?
I think the best explanation, and I also think
why this is right here in the context of Mark
chapter 3, right after he was being called the
Prince of Demons, Is that once you have labeled
the Holy Spirit's work, the work of the devil,
it's hard to go back on that. There's a context
for Jesus saying this right here. It's this context
of saying you are working for the Prince of Demons.
Once you start labeling the work of the Holy
Spirit as the work of the devil, it's hard to
go back. Which is to say there is this willful,
obstinate rejection of how God has revealed himself.
And that is a hard, hard, hardedness towards
the end. N .T. Wright, in his commentary, suggests
that we should think of this actually like conspiracy
theories. Way of kind of us getting this, okay?
Which is that you can have all of the evidence
presented to you that goes against your theory.
And still you will think that all evidence is
simply confirming what you already believe All
this evidence that is going against what you
think and you're all like, yep It's I still entirely
in belief and I think all of what you're saying
is crazy Think about like this you can see all
of the images of around earth and You can still
believe that all of the nations of the world
that sent people out into outer space that at
the time, by the way, during the Cold War were
threatening nuclear warfare against one another,
were somehow in cahoots because they didn't want
you to know that the world is actually flat.
You believe them, right? Somehow all these nations
of the world were working together some conspiracy.
Or it's more like this kind of conspiracy theory
that you have decided firmly that the doctor
who is offering to perform a life -saving operation
on you is in fact a sadistic murderer. And there
is no way you are ever going to consent to allowing
him to do the operation. That's actually the
analogy that works with what Jesus is doing here.
He is offering you life and you say there's no
way you are of the devil. And Jesus says if you
approach God that way, With that level of hard
-heartedness. There is simply no hope It is an
affront against the Holy Spirit's work Now my
point is that there is a response to Jesus that
is a hard -hearted response But there's a there's
a way of going to Jesus and saying I know this
is what you demand you say hey I'm reordering
all life around me and you say no way don't want
anything to do with it don't want Hard -hearted
Look what is said at the end of this passage,
right? Verse 30, it says, this part ends, he
has an unclean spirit. They double down on their
belief. Begins with, he's got a demon, they double
down at the end after he says this, unclean spirit.
Okay, but here's the thing, this actually, This
is part of why I think all these texts are working
together, is that this is said again and again.
So if you go back actually earlier on, verse
11, there's a response to Jesus, right? And whenever
the unclean spirit saw him, they fell down before
him and cried, you're the son of God. But if
we go down, we actually see this kind of reaction
to Jesus repeated. We're constantly being put...
Mark is constantly giving us responses to Jesus.
So you go down to verse 21, and when his family
heard it, they went out to see him, for they
were saying, he's out of his mind. And then if
you go down a little bit farther, right, to verse
30, sorry, actually let's start with verse 22,
the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were
saying, he's possessed by Beelzebul. If you go
down to verse 30, again, it says, then they were
saying, he has an unclean spirit. You see how
each of these are being tied together around
what do we do with this? What do we do with Jesus
saying, all of life is under me? All of it is
under me. And there's all these responses, and
most of them are actually saying, we don't want
you. And yet, and yet, Jesus does offer us another
way. And because we're using the language of
this text, I'll just say that the other way is
doing the will of God. So verse 31. It says this
and his mother and his brothers came and standing
outside they sent to him and called him and a
crowd was standing around him and they said to
him your mother and your brothers are outside
seeking you and he answered them who are my mother
and my brothers and Looking about at those who
sat around him. He said here are my mother my
brothers for whoever does the will of God He
is my brother and my sister and my mother There
is another response to Jesus. There is another
response to Jesus. Here it says the other response
is doing the will of God. This is not works righteousness.
Just like a fast does not need to be works righteousness,
though it can be construed that way. This is
saying yes. To Jesus being over all things. For
everything. This is saying yes to Jesus saying
I'm reordering it all around myself and all of
your life will now be under me Saying yes to
the will of God Over the 12 tribes of Israel,
but again and again they are said to be the family
of God What is baptism but entrance in to the
family of God to the life of the body of Christ
There is a response to God that is not thinking
he's crazy, that's not thinking he's of Satan,
that is not hard -heartedness. There's a response
to God that says, yes, I want to follow you.
That my whole being, all of my life is yours.
All of my life belongs to you. And here's the
truth that we're learning in all this. There's
just no middle way. with Jesus. No middle way
with following Jesus. He's either crazy or he's
wildly wrong, so much that we've all been duped,
or he's working for the devil, or he's the Lord.
Lord of all. And there's times in our lives when
we must make a decision. We hear, right, Jesus
reorder our lives around him. We go, I don't
know, do I have to give you that? Decision. And
for many ways, many, you know, baptism is the
life of entering into that. If it's a huge decision,
are you gonna do it? Are you gonna go all the
way with Christ? Today will you give all up to
following Jesus, doing the will of your Father
in heaven. So let me get back to the history
of Lent and then I'll close, okay? Earlier this
week, I mentioned to some of you how the development
of Lent had to do with the early controversy
in the church. I actually got the name wrong.
That controversy was called Novatianism. What
had happened is that there were a lot of people
that were baptized and a part of the church in
the mid second century. And when the persecutions
began under the Roman Emperor, Odysseus, they
renounced the faith. You know, when push come
to shove, When it meant their life might be taken
from them, they said, I don't want anything to
do with this Jesus. And then what happened is
that once the persecution stopped, they were
like, you know what? I read that Pew Research
from 2019 in the future, and it said my life's
gonna be better if I'm actually part of a church
community. I kinda wanna go back into that community
now. And a lot of people said, you can't do that.
You can't take Jesus when you want. so there
were some church leaders like Novation who was
a church leader in North Africa and Tertullian
many of you have probably heard of Tertullian
he was the famous one that said the blood of
the martyrs is the seed of the church who believed
that once you renounce the faith in the midst
of persecution you should not be allowed back
into the life of church now there were others
on the other side like the great Cyprian of Carthage
or Ambrose of Milan who baptized st. Augustine
And they believe that you should be allowed to
be welcomed back into the life of the Church.
But you must actually spend some time, like actually
saying, are you going to give your life fully
to Jesus? And that was happening, that controversy
was happening in the second half, again after
this persecution that began in the year 250 under
Roman Emperor Odysseus. That was the controversy
of the Church of the latter half of the third
century. And it was into that, out of that controversy,
that actually around the time of the Council
of Nicaea, which happened in 325, that lent,
as we think of it as a 40 -day question of whether
or not we are going to follow Jesus, developed.
So they took the pattern of Christ giving up
the blessings of this world like bread in his
temptation, and they said, let's do that as a
community. Let's enter into this light and ask
one another together, are we going to follow
him to the end? And brothers and sisters, that
is what Jesus is asking you this morning. Will
you give your life to him entirely, completely?
Will you? Lord, we are glad that we do not live
in the time of the persecutions that happened
in 250 and thereafter. But God, I pray that we
would be those who hear the reality of what you
were doing in Christ and long to do the will
of God, the will of the Father, and follow Jesus
to the end. Lead us in that, we ask, in His precious
name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Second
City Sermons podcast. We hope this sermon has
encouraged you to worship God and to celebrate
the gospel of Jesus. Please consider subscribing
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Sunday at 10 a .m. You can find us online at
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bless.