Couple of Hours with Mark & Friends - 2

A bunch of you ACTUALLY did this last week, so I thought we would try it again. Don't assume this. Some of you should be writing study guides like this.

1. Vs. 1 identifies the Lord as Jesus Christ (the gospel of Jesus Christ), not just Jesus. Most of the time, the Bible calls Him Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, or the Lord Jesus. What is the deal? What is the significance of 'the Christ'? His last name? (kidding)

2. The people, as the Holy Spirit regenerates them, What is regeneration?

3. OK. Now, read Luke 3:1-10 again along with Mark 1:4-8 as the people are regenerated by the Holy Spirit as John preaches about the Kingdom of God and repentance. How significant is it that the people then ask in Luke 3:10, “What, then, shall we do?” Share stories with your cell members of remembering that moment when you saw your dirt and God’s holiness and knew that you must respond. What did you do?

4. Jesus answered their question in vs. 15 as he shows the response necessary for redemption, for salvation. “Repent and believe the Gospel.” Discuss this statement: 'Jesus not only proclaims the gospel (the good news), He is the Gospel.' Discuss what it really means to truly believe in Jesus (obviously much more than mental ascent).

5. The word repentance means ‘to change course, to turn around, to change direction. It would be like a 180 degree turn in our holiness (we walked in selfish sin, we now walk in Christ’s righteousness as a new creation). Most people think that repentance is just confessing sin when actually there are five stages to repentance. Deeply ponder and discuss in cell how deep you go in your life of DAILY repentance in these stages.
A. Conviction -- a role of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin (Read John 16:7-11).
B. Confession -- this is agreeing with God that we have sinned. (1 John 1:9)
C. Repentance -- empowered by the Holy Spirit, we turn from the sin -- STOP. (1 John 3:4-12)
D. Joy -- there is joy that comes from moving from darkness to light. We should celebrate.
F. Abundance -- we move from struggling so much with the sin into helping others through it.
Note: Repentance signifies something to turn from (sin); belief signifies something to turn to (Jesus).

6. I think that the average Christian that hangs around church sees himself as vastly different as the disciples who were called to Jesus’ original team in Mark 1:16-20. They were awesome (walked with Jesus, performed miracles, authored Scripture, etc), but the spirit of this call is the same to us. “Drop your agenda,” Jesus says, “and follow me.” How does this play out with you personally. What does “drop your nets” look like? What does following Jesus on His incredible mission to a dying world look like?

7. James and John leaving their father Zebedee (we know that the disciples had lots of contact with family later) in the boat should remind us of some tough Scripture that Jesus tossed out later (read Matt 10:37-39, Luke 14:26). I think looking at these Scriptures together give an idea of how Jesus views our priorities. Balance these with Ephesians 6:2 “honor your father and mother” and 1 Timothy 5:8 which is about a man’s responsibility to work and take care of his family.

8. Share some of the mission that you think the Holy Spirit may be pressing you toward as a disciple. A true disciple is always developing another disciple. Do you have someone that you are developing in the faith? Who is investing time in you?

9. Israel had a notion of God as king (Exod 15:18, 1 Sam 12:12, and Ps. 5:2). God is exalted above His creation. Jesus affirms that notion as he begins this Kingdom of God talk. He is King, and he is going to define His Kingdom. Run through the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3-?) as a quick refresher to some of the concepts of how different his Kingdom is to what we ordinarily think.

10. The verbs in the Greek for repentance and belief are in the imperative, so they are not temporary, one-time events; they are continuous, a condition. Also, both things cannot be applied only to certain areas of life, but they lay claim to a total allegiance of believers. Belief assumes the act of repentance. Grace and faith are given by God, but these are definitely imperative verbs of response to regeneration.

Couple of Hours with Mark & Friends

Items for study and reflection this week that surround Mark:

1. This John that prepares the way for Jesus is an interesting cat. Read the Malachi prophecy about him and discuss his significance (Malachi 4:5-6). Do a little research and see if you can figure out why Malachi might refer to John as Elijah.

2. Read the Matthew account of John (Matt. 3:1-12). We get some more detail here as John boldly confronts the religious leaders and preaches strong judgments on those who do not believe in the One. Discuss the fact that this writing was focused toward a Jewish audience.

3. Read the Luke account of John (Luke 1:1-45, 57-80, 3:1-22). Why is God so meticulous in his preparation of things?? This whole ministry of John fulfills prophesy of a new Exodus -- where God's people will once again be delivered from a wilderness to the river Jordan -- really cool. (cf. Isa. 11:11–15; 40:3–11; 42:16; 43:2, 5–7, 16–19; 48:20–49:11; 51:10)

4. What does God stir in you as you consider that Jesus held John in higher esteem than any other man, but John models the lessening of himself and the elevation of Jesus (vs. 4-8)? In the Matthew account, you might recall that he said to Jesus, “I should not be baptizing you; you should be baptizing me” (tlg, paraphrase, Matt. 3:14) as he continually points us to worship Jesus, not man.

5. Do you walk around feeling as though the heavens have been torn open and the Spirit has descended upon your life, your world? If so, journal what that looks like, or tell your cell what that looks like. Our regeneration is not as big of an event in history as the baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:9-11), but the whole trinity gets involved with our salvation also, so it is pretty special. God has a plan for salvation, and then a plan for the mission of His church. Discuss the plans you feel that God has for you right now. Does it change to realize that the same Spirit that descended upon Jesus has descended upon you? How?

6. Read the Luke account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13). How significant is this event that Jesus, as a man, felt every temptation that we have ever felt, but did not sin? Discuss how much easier it is to sin when we are tired and hungry. Ever notice?

Bonus Time:

Read chapters 12-15 of Acts and look at how the early church leaders function. We see the author of Mark mentioned here as a part of the missionary journeys and a church fight. It is really significant to me that Paul reconciles with John Mark (Col. 4:10, 2 Tim. 4:11, Phil. vs. 24). It is also significant to me that these disciples were made because they were willing to hang around constantly with people who could pull them along in their faith toward their mission for God. John Mark hung around with Paul and Barnabas. We also know that he spent considerable time with Simon Peter and many others (see above Scriptures) to attain the information for the writing of His Gospel. Who is teaching you the ways of the faith, digging into Scripture, rebuking you when you do something silly, praying with you, and at the same time, who are you discipling?
As we can glean from this, the Bible teaches us how to “make disciples who make disciples.” This is the prophesied mission of the church -- prophesied AND commanded by none other than Jesus Himself. Are we as centered in our mission as John? He eliminated distractions and received blessings beyond measure. What distractions need to go, so that we could be counted as one worthy?

One last point. In a day where God’s love is defined as the prosperity that we will receive upon a relationship with Him in American terms (health, stuff, etc), do you find it interesting that the person (John, not the Apostle) that Jesus has esteemed higher than any other man goes to prison as soon as his mission is complete and gets his head cut off? God defines blessings and rewards and prosperity vastly different than we do. It is time to start getting some of that figured out.

Lessons from 4,000 Miles

It is good to be home from a long vacation with Kelley, Justin, Taylor, & Randy & Connie (Kel’s brother and his wife) -- about 4000 miles of American beauty covered from Lake Tahoe, to the Tetons, to Yellowstone, to the Black Hills..

Saw many things, but had two serious lessons taught:
First, I got my patriotism stoked.
I probably need to clarify some things I said in a recent sermon. I think Christians are TOO cause oriented and spend TOO much time declaring what they are against instead of what they are for, and so I declared that disciples of the Lord Jesus are not called primarily into causes. What Christians are called into is the Great Commission which is to ‘make disciples who make disciples world-wide.” I was specific though that causes are not wrong though.
Let me be specific. I love my country -- I don’t love it more than Jesus -- but I would have been proud to defend the US from evil if called to do so at any point in my life. I remembered this at the 9 pm ceremony at Mt. Rushmore a few nights ago as they lit the faces of men who sacrificed greatly for causes. I had tears storming off of my face as they had all servicemen on the stage for the classy flag ceremony as I wished I could have pushed my father down there for that moment. The tears were partially from missing him, but also being reminded of how much I appreciate the sacrifice of many for the freedoms of my life. My dad got shot at by the Nazis for over 30 missions in the back of a B-17 as evil tried to storm the world, and I will NEVER forget that (Justin better not forget or let his grandchildren forget). I believe that true Christians who are called into a cause like that should use the opportunity to ‘make disciples who make disciples world-wide’ AS they do what is right. They simply shift mission fields as the cause does not override their commissioned purpose in this world.
We should vote as Christians, but we should not think that voting Christians into office is going to fix the world. Only Jesus, and His Gospel, is going to fix the world. Let's proclaim HIM!
We should support the American Cancer Society, but we should not think that humans are going to eradicate the curse even if He blesses us with a cure. Only Jesus, only His Gospel, is going to bring a day with no more tears and no more suffering. Let's proclaim HIM!

Second, I got reminded what a baby I can be. I was in a great, worshipful state of mind for the entire trip until the last day (I hope the others would agree with that), but we decided to wipe out the last 17 hours of the trip on that final day. So, had that gone smoothly, everything would have been fine. Sound familiar? Long story short, some 70 miles of I-29 is under the Missouri River, and what was going to be 17 hours and a 1:00 am arrival at home, became 20 hours and 4 am. Instead of having some compassion for the thousands of people affected by the flooding or realizing the detour was going to allow me to show the group my birthplace (Cameron, MO), I huffed and puffed like a baby because this inconvenience had affected the kingdom of me. Sin abounds when we are tired -- we need to stay rested. I finally did relax and enjoy a beautiful sunset, a Cardinals win, and a few more hours with my folks (even got a little nap in). But, for a minute, sin abounded. Glory to God who takes away the sin that so enslaves us.