Sermons on Christian Living
In our fallen nature, we want the crucified saviour without the cruciform life. But in our union with Christ, God has ordained that our path will be the path of his beloved son. If we are his and he is ours, our lives will pattern his life: and that pattern is suffering and then glory, the cross before the crown.
Mark is impressing upon us in this passage, that the crowd is made up of two different groups of people. Those of Israel, and those who are far-away ones. In this sermon, Pastor Tony unpacks Christ’s costly compassion on the 4,000. Christ has this mixed crowd–Jew and Gentile–recline at a wilderness table together, and satisfies…
We’ll finish up the section from last week before we return to the gospel of Mark. There’s some significant things coming up in the gospel of Mark that we want to give attention to, but we’ll finish up this wonderful passage regarding the fear and the anxiety and the symptoms of those things and the…
What is it that you’re afraid of? As Pastor Tony unpacks chapter 12 of Luke, we take a look at anxiety: its symptoms, source & solution.
Though this Syrophoenician woman thought herself of a low estate–and those around her would’ve agreed, Christ deems her worthy, not of dog food, but of true spiritual meat: faith. Here we see the heart of Christ as he reaches out to those of low conditions.
Who should receive the sign of baptism? What can we learn from Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians about the relationship between Noah’s flood, the Exodus, and the New Testament sign and seal of baptism?
Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 in Mark can be seen as an allegory of the love and compassion God has for all his sheep.
For the ancient Hebrew, if you were to ask them about the sea, they would say that it was a place of great chaos, dread-waters, and danger. In this section of Mark, the disciples find themselves in the middle of all that water represents in the Old Testament. Christ takes on this source of evil and rebukes it. In confronting the sea, Christ is really confronting the enemies of God and his people. He says to that great enemy of our souls, “Be still, and be silent!”
Jesus as the servant of God is described in Isaiah 42 as being upheld, and loved by the Father, and as having the Spirit poured out upon him to empower him for his work. Jesus was the better ensurer of victory than Moses, a more acceptable sacrifice than the types and shadows of the law, and equipped with the Spirit to proclaim God’s will. Thus equipped, the servant does actually accomplish all the Father gives him to do in patience and with gentleness.
The Pharisees come to Jesus and ask, “Why is it your disciples are allowed to do that which is impermissible on the Sabbath?” You’d think Jesus would cite a text about the Sabbath and say, “Here’s why: it’s not really breaking the law of God. The law, in Deuteronomy actually gives us permission to glean. You guys are missing the point.” But Christ doesn’t do that. Instead, he goes to this seemingly random, interesting, odd text, about David on the run from Saul eating the bread of the Tabernacle. You have to ask yourself why he chose this particular text as a defense for his actions. In essence, his argument is this: “Long ago, David did this thing, in a particular circumstance. And this circumstance should remind you of what’s going on now.”
Next, Christ says they can do so, because he is the one who can authorize such a thing as Lord of the Sabbath. This pushes the offense over the top, into a whole other category for the Pharisees.
Lastly, Christ goes on to show the true intention of the day. How grateful can we be that Christ gives us not the explanation we would expect, but the revelation we need.