Heavenly Father, we once more thank you again that you have given us this written word that you have preserved and inscripturated down through time. Lord, we pray that you would illumine our minds and our hearts as we hear it expounded, Lord, as we hear your voice speaking through it. Lord, we pray that…
Take your copy of the Scriptures now back in hand and turn to the New Testament. We’re reading, continue on, John 16, that we started last week. But we’re reading the same passage, the first half now and then the first half in a moment. First John, I’m sorry, not first John, John 16, the…
We do welcome to the pulpit this morning, Reverend Steve Gonzalez. He’s a member of the Great Lakes Presbytery, our presbytery, and the PCA. He serves as pulpit supply in the OPC and the PCA. He was a full-time pulpit supply at an OPC church for a year and a half recently. He’s the manager…
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…
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.
Mark chapter six, starting at verse 30. Mark six. Verse 30, before we, if you’re reading about the Word and it’s preaching and it’s accepting, that’s the word of blessing on those hands. God, let’s pray together. Heavenly Father, we come again before you. We just wanted to hear from you. We praise you that…
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.