Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why Jesus Came to Earth | Mark | Mark 1.16-31

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

How can we live like Jesus? Look at how he lived his life. Follow along as https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/patrick-miller/ (Pastor Patrick Miller) does this by analyzing https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+1.16-31&version=NIV (Mark 1.16-31) to continue our series on Mark. Interested in more content like this? Check out these earlier episodes: https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/why-is-god-saving-the-wrong-people-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-4-14-30/ (Why is God Saving the Wrong People?) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/jesus-teaches-a-new-way-to-be-human-who-is-jesus-daniel-7/ (Jesus Teaches a New Way to be Human). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/why-is-god-saving-the-wrong-people-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-4-14-30/... Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. There's a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi that he probably didn't really say, but it still has the ring of truth, preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words. Of course, Jesus did use words. He built his ministry by traveling around Galilee and Judea, announcing that God's kingdom had arrived on Earth as in heaven. but not always. In Mark 116 to 34, Jesus follows up his kingdom announcement with actions. It's no accident that Mark puts three stories side by side because each of them illustrates what

happens when God's kingdom comes to earth. So let's pick up the story in verse 16. As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, that's going to be Peter later on, and his brother Peter casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. Come, follow me, Jesus said. and I will send you out to fish for people. At once, they left their nets and followed him. So after this, Jesus calls James and John in a very similar fashion. So Jesus is preaching the gospel here, not with words, but with actions. And what is he telling us in his actions?

Well, he's telling us that when the kingdom of God comes, it gives us a sense of mission and purpose in our lives. One thing that I think we've lost in the 21st century is the idea of cosmic purpose. When you evict God from your reality, you evict transcendent purpose in meetings. Richard Dawkins, he put it this way. He said, there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. We are machines for propagating DNA. That's an atheist view of reality. There is no purpose. Now, it's a startling statement, but I actually think it's incredibly honest. If God is dead, no purpose is only,

ultimate. We are simply globs of atoms selfishly bustling together to reproduce ourselves by the impersonal rules of natural selection. In fact, to call that a purpose, it's kind of to anthropomorphize it. It's not a purpose. Natural selection has no intentionality. It just is what it is. Do you have a, it just is what it is vibe to your life? You go to work and maybe you don't like it and you say, it just is what it is. Or maybe you're married or you're single and you say, you know, it just is what it is. I wonder if Peter and Andrew James and John that morning that they were called, I wonder if they were out fishing and you asked them, what did they think about their lives? Maybe they would have said, ah, it just is what it is. That's how an atheist sees the world.

There is no purpose. We're just DNA propagating machines. It just is what it is. Do you feel a sense of emptiness in your life right now? Or maybe just, sense of dullness, of vacuous purposelessness in your life? I want you to know that you were made for so much more. When God's kingdom comes on earth, this is what Jesus is showing us with his actions. When God's kingdom comes on earth as in heaven, purpose erupts into your life with volcanic power, because you have suddenly been connected with the super pressurized molten power and glory just beneath the surface of reality. Jesus, he looks at these two fishermen,

and this is what his actions tell them, whenever he calls them and gives them a purpose. He says, look, your life is not just, it is what it is. The world is charged with purpose. Your life, James, John, Peter, Andrew, your life is charged with purpose, and I have one for you, and it's very simple, follow me.

Do you want to know the purpose for your life? You were made to follow Jesus, to apprentice yourself, his character, his way of speech, his way of acting, his way of seeing others, of seeing yourself, of seeing the world, of defining good and evil. You were meant to apprentice his pattern of prayer, trusting God, living in community with others, service, and care for those who are in need and hurting. You were made to follow him in his lifestyle of hard work, excellence, productivity, loyalty, and commitment. Put differently, Jesus is offering us an education and how to live fully

human lives by modeling ourselves after him who was the most fully alive human who ever lived life can be so much more than it just is what it is god has a purpose for you that will give your life meaning weight direction and value do you know what that is god has a purpose for you it is to follow jesus jesus is here and he is in mark one he's showing us the gospel he's not just preaching it he's showing it. And the first thing that happens when God's kingdom comes to earth is that people get a purpose. Let's move on to the second thing that happens when God's kingdom comes to earth. Mark 1.23. Just then, a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, what do you want to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.

You are the Holy One of God. Be quiet, said Jesus sternly. Come out of him. The impure spirit. it shook the man violently, and he came out of him with a shriek. So the second thing that Jesus does is he confronts the powers of darkness. This was controversial in his day, not because people doubted the reality of spiritual darkness. That's a modern phenomenon. We kind of doubt the reality of spiritual evil. It's one of our own cultural pathologies.

This was controversial in Jesus' day because people like the Pharisees, the zealots, and most average people, they knew the real purpose. problem with the world. The real problem wasn't spiritual darkness. They didn't spiritualize the problem. The real problem were the Gentiles, specifically their Roman occupiers, who ruled over them by the edge of the sword. They had really good reason to think this, by the way. Jews had lived under foreign domination for almost 580 years, with only a brief and disappointing respite. Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many of the most popular books at the time all spoke about the fall of these super-pacet superpowers that were oppressing the Jews. And so all of these people, they all knew this truth.

When God's kingdom comes on earth, what's going to happen? Well, the kingdoms of the world are going to fall. But when Jesus came as the king announcing the kingdom, he staged war against something deeper and darker than the Roman Empire and all of its predecessors. He staged a war against the spiritual forces of darkness behind every single realm out there. He staged a war against the power of sin that infects the hearts of all people and the cultures in which we all live in every single nation. And he shows that he can actually do it. He can confront the powers of darkness, and he shows it by setting actual Jews free from these demonic powers in their lives. Jesus is marching around Israel, and he's kind of like David. He's defeating Israel's true enemy,

but it's not the Philistines. It's the powers of darkness. Do you know your true enemy? Because true enemy isn't a politician. It's not someone else in a different tribe from your own. It's the malevolent powers of sin, of darkness, which are infecting our world with hatred and pride, selfishness, idolatry, impurity, and rebellion against God's ways. The first way that Jesus shows his kingdom has come on earth is that he gives people a cosmic purpose. The second thing he does is he defeats our true enemies, the powers of darkness, sin and death. The third thing he does is he heat. He We read in Mark 129. As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her.

So he went to her, took her hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began to wait on them. After this, we learned that more and more crowds start gathering outside the house, and Jesus begins to heal even more people. When God's kingdom comes to earth, it brings healing. It brings healing. It brings holistic healing. That means that Jesus heals not only our bodies, but also our minds and our emotions. He heals communities. He heals families. He heals workplaces. Where do you see hurt, sickness, division, and hatred in your own world, in your own little locality? Jesus doesn't wage war on it. He heals it. He makes us whole. All these stories show what happened in the past. They're real stories, things that actually happened in the past, but they're telling us that they can happen in

the present and that they will fully happen in an absolute sense in the future. And in that future day, that will be the day when the good news fills the earth like the waters cover the deep. That'll be the day when God's kingdom comes fully on earth as in heaven. And we know that on that day, we will have a cosmic purpose. The powers of darkness will be defeated once for all. And everything that is wrong will be healed. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with?

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