The Beginning of the Gospel

Introduction

Before Brother Bowman comes up to uh share with us a lesson from God’s Word, I just wanted to say a few words about uh Brother Bowman. First of all, we have so appreciated having him here this weekend. We’ve had good studies. Uh he comes to us from uh Lumberton, Texas, where he lives with his wife Tracy. They have three grown daughters. Uh he’s been working at the Northwest Church. Is that correct? Northwest Church in Beaumont, Texas, uh, as the evangelist there for about 30 years. If you’ve heard Brother Bowman before, if you or if you’ve heard him anytime this weekend, including this morning, you know he is well studied and he is a very capable preacher in the Word of God and certainly knows and understands how to teach and impart the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Uh he has brought us some good lessons. Uh he shared with us a lot of good things that should be encouraging to all of us, should be spiritually challenging, uh, certainly edifying and encouraging, and above all, these have been messages directly from the Word of God. If you’re like me, you’ve heard some familiar stories, you’ve read some familiar scriptures that maybe after this weekend you’re thinking about in a little bit different way because of the uh thought and the things that Brother Bowman has shared with us with regard to those stories and those scriptures. I would just say, and then Brother Bowman referenced it, I believe, yesterday morning. Uh a lot of thought and planning has gone in into this weekend and the lessons that Brother Bowman has brought to us going back uh several months, actually.

Uh, the uh elders, John Walcott, and I started talking with uh Brother Bowman about this weekend. And he said we put a lot of uh topics and subjects and uh things that we might talk about on the table and cold it all down to what you have heard this weekend. And uh so I just want you to know Brother Bowman has put a lot of work into this. Uh these lessons have been presented to us for us. And uh so, Brother Bowman, we appreciate all your good work, and uh so uh just join with uh the elders uh before he departs from us today in thanking Brother Bowman for his work for the good lessons that he has presented and brought to us. And uh so now we’ll hear Brother Bowman with yet one more sermon.

Open your Bibles, if you wouldn’t put your bookmark in Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one is where we’re gonna study this morning. Uh first verse I’m gonna read, however, is from Romans 11. So uh if you’ll be ready uh as we get to Mark chapter one. Uh I’m a little uh overwhelmed by the uh the introduction, uh, but uh I’m very grateful, very kind uh words, and I appreciate them very much, very encouraging to me. I’ve enjoyed being with you this weekend. I appreciate the invitation. It’s always an honor to be asked to go preach somewhere. And uh your uh elders and obviously all of you put a lot of work into this weekend. Many of you have been here at every service, and uh that means sacrificing Friday night and Saturday, and uh uh that’s an encouragement to me.

I hope that our studies and our worship together has been encouraging to you. Uh, I thank you. Thank you for the good worship this morning. I’ve enjoyed worshiping with you. I appreciate the chapmans, the good work that they do here and have done for a good long while now. Uh may God bless all of you in your work. Uh if you’re visiting with us in the things that we study today, or if you’ve uh listened to some of the lessons over the weekend, the things that we talked about this weekend. Uh if you have questions, if uh you’re not a Christian, maybe you’ve been visiting this weekend because you’ve been asked by someone you know here. If we can help you in your efforts to serve the Lord, if you’re interested in studying the Bible together, please bring that to our attention.

We would love to have that opportunity. That’s what we are trying to do. This congregation, a group of Christians trying to encourage and help one another to serve the Lord and to become followers of Jesus. And uh that’s uh the aim of our effort uh today, not only to worship and to serve our Lord, but to encourage and to help one another. So I trust that our study will accomplish that as we go forward. Thank you for all your hospitality this weekend, all your kindness. Uh I’ve enjoyed being with you. Uh, but I am ready to go home. It takes me about uh 20 minutes after I leave the house to be ready to turn around and go back. So uh I miss uh miss my family, and uh you have been very, very kind, and I am very, very grateful.

Uh, but I am ready to go home. So uh uh Lord bless you and God speed uh in your work and in your life, and uh I hope that we can work again. Not on this side of the eternity, uh at least on the other side. If you study your Bible very much, or if you listen to lessons very much, then you’re uh well aware that uh discipleship to Jesus and uh the the the revelation of God can involve some fairly uh involved concepts. Uh we talked about the prodigal son on Friday night, but we talked about the prodigal son from the concept of what can we learn about God from this little story that Jesus tells. And as you go through the scriptures uh and and you read various and sundry passages, whether you’re looking at the gospels, whether you’re looking at the epistles, or whether you’re looking at some of the more challenging passages in the Old Testament, like yesterday when we study from Leviticus, there are some uh complex, uh, some very involved, some wonderful themes and concepts that run through the scripture.

But they’re very challenging to us. And sometimes the Bible, honestly, uh leaves us as many questions unanswered as it answers questions. I I mean, I want to know some things about God that God doesn’t reveal to me. Now he reveals all I need to know for my salvation, all I need to know to find him attractive, all I need to know so that I can appreciate the love and the sacrifice that we’ve already celebrated today. He makes those things very clear, but there’s some things that I uh that that he doesn’t tell me about himself, kind of like the story with Job, where he just says, Look, I’m God and you’re not, and that’s just gonna satisfy you for now. So I’ve got questions. I’ve got questions uh about where evil came from.

People ask me from time to time, say, where did evil come from? And I I have this really uh this really academic intellectual level answer to that question. Uh I don’t know. I don’t know uh how how to explain and account for all that. I know what God tells me about some things. I understand there’s a tempter. I understand that he’s in rebellion to God. I understand that I have freedom of will, but how that process all got started before time began, I don’t know. God doesn’t give me that answer. I don’t know everything that heaven’s going to be like. I don’t understand everything about the nature of man. I don’t understand everything about the nature of Jesus Christ. How it could be fully God and fully man at the same time absolutely boggles my mind.

But he tells me that. He gives me enough evidence to believe that he is trustworthy. And so when he tells me things I don’t understand or I can’t account for, I still accept them because he has shown himself to be trustworthy. In fact, in Romans chapter 11, the Apostle Paul makes this statement about the mercy of God, which is what’s under consideration in the passage. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. And there’s a lot of folks that think, well, when we get together, we need to plumb the depths of all these unsearchable things. Well, I’m not, I’m not going to argue that that does not have some place in our mind, although I would suggest that we need to be careful about chasing questions that God doesn’t answer for us.

What I want to offer to you this morning as we finish up our weekend together is that amongst all these big theological questions that mankind very often has for God, it is sometimes overlooked the reality that the gospel message is pretty simple. What the Bible’s really about, and please understand God offers history, but God offers history with a purpose. No, you’re not going to find what happened to the dinosaurs as you study the Bible. You’re not going to understand several things as it has as it pertains to God’s dealing with mankind as you study the Bible. What you’re going to find in the Bible is you’re going to find God’s effort to fix our mistakes. That’s what you’re going to find in the Bible. And it’s a pretty simple proposition.

If you turn over to Mark chapter 1, which I want to look with you for a few minutes this morning, I want you to notice that Mark’s introduction and the things that Mark says in regards to the fundamental message of John the Baptist and of Jesus are very straightforward things. Mark begins this gospel by saying, the beginning of the good news gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In verse 4, he says, John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. In verse 14, after John was put in Jesus, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand or near.

1. Jesus Was Obedient and Pleased His Father

Repent and believe in the good news. Now, that’s the fundamental message of the gospel. And that’s what I want to talk with you about this morning. I want to look at this passage. I want to make four observations that Mark offers to us at the very beginning. This is how he starts telling us about what God has done and who God is and who we’re supposed to be and what God wants from us. And so I trust it’ll be helpful to you. These are very simple points. Doesn’t require any huge background in knowledge of the Word of God. So if you’re with us for the first time and you’re thinking, okay, I may not get all this, I think you’ll get it. Okay. Number one. I want you to look at verse 9, if you would.

We’re introduced first by Mark to John the Baptist. And in verse 9, we are told, it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting, and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wilderness 40 days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. I want you to see something that Mark tells us about Jesus that I find exceptionally curious and very telling about about how God wants us to see Himself and ourselves.

I want you to notice that Jesus was obedient to God even when he did not derive benefit from what God told him to do. John’s message was a fundamental message. And it is really the message of all the Bible, and that is you’re going to have to repent. Back again in verse 4. You’re going to have to repent. You’re going to have to change your mind about your life. You can’t serve yourself anymore. If you want what I offer to you, you’re going to have to serve me. That’s the concept of repentance. And John and Jesus both, in connection with repentance, made the demand that God makes that we be baptized for the remission of our sins. Verse 4 says he was preaching this baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

And so when you get to verse 9, Jesus comes to John and is baptized by him. And if you went over to Matthew’s account, in Matthew chapter 3, when Jesus comes to John, and there is a background between them. In some way, most people think probably as cousins, Jesus and John were related. Their mothers, their mothers were related. And so John knew about Jesus, and at what point in time this happens. Jesus, we are told in Luke’s account is about 30 years old. So these men would have grown up, knowing each other in some way, probably met one another, maybe traveled to the feast days together if they were family. There is a connection there to the point that John knows who Jesus is. And he knows something about Jesus because in Matthew chapter 3, when Jesus comes to John to be baptized, John says, wait a minute.

If anybody needs to be baptized by anybody, I need to be baptized by you. Now, understand something. John doesn’t know yet that Jesus is the Messiah. Maybe he suspects. But John chapter 1, the gospel of John chapter 1 tells us that John didn’t realize Jesus was the Messiah until after he baptized him, and the Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove. But I tell you what he does know about Jesus. He knows he’s a pretty good guy. In fact, I would propose he probably can’t think of a time when Jesus has ever sinned. And if you know the story of Jesus, you understand that one of the things that makes Jesus the sacrifice that we’ve already celebrated this morning is the fact that Jesus lived a life without sin.

He was a man who didn’t deserve to die. And thus, he was a man that didn’t need to be baptized for the remission of his sins. So why does he do this? Well, I think there’s a couple of things to appreciate about this. Number one, Matthew tells us, he tells John, we’re going to do this that we might fulfill all righteousness. But I want you to look back in Mark at verse 11. Because this is very telling. When Jesus comes up from the water, he sees the heavens parting and the spirit descending, and God speaks and says, You are my beloved son, I am well pleased in you. I want you to appreciate about this Jesus, this about Jesus. His entire life was characterized by the fact that he did what God told him to do.

In every situation, Jesus did what God told him to do. In the next verse, he goes off in the wilderness and he’s tempted by Satan. Matthew records it in Matthew 4. Luke records it in Luke chapter 4. And we have this kind of expanded view of the things Satan did to try to tempt Jesus. And Jesus was never tempted to sin. Jesus lived his entire life without sinning. That impresses me. He never sassed his parents. He never was ungodly toward his brothers and sisters. As a young man going through his teen years, he never went through the rebellion or the lust or the lack of self control that teenagers went through. He perfectly controlled his desires because he ever lived to please God. Why was he successful in his temptation?

Well, we’re prone to say, well, because he always says, you know what he knew what the Bible said. It is written. It is written as not a magic formula, folks. Have you ever sinned when you knew you were doing wrong? When you knew what the Bible had to say about it? I suspect if you’ve been a Christian very long and if you’ve sinned, you’ve sinned knowing full well what God had to say about what you had done. Jesus, just because he knew what God said, that’s not the magic formula. The magic formula is I came down from heaven to do the will of my Father. And John 8, I always do those things that please my Father. So what’s the point? Well, Jesus did things he didn’t necessarily have to do.

He wasn’t going to be forgiven for sins because of his obedience. He did this because this is what God asked of him, and it characterized his life. Now, does that characterize me and you? It’s a pretty simple point. But I think it’s an absolutely vital point. That we recognize that God expects obedience from us. We live in an age that really underscores mercy and grace more than it demands obedience. You see it in the songs that we very often sing. Woe is me, I’m in need, I feel terrible about my sins. Let me tell you something. It’s a whole lot easier to beg for mercy than it is to get up every day and live a disciplined life and do what God tells us to do.

And to take his commandments and recognize that this is how I express my love. This is how I express my devotion. This is how I honor my God. And I don’t care what the world out there says, and I don’t care what the religious leaders of the world out there say, we don’t get to pick and choose. This is not a salad bar, folks. I like what God has to say about this, but I don’t like what God has to say about that. And so I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to do what I want to do and what I like, God tells me to do, and this other stuff I’m just going to kind of dismiss because God’s a gracious being and he loves us and he’s going to forgive us.

I’m going to tell you what. When Jesus says, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, we need to take that very, very seriously. And we need to recognize that there is no real service to God. There is no acceptable service to God unless we are obedient people. And don’t buy into what the world’s preaching out there, that anything less pleases God. If you love me, Jesus said in John 14, keep my commandments. And I want you to appreciate that Jesus did the very thing that God demands of us. So here’s my question as we finish that first point. Wake up. Can God say He’s well pleased with me? Can God say He’s well pleased with you? One of the first things God tells us about the gospel.

2. God Calls Us to Spiritual Service

Jesus was obedient and pleased his Father. Second observation. Go back to the text, if you would, in Mark chapter 1. And I want you to scoot down to verse 16, if you would. Excuse me. Yes, verse 16. After the temptation of Jesus. Verse 16 says, as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And we’d gone a little farther from there. He saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and they went after him.

I want you to learn something from this. I want you to learn that God calls us to spiritual service. And he calls all of us to spiritual service. That’s what he does with the apostles. Now, if you read the other gospels and you start putting things together, what becomes fairly apparent is that these men, James and John and Peter and Andrew, they had met Jesus before. Mark is offering us a kind of a summation. And they were brought to Jesus, Peter by his brother Andrew. Others were introduced to Jesus in one way or another as he went about doing his teaching. But there came a point when they understood who Jesus was, that Jesus goes to these young men and says, Look, I want you to do something special for me.

We’ve already noted that we’re all demanded to repent and believe the gospel. Everybody God calls to submission. Everybody calls, is called to baptism. Everybody is called to service. But each of us have different abilities and different talents that God calls us to. Not everybody who fished on the Sea of Galilee were called to be apostles of Jesus Christ to take the gospel into all the world. I don’t know what it was about Peter and Andrew and James and John. God knew about them. And he knew what they could bring to the kingdom. He knew what they could offer to the work of God as it is spread across this nation. And I want you to appreciate that all of us bring something to the gospel. Nobody is exempted.

Nobody gets to obey the gospel and say, okay, well, I’m just going to go along for the ride. I’m just going to hop in the boat and let all these faithful folks take me to heaven. And when I’m down and I need encouragement, I know they’re going to encourage me. And if I mess up, I know that they’re going to talk to me and try to keep me on the straight and narrow. And I’m just going to ride the ride. In the book of Romans in chapter 12, when Paul’s making some practical applications of his argument, he makes this observation in verse 3. I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, everyone who is among you. Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

As we have many members in one body, all the members do not have the same function. So we being many are one body in Christ. We’ve already underscored. Our good brother with wonderful prayer this morning. Prayed about the unity that exists in this congregation. Wonderful. More power to you. That’s exactly what Paul says we should all be striving for. But I want you to notice that he says, all members don’t have the same function. We being many are one body in Christ, and individually we’re members of one another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that’s given to us. Let us use them. If prophecy inspired teaching, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Ministry, service, let us use it in our ministry. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts and exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness, let love be without hypocrisy.

So I’m going to ask you this. I don’t know most of you folks. If I were given, you know, some months and we got to spend some time together, maybe I could answer this question for myself. But you’re going to have to answer this question. What’s your gift? What’s your ability? What can you do? Maybe that very few other people can do. How do you contribute to this group of folks? Remember, he says we’re all one body, but we’re different members. He makes the same point to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. And in 1 Corinthians 14, he says, everything should be done to edification. In Ephesians chapter 4, he makes the same point. That we all have these different gifts that we may help one another, he says, come to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Jesus Christ.

So here’s my question. Pay attention. What can you do to help the person sitting next to you be just like Jesus? Look around. Look around. Take a minute. Look over at the person next to you. Turn around and look at the person behind you. Turn around. You see all these people, you worship with them all the time, don’t you? What are you doing to help them be like Jesus? Jesus calls Peter and Andrew and James and John because they could do some things for him as the king that very few other people are going to be able to do. And he spent three years training those men so that they could go take the gospel into all the world. And they did their job diligently. And I’ll be honest with you, you and I probably would not be here as children of God were it not for those people doing what they were called to do.

And over and over and over, God calls Christians to service to other Christians so that every one of us can be like Jesus Christ. And some people, as he says, are really good at teaching. And other people have this wonderful gift of ministry. They just are just good at serving people. They’re always seeing what needs to be done, and they’re doing what needs to be done. Some people are leaders. Good congregations need good elders. They need men who are willing to stand up and say, all right, come on. Follow me. We’re going to serve the Lord. And every congregation needs that. He says those who lead need to do it with diligence. Some people are hospitable. They’re the ones that are always having people. They’re the social folks in the congregation.

And we need that. We’ve got to have everybody. Because in 1 Corinthians, he says, you know, what good is uh what good is it if the whole body’s an eye? You know, how are you going to hear if everybody’s an eye? If everybody’s an ear, how are you going to see anything? If everybody’s a foot, then how are you going to handle anything with it? And that’s the argument that he makes in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. And when we read that and we see it relative to the Corinthians, do we see it relative to us? I’ll probably step on a few toes, but I’m about to leave town, so so be it. Here you go. If all you do in this congregation is show up for services on Sunday morning, and that’s the full extent of your participation with this church, you’re not doing your job and your service to God.

And you better be worried about your soul. Because there’s as many commandments that tell us to love and serve one another as there are commandments that tell us to be baptized. And in this day and age, when the world’s getting darker and the culture around us is trying to pull us apart and pull our children away from us and the world is encroaching on us.

3. Jesus’ Power and Authority Transcends This World

And you can do something that nobody else can do. Jesus calls these men to service, and he calls all of us to service. Observation number three. If you go back to Mark chapter 1, I want you to appreciate, beginning in verse 21, what Mark tells us about the work of Jesus. This is a little lengthier reading, so if you haven’t turned there, please do. Verse 21. Then he went into Capernaum, and immediately upon the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. And there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?

Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him, and they were all amazed. They questioned among themselves, saying, What is this? What new teaching is this? With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. Immediately his fame spread throughout all the region of Galilee. And as soon as he had come out of the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon and Andrew. And James and John were with him. And Simon’s mother lay sick with a fever. And they told him about her at once, and he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her.

And she served them. At evening when the sun set, they brought to him all who were sick, and those who were demon possessed. The whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and he cast out many demons, and he did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him. I want you to appreciate that John introduces us to the idea that Jesus’ power and authority transcends this world. That’s important to us, folks, because we’re not just serving God for what we get out of it in this life. We are serving God with a view towards the next life. I hear people from time to time to say, you know, you Christians, y’all are just it’s just pie in the sky to you guys.

And I used to kind of resent that. Well, what? Well, how dare you? Uh. It is pie in the sky to us guys. You know, I’m not living for what I get out of on this world. I’m sure I could do things and make more money. I might do things in order to be famous. I might do things to find more sensual satisfaction, to salve every desire that I have. I’m sure I could live my life very differently and derive some kind of pleasures for the season, as Hebrews 11 describes sin. But we’re living for the next life. And it’s imperative for if we’re living for the next life, that the one who we’re counting on to get us in the next life has power that transcends this world.

And so in verse 22, when Jesus is teaching, they are impressed with his teaching. They are astonished because he didn’t teach them like the scribes and Pharisees, where they’re always quoting some famous man. He said, You’ve heard that it was said, but let me tell you what I say to you. And when he’s done, they’re impressed that he’s telling them not what other people said. He’s saying, this is what God says because I’m saying it. That impressed them. And as God he had the right to do that. He’s got the right to do that for us. When Jesus says it, it’s God saying it. We need to be impressed with his authority. When you go to verse 23 in the next little section, he casts a demon out.

And I know there are a lot of questions about this, and we’re not going to spend all the time answering every question everybody has about demon possession in the Bible, but I believe it’s true. I believe that somehow or the other God allowed demons to have some measure of power in this world. But what happens consistently is Jesus exerts a power that is greater than their power. They are offered, I think, as much as anything else. God allows the power so he can show his power. These are forces that go outside this world. These are forces that were stronger than the men that they controlled. And yet what happens is when Jesus tells them to come out, they don’t have a choice. They obey because Jesus was God, and they knew he was God.

They say it. We know who you are, the Holy One. Or have you come to destroy us? One demon says, if you come to cast us out before our time, we know the time’s coming. We’re going to be punished by God. Are you about to do that now? That doesn’t so hardly seem fair, but I know this. When Jesus told a demon, you come out, the demon came out because he didn’t have any choice. Because God has power. And then you go a few verses further, and we’re told about Peter’s mom, who, uh Peter’s mother-in-law, who is sick. I don’t know what she had. Some kind of an infection because she has a fever. And Jesus heals her. And word starts getting around. And when you get to the end of the day in verse 32, people are bringing Jesus’ sick folks right and left.

And what’s Jesus doing? He’s healing them. He’s casting out demons. People are impressed with him. He has power over will. He exercises authority when he speaks. He has power over spiritual beings. They have to obey him. And he has power over all creation. It’s interesting. We forget this sometimes. We understand how diseases work sometimes where they didn’t.

You can be sick because you have a bacterial infection, right? So you go to the doctor and they give you antibiotics. But you might get sick because you have a cold or something like COVID that’s a viral infection. And we understand that’s a little different critter than bacteria. Now, most people probably can’t explain all those differences, but we understand that it’s different. It’s another kind of organism that attacks our body in a different way. And so it requires different kinds of treatment. And we also understand things like cancer. Cancer is the body itself acting in ways it’s not supposed to, overproducing. And then sometimes we recognize that certain brain cells don’t work, or people get some kind of dementia where there’s problems within how the brain goes.

We understand that diseases are essentially either organisms that attack us or our bodies that don’t work right, but they are living things.

He created all that stuff, and when he tells a virus to leave the body, the virus leaves the body because he controls creation. In Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, Jesus tells these same apostles before they go into all the world, all authority is given to me in heaven and on earth. I want you to appreciate how important that is, folks. It says that everything that can be done, either in this life or in the next, Jesus can do. My spirit leaves my body when I die. Jesus can command my spirit to enter back into my body, and Jesus can reconfigure my body and make it where it is a place to dwell eternally, and he can make it like to his body, Philippians chapter 3. And so I can be raised from the dead in a glorified body.

4. Jesus Has What We Need

And Jesus proved he could do that because of all the things that he did, showing that he has authority. Is that meaningful to you? We don’t, we don’t, we’re not chasing pipe dreams here, folks. We’re not chasing things that don’t have any substance to them. We’re not chasing things where there’s no authority. Jesus can forgive my sins. I can’t do that. You can’t do that, but God can do that. He has all authority. And I want you to appreciate everything meaningful in this life that looks forward to the next is possible because Jesus’ authority transcends this world. And that’s why we trust it. That brings me to the last observation. Look at verse 32. At evening when the sun set, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed.

The whole city were gathered together. As you go down a little bit farther, you find in verse 39, as he’s preaching in their synagogues in out Galilee, he’s casting out demons. And a leper comes to him and says, if you’re willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus is moved with compassion and said, I am willing. People came to Jesus for what he could give them. There is a sense in which, I will freely admit, Christianity is selfish. There’s some irony here, isn’t there? Anybody wants to come to me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. And yet, why do we do that? Well, we do that because Jesus has stuff that we want. That’s what you saw in his day. If you had somebody that was sick, let’s say you have a relative with cancer.

And Jesus showed up in Orlando, Florida. And you knew Jesus had the power to heal him of his cancer or herb or cancer. Would you get them there? You bet you. I live an hour from Houston. Houston has one of the premier cancer treatment facilities in the entire world. And you go over to Houston and you walk through M.D. Anderson Hospital, it’s amazing the people that you see there. You people, you see people who have traveled days and spent life’s fortunes to come on the other side of the world because that’s where they have hope. I want you to understand something about Jesus, something we need to be teaching to people, something we need to remind ourselves of, something that we need to make sure that our children understand.

Jesus has what we need. And we come to Jesus because of what Jesus can give us. And you think, well, that seems selfish. You know, in verse 38, when Jesus has gone out to pray and the apostles come looking for him and say, look, everybody’s looking for you. Jesus says, let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth. We’re going to end the way we started the weekend. This is what God wants. Jesus came and led the life of sacrifice from his will to his teaching to his time to his effort to his death. Because he has what we need. He can give you forgiveness for your sins. I don’t care what you’ve done.

I don’t care how bad it’s been. I don’t care how many people you’ve hurt and all the dominoes that have fallen down behind you. You might not be able to repair all the damage you’ve done, but you can stand right before God. He has what you need. He can forgive you. And if you’re like I am, and uh our brother prayed about those who were grieving, you know, lost my dad two years ago. Still miss him every day. Uh somebody else told me yesterday they’d lost their dad about the same time I lost my dad. And they made the same observation missed him every day. You lose people that you love. A friend of mine just died of cancer that’s been a preacher for a long time.

We’ve been friends for 40 years, and uh his memorial service was yesterday, and I’ll miss him. Uh and and and I’m watching my mom get older, and I watch people that I love that that have all kinds of problems, and they’re gonna die. This is where life ends up, and I don’t like that. And I’d love to fix that, but I can’t fix it in this world, but I can prepare for it because death is not permanent. Jesus has what I need. He can give me eternal life. He can give me a life of hope. He can give me purpose for my living, he can give me a family. We are one. We talked about that this morning. He can give me association with those that I’ve loved who’ve gone before me, and he can give me association with himself.

Conclusion

He can give me a place to live that is free from all the sin and garbage that you have in this life where there’s no death and there’s no tears. He can give me that stuff, but I’ve got to come to him just like these people had to come to him because he has what we need. And so I ask you as we finish up this morning. Are you coming to him? Are you repenting? Are you obeying? Are you giving yourself and your service to his people and to his kingdom? Do you appreciate what he can do and who he is and what he offers and the power that’s there? Power that you can’t find anywhere else. Promises that can’t be fulfilled anywhere else. Now, are you living a life that says, this is where my trust is, this is where the authority is, this is what I need.

Because I guarantee you, you’re going to walk out of here, and some of you are going to go, well, okay, we’ll move on. I’m glad that meeting’s over. I’m tired of getting fussed at. Okay, you’re welcome to do that. But you’re going to face death, or you’re going to face sin, or you’re going to face the death and sins of those that you love. And there’s going to come a time where serving Christ is suddenly going to hit you in the face as to its importance, and I pray to God it’s not too late. We can’t play church, folks. We have to understand that Jesus came into this world to call us to repentance, to share the good news, and to give us the opportunity to take advantage of who he is and what he can do.

And so we’re going to sing an invitation song here. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to try to encourage each other. And we need to sing with that in mind. You don’t know if the person that you looked at a while ago, when I asked you to look around, you don’t know what’s going on in their life right now. You don’t know how much they may need your encouragement. And I’m going to tell you, if you if your life is messed up spiritually, now’s the time to fix it. But there’s a lot more important things in life. I’m sorry to say it, and this is not sacrilegious. There’s a lot more important things in life than whether the gators win their football games.

And it’s time we grew up and started acting like the people God created us to be. Please take advantage of the good news of Jesus Christ. Will you come while we stand while we sing?