“Thanks Mark, for Teaching Us about Jesus!”**
Main Idea: The Gospel of Mark
teaches us two important truths about Jesus the Servant, both of which are
summed up in Mark 10:45 and developed throughout the rest of the Gospel.
General Observations: What
did Mark teach us about Jesus?
1.
Mark gave us the beginning of
the good news about Jesus (1:1).
2.
Mark emphasized what Jesus did more than what Jesus said.
3.
Mark focused on the last week of Jesus’ life.
4.
Mark presented Jesus as a servant (10:45).
I. Jesus served by living a
perfect life (10:45a; chapters 1-10).
A.
He did not live for Himself but for others.
1. He called Himself ‘the
Son of Man.’
2. He became a man in order
to do for man what man cannot do for himself.
B.
He said His life was a ransom payment.
1. His life revealed God’s
righteous standard.
2. His life satisfied God’s
righteous standard.
3. His life’s merit is
imputed to sinners by faith.
William
Ames:
“The obedience of Christ is that righteousness (Romans 5:16) in the
name of which the grace of God justifies us, just as the disobedience of Adam
was that offense (Romans 5:16) for which God’s justice condemns us. Therefore
the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers in justification.”
II. Jesus served by dying a
sacrificial death (10:45b; chapters 11-16).
A.
He did not die for Himself but for the sins of others.
B.
He said He gave His life as a ransom payment.
1. We need His active
obedience.
2. We need His passive
obedience.
J.
I. Packer:
His active obedience (perfect
lifelong conformity to God’s law for mankind, and to his revealed will for the
Messiah) qualified Jesus to become our Savior by dying for us on the cross.
Jesus’ passive obedience (enduring
the penalty of God’s broken law as our sinless substitute) crowned his active
obedience to secure the pardon and acceptance of those who put their faith in
him ( Rom. 5:18-19; 2 Cor. 5:18-21 ; Phil. 2:8 ; Heb. 10:5-10 ).”
J.
Gresham Machen:
“By His passive obedience
— that is, by suffering in our stead — He paid the penalty for us; by His active
obedience — that is, by doing what the law of God required — He has
merited for us the reward.”
John
Owen:
“First, by the obedience of the life of Christ you see what is
intended, —his willing submission unto, and perfect, complete fulfilling of,
every law of God, that any of the saints of God were obliged unto. It is true,
every act almost of Christ’s obedience, from the blood of his circumcision to
the blood of his cross, was attended with suffering, so that his whole life
might, in that regard, be called a death; but yet, looking upon his willingness
and obedience in it, it is distinguished from his sufferings peculiarly so
called, and termed his active
righteousness.”
Implications: Everything
Jesus accomplished was for the benefit of His people!
1.
There is hope for those who struggle with guilt!
W.
G. T. Shedd: “Christ’s active obedience is his perfect performance of the requirements of
the moral law.”
2.
There is incentive for righteous living!
J.
Gresham Machen:
“We can put it briefly by saying that Christ took our place with
respect to the law of God. He paid for us the law’s penalty, and He obeyed for
us the law’s commands. He saved us from hell, and He earned for us our
entrance into heaven.”
3.
There is cause for a life of thanksgiving!
The greatest privilege in the world is to introduce someone to Jesus. There’s no thrill like it. On the receiving end, I’m grateful for the individuals God used in my life to make His Son known to me—for parents who put me in places where I would hear God’s Word, for Pastor Fissel who introduced me to Jesus at age eleven, for Mrs. Yoder, Mr. Moore, Mr. King, Mr. Miller and many other Sunday School teachers and youth workers who built on that foundation during my early teen years, for Pastor Dernlan who mentored me through the college years and beyond, emphasizing the importance of having a big and growing view of God through the careful study of His Word.
To bring it up to date, I’m thankful for a godly wife who teaches me about Jesus through her life, for
although she battles a connective tissue disease she consistently and selflessly
shows me the sufficiency of Christ who enables her to live as an overcomer.
And I’m grateful for you as a
congregation for God uses you continually to help me know Him better.
This is our purpose as a church, to
know Him and to make Him known to others.
That’s why this morning another ‘thank you’ is in order. For three years now, a man of God has been teaching us about Jesus. His name is Mark. On April 25, 2004, we began a journey through the Gospel that God the Holy Spirit used Mark to write. Today, some fifty-four messages later, we are ending our voyage. And before we close the book, I want to say, “Thank you, Mark, for teaching us about Jesus!”
Years ago I heard Warren Wiersbe give a helpful piece of advice on how to preach through a book in the Bible. Use the first message to tell the people where you’re going. Then preach your way through the book. Then, take a final message to remind the people where you’ve been. I’ve found that excellent advice.
There is no greater subject than Jesus. Unfortunately, there is no more misunderstood and misrepresented subject either. God gave the world four inspired biographies of the life of His Son, Jesus Christ. Each of these accounts offers a distinct perspective of Jesus’ life and ministry.
So what have we learned about Jesus from Mark? I’d like to answer that question in two ways, first by offering some general observations and then by pinpointing one specific characteristic of Jesus that we’ve seen throughout Mark’s Gospel.
General Observations:
What did Mark teach us about Jesus?
1.
Mark gave us the beginning of the good news about Jesus (1:1).
That’s what Mark said in the very first verse of his Gospel, Mark 1:1,
“The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t tell us anything about the first
thirty years of Jesus’ life, bypassing His birth, childhood, and early adult
life. Instead Mark tells the story
of what Jesus did during His final three years on earth.
Mark specifically calls those accomplishments ‘the beginning
of the good news [lit. the ‘gospel’] about Jesus,’ the implication being
that the good news didn’t end when Jesus returned to heaven.
Mark gave us only volume one. If
you want to read volume two, you need to check out the book of Acts where
you’ll see what Jesus did through the preaching of His followers throughout
the
2. Mark emphasized what Jesus did more than what Jesus said. Mark’s account is action-packed and fast-paced. He doesn’t record Jesus’ most famous sermons, such as The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), The Good Shepherd (John 10), and The Vine and the Branches (John 15). Mark wants His readers to see Jesus in action.[1]
Mark is writing for a non-Jewish, Roman
audience about thirty years after Jesus returned to heaven.
That explains why he inserts several explanations about Jewish customs
and Hebrew word meanings. Mark
wrote, not for the rabbi in the library but for the man on the street,
particularly the streets of
3. Mark focused on the last week of Jesus’ life. Again, Mark bypassed the first thirty years of Jesus’ life altogether. Of the sixteen chapters he did write, the final six chapters tell us what happened in the final seven days of Jesus’ life—called the Passion week which began on Palm Sunday and concluded on Resurrection Sunday.
We also see a geographical progression
in Mark which achieves the same focus. In
chapters 1-6 Mark presents Jesus’ ministry in
Mark wants us to know that there’s something incredibly significant about Jesus’ final week. If we don’t understand the significance of Jesus’ Passion week, then we don’t understand the significance of Jesus. Was Jesus a great teacher? Yes, but there have been other great teachers. That’s not what sets Jesus apart. This does, the work He accomplished in those final hours, namely His cross-work and His resurrection-work. More about that in a moment…
4.
Mark presented Jesus as a servant (10:45).
It’s estimated that one out of every three people living in
That’s a shocking statement! Jesus called Himself a servant. What did He mean by saying He came to serve? How did He serve? Who did He serve? Why did He come as a servant? We’ve seen the answer in Mark’s Gospel.
You say, “I don’t remember the answer! If we saw it, I don’t recall!” It’s easy to get lost in the trees and miss the forest. After fifty-plus messages, we’ve seen a lot of trees, so let’s step back and look one final time at the forest.
The Gospel of Mark shows us that Jesus served in two very specific ways. We hear Jesus identify these two ways in Mark 10:45 and we see Jesus accomplish them in the flow of Mark’s Gospel. I’ll state them both and then we’ll look at them individually:
1. Jesus served by living a perfect life (10:45a; chapters 1-10).
2. Jesus served by dying a sacrificial death (10:45b; chapters 11-16).
I.
Jesus served by living a perfect life (10:45a; chapters 1-10).
Notice the first part of Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…” From His words we can make two observations about Jesus’ life.
A. He did not live for Himself but for others. That’s what a servant does. He lives to please and do work for someone else. Jesus did not come to recruit people to serve Him, rather He said He came to serve others.
Who are the “others” Jesus came to serve? We find a clue in the title Jesus used in reference to Himself.
1. He called Himself ‘the
Son of
2. He became a man in order to do for man what man cannot do for himself. What is it that man cannot do for himself? Answer—he cannot live the life that God the Maker commands and requires. And what specifically does God command and require? Jesus answered that question in Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…Love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s the essence of God’s law. That’s what God requires of us, that we love Him supremely and love our fellow man selflessly.
Answer this. How does mankind do in light of God’s requirement? He fails. I fail. You fail. We all fall short of loving God supremely and loving others selflessly.
Is there hope? Yes. Jesus came, not to be served but to serve. God’s Son became a man in order to do for man what man cannot do for himself.
Look at the life of Jesus in the book of Mark and what do you see? You see the life of a person who loved God supremely and loved others selflessly. You see Jesus getting up early in order to begin His day in prayer (1:35). Why? Because He loved God supremely. You see Jesus heal a paralytic (2:11). Why? Because He loved man selflessly. You see Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple (11:15). Why? Because He loved God supremely. You see Jesus feeding hungry people (6:41). Why? Because He loved man selflessly. Ultimately, you see Jesus agonizing in the garden, “Not my will but yours be done (14:36).” Why? Because He loved God supremely. And you see Jesus enduring horrid pain and mockery on a cross (15:24). Why? Because He loved man selflessly. In event after event after event that’s what you see in Mark’s Gospel. You see Jesus doing what fallen man cannot do, keeping God’s law perfectly, loving God supremely and loving man selflessly.
But why? Why did Jesus live such a life? He tells us…
B.
He said His life was a ransom payment.
Note carefully the final phrase in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man
did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many.”
He didn’t say that His death was a ransom payment. He said He gave His life as a ransom payment. A ransom is the price necessary to set a hostage free. What does it take to set sinners like us free? We have two fundamental problems. One is something we did—we have sinned, and Jesus took care of that problem by dying on the cross. But our second problem is something we did not do. We have failed to keep God’s law. Which of us has loved God supremely and loved man selflessly? No one has. We have not only sinned but we have failed to live the right kind of life that God requires. “Be perfect,” Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, “as you Father in heaven is perfect.”
Are you perfect? To enter God’s presence you must possess perfection, righteousness. But according to Romans 3:10, “There is no one righteous, not one.” Your problem and mine is bigger than we might think. It’s not just that we’ve sinned against God. It’s that we lack the righteousness, the perfect obedience to His Law that He requires.
You say, “I don’t follow you. What exactly does righteousness look like? Give me a simple answer.” Okay, here it is. If you want to see righteousness, look at Jesus…
1. His life revealed God’s righteous standard. Jesus made this astounding claim, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17).” By His perfect life Jesus personified the Law. He revealed God’s righteous standard. But He did more!
2. His life satisfied God’s righteous standard. For instance, at His baptism Jesus said this in Matthew 3:15, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Why did Jesus say He was baptized? For the same reason He did every other righteous act in His life (and Mark records many!), in order to satisfy God’s standard of righteousness.
“Did He succeed?” one might ask. Oh yes! Listen to what the heavenly voice said as Jesus came out of the water, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased (Mark 1:11).”
You say, “Okay, I agree that Jesus’ life revealed God’s righteous standard. And I can see how His perfect life satisfied God’s righteous standard. But how does that help me? I am not righteous. Looking at Jesus’ life only reminds me of my shortcomings for I am not like Him!” True, we are not like Him and that fact would lead us to despair, were the following not true. He said that He came “to give His life as a ransom for many.”
If all we do is look at His life, we’ll experience condemnation for His life reveals our failures. He says He lived and gave that life as a ransom, a payment necessary to set people free. The words I’m about to say are the most beautiful, hope-giving news a sinner could ever hear…
3. His life’s merit is imputed to sinners by faith. Mark’s Gospel account tells us what Jesus did—He lived a righteous life. To understand why He did so we must go to the epistles. Consider carefully Paul’s explanation in Romans 5:19, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus] the many will be made righteous.” Because of Adam’s sin all of his descendants enter the world as sinners—that’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. On the basis of Jesus’ perfect obedience many are made righteous. The merit of His perfect life is given to sinners.
To all sinners? No. Which sinners benefit from Jesus’ righteous life? We must go back two verses to find the answer. Romans 5:17—“For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” Who benefits from Jesus’ perfect life? Everyone? No. Those who receive the gift of righteousness through Jesus Christ benefit.
The merit of Jesus’ life is a gift. As with any gift it must be received. Have you?
This is incredible news! If you have received Christ as your Savior, God has declared you to be righteous. He has imputed to your life the very merit of Jesus’ righteous life.
William Ames offers this helpful explanation: “The obedience of Christ is that righteousness in the name of which the grace of God justifies us, just as the disobedience of Adam was that offense for which God’s justice condemns us. Therefore the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers in justification.”[2]
Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “Christ came into the world to fulfill and answer the covenant of works, that is, the covenant that is to stand forever as a rule of judgment. And that is the covenant that we had broken, and that was the covenant that must be fulfilled.”[3]
Some people say doctrine isn’t practical. Actually there’s nothing more practical. It changes the way you live…and die.
J. Gresham Machen was a professor who
left
“The following day—New Year's Day,
1937—he mustered the strength to send a telegram to John Murray his friend and
colleague at
What was on Machen’s mind and brought him hope as he faced death? The obedience of Christ. Contrast that with the thinking of the average person on the street who, when asked why they think they’re going to heaven responds, “Because I’ve tried to live a good life.” Whose merit are you trusting in, Christ’s or your own?
I’m so thankful that Mark taught us about the life of Jesus! He showed us in this action-packed Gospel that Jesus served us by living a perfect life. Jesus resisted temptation in chapter one—I so often give in. He touched and healed a leper in chapter one—how many times have I refused to help the lepers of society? Instead of caving in to His earthly family’s pressure—like I’m prone to do—He obeyed His Heavenly Father in chapter three. In chapter four He’s sleeping in a boat in the midst of a storm—how often I’ve given way to fear in the storms of life rather than trusting God. He fed hungry people in chapter six—I’ve ignored the hungry countless times. He challenged the religious establishment in chapter seven—I’m prone to tone it down so people will like me. He was patient with people in chapter nine—I’m impatient. I look at Jesus’ life and I see many other expressions of righteousness—His holy zeal for justice, His love for prayer, His love for the Word of God, His purity with women—all in contrast with my unrighteousness.
No wonder Machen on his deathbed was thankful for Christ’s obedience! Jesus served us by living a perfect life in our place! But there’s another way He served us.
II.
Jesus served by dying a sacrificial death (10:45b; chapters 11-16).
Listen again to Jesus in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus here makes two things perfectly clear about His death.
A. He did not die for Himself but for the sins of others. He didn’t die for His own sin for He never sinned. His death was for the benefit of others. In what way?
B. He said He gave His life as a ransom payment. On the cross He chose to give His life—His perfect and righteous life, the life Mark presents for us in chapters 1-10—as a payment for sinners. Mark devotes chapters 11-16 to give us the important details of Jesus’ final week when the payment was made, with this climax in 15:34: “At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” There on the cross sinless Jesus died in the place of sinners, His death providing the necessary payment for their forgiveness and liberation.
Beloved, there are two aspects to Jesus’ obedience and we need them both.
1. We need His active obedience. That’s what Machen celebrated on his deathbed. It’s called ‘active obedience’ or ‘active righteousness’ because it is the righteousness that Jesus achieved and accomplished by means of His perfect life. Sometimes theologians refer to it as an alien righteousness to emphasize that this righteousness is not innate to us but has come upon us from outside ourselves. It is not ours but His.
Isaiah pictures this as a robe in Isaiah 61:10, “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness…” There was a time when I was improperly clothed wearing sin-stained, filthy rags. That was the wardrobe that I was wearing when I entered the world, a sin-stained wardrobe that I stained more and more by my own sinful choices.
But when I trusted in Christ, God then stripped off that old garment and put a robe of righteousness on me. Where did that robe come from? It belonged to Another, none other than Jesus Himself. The robe symbolizes His perfect, righteous life. And God puts that robe on all His adopted sons and daughters.
2. We need His passive obedience. ‘Active’ speaks of what Jesus did. ‘Passive’ speaks of what Jesus experienced, what was done to Him. We need both aspects.
J. I. Packer explains: “His [Jesus’] active obedience (perfect lifelong conformity to God’s law for mankind, and to his revealed will for the Messiah) qualified Jesus to become our Savior by dying for us on the cross. Jesus’ passive obedience (enduring the penalty of God’s broken law as our sinless substitute) crowned his active obedience to secure the pardon and acceptance of those who put their faith in him ( Rom. 5:18-19 ; 2 Cor. 5:18-21 ; Phil. 2:8 ; Heb. 10:5-10 ).”[5]
There’s a good definition of Jesus’ active obedience, His ‘perfect lifelong conformity to God’s law for mankind.’ I have not lived a life of perfect conformity to God’s law, nor have you, and without that we cannot enter God’s presence. But Jesus did. And on the basis of Jesus’ active obedience God accepts those who believe in Him.
And there’s a good definition of Jesus’ passive obedience. Jesus ‘endured the penalty of God’s broken law as our sinless substitute.’ That’s why He went to the cross, to endure the penalty we deserved to pay for breaking God’s law.
J. Gresham Machen puts it this way: “I think I can make the matter plain if I imagine a dialogue between the law of God and a sinful man saved by grace.
‘Man,’ says the law of God, ‘have you obeyed my commands?’
‘No,’ says the sinner saved by grace. ‘I have disobeyed them, not only in the person of my representative Adam in his first sin, but also in that I myself have sinned in thought, word and deed.’
‘Well, then, sinner,’ says the law of God, ‘have you paid the penalty which I pronounced upon disobedience?’
‘No,’ says the sinner, ‘I have not paid the penalty myself; but Christ has paid it for me. He was my representative when He died there on the cross. Hence, so far as the penalty is concerned, I am clear.’
‘Well, then, sinner,’ says the law of God, ‘how about the conditions which God has pronounced for the attainment of assured blessedness? Have you stood the test? Have you merited eternal life by perfect obedience during the period of probation?’
‘No,’ says the sinner, ‘I have not merited eternal life by my own perfect obedience. God knows and my own conscience knows that even after I became a Christian I have sinned in thought, word and deed. But although I have not merited eternal life by any obedience of my own, Christ has merited it for me by His perfect obedience. He was not for Himself subject to the law. No obedience was required of Him for Himself, since He was Lord of all. That obedience, then, which He rendered to the law when He was on earth was rendered by Him as my representative. I have no righteousness of my own, but clad in Christ’s perfect righteousness, imputed to me and received by faith alone, I can glory in the fact that so far as I am concerned the probation has been kept and as God is true there awaits me the glorious reward which Christ thus earned for me.’
“Such, put in bald, simple form, is the dialogue between every Christian and the law of God. How gloriously complete is the salvation wrought for us by Christ! Christ paid the penalty, and He merited the reward. Those are the two great things that He has done for us.”
“Theologians are accustomed to distinguish those two parts of the saving work of Christ by calling one of them His passive obedience and the other of them His active obedience. By His passive obedience — that is, by suffering in our stead — He paid the penalty for us; by His active obedience — that is, by doing what the law of God required — He has merited for us the reward.”[6]
We might think of it this way. If all we needed was forgiveness then Christ could have come to earth on a parachute on Good Friday, died on the cross, and returned to heaven on Resurrection Sunday. But He didn’t. Why did He live thirty-three years of perfect life first and then go to the cross? Here’s why. Because we need both righteousness and forgiveness. Righteousness—which God offers us by means of Jesus’ active obedience. And forgiveness—which God grants us on the basis of His Son’s passive obedience. Jesus served us by living a perfect life AND by dying a sacrificial death.
That’s one of the reasons Mark gave us a record of the life of Jesus and not just His death. We need the merit of Jesus’ life AND His death.
The Puritan , John Owen, offers this helpful clarification: “First, By the obedience of the life of Christ you see what is intended, —his willing submission unto, and perfect, complete fulfilling of, every law of God, that any of the saints of God were obliged unto. It is true, every act almost of Christ’s obedience, from the blood of his circumcision to the blood of his cross, was attended with suffering, so that his whole life might, in that regard, be called a death; but yet, looking upon his willingness and obedience in it, it is distinguished from his sufferings peculiarly so called, and termed his active righteousness. This is, then, I say, as was showed, that complete, absolutely perfect accomplishment of the whole law of God by Christ, our mediator; whereby he not only ‘did no sin, neither was there guile fold in his mouth,’ but also most perfectly fulfilled all righteousness, as he affirmed it became him to do. Secondly, That this obedience was performed by Christ not for himself, but for us, and in our stead.”[7]
Implications:
Everything Jesus accomplished was for the benefit of His people!
He lived perfectly—and we benefit from it! He died horribly—and that too was for our gain! Allow me to be specific. Here are three implications to ponder.
1. There is hope for those who struggle with guilt! What’s the solution for a guilty conscience? Some people try to ignore guilt, but they can’t. Others try to drown it out with a bottle. Still others try to crowd it out by filling their lives with ‘stuff’ (even Christian service). Beloved, here’s the solution for guilt. It’s the one God designed and it’s sure to work! Admit your sin and put your full trust in Jesus!
Ponder this important insight by W. G. T. Shedd, “Christ’s active obedience is his perfect performance of the requirements of the moral law.”[8] Let those words sink in. Perfect performance. Do those words describe your life? No, but they describe Jesus’. And they describe the way God looks at those who believe in His Son. If you are in Christ you are forgiven and righteous.
2. There is incentive for righteous living! We used to be slaves to sin, but if we’re in Christ that’s no longer true. We can live righteous lives! Indeed, if we’ve grasped what Christ accomplished for us, we’ll want to live righteous lives!
Ponder a final comment by J. Gresham Machen: “We can put it briefly by saying that Christ took our place with respect to the law of God. He paid for us the law’s penalty, and He obeyed for us the law’s commands. He saved us from hell, and He earned for us our entrance into heaven. All that we have, then, we owe unto Him. There is no blessing that we have in this world or the next for which we should not give Christ thanks.”[9]
3. There is cause for a life of thanksgiving! A God-centered, Christ-centered, grace-centered life! After all He’s done for us, how could we live any other way?
**Note:
This is an unedited manuscript of a message preached at
[1] Not surprisingly Mark uses the Greek adverb translated ‘immediately’ some 47 times (also translated ‘at once,’ ‘quickly,’ and ‘just then’).
[2] Ames, William. The Marrow of Theology, (Grand Rapids, Baker Books: 1997) Page 162.
[3] Edwards, Jonathan, Works, vol 1 (Carlisle, Banner of Truth Trust: 1992) Page 575.
[4]www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1464_J_Gresham_Machens_Response_to_Modernism
[5]Packer,
J. I. (1995, c1993). Concise theology : A guide to historic Christian
beliefs.
[6] J. Gresham Mechan, “The Active Obedience of Christ,” www.the-highway.com/atone2_Machen.html
[7] Owen, John. Works, vol 3 (Carlisle, Banner of Truth Trust: 1992) Pages 204-205.
[8]
Shedd, W.G.T. Dogmatic Theology, (
[9] J. Gresham Machen, “The Active Obedience of Christ,” www.the-highway.com/atone2_Machen.html