Do you feel the despite the work that you put in to follow Jesus?
That he's just offshore in a boat and avoiding being crushed?
As Carlos said, my name is Jay, that is not changed in the last
couple seconds. And if I have not met you, I
will take the L on that one, because I've been coming here
for quite a while, and I have the great Fortune to sometimes
be asked to preach. So, without further Ado, I'm
going to pray and we're just gonna get into it.
Oh Christ, at the altar of my life be magnified in me.
May I represent your words well and may we see that you are with
us in Jesus name. Amen.
If you have not met him yet, you will.
I'm speaking of course of my son Calvin.
Calvin has been described as a wild child.
A free spirit, a troublemaker. And believe me, he lives up to
the hype. but one of the coolest parts of being a parent is
getting to see how your children experience the world, how they
look at things, I'm stained by cynicism and doubt and just go
at it, from the most logical, sometimes the most illogical
way, but with no negative emotions, and we had an example
of that this lasts Easter So leading up to Easter, my wife
had set up the Jesus story book. Bible as something for us to
read to go through. And to prepare our hearts,
prepare our children for what was about to happen, what we're
about to discuss. And the cool thing about the
Jesus story book, Bible is from the Old Testament to the New
Testament stories with Jesus without Jesus every single
thing. Every single chapter, every
single part of it speaks to the speaks of Jesus, speaks of ways
doing and Calvin having read that got very excited and got
this idea in his mind that on Easter Sunday, he was going to
get to see Jesus at church and give him a hug.
And I'm going to tell you it was not a good parenting move, but
we did not kill that out of the gate.
No, no, no. That's brownie points.
Finger kid wants to hug Jesus. No, so we let that fly.
But Easter Sunday, came and there we were Calvin came into
church and he started running around looking for Jesus to give
him a hug to see where he was and finally get to meet this man
that he'd been hearing so much about And the reality dawned
upon my wife and I, that we were going to have to talk to him.
So we did what every single clever parent with in Frontier,
should do when faced, with the situation like that.
We unloaded it to Casey canoe. Casey, if you have not met him
yet, you will. He's our resident Theologian.
He reads a lot of liturgy writes, most of it and he
probably hates the fact that I'm talking about him.
So I'm just gonna go to the point.
We told Calvin and again, this is not a parent unless and this
is just what actually happened. We told Calvin.
Go ask Casey, where Jesus is And he did that.
And Casey being Casey quoted chapter and verse and gave the
perfect theological answer, he said, Calvin well, according to
Hebrews 12, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God the father
and furthermore if you look at Colossians 3, he is holding all
of creation together. Calvin.
Did not like that answer. No, but look on Calvin's face
was something between confusion disillusionment and probably
diarrhea because he just ran away and Frontier.
I'm here to tell you that, I agree with everything the Casey
said, And I don't disagree with it, just agree with it.
I want you to know and I want you to show you that.
His answer is better than what Calvin's?
Hope was. Please rise for the reading of
God's word. Mark chapter 3, verses 7 through
12 Jesus has just left. The synagogue, other gospels
would point to the fact that he knew that the Pharisees were
trying to kill him. So he is orientation himself
away from the synagogue and back into the wilderness.
Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea and a great
crowd followed From Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and it Amia
and from Beyond the Jordan and from around Tyree and Sedona,
when the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to
him and he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him
because of the crowd, lest they crush him.
For he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed
around him to touch him and whenever the unclean Spirit saw
him, they fell down before him and cried out.
You are the Son of God and he strictly ordered them not to
make him known. This is God's word.
It is good in his true. Please be seated. so, the
Pharisees They ran out of carrots, they've ran out of
sticks. And it was just at this point
that they have decided that the only logical thing to do with
this man was to kill him. That's what happens when the
seat of power is threatened. And In This Moment, the seat of
power was threatened. Jesus had become the center of
gravity of the ancient world, and he shows the center of
gravity by having a great crowd follow.
If you think about this, like this is something that kind of
makes sense today that people could hear about this about a
big event there. Be Community organizers, would
be trending topics on Twitter, there'd be Discord, servers text
messages, but no, from from North, from the east, from the
south, all these people heard from the ground up that there
was a man doing amazing things that people needed to see.
And Journeys. Like, this are hard for families
today, even I don't know this by experience.
I know this because every time we take a journey today, my wife
tells me that Journeys like this are very hard, you have to get
food, you have to get water, you have to make sure that their
snacks, you have to deal with your kids talking for, as long
as that car ride is going to be. And the people this great crowd
had even greater reality is associated with this.
They would have to feed animals, they would have to have water
for days, not just for hours. They would have to have food for
days. They would have to have tents,
they would have to walk and bear the burdens of physical toil on
them. Instead of just having just
having a car with air conditioning that would keep you
safe from any store more firm, anything and the crowd assembled
At the Sea of Galilee to see Jesus and what is a rare Hebrew
word? That only the most tatted up and
punk, rock Israelites would have known, which was a bar Mosh Pit.
Okay, I'm sorry. I've been under cold for too
long and I feel like a successful sermon needs to have
at least one made up word and I had a feeling that bar moshpit
would would fall flat and I was right and I should have trusted
my gut on that but Thank you. So why did these people make the
sacrifice? Why did they make the journey to
surround this man to surround Jesus?
Well, the text gives us some Clues.
From Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem in India.
Mia. And for beyond the Jordan and
around tirean, stone. So the cool thing about these
states is that each of them were established long, long before
Jesus is time, but the irony is that, while they bear the same
names that Israel given them they were under Roman control.
So as has, the great crowd was making their Journey, they would
have had to be reminded with each passing step with each
portion of the journey that they were not.
As God's chosen people, in control the, the road would have
had tax collectors scattered along.
It, people ripping off their own Community to enrich themselves
and enriched from there, would be Roman soldiers, reminding
them their place who they actually were in this world.
And as for shaving, they probably saw a few Roman crosses
to really communicate, who had the seat of power at that time.
but, You think that the religious leaders would be on
their side, right? They would be speaking truth to
power and emboldening the Israelites.
No absolutely not the Pharisees last week's Tech said went out
and immediately held counsel with the herodians against
Jesus, I'm how to destroy him. Whoa.
The Pharisees are so corrupt that they see a man doing
Miracles by definition. You can not do a miracle by
human power. There's no Photoshop.
There's no deep fakes. There's no way to fake.
What Jesus was doing it. Had to come from God.
And when the Pharisees saw this, they still said, we need to kill
this man. In John chapter 3, Nicodemus,
even tells Jesus to his face, we know that you are from God,
because no man can do what? Are doing and the Pharisees, the
religious leaders, the ones who are supposed to be shepherding,
the people of Israel. They say, let's kill this man.
We can't deal with this, it's like restarting computer.
Let's just get the next one from God because we don't like this
current one. But also they couldn't just not
trust the government officials that the religious leaders, they
were plagued by sickness. It says for he had healed many
so all that had diseases pressed around him.
There is every indication this text that.
The main reason that people want to go and see Jesus is not
because they think he's the coming Messiah but because they
know that they can be healed in his presence by simply touching
Him and think about that, there's no hospitals.
There's no modern medicine. These people.
If you lose a hand, you lose your livelihood.
If you become a leopard, you are an outcast.
You have to go to new communities, you have to find
ways to feed yourself. That would include begging or
being a burden on your family. And not only this.
But the unclean spirits whenever they saw him, they fell down
before him. Do you means are not new and
Mark and when they're going to be mentioned again.
So I want to speak to the the personal side of that.
Man is made in the image of God. Every man is and Israel, in this
moment is is God's chosen people.
So when a demon possesses an animates, a human body that is
enough front to the kingdom of God.
That is an affront to God's image and man and the demons are
running amuck throughout the nation of Israel.
So that people are not able to exercise them or cast them out.
People are not able to control their children, the the fathers
of their family. There's places where children
would be casting themselves into Fires.
Because that's what the demon had told them to do.
There are places where men are chained up like animals because
they just didn't know what to do with them and this is what the
great crowd had among them. They had demons possessing them,
they had sicknesses plaguing each and every day they had the
religious leaders going against them and roam.
This overshadowing of them, not having the glory not having what
was promised to David, a throne that would go on forever and
ever and I'm sure at that moment as this Barn moshpit got
together, there was Hopelessness there was sadness and there was
just a spark of this man named Jesus Christ.
I was before him and how does Jesus respond as the crowd
presses around him. He tells his disciples to have a
boat ready. Whoa.
A cause Jesus. Nothing to heal these people.
It costs, Jesus. Nothing to cast out the demons
from these people. And he had to have a boat ready
to be offshore. Frontier.
Do you feel this? Do you feel the despite the work
that you put in to follow Jesus? That he's just offshore?
In a boat and avoiding being crushed.
Does it feel like Jesus is in the boat today?
when your child isn't developing, the way that that
would be normal that you want them to is Jesus just often
about When every moment of your day has an overcast of anxiety,
of depression of physical pain is Jesus, just, you know,
avoiding being crushed. when you attend a funeral that should
have been decades from now, It's Jesus just often about when the
doctor says, oh it was a miscarriage, but don't worry.
This happens all the time and it would you can get back and it's
Jesus in the boat. When the world around you feels
like it's descending into war and political spiral is Jesus in
the boat when you are a three-year-old and all you want
is a hug from this man that you've heard so much about.
Is Jesus and about. Frontier.
I want to give you freedom to ask that question.
But I'm not here to leave you with questions.
What I'm here to do is to tell you what the Bible says, about
Jesus being in the boat. It's not the Jesus was afraid to
be crushed in that moment. It's that it wasn't the crowds
place to crush him that responsibility belong to God.
The Father I'm going to read from Isaiah chapter 53, 10
through 12, and we're going to get through this, but the Lord
desired to crush him, him being Jesus causing him.
Jesus grief, if he would render himself as a guilt offering, he
will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the
good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
God needed to crush. Jesus, the crowd did not have
that, right? As a result of the Anguish of
Jesus Soul, he will see it and be satisfied by his knowledge.
The righteous one. My servant will justify the many
for. He will bear their wrongdoings,
he will take their sins onto him.
Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great and he
will divide the plunder with the strong because he poured out his
life unto death and was counted with wrongdoers yet, he himself
bore the sin of many. Me and interceded for the
wrongdoers, what does this mean? I'm so glad we saying how great
thou art and when I think that God his son, not sparing, sent
him to die. I scarce can take it in because
God the Father crushed Jesus on the cross.
Jesus. No longer needs to reside in the
boat because God the Father crushed Jesus on the cross.
Jesus is now at the right hand of God, interceding for you, You
giving you access to the father. What does that mean in this
life? You are the body of Christ.
If you are in Christ, that means that when Casey told Calvin that
Christ is currently interceding for you.
At the right hand of the throne I should have said, well we are
the church. We are the body of Christ.
Give Calvin a hug right now because hands, arms and chest
are part of the body. And that's all that's needed for
a hug. What that means is that child of
God, when you die, you will see Christ face-to-face.
There will be no boat there. There will just It'd be him
saying to you. Well done, good and faithful
servant and child of God, there is one last hope and I'm going
to end on this one that as I start with this this idea of
Jesus departing, I want to leave you with the idea of him
returning from Revelation 21 verses 1 through 7.
Then I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth for the first Heaven.
And the first Earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
Isn't that funny? The sea was no more.
Like I don't think that's referring to Jesus getting in
the boat but it's really dang, convenient for me.
And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming down out of
Heaven, from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband
and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold The
Dwelling Place of God is with, man He will dwell with them and
they will be his people and God himself will be with them as
their God. There's no more boat, there's no
more distance, no price will be face-to-face with you, and those
end days. He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes and Death Shall be no more neither shall there.
Be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things
have passed away Frontier. If you haven't met him yet, you
will. And I pray that you meet him as
friend in that moment and not as enemy.
Because he who is Seated on the throne said, behold.
I'm making all things new also. He said, write this down for
these words are trustworthy and true.
And he said to me, it is finished.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, and the end to
the Thirsty, I will give from the spring of Water of Life
without payment, the one who conquers will have his Heritage
and I will be his God and he will be my son, child of God,
the one who was crushed for your iniquities has to, Declared that
his dwelling place is with you. God.
I'm so excited to one day. See Calvin hugging you and Lord.
I pray that each person in this church will get to hug you
someday also Jesus name amen. God.
I'm so excited to one day. See Calvin hugging you and Lord.
I pray that each person in this church will get to hug you
someday also Jesus name amen.