Great to be here this morning and to see all of you.
I'm thankful for this opportunity to come down.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Shahe.
Got a bunch of family here, lived here long time ago, and
now my family and I live just up the road in Clovis.
And we're glad to be with you all.
And here today, we're going to read from Mark 15 this morning.
So if you have a Bible nearby, I'll give you a few minutes to
turn over to Mark 15. This morning we're going to talk
about Jesus, and we're going to talk about Jesus specifically
through the lens of the gospel according to Mark.
When you open up the New Testament, you find that there
are four Gospel accounts. Mark is the second of those
four. And like Matthew, Luke, and
John, Mark has a unique perspective on who Jesus is and
what Jesus has accomplished. We're going to try to capture
this morning one of the core themes of Mark as we hope to
improve our understanding of who Jesus is and why he is worthy of
our dedication, our love, our admiration, and our loyalty.
Now in Mark one and verse one, there's a title to the whole
gospel. Mark begins by saying the
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And as we'll notice in our study this morning, the rest of the
whole book of Mark, all 16 chapters are designed to prove
that statement, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God. Particularly.
We're going to look a little bit at the crucifixion this morning.
And just to get our minds prepped for that study, we'll
read from Mark 15, verses 33 through 39, Mark 15, beginning
in verse 33. Now when the 6th hour had come,
there was darkness over the whole land until the 9th hour.
And at the 9th hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying
Eloi eloi llama subaktan I, which is translated My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those who stood by when
they heard that said, look, he's calling for Elijah.
Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it
on a read and offered it to him to drink, saying let him alone,
let's see if Elijah will come to take him down.
And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.
Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried
out like this and breathed his last, he said truly this man was
the Son of God. We're going to talk this morning
about the King's deadly enthronement.
But before we studied together from the book of Mark and talk
about Jesus for a while, we're going to pray.
And so a brother's been selected to lead our prayer at this time.
Let's humble ourselves as he guides us in prayer.
We're going to begin our journey through Mark in the first
chapter. We'll make a little stopover in
chapter 8, and then we'll land back in chapter 15 to talk about
the crucifixion of Jesus. In Mark one and verse one again,
we read a title. The whole Gospel account says
the Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And before we proceed too much further beyond Mark 11, we want
to try to define and unpack a few of these terms that Mark is
assuming his readers will already understand and have some
familiarity with. Mark is assuming that the
Christians to whom he's written this gospel account probably
know something about the Old Testament scriptures.
They know something already about the story of Jesus.
And these would be terms that, in Christian circles, would have
already become familiar to the followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So he says the beginning of the
gospel. Most of us probably know that
the word gospel literally just means good news, and it's a
specific kind of good news. It's good news that brings or
produces great joy in those who have heard that news.
In the ancient world, there were two primary groups that were
becoming Christians. There were those who were raised
in Greco, Roman cultures, and there were those who were raised
in more of a Jewish culture. And each of these cultures used
this word gospel, but they kind of used it in two different
ways. For the Roman people, the word
gospel was an announcement of some great victory.
Like let's say Caesar or some general of Rome had gone off to
fight a battle wage war against one of the enemies of the
empire. If they were victorious over
those enemies, they would come back.
Messengers would return to Rome to report the gospel.
Or the good news that Caesar has triumphed.
He has won a great victory for the empire, fire, and now the
people of Rome can continue to enjoy peace, safety and
security. So the word gospel for the Greco
Roman people would have meant something about victory.
But the Jewish people use the word gospel a little
differently. Like in the book of Isaiah, the
gospel that is often described in that book is a message of
peace. It's a message of deliverance.
It's a message that God is still with his people.
He's going to provide them salvation, He's going to take
care of them, and he's going to look after their need.
So this word for Jewish people would have something to do with
the saving power of God. And Mark is drawing on probably
both of these concepts to announce something about Jesus.
The arrival and mission of Jesus has brought about a great
victory over all the enemies of God and the enemies of God's
people. And it's a message of salvation.
Now let's talk about this word here, the word Christ.
Sometimes we think about Jesus Christ, maybe like it's a first
and last name, and that's not correct.
The word Christ is a title. It is the equivalent of the word
Messiah. You'll hear me using these words
interchangeably. Christ comes from a Greek word,
Christophe's Messiah comes from a Hebrew word, Messiah.
But they have the same meaning. They both refer to someone who
is anointed, someone who is anointed or selected or ordained
of God for a particular task or for a special office.
The first time this word appears in the Bible is in the book of
Leviticus, when Moses is gathering Aaron and all of his
sons before him in front of the door of the Tabernacle, and
Moses pours anointing oil on their heads to ordain them as
Israel's priests. This was an act of consecration.
He was literally setting them apart from the rest of all of
the Israelites to perform this new function or to fill this new
role that God had ordained the role of the priest.
That's the way the word is used to refer to priests for a long
time, until a very special woman in the book of First Samuel
changed the meaning of the word Messiah, or the word anointed.
That woman's name was Hannah. Hannah would become the mother
of the prophet Samuel, and Hannah is the first human being
in the whole Bible to use the word anointed or the word
Messiah to refer to a king. She gives this beautiful prayer
poem in First Samuel 2 about God's work in the world and what
God will accomplish through her son.
She doesn't know her son's going to be a prophet, yet he's still
a child when she sings this song, but she has faith that God
is doing an incredible work in the world.
And after Hannah, the word anointed almost always refers to
Israel's king. You remember there was a time
when King Saul, who was the first king in Israel, was
chasing David. He wanted to kill David.
And one night, Saul was asleep in a cave, and David found him.
He snuck in there, and he saw the king who was sleeping.
But he didn't do anything to the king.
And he went out and David rejoined his band of, well, kind
of fugitives. And they said you had an
opportunity. You could have killed Saul.
He's your enemy. Why didn't you just take him out
right there? And David said, oh, no, no, no,
no, no, no. I could never kill God's
anointed. That's the way our English
Bibles render it. But it's the word Messiah, God's
Messiah. So when you see the word
anointed or the word Messiah or Christ in in reference to mark
one verse one the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you
should think in your head when you see the word Christ anointed
King. In Second Samuel, Chapter 7,
verses 12 through 16, God makes an incredible promise to King
David. He tells King David that one day
one of his descendants would be the heir to an eternal Kingdom,
that one of David's sons would one day ascend to sit on an
everlasting throne, and that he would rule the whole world.
And this was the hope of Israel for centuries.
David lived about 1000 years before Jesus was born.
So for 1000 years the people of Israel were waiting for God to
fulfill the promise he made to King David that the anointed air
of David's line, the great Messiah, the king would finally
come, restore Israel, rule over the world, and bring peace and
justice and righteousness. So Mark makes the declaration
right at the beginning, saying it's done.
It has occurred. This is a great announcement of
victory and salvation, because the anointed king of Israel from
the line of David has come. But then Mark adds something to
that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The phrase Son of God is used at least two different ways in the
New Testament, and there's an important distinction here
that's going to help us to understand a little bit about
Mark. In the Gospel.
According to John, the 4th Gospel, we have this famous
opening where John says in the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.
All things were created through this entity, this person that
John calls the Word. And then in John one verse 18,
John tells us that the Word, this Creator who is equal with
God, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld as
glory the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of
grace and truth. John when he uses the phrase Son
of God, he's using it to describe something about Jesus
nature. Jesus did not begin to exist
when he was born of the Virgin Mary.
He existed long before that. Since what John says is the
beginning, Jesus is equal with God, creator of the universe,
and it's that God of Israel, who took on a body of flesh and
walked among his creation, dwelt here on the earth.
But even though he was incarnated or made flesh, he was
still the Son of God. That's not the way Mark is using
this expression. The way Mark is using this
expression has something to do with Psalm 2IN Psalm 2, which is
a A a coronation Psalm, a royal Psalm.
God is talking about the promise that he made to King David.
And remember, the promise that he made to King David was that
one day his son would rule the world and sit on an everlasting
throne, ruling over an eternal Kingdom.
And God says something very specific about this king in
Psalm 2. He says of this king, you are my
son. Today I have become your father
or begotten you. Some translation say you are my
son. So one way the New Testament
uses the phrase Son of God is to speak of Jesus divine identity.
But another way, the word Son of God, the phrase Son of God is
used is back in reference to this same promise that was made
to David. Son of God is a title and it is
referring to the anointed king of the line of David who would
come to rule the world. The claim that Mark is making
right here in Mark One and verse one is that Psalm 2 and I'll
write up here, add to the second Samuel 712 through 16 and all
the promises God made to David are all now coming to fruition.
All of these promises are being fulfilled.
This is good news of victory and salvation to the whole world.
And it's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus.
Now Mark just says it. He just claims it right at the
beginning, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. He just asserts that this is
true. But then in the following scenes
in Mark one, he's going to try to prove that it's true.
And he does it through three different incidents.
The 1st is the preaching of John the Baptist.
Look with me again. Now Mark one will pick up in
verse two as it is written in the prophets.
Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will
prepare your way before you. The voice of 1 crying in the
wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord.
Make his paths straight. So Mark says, Let me give you
some good news about Jesus. It's just as it was written in
the prophets. A messenger will come to prepare
the way for the Lord's arrival. Now that messenger, if we read
on, we learn as a man named John, John the Baptizer.
And John was coming to call Israel to repentance so that he
could prepare them. For what?
What was John preparing them for?
What does it mean to make straight the paths, this kind of
figures of speech that John is using here, that Mark is using
here, quoting from Isaiah and other old prophets?
Well, the image in the ancient world would be the arrival of
the king to your city. Let's say you lived in Corinth
or Ephesus or Philip Pie. And you heard that the Caesar,
the king of Rome, was going to come visit your town.
You know what you would do to prepare for that kind of a
visit? You would send people out into
the wilderness, beyond the city walls, to make sure the path was
clear for his arrival. You would send people off to
make sure there was no debris blocking the road.
You would send out patrols to make sure there were no
highwaymen and robbers who were waiting to jump the caravan and
do anything that might interfere with the King's arrival.
That was John's job. John's job was to call Israel to
repentance because they needed to be prepared for the arrival
of their king. So Mark says the king is here.
It was John who made the way that was ready for his arrival.
Let's look at another way. Mark is telling us that Israel's
king has finally come pick up in verse 9 Mark one verse nine.
It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of
Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan and.
Immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens
parting and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove.
Then a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. This is the baptism of Jesus.
Now what is happening at the baptism of Jesus?
Remember we talked a little bit ago about anointing.
It was the prophet Samuel, Hannah's son, who took oil and
poured it on the head of Saul, and then later on David to
announce to all those who were witnesses.
God has selected this man to be Israel's king.
That's what's happening when John, who likes Samuel, is a
prophet, immerses Jesus into the water of the Jordan River.
He is announcing to the world this is the king God has
anointed to rule over everything and two things happen when Jesus
is baptized. The 1st is our translations
don't do it justice, the words much more violent.
It says the heavens are ripped open, the sky bursts apart.
You can try to imagine what that would have looked like.
And the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove and
descends upon Jesus as he's coming up out of the water.
Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 61 tells us that the Spirit of God
would be upon the Messiah, enabling him to preach and to
work miracles. This is more scripture
fulfillment. But then a second thing happens
at Jesus baptism. The voice from heaven makes an
announcement. And what's the announcement?
Psalm 2. You're my son.
You are my son. In you.
I'm well pleased. So all of this that Mark packs
into Mark one verse, one is being unfolded and explained and
proven as Mark goes into this first chapter of his Gospel
account. So there's the ministry of John,
there's the baptism of Jesus, and then one more look at Mark
114 and 15. Now, after John was put in
prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching what?
The gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled
and the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in the gospel.
This short verse right here, you know if you read Mark, they're
not many sermons from Jesus. Matthew has a lot of sermons.
OK, Matthew was really into sermons and he recorded lots of
sermons. Mark doesn't do that.
Instead, in just one little verse, Mark sort of sums up
everything Jesus preached. And the message that Jesus
preached was this. The time is fulfilled.
All that the prophets anticipated, all that Israel has
been waiting for, all that God has promised, is now coming to
pass. The time is fulfilled.
The Kingdom of God is at hand. It's so close you can reach out
and grab it, repent and believe in this good news.
Trust that it is being accomplished in your midst.
You can see it happening, accepted, and give your loyal
allegiance and your love to God's anointed king, the one who
comes to fulfill all the hope of Israel.
So Mark begins by telling us exactly who Jesus is.
He gives us all of this evidence to confirm His claim that Jesus
is the anointed king. He's God's son.
He's come to rule the world. And then guess what?
When you read on from here, not one single person understands
that about Jesus. Nobody gets it.
Nobody. The religious leaders who
supposedly know the old law and the old scriptures, the mess of
the prophets better than anybody.
They don't know who Jesus is. They think he's working in
league with Satan to cast out demons.
Jesus own family, you would think Well, Mary and Jesus
siblings. They've known him since he was a
babe. Surely they would understand who
he is. Nope.
They think he's nuts. They think he's out of his mind.
What about the masses, the people to whom Jesus ministered
and in their midst perform all kinds of miracles?
No, they don't really understand.
They know Jesus is a miracle worker.
They think that he's a teacher. He's got this little band of
disciples that follows him around everywhere, but they
don't understand who he is either.
What about the disciples? Surely they get it.
Nope. One of the most famous scenes in
Mark chapter 4 is when Jesus and the disciples are on Lake
Galilee and a violent storm comes and the disciples are
convinced they're all going to die.
Jesus is asleep. They go down and wrestle them
awake. They say, don't you care that
we're perishing? Jesus gets up, looks at the
storm. He says, peace be still.
All of a sudden calm and quiet comes and what are the disciples
say? Who is this man that even the
winds and the waves obey him? Nobody understands these facts
about Jesus. The only beings that get close
are the demons that Jesus casts out from people, but no human
seems to have any clue whatsoever.
Obviously God knows he announced it with at the baptism, but no
human has any idea who Jesus is. OK, now let's make our quick pit
stop in Mark 8 and then we'll wrap up in Mark 15.
In Mark Eight, Peter blessed man that he is always the first to
speak, that often made him wrong, gets really close to tell
us who Jesus is. You know the scene in Mark 8.
Jesus is going to take the disciples away for a little
while, talk to them about some important matters we'll pick up
in verse 27. Now Jesus and his disciples went
out to the towns of cessory of Philippine, and on the road he
asked his disciples, saying to them, who do men say that I am?
So they answered John the Baptist.
But some say Elijah and others One of the prophets, he said to
them, But who do you say that I am?
Peter answered and said to him, You are the Christ.
In other words, you are the
anointed king of the line of David.
You are the 1 the prophets promised who has come to restore
Israel and to rule the world. Oh, good job, Peter.
Yes, excellent. Now in verse 30 Jesus strictly
warned them that they shouldn't tell anyone about this right
now. But then look what happens in
verse 31. And Jesus began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.
And after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly.
Then Peter, who just made such a great confession, took him aside
and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned around
and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get
behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of
God, but the things of men. Ouch, He still doesn't get it.
He understands Peter now. He understands this that Jesus
is the anointed king of David's line.
But in Peter's mind, because Peter has read Psalm 2 and Peter
has read Second Samuel 7, verses 12 through 16, Messiah does not
come to the earth to die. Messiah comes to the earth to
rule, to dominate his enemies, to be triumphal over the
nations, to bring the Gentiles and the Jews alike under
subjection to his reign. It just didn't compute at all.
There was no way in Peter's mind that he could think, Well, I
just said, you're the Messiah and now you're telling me you're
going to go to Jerusalem and die?
That's not what Messiah's supposed to do.
Messiah's supposed to go to Jerusalem to rule, to take up
his throne, and to have a great victory.
So even here, when we get to the middle of Bark, which is a real
climactic point in the gospel, Peter still doesn't get it.
And Peter won't get it for even some time after this.
Now, eventually, of course, Jesus does get to Jerusalem.
He confronts the religious leaders and he cleanses the
temple. They turn against him.
They begin to look for opportunities to arrest him and
kill him. Judas comes and presents them
something they can't pass up, Judas says.
I can tell you exactly where he'll be.
Nobody will be around. We'll do it under the cover of
darkness and you'll have the man you're looking for.
That's exactly what occurs. Judas leaves the mob to
Gethsemane. Jesus is arrested, He's tried,
he's condemned, and he's executed.
What I want to highlight for the last couple of minutes, this
will just take a few minutes, is that when we get to that
execution, when we get to the crucifixion, we are actually
seeing the fulfillment of Mark's initial claim.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
And the way Jesus becomes Israel's king and ruler of the
world is through his death. That's how it happens.
That's how God had planned it from the beginning.
So let's do a little reading now in Mark 15.
What we're going to notice when we do our reading in Mark 15,
we're going to look at these four paragraphs versus 16 to
2122 to 2627 to 3233 to 39. And we're going to notice how
Mark structures the whole crucifixion scene, not so much
around the idea that Jesus is a sacrifice who's dying for sins.
Other writers emphasize that Mark is not concerned with that.
Mark is concerned with emphasizing how at every stage
of the crucifixion, the fact that Jesus is king and the fact
that Jesus is being enthroned as Israel's king is the forefront,
most important issue for us to recognize.
So let's look versus 16 through 21 mark 1516 through 21.
We read there. This is after a pilot has just
passed the condemning sentence. Then the soldiers led Jesus away
into the hall called Pretorium, and they called together the
whole Garrison and they clothed him with purple and they twisted
a crown of thorns, put it on his head and began to salute him.
Hail king of the Jews. Then they struck him on the head
with a Reed and spat on him and bowing the knee.
They worshipped him. And when they had mocked him,
they took the purple off him, put his own clothes on him, and
let him out to crucify him. So as the crucifixion scene
begins, we see in our first paragraph here the Romans are
mocking Jesus. But they're not just mocking
Jesus for any old reason. They're specifically mocking him
as a king. Purple is the color of royalty.
They give him a royal scepter. They give him a crown.
They even bow down and offer him worship.
And they chant, oh, hail King of the Jews.
Now they're doing it mockingly. They're doing it contemptuously.
But whether they realize it or not, they were setting up what
God had planned in store in store all along, to show the
world that Jesus, even in his death, is actually because of
his death, is Israel's king, the son of God, the ruler of the
world. We have sort of an A/B, A/B
pattern here. So it starts with Romans mocking
Jesus as king. Let's read on now verse 21.
Then they compelled a certain man, Simon of Cyrene, the father
of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country
and passing by to bear his cross.
And they brought him to the place Galgatha, which is
translated place of a skull. Then they gave him.
Why? I mingled with murder to drink,
but he did not take it. And when they crucified him,
they divided his garments, casting lots for them to
determine what every man should take.
Now it was the third hour, and they crucified him, and the
inscription of his accusation was written above the king of
the Jews. That means that as you stood
there on Galgatha and you looked up at Jesus, you would see a man
wearing a crown with the title hammered nailed above his head
saying the king of the Jews. That's what you would have seen,
the king of the Jews. OK, so that's a B Romans mock
Jesus as king. Then we have the title King of
the Jews, verse 27. Now let's read on with him
Jesus. They also crucified 2 robbers,
one in his right and the other on his left.
So the scripture was fulfilled which says, And he was numbered
with the transgressors. And those who passed by
blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, Oh you who
destroy the temple and build it up in three days, save yourself,
come down from the cross. Likewise the chief priest also
mocking among themselves with the scribe, said he saved others
himself he cannot save. Look at verse 32.
Let the Christ, the King of Israel descend now from the
cross that we may see and believe even those who were
crucified with him reviled him. In our first section we have the
Romans mocking Jesus as king with all the imagery of of
royalty and now that Jesus is on the cross the Jews come to do
the same thing. Oh let this self-proclaimed
Messiah. Let this king of the Jews come
on down from the cross boy. If he did that and we witnessed
it, then we believe. Of course the irony is they'd
seen a lot from Jesus. They'd seen all kinds of
miracles with their own eyes from Jesus, yet they did not
believe had failed to come to faith in Christ.
So the Romans mocked Jesus as king, the Jews mocked Jesus as
king. And now for the first time in
all of Mark, someone is going to say Jesus is the Son of God.
No one has said it, Peter demons.
Only God has said it at Jesus baptism.
And let's find out who this magical person is who makes this
good confession. Verse 33.
Now when the 6th hour had come, there was darkness over the
whole land until the 9th hour. And at the 9th hour Jesus cried
out with a loud voice saying Elo eye, Elo eye, Llamas Abaktanai,
which is translated. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? Some of those who stood by when
they heard that said, look, he's calling for Elijah.
And someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it
on a Reed and offered it to him to drink, saying let him alone,
let us see if Elijah will come to take him down.
And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.
Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried
out like this and breathed his last, he said, Truly this man
was the Son of God, not Peter, not any disciple, not a member
of Jesus family, not a member of the Jewish elite, not one of the
thieves. It was the man who was
overseeing his crucifixion, the centurion.
Now I don't know what the centurion meant when he said
truly this man was the Son of God.
Just like I know that the Jews and the Romans and even Pilot
who put this title King of the Jews above Jesus, had no idea
what they were doing and no idea that in these vile acts they
were actually fulfilling the plan of God.
What did a Roman centurion think Son of God meant?
Did he know Psalm 2? I don't know.
I don't know what he thought. But that doesn't really matter,
does it? What matters is that even in
death, especially in death, it is at this moment that Jesus
becomes the Christ, the Son of God.
That through his own death on the cross, he fulfills the hope
of Israel. He fulfills the message of the
prophets. He becomes the Messiah, the
ruler of the world. And we know that Mark doesn't
end here, but it's important for us to recognize that even before
Jesus resurrection, Mark is identifying what Jesus has
accomplished in his sacrifice on the cross.
When Jesus is being lifted up, it's not just to die.
It's not just to give his life a ransom for many, although it's
that too. It is to be enthroned in a very
strange, upside down kind of Kingdom.
A Kingdom not like those of the earth.
A Kingdom that's not established and spread through violence and
conquest and subjugation. A Kingdom that at its core is
about sacrifice and love and the wonderful work of God.
Kingdom that is spreading. A Kingdom that is encompassing
the whole earth. A Kingdom that brings great
news, a victory and salvation because Jesus is the King.
God's own Son resurrected on the third day, elevated to the right
hand of the Father where he rules over the world, and did
all that so that we could be a part of what he's accomplishing.
He did all that to reconcile the world back to God.
He did all that and now invites us to become members of His
Kingdom, to become citizens of this global Christian empire
that spreads through a message of peace and love and grace.
And maybe you're here today and you're ready to take your part
in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, to become a part of what Jesus
started. Remember how Mark opens the
gospel? He says this is the beginning,
the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Son of God. You know when you get to chapter
16, he doesn't say, and this is the end, because it hasn't
ended. The work that Jesus is
accomplishing is ongoing and it will continue until his glorious
return, and he invites us to be part of that work.
So if you're here this morning and you believe in Jesus, you
trust in what he has accomplished for you.
You're ready to give your life to him.
If you're here this morning and you believe in Jesus and are
willing to change, to repent, to conform your own life to the
example that he himself lived, if you're willing this morning
to confess your faith in Jesus, to say I believe just as the
centurion said, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then
you can be immersed in water for the forgiveness of your sins.
You know how Mark ends with Jesus giving the Great
Commission and saying he who believes and is baptized will be
saved, will be saved. The Gospel is a message of
salvation and victory. We thank you for listening to
our podcast put on by the Church of Christ.
At 2215 Plans Rd. In Bakersfield.
If you would like any additional information or you would like to
receive a free Bible correspondence course by mail,
please e-mail us at info@churchofchristbakersfield.com.
Our service times are Sundays at 10:30 AM and 5:00 PM and
Wednesdays at 7:30 PM. Please make plans to join us.
We would love for you to be our honored guest.