Embracing Jesus: Our King and Daily Guide

The author of Hebrews says this: let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. Have you ever felt like that in your journey with Jesus, that there's things that are holding you back from experiencing the fullness of what God has for you in Jesus? You're not alone. It's been happening from the beginning that people would say, all right, in order to do this thing, in order to follow this Jesus, we've got to throw these things off. [00:01:23]

We all have a race, and some of us feel like it's the rat race or it's racing after our neighbors and trying to keep up with what they have or racing after our kids and keeping up with their events. Whatever race we're running, there is a race that God has for us to run with him. And in order to do that, the author says this: we do this both the stripping off and the throwing off of the stuff that hinders and moving forward in the race that God has for us. [00:03:01]

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. I love that. Maybe your translation says that he's the author and perfector. Whatever it is, he is the one that started this thing in you, and he is the one who will continue this work in you. That it's not just about this one-time putting our trust in Jesus, but it's about this daily surrendering to him. [00:03:34]

If we can't trust it, then the words that are contained within it don't really matter. But if we can trust it, then we can dig in and explore and discover and unpack and apply these things to our life. The gospel of Mark was written, according to historians, written by a guy named John Mark. And he isn't somebody that came out of nowhere in the Bible. He's recorded elsewhere as being a very close friend and co-worker of one of the followers of Jesus, Peter. [00:06:07]

John Mark, according to historians, was Peter's assistant and secretary, and he traveled around not only with Peter but with the Apostle Paul. And so many would consider the gospel of Mark to be Peter's gospel. And in Acts 12, we see this early on in the life of the church after Jesus ascends into heaven and Peter and John and the other Apostles are proclaiming who Jesus is both in Jerusalem and as persecution demands that they go outside of Jerusalem to share this good news of Jesus. [00:06:51]

John Mark went with them as their assistant. So this guy who was the author of The Gospel of Mark is now the assistant to Paul and Barnabas as they're sent out from the Jerusalem Church in their first missionary journey. And then maybe you know this about John Mark, but as they were traveling around the river of the Mediterranean Sea, they come to the region of Galatia, which was mountainous and rugged and as country as you could get in that point. [00:09:07]

Mark is then encouraged to either begin writing down what Peter had been preaching or to assemble what he had been writing all throughout these years together, which is more likely the truth. And it was soon after that, soon after that in roughly 65 AD, that the gospel of Mark began to circulate as its own document. And it was used as eyewitness testimony. The gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke use Mark's account of what Peter saw Jesus do as their own source documents. [00:10:48]

John Mark didn't know he was writing the Bible. He just knew he was writing down what people saw and heard. And it was through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that these things have been preserved and kept for you and me today. And so we can trust in what Mark has to say and truly what Peter had been preaching the entire time. It's real amazing to think that this is Peter's perspective on the life of Jesus. [00:12:00]

If you have been around church for a while, you might have developed a certain type of theology when it comes to Jesus. And your theology might look something like this: it might look like you believe that God created everything and then mankind sinned, and then God had to send Jesus to fix what mankind messed up. And if you believe, you go to heaven, and if you don't believe, you go to hell. [00:13:17]

This kind of theology reminds us that Jesus is truly our savior, that he is the one that saves us from our sin, and he saves us from a destiny apart from our heavenly father in hell, and that he is going to prepare a place for us in heaven where we can enjoy relationship with him forever. But if you only view Jesus as your savior, it limits your relationship with him. [00:14:23]

Mark is making a point with his first sentence. He's saying this: we need to understand that Christ is not just Jesus's—it's not Jesus's last name, right? It's not his formal name, but it's a title that the early church and we today give to Jesus. In Greek, the word is Christos, and Christ is just a direct transliteration of that word Christos. And so we say Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. [00:15:55]

John announced someone is coming soon who is greater than I am, so much greater that I'm not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of his sandals. John, in the midst of the crowds and the attention and the cheers and the jeers that surrounded him, was able to keep his eyes fixed on the greater one, Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ who was coming. He had a humility in his service and he offered himself simply as a vessel to God. [00:23:05]