Grace for Your Day January 8

For many people, Jesus is an enigma because He was born of obscure parents and came from a remote town. He never travelled more than 100 miles from His place of birth (except for one brief trip to Egypt) and He never held public office. Yet He is the most famous person of all time. Millions follow Him. Multitudes swear allegiance to His name. Why?

Because of who He is.

Mark 1:1 says, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” These are the opening words of the Gospel of Mark and they give us 3 names for Jesus.

1). “Jesus” which means the one who saves His people.

2). “Christ” which refers to the Messiah or king of the Jews.

3). “The Son of God” which tells us that Jesus is fully God and fully human.

All of this explains why Mark wrote about Him and that is because He wanted us to know that, in Christ, we have someone who saves us, rules us, and makes us one with God.
Three other men also wrote Gospels in the New Testament and their names are: Matthew, Luke and John. Matthew wrote to tell us about Jesus’ kingdom. Luke wrote to reach the Gentiles and John wrote “so that you may believe” (John 20:31).

However, Mark wrote for another purpose and that is to show us how “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Many scholars believe that that is the key verse in the whole book because Mark was trying to explain how Jesus gave Himself for us. When He was on the earth, the Son of God did not sit idly by while we suffered. On the contrary, He laid aside His kingly crown and took up a servant’s garment to help us as can be seen in the following passages.

For example, He healed Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-34) and He healed a leper (1:40-45). He healed a paralytic who was let down through the roof (2:1-12) and a man with withered hand (3:1-5). He cured a woman with an issue of blood (5:21-34), and the sick at Nazareth (6:5). He stilled the storm (4:35-41) and fed the 5,000 (6:32-44). He walked on water (6:45-52) and fed the 4,000 (8:1-9). He cursed the fig tree (11:12-14) and cast out many demons (1:32-34) but He did not stop there because He also helped blind Bartimaeus (10:46-52), the Syrophoenician’s daughter (7:24-30), and an anonymous boy (Mar 9:14-27) which is what the Gospel of Mark is like.

Jesus is just serving people over and over again in this book in order to remind you that He did not come merely to teach us. He also came to make Himself “the slave of all” (Mark 10:44) which is what we are going to talk about this week at Grace Fellowship Church.

This Sunday, we are going to begin a sermon series on the Gospel of Mark called “The Gospel of the Servant King” because that is who Jesus was. He was the king who stooped down to serve. We could not help ourselves so He took on human flesh in order to help us. In fact, one of the most common words in the Gospel of Mark is the term “immediately” because it is used 42 times (1:10, 12, 18, 20, 21, 28, 29, 30, 42, 43; 2:8, 12; 3:6; 4:5, 15, 16, 17, 29, etc.) in order to show how passionate the Lord was about this. He did not hesitate to get involved in our lives when He was here. He instantly dropped whatever He was doing to assist us.

Do you look at Jesus this way today? You should. Do you see Him as someone who was willing to drop whatever He was doing to assist people like you and me when they needed Him? He was which means that you can call out to Him today and He will answer you because that is what He loves to do.

Please join us as we talk about that together over the weekend. The service will begin at 9:30 on Sunday morning and the sermon will be recorded and placed on our You Tube Channel afterwards for all those who cannot make it in person.

- Jeremy Cagle