Audio version
The Challenge
Jesus offers loving sacrifice with total acceptance of who you are. All you have to do is accept it. Will you?
Summary
Passage – Mark 15
Introduction – Brent starts with a summary of the previous three weeks and reminds us to celebrate when God moves and does miraculous things. Brent tells a cute story about a girl in grade 2 who is apart of the SouthRidge community who has started praying for the elders of the church.
The experiences of Jesus on the cross – Brent then turns his attention to the events of Jesus’ death on the cross. He points out the prophecy of the darkness at noon when Jesus cries out to God and asks why he has been abandoned. (Amos 8:9. See also the plague of darkness in Exodus 10:21). In this dark moment it is believed that Jesus takes on the weight of all the sins of the world. Here Jesus has experienced for the first time God’s wrath and abandoned. God is present but inaccessible.
Feeling distant from God – There are times in our relationship with God where we feel distant from God and that God has become inaccessible. There maybe obvious reasons for the disconnection from God — unconfessed sin — and other times it is more complex and harder to comprehend. This is a reminder that Jesus has experienced everything that we experience. Jesus completely understands what we go through.
Jesus’ death gives us access to God – Upon Jesus’ death he cried out and says “it is finished” or “it is paid in full!” After Jesus’ death it is obvious that God’s plan is complete when the curtain of the temple was torn in two. This curtain represented a barrier between us and God. We now have access to God through the payment of death done by Jesus.
Conclusion – We are all looking for someone to love us enough to sacrifice for us. When younger we want this from our mothers. Later in life we want this from our life partner. Yet human based love is often conditional. Evidence of this is broken family relationships. But Jesus offers this type of loving sacrifice with total acceptance of who you are at this moment.
About the Speaker
Brent Chapman is the lead pastor at SouthRidge Church in Langley. As a young man he was a painter–the kind that painted walls not canvass. Then God tapped him on the shoulder and changed the direction of his life forever.
About the Mark Series
The Mark Series was started in January of 2013 with the purpose of learning about the man who claimed to be God’s son. This series of messages will cover Jesus’ life, his values, his teachings, his actions, and his claim to be the saviour.