Jesus is Lord

We are gathered again to ask the question, who is Jesus? This is what we gather for regularly. I've been walking through the book of Mark, if you're new with us. And here we are in Mark chapter 12, and the main focus here is Jesus is now telling us who he is very directly. If you look back in the Mark 12, you can see there, there's a number of headings in the Pew Bible, paying taxes to Caesar, asking about the resurrection, what is the greatest commandment. What's taking place here is Jesus has come into Jerusalem for the last time. And the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders, they're sending different groups to try to stop Jesus, try to capture him, to get him saying something that would be used against him in a court of law. And I just want you to notice the very last statement that is shared here in verse 34, after all these different groups come to Jesus, and after that, No one dared to ask him any more questions. We see here the Word of God, the true prophet, he has spoken truly and wisely and perfectly, and the folks who are trying to attack him, they're left with nothing. And what happens next, is Jesus takes control of the conversation. Right? He never lost control, but, but instead of letting somebody else come and initiate the question, He starts asking the question that's really the most important question. He turns it. And it's, it's very important we see here, verse 35, He's in the temple. We, we, we, we must be in the outer courts because while teaching, we have a woman giving an offering. So we're in the outer courts of the temple where, where everyone can come and hear Him. But the temple, that's where the Sanhedrin has their rule, that is the center of worship for all of Israel. And Jesus the King has come to make sure we know who he is. And that's encouraging for us this morning. God wants us to know he is. His desire is to know us and to be known by us. He is not a God of mystery who we kind of have a guessing game and try to figure things out. No, He's spoken. We receive what He has said, and here we see Jesus Christ is telling us who He is. So our first section is simply asking, who is Jesus? Because that's what He's telling us. Look again here to verse 35. Now Jesus, he's the one who's teaching, he's in the temple. How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself and the Holy Spirit declared, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. David himself calls him Lord, so how is it he is his son? He's taking a very popular concept among what has been taught by the scribes, and he's pressing in to now show them how wrong they are about how they are perceiving the Christ. Here we see him, he's quoting Psalm 110. If you wanna open up there, the Pew Bible is page 509. We have here Jesus Christ himself giving us the authoritative interpretation as he does, as he has done elsewhere. of what is actually happening in the text. To make it very clear, the scribe who Jesus spoke to just before this, remember he asked, what is the greatest commandment? When Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself, the scribe said, well said, teacher. He was agreeable. He's recognizing that scribe in the previous section, he's recognizing Jesus is a good teacher. He's right. So Jesus says you're not far from the kingdom of God. Well what is it that would keep him from coming to the kingdom of God? He has an insufficient, he has a deficient view of who the Christ is. He doesn't yet recognize that the Christ is God himself as promised, as we heard earlier, Ezekiel 34. God himself coming to be our shepherd. Really what Jesus is doing here is challenging our problem of always thinking He's less than He is. Really just seeing Him as a creation. 60% of evangelicals, based upon a study recently by Ligonier Ministries, said that Jesus was created by God. 60% of evangelicals, that is people who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, thinks He's created. When here we're going to see, no, he's clearly the creator of David. We need to be careful about who we think Jesus is and receiving who he says he is. So Psalm 110, if you're there, page 509. First, this is a very important text because it's the most quoted text from the Old Testament and the New Testament. If you look at Hebrews, Hebrews actually looks like an exposition of Psalm 110. So Psalm 110 in and of itself, the text he's actually quoting, is a very important text just by its use from old into the New Testament. The New Testament authors realized it was a significant text to recognize Jesus' deity. Secondly, in the Old Testament, this was a text that would have been read at any new king's coronation ceremony. Because the, the, the Lord said to my Lord, said to my, and this, this is stating very clearly, the new king is going to be an instrument of God. Now we need to do some work on what that means, the Lord said to my Lord. And, and here's where our translations are a little unhelpful. Okay. The word Lord in all caps, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that's actually representing the Hebrew word Yahweh, the covenant name of God. And the Old Testament scribes and Pharisees and teachers, they were so afraid of taking the Lord's name in vain, they would never even mention that name, even though it's the covenant name God has given to us to call upon Him in the Old Testament, the Old Testament saints. So when we look at this, it looks like it's the same word the Lord said to my Lord. No, it's Yahweh said to my Adonai. Yahweh, the covenant name God himself, said to my authority and sovereign. So there's two words here first. And we can kind of back up here. David is writing this psalm. David was promised in 2 Samuel 7 that he would have a child forever on the throne of Israel. He would have a child who would be the king forever. And so it's easy to see David is writing, promising some kind of future child. So when the scribes took this text, they would say, look, we're still looking for the king who would be at the right hand of God. And then when they stopped having a monarchy because they stopped having kings 400 years before Jesus, they started applying this to Messiah. And what Jesus is pointing out here is, your problem is you don't know who the Christ is going to be. How can the scribe say that the Christ is the son of David? He's not saying the Christ will not be the son of David. What he's actually pointing out here is that he's not merely the son of David. Because David himself in the Holy Spirit said, Yahweh said to my Lord, verse 37, Jesus makes a twist. He makes a clear point, observation really. How can David call him his Lord when he's David's son? He's not merely a physical descendant of David. He is David's own Lord. He is greater than David. And so what Jesus is pointing out is that the scribes, they've got too low a view of Jesus, or the Christ that would come. Jesus is making it very clear. The Lord that is to come, the King who is to come, the Messiah who is to come, based upon the very words of David, is at the right hand of God, in the truest sense, because he's David's own Lord. He's not merely a human king or a human Messiah. Now what does it mean to be sit at the right hand? What do you do after you're done with a hard day's work? You sit. You sit. Sitting at the right hand demonstrates, it reveals, the work is done. The right hand is a seat of authority, the seat of power. It is a place recognized of great importance. And he's sitting. And then the Lord says, put your enemies under your feet. There's work to be done. There's enemies to overcome. And the work is done when he sits. Now, I also want to make very clear, verse 36, David himself in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is giving us the authoritative interpretation of this psalm, because he himself is the author of it, as the Holy Spirit carries David into declaring. So the dilemma for the scribes is, they're looking for just a human king. They're just like Peter in chapter 8. Remember, Jesus said, who do you say that I am? And Peter said, you're the Christ. And Jesus says, you say rightly. But then Jesus says, and as the Christ, I'm gonna suffer, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna rise again. And Peter says no may never be. The problem with the disciples and the problem with the scribes is that they're looking for a mighty man of valor, a mighty man of courage, a mighty warrior who's going to be like David in his line, physical line. Merely that, to overcome Rome, to overcome their enemies. And Jesus is making it very clear, no, the Messiah that's going to come is more than just a descendant of David. It's God himself is going to take on flesh. It's, it's Jesus Christ. For us, I hope this challenges the way we look at Jesus. The way we oftentimes have an insufficient, a deficient Jesus. We really like a convenient Jesus. The one who is a wonder worker and healer, the one who's my co-pilot when I need help. No, he's making it very clear he's Lord. He's the God who has come down to become like us in every way, yet without sin. There's a way in which we can look at Jesus as too human. He's my friend. He's my homeboy. But He's not Lord to be worshipped. We can look at Him and say, maybe He's too divine. He's so distant. He's so far away. I can't call upon Him. He's too out there. We can look at Jesus and think, He's too righteous. His standards are too high. How could I ever be appreciated and loved and accepted by that Jesus? We can seem as too gracious. A little sin here, a little sin there. Well, where my sin abounds is grace abounds. All of these are misunderstanding the whole big picture of who the true Jesus is. If you look to the church history, there's a, there's a confession. One person, two natures. He is fully God and fully man. He became like us in every way, yet without sin, so that he could become sin for us. It's important that we understand this. He is fully human. He is a descendant of David. Jesus is not denying that. But he wants to make it very clear, if you're only looking for a human warrior king, you're going to miss the power of the gospel, because your greatest enemy is not Rome or some other government. Your greatest enemy is your sin, and death, and the devil. Jesus comes to give us victory over our greatest enemy, which is our sin, which means the wrath of God is going to be upon us if we face Him. And now we know that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father because His work is accomplished. If we look at Hebrews and actually think about how this passage is applied, it's very encouraging. We have to understand, God became like us so that He could sympathize with us. so that he could go through all the temptations we have gone through, so that he could be betrayed like us, because he could be tired like us, he could be weak like us, hungry like us, sad like us. And to make it very clear, he could go into the temple as the great high priest, the true temple, and offer the once for all sacrifice to remove sin from us once and for all. there's an encouraging word here, and that God himself has come so that he can sit at the right hand of the Father and be our perfect mediator. As we look at this passage, I wouldn't want to ask us, do we, do we really see who Jesus is as the one who's become like us? Because that's how bad we were. We needed someone to take away our sin. Is He, is He fully God able to overcome all of our sin? Here's a few just basic application points as we think about the fact that Jesus is the God-man who's now the right hand of the Father. First, He allows us to pray. This, this, this, this function of Christ, this position as the God-man of the right hand of the Father, He invites us to pray in a very unique way. If you go back and look at John 14 through 16, Jesus is constantly encouraging and teaching the disciples, once I ascend back to my Father, returning to Him in my glory, you can pray in my name to Him as Father. You can ask whatever it is in my name, and He listens. What a privilege. If we think about this, You know, we're going to get to scribes who go on and on, and long prayers to be heard by others, but I want you to understand, praying for a long time isn't the problem. The Father is always there, longing to hear. We're supposed to pray without ceasing, because the Father is there, ready to always hear us, because the Son is at His right hand, and we get to pray in His name. So the first thing we can actually see is an application of who Jesus is as the Lord at the right hand of the Father is we can pray to him. The second, more directly in the text, God is going to put his enemies under his feet. This allows us to go into battle with boldness and confidence. It allows us to go into battle against sin with great courage. Christ has overcome sin. He lived a perfect life. He overcame it. He's the victor because he did not give in to sin. He's the victor because he died for sin. As Paul says, we are no longer slaves to sin. That's a hard concept to get. Because before Christ, it's as if there was a chain around our neck, and Satan would tempt us, and he'd pull on the chain, and he'd make us. You're bound, you're slaves to sin. There's no power against it, because we're helpless. But when Christ breaks that chain, Satan still yells temptations, but we actually don't have to give in. There's nothing binding us anymore, so we have the freedom to say no, because Christ has won the victory. The third application is, it allows us to be bold in mission. We can now proclaim boldly, living in a direction of life outside of ourselves, proclaiming boldly the gospel of Jesus Christ, seeking to live in His mission to make Him known. One of the things we see in this passage is the doctrine that Christ is the victor. He has come down from the Father to win the victory that we could not win, that we were absolutely losing. And he did so by dying on the cross for our sins. This is a declaration that Christ had to be God to actually win our victory. He is worthy of our worship. And if you want to reflect further on who Jesus is, let me just give you a few words or titles that, that you can think about. And again, I want you to understand, Jesus has come to make Himself known. We just sang, speak O Lord, fully trusting He wants to make Himself known. You can meditate upon the fact that Jesus is Emmanuel, which means God with us. He's come to be like us. He came to know us. He, He, God with us and God for us is, is of all the very names of Jesus. He's the Prince of Peace. He's come this time to bring peace and reconciliation so that we can be forgiven and, and renewed in relationship with God. He's the perfect bridegroom. He demonstrates absolute perfect love as the one who lays down his life for us. He's the Messiah. He's the anointed one to come and bring good news. He's the Son of God who comes with all power. He's the Son of Man who comes with all authority. And He's the suffering servant who uses that power and authority to lay down His life for us. He's the prophet. He speaks God's truth as God Himself. It means we should listen. He's a great high priest. He, He provides the perfect sacrifice. And now He mediates for us at the right hand of the Father. He's the true King. His judgments, His will is righteous. He's the rock. He's the, the one we can build our life upon. He's the Lamb of God, the one who has taken away our sins. This is scratching the surface of some of the truths we can declare and know about Jesus. There's much to be known. I hope you're not content in your knowledge of Christ. Grow to know him more. The first passage, as we see, is who is Jesus? Jesus is actually asking the question, who do they say that Christ is? I want to make it very clear, that Christ is the Lord himself, who is conquered. Now the next question we ask of our text is what does Jesus expect of us? What does Jesus expect of us? And this is verses 38 through 44. And something interesting is going on here. As we've seen a number of times in Mark, Jesus is introducing a transvaluation. He is seeking to change the values of the people. And let me just make it very clear, that's hard. Learning how to not value what you used to value, and put your value and your delight in something that's different, that's hard. But Jesus is changing the way we, and his disciples, should look at the world, and what we should value. Let me just explain this before I read the text. The scribe, for the really important people, They were the authoritative people that got to wear fancy robes and sit in the most important places. Everyone looked up to them and thought they must be great, they must be worthy of all honor. And Jesus says, beware of them. And then, a poor widow may have been questioned in society because Maybe your husband died because of her sin. That was a common misconception. Maybe she's poor because of the sins of her fathers. But she's less in every way. Her status in society, her well-being, everything about her is less. And I just want you to see the beauty of how Christ's words ring true. She would be considered less, especially in light of the scribes. But he's here compared to all the other people giving so much money. Here we have this small figure in society. And look at verse 43, what Jesus says about her. Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more. More. There's a beauty here. You don't look up to those who talk the talk and are fancy and are in there, they're seeking people's praise. you look and you value what's happening in the heart. Jesus is not judging people based upon their circumstances, their situation, or what they have to earthly offer Him. He's judging them according to their heart. And one of the interesting things here, verse 40, the scribes who were trying to get all the praise here on earth, They're going to receive greater condemnation. What does the widow receive? She receives accommodation. She receives accolades from Christ himself for her worship. Let me read this text for us. There's a warning. Don't be like those that society would normally look up to. No, look up to the woman that you hardly ever look at. And in his teaching, he said, beware of the scribes who look to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplace, and of the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feast, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. What does Jesus expect of us? First, there's a warning. Stop valuing the false shepherds, the false leaders that are simply trying to live out a life of privilege and recognition. He's warning them away from their influence. Again, very much like that passage in Ezekiel 34. They've got fancy robes. They've got the best seats. They have long prayers and pretense. They will receive the greater condemnation. This is a warning. not to be influenced by those who want to influence you to think much of them. This is a warning not to be carried away in a worldly sense of what looks like power. Again, if we go back to that first teaching, they wanted a Messiah who looked like an earthly warrior. They wanted a Messiah who was going to look great and mighty and powerful, but he came as a suffering servant. In the same way, as we continue as disciples, we're not to look to those who look powerful and mighty. No, we're to look to those who give all their lives to Christ. What's really dangerous here about what's happening with the scribes, notice they devour widows' houses. The pompous and the pride that boasts them up with the robes and the long prayers and liking the greetings, the best deeds, it actually makes them not love their neighbor as themselves. The lack of love of God leads to a lack of love for neighbor. So we look at this and we can see that the poor widows are robbed. And we know from Josephus there was actually occasions where scribes, religious leaders, were doing this and Rome found out about it and actually punished the scribes. The Roman government saw religious leaders acting sinfully. So they're robbing the people who trust them? Most of all what they're doing here is they're robbing God. They're stealing glory from God by wanting to be glorified themselves. They're looking for their treasure here on earth by having all the esteem of man and not seeking to point people to the true glory of God. Now, if you think about this, do we have scribes like this in our culture? Yeah. You can tell on the TV. Pretty much easily find them. But we need to be careful not to think, they're out there, the sin's in here. We all have to battle the sin of just pompous pride. If we don't recognize this arrogance within our own hearts, we're probably foolishly blind to it. Let's first think, what would a false religion leader look like? Well, they want people to follow their lead, not point them to Christ. They make their laws and standards equal to Christ's laws and standards. There's no difference between doctrine, conviction, and opinion. Everything's a close-handed issue. They're not gracious in disagreement. They want to talk about other people's sins, not their own, because a true leader of Christ confesses their sin to make Christ more. There's a sense of superiority. There's a sense of making people think they're great, not Christ. It's easy to see somebody out there that fits that bill, but we need to realize that sin's also in here. The sin's here among us. We need to be careful. Church, we all have this pomp and this pride that Christ is warning about. That's why he's warning those there in the temple. Don't be like them. Don't follow them. Recognize that a love for the Lord your God is much more than the way you appear in this world. Let's look at the second half of this. He takes what you should be warned against, and he says what you should be like. Verse 41. He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering plate, offering box. And many of the rich people were putting in large sums. There's different treasuries, and what would happen if you brought an offering, you'd present it to a priest, and the priest would then tell you what offering box to put it in because there are different kinds of offerings. And we assume that the way Jesus knows how much somebody is given is when the coins hit each other as they're dumping out the bag or throwing it in, it would make a noise. Right? You ever seen one of these change machines at the grocery store? You know, you, when somebody dumps out this, this big jar they've been collecting for a long time, it makes a lot of rattling noise. Right? You, we've heard this. We know what this sounds like. So the rich people, they're coming with large bags, and they're dumping, and it just makes a large, loud clanging sound. Listen to that. Wow, they really gave a lot. But Jesus hears, or just as the divine God himself knows, this widow She puts in two small copper coins, and we see here Mark translating this for his Roman readers, a penny. It's about a 30th of a day's wage, not much financially. And he calls his disciples, he says, look, look at this woman. She who is the least in stature of society, she puts in more than those who are contributing to the offering box. So the rest of the people are just pouring out coin after coin after coin. Jesus saying, she puts in more, and then he gives the explanation, verse 44. For they contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything. We can see here a little bit of that Cain and Abel story. Right? When God requested the offering from the first two sons of creation, Cain brought him some grain. Abel brought him the firstborn. The greatest. It has nothing to do with how much you give. It's, it's the situation of the heart. What Jesus is pointing out here, it's, it's, it, it, it, the, the, the wealth of the people really is, is the, the context. What Jesus is focusing in on in here is the state of the heart. Are, are, are you, you giving all to God? We ask, what does Jesus require of you? I want to make it very clear. He requires all of your money, all of your time, all of your energy, all of your love. That's what He requires of you. The first great commandment is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your understanding, with all your being. Now does that mean you're supposed to empty your wallet and the offering plate? Maybe. He did tell the rich young ruler, give everything, right? Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. But He's not saying, give it all away. He's saying, make sure you understand that everything you have has been given to you from above, and you're a steward of it. You're not an owner of it. If your heart is clinging to what God has given to you as mine, for me, for my glory, you're getting it wrong. All our time, all our energy are meant to be stewarded as gifts from God and ways of expressing our love back to God. You know, we talk about worth in our culture, you know, what are you worth? And that's usually, you know, some kind of a price. We need a transvaluation. We all have the same worth in the Kingdom of God. We're all made in God's image. We all have the same amount of time. We all have the energy God has given us. Are we directing all of that time and energy? Are we saying, no, this is what God gets. This is what I get. We all have the same call. Love the Lord your God. We see here the widow in her poverty is the one who places her faith in God and loves God, unlike the scribes who are given the commission to point people to God. She's teaching us how to love God. Notice the two consequences. She is commended by Christ. She will receive the great crown. Well done, good and faithful servant. What will the scribes receive? They will receive greater condemnation. As we conclude, we have the conclusion of Jesus in the temple, chapter 13, verses one and two. I believe Mark is very intentional here because Jesus, when he came in riding on the colt as the king of Israel, being declared Hosanna, son of David, king in the highest, he goes straight to the temple and he cleanses the temple. Now all this confrontation has been happening in the temple, and here we see Jesus. He comes out of the temple. He never goes back in. One of his disciples said to him, Look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings. That's supposed to be kind of funny and really sad. God just talked to you and you walked out looking at the building. That's like going to the Grand Canyon and not leaving the guest quarters, the welcome center, just because it's such an attractive welcome center. Like you're missing the big picture. You're missing the real glory, guys. Really. Not, could you explain that Lord thing a little more? Could you tell us about that right hand? Could you help us understand that? No, hey Jesus, check out the stones in the building. We can see here how patient Jesus is and appreciate this. He tells them very clearly, very directly. He said to them, do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. This is a judgment. Him walking out of the temple, never going back to the temple. This is a judgment on the Sanhedrin. The way they had corrupted the temple with pointing people to themselves rather than to God himself, rather than seeing Jesus when he comes and pointing people to him. Like John the Baptist, the true leader of Israel at that time, They're condemned. He walks out of the temple, and as we know, in 70 AD, the temple is destroyed. I believe this statement is saying something more than just this physical structure's gonna be destroyed. He's saying there's a new way of worship, there's a new way of living, there's a new way of being the people of God, because now Christ, at the right hand of the Father, he is the head of the church, we're all members, or in one way that Paul describes it, Christ is a cornerstone, and we're all parts of the temple blocks being built up together. There is no structure where we go to to worship. We are a people who come together to worship. We are supposed to be the temple of God, working together, being built up together, up to Him who is the head, the cornerstone. It's a small declaration that has huge ramifications. Because now we know we don't come to a God who we worship from a distance in a temple. No. Our great high priest, he's the right hand of the Father. We go boldly, directly into the presence of God, seeking to know him, and his love, and his forgiveness, and his mercy. As we conclude, do we see Jesus for who He is at the right hand of the Father, God Himself, who has taken away our sin, so that we can know Him? Do we fear that we've sinned so much that God couldn't possibly forgive us? That's saying that we're more powerful than God. Are we saying that we can't go in the name of Christ? Brothers and sisters, the invitation. If you're not a Christian, the invitation is clear. Because of your sin, you will be... a distance from God now, but one day you'll be face to face and you will have to give an answer for your sin face to face with a holy and righteous God, and you will face judgment, unless today or soon before you die you believe in Jesus Christ. Do not let another day go by without looking to Christ and saying, I need to confess my sin. I need to be forgiven. Forgive me. Christian, are we entering boldly to the true temple? Or are we seeking to be the kind of people who are built up together as the temple? Are we looking to Christ, who's at the right hand of the Father, knowing that we have assurance in Him to enter boldly? Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you, Lord, for your kindness We thank you, Lord, for the way you have been patient with us. We thank you, Lord, for the way you have taught and spoken clearly and consistently and truthfully. We thank you, Lord, for your son. Forgive us for how we disregard how he has come to give us a new identity as sons of God. Forgive us, Lord, for being stubborn in our ways and not letting our minds be transformed, not having our hearts changed, not having our values changed. Lord, we think too worldly. Empower us by Your Spirit to recognize what true worth is, to recognize You are the one worthy of all glory and honor and praise. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.