CONTROVERSY: What is up with Mark 16:9-20?
CONCLUSION: 4 Things Jesus Did After the Resurrection:
- Jesus APPEARS . (Mk 16:9-14)
- Jesus ASSIGNS . (Mk 16:15-16)
- Jesus AUTHENTICATES . (Mk 16:17-18, 20)
- Jesus ASCENDS . (Mk 16:19)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
int: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Open your Bibles up with me please to the Gospel of Mark and chapter 16.
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The Gospel of Mark and chapter 16.
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We are finishing today a journey that we started in October of 2013.
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We have been walking through the Gospel of Mark, verse by verse, for almost two whole years.
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you have been with us through every verse of that journey.
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And we praise the Lord for that and we certainly praise the Lord for those of you who have been joining us in the journey on the way.
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And I've got to tell you, there's a part of me that's a little sad that we're done.
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There's another part of me facing the passage that we're looking at today, that I've just got to tell you, I've never preached a sermon like this.
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I've been in pastoral ministry since about 1996, so that's what, about 19 years or so.
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I have never preached a message like the one that I'm going to preach today.
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Because look at your Bible, Mark chapter 16.
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I had a couple people this past week say, "Oh, you're done with Mark, so what's next?" And I just kind of smile and say, "We're not quite done with Mark yet." Like, "What do you mean?" I'm like, "Well, there's still one more passage." Now look at your Bible.
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On Mark chapter 16, do you see verses...
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How many people see verses 9 through 20 in your Bible?
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Do you have 9 through 20 in your Bible?
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Okay, you're looking at it.
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How many people do not have nine through 20 in their Bibles?
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Is there anybody here?
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Now look in front of verse nine and at the end of verse 20.
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How many people have brackets there?
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How many people have brackets?
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Oh, most of you, okay.
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Now I want you to look at the footnote, meaning at the very bottom of your Bible, you know that like size 0.7 font.
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How many people have like these little numbers that say, I'll tell you what mine says, "Some manuscripts end the book with 16/8.
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"Others include verses nine through 20 immediately after verse 8, a few manuscripts.
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Insert additional material after verse 14.
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One manuscript adds after verse 8, the following.
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Do you have something like that?
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Like manuscript, manuscript, manuscript this, some manuscripts that, here a manuscript, there a manuscript, everywhere a manuscript, manuscript.
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Do you have something like that at the bottom of your Bible?
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Okay, so, I've always tried to be completely transparent with you.
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I've always tried.
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Whether you like me or not, I try to be honest with you.
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And I was looking at this passage this week, and I thought, there's some options.
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One is, I can just skip it and move on to the next thing.
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Show up here and be like, wasn't the gospel of Mark great?
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Okay, now open up your Bible to the book of Nehemiah.
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And hoping that nobody would notice that we didn't cover this last part.
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But I know some of you would be like, Pastor Jeff, I thought there was more stuff in Mark.
02:48-02:49
I thought about doing that.
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Another thing I thought about I was just preaching through this passage as if everything was normal, but then some people would say, "Pastor Jeff, I've got all kinds of brackets and explanations and footnotes and there's little numbers and there's little explanation things.
03:06-03:13
What's up with all that?" So we're just going to - pardon the expression - we're just going to address the elephant in the room.
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On your outline, controversy.
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What is up with Mark 16:9-20?
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What is up with this passage?
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I figured the best thing to do since I've always tried to be just transparent with you, I decided the best thing would just be to face the controversy head on before we actually look at the verses.
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What in the world is going on here?
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Well, understand that your Bible - I'm going to give you a little Bible college lesson here, ok?
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Your Bible is actually not one book.
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The Bible is actually 66 books written by the Holy Spirit through about 40 different men over a period of about 1,500 years.
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That's how God put your Bible together.
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And one of the questions that I get asked most often - Mark, I know in our prison ministry, we get asked this all the time - how do we know that what the Bible says here is what was originally written?
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I mean, that's a fair question, right?
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We're talking things written a few thousand years ago.
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Even the most recent things written by Paul and by the Apostle John, we're talking a couple thousand years ago.
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How do we know that what this says is what was originally written?
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And occasionally we get the guy that he's like, "You can't scientifically prove that that's what Paul actually wrote." Remember those guys, Mark?
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You can't scientifically prove that.
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Well, there's the problem.
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You can't scientifically prove that because that's not something that you prove with science.
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Right?
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You don't prove that with science.
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You gotta be like, well, I went to the grocery store last week.
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Like, can you scientifically prove that?
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Well, no, you don't prove that with science.
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You're getting out your beakers and your Bunsen burners and your chemicals and trying to prove that I was at the store.
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You don't prove those things scientifically.
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There are tests, but it's not science.
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Actually, the test - whether you can validate an ancient document - does it say what was originally written?
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The test for that is called the bibliographical test.
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The bibliographical test.
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That is how you test Rather, an ancient book that we have today says what was originally written.
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It's called the bibliographical test.
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Okay, we're going to look at the top two books that pass the bibliographical test.
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Number two is the Iliad by Homer.
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It was an ancient book.
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It was written about the 8th century B.C.
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Actually, the oldest manuscripts we have are about from the 13th century.
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So you have a long gap, 8th century BC to 13th century AD.
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How many centuries does that count?
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That's a lot, isn't it?
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You have a lot of time passing between when he wrote it and when we have manuscripts.
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But if you get any English professor and say, "Do we have an accurate copy of what Homer actually wrote?
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How do we know the Iliad is as Homer wrote it?" your English professors would say, oh, we're absolutely positive that this is what he wrote.
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And you would say, well, how do we know?
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He would say, because we have 643 ancient copies of the Iliad.
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So what do you do?
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You take all 643, and you line them up.
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And this one says this, and this one says this, and this one says this.
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And when you put them all together, they're all saying the same thing.
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So like, wow, we know that what we have today is probably what was written because we 643 copies.
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Okay, the Iliad is number two.
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Does anybody want to guess what the number one book is in the world that passes the bibliographical test?
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Anybody want to guess?
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I'll give you a hint.
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You're holding it.
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I'll give you another hint.
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It's our middle name.
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Turn to your neighbor and say, "He's talking about the Bible." Talking about the Bible.
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Let's talk about the New Testament specifically.
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Remember number 2, the Iliad, 643 copies.
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Do you know how many ancient manuscripts we have of the Bible?
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Do you know how many ancient manuscripts we have?
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Iliad 2, 643.
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Obviously, the Bible has more, right?
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Over 25,000.
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Over 25,000.
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So how do we know that the Bible that is on your lap right now is the same thing that was originally written by Paul and John and Mark in our case.
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How do we know?
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Well, we've taken these manuscripts - 25,000 of them - I didn't do this personally, but they've taken these manuscripts and they line them up and say, are they all saying the same thing?
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I told you there was a big gap between Homer writing in 8th century B.C., earliest manuscripts 13th century A.D.
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Some of the manuscripts we have for the Bible from 100 AD. Some of the manuscripts we have could be a first generation copy of what was originally written. We don't have the originals, ok? We don't have the ones that Paul and John and them actually wrote. All we have are the copies, but there's a possibility we could have third, second, even first generation copies of what was written. 25,000. So for the person that might not like what the Bible says, you have to at least rest on this fact, In fact, the Bible that we have today says what was originally written, because we have all these manuscripts that line up and that all complement each other that tell us 25,000 years.
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This is what was originally written.
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So what's the problem here with Mark?
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Well, here's the problem with Mark.
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The two most important ancient manuscripts we have are called Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus.
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The Sinaiticus is from about 350 AD.
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It contains the entire New Testament.
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The Vaticanus is from about 325 AD.
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It actually contains the whole Bible.
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The problem is, is both of those manuscripts end the Gospel of Mark at verse 8.
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Is everybody with me?
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This is the controversy.
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Twenty-five thousand ancient manuscripts, some of them have verses 9 through 20 in them, some of them stop at verse 8, and it looks like the most reliable ones we have actually stop at verse 8.
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And in fact, some of the language used in these verses doesn't seem to line up with the language that Mark uses throughout the rest of the gospel.
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Some say that these verses absolutely belong.
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Believe me, I've done a lot of reading this week.
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And you have people much smarter than me, excuse me, much, much, much smarter than me on both sides of the fence.
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You have people saying, "It absolutely belongs.
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Mark wrote that for sure." And then you have people on the other side of the fence that say, "I don't believe that Mark did write that.
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I think that some scribes came in later and saw verse 8, 'They went out and fled from the tomb for trembling in astonishment and seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.'" The end.
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That doesn't seem like much of an ending.
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So, some people believe that some scribes came in and took some elements from some of the other Gospels and added it to the Gospel of Mark.
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So the bottom line is this, the controversy is not in the content, but in being from Mark himself.
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So whether these verses were added later by scribes, or whether these verses were written by Mark himself, Here's something we can say for sure.
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These verses contain elements of other things that are taught in Matthew and Luke and John.
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There's no new doctrine.
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My point is there's nothing to really get excited about as far as does this belong or doesn't it belong.
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There's nothing to really get excited about.
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It's not new information.
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Basically, what we're going to look at, I'm going to go through this with you quickly, everything you see in these verses, you can go to one of the other Gospels and they talk about the same thing.
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What would really throw us, if there was some wacky doctrine in these verses that's nowhere else in the Bible, we're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second.
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Now we have a problem." But that's not our problem.
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It's just the same kind of stuff you see in the rest of the Gospels.
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So, on your outline, just jot these four things down.
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I'm going to go through these very quickly.
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These are four things Jesus did after the resurrection.
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Four things Jesus did after the resurrection.
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Number one, Jesus appears.
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Jesus appears.
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Looking at these verses, it says, "Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.
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She went and told those who had been with Him as they mourned and wept.
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But when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
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After these things, He appeared in another form to two of them." the two on the road to Emmaus.
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Actually, Luke talks about them.
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As they were walking into the country, and they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
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Afterward, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at the table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
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The first of all, four things Jesus did after the resurrection, Jesus appears.
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And these appearances are important, because if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then these disciples and these women knew it.
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Okay?
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And history tells us that all of these disciples were killed for their faith.
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With the exception of John.
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John wasn't killed for his faith.
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He was exiled to the island of Patmos for his faith.
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He was incarcerated for his faith, and it was on that island with the book of Revelation.
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But the point is, he was martyred with exile.
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All of these other apostles were martyred through death simply because they wouldn't deny that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
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And that is very important.
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If this was some ruse that the disciples were putting together, like they huddled up, like, okay guys, here's the plan.
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We're just gonna tell everybody that Jesus showed up.
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Okay, we're gonna tell people that Jesus showed up.
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We're gonna get this, we're gonna start this new thing, this church thing and we're going to start our own religion.
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So when anybody asks, we're just going to tell people that Jesus rose from the dead.
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And then the people show up to say, "If you don't stop preaching that, I'm going to kill you." If this was a ruse, you'd be like, "You know what? Not worth it." As you're watching some of the other people in your camp being crucified and slaughtered and beheaded because they believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
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If this was some stupid joke, if this was some ruse, joke's going to be over real quick when people start dying for it.
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But these were people that said, "We saw him!
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We saw him!
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We can't deny it!
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I can't deny it!
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I saw him!
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Thomas, he was even touching him!
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We can't deny that Jesus rose from the dead, so you're just going to have to kill us, because I can't deny what we witnessed.
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He rose from the dead exactly like he promised he was going to do." Who would die for a lie?
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Nobody would.
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Nobody would die for a lie, but these early disciples witnessed Jesus resurrected and He appeared before them.
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So Jesus appears.
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Number two, Jesus assigns.
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Jesus assigns.
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Look at v. 15-16.
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"And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.
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Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, "Whoever does not believe will be condemned." Some people take this verse to mean that if you're not baptized, you're not saved.
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And that's not at all what the text says.
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Notice it doesn't say that lack of baptism is what leads to condemnation.
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Did you see that?
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What leads to condemnation?
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It says whoever does not believe.
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Whoever does not believe.
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Let's not start adding things to the Gospel.
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Like, well, you have to believe in Jesus and you have to get baptized, and you have to give this much to the church, and that's how you get saved, and you have to help little old ladies across the street.
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Let's not start adding things to the Gospel.
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The issue is do you believe that Jesus Christ is who He said He is?
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Do you believe that Jesus Christ accomplished what He said He accomplished?
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This is what we've been talking about for the past month.
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Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross taking full payment for your sin?
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Do you believe that?
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Do you believe that He rose from the dead to give you eternal life so that He might live His life in and through you by the power of His Holy Spirit?
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Do you believe that?
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That is the message of salvation.
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So why does he mention baptism?
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Because baptism was so closely associated with belief, especially in the first century.
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People, upon belief, were immediately baptized in a lot of cases.
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I don't think that baptism is the thing that gets you saved.
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It's purely faith in Jesus Christ.
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I'm going to talk more about the commission in just a moment.
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We'll jump back to that.
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But number three, Jesus authenticates.
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Jesus authenticates.
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Look at v. 17-18.
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Then we're going to jump down to v. 20.
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It says, "And these signs will accompany those who believe.
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In My name they will cast out demons.
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They will speak in new tongues.
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and pick up serpents with their hands.
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They will drink any deadly poison.
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It will not hurt them.
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They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.
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Then verse 20 says, "And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs." That last phrase is very important.
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He confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
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Jesus authenticates.
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Like, "Pastor Jeff, did you bring a snake to church today we could try this out.
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No, I did not.
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Nor would I suggest you try it.
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Pastor Jeff, do you have any deadly poison?
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Do you have any deadly poison?
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No, I do not.
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I do not have deadly poison.
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But here's the thing, don't miss this, because a lot of people do.
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God authenticates His work and His revelation with miraculous signs.
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Ok?
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There wasn't some promise that throughout history, anytime somebody gives their life to Jesus, they're going to get superpowers.
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That's not a promise.
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Look at the last verse again.
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It says, "The Lord confirmed the message by accompanying signs." What does that mean?
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This was the biggest transition point in history.
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Do you understand that?
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In all of human history, this was the biggest transition point because we have shifted from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
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old covenant to the new covenant.
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That transition happened the moment Jesus Christ died on the cross.
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So now there's this new message.
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Instead of the message going out saying, "We need to go to the temple and offer animal sacrifice and high priest takes it to the holy of holies once a year on the day of atonement." Instead of that message about getting right with the God of Israel, there's a new message.
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God came to this earth in the form of a man and he died for your sins on the cross and he rose from the dead.
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There's no more animal sacrifices.
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There's no religious rites that get you right with God.
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Not that they ever could.
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So there's this new message about Jesus Christ and this new revelation.
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And your Bible says that God confirmed this message with accompanying signs.
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That's what God did.
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He had to authenticate the message.
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Like, you mean to tell me everything that we've known through all of these centuries of Jewish history?
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that we don't live under the old covenant anymore.
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How can you authenticate something like that?
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Well, look, the power of the living God is at work in this transition.
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The apostles performed signs, read the book of Acts, healing, resurrecting people, demon evicting.
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And once the Bible was completed, transition was successful, the miraculous signs ceased.
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There aren't people walking around today that say, "I have the power to raise people from the dead." There aren't people walking around to say, "Here, drink this deadly poison, and I'll make sure that it doesn't kill you." That was part of the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
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God had to put His stamp of approval on it, because this was such a radical shift in history.
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Does that make sense?
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That make sense? Okay.
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Good. Jesus authenticates.
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Number four, Jesus ascends.
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Let's jump back to verse 19.
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It says, "So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, and was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." We just talked about this in our men's group last Wednesday.
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Why was Jesus sitting down?
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Don't think for a second that Jesus was like, "Wow, that was like 33 long years on the earth.
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I need to take a rest." It wasn't that at all.
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Why was Jesus sitting down?
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Understand under the Old Covenant, when those priests stood in the temple offering sacrifices, They did it day after day after day.
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And they were never done.
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Why were they never done?
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Because sin was never fully paid for.
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They were constantly, constantly, constantly working.
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There were no chairs in the temple.
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It wasn't like they showed up and said, "You know what? Nobody's sinning today." Interesting. Well, let's just sit back and maybe we'll play some checkers or something because nobody's sinning today.
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Not much to do at the office today.
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They were constantly working.
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They were constantly offering blood sacrifices Old Testament because the people kept sinning.
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And the blood sacrifice didn't fully remove sin.
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See the New Covenant is different.
21:58-22:02
When Jesus offered His life, He took away sins once and for all.
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And to show that He was done, He sat down.
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It's a sign of completion.
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Jesus is like, "I'm done.
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I offered my sacrifice.
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I paid for the sin of the world.
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I'm done." Jesus is not going to do anything else to take your sin away.
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It's done.
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It's over.
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If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, your sin is forgiven now and for eternity.
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It's not an issue between you and God.
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It is over.
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That's why He's sitting down.
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I promised you I'd jump back to the commission.
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What I wanted to share with you - this is something I wanted to share for a while and it was such a perfect spot to do it.
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But you know, as we talked about the death of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, We can look at ourselves and say, "Okay, well now what?" Now what?
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Well, the "now what" is very clear to us.
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Look again in v. 15.
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Again, this is in Matthew 28.
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"Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation." I just want you to jot a couple things down here.
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Commission.
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I want to talk about how Harvest Bible Chapel goes after Jesus' mission.
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That's one of the questions you should ask about this church if you're a guest with us today.
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when you're regularly attending another church, you should ask God about the church that you go to.
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What does this church do to fulfill the Great Commission?
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If Jesus said that we're to be about going and proclaiming the Gospel, how do you do that?
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And I love it when we have people visiting our church and they ask that question.
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"Hey, what do you guys do for evangelism?
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What do you guys do for discipleship?" And I wanted to share that with you.
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How Harvest Bible Chapel goes after Jesus' mission.
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First of all, our mission is already laid out for us.
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Our mission is to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
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In the spirit of the Great Commandment.
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What does that mean?
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Our mission is to make disciples by loving God and by loving people.
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That's how we do our mission.
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We do it out of love for God.
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We do it out of love for people.
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But it's about making disciples.
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Well, how do we make disciples?
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At Harvest Bible Chapel, We believe that a disciple of Jesus Christ does three things.
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We believe a disciple, first of all, worships Jesus Christ.
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That's why we place such a priority on the High Impact Worship Service.
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We encourage you to come ready to worship, ready to pray, ready to dig deep into God's Word with us.
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We believe a disciple worships Jesus Christ.
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We believe a disciple walks with Jesus Christ.
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Secondly, a disciple worships.
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The disciple walks.
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What does that mean?
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The Bible talks about your journey with Christ is described as a walk.
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And why is it described as a walk?
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Because a walk shows progress over time.
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Right?
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A walk shows progress over time.
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That you're walking with the Lord.
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And on your journey, you should be able to look back and say I can see how the Lord has grown me; how the Lord has changed me; how the Lord continues to transform me.
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I'm not the guy that I was when I was back here, and I'm so thankful for that.
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I'm not yet the person that I want to be, but God's still growing me and changing me and making me more like Christ.
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It's a walk.
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And that happens through things like you spending time in God's Word for yourself.
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We strongly encourage that.
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Our church's attitude is not leave the Bible to the professionals.
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We want you in God's Word for yourself.
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I don't want you praying.
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You should be seeking the Lord yourself.
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You know, the Bible says that pray without ceasing.
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Prayer should be a constant thing that you're doing.
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You're taking time to deliberately be alone with the Lord in your car, in your home, as a family.
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You should be constantly seeking the Lord's presence.
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A part of your walk - one of the biggest ways that the Lord works in a person's life is through other believers.
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True or false?
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One of the biggest ways that the Lord works in a person's life is through other believers.
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I can tell you in my life - I can't speak for your life, I'll tell you in my life - that is absolutely true.
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One of the biggest ways the Lord has impacted me is through speaking through people like you.
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Having people like you encouraging me, or giving me a word from His Word, or praying with me, praying for me.
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That's one of the biggest ways that the Lord has grown me.
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And that's why we talk about small groups all the time.
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What's up with small groups?
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We want you connected.
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Small groups are so vitally important because that's where you're known, that's where fellowship happens, that's where ministry happens.
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Small groups are a key part of your walk.
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You need to be with other people who love Jesus Christ and who love you, who put their arm around you and help you when you're discouraged.
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Who aren't afraid to say, "Hey, you're out of line in the way you're thinking here.
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You need to change your mind on that." Aren't afraid to give you the Dutch uncle talk when you need it.
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You need to be in a small group.
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You need to have people that are praying with you and speaking into your life as part of your walk.
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So we believe a disciple worships, a disciple walks, and thirdly we believe a disciple works for Jesus Christ.
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Actually the very last verse in 1 Corinthians 15 says that we should always be abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that our labor in the Lord is never in vain.
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Now as I said, there's no work that we can do to earn our salvation.
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We don't work for the Lord like, "God, give me some brownie points here.
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God, are you happy with me?
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I'm working." That's not the issue.
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We serve God because we love God.
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One of the ways that that love manifests itself very naturally is we work for God.
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We want to shoulder weekly kingdom responsibility.
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There's a lot of things that happen in this church, whether it's turning the school into a church on a Sunday morning, or greeting people with the assimilation team, or being in the worship team, or being part of the children's ministry, or part of the small group ministry.
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There are so many things that happen.
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And all we're saying is, "How is the Lord equipping you to serve?" Go after that.
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The Bible tells us that God's Holy Spirit gives you a gift to use to edify the church.
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That's why the Holy Spirit gives you a gift.
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You should be using that to bless others and to serve Christ.
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So that's discipleship.
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The question is, what about evangelism?
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What about outreach?
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What does this church do for outreach?
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Well, there's three things that this church does for outreach.
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I want you to think about this in terms of circles.
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Jesus in Acts chapter 1 told the disciples, "You'll be my witnesses in Judea, and in Samaria, and the ends of the earth." Judea is like your backyard.
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Samaria is like your local neighborhood.
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And the ends of the earth is obviously the ends of the earth, right?
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Well, how do we fulfill that at Harvest Bible Chapel?
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Well, as far as evangelism goes, we encourage you to do three things.
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And the first one is this, just through personal invites to church.
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That's your Judea.
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What I mean is, who are the people in your circles that you can invite to come to church or to small group with you?
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Who are the people in your circles?
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Who's the guy that's working beside you that all you have to do is say, "Hey, do you have a church home?
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I'd love to have you come to Harvest Bible Chapel." You know, maybe there's a Starbucks that you go to on a regular basis that you've gotten to know some people there.
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Those are people in your circle.
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Maybe some family members that you have regular contact with.
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Those are people in your circle.
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You know, your neighbors.
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These are people in your circle.
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These are people in your Judea that we encourage you to invite them.
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Hey, why don't you come?
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Why don't you come check out what we're doing in church?
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A lot of exciting things happening And then, just your personal invites.
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That's your Judea.
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And then Samaria, what do we do as far as local outreach?
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Well, you saw a video about that today.
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We want every small group involved in local outreach.
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And I don't assign those, I want that to be organic.
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Like, what's this small group passionate about?
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Okay, well go after that.
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Like, well we're passionate about, you know, the homeless, great, go after that.
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We're passionate about unwed, young, pregnant women.
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Go after that!
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We're passionate about whatever it is.
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Whether it's human trafficking, or...
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Just go after it.
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Get your small group excited about getting out and sharing the love and the Word of Christ with this community.
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That's our Samaria.
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We try to do that through small groups.
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What do we do for the ends of the earth?
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church at large as a congregation.
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We're partnering with Harvest Bible Fellowship to be involved in some international things.
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Right now, we're working with churches in Romania.
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They're actually building a training center to train pastors to plant more churches to keep up with the demand of the rapidly growing church in Romania.
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We're part of a campaign that's called Pray, Give and Go.
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All of our international things, it's Pray, Give and Go.
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We all can be praying.
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Some of us can be giving, and still yet some of us can go.
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We've been praying for that.
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I know I have, and I trust that you've been praying for this endeavor in Romania.
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You've been giving.
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To date, north of $17,000 from this church has been received to send to help with this work in Romania.
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That is incredible.
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We still have one more offering to go for that.
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Our elders committed to taking three special offerings.
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The last one is actually going to be next week.
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So if you have not given yet and would still like the opportunity, you have one more chance to do so.
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So that's pray and that's give.
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We also have the opportunity to go.
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We have a group of people, actually we just had two people drop off of the group for some personal reasons, work-related reasons.
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So the good news is we have some openings.
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We're planning on making this trip in June.
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and we would like two or three more people to go.
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Now this is a construction trip, ok?
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This isn't going to be easy.
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This is going to be helping physically build the training center.
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We're talking like framing and flooring and drywall, ok?
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We're not putting up posters of kittens, ok?
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This is actually going to be hard labor.
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And we have two or three spots we want you to be praying about.
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Is God calling you to do that?
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If we can't get the two or three people I'm trusting that God's going to provide in His time, I certainly believe that.
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That's what our church does for international missions.
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So understand that when Jesus Christ said, "Go and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation," that's something that I take very seriously.
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I have no intention, I never had any intention from the first day of service at this church that we were going to be some holy huddle.
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We're gonna get together and we're gonna sing our favorite songs and we're gonna high five each other and tell each other how awesome we are and see you next week kind of thing.
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The church's job is to get out to a lost and dying world with the message of Jesus Christ.
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And this is how we do it.
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Disciples worshiping, walking with and working for Jesus Christ.
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And you as an evangelist, inviting people to church, being part of a small group that's getting out into the local community and internationally, praying, giving, going.
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There's lots of exciting things happening.
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I was talking to the Katies.
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Was that last week we were talking?
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It just blows my mind how the people of this church have responded to the mission work, to the outreach, to think that we weren't doing this outreach stuff like as of December.
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And when the calendar turned and Justin and Michelle said, "Let's get this going," people responded and we're seeing some amazing things happening.
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It's an exciting time to jump on board.
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This closes the book on Mark.
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It's been a two-year journey.
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We saw some amazing things.
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Together we walked through the text and saw Jesus baptized.
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We saw Jesus healing, Jesus teaching, Jesus calming storms, Jesus exercising demons.
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We saw Jesus feeding multitudes.
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We saw Jesus walking on water.
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We saw Jesus transfigured, meaning He was showing the glory of God.
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We saw Jesus driving out the money changers from the temple.
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We saw Jesus facing challenges from the religious elite.
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We saw Jesus teaching on end times.
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We saw Jesus instituting the Lord's Supper.
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We saw Jesus betrayed by a close friend, arrested, tried, killed, and resurrected.
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And all of it boils down - everything that Mark is talking about in this Gospel is really just making a claim that Jesus is three things.
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As we close the book on Mark, I want to ask you one more time.
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Mark has made this claim that Jesus is the Lord, the Lamb, and the Life.
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You can't go through the text and miss that.
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That's the claim that Mark is making.
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But the question is this.
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Is Jesus your Lord?
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Who rules over your life?
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What governs your decisions in the home, at the workplace?
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Is He Lord of your life?
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Is He the authority?
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Is He your King?
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Secondly, we saw that Jesus is the Lamb.
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He's the Lamb of God who's come to take away the sins of the world, rather.
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Is Jesus your Lamb?
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Have you received Him for forgiveness?
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Have you trusted that His death on the cross took your sin away?
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Do you believe that?
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Do you believe that you're fully forgiven in Jesus Christ?
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Do you believe that?
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Because that's the claim that God's Word makes.
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He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
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Jesus is the life.
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The question there is, is Jesus Christ alive in you?
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This isn't about a dead religion.
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This isn't about showing up, punching your time card.
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I went to church. I did my service.
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It's not about religion.
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It's about you have a living relationship with the living God.
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Does Christ's presence dwell in you?
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Is the Holy Spirit continuing to grow you and change you and manifest Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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Galatians 5 says those are the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
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Are you seeing the Holy Spirit manifest those things through you?
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That's what it looks like when He's alive in you.
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He's the Lord, the Lamb, and the Life.
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Is He your Lord?
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Is He your Lamb?
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Is He your Life?
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You bow your heads and pray with me please.
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Father in heaven, as we close the book on Mark, we certainly don't want to close the book on the things that we've learned about Jesus Christ.
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I know how much I've learned over these past two years.
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God, I thank you that you've given us your Word in a way that we can read and understand.
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We can't understand it without your power, without your presence, God.
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I thank you for giving us the ability.
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God, I pray that as we sort of move on from this point, we don't let go of these words that Jesus is the Lord and the Lamb and the life.
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I pray that those words ring in our hearts and our minds, that this is what Your Word says about Jesus Christ.
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That we find Him to be those things in our lives.
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Father, again, we thank You, we praise You, we glorify Your name because of the provision that you've made through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 16:9-20
Why was it necessary that Jesus appeared to His followers after His resurrection? (Mk 16:9-14)
Can you explain the reason there is "controversy" behind Mark 16:9-20?
Why is Jesus "seated" at the right hand of God (Mk 16:19)? What does this signify? What does this say about your sin and your salvation?
Breakout Questions:
Have you been patient, gentle, and forbearing in your relationships this week (spouse, children, friends, co-workers)? Where could you have done better? How will you improve? Pray for one another.
