Mark 14:43-52 - Jesus Betrayed and Arrested

This is how I began this sermon on Jesus’s betrayal and arrest from Mark 14. From the introduction:

“We have been with Jesus and the disciples now for nearly fourteen chapters. They have been his constant companions since he called the first of them back in chapter one. Every story we’ve looked at has involved them. They understand. They don’t understand. They confess. They believe. They forget to bring bread. They fail to act in faith. They marvel. They are afraid. They rebuke Jesus. They ask him questions. They forsake all to follow him. 

They are there, on the inside with Jesus, every step of the way. The crowd gets a parable. The disciples get an explanation of the parable. The crowd gets fed. The disciples get a lesson and a challenge. Many of the miracles Jesus does he does for their sakes alone. He is teaching them, preparing them, strengthening them, being patient with them, promising them, warning them. For them he calms the storm. For them he walks on water. For them he takes a child into his arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” “The first shall be last, the last shall be first,” all of this has been for the disciples. They have been with him in every story, every step of the way, from the Sea of Galilee where he found them in chapter one, to right here in an olive grove just outside the city gates of Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples. Jesus and the disciples.

And now all of that is about to change.

Now the disciples will fade into the background. Now Jesus will face the end alone. But he has prepared them for this, or tried to. He’s been telling them since chapter eight what is going to happen to him. And now the time has come. Jesus has resigned himself to the will of the Father completely. The chessboard has been set, the pieces are all in place. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.”

To listen to the audio recording of this sermon just click the link below. A new page will open up in your browser and you can follow the instructions to either stream it on your device or download it for later. I hope you’ll take the time to listen. God bless you.


Click here: Mark 14:43-52 - Jesus Betrayed and Arrested


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Mark 14:31-42 - Jesus At Gethsemane

We come now to the garden with Jesus. Three times in the gospel of Mark we are told of Jesus praying alone. We may safely assume that Jesus prayed more than three times, but three of those occasions were special enough that Mark thought them worthy of recording for us. 

Once it was at the very beginning of his ministry. Jesus left the disciples in the middle of the night and went out into a deserted place to pray. This happened right after the first mention of the crowds. And we conjectured at the time that perhaps Jesus felt the weight of his mission and ministry upon him, for when the disciples found him he said, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”

The next time Mark mentions Jesus in prayer is in chapter six, right after the feeding of the five thousand. It was there that the people had come out to take him by force and make him king. Expectations of a political Messiah were running high and perhaps Jesus felt the weight of this upon his shoulders as well. He had a mission to accomplish and he must stay on task. He needed the Father desperately.

Now here we are in chapter 14, in the midst of one of the darkest chapters in all the Bible. One disciple is about to betray him. The others will soon abandon him. The most outspoken will deny him. All of this Jesus has foretold. He is about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, rejected by his people, and handed over to the Gentiles for execution. The weight of the world is upon his shoulders. So he once again seeks a solitary place to pray. And he finds it in Gethsemane.

That was my introduction to this, the 61st sermon in my journey through Mark. I’ve linked the audio recording of the original delivery of this sermon just below. I hope you’ll take the time to listen and be blessed.

Click here: Mark 14:31-42 - Jesus At Gethsemane


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Mark 14:27-31 - The Faithfulness of Jesus

I had originally intended to preach one sermon covering verses 22-31, but there was just too much there. I finally divided it into two, and this is the second. The following excerpt is from the conclusion of this sermon and when you read it you will see why I chose the title that I did.

“All of us fail. That is the reason why Christ has come. Even Jesus’ closest followers abandon and deny him. Yet Jesus stands faithful. He is the stalwart who remains faithful when all around him fail. That is the gospel in a nutshell. Jesus succeeded where we failed.

Salvation is not a tag team effort. It is not Jesus and the apostles who save. It is not Jesus and me working together. It is Jesus alone. It is true that he will work in me and through me and that he will produce works in me and through me, but those works are his, not mine. They are his grace at work. Without his grace I could do nothing. The same is true for all of us.

This night the eleven will have their chance to die for Jesus. They will all fail. But before 24 hours are up he will have died for them. And in this final failure, this final denial, we are reminded of the truth that none of us is worthy, that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners. That Christ came into the world to save sinners. 

Peter and Mark include this story of the failure of the disciples in order to drive that truth home to us. We need Jesus. Without him we are nothing. And he died for us, not because of our strength, but because of our lack. When we were sinners Christ died for us. When we were weak, and at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Are you weak? Come find rest in Christ.”

To listen to the whole sermon just click the link below. God bless you. I hope you will.

Click here: Mark 14:27-31 - The Faithfulness of Jesus


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The Faithfulness of God - Mark 14:22-26

This is the fifty-ninth sermon in the series I preached through the Gospel of Mark. It is a description of Mark’s account of the Last Supper. If you have never heard much detail about what is going on here then you’ll want to listen. Not only do I give you a play by play between-the-lines reading of what’s going on, but I also show it’s significance in redemptive history and for our salvation. This is an amazing passage of Scripture!

Here’s an excerpt:

“The first cup symbolized God’s bringing his people out of Egypt. The second cup their deliverance from bondage. The third cup symbolized the “I will redeem you,” part and this is the cup that Jesus has held up and blessed and said, “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” It is the cup of redemption. The fourth cup is the cup of consummation: “I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.” This is the cup that Jesus refuses until the consummation of the kingdom. He will not drink this cup until he drinks it new in the kingdom of God.”

Give this sermon a listen and perhaps you will see in greater detail the ramifications of the Last Supper for our salvation both in the immediate and the eternal. Enjoy!


Click here: Mark 14:22-26 - The Faithfulness of God


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Mark 14:12-21 - Jesus Celebrates Passover

This is how I introduced this sermon:

“We began this chapter last week with the anointing of Jesus at Bethany. The faith, love, and devotion displayed by the unnamed woman there, Jesus called beautiful. She had done this, he had said, for his burial. And we were reminded again that Jesus is on a mission.

He first said they were going to Jerusalem. Then he had said that he was going to die there—that he would be rejected by Israel, handed over to the Gentiles, and executed. He repeated this twice more in chapters nine and ten.

Mark has informed us of this for the express purpose of making sure we understood that what happened to Jesus was according to plan. The son of man must go to Jerusalem, Jesus had said. He must be rejected. He must be handed over. He must die. 

Mark has told us this so that we would not make the mistake of thinking that perhaps Jesus had miscalculated, or that things had spiraled out of control. Jesus has entered the heart of enemy territory, is offering himself up, and now he will be crucified. Peter will say in just a few weeks that all of this happened according to the ‘definite plan and foreknowledge of God.’ It was foretold by the prophets who spoke as they were ‘moved along by the Holy Spirit.’ It must happen this way.

So after the story of his being anointed for burial at Bethany we were told how Judas went to the chief priests and offered them the information they needed in exchange for money. That’s where we ended last week.

What we’re about to see is that just as Jesus sent disciples ahead to make preparations for his entrance to Jerusalem back in chapter eleven, so he does again, this time for the celebration of the Passover meal. The stories and details are remarkably similar and serve to emphasize that Jesus is in complete control of events as we edge closer and closer to crucifixion. Everything is according to purpose—his as well as the Father’s.”

To listen to the sermon just click the link below.


Click here: Mark 14:12-21 - Jesus Celebrates Passover


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Mark 14:1-11 - Jesus Anointed At Bethany

Now it has come to it. We are at the cusp of the great event. We are peering at the climax of Mark’s gospel. More than that, we find ourselves on the verge of the climactic event of human history. Everything heretofore has been building toward this.

We finished chapter 13 last week and now we press forward to the end. Mark has been prepping us for this, and so has Jesus. In the very first verse of this gospel Mark told us the purpose of his writing, to announce to us the beginning of the good news of Jesus Messiah, the Son of God. Every step of the way he has shown us Jesus Messiah and he has also been preparing us for these climactic events. 

Way back in chapter 2 he began describing the building opposition to Jesus culminating early in chapter 3 with the plot between the Pharisees and Herodians to have him put to death. Then we witnessed miracle after miracle, event after event, that demonstrated to us in ever-increasing clarity that Jesus was, indeed, the promised Messiah, God in the flesh come to redeem us, come to fulfill all the promises made to Israel.

But he was not what the people expected. They expected, they desired, a warrior king to throw off the yoke and tyranny of Rome and usher in a new David-like kingdom of glory, like the one of old. But God had something much more grand in mind. God had in mind a world-wide kingdom which would transcend the temporary, provincial, political kingdom of David. What God was doing through Christ was far greater than all that they could ask or think or even dream. And yet it would be brought about in a way that they would never dream.

The Son of Man must suffer, Jesus had told them at Caesaria Philippi. He must suffer many things. He must be rejected. He must be executed. He must rise again the third day.”

That is the introduction to this first sermon from chapter fourteen of Mark, the first of fifteen sermons that will take us through the resurrection of Jesus and to the end of Mark’s Gospel. I’ve linked the sermon below so that you can listen to it and be blessed. I hope you will.


Click here: Mark 14:1-11 - Jesus Anointed At Bethany


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Mark 13:28-37 - Stay Awake!

This is the last sermon from Mark 13, the chapter which contains Jesus’s famous Olivet Discourse. What we look at in this sermon is the purpose of the discourse and what it says about the future of Israel and the Church. And we conclude with Jesus’s admonition to “Stay awake” and what that means in its New Testament context.

The whole of this chapter hinges around the cataclysmic judgment of Jerusalem and the temple and the end of Old Testament, Old Covenant Judaism. But it isn’t accurate to say that it ended. The better way to express it is that it was fulfilled and became what it was always destined to be. The promises made through the prophets to true Israel are being fulfilled and the unbelieving branches are being cut off.

When? And what will be the signs? That’s what the disciples want to know and that’s what Jesus has been telling them. In addition to that he has given them a confirmation of the coming of the kingdom and a glimpse of its fullness.

The whole discourse has been pastoral in tone. Jesus loves his disciples, and in his concern for them he has given them the information they need to survive and thrive through the coming days. And now he gives them one final lesson and warning.

To listen to this sermon just click the link below. A page will open up in your browser where you will be able to either stream the sermon immediately or download it for later listening. God bless you.

Click here: Mark 13:28-37 - Stay Awake!


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