Amazed, Afraid, Annoying (Part A)

Have you ever been laughed at publicly? Beaten physically? Spat upon?

He lines them up for them. They still don't get it. As sure as he would suffer, he would rise again. That's what he's saying. Listen, they're going to do these things to me, but I'm getting up.

Just as sure as you see them beat me, understand you will see me get up. That's the message they missed. We're supposed to get. Never again would he go through this for our sins. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Mark chapter 10, as he begins his message, Amazed, Afraid, Annoying. The Gospel of Mark chapter 10, we're going to take verses 32 through 45, begin beginning at verse 32. Now they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them, and they were amazed.

And as they followed, they were afraid. Then he took the twelve aside again, and began to tell them the things that would happen to him. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priest and to the scribes. They will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles. They will mock him, discourage him, and spit on him, and kill him.

And the third day he will rise again. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. And he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? They said to him, grant us that we may sit, one on your right hand and the other on your left, in your glory. But Jesus said to them, you do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said to him, we are able. So Jesus said to them, you will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with, you will be baptized.

But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared. And when the ten heard it, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John. But Jesus called them to himself and said to them, you know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life ransom for many." Now I mentioned that we're seeing the apostles goof up here, but the gentleness of Jesus with them is quite encouraging. The title Amazed, Afraid and Annoying describes the apostles of Christ, as I mentioned in this section, and it also describes us from time to time.

There's no way around it. If you're going to serve Christ, you are going to have those times when you are amazed at things, not necessarily in a positive way, and you will find fear also as a part of serving Christ, and you will be annoying to others from time to time, and they will be to you. This is life in this world, and when we get to heaven all that goes away, but for now it is business until he comes, and it's serious business at that. We look at verse 32 again, now they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them, and they were amazed, and as they followed they were afraid. Then he took the 12 aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to them. Well, as we're reading this here, we have to remember this really happened. This is not some, you know, creative writer such as a William Shakespeare or something.

This is a fact. These things took place, all that surrounds them, and they're going up to Jerusalem. It's always referred to as up to Jerusalem. If you were to parachute into Jerusalem, you would be going up into Jerusalem, because it's not about the elevation or the terrain. It is about what it means to God.

Yes, there were valleys surrounding Jerusalem, but there were other elevations in Israel that were higher. God's chosen purpose was on Jerusalem. There the temple stood, and believers, believers should be consciously and spiritually mindful of going on higher ground. This comes to us from the Psalms, one place at least. Psalm 48 verse 2, beautiful in elevation. Again, the spiritual overruling the physical.

The physical is there, but it is eclipsed by the spiritual. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great king. That's Jerusalem, the holy city, where true holy men are killed by pretend holy men. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one that kills the prophets and stones, those that are sent to her, lamented the Lord over this city. You go to Jerusalem today, at least me, you're not impressed with what you see visually.

In fact, I was depressed by what I saw visually. And yet, what I know spiritually, that's what counts, that's what matters. And Jesus was going before them. He knew full well where he was going, he knew what was in store for him in Jerusalem.

He was going into the mouth of death, and he is pictured here, as we read it, as he's walking alone. And he steps ahead of them, steps apart from them. That's why Mark includes, and Mark is the only one that puts this down, that they were afraid and they were amazed. They know how serious authorities in Jerusalem are against Christ, how hostile they are, and that they want to silence him. And so as they're going to Jerusalem, there they are amazed.

And we can hear the chatter, them questioning his logic. Why is he doing this? Why is he going to Jerusalem? They're going to kill him. So again, this is not the amazing that we were just singing about, amazing grace.

This is like, what is he doing? This doesn't make any sense. Oswald Chambers, in his, my utmost for his highest, and if you've not read that book, I highly endorse it, especially as a new believer, after you get your scripture in. Oswald Chambers, about this verse, I think has the best comments that I know of. He says, at the beginning, we were sure we knew all about Jesus Christ.

It was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out into the hardihood of love. But now we're not so sure. Jesus is on it in front, and he looks strange. Jesus went before them, and they were amazed. Well, that's kind of what Paul was telling the Corinthians. He says in 2 Corinthians 5, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. We saw him in the manger, we saw him as a carpenter, but now we see him as something much, much more.

The relationship has evolved for the good. Chambers continues to write about this verse. He says, at first I was confident that I understood him, but now I'm not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me. I can no longer be familiar with him. He is ahead of me, and he never turns around.

I have no idea where he is going, and the goal has become strangely far off. If you serve Christ long enough, you're going to come to these places where you don't know what Christ is doing. Beware of being too familiar with Christ. I mean, if the Lord had an office, who would go into his office and prop their feet up on his desk in a casual kind of way, as though you were equal with him?

I hope none of us. This Christ we serve, as much as he loves us, as friendly as he is towards us, he is still God the Son Almighty, and every bit of the glory of God the Father is on him also, because he is equal with God. He continues here, and as they followed, they were afraid. So they're amazed that he's going to Jerusalem, and they're fearful.

And again, only Mark mentions these things. John, he comments about the same time about what Thomas said concerning Christ going to Jerusalem there in John 11. Then Thomas, who is called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go, that we may die with him. So they had these flashes where they understood, but then they had these rollbacks where they completely were lost as to what was going on. My point for reading Thomas' quote is that Thomas was brave, ready to die for the Lord, they knew hostilities awaited him in Jerusalem, and then five minutes later they forgot that they believed this. They were unstable in their theology at this time. We all go through this at some point, where we're a little confused, a little clouded. Charles Spurgeon, the preacher, warned his students, he said, and mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew. If you're a little confused about what you're saying, they're going to be really confused about what you're saying.

It is a big deal. I believe that there was something more to their fear than just him going to Jerusalem. I believe it was how the Lord was now carrying himself. Something in his eyes, something in his tone and his manners now were different than they were before in Capernaum and up in Caesarea Philippi and all the other places they had gone. Something else had changed about him.

There was now an intensity about him that unsettled them. Looking back on this moment, Mark again, Peter probably dictating to him the events, records it very clearly for us. Luke adds this, now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. It was a little bit earlier than this moment here, but it was when they first found out he's going to Jerusalem and nothing can stop him.

He steadfastly set his face to go there. There was nothing that was going to stop this. Maybe when you first read the gospels and you got to the death of Jesus Christ, you said to yourself, why?

This was so avoidable. God says, no, it's not. See, that was what Peter was saying.

It's not so, Lord. You should not be crucified. Of course, he has to be crucified to redeem us.

If we look at it with the eyes of a human on a human level, yes, it doesn't make any sense that he should be crucified for sinners. But if we look at it spiritually, we know full well this is exactly, precisely what must happen, and nothing was going to stop him. Then he took the twelve aside again. So now he separates the twelve apostles from the other disciples that were with him also in many of the places that he went. There were these other believers that accompanied him.

These twelve were critical to the survival of Christianity, and Christ of course knew it full well. In fact, for us sometimes on an individual level, our presence is critical for the survival of another person that does not yet know the Christ, or maybe is thinking about becoming an apostate because Christianity has proven to not be what they hoped it to be. That's what makes an apostate many times. They have these great expectations of coming to Christ, and when they do not happen the way they expected them, they begin to resent, they begin to doubt, and they look somewhere else. And in so doing, they become those who fall away from the faith in a single word, an apostate. These twelve would be the first overcomers in Christ.

The first in a long line. We are supposed to be overcomers, and they overcame him by the word of the Lamb, the blood, the blood of the Lamb, and the word of his testimony, because they did not love their lives to the death. That is said of the tribulation saints, and it should be said of us too.

I don't feel like an overcomer many times, but when the smoke clears and the dust settles, and my life is over, I'll be in heaven an overcomer, and so will all of you who believe. And Satan can do nothing about it. And he began to tell them the things that would happen to him. He's trying to prepare these men, and they're listening to him in moments. They believe what he's saying, but then again, I have to remind us over and over again, they never saw him fail.

How could he die? This is one that raised people from the dead, stopped storms, walked on water, cleansed lepers, killed trees in an instant without a saw. An amazing relationship between Christ and creation. Verse 33, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles.

They will mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again. This is the fourth recorded mention of this death of his coming. Now, some of your study Bibles may say three mentions, and that's because I'm counting one that they missed. It depends on how you count them, is what it comes down to.

They're not wrong, and neither am I. He mentioned this, of course, to Peter at the Great Confession in Mark Chapter 8 at Caesarea Philippi, where he has to rebuke, you know, get behind me, Satan, you're not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men. He spoke of it as they came down from the mount of transfiguration, and then long after he had been down in the valley and heading towards making his trek towards Jerusalem, he mentions it again, and then he mentions it again here.

He will actually do it one more time when we get to the last verse of our morning consideration, verse 45, when he says that he's come to give his life ransom, and so if you count it that way, it's five times, but this is critical to what he is doing, and it was not a truth that the disciples cared to really dig into, and that is also why there was this confusion. Of course, it is all prophetic. It's God's plan. We believers know that. The unbelievers do not know that. The unbelievers know so little about Jesus Christ, and that's where we come in. That's why they're prone toward idolatry. Idolatry is thriving. Any time a human being makes up something about God, they have just committed idolatry.

That's why we go by revelation, not speculation, but the world loves speculation because there's no accountability that belongs to it outside of one's own permission. Isaiah 53, verse 12, he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. That Isaiah wrote this down should have taken away all of their surprise, but they were not as familiar with Isaiah as we are at the time that these things were happening, it appears, prior predictions of his coming death. These, again, was something they could not endure, and so now he's going to, for the first time, lay out the gruesome outline for them, like the rhythmic beat of a drum telling troops how to march together.

He's going to lay it out. You know, when troops march, big, you know, say you've got a thousand troops out there marching, how do they all keep marching with the same foot, hitting the same, at the same ground? Everybody left, right, left, right. They can't hear the voice commands. It's the sound of that bass drum. Every time that bass hits, the left foot hits the ground, and that's how you keep them in order. Well, here, there's a cadence that the Lord is marching to. Nine times do we hear him say, and, and, and.

That's the beat. Look at it again, verse 33. We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again.

You see the cadence, boom, boom. He's marching towards Jerusalem. He's staring down death. He is going to beat the snot out of death.

He's the only one that can do it. They don't see this. We see it. Betrayed, backstabbed, condemned, judged by evil men. Any of you want to be judged? See me after service. Can you imagine? I'm going to be judged.

I'll be back at five. I mean, this is a mean and vicious judgment of people. Criticisms. They are criticizing him according to the law, their twisted versions. Delivered to the Gentiles no less.

That's what he says to them. Mocked, publicly laughed at. Ridicule is a hard thing to endure. Scourged, physically whipped, skin peeled from his body. Spat upon, the shame of it.

Not to mention that it's a biohazard. Killed. That's what he gets out of this. From those whom he loved and came to die for, they murdered him. But then he rises as the victor. Each item, an individual suffering is marked out.

Which one stands out to you? Have you ever been backstabbed? Have you ever been laughed at publicly? Beaten physically? Spat upon?

He lines them up for them. They still don't get it. As sure as he would suffer, he would rise again. That's what he's saying. Listen, they're going to do these things to me, but I'm getting up. Just as sure as you see them beat me, understand, you will see me get up. That's the message they missed.

We're supposed to get. Never again would he go through this for our sins. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 18, for Christ also suffered once for sins.

You cannot make it any more clear than that. How many times has one, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit? Hebrews 9, 28, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. He predicted his suffering. It was voluntary. It was in the place of others, vicarious, and it was, of course, victorious.

Three V's there. Luke adds this, but they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken. It is perplexing if you look at it from afar, but maybe if you again insert yourself into this number and understand, having seen him do so much, how could you expect little in the face of death? How difficult it can be to get our heads around something that's contrary to what we want to believe. Unable to rid their minds, the delusion just continued in their head, and they expected him to march into Jerusalem. They were afraid. They knew hostilities were there, but they still somehow expected him to get on that throne, and that's what's going to come out in the next section. This teaching of perpetual suffering of Christ, the Bible disagrees with it if you come across it.

You come across anyone that is saying somehow he is still suffering for our sins, you can say, well, the Bible certainly disagrees with that based on the verses I just read. Verse 35, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. This is ridiculous. They're serious. And then it's an ill-timed, selfish request. He's talking about death.

Okay, that's good. Now, can you do whatever I want you to do? You know, why didn't he bust out laughing in their face? Because he's not that kind of guy. Verse 36, and he said to them, he's humoring them, is he not?

What do you want me to do for you? I mean, you know he's not going to do it. He knows he's not going to do it, but he wants to hear them go ahead and continue to shove their feet in their mouths. Verse 37, they said to him, grant us that we may sit, one on your right hand and the other on your left, in your glory. Matthew says in your kingdom. What we don't have here captured for us are the looks on the faces of all those involved.

Maybe we can kind of just think about this a little bit so we do not become annoying as they were in this section. It is the face of Jesus. It is absent of any sign of disappointment. Since he is so patient with them, we know this to be the case. Since he kind of says, well what do you want? And he just pulls them aside and he explains things. He's so gentle with them. I have been chasing this all my life in Christ. To be this gentle all the time. Sometimes I can do it.

Other times I can't find it. As a pastor usually I think I can get it. As a father, oh man. Anyway, you didn't come here to hear that. Oh yeah we did.

Tell us more how messed up you are as a dad. Well there's the face of Salome. Who is she? She's the mother of James and John. This was her brainstorm. She's the one that came up with this. How do we know that?

Because Matthew, he makes sure we find out that she's behind this request. She's filled with the mother's foolishness. Our little babies. They're grown men. I mean we see this with moms, you know, to a fault. My little baby can never be wrong. The other kid's fault, not mine. And it's crazy. Kids are kids.

All of them. They're going to be wrong many times. Matthew 20 verse 20. Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him with her sons kneeling down and asking something from him. Yeah, whatever I asked, that's what they were asking. And he said to her, what do you wish to see? He said, grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and the other on your left, in your kingdom. Now here's what Jesus should have just asked. Are you delirious? James and John echo her request.

Instead of objecting with that well-known mom, it never comes. Because they like it. Yeah. We beat Peter to it. We're going to be on the right and left and Peter and Thomas will not. I don't think that they were thinking that far ahead, but it's funny to make fun of them. I think.

I'm enjoying it. Sometimes it's just the parents that make everything difficult, not the child. It's the parents many times.

Sometimes it is the child. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You could search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark right here on Cross Reference Radio.