Who Is this Man? #3

Jesus is calling every one of us to a permanent, irrevocable, spiritual commitment to Him, to follow Him that transcends everything in life.

You've found the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and on today's program we conclude the second of four Portraits of Christ, this one from Mark's Gospel. So far we've seen who Jesus is, a man unlike any other. In fact, the one and only God in human flesh who can command spirits, cancel sins, calm seas, and comprehend secrets deep within the human heart. Today we'll get the answer to several other vital questions, namely, why did He come? What does He seek from us?

And finally, in response, what do you say? Don begins today's lesson in Mark 1-9, so turn there in your Bible as we go to the Truth Pulpit. As you read the totality of the Gospel of Mark, one of the great blessings of this portion of Scripture is that Mark does not leave it to human testimony alone to affirm the conclusion that you are to reach. Go to Mark chapter 1.

Mark chapter 1. You see, it's not just these authenticating marks that flowed out of the life of Christ that affirm Him as the Son of God to us. We have the very testimony of God the Father Himself. Mark chapter 1 verse 9.

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him, and a voice came out of the heavens, you are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased. Who calls Jesus the Son but the Father? This is the voice of God the Father. At the start of His ministry saying, this is my beloved Son, He looks at Christ and says, you are my beloved Son. Total, absolute approval from a holy God. This is my Son. Now turn over to Mark chapter 9.

I should have kept your finger there. Mark chapter 9 in verse 7. This is at the transfiguration. Mark chapter 9 verse 2. Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John and brought Him up on a high mountain by themselves, and He was transfigured before them.

His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah appeared and Moses and they were talking with Jesus. Peter got his foot in his mouth. Rabbi, it's good for us to be here.

Let's make three tabernacles, one for you Moses and Elijah. He didn't know what to answer. He was terrified.

See it again? The response to being in the glory of Christ is terror. Terror. Verse 7. Then a cloud formed overshadowing them and a voice came out of the cloud. This is my beloved Son.

Listen to Him. All at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone. There were three going into the cloud, so to speak. God spoke and clarified and blew away the fog and all that was left standing at the end was Christ. This is my beloved Son.

The Father has testified that this is His Son. Look at Mark chapter 14. Jesus Himself affirmed this as the question about His identity comes up again. Mark chapter 14 verse 61. Jesus is on trial for crimes that He did not commit. Mark 14 verse 61.

Giving those wrestling pages a chance to find the mark. The high priest was questioning Him and saying to Him, Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? Question on the table. And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

Yep, that's me. I am the Christ. What Peter said, what the Father said, Christ Himself owned it.

And now, today, we're in no inferior position because we have God's Word in front of us saying the same thing. This is the Christ. God's Word testifies that this is who Jesus is and the Spirit of God affirms in your heart the truth of what His Word says.

There's no denying it. There is so much attestation to the veracity of the statement that Jesus alone is the Son of God. Jesus alone is the Christ. He is God in human flesh with unparalleled authority that is verified and attested to us in all manner of ways so that anyone who rejects it is without excuse.

Now, that's who He is. Why is He here? Why is He here? Why is the Son of God on earth?

You'd never guess it. That's point number two, by the way. Why is He here?

See, these questions are really simple. Why is He here? This great Christ is here to die. Look at Mark chapter 8 verse 31. Mark 8 verse 31.

See it three times. Same statement before His crucifixion. In Mark 8 31, Peter had just said, You are the Christ. In verse 31, Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. Look at Mark 9 31. He was teaching His disciples and telling them, The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill Him and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later. Look at Mark 10 32.

I want you to just see the emphasis that He is here to die. Verse 32. They were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking on ahead of them and they were amazed and those who followed were fearful. See those responses again. Amazement. Fear. And again, He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him.

Told them multiple times in advance so that they would realize that this was no unexpected turn of events. Verse 33. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles.

They will mock Him and spit on Him and scourge Him and kill Him. And three days later He will rise again. He came to die.

He came to suffer. Why would the Son of God do that? That makes no human sense. This is incomprehensible apart from the Word of God. This is certainly incomprehensible by any human measure of power and authority. When men on earth get authority, they exercise it to their own benefit. Here's a man with authority and he's going to die? You've got authority over all these realms and you're going to subject yourself to death?

Why would you do that? Mark 10, verse 45. Mark 10, verse 45. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. There should be a tension in your mind just about now. A tension that says, but you've got all of this authority and yet you're coming to die?

You're coming to serve rather than to be served? Scripture tells us that this great act of condescension was to offer Himself, His own life, His own blood, as a sin sacrificed to satisfy the demands of God's justice against sin. God's justice, His holiness, needed to be vindicated in light of the sin of men. Light of your sin, my sin. Price eternal in nature which we could not pay for ourselves. Christ came to pay that price with His own life. Does that thought ever get old to you? Does it get stale because of familiarity?

Go back to the question, who is this? And He's going to die? And you realize that suddenly the veil is being pulled back.

The curtains are being opened. And you are seeing divine glory on display. A divine glory that would save sinners. A divine glory of one with such majestic power. Divine glory of one who in His merciful condescension would lay down His most holy life for the sake of saving you and me from sin. This is wonderful. This is true.

But it is so otherworldly that it should provoke a sense of fear and reverence and amazement in our hearts. That's why He's here. Point number three. What does He want? What does He want? Who is this man? Well, He's the Son of God. Why is He here? He came to die to give His life for ransom for many. So what does He want then?

Apparently, this isn't something that I can just read about and go away from unchanged. Look at Mark 8 verse 34. His grace and His mercy and His love are real. His invitation to you to come to Him for the forgiveness of sins is sincere. And His promise to forgive you if you put your faith in Him is guaranteed.

But, beloved, this is not something with which we trifle. What does He want? He's calling you to follow Him with everything that you have. Look at Mark 8 verse 34. He summoned the crowd with His disciples and said to them, if anyone wishes to come after me, seeing who I am after all, if you want a part of me, here's what is required. He must deny Himself and take up His cross and follow me.

There is no easy believism in the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The call of Christ on sinners is that they would surrender their lives to Him. That they would acknowledge Him for who He is, the Lord of all. That having seen the fullness of Him on display in the gospel, realizing that He has authority over all, that you would bend your heart in permanent submission and allegiance to this One.

No games. There is an utter self-repudiation that is inherent in saving faith. I repudiate my old man. I repudiate my sin. I disown my old man. I deny him.

I leave him behind. And I come alone with no preconditions, with no reservations, with no qualifications. I come to you, Lord Jesus, and I place my life before you. If the seas are going to bow before you, heaven won't find me refusing my own bended knee. The one who rejects the lordship of Christ is someone who deliberately says, He will not reign over me as a man still in his sin, no matter what kind of foolish, simplistic prayers he prayed in the past. Christ says, if you want to come after me, deny yourself, take up your cross, which the cross in that day was an instrument of execution, and follow me.

Recognize my headship, recognize my leadership, recognize my lordship, and give your heart over to following me unreservedly. That's what He wants. You see, it couldn't be any other way. Couldn't be.

Couldn't possibly be any other way. He has all this authority. He commands demons. He cancels sins. He commands the sea. He discerns the secrets of the heart. He condescended to death himself. How did we ever begin to think that we could casually deal with Him and not have it impact every area of our lives?

Where did we ever get that idea? That's foolishness. That turns this great majesty into a trivial game. No. No. No. This one who has authority over all is making, when He calls you to follow Him, understand that He is placing upon you an authoritative call over all of the totality of the affections of your heart, and says, that is the only way that I will receive you is if you come to me like that.

If you withhold an area of sin, if you're conscious of saying, I don't want, I want you to save me, but I don't want to follow you, He'll have no part of you. See. See.

See. Blow through all the smoke and realize that we have to come to Christ on His terms, not on ours. He determines the terms of salvation. He determines the terms of surrender.

We don't get to make it up on our own. Christ says, deny yourself and follow Me. You say, I don't want to do that. Well, look on in verse 35. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake in the Gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul? Verse 38.

Here it is. Here is the eschatological punch. Here is the consequence of how you respond to Christ. Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of Him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. Look, I'm never going to get tired of reminding you of your appointment with an eternal God. I can't let that go.

I can't let you let that escape from your thinking. That day is coming. And those who casually respond and reject and dismiss the words of Christ here in the Gospel are going to find that when they are before the judgment seat of God, He is going to dismiss them into eternal condemnation. There are such great and profound consequences to the truth with which we are dealing. To dismiss and reject what Scripture so clearly teaches us is to invite eternal condemnation on your head.

Christ says, follow Me. And if you're ashamed to do that, if that's something that you don't want, He says, be aware that there's a consequence. On this day when I return in glory, you're ashamed of Me now? When I come in glory, I'm going to be ashamed of you. And the opportunity for you to repent will have passed.

And there will be no second chance. And so, beloved, you young people trying to come to grips with the Gospel, understand that the consequences of what we're talking about here are incalculable. And I can't help, I can't help but have this sense, Spurgeon described it, this sense of agony over those of you who are careless and indifferent and flippant in response to the Gospel. Because the consequences are so vast, you could not possibly understand the consequences of what you're doing, but understand that won't excuse you on the day of judgment. Jesus is calling every one of us to a permanent, irrevocable, spiritual commitment to Him, to follow Him, that transcends everything in life. Only that kind of surrender is the mark of true saving faith. Have you responded to Christ that way?

Is that the mark of your life? It's the only question that matters. Who is this man? He's the Son of God. Now, what are you going to do with that?

And so we can put the fourth question this final way. What do you say? Who is this man? Why is he here?

What does he want? What do you say? My non-Christian friend, I ask you one more time, what do you say? What will you do with Christ? What will you do with this one of all authority who calls and tells you, commands you, follow me, deny yourself and follow me? On what basis would you tell this authoritative, eternal Son of God, no, I'll go my own way? Do you think that He's going to lightly treat that rejection when He has graciously offered Himself to you in the gospel?

What do you say? What I want you to see is that this reality about the authority of Christ helps us too. It's not just a call to salvation. Clarity about Christ, clarity about His authority frames our entire attitude toward Him. When you're clear on the authority of Christ, it should build in your mind a superstructure, a framework with which you think about all of life, and it's a framework of holy reverence toward Christ. Christianity was never meant to be a superficial, flippant thing. It couldn't possibly be about an act of religious ritual that leaves your life unchanged.

It couldn't possibly be that. This is real. This is profound, the revelation of Christ. And as such, if you appreciate the profundity of who Christ is, then you start to get a measure of the profundity of what your response to Him should be like.

Profound reverence, profound fear, profound devotion to this anointed one of God. Look at Mark 16, and with this I'll close. Mark 16, verse 8, which according to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts is where the Gospel of Mark really ended.

Verse 8, we read it earlier. Those who were told about the resurrection in this culmination of the entire Gospel of Mark, they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had gripped them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Does your soul know something of an acquaintance with the fear of God? Something of trembling in the presence of the majestic Christ?

Do you know something of that? That's the mark of true conversion. We see His authority with mental understanding, and we tremble before it. We fall silent before Him. Enough of a casual response, enough of being consumed with earthly life. Beloved, beloved, this is the authoritative Son of God.

As Habakkuk said, let all the earth fall silent before Him. We worship, we submit, we tremble in the presence of this holy greatness. My Christian friends, what do you say about Christ? That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, wrapping up a message titled, Who Is This Man? The second of four portraits we're seeing in the four Gospels here on The Truth Pulpit. Next time, we turn to Luke's Gospel to get another Portrait of Christ. Well, Don, our listeners have no doubt heard sermons on many different topics, but if they could hear only one over and over, it's hard to imagine a better one than that centered on the question posed over the past couple of days. Who is this man, Jesus?

I agree with you, Bill. My friend, Jesus Christ will be the focal point of the climax of history. Scripture says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. What you do with Christ in this life determines what happens to you in eternity. Have you repented from sin and received Christ for eternal life? If not, I invite you to him. If you have and you are a Christian, I look forward to seeing you in heaven.

Until then, let the reality of Christ's Lordship shape your desires in life until you see him face to face. God bless you. And friend, remember to visit us at thetruthpulpit.com to find great study resources as well as downloadable podcasts to hear at your convenience. That's thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green.