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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2024: The Book of Mark

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 The Beginning of the Gospel

02 A Day in the Ministry of Jesus

03 Controversies

04 Parables

05 Miracles Around the Lake

06 Inside Out

07 Teaching Disciples Part 1

08 Teaching Disciples Part 2

09 Jerusalem Controversies

10 The Last Days

11 Taken and Tried

12 Tried and Crucified

13 The Risen Lord

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

And Pastor Howard, This is the final lesson, lesson 13 of our Book of Mark study series.

This brings us all the way chronologically to the very last portion of the Book of Mark, of course, where we get to the resurrection of Jesus and the implication that has for our lives today and the gospel work going forward.

It's titled The Risen Lord and this is gonna be a, I have to trust it, this is an exciting faith affirming.

Climax to the whole book and and then with those feelings of oh the kind of disappointedness because we finished up the gospel, we actually are going to be transitioning into the gospel of John.

He's like, man, I could have just studied the life of Jesus for a whole other quarter.

This week, you put the talking points together covering this resurrection topic and the application of it in our lives today.

So I want to get out of the way and let you have the time to lead us through that.

But before we do, let's start with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Jesus.

Thank you for his life is recorded in the book of Mark and especially his new life, his resurrected life, his interceding and empowering life that he gives to us.

Guide us now as we study and prepare for classes to come.

Please help every teacher, every student, every participant in the Sabbath school to be a blessing to others and to receive a blessing from you.

All right, well, to be clear, it is, we are looking at the resurrection.

It's basically, we're looking at chapter 16, the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and the events following the crucifixion, which, of course, you have the resurrection.

So that falls into this final chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

Our first talking point is drawn from Sunday through Wednesday, and it is, He is risen.

Yeah, it makes sense you have to establish that before you can do anything else.

Sunday through Wednesday, so the bulk of the lesson.

And then talking point number 2, because He lives, we also live.

And that is drawn primarily from Wednesday and finally talking point number 3 we are his witnesses and that is drawn from Thursday's lesson.

All right, so the whole witnessing thing and the living, that's all built on him being alive again, so he is risen, is this foundational concept.

So it's interesting, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring this out in Talking Points, the lesson did bring it out, In fact, I guess they have a day on this so we should touch on it a little bit they talked about the how the evangelical world Has a lot more to say it seems about the resurrection they have big resurrection services sunrise services celebrations.

And how you know, we probably ought to have more to say about it, which I agree in some respects.

They also talked about how, you know, from an evangelical perspective, the resurrection is the evidence that the day of worship was transferred to Sunday.

I will say, we were saying in our preparation that I don't know that there would be as much emphasis on Sunrise Services if they didn't already go to church on Sunday.

I mean that's just a bit, so it's like, oh they honor the Resurrect, no that's the day they go to church, and so, and it went to your point, what did you, how did you frame it?

That that kind of is the Magna Carta of their whole Sunday is sacred.

Right exactly so the resurrection if you're gonna use the resurrection as the reason we go to church on Sunday then you would certainly celebrate the resurrection prominently in your Sunday keeping church if that's the reason you have a Sunday service.

So yeah I'm with you I think we need to focus on the resurrection more and more but not fear that oh Matt might slip you into some sort of Sunday worship.

Right well what I was gonna say is so unfortunately even from a from a Sunday perspective you know a lot of times the emphasis can be towards, you know, the new day of worship and this kind of thing, rather than the reality that the resurrection of Christ is the foundation of the Christian faith.

In other words, you take the resurrection away, who are you worshiping and why?

Like, so this is, it is a huge important issue.

And in fact, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3 through 8.

And as Paul states the gospel he preached you'll notice that the resurrection is part of that an integral key part of that gospel message.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures and verse 5 that he has was seen by Cephas then by the 12 After that he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.

After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, then last of all he was seen by me also, as 1 born out of due time." So it's interesting that his gospel includes that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was buried, he rose again, and he was witnessed to.

And we'll expound on that a little bit And this is important again, because if you look at verse 13 And 14 he says but if there is no resurrection of the dead Then christ is not risen And if christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.

Like what is there to Christianity if Christ is dead and in the tomb?

And so this is the foundation of the Christian faith.

And of course the scripture is full of evidence of the resurrection of Christ.

It's clear regarding the fact that he was raised both in types and symbols in the Old Testament which foreshadowed it, the wave sheaf and other things like that which we could do, and then of course in the historical accounts of the New Testament and the eyewitness testimonies, abundance of evidence in scripture that mmm yeah this this thing happened and it again that it is the foundation of the Christian faith well obviously the importance to Paul is clear here because he doesn't just say he doesn't just offhand a limitation of course he died buried and was resurrected Anyway onward he was like and was seen by this person He was it yes like he clearly wants to emphasize this resurrection point because it's the it's the linchpin to everything else He reaches I've put in the notes here that in our notes that if the resurrection of Christ could be disproved It would in turn prove the christian faith to be a hoax.

I mean, you've just got to realize like the weight of this This is why why is paul going to so great pains to the because if it could be proven that jesus didn't raise from the dead This whole thing is this why he says your faith is empty Yeah, there's something about raising from the dead that's even in Jesus ministry, you notice like if he could heal a blind person, they could discredit it.

Even when you like, for instance, you raise Lazarus, right?

They're like, well, we knew if you had been here, he wouldn't have died.

Now that he's dead, that's too big for you to like, there's a there's an inherent like dead to life is positively, uniquely divine.

And Christ not only raised other people, but he said, I have life in me, I'm gonna raise.

And so he put his entire credibility, his entire mission on not only I'm gonna live and die, but I'm gonna raise up again.

And you can see where a person who accepts that, you know, what are you going to do?

So for people who don't accept the resurrection, obviously they're not going to worship.

And if a person doesn't want to you know this is gonna be the point you're gonna tell we've seen this and the scripture goes I don't know why this is such it like sometimes it's like well people don't believe because they're just not enough proof yet no the Bible's clear over and over there some people don't believe because they just plain don't want to believe And then they and so they'll come up with things and so there are things people bring up and they say well the resurrection Happened we know it didn't happen because of this that and the other so I'll cover some of this It was I believe Tuesday's lesson Monday's with lesson rather Monday and a little bit of Tuesday, at least I'm drawing from, where they, the lesson, the quarterly gives a number of reasons, evidences if you will, for why we believe Jesus did raise from the dead.

And I'll list a few of these claims because it's, if everything is hanging in the resurrection we need to be able to give some good reasons for it.

So reason number 1, the evidence for creation is also evidence in favor of the resurrection of Jesus and vice versa and so the reason for that is some people say with a resurrection to your point couldn't have happened because it's a miracle.

It's divine And if there is no divine there can be no resurrection Well, once you accept that there is a creator who created everything all of a sudden resurrection becomes fairly easy.

Okay, and so evidences for creation and we were talking about this in our preparation there are more and more scientists I'll give you 1 example there are lots of scientific evidences and it's unbelievable how many Christians I encounter who don't realize how many evidences there are.

In other words, let's be clear that if you take a view of evolution or you take a view of creation, both views have gaps.

There are places where you just have to take it on faith.

Okay, there's not, it's like, well, evolution has more proof.

And when you look at the evidence, at the end of the day, it's not like oh I have all this proof and this is why I'm gonna know you go with a weight of evidence And I think if a person studies this out and we see this in the scientific world Yeah, more and more scientists are looking at the evidence and saying man evolution doesn't answer in as many of the questions as creation does 1 case in point we know that the universe is expanding which means if it's expanding at 1 point it started it had a beginning and if it had a beginning then there was a there was a beginner of some some kind and if the universe is made up of matter and made up of space and time then whatever Originated it has to be something other than what it consists of mm-hmm, right like if water was created It had a beginning Water couldn't have created water had to be something outside of that because it's already water So there has to be something outside of matter, outside of space, outside of time.

Well, there's not a lot of options once you get there.

There must be a being that transcends that or something that transcends it.

If you ever listen to, I'm thinking of Stephen Meyer and there's other ones who are not necessarily devout Christians, but have had a journey out of this dogmatic evolutionary naturalist perspective just based on evidence alone.

And they're looking at things like the cosmological reasons, but also- the complexity of DNA and all kinds of it.

And this is what the thought dawned on me the other day.

If you look really, really, really big, you start seeing evidence.

It's like, well, then I'll look really, really, really small, and you start seeing evidence.

I have to stay right here not to see the evidence.

And the more scientists, again, not coming from a religious inclined background, but just the base of the evidence, how many of them are starting to question the whole concept of a Big Bang and they're coming up with other quantum theory and multiverse and all kinds of fancy ways to get out of this.

We've got these evidences, you've got to come up with a theory for something.

Yeah, and time doesn't permit us to get into all those discussions simply to say, and I'm sure viewers will say, well you don't know that I disagree and blah blah blah, that's fine.

What I'm saying is in the scientific world more and more renowned scientists, not Mark and Cameron, are saying, look, the evidence is that there has to be some kind of creator, whether it's the Christian God or not.

They don't always say, oh, it's a Christian God, but it has to be somebody who transcends.

And even pry away from this, you know, this entrenchment ideologically to say like, well, it must be this.

If you can get away from that, well now, at least the creation story is 1 of a variety of options, but at least you're open to considering, and I think that the evidence moves people toward openness to a creator more than the other way around.

Series

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2024: The Book of Mark

13 The Risen Lord

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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