WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:07.580 Well, if you would open your Bible to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 14. 2 00:00:07.580 --> 00:00:15.940 We’re going to return once again to the Garden of Gethsemane, that beautiful place where Jesus often met with His disciples. 3 00:00:15.940 --> 00:00:24.320 And we’re going to go back, as we were last week, to that night in which Jesus was betrayed and arrested. 4 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:40.920 What we’re going to consider today is really what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to trust Him and trust only Him, and even find no strength in ourselves. 5 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:46.780 But what does it mean to follow Him? 6 00:00:46.780 --> 00:01:02.100 Back in chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus summons the crowd with His disciples, and He says to them, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 7 00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:03.840 So we’re going to look at the passage. 8 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:18.940 I’m going to read the passage that we read last week, and then we’re going to continue this today, basically from where we left off last week. 9 00:01:18.940 --> 00:01:24.500 This is God’s holy, inerrant Word. 10 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:35.820 Immediately, while He was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. 11 00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:41.260 Now he who was betraying Him had given them a signal, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He’s the one. 12 00:01:41.260 --> 00:01:44.020 Seize Him and lead Him away under guard.” 13 00:01:44.020 --> 00:01:48.660 After coming, Judas immediately went to Him, saying, “Rabbi,” and kissed Him. 14 00:01:48.660 --> 00:01:50.840 And they laid hands on Him and seized Him. 15 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:57.660 But one of those who stood by drew his sword, struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. 16 00:01:57.660 --> 00:02:05.260 And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber? 17 00:02:05.260 --> 00:02:13.780 Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me, but this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures.” 18 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:18.980 And they all left Him and fled. 19 00:02:18.980 --> 00:02:25.980 A young man who was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him. 20 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:30.260 But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked. 21 00:02:30.260 --> 00:02:36.660 Let’s ask God to bless the reading of His Word. 22 00:02:36.660 --> 00:02:39.920 Father, we thank you for your kind grace and blessing. 23 00:02:39.920 --> 00:02:44.380 We thank you, Father, for your precious Word. 24 00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:54.300 We thank you for the passage that we’ve read, which is so momentous, so important, that we should dwell over every word and contemplate it repeatedly. 25 00:02:54.300 --> 00:03:00.200 We ask, Father, for special grace today, that you would apply the truth of this passage to our hearts. 26 00:03:00.200 --> 00:03:08.120 And, Father, I pray that it’s the truth that you apply, your Word itself, that we actually take home today. 27 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:17.760 Help us, Lord Jesus, to be faithful to you in all things, and help us to have the right humility as we approach passages like this. 28 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:20.560 We ask your grace in Christ’s name. 29 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:28.380 Amen. 30 00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:33.500 Last week we looked at Judas showing up in the garden. 31 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:48.040 We looked at him coming with the cohort of Roman soldiers and those who were from the temple, and how Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. 32 00:03:48.040 --> 00:04:00.680 We looked at and considered the mention of the certain one who stood by and drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest. 33 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:08.900 We talked about Peter for a little while last week, and Jesus’ confrontation of them. 34 00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:14.840 We looked at some other Gospels as well, the portrayal of this in John’s Gospel. 35 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:18.720 And we ended with, they all left Him and they fled. 36 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:22.460 And that’s true, the disciples all left and fled. 37 00:04:22.460 --> 00:04:25.760 What we didn’t get to was the last two verses. 38 00:04:25.760 --> 00:04:31.960 We didn’t deal with it at all, which is kind of a strange passage, don’t you think? 39 00:04:31.960 --> 00:04:37.980 The young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him. 40 00:04:37.980 --> 00:04:45.140 But he pulled free the linen sheet, and he escaped naked. 41 00:04:45.140 --> 00:04:50.840 This is the only place in the Gospels where that little incident is found. 42 00:04:50.840 --> 00:04:56.640 And I think you read something like that, you have to ask yourself, why is that here? 43 00:04:56.640 --> 00:05:01.880 Why do we have such a strange thing found in this Gospel? 44 00:05:01.880 --> 00:05:05.740 What’s the purpose of it? 45 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.220 Well, that we can be certain of. 46 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:14.020 We can be certain that this has good purpose, and we can even know what that purpose is. 47 00:05:14.020 --> 00:05:18.920 It’s here in the Bible, first of all, because it’s historical and it happened. 48 00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:21.180 Now, that’s one reason that it’s here. 49 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:29.160 But it’s also here because the Holy Spirit of God inspired this Word to be here. 50 00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:37.920 The Holy Spirit of God had these words written the way they’re written in this passage so that we could benefit from it. 51 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:55.720 In fact, in 1 Timothy 3:16, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 52 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:57.480 And that’s why it’s here. 53 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:06.700 It’s here so that we can be reproved or corrected or taught or instructed in righteousness. 54 00:06:06.700 --> 00:06:09.820 That’s why it is here. 55 00:06:09.820 --> 00:06:12.380 How do we get those things out of the passage? 56 00:06:12.380 --> 00:06:15.700 That’s the next thing. 57 00:06:15.700 --> 00:06:46.300 Well, one principle of Bible study is, through prayer and through our dependence on the Holy Spirit of God, we look at a passage and we look at the details of the passage inductively, which is to say, we look at all of the details so that we can understand the meaning and the purpose of the passage. 58 00:06:46.300 --> 00:07:07.600 Just like a detective at a crime scene preserves the evidence and then considers the evidence one thing at a time, until he’s able to eventually put a hypothesis together about how the crime happened and maybe who perpetrated the crime. 59 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:21.680 Inductive thinking is like a jigsaw puzzle where you have the picture that’s in place and you are putting the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. 60 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:34.980 Even if your jigsaw puzzle is not exactly complete, after a little while, as these pieces begin to fit together, you get some idea of what the whole might be. 61 00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:37.360 And I think that’s what we need to do with this passage. 62 00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:39.340 It’s what I propose to do. 63 00:07:39.340 --> 00:07:45.780 I’m not saying that everything that I say this morning is going to be exactly historical. 64 00:07:45.780 --> 00:08:05.720 But I’m going to say that I believe that the things that I’m going to apply are going to be the truth of God’s Word, and that there is a bigger picture here that we should probably appreciate, and that it is highly probable. 65 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:22.760 One of the things with some passages of Scripture is that, though they are loaded with lots of detail, and if you actually look hard you find quite a bit, sometimes you don’t get everything that you’d like. 66 00:08:22.760 --> 00:08:25.760 And so I think this is one of those passages. 67 00:08:25.760 --> 00:08:33.680 But that said, let’s begin to explore what we can learn from this passage. 68 00:08:33.680 --> 00:08:41.320 First of all, I think there’s an example here for us to emulate. 69 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:46.600 The first thing I want to say is that there’s an example for us to emulate. 70 00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:50.360 And it says in verse 51, A young man was following Him. 71 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:52.000 And I’m going to stop with that. 72 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.380 There’s two facts there. 73 00:08:54.380 --> 00:08:56.840 There’s a young man. 74 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.220 He is a very young man. 75 00:08:59.220 --> 00:09:12.220 The word there indicates somebody who probably is in their teens, could be in their early 20s, but a young man. 76 00:09:12.220 --> 00:09:25.740 And given the association here, and the connection, and the fact that it says he was following Jesus, I think it’s pretty safe to say that he is following Jesus, that he is a follower of the Lord Jesus. 77 00:09:25.740 --> 00:09:29.380 I think that that is something absolutely true. 78 00:09:29.380 --> 00:09:33.940 He was a follower of Christ. 79 00:09:33.940 --> 00:09:54.760 Now, that in itself is something that we should be praying for, for our families and for our church, that people come to faith at an early age and become disciples of Christ, or are made disciples of Christ, at an early age. 80 00:09:54.760 --> 00:09:56.740 What a blessing that is. 81 00:09:56.740 --> 00:10:01.160 And as we sing in that hymn, Savior, like a shepherd. 82 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:09.320 Early let us seek Thy favor, early let us do Thy will; blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill. 83 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:20.150 It should be our prayer for ourselves, and it should be our prayer for all of the youth in our church, and the youth in our families, and the youth in our neighborhoods. 84 00:10:20.150 --> 00:10:23.620 We should long to see them come to faith. 85 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:32.220 Over the past couple of few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to share the gospel with some people. 86 00:10:32.220 --> 00:10:43.400 Two of them: one lady that I shared the gospel with was in her 90s, and it’s a joy to share the gospel with anyone. 87 00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:48.360 And the other person that I shared the gospel with was in his 80s. 88 00:10:48.360 --> 00:11:01.280 And I have to tell you, if anyone comes to the Lord at any age, it is a truly, truly wonderful thing, and they will glorify God for all of eternity. 89 00:11:01.280 --> 00:11:06.360 They will be praising God and be a trophy of grace forever and forever. 90 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:08.820 But you know what? 91 00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:15.120 What a precious thing it is when somebody commits their life to the Lord at a very young age. 92 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:39.520 What a wonderful thing it is when they come to Christ when they are so young, when they are a teenager even, or even before, when they are able to spend their life in service to the Lord, to cultivate their relationship with God for decades, to be storing up treasure for the Lord year after year, storing up treasure in heaven. 93 00:11:39.520 --> 00:11:41.940 What a glorious thing that would be. 94 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:43.460 What a glorious thing it is. 95 00:11:43.460 --> 00:11:51.100 How much better when a person follows Christ at an early age. 96 00:11:51.100 --> 00:12:02.880 How much better it is to come and follow Christ when you’re healthy, before the strength of your body is gone. 97 00:12:02.880 --> 00:12:12.400 Consider Solomon’s wisdom in Ecclesiastes, when he said, Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come. 98 00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:20.880 And everybody in this room has some youth left, and we should be remembering our Creator right now while we have strength of body. 99 00:12:20.880 --> 00:12:23.180 Our strength evaporates. 100 00:12:23.180 --> 00:12:24.980 I can give you that firsthand. 101 00:12:24.980 --> 00:12:28.680 I can tell you that from personal experience. 102 00:12:28.680 --> 00:12:45.980 And being able to have the best years of your life, your ability to think clearly, your ability to have strength to serve Christ, to do anything for the Lord and for His people, what a wonderful thing that is. 103 00:12:45.980 --> 00:12:49.960 God deserves the best years of our life. 104 00:12:49.960 --> 00:12:51.320 So we should be praying for that. 105 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:54.540 We should be praying for children to come to faith. 106 00:12:54.540 --> 00:13:08.320 We should long to see them come to faith, so that God can use them in wonderful ways, to bless and serve them, to get to know Him. 107 00:13:08.320 --> 00:14:01.140 What a wonderful thing it is to be a child who has come to faith in Christ and has so much time: to read the Word of God, to understand who God is, to listen to good sermons, sermons that make you think, so that you know the ways of the Lord, know the Word of God, know the will of God, and so you are able to do those things through your life, to come to faith at an early age and make friends who are Christians, to be guided by them and share that unity and the bond of unity that comes only in Jesus Christ, to be able to learn from them and to be a blessing to them, to help instruct and teach them. 108 00:14:01.140 --> 00:14:15.660 What a terrible thing it is that so many young people brought up in a church seem to think something like, “Well, I will give my life to the Lord one day, but I want to live for myself for a while. 109 00:14:15.660 --> 00:14:18.980 I want to do my own way for a while. 110 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:24.040 And maybe soon I’ll trust the Lord. 111 00:14:24.040 --> 00:14:29.960 Or maybe later I’ll trust the Lord.” 112 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:36.680 Well, you may never trust the Lord, because no one knows what a day may bring forth. 113 00:14:36.680 --> 00:14:41.420 We’re to come early and serve Christ with the strength of our youth. 114 00:14:41.420 --> 00:14:43.860 That’s what this young man did. 115 00:14:43.860 --> 00:14:46.260 He is a follower of Jesus. 116 00:14:46.260 --> 00:14:52.460 He’s a very young man, and he is following Jesus. 117 00:14:52.460 --> 00:15:03.040 The second thing I want us to pull from this passage is that I believe, and I’ll have to argue for this, that he’s a courageous follower of Christ. 118 00:15:03.040 --> 00:15:08.360 I believe he’s a courageous follower of Christ. 119 00:15:08.360 --> 00:15:10.960 Now, a couple of points here. 120 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:25.740 One is that I think I can say with some certainty that the people in the early church, particularly the people in the early church at Rome, knew who this person was. 121 00:15:25.740 --> 00:15:30.160 I think I can say that with some reasonable certainty. 122 00:15:30.160 --> 00:15:33.780 And here’s why I think that. 123 00:15:33.780 --> 00:15:45.290 I haven’t read this in a commentary, and we’ve got some Greek scholars in our audience, so I’m happy to be corrected, and you can tell me my heresies if I come up with one. 124 00:15:45.290 --> 00:15:58.800 But one of the things that struck me as I was studying this particular passage, and it’s because when I looked at the Greek, it didn’t agree with my text that I had been studying. 125 00:15:58.800 --> 00:16:04.320 It doesn’t say, to begin with, “a young man was following him.” 126 00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:07.220 It doesn’t say that literally. 127 00:16:07.220 --> 00:16:11.460 In the Greek, it says “a certain young man was following Him.” 128 00:16:11.460 --> 00:16:18.040 Here’s a place where the King James Bible is more accurate than the New American Standard Bible that I’m reading from. 129 00:16:18.040 --> 00:16:21.240 There are a few places like that. 130 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:24.420 A certain young man was following Him. 131 00:16:24.420 --> 00:16:33.100 The Greek word there is the word tis , and it’s an indefinite pronoun. 132 00:16:33.100 --> 00:16:38.680 It’s used often to mean anyone. 133 00:16:38.680 --> 00:16:52.500 And so I read that verse earlier, back in chapter 8, when Jesus said, “If anyone wishes,” that’s the word tis , that’s the word used there, “anyone.” 134 00:16:52.500 --> 00:16:53.660 It’s an indefinite pronoun. 135 00:16:53.660 --> 00:16:55.320 It can mean anyone. 136 00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:58.960 When it’s used by itself, that’s exactly what it means. 137 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:00.700 It means anyone. 138 00:17:00.700 --> 00:17:04.320 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. 139 00:17:04.320 --> 00:17:09.520 So you have that word used that way. 140 00:17:09.520 --> 00:17:15.340 The word is used ten times in the Gospel of Mark, and seven of those times it means anyone. 141 00:17:15.340 --> 00:17:17.960 It’s used just like that. 142 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:28.320 But three times the word is used where it is connected with a descriptor of some kind. 143 00:17:28.320 --> 00:17:32.640 And so here is one of those examples. 144 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:38.260 It is not “a young man,” but the word tis is used with that. 145 00:17:38.260 --> 00:17:40.800 It is a certain young man. 146 00:17:40.800 --> 00:17:45.620 Not just a young man, but a certain young man. 147 00:17:45.620 --> 00:17:50.740 So I think that in itself is kind of interesting. 148 00:17:50.740 --> 00:17:55.140 I think that in itself makes it interesting to me. 149 00:17:55.140 --> 00:17:57.840 Let me give you an example, how we use that. 150 00:17:57.840 --> 00:18:06.260 If you think about the way we use that word certain and that construction in English, I think you’ll see what I mean. 151 00:18:06.260 --> 00:18:29.220 If you go shopping and you run into a friend, and it’s a lady with her daughter, people you know quite well, and the lady points to her daughter and says, “She has just bought a valentine for a certain young man.” 152 00:18:29.220 --> 00:18:37.380 Well, if you know her and you know her family, you probably know who the young man is, wouldn’t you? 153 00:18:37.380 --> 00:18:42.800 If you didn’t, you would want to know, because it’s something that’s been singled out. 154 00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:46.980 It’s special in some way. 155 00:18:46.980 --> 00:19:04.080 Or if I started to talk about a certain young man who lives in Antigua, you’d probably have some idea. 156 00:19:04.080 --> 00:19:08.080 Many of you are going to have some idea who I’m talking about. 157 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:15.160 But if I said to you, “a young man in Antigua,” you wouldn’t be so uncertain. 158 00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:21.600 There might be a story that I’m getting ready to relate that I heard from that certain young man who’s in Antigua. 159 00:19:21.600 --> 00:19:23.540 You see what I’m saying? 160 00:19:23.540 --> 00:19:46.240 And so the fact that this word is used here makes me think that when Mark wrote this Gospel, which went first of all to his early readers in Rome, those readers knew who this person was, because the way that person is introduced to them seems to imply that they would know it. 161 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:47.660 You see? 162 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:54.060 And so I think that that’s highly probable. 163 00:19:54.060 --> 00:20:00.480 The next one that I found is in the next chapter. 164 00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:08.880 Another construction like this, just as an example to see how this flowed. 165 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:15.100 It’s in Mark 15:21. 166 00:20:15.100 --> 00:20:17.820 They pressed into service a passerby. 167 00:20:17.820 --> 00:20:19.120 Well, you know what? 168 00:20:19.120 --> 00:20:24.060 When I looked that up, it doesn’t say “they pressed into service a passerby.” 169 00:20:24.060 --> 00:20:30.420 It says, literally, the word tis is there. 170 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:46.860 They pressed into service a certain passerby, coming from the country, coming from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross. 171 00:20:46.860 --> 00:20:48.720 So that’s interesting to me. 172 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:59.720 The fact that that passage is so detailed, mentioning names that would be absolutely irrelevant, and you don’t find in the other Gospels Alexander and Rufus. 173 00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:00.880 What does that imply? 174 00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:08.560 It implies that they probably know Alexander and Rufus, and because they know Alexander and Rufus, they know Alexander and Rufus’ father. 175 00:21:08.560 --> 00:21:10.840 And how is the passage introduced? 176 00:21:10.840 --> 00:21:13.780 It’s introduced with that tis , “a certain.” 177 00:21:13.780 --> 00:21:15.540 See? 178 00:21:15.540 --> 00:21:28.760 Also, last night, while I should have been sleeping, in the middle of the night, I’m thinking about this, and I think, well, you know, I hadn’t thought about it, to look it up or anything. 179 00:21:28.760 --> 00:21:45.860 I thought, we were just introduced to a person who was unnamed, and they knew who he was, because Peter founded the church of Rome. 180 00:21:45.860 --> 00:21:51.680 So here’s a person who’s unnamed and they know who he is, but Peter introduced him. 181 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:53.800 How did he introduce him? 182 00:21:53.800 --> 00:22:10.400 And so I’m looking at this, and it didn’t say it again in my Bible, but when I looked at the Greek text, it’s not “one of those standing by.” 183 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:14.580 No, it is “a certain one of those standing by.” 184 00:22:14.580 --> 00:22:18.820 And that’s certainly something that they’re going to know who this is. 185 00:22:18.820 --> 00:22:21.740 A certain one standing by. 186 00:22:21.740 --> 00:22:31.020 So I believe, and that’s the only times that you have this construction in Mark’s Gospel, and I didn’t have time to explore it. 187 00:22:31.020 --> 00:22:39.040 I looked at Matthew’s Gospel, but I didn’t have time to explore that throughout the New Testament, to see if that’s a fairly consistent kind of a thing. 188 00:22:39.040 --> 00:22:41.660 But I suspect that it might be. 189 00:22:41.660 --> 00:23:00.540 So for what that’s worth, I’m pretty sure that the people who were in the church at Rome in the first century, that Mark wrote this Gospel and they were the very first readers of this Gospel, they knew this man. 190 00:23:00.540 --> 00:23:02.000 They knew who he was. 191 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.820 So that’s a powerful clue, isn’t it? 192 00:23:04.820 --> 00:23:08.280 That’s someone that they might know. 193 00:23:08.280 --> 00:23:11.360 So why did I say he was courageous? 194 00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:15.880 Well, there’s that next phrase in my Bible. 195 00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:27.340 If I can get back to the passage: A young man following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet. 196 00:23:27.340 --> 00:23:34.980 Well, when you look at that, here’s another place where the King James is a little more accurate. 197 00:23:34.980 --> 00:23:43.660 He is not just wearing a linen sheet, but literally having cast on a linen garment. 198 00:23:43.660 --> 00:23:49.420 Having cast on over his body a linen garment. 199 00:23:49.420 --> 00:23:52.920 And that’s a little different than just wearing. 200 00:23:52.920 --> 00:23:54.100 Having cast it on. 201 00:23:54.100 --> 00:23:59.260 Why call attention to the fact that he cast on the garment? 202 00:23:59.260 --> 00:24:02.600 And so here we get a bit speculative. 203 00:24:02.600 --> 00:24:07.540 But I think that because the word is used that way, it’s relevant. 204 00:24:07.540 --> 00:24:24.320 Back 500 years ago, Calvin said, It’s probable that this young man, on hearing the tumult by night, without stopping to put on his clothes, covered only with a linen garment, came either to discover the traps or at least that he might not be wanting in duty a friendship. 205 00:24:24.320 --> 00:24:26.880 And I think that that’s right. 206 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:29.680 I think that that’s kind of what must be going on here. 207 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:51.860 Here is a young man who is awakened in the middle of the night, and immediately he recognizes the great need, so he takes the sheet, or he takes his bathrobe, and he runs out because of the urgency of the moment, in order to meet a great need. 208 00:24:51.860 --> 00:24:53.600 I think that that’s the principle here. 209 00:24:53.600 --> 00:24:58.560 He cast his garment over his naked body and ran out. 210 00:24:58.560 --> 00:25:02.740 I think that that’s the picture that we’re getting here. 211 00:25:02.740 --> 00:25:10.440 So I think it is a courageous young man who runs out into the night in order to find Jesus. 212 00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:12.400 I think it’s to help Jesus. 213 00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:16.080 I think it’s because of his association with Jesus. 214 00:25:16.080 --> 00:25:20.680 And so it’s a courageous young man that we are to emulate. 215 00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:23.240 And we are to be that way. 216 00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:36.120 It is such an easy thing to just sort of drift through life, and drift through life identifying as a Christian. 217 00:25:36.120 --> 00:25:42.100 But being a disciple of Christ means that we need to have some courage about us. 218 00:25:42.100 --> 00:25:51.220 We shouldn’t be pusillanimous sunshine soldiers, if I can say that, tongue twister, of Jesus Christ. 219 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:56.680 We shouldn’t be afraid to mention the name of Christ in public. 220 00:25:56.680 --> 00:26:08.720 We shouldn’t be afraid to defend Christ when He’s being attacked, even if it’s by someone who has an authority over us, such as an employer or a professor in a university. 221 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:13.340 We should have courage to be able to stand up for the Lord Jesus. 222 00:26:13.340 --> 00:26:17.160 And I think that this young man was that kind of a young man. 223 00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:26.600 A young man who leaves the warmth of his bed and, in the crisis moment, rushes out into the night to be with Christ in the crucial time of this betrayal. 224 00:26:26.600 --> 00:26:29.680 I think that’s exactly the picture that we have. 225 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:31.260 Can we go further than that? 226 00:26:31.260 --> 00:26:33.580 And I think that we can. 227 00:26:33.580 --> 00:26:37.620 I think that it might be possible to get a little closer. 228 00:26:37.620 --> 00:26:43.460 So bear with me. 229 00:26:43.460 --> 00:26:49.940 That’s our Sunday school lesson. 230 00:26:49.940 --> 00:27:00.620 A few weeks ago, if you were here for that service, one of the things we pointed out in chapter 14 is that Jesus settles down. 231 00:27:00.620 --> 00:27:07.260 He goes to have the Passover meal with His disciples in the upper room of this house. 232 00:27:07.260 --> 00:27:22.200 And the upper room is in a house that’s probably a little upscale, a little more than just your average house. 233 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:29.840 The probability, since they have an upper room for something like this, is that this is probably a little better than average. 234 00:27:29.840 --> 00:27:41.720 A nice place to be, to be with His disciples, to share disciples and any of those who might be there with them, as they share this meal together. 235 00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:55.160 And so as we were exploring that a few weeks ago, I pointed out that it’s interesting, because after Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples, staying in Jerusalem, met in the upper room. 236 00:27:55.160 --> 00:27:57.220 They stayed there meeting in the upper room. 237 00:27:57.220 --> 00:28:06.700 And when you get to Acts chapter 1, after Jesus’ ascension, they’re meeting in the upper room. 238 00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:15.660 When you get to chapter 12, later on, they’re in Jerusalem again, meeting in a place. 239 00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:29.960 This is when Herod puts to death James, the brother of John, and Peter is arrested because they’re going to do the same thing to him, and the angel delivers Peter. 240 00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:43.520 And when they come back, the girl at the door, he leaves Peter standing at the door and goes and tells them, and all of those events that take place in that chapter. 241 00:28:43.520 --> 00:28:47.060 It’s an interesting, beautiful chapter. 242 00:28:47.060 --> 00:28:54.160 And the interesting thing there is that that room, that place where they are, is absolutely identified. 243 00:28:54.160 --> 00:29:03.320 And it is identified as the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark. 244 00:29:03.320 --> 00:29:04.860 Interesting, isn’t it? 245 00:29:04.860 --> 00:29:19.160 If that is the same place, if that is the same place, then there is a follower of Jesus, and Mark certainly was a true follower of Jesus. 246 00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:22.220 Mark would have been a young man in that house. 247 00:29:22.220 --> 00:29:32.160 He absolutely certainly would have been a young man in that home, if that’s the same home, and that’s a good clue that it is the same place. 248 00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:46.600 Mark would have been a young man in that home, experiencing all the blessings of seeing Jesus there with His disciples, and all of the things that took place there. 249 00:29:46.600 --> 00:29:54.620 He may have been in the room when Jesus taught His disciples, when they shared the meal together, when He introduced the Lord’s table. 250 00:29:54.620 --> 00:29:57.160 That’s all possible. 251 00:29:57.160 --> 00:30:01.480 I don’t know if he was or not, but certainly he was in that home. 252 00:30:01.480 --> 00:30:04.160 He probably knew, certainly he knew Jesus. 253 00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:07.920 The person that they were staying with is going to be a disciple of Jesus. 254 00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:10.160 He’s going to be a follower of His. 255 00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:17.500 And so if that’s the case, let’s begin to think about what’s happened in Mark 14. 256 00:30:17.500 --> 00:30:24.220 What has happened is, during that meal, Jesus says, “One of you is going to betray me.” 257 00:30:24.220 --> 00:30:33.560 And He gives the sop to Judas, and Judas immediately goes out to complete his deal that he’s already made with the high priests. 258 00:30:33.560 --> 00:30:35.820 He runs out. 259 00:30:35.820 --> 00:30:47.180 Judas, who’s been waiting for an opportunity to be able to take them at a time when it’s not public, right to where Jesus is going to be, runs to the high priest. 260 00:30:47.180 --> 00:30:54.620 And when he gets there, it probably takes longer than he expects, because they don’t just come. 261 00:30:54.620 --> 00:31:01.160 What they do is they must appeal to Pilate to get that cohort of Roman soldiers, in case there’s a rebellion. 262 00:31:01.160 --> 00:31:03.000 They don’t want to go by themselves. 263 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:10.860 They take a cohort of Roman soldiers. 264 00:31:10.860 --> 00:31:23.600 So, as that takes place, Judas leaves the temple with this small army of Roman soldiers and some of the Jewish leaders to go find Jesus, and he leads them. 265 00:31:23.600 --> 00:31:25.000 Where would you go? 266 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:28.540 You would go where you left them, wouldn’t you? 267 00:31:28.540 --> 00:31:30.820 I think that’s exactly what Judas did. 268 00:31:30.820 --> 00:31:35.140 He goes back to the house of the upper room. 269 00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:39.360 That would be the first place I would go, because that’s where he left them. 270 00:31:39.360 --> 00:31:41.080 That’s where he thought Jesus would be. 271 00:31:41.080 --> 00:31:43.660 I think that’s absolutely right. 272 00:31:43.660 --> 00:31:46.500 And so he goes back to that place. 273 00:31:46.500 --> 00:31:49.880 The cohort of soldiers, they come in there. 274 00:31:49.880 --> 00:31:50.800 “Where is Jesus?” 275 00:31:50.800 --> 00:31:52.440 “Judas is here.” 276 00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:53.200 “Find Jesus.” 277 00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:58.840 However they decided to do that, it had to make pretty much a pretty good stir. 278 00:31:58.840 --> 00:32:03.180 Mark, having already gone to bed, hears this and wakes up. 279 00:32:03.180 --> 00:32:07.760 He recognizes what’s about to take place. 280 00:32:07.760 --> 00:32:09.940 Jesus is being betrayed. 281 00:32:09.940 --> 00:32:12.240 They’re coming to arrest Jesus. 282 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:16.420 In the urgency of the moment, he throws on a bathrobe. 283 00:32:16.420 --> 00:32:17.840 He takes off. 284 00:32:17.840 --> 00:32:19.900 He wants to warn Jesus. 285 00:32:19.900 --> 00:32:25.160 I think that that is a very plausible scenario of what’s going on here. 286 00:32:25.160 --> 00:32:26.760 He wants to warn Jesus. 287 00:32:26.760 --> 00:32:31.980 So he goes, doesn’t know exactly where Jesus is. 288 00:32:31.980 --> 00:32:40.300 Judas, who is familiar with Jesus and His habits, has a really good idea where Jesus will be if He’s not there. 289 00:32:40.300 --> 00:32:48.560 And so Judas leads the soldiers to the garden. 290 00:32:48.560 --> 00:32:51.200 He betrays Jesus with that kiss. 291 00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:56.960 Jesus confronts them all, telling them who He is. 292 00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:59.860 After that, they arrest Jesus. 293 00:32:59.860 --> 00:33:06.620 All of Jesus’ disciples leave Him. 294 00:33:06.620 --> 00:33:08.020 They’re gone. 295 00:33:08.020 --> 00:33:11.720 And then this incident happens. 296 00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:20.060 How would we know about it if the disciples are gone, have already fled, according to this chronology in Mark? 297 00:33:20.060 --> 00:33:24.820 Except that there was one there who does know, who did see it. 298 00:33:24.820 --> 00:33:28.160 And I think that that is Mark himself. 299 00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:35.220 I think that Mark was there, because he is the young man who fled out to warn Jesus. 300 00:33:35.220 --> 00:33:45.300 He’s a young man who courageously went there to warn Jesus, arrived too late after Jesus has been arrested, and they’re leading Him back for the trial. 301 00:33:45.300 --> 00:33:59.520 And he runs up there, and they see him and recognize that he is connected with Jesus, through something said or just that, and they try to arrest him. 302 00:33:59.520 --> 00:34:04.310 He pulls away, leaving his garment behind him, and flees. 303 00:34:04.310 --> 00:34:08.460 A shameful thing for a Jewish person to flee naked through the streets. 304 00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:10.380 It truly would have been. 305 00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:14.960 But I think that that’s basically what has happened here. 306 00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:18.740 So he’s awakened by the arrival of the soldiers. 307 00:34:18.740 --> 00:34:25.360 He throws the linen garment around himself, and he goes off to warn Jesus. 308 00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:32.700 I think there is great courage in that, and I think that there is a great model for us. 309 00:34:32.700 --> 00:34:40.620 I think that is a commendable model for us to follow. 310 00:34:40.620 --> 00:34:48.780 Now, is this thing that I just outlined exactly the way it happened? 311 00:34:48.780 --> 00:34:51.680 Well, I can’t say that that’s exactly what happened. 312 00:34:51.680 --> 00:34:53.820 We don’t have enough to nail that down. 313 00:34:53.820 --> 00:34:59.260 I can tell you this: there’s a lot of probability in this that it happened. 314 00:34:59.260 --> 00:35:13.020 If this were a court case, if this were a police officer who was evaluating evidence, there’s probable cause to make the arrest, and there’s probable cause to get past the magistrate. 315 00:35:13.020 --> 00:35:17.700 But is there probable cause to convict? 316 00:35:17.700 --> 00:35:19.300 Well, maybe. 317 00:35:19.300 --> 00:35:20.880 Maybe not. 318 00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:29.360 There’s a lot of things that’s just left unsaid here. 319 00:35:29.360 --> 00:35:34.320 But I think that there’s a lot here that we can consider. 320 00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:39.880 So I do believe that this is absolutely probable. 321 00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:55.020 The fact that he ran away naked instead of being arrested shows that, in a sense, he’s absolutely in the same camp as the rest of the disciples. 322 00:35:55.020 --> 00:36:16.000 Now, here’s a historical thing that took place one time in history, never to be repeated, and that is that Jesus is there to undertake this great act of mercy and bringing about our salvation by taking on our sins and the suffering that we deserve. 323 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.620 And there is not a disciple who could have stood with Him in that. 324 00:36:20.620 --> 00:36:25.860 That’s why you have the Old Testament prophecy that they’ll all be scattered. 325 00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:32.440 We’re going to be scattered, because there’s no way that we can work out a salvation on our own. 326 00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:36.440 There’s no way that we can stand apart from Christ at all. 327 00:36:36.440 --> 00:36:37.720 We can’t do it. 328 00:36:37.720 --> 00:36:43.500 Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone could do the work that He was there to do. 329 00:36:43.500 --> 00:36:46.500 It was just Him alone. 330 00:36:46.500 --> 00:36:58.400 And while we may look at good examples in the Bible, a moral example to follow, well, that is a good thing to do. 331 00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:01.080 We don’t look at Jesus that way, exactly. 332 00:37:01.080 --> 00:37:02.120 Not really. 333 00:37:02.120 --> 00:37:06.780 He’s a good example to follow too, but He’s far more than that. 334 00:37:06.780 --> 00:37:08.640 He’s our Savior. 335 00:37:08.640 --> 00:37:13.840 He’s the one that did the work that we cannot possibly do. 336 00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:21.060 He is the one who, because of that work, has been given power and glory and dominion. 337 00:37:21.060 --> 00:37:23.240 He’s the Son of God. 338 00:37:23.240 --> 00:37:25.420 He’s the infinite God-man. 339 00:37:25.420 --> 00:37:28.880 He’s the King of kings and the Lord of lords. 340 00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:32.720 He’s the one who we follow. 341 00:37:32.720 --> 00:37:39.800 He’s the one who we worship. 342 00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:47.080 Following the example of someone who worships is commendable, but we must be the follower of Jesus Himself. 343 00:37:47.080 --> 00:37:49.320 We must come to Him to worship. 344 00:37:49.320 --> 00:38:03.680 We must come to Jesus Christ and look to Him to be our Savior, to be the one that we serve and be discipled to and to commit ourselves to. 345 00:38:03.680 --> 00:38:16.340 So I’m going to close with that, because I think that’s the place we must leave this. 346 00:38:16.340 --> 00:38:21.700 If you think that my sermon was speculative, then focus on this last point. 347 00:38:21.700 --> 00:38:24.780 There’s no speculation on that. 348 00:38:24.780 --> 00:38:30.060 The Lord Jesus is the only one whom we can truly worship. 349 00:38:30.060 --> 00:38:33.900 And there’s all certainty with the work that He’s done for us. 350 00:38:33.900 --> 00:38:36.020 Let’s pray. 351 00:38:36.020 --> 00:38:39.960 Father, I thank you for your kindness, your mercy, your grace. 352 00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:45.340 I thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have shown us truth. 353 00:38:45.340 --> 00:38:53.240 And I just pray, Father, that you help us to be the servant of Jesus Christ that we need to be. 354 00:38:53.240 --> 00:39:13.780 I pray, Father, that you work by the power of your Spirit to sanctify us, to make us followers of Christ in every sense, that we would courageously defend Him in this world, courageously share the truth about Him with those that we know. 355 00:39:13.780 --> 00:39:27.180 Father, that we be obedient to His will and word, that in all these ways, Father, that we would truly be worshipers of our Savior, that we would love Him, that you would grow us in our love for our Lord Jesus. 356 00:39:27.180 --> 00:39:29.680 And we thank you for His sufficiency. 357 00:39:29.680 --> 00:39:35.740 And we thank you, Father, for helping us to recognize our inadequacies, that we can’t do it in ourselves. 358 00:39:35.740 --> 00:39:38.560 We’re dependent completely on our Savior. 359 00:39:38.560 --> 00:39:47.040 And we thank you, Father, for showing grace with people and leading them. 360 00:39:47.040 --> 00:40:15.540 We thank you for Mark, who, though he had failures in his life, was a man of great usefulness to you, who was the co-worker of the apostle Peter, and who recorded Peter’s messages and, as a result, had this Gospel written, who was used powerfully by you, by your Holy Spirit, to give us this Word. 361 00:40:15.540 --> 00:40:17.300 We thank you for him. 362 00:40:17.300 --> 00:40:22.320 And we pray, Father, that you would raise up many young people. 363 00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:33.040 And Father, that you would raise us all up to be faithful to you and to do good, to do your will, to be faithful disciples. 364 00:40:33.040 --> 00:40:37.580 We ask this in the name of our Savior, Lord Jesus, for His glory. 365 00:40:37.580 --> 00:40:39.580 Amen.