Well, turn with me and your Bibles to Mark chapter 13. I'm gonna get back into our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark this morning looking at chapter 13 1 through 13. It's on page 1080 if you're gonna use one of the Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you. It's good to be back home back with you. My family and I missed you. We did get to take a little trip after Christmas up to Minneapolis, sunny, sunny Minneapolis. We flew on Christmas Day, which is by far the absolute best day to fly. I kid you not. It was amazing. It was, I mean, we walk into the ticket counter and there's nobody in line. So we walk right up and she says, you want me to courtesy check all those carry on with four kids? And I said, yes, this courtesy means free. She said, yes, I said, okay, yes. So we didn't have to carry our carry on through the airport. We get to the security. There's no line. They're like, leave your shoes on. We don't care. Merry Christmas. And I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We had to take our shoes off, but the kids didn't. We go out. We get on to the plane and it's maybe one quarter full, okay? And so we have four children, one baby and then five, four, two and a half and five months. So anyway, once we're at cruising altitude, we're like laying one kid in this row. And then we say, oh, here's a row. Just lay a kid in this row and don't mind him. He'll be sleeping. And we just laid kids everywhere and then the baby slept on me and it was just like, this is what it's supposed to be like when you fly with a family of four.
So then there was the way home. A jam packed flight to Orlando. We filled with all sorts of children. No rows for any children to be laying in whatsoever. It was a dream on the way up and a nightmare on the way home. But you know what? We survived. But you know, how many times we just have those moments where things are crazy out of hand and we're just like, why? You know, why is this happening? A lot, you know, in this world a lot. Let's look at this chapter here where Jesus basically tells his disciples and tells you and me that life's going to be hard. Chapter 13, Gospel of Mark starting in verse one. This is God's holy and true word. And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings. And Jesus said to him, do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. And as he sat on the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished. And Jesus began to say to them, see that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name saying, I am he. And they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed, this must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils. And you will be beaten in synagogues. And you will stand before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious. Before hand, what you are to say. But say whatever is given you in that hour for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver brother over to death and father his child. And children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. This is the word of the Lord. You pray with me. Father we thank you for your word. We thank you for its power. We thank you that it is authoritative over us. We thank you that it is 100% trustworthy and reliable. We thank you that you have given it to us so that we can know you, commune with you. And we pray now that the Holy Spirit would give us eyes to see and ears to hear and use this time as we talk about some challenges in life as a follower of Jesus. We pray that you would use this time to help us remember that you're with us and that you're good. And use this time to equip us to run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations for it is in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. So we're back in the book of Mark and we've been away from the book of Mark for several weeks. We did our Advent sermon series but here we are and we're back. We're picking up where we left off and we're continuing now and we will be in the book of Mark until Easter. So we're in the home stretch here by the time we hit Easter we'll have spent about a year and a half walking through the book of Mark. So you know by now we have seen so many things. We've seen Jesus just displaying his glory and his majesty and his power and his divinity in so many ways. We've seen his ministry. We've seen him called disciples. We've seen him proclaiming and demonstrating the gospel. We've seen him casting out demons, raising people from the dead, walking on water, calming storms. He has just the book of Mark has been this glorious display of who Jesus is. And most recently we've seen Jesus in the last few chapters. Enter into Jerusalem as the king. We've seen him go into the temple and declare judgment upon the temple and attract the attention of the religious leaders who came, tried to question him, tried to get him in trouble but he masterfully handled all those conversations, all those situations. And now we see him still here in the last week of his life and he's he is leaving the temple for the last time. What we see here in the first verse is Jesus leaving the temple and he will not enter the temple again. And as they are leaving one of the disciples notices the just sheer beauty and an amazingness of the temple and its size and he comments about that. Jesus look, I mean isn't this place absolutely spectacular and Jesus response is interesting and quite shocking to the disciples. He says you know what it's all coming down. It is all coming down. It's all going to be destroyed basically is what Jesus said. Now this strikes some fear in the hearts of the disciples because as far as their concern the temple is where God is present on earth and so if the temple is destroyed that must mean the end of the world and that's really what they're thinking. They're thinking this is he's talking about the end. And so of course they want to know and for them go up to him and say you know Jesus can you tell us when these things are going to happen? How are we going to know these things are about to happen? And so you know the title of the sermon is how will it end? Part one. And we will talk about really how it's going to end a little more next week in part two because basically what happens over the next, over these 13 verses that we're looking at this morning is Jesus basically tells us how it's not going to end. He tells the disciples that there's going to be a lot of things that they're going to experience before it ends and so they need to know that as they're experiencing these things not to worry about it being the end but rather to remain faithful. And that's the picture that we are faced with this morning that Jesus does tell his disciples that they're going to experience a tremendous amount of adversity. You know there's a lot of people at my age in my generation who grew up in the church but have walked away and one of the reasons that that has taken place is because they grew up sort of maybe even by default but sort of with this understanding that if I put my faith in Jesus then my life is going to be great and we need to hear especially young people need to hear no. Following Christ is not an exemption from adversity. It's actually a guarantee of it and that's what we want to be focusing on this morning realizing that in the Christian life adversity is normal okay. That is a key thing as we follow Jesus in this world still broken still waiting full redemption. We're going to face adversity. Now the good news is that as we face adversity as we see in this passage we know that God is with us and that he will use our adversity to advance the gospel. The good news about Jesus Christ to the nations okay so that's what we want to focus on today that adversity is normal in the Christian life but we can know that he is with us. God is with us as we experience these things and that he uses these things to advance the good news. We're going to talk about three things this morning. If you're making an outline here they are. I want to talk about continuity and then expectations and then focus, continuity, expectations and focus. Let's start about or let's start with continuity. Here's the first thing we want to see. Basically every generation of Christian faces the same basic types of adversity okay. Every generation over and over and over the followers of Christ are going to be facing the same basic types of adversity until Jesus returns. Where do we see that? Well, it really becomes clear in verse 8 what Jesus says here and before we get there I want to say that Jesus is talking to the disciples about what they're going to experience in the near future, in their near future. These things that he's talking about it's interesting. If you look at the book of Acts you see almost all of the things that Jesus predicts happens to the believers in the book of Acts. You can just walk through and see that when you read through the book of Acts. Now but I want to show you that he's talking to you and me too. He's not just talking to them about what would happen to them but he's saying that these things happen to all the generations of believers and it comes down to verse 8 look at the part of verse 8 where he says these are but the beginning of the birth pains. That's a very important phrase for us to be able to interpret what Jesus is saying here. He says that all these things that they're going to go through are but the beginning of the birth pains. Anybody, any woman who's had a baby knows way better than any man will ever know what it is like to have pain in birth. Now men we do know that feeling of having all of your knuckles smashed into one little ball as your wife is holding on streaming and squeezing your hand during the birth process but we still don't know the reality of how painful it is to give birth. I do remember and I have permission to say this. I do remember when one of our daughters was born we have three and one son and when one of our daughters was born the pushing time came that's when the pain really really ramps up and so Hannah had been pushing and she screamed out why is this taking so long and I was really afraid for my life because I looked at it it only been 8 minutes
so I told her that lesson learned gentlemen but what's interesting is that Jesus is not necessarily talking only about that horrific pain that women experience when they're actually you know in that part of labor but all but the whole thing. The word that he uses to say birth pains is this Greek word that literally means physical painful spasms which we might also just call contractions. Right so what do you know about contractions and how does that help us understand what Jesus is saying here saying that it's he's basically saying the contractions are beginning.
Contractions number one we know that they come in waves okay if you're unfamiliar you know the contraction will come on and there's a tremendous amount of pain and then it subsides a little bit and then it comes back and there's a lot of pain and then it subsides a little bit and eventually the baby comes but one of the things we know is it comes in waves this this pain number two we know that the number of contractions will vary it's not like you have two contractions and then you have a baby unless you're the envy of every mother on the planet right but but there's there's no telling how many contractions how many times is this going to happen before the baby is born and then third you know that the duration varies sometimes women are in labor for a few hours sometimes for a few days just read about the longest labor in history as far as we know 75 not hours days a woman over in Poland should we just take a moment and this unwind effort so you don't know we don't know right and this is basically one of the things that Jesus is saying is don't try to figure out when the world's going to end you're not going to know can he'll say more about that next week but ultimately what he's saying with that illustration is you guys are going to experience the first contraction of many you guys are going to experience a ton of adversity but it's not just you I think what he's doing there is showing us that what he says to them is applicable to you and me too and that we need to know that there's continuity throughout history that the people of God are going to continue to experience these forms of adversity but there's the beauty of the fact that Jesus has told us that these things are going to happen and we know that God is in control and we know that God is with us and we know that he's using these things for our good and his glory somehow although even though we can't usually tell or very rarely can we tell how he's working these things for his glory yet but there's continuity so these things apply to us as well so then we need to talk about expectations so what should we expect what are the things that Jesus tells his disciples that you better be ready for and let's take a look at 5 through 13 where he's really not talking about the end yet he's talking about the things that are going to happen before it ends and so one of the things until Christ returns there's going to be one of the things his false teachers look at verse 5 he says and Jesus began to say to them see that no one leads you astray many will come in my name saying I am he and they will lead many astray it's a very very scary statement Jesus said they will lead many astray and there were many people in the early church time Josephus the historian of the church records different people that came along saying they were the Messiah and and did quote lead many astray according to Josephus so that was it came completely true but it actually continues all through the generations there have been people even in the last few decades that have claimed to be Jesus and they're if not that Jesus says people coming in his name there are many many people that are in some ways in the church and they're teaching heresy they're teaching things that are not true and they're leading people away and so Jesus is telling his disciples then and he's saying to you believer today see that no one leads you astray we talked a little bit about Saint Nicholas I'm sure in your family and mine over Christmas right maybe you got to read some of the articles that people posted about the real Saint Nicholas during Christmas this year on Facebook I saw a bunch of articles I was reading one that was pretty interesting and Nicholas the man the Saint Nicholas he was present at the council of Nicaecia which was a council interest history where the church leaders came together to condemn some heresies particularly one from a man named Areas who was teaching some false things about Jesus and so the the story goes if it's true is that at this council as Areas was spewing this heresy that Nicholas got up from a seat walked across the room and slapped Areas in the face so he knows if you've been sleeping and he knows if you're awake and if you but the bottom line is all through history people God's people have had to defend the truth from these false teachers and they rise up in the church whether they say they're Jesus or whether they say they're talking about Jesus you and I are going to face adversity because of the false teaching that exists within the church and I'm telling you in our country it's rampant I watch stuff on TV and I hear stuff on the radio and I want to rip my hair out so here's let me before I get too angry sorry I'm not going to slap anybody um here's the thing I want to give you three resources I think are really helpful okay and this doesn't mean these need to be the only places that you look for things but there's just a lot of really good resources out there and there's a lot of there's probably more horrible uh teaching out there and you want to make sure you're not being led astray so one of the things one of the organizations I really uh appreciate right now is the gospel coalition and their website we have here up there for you it's just a gospel coalition uh dot org or something when it comes up there it is dot org um that's a great organization lots of great teachers that sound theological teaching it's not all the same it's uh it's inter-denominational but on the basic fundamental most important uh things orthodox teaching it's all good stuff anything you find on there is is good uh for the most part as far as I can tell together for a gospel together for the gospel is another organization and there's their website t4g.org uh just a great number of teachers and leaders articles book recommendations book reviews um ligandier ministries is local here in orlando that's rc's roles ministry and he's got like I don't know a billion hours worth of teaching uh on there and it's all really good stuff now these aren't the only resources you can draw from other than our church of course uh please don't send me a bunch of emails saying why didn't you say this ministry why didn't you say that ministry I just wanted to give some because many of you may not have an actually an actual set of good safe resources these are very safe playgrounds for us to really study and read and learn and stuff like do not be led astray that's what jesus is saying here so part of the adversity we're going to experience is false teaching number two international conflict he says when you hear verse seven of wars and rumors of wars do not be alarmed this must take place but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation kingdoms against kingdom so basically jesus is saying that we're not gonna see world peace there's gonna be wars and some are gonna be really bad and when these things happen our hearts and minds need to be drawn back to the lord and to remember he said these things were going to happen he said these things must take place so somehow in god's mysterious ways there are these very sad things like wars that will take place over and over and over until Jesus returns to make all things new part of the process of the kingdom of god breaking into the kingdom of this world is gonna be wars number three natural disasters in the second part of verse eight he says there will be earthquakes in various places there will be famines now what's interesting is we know he was definitely talking about the immediate future because they're in the historical record there were some earthquakes and there were some famines that have been documented in the years not too long after jesus said these things however but we know that these things continue we still see earthquakes and all sorts of natural disasters and famines and a lot of times we see these things happen and one of the every time there's a natural disaster i hear it i hear it several times why would god allow that to happen and we may not have the exact answer for why but we do know that jesus has told us these things are gonna happen jesus our king who knows what we need to know is telling us here these things are gonna keep happening and we need to trust him and remain faithful to him stand fast when these forms of adversity come our way in fact Paul uses the same language about birth pains in romans eight twenty one and twenty two Paul is talking about the creation itself being liberated from its bondage to corruption okay and and waiting to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of god that's one of my favorite lines in all of scripture and then he says in verse twenty two before we know that the whole creation so the natural world itself has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now so whatever you believe about climate change whatever you believe whether we can fix it or not the reality is there's gonna be natural disasters and challenges and adversity that we're gonna face from now until jesus does return and so we can see these things coming or when when we know that they're here we can we can remember jesus told us these things would happen number four religious persecution look at verse nine but be on your guard for they will deliver you over to councils and you will be beaten in synagogues and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness for them and the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations and when you bring and when they bring you to trial and deliver you over do not be anxious look at this i hope you're looking at the word of god right now this is amazing do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say but say whatever is given you in that hour for it is not you who speak but the holy spirit what a promise
what a phenomenal promise but the reality there is what jesus is saying is they were gonna experience persecution and we are experiencing persecution today not so much in our country although we may begin to experience more oppression and persecution time we'll tell but all around the world Christians are under threat of their lives they have to remain in secret many many times they are martyred and they are killed in fact the Prager University study they have just said that they think that the the Christians are the the number one most persecuted group out of any group of people on the whole planet and we see it in scripture god's people persecuted john the baptist was beheaded jesus obviously persecuted all of the apostles persecuted that's the we see that in the book of acts and we know that from church history as well almost all of them martyred in horrific ways then we see the neuronian persecution nero's persecution of christians there's the the horrible realities of the crusades there was persecution in the reformation there was a current persecution of course a lot of which you may not know but a lot of persecution of christians right now is happening by muslims and here's the thing god said this stuff was going to happen god tells us in his word jesus is telling us these things are going to happen where the christian church is going to go and experience waves of persecution over and over it's part of this mysterious plan in which the the kingdom of god is breaking in to the kingdom of this world number five family division jesus says in verse 12 and brother will deliver brother over to death and father his child and children will have their parents put to death probably none of us have experienced something like that however there are situations in history where people have turned in their own relatives to authorities in places where christianity is illegal and we know that it happened in the first century as well there are different accounts of these things happening and it could happen here one day we don't know it depends on how bad things get if jesus doesn't return in the near future but we may know this on a lower degree the way that the gospel can divide us from our family members now we we're a church that recognizes the covenant theme of scripture that god is a covenant god he works through families and we see that he loves the family establish the family as a very important institution on the planet but we also need to realize that the gospel can tear a family apart as well and a lot of you know how that feels because you have maybe unbelieving parents or unbelieving siblings or children and you know i myself have an unbelieving sibling and it's part of the deal it's part of the reality of the kingdom of god breaking into the kingdom of this world that not everybody's going to believe and sometimes it's going to be our own family members who turn against us and family's important but the gospel is more important and so we need to know that these things are going to happen number six societal rejection he says in verse 13 and you will be hated by all for my names sake there's such a desire in my heart and i bet in years two to figure out like what could we do to sort of make Orlando not hate us like what can we do to show that we are you know we're good we want to do good things like you know that feeling that's what it is in your heart the what's what's going on when you want to be enjoyed by the community is we don't like this we do not like that Jesus has told us that we're going to be hated but we have been in the past we will be in the future if Jesus does not return in the near future and we even are right now in our country there are there's kind of a growing animosity and amount of hatred toward us because we believe what the Bible teaches about certain things like the sanctity of human life the sanctity of marriage a big one that's really coming to the fore now is is gender we look at the Bible and we see that the God said that he created man in his image male and female he created them and so gender is a very important thing to God and actually it really helps us understand the gospel and now a big movement is to get rid of gender and say that anybody should be able to identify with whatever gender they choose regardless of the equipment that God has given you and when we say no no no gender is God's design gender is God's will gender is a good thing they're going to hate us and we can't be naive and assume that this will pass this will blow over because the reality is we just we may be experiencing another contraction where there is a heightened level of rejection of us Bill Maher might not be the only person saying that Christians are quote stupid and dangerous okay societal rejection but here's what's so amazing when we experience all these forms of diversity and particularly the persecution one what we see in scripture is that God will be with us I mean think about that in verse 11 where he says that don't worry about what you're going to say don't be anxious before and because the holy spirit will give you the words to say and what that shows us is that when we're being persecuted or when we're facing any of these adversities we know that God is with us he will bring us to and through these things and we know that he also uses these things for his glory somehow in ways that we cannot understand all of the adversity that we're going to face is part of how the gospel is advancing and we see that in the scriptures we see that the gospel advances in amazing ways when the church is under adversity and facing adversity we see that in the book of Acts in the way that when the persecution began in chapter 8 they spread out and they go to other areas and preach the gospel there we see that in the life of Paul in the book of Philippians he basically tells us that when he was in prison that's facing adversity he led a bunch of the prison guards to Christ unbelievable right so God is with us in this time he is giving us the things that we need through the work of the Holy Spirit so we should not be afraid but we also should know that these things come these things happen and we shouldn't be surprised when they happen or assume that the end of the world is here we should stay focused on our mission but look at verse 13 the end of verse 13 he says but the one who endures to the end will be saved so he does mention the end there and I want you to know he's not saying that we're saved by enduring not saved by our works we're saved by what Jesus has done we receive that salvation through faith but what he is telling us is that he's calling us to hang on he's calling us to remain faithful to wait on God in fact those are more of the literal translations of that word that Jesus uses endure it's a Greek word says who it's pronounced to remain us and it means to endure or to remain or even literally to wait on so Jesus is saying the one who waits and it continues trusting continues believing it's going to be saved it's a guarantee as we faithfully cling to Christ and trust him even in the face of horrific adversity we know that one day he's going to return and we will be fully saved in the way that we will be delivered not only from the penalty of sin and power of sin like we have been but even the very presence of sin that day will come until then just like he's telling the disciples in this passage he's telling us you're going to go through this stuff you're going to face adversity and it's okay to lament it's okay to be sad it's okay to be scared about that stuff but the number one thing here is that we want to remain focused we want to trust him know that he'll be with us know that it's it's all part of this plan to advance the gospel to the nations and that should be our focus look at verse 10 he in verse 10 he inserts this statement it's wonderful he's talking about persecution and then he says verse 10 and then he's still talking about persecution and it's if he's saying in verse 10 that the persecution doesn't mean that the end is here because why verse 10 and the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations and so what we know is that our focus should be on the great commission our focus should be the reality that the end will come and we'll talk about that next week the end will come after the gospel has been preached to all nations and not before in fact that he says the exact same thing even in a more clear way in Matthew's gospel Matthew 2414 Jesus says in this gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come so why is he calling us to remain focused or why is he calling us why is he telling us about these forms of adversity why is he showing us that God will be with us because he wants us to say focused on the mission that we shouldn't be distracted by these things but rather know that these are all part of the process and we can stay focused on making disciples of all nations and completing the great commission knowing that it's going to happen and when it does Jesus will return he will make all things new he wants us to stay focused because we have unbelievably good news to tell the entire world and that news is that Jesus stayed focused Jesus did not let any of the adversity that he faced throw him off track or let him get off his mission our mission is to tell about what Jesus did Jesus mission was to die to pay for the sins of God's people and to give us his righteousness for free and if you are not a believer if you're a guest with us you've never heard this before you need to know that if you trust in Christ that means that his death on the cross paid for all of your sins and you can receive the free gift of righteousness and for those of us who do believe we need to see that Jesus is telling us stay at this because you have good news to tell the good news is that he did not back down he went through the same things false teachers of course the devil came and tried to lure him off of his mission to save us he was their international conflict sure there were soldiers that he was ministering too so we know that there were wars or rumors of wars at least where their natural disasters uh yeah he stopped him right he the big storm that he calmed all right that was like a hurricane was their religious persecution I think so obviously Jesus experienced tremendous amount of persecution family division remember chapter three in mark when Jesus family his mother and his brothers came to try to stop him from what doing what he was doing they were saying that they thought he was out of his mind societal rejection did Jesus experience societal rejection yeah you bet because he died alone on a cross outside of Jerusalem having been rejected by everybody so that you and I can not only be fully accepted by God through faith but then have this incredible news and so adversity needs to not knock us off our mission but embolden us for it because Jesus said these things were going to happen and that's the cross is the key the cross is so key for us as we face adversity because it's the proof that God uses the worst things to bring about the best because when we're facing adversity even if we know God is with us and even if we know he's using it to advance the gospel we still struggle we still struggle because we want to know desperately we want to know that God is good and this really if there's a reason for this and the cross is the proof that there is because cross is the worst thing that could ever happen in one respect because it's the murder of the perfect innocent son of God and it's simultaneously the best thing that ever happened because it was the liberation of all who would believe in Jesus and receive the forgiveness of their sins and the declaration of righteousness and so that's why Jesus is telling us what's coming so that we can stay laser focused on our mission to preach the gospel to all nations to make disciples of all nations and you know it's really amazing no matter what we go through even when we're trusting God there is sort of a desire that maybe one day we would at least understand a little more about why God would allow some of these really really difficult things to happen did you know there actually is evidence that God's going to reveal to us a lot more we're going to have a much better understanding about why things were the way they were if you want to turn to Revelation 15 you can but I think I have it on the screen in Revelation 15 3 and 4 John is writing about the future about when you and I believe her will be standing worshiping at the throne and we will sing a song and the song's words will be these great and amazing are your deeds oh Lord God the Almighty just and true are your ways oh King of the nations who will not fear O Lord and glorify your name for you alone are holy all nations will come and worship you for your righteous acts have been revealed so even that little desire in us where we say okay God I'm gonna trust you I'm gonna trust you through this adversity I know that you're with me I know you're using this for the advance of the gospel even that little desire but I kind of want to know one day why that passage gives us reason to believe that there's going to be things revealed to us about why God did what he did and it's going to be so mind-blowingly amazing that it's going to help us worship him forever living in perfect harmony with him and with all of the redeemed and never ever ever ever ever experiencing adversity again until then we know that he is sovereign over us we're gonna sing these words there is strength within the sorrow there is beauty in our tears and you meet us in our mourning with a love that casts out fear you are working in our waiting sanctifying us when beyond our understanding you're teaching us to trust your plans are still to prosper you have not forgotten us you're with us in the fire and the flood faithful forever perfect in love you are sovereign over us let's pray father we all wrestle with the reality that life will not be perfect life will not really even be good in the sense that it will be when we are with you in the new heavens and new earth after our king has returned and so as we as we face adversity as individuals as families as as a church would you give us power and courage and would you help us to feel your presence so that we can continue and stay focused on our mission to get the gospel to all nations we pray these things in Jesus name and for his sake amen