What if your hand says that there is no need of a leg? This question sounds absurd at various levels because it is impossible for a hand to function well if there’s no leg. Every part of a human body is interdependent with each other. Similarly, in this passage the Apostle Paul emphasizes the importance of preserving the diversity of the church because that’s how God intended His church to be.
For any mission to be accomplished, there needs to be peace and unity among a specific group standing for a cause. If there is no unity, the group falls apart. The disunity also weakens the individual to fulfill the mission so it is impossible to accomplish it alone. We’re hard wired to work and live in the context of community. How can such a unity be established among a group of people in the church who come from various backgrounds? This passage gives us insights into that tension.
Religious leaders often seem very kind in public, but get aggressive and violent when someone opposes them. Sometimes Pastors even beat up their wives and do not respect them in private. There are other leaders in the church, who serve people because of money. Some leaders are good with people in public but poor in managing their own household, their children don’t listen to them and are extremely rebellious. As a father and husband, they’re very passive about family matters, and the list goes on and on. But the Apostle Paul has a response against all these bad character qualities of a leader in this passage.
We often characterize our cultural distinctive by what we eat and drink. This is not necessarily wrong, but it goes wrong when we look down upon others because of our differences in eating and drinking. But the Apostle Paul teaches us in this passage to live in unity and be mindful of other people’s choices despite our different cultural backgrounds. Why is this unity important? Why should our Christian liberty needs to be carefully exercised? Listen to this sermon to find out.
What does the Bible say about divorce? What does it say about remarriage? Before we seek answers to these reasonable questions, we need to ask – “what does the bible say about marriage?”. When we know what marriage is meant for, can we really understand how to deal with divorce. Not only does this passage help us understand about marriage and divorce, but it also helps us understand about singleness (widows and widowers).
We live in a culture that both glorifies sex and abstains from it. We see young people indulge in all kinds of sexual immorality where marriage has become a joke or unnecessary, we also see married couples being indifferent towards each other and it makes everything mechanical between them. In this passage, we see how the gospel has an answer to both singles and married couples in the church.
We finally come to the passage where the Greatest exchange took place. Our sins were put on Christ, He bore the wrath of God the Father and bought forgiveness in exchange. God the Father turned his face away from Jesus Christ so that He would not turn His face away from us, the sinners. This exchange took place between God the Father and God the Son. To save us, Jesus Christ had to die for our sins. We will be saved only when we believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came as a ransom for us.
When Jesus was crucified, people around Him watching said “if you’re the messiah then come down and save yourself”, but Jesus didn’t come down from the cross because of you and me. He went through the punishment that you and I justly deserved, so that we don’t have to be punished. If Jesus did not die for us then we would not have forgiveness of sins (the greatest need of the world). Crucifixion was a worst form of punishment and that’s exactly what Jesus went through. Jesus chose the worst life possible on this earth so that we would have the best life possible in Heaven with God for eternity… Christ is God’s Wisdom for us. He is the solution for every problem in this life.
We see an innocent man, a just man being accused and despised to be crucified. Even Pilate (a pagan) couldn’t find any fault in Christ. In this passage Mark tells us how Christ went through such accusation and was subjected to injustice only to exempt the rebels and sinners like us from the ultimate judgement of God. We deserved that just punishment of God for our sins but because He loves us, Christ took the blame on Himself, so that rebels like us could be set free.
“Do this in remembrance of me” are the words recited in churches today whenever the Lord’s supper is administered. Jesus says as we eat the broken bread (his body) and drink wine (his blood), we remember Christ’s death. And Christ death proclaims the extent to which God demonstrated His love for us. In this sermon, you will learn that the Lord’s supper is not just a mere ritual to be followed but there’s a higher view i.e it reminds us of His sacrificial love.