Mark 1:14-3:6

Mark 1:14-3:6 sermon

Who do you think that Jesus is?
Here are some people’s opinions about Jesus...
"Jesus whom I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God."St Athanasius (296-373)
"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history." H.G. Wells, British author (1866-1946)
"He might be described as an underprivileged, working-class victim of political and religious persecution." Prince Phillip (born 1921)
Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind."
Mikhail Gorbachev (born 1931)
What was interesting and remarkable about Jesus was not the obvious fact that he believed in the God of his Jewish religion, but that he rebelled against many aspects of Yahweh's vengeful nastiness. Richard Dawkins.
No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."Albert Einstein, physicist and professor (1879-1955)
"Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine."Friedrich Nietzsche,
"The Lord has turned all our sunsets into sunrise."Clement of Alexandria (150-215)
There are many many opinions about Jesus. You could ask 100. How do you know what is true about him?
Is it OK just to have opinions about Jesus. Is it OK just to pick three or four of the quotes we’ve read, and go with the ideas we most like?
Is it possible to be certain about who Jesus was?
This question, “who do you think Jesus is?” is right at the heart of Mark’s purpose in writing his gospel. He wants us to come face to face with that question for ourselves. In fact, the centre and turning point of the book is when Jesus himself asks this question of his disciples. “Who do you say that I am?”
For there were many opinions about him even then.
And much of the first half of the book is in a very plain way laying out the facts about Jesus that Mark had gathered, principally we think from the eye witness Peter, so that we will be in a position to know how to answer that question.
And in this second section of Mark’s gospel that we are going to look at today, Mark outlines some of the remarkable things that Jesus was doing.
The weight of them was irrefutable. Jesus friends and enemies alike agreed that he was able to perform miracles to a degree that nobody had done before. The question was, what were they to believe about Jesus as a result? How were they to respond to him?
Marks’ intentions are clear: he wants us to see that Jesus’ powerful actions are a result of his divine authority. Where do you think they came from?
Turn with me to Mark’s gospel. We are looking at a longer section today from 1:14-3:6, because all of this seems to be making the same point about Jesus authority and how we should respond to it.
And those will be our two headings:
1) The realms of Jesus’ authority.
2) The response to Jesus’ authority.


1) The realms of Jesus’ authority.

Mark 1:14-15
i) Declare God’s will. 14-15
14(A) Now after John was arrested, Jesus(B) came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15and saying, (C) "The time is fulfilled, and(D) the kingdom of God is at hand;(E) repent and believe in the gospel."

But God’s news centres around him... John had said, “one is coming after me”
Jesus says, “the time has come... the kingdom of God is at hand”
With the coming of the king, God’s purposes are being worked out.
How do you expect to find out anything about God?
Do you think that you can just work it out for yourself – NO, you need him to speak. Jesus speaks with God’s own authority. He is God’s own work?
You can’t know God any more than Harry Potter could know JK Rowling. The only way that Harry Potter could meet JK Rowling is if Rowling wrote herself into the book.
So it is with us. We cannot work out about God more than he reveals to us.
Jesus claims to be God writing himself into history.
Jesus is the living word. Listen to him. His word comes with authority as a royal edict. Would you toss a letter from the queen on the fire? And that was merely handsigned by a machine that can forge her signature! (grandmother’s 100th)
But Jesus does more than just come to reveal God to us, so that we would know God. He brings good NEWS. He comes to act in salvation.
Is this message of the good news central in our understanding of how we can know God, and live under his rule?
If you are cut, do you bleed the gospel, so deep is it in your veins. If I were to ask you what the good news of Jesus Christ is, would you be able to give an answer just like that.... let’s make sure we know the gospel so that we can meditate upon it for our own hearts, and so that we are always ready to share it with others.
G “Kingdom of God”,
M, sin (that’s why we need to repent)
C – good news... because of what Christ was coming to do.
R – repent and believe.
Is the gospel at the heart of your evangelism? Or personal testimony? Testimony and righteous living are wonderful, but whenever we are getting the opportunity to do this we are praying that the Lord would use it to give us opportunity to share the gospel verbally.
Training in the autumn: Please pray for the elders as we talk through how to train.
Free book – to be given to anyone who attends the prayer meeting on Wednesday.
Jesus has the authority to preach with God’s
ii) Call Followers
16(F) Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become(G) fishers of men." 18And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

This really is incredible authority that Jesus has. It might seems a strange image to us, that Jesus would make them fishers of men. But to Jewish ears it was an incredible claim. Jesus is using an image from the Old Testament, from Jeremiah 16:14-16
4(T) "Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said,(U) 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' 15but(V) 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel(W) out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.' For(X) I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.
16"Behold,(Y) I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out(Z) of the clefts of the rocks.
What Jesus is saying is a remarkable thing for a Jew to hear.
About 600 years earlier the people of God had been exiled to Babylon for they had forsaken the worship of the one true Lord and begun to worship idols.
Jeremiah had promised that there would be a return from exile. And true to the Lord’s word through jeremiah, some of the people had returned 70 years later. But the return had never been a true return of God’s kingdom. There was never another king. The new temple was half the size of the Old one, and the people hoped that one day there would be a full return to days as glorious as when king David himself had sat on the throne in Jerusalem.
The return from exile didn’t fully happen when a few warn out people returned to Jerusalem. The return from exile is not happening as people who have no regard for the great king make a journey from Russia to the Middle east. The return from exile began in earnest when the Lord sent his Son and began to call people to follow him.
Jesus is saying that that was the kingdom that he was going to build through these fishermen.
Jesus has the authority to call men to be agents in the building of his glorious kingdom.
And notice how they come!
His authority is not merely declarative, it is personal. He has the authority to call individuals to follow him. Simon and Andrew, James and John drop everything, leave behind friends and jobs and follow him, and join in the work of bringing people into his kingdom.
If you are not a believer, you are extremely welcome here. I pray you will come back and bring your friends. But I also have a question for you. What is it that is holding you back from following Jesus? You will bow before him one day. He invites you to follow him today, and to become a fisher of men – to invest your life in promoting his kingdom – the only thing you can inviest your life in and take with you.
If you know what it is that is holding you back, please come and talk to me about it. If you don’t know… then don’t hold back any longer.
Jesus has the authority to call people to follow him.
Perhaps you know people with the kind of charismatic personality that you think, yes he’s a leader and people are going to follow him if he wants them to, for good or for ill there have been people like that in this world, from Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler, from Mao Zedong to Barak Obama.
But Jesus authority is not some merely natural charisma he has, it is an undeniable supernatural authority.
- Authority to Dispel evil (21-28)
21(H) And they went into Capernaum, and immediately(I) on the Sabbath(J) he entered the synagogue and was teaching. 22And(K) they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 23And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24(L) "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?(M) I know who you are—(N) the Holy One of God." 25But Jesus(O) rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" 26And the unclean spirit,(P) convulsing him and(Q) crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.

One of the most surprising testimonies that you find in the gospels as to Jesus’ indentity is that of demons. They immediately recognise who Jesus is. (24) he is the Holy one of God. They know that one day they will face destruction at Jesus’ hands.
Perhaps you think that the very fact that demons are mentioned shows that we can’t really take Mark’s gospel seriously. I mean, isn’t believing in demons rather like believing in hobgoblins? Aren’t they merely mythical explanations of evil?
Not according to the bible; not according to the eye witnesses who had seen this person who was gripped by their power suddenly released by the command of Jesus.
When you look at the world, is it not clear that there are personal forces of evil out there?
But the striking thing is not that they exist: it is that they are compelled to obey Jesus. Christianity doesn’t teach dualism – the idea that there are equal and opposite forces of good and evil out there battling it out, sometimes one having the upper hand, sometimes another.
No, there is one Sovereign God. We read in the book of Job that even Satan himself is only allowed to exercise his evil intentions as far as the Lord himself, for his own good reasons permits.
Satan might feel that he is making progress at some points – did he not think he had achieved a great victory in entering Judas so that Jesus would be betrayed and condemned and killed? Yet wherever Satan thinks he has a victory, in God has bigger plans at work. And so Satan’s most evil action in history, the crucifixion of the Son of God, is in fact the Lord’s greatest plan in history – the world’s only hope for salvation.
Yet here that good and sovereign power over evil is exercised by Jesus.
Do you ever feel that evil has got such a grip on your life or the lives of those you love that you feel that the situation is entirely hopeless. My friends, the Lord Jesus sits on his throne; pray to him, that he would bring glory even through redeeming that situation, or that person who is so clearly beyond any human help.
There are really two different wrong views of evil, and the devil would be happy for us to adopt either of them. We can underestimate the reality of the spiritual forces of evil, and therefore think it unnecessary to put on the full armour of God. The devil is quite happy for us to think he doesn’t exist, because then he can attack us all we like. But he is also happy with us knowing that he is there, and living in absolute fear of him. What he hates is us realising that he is an enemy: but he is a defeated enemy – he and his minions were retreating from the day that Jesus began his ministry. When Jesus died and rose again he was utterly defeated. He is utterly unable to condemn or destroy any who have put their faith in Christ.
Jesus has authority over evil.
Authority over sickness
Not only is Jesus victorious over the personal forces behind evil. He has authority over all the results of sin in the world, including sickness.
29(T) And immediately he[a](U) left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now(V) Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. 31And he came and(W) took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
32That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or(X) oppressed by demons. 33And the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34(Y) And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And(Z) he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
Why do you think that Jesus received such an incredible following. Why were the Pharisees so afraid of him that by the end of the gospel they are breaking all their laws to have a nighttime trial and have him executed?
The explanation of all the gospel is that he had a vast following, because nobody else had ever performed so many indisputable miracles. Jesus was no charlatan using cheap tricks to persuade that sporadic back pain had been cured.
We sometimes imagine that people 2000 years ago had an extra gullibility gene that has somehow been weeded out by the progress of modern science. But that is not the case at all. Jesus constantly chastises people not that they are too quick to believe without thinking, but that they are so slow to believe.
From the individuals like Peter’s mother in law and the leper, to whole towns of people, Jesus was able to heal them ALL.
In the age before any Internet, TV or even Newspapers something fairly radical must have been going on for Jesus to be so famous that he would be mobbed like the Beatles if he just set foot inside a town.
We shall see next week, Lord willing, that his enemies didn’t even attempt to deny that he had performed many miraculous signs. Have a look down at 3v22. Denying Jesus ability to do miracles would have been like denying Fulham fc’s survival in the premiership. Everyone around the place was talking about it. Thousands of people had seen the games where they managed to claw their way out of the relegation zone.
Everyone at the time knew that Jesus was unique.
But it wasn’t a raw display of power. Jesus had 2 reasons for healing people.
1)compassion
40(AG) And a leper[b] came to him, imploring him, and(AH) kneeling said to him,(AI) "If you will, you can make me clean." 41Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, "I will; be clean." 42And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

Do we have Jesus compassion for those who are excluded? How does that compassion show itself in your life?
But their were realms of authority that Jesus saw as being far more significant even than his ability to heal.
1And when he returned to(AR) Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. 3(AS) And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4And when they could not get near him because of the crowd,(AT) they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.

Imagine the scene: Jesus, the famous healing miracle worker is coming back to town. You hear a rumour that of where he’s going to be, and so you get up and run there. Already the crowds are gathering and you manage to squeeze through the crowds at the door, and work your way inside. Jesus is talking for a while, and you feel an increasing pressure of the weight of the crowd leaning against your back. And then suddenly dust starts falling down from the ceiling. And then big lumps of earth. And then you can see the sunlight poking through. Soon there is a big hole, and slowly a man is lowered down on four ropes. He’s clearly paralysed.
You can hear the crowd muttering... “We’re going to see one! Surely we’re going to see a miracle with our own eyes. You can feel the excitement in the air. You see Jesus looking up at the man’s friends through the hole in the roof, and then look down at the man at his feet. He’s clearly going to speak , so the room goes completely silent.
And then he says it:
Look down at verse 5
5And when Jesus(AU) saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son,(AV) your sins are forgiven."

Hang on a minute Jesus, what are you talking about – this guy has some pretty obvious needs that are rather more obvious for you to deal with first before you start getting into heavy theology.
Give the bloke a break.
But know: Jesus sees this man – and sees that he has a far greater need than functional legs.
And then he proves that he has the authority to forgive sins – and authority that the Pharisees were right to say that God alone has, by healing him.
6Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7"Why does this man speak like that?(AW) He is blaspheming!(AX) Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8And immediately Jesus,(AY) perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, "Why do you question these things in your hearts? 9Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk'? 10But that you may know that(AZ) the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—he said to the paralytic— 11"I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home." 12And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and(BA) glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"

Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say, ‘rise, take up your bed and walk’?
Well, clearly it is easier to SAY, ‘your sins are forgiven.’ Nobody can really see if that has happened or not; there are sadly many people today who think that they have the authority to declare people’s sins forgiven after confession. They don’t look stupid because it can’t be seen that really they have no power to forgive sins. It’s rather difficult to say “rise, take up your bed and walk,” because unless you actually have the authority to heal him, you are going to look pretty silly.
But if you ask which is easier to DO, there would be a different answer.
Jesus can heal with a word, but in order to forgive this man’s sins, he would have to go to the cross and bear the paralytic’s punishment. He could only declare that man’s sins forgiven, for being fully God he had the authority; and being the perfect man, he was able to bear them.
Notice another authority that Jesus has even in that same section. He can see their hearts.
We can fool others, we can fool ourselves, but we certainly can’t fool Jesus about what is going on in our hearts.
8And immediately Jesus,(AY) perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves
Is your heart open to Jesus? Make confession a regular part of your daily prayers. He knows your sins already; he wants you to know full forgiveness. Confess your sins; he is faithful and just and will purify us from our sins and
The final realm of authority that Jesus shows in this section is the authority to bring in God’s kingdom.
18Now(BJ) John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him,(BK) "Why do John’s disciples and(BL) the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" 19And Jesus said to them, (BM) "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20(BN) The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and(BO) then they will fast in that day. 21No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22And no one puts new wine into old(BP) wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins."[f]
Why was it that so few of the religious leaders who knew the Old Testament so well, recognised that Jesus was the Messiah to whom the law pointed.
To a large degree it seemed that they had so fallen in love with the Old Testament, that they didn’t WANT it to point beyond itself to the coming of the king. They wanted to stick with the status quo.
Now, Jesus comment about the new patch and the new wineskin is NOT suggesting that we need to be people who are always open to every kind of change, and the worst thing we can do is hold onto god’s plan for last year.
No, those of us who were here yesterday will have heard us be charged from God’s word in 2 timothy to stand firm in the gospel.
No, the new thing that Jesus was talking about was not the latest church fad, it was the coming of the kingdom of God with the arrival of the king. Those who were unwilling to have their understanding of the OT shaped by the one who fulfilled it were like the old garment who would reject the new patch; like the old wineskin who would would not bear the new wine. Instead it was those who saw their desperate need of forgiveness that only Jesus could offer who were ready to receive their Messiah.
Who do you think is the most lost person you know: don’t think that they are beyond the reach of the gospel. Pray for them; share the gospel; for the king had come in verse 17 not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
When the king came, all the shadows of the law in the old testament were discovered to be just that: shadows. One example of this is found in Jesus’ treatment of the Sabbath.
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
23(BQ) One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples(BR) began to pluck heads of grain. 24And the Pharisees were saying to him, "Look,(BS) why are they doing(BT) what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" 25And he said to them, (BU) "Have you never read(BV) what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26how he entered the house of God, in the time of(BW) Abiathar the high priest, and ate(BX) the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?" 27And he said to them, (BY) "The Sabbath was made for man,(BZ) not man for the Sabbath. 28So(CA) the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."
Mark 3
A Man with a Withered Hand
1(CB) Again(CC) he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2And(CD) they watched Jesus,[g] to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here." 4And he said to them, (CE) "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. 5And he(CF) looked around at them with anger, grieved at(CG) their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."(CH) He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6(CI) The Pharisees went out and immediately(CJ) held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Responses...
The response to Jesus authority
Repentance and faith
Barriers to repentance and faith:
- Wrong responses
o Open hostility: that knows exactly who Jesus is and hates him. Do you have the knowledge of the demons… You know who he is, and somehow you think that knowledge can enable you to be on your guard against him? Recognise that the world is openly hostile to Christ: they will be to us as well. Even this week it was suggested to be through a patronizing remark that any principled objection to my children being taught to particupate in one religion rather than another was a childish splitting of hairs.
o Sensationalism
Yes, he has authority to heal;
It is possible to be very excited about Jesus and completely miss what he is about. He is not about giving you what you know you already want. You want the wrong things. We hate him. He is all about giving us himself!! There is a movement within some churches that suggests that what we need to do is find out what people in our neighbourhood really want, and then give it to them, so long as it isn’t immoral. And then that will at least get people in the building so that we have a chance to share the gospel.
That doesn’t seem to be Jesus tactic.
35(AA) And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and(AB) there he prayed. 36And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37and they found him and said to him,(AC) "Everyone is looking for you." 38And he said to them, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for(AD) that is why I came out." 39(AE) And(AF) he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

I’m not sure that what Jesus is doing here would make sense to many of us today. Everyone is looking for Jesus. Everyone want to find him. Everyone is coming to see Jesus because he is providing a wonderful service in healing their sick. But Jesus sees that as a signal that it’s time to go.
Why
Because there 2 things in this passage that he said he came to do. He didn’t come to heal. He didn’t come to impress people.
Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for(AD) that is why I came out.
I came not to call the righteous,(BI) but sinners."
He came to preach, to call sinners. He came with a message not of prosperity, or niceness. He came with a message of salvation through his death.
Do you realise that your need for forgiveness is far greater and far more costly than any physical need you have? Even if you are cured of all sickness, your body will wear out and die one day anyway.
Even if you live in the nicest house in Kensington, I can assure you, it won’t be standing a million years from now.
But a million years from now, if you have received the forgiveness of sins through responding the the gospel call of Jesus, that forgiveness will still be at work, enabling you to stand before God’s throne and praise him, rather than wailing for ever at your exclusion from the joy of his presence.
Talk to Natasha about the way in which he is able to heal, but notice that her eyes well up with tears of joy far more when she talks about how she came to receive forgiveness. “Oh yes, I forgot to mention that he healed me”
We must not focus on those things that the world will find MOST attractive about Jesus, and talk only of them. Jesus withdraws from crowds who want to know more about him.
· Cynicism 16-17
Sees what Jesus is doing in people’s lives and figures he is wasting his time.
If you are a Christian, why do you think that Jesus saved YOU? He wasn’t looking for the most impressive bunch on people. He was looking for trophies of His Grace, that he might be glorified. He takes a peasant dish like ratatouille and uses it to show that he is the greatest chef in al Paris. So the Lord takes a bunch of dirty rotten sinners like us to show that he indeed the great Saviour .
Non-Christian, beware of the cynicism that would look at the redeemed people of God, and say that you are rather above joining them. My friend, we are all rather below joining Jesus, but he is a merciful saviour who has saved us from hell to enjoy him forever, and offers to save you in the same way. Do no scoff at him.
· Arrogance 23-24
Do you cloak arrogance in a mask of piety? Are there truths about God that you find hard, and know the proof texts of the bible to resist them, and so don’t really engage with them?
How would we ever find out if we’ve got some things wrong as a church? Are we open to the authority of God’s word?
· Hardness 27
The irony that the one who has authority to heal physical life and to give spiritual life is met by those who should have been waiting for him: the herodians were the custodians of the throne, the Pharisees were the self-appointed custodians of the law. Both of these belonged to Jesus, yet they set out to murder him.
What do you love that you feel needs protecting against the authority of Jesus. It all belongs to him.

- Expressions of repentance and faith.

· Follow
What are you unwilling to leave behind? Are there things that if you were really honest with him you’d say, “Yes Jesus, I’ll follow you, but don’t touch that.” When we follow jesus, we are telling him to take our lives and let them be his to do with what he will, trusting him that his plans are better than ours ever were.

· Be amazed! 1:27 2:12
What do you do with weight of evidence that Jesus has divine authority? It might be possible to be sceptical about one or two accounts. All these things that we read even in this chapter and a bit. And Mark is only reporting a tiny amount of what Jesus actually did. Another of the eyewitnesses, John said that if all the things that Jesus did were written, the world itself would not be able to contain the books that were written. There is no other explanation than that Jesus was the son of God. Are you amazed?
· Serve.
31And he came and(W) took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.When Jesus acted in healing Peter’s mother in law, immediately she serves Jesus and his people.
- it’s been wonderful to see the service of many people in the church here. And you can see by the joy on their faces that it is not out of some stoic duty, but out of the joy and privilege of serving the one who has healed them from the burden of their sin.
o Rejoice
The bridegroom has come. He is with us for ever, till the very end of the age.
He has brought forgiveness of our sins through his blood and fellowship with God.
What could rob us of our joy?
What are you tempted to value more than the Lord Jesus himself?
Comfort?
Health?
Finacial security?
Or will you value Jesus more and therefore have a joy that cannot be taken away, but canonly grow through adversity.

The world abideth not,Lo, like a flash tis goneWith all its gorgeous pomppale death it cannot banish.Its riches pass awayand all its joys must flee.But Jesus doth abide,What it the world to me?
What is the world to me?My Jesus is my Treasure,My life, My health, my wealth,My friend, my love, my pleasure,my joy, my crown, my all,my bliss eternally.Once more then, I declare,What is the world to me?