Mark 02: Salvation is Here

Mark chapter 2 reveals Jesus as the embodiment of salvation, constantly in motion and transforming every environment he enters with his healing presence and revolutionary teaching. Pastor Brandon explores how Jesus challenged religious norms and restored joy to spiritual practices that had become burdensome.

• Four friends dig through a roof to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus, demonstrating extraordinary faith
• Jesus forgives the paralyzed man's sins before healing him, establishing his divine authority
• Jesus calls Levi (Matthew) the tax collector and eats with "sinners," showing salvation extends to social outcasts
• When questioned about fasting, Jesus uses metaphors of new wine and wineskins to show he's bringing something entirely new
• Jesus reframes the Sabbath as being "made for man, not man for the Sabbath," restoring God's original intent
• The chapter reveals how religion had turned God's blessings into burdens, while Jesus came to restore joy and freedom
• Our relationship with God should be driven by love rather than obligation

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Chapters

• 0:48 Welcome to Bible Breakdown
• 3:36 The Paralyzed Man's Friends
• 6:14 Jesus Calls Levi the Tax Collector
• 7:57 New Wine Needs New Wineskins
• 9:15 Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath
• 11:45 Finding Joy in Following Jesus

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today, mark, chapter 2, and today's title is Salvation is here. Salvation is here, and we're going to get into all this in just a second.

Speaker 1: 0:38

But this chapter kind of reminds me a little bit about I had a friend of mine who he was just the life of the party, like he was the extrovert's, extrovert, like big time, even to the point where he knew that he just kind of would charge when he would get around people. You know, the more he would get around people, the more excited he would get to where he had a couple of other people who they knew that, and so when we would go to like a gathering or something like that, they would keep a watch on it and if he got a little too excited, they knew he was overcharging, you know, and he had to go sit by himself for a minute. But he was fun. He was so much fun and literally when he would walk in, he was that personality. He would walk in and go. The party's here, you know, the party's here, and he was talking about himself and it was true, people just gravitated. And I just's writing from.

Speaker 1: 1:30

You know, listening to Peter how Jesus is just constantly in motion. He's constantly doing it. You had to think that every time Jesus would come into a crowd, someone had to be yelling out salvation is here. Salvation is here because Jesus never left the community the way he found it. And we're getting all that in just a moment. So if you have your Bibles, want to get it out with me, get ready to get into Mark, chapter 2. While you're doing that, we'll take just a moment like share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast it really does help and make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job and you can get links to all of that at thebiblebreakdowncom.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Well, if you've been joining us as of yesterday and kind of getting ready for this chapter, the big idea of Mark is that it's about the gospel, but Mark particularly is about the gospel in motion. Jesus is constantly. He's with the people, he's with the hurting, he's with the suffering and he is just constantly with people. And it is amazing to see that over 40 times the Gospel of Mark says immediately. But if you were with us yesterday, you can see how he also says, suddenly, instantly, all of that. It's just constant motion happening, and yesterday it kind of jumped right in. Like in the other Gospels, you know, it just kind of slowly works its way.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Luke and Matthew they talk about the birth narrative of Jesus. John talks about Jesus as God Mark's. Like, here we go, he just jumps in, and so we're going to see that in Mark 2. And remember, the idea of salvation is now here. Wherever Jesus went, it just couldn't stay the same, good or bad. So let's jump into this and see what God's word has to say. You ready?

Speaker 1: 3:13

Mark, chapter 2, verse 1, says this when Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home Soon. The house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door. While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, jesus said to the paralyzed man my child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves what is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. But Jesus knew immediately. There's one of the worst. Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking and so he asked them why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to a paralyzed man your sins are forgiven, or stand up, pick up your mat and walk. So I will prove to you that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said stand up, take up your bed and go home. And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat and walked out through stunned onlookers and they were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming We've never seen anything like this before.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Pause for a second. Do you know? There was one person in the crowd that was probably very unhappy the homeowner. Have you ever thought about this? First of all, you're so excited. Jesus is in Capernaum, which is where his ministry headquarters was, and he is coming to my house. And then, all of a sudden, you know you've cleaned the house up. You know how it is when guests are coming over. You clean up the house. You clean up certain areas of the house that you and I both know you hadn't even looked twice at in like a month. All the dirty clothes you have put in any hole or closet you can, you think is ready, and all of a sudden you see dirt coming from the ceiling. There's somebody up there digging a hole through my ceiling and so you know, and you kind of are like Jesus, are you going to get mad at them? And he's like absolutely I'm mad. No, no, no, not at the pharisees, at these people. No, I can't be mad at these people. But you know, everybody in that room was excited, except for the guy who had his roof destroyed. And you know that guy was like I am so glad you're healed. Do you think you and your buddies can put my roof back? Can you heal my roof? No, but anyway, that's just the way it is All right.

Speaker 1: 5:50

Verse 13 says this Then Jesus went out to the lake shore again and taught the crowds that were there coming to him. Now pause again. You ever wondered why is Jesus constantly? Why is he constantly teaching At the water? Why do you think that is? You know why, natural amplification. He's teaching at this point to thousands of people, and when he would teach on hillsides or teaching over water, it had natural amplification, and so he was able to talk to more people. So anyway, just a little aside Verse 14.

Speaker 1: 6:20

As he walked along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, also known as Matthew, who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, sitting at his tax collector's booth and he said follow me and be my disciple. So Levi got up and followed him. Later Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. There were many people of this kind among Jesus' followers. Pause again. There were many people of this kind among Jesus' followers. Pause again. I love how Mark is saying by the way, I want you to get this twisted. Jesus didn't just hang around the top-notch whatevers, he hung around everybody. And so he's making sure to make Jesus, you know, to paint him as someone who was an elite. He was the king of kings, yet he walked with the lonely as well. I love that so much. Verse 16,.

Speaker 1: 7:08

But when the teachers of religious law, who were Pharisees, saw him eating with the tax collectors and other sinners, they asked the disciples why does he eat with such scum. And when Jesus heard this, he told them healthy people do not need a doctor, sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners. In other words, he's saying salvation is here Verse 18. Jesus replied. Jesus replied would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. No one puts new wine into old wineskins, for wine would burst with the wineskins and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins. In other words, he's saying we're not doing the old things, the old ways, because that's the way they've always been done. We're on a new path and we're doing a new thing and we're excited about it. All right, verse 23.

Speaker 1: 8:33

One Sabbath day, as Jesus was walking through some grain fields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat. But the Pharisees said to Jesus look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting grain? On the Sabbath, jesus said to them haven't you read in the scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He went into the house of God during the days when Abathar was high priest and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests were allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions, and Jesus told them the Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people, not the people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of man is Lord even over the Sabbath. So what he is doing is he is now setting right some of the things that have been made wrong. What I mean by that is the Sabbath was created.

Speaker 1: 9:21

It's one of the Ten Commandments, it's the fourth commandment, and he says to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. And at the end of him talking about that, he says one of the reasons why you keep the Sabbath is in Deuteronomy, chapter six. One of the reasons you keep the Sabbath is because it's a reminder to you of when you were in slavery in Egypt and you had masters over you that just pushed you all day and all night. Well, now your master is Yahweh, and he tells you to rest one day a week, and so it was meant to be a testimony and a remembrance of the goodness of God. But what they had done was is they had turned it into bondage, where you couldn't walk more than a quarter of a mile from your house. You weren't supposed to pick a gray hair out of your head, because that would be considered grooming yourself, and you weren't allowed to do that on the Sabbath. They'd added all these crazy rules and took away the joy.

Speaker 1: 10:12

And what Jesus did when he came is he came to put joy back into the law. He said no, no, no. The Sabbath was not made so that we could have another rule. It was made to be a blessing to us. And he's saying I am Lord, even over the Sabbath. And so he is saying salvation is here. I am setting free which you put bondage around. I'm now setting it free. And so I also want to say that you notice how he starts talking about himself over and over again and he calls himself the son of man.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Now, if you've noticed, when you see that, depending on the version you're reading, it will have SON OF MAN in all caps, that is going back to a reference to the coming Messiah. In the book of Daniel. It says one day, the Ancient of Days, the Son of man will come. And so Jesus is calling himself the Messiah, and so he is going into all of these environments and he is saying I am the salvation.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Salvation has come, salvation is here, and what I want to encourage you to do today is to be so very careful in our walk with God that, as people, we tend to go from one extreme to another, right Like one of the biggest battles that we fight in our life is a battle for balance. It's hard to find balance in our world and one of the things that we tend to do as Christians is, on one end, we swing one way where we don't follow anything that God's word says let's be honest or we go to another way, into legalism, where there's no joy. In Christianity, everything's a rule and a law and can't do anything or any way, and all this kind of stuff. Can I tell you when is the last time you focused on just loving Jesus Not loving Jesus your way, but loving Jesus according to his way and just focused on your relationship with God? Can I tell you, if you did that, there'd be more joy in your life, because you'd realize that Jesus came to set you free. And then we follow him out of our excitement, out of our thankfulness, out of our joy. It's doing the same things but for very different reasons, and that's what Jesus was doing. He said I've come to bring joy, I've come to bring freedom, salvation, back to all the things that you've taken all the joy out of. I want to ask you this question If you follow God today, is your relationship with God without any joy? Is it because you've fallen out of love with God and you've fallen into just trying to just do the right things? Can I tell you, the more you love God, the more the things become a joy.

Speaker 1: 12:41

I heard someone say one time. He said that there are two ways that I can be faithful to my wife. He said one way is I can walk around every day going, don't cheat, don't cheat, don't cheat, don't cheat. He said everywhere I go, don't cheat, don't cheat. He said I probably will be okay, but it'd be miserable. He said or I can focus every day on falling in love with my wife all over again, to which all the ladies go aww and all the guys are going ugh. But he said which one do you think is more fun, reminding myself what I can't do or reminding myself who I'm married to? Can I tell you, salvation is here. Make sure we never take that for granted. It's the greatest joy of our life and if we focus every day like that. Watch how much more fun following the King will be. Let's pray together right now.

Speaker 1: 13:30

God, thank you so much for today. Thank you that you are a joy. It is an honor to follow you. I pray every day. We'll remember the joy of following you and realize, god, that we live to be a blessing to you and it is the joy of our life. We celebrate you today In Jesus' name. We pray Amen and amen. Well, god's word says in Mark 8, verse 34,. He says If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. My hope is that you will understand more and more every day what a joy it is to follow God. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow, for.