mark chapter 3 – Holy Ghost Notes

Hidden God

Posted on July 30, 2020July 27, 2020 by holyghostnotes in Book of Mark, Devotionals

In the last devotional, we learned about a farmer who sowed seed into the ground (Mark 4:1-20). Keep that in mind as you read and think about today’s Scripture passage, Mark 4:21-25. Take the first two verses together:

And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand?” For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.” (Mark 4:21-22)

In order to understand the meaning of this passage, go straight to the word “for.” “For nothing is hidden…” The word “for” gives us the powerful and important underlying principle. If you want to understand more about God, then you have to know this principle. It’s that hidden things will be revealed and secrets will be uncovered. You see, for ages and ages there has been a “hidden” God. Humanity knew a little about God, but not much. Religion, philosophy, science, law, art, and human wisdom helped us some, but each of these fell short.

Although God kept himself hidden from us, he still gave us promises along the way. These promises pointed forward to the day when the hidden God would reveal himself. His secrets would be uncovered and light would pour in for us to see what he was like.

A seed is hidden in the ground and the farmer waits. Promises are buried in history and the One who promised waits. Neither is benign, but each throbs with potential, for, when it comes to the mysteries and promises of God, “nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.” It was only a matter of time until the promises came to light.

After starting with the “for” in verse 22, we can then consider the application found in verse 21, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand?” In other words, things that shine light are put where they can be most effective. Lamps go on stands, not hidden under baskets or beds. God’s revelatory word, in the last parable known as the seed, will be placed where it will shine the brightest, because the hidden secret of God will come to light.

The hidden God reveals both himself and his plan for the world. The light will shine from the right places for us to see what God wants us to see. What is it that God wants us to see? What is God’s secret? God’s secret, which has been both promised and hidden from the foundation of the world, is that he would become a human being, suffer for our sins, and offer us free salvation in Jesus Christ. The mystery of God, which is now being uncovered, is the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The hidden God is now revealing himself as the God who loves us, is for us, and has the perfect plan to redeem us.

This gospel is the incredible secret of the cosmos, which even angels have longed to peer into (1 Peter 1:12).

Then Jesus adds in verse 23, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus isn’t referring to physical ears, but to a special kind of hearing. If you can “hear” the secret mystery of the gospel of Jesus, then you will be able to know and understand even more of the hidden secrets of God. By knowing this mystery of God, then you have a kind of decoder ring, which will help you understand other mysteries of life. Knowing the love of God opens up the universe to you.

So Jesus goes on to say, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you” (Mark 4:24). If you put on your special decoder ring and listen to God through the gospel message, then even more mysteries will open up for you. The “measure” refers to the way you calculate what you see in life. Think of it like the Metric system or the US Standard system; but instead, it’s the “Gospel system.” You use the Gospel system, the good news of the love of God, by which to measure all life.

It’s popular today to measure life with nihilism, which measures life with cynicism and the rejection of morality and divine transcendence. If the measure you measure life with is nihilism, then you have to make up your own rules, life becomes meaningless, and human politics becomes the highest form of “salvation.” We’re just a bunch of animals fighting it out to the finish, seeing which group has the most power to come out on top. There are no guiding principles, no stars to look up to in the sky.

But, as Jesus warns, if the measure you measure with is nihilism, then nihilism will be measured to you. You become meaningless. You become rejected. As Psalm 115 similarly warns, we become what we put on top (Psalm 115:8).

If the measure you measure life with is the love of God, on the other hand, then the love of God will be measured to you! “…and still more will be added to you.” Now we’re ready to understand Jesus’s conclusion to this section, “For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Mark 4:25). The more light you have, the more of God and his promises you will be able to see. Picture the scene at the end of the movie National Treasure. Nicholas Cage held a single torch, which revealed a small amount of treasure in the treasure room; but, then he lit another light and the flames began to spread around the room, illuminating more and more, revealing greater and greater treasure. The room looked endless and the view of the treasure seemed never to end. In the same way, once the light of the gospel shines on the love of God, then more light will begin to shine and the love of God will seem to go on forever. You truly will never be able to see the end of it.

However, if you don’t have the light of the gospel, then the opposite happens. Since you don’t know God is for you, as the gospel proclaims, then you think God is against you. And if you believe God is against you, then darkness and despair will swallow you completely, until, “even what he has will be taken away.” In other words, even the small amount of love and hope you cling to will be absorbed by this darkness and despair if you don’t know God loves you.

Experientially, we know that life works this way, for if we believe there is no God and no purpose for life, if we believe everything is meaningless, if we believe we are a mistake or rejected matter of the cosmos, then not even the simple pleasures of life can bring us calm, so we might as well give up.

It’s not up to me to define who God is; God is who he has revealed himself to be. Much to our joy, God has revealed himself to be the Savior, Jesus Christ. This is what he most wants you to know about him; this is the secret he whispers to you every day in his word. As we continue to read the book of Mark together, his whispers will get louder and louder, until they culminate with a shout on the cross. From the cross, Jesus shouts to us the love of God.

“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The Breakdown

What is the mystery of the hidden God?
Be honest, what “system” do you normally use to measure life? How do you measure happiness? Sadness?
What would it look like to measure your life with the “Gospel” system?

Pandemic God

Posted on July 27, 2020July 27, 2020 by holyghostnotes in Book of Mark, Devotionals

Mark 4:1-20

It’s alive in the air. Anyone can catch it, because it does not discriminate. It’s more dangerous in crowds, which was the case in the story we’re about to consider. It’s transmitted orally and will change your life forever. According to Jesus, you have a one in four chance of being irreversibly infected.

In our story, some put on religious masks so as not to catch it. They covered themselves with the mask of self-righteousness. They didn’t want what Jesus was passing on to the crowd. As you’ve guessed, I’m not talking about the coronavirus, but something much older, more upending, the Christ virus.

This is the pandemic of grace.

In Mark 4:1-20, Jesus taught a very large crowd by the sea. It was so large he had to quarantine himself in a boat off the shore to make room. He told them a strange parable about a farmer who went out to sow seed. Some seed fell on the path, but the birds came and devoured it immediately. Some seed fell on rocky ground, but its roots could not go deep enough, so when the sun came out, it withered and died. Some seed fell among thorns, which ended up choking out the seed, so it produced no grain. But the last seed fell into good soil, and produced much fruit for the farmer, even a yield of up to a hundredfold.

The parable confused the disciples, even though Jesus said it was the simplest parable. If they couldn’t understand this one, then there’s no way they could understand any of the other parables (Mark 4:13)! Jesus explained to them the seed was the word of God. Then he said the birds along the trodden path were Satan; the rocky ground was the tribulations and persecutions of life; and the thorns were the cares of the world, deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things. But the seed that produced a harvest were those who heard the word and accepted it, bearing fruit.

The disciples still didn’t understand why Jesus had to teach the crowd with parables. Since he had such a great opportunity to influence a large crowd, why didn’t he simply make himself as plain as possible? But Jesus wasn’t interested in clarity, because he wasn’t merely instructing like the Pharisees did; rather, Jesus was doing something else altogether, bringing spiritually dead people to life. So Jesus told them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’” (Mark 4:11-12).

This is where most people are confused about Jesus Christ. They think he was just a good teacher, but Jesus didn’t come to be a teacher (he came to be a Savior). In fact, he tried hard to make his lessons confusing, not clear. Jesus didn’t teach us formulas or definitions, but secrets and mysteries. “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God…” Again, why did he do this? He did it so people would not be able to figure it out on their own, so that, “they may indeed see but not perceive…lest they should turn and be forgiven.” Wait, what? Did Jesus teach in riddles in order to keep people from being able to understand and find forgiveness? Sort of, but let me explain.

Jesus was not interested in educating people so they could figure out life on their own, because he knew it wasn’t possible in this world. Jesus did not come to give us more rules to learn and keep; God had already given the world a set of commandments, and Lord knows how that turned out. Instead, Jesus came to give us himself and make us alive. And the way to do this is not through instruction, but proclamation, which is what’s meant by sowing seed in the parable. Jesus wanted to confine people to the only pathway to finding forgiveness, which was through him. To find forgiveness apart from Christ was not possible, the proof being nobody had been able to instruct the soul to forgiveness in the history of the world, no matter what the religion, philosophy, or leader had been.

So the sower sows the word of God. The word of God is a seed, which contains the life of God in it. This seed, even though small, has the potential to plant the kingdom of God in your heart. You and I are dead because of sin, so the only hope for us is not instruction, but renegeration. We do not need to be instructed by the word of God, but infected by the word of God. The word of God needs to hijack every cell in our being, replicate itself, and start a new life from the inside out.

God’s word needs to be planted into our hearts, take root, grow, and bear fruit. The Pharisees thought they could bear fruit apart from the word of Jesus, but they were mistaken, as are most people today. In our time, there’s a movement that revolves around advanced intellectual instruction, via podcasts and other media formats, seeking to help us flourish with the best possible instruction. I’m thinking of Jordan Peterson, in particular, or TED Talks. Don’t get me wrong, I love to listen to Jordan Peterson and learn much from him! On one level, everyone can benefit from this sort of first rate teaching. But, and here’s the point, this sort of high level teaching has been around for millenia, so there’s nothing new about it. It will help you for a while, but that is all. It will improve your life, but that’s its limit. Jordan Peterson had nothing on the Pharisees, for they could teach just as well as he could, if not better.

But their teaching was not in the same category of the simple proclamation of Jesus.

Jesus was talking about preaching the word of God, which makes dead hearts come to life. This is why he did it in a way some couldn’t figure out, because if you could figure it out with your intellectual skills, then it wouldn’t be a gift of grace. If you could figure it out on your own, then it would be a religious “work.” The Pharisees were good at figuring things out, but they couldn’t figure out Jesus Christ and his simple parable of the farmer and his seed! It wasn’t that it went above their heads, but it went below their heads and bounced right off their hard hearts.

Instruction and high quality teaching do not make the grass grow.

Instead, we need to expose ourselves to the Christ virus. We must drop our masks of self-sufficiency and breathe in deeply the orally transmitted, preached word of God. There is no other way to come alive. And we know this from experience. No matter how much we learn, how good our habits, and all the positive practices we attempt to put to use, at the end of the day, we still manage to muck up our lives. Can you relate?

I’ve got eleven intellectually informative podcasts I listen to on a regular basis and none of them can keep my heart from envying others. None of them can keep my eyes from lusting. None of them can keep my lips from lying to make myself look better. None can keep my intellect from thinking it’s better than others or from judging those with whom I disagree. None can keep my conscience from being riddled with guilt and despair, to the point where I want to give up. Can you relate?

We know from experience that we cannot save ourselves, but if left to ourselves, will ruin ourselves and take out others in the process.

Jesus didn’t come to give us more of the same, but he came to infect us with the word of grace and bring us to life. He came to plant a tiny seed of hope in our hearts that would grow into the size of a kingdom, apart from anything we do. If you’re infected by the Christ virus, you will come alive and then have the potential to infect others to life.

The application for this text is remarkably simple and clear. Jesus is calling us to listen to Bible preaching, allowing the Bible to drip feed into our souls. There’s no replacement for this. I’m not talking about instruction or fancy teaching, but the word of grace proclaimed to you, week after week after week. We need to hear about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We need to be infected by the truths of justification and redemption. Other teachings might be able to show you where you need to go, but they can’t take you there, for they have no intrinsic power. The preaching of the gospel, on the other hand, has intrinsic power, just as a seed has life within itself.

Jesus said there were four kinds of soil: trodden, rocky, thorny, and good. Since God is the farmer, then surely he knows the difference between good and bad soil; any experienced farmer, let alone a divine one, would know not to plant seed into trodden, rocky, or thorny soil. So why doesn’t the farmer discriminate? I’d like to suggest that at some point in our lives, we are all of these. The farmer doesn’t sow seed just once, but year after year. Likewise, in the different soil seasons of our lives, we need to continue to expose ourselves to the seed of the farmer. Let Him sow the seed in good times and in bad, healthy and sick, plenty and want.

When all else fails, and it will, listen to the preached word of God. You may think you don’t need it, but so did the Pharisees, whom Jesus condemned. You may think you don’t need church or sermons, but Jesus is clearly telling us we do; remember, this is the easiest parable to understand. If you don’t understand why you need to listen to the proclaimed word of God, then nothing else can be done for you. And it’s not because you’re a bad person, per se, but it’s because you think you’re too good. Your heart is hard, just like the trodden soil in the parable.

Faith does not begin with our actions, but ends with them—thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Faith begins in secret, with the word of God floating through the air, entering our hearts, and taking root. And it’s all by grace. God is not safe, but God is pandemic.

The Breakdown

Why do you think Jesus chose to represent God as a farmer? Why did he choose to represent people as soil? What do they have in common?
Think about the four types of soil. Which one seems most like you right now? Which “season” are you in? Why? Be detailed.
When was the last time you heard a sermon based on the Bible? In our time, it’s easy to access quality sermons; are there any you listen to regularly? Two Bible preachers to check out are Colin Smith (Unlocking the Bible podcast) and Timothy Keller (Gospel in Life podcast).

The Reframe

Posted on July 14, 2020 by holyghostnotes in Book of Mark, Devotionals

Mark 3:31-35

The families we grew up in have an enormous impact on us as adults; all the wounds we received as children will continue to cause us hurt long after we’ve moved away from home. Each person unconsciously holds on to the various verbal and nonverbal messages communicated from his or her family of origin and these messages are hard to shake. Such messages might include: kids don’t matter; I have to sneak to take care of myself; if I want anything done, I have to do it myself; don’t trust adults; my needs don’t matter; I have to be bad to be noticed; or I have to be perfect.

Jesus also grew up in a family, who, no doubt, communicated certain messages to his maturing self, as well. In his day and age, families were much closer-knit than ours. His culture was more a culture of shame than ours, so family loyalty was highly prized. Especially as a Jew, fidelity to the family was the penultimate value, right behind fidelity to God. In fact, “honor your father and mother” was the hinge on which the Ten Commandments turned.

As we learned in a past devotional, Jesus’s family didn’t support him or believe in his mission. As Mark 3:21 clearly stated, they thought he’d gone mad. “He is out of his mind,” they said. True, Jesus was not a child anymore at this point, but, we still have to believe that messages like this are hard to absorb from one’s family, even at the age of thirty. Can you imagine if your family thought you had legitimately gone insane? There you are, sitting at home with some friends, when you hear a knock at the door. Your mom and siblings were there to take you away to put you into a home for the mentally ill. How does this scenario sit with you?

This scenario was not hypothetical with Jesus, but this is precisely what happened. Let’s pick up where we left off with Mark 3:31-35. “And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him” (31). They wanted to take him away, because they thought he was insane. How would Jesus deal with his family? In a sense, the fate of the world rested on how Jesus responded to the knock at the door.

Everyone knows family conflict is the worst kind of conflict, so let’s pay attention closely to how Jesus navigated these troubling waters. He did something I call “the reframe,” which I’d like to teach to you, so you can better handle conflicts in life.

“And a crowd was sitting around him [Jesus] and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you’” (Mark 3:32). They were seeking him to put a stop to him. They wanted to take him away by force, shut him up, and disband his ministry, because they thought he was a lunatic. In fairness to them, people were probably giving his family a bad name because of Jesus.

Let’s be honest for a moment, what would we have done? You have a direction or idea for your life, but your family doesn’t support you. You begin to express yourself a certain way and your family mocks you. You start to hang out with people nobody else likes and your family tells you to your face how much they hate your new friends. You start to become more spiritual and your family wonders if you’re in a cult or dabbling in the demonic. All this and more was happening to Jesus. You or I would have been tempted to have a pity party. We would have seriously questioned ourselves, wondering if we’d missed the mark. We would entertain doubt and probably despair, as well. We may even drop our goals and cave to the pressure of our mom, dad, brothers, and sisters. Even as a thirty year old, it’s nearly impossible to outrun the messages of our family.

But here’s what Jesus did, he reframed the entire situation. To reframe is to step back, look at the situation objectively, and retell the ‘story’ to yourself in a positive light. Think of it like this, just like the modern media seems to put a negative spin on the day’s news, to reframe is to put a positive spin on the day’s news. As we’ll learn, the very best way to reframe is to put a ‘gospel’ spin on your life.

So, Instead of falling into the pit of negativity or self-pity, this is what happened:

And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Mark 3:33-34)

If Jesus’s family of origin wasn’t going to support and encourage him, he wouldn’t let it ruin his mission—and thank God for that! In a flash of divine inspiration, he looked at his aggravating situation and put a new frame on it, saying, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

A family is supposed to stick together and help each other achieve goals. The profoundest and truest definition of family is people who help each other do the will of God. Jesus continued, “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” True family members help each other love God, do his will, and stay the course. In that moment, Jesus reframed who his true family was, not the ones banging on the door to take him away from the will of God, but those eager strangers who’d gathered around him to hear more about his mission.

“Here are my mother and my brothers!” What a way to reframe family conflict! Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he took joy in the good he could find around him. And you could do the same.

Maybe your spouse works nights and, as a result, you don’t get to have family dinners together. Instead of bemoaning this, reframe it: you can have breakfasts together and be the first people each other sees every day! Maybe you went through a horrible breakup in a relationship. Instead of beating yourself up and repeating to yourself all the predictable putdowns, reframe your story by celebrating the person you can become. You have the opportunity to learn more about yourself, grow in character, find a new ministry, and become a well of compassion to others in need.

Or perhaps you just had a really bad day. Reframe it and say, “Everybody has bad days and I know good days are to come; one thing I know for sure is God’s mercies are new every morning.”

By reframing your life, you take yourself out of the victim’s seat and learn to see the positive things that are happening in your life. It may take some time to get the hang of, but keep at it and you’ll get better.

Here’s one more thing about learning to reframe. The best “frame” you can use is the cross. The cross is the secret power behind Jesus’s words about his new family. Because Jesus knew about the cross, he was able to foresee it’s profound and eternal effects. The cross tears down walls between people and unites us all as one. Strangers and enemies become family, because of the cross. By peering through the frame of the cross, Jesus could see the reality of his eternal family, even while his earthly family rejected him.

There will be moments in your life that feel cursed, but don’t let the curses of this world write your story. The gospel means your story is actually “good news.” The gospel turns every failure into good news, every loss into good news, every disappointment into good news, and every struggle into good news. How? Jesus absorbed all curses on the cross and exchanged them for blessing. Look through the frame of the cross to reframe your life and discover a treasury of blessing.

We’ll help you along the way as we continue to dig deeper into Mark’s gospel. But for now, that’s the end of chapter three! If these devotionals have been helpful, be sure to share them with your friends!

The Breakdown

Do you have family conflicts? How does knowing a little more about Jesus’s story help?
What are the negative ‘stories’ you’re telling yourself right now? How could you reframe one of them?
The cross is a treasure chest of riches for us. Can you name some of the treasures that come from the cross? Try to name at least ten of them.