rumination

Lesson 8 Outline – Mark







  • Introduction
    • Opening remarks and prayer
    • Mark’s personal background and connection to farming
  • Discussion on Mark Chapter 4:1-34
    • Main headline: The “secret of the kingdom of God” (Mark 4:10-12)
    • Explanation of the term “secret” or “mystery” in scripture
    • The kingdom of God revealed in parables
      • Old Testament mystery now revealed through Jesus
      • Jesus’ teaching style and purpose of parables
  • The Parable of the Sower
    • Story of two types of people: those who know Jesus and those who do not
    • Interpretation of the parable elements
      • The sower as Jesus and His followers
      • The seed as the gospel of the kingdom
      • The soils as different heart conditions
  • Lessons from the Parable of the Sower
    • Characteristics of the sower
      • Jesus as a humble, unassuming sower
      • The sower’s indiscriminate scattering of seeds
      • Abundance of seeds symbolizing liberal sharing of the gospel
      • Resilience of the sower despite challenges
    • Illustrative story about the cost of sowing and farming
  • The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20)
    • Call for believers to be sowers of the gospel
    • God’s love for all people (1 Timothy 2:1-6)
    • Encouragement to share the gospel universally, without judgment
  • Personal Reflections and Challenge
    • Reflection on personal hesitation in sharing the gospel
    • Scriptural encouragement (Colossians 4:5-6)
    • Call to prayer for wisdom in sharing the gospel
    • Challenge to listeners: Reflect on their own gospel sharing practices
  • Invitation to Non-Believers
    • Explanation of the gospel message and salvation through Jesus Christ
    • Call to repentance and faith in Jesus
  • Closing Remarks
    • The growth of the kingdom of God from a mustard seed to a global movement
    • Exhortation to fulfill the Great Commission


Mark Study – Lesson 7 Application Questions

  1. Jesus often withdrew to pray, despite the relentless demands of the crowd (Mark 3:9-10). Reflect on your current prayer life. What distractions keep you from spending focused time with God, and how can you prioritize prayer to strengthen your relationship with Him?

  2. In Mark 3:22-27, Jesus challenges the accusation that His work is of Satan by explaining that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. How can this principle apply to your own relationships or personal integrity? Are there areas in your life where division or inconsistency is preventing unity or growth?

  3. Jesus redefines family as those who do the will of God (Mark 3:31-35). What “idols” or misplaced loyalties (e.g., family, career, reputation) might be competing with your devotion to God? How can you re-align your priorities to put God above all else?

Why Fear?

JUNE 28

If God is in control of every aspect of your world and his grace covers all your sin, why would you ever give way to fear?

There are many things I wish were true about me:

I wish I could say that I’m never afraid, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that worry never interrupts my sleep, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that I never wonder what God is doing, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that I never give way to envy, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that I am always aware that God is near, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that I never wonder, “If only_______,” but I can’t.

I wish I could say that I never dread what’s around the corner, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that I always have peace in my heart, but I can’t.

I wish I could say that all that I do is done out of faith and not fear, but I can’t.

You see, I have come to be very aware that although I know the Bible and its doctrine well, the battle between fear and faith still goes on in my heart. Here’s what this means at street level. It is important to understand why fear still lives in the life of a believer in the hallways, kitchens, bedrooms, family rooms, workrooms, and vans of everyday life. You could argue that he or she has every reason to be free of fear, that fear should be an artifact of a former civilization. So why the continued struggle with fear?

Fear lives and rules in the heart of a believer who has forgotten God’s sovereignty and grace. If left to myself, I should be afraid. There are many trials, temptations, dangers, and enemies in this fallen world that are bigger and more powerful than me. I have to deal with many things that are outside my control. But the message of the gospel is that I haven’t been left to myself, that Immanuel is with me in sovereign authority and powerful grace. He rules with perfect wisdom over all the circumstances and locations that would make me afraid. In grace, he blesses me with what I need to face what he has decided to put on my plate. I am never–in anything, anywhere, at any time–by myself. I never arrive on scene first. I never step into a situation that exists outside his control. I never move beyond the reach of his authority. He is never surprised by where I end up or by what I am facing. He never leaves me to the limited resources of my own wisdom, strength, and righteousness. He never grows weary with protecting and providing for me. He will never abandon me out of frustration. I do not need to be afraid. When you forget God’s sovereignty and his grace, you give room in your heart for fear to do its nasty, debilitating work. Pray right now for grace to remember. Your sovereign Savior loves to hear and answer.

For further study and encouragement: Isaiah 44:1–8

Excerpt From

New Morning Mercies

Tripp, Paul David

Hope for Today and Tomorrow

From Paul Tripp’s daily devotional book, New Morning Mercies, some words of encouragement for those struggling with the past:

Quit being paralyzed by your past. Grace offers you life in the present and a guarantee of a future. It is a simple fact of nature that once the leaves are off the tree, you cannot put them back again. Once you have uttered words, you cannot rip them out of another’s hearing. Once you have acted on a choice, you cannot relive that moment again. Once you have behaved in a certain way at a certain time, you cannot ask for a redo. You and I just don’t have the option of reliving our past to try to do better any more than we have the power to glue the leaves back on the tree and make them live once again. What’s done is done and cannot be redone.

But we all wish we could live certain moments and certain decisions over again. If you’re at all humble and able to look back on your past with a degree of accuracy, you experience regret. None of us has always desired the right thing. None of us has always made the best decision. None of us has always been humble, kind, and loving. We haven’t always jumped to serve and forgive. None of us has always spoken the truth. None of us has been free of anger, envy, or vengeance. None of us has walked through life with unblemished nobility. None of us. So all of us have reason for remorse and regret. All of us are left with the sadness of what has been done and can’t be undone.

That’s why all of us should daily celebrate the grace that frees us from the regret of the past. This freedom is not the freedom of retraction or denial. It’s not the freedom of rewriting our history. No, it’s the freedom of forgiving and transforming grace. This grace welcomes me to live with hope in the present because it frees me to leave my past behind. All of what I look back on and would like to redo has been fully covered by the blood of Jesus. I no longer need to carry the burden of the past on my shoulders, so I am free to fully give myself to what God has called me to in the here and now. “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14).

Are you paralyzed by your past? Are you living under the dark shroud of the “if-onlys”? Does your past influence your present more than God’s past, present, and future grace? Have you received and are you living out of the forgiveness that is yours because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? For further study and encouragement: Jeremiah 29:1–14

Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 49.

Mercy

From this morning’s reading of New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp:

“Mercy for others will reveal your ongoing need for mercy, driving you to the end of yourself and into the arms of your merciful Savior.
It’s simply not natural for us. It’s natural to make sure all your needs are met. It’s natural to hoard what you have in the fear that at some point you won’t have enough. It’s natural to carry around with you a long catalog of things you want for yourself. It’s natural to be more in tune with your feelings than with the feelings of others. It’s natural to want mercy for yourself but justice for others. It’s natural to be very aware of the sin of others, yet blind to your own. If we are ever going to be people of mercy, we need bountiful mercy ourselves, because what stands in the way of our being a community of mercy is us!

It’s impossible for me to think about God’s call to us to be his instruments of mercy and not reflect on Jesus’s powerful parable in Matthew 18:21–35. Please stop and read it right now. Christ had two reasons for telling this story. The first was to reveal the heart behind Peter’s question: “All right, Lord, how many times do I have to forgive?” This question evidenced a heart that lacked mercy. Christ’s second reason for telling this story was to reveal our hearts. You see, we’re all the unjust servant. We celebrate God’s mercy but scream at our children when they mess up. We sing of amazing grace but punish our spouses with silence when they offend us. We praise God for his love but forsake a friendship because someone has been momentarily disloyal. We are thankful that we’ve been forgiven but say that a person who is suffering the result of his decisions is getting what he deserves. We bask in God’s grace but throw the law at others. We’re simply not that good at mercy because we tend to see ourselves as more deserving than the poor and needy.

But when God’s call of mercy collides with your lack of mercy, you begin to see yourself with accuracy. You begin to confess that you don’t have inside you what God requires. You begin to admit to yourself and others that you cannot live up to God’s standard, so you begin to cry out for the very thing that you have refused to give to others. And as you begin to remember that God’s mercy is your only hope and you meditate on the grandeur of the mercy that has been showered on you, you begin to want to help others experience that same mercy. You see, to the degree that you forget the mercy you’ve been given, it is easier for you to not give mercy to others. I daily need God’s work of mercy in order to do his work of mercy.”

Ezekiel 18 and Psalm 62-63

Ezekiel 18 is a chapter on personal responsibility. Ezekiel begins the chapter quoting an old proverb and explaining why it is not an acceptable excuse for his listerners to use in excusing their convenant-breaking sin.

The proverb quoted in verse 2, “The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” is also found in Jeremiah 31:29, so it must have circulated both in Jerusalem and among the exiles. Apparently some people were using the saying as a cop-out: there was little they could do with their miserable lot, they were saying, since they were suffering for the sins of their fathers, about which they could do nothing. So instead of pursuing justice and covenant renewal, they were using the proverb as an excuse for moral indifference and tired fatalism.1

As a father, however, I must also remember the strong influence that my actions play in the development of my own children. I do not live my life on an island and my sin does in fact influence my children. Carson explains this reality from today’s reading.

We ourselves know that sin is often social in its effects: for instance, children from backgrounds of abuse often become abusers, children from arrogant homes often become arrogant themselves, or turn out to be broken and bitter. Sin is rarely entirely private and individualistic. The proverb is not entirely wrong.2

Having stated that, however, it is important for me to realize with my own background, that I am entirely responsible and accountable for my own choices and my own sin. I love that this chapter very clearly lays out the facts in this regard. A righteous person will not suffer judgment for the sins of his father. If however, a righteous person turns from his convenant relationship with God and begins to sin, he will be held responsible for that sin. Likewise if a sinful person turns from his sin to follow God and to hold to a convenant, his sins will be forgiven and forgotten and he will experience the blessings of God. D.A. Carson explains this further,

Ezekiel’s point is a little different. God is concerned with every individual: “For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son” (Ezekiel 18:3). Moreover, whatever social consequences there are to sin, one must never use the proverb as an excuse to cover current sin. Individual responsibility always prevails: “The soul who sins is the one who will die” (18:4)3

In Psalm 62, the author repeats the refrain, “He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.”If I trust in anything or anyone else but God for my deliverance, I will be disappointed. Only God can and will protect me. Ps. 62:8 instructs me to trust in Him “…at all times.”

This verse from Psalm 63:1 is very appropriate for me this morning,

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Once again, the psalmist shares his delight in the “steadfast love of God” in Ps. 63:3. Because everything in life seems fleeting and temporary, it is good to be reminded that God’s love endures everything. In a time of life when love seems distant, the reminder of His abiding love is comforting.

1 D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: a Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word., vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 25.

2 Carson.

3 Carson.

First Post

This blog has one sole purpose (Ps. 1). It is a place for me to record my thoughts on the passages from the Bible that I read each day. I believe that journaling is a worthy spiritual discipline and helps me to retain what I read from the Word of God. It also is a way for me to revisit my thoughts later on and reflect on the way that the Holy Spirit has spoken to my heart.

One thing that this blog is not is a place for me to publicize myself. I have other blogs that I have more social interaction with. If anyone discovers this blog, great. If no one finds this blog, that is also fine. If someone does read anything on the pages of this public journal, my hope is that he or she will discover something that might be a blessing.

With that, I am on my way to record my rumination of the Scriptures each day (Josh. 1:8)