Jesus has just taken the Passover meal and turned it into a fulfillment found in him. All the hopes of the Passover would now be fulfilled in Jesus as he has come to liberate the world from their sins which would be forever remembered in the Lord’s Supper. With the memorial complete, Jesus and his disciples walk across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives…

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Who does not love a love story? We are drawn to them as humans. This is why so many books, tv shows, and movies are made regarding love stories. The Hallmark Channel just had a month of movies that are all love stories at Christmas time. We love a good love story. The book of Hosea is God’s love story. It is a book that reveals the heart of God. What God is going to do is unique. He is going to tell his love story for people through a prophet named Hosea. Hosea is the last prophet to proclaim God to the northern nation, called Israel (750-725 BC). God is willing to use his prophets in strange ways to make visual teaching points to his people. God made Isaiah have his rear end hang out so that the people would see that this is how they will go into captivity: naked. God told Jeremiah not to marry. God told Ezekiel to not weep when his wife died and to lie on his side for a year to teach the people a message. God is going to use Hosea to teach a message of love to the people of Israel, but it is going to be a strange, yet amazing love story.

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It is a dark and horrifying scene that is painted for us in Genesis 6. Genesis 6:5 records that human wickedness is great on the earth. Everything they think or imagine is constantly and completely evil. The wickedness is so great that the Lord regrets making humans and he is deeply grieved (6:6). Verse 11 tells us that the earth is filled with violence. Please imagine this world. Not only is everyone only thinking of doing evil, but God looks and see his earth that he made for humans to reflect his image being full of violence. The picture is that the earth has been ruined by humans. The earth is corrupt and all people have corrupted their ways. In verse 7 God declares that he will wipe out the creation because of this corruption. Judgment must come because no one is fulfilling their God-given purpose. But there is one sliver of hope. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord (6:8). As we ended with in the last lesson, we need someone to gain God’s favor to bring us rescue.

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The prophecy of Hosea has been describing the sins and coming judgment against the northern nation, Israel. God has described that their love is like a mist that disappears. God has revealed that they have false hearts that are not truly repentant, but merely say the words. Israel has corrupted themselves, reject God’s prophets, and rely on their own ways and power. Chapter 10 ends by picturing a complete destruction of the nation. It is with this background of judgment that God is going to express the most amazing display of his character in these final chapters…

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We are now in the final sections of the book of Numbers, a book that is preparing the people for entering the promised land. Numbers 31-36 is the final information about the journey to the promised land. We noted in a prior lesson that at this point the people of Israel are on the east side of the Jordan River and are ready to enter the land. Nations that have attacked them have been subjugated. The census has been taken for going to war to take the promised land. Joshua has been chosen by God to lead Israel into the promised land. Moses will not go into the land. Let us consider these final instructions for entering the promised land and what we can learn for our preparation into the promised land.

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The miracles and parables of Jesus were recorded by Mark in this gospel to show who Jesus is and what kind of heart and what kind of faith a person needs to be a follower of him. We noticed in Mark 5 that we cannot come to God with our self-righteousness or goodness. We come to Jesus in the desperation of our sins and Jesus will receive us.

But now the Gospel of Mark shifts back to its overall theme which we have considered as the King’s Cross. Mark is going to highlight in this gospel what discipleship looks like. What does it mean to follow Jesus? What is expected of Jesus’ disciples? What is the cost of discipleship? We are going to see three scenes which may seem to be unrelated yet have a common thread to reveal to us what it means to follow Jesus. So let us look at these three pictures and consider the message of discipleship from Mark 6:1-29.

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The people of Israel are standing at the edge of the promised land, preparing to enter into God’s promises. Moses is delivering his final sermons, instructing the people so that they will be successful when they enter. In Deuteronomy 14-18 the Lord through Moses has given a picture of what he has come to do for his people and what he expects of his people. God’s people are called to be holy because they are his children (14:1-2). The Lord will do great things for his holy people. He will cancel their debts and set them free from their self-inflicted slavery. He will give them leaders who will rule with justice and righteousness. They will have a king appointed by the Lord and priests who will dedicate their lives to work on behalf of the people. Then, one day, they will have a prophet like Moses arise who they will listen to. These are the pictures found in the last section of Deuteronomy. Now the Lord through Moses will give the people pictures of what life will look like in the land they are about to enter. What we are going to see in Deuteronomy 19-25 is the call for the people to act righteously and to love each other.

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The writer of Hebrews has established that we have a great high priest in Jesus who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because he became like us. Thus, rather than being in fear, we are able to approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we can receive mercy and find the grace we need to help in our time of need. Now the writer is going to explain how this works and why this is so important for us.

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We are in the midst of a section of Mark’s gospel where we are seeing who Jesus is and the response people have to this revelation. Mark 7 opens with another conflict with the religious leaders. Mark has not recorded a conflict with the religious leaders since chapter 3. But you will notice that the location in chapter 7 is Jerusalem, which becomes the place of opposition to Jesus.

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Saul has been officially crowned a king of Israel before the Lord and the kingdom has been renewed (11:13). Samuel has given his farewell address and the expectation is for Saul to rule as God’s representative over Israel, restraining the wickedness of the people and turning their hearts toward God. The attention of the account is going to focus on Saul. But we are not just looking at the life of Saul as if this is a history lesson. Rather, God is going to teach us about faith. God is going to show us the kind of faith he wants and what failing faith looks like through the life of Saul. We should not be surprised by this at this point because the book of 1 Samuel has been completely about faith. We have seen the faith of Hannah. We have seen the lack of faith of Israel when fighting the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant is captured. We have seen the faith of Samuel who believes the Lord to be the king while we have seen the lack of faith of Israel who want a human to be their king. We have seen the humility of Saul and his faith in God who gave Israel salvation against the Ammonites at Jabesh-gilead. So our focus is on Saul and God is going to show us faith is supposed to look like and what faith is not supposed to look like…

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The first 11 chapters are God’s introduction of himself to the world and explanation of who we are. In the first two chapters we see that we are made in the image of God, male and female were created by God, and they were created to be different, uniquely filling what the other lacks. Further, we see that marriage is God’s solution for human loneliness. Humans were created for relationship: relationship with God and relationship with others. Today we come to another text where we cannot impose our will or desires over it. The point is not about the serpent or its origins. We are not told why the serpent is doing what it is doing. Genesis 3 is about us and why we are the way we are.

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The Lord has prepared Joshua for leading the people into the promised land, telling him to be strong and courageous because he is with him and will never leave him. In preparation for entering the land, Joshua sends in two men to spy the land, in particular, the town of Jericho. So they go to Jericho and stay in the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab. It is important that we slow down and recognize who Rahab is and not try to sanitize her as a righteous person. She is not. She is a prostitute. She sells her body to men. Now we may wonder why these two men would pick her house as the place for staying. First, this would be a wise place to hide because strangers from around the area would regularly be entering this woman’s house. Nothing would appear out of the ordinary for two strangers to enter her house…

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It is the topic we would probably never want to teach if we had crowds coming to us. We have seen crowds follow Jesus everywhere he goes in the book of Mark. Rather than encouraging greater crowds through easy, popular teachings, we have seen Jesus teach the high cost of discipleship. As Jesus shows his glory to the world, he is teaching people that there is a cost to following him and that those who desire to follow him need to count that cost. The cost of following Jesus includes understanding God’s marriage law. Turn to Mark 10 and let us look at what Jesus teaches.

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We noticed in the last lesson that hope surrounds the birth of Samuel. Hannah’s song speaks of hope in God who will reverse the condition of Israel, taking them from darkness to light, and from judgment to hope. The nation is wicked and there is need for a king who will rule in righteousness and turn the hearts of the people to God. We left the middle of chapter 2 with Samuel left in Shiloh with Eli the priest ministering to the Lord.

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Our biggest challenge is to open our eyes. I am not talking about opening our physical eyes but our spiritual eyes. Sometimes we can think that our greatest challenge is to change our lives. Often Christianity is pictured in this way. You need to change your life. But God tells us that he will change our lives if we will open our eyes. Life change does not happen because our spiritual eyes are not open. Jesus is telling a parable where he is trying to open the eyes of the religious leaders in his day because they are complaining about him welcoming tax collectors and sinners (Luke 15:1-2). In our last lesson we looked at the love and compassion of the father for his lost son. It is a beautiful picture of God’s love and we need to see God’s love toward us as we go through difficult times. Opening our eyes to the love of God is necessary to maintain faith in our Lord. But the parable about the lost son is not complete at verse 24 in Luke 15. Jesus has more to say and more to teach. Up to this point the parable has helped us understand the inexplicable and incomprehensible love of God. Now Jesus is going to make us look at ourselves. Let us return to our text in Luke 15 and read verses 25-32…

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