This message is adapted for Sunday from the final teaching of the Vista church-wide bible study on Luke's gospel. It covers Luke 22-24 and shows how Luke reveals Jesus as the Host, the Ransom, and the Risen Lord.

One of Jesus' disciples asks what appears to be an innocent question about the Temple. Jesus responds by declaring that the Temple would soon be destroyed. This causes 4 other disciples to ask when will it happen and what are the signs they should look for. The rest of Mark 13 is Jesus' rather long answer to these questions. This text of scripture is very confusing because depending on how you interpret it, it leads many to speculate about events surrounding the end times. But what is Jesus really trying to communicate here and what should we take away from this text?

A poor widow gives away all that she has, leaving us with some questions. When is the last time you gave so much it hurt? Does your generosity constrain your luxuries, or do your luxuries constrain your generosity?

In I Cor. 15 the Apostle Paul is writing to the church about how belief in the resurrection of Jesus is essential to the Christian faith. And while there is a lot of biblical, historical, and circumstantial evidence of the resurrection, our challenge is to move beyond a mental or cognitive acknowledgement of it, to living our lives in light of this reality. The question we should ask ourselves is... what difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in our lives?  

Are ambition and striving good or bad? Depends on what we're striving after, and how we're striving. Jesus reminds us striving for excellence is good, but striving for superiority is forbidden.

Jesus calls us to let our light shine. How can we when we seem to be running on fumes? We accept, not resist God's shaping of us. We allow His fire to consume the things we hold too tightly, so His light can shine through us.

As the ministry and popularity of Jesus grows, so does the conflict around him. Now he's being falsely accused by the religious specialist and even his own family don't seem to be in his corner. But this doesn't stop him from speaking difficult truths to them. He tells them that he's going to re-order the entire framework of their society, the family, by building a new family not based on biology but based on obedience to God. And a core attribute of this house must be unity.  

Jesus' conflict with the Pharisees explodes in the form of two dustups over proper behavior on the Sabbath. Jesus is angered at and grieved by the Pharisees' hardness of heart. But how does one get a hard heart? By overestimating our ability to justify ourselves and underestimating God's desire to show mercy.

Action Step: Be a defender and advocate instead of an accuser.

Throughout the gospels you find many stories with a familiar cast of characters. You have a crowd of people, a person or small group who have faith, religious leaders who are the antagonists, and Jesus himself. If we pay attention, each character or group has something to teach us. In this very familiar story from early in Jesus' ministry, we get some good reminders about our own faith from the characters involved.

In Mark 1:32-45, we see Jesus drawing rough crowds, avoiding attention and celebrity, and embracing the shamed and ashamed people.

Action Step:

Audit your attention and ask yourself if you and yours are paying attention to the right people.