Jesus is stronger than all your demons. He can free every captive. He can break the grip of what breaks you. But freedom is costly. It cost Jesus and it will cost you. The people of ancient Decapolis preferred pigs and demons to Jesus. What about you? Join us as we examine Mark 5:1-20 and consider Jesus’ power over every demon and our response to Him.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
01/05/2025 | “Storm Warnings” | Mark 4:35-41
Mark’s account of Jesus calming of the storm is compelling. With eyewitness details & echoes of Jonah, we see Jesus’ humanity & divinity, calm & becalming, rebuked & rebuking. And in his disciple’s question a fear more potent than the fear of death. Listen as we examine Mark 4:35-41 and consider its warnings to us about what it means to follow Jesus.
12/29/2024 | “The Great Exchange” | 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Literature is filled with compelling stories of exchanged lives — The Prince and the Pauper, or A Tale of Two Cities. But there is no more compelling story than the “Son of God becoming man, so that men could become sons of God.” Join us as we examine 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 and conclude our study of the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s teaching on the Incarnation by considering the costliest exchange in history — the humiliation of Christ.
D-Day
I grew up with them. They seemed unremarkable. Hard workers, who loved their wives, were regular at church, and often gathered outside the front doors of the sanctuary to finish that last cigarette before service began. Their banter was lighthearted. Laughter and opinions were copiously offered. The aroma of Old Spice and Vitalis was never absent. They were a band of brothers, bound by a time and place far removed from the peace of my childhood.
I had heard of some of those places. Bataan, Coral Sea, Okinawa, Normandy. Places that, when voiced, would silence laughter and quiet banter. The old men of my childhood were the boys that fought some of the most devastating battles of the Twentieth Century. Some endured the horrors of Japanese prison camps. Others landed on French beaches, code-named ‘Utah’ and ‘Omaha’ to face the furor of Der Fuhrer.
The German strategy was simple: engage the massive Allied invasion force at the waterline and do not allow them to make it off the beach. And many did not. D-Day, June 6, 1944, was a pivotal day in modern history. While not the end of WWII, it was certainly the turning point. A day that demonstrated that Hitler’s days were numbered. And his grip on Europe would be broken. In less than a year, the Allies would be in Berlin and the malignant tyrant, whose name is even now synonymous with evil, would lie dead in a secret bunker.
In Mark 5 we encounter another amphibious assault of sorts. After a long day of teaching, Jesus instructs his disciples to cross over the Sea of Galilee to the Eastern shore, the region of the Decapolis, the land of Gentiles. Jesus never explains the move to the disciples. And the journey quickly becomes deadly when a hurricane-like squall strikes. The scene in the boat is one of terror. The disciples wake Jesus, sleeping in the stern, and with a word he does what no mere man can do, stilling the winds and calming the waves. In awe the disciples ask, “Who is this?”
However, peace is short lived. Characteristically, Mark notes, “when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.” In fact, this man was the paradigmatic wretch, possessed by a legion of demons. His personality almost completely indistinguishable from the demonic horde he hosted. His violence, his strength, his misery, his terror was infamous in the Decapolis. Surely here Jesus has met his match. Like Goliath of old, Legion rushes to engage Jesus and prevent him from breaking its grip on the region.
But Jesus had come to destroy the works of the devil. With power and authority, he binds the strong man and plunders one of his most prized possessions. The man, known far and wide, as hopeless is set free, though it came at a cost! And like the disciples in the boat, the people of the Decapolis are afraid of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ that brings peace. But what happens next is truly shocking. The freed man begs to be with Jesus, but the people of the Decapolis beg Jesus to leave. They preferred their pigs and their demons to Jesus.
What about you? Jesus is stronger than all your demons. He can free every captive. He can break the grip of what breaks you. But freedom is costly. It cost Jesus and it will cost you. The people of ancient Decapolis preferred pigs and demons to Jesus. What about you? What do you prefer to following Jesus?
Join us as we examine Mark 5:1-20 and consider Jesus’ power over every demon and our response to Him. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
Storm Warnings
We’ve all heard the old mariner’s proverb. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.” Long before the complexities of modern meteorology, the proverb was the gold standard of weather prediction.
The science is simple. Weather systems generally move from west to east. High pressure systems trap airborne particles within a stable air mass. This diffuses the shorter wavelength colors in the spectrum but allows longer wavelength reds and oranges to reach your eye. If the evening sky is red, the stable, high-pressure system is west of you and fair weather is on its way.
But behind high pressure systems are the low pressure ones which bring stormy weather. If the morning sky is reddish, then the fair weather is passed, and stormy weather may be moving in. This simple observation has guided weather forecasting for millennia. And our proverb is so old that we find Jesus quoting it.
And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So, he left them and departed. -Matthew 16:1-4
Our ability to predict the weather, to ‘see the signs,’ is light years ahead of the ancient mariner’s ditty. We have 24-hour news channels, weather apps that notify us of turbulent weather anywhere on the globe, and watches with sophisticated sensors that can forecast both the meteorological and the medical storms forming on our horizon.
But are we any better at understanding who Jesus is? Are Jesus’ words to ancient unbelievers even more pointed in our day? Despite all we have seen, heard, and learned of him, is Jesus’ rebuke of his disciples on a becalmed lake apt for us, “why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
It is easy when reading the Gospels to get caught up in the emotions, the personalities, and the crises of the stories and forget they are God’s Word to us. Given to expose us for who we are and reveal to us who Jesus really is. In Mark 4:35-41 we encounter a compelling account of Jesus calming the storm, a story recounted in Matthew and Luke as well.
With all the marks of an eyewitness account, we see a turbulent storm and turbulent disciples. We hear echoes of Jonah’s story in both comparison and in contrast. We see Jesus’ humanity and divinity. We see him calm and becalming, harshly rebuked and gently rebuking. We see the disciples’ fear of death replaced by an even more potent fear. And in the intensity of the story, there are warnings about what it means to follow Jesus.
Join us as we examine Mark 4:35-41, the calming of the storm, and consider its warnings to us about what it means to follow Jesus. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
The Great Exchange
Our tech inevitably changes our behavior. At first it mimics us, seeking to automate and streamline, manual time-consuming tasks. But before long, the roles are reversed. And our behavior mimics our tech. As the internet moved from academic curiosity to commercial platform, retailers struggled to leverage this direct access to consumers. There were actual obstacles to virtual shopping. Shipping costs and the complexity of item returns created trepidation for buyers. Enter Amazon Prime. However you feel about Amazon, their introduction of free-shipping and no-hassle returns, more than any other innovation, opened the floodgates for ecommerce.
We all want gift exchanges to be easy. No one wants to wait in line at Customer Service only to get store credit. No one wants to search endlessly to find the return right address for a mail-order purchase and then have to pay shipping equal to the item’s original price. Until Amazon, the cost of gift exchanges was high. But now online retailers have made this process virtually painless. Click, print, and take the return to the UPS Store. Voila! You are done. Ease of exchange has been revolutionary. Anymore we are shocked at a seller that expects us to pay return shipping. Forgotten are the days of difficult exchanges.
So perhaps it is extremely difficult grasp of the fullness of what it cost Jesus to make the greatest exchange. When we think of the Incarnation, we consider the poverty and obscurity of his coming or of the constant rejection he experienced – “He came to His own, but His own received Him not.” But our thinking about his humiliation never goes far enough. We think of his humility in terms of what would humble us. But the very act of the eternal God taking upon himself our nature is a humiliation of inconceivable magnitude. While grace is free to us, it is not cheap. All the brokenness and curse and wrath of God that our sin brings and deserves was placed upon him. And all the righteousness that he attained is accounted to us, when we give ourselves to him. The Apostle Paul pens this great mystery concisely when he wrote.
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
The incarnation was the costliest exchange in the history of gift giving. God’s grace and mercy toward us came at an unfathomable cost. Our forefathers expressed described this cost as Christ’s humiliation and described it this way in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
Q. 27. What did Christ’s humiliation consist of? A. Christ’s humiliation consisted of his being born in a low condition, living under the Law, undergoing the miseries of this life, undergoing the wrath of God and the cursed death of the Cross, and in being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time.
Yet this costliest of exchanges brings about the most extraordinarily exchanged lives in the recipients of God’s gracious gift. Paul describes this exchanged life in 2 Corinthians 5.
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Literature is filled with compelling stories of exchanged lives — The Prince and the Pauper, or A Tale of Two Cities. But there is no more compelling story than the “Son of God becoming man, so that men could become sons of God.” This week as we conclude our study of the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s teaching on the Incarnation by considering the costliest exchange in history — the humiliation of Christ.
Join us as we examine 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 and consider what this exchange meant for Jesus and what it means for us. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
12/15/2024 | “Who Is This?” | John 1:1-5, 9-14
Who is Jesus? Our seasonal displays of baby Jesus in a cattle stall show his humanity. But in the opening of his gospel, John pulls back the curtain to reveal the rest of the story. Do you know who Jesus is? Listen as we examine John 1:1-5, 9-14.
Lessons and Carols, 2024
The story of Christ’s coming is the most dramatic story ever told. While it reaches a beautiful high point with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, there is much more to this story – a story with origins in eternity past and implications in eternity future, a story of epic failure and dramatic rescue, a story that reveals a God quite different from the one our fears imagine.
Come and experience the rest of this story in God’s own words and in song as we share in An Evening of Lessons and Carols together at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, December 24. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn. Get directions here or contact us for more info.
A Great Mystery
We live in a world filled with mystery. We believe we live in an age of hard facts and scientific data. We pretend that with enough computing power and scientific inquiry, every question can be answered, every mystery resolved. Indeed, we have accumulated much in the way of knowledge. Ironically, knowledge and mystery increase in direct proportion. The more we understand the world the less we understand how it works. The more we know, the more we know what we do not know.
From our digital age, we look with smug superiority upon our forebears, quibbling about with pens and paper. While we struggle to use our smart phones without consulting a small child. Our technology is a mystery to us. We think we have explored the earth — no new lands to discover and conquer, but we know less about the floor of the ocean, which covers two thirds of our planet, than we do about the surface of the moon.
We cannot explain even the simplest things we observe every day. The sun, moon, and constellations are large on the horizon, yet seem to diminish in size as they rise overhead. Yet if you hold out your thumb to the rising moon, then again when it is at its zenith, you will discover absolutely no difference. What accounts for this remarkable trick of perspective? Neither scientists nor psychologists can explain it. And when you go to your favorite drive-in and order a milk shake, why does it give you a brain freeze? Despite well-funded research, scientists have not determined the cause. Our world is awash in mystery.
Some of these mysteries involve great contradictions — irreconcilable, yet indispensable truths. In the early part of the Twentieth Century, as scientists observed sub-atomic matter, they realized that the physics of their day no longer explained the behavior of the nano-world. A new physic, quantum physics, was born to account for what Sir Isaac Newton never even knew existed.
At the center of this new understanding was a radical new idea – that light acted but as a wave and as a particle. No one could explain it, but accepting this mystery was foundational in constructing a model of physics that explained the sub-atomic world. Seemingly irreconcilable, yet indispensable truths, that make the world go round.
This type of tension is no surprise to the Christian. The Christian faith is filled with paradox. Indispensable truths in tension with one another. “Truths,” as one theologian quipped, “to be believed, not discovered.” Truths such as the absolute sovereignty of God and the undeniable reality of true human freedom. And an even more incomprehensible mystery. The truth of a Savior who is fully God and, at the same time, fully man – two natures, in one person, forever. Yet, the scripture does not discourage “faith seeking understanding.” God has given us minds that desire to know His truth, to seek and find what He has revealed.
In Luke 1:26-38, we have one of the most remarkable stories in scripture. The angel, Gabriel comes to Mary with a startling announcement — she will be the mother of her Savior. Unlike the fearful skepticism of Zechariah, Mary asks “how will these things be?” A question we all wrestle with as we consider the nature of our Savior as fully God and fully man. But in the answer, scripture points us to one of the most precious truths of our faith. Because Mary asked this question, we, along with our forefathers can turn to scripture to ask.
Q22: How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
A22: Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her yet without sin.
Join us as we examine Luke 1:26-38 and consider this question, why it is important and how we are to respond. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
12/08/2024 | “The Plan” | Ephesians 1:3-10
The world is not “off the rails.” God’s plan is unfolding, just as He intended. And in this we have hope. Join us as we examine Ephesians 1:3-10 and consider God’s eternal, unbreakable, and effective plan to save us from the power of our sin.
Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church 