Crunched fenders.  Irreparably crooked handlebars.  And a serious case of road rash.  These were the minor consequences of an epic bike crash.  Sure, there was the occasional broken arm.  But it was something else we truly dreaded.  We knew that a bike wreck would inevitably summon our mothers with a first aid remedy formulated by demons.

Mercurochrome was one of many common mercury-based antiseptics in use in the Seventies.  It was a bright red liquid fire in a tiny brown bottle.   Our mothers would liberally paint it on our open wounds.  And whatever pain you felt from the road rash was quickly forgotten when the searing pain of mercurochrome took hold. 

Mercurochrome and other drugs containing mercury first came under scrutiny in 1978 as part of the FDA’s general review of over-the-counter antiseptics.  While there was no evidence of mass Mercurochrome poisoning, medical literature contained scattered reports of mercury toxicity due to its use.  It took another twenty years for the FDA to declare mercurochrome “not generally recognized as safe and effective” and forbid its sale across state lines.   Children today have no idea how good they have it with lidocaine and triple-antibiotic ointment.

Despite the toxic things we put on, and in, our bodies, God has made our frame fearfully and wonderfully able to fight all kinds of disease and effect remarkable healing.  The healing of a simple wound or cut is nothing short of miraculous.  The human body has a truly remarkable ability to heal.  

But when wounds do not heal, they may become septic and deadly.  And this is true of other types of wounds we receive.  When emotional and spiritual wounds go unhealed, they become septic to our heart, mind, and spirit.  And no spiritual wound is more toxic than unforgiveness.  The author of Hebrews warns us.

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.  Hebrews 12:15.

Grace and the bitterness of unforgiveness are antithetical.  The biblical word for forgiveness means to “send away” or “release.”  Linguists point out that the ancient words we translate ‘forgiveness’ are connected to untying a knot.   And indeed, when we are unforgiving or unforgiven, we are tied in knots.  Only grace can cut through the Gordian knot of unforgiveness and affect deep healing. 

Psalm 130 speaks of “plenteous redemption.”  Leviticus 16:30 promises, “For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.” The OT Prophets speak of God casting “all [our] sins behind his back” and “into the sea of forgetfulness.”  Separating us from our sin as far as east and west.  

Likewise, the New Testament tells us that Jesus came “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.” And Paul writes, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”  

And in Mark 3, in response to men who were enemies of grace, Jesus makes a truly amazing statement. “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.”  Matthew’s parallel account even adds, “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven.”   This is outrageous grace.   This gives even the most grievous sinner hope. Through repentance and faith, none of our sins form an impenetrable barrier to God’s love! 

But this outrageous grace is immediately contrasted with stunning warning about unbelief.  What follows is unarguably the most frightening passage in the Bible. “But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.” 

What exactly is this unpardonable, unforgiveable sin?  What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?  And more to the point have you committed the “sin unto death” from which there is no hope of grace, mercy, or salvation but only the wrath and curse of God?   Without a doubt, this verse weighs heavily on us in the dark of night. 

Join us as we examine Mark 3:20-35 and consider what Jesus is saying about faith and unbelief in this passage and what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.  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 us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

I had a strong arm.  But I was a big target.  And it was that which seriously reduced my capital as a teammate.  Elementary school dodgeball was a hotbed of competition and controversy.  No one wanted to waste their pick on an easy target.  And so, I waited.  And I waited.   Until the process of elimination saddled one hapless team with me as their last round draft pick.

I loved school, but recess was not my strong suit.  The Presidential Fitness Test and choosing teams were a definite low ebb in my institutional experience.  The order of selection was predictable.  Tony Fulcher and Roy Daffron were always first.  And I was often, if not always, last.   I sometimes thought that if the teams could have opted out of the process of elimination, they would have when it came to me.  Perhaps you know the angst of choosing teams.

But as with most things in God’s grace-based economy, last things are first things.  And unprofitable ones are chosen ones.  Incapable servants are made competent and do remarkable things.  It is the theme of the Bible that those unworthy and unlikely to ever be chosen are elected by the free grace of God alone and empowered to turn the world upside down. 

The Apostle Paul wrote half the New Testament, planted unknown numbers of churches, was responsible for explosive kingdom expansion and yet he writes.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant.  -2 Corinthians 3:4-6

God chose an entire nation to be His treasured people, yet he reminds them.

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you.  -Deuteronomy 7:6-8

It is God who “arranges the members in the body, each one of them, as he [chooses].”  The body of Christ is not a meritocracy based on skill, prominence, or net worth.   Despite what we think, these have no power to expand the kingdom of God.  The New Testament reminds us that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

Nowhere is this dynamic more on display than in Jesus’ selection of the Twelve in Mark 3.  None of those men applied for the position of apostle or submitted to tryouts, auditions, or examinations.   Jesus made the choices, choosing those whom he desired.  And the list of the Twelve is like a highlighter, underscoring that they were “uneducated, common men,” often very dull, whose only qualification was that they had been with Jesus.

Mark 3:7-19 gives a vivid picture of the crushing demands of following Christ and of God’s grace in choosing and sending us to meet those demands.  This passage unfolds God’s purpose in choosing us, his plan for our calling, and an important portrait of the people God chooses and uses.  

Join us as we examine Mark 3:7-19 and consider purposes, plans, and people of God’s choosing. 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 us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Dizzy Dean, Ted Williams, and Jesus.  Somehow Carl Hall could unite their stories in a compelling way that kept seven ten-year-old Royal Ambassadors focused and engaged for a whole half hour before he would take us to the church parking lot and instruct us on the art of the curve ball.  He seemed ancient, but did not have one curmudgeonly bone in his body.  Though we were sure he could get mad. Carl Hall never let us see him angry.  And we gave him plenty of opportunities. 

Some people are like that.  With the patience of Job, they roll with whatever frustration, adversity, or disappointment comes their way with grace and peace.   Yet occasionally we see their “bridge too far.”  When the outer boundaries of their patience are breached.  Their dominion sensor tripped.  Their sacred profaned.  Or a deeply held conviction scorned.  Then you see that flash of intensity.  A moment of light and heat.  A righteous indignation that commands attention by its rarity.

No man ever exhibited patience like the Lord Jesus.  Indeed, he is gentle and meek.  The helplessness of the crowds, the dullness of the disciples, the despair of Pilate and the ignorance of his executioners all reveal his remarkable tenderness and compassion.  But it is always an error to confuse meekness for weakness.  After all, it is the meek who will inherit the earth!  Moses was described as the meekest man on the face of the earth.  And he was no pushover.  

The earthly life of Jesus, as described by the gospels, reveals clearly what the author of Hebrews summarizes, that “he had to be made like [us] in every respect.”  And our catechism notes.

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. -Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 22.

‘A true body and a reasonable soul’ speaks of true humanity.  Jesus was no apparition.  No mere theophany in human form.  He was a real man.  He ate, slept, got tired, and was tempted in every way as we are.  And he got angry.  So angry that the Gospel of John tells us that he made “a whip of cords and drove [all the merchants] out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen.  And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.”  

He was indignant with the disciples when they kept children from coming to him.  He sharply rebuked James and John when they asked to call down fire on an unfriendly village.  At the grave of Lazarus he wept, but he was also “deeply moved in his spirit and troubled” at the unbelief of the people. 

And in chapter 3 of Mark’s Gospel Jesus is angry with those who prefer Sabbath rigor over compassionate care for a disabled man.   So angry that the word Mark uses to describe it is found only here in the New Testament.  And while Mark shows more of Jesus’ emotions than other gospel writers, the intensity of Jesus’ response to the scribe’s hard-heartedness is found elsewhere only during Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane.  

Jesus’ anger that Sabbath in the synagogue exposed much more than a lack of compassion.  It revealed a preference for the words of men over the word of God.  And a love of self above every other love.  Graceless religion is the most insidious expression of man in his fallenness.   It despises the love of God and the person of His Son.  And it made Jesus angry.    

Join us this week as we examine Mark 3:1-6 and consider what makes Jesus angry. 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 us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Advice is plentiful, but success is elusive.  Rarely do we rise from our sleep of a morning declaring, “that was a hall-of-famer.”  Yesterday’s burdens lasted longer than daylight. They make us unrested, weary our souls, load us with the world’s cares.  The strongest morning joe cannot take off the edge.  Or restore what tension has taken from us.  The Curse is strong.  What little we know of our own and others’ lives press down with a gravity no planet can muster.

We know all the tricks.  Turn off our screens.  Get more natural light during the day.  Set the thermostat lower.  Hang blackout curtains. We don’t eat after 7pm. Or drink coffee after noon.  Reserve our bed for sleep.  Drink chamomile tea.  And try to stop thinking, “If I don’t fall asleep soon, tomorrow will be ruined.”  Yet all the “Quick, Proven Ways to Get Better Sleep” the internet boasts fail to include the one thing man was given by his Maker for rest.

Before man had lived a full day,

…on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.   Genesis 2:1

When God graciously takes a people to be his own, blessed people, he instructs them.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:8-11

No other religion in the ancient world had a day of rest.  Work, work, works!  All the ancient and contemporary world’s idolatrous religions command man to work harder, be better, do more.  And man’s fallen, cursed, twisted nature pines for Adam’s Covenant of Works.  Striving to be his own god, to ascend to the heavens by the work of his own hands.  But the Tower of Babel is never tall enough.  Only the gracious giver of all good and perfect gifts can command, promise and provide rest.  

The Bible is filled with promises for rest.  Psalm 127 declares, “He gives to his beloved sleep.”  And the author of Hebrews encourages us that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.” And one of Jesus’ sweetest invitations is “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Only God’s grace brings a rest that refreshes body, mind, and spirit. And the Sabbath is both the root and goal of our restfulness.  It is a sign of God’s gracious gift and a means of grace which grants it.  Yet we often attempt to turn even that into work.   We encumber the observance of the Sabbath with legalism, tedium and guilt.  And it becomes a thing to be rested from rather than rested in.

Nothing steals God’s gracious provision of rest through the Sabbath like legalism.  We see this in hard-heartedness of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  Rather than resting on the Sabbath they are following Jesus, spying on him and scrutinizing his every move in order to find some basis for accusation.   And in Mark 2:23-28, they desecrate the very Sabbath they accuse Jesus’ disciples of defiling by their hardness of heart.

In response to their complaint, Jesus gives one of the most important principles of Sabbath-keeping.  “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So, the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”   Far from adding laxity to Sabbath observance, Jesus points out the beauty and purpose for God’s gift of rest through the Sabbath.  A gift that brings rest like nothing else.

Join us as we examine Mark 2:23-28 and consider how we are the think rightly about the Lord’s Day and how we observe it.   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 us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Opposites attract!  The maxim is undeniably true in electromagnetism.   But not reliably so for relationships.  Molecular bonds are strong and binding.  But in relationships, while opposites may attract, they often fail to form strong bonds.  Intimacy and like-mindedness are directly proportional.  The former will only increase as the latter increases. 

Opposites in personality and giftings may offer complementary strength.  But if the opposition strikes at core values the relationship is doomed. Some things can simply never coexist without destruction.   Some things just do not play nicely with others.  Despite the seeming tolerance of “COEXIST” bumper stickers, the reality is that some things are fundamentally irreconcilable. 

In fact, even that word, “coexist” unwittingly expresses the impossibility of what it aspires to promote.  To exist simultaneously, but not together.  To exist separately, tolerantly, but without any basis for exercising real love.   In 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, then Wal-Mart President, Don Soderquist addressed the Information Systems Division in which I worked.  He said something that struck a chord, “Tolerance is a passive form of hatred.”

Love does not simply “coexist.”  Love recognizes that some things are not compatible.  Love does not just go along to get along.   Love draws lines, love makes new demands, love does not settle for the status quo.  As Jesus comes forth proclaiming the Gospel and the Kingdom, he draws lines, makes demands and challenges the status quo.   The Gospel of Mark finishes only one chapter before Jesus’ acclaim turns to controversy.  Jesus forgives sins, receives sinners, and explodes every self-righteous religious view of his contemporaries with the long-promised grace of God. 

Often the Law and the Gospel are set in opposition.  And to be sure there are proper distinctions, but, as Paul reminds us in Romans 3:31, “Do we overthrow the Law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”  No, it is not the Law and the Gospel which are in opposition, but it is the Gospel and “works righteousness” that are in opposition.   And they simply cannot coexist.  The confusion of Jesus’ contemporaries was that they could be justified by God through their own piety and qualified obedience to the law.  

While the Scribes and Pharisees felt the weight of God’s law, they failed to find it weighty enough.  They constructed a fence of human tradition they believed would allow them to keep it sufficiently to be declared righteous in God’s sight.  Yet Jesus would teach time and time again, “you have heard it said, but I tell you.”  And then he would take the law to the heart, where the scribal fence had gaping holes.  Jesus minced no words, calling proselytes of the scribes and the Pharisees, “twice as much a child of hell” as they were.

Grace and works-righteousness simply cannot coexist.   And the collision of these views accelerated Jesus’ controversy with the religious leaders to the point that very early they are plotting his death.   Why don’t you fast like us?   Why don’t you observe the Sabbath like us?  Why don’t you wash your hands like us?  They wanted Jesus’ teaching to conform to the shape of their dried out old wineskins.   But the Gospel explodes the old wineskins of self-righteous, works-righteousness.  And shreds the worn-out garments of grace-plus-works salvation.   The Gospel gives the joy of a wedding feast, not the sorrow of a fast. 

Join us as we examine Mark 2:18-22 and consider Jesus’ response to demands that the gospel coexist with somber, self-righteous religion.  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 us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.