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MARK'S GOSPEL IN A SENTENCE: God eternally redeems and righteously rules a people who repent from sin and believe on the crucified and risen Lord of all—Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

1) God Rules: The one true God created us to enjoy and reflect His glory in all His creation.

Key Verses: Mark 1:1-3, 10-11; 2:10-11; 3:14-15, 34-35; 4:39-41

The rule and glory of God is most revealed in the God-man: Jesus Christ. Following Jesus is the only way for us to enjoy and reflect God’s glory under God’s good rule. Jesus is the LORD come to us, displaying the glorious heart of God. Mark’s Gospel describes the glory of God seen in Jesus and what it means to follow Him.

2) Humanity Rebels: We have rebelliously sought our own glory, earning shame and God’s just judgment for our sin.

Key Verses: Mark 5:17; 6:3, 52; 7:20-23; 8:18, 31-32

Rebels of God do not trust Him when He comes to them. As sinners, we try to redefine God. We do not trust who God says He is or that He is good. So, we reject the God of the Bible, His good rule, and His eternal Son. As sinners, this is our response to God.

3) Christ Redeems: As planned and promised, God sent His eternal Son in Christ Jesus to perfectly live, sacrificially die, victoriously rise, sovereignly reign, justly judge, and faithfully save sinners from God’s good wrath.

Key Verses: Mark 8:29-38; 9:7, 31-35; 47; 10:25-30, 36, 44-45

True followers of Christ are made good by God’s Gospel bearing fruit in them. They are not good in it of themselves. The Gospel makes the sinner forgiven…. the selfish selfless… the moralist repentant… and the idolator a true worshiper of God. God is the author and completer of the Gospel. Through it, God does what is humanly impossible: He saves and transforms sinners into a Kingdom of servants to the glory of God.

4) Repent & Believe the Gospel: God is reconciling back to Himself a beloved people born of His Spirit who repent from sin and lovingly follow the Lord Jesus by faith at the hearing of this good news and for all eternity in the new creation to the glory of God.

Key Verses: Mark 11:10, 17, 22; 12:6-9; 13:30-33; 1:14-15; 2:17

Mark’s Gospel shows us what it means to either obey or disobey Jesus’s command to repent and believe the Gospel.

To repent is to turn from and forsake your sin. It is a miraculous change of heart produced by God through the Gospel message. God creates His people by His Word. When you truly repent, you no longer want to be the king of your life. You want Jesus to be your King. You begin to release your grip on your life and lusts.

To believe is to turn to Jesus as your new love and to surrender all control to Him. It is to trust that Jesus died and rose again for your sins. It is to follow Jesus as your Good Shepherd. It is to know that you will never be ashamed of following the crucified and risen King among His people.

Conversion to Christ is a one-time, lasting work of God in which God gives you His Spirit, justifies and forgives you through the blood of Christ, brings you into the new people of God, and makes you an eternal citizen in the Kingdom of God. Repentance from sin and faith in Christ are ongoing evidences that you have been converted by God into being a follower of Christ.

What good is the Gospel doing in you?

Key Verses: Mark 14:8, 22-26, 33-42, 50, 61-62; 15:25, 33-34, 37-39; 16:5-8, 15-16, 19-20; 5:35-36; 9:23-24; 4:13-20

Q: Has God’s Gospel changed you? Through it, has God given you a new heart that longs to follow and worship Jesus like the woman in Mark 14:8?

Q: Do you love to assemble with Jesus’s church and remember the eternal New Covenant, as Jesus did with His disciples in Mark 14:22-26?

Q: Do you follow the heart of Jesus seen while praying in Mark 14:33-42 that longs to do the will of the Father, even when it means suffering?

Q: Do you hold fast to Jesus in the face of affliction and persecution? Do you help His followers do the same? Or, do you forsake Jesus like the disciples in Mark 14:50?

Q: Do you believe that Jesus is reigning over all things at the right hand of the Father, as He told the high priest He would soon be doing in Mark 14:61-62? Do you believe Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, as He confessed?

Q: Do you believe Jesus is the eternal Son of God who was crucified, as seen in Mark 15? Do you have the assurance that Jesus’s death satisfied the just wrath of God for your sins? Do you trust that Jesus died in the place of sinners who have mocked and sinned against Him?

Q: Do you trust that Jesus truly rose from the grave as seen in Mark 16? Do you believe that, by the same power, God will raise those He saves? How are you responding to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?

Q: Does your faith in the Gospel move you to follow Jesus as a baptized member of His church and to preach the Gospel to others?

The Gospel calls us to believe that God is good and that He has made this known in His Son. God’s rule is good. God’s glory is to be enjoyed by us and reflected in us. Jesus is the only way to enjoy God forever. Apart from repentance from sin and faith in Christ, you will die in your sins under the eternal judgment of God.

Q: Is your life joyfully surrendered to Jesus as the King of heaven and earth and to all His teachings? Do you believe He will return, judge the living and the dead, and make all things new?

Q: Are you continuing to hear, receive, and guard the Gospel in your heart, as Jesus explained in Mark 4:14-20? Will you read those words and meditate on them?