our Adult Bible Fellowship as we continue our study of the Gospel of Mark. We were just watching a video off air that was a series of interviews done in New York City asking different individuals, random people, who is Jesus Christ? And there was a lot of random answers, a lot of different things. If you're interested in the video, please contact me and let me know. I'll send you the link if you wanted to watch it, or if anyone here wanted to watch it again, or maybe you wanna share it with someone. As an evangelistic tool, it might be helpful. But we're gonna be talking today about the identity, purpose, and destiny of Jesus Christ, as found in Mark chapter eight, starting in verse 27 to 30. So who is Jesus Christ? That is the question. It is the question. And as I stated earlier, it was being asked by people in Jesus' day as he was walking the earth. And it has continued to be asked by people in every generation since then, including our own, as we just saw in this video, who is Jesus? And as we saw, there's a lot of confusion about Jesus' identity, and there's a lot of different theories, a lot of different ideas out there about that. So as we go through this passage, I really want us to focus on that. In fact, I wanna show you some verses, places that we've studied already that talk about the identity of Christ, and as we've studied in the Gospel of Mark, people have been asking this question all along, and they will continue to ask it throughout the Gospel. So as we're studying, be looking for these. In Mark 1.27, it says, they were all amazed. So that they questioned among themselves, what is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. Now, they're not asking who, they're asking what, but it's tied to his identity. How can someone do the things that he does? In Mark 2, verse 7, why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone? Of course, this was going on in the hearts of the Pharisees who had come to watch Jesus. He had just healed a paralytic who was let down through the roof, but the first thing he does before he heals him, remember, he says, your sins are forgiven you. They're saying, only God can do that. How can this man do this? Mark 3 verse 21, but when his own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of him, for they said he is out of his mind. If you remember, he had been doing some healings and teachings, and his own people, we believe, were possibly some of his own family members, his brothers, and possibly his Mary got even swept up, his own mother, into this false thinking about his identity. Well, he's just crazy. That's who he is. 3 verse 22, the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said this about Jesus, he has Beelzebub and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons. He's a demon possessed man. Mark 4 41, the disciples are in the boat and they have to wake Jesus up and he calms the storm and they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? Mark 6, verses 2 and 3, and when the Sabbath had come, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many hearing him were astonished, saying, where did this man... Now, in our New King James translation, and many of them, other versions have it capitalized. Well, they weren't really capitalizing it. That's for the reader's benefit. That was a small M man to them. Where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to him, that such mighty works are performed by his hands? Is this not the carpenter? That's his identity. He's the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us, so they were offended at him. Of course, this is when Jesus is in Nazareth. He goes back to his hometown. They're offended by him. Herod had some ideas about Jesus. Now King Herod heard of him, for his name had become well known, and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him. So Herod had a theory about Jesus' identity. Well, it's John the Baptist come back from the dead. Mark 6.15, others said it is Elijah, and others said it is the prophet, or like one of the prophets. In John 8, we'll leave Mark for a moment. In John 8, verse 24, it says, therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. Jesus' identity is directly tied to salvation. We must understand who he is and believe in that Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus of the Gospels. We must understand that and believe in him based on his death, burial, and resurrection. There's a lot of false Jesuses out there, isn't there? There's a lot of false ideas. We just saw them in the video we watched. Well, he was a good person. He embodied everything good. He was a messenger. He was a son of God, but so was Muhammad, and so are we. We're all the children of God. That's what one lady said in the video. Bringing Jesus down to the human level. That's not the Jesus that we're to believe in for salvation. So who was Jesus? We're gonna look quickly, as quickly as we can, but not rushing through, the identity, the purpose, and the destiny of Jesus. So I don't know if everyone got an outline that we did have some copies available, but we're gonna just walk through this Three points, hopefully, as we go along here. The identity, the purpose, destiny of Jesus. First of all, the identity of Jesus. Follow with me in Mark chapter eight, verse 27. Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi, and on the road he asked his, excuse me for a minute, He asked his disciples, saying to them, who do men say that I am? Who do men say that I am? Well, let's briefly talk about where he is geographically. Caesarea Philippi is marked there. I know the print is small. I couldn't get it bigger, but if you look at the blue body of water, that's the Sea of Galilee. Just go north and just up and to the right a little bit. Caesarea Philippi was located about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It was a pagan worship center. It was once called Penaeus, and it contained a grotto dedicated to the pagan god Pan. A temple was later constructed there by Herod the Great, and he dedicated that to Emperor Augustus. After Herod's death, his son Philip became the ruler of that region and renamed it Caesarea Philippi after Caesar and himself. A spring flowed out of the ground there and the pagan sacrifices took place in those waters. And there's just some photographs of this region. I don't know if Jesus was right in this, in here. I believe he was right in this region that we're seeing. And here's the pictures of the different grottos, places where the idols would have been placed in those places there. You can see that are carved out of the rock. Why were Jesus and his disciples there? They were moving away, and I believe Jesus, of course, everything he did was on purpose and for a reason, but taking his disciples, once again, away from the crowds, away from the busyness of the ministry, and he's really beginning, he's about to begin a new teaching series. We've been in the Gospel of Mark. This is our 39th lesson in this series on Mark. And when we started, it was new. When Jesus brought them here, He is going to begin this new teaching series. He's gonna start to show them and teach them things that he has not previously taught them. And of course, they don't fully understand it, and I don't know that we would have any better, but in any case, the disciples had been seeing Jesus in action. They'd been there as he was teaching. They're listening along with the crowds. And remember, he would take them aside privately and explain the parables to them. And so he was teaching the crowds and them, but then he also had a more personal teaching ministry with just the disciples. And this is one of those cases. And as they've been learning and growing, they have not though come to understand what kind of a Messiah Jesus was. And that's what I wanna talk about. And that's what Jesus focused on. Jesus now begins to teach them more directly than ever before. and what has been hinted at as now being made plain. So he asked the men, who do men say that I am? If we go to the next verse, the disciples answered. This is what the people are saying. This is the chatter. This is what's going on. This is kind of the gossip as people are whispering and talking and trying to figure out who this man is, Jesus of Nazareth, because nothing good comes out of Nazareth anyway, so how can this possibly be true? All these conversations are going on and rumors are spreading. So they answered John the Baptist, but some say Elijah and others one of the prophets. So perhaps John the Baptist was the most favored view. Certainly Herod believed that as we saw earlier. And so perhaps that was the most popular idea. But then others were comparing him to Elijah or one of the other prophets. Jesus then turns the question to them. And he said to them, in verse 29, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ. You are the Christ. As we think about this and we think about all these ideas, going back to this verse, and thinking about the video that we watched, I think it's important to understand, for us to understand, what the world thinks of Jesus. I think Jesus is asking them this as a point of reference. He's exposing the world at that time for their beliefs. He's helping his disciples think through this. Think about what people believe about Jesus. Understand what they're saying. I think we need to do the same. We need to understand what our world believes about Jesus' identity. It is the way that we can have conversation. It is the way that we can draw out or come to a place in a conversation that leads to the gospel. We have to be willing to understand, I believe, what people think. Of course, we need to know what the truth is first, and we need to be well-grounded in it. but we also need to understand what others are saying about Jesus so that we can know how to answer them. So Peter answers him, you are the Christ. Peter was often the spokesman of the group, and we see that here. And so this confession here of Peter's is one of the keystone moments in his career as an apostle. Peter has come to understand who Jesus is, you are, If we go over to Matthew's account in Matthew 16, 16, we see a little bit more added. Remember Mark is very abrupt and just says what needs to be said and moves on. Matthew adds, elaborates a little bit more. Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. You are the Christ, and that word Christos, it's the fulfiller of Israelite expectation of a deliverer. It also means the anointed one, the Messiah, and of course, the Christ. Peter understood him to be the Messiah. Was he right? Yes, he was right. He still didn't fully understand what kind of Messiah, but he was right that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. And in Matthew 16, 17, Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. This is how Peter came to realize that Jesus was the Messiah. It was because the Father revealed it to him. He was enlightened by God. Now, think with me back to what we had been talking about the last couple of weeks. We've had two major miracles as kind of end caps to a lot of spiritual blindness and misunderstanding in between. We, first of all, saw that Jesus healed a deaf mute man. If you remember that, he touches his ears, he spits on his hand and puts it in the man's mouth to touch his tongue and heals him. And you skip forward several verses, and you have the account of Jesus healing the blind man, and the way that he does that. Again, using saliva and showing that demonstration. And in between those two miracles, we have a series of examples of spiritual blindness and deafness, and we've gone through those in the past. We won't go through all of them right now. But as you read through and look at the way that Mark constructed his gospel, of course, under the inspiration of the Spirit. You see this pattern begin to emerge. You see God bringing spiritual hearing, and then later, God bringing spiritual sight. And in the meantime, you have a lot of spiritual blindness and deafness. And I believe Mark has placed these events in this order in his gospel on purpose. Peter realized who he was. Jesus was because he was enlightened by God. We do not come to spiritual enlightenment on our own without God's help. We can't just read the Bible and have full understanding without God showing us. He enlightens us, the spirit that lives in us, it shows us, he teaches us. Jesus said that he would do that. The spiritually hard hearts, the spiritually blind eyes, the spiritually deaf, ears find their healing and their opening and their usefulness in God alone. Getting back to Peter's belief about Jesus as Messiah, he believed he was Messiah, he was right, and Jesus commends him for that here. Remember what Jesus would often say after teaching a parable, He that has ears to hear, let him hear. Simon chose to listen and God spoke to him and revealed Jesus' identity to him. But he didn't fully understand what kind of Messiah Jesus would be. He wanted Jesus to be the conquering king of Isaiah chapter nine. and we won't turn there today, but you can go read through there. As Isaiah describes the conquering king, that's Messiah, what Peter didn't catch yet was that Jesus came to be the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. and he didn't catch that yet, and we're gonna see that as we go into Jesus' purpose, Jesus' purpose. So his identity has been established, yes, but there's a purpose that Peter was missing and that people often miss. So back in Mark, chapter eight, verse 31, it says, and he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things. and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. So notice that his purpose was to suffer and be rejected and be killed. So we're gonna break that down and look at the suffering of Jesus and each one of those separately. So we have, first of all, his suffering. Again, back in our text, Mark 8 31, He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things. Mark's portrait of Christ is the suffering servant. He was the suffering servant to Mark. And remember, Mark's key verse is Mark 10.45, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Now certainly that suffering took place during his arrest, his trials, his crucifixion, and all that was involved with that. But Jesus' entire life was a life of servitude and suffering. And I just want to point out a few things. Jesus was born in total poverty and obscurity in a backwater town that everyone despised, Nazareth. He was constantly misunderstood. You know what it's like to be misunderstood? To try really hard to communicate and people just don't get it. It's hard, it's suffering. He was rejected by his brothers and his family, as we saw earlier in the verses. He was rejected by the religious establishment, by the nation of Israel. We're gonna look at the rejection in a moment. He was betrayed by Judas. He was denied by Peter. He was falsely accused by the Jews. Condemned by the Jews and the Romans, brutally scourged by the Romans, crucified by the Romans. Jesus suffered like no one else has ever or will ever suffer. And he did that willingly for us. So the Son of Man must suffer many things, and then he must be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes. So let's look at his rejection. I know it was in the list earlier. Let's focus in on it though. He was rejected by the religious establishment. He names them in our text, elders, chief priests, and scribes. Elders, chief priests, and scribes were the men who had the greatest amount of access to the word of God, the greatest amount of influence over the Jewish society, over the culture, They were the ones that everyone looked up to. They were the ones that everyone held in honor. Because, man, they're the ones closest to God, in other words. So whatever they do, that must be how you do it. And whatever they say about the scriptures, that must be what it means. And they were held in such high regard, yet they rejected Christ. They didn't see who he really was. If someone would have come with a, like they did in the video we watched and asked them that question, they wouldn't have gotten it right either. Yet they had the most access to the scriptures that should have shown them that. They had the most opportunity and I believe the greatest responsibility for understanding who Jesus was. So this rejection, it's tied into the suffering, but Jesus specifically gives it its own separate category. It was part of the suffering, but it was also the rejection, rejected by the religious establishment, rejected by his own brothers. The Gospel of John highlights this. And they tell him, Jesus, I don't have the verses in front of me, Jesus, go to the feast and show the world who you are. Stop hiding. Let everybody know who you are. And they really didn't believe in him. They were just promoting a false sense of pride there in him. They didn't believe until after his resurrection, and then two of them proceeded to write epistles in our Bibles, James and Jude. So they did come around, but not while he walked on earth, before his death, and then rejected by the nation of Israel as a whole. Remember, Jesus comes to Jerusalem, and he weeps, he sobs. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. how I long to gather you under my wings as a mother hen does her chicks, and I'm paraphrasing it, but that's his passion, his compassion for Jerusalem and for Israel as a nation. They rejected him as a whole. A few believed, 11 of the 12 disciples believed, and a few others, some of the women that would travel with them were believers, I think, I believe. The percentage was pretty low in the nation. He was their Messiah and they rejected him. And we can go back, we just celebrated Easter. And what did the crowds chant? Crucify him, right? That was his rejection. So the suffering, the rejection, and finally he says, and be killed, and be killed. We'll look at this when we get to Mark 16, or I'm sorry, Mark 15, but in verse 25 it says, now it was the third hour and they crucified him. And we jump down to verse 37, and Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. Jesus physically died, amen? He had to, he had to physically die so that he could be physically raised from the dead. Jesus could become the conquering king of Isaiah 9, he had to become the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. This is why Jesus commanded them not to tell anybody about his identity. We skipped over it because I wanted to mention it here. Mark 8 30, if you go back to that verse, then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him. Well, that kind of goes against the grain of the church age. Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing, telling everyone about Jesus? But it wasn't time yet. It wasn't time. Peter makes his confession, you are the Christ, and the first thing out of Jesus' mouth is, don't tell anybody. The timing had to be right. He had to become the suffering servant. And this is why Jesus commanded him not to tell anyone. And he would often have to work amongst the humanity and even with his own humanity so that the order of events didn't happen out of order. He couldn't become the conquering king yet. Jesus had to go to the cross first. And so he made sure that it happened in the way that it was supposed to, fulfilling prophecy and fulfilling his plan, his purpose as that suffering servant. Scholars call this the messianic secret. Maybe you've heard that phrase before. And we see it in all four gospels, and we've seen it lots of places in Mark already. When he heals someone, he says, don't tell anyone, go to the priest, that's what he told the leper. He raised Jairus' daughter, he said, don't tell anyone. Both men, the deaf mute man, and the blind man that we recently looked at in the last couple of weeks. Remember, he takes them from the crowd, it's this very personal interaction, but what does he tell both of those men? Don't tell anyone, don't go back into the town, just go to your house. And Jesus constantly did that because that messianic secret had to be kept veiled so that he could go to the cross. The crowds had to shout, crucify him. It was necessary that that happen. So that Pilate would be so overwhelmed, he would just wash his hands and say, you guys see to it. It had to happen that way. He had to veil his true purpose. If you think about what if word had gotten out about this messianic claim, well, it would have caused quite an uproar. Jesus already had caused a lot of uproar. based on his teachings and his miracles and different things, telling people that their sins are forgiven. But you think of the idea of, hey, it's Messiah. It would have stifled, humanly speaking. Now, God always accomplishes, and I'm not calling into question his sovereignty, so please don't misunderstand me. But it was the plan to do it this way. It was the plan all along. It had to happen that way. The Jews would not have understood That's what Jesus is saying here. Don't tell people because they're not gonna get it. And we're about to find out they didn't even get it yet. So let's look at the destiny finally of Jesus, the destiny. The identity, the purpose, and the destiny of Jesus Christ. It's at the end of verse 31, but let's read the whole verse to get the context again. And he began to teach them, the disciples, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. And that's where we're focused on. This point seems to have been totally lost on most of the disciples, especially Peter, as we're gonna see. It's like they only heard him say, suffer and die. It's like they just missed this resurrection bit at the end, which is like the pinnacle. It's one of the greatest truths, yet they seem to have missed it. Jesus not only predicted his death, but also his resurrection. In Mark 16, verse six, we see it happen. He said to them, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is what? Risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. See the proof. It's right there. He is not here. So back in our text, Jesus predicted, after three days I will rise again. And we're gonna read that when we get to that in our study of Mark, Mark 16, six. The proclamation, the declaration of Jesus' resurrection. Jesus is gonna repeat these teachings later in Mark as well, Mark 9. So in the next chapter, here in a few weeks we'll get to it, verses 31 and 32. For he taught his disciples and said to them, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And after he is killed, he will rise a third day. But notice the last sentence. But they did not, what? Understand this saying and were afraid to ask him. That's an interesting thing. We'll dig into that when we get to that part of Mark. We're not there yet. For us, it's easy. You know, we can read, we know the end, right? We know how the story ends, the account ends, the truth ends. But these men did not. They didn't have the blessing of being able to open their Bibles up to Mark and read about what they were doing, because it was happening while in their life. Back in our passage here, Jesus begins to speak this word openly. Notice though Peter's response, then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. He confesses Jesus as Messiah, and a few moments later, after hearing what kind of Messiah Jesus was, Peter, in his audacity, pulls his God aside and begins to rebuke him. He didn't understand that Jesus was going to die for their sins. The idea of Jesus being killed, the Messiah being killed, was inconceivable to him. It was beyond reason. The word rebuke here means to assess a penalty or to allege as a It is a strong rebuke. It's not just like, well, I'm not sure if I really see it your way. It's that you are dead wrong by rights. You are legally wrong. You cannot be right. Peter's view of Messiah was a nationalistic view. And I believe the other disciples, again, I think as the spokesperson of the group, Likely the rest of them felt this way as well. But he had a nationalistic view of Messiah. And the nationalistic Messiah doesn't get killed. He conquers. So Jesus, you got your theology wrong, is what he's saying. You messed up somewhere. Because that's not what happens to Messiah. This is an absolute scandal in Peter's mind. It's completely inconceivable. Let's see what Jesus' response is to Peter's rebuke. But when he, Jesus, had turned around and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Same word, same word in the Greek. He rebuked Peter, saying, get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Jesus now turns his back on Peter. So he's been pulled aside, And he and Peter are talking, the other disciples are there. He turns his back on Peter and looks at the other men and addresses Peter behind him. It's a symbolic gesture of rejection against Peter's statements. I'm not even gonna value what you're saying enough to look you in the eye and say it. I'm turning my back. on you, Peter. I am not going to be called out by you. I have a purpose and a mission. I have a plan. And it's not the kind of get behind me that's like follow me, like he said to the disciples when he called them. It was get out of my sight and get that false teaching out of my sight. Jesus gets very strong. And he refers to Peter's rebuke, he calls him Satan. That's also very strong. Remember what Satan said to Jesus in the wilderness? If you are the son of God, turn the stones into bread. Remember what they said to him on the cross? The thief said this, the religious leaders said it. If you are the son of God, what? Come off the cross. Do you hear Satan's voice echoing in these statements? If Jesus doesn't go to the cross, what happens to humanity? Is there any hope? No. in some sense, I think, believe that. If you are the Son of Man, if you are the Son of God, if you really are Messiah, Peter's saying, if you're really Messiah, you've got to change what you're saying. This can't happen. If you are the Son of God, turn the stones into bread. If you really are who you say you are, come off the cross. Right. Save, yeah, save yourself, not humanity. Put yourself first. It's the cry of pride. It is the cry of Satan. Just moments before, Peter had confessed Jesus as Messiah, but now he found himself rebuking his own Messiah. And then Jesus further explains, you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Mindful here means to take someone's side or to espouse someone's cause. Peter, you've abandoned me and you have espoused and taken up the cause of the humanistic point of view. You've taken up the cause of this nationalistic Messiah. You've rejected the clear teaching of Scripture that says I must suffer. So Peter had espoused the view that Messiah was a national hero who would free them from the Romans. That's what they wanted. And we don't blame them for wanting that. We can understand that Romans were horribly oppressive, heavily taxing them, crucifying them constantly. They were vicious and cruel. They wanted relief. But that wasn't the things of God. The things of God included the cross and the tomb and then the empty tomb. That's the things of God. And Peter was oblivious. And I think about if Peter, and I'm sure he has by now, being in God's presence, but in the moment, if he could have only espoused the view of Messiah and only been able to peek down the corridor of time to the thousands, even millions that have come to Christ since then. If only he could have seen that. And I believe God is perhaps showing him that now, then he couldn't see it. And it brings us to a point of application. What are we mindful of? What are we mindful of? Whose side are we espousing? Who is our focus? Jesus said to Peter, you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. And how easy, isn't it, to slip into that kind of thinking? to stop ourselves from being mindful of the things of God, the things of his word, and start to get distracted by the things of men, even our own desires and our own focuses. As we conclude, a couple of verses of application along those lines. Romans 8 verse five says, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. We're called, just like Jesus was calling Peter to set his mind on the things of God, we are called to set our mind on the things of God as well, specifically the Spirit. As he now indwells us, Peter didn't have that advantage either. And think about, a thought just kind of occurred to me. We think about the scribes and the elders and the Pharisees and the religious leaders. And we hold them accountable because they were the ones that had the words of God. They were the ones that had the scrolls and the time to study them. They were the experts of the law. They were accountable because of that. What about us? I believe we are even much more accountable. We have the complete canon of God's word. We have all 66 books at our disposal. with the push of a button on my tablet or my phone or the multiple paper copies that are in all of our homes. We have the Word of God anywhere and any way we want it. I believe we're even more accountable for being mindful of the things of the Spirit. God has called us to, one final verse. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, excellent point. I was thinking about that, and then I thought of the other thing. But if you didn't hear Brad, what he said was, and he's right on, by the time you get to Romans 8, you're talking to believers, okay? This is for Christians. Yes, the Roman Christian church, and Paul is writing to them, and he's telling them, Christians who live according to the flesh have set their Christian minds on the things of the flesh. but Christians who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. We have a choice to make, even as believers. We can be flesh-driven or spirit-driven. Thank you for pointing that out, great point. And finally, Romans 12, verse two. Do not be conformed to this world. And this is also, of course, written to Christians. Now we're even farther in the book of Romans. We're in the application part. He's had 11 chapters of theology and doctrine, and now he goes to application And in verse two of chapter 12, do not be conformed to this world, Christian, but be transformed by the renewing of your what? Your mind. We must be mindful of the things of God that you may prove, you may understand, you may live out what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The identity of Jesus Christ comes back to that. It's paramount in how we think about reality. And so the people that we meet, the people that we know, what is their view of Christ? What is our view on any given day? Because sometimes we are forgetful. And so I'll leave you with that question to think about throughout the week. Who is Jesus Christ? Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, so much for your word. I thank you, Father, that the Son has been revealed, and he has revealed who you are by his life, and we have the written record in these four gospel accounts, these gospel narratives, these biographies of Jesus of Nazareth. documented evidence of his identity. Lord, he was the Jews' Messiah, but he's also our Savior. And I pray, Father, that you'd help us as we go out into this week, that we would stop being mindful of the things of men, and we would take Jesus' rebuke to our own hearts, Lord. Please examine us, try us, show us if there's any wicked way in us, lead us in the ways of everlasting truth. Help us to see, Lord, that our minds need to be focused on Christ, and let that guide us and transform us, Lord, as we go through this week. We thank you and we praise you, Lord, for all that you've done, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you guys so much for being here.