February 16, 2024 -- Mark 13:37 -- Who will save your soul? A Jewel of a question

/

And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

Mark 13:37 ESV

What a strange command. When read in isolation from the context, it is stranger still. In context however it makes sense. Jesus is asking His followers if they will remain awake, alive to Him and true to His word. The Bible is filled with warnings for the people of God to stay true to God and to avoid backsliding and neglecting the great salvation that is yours. Way back in the Old Testament, while Moses was still with the people of God, having led them for eighty years (!), he gave his farewell address. He knew he was about to die and he urgently commanded the people to stay true to the LORD their God. Under the inspiration of God, Moses declared “For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the LORD. How much more after my death!” (Deuteronomy 31:27).

Within a few decades of Jesus’ death, Paul wrote to the Hebrews and warned them: “we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Hebrews 2:1). It is harder to stay anchored to Jesus and keep His commandments than it is to allow oneself to drift with the currents of popular culture and the tides of peers who pressure you to go along in their degenerate ways.

How can anyone do it? How can anyone stay awake and ready to serve Jesus when there are so many pressures pushing and pulling against him? That is a critical question.

  1. Jesus Himself knows the inclination of His people to wander and stray. He tells Peter “I have prayed for you”. What a glorious promise. As soon as you know you are drifting from all that is holy confess this to Jesus and know He is already praying

  2. When Jesus rose from the dead, on that first Resurrection Sunday, He met with His disciples and said “Receive the Holy Spirit”. The Spirit of God lives in every believer. It is the Spirit of God Who helps the believer turn from sin and drifting and return to Jesus.

  3. Jesus is called the “Captain of their salvation” in Hebrews 2:10 (prosaically He is called the Founder of their Salvation in the ESV). Jesus is commanding His people to stay away because He Himself guards them, standing over them and defending them in their weakness.

Father in heaven, we tremble before You! For You are the Living God—enduring forever. Your Kingdom will never be destroyed and of Your dominion there shall be no end. The Living God delivers and rescues, He works signs and wonders in heaven and earth. As You Father saved Daniel from the power of the lions and David from the hand of all his enemies and Peter from the chains of his guilt at betraying Jesus through the power of His reconciling blood, so You continue to be our rescue story. Spirit of God, keep us from straying. Spirit of the Living God, by the Bible, through the counsel of Christian friends and based on Jesus’ prayers on our behalf, bring us back into ever deeper relationship with Jesus. Amen.

(Opening part of the prayer is based on Daniel 6:26-27)

https://youtu.be/3rT8Re1EIQc?si=D4ZqZsUkQx8Qzmdt Casting Crowns “Who Am I?”