As you know, our tradition at the Beach Fellowship is that we study the scriptures verse by verse. That tends to keep us from over emphasizing some things, or under emphasizing other things, depending on what we think people want to hear. Last week I said that the subject matter of Jesus’ teaching on hell at the end of chapter 9 was very unpopular, and if I were a smarter, more popularity conscious preacher, I would have skipped over it. Well, I suppose that today’s passage of scripture is even more unpopular than the subject of hell. Today Jesus speaks

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As I so often tell you, I preach through the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter.  In so doing, we end up dealing with the attractive parts of the gospel, and the not so attractive parts of the gospel.  But irregardless of a particular scripture’s agreeableness, we know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, thoroughly equipped for every good work. I suppose that I preach through the gospel verse by verse, is because I’m not smart enough

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I have titled this message this morning “War of the Worlds.” That title may sound familiar to some of you who may be aware of the Orson Welles science fiction radio program of that name that ran during World War 2. It was based on a book by H.G. Wells which was written around 1897. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it was a book about the invasion of earth by Martian alien creatures. It was one of the first of it’s kind of that sort of science fiction. One significant quote from that book says, “Yet

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Last week I said that we were entering a stage of Jesus’s ministry in which there was a transition. It was a transition from Him primarily preaching and ministering to the multitudes, to His ministry primarily being focused on the disciples. Jesus knew that it would be less than a year until He is taken away from them, and they must continue to carry out His ministry. And so He wants to prepare them for His departure. But there is another transition in His ministry, and that is that He is slowly but inexorably heading for the cross. In this

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I want to emphasize something about Mark’s gospel as we continue in our verse by verse study of it this morning. And that is that Mark is not writing a biography of Jesus, he is not writing a history of Jesus Christ nor His ministry. But Mark is writing the gospel. The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. The good news is God’s plan of salvation for His people, brought about and manifested through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now I emphasize that point because understanding that helps us to discern

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Last Sunday we looked at the passage in Mark where Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because of their hypocrisy.  These religious leaders cleaned the outside of the cup, so to speak, but the inside was full of corruption.  They publicly made a great show of  following the traditions of men, which presumably had their basis in religious law, but inwardly they broke the commandments of God.  And so Jesus taught the disciples that it was necessary to have a clean heart, for out of the heart proceeds all evil. Now a clean heart or a new heart speaks of a spiritual

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How to walk on water, Mark 6: 45-52 As it is our practice to preach through the Bible verse by verse, I rarely have much opportunity to preach messages that are of a more instructional or motivational nature. Many pastors tend to preach nothing but motivational type of messages, like “How to have your best life now.” Or “You are very powerful.” Or “How to find success in life.” Those are actual messages from pastors that purvey the prosperity gospel, which is very popular. And Lord knows, I would like to be popular. So as I prepared for todays sermon,

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