Various Teachings of Jesus

And you know, when's the evening Bible study? Have you ever come down from the mountaintop to the valley and realized how difficult that is? You know, we speak of that metaphorically a lot. You've ever been through a really powerful worship service or a message that really spoke to your heart. If you was here, it was when a guest speaker was speaking. By the way, John, thank you so much for taking care of last Wednesday evening. Appreciate John Altizer. Have you ever been through a service that just really ministered to your life and your heart? And then on the way home, you got an argument. Have you ever had just a really rich time in the word or in prayer, a really special time of prayer? And then five minutes after you finish that, you get angry at something or somebody. It's difficult to stay on the mountaintop, isn't it? It's difficult to stay on the mountaintop where you're seeing God's glory. And we come down to real life is what happens. And real life often smacks us in the face and causes us to respond in ways that we knew for sure when we were on the mountaintop we would never do again. That's just part of the dynamic of living life. Well, that's exactly what we see in our portion of the life of Christ tonight. We're going to begin in Mark 9. So you might want to open your Bible there. But we have just been recently looking at the mount of transfiguration where Jesus takes Peter, James and John up on a mountaintop, possibly quite probably I believe Mount Herman in near Cessaria, Philpah. And as Jesus is there with them and he's praying, he all of a sudden the Bible says he's transfigured. The inside nature bursts through the outer shell of his body and they see displayed his glory, the glory of God. And Moses and Elijah are there and it's just an astounding time. Jesus teaches them as they come down the mountain and when they get to the bottom of the mountain when they get back down where real life is, what they come up against is a crowd of people arguing with the other nine disciples. A man who really doesn't believe that Jesus can help his boy and some frustrated, exasperated disciples who are powerless to cast out a demon and heal that young boy. That's what they find. So much for the mountaintop. Real life hits them in the face as soon as they get off of the mountaintop. But the important thing is that Jesus will use this opportunity to teach some more lessons. Remember in the bigger picture we are in a period of the life of Christ called the Training of the Twelve where Jesus is pulling away from the crowds as much as is possible wherever Jesus goes if people discover he's there, crowd gathers. But Jesus in order to escape that has actually been leaving the nation of Israel. He's gone to Tyre and Sidon, he's gone to the decapolis, he's gone to Cessaria, Philippi, Gentile, and territory. And he is using that time to get alone with his disciples and train them, teach them and prepare them and he's introducing some new concepts to them. Jesus is now talking very plainly and we'll see it again tonight, very plainly about his death and his resurrection. And they are not getting that at all. They are not grasping that at all. It completely revolutionizes their thought as to who he is and why he came and they can understand any of that yet. And so Jesus is introducing that to him. He's going to hit him with time and time and time again. They still won't get it until after the resurrection. They won't fully understand it till then. But they will remember what he has said to them. So he's teaching them about that. He's introduced the concept of the church. For the first time in Matthew 16 and if we get far enough, which I seriously doubt, we may see it again tonight. We will see it in the next couple of weeks for sure. So Jesus is stretching their understanding, their learning curve is steeply, sharply increasing and he's training them. In the midst of all of that, the next several events of our Lord's ministry with his disciples are all about teaching more lessons, more training. And so that's why we've entitled this various teachings of Jesus and then there will be a private trip to Jerusalem and that will kind of close out this period of the Lord's training of the 12. There are a number of teaching opportunities the Lord takes in these next few passages. Mark chapter 9 is the first one. The first thing Jesus does is to teach about faith. And this is an extended story about the healing of a actual casting out of a demon of a young man. But the purpose of this story is to teach his disciples about faith. In this particular story, let's begin in verse 14 of Mark chapter 9, when they came to the other disciples, catch the scene now, they've just come down off the mountain top, Peter, James and John with Jesus, they come to the other nine disciples. What do they find? They saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. The teachers of the law find Jesus again. And if this is in Gentile territory, they have tracked him down. It may be in Galilee, but I think we'll see a little bit later, there's some evidence that maybe they were still in the Cessarie of Philippi area Mount Herman. The enemies of Jesus are at it again though. They have tracked him down. These teachers of the law, these scribes are arguing with them, meaning the disciples. They've taken advantage of Jesus absence and of something that is happening right now, which as we will find out is the disciples inability to cast a demon out of this demon possessed boy. They're taking advantage of that to argue, maybe about their credentials, are you really who you say you are? We thought you could perform miracles. We thought you had authority to do this or that or whatever. Are you really who you say you are? So maybe they're arguing about that taunting them, ridiculing them, that kind of thing. That's the scene Jesus walks up on when he gets down off the mountain. Verse 15 says, as soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet Him. Why do you think the people were overwhelmed with wonder? Still transfigured? It's an interesting thought. I don't know. I don't know that we can say for sure, you know, when Moses came down from the mountain, having seen just the after effects of the glory of God, his face shown and being in the presence of God, could it be that he still had some of that glow? I don't know. It's difficult to say. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's just the timing of his appearing. You know, he's gone. There are nine disciples. Whereas Jesus, all of a sudden they turn around, he's walking up. Maybe that was it. We're not really sure. But they wonder, overwhelmed with wonder and they ran to greeting. And notice Jesus' question in verse 16, what are you arguing with them about? He asked. Now, who's that question addressed to? The disciples? Maybe. I think it may have been the scribes, the teachers of the law. Jesus, in a sense, coming to the defense of his disciples, maybe. We don't, again, we don't know for sure. But maybe Jesus is looking directly at the scribes. What are you arguing with them about? He evidently asked it so sharply that they did not answer. It was a very directed question. Nobody answers except a voice from the crowd. Look at verse 17. A man in the crowd answered, teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it sees as him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not. Let's go ahead and show the picture of the scene. As we continue through this scene, there's artists have tried to render these types of scenes all through the gospels. This is one artist's attempt to capture this scene of Jesus encountering this boy. Son of a man who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech and sees as him and throws him to the ground. The symptoms sound like a form of epilepsy. You have to be careful when you deal with passages like this because some people even today give the impression that any illness is caused by demons. So epilepsy is the result of demon possession. That's simply not the case. That is simply not true at all. We know in this case, this boy's symptoms, which may not have been physically the disease of epilepsy, these boys' symptoms are caused by a demon because Jesus does cast out the demon. Please don't make the kind of total transfers of these kind of passages to indicate that everybody who has epilepsy is subject to demon possession. That's simply a very unfair, unbiiblical assumption. In this case, we know that this is the case with him. At least these symptoms are caused by a demon. Notice this guy's desperate. You can see the alarm. You can almost hear the alarm in his voice. I brought you my son. He's possessed by a spirit that's robbed him of speech and then he talks about what he does to him when he throws him to the ground. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not. You can sense the desperation in this man's voice as he pleads for some relief that he thought he would get from Jesus and his disciples for his boy, this cry of desperation. And then look at Jesus' response in verse 19, oh, unbelieving generation, Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Calling the boy to me. Who is Jesus addressing there? Who are these sharp comments directed at? Everybody, okay? All right. Any reason for thinking that, Mark? Okay. All right. Okay. Could well be. Could well be. Everybody's included. We've got the man who has the son. We've got the scribes. We've got the crowd. We've got the disciples. There are lots of different parties present and it could be Jesus was including them all. You know the thoughts? Actually most commentaries say that Jesus was addressing the disciples. And I don't think that's the case. I think Mark is probably closer to the truth. I don't think Jesus is addressing the disciples. I don't think he's upgrading his disciples for them being faithless generation. Remember that Jesus has used this word generation several times recently since he was rejected by the religious leaders, the Pharisees. Back in chapter 8, just take a look real quick. And we haven't been in this for a while. But just to remind you, chapter 8 verse 12, this is when the Pharisees asked another sign from him after he had told him he would not give them anymore. He sighed deeply in verse 12 and said, why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign shall be given to it. And then if you'll look down another verse or so or a few verses, verse 38, if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory. Jesus seems to use the generation, the word generation of the Jewish nation as it were, the existing Jewish population specifically, the leaders who have rejected him and who are continuing to ask for a sign. And there's a sense in which Jesus may be covering everybody there, but maybe even more specifically the scribes and the people who are testing him again, just like the Pharisees were. Those who have already rejected him, maybe Jesus is saying, you're asking for another sign, another credential. Maybe that's what they were arguing with the disciples about. Show us a sign, give us another sign. And Jesus is saying to them, this generation, this unbelieving generation, I mean this cry in verse 19 is from the depth. I mean, this is a very strong language. It's a it's a grown almost. Oh, unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? That's the that's the idea of the wording here. But Jesus does say bring the boy to me. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't throw up his hands and walk away. He says bring the boy to me. He says 20. So they brought him when the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around foaming at the mouth. Now, isn't this an interesting response? Do you remember when Jesus landed on the shore of Goodera and the man came out of the tombs, possessed by many, many demons and they recognized Jesus and cried out, who are you, holy one of God and fell down before him. And often you do see that kind of response in the gospels. When Jesus encounters a demon, there is a recognition and almost a fear and sometimes as they did in that occasion, the demon saying, please don't send us to the pit already to our place of punishment prematurely. So that makes this response of this demon all the more interesting. This demon shows no fear of Jesus, no respect of Jesus. There's a sense in which he says, right here in your presence, I will destroy this boy. It's a very brazen response. I don't know how to account for it. I don't know why this demon would respond differently than others, but it just kind of sticks out to me. It's very interesting that the response is very different for this particular demon. The demon throws this boy into a convulsion and in contempt of Jesus basically is saying, I will destroy him right here in front of you. There's challenging Jesus to do something about it. And notice Jesus response in verse 21, Jesus asked the boy's father. Isn't that interesting? There's not even any addressing of the demon yet. What does that show you about Jesus? He's in control, isn't he? He's not threatened by this demon. He's not threatened by him at all. He's completely in control. Calm knows exactly what he's doing. Turns to the boy's father and says, how long has he been like this? That's a question of compassion. That kind of information is asked because Jesus knows what he's going to do. He asks this, not for information, but he asks it to show compassion, to show his love and concern for this boy and his father. And the father says from childhood, he answered, verse 22, it is often thrown him into the fire or water to killing. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. Again notice the desperation, the alarm in this man's words. He's often thrown him into the fire and water to killing. He's concerned about his boy losing his life and then he makes this interesting statement, but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. Questioning whether Jesus can do anything. Not sure Jesus is able to do anything. Helping his boy to Jesus, initially, hoping for some help, but still expressing doubt as to whether or not it really can happen. If you can do anything. If you can do anything. And notice Jesus addresses that in verse 23. If you can, said Jesus, repeating the man's words. If you can, is that what you said? If you can. Jesus says, everything is possible. It's possible to him who believes. Jesus addresses the fact that the problem with this situation is not his ability. It's the man's faith. The question is not, am I able? Do I have the ability to do this? The question is, do you trust God? Your faith is the issue. Do I have the power? So Jesus is instructing, almost coaxing this man, helping him to understand what it means to trust him. Notice the man's response, verse 24. Immediately the boy's father explained, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. That famous statement, which is so characteristic of all of us, who live in the tension of a mixture of faith and doubt. Faith and doubt. Faith and doubt. There's not a one of us in this room that doesn't struggle with that. If you think you don't struggle with it, you don't really understand life. You don't understand faith. You don't understand doubt. All of us struggle with that. I do believe, but I will admit, I don't believe to help me with my unbelief. I do doubt. All of us doubt at times. All of us question at times. And even though you may have a strong, solid, deep, been growing a long time, faith, there will still be doubts. We all live because we are still human. We still have a sin nature. We all live with that mixture of faith and doubt. This man admits it. He admits it freely. And he knows the only thing that can overcome his unbelief and his doubt is the Lord's help. Now, look at verse 25. Something very interesting happens. When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. You deaf and mute spirit, he said, I command you come out of him and never enter him again. The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently. In other words, he's resisting. He's not going to come out without a fight. But then the next words, and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said he's dead, but Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet and he stood up. And it's interesting that Jesus said when the text says that when Jesus saw a crowd running to the scene, he quickly casts the demon out. No more questions. No more talking with the man. Cast the demon out. Why do you think that happened that way? Did you want to get it out of that? Did you want to get it out of the kitchen? Okay. Didn't want everybody to know he did that. Let's follow up on that a little bit. Why would that be the case? That is the case. Why would it be the case? Okay. No more signs. All right. I think we're on the right track here. Any other thoughts along those lines? Why would Jesus quickly do this before the crowd gets there? Spare the boy and his father some embarrassment, quite possibly. There is a sense in which the crowd is going to see what's happened once they see the boy. And in the coming days realize that he's no longer demon possessed. But I think there is also something to the timing of this. Jesus did not wait for the crowd to get there and do this for them to see. He did do it for his disciples to see. He is training them. He's teaching them. He's challenging them. He's growing them. But there is no longer the desire to give credentials or signs to the crowd. That day has passed. We've already seen that. And so there's no need to wait for the crowd to come for a sign miracle to be done as Jesus miracles have shifted in purpose now in this phase of his ministry. The purpose of the miracles are twofold. Mercy. He literally has pity, mercy, compassion on this boy and his father. And he will do this because he has mercy on them and also to train the disciples. Because there's a lesson coming on the heels of this. Jesus will use this event to train his disciples, to teach his disciples about something. Here it is in verse 28. Remember Jesus had gone indoors. His disciples asked him privately, why couldn't we drive it out? Why couldn't we cast this demon out? Was that an appropriate question for them? You think they would have expected to be able to do this? Yeah. Do you remember when Jesus sent them out on the last preaching tour of Galilee? Matthew 10 tells us that he gave them authority to cast out demons and to heal all manner of diseases. They had authority to do that. They had the power to do that. They're puzzled as to why they couldn't. And Jesus is going to use this opportunity to teach them a very, very powerful lesson about ministry. The answer really is twofold. The problem is their faith or lack of it. Verse 29 says he replied, this kind can come out only by prayer. I want you to hold your place here and go to Matthew's account. In Matthew 17, Matthew gives a part of the answer that Mark does not. Matthew 17, verse 19, the disciples came to Jesus and privately asked why couldn't we drive it out? Verse 20, he replied, because you have so little faith. The problem was their faith. And it sounds like what Jesus is saying is because you did not have enough faith. But that's not what he's saying. It's not the amount of faith that's the issue. It's the object of their faith. What are they trusting? What's the object of their faith? I know it's not the amount of faith because look at what Jesus goes on to say. He says, I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Mustard seed is a very small seed, very small. So it's not the amount of the faith. Jesus says you can have little teeny, teeny bit of faith. The problem is the object of their faith. They were not trusting him. I think what was happening here is the disciples were trusting the fact that they had authority to cast out demons. They've done this before. They can do it again. Jesus gave them authority back a few weeks ago. They've got authority. They've got power. They can cast out demons. And their faith had shifted to their authority, to their power rather than to Jesus. Faith by definition is trusting God. It's not trusting in my power, my authority, whatever gifts I've been given. And Mark's part of the answer helps us to flesh this out a little bit more. Mark says in Mark chapter 9, verse 29, this kind can come out only by prayer. What is prayer? What is the essence of prayer? When you pray to God, what are you depending on? He's there, he's living. Exactly. You're depending on God, aren't you? Prayer by definition is dependence on God. I recognize I have a need. I cannot handle this on my own, so I ask God for help. They hadn't done that. In asking Jesus for help? Yes. Yes. Yes. Good point, Gene. Faith is faith in Christ in Jesus. And the man, the boy's father, is exhibiting that by saying, I need your help to believe. I have to depend on you to even believe. I think what's happened here is the disciples are depending on their own authority. The fact they've done this before to cast out a demon. Jesus says, did you pray? Or did you exhibit dependence on me? And what about your faith? This only happens by faith. Faith is dependence on God. It is trusting God for his help, his power. He wasn't talking about, do you have enough faith? He's already said, if you just have a little teeny-t teeny bit of faith, you can move a whole mountain. It's not the amount of faith that's important. Don't fall into the trap of the health and wealth gospel movement. And the name and claimant movement, which basically says, if you don't get what you pray for, or you just didn't have enough faith, it's not the amount of faith that's the object of our faith. Faith is trusting God for something, depending on him for something. Prayer is trusting God, depending on God for something. And I think what Jesus is teaching is disciples here, which is a lesson that all of us need to learn, whatever we do for Christ. We must come to him, afresh, and anew. Every time we serve him for the strength and the power to do it again, recognizing that I cannot do this on my own. I can't rest on past experience. I can't rest on whatever authority or spiritual gifts even. If I start depending on that, I'm trusting in those things, and I'm not trusting you anymore. And so every time we serve God, don't ever dare swagger into some service for God thinking, man, I've got this down. I've been doing this for every time we serve God, we need to come back to him for a fresh appropriation of his strength and power, cast ourselves upon him, and say, oh God, I can't do this. I can't do this on my own. I need you. This is your work. This is your power and strength that's needed. That's what Jesus was teaching as disciples. You can't accomplish this except through prayer and faith, both of which are dependence on me, not on yourself, not even on your gifts, not even on the authority I gave you. You don't trust your authority, you trust me. I think that's what he was teaching them. What a great lesson for ministry. So you see, again, Jesus is taking the events that are happening in the normal course of their life and what they're encountering, and he's processing all that with his disciples and teaching them from these events. The miracle, yes, because of compassion on this boy and his father, but then he quickly takes it that instance to teach his disciples what was going on. What a great lesson. Okay, any questions about this particular story before we look at the next teaching of Jesus? Yes, Daniel? How much of the crowd knew the disciples had failed? It's hard to tell. Really hard to tell. It's hard to fully grasp what was happening with the crowd. The crowd had kind of shifted to Jesus when they saw him coming. There's a man in the crowd who says, I brought my son, then what happens with the crowd when they bring the boy to Jesus? It's hard to say for sure. And how many of them, how big the crowd was, we just don't really know. There's a lot going on there that we can't really tell. Yes? Are there other instances where the disciples did not do what they were trying to do? Other instances where the disciples could not do what they were trying to do. Can anyone think of one right off the top of your head? There were times when Jesus wouldn't let them do what they wanted to do. Like James and John wanting to call fire down from heaven to destroy this merit and village. Jesus wouldn't let them. I'd have to give that some thought. I'm not sure if anybody has an instance you can think of in mind. Couldn't catch fish. That's a good example. I mean, that's not a miracle type thing, but they couldn't catch fish. And then Jesus showed him his power by saying, drop the net on the other side. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But it's very, yeah, very similar. They were making a request of Jesus and Jesus denied that. Let me sit at your right hand, your left, in your kingdom. Okay. Yes. Kissed. Yeah. When Peter was walking on the water, did okay for a little while and then started sinking. Started failing, didn't he? Yeah. And same thing. He seems to have gotten his eyes off of Jesus. Okay. Good. All right. Let's move quickly to the teaching about his death. One of stick with Mark here first in Mark 9 verse 30. They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were because he was teaching his disciples. Notice the emphasis there. We're not drawing crowds now. Crowds will be attracted to Jesus wherever they find him. But the purpose is not to teach large crowds anymore. In fact, Jesus is trying to isolate himself with his disciples as best he can given the context of things. He's not letting people know where he is. He wants to teach his disciples. So verse 31, he said to them, here's the next teaching. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him. And after three days, he will rise. Okay. Again, very clearly no figures of speech this time from now on. It's going to be very clear what he's teaching about his death. So very clearly talks about betrayal. Death, resurrection. And notice again, verse 32, the disciples response, but they did not understand what he meant. And we're afraid to ask him about it. Again, since this distance that we're seeing at this point in Jesus' ministry, kind of this distance between him and the disciples, Jesus is saying things they don't understand. It blows their mind as to why they thought he had come. They're trying to grapple with that and figure out what he's talking about. They don't understand it. And they're afraid to ask him about it. Now flip over to Matthew 17, which gives us a little different slant, a little different perspective here. Matthew 17, verse 22, when they came together in Galilee, by the way, it's an interesting phrase when they came together in Galilee. Because of that phrase, there are some writers who believe this supports the idea that Jesus' transfiguration was on Mount Hermann. And that when they left that, they'd come down to the base of the mountain, some scribes had found out where he was, where there, crowd was there, the boy is demons cast out of the boy. And then they come back to Galilee and they may have even come back separately. Jesus may have sent them in two or three different parties so that they wouldn't attract attention. And when they get back to Galilee and they come back together is the idea, possibly, verse 22. He said to them, the son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of man. They will kill him. And on the third day, he will be raised to life. Now, notice the response that Matthew says, and the disciples were filled with grief. So put the gospels together. And by the way, Luke basically says the same thing, Mark says, so you put the three gospels together. And here's the picture you have. Jesus says, once again, teaching them very clearly, I'm going to go to Jerusalem, I'm going to die, I'm going to be betrayed, I'm going to die, and I'm going to be raised again. And they can't grasp that. They cannot wrap their minds around it. And they're afraid to ask him about it. But they know something tragic is on the horizon. And they're troubled about it. They're grieved about it. But they don't know how to understand really what's going on. I mean, this is a very difficult time in the disciples' lives. You know, so often we just kind of skim through these stories. And we don't really put ourselves in the sandals of the apostles, of the disciples. They were thoroughly confused at this point. So confused that they're not even sure they said, ask Jesus about it. For fear they'll get more that they can't understand. And this is a very confusing time for them. And Jesus doesn't panic. He doesn't say, okay, I've got to get you guys straight down on this right now. Times wasting. He's not he's not panicking about it. If anything, maybe this could help us to understand that when we go through times of great confusion, of not understanding what God is doing or trying to teach us or what where he's leading it, the future looks dark. We're just not sure what's happening. Just remember, Jesus is very much in control. He is not panicking. And he hasn't given up on you either. He's still just going to teach, train, bring you along, me along, and cause us to continue to learn a little more, grasp a little more of what he's doing. And it's interesting to me that Jesus will go to the cross without them fully understanding what he's talking about, but not in panic about that. See, he'll have 40 days between then and the ascension to pull it all together for them and they will begin to understand then. He has it all perfectly in control in his timetable and he does in your life and my life too. He really does. Okay, now let's talk about taxes. Yes. Greaving over what was said. They were afraid to ask, yeah, I think there is a, there, you have to really put all of that together to get the full picture. I think they were three things were happening. They were, and you have to put both gospels together to get, get the whole picture. They were confused. They didn't understand what he was talking about. They were fearful and even tenuous in their relationship with Jesus. They were afraid to ask him about it. Maybe afraid of a rebuke. Maybe afraid that we're just going to get more stuff we don't understand or, but they were afraid to ask him about it. And then thirdly, all of this was very troubling to them and they were deeply grieved about it. And so there's all this mix of emotions going on in them right now. It's a very difficult time for the disciples. Their whole world, their whole idea of why Jesus came has been turned upside down and they don't understand it yet. They were told to go into Galilee three times and preach the kingdom of heaven is here. The king is here. And now he's talking about dying. Their whole world has been turned upside down and they're just thoroughly confused. And Jesus is patiently over this next year going to bring them along. I think confusion, fear, grief, all those emotions are swirling around in them. Okay, Jesus is going to make a final visit now to cappernum. Let's continue in Matthew 17. And basically what we'll just do is introduce this teaching about taxes with just setting the geography here and then we'll close. And then we'll just, after Jesus and his disciples arrived in cappernum, there's going to be a tax question that comes up to Jesus which we'll have to wait till next week to deal with. Oh, there's so many fun political things you could do with that, but I'm not going to do any of them. So come to cappernum. Cappernum was was the center of Jesus ministry throughout this 18 month period of the Galilee and ministry. And even still during the six month training of the 12 time period, he still headquartered out of cappernum. That's his home base. So Jesus, this will be the last time Jesus goes to cappernum. So let's just take another glimpse at this wonderful town where Jesus called home lived with Peter and Andrew in their home. There in cappernum on the north side of the sea of Galilee, he has been up to Cesarea, Philippi to show his disciples the three of them. They've come down from the mountain and now they've come back to Galilee and are in cappernum once again. This is this is one last visit before Luke 9 tells us in verse 50, he said it verse 51, he said his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. And he's not going to die yet, but everything that will happen from here on is he's leaving Galilee and he's making his way toward the end. So cappernum, that great city, we've got a we've got a kind of a virtual tour of cappernum. If we can show this, we're going to show you, first of all what cappernum looks like today. Okay, this is 21st century cappernum on the shores of the sea of Galilee that north shore of the sea of Galilee. These are the remains of boat docks and so forth that would have been down in the sea of Galilee. This is the along the shore right here. I know it's maybe difficult for you to see from any distance, but this is called Peter's house. This is where archaeologists have dug up what they believe to be the house of Peter. There are reasons why they believe that which I'm not going to try to go into. Don't know that I remember them all, but there's a small Catholic church built over that location. That's what you're seeing right there. That building is a small Catholic church. Right over here is some are some ruins of the synagogue in cappernum. Now the ruins that are there now are from the about the 400s. They're not really the synagogue that Jesus would have taught in, but it's probably the same location. The synagogue has been built up on that. Now what we're going to do is we're going to morph that scene to go back to the first century and show you what it would have looked like in the first century with artist realization of it. This is what based on archaeological evidence, Bible scholars believe cappernum would have looked like in Jesus' day. Here are the boat docks. This was the fishing center. This is where Peter and Andrew and James and John had their big fishing business was in cappernum. So here are the first century fishing boats lined up. This is where Peter's house would have been right in here and here's the synagogue right here. Now cappernum is not a huge city by our standards, but when we think of cities today, we think larger than what typically would have been in the first century in Israel. But this is what most people think cappernum would have looked like in Jesus' day based on what archaeological remains are there now. Okay, we're going to have to wait on the tax question till next week. But any question you have before we close up shop tonight. All right, let's pray. Father, we are thankful for the teaching of our Lord. We are thankful that as Jesus taught and instructed his disciples, we're part of the audience now and we can learn the same lessons. Help us father to learn the lesson of not depending on our past successes. Even spiritual authority or giftedness or power that you've given us in the past that we have seen exercise. Help us to learn the lesson that every time we serve you and live for you every day, every moment of every day, we must constantly draw from you, your power, your strength, your help. For we cannot live this life on our own, we certainly cannot serve you on our own. We constantly need to be in a state of prayer without ceasing and faith in you, dependence upon you. Help us to learn that lesson. Help us to learn the lesson of when we are confused and fearful and even grieving that you have not left us. You are not panicking because you're disappointed in us. You're still with us, patiently teaching at your pace, that which will help us to grow a little bit more. Help us to learn these lessons that our Lord is teaching his men and to learn them so that we'll become more like our Lord. Live more like him, respond more like him every day. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.