Pastor Aaron Contreras challenges listeners to evaluate their beliefs about Jesus and align them with His teachings in the sermon "What do you see and believe?" He uses the story of the blind man in Mark 8 to illustrate how our beliefs about Jesus can grow and mature. The sermon emphasizes the paradoxical nature of following Jesus, where surrendering our will leads to true freedom and fulfillment. Pastor Contreras urges listeners to live a life where Jesus' will takes precedence, guiding them on a journey of faith and encouraging them to share and discuss their spiritual journeys with others.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful that you are with me for this conversation today. Hopefully, you're blessed by it.

Hopefully it brings you some value. If so, share that with someone via text. So, like, send it. If you're listening on podcasts, like, send that out to them and say, hey, check this thing out. Maybe it will help you in your journey.

If you're on YouTube, share that video out. Other people can see it. Hopefully, it is a blessing to them as well. But as we get into the conversation, we are continuing to mark where Mark's talking to us about who is Jesus? What is Jesus like and why that matters for our life.

And today, we're going to learn how Jesus wants us to evaluate the things that we actually believe. Now, we've all experienced times in our life when our beliefs have changed over time, and that is a good thing because there's times where we've believed in the wrong things and we need to lay those things down. And then there's times where we believed in the right things, but those things still need to change, and they still need to grow and mature over time. And we'll notice as we journey with Jesus that that will happen. Our beliefs around Jesus will grow and mature as we live into relationship with him, as we live in a relationship with those beliefs.

And so that's what we're looking at today. What it is that we do believe currently about life and and what leads us to the best possible life, and what also it is that we believe about Jesus? And are we bought in on Jesus or we just kind of somewhat bought into a little bit of Jesus? And so we need to evaluate all that today. So that's the invitation that we're going to have as we go through Mark today.

That's going to be the constant question we're asking, what is it that we do believe and what is it that we do see? And so let's get into it. The first story is about a blind man. Mark. 822 26.

There's these friends who bring their friend who's blind to Jesus and ask Jesus to heal him, and Jesus again, strangely enough, I know it's strange in our culture. It was not strange in their culture. He put some spit on his fingers, and he lays his hands on this man and he prays for that man, right? And he says, do you see anything? Do you see anything?

And the man can kind of partially see, but it's not very clear. And so this brings up a question, why Jesus has healed instantaneously at times. And here he kind of heals, but it's not quite done in the best way. And so he can't quite fully heal. And so it brings up a good point that sometimes when Jesus heals, he chooses to heal immediately.

Sometimes he chooses to heal progressively over time. And then there's sometimes when he heals eventually, meaning we believe as followers of Jesus that we'll all one day, even when our bodies do give out to disease or whatever it might be, we get to go to be with God and we're eventually healed and freed from all of these things that do hold us back. But in the meantime, the day to day, what's the gospel in the midst of that? What's the good news for me is that his grace is always sufficient that he gives you enough to continue to walk each and every day. And so you never journey alone because he is actually with you.

And so hopefully that feels like good news today. But you can continue to ask and believe in Jesus to be able to do this, because at times he will heal. And he's going to do that immediately when you do ask, or he's going to do that after you've prayed for a while, or there's times where he's progressively going to heal you just in bits and pieces over time. And eventually it might be just that eventual healing. Wherever his grace, you get to experience that each and every day in the midst of that.

And so Jesus has, we seen lays his hands on the man. The man can kind of partially see the miracle's not full yet. And then Jesus places his hands on them, the man's eyes again. And then the man's eyes are completely restored. This is amazing.

In his story, you see that the man just, he starts to see just a bit better. And it kind of happens in stages until he can really able to see fully. And then Mark is being a bit sneaky because remember, at times in the Bible, sometimes, just like with our wise family members, they use stories to reveal a great truth. And you got to be paying attention to the truth beneath the story. And so that's what we have to be doing with Mark.

He's using the story in a larger context to reveal something about the followers of Jesus and really about all that would follow in the strange but beautiful steps of Jesus. But I'm not going to give it all away. You need to hang with me into the next part of the conversation. Mark, 827 through 30. Jesus essentially asked what it is that you believe.

What do you believe? Jesus and his followers are traveling through some villages near Caesarea Philippi. And it was a city that was historically devoted to false gods, where they had built shrines to honor and worship these false gods. But at this time, Jesus was passing through. It was mainly a city devoted to the worship of the roman emperor, because in their culture, you can believe in whatever gods you're going to believe in, like a pantheon of gods.

But emperor was above everything else, and he was to be worshipped as if he was God. Culturally, they viewed him as being godlike. And it's here that Jesus chooses to stop and to ask Peter, what do you. What are people saying about me? Who do people say that I am?

Like, essentially, like, what's the word on the street? Peter. And Peter, who is a spokesman for the rest of the disciples, he rattles off a few popular guesses, but none of them are actually correct. They're all missing the point. And then Jesus leans in.

Mark 829 30. Jesus asked them, but who do you say that I am? And Peter replied, you are Messiah. But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. And I love that.

I love that. Jesus started the conversation with, what is it that everyone else is saying about me? What does culture believe about me? What does the world believe about me? And then he kind of double clicks on it and he says, okay, beyond that, who do you say that I am?

What do you believe about me? And I love that he goes deeper because it essentially doesn't matter what culture thinks about it. It matters what you think about it. We all have to make a decision in that regard, because you can't get before Jesus someday. And Jesus is like, man, why did you not accept me?

I've tried to intersect your story so many times to reveal who I am to you. And then all you can really say as well, man, I just. I believed what everyone else around me believed. And that ultimately doesn't matter whether they believe the right things or wrong things. It matters what you believe and how you live that out.

And so with that, Peter says you're the messiah. He actually gets it right. And you might be thinking, well, what's a messiah? Messiah. It meant this long awaited savior of the world.

God had been slowly revealing himself, starting with a family that was meant to show the goodness of God to the rest of the world. But he was going to bring about a savior that we all needed, a savior to show us how to live life before God, to be connected with God, a savior who would, like, take on sin and death and triumph over all of those things to pay the costs for all the things that we do that actually invite death into our life or other people's lives. Jesus is going to essentially take all the consequences to that, which I think is an amazing thing. The whole world's looking for Jesus. He's the savior of the world.

He's right here with Peter asking him this question. And Peter answers correctly, it's amazing. And you might be thinking, well, why in the world would Jesus not want Peter to go tell everyone about him? He got the answer right. Like, go tell the masses that the savior is here, the messiah is with us.

Well, as we see in the second part here, just in a second, while Peter's confessing Jesus is the long awaited Messiah, there is so much that he just doesn't understand and that he misses. And if you read all the way through the gospel of Mark, Jesus is consistently telling people not to spread the news of who he is, partly because they just don't understand who he is and why he has truly come. They get in the way, bringing their own agenda and confusing that with what Jesus is trying to do. Oftentimes looking for things, oftentimes looking, Jesus, would you heal me? Would you do this miracle for my life?

Would you do all of this stuff? And Jesus viewed his primary vocation as proclaiming the gospel of God. And as he's proclaiming this message, it's a subversive message, it's a message that could get you killed. And Jesus knows that he's trying to accomplish a specific mission. And I think at the same time he's keeping his eye on the temperature, of the climate, of the people that he's upsetting, the people who are plotting how to kill him, how to snuff him out, all this stuff.

Jesus is seeing the bigger picture and we don't always see that. And so I think that that's what leads Jesus so often to say, hey, don't go out and spread that yet. It's not the time. There will be a time when he does empower them to go spread the message and so many people will come to know him. But first, he is waiting to get to the cross and he's rest of Mark is going to be this slow movement to the cross, this big reason why Jesus came.

And we'll see more and more start to unravel. Why is it that Jesus went to a cross like, what happened with that? And we'll see all the different implications that come because of that. But Jesus is going to reveal a big piece of the picture right here in this next part mark 831. It says, then Jesus began to tell them that the son of man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests and the teachers of religious law.

He would be killed. But three days later, he would rise from the dead. Jesus was pulling back the curtain to let the disciples know what was coming. Jesus had come to push back the curtain of darkness to proclaim the kingdom of God. That was his primary vocation, to make earth a little bit more like heaven.

And in doing so, darkness was going to not go down quietly. Darkness was going to try to fight against the light. It was going to try to fight to attempt to eliminate Jesus, because there's, it's, there's Satan, the adversary. He's working through political and religious powers of the day, even in this cultural moment that Jesus is living in. But as we're going to see, Jesus would triumph over evil on the cross.

When Satan uses the religious leaders to leverage the government to have Jesus killed. And when Jesus does die on that cross, as we're going to see later and we're going to reflect on this over and over, Jesus dies on that cross. Like Satan thinks he wins, evil thinks he wins, because Jesus lies in a grave for three days, building the anticipation that maybe evil triumphed over good. Maybe darkness is going to just invade the whole world and there will be no hope for anyone else. This was the plan of God.

And somehow Satan thinks I snuffed it out. It worked. I accomplished what I wanted to do until that day when Jesus breathes again and he comes back to life, showing that he has power over evil, even death itself, that he can transform it, that whatever feels dead, that he can bring it back to life, that he's powerful enough and good enough. And Jesus is revealing, like, I've been doing all of this to show you the kingdom of God, to proclaim to you what it looks like to live within the kingdom of God. And a big piece of what is going to happen is that I must go suffer many terrible things to be rejected.

This has to happen that I'm going to die, but three days later I'm going to rise from the dead. Like, how amazing is that? He's giving away the end of the story and just to help them have peace of mind. And we see in a little bit that the disciples have anything but peace of mind. After Jesus is killed, they actually scattered and they're hiding for their lives and they're being super fearful, not remembering Jesus had told them this, that this would come, but it was okay.

Because he's working something good out in the midst of that.

And the implications of Jesus death and resurrection just, they're so massive. There's so many different theories about why Jesus goes to the cross and what all is accomplished with that. I'm just convinced there's probably a lot of different theories that are good and right. There's probably some theories that aren't so good and not so right, but I just think there's so many different implications. We struggle to wrap our brain around it, and we need a journey with Jesus so we can start to understand more and more of who he is.

And while Jesus is revealing more and more, restoring sight to what is true, there are still many things that we will always just be. It will always just be a bit out of view for us. It'll always just be a mystery like we don't quite understand. And as we follow Jesus, following Jesus is always following Jesus us into the midst of mystery, into the midst of darkness. And that's something we just have to make our peace about, that we're never going to fully know.

And so even when we think we have things mapped out, none of us have anything mapped out or figured out. We're all just trying to put the pieces together as best we can and try to manage in this life. And thankfully, the gospel of Jesus is so great because Jesus actually gives you the presence of the Holy spirit that helps to lead you in the truth and to lead you into the steps you should take and gives you courage in the midst of those broken moments. It's a beautiful thing. Let's get into mark 832.

As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Remember, Peter is a revolutionary, claiming he's willing to take up arms to fight for the cause of. Then you find out later that Peter is just more talk than actual action. Imagine trying to reprimand the savior of the world who has already shown that he is wiser than the wisest, stronger than the stronger, strongest, better than the good. Mark 833.

Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. Get away from me, Satan. He said, you are seeing things merely from a human point of view and not from God's. Can you imagine like someone saying this to you, like you just claimed that Jesus is the messiah, and then in the very, like, next moment you allow yourself to get in the way of Jesus and you get reprimanded to the point that Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. Like you're considering everything from a human point of view, not from God's.

Peter isn't seeing correctly. Keep in mind that this is the same Peter who just confessed Jesus is the messiah, the savior, the hope of the world. He had part of that figured out. But then immediately after that, he gets in the way. He gets in the way of God's plan, saying, that's not going to happen, Jesus, like what you just said, like the big piece of why you came, that's not going to happen.

We're not going to allow it to happen. He's only seeing partially. Things are still blurry. But Peter is acting upon what he sees as if it's actually just clear. And we have taught this verse before and asked this question.

It's worth asking again. When our will is in conflict with God's will, who wins? I want to ask you that again because that's a heavy question. Because a lot of times we point at Peter and, like, how can Peter be so silly? We do this all the time.

I do this all the time. And so as I journey with Jesus, at times my will gets in the way of Jesus's will. I get in the way of God's plan. And when that happens, when our will is in conflict with God's will, whose will wins? Mark 834 38.

It says, then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, if any of you wants to be my follower, if any of you wants to be my follower, he just reprimanded Peter. You're thinking about things from a human point of view. You're not. You don't have your eyes on God. And then he turns to everyone else, like, if any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own way.

Take up your cross and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the good news, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

And if anyone is ashamed of me in my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the son of man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his father and with the holy angels. There's a lot there. Jesus ups the ante by a lot. It's not enough to confess or recognize who Jesus really is. Confession has to lead to action.

We must follow in Jesus ways. Peter claimed, hey, Jesus is the messiah. He's the son of God. And at the same time, he gets in the way of what Jesus is trying to do. And we're all a bit like that.

We're all a bit like that. But again, confession isn't enough if it doesn't lead to actual life. Action. Like, both of those things matter. If you don't believe me, go read James.

Like. And he makes it pretty clear a lot of you guys think, man, faith is everything. But faith without works is actually dead and meaningless and purposeless.

Confession and action have to go together because why? Because you actually live out the things that you actually believe. And so we can say things all day, and a lot of people do. We say it all the time. We say it to people around us.

We say it to our friends. We post it online. We do all that. We make a lot of confessions with our words. But the things that we live out each and every day, those are the things that we actually believe.

And so, if you want to know what you believe, look at the things that you live out. Your actions, your habits, all of those different things. And so, as we follow Jesus, we have to give up those ways at times, because true life is only truly found in Jesus. And without him, we are essentially blind in need of healing. So, do you see how that first story is?

Pulling in to the story about the disciples and their belief and what it is they believe about Jesus, Mark is using this story of someone progressively healed in stages to show you that this is our spiritual life. At times that sometimes Jesus, when we encounter him, like, we see him just a bit, things are still blurry. There's still so much we don't understand about Jesus. There's so much we have to work out and questions that we might have all of those things. And so if that's you today, like, welcome to the family.

Like, we're so glad you're here, because a lot of us are here. I'm still here. But as you journey with Jesus, you start to see that you get to experience a more of a progressive healing. You get to start to see things a bit more clear over time, that we would move from no sight to blurry vision to eventually seeing more and more things clearly. In that progression, we will see more and more of the goodness of Jesus and understand more and more of the implications of why he came to earth and what he's trying to do through our lives.

As we continue on his mission, he wants to show us how to live connected to God. He wants to show us how to live for something bigger than the story that we often settle for. He wants to bring about healing to the broken parts of our lives. He wants to guide us into all truth, into all life, and even in the things that we have still yet to figure out or understand. He continues to bring illumination day by day by day as you journey with Jesus.

So I want to ask you, who do you believe Jesus to be? I need to wrestle through that question too. Even as a follower of Jesus for a long time. Who is it that I believe Jesus to be? The answer to that question is going to determine if you live life getting in the way of what Jesus is trying to do, or if you live life following Jesus, where you get to experience him and experience him leveraging all of your life and all of your story to be a blessing to other people.

I think we're all really craving that. So are you? Are you getting in the way? Are you actually in line following after Jesus, whatever you will? Jesus, I'll follow you.

Everything you've done, I'll give you everything. And when what you believe conflicts with what I believe, man, I'll lay that before you and ask you to change me and change my heart. When you my actions aren't the things you want me to do, I'll lay that down at your feet so that you can change me and you can help me to live out the right actions, to believe the right things, to do the right things, all of those different things. So who do you believe Jesus to be? And are you actually following him?

And at some point in following after Jesus, as Peter has experienced, our will conflict with his will. And when that happens, whose will wins? Is it laying it down at his feet or is it just committing and going all in on our way? Because Jesus will have no part of that. Jesus will allow you to go off on your own way.

And he's loving like that because he knows that that doesn't lead in a good direction. His hope is that you turn around and you eventually see that and turn back to him and discover his ways that are actually good all along.

And we can't live out Jesus teaching if his will doesn't take precedence over everything. And when Jesus, even when Jesus was praying to the father, we'll see him go to a garden, he's about to go to a cross. And Jesus lays what he's feeling at God's feet. He says, God, I really want things to go a different way than the way that they're going to go. I want them to go a different way.

I don't want to go the route of suffering I don't want to go to a cross. I know all that that entails. If there's another way, there's another plan, let that other plan come to be. But then he says, but nonetheless, your will above all things. And that's where we need to follow Jesus to be bold enough to actually name the things that we actually want in our life before God, but also the maturity to say, well, nonetheless, like, even if I don't get that, I'll still follow, even if I don't get that your will done above all things, like, I'll submit my hopes, desires, dreams, ambitions, whatever it might be.

I'm going to surrender all that to your feet, Jesus, whatever you will, let that be. Because the only way to walk out the implications of Mark chapter eight as Jesus is teaching us here, to give up your way, to take up your cross daily, to follow Jesus. Like, if we're not willing to lay all of our stuff at Jesus's feet, we won't ever live out that stuff. We'll want to pick up our own way, we'll want to reject any kind of suffering, and we'll want to follow ourselves into whatever we believe is to be the best life. And Jesus makes it really clear that it's not way to actually live life.

Only in doing this, giving up your way, taking your cross, following Jesus, do you actually experience life and all the things that you're craving and wanting, wanting in life, wanting fulfillment and all of those different things, it's only found in the way of the cross. It's only found in following him in his footsteps of dying to certain things. Jesus says that you can gain everything in the world and you can get everything that you want, but it's going to rot your soul, and in the end, you're going to end up crying out to everyone else that's further down that path behind you saying, hey, this isn't the way. Like, I gave everything to follow in this way. And I've just discovered having enough money is.

There's just never enough to make me happy, enough possessions, there's just never enough to make me happy. If you don't believe me, just google it. There's example after example after example like that living for those things will never fulfill. Although you might be watching YouTube after YouTube video after YouTube video trying to figure out how to accumulate more of those things, it isn't the way, it's only found in the way of Jesus. And the way of Jesus is actually not easy.

It's actually hard. Because you know what? Some of the best stuff in life always comes through the hard route, through the route of gritting and going the difficult way. Like that's where we experience the most life anyway. If we're going to follow Jesus, that's the route that we need to be taking.

And the paradox of the gospel is that in order to experience life, we have to at times experience death. And I don't know what that might look like for you. It might be the death of certain habits that you're currently doing and filling your life with that aren't leading in a right direction. Maybe it's a death of attitudes that are just destroying relationships around you. Maybe it's the death of you doing certain things to cope with the pain in your life instead of opening yourself up, taking the hard route and starting to work through those things with, with a community and with a counselor, whatever that might look like for you.

Maybe it's a death of how you're showing up in the world because you're just showing up and you're just bringing everyone else down. That's not the way that we need to be living. Maybe it's the death of things that you think matter most. Maybe it's death to the things that you have been sacrificing for in order to get to some idealized future version of whatever that might be. And you need to lay all of those things down so that you can actually experience life.

Because the paradox is it's going to be hard and difficult at times to do that. It's so hard. It's so hard. But when we do that, we get to have true freedom, we get to have grace working through our life. We get to experience peace, we get to experience grace, all of those different things.

I know it's hard, but know this. It's a journey. It doesn't happen all at once. And that's why I love the story of the progressive healing of this blind man that happens in stages because it's a great metaphor for our life spiritually. That as we even begin to live life with Jesus, we start by laying down false beliefs so we can pick up believing in him.

And as we follow after him, we'll start to figure out that some of those beliefs are so deeply ingrained, it takes time with him in his power to unwind some of those things, to relearn other, better things. And even as we continue to grow into maturity, we have to learn how Jesus ways show up in the world and how to communicate truth to other people and all of these other things. It's a journey. But the grace of God is that Jesus meets you right where you're at today, that you don't have to have it all figured out, that you don't have to have it worked out. Like, he just wants to wrap his arms around you to give you grace and mercy and peace, to accept you right where you're at.

And then after flooding you with all of those different feelings and things, he's going to slowly take you by the hand in a community, and he's going to begin to slowly walk you to a better way to live, to better understanding of who he is. He's going to slowly and progressively bring more and more sight to your life so that you can live out what's true and beautiful and good, and it's only found in Jesus. And so with that, I just want to ask you, what is it that you believe and what is it that you are currently seeing? And so let me just pray for you, God. I just.

I know belief is really hard and it's difficult. And so I just pray for whoever's listening to the audio or the video of this teaching that you would take them by the hand and that you would love them and care for them and journey with them as you lead them into all truth, because that's the promise that you made, that you would lead us into all truth, that you would guide us, that you would not leave us abandoned or forsaken. And so would you come alongside us and would you help us? And where our sight is just completely blinded, would you bring some sight to us today that we would see you just a bit more clearly? And even when we're in a season where it's hard to see you in the midst of everything else going around, would you help those things to settle so we can see you more clearly?

And even when we want a completely different way, would you help us to surrender ourselves before you, to say, God, not my will, but your will, above all things, and give us the courage each and every day to give up our own way? That often doesn't usually lead to life. It usually leads to brokenness. To pick up your way that actually brings life. And that happens by picking up our cross daily, dying to the things that we need to die to, so that way we can be resurrected into the things that you actually have for us.

And so help us to deny ourselves, to pick up our cross, to follow you each and every day. Help us to be courageous in doing that in a culture that is not going to be favorable towards that. Help us. Help us Lord, and help us to care about your opinion beyond what anyone else might say. In your name we pray.

Amen. So thank you for listening today's teaching. I just want to encourage you to share it out if it's a blessing for you. Is there something specifically that you've been encouraged by? Drop it in the comments on YouTube or email us by going to pinehillschurch.org hitting the connect tab, and you can start a conversation with us through there.

Just letting us know what's been a blessing, what's been helpful for your spiritual journey. Again, that website is pinehillschurch.org. dot. You can find all relevant information about our community, but just can't wait to see you in the next episode. Have a great day.

Bye.