Sermon preached by Pastor Samuel Niblack, 13th March 2022

At the moment, the whole world is challenged by the Ukrainian President Zelensky. He restored our faith and taste in values such as courage, the spirit of sacrifice for others, renunciation, qualities so rare among world leaders today. As you may know he had a career as an actor in a show called “Servant of the people”. The West is surprised to see a leader who really seems to serve the people and we can see real greatness. True greatness is not giving yourself airs of greatness. True strength is not a bigger army. Science should celebrate when the strong crush the weak, and yet that is not what our hearts find.

All of this shows that the Bible is topical, because Jesus is the first to speak like that, the only one to make it the heart of his message…

Sermon preached by Luc Massou, missionary to Argentina, 6th March 2022

When we see how the world is going today, we tend to worry more and more about what will happen in the near future… One thing is sure, we have a sovereign and faithful God, he is the alpha and the omega, and he calls us to follow him according to his will by giving us full life and eternal life.

Last week, we saw in chapter 8 that Jesus began to talk about his death and resurrection, and the disciples have difficulty listening to him and accepting this reality.

Once the details of his mission are revealed, Jesus becomes more and more explicit about what it means to be his disciple. In the first half of the gospel, he was calling people to follow him, but now he gives a more detailed picture of what that entails. Since he will take up his cross, we must take up ours. And since the cross and the glory are linked in his life, they must be linked in ours too.

Let’s read Mark 9:1-32

Jesus takes with him Peter, James and John, those who will also be present later at the approach of his death. Jesus’ entourage included 70 disciples, 12 of whom became his apostles, then three of whom, Peter, James, John, were chosen for this special moment. They had also been present in other situations like at the healing of Jairus’ daughter, and later when they accompany Jesus in his prayer at Gethsemane.

They are going to witness an astonishing scene that brings together Jesus and famous characters from the Old Testament. The revelation thus follows its course and becomes clearer: Jesus occupies an essential place in it. This revelation is also intended to prepare the disciples for what will come next, that is, a harsh reality to be accepted, through trials and the death and resurrection of Christ.

Sermon preached by Pastor Vincent Bourrel on 27th Feb 2022

« I am a king, but a king who goes to the cross; and if you want to follow me, you too must accept this cross. »

Reading Mark 8:1-38

Introduction
It has already been said that Mark’s gospel answers 2 big questions: Who is Jesus? and How can we follow him? We are at the half-way point of the gospel and it is the moment when Jesus is going to answer clearly the first question and is going to introduce the second one which will be the object of the second part of the gospel.

At the heart of our text is this miraculous healing (8:22-26) which is peculiar to Mark. It is also particular because it takes place in two stages, in a progressive way. It takes place after a disconcerting exchange between Jesus and his disciples who do not really understand who Jesus is (cf v.21). They too are blind and need a miracle to understand who Jesus is.

But once enlightened they still do not see very clearly, they do not understand everything as Peter’s reaction shows in v.32. They do not understand his mission or how to follow him. It takes a second intervention of Jesus for them to understand.

Sermon preached by Pastor Samuel Niblack on 20th Feb 2022

Let’s read Mark 7:1-30

The relationship between clean and unclean, pure and impure is ever present in human beings. In our family, there is an almost daily discussion about household chores –these are noted by Mom: are they done well enough? Is the floor well swept? Is the counter well wiped? etc. Also, with our large family, our dishwasher fills up quite quickly, it is often overloaded, and sometimes a plate is not thoroughly washed in the dishwasher. If you eat at our place, and your plate is dirty, we apologize in advance !

But it goes beyond that. There is this need in human beings to feel morally clean, pure. We say to ourselves that if a God exists, we must approach him in a clean state. All religions propose ritual gestures of washing, purification, « spiritual disinfection ». That’s what we can see in our text, the Jewish ritual of the washing of hands, Muslims taking off their shoes/sandals, Hindus making ablutions, or even ritual washings in a river –by the way very polluted rivers.

In the West, these things are outdated. And yet… we know that moral faults defile. “Nature”, the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal published an article written by a doctor is currently noticing an increase in obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD), e.g. repeated washings, or exaggerated fear of contamination that stems from a sense of guilt or shame.

How to become pure, healthy, clean? This text will show us that it is much easier and much more difficult than we think.

Sermon preached by Jean-Philippe Gras, EBTM Youth Group leader, on 13th Feb 2022.

Introduction:

We continue to study the Gospel of Mark, we saw last week that Jesus, by healing this poor woman suffering from a flow of blood and the daughter of one of the rulers of the synagogue, announces that salvation is for all, regardless of gender, social status or background. Today we come to the 6th chapter, and we will look at an event in Jesus’s life which is the first miraculous multiplication of loaves. This 6th chapter is dense, it contains a large number of details on the character and identity of Jesus, but we will focus today on verses 30 to 56, the miracle of the multiplication of loaves.

Let’s read Mark 6:30-56

The question we are going to ask ourselves today is “What can we, today in 2022 in Toulouse, learn from this multiplication of bread?” Mark’s objective through his gospel is to allow us to understand who Jesus really is, we will see what this passage can teach us about the identity of Jesus.

So we will see today that:

1/ Jesus is compassionate, and takes care of us
2/ Jesus is God
3/ Jesus frees us from sin
1/ Jesus is compassionate, and takes care of us