Greater Than All

Greater than all!?  Is that what Jesus is?  The answer from Scripture is – YES!

You have most likely seen pictures from the mass shooting in CO that left ten Americans dead.  This is the parking lot of a grocery store called King Soopers.  The gunman may have been mentally ill.  We don’t know.  Death and heartache are not a new phenomenon in our sinful world.  Stories like these break our hearts and we want to know why.  Who is in control?  Is anyone in control?

I think that many people misunderstand the pressure points in life.  If I can just keep my job…  If I can make my marriage good…  I just want my kids to be successful…  Those seem like simple things – big things, mind you.  It’s not rocket science to consider that those big things in life – all noble goals – are made up of a number of small details.

It is these details are the ones that drive us crazy.  These details are the ones that our kids fight over.  These are the little details that pile up on our soul until they are a crushing weight.  One of the symptoms of all these details piling up can be mental illness.  Don’t think something severe like schizophrenia. Mental illness can take many different forms.  We can’t say for certain why depression is the common cold of the mind.  It is very common.  If you are a women, statistics say that ¼ of you will be clinically depressed at some point in your life.  At any given time 1.5% of the population suffers from depression.  Our God has given us effective means of treatment for this medical condition.  The temptation can be to blame God when we have a bad day all the way to when someone shoots up a grocery store.  Just because we are surrounded by the symptoms of our sinful world – this doesn’t mean that their cause is found in God.  When all the little things pile up, don’t think for a minute God is unconcerned with the minute details of your daily life.  Everything about you matters.  Rather God limits the suffering of this world and he provides a solution.  Palm Sunday is the beginning of the final stretch of Jesus’ ministry as he saves the world for all time from their sins.  This is our King.  Greater than all.

Want to hear more?  …including how God rescued us from the little details and the BIG problems of sin, death, and the devil?  Watch this week’s message taken from the Gospel of Mark.