Thank you.

I'm going to be.

I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. Are you a secret follower of Jesus?

Maybe you're reluctant or embarrassed, fearful to let friends or family or coworkers know that you believe what the Bible teaches.

Well, today's message on

Truth for Life will challenge your reluctance to openly affirm your faith.

Alistair Begg is teaching about a secret disciple found in the closing verses of Mark

Chapter 15.

And Mark records, when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage, and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died.

And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead.

And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud,

and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the

tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid. Amen. The burial of a loved one

establishes in a way that nothing else does the reality and the finality of death.

It is absolutely undeniable that the person is gone and that the possibilities for further engagement, for conversation,

for physical affection, for touch, have gone with them.

In a moment or two, when we respond to the questions that are before us, they are largely giving to us the opportunity of responding

with the words of the Apostles' Creed. And we do so purposefully because in the early church,

when they summarized the teaching of the Apostles, which is why we have the Apostles' Creed,

it wasn't written by the Apostles, but it summarized

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