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And Then What Happened? | Mark 4 | Week 4

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When the Storm Comes | Mark 4:35-41

When the Storm Comes | Mark 4:35-41

Small but Large Effect | Mark 4:30-34

Small but Large Effect | Mark 4:30-34

The Measure You Use | Mark 4:24-29

The Measure You Use | Mark 4:24-29

Receiving the Seed | Mark 4:1-8, 13-29

Receiving the Seed | Mark 4:1-8, 13-29

Ears to Hear | Mark 4:9-12, 21-23, 33-34

Ears to Hear | Mark 4:9-12, 21-23, 33-34

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TRANSCRIPT

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?: How to Hear a Who   Mark 4   Pastor Dan Elliott  (1st)

We are in this series going through the Gospel of Mark.  Today we’re taking chapter 4, which is the longest chapter so far (about 40 some verses).  I’m going to ask you to read the first eleven verses with me.  Again Jesus began to teach by the lake.  The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.  He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said:  “Listen!  A farmer went out to sow his seed.  As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil.  It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.  Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”  Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”  When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.  He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables.”  

We’re going to take a look at parables today.  I was going to call this “The Perplexing Problem of Parables.”  Instead we’re calling it “How to Hear a Who.”  Let’s bow our heads.  Our dear Heavenly Father, what a great God you are!  Lord, I’ve loved singing these songs that focused in on you.  Jesus, because you’re alive, we’re alive today with hope, with future, with eternity in mind.  How great is that?!   Lord, open our eyes, open our ears.  Join us together, make your word come alive.  Would your Spirit teach us now.  I praise you, in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

When I read through this chapter there were some things about the kingdom of God that seemed to jump out, and that Jesus was illustrating as he told these parables.  But there was one principle that jumped out pretty strong.  It was one of my favorite principles growing up.  When I was a kid, I lived about a quarter mile from the library in our little town of Hancock, New York.  I would come home with three or four books and usually there was at least one that was Dr. Seuss.  One of my favorite characters was Horton the Elephant.  The book was titled “Horton Hears a Who.”   Horton hears some sounds when he’s out.  On the 15th of May, in the Jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, he was splashing, enjoying the jungle’s great joys, when Horton the Elephant heard a small noise. So Horton stopped splashing.  He looked towards the sound.  “That’s  funny,” thought Horton. “There’s no one around.”  Then he heard it again!  Just a very faint yelp, as if some tiny person were calling for help.  “I’ll help you,” said Horton, “but who are you? Where?”  He looked and he looked.  He could see nothing there, but a small speck of dust blowing past through the air.  “I say,” murmured Horton, “I’ve never heard tell of a small speck of dust that is able to yell.  So you know what I think?  I think that there must be someone on top of that small speck of dust.  Some sort of creature of a very small size, too small to be seen by an elephant’s eyes.  Some poor little person who’s shaking with fear that he’ll blow in this pool, he has no way to steer.  I’ll just have to save him, because after all, a person’s a person no matter how small.”  So gently, and using the greatest of care, the elephant stretched his great trunk through the air, and he lifted the dust speck and carried it over and placed it down safe on a very soft clover.    The rest of the story is how Horton tries to help these people on that small speck of dust.  He discovered they actually live in a little town called “Who-ville.”  He meets the mayor who says, “My town is called “Who”-ville, for I am a “Who.” and we “Whos” are all thankful and grateful to you.  And Horton called back to the mayor of the town, “You’re safe now, don’t worry, I won’t put you down.”    But of course, there’s challenges that come.  Horton hears the Whos, but nobody else does, and they think Horton’s nuts.  Because he’s walking around holding this little clover very carefully.  Pretty soon the animals around him try to figure out ways to sabotage, figure out ways to make him let it go.  Finally…..“Believe me,” said Horton, “I tell you sincerely, my ears are quite keen and I heard him quite clearly.  I know there’s a person down there.  And what’s more, quite likely there’s two even three, maybe four.” 

Like I said, I’d go to the library every week and get two or three books and there was always a Dr. Seuss book.  Dr. Seuss was one of my heroes.  Dr. Seuss’s real name was Theodore Geisel.  I was surprised when I read his life’s story.  During World War II, Theodore Geisel drew about 400 political cartoons.  When I saw some of the cartoons, I was shocked.  They were very racist and hateful towards the Japanese people.   So much so, that some of the newspapers that published the cartoons received angry letters from parents asking them not to publish them because they didn’t want their kids to see them.  After the war was over, in 1953, Theodore Geisel/Dr. Seuss was hired by Life Magazine to go to Japan.  He was asked to write an article on the post-war efforts and how it was helping the Japanese children.  He went to Japan with a Japanese and went from school to school to school.  He asked every child to draw what they wanted to be in the future.  During that trip, Theodore Geisel was changed as he heard what these children were saying, as he saw the dreams that they had for the future.  He realized, “These kids aren’t any different than mine.  And the parents of these children aren’t any different than I am.”   He came home and wrote the article, but he also sat down and wrote “Horton Hears a Who.”  A person’s a person no matter how small.   I love that theme that goes all throughout the book:  “Should I put this speck down?” Horton thought with alarm. “If I do these small persons may come to great harm.  I can’t put it down!  I won’t, after all, a person’s a person no matter how small.” 

That’s a great theme.  And it’s a theme we find throughout the kingdom of God.  Everybody’s made in the image of God.  A person’s a person.  Everyone we are to love and to reach out to.  But that’s not the theme I want you to get from Horton this morning.  I want you to get this theme:  “Believe me,” said Horton, “I tell you sincerely, my ears are quite keen and I heard him quite clearly.  I know there’s a person down there and what’s more, quite likely there’s two even three, maybe four.”    My ears are quite keen and I heard him quite clearly.  My hope today is one of the principles we’re going to hear about the kingdom of God is we’ve got to start listening.  With keen ears.  With Horton-like ears.

I think of the parable we just read. It was book-ended with these words:  He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: Listen!   And the ninth verse, at the end of this parable, said:  Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”    The same word is used three times:  listen/hear.  It’s the Greek word “akouo.”   You can almost hear the word ‘acoustic’ coming through it, which means ‘fine tune’ or even ‘tune in.’  The word akouo means ‘listen, because this needs careful thought.’   What Jesus is saying when he’s telling this parable is listen to this, because I want you to give some practical application, I want you to think about this.  I want you to enter into this.

When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.   What exactly were they asking?  Did they want to know what the parable meant?  Did they want to know why he was using parables?  In a parallel passage in Matthew, it said they asked, “Why did you use parables and what did they mean?”  I think they’re asking something more.  If you go back to what Aaron preached last week and you go back to Mark 3, there’s a couple pictures that hit you.  One is there was so many people, such a large crowd, that Jesus said to his disciples, “Hey, let’s get a boat and I’ll get in it and you go out a little way from shore so I can teach from it, so I won’t get pressed by the crowd.”  He’s doing the same thing here…..it said he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake.  So there were large numbers of people.

Secondly, we see there was opposition rising.  In chapter 3 there were the Pharisees, there were the Herodians, there were others coming.  It tells us in three different places.  One said they were coming to see something they could accuse Jesus of (Mark 3:2).  In verse 6, it said they were coming to kill Jesus.  They were trying to stop his ministry.  Toward the end of the chapter (3:22), they were accusing him of being of Satan.

When I hear the disciples asking him about the parables, I hear them saying, “Jesus, why did you tell a story about a farmer?  Good grief, you’ve got big crowds here.  What a chance to teach them what you’ve been teaching.  Furthermore, now those people are scratching their heads wondering what you meant by that! You’ve got the big-wigs from Jerusalem coming.  What an opportunity to be able to teach your truth and be able to change their minds.  Now all they think is you’re nuts!  You had an opportunity and what do but tell them a story about a farmer throwing out some seed!”  Then Jesus says to them…..and I’ve got to say that this is one of the more puzzling verses—definitely in chapter 4 and maybe even in Mark’s gospel.   He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'”

There’s a couple of things in those verses that stopped me in my tracks.  One of those is ‘the secret’ thing, and the other thing is the quote from Isaiah 6:9-10.  It’s after Isaiah had been commissioned and had his great vision and the angel put a piece of coal on his lips.  Then he’s given this charge which Jesus repeats here:  ….ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!   It almost sounds like Jesus wants to be cryptic so that he doesn’t have to forgive these people.  That doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know.

I mentioned parallel passages and Matthew’s gospel has a little longer explanation that we’re going to look at.  Some of you may be wondering what I mean by parallel passages.  There’s four gospels in the beginning of the New Testament:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Each one of them written by those individuals.  They’re all about the life of Christ and they all give a little bit of flavor from their personality as they’re sharing about the life of Jesus Christ.  Sometimes you read it and it follows together and sometimes you read it and there’s some different slants on how they viewed what was happening.  Matthew shares this parable of the farmer or the parable of the sower, and the disciples asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”  Jesus answers in Matthew 13:14-15  —  In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:  ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.’  For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.   In that I hear a little different tone than what I heard in Mark.  Yes, Mark quotes some of this, but not all of this.

I remember when Larry started us off on this study of Mark and he referred to Mark’s gospel as the ADD gospel, as a gospel that flits from this story to the next story to the next story, then the next story.  And it flies!  So sometimes in Mark’s gospel things are kind of compressed, but in the other gospels things are expanded.  I see Matthew expanding this and giving you more of the feeling.  I feel Jesus saying, “Oh man, if only these people opened their eyes, I’d heal them, but they’ve closed them.  If only they’d open their ears, but they’ve stopped them up.”  Notice what he says at the very end (Matt. 13:16) — But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.   Commentator William Barclay takes this passage and interprets it like this:  “When Jesus said this, he didn’t say it in anger or irritation or bitterness or exasperation, no, he said it with the wistful longing of frustrated love.  The poignant sorrow of the man who had a tremendous gift to give, which people were too blind to take.”  I think that’s what’s going on here when Jesus uses those words that sound a little harsh to us.

He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables.”   So that brings me to the secret of God.  What is the secret of God?  One of my favorite verses….actually my life verse…..which I took after seminary and said I want this to be the verse that defines my ministry throughout my life.  It’s Colossians 2:2-3  —  My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.   The secret of the kingdom of God is Jesus, is Jesus Christ.   Here’s Jesus, and I can believe is that these disciples have been given a little bit of an insight to realize that Jesus is unique.  He’s the one we’re going to follow when he called us to follow Him.  Jesus has the answer, and so, when Jesus tells some kind of a story about someone spreading seeds, they’re curious and they want to know why.  When those people who are against Jesus, who say they have to stop him any way possible, hear him telling a story about a farmer throwing seeds around, they’re saying, “Well, why do we have to waste our time with him?  He’s lost this crowd if he’s going to talk like that.”  It kind of keeps the opposition away, and it kind of draws the curiosity of a people who have received this inclination that there’s more to Jesus than we see.  Yeah, they had this secret, but they didn’t have all the answers.

When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.  This brings us to the first kingdom principle that I see in this passage.  The principle is we need to listen, we need to be curious, we need to ask questions.  We need to listen intently with Horton-like ears that can hear what other people aren’t hearing.  We need to be curious and question.  Kerry and I are going to get flown back to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I started my ministry.  I was able to plant a church called Lancaster Evangelical Free Church.  What amazes me is it’s still going today!  We’re going back for their fortieth anniversary.  I’m looking forward to seeing the changes, but it’s caused me to reflect a lot.  Especially as I come to this principle of listening, being curious, and asking questions.  I think of those years I was in Lancaster.  I was totally bent on giving them great answers.  Stop the questions.  Give you satisfactory reasons why this is.  I never taught those people how to question.  In fact, I’m not sure that I knew.  I’m not sure that I was comfortable in questioning what I was taught.  It wasn’t until I started to question that I began to deepen and understand more.

I’ve told you about ‘The Guys Must Be Crazy’ on Friday mornings.  I love it, because we read a passage of Scripture and then the way we start is “Okay, what bugs you?”  It’s terrific to hear the conversation that happens and the teaching that takes place around that circle of men.  Listen.  Be curious.  Ask questions.

We just had Family Promise here.  I had a great experience during a Friday night I was there.  As coordinator, I just make sure nothing goes wrong.  I was sitting in the kitchen and I could hear the commotion of all the kids playing in the room next door.  Everything else seemed to be quiet.  One of the dad’s came in, got a drink, sat down, and said, “Hey, can I ask you a question?”  I said, “Sure, ask me a question.”  He said, “Doesn’t it take a man with a woman to have a kid?”  “Yeah, I pretty much agree with that.  Sure.”  He said, “That’s what throws me off.  I just don’t understand this Mary bit and how she could have Jesus without Joseph.”  “Oh, that’s where you’re going.”   We had a great time for about forty-five minutes.  He had one question after another after another.  What I began to realize is that many of my answers came back as “I can’t fully explain this to you,”  but I know that as I’ve stepped into this circle where I say ‘Yeah, Jesus is unique, Jesus is the Son of God,’ it helps me understand the virgin birth and why we need it.  It helps me understand the crucifixion and why Jesus went through it.  It helps me understand that yes, He conquered death.  All of this centers around Jesus.  I love the fact that he was curious.   I believe that Jesus liked the fact the disciples came to Him and said, “Okay, tell us about this story.  Explain this story to us.”

They’ve been told the secret.  Let me tell you, the secret’s out.  The secret’s out and everyone here knows that secret.  One, I just told you.  But you knew it anyway.  Right after Jesus explains a little bit more about this parable, He says these words (v. 21-25) —  Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed?  Instead, don’t you put it on its stand?  For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.  If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.   I believe he’s telling his disciples the day’s going to come when this secret that you know is going to be out in the open.  And my goodness, we’ve got it written right in front of us.  It’s out in the open.  That doesn’t mean we keep it to ourselves, not at all.  It means that when we go and share with other people, they might say, “Aaah, you’re talking about that Jesus who was born by virgin birth.”  It gets the conversation going.  Listen.  Listen.

We come to these parables and we’ll just review it because it’s one that we all know.  The parable of the sower and the seed.  We’ve had it taught all different ways, but he basically says the farmer goes out and spreads some seeds.  Some lands on hardened ground.  You picture a sidewalk or a path that’s beaten down.  Seed lands on it and birds come and snatch it away.  Some goes on rocky soil.  It’s shallow.  It starts to germinate quickly and then the sun comes out and scorches it; there’s no root and it dries up and goes away.  Some fall on thorny or weedy ground.  It grows up with the thorns and the weeds and the weeds choke it out and it’s gone.  Some goes on good soil.  In good soil it grows and harvests a crop thirty, sixty, a hundred times.

Then Jesus sits down with his disciples after they say, “Tell us about this parable.”  He gives them some insights.  The seed that the birds came and took away is really Satan coming and snatching it away, because it’s a hard spot, a hard soil that doesn’t take root.  It’s like people who are hardened and Satan snatches them away.  That rocky, shallow soil is like people who receive the truth really quickly and they’re all excited about it, then pressures and challenges come and all of a sudden it dries up and is gone.  Then there’s people in thorny, weedy soil who receive the word, but then all the cares of the world, the desires, the temptations, the question marks .  It’s not fruitful.  Finally, the good soil.

I tried to figure out what the kingdom principle for this was.  I’ve always looked at this in an ‘evangelistic’ way.  Which means how we go about and share the gospel and how the reception is to that gospel.  Evangelastic is those in the evangelical church that kind of like to expand the numbers too big, so we say it’s evangelastic.  The more I thought about it, I realized that’s not really a kingdom principle—how people receive it.  I wrestled with this well-known parable, and you know what jumped out at me?  This farmer’s pretty sloppy.  Here’s the sower or the farmer with a handful of seeds that he just tosses.  Some lands on the sidewalk, some lands on the rocks, some lands in the thorns, and some lands on good soil.  I remember my grandfather (Pa) had a big garden when I was growing up.  He’d take me out there to plant and we never wasted seed.  This farmer seems pretty reckless.  The word ‘reckless’ can be translated as ‘prodigal.’  You think of the parable of the Prodigal Son….well, a lot of people interpret that as a prodigal father who had a reckless love.  You know what I see here?  A prodigal farmer.

It brings out the second kingdom principle:  God is generous with His truth, regardless of how it is received.  He spreads just as much seed on that hardened path, as he does on that good soil, as he does on those thorns, as he does on those rocks.  And the seeds are spread.  There’s a verse in Romans 1:19-20 — Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.   The same truth is shared.  God’s love is generous and he spreads it out.  I know some people wrestle with this parable and we try to come up with all kinds of theological implications.  Like, so if these people are hardened, they get one chance and then Satan snatches away and it’s over.  I don’t know, the farmer probably came out the next day and spread some seed.  I don’t know.  But I don’t think he’s talking about that.  But it really hits me, the generosity of God to spread His truth.

So I look back at those pictures, and when I go through the translation here in Scripture, it basically portrays Jesus as saying, that’s a person who’s got a hardened heart, that’s a person who was shallow and gave into temptation and drifted away.  I started looking at these and started asking the question is this talking about people, or is it talking about the conditions of souls?  Is it different souls?  As I’m thinking about this, I realized that I think I’m listening and I’m curious and I want to know more.  As I look at these soils, as I look at these conditions, as I look at these things in the parable, man, I could tell you everyone of those is in my life right now.  I started to get very convicted, because I like to think I really hand it all over to God, but there’s some areas of my life I’m hardened to.  I’ll say, “God, take anything….but this.”  I put it under lock and key and keep it away from him.  I have some of areas I just won’t let go of, that represent to me that hardened path.  I wondered how many times God has thrown some seed on there and it’s been snatched away because I wouldn’t let it sink into me.  Psalm 23:6 came to mind — Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  Recently I was reading about that verse and what came across was surely God’s goodness and God’s unconditional love is going to be more than passively following me, it’s going to be pursuing me, it’s going to be chasing after me, it’s going to be seeking to capture me all the days of my life.  God does not give up on those hard areas in my life.   Am I listening?  Do I have Horton-like ears to hear that?  Do I ponder it?

What about those areas in my life that are kind of shallow?  In the enthusiasm, I’ll receive something and get all excited about it, but then there’s outside pressures that come in and it seems to squelch it.  I’ve shared with you that I’m an anxious person.  I can be intimidated rather quickly.  In fact, just knowing I was going to be preaching is a little intimidating.  Matthew 28:20 came to mind.  When Jesus is meeting with his disciples the last time, he says:  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.    Do I listen to that?  Do I realize, that right now as I’m up here in a rather intimidating situation in front of you all, that Jesus is up here with me?  Jesus is inside of me, and Jesus is speaking through me, and Jesus is giving you ears to hear.  Do I realize that?  Wow! What a concept!  What a thought!

I receive the truth and I know the truth, but I live kind of in fear.  One of the thoughts that came to mind as I was wrestling with this “thorny” soil—about areas that tempt me—I always wonder….I’m suppose to be the provider in our family.  I wonder, “Have I provided enough to get us through?”  I know I shouldn’t be like that, but I do.  We had a great Christmas trip.  While I was there, I was talking to my brother-in-law.  He was sharing how his company was bought out.  The company that bought them gave him a tremendous stock option.  In fact, they gave him fifty percent more to buy him out.  He said, “Dan, I could retire today and we’d have no worries.”  I was smiling on the outside, but on the inside I was thinking I’d better go home and figure things out!  Do I hear Matthew 6:33?  Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.  Don’t worry about tomorrow.  I know that verse, but am I listening?  Am I curious?  Am I asking God questions?

Then you come to the good soil, producing thirty, sixty, a hundred times.  We’ll get to that.  But the kingdom principle that comes out is we can cultivate our hearts to receive more and more of His truth.  Just because we may have a hardened place in our life, I don’t want you to write yourself off saying, “Well, that will never change.”  Oh no, just know God’s pursuing you and He’ll never give up.  Just because you may have a weakness and you’re living in fear because of something else, realize God is with you and He can give you the strength to keep on going.  We can cultivate our hearts to receive more and more of His truth and allow it to penetrate deep into our hearts.

The soil that produced thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold, that’s where I think Jesus went with the next parable.  (Verses 26-29)  He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like.  A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”    I want to assure each and everyone of you here today who has entered into that wonderful mystery of God, that Jesus is the one who has the wisdom and knowledge.  Your life is producing something.  I want to encourage you to look for it.  Look for it!  It’s tempting to always say, “I see it in this person, but I’m still wrestling, I’m still struggling.  I don’t know if it’s here.”  I was talking to someone this past week.  We got into one of those political conversations.  This individual looked at me and said, “You know, Dan, three years ago that would have just yanked my chain!  But today?  So what, God’s in charge.”  Hey, that’s crops growing, that’s fruit being produced.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal. 5:22-23)   I want to assure you, we can do things to try to cultivate the fruit a little bit, but it grows by the work of the Spirit within us.

I’m amazed as I look at my driving skills today, compared to what it used to be.  I’m amazed how I can drive and somebody can cut me off and now I see the patience.  I’ve never prayed for patience!  But it’s interesting to see that grow as the Spirit lives inside of us.  It’s interesting to see the love of God for other people grow as the Spirit lives inside of us.  I want to tell you, there are places in your life where those seeds that God has planted are producing a crop of thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold.  Look for it.  Be encouraged.  Walk in that joy.  So the next kingdom principle is:  When we receive His truth, it produces results.

We can cultivate our lives to receive His truth more, but when His truth gets in there, it produces results and changes in our life.  Isn’t the kingdom of God great?  He’s generous with His truth and He scatters it all over.  We can cultivate our lives to receive more.  And we can receive His truth and it will produce results.  Boy, do we have ears to hear that?  Horton-like ears?

It finally brings us to the last parable in this passage, the parable of the mustard seed.  (Verses 30-32)  Again he said  “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it?  It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth.  Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”   When I think of the smallest of all seeds….diminutive….tiny.  Boy, not impressive at all.  But out of that grows something that can provide shelter for the rest of the world.

The last principle is His truth is unassuming, but it packs a wallop!  I think of Isaiah 53:1-2.  We’ve heard the secret is Jesus Christ.  Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.   And yet He’s the Savior of the world.  He’s the mystery of God.  He’s the transformer.  Wow!  I think of Ephesians 2:8-9  —  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  It’s not us…..it’s Him filling us with His truth and using us as his instruments in this world.

As I was thinking about the fact that His truth is unassuming, but it bring changes within  our world and within our society.  I was trying to think….when you think of hospitals, most hospitals have some kind of faith-based organization behind it that started it. (I couldn’t find many details on that.)  But I was interested to find this…when you think of universities, colleges, places of higher learner, I was interested to find that in colonial America there were 123 universities that were started then.  One hundred twenty-two of them were church-related.  They had wonderful statements of purpose.  I’m going to read this one and you tell me which school you think it is:  Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life.  {Harvard University}  I’m not sure where it is now, but isn’t that a great start?  Boy, starting from something so small, something that looked like it was almost blown out on the cross.  But look what’s happened today!

I think, right here in our church, is something that illustrates this principle very well.  It’s the Food Bank.  Let me show you what it looks like today.  On Tuesday night, we had the opportunity as Elders to have the team from the renovation come and share how it’s grown, how it’s changed and been transformed.  I remember when the Food Bank started in someone’s garage.  It eventually got moved over here and got moved from corner to corner to corner.  It was stuck back in that corner.  People would come on a Saturday morning, but, yeah, it was in the back of the church.  And you people gave a year ago, and that corner’s been transformed.   And I don’t mean just transformed so that it looks nice, it’s been transformed so that the people who are working in the Food Bank are working there to recognize the image of God in every person that comes in.  To encourage people that God has a plan for them and a purpose and they love on them.  And to be able to meet physical needs like food.  I love what’s going on there!  It’s like that little tiny mustard seed that has blossomed into this today!

Those are just some of the principles of the kingdom.  Do we hear those?  Do we allow ourselves to listen?  Are we inquisitive and curious and digging in deeper and deeper?

The chapter doesn’t end with a parable.  It ends with a story.  And it’s a real story.  But I think it’s kind of a good parable for us today too.  It ends with Jesus, after a long day of teaching and a long day of explaining, saying to his disciples, “Come on.  Let’s get into the boat and go over to the other side of the lake.  Let’s get away from the crowds.  Let’s have some quiet.”  They get in the boat and start making their way across.  Jesus falls asleep.  He had to be exhausted, because while they’re on the lake, a storm rises and beats and batters the boat.  It says water was washing into the boat.  Finally, the disciples go and wake Jesus and say, “Aren’t you worried that we’re going to drown?”  I kind of think Jesus rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looked around, then stood up.  It says in Scripture he said these words:  Quiet!  Be still!  I don’t know if the water all of sudden went ‘boink,’ or gradually got quiet and then went still.  I can’t help but think that Jesus wants us to listen and to hear those words.  I know that all of us here today have storms.  We have things we’re anxious about, things that are eating away at us.  Maybe it’s a marriage going in a direction we didn’t want it to go.  Maybe it’s a kid that’s just not following what we want them to follow.  Maybe it’s thinking about taxes or politics.  Jesus says, “Quiet!  Be still!”  Do we hear that?  Do we take it seriously?  Do we listen to that?  The disciples in the boat said, “What manner of man is this?”  That’s a great question to ask!   What manner of man is this?

We have the opportunity to come to His table.  We do this every month, and sometimes maybe that just becomes a tradition or a pattern.  But I want to encourage you today, as you would come to take these elements, as you would come to take the bread and the wine, that you would listen.  When He was meeting with his disciples that night before he was crucified, he said, “This is my body broken for you.”  I’m sure they were thinking, “What in the world is He talking about?!”  I want you to ask questions as you take this piece of bread. His body broken for me….what does that mean?  As you take this cup, the cup of the new covenant….what does the new covenant mean?  {Leads into communion instructions.}

And Then What Happened? | Mark 4 | Week 42020-08-20T18:51:57-06:00

And Then What Happened? | Mark 3 | Week 3

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Around the Circle | Mark 3:31-35

Around the Circle | Mark 3:31-35

In the House | Mark 3:20-30

In the House | Mark 3:20-30

On the Mountainside | Mark 3:13-19

On the Mountainside | Mark 3:13-19

At the Lake | Mark 3:7-12

At the Lake | Mark 3:7-12

In the Synagogue | Mark 3:1-6

In the Synagogue | Mark 3:1-6

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TRANSCRIPT

And Then What Happened? | Mark 3 | Week 32020-08-20T18:46:12-06:00

And Then What Happened? | Mark 1 | Week 1

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Jesus Heals and Teaches with Authority | Mark 1:21-34, 40-45

Jesus Heals and Teaches with Authority | Mark 1:21-34, 40-45

The Call to Follow | Mark 1:16-20

The Call to Follow | Mark 1:16-20

Baptism and Temptation | Mark 1:9-11, 35-39

Baptism and Temptation | Mark 1:9-11, 35-39

Wilderness | Mark 1:1-8

Wilderness | Mark 1:1-8

Silence is Broken | Mark 1:1, 14-15, 38

Silence is Broken | Mark 1:1, 14-15, 38

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TRANSCRIPT

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?   Mark 1    Pastor Larry Boatright   (2nd Service)

{Manuscript—View video for complete content}    Years ago, I rekindled a childhood love for storytelling, and got into screenwriting.  I wrote a number of different things, from short films, web series, sitcom pilots, and most recently, a feature film script.  In fact, my friend Michael and I wrote a sitcom pilot that made it into the top 10% of an international screenwriting competition.  Pretty wild, huh?  One lesson I learned was to start the scene as late as possible, and to get out of the scene as soon as possible.  A great example of this comes from one of the greatest underdog stories of all time: “Tommy Boy.”  Tommy’s family is gathered for a huge wedding celebration, because Tommy’s father, Tom Callahan, got married that day to a beautiful younger woman.  While at the reception party, Tommy’s dad collapsed.  Tommy ran over to him, and we see the camera tighten on Tommy’s face.  The next shot widens to reveal Tommy and many others in a cemetery, burying his father.   A bad screenwriter does what’s called exposition—they add a bunch of filler material that’s really unnecessary.  For example, they might have kept the scene going with a 911 call, waiting for the ambulance, and more.   Good writers write just enough to reveal what’s important, what helps the reader understand the characters and move the story forward, and nothing more.  They take the reader or viewer through snapshots that tell a larger story, and leave us wondering what’s next.

We’re starting a brand new series today called “AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?”  And that’s exactly what we are going to do for the next 14 weeks.  We’re going to journey together as a church community through the Gospel of Mark.  We could almost call this the ADD gospel, because it moves so quickly from one thing to the next.  I was talking with a friend this week, and he said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but are you a little bit ADD?”  I laughed and said, “Absolutely, it’s one of my superpowers!”  Mark moves very quickly also.  In fact, he consistently uses words like ‘immediately’ and phrases like ‘a little while later’ to move the story forward.  It’s a story that has all of the elements of an incredible story: Character development.  Conflict.  Power struggles.  And redemption.

We wanted to start this new year immersing ourselves in the life of the One who transforms us, who created all things, who invites us into life.  Our hope is that this will ignite something deep within all of us, not only people who’ve studied the scriptures for a long time, but also brand new followers of Jesus and even those who don’t yet claim to follow Jesus.  So the next 14 weeks, we’ll be looking at the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  My prayer is that we’ll all be challenged, as we look at snapshots from Mark, to explore what we can learn about 3 things:  Who Jesus is.  What Jesus does.  What Jesus invites us into.

As you might imagine, we won’t have time to look at every single verse, but we will look at some snapshots that reveal who Jesus is, what Jesus does, and how we are invited to join him in the renewal of all things. We’ll also be sharing some tips and tools to help you learn to the read the Scriptures well on your own, for your own formation.  I want to encourage you not to just gloss over some of these stories because you’ve read them before, but rather, to let the Spirit of God meet you in these passages, these stories, these examples, and to do a deeply formative work in all of us as we journey together these next 14 weeks.

Let’s pray before we dive in.  Lord, I just pray that you would meet us in the pages of scripture.  Jesus, as we study the scriptures to see who you are and what you’ve done, would you help us to see?  Holy Spirit, illuminate truth.  Permeate our hearts.  Expose our faulty ways of thinking in ways that we’ve seen things that aren’t true.  Show us truth.  Help us to live in your way with your heart.  I ask all these things in the strong, powerful name of Jesus.  Amen.

Okay, turn with me to Mark chapter 1, and while you’re turning there, here’s a little bit about the book of Mark.  The early church fathers believe that the apostle Peter passed along the story of Jesus’ life through his writer, John Mark.  It’s widely believed that Mark was written while in Rome, and while there is some debate about when it was written, it’s likely it was written somewhere between the mid 50’s and the mid 60’s. Early church tradition was that Peter was in Rome in the early to mid 50’s.  Mark was the earliest gospel written, and the shortest gospel written, and the gospel of Luke likely used Mark as source material.  Mark was written for a Gentile Christian audience, possibly the church in Rome.  It’s been said that the Gospel of Mark is a PASSION narrative with an extended introduction, because the second half of the book is what leads up to his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

What I want to do today is give a quick summary of what happened in Mark 1 and then look at a handful of observations about who Jesus is, what Jesus does, and what He invites us into.  This is a summary of what has happened —

John the Baptist prepares the way (1:1-8)

Jesus is baptized and tested in the wilderness (1:9-13)

Jesus goes to Galilee and begins sharing the good news (1:14-15)

Jesus calls his first disciples (1:16-20)

Jesus casts out an impure spirit (1:21-28)

Jesus heals a bunch of people (1:29-34)

Jesus spends time alone (1:35-39)

Jesus heals a fellow with leprosy (1:40-45)

So what I want to do is drill down on three big-picture ideas from chapter 1. I’m not going to look in depth at the first part of the chapter.  In the first 13 verses, we see John the Baptist arrive on the scene, preparing the way for Jesus, and then Jesus baptized and tested in the wilderness.  We talked about this in the second week of Advent, so I highly encourage you to go back and listen to that talk if you want a refresher.  I want to jump down to verses 14 and 15:  After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

This is POWERFUL!  Don’t miss this!  This is the first thing we see Jesus saying to others. What was his message?  The Good News!  It comes from the Greek word ‘euangelian,’ which means evangelism, the good news, the gospel.  A lot of us have different ideas what the good news really is.  When I was growing up, the ‘good news’ was that God is perfect and pure and holy, and we will burn in hell if we don’t accept Jesus into our hearts.  It didn’t sound like good news to me.  We see from the Jewish scriptures that for millennia, the nation of Israel, God’s people, were waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to be established and His Holy King to be seated on the throne. So Jesus arrives upon the scene and what did He say?  “Accept me into your heart and you’ll go to heaven?”  No!!  Look at it again. He said, “The time has COME.” The word ‘come’ is used repeatedly throughout this chapter to indicate movement, to invite us forward, to heal and cast out impure spirits.  Eugene Peterson translates it this way: “Time’s up!”

The passage here says he went into Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God. We don’t have to wonder what the good news was.   It was “The time the Scriptures talked about is here.  The Kingdom is here. The King is here, and I am that King.”  See, God’s kingdom is a benevolent kingdom, one in which God’s perfect reign is established, and it means that things are beginning to move back to wholeness, back to shalom, the way God intended it to be. As Jesus begins to speak of this kingdom, he sets the stage to demonstrate what this kingdom was going to be about, that God was with his people and he was making all things new.  That’s good news, isn’t it?  I would say that if you watch or read the news, that’s good news for us today, isn’t it?  That there is a King and there is a kingdom, and He is doing something about the craziness that we often see.  He’s dispelling the darkness.

So what we learn here is this:  Jesus clarifies the good news and extends an invitation. (1:14-15)   This is super easy to get wrong. We’ve often reduced the good news to have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.  In the church I grew up in, you didn’t hear people openly talk about the Kingdom of God, pairing with Jesus.  What you heard, “Come down at the end of the service.  Repent of your sin.  Pray the sinner’s prayer and now you get to go to heaven when you die and narrowly avoid the gates of hell.”  I’m not just saying that as a characterization; that’s literally the words I heard.  I heard this from a lot of other speakers as well.  This was their message—I want to bring it to a point where you repent and you turn and say this prayer.

The problem is, all too often, we’ve made the good news about personal salvation. Listen to what scholar, professor, and author Scot McKnight says about this:  “I believe the word gospel has been hijacked by what we believe about ‘personal salvation,’ and the gospel itself has been reshaped to facilitate making ‘decisions.’  The result of this hijacking is that the word gospel no longer means in our world what it originally meant to either Jesus or the apostles.  I am convinced that because we think the gospel is the Plan of Salvation, and because we preach the Plan of Salvation as the gospel, we are not actually preaching the gospel. {Let me say as someone up here preaching to you that’s terrifying to me to think that I could go years thinking and preaching the gospel to people and not actually be preaching the gospel.}  Our contemporary equation of the word gospel with the Plan of Salvation came about because of developments from and after the Reformation. {The Enlightenment caused us to think legally, judicially, to think transactionally and not relationally. Here’s how he frames it.}  The gospel is the work of God to restore humans to union with God and communion with others, in the context of a community, for the good of others and the world.”  THAT sounds like good news to me, how about you?

Jesus clarified the good news.  He said that the time had come, that the kingdom was here.  McKnight said in an illustration in one of his books that he was in an airport and he ran into a well-known, large-church, evangelical pastor and McKnight asked, “What is the gospel?”  The person answered, “That’s easy, it’s justification.  That is the gospel.”  So McKnight asked, “Did Jesus preach that?”  He said, “No. Paul was the first one to get it right.”  {NO!} I think we would want to listen to what Jesus has to say about the gospel; call me crazy, but I’m just saying, let’s start there. So I love McKnight’s summary:  The Gospel is the work of God to restore union with God and communion with others, in the context of a community, for the good of others and the world. That is shalom.  That is God’s good and perfect peace, and my friends, that is the gospel.  So when we reduce and we boil down the gospel to saying a prayer to get out of hell, we’re missing the big picture of what the gospel’s intended to demonstrate, which is the King is here.  You don’t need a King if the gospel is just a personal relationship with Jesus, you just need a Savior.  But the scriptures didn’t promise just a Savior, they promised a King.  That God’s good and perfect kingdom was breaking forth into all of the world.  That’s a beautiful picture of the kingdom.

So Jesus clarified that THAT was the good news—we don’t have to wait until someday or until we die to experience the goodness of God.  The Lord is present with us! The Lord is within this room right now!  The Lord is with YOU!  The Holy Spirit of God is within you.  You don’t have to wait until you die to experience the Lord.  The kingdom is NOW!  It wasn’t until I got out of the traditional denomination I was in and started doing some events in charismatic groups…..they talked constantly about the kingdom.  It was weird!  Twenty years later, now I get it.  The Savior is a savior but He’s also a King and his kingdom is good.

Jesus is working toward the renewal of all things, but then he also gave an invitation.  “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”  What was his invitation?  Repent and believe.  Just like we talked about in Advent about this idea of repent, often people think that repent means to turn from my sin.  That’s true, that we should turn from our sin, but the word ‘repent’ literally means ‘change the way we think.’  Sometimes the way we think isn’t necessarily inherently sinful, it’s just not God’s best plan for us.  It doesn’t necessarily move us toward wholeness.  Jesus is saying, “Turn from the direction you’re currently going and reorient your life in a new direction, the direction and way of the kingdom, and believe this good news!”

And all of these years later, the message of the gospel, the good news, is still the same:  The kingdom of heaven is here.  And the invitation is the same: Repent, turn from those ways—some sinful, some just not the right direction.  Orient everything toward the way of Jesus.  Turn away from patterns of living that don’t move you towards wholeness.  Turn away from relationships that don’t move you towards wholeness  Turn away from thinking that doesn’t move you towards wholeness in Christ.  Believe that the kingdom of God is here and turn towards it and live in His way with His heart.

This first part, Jesus clarifying the good news and giving an invitation, is critical to understanding the rest of the book of Mark.  Because the rest of the book shows not only WHO Jesus is, but demonstrates what this kingdom looks like.  If you don’t understand what the good news is, and if you don’t understand what repent means, and if you don’t believe in the good news, you’re going to miss so many riches throughout the rest of the book of Mark.  Are you with me?

For some of us, reading the scriptures is an intellectual exercise in simply taking mental notes and understanding concepts, but early in Mark 1, we see Jesus setting the tone for who He is, what He is doing, and what He invites us into.  He invites us to be subjects in this beautiful kingdom, this incredible new way of thinking and living, and that’s why our mission statement reflects this kingdom way of thinking:  To live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.  He IS the King.  The first thing is, Jesus clarifies the good news and invites people to respond to it.  The second thing we see in this chapter is this:  Jesus demonstrates his intentions and his authority. (1:21-27, 1:29-34, 1:40-45)  If the good news is the gospel of the Kingdom, then Jesus demonstrates what He intends the kingdom to look like throughout the rest of this chapter.  We start seeing a tone of what the kingdom is about.  He casts out an impure spirit, he heals a lot of people, and he heals a man with leprosy.  He shows that His intention is to bring healing, to bring shalom and wholeness to people.  This was His intention—the way of the kingdom—and the way that he taught demonstrated He had the authority to back up what He was saying about the kingdom.  He could bring to pass what he was saying the kingdom was all about.

In verses 21-27, Jesus went to Capernaum and went into the synagogue and began to teach. Look at verse 22:  The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.  I’m sure this is very much how you feel when I teach….amazed at my teaching!  Just kidding!  But Jesus didn’t carry himself as others did, commenting on the text as observers with thoughts and interpretations.  No, He taught as one who had authority, as if He was the author of the text, that He embodied the text!  But then, as we’ll see in a couple of other instances, He doesn’t just demonstrate His authority by the way He spoke, He demonstrated His authority over all things by healing, by setting people free, by challenging systems that weren’t honoring to the kingdom of God.  Verse 23-27:  Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”  “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!”  The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.  The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.”   Can you even imagine being in that room when that happened?

In verses 29-34, Jesus went to the home of Simon and Andrew, and Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, so Jesus healed her.  And, as you might imagine, if someone was able to bring healing like this, others would hear about it, and want to be healed too.  Look at verse 32-34: That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed.  The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.  It’s easy to read something like this and think it’s just a story, but remember, Mark is presenting this as something that actually happened. Jesus exercised his authority by silencing the impure spirits he cast out, and he healed many people.  We can see by this point in Mark that a crowd is starting to follow him because He not only is proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom, He’s demonstrating what the kingdom would be like by healing and moving things to wholeness.

And finally, in verses 40-45, a man with leprosy got on his knees and begged Jesus to heal him. Leprosy was a terrible disease—literally parts of the body flaked and fell off—and religious people wouldn’t be caught near a person with leprosy. But listen, I think one of the takeaways from this is that as Jesus is teaching us about this kingdom, as he’s setting this foundation for what the kingdom was about, He was showing that the kingdom of heaven is very INCLUSIVE, not very EXCLUSIVE.  We like to have US vs. THEM.  We like to think very black and white—you’re in and you’re out.  Jesus went to people that the other religious leaders didn’t want anything to do with and said you’ve got a seat at the table and He healed them instantly.

Jesus gave him some specific instructions on what to do now that he was healed—which he promptly ignored.  Verse 43-45:  Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning:  “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” {For whatever reason, Jesus is saying it’s not time for me to fully be revealed, so don’t go out and tell anybody.} Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.  

Jesus showed that his intention was to bring healing, to move people back towards shalom, towards wholeness, and to invite ALL people into the kingdom to enjoy the benefits of living under His Kingship. And boy did people respond! Crowds formed like crazy in response to this.  I have to be honest, as I thought about this, I wonder why churches aren’t exploding more?  The church is exploding around the world in countries where the church is oppressed.  But in places like America, where we’re free to say what we want and to think what we want, often we don’t see that.  I have to wonder if the average person believes that this Jesus that did these things wants to bring healing and wholeness to them?  I wonder if we’ve forgotten that this is the same God that chased Adam and Eve in the garden after they sinned.  The same God who parted the sea so the nation could pass through it.  The same God who called people—these fishermen—from sketchy backgrounds and put them in a position of leadership.  The same God who established His throne forever.  I wonder if we’ve forgotten that that same God is still at work today, moving and shaping all of creation, even right now as I speak, every fiber of the universe is being pulled toward what God’s intention for it is.  I wonder if we’ve forgotten that.  If we TRULY understood this, how could we be silent about the good news?  If we truly understood this, how could we not look at those who are not like us with compassion and take their hand and tell them about this Jesus?

What’s the breakdown?  These aren’t just stories, friends, these are examples that set the tone for what Jesus was all about, and who He was, and what he’s STILL all about today.  My hope is that you’d read these and realize that Mark is showing us that Jesus’ intention is to be involved when we are hurting.  I love John 11:35—Jesus wept.  The King wept with his people because Lazarus had died.  His friend passed away.  Jesus’s intention is to bring healing where there is brokenness, and to push back the forces of darkness.  The KING IS HERE!!

So Jesus clarifies the good news and invites us to repent and believe it, which means to reorient our lives around it.  And he demonstrated that his intentions were for the kingdom to be a benevolent kingdom, one that sets people free and begins renewing all of creation.  And that He had the authority to make the kingdom a reality in all of creation.  And then finally, the third thing we can take away is that Jesus builds a foundation for his ministry.  We’ve got to remember that Jesus is God, but God in the flesh and that He was one person.  He started the work of this ministry.  We see from the Gospel of Mark that Jesus did a lot.  Look, chapter 1, there’s like eight different vignettes of what He did.

He also set up the foundation to ensure that the Kingdom continued to break forth into all of creation.  One of the ways He did that was He began by building his team.  (1:16-19)  Jesus, obviously, is incredibly powerful—He can speak all things into existence. But He didn’t just say, “Look at me, I can do it all!”  He chose to start calling disciples—ordinary, average people—to do it with Him.  Verse 16-19:  As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.   

I love that He called ordinary people to follow Him. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said.  Notice Mark’s intensity of time here: “At once, they left their nets and followed Him.”  We’ll see a little later in Mark that these same people are the ones Jesus calls to be his inner circle, but more importantly, he called and empowered them to heal and drive out demons as well.  See, he was setting a foundation for his ministry so that the kingdom would continue to break forth.  What’s crazy, if you think about it, is we’re beneficiaries of this, but we’re also heirs in this process. He’s calling us, also, to be those same people—to come follow me, but also to heal people, to tell them about the kingdom, to pull them along.  Isn’t it cool that God invites us into that process all these years later?

So, He invited them to join his work of releasing the kingdom and the way of the kingdom in all of creation. Those humble fishermen—ordinary people like us—and He used them to do incredibly powerful things. Imagine what it would be like if we could believe that God wants to use us, that Jesus is calling us, not just the professional Christians, but the average person who follows Jesus…..what if God wanted to use you to bring forth the power of the kingdom, the renewal of all things, to Littleton and beyond?  That might sound crazy to you, but it’s true.  God has wired and equipped you to partner with Him and He’s still building His team.  So every week when you serve here, you’re part of His team.  When you go out and serve in the community, you’re part of His team.  When you gather with Watchmen on Wednesday night, and you’re praying, you’re summoning God’s kingdom to break forth in this city, you’re part of His team.  He continues to build His team.

He engages in a practice that helps him stay connected to God. (1:35)  Look at verse 35:  Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Crowds have been pursuing Jesus increasingly throughout Mark 1.

You might not know this, but I’m actually an introvert.   Back in the days when I traveled all over the country leading worship, I was in front of large crowds on a regular basis.  While I enjoyed it, I also got fatigued after a while from the crowds.  All these people wanted to come up after an event and talk.  I just wanted to go to the trailer and start rolling mic cables or to get out of there and go back to my hotel and get away and recharge my batteries. I can also tell you it’s easy to be enamored with success.  When people like you and they’re glad you’re there and they praise you, it’s easy to get caught up in success and lose sight of God.

I love what we see Jesus modeling here.  He prioritized staying connected to God by getting alone and praying. I recently read a book by John Mark Comer called “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” and he talked about this.  It’s easy to look at people that are super saints and to think, “To be super spiritual and to be like Jesus, I have to get up at 3 am and pray for hours.”  Comer reminds us that before electricity and light bulbs, the average person slept a total of 11 HOURS A NIGHT!  See, we see all these super saints from history getting up early to spend time with God, but it’s not hard to get up early when you went to bed at 5 pm!!

The point here isn’t that you have to do exactly what Jesus did.  I think the point is that Jesus modeled for us making time with God a priority.   For some, it’s through prayer.  For others, it’s reading the scriptures.  For others, it’s journaling.   For others, it’s meditating on Scripture.  I love that Jesus, despite the crowds and the hurriedness all around him, prioritized connection with God.  I also think it’s interesting that the entire book of Mark is hurried, and immediately this and that, but Jesus lives in complete contrast to that, living an unhurried life in the midst of it all, prioritizing what’s important.

So Jesus built a foundation for ministry by building his time, staying connected to God, and finally, He stayed focused on his mission. (1:38-39)  See, Jesus pulled away to spend time with God and Simon and the others went to find him and sort of frantically said, “Everyone is looking for you!”  Of course they were, Jesus was God in the flesh, who wouldn’t want to go out to God when He is near?   When He heals and delivers and all of those things?  But Jesus didn’t give into the demands of the crowd. Look at what He said in verse 38-39:  Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”  So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.   Jesus could have stayed where he was, healing every single person that wanted to speak to Him, but He chose not to do that.  He kept laser focused on the mission—to go out and preach in the synagogues, and driving out demons, and we’ll see in the chapters to come, challenging old ways of thinking, healing, and inviting people to something much more beautiful than they could even imagine.  It’s easy to get distracted and to chase every opportunity that presents itself, but every successful organization, every successful movement stays successful because they are laser focused on what’s most important, and Jesus modeled that as He laid a foundation for the unfolding of the Kingdom of God.

So, we see in Mark 1 that Jesus clarified the good news and invited people to respond.  He demonstrated His intentions for the kingdom and His authority to live that out. And he began to lay the groundwork for a powerful move of God by calling others to share the load, prioritizing connection with God, and staying laser focused on His mission.  Friends, I’m really excited about the opportunity we have in front of us. I can’t wait to see what we will learn about who Jesus is, what He is about, and what He invites us to.  I want to encourage you to read the entire first chapter this week, and ask the Spirit of God to begin to reveal Jesus to you in a fresh, new way, and to read the Scriptures in a fresh new way.

So we’ve talked a lot about JESUS today….Who He is, what He does, and His invitation to respond.  Now I want to ask this:  What about you?  I want to end by creating space for us to wrestle with three questions:

What would it look like to reorient your lives around the way of the Kingdom? To repent and believe?

What is one practice you could engage in to stay connected to God?

What is one way you can join Jesus’ invitation to release the Kingdom into all of creation?

Take a few moments to chew on these and ask the Spirit to give you the strength and the courage to respond.

And Then What Happened? | Mark 1 | Week 12020-08-20T18:47:37-06:00

And Then What Happened? | What Jesus is All About | Mark 2:13-17 | Week 2

TRANSCRIPT

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?: What Jesus is All About   Mark 2:13-17   Dr. Scott Wenig

{Manuscript:  View Video for complete content}  (2nd Service)  Good to see all of you today.  We’re going to continue our series in the Gospel of Mark today.  Last week, Larry gave us a panoramic view of chapter one. Today, I’m going to give us a snapshot of a particular element in chapter two.  Before we look at this text, I’m going to ask you to join your hearts together with me in prayer.  Father, thanks so much for your provision, your care, your grace in our lives.  Lord, we want to thank you for the salvation that you provided for us in the Lord Jesus.  Thank you for the grace and the guidance you give us every day.  Lord, I thank you for your Church; when she’s filled with your Spirit, she is the hope of the world.  I thank you so much for South Fellowship, the ministry that this church has in this community, in this city, and around the world.  Lord, I thank you for every person that’s here today, and I thank you that I have the privilege to worship here and now to share from your Scripture.  So Lord, as we look into your word, we ask now that by your grace and your Spirit, you would show us who you are, what you’re about, and what that means for us.  Father, we ask all of this in the great and glorious name of Jesus and for our sake.  Amen.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is one of the most famous buildings in the world.  According to the best records, construction on the cathedral began sometime between 1160 and 1163 and was finished about 200 years later. Of greater significance, it served for over eight centuries as one of the finest examples of Gothic medieval architecture ever devised and built. But as you know, last April a section of the cathedral caught on fire, undermining its infrastructure and causing the majestic spire to crumble in a heap. When Notre Dame was built its beauty, majesty, and ministry made it the wonder of all of Europe. But now, after catastrophe, it needs to be saved, restored and made right. And that serves as a metaphor for the condition we find ourselves in today. 

A long time ago, there were two beautiful, majestic, and marvelous creatures named Adam and Eve who lived in a paradise called Eden, but they willfully chose to sin against God and consequently, like Notre Dame, they too were ruined. And all of us here are their descendants; we all have poisoned blood in our veins. And because of that we’re hurt, broken and only a shadow of what our Heavenly Father created us to be.  I like the way the great pastor and theologian, Fleming Rutledge, put it:  “We are all a lot worse off than we think we are.”   So, given that reality, we need to be saved, restored and made right, but only something—or more precisely Someone—really powerful and really loving can accomplish that.  Fortunately there is such a Person. His name is Jesus and we’re told all about Him in the Gospel of Mark.   Most scholars argue that Mark was a close associate of the apostle Peter and so his gospel—this biographical account of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection—is based on Peter’s eyewitness account of his experience with the Savior. 

In the first few verses of chapter 2, Mark says that Jesus had returned to the city of Capernaum following His itinerant ministry of preaching the Kingdom of God throughout the region of Galilee. And because Capernaum sat next to the Sea of Galilee, Jesus apparently used that location as a regular venue for His teaching and ministry.  We see that in verses 13-14.  Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.  As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

Levi (who was also known as Matthew) was a tax collector who worked in or around at Capernaum, and he probably knew Jesus from His coming and going in and out of the city.  Now if you’ve been in churchworld for a while or studied the New Testament in detail, you know that tax collectors were at the bottom of the social ladder in ancient Israel because they worked for the Romans and against their own people. Tax collectors hired themselves out to the Roman imperial administration for a specific amount of money that they were required by law to collect. Your employment contract with the Empire forced you to collect enough tax revenue to pay Rome, but anything above and beyond that you could keep for yourself.  As you can see that was a system perfectly made for greed, corruption, and oppression, which tax collectors came to personify.  The Roman historian Tacitus told of a tax collector who was somewhat honest and, in honor of the fact that he had some degree of honesty, a town built a statue of him.  What we need to know is that when a Jew became a tax collector for Rome, he immediately became a social outcast who was viewed as a traitor to his race and nation. He was forever disqualified to serve as a judge or witness in court.  He was excommunicated from the synagogue and his disgrace extended to his family. Let me do the best I can to contemporize this a little bit so we’ll get a feel for what Mark is communicating here about this tax collector Levi. Tax collectors were the ancient equivalents of contemporary drug dealers who make lots of money peddling crack cocaine and destroying lots of lives in the process. They were the worst of the worst.  The scum of the earth.  But the Romans loved them because they enriched the Empire at the expense of their own people.  

What is so amazing about Jesus is that He calls this tax-collecting sinner named Levi to ‘follow’ as one of His disciples so that he could be transformed into the type of man God originally intended him to be.  Friends, this is where we need to understand the importance of the word ‘follow’.  It’s used a number of times in the New Testament and it almost always describes the action of a man or woman answering Jesus’ call to re-direct their lives towards God’s kingdom. It means to start an intimate relationship with Jesus by receiving His forgiveness and then living the new life that Jesus modeled.  Over time—and I want to stress this—over time, people who follow Jesus are transformed by His grace.  

One of the greatest works of art ever produced in western civilization is Michelangelo’s Pieta in Rome.  It’s a marble statue of an anguished Mary holding the crucified Christ.  Some years back a fanatic nationalist rushed upon the masterpiece and began smashing it with a sledgehammer. The damage was significant, but a group of Vatican artists were eventually able to restore it to near-perfect condition because they had lots of pictures of the original that they could use to see exactly how Michelangelo had originally made it to be. 

Friends, we all know the damage that sin has done in our own lives and in the world around us.  We all know how really tangled we are and how tangled the world is, but Mark wants us to know that Jesus is all about transformation and He has inaugurated a kingdom centered in the powerful grace of God, which not only provides forgiveness of sins, but over time, redeems our raggedness as we follow Him.  That’s true for you and it’s true for me and Jesus wants it to be true of lots and lots of other people as well.  Look at v. 15:  While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 

For Jesus to go to this dinner party populated by tax collectors and sinners was both culturally radical and theologically provocative.  Religious types of people, especially rabbis like Jesus, weren’t supposed to hang around tax collectors and other really sinful people. But, as a number of commentators have pointed out, when Jesus sat down to eat with them it was a visible sign of fellowship, acceptance, grace, and forgiveness. 

C.H. Dodd was a pre-eminent New Testament scholar of the 20th century.  It said he had the entire New Testament memorized in Greek.  Here’s his comment on this text:  “Jesus’ affirmation of the disreputable is not to be confused with the tolerance of a broadminded humanist.  It expresses the sovereign mercy of God in calling whom He will into His kingdom.”  

Friends, Jesus flaunted the culture of His day and ate with this group of people because He’s all about transformation and He’s all about multiplication.  Jesus wants to extend salvation to as many people as possible.  So, I’d like to suggest that’s why it’s so important for us to keep John 3:16 at the forefront of our minds:  For God so loved the WORLD….(all the tangled, broken, sinful people of the world)…that He gave His Only Begotten Son that Whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but shall have eternal life. 

Gilbert Belezikian taught New Testament at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago back in the 1970s and 80s.  Dr. B, as he was affectionately known, always had a great heart for taking the Good News of Jesus to lost people and he could get pretty passionate about that. On one occasion, Dr. B was teaching a group of elders, deacons, and ministry leaders in a church in California.  And as he did so, he told them that it was clear from the New Testament that a big part of having a church that lived like Jesus was to have a heart for lost people, for those who are currently far from God.  And one of the leaders asked, “But isn’t our church supposed to be for people like us?” Well, that pushed one of Dr. B’s buttons and he got pretty amped up and said, “There are lots of churches that are only for Christians and which have no heart for the lost and you can be like them if you want. But whose gonna reach out to all the chain-smoking, wife swapping, whiskey-drinking, tax-cheating, child-neglecting SOBs in this community?”  And it got really quiet because no one expected to hear something like that from a New Testament professor.  And then one of the deacons said, “You mean sons of Baptists?”  Friends, Jesus has a huge heart for all those ‘sons of Baptists’ and He wants us to have that kind of heart as well because he’s all about transformation AND multiplication. So here’s a question I’m laying out for you and for me:  Who is ONE person who does not yet know Christ that you’re praying for, reaching out to and building a relationship with that you can invite him or her to church sometime in 2020? Jesus wants you and me and everyone at South Fellowship to be transformed into the men and women He’s called us to be.  AND He also wants the exact same thing for all the people we’re related to, all the people we know, and all the people who live and work around us in Littleton, Englewood, and Denver regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, sexual identity, economic status, or political party affiliation. So, friends, let’s be friendly, let’s be prayerful, let’s build relationships, and let’s invite non-church folks to South in 2020 because Jesus is about transformation and multiplication! 

He was willing to do whatever it took show people the love and grace of God. But that’s not something the Pharisees could sign off on. Look at how they respond to Jesus in verse 16: When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 

The Pharisees were the spiritual descendants of an earlier Jewish group known as the Hasidim.  The Hasidim had stood for obedience to God’s law during the 2nd century b.c. when they were subjected to a horrible persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes IV.  The Hasidim were honored for their commitment and endurance in the face of persecution and destruction and rightly so.  But as time went on, the core component of Hasidic piety which came to define the Pharisees was the distinction between those who strictly followed all the laws and religious traditions that developed over time and those who didn’t.  And by the time of Christ, the Pharisees had divided all of Jewish society into the righteous and the sinners.  So, for Jesus as a rabbi to eat and hang out with a group of tax collectors was outrageous and reprehensible in their eyes!  From their perspective Jesus was WAY OUT OF BOUNDS!  So when they ask why He’s eating with them, it’s not a question as much as it’s a condemnation of Him and all the tangled sinners that He’s eating with. 

Jonathan Haidt is a contemporary researcher and writer and in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Religion and Politics, he says that his research has shown that ‘self-righteousness is the normal human condition.’  Ouch!  It’s normal for you and me to think we’re better and more pure and more righteous than everyone around us, and that’s why we condemn them when they act and live differently than we think they should—despite the fact that in our heart of hearts we all know that we’re pretty ragged!  

Gordon Macdonald {picture} served as chancellor of Denver Seminary—where I have the privilege of teaching—for the last ten years.  I’ve gotten to know Gordon pretty well through teaching together and spending time with him and he’s become a good friend.  Some of you may remember that back in the late 1990s, former President Bill Clinton got involved in this horrible sordid affair with his intern, Monica Lewinsky.  The White House put out a call to Gordon and two other Christian leaders to come to the White House to meet with then-President Clinton to see if they could pastor him and help him come out of this crisis.  I talked to Gordon about that on a number of occasions and asked what it was like, and he said, “Well, there were some up sides to that and there were some down sides.”  I asked him about the down sides.  He said, “The main down side was that as soon as it got out that we were meeting with former President Clinton, the larger evangelical community condemned all three of us, including me.”  He said, “People in my church condemned me for doing that.  People in my family condemned me and said they didn’t want to be around me anymore!”   He said, “You know, I was just trying to get a guy that was really, really tangled up to get him untangled and get him on the path to redemption.”

Friends, Gordon’s experience and the experience Jesus has in this story with the Pharisees, raises at least 2 questions for us:  1) Who are we most likely to condemn?  (Democrats, Republicans, illegal immigrants, people of other racial/ethnic backgrounds, members of the trans or LGBTQ communities, rich hedge fund managers, folks who belong to other religious faiths, or the really annoying neighbor down the street?)  2) Do we see others—especially those who might be especially tangled from our perspective—through the lens of condemnation, or do we see them through the possible lens of transformation? 

I say this with all sincerity, you could pray for me in this regard. I come from a good family and thank God for my mom and dad who loved me, cared for me, educated me.  It wasn’t a perfect family, it had its tangles, but it was a good family.  But there was a streak of condemnation that ran through our family and that bled into me.  I didn’t grow up in churchworld, but the very first church that I became a part of, I rise up and thank God for that church.  That church taught me to read the bible and pray, the importance of worship and fellowship, the value of consistent giving.  I’m so grateful for that church and what it did for me, but there was a streak of condemnation that pervaded that church and it seeped into me. By the grace of God I think I’m making progress, but I know I have a long way to go. And that’s why studying this text about how Jesus inaugurated a Kingdom that’s all about transformation and multiplication rather than condemnation is so very beneficial to me and hopefully to you as well. Let’s try to remember what C.S. Lewis once wrote: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.  There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal…it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 

Friends, people matter to God and He wants them to enter His kingdom, receive His forgiveness, and, over time, become all He made them to be. That’s why He’s all about transformation and multiplication rather than condemnation, and in His response to the Pharisees in verse 17, He takes this one step further: On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”   Jesus makes a common sense observation here and ties it to His mission:  Only sick people need a doctor and so He’s come to call people to Himself who realize that they’re infected with the disease of sin. And in this statement, He implies that the Pharisees saw themselves as ‘the righteous’ who, in their self-delusion cannot see their own tangles and sin.  They can’t see that—in their own religious way—they’re just as far from God as all those tax collectors and sinners.  They were spiritually blind to their own need of transformation that Jesus came to bring. 

The core issue here is theology:  Who is God and what is He all about?   The Pharisees believed that only obedience to God’s laws in the Old Testament and the traditions of the elders would lay the proper foundation for the arrival of God’s kingdom.  Since the majority of people were never going to devote their lives to that impossible task, the Pharisees became spiritual isolationists.  They sincerely believed they were the one true group of God followers; they were the righteous ones that God liked and approved of.  So, when Jesus arrives and begins to teach that God’s kingdom was open to everyone and anyone who acknowledged their need of His grace and forgiveness that totally messed with their theology of isolation.  

I’ve read enough church history to know that theologies of isolation have popped up in the history of the church over time.   Recently it popped up in a book called The Benedict Option.   When this book came out about three years ago, it got a tremendous amount of publicity.  I was really excited about it because I’m a church historian and he’s writing about the ancient Benedictine movement and I wanted to see what he said.  Here’s what it says on the inside cover:  “Today a new post-Christian barbarism reigns.  Many believers are blind to it and their churches are too weak to resist.  Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis.  What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church.  The goal is to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counter-culture.”  Well, I read the book and apart from the fact that Dreher completely misunderstands and misinterprets the Benedictine movements of the sixth through eighth centuries, he makes some good points.  He talks about the fact about how overly sexualized and weird sexually our culture has become.  And he’s right.  He talks about the fact that technology now dominates our culture in ways that we could not have conceived of thirty years ago.  And he’s right.  But the core issue of this book is that it’s based on fear—fear of being contaminated, fear of losing our kids to secularism, fear of losing our souls.  Friends, you can’t live the Christian life and follow Jesus and totally be motivated by fear.  And that doesn’t work in life anyway.  What we don’t often admit or think about or talk about is that, by its very nature, life is risky and dangerous.  In theory:  When you get into your car, you could easily get killed.  When you go out to eat, you could easily get food poisoning.  This isn’t likely but in theory, when you fly on airplane you could possibly end up in a crash.  But none of us are going to quit driving, flying, or eating out.  Friends, we’re simply not going to isolate ourselves in those ways and the Church should never, ever isolate herself either. In fact, the Church should exemplify a theology of engagement, where she puts herself and her resources on the front lines, reaching out to tangled and lost people all over the place, because her Lord Jesus is all about transformation and multiplication and never about condemnation or isolation! 

This story in Mark 2 is revolutionary because it shows us that Jesus, who is God incarnate and Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, invited one of the worst of the worst of ancient Jewish society to follow Him as a disciple, and then had an intimate lunch with all his bad-guy buddies in order to get them to do the same!  See, this story calls for some theological reflection on our part.   What does this story tell us about God?  What does Jesus’ public action here tell us about God’s heart for people, especially fallen, broken, sinfully ragged people? Is God the God of condemnation and isolation or is He the God of transformation and multiplication? 

About two-and-a-half years ago, Aaron was gone and had a friend of his (and mine), Jake Gosselin, come in to lead worship. He led us in a song that I’ve come to love because it exemplifies who are God really is and what are God is really about.  It’s called “Reckless Love.”  The chorus says:  Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God // It chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine // I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still You give Yourself away // Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.   Friends, Jesus exemplifies, personifies, and magnifies the overwhelming, never-ending reckless love of God, because He is always about transformation and multiplication, and He is NOT about condemnation and isolation. May all of us here at South Fellowship, by His grace and with His love, be about the exact same things that He’s about.

Let’s pray.  Father, we thank you for your grace, which you’ve poured out on us in Christ.  Help us to take that grace and, in the right way, at the right time with the right person, extend that grace so that we can see your kingdom extend to more and more and more people throughout 2020 and beyond.  Lord, we love you, we thank you.  Lord, may you watch over us and be with us this day.  In your name we pray.  Amen.

And Then What Happened? | What Jesus is All About | Mark 2:13-17 | Week 22021-01-17T09:27:21-07:00
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