In the sermon "Living for Something Bigger," Pastor Aaron Contreras shares personal experiences, introduces the series "This I Believe" on Mark. He highlights the inspiring actions of Frank Foley, reflecting on living for others like him. Pastor Aaron poses questions about purpose and sacrifice, citing the story of John the Baptist. He emphasizes the battle between good and evil, urging listeners to live for a greater cause and find hope in God's faithfulness.

Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills church podcast. My name is Aaron. I'm one of the pastors around Pine Hills Church, and I don't know where you might be. Maybe you're a local to bend and you've just been enjoying the summer. It's been really great.

It's got pretty hot here, but hopefully you're enjoying time out up at the lakes or down by the river, and you're just enjoying time camping or maybe taking some trips. My family and I just got back from being in LA where we got to go to Disneyland with our little girls and got to get some time out by the beach and it was just a wonderful time. So hopefully summer has been awesome for you just to kind of pause, slow down a little bit, and maybe take some of these trips where you're kind of away from home. You kind of get out and you are around and just kind of taking a moment just to breathe before the fall kicks back up and you get back to school and all the other things that come with that, with life in the fall. So if you're catching the podcast because you haven't been able to be at one of our gatherings on a Sunday, just grateful that you are continuing in our conversation.

If you're new here, we've been continuing a series called this. I believe we've been walking through the gospel of Mark together, kind of verse by verse. And so if you want to go back to past episodes, you can start in week one, you can begin to read the Gospel of Mark and kind of follow the conversations as you go. And hopefully that's value to you and a blessing. And if that's the case, if you find any particular conversation that is of value to you, please share that with someone that you think might benefit from that conversation as well.

But as we're talking today in our conversation, I want you to think through this question. Who is someone from history that has inspired you by their example? And I don't know if I'm just because I'm an enneagram type one, I find people pretty inspiring and I like to kind of go after that example. I like to implement those things in my life, and I like to grow because my personality type, there's always room to grow in something, but we should all be growing in a sense, growing into more loving, compassionate human beings that show up in the world a little less anxious. And so whoever that might be for you, hopefully that's inspiring you and leading you in the direction that you should be going, and not someone that's actually leading you away from something that's good and healthy and a benefit for other people in your life.

But one person that I discovered, I think, is pretty inspiring this week, talking with my wife about the teaching and just thinking through different people from history who are inspiring. And she mentioned this person named Frank Foley. And Frank Foley, he was a world war one veteran in the war. He was shot by the Germans in leg, and his leg was so badly damaged that he was actually deemed unfit for duty. But he was encouraged to apply for military intelligence because of his language skills.

So after training, he's sent to Berlin by the british government, where he lived in a middle class jewish neighborhood. His job was to report back political information to the british government while working a cover job in a passport office. So he's essentially spy. And he observed the rise of someone, I don't know if you've heard of named Hitler. And he got to see firsthand the brutal treatment of the jewish people.

And he began helping many Jews flee the country because he saw what was coming. He saw was kind of building and even helped to forge papers and passports in order to help people escape. He hit jewish people in his home and even went as far as going to a concentration camp to deliver by hand forged visas to help free jewish prisoners so that they could leave the country. Can you imagine the bravery that it would take to be able to do that? It's estimated that he had helped over 10,000 people, and I think that's pretty amazing.

If he would have been caught, there would have been no assistance from the government because he was a spy. So they would have disowned him, saying they didn't know who he was. So essentially, he's facing a pretty terrible death with no aid or anything like that. And yet, in the face of all that, he continues to strive to help people. Moved by love, moved by compassion, unwilling to just do nothing.

I loved how he lived his life for the sake of others. Which brings me to a pretty interesting question that we're going to ask throughout the teaching today. Have you found something worth giving your life for? And today we're going to reflect on the tragic story of John the Baptist as we're stepping into Mark, chapter six. We don't want to avoid the story.

And as you read through the Bible, you're going to come across some pretty disturbing stories that come along the way. And so, John the Baptist, to catch you up in the conversation, he's a cousin of Jesus, born to Zechariah and Elizabeth, who would prepare the way for Jesus's coming onto the scene. He spent his whole life devoted to God. And the book of Mark actually opens with him out in the desert, preaching that people should turn from their ways and be baptized. And he even got to baptize Jesus.

So, in short, he's a really good man who stands for truth. And to understand what happens to John the Baptist, you need to understand who Herod and Tippis was. Herod Antipas was the grandson of a guy named Herod the Great, who was a psychopath. If you read the story of the gospels, you find out that as Jesus is being born, there's all of these people kind of come on the scene who are wanting to see the newborn kingdom. Herod the Great is greatly disturbed by this, that he even goes as far as trying to kill off all the kids around about that age, so essentially killing off a generation of boys.

And he even went as far as to kill his own children and his wife because of his paranoia that someone would overthrow his throne. This is Herod the Great, and in that line is Herod Antipas, who obviously doesn't deal with any of his family of origin issues because he continues with similar destructive patterns. When Herod and Tippis came to power, he actually builds his capital on a burial ground, which would have been viewed as making the entire city unclean in their culture, his leadership unclean. Him unclean. He had a lust for power that he actually demanded others refer to him as king.

Although he was put there by the roman government, and there's only one king, there's only one emperor, right? He's not king. And because of him even demanding that he would be called king, it eventually gets him sentenced to exile in 39 AD. So, in short, he's not a good guy. And what's also interesting is that this is a historical, truthful event that happened.

So, in summary, we have a good guy named John the Baptist and one pretty bad guy named Herod Antipas. With that, let's pick up the story. Mark. 614. Herod Antipas, the king, which, again, this is Mark's slight towards Antipas, because he's not actually a king.

Soon heard about Jesus because everyone was talking about him. Some were saying, this must be John the Baptist, raised from the dead. This is why he can do such miracles. Others said he's the prophet Elijah. Still others said he's a prophet like the other great prophets of the past.

When Herod heard about Jesus, he said, John the man I beheaded has come back from the dead. Essentially, Herod and Tippis was afraid that John the Baptist had come back from the grave to manifest himself through Jesus as a host, a common belief in their day, to say it another way, essentially, to haunt him through Jesus. And you will see why Antipas feared this in a second, as the story gets stranger and stranger, because we have this pretty interesting nugget, but the story backs up a little bit and kind of fills in all the gaps for you. Starting in verse 17. For Herod had sent soldiers to arrest and imprison John as a favored Herodias.

She had been born his brother Philip's wife, but Herod had married her. John had been telling Herod, it is against God's law for you to marry your brother's wife. Imagine the drama in this family. Imagine the pain that's happening in this family as Herod and Tippis, like, takes his brother's wife as his wife. And John the Baptist is calling out injustices of his day, saying, this is not right.

God is not pleased with this. And that was embarrassing for the powers that be. Remember, this isn't like our culture, when you can not only say what you want about the powers at B, but you can also do it by posting some pretty comical memes about them and their day. To even say anything negative was to almost carry a death penalty, to put yourself in a pretty bad situation. Herodias.

Herod Antipas wife was so mad that John the Baptist was calling out this sin, was calling out what they had engaged in, but she was powerless to actually do anything about it. And she had obviously bugged her husband enough that John. About John. That at this point, Antipas was willing just to kind of put John in prison, essentially allowing the legal system to run its course with the case. It was not good enough.

Herodias, who essentially stewed in her anger and her hatred and her unforgiveness until the right moment. Verse 19. So Herodias bore a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But without Herod's approval, she was powerless. For Herod respected John, knowing that he was a good and holy man.

He protected him. Herod was greatly disturbed whenever he talked with John, but even so, he liked to listen to him. I like how John's living for the truth, and this, like, offends Antipas, but not to the point that Antipas is wanting to kill him. He's actually intrigued by the things that John the Baptist stands for, and he keeps them around just to kind of continue conversations with him, to listen to him, to engage in dialogue, to hear what John the Baptist has to say. But Herodias chance finally came.

On Herod's birthday, he gave a party for his high government officials, army officers, and leading citizens of Galilee. Then he, his daughter, also named Herodias, came in and performed a dance that greatly pleased Herod and his guest. Ask me for anything you like, the king said to the girl, and I will give it to you. He even vowed, I will give you whatever you ask, up to half my kingdom. So in clay, in case you blinked and you missed the awkwardness, and Tippis throws a party for his birthday day and invites all the who's who of the day to this party with him.

I'm sure the greatest meats that are available, the best wine. This is a really lavish type event, and at one point, maybe there's a lull in the party, I don't know. But for some reason, Antipas daughter gets up and dances so provocatively that it moves everyone, including Tipis, and he ends up promising to give her up to half of his kingdom. In response to this, and some scholars debate on if it's his stepdaughter that was born outside of the relationship with his wife. Some argue it's actually his blood daughter.

Either way, this is a disgusting event, which leads in Tippis to make a stupid promise, which reminds us, sin will always lead you down a path you never imagined you would go, and it would cause you to do things you never thought you would do. And stupid promises will always come back to bite you. So we need to be careful about our promises. We need to be careful about the things that we allow into our life. We need to be careful about the small steps that we take each and every day, because those things matter.

Your habits are leading you in the direction of who you're becoming. So are they leading you in the direction that you want to become, to become a better human being? Hopefully following the way of Jesus, because we believe that's the best way to live into your humanity, is to live into God's design for you. But if you're not careful and you invite bad habits into your life, you can actually, you know, train yourself away from God's vision for your life. But again, we've already established in this conversation, Antipas, that he's not a good guy, and he comes from a line of really bad guys.

But what will his daughter ask for in response to antipas foolish promise? What would you ask for? Would it be money? Would it be trips? Would it be nice clothes?

Would it be fancy things? And she does what anyone does when they don't know what to do. They run to mama. Verse 24. She went out and asked her mother, what should I ask for?

Her mother told her, ask for the head of John the Baptist. So the girl hurried back to the king and told him, I want the head of John the Baptist right now on a tray. And I can't imagine this party, right? You. You have the greatest food that's available.

Wine. Like, I'm sure everyone is having their fill, having a great time. You have this awkward moment where antipas daughter gets up and does a pretty nasty dance, and that it makes antipas happy. And he makes this weird kind of vow to say, I'll give you half my kingdom. In response to what she had done.

And so she comes back and she asked for not fancy things and all these other things you think that she would ask for. She actually asked for the head of John the Baptist on a tray. I can't imagine, like, how much of a lull, like, just kind of destroying the party. But verse 26. King deeply regretted what he had said, but because of the vows he had made in front of his guest, he couldn't refuse her because what would they say about him?

Verse 27. So immediately sent for executioner to the prison to cut off John's head and bring it to him. The soldier beheaded, John the Baptist brought his head on a tray and gave it to the girl, who took it to her mother. When John's disciples heard what had happened, they came to get his body and buried it in a tomb. Herodias finally gets her wish.

The unforgiveness in her heart continued to fester and to grow more and more toxic until she finally got her chance to get her revenge. And she just doesn't take revenge by taking John's life. She makes a mockery of his life. And why would the story be included in the Bible? There's this incestuous dance that's kind of strange.

There's this. This person really lashing out and making a mockery of someone's life by having them beheaded. There's all of this strange stuff that's happening. Why would this be included in the Bible? I'm not entirely sure, and I'm not happy that it's actually included in the Bible, because now we're having the conversation about it as we're going through the gospel of Mark together.

But Mark had to have included it for a reason, because it wasn't by accident. Mark breezes through many of the stories that Matthew and Luke later have to elaborate on to give more details. But Mark intentionally gives so much space for this story to breathe. In the Gospel of Mark, this is the longest narrative that doesn't focus on Jesus, which means that Mark had a point with it. And then to read the Bible well, you have to learn to put any story in its context.

And last week, we learned that Jesus experienced rejection from those who had proximity to him in his hometown and even his own family, but knew the least about him, did not recognize him as the savior sent by God to them to deliver them from their ways that were not leading to life, to show them a better way to do life and to help them to live empowered and connected to life within the kingdom. And Jesus is rejected by these people. And then Jesus sends out his disciples with the authority to do the work he was doing by preaching the gospel that the kingdom of God had come near, that forgiveness is on offer for our sins, that we can have a new start, that we can begin to live empowered by God as we're connected to him. He gave them the power to heal people. He gave them the power to see people freed of demonic forces or evil forces.

Or maybe you're more comfortable with language, like the darkness in their life, that he allowed the light to begin to break in through their work. All the while he's preparing the disciples as they're doing all these amazing things, with the truth, that they would soon suffer rejection themselves. If you want to know what to do with rejection, go listen to last week's episode, and you'll get some tidbits that might help you in your journey, because we all face rejection, especially if you're going to live life following Jesus. But to follow Mark's line of thought into this story leads us to grapple with the truth that sometimes when we stand for truth in our world, we might not just suffer rejection, it might actually cost us our lives. And that's a hard question, because a lot of us end up following God.

And we think that if we just follow God and do good, that somehow God owes us something. And this story makes it clear that that that's simply not true. Now, when we live life standing for truth, following after God, living righteous lives, like the reward for that is life with God. And he makes no promises. The promises he does make is, and we'll get to in a second, is that he was always with us, that he doesn't lead us, and he walks us through all of that.

Even if our life is taken, man, our physical death isn't our eternal death, that we get to go to be with him. And somehow in the midst of that, that he protects us and removes us from that situation and brings us to be with him. But ask us a pretty serious question. Is there anything worth giving our lives for? Now, I think we all want to live healthy lives, blessed with many years.

Maybe I'm wrong. I think pretty much all of us do. And I think for many of us, we want to live for something that is larger than just us, and we want to make a positive mark on the world. See, I'm convinced that if you live for something worthwhile that might actually cost you your life, but to live simply for self protection, you end up doing nothing worthwhile. So if you found something worth giving your life for, Jesus did.

Jesus thought you and I were worth giving his life for. See, Jesus in doing good and standing for truth, of inviting the outsider into the family of God, of offering forgiveness to people we would otherwise not want to see forgiven. We, we honestly don't want him to do certain things, and yet he continues to do it. And the reason that he does that, he offers it to some of the worst people imaginable. That means that even us, wherever we might be in our journey, no matter how bad we might think we might be.

Read the Bible. You'll discover some pretty crazy stories of Jesus scandalously offering grace to people. And if you can offer it to people like that, he can offer it to you and me, that we could take him up on his offer and find life within the kingdom of God. But a lot of people will reject Jesus for all types of different reasons. And Jesus is rejected.

And then it eventually leads to him being falsely accused, him being sentenced to death, him suffering torment on a cross because he sound he found something worthwhile of giving everything for Jesus knew what was coming and he was willing to continue to live the life that he lived to show us how to live with God, to pay the price for all of our sins that creates death in other people's lives, to actually have the power to free us from those things. All the other implications of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that we could have a much longer conversation about. But the whole reason he did that is because he thought you were worth it. He thought I was worth it. And that we might find life and power in his way of doing life.

And with that, Jesus doesn't promise how many years that you're going to have in this life. He doesn't promise that you won't go through difficulty and you won't suffer. What he does promise is that he is with you on every mountaintop, in every dark valley, that he's with you and never will leave you, nor forsake you. He's with you in every difficulty that you might go through, even when you don't see it. And he is with you in this life and in this life to come.

Romans 817 18 it says, and since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that he will reveal to us later. So the Bible is really open and honest about this, that there's actually suffering that we might go through because we live life following Jesus, that we stand for truth.

Read the Bible. There's all types of different stories in there. But followers of Jesus recognize that to have Jesus is to have everything, that Jesus is everything. And we might go through difficulties now, but whatever we go through is nothing compared to what we're going to experience with him for all of eternity and even his presence in the midst of difficulty. Man is everything.

We're all going to go through difficulty whether we follow Jesus or not. The difference is, when we go through the difficulty, what source or power do we have to lean on to get through those things? And do we have something that actually helps bring life from really dead and dark things? That's what I love about the gospel, is that there's a redemptive quality about following God. When you go through difficult things, that somehow Jesus can use that for his glory.

And when you're in the midst of suffering, that doesn't always sound good, because you did not want to have to go through that. And kinda be honest, I think a lot of that breaks God's heart, but there's a redemptive quality to it because it's not pointless. If we went through those things and was pointless, that's a pretty depressing thing. But the fact that God can take these things that break his heart too, because we live in a broken world with broken things that happen and broken bodies that break down all the time, somehow God still cuts through all of that and brings about good. In the midst of all these things, people often ask, if God exists, how can there be suffering in our world?

And I'm always asking, if God, if God doesn't exist, then why is there so much good that breaks out into our world? To me, that points to a good God. Because without God, I think it's all chaos. Without God, I think it's all death. Without God.

I don't think we would be here because I think we all would have killed each other at this point. But followers of Jesus recognize have Jesus is to have everything. We recognize the reality that there's often this unseen battle between good and evil in our world. And a lot of times we get lulled into thinking that that is not true, that that doesn't exist, but that very much does exist. That there is this war, that God's hope is to have relationship with all of us that wants to win us back from darkness, because we're.

We're all without him. Trapped in darkness, trapped in our own ways of trying to do life, caught in ways of trying to cope with pain that just never bring healing. And God's heart is to bring us all from darkness into light. But there's evil forces in our world that are fighting God, trying to keep as many people trapped in darkness as possible. And when you choose to live a life that actually matters and makes a difference, means you get to be partnered with God in his power to go to war against that which is actually dark and evil in our world, you get to stand for what's truth.

And when that happens, there's actually forces out there that want to fight against you. And we shouldn't fear that. The Bible says, man, you don't need to fear that, because he who is in you is stronger than anything that's out in the world. But we need to recognize that as we try to live life and make a difference. Oftentimes when we show love and compassion to people who are broken, they respond out of their brokenness back towards us, which sometimes inflicts difficult things into our lives.

Sometimes it causes rejection, sometimes causes suffering, and sometimes it even causes death. But even if we have death to our physical bodies, remember our souls are safe with God, that God is still working and moving, that nothing can rob us of life with God. And God isn't seeking martyrs. He's just seeking people who are willing to live for truth and to stand for something that's good and valuable. So I want to ask you again if you found something worth giving your life.

And you might be thinking, Aaron, this just sounds like too much. It sounds like too much. I just want to give you another example. Martin Luther King Junior. We all know his story.

We all know him from history. Maybe there's some interesting details around some of his moral decisions that he made in his life. And so, yeah, that's part of that. But a lot of the stuff that is good that he has a legacy for is that he led protests against systemic racism and injustices happening to black people in his day. And what I think is so amazing is that when pressures continue to mount, he continued to receive more and more threats, not only on his life, but his family's life.

He stayed firm in what he believed was his calling to stand up for truth, to put his life on the line, to make a difference in the lives of whole group of people, but really affecting the lives of everyone. He didn't change course because he found something that was so worth giving his life for, that he didn't back down in the face of threats, when things were thrown through his windows, when letters were sent to him saying that his family's going to die if he continues like, he did not back down. He stayed the course because he was firm in his calling before God and he didn't know what was going to come. But he knew that, man, I'm going to give my life for this thing, and we're all different because he was willing to live like that. And I don't know where your story will live, will lead.

I don't know where my life will lead. But I want to challenge you to continue to follow the voice of God and all of the little things in life. Because when you follow him in all the little things of life, you'll be ready to follow him into some of the darkest moments of life. Some of the moments where you can step into someone's pain, where you can step into unjust situations, where you can step in and make a difference, because you've made a lifetime of following God into very mundane type moments. But those have all led to you becoming more and more brave so that you can step into what God might have for you in the future.

So stand for what is good and right, stand for the sake of others. And maybe, just maybe, one at a time, we'll continue to bring people from darkness into light, because that's what we should all be living for anyway, being people who are caught up in the way of doing life in the kingdom of God. Following after Jesus, learning more about who Jesus is, so we could become more like him every day, so we could step in and do the things that Jesus did, which was offering love to people who we'd otherwise probably not want to love, to offer forgiveness and grace, to extend things that we have to be open handed with other people, that we can bless other people around us, that we can offer food and clothing, that we can love people we can notice when people are having an offer, bad day. That we can step in with words of encouragement that we can pray for people who are sick and see them begin to get healed. Like this is the way of the kingdom and this is war against the darknesses in our world.

And we need more people to step up to say, man, I want to live for light and I want to live for good and I want to live for God and I'm going to allow God to work through my life to continue to push back darkness in the lives of other people. I want to ask you again, have you found something worth giving your life for? Hopefully there's something in this conversation that you found a value as encouragement today. It's a hard conversation. I know it's tough to wrap your brain around, but for me, I find it encouraging when the Bible speaks to this type of stuff because when we go through that type of stuff, we're not so caught off guard because we know, oh, yeah, this was coming and I'm not going to be thrown off by that, but I'm going to recommit to God and continue to trust God with whatever might be happening.

And you might be in a pretty dark spot right now. You might be in a pretty dark valley. I want to remind you that God is with you, that he's not going to leave you. He's not going to forsake you. Even when you do things questionable, even when you aren't so faithful to him, he's going to be faithful to you.

And he's always available for you to turn to him to say, God, I can't do it. I need you. I surrender all of this stuff to you. Would you come and would you help? Would you push back the darkness in my life, that I might continue with all the days of my life to be a conduit of your light to other people so that they might come to know you as well.

And so let me just pray for you before I let you kick off to whatever you might be going to next. Gosh, thank you. For everyone who is listening or watching through the YouTube channel, wherever they might be, would you allow your presence and your peace to just settle in their hearts and their minds, even right now in this moment, that they can breathe deep? This kind of conversation, I pray it does not increase anxiety. I pray it decreases anxiety.

I pray it brings about hope that when we speak to the hard things in life, we can trust that you're present in the midst of those hard things and you continue to work to bring about good somehow, some way, even when we can't explain it, even when we don't understand it, even when that's hard to accept in the moment. So thank you that you're with us. In your name we pray. Amen. So appreciate you being part of the conversation.

If they have any more questions, you want to know what it looks like to begin to follow the way of Jesus. Maybe you've not made that step yet. I want to invite you to go to pinehillschurch.org. you can click on that new follower tab and there's some new conversations in there for you to to walk through or just reach out. There's a connect button, and with that you can just send out a little form.

It'll ask your name and just kind of gives you a text box where you can just write, hey, this is where I'm at and this is what I need help with and I some encouragement. We'd love to come alongside you and help you along that journey, whatever that might look like. So again, a lot of resources there. Pinehillschurch.org, you can connect with the app. It's got a lot of those conversations in there, from new follower of Jesus basics of faith to practicing the way Jesus.

So hopefully all of that is helpful for you. If you are in bend and you need a faith community and you're not attached to our community, I want to invite you to come out. 04:00 p.m. south side of town silver rail elementary, where we meet to gather around the teaching to gather around what we're doing. And so hopefully we will see you there.

But if not, hopefully this conversation is a value to you. If it is, share it with someone else that might find value in it as well. Hopefully you have a great day. See you soon. Bye.