Summary
In this episode we look at how Jesus responds to different challenges from the highest levels of religious leaders as they continue to look for ways to get rid of Him. From these challenges we learn more things about Him and also get to process some warnings from His interactions with these leaders.
Discussion Questions
- How did Jesus respond to the challenges against his authority, and what does that teach us about handling criticism in our own lives?
- In what ways can we show that we recognize Jesus's authority in our lives?
- How does the idea of Jesus being the God of the living influence your perspective on life, loss, and what comes after?
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are with us today. Hopefully your fall is going really well as we're getting more into that cooler weather.
Football games are on the television. Hopefully you're eating pumpkin spiced something and just enjoying the season that we are in. To catch you up on the conversation just a bit, but I want to point you back to the previous conversation. Catch up, back up with that conversation, because there's lots of little information in there that we can't possibly recap. But again, Jesus triumphantly enters the city, very humbly, riding on a donkey instead of on a horse, a symbol of power he doesn't have, people with him using violence to come overthrow.
But as we see the last events leading up to him being falsely accused and ultimately killed, like, he's willing to take the violence on himself in order to do the things that God has sent him to do. And as Jesus triumphantly enters the city last week, we see that he notices the temple area, which should have been this place for people to connect with God and be filled up by his presence is actually being distorted by all kinds of selling of different items and the exchange of things and maybe people being possibly exploited in that exchange. And he gets really frustrated because he says people are no longer going there for, but they're actually going there just to buy things and to follow through with religious obligations that their heart actually isn't in. And so all of this different stuff is happening. He gets really mad.
He ends up flipping tables, driving out these sellers of things, and it makes the religious leaders pretty mad. And this week we're going to see Jesus's authority at the highest levels now in the city. Not just common religious leaders who might have come out, but like the highest levels of religious leaders, religious authority in his day in Jerusalem are going to come out and begin to challenge him. And I wonder, for me, when, when I think of these things of like the highest levels of authority, I have these feelings back from when I was a kid getting called into the principal's office for like, who knows what and just that anxiety that rises up in my chest. Or maybe it's like today if a boss sends me a last minute message saying, hey, we need to have a last minute one on one, that anxiety kind of just queues up again.
And I wonder if Jesus felt these same type of anxieties and maybe not in the stories that we read. He seems to just be really cool as he's responding to the challenges to his authority that come his way. But as he gets challenged in his authority. I wonder how you respond when your authority gets challenged. Maybe it's boss, coworker, family member, maybe it's a random guy in the Costco parking lot.
I don't know what that looks like. But how do you respond? Is it typically cool? Is it typically level headed and calm? Or is it typically, like, angry and being upset?
Where do you fall on that spectrum? Let's look and see how Jesus responds to it. Says, after he entered the temple, we're going to mark 1127. After he enters the city again, the religious leaders are fuming at his behavior from the previous day, and they demanded, by what authority have you done this? They're hoping that he would somehow claim to be God, put himself on level with God so they can accuse him of blasphemy and ultimately have him killed.
Remember, they're looking for anything and everything that they can use to ultimately get rid of Jesus because they're sick of all the different stuff that he's doing in the city. Even though it's so good, even though it's healing people and miracles happening and people being welcomed into the family of God, and people pumped and excited about who God is and all the different things that are happening, still, they want to get rid of him. And Jesus kind of sees through this, and he responds by letting them know that he's more than willing to answer their question, but they need to answer one of his first mark, chapter eleven, verse 30, says, did John's authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human? Answer me. Remember John the Baptist?
Was this guy that the gospel of Mark opened with. He was a weird guy out in the desert that was drawing massive crowds to him. He was telling people to prepare the way for Jesus's coming by repenting of where they were off course with God and following through with baptism, which was this symbol of being dunked into the water, of coming up in this new life, but ultimately preparing themselves for Jesus work in their lives. And John the Baptist carried out good work all across the area. There was favorable opinion by so many different people, but he was ultimately killed because he spoke out against political powers of his day when they engaged in inappropriate relationships that weren't right, that were very wrong, that were unjust, that were causing a terrible things.
And John the Baptist speaks truth, and he's not afraid of that. Ultimately, it cost him his life. And again, remember, John was massively adored by a lot of people. A lot of people left the city to come out to hear his message and to follow through with baptism. And so there's a big problem on the hands of the religious leaders.
When Jesus asked this question, he said, because if we lay it out, if they admitted Jesus was sent by God, like most people did around that city, then they would affirm that Jesus actually has authority by God because John claimed that Jesus was the messiah. Remember, he's saying, I'm preparing the way for the Lord's coming, the savior of the world. And John recognized Jesus as, this is the one I've been preaching about and talking about like, I'm unworthy to be in his presence. I'm unworthy to be here. And yet he gets to baptize Jesus, and he gets to see Jesus ministry begin to spread all across the area.
So if the religious leaders would have affirmed, affirmed about John, then they would have to affirm Jesus's message as well. And if they said that John's authority was merely just from humans and not from God, then they would probably lose their position of leadership and power, because the. The opinion of them would have changed in the eyes of the people. They probably would have forced them out of their positions. And so the people were trapped like we.
They simply, they don't believe that Jesus is from God. And at the same time, they're also scared to lose their positions. So instead of being brave and actually owning the things that they believe, they play ignorant and say that we just don't know. And Jesus says, I'm not answering your question then, because you're dodging mine and you're actually not being honest. He knows that they don't believe he was sent from God.
Despite all the evidence and the miracles. They're too afraid to share their real beliefs because of the social fallout. How sad. Like, they're not actually willing to stand up for anything. They're actually not willing to give their life for anything.
They want to protect themselves. They want to protect themselves. And Jesus. What's interesting here is he doesn't have to prove his authority to anyone. He knows his identity before God.
He's sent from God. He's deeply loved by God. Remember the baptism scene? The clouds open and God affirms, this is my dearly loved son in whom I'm well pleased. He knows who he is in God.
And so he gets his affirmation and his validation from God, not from other people. And so maybe this is how he can stay cool under challenge, because it doesn't matter their opinion of him. He knows his opinion before God, and that matters beyond anything else. And he also knows his God given purpose. He knows why he came to show people what the kingdom of God was like, to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God, and ultimately to offer himself as a sacrifice so more and more people could come into the kingdom of God to have the power to rid themselves of past stuff and to step into a completely new identity as agents of the kingdom.
As we get filled up with his power and his presence, we carry that out to the rest of the world to allow his kingdom to continue to invade the kingdoms of the world, bringing peace and prosperity and hope and all of that to the rest of the world. It's a beautiful message. And Jesus here, he doesn't feel like he has to prove any of his authority to any of these people who are questioning him, because, again, knows his identity, his affirmation, validation, come from God. He knows his missional purpose. So Jesus doesn't answer the questions.
And then he begins to address them with a pretty pointed story. Mark twelve. It's a parable of the evil farmer, but let's read it starting in Mark, chapter twelve, verse one, it says, then Jesus began teaching them with stories. A man planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower.
Then he leased a vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country. And again, this is starting a story. But what's so interesting here is that Jesus is speaking to the highest levels of religious leaders in his day. And they would have been able to easily recall what Jesus is doing here because he's quoting the exact words of Isaiah, chapter five. And so they would have brought it to mind right away.
And in this passage, it's about the nation of Israel. Remember, there were the religious leaders charged over Israel to lead people towards the heart of God, to be the in between, between God and the people, to be the spokesman, right? To represent who God is to the rest of the people and to represent to the people, to God. It's this kind of in between type position. But they would have pulled this to mind because they had this stuff memorized.
It was a passage about the nation of Israel. Instead of being people marked by righteousness and justice, instead they were marked by oppression and injustice. They were being unfruitful, which, again, was the accusation Jesus had made last week. Remember the stories about the fig trees that he curses, which is ultimately cursing the temple? That was malforming people.
Malforming people not towards the image of God like they should have been, but forming them away from the image of God. And the hearers would have heard Jesus intro to Mark chapter twelve and recognized Isaiah's words, and they would have immediately gone in their minds to the conclusion of Isaiah five seven, that the people of goddess, the nation, were being unfruitful. And the religious leaders probably would agreed with this critique. All of the people out there are messed up, but we, not us, like we're the religious leaders, we're the examples, like we represent a devoted life before God. You should be following them and honoring them and showering them with all kinds of clout and respect and all of this stuff.
And yet Jesus here, by using Isaiah's words in Mark chapter twelve, flips script. Let's keep reading again. Let's pick it back up in verse one so you know you have the context. You can understand it a bit more now. Jesus began teaching them with these stories.
A man planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to the tenant farmers and moved to another country. At the time of the grape harvest, he sent one of the servants to collect his share of the crop. But the farmers grabbed the servant and beat him up and sent him back empty handed.
The owner then sent another servant, but they insulted him and beat him over the head. The next servant he sent was killed. And others he sent were either beaten or killed until there were only one left, his son, whom he dearly loved. The owner finally sent him, thinking, surely they will respect my son. But the tenant farmers said to one another, here comes the heir to the estate.
Let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves. So they grabbed him and murdered him and they threw his body out of the vineyard. What do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do? Jesus asked him, I'll tell you. He will come and kill those farmers and lease the vineyard to others.
Didn't you ever read this from the scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. And it is wonderful to see. If you didn't pick up on the parable.
It's about the religious leaders who are questioning Jesus authority. And he flips his script because the mental maps would have led to the assumed conclusion that it's the people out there being unfruitful that he's critiquing. But when you change something so familiar to people, it causes them to lean in more. Then they hear the punchline that Jesus delivers. And it's not about the people.
It's about the religious leaders being unfaithful to God. And remember, they are the ones who take great pride in following every letter of the religious law. And they think that they're the perfect picture of radical devotion. And they're going through the motions or actions which seem right, but their hearts are actually very far from God. So hard that they would in fact be involved in a plot of killing God's son.
And Jesus is reminding them of their history. God had lovingly sent messenger after messenger to call the people to abandon their ways that are unhealthy, exploitative, or unjust living, and return again to God who's full of grace and mercy. This has been God all throughout the whole Bible. If you read the first half the Old Testament, you see a God who lovingly offers grace over and over again to a people who would constantly rebel against him and reject him. And yet God would send people, return to me and be faithful as I am faithful to you.
And yet they continue to reject, and to reject and to reject. They have rejected runoff and beat all of those messengers. They've killed some, and God is now sending his son. And how do they respond? Are they going to respond in repentance, to turn back to God, to be caught up again in God's grace?
Are they going to turn away and they going to follow through with their plan to actually keep Jesus killed? And the religious leaders are offended by the irony here. So offended that they actually follow through on the accusation that Jesus is making of them in the story. So I want to ask you, what do you do when Jesus flips the script in your life? Are you offended and run to do harmful things?
Or do you take the offense to Jesus and allow him to transform and change your perspective, to lead you in the right direction? And as the story in Mark continues, the religious leaders choose to allow the offense to lead them to continue to try to tear down, discredit, and get Jesus to slip up into saying something that could have him killed. And the next challenge comes around the idea of taxes. So mark 1213 17, you can read it, but these Pharisees and Herodians team up in this challenge to try to get Jesus to trap Jesus, which is a very unlikely pairing. Pharisees believe only someone from the royal line of David should be king over them, while Herodians supported the current roman occupation that happened to be over them.
To say it another way, if that, that kind of, that missed you, you didn't understand what that was. They were political enemies. And just like in our cultural, political climate. These people didn't want to hang out with each other because they're at different ends of the political spectrum. So imagine Republicans and Democrats.
Like, they don't typically want to hang out when they're so bought in on that political ideology. I want nothing to do with that person. I don't want to hang out with that person, much less team up to work with that person to accomplish something. It's the same thing that's happening between the Pharisees and the Herodians. They ask Jesus, is it right to pay taxes to Rome or is it not?
That's a tough question. They're trying to trap them. If Jesus validated paying taxes and he recognized an oppressive political power as legitimate, which would have caused, probably panic in the city, it would have caused riots. It would have caused all kinds of things happening. If he advocated not paying taxes, it would have got him killed by the roman authorities because he would have been delegitimizing the roman occupation, which didn't take that lightly.
Right. They, in fact, invented ways to torture people so that they knew that you don't do that. And Jesus simply staying calm under pressure. Again, I don't know the anxiety he might have been feeling. He asked for a coin, and he says, whose picture is on this coin?
And they respond, obviously, Caesar's like, pretty easy answer. Mark 1217. Well, then Jesus said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God. And his reply completely amazed them, because he found another way out. Like, he's not buying into their trap.
You might be thinking, okay, like, what does that really mean for my culture? What this might say in our current cultural moment is that participation. We need to participate in being part of society. We need to bear taxes where we need to. We need to vote.
We need to have a voice in what that looks like. But your highest allegiance isn't to a political false gospel, but commitment to King Jesus and radical commitment to inviting people into an alternative kingdom that actually brings about good news. And it's not a kingdom of political devotion. It's commitment to the kingdom of Jesus. We share the good news of Jesus, not the false hope of policy.
And this is challenging in our culture. This is what Jesus is even kind of challenging in his culture. And there's one more challenge that Jesus finds himself in. Last encounter, the Pharisees and the Herodians couldn't take care of business. Like, they failed in trying to trap Jesus.
So sadducees say, you know what? Like, hold my cup. And they come with Jesus with this ridiculous hypothetical situation. They ask if a woman marries a mandev, and before they have kids, the husband dies. So in their cultural custom, it would have been the brother of the brother that would marry this woman and produce a kid to help carry the family line.
But to also provide. And remember. Cultures can be weird to outsiders, and we are outsiders. So, yes, we are all thinking that this is a pretty weird story. But they double down and they continue to go.
The sadducees take it further. They say, well, what if that brother dies and the next brother dies? And then finally all seven brothers die after they marry this woman? When, what would you be thinking like in this situation? If I were like, number two or number three brother, I'd be thinking, I'm getting the heck out of dodge.
I'm not following through with this. But they ask, if all these brothers die when they go to heaven, who is this lady actually married to? She had seven different marriages, the same family. Like, what does that look like? And what's interesting is people, the sadducees, don't believe in resurrection.
They don't believe in this possibility. In fact, they're having a very disingenuous question. They're trying to trap Jesus and make him look foolish. Because in their cultural moment, this was often a pretty simple way of poking fun at the Pharisees. And what the Pharisees believed.
Because they believed in a resurrection. They believed in this life with God. And so they're essentially poking fun at Jesus. And poking fun at things he believes and what he identified with. He's a teacher in the jewish tradition.
Probably just they're trying to trap him. They're trying to discredit him. They're trying to bring up questionable, outlier, hypothetical situations. To get Jesus to say something silly. And so, remember, this is the highest religious leaders of their day.
All trying to trap, all being disingenuous, none of them being honest. Mark 1224 25. Jesus replied, your mistake is that you don't know the scriptures. Try to live by them, but you don't know them. And you don't know the power of God.
For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. And in this respect, they will be like the angels in heaven. And you might be thinking, like, what in the world? Like, deeply love my spouse, and I'm looking forward to being with them. And maybe your spouse has passed away, and you're looking forward to the day you get reunited with them again.
And so this offers up all kinds of difficult questions. That we might bring to the table as we read this today day. But let me, let my boy, Tremper Longman III clear some things up. He says, jesus does not claim that the intimacy of earthly relationships will be discontinued in eternity. He only says that they will.
There will be no need for the institution of marriage. Like that will change, but these deep connections, these people will change. But the covenants that we have here on earth, like those will just look different. We don't know what those will look like because the Bible doesn't talk much about the realities of heaven, or even hell, for that matter. So cued conversation from a few weeks ago, because the Bible is so caught up with sharing how Jesus is redeeming people right here, right now.
And he explains the end goal is to rid the world of evil, to push it out, to heal the world under the reign of Jesus. That's what the Bible is most concerned with. And tremper longman III goes on. We may reasonably poised, however, that all relationships, including those most dear to us today, will exist on a higher plane in eternity. And I think that's beautiful.
Like, we'll have deeply formed relationships and connections. And what's great about that is being in the presence of God and being connected with him, like being able to be better connected with people than we are able to be with them here, because we're held back oftentimes by mixed motives, selfishness, ambition, like all kinds of just wrongful things that are deep within our hearts and our lives and our souls and our spirits. And we get to be free to that, to freely connect more with other people. Jesus continues. Mark, chapter twelve, verse 26 through 27.
But now, as to whether the dead will be raised, haven't you ever read about this in the writings of Moses and the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error. He's the God of the living, not the dead.
And Jesus claims to be God. He connects himself to goddess. We see this throughout, Mark, and we're seeing this unfold more and more and more. And so Jesus is making us claim that in him. In him, he's partnered with God.
He's sent from God. He's actually God himself here in flesh on earth. And he's the God of the living, not the dead. Death, for followers of Jesus is not the end of the story. Jesus is victorious over death himself.
You know how he proves that because in a few chapters, we're going to see that Jesus gives his life and he dies, but he doesn't stay dead. So he's victorious over that. He rises again, which is the beauty of the gospel, which is the power to actually save and transform and do something in our lives. And so Jesus in his conversation with these people, discredits the attempt to discredit him by essentially saying to these supposed experts in the scriptures that after a lifetime of study, they have no idea. No idea.
And sometimes that can be true of us. And we need to come to the scriptures humbly learning. And when Jesus flips the scripts on us, we need to not allow that offense to lead us away from God, but to bring the offense to God and allow God to transform and change. And so let's bring it all together, because there's a bunch of claims about Jesus. And remember, Mark is primarily concerned with who is Jesus, what was Jesus like and why that matters for our life.
And the claims about Jesus is that Jesus is sent with the authority from God. He carries it. He doesn't have to prove himself and doesn't need the approval of others. He is firm in his identity and his purpose. And Jesus came to offer his life for others, his life.
He gives his life as a sacrifice. And this is what gives us spiritual freedom that we're all seeking. And then Jesus is God of the living by offering us life now and life eternal. Remember, even after we experience bodily death, like, that's not the end. And so Jesus is sent with the authority from God.
Jesus came to offer his life for others, and Jesus is God of the living, the living. And then there's some warnings that are caught up in the text. I think we need to pay attention to warnings of the negative example of the religious leaders. And so ask us a few questions. And so makes the space even now to like, think through and process these questions, or maybe go back and listen to them later.
We can journal the questions out and be in conversation with the Holy Spirit about, is there anything in you that he wants to have a conversation about? Or maybe after the question, hit pause for a second and just allow the Holy Spirit to speak anything to you with these particular questions. The first question is, do we recognize or do we challenge the authority of Jesus in our lives? Do we recognize or do we challenge the authority of Jesus in our lives? The next question, do we listen to Jesus warnings in our lives?
He wants to lead us in the right direction. He's going to warn us when we're off track, or are we going to listen? Are we going to stay on our path to destruction? Next question. Are we living primarily for Jesus, or are we living for a lesser vision, especially in our cultural, political climate?
Are you advocating more for a political party? Are you advocating more for the kingdom of God? I think that reveals much about what kingdom is primary in your life. Remember, seek first the kingdom of God above all things. That's the thing that matters more.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar? Give to God what is God. Participate. Be an active part in our community of working towards health. A lot of that comes from a christian perspective.
But at the same time, we need to make sure that above all things, we're pointing people to the good news of Jesus, not the false news of policy. So are you primarily for Jesus, or are you for a lesser vision? The last question, do we recognize the gift of life that Jesus is offering right now, right where you're at with whatever you might be having going on? Maybe you've never believed in Jesus before, and Jesus is on offer right now, offering you life. Maybe you've been following Jesus for a bit, but you've not been following him in a while.
There's a call to come back to him. There's that grace to continue to return. Remember, God has done this all through the Bible. We go sideways on God. He continues to send things to call us back to him.
So he might be calling you back to him even right now. And the good news that is cutting through all of this is a relationship with Jesus is always on offer. Wherever you might be at, you're listening on the podcast, you're watching on YouTube, wherever you might be at, Jesus is calling you back to him. And in him you can find comfort for whatever you're going through, comfort right now with whatever difficult thing you're going through, you can find peace that somehow God works out even the most complicated, difficult things. And in him you can find wisdom for each next best step.
And so just spend time even with God, just talking with him about this. Does your life mirror? Some of the religious leaders are just so caught up in their own ideology, their own mental maps, their own way of doing things. Are you actually humble enough and responsive enough to heed the warnings from Jesus in your own life, changing things that need to be changed or being led in a positive direction of keeping ultimate things, ultimate meaning God above all things. Like, what does your life look like?
What are the things you're buying into? Are they of God or are they not of God? And so wherever he might be leading you to just say yes, because that's the best thing that you could do with your life. And it might be scary and it might be hard to take that step, but I promise you, it will always be the right step for you and you won't regret that you did it. So right now, I just want to pray for you, Jesus, wherever, wherever we are at today, would you allow your presence to be fully felt?
I would you allow your presence to draw near to us, to come near to us, to lead us in some of these questions that we're asking? I pray that we can all respond to your authority. I pray that we can listen to your warnings. I pray that we can keep you ultimate in our life. And I pray that we can respond to your gift of life now and eternal.
And so fill us up with your presence, because we recognize that we're now your temple, and we're called to carry your presence out to other people so that people don't have to pilgrimage into wherever you might be, but you're going to people. You're sending us out just like Jesus was sent out. He went out to people and he called them back to the heart of God. Help us to recognize that our job now is to go out to people and to call them back to the heart of God. So let us get caught up in that.
Let us be empowered by that. In your name we pray. Amen. So just appreciate you. If you need help with your walk with Jesus, please go to pinehillschurch.org.
reach out to us. We love to be in conversation about how do we partner with you in your journey with Jesus, helping you with whatever your next best step might be. So connect with us on there. If you're finding value from any of these conversations, we would love for you to partner with our community. We're a brand new community.
We're just been going about a year. And so really just in this awkward baby stage, still just needing a lot of support as we continue this mission. God has called us to, to be an active presence in the south side of Bend, to love people really well, build people, build up relationships with people, calling people back to the heart of God. And so part of that just requires people who would lovingly and generously support us. So if that's you, if God stirs your heart to donate towards the call that God has in our lives and what God has called us to, I want to invite you go to pinehillschurch.org.
hit the give tab. Give one time or recurringly for the next few months or whatever that might mean for your life, however God might be leading. I just want to thank you and bless you. I want you to continue to invite you to the next conversation or share this conversation with someone that you might think be helpful in their journey. And so let's just continue to grow together.
Because we're in it together. We're better together. Let's do it. See you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Football games are on the television. Hopefully you're eating pumpkin spiced something and just enjoying the season that we are in. To catch you up on the conversation just a bit, but I want to point you back to the previous conversation. Catch up, back up with that conversation, because there's lots of little information in there that we can't possibly recap. But again, Jesus triumphantly enters the city, very humbly, riding on a donkey instead of on a horse, a symbol of power he doesn't have, people with him using violence to come overthrow.
But as we see the last events leading up to him being falsely accused and ultimately killed, like, he's willing to take the violence on himself in order to do the things that God has sent him to do. And as Jesus triumphantly enters the city last week, we see that he notices the temple area, which should have been this place for people to connect with God and be filled up by his presence is actually being distorted by all kinds of selling of different items and the exchange of things and maybe people being possibly exploited in that exchange. And he gets really frustrated because he says people are no longer going there for, but they're actually going there just to buy things and to follow through with religious obligations that their heart actually isn't in. And so all of this different stuff is happening. He gets really mad.
He ends up flipping tables, driving out these sellers of things, and it makes the religious leaders pretty mad. And this week we're going to see Jesus's authority at the highest levels now in the city. Not just common religious leaders who might have come out, but like the highest levels of religious leaders, religious authority in his day in Jerusalem are going to come out and begin to challenge him. And I wonder, for me, when, when I think of these things of like the highest levels of authority, I have these feelings back from when I was a kid getting called into the principal's office for like, who knows what and just that anxiety that rises up in my chest. Or maybe it's like today if a boss sends me a last minute message saying, hey, we need to have a last minute one on one, that anxiety kind of just queues up again.
And I wonder if Jesus felt these same type of anxieties and maybe not in the stories that we read. He seems to just be really cool as he's responding to the challenges to his authority that come his way. But as he gets challenged in his authority. I wonder how you respond when your authority gets challenged. Maybe it's boss, coworker, family member, maybe it's a random guy in the Costco parking lot.
I don't know what that looks like. But how do you respond? Is it typically cool? Is it typically level headed and calm? Or is it typically, like, angry and being upset?
Where do you fall on that spectrum? Let's look and see how Jesus responds to it. Says, after he entered the temple, we're going to mark 1127. After he enters the city again, the religious leaders are fuming at his behavior from the previous day, and they demanded, by what authority have you done this? They're hoping that he would somehow claim to be God, put himself on level with God so they can accuse him of blasphemy and ultimately have him killed.
Remember, they're looking for anything and everything that they can use to ultimately get rid of Jesus because they're sick of all the different stuff that he's doing in the city. Even though it's so good, even though it's healing people and miracles happening and people being welcomed into the family of God, and people pumped and excited about who God is and all the different things that are happening, still, they want to get rid of him. And Jesus kind of sees through this, and he responds by letting them know that he's more than willing to answer their question, but they need to answer one of his first mark, chapter eleven, verse 30, says, did John's authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human? Answer me. Remember John the Baptist?
Was this guy that the gospel of Mark opened with. He was a weird guy out in the desert that was drawing massive crowds to him. He was telling people to prepare the way for Jesus's coming by repenting of where they were off course with God and following through with baptism, which was this symbol of being dunked into the water, of coming up in this new life, but ultimately preparing themselves for Jesus work in their lives. And John the Baptist carried out good work all across the area. There was favorable opinion by so many different people, but he was ultimately killed because he spoke out against political powers of his day when they engaged in inappropriate relationships that weren't right, that were very wrong, that were unjust, that were causing a terrible things.
And John the Baptist speaks truth, and he's not afraid of that. Ultimately, it cost him his life. And again, remember, John was massively adored by a lot of people. A lot of people left the city to come out to hear his message and to follow through with baptism. And so there's a big problem on the hands of the religious leaders.
When Jesus asked this question, he said, because if we lay it out, if they admitted Jesus was sent by God, like most people did around that city, then they would affirm that Jesus actually has authority by God because John claimed that Jesus was the messiah. Remember, he's saying, I'm preparing the way for the Lord's coming, the savior of the world. And John recognized Jesus as, this is the one I've been preaching about and talking about like, I'm unworthy to be in his presence. I'm unworthy to be here. And yet he gets to baptize Jesus, and he gets to see Jesus ministry begin to spread all across the area.
So if the religious leaders would have affirmed, affirmed about John, then they would have to affirm Jesus's message as well. And if they said that John's authority was merely just from humans and not from God, then they would probably lose their position of leadership and power, because the. The opinion of them would have changed in the eyes of the people. They probably would have forced them out of their positions. And so the people were trapped like we.
They simply, they don't believe that Jesus is from God. And at the same time, they're also scared to lose their positions. So instead of being brave and actually owning the things that they believe, they play ignorant and say that we just don't know. And Jesus says, I'm not answering your question then, because you're dodging mine and you're actually not being honest. He knows that they don't believe he was sent from God.
Despite all the evidence and the miracles. They're too afraid to share their real beliefs because of the social fallout. How sad. Like, they're not actually willing to stand up for anything. They're actually not willing to give their life for anything.
They want to protect themselves. They want to protect themselves. And Jesus. What's interesting here is he doesn't have to prove his authority to anyone. He knows his identity before God.
He's sent from God. He's deeply loved by God. Remember the baptism scene? The clouds open and God affirms, this is my dearly loved son in whom I'm well pleased. He knows who he is in God.
And so he gets his affirmation and his validation from God, not from other people. And so maybe this is how he can stay cool under challenge, because it doesn't matter their opinion of him. He knows his opinion before God, and that matters beyond anything else. And he also knows his God given purpose. He knows why he came to show people what the kingdom of God was like, to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God, and ultimately to offer himself as a sacrifice so more and more people could come into the kingdom of God to have the power to rid themselves of past stuff and to step into a completely new identity as agents of the kingdom.
As we get filled up with his power and his presence, we carry that out to the rest of the world to allow his kingdom to continue to invade the kingdoms of the world, bringing peace and prosperity and hope and all of that to the rest of the world. It's a beautiful message. And Jesus here, he doesn't feel like he has to prove any of his authority to any of these people who are questioning him, because, again, knows his identity, his affirmation, validation, come from God. He knows his missional purpose. So Jesus doesn't answer the questions.
And then he begins to address them with a pretty pointed story. Mark twelve. It's a parable of the evil farmer, but let's read it starting in Mark, chapter twelve, verse one, it says, then Jesus began teaching them with stories. A man planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower.
Then he leased a vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country. And again, this is starting a story. But what's so interesting here is that Jesus is speaking to the highest levels of religious leaders in his day. And they would have been able to easily recall what Jesus is doing here because he's quoting the exact words of Isaiah, chapter five. And so they would have brought it to mind right away.
And in this passage, it's about the nation of Israel. Remember, there were the religious leaders charged over Israel to lead people towards the heart of God, to be the in between, between God and the people, to be the spokesman, right? To represent who God is to the rest of the people and to represent to the people, to God. It's this kind of in between type position. But they would have pulled this to mind because they had this stuff memorized.
It was a passage about the nation of Israel. Instead of being people marked by righteousness and justice, instead they were marked by oppression and injustice. They were being unfruitful, which, again, was the accusation Jesus had made last week. Remember the stories about the fig trees that he curses, which is ultimately cursing the temple? That was malforming people.
Malforming people not towards the image of God like they should have been, but forming them away from the image of God. And the hearers would have heard Jesus intro to Mark chapter twelve and recognized Isaiah's words, and they would have immediately gone in their minds to the conclusion of Isaiah five seven, that the people of goddess, the nation, were being unfruitful. And the religious leaders probably would agreed with this critique. All of the people out there are messed up, but we, not us, like we're the religious leaders, we're the examples, like we represent a devoted life before God. You should be following them and honoring them and showering them with all kinds of clout and respect and all of this stuff.
And yet Jesus here, by using Isaiah's words in Mark chapter twelve, flips script. Let's keep reading again. Let's pick it back up in verse one so you know you have the context. You can understand it a bit more now. Jesus began teaching them with these stories.
A man planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to the tenant farmers and moved to another country. At the time of the grape harvest, he sent one of the servants to collect his share of the crop. But the farmers grabbed the servant and beat him up and sent him back empty handed.
The owner then sent another servant, but they insulted him and beat him over the head. The next servant he sent was killed. And others he sent were either beaten or killed until there were only one left, his son, whom he dearly loved. The owner finally sent him, thinking, surely they will respect my son. But the tenant farmers said to one another, here comes the heir to the estate.
Let's kill him and get the estate for ourselves. So they grabbed him and murdered him and they threw his body out of the vineyard. What do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do? Jesus asked him, I'll tell you. He will come and kill those farmers and lease the vineyard to others.
Didn't you ever read this from the scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. And it is wonderful to see. If you didn't pick up on the parable.
It's about the religious leaders who are questioning Jesus authority. And he flips his script because the mental maps would have led to the assumed conclusion that it's the people out there being unfruitful that he's critiquing. But when you change something so familiar to people, it causes them to lean in more. Then they hear the punchline that Jesus delivers. And it's not about the people.
It's about the religious leaders being unfaithful to God. And remember, they are the ones who take great pride in following every letter of the religious law. And they think that they're the perfect picture of radical devotion. And they're going through the motions or actions which seem right, but their hearts are actually very far from God. So hard that they would in fact be involved in a plot of killing God's son.
And Jesus is reminding them of their history. God had lovingly sent messenger after messenger to call the people to abandon their ways that are unhealthy, exploitative, or unjust living, and return again to God who's full of grace and mercy. This has been God all throughout the whole Bible. If you read the first half the Old Testament, you see a God who lovingly offers grace over and over again to a people who would constantly rebel against him and reject him. And yet God would send people, return to me and be faithful as I am faithful to you.
And yet they continue to reject, and to reject and to reject. They have rejected runoff and beat all of those messengers. They've killed some, and God is now sending his son. And how do they respond? Are they going to respond in repentance, to turn back to God, to be caught up again in God's grace?
Are they going to turn away and they going to follow through with their plan to actually keep Jesus killed? And the religious leaders are offended by the irony here. So offended that they actually follow through on the accusation that Jesus is making of them in the story. So I want to ask you, what do you do when Jesus flips the script in your life? Are you offended and run to do harmful things?
Or do you take the offense to Jesus and allow him to transform and change your perspective, to lead you in the right direction? And as the story in Mark continues, the religious leaders choose to allow the offense to lead them to continue to try to tear down, discredit, and get Jesus to slip up into saying something that could have him killed. And the next challenge comes around the idea of taxes. So mark 1213 17, you can read it, but these Pharisees and Herodians team up in this challenge to try to get Jesus to trap Jesus, which is a very unlikely pairing. Pharisees believe only someone from the royal line of David should be king over them, while Herodians supported the current roman occupation that happened to be over them.
To say it another way, if that, that kind of, that missed you, you didn't understand what that was. They were political enemies. And just like in our cultural, political climate. These people didn't want to hang out with each other because they're at different ends of the political spectrum. So imagine Republicans and Democrats.
Like, they don't typically want to hang out when they're so bought in on that political ideology. I want nothing to do with that person. I don't want to hang out with that person, much less team up to work with that person to accomplish something. It's the same thing that's happening between the Pharisees and the Herodians. They ask Jesus, is it right to pay taxes to Rome or is it not?
That's a tough question. They're trying to trap them. If Jesus validated paying taxes and he recognized an oppressive political power as legitimate, which would have caused, probably panic in the city, it would have caused riots. It would have caused all kinds of things happening. If he advocated not paying taxes, it would have got him killed by the roman authorities because he would have been delegitimizing the roman occupation, which didn't take that lightly.
Right. They, in fact, invented ways to torture people so that they knew that you don't do that. And Jesus simply staying calm under pressure. Again, I don't know the anxiety he might have been feeling. He asked for a coin, and he says, whose picture is on this coin?
And they respond, obviously, Caesar's like, pretty easy answer. Mark 1217. Well, then Jesus said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God. And his reply completely amazed them, because he found another way out. Like, he's not buying into their trap.
You might be thinking, okay, like, what does that really mean for my culture? What this might say in our current cultural moment is that participation. We need to participate in being part of society. We need to bear taxes where we need to. We need to vote.
We need to have a voice in what that looks like. But your highest allegiance isn't to a political false gospel, but commitment to King Jesus and radical commitment to inviting people into an alternative kingdom that actually brings about good news. And it's not a kingdom of political devotion. It's commitment to the kingdom of Jesus. We share the good news of Jesus, not the false hope of policy.
And this is challenging in our culture. This is what Jesus is even kind of challenging in his culture. And there's one more challenge that Jesus finds himself in. Last encounter, the Pharisees and the Herodians couldn't take care of business. Like, they failed in trying to trap Jesus.
So sadducees say, you know what? Like, hold my cup. And they come with Jesus with this ridiculous hypothetical situation. They ask if a woman marries a mandev, and before they have kids, the husband dies. So in their cultural custom, it would have been the brother of the brother that would marry this woman and produce a kid to help carry the family line.
But to also provide. And remember. Cultures can be weird to outsiders, and we are outsiders. So, yes, we are all thinking that this is a pretty weird story. But they double down and they continue to go.
The sadducees take it further. They say, well, what if that brother dies and the next brother dies? And then finally all seven brothers die after they marry this woman? When, what would you be thinking like in this situation? If I were like, number two or number three brother, I'd be thinking, I'm getting the heck out of dodge.
I'm not following through with this. But they ask, if all these brothers die when they go to heaven, who is this lady actually married to? She had seven different marriages, the same family. Like, what does that look like? And what's interesting is people, the sadducees, don't believe in resurrection.
They don't believe in this possibility. In fact, they're having a very disingenuous question. They're trying to trap Jesus and make him look foolish. Because in their cultural moment, this was often a pretty simple way of poking fun at the Pharisees. And what the Pharisees believed.
Because they believed in a resurrection. They believed in this life with God. And so they're essentially poking fun at Jesus. And poking fun at things he believes and what he identified with. He's a teacher in the jewish tradition.
Probably just they're trying to trap him. They're trying to discredit him. They're trying to bring up questionable, outlier, hypothetical situations. To get Jesus to say something silly. And so, remember, this is the highest religious leaders of their day.
All trying to trap, all being disingenuous, none of them being honest. Mark 1224 25. Jesus replied, your mistake is that you don't know the scriptures. Try to live by them, but you don't know them. And you don't know the power of God.
For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. And in this respect, they will be like the angels in heaven. And you might be thinking, like, what in the world? Like, deeply love my spouse, and I'm looking forward to being with them. And maybe your spouse has passed away, and you're looking forward to the day you get reunited with them again.
And so this offers up all kinds of difficult questions. That we might bring to the table as we read this today day. But let me, let my boy, Tremper Longman III clear some things up. He says, jesus does not claim that the intimacy of earthly relationships will be discontinued in eternity. He only says that they will.
There will be no need for the institution of marriage. Like that will change, but these deep connections, these people will change. But the covenants that we have here on earth, like those will just look different. We don't know what those will look like because the Bible doesn't talk much about the realities of heaven, or even hell, for that matter. So cued conversation from a few weeks ago, because the Bible is so caught up with sharing how Jesus is redeeming people right here, right now.
And he explains the end goal is to rid the world of evil, to push it out, to heal the world under the reign of Jesus. That's what the Bible is most concerned with. And tremper longman III goes on. We may reasonably poised, however, that all relationships, including those most dear to us today, will exist on a higher plane in eternity. And I think that's beautiful.
Like, we'll have deeply formed relationships and connections. And what's great about that is being in the presence of God and being connected with him, like being able to be better connected with people than we are able to be with them here, because we're held back oftentimes by mixed motives, selfishness, ambition, like all kinds of just wrongful things that are deep within our hearts and our lives and our souls and our spirits. And we get to be free to that, to freely connect more with other people. Jesus continues. Mark, chapter twelve, verse 26 through 27.
But now, as to whether the dead will be raised, haven't you ever read about this in the writings of Moses and the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error. He's the God of the living, not the dead.
And Jesus claims to be God. He connects himself to goddess. We see this throughout, Mark, and we're seeing this unfold more and more and more. And so Jesus is making us claim that in him. In him, he's partnered with God.
He's sent from God. He's actually God himself here in flesh on earth. And he's the God of the living, not the dead. Death, for followers of Jesus is not the end of the story. Jesus is victorious over death himself.
You know how he proves that because in a few chapters, we're going to see that Jesus gives his life and he dies, but he doesn't stay dead. So he's victorious over that. He rises again, which is the beauty of the gospel, which is the power to actually save and transform and do something in our lives. And so Jesus in his conversation with these people, discredits the attempt to discredit him by essentially saying to these supposed experts in the scriptures that after a lifetime of study, they have no idea. No idea.
And sometimes that can be true of us. And we need to come to the scriptures humbly learning. And when Jesus flips the scripts on us, we need to not allow that offense to lead us away from God, but to bring the offense to God and allow God to transform and change. And so let's bring it all together, because there's a bunch of claims about Jesus. And remember, Mark is primarily concerned with who is Jesus, what was Jesus like and why that matters for our life.
And the claims about Jesus is that Jesus is sent with the authority from God. He carries it. He doesn't have to prove himself and doesn't need the approval of others. He is firm in his identity and his purpose. And Jesus came to offer his life for others, his life.
He gives his life as a sacrifice. And this is what gives us spiritual freedom that we're all seeking. And then Jesus is God of the living by offering us life now and life eternal. Remember, even after we experience bodily death, like, that's not the end. And so Jesus is sent with the authority from God.
Jesus came to offer his life for others, and Jesus is God of the living, the living. And then there's some warnings that are caught up in the text. I think we need to pay attention to warnings of the negative example of the religious leaders. And so ask us a few questions. And so makes the space even now to like, think through and process these questions, or maybe go back and listen to them later.
We can journal the questions out and be in conversation with the Holy Spirit about, is there anything in you that he wants to have a conversation about? Or maybe after the question, hit pause for a second and just allow the Holy Spirit to speak anything to you with these particular questions. The first question is, do we recognize or do we challenge the authority of Jesus in our lives? Do we recognize or do we challenge the authority of Jesus in our lives? The next question, do we listen to Jesus warnings in our lives?
He wants to lead us in the right direction. He's going to warn us when we're off track, or are we going to listen? Are we going to stay on our path to destruction? Next question. Are we living primarily for Jesus, or are we living for a lesser vision, especially in our cultural, political climate?
Are you advocating more for a political party? Are you advocating more for the kingdom of God? I think that reveals much about what kingdom is primary in your life. Remember, seek first the kingdom of God above all things. That's the thing that matters more.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar? Give to God what is God. Participate. Be an active part in our community of working towards health. A lot of that comes from a christian perspective.
But at the same time, we need to make sure that above all things, we're pointing people to the good news of Jesus, not the false news of policy. So are you primarily for Jesus, or are you for a lesser vision? The last question, do we recognize the gift of life that Jesus is offering right now, right where you're at with whatever you might be having going on? Maybe you've never believed in Jesus before, and Jesus is on offer right now, offering you life. Maybe you've been following Jesus for a bit, but you've not been following him in a while.
There's a call to come back to him. There's that grace to continue to return. Remember, God has done this all through the Bible. We go sideways on God. He continues to send things to call us back to him.
So he might be calling you back to him even right now. And the good news that is cutting through all of this is a relationship with Jesus is always on offer. Wherever you might be at, you're listening on the podcast, you're watching on YouTube, wherever you might be at, Jesus is calling you back to him. And in him you can find comfort for whatever you're going through, comfort right now with whatever difficult thing you're going through, you can find peace that somehow God works out even the most complicated, difficult things. And in him you can find wisdom for each next best step.
And so just spend time even with God, just talking with him about this. Does your life mirror? Some of the religious leaders are just so caught up in their own ideology, their own mental maps, their own way of doing things. Are you actually humble enough and responsive enough to heed the warnings from Jesus in your own life, changing things that need to be changed or being led in a positive direction of keeping ultimate things, ultimate meaning God above all things. Like, what does your life look like?
What are the things you're buying into? Are they of God or are they not of God? And so wherever he might be leading you to just say yes, because that's the best thing that you could do with your life. And it might be scary and it might be hard to take that step, but I promise you, it will always be the right step for you and you won't regret that you did it. So right now, I just want to pray for you, Jesus, wherever, wherever we are at today, would you allow your presence to be fully felt?
I would you allow your presence to draw near to us, to come near to us, to lead us in some of these questions that we're asking? I pray that we can all respond to your authority. I pray that we can listen to your warnings. I pray that we can keep you ultimate in our life. And I pray that we can respond to your gift of life now and eternal.
And so fill us up with your presence, because we recognize that we're now your temple, and we're called to carry your presence out to other people so that people don't have to pilgrimage into wherever you might be, but you're going to people. You're sending us out just like Jesus was sent out. He went out to people and he called them back to the heart of God. Help us to recognize that our job now is to go out to people and to call them back to the heart of God. So let us get caught up in that.
Let us be empowered by that. In your name we pray. Amen. So just appreciate you. If you need help with your walk with Jesus, please go to pinehillschurch.org.
reach out to us. We love to be in conversation about how do we partner with you in your journey with Jesus, helping you with whatever your next best step might be. So connect with us on there. If you're finding value from any of these conversations, we would love for you to partner with our community. We're a brand new community.
We're just been going about a year. And so really just in this awkward baby stage, still just needing a lot of support as we continue this mission. God has called us to, to be an active presence in the south side of Bend, to love people really well, build people, build up relationships with people, calling people back to the heart of God. And so part of that just requires people who would lovingly and generously support us. So if that's you, if God stirs your heart to donate towards the call that God has in our lives and what God has called us to, I want to invite you go to pinehillschurch.org.
hit the give tab. Give one time or recurringly for the next few months or whatever that might mean for your life, however God might be leading. I just want to thank you and bless you. I want you to continue to invite you to the next conversation or share this conversation with someone that you might think be helpful in their journey. And so let's just continue to grow together.
Because we're in it together. We're better together. Let's do it. See you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Title Goes Here
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Summary
In this episode, we think about Jesus' invitation to be a people who experience the presence of God through prayer and carry that presence out to people that we come across in our families, neighborhoods, and workspaces. At the end of the episode is an invitation to incorporate times in your daily rhythm where you can connect to God's presence through prayer.
Discussion Questions:
- How can we balance our faith when Jesus challenges us to believe in things that seem impossible, like moving mountains?
- What are some practical steps you can take to incorporate prayer into your daily routine as a way to experience God's presence?
- In what ways can your own life or community become a 'house of prayer' that welcomes others to connect with God?
Transcript
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are with us in the conversation again today as we continue to go through Mark together. Jesus has come on the scene in the gospel of Mark and it's been beautiful because Mark's been teaching us who is Jesus? What was Jesus like and why that matters for our life?
And Jesus arrives on the scene, he begins to claim the kingdom of God. And then he spends kind of the bulk of Mark just showing what the kingdom of God is like. And tension has been building towards this final act as Jesus has been traveling around the region doing miracles, proclaiming the goodness of God, inviting people into the family of God. And then it's all been building up to this final act in Jerusalem where things finally come to a head with the religious leaders as they follow through on their plans to have Jesus falsely accused of killed. And Jesus knows this.
He's been warning his disciples multiple times through the gospel that death is on the horizon. But not to worry, because although he's going to suffer, he's going to rise again, because this has been the plan all along. Jesus knew that the way that he radically loved and extended the kingdom of God to people who the religious leaders did not like was going to ultimately get him killed. And yet, even knowing that death is waiting for him, he still travels towards Jerusalem. And as he does that, we pick it up at the very end of mark, chapter ten, where there's this small town encounter.
Just 15 miles outside of the city, there's a small town called Jericho. And Jesus has this encounter with a blind man named Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus hears the crowd kind of gathering around him. He cannot see and yet he senses all of these different people. He can hear the crowd talking that Jesus is here and just this building excitement.
And we know all across the area that the news is spread about Jesus, the miracles jesus has done, all the amazing things that he is using to demonstrate that he is the authority from God to be the messiah, that he's actually come to be the savior of the world. He's proving he was sent by God with all of the authority, by healing people, by forgiving sins, by doing all these amazing things. And as he can kind of probably perceive that Jesus is getting closer, he begins to shout, son of David, have mercy on me. And the crowd tells him to shush, like, be quiet, quiet down. And yet he yells out even louder, son of David, have mercy on me.
And Jesus calls the man, he says, bring him to me. And he asks the man what would you like done for you? And he says, I want to see. I want to see. He names the thing that he wants to have done in his life.
Mark 1052 says, and Jesus said to him, go for your faith has healed you instantly. The man could see. And he followed Jesus down the road. And this is the first person in Mark's story that associates Jesus with the title son of David, which is language for Messiah. It's all throughout the Old Testament that there would be a messiah that would come, the son of David, that would be in the line of King David, to be the deliverer of the people of God.
And it comes from the lips of a blind man, probably the least expected, right? Mark is using irony to contrast the religious leaders with this blind man, because it's the blind man who makes the truth claim about Jesus, while the religious leaders are the ones who can't see Jesus. In fact, the religious leaders are the ones who are beginning to plot, to carry out their plot to have him killed. And death is coming. But you wouldn't know it by the way that Jesus rides into the city.
Mark chapter eleven opens with this triumphant entry of Jesus. Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him to get a borrowed donkey. And as he gets closer to the city, he rides this donkey into the city. And news must have been breaking out in the region. Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming. And it spread all the way into the city of Jerusalem, which was the religious epicenter of that area. And as Jesus mounts this donkey, they're laying their coats in front of Jesus. They're laying down palm branches in front of Jesus, and they're shouting praise as they're welcoming in a king into the city. Mark chapter eleven, verses nine through ten.
Jesus was in the center of the procession, and all the people all around him were shouting, praise God. Blessing on the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David. Praise God. In highest heavens.
They're pumped because they've been waiting on the messiah to come to deliver them. This has been the narrative, God all along. We have creation, where God creates everything good, but yet humanity rejects relationship with God, and we try to do it all ourselves. That's the fall. And yet God says, I don't want to leave people in a state of brokenness and relationship between us and between other people.
And so I'm going to bring a redeemer that has the ability to bring about, bring about hope. And so he begins to work through a family Israel, and he brings all these promises. I'm going to bring about a messiah, a son of David. He's coming. He's going to come in this line, and he's going to deliver God's people from all of their spiritual oppression.
And now is the moment. Jesus is entering the city. And this would have looked like the arrival of a conquering king in this new city, new powers at B, but he isn't riding on a horse, which would have been the symbol for power, and he didn't have an army around him. He was ushered in, very humbly, on a donkey, coming not to overthrow politically, but to overthrow the kingdom of darkness spiritually. He instead goes to, instead of going to, like, the powers that be, right, he goes to the temple, the place where people meet God.
And he simply, he takes in all the activity. So once you imagine, like, he's coming in the city, the city's buzzing, and he's just observing everything after that, seeing the activity around the city, around the temple, all the different things that are happening. And after a pretty exciting day in Jerusalem, Jesus and his followers retreat to Bethany. That's 2 miles outside the city. The city was bustling because many travelers had traveled into the city for a religious pilgrimage that occurred a few times a year.
And Jesus and his crew found an Airbnb outside of the city. And so as they're going to the Airbnb, they come across a fig tree. And then the next day, this, this odd temple visit. So I want you to hang with me through the next few stories. But beginning in Mark 1112 14, the next morning, they're coming back to Jerusalem.
And the next morning, Jesus is hungry, and he's still probably getting to sleep out of his eyes, and he sees this fig tree, right? Two mile hike back into the city. He sees this fig tree off in the distance, and he thinks, figs sound pretty good right about now, but when he gets to the tree, it doesn't have any fruit on it because it actually isn't quite fig season yet. It's a few months down the road. But Jesus responds by saying, may no one ever eat your fruit again.
Verse 14. The disciples are thinking, okay, like, that's a big reaction to something seemingly pretty small and normal. And as you will see, as the story unfolds, Jesus is using things around him to bring understanding and clarity to the disciples about things that were actually happening. We've got to hold these pieces together as we continue that. Jesus curses a tree for not producing fruit out of season.
And Jesus and the crew continued to walk into the city, taking in all the sights and sounds of people going about their business. Mark, chapter eleven, verse 15 through 18, says when they arrived back in Jerusalem after staying at the Airbnb outside the city, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He stopped everyone from using the temple as a marketplace place. He said to them, the scriptures declare, my temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.
When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him, like they're ready to follow through with what they've been hoping would happen. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching and all these extra people that were in the area. And again, the tension had been building. In the book of Mark, we see even back in Mark, chapter three, where the religious leaders are starting to think about how they could get rid of Jesus. But it's this week in the story where the plans come together to falsely accuse Jesus and have him killed by the political authorities.
And this is a big hinge point right here in this moment where Jesus is correcting them, saying, don't use the temple of God as a marketplace. Now, what's really happening here? Well, those few times a year that people would travel in to offer sacrifices, worship in hopes of connecting with God, they would need to, you know, things to make these sacrifices and to make offerings and these sacrifices more convenient. People set up shop on the way into the temple, and they would sell things that. That they would need as acts of worship.
Which makes sense. You have people coming from farther to honor God and to connect with God, and yet there's this potential for human depravity, right? That happens in this moment when you have really high. When you have supply and then you have high demand, right? You have the opportunity to increase the price, to take advantage of that situation.
And the other potential problem was that the temple had a different form of currency, so people had to exchange money to buy the overpriced items, and there was potentially another opportunity to take advantage in the exchange rate. And Jesus was either upset at one of these two things, but it's the potential exploitation of the people that's happening that he's really upset about, or maybe it's all this stuff, this bustling stuff outside of the temple that had just caused a lot of confusion and chaos, taking people's attention away from the thing that mattered most, which was honoring God. And his response was to be upset. He had seen it the previous day, but this was the day that he had chose to come and to correct this. And he begins to flip chairs and he flipping tables.
He's driving people out, right? We don't typically think of this type of image when we think about Jesus. We typically think about Jesus is love, but this is a loving act, a loving act of anger, where he's trying to clear out the temple to refocus people's imaginations back on the thing that mattered most. Verse 17, it says, he said to them, the scriptures declare, my temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves. See, the temple is supposed to be the place for all people to connect with God, but they put a lot of rules about how only certain people.
Only certain people could come and gather. And then the religious leaders overseeing the temple lost sight of this is for the people to connect with God. They were either robbing people in an exchange rate, or they were selling things that were just too costly, that shouldn't have cost that much. The main thing was being crowded out with selfish ambition, with bartering, and Jesus was about restoring life around the temple to its proper place. But the temple, in his mind, was going to look different, which was going to radically transform every mental map of everyone in that day.
And if any of the disciples were non confrontational, they're probably feeling pretty uncomfortable. But disciples like Peter, which we know Peter loves confrontation. Peter's probably pumped about the tension that's happening in this situation. But Jesus takes them all again, and they travel back to the Airbnb outside of the city. The next day, when they wake back up to enter the city again, and remember, religious festivals are going on.
There's all this stuff that's happening through the week that they're wanting to be a part of, and so they're kind of traveling back, but traveling back into the city, it's like when people come into bend, right? They stay in airbnbs in the area, and sometimes you gotta be a little bit further out, but you keep traveling back into bend, right, to do all the things that bend has to offer. That's what's happening here, is they keep traveling out to the Airbnb to spend the night, but traveling back for all the things that are happening throughout the day. And the next day, as they're going back into the city, they see that tree again, remember it like, hopefully you didn't even forget it. But it wasn't producing fruit even out of the city.
And Jesus ends up cursing it. Well, the disciples noticed something profound. That tree that was budding, ready to produce fruit in just a couple of months, had withered and died from the roots up. And Mark has this really unique way of telling stories. It's known as the Markan sandwich.
It's where he takes a larger point that Jesus is making, and he sandwiches it between details of the same story. And the ends help us to understand the thing that's happening in the middle. And so what it's getting at is in between the story of a tree being cursed and withering and dying. You have the story about the temple and how Jesus is cleansing out the temple. And so what is happening is Jesus is bringing judgment on the temple with all the wayward activities, and he's doing something new.
Why? Because the temple was not producing fruit. It actually was forming people away from God's intentions. Look at the religious leaders. Life is oriented around life with God, but they are involved in a plot to have someone murdered.
They're the ones who should most represent the heart nature of God, and yet they're involved in a murder scheme. Like, you can see how the temple actually isn't forming people in the way that it should be. And let's be clear. The end goal in doing life with God is that you become people who don't actually murder people. So the roots have obviously died, and it's not good.
So you see how the mark and sandwich is revealing what Jesus is doing about the temple, which seems like bad news. But the good news is that Jesus has come to do a new thing unimaginable to everyone. Instead of having this temple filled with the presence of God that all people would come to a few times a year, Jesus was creating a new temple. Those who would accept the offer to follow him, he fills with his presence and he sends them out to the rest of the world. Instead of having a religious system internally focused, that always corrupts, Jesus is freeing us to be outwardly focused, to carry his presence out to the rest of the world, marked, marked by God's presence, as we are continually engaged in prayer.
Because remember, Jesus says, like, my house should be a house of prayer. They've lost sight of that. It should be the place where we connect with the presence of God and where we bring our request in prayer, and we engage with God in prayer. And that temple is going from the central place in Jerusalem now to being the people who would accept him would now be the temple of God that would carry God's presence present out to the rest of the world. Remember when a few weeks ago, we talked about this concept of heaven and hell kind of colliding?
And Jesus is wanting people to be filled up with what heaven looks like so they could carry that out into the world that typically mirrors hell, so that there could be more and more pockets of the presence of God, more and more pockets of heaven that are spreading out. And we get to take God's presence to other people. We get to engage with God not by traveling to Jerusalem at a particular time of year, but we get to engage with Goddesse daily because his presence lives inside of us. And we get to be people marked by prayer because we humbly know that we need God's presence, not just our own. We can't do it in our power.
We need his power. Mark, chapter eleven, verse 22, 25 says, and Jesus said to the disciples, have faith in God. I tell you the truth. You can say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and it will happen, but you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. And I tell you, you can pray for anything.
And if you believe, then you've received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying first, forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against so that your father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. And if I could be honest, this is a really difficult text. There's so many nuances here. There's so many things that are happening.
There's so many potential to kind of misunderstand. But the tensions that I want to point out in the text are this. Jesus. Jesus asked us to have the faith to move mountains. But sometimes it feels like faith doesn't move much.
Ever experience that in your life? Jesus is saying, have faith, and you can tell this mountain to move, and it will move. But sometimes we have all the faith in the world that we can muster, but it doesn't feel like it does much. And then Jesus says to not have doubt in our hearts. But at other times, Jesus responds, we've even seen him.
Mark to a man who says, I believe, but help my unbelief, help my doubt. Other times, we find it difficult to forgive people who hurt us. But Jesus here says, God will forgive in response to our ability to forgive others in our lives. So there's tension in all of these things, and I have nothing to help ease these tensions. I just simply don't.
And I don't want to ease the tensions either. It's not my job. It's actually an impossible job. I'm convinced that attempting to give overly simplistic answers when our felt life experience is incredibly complex actually hinders faith instead of helps build our faith. But praise God that he's complex.
He's just as complex as all the complexities that we face in life. And he's big enough to handle all of our questions, and he's relational enough to help sort it all out with us. And there's beauty to be found in the tension, but that is difficult for us, especially when we like the illusion of control, especially when we deal more with an idealized version of our life instead of reality itself. And if we're really honest, reality is actually, there's not much in our control. But even with that, even with all the complexity of this passage, there's still some invitations from a very beautiful and complex God.
The invitations, I think, are this. Maybe there's a few more that you can pull out, but I think that you're invited to believe in God for some really big things, like moving mountains, and God can do that at times. But I also think you're invited to enjoy seasons where faith feels just difficult to come by, where this doubt just feels like a much easier emotion to go to. I think there's times where we can just lean into God in those seasons and other seasons. It won't be like that.
I feel like faith comes a lot easier to us. I think we're invited to. To be to others as God has first been to us, as we slowly forgive and release people, as God empowers us to do, because that's a work of God in our life. We can't muster that in our own power, and we don't have to. But when that happens, we actually get to do to others as God has first been to us, because he's forgiven us us, and he's released us from all the things that we've done in our life.
I think we're invited to find beauty in life in these tensions between big faith and lack of faith, between the struggle to forgive and God forgiving us. Seasons where man faith is really easy to come by, in seasons where faith is really hard to muster up. There's beauty and intention, and Jesus invites you into relationship with him to hold that tension with him, and he helps us. And you're invited to bring everything to God. In prayer, Dallas Willard says God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.
To say it another way, God meets us where we actually are, not where we pretend to be. And so if you want to meet God today, it comes with just being really honest about what you're thinking, what you're going through, what you have going on in your life. And so if we bring everything that Mark is teaching us together today as best we can, we have seen the irony of a blind person seeing that Jesus is the savior when the religious leaders absolutely miss it, when they're blind to it. We have seen Jesus triumphantly enter the city to overthrow darkness, but it doesn't happen through violent opposition, but it comes by him giving his life. We have seen Jesus correct the religious system that had their eyes on the wrong things.
And we've seen Jesus invite us into relationship where we can hold the tensions of life and open conversation with God as we continually ask for his help and his guidance. And so if we could summarize it in just a quick statement, it's all about experiencing God's presence through prayer, and we need to do that continually, daily experiencing God's presence through prayer. And so let's just open our heart to what that might be, even now, in this moment. I just want you to take a moment just to breathe wherever you're at with these things. And I want you to think about maybe what the Holy Spirit brings to the surface as we think through these questions.
Where do you need God's help? Where do you need God's help? Seeing his presence in your life? Where do you need God's help seeing his movement in your life? Where do you need God's help?
Laying down distractions so that you can refocus on the things that matter most. And what tensions in your life do you need God's help with today? Because the journey with Jesus is beautiful and profound. But it's. It's hard.
It's hard at times, but in the midst of the complexity of life, we remember Jesus, who triumphantly enters, who's overthrowing the power of darkness. And he might do that in ways that we never imagined we might not want him to, but yet he does what is best, and we need to trust that he does what is best. So in the midst of all the tensions, we continue to recognize and honor that Jesus is king by coming to him. We don't have to be fearful about approaching who Jesus is. Actually, writers of the Bible say that we can approach the throne of the king with confidence because of all that he's done for us.
And he invites us into the room to have that conversation. And we can continually bring through prayer these tensions to God, saying, God, I need your help to sort it out. I need your wisdom. I need your help to be more like you, a little bit more each and every day. I want to be marked by your presence.
And that happens only when you continually make time to be with the king. And you can bring your prayers to him, where you sit in his presence and enjoy all that he's doing in your life. When you release the ability to need to control everything yourself and you get to release the control back to him, that's a beautiful place to be. And so that's an invitation for you today. And I would invite you whatever that looks like.
If you've never made that step, like, why don't you just put something on your calendar in the morning, even like five or ten minutes to be with God, to start with, gratitude, God, I'm thankful for where you've been doing these things in my life, bringing those requests to God, those tensions that might be there, and then simply sitting and enjoying his presence. And if you make that a habit, guess what? You'll become more and more marked by his presence. Presence and his spirit as you bring that to other people. Remember, we get to be the temple of God filled with his presence.
That gets to carry that out to other people so that they can get caught up in a new kingdom because they need that gospel, they need that good news, because so many of us are living in worlds that will never satisfy and only bring about depression, anxiety and darkness. But there's peace that's available through Jesus. We get to carry that presence to all kinds of other people. And if you've had consistently have that morning prayer time for just a bit, and then the invitations, maybe you extend that prayer time, or maybe you do something like a daily office prayer, or you have set times to pray throughout the day, and so you set a reminder on your phone, like maybe it's first thing in the morning, maybe it's midday, maybe it's evening before you come home and, you know, or with your kids the rest of the night, maybe it's one more time before you go to bed. So there's three or four opportunities right there to reconnect with God, who's always available to us, to bring the tensions to God, to be mindful about how God is moving in our life.
And we respond with gratitude when he's so gracious to us. So I just want to pray for you. I just want to thank you for engaging in this conversation. Thank you for listening. If you think this could be helpful for someone else, would you please share that and would you know that Jesus deeply loves you, wherever you might be at, with whatever questions, concerns or thoughts that you have in your life?
Good. And he's faithful. He'll meet you right where you're at. The invitation is on the table to engage with him in the midst of these tensions. So, Jesus, would you be with each and every one of us?
Would you mark us with your presence and your spirit? I pray that we have consistent times throughout our day, every day, where we get to reconnect with you. And out of that, that we would bring your presence to other people, and that would be a blessing to everyone else around us. So would you help us to consistently experience your presence as we engage with you in prayer every day? We need you.
We don't want to have to rely on ourself. So whatever is on our heart, we bring to you in this moment, we lay that at your feet, we get to breathe out anxiety and we get to breathe in your peace. So help us to even do that this moment, to lay down the thing that we're most anxious about and just to breathe deep in the presence of the spirit of God. Help us to carry that wherever we might be going, to, whoever we might be going to. In your name we pray.
Amen. I just appreciate you partnering with us, helping us, you know, in our journey, the mission that God has given us. Here in Bend, Oregon, if you need some resources to help you practice, to help practice the way, you have an app that you can download, the Pine Hills church Bend app. Just kind of search that in the app store. It'll come up, you'll see our black and white logo.
You can actually just go to pinehillschurch.org and there's a link in our homepage for you to find that. To download that inside that app, there's a few different tabs. One is the basics, where you get to look at the big story of God, where you get to learn more about how to have an encounter with God, where you get to start to learn what does it look like to live in relationship with Jesus. And then there's a practicing the way to add which will actually help you to go through a few conversations to help you to get rolling out. What does it look like to live this life connected with God, to be present to him.
And so we want to help partner with you and whatever that might be at you might be just exploring the faith, you might beginning to want to practice the faith or you might be all in to wanting to live like Jesus. And so wherever you might be in a journey. We want to partner with you. We want to be help to you because that's what God has called us to do. And if you feel called to maybe support that in any given way, would you pray for us?
Would you pray that God would continue to provide all that we need to do what God has called us here in the city? And God would continue to open that vision up before us as we see the opportunities that he's inviting us into. And then also, if you want to financially support us so we could continue to have these type of conversations, put those out for you online or for other people, or to even support what God is calling us to do here in the south end of Bend, Oregon. I'd be so grateful if you go to pineheartschurch.org, comma click the give tab and just give anything that God might put on your heart. But if that's not the call for you, we want to continue to challenge you to live the way of Jesus with the local community or with us.
If you're here in bend but can't wait to see you in the next conversation, have a great day. Bye.
And Jesus arrives on the scene, he begins to claim the kingdom of God. And then he spends kind of the bulk of Mark just showing what the kingdom of God is like. And tension has been building towards this final act as Jesus has been traveling around the region doing miracles, proclaiming the goodness of God, inviting people into the family of God. And then it's all been building up to this final act in Jerusalem where things finally come to a head with the religious leaders as they follow through on their plans to have Jesus falsely accused of killed. And Jesus knows this.
He's been warning his disciples multiple times through the gospel that death is on the horizon. But not to worry, because although he's going to suffer, he's going to rise again, because this has been the plan all along. Jesus knew that the way that he radically loved and extended the kingdom of God to people who the religious leaders did not like was going to ultimately get him killed. And yet, even knowing that death is waiting for him, he still travels towards Jerusalem. And as he does that, we pick it up at the very end of mark, chapter ten, where there's this small town encounter.
Just 15 miles outside of the city, there's a small town called Jericho. And Jesus has this encounter with a blind man named Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus hears the crowd kind of gathering around him. He cannot see and yet he senses all of these different people. He can hear the crowd talking that Jesus is here and just this building excitement.
And we know all across the area that the news is spread about Jesus, the miracles jesus has done, all the amazing things that he is using to demonstrate that he is the authority from God to be the messiah, that he's actually come to be the savior of the world. He's proving he was sent by God with all of the authority, by healing people, by forgiving sins, by doing all these amazing things. And as he can kind of probably perceive that Jesus is getting closer, he begins to shout, son of David, have mercy on me. And the crowd tells him to shush, like, be quiet, quiet down. And yet he yells out even louder, son of David, have mercy on me.
And Jesus calls the man, he says, bring him to me. And he asks the man what would you like done for you? And he says, I want to see. I want to see. He names the thing that he wants to have done in his life.
Mark 1052 says, and Jesus said to him, go for your faith has healed you instantly. The man could see. And he followed Jesus down the road. And this is the first person in Mark's story that associates Jesus with the title son of David, which is language for Messiah. It's all throughout the Old Testament that there would be a messiah that would come, the son of David, that would be in the line of King David, to be the deliverer of the people of God.
And it comes from the lips of a blind man, probably the least expected, right? Mark is using irony to contrast the religious leaders with this blind man, because it's the blind man who makes the truth claim about Jesus, while the religious leaders are the ones who can't see Jesus. In fact, the religious leaders are the ones who are beginning to plot, to carry out their plot to have him killed. And death is coming. But you wouldn't know it by the way that Jesus rides into the city.
Mark chapter eleven opens with this triumphant entry of Jesus. Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him to get a borrowed donkey. And as he gets closer to the city, he rides this donkey into the city. And news must have been breaking out in the region. Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming. And it spread all the way into the city of Jerusalem, which was the religious epicenter of that area. And as Jesus mounts this donkey, they're laying their coats in front of Jesus. They're laying down palm branches in front of Jesus, and they're shouting praise as they're welcoming in a king into the city. Mark chapter eleven, verses nine through ten.
Jesus was in the center of the procession, and all the people all around him were shouting, praise God. Blessing on the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David. Praise God. In highest heavens.
They're pumped because they've been waiting on the messiah to come to deliver them. This has been the narrative, God all along. We have creation, where God creates everything good, but yet humanity rejects relationship with God, and we try to do it all ourselves. That's the fall. And yet God says, I don't want to leave people in a state of brokenness and relationship between us and between other people.
And so I'm going to bring a redeemer that has the ability to bring about, bring about hope. And so he begins to work through a family Israel, and he brings all these promises. I'm going to bring about a messiah, a son of David. He's coming. He's going to come in this line, and he's going to deliver God's people from all of their spiritual oppression.
And now is the moment. Jesus is entering the city. And this would have looked like the arrival of a conquering king in this new city, new powers at B, but he isn't riding on a horse, which would have been the symbol for power, and he didn't have an army around him. He was ushered in, very humbly, on a donkey, coming not to overthrow politically, but to overthrow the kingdom of darkness spiritually. He instead goes to, instead of going to, like, the powers that be, right, he goes to the temple, the place where people meet God.
And he simply, he takes in all the activity. So once you imagine, like, he's coming in the city, the city's buzzing, and he's just observing everything after that, seeing the activity around the city, around the temple, all the different things that are happening. And after a pretty exciting day in Jerusalem, Jesus and his followers retreat to Bethany. That's 2 miles outside the city. The city was bustling because many travelers had traveled into the city for a religious pilgrimage that occurred a few times a year.
And Jesus and his crew found an Airbnb outside of the city. And so as they're going to the Airbnb, they come across a fig tree. And then the next day, this, this odd temple visit. So I want you to hang with me through the next few stories. But beginning in Mark 1112 14, the next morning, they're coming back to Jerusalem.
And the next morning, Jesus is hungry, and he's still probably getting to sleep out of his eyes, and he sees this fig tree, right? Two mile hike back into the city. He sees this fig tree off in the distance, and he thinks, figs sound pretty good right about now, but when he gets to the tree, it doesn't have any fruit on it because it actually isn't quite fig season yet. It's a few months down the road. But Jesus responds by saying, may no one ever eat your fruit again.
Verse 14. The disciples are thinking, okay, like, that's a big reaction to something seemingly pretty small and normal. And as you will see, as the story unfolds, Jesus is using things around him to bring understanding and clarity to the disciples about things that were actually happening. We've got to hold these pieces together as we continue that. Jesus curses a tree for not producing fruit out of season.
And Jesus and the crew continued to walk into the city, taking in all the sights and sounds of people going about their business. Mark, chapter eleven, verse 15 through 18, says when they arrived back in Jerusalem after staying at the Airbnb outside the city, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He stopped everyone from using the temple as a marketplace place. He said to them, the scriptures declare, my temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.
When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him, like they're ready to follow through with what they've been hoping would happen. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching and all these extra people that were in the area. And again, the tension had been building. In the book of Mark, we see even back in Mark, chapter three, where the religious leaders are starting to think about how they could get rid of Jesus. But it's this week in the story where the plans come together to falsely accuse Jesus and have him killed by the political authorities.
And this is a big hinge point right here in this moment where Jesus is correcting them, saying, don't use the temple of God as a marketplace. Now, what's really happening here? Well, those few times a year that people would travel in to offer sacrifices, worship in hopes of connecting with God, they would need to, you know, things to make these sacrifices and to make offerings and these sacrifices more convenient. People set up shop on the way into the temple, and they would sell things that. That they would need as acts of worship.
Which makes sense. You have people coming from farther to honor God and to connect with God, and yet there's this potential for human depravity, right? That happens in this moment when you have really high. When you have supply and then you have high demand, right? You have the opportunity to increase the price, to take advantage of that situation.
And the other potential problem was that the temple had a different form of currency, so people had to exchange money to buy the overpriced items, and there was potentially another opportunity to take advantage in the exchange rate. And Jesus was either upset at one of these two things, but it's the potential exploitation of the people that's happening that he's really upset about, or maybe it's all this stuff, this bustling stuff outside of the temple that had just caused a lot of confusion and chaos, taking people's attention away from the thing that mattered most, which was honoring God. And his response was to be upset. He had seen it the previous day, but this was the day that he had chose to come and to correct this. And he begins to flip chairs and he flipping tables.
He's driving people out, right? We don't typically think of this type of image when we think about Jesus. We typically think about Jesus is love, but this is a loving act, a loving act of anger, where he's trying to clear out the temple to refocus people's imaginations back on the thing that mattered most. Verse 17, it says, he said to them, the scriptures declare, my temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves. See, the temple is supposed to be the place for all people to connect with God, but they put a lot of rules about how only certain people.
Only certain people could come and gather. And then the religious leaders overseeing the temple lost sight of this is for the people to connect with God. They were either robbing people in an exchange rate, or they were selling things that were just too costly, that shouldn't have cost that much. The main thing was being crowded out with selfish ambition, with bartering, and Jesus was about restoring life around the temple to its proper place. But the temple, in his mind, was going to look different, which was going to radically transform every mental map of everyone in that day.
And if any of the disciples were non confrontational, they're probably feeling pretty uncomfortable. But disciples like Peter, which we know Peter loves confrontation. Peter's probably pumped about the tension that's happening in this situation. But Jesus takes them all again, and they travel back to the Airbnb outside of the city. The next day, when they wake back up to enter the city again, and remember, religious festivals are going on.
There's all this stuff that's happening through the week that they're wanting to be a part of, and so they're kind of traveling back, but traveling back into the city, it's like when people come into bend, right? They stay in airbnbs in the area, and sometimes you gotta be a little bit further out, but you keep traveling back into bend, right, to do all the things that bend has to offer. That's what's happening here, is they keep traveling out to the Airbnb to spend the night, but traveling back for all the things that are happening throughout the day. And the next day, as they're going back into the city, they see that tree again, remember it like, hopefully you didn't even forget it. But it wasn't producing fruit even out of the city.
And Jesus ends up cursing it. Well, the disciples noticed something profound. That tree that was budding, ready to produce fruit in just a couple of months, had withered and died from the roots up. And Mark has this really unique way of telling stories. It's known as the Markan sandwich.
It's where he takes a larger point that Jesus is making, and he sandwiches it between details of the same story. And the ends help us to understand the thing that's happening in the middle. And so what it's getting at is in between the story of a tree being cursed and withering and dying. You have the story about the temple and how Jesus is cleansing out the temple. And so what is happening is Jesus is bringing judgment on the temple with all the wayward activities, and he's doing something new.
Why? Because the temple was not producing fruit. It actually was forming people away from God's intentions. Look at the religious leaders. Life is oriented around life with God, but they are involved in a plot to have someone murdered.
They're the ones who should most represent the heart nature of God, and yet they're involved in a murder scheme. Like, you can see how the temple actually isn't forming people in the way that it should be. And let's be clear. The end goal in doing life with God is that you become people who don't actually murder people. So the roots have obviously died, and it's not good.
So you see how the mark and sandwich is revealing what Jesus is doing about the temple, which seems like bad news. But the good news is that Jesus has come to do a new thing unimaginable to everyone. Instead of having this temple filled with the presence of God that all people would come to a few times a year, Jesus was creating a new temple. Those who would accept the offer to follow him, he fills with his presence and he sends them out to the rest of the world. Instead of having a religious system internally focused, that always corrupts, Jesus is freeing us to be outwardly focused, to carry his presence out to the rest of the world, marked, marked by God's presence, as we are continually engaged in prayer.
Because remember, Jesus says, like, my house should be a house of prayer. They've lost sight of that. It should be the place where we connect with the presence of God and where we bring our request in prayer, and we engage with God in prayer. And that temple is going from the central place in Jerusalem now to being the people who would accept him would now be the temple of God that would carry God's presence present out to the rest of the world. Remember when a few weeks ago, we talked about this concept of heaven and hell kind of colliding?
And Jesus is wanting people to be filled up with what heaven looks like so they could carry that out into the world that typically mirrors hell, so that there could be more and more pockets of the presence of God, more and more pockets of heaven that are spreading out. And we get to take God's presence to other people. We get to engage with God not by traveling to Jerusalem at a particular time of year, but we get to engage with Goddesse daily because his presence lives inside of us. And we get to be people marked by prayer because we humbly know that we need God's presence, not just our own. We can't do it in our power.
We need his power. Mark, chapter eleven, verse 22, 25 says, and Jesus said to the disciples, have faith in God. I tell you the truth. You can say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and it will happen, but you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. And I tell you, you can pray for anything.
And if you believe, then you've received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying first, forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against so that your father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. And if I could be honest, this is a really difficult text. There's so many nuances here. There's so many things that are happening.
There's so many potential to kind of misunderstand. But the tensions that I want to point out in the text are this. Jesus. Jesus asked us to have the faith to move mountains. But sometimes it feels like faith doesn't move much.
Ever experience that in your life? Jesus is saying, have faith, and you can tell this mountain to move, and it will move. But sometimes we have all the faith in the world that we can muster, but it doesn't feel like it does much. And then Jesus says to not have doubt in our hearts. But at other times, Jesus responds, we've even seen him.
Mark to a man who says, I believe, but help my unbelief, help my doubt. Other times, we find it difficult to forgive people who hurt us. But Jesus here says, God will forgive in response to our ability to forgive others in our lives. So there's tension in all of these things, and I have nothing to help ease these tensions. I just simply don't.
And I don't want to ease the tensions either. It's not my job. It's actually an impossible job. I'm convinced that attempting to give overly simplistic answers when our felt life experience is incredibly complex actually hinders faith instead of helps build our faith. But praise God that he's complex.
He's just as complex as all the complexities that we face in life. And he's big enough to handle all of our questions, and he's relational enough to help sort it all out with us. And there's beauty to be found in the tension, but that is difficult for us, especially when we like the illusion of control, especially when we deal more with an idealized version of our life instead of reality itself. And if we're really honest, reality is actually, there's not much in our control. But even with that, even with all the complexity of this passage, there's still some invitations from a very beautiful and complex God.
The invitations, I think, are this. Maybe there's a few more that you can pull out, but I think that you're invited to believe in God for some really big things, like moving mountains, and God can do that at times. But I also think you're invited to enjoy seasons where faith feels just difficult to come by, where this doubt just feels like a much easier emotion to go to. I think there's times where we can just lean into God in those seasons and other seasons. It won't be like that.
I feel like faith comes a lot easier to us. I think we're invited to. To be to others as God has first been to us, as we slowly forgive and release people, as God empowers us to do, because that's a work of God in our life. We can't muster that in our own power, and we don't have to. But when that happens, we actually get to do to others as God has first been to us, because he's forgiven us us, and he's released us from all the things that we've done in our life.
I think we're invited to find beauty in life in these tensions between big faith and lack of faith, between the struggle to forgive and God forgiving us. Seasons where man faith is really easy to come by, in seasons where faith is really hard to muster up. There's beauty and intention, and Jesus invites you into relationship with him to hold that tension with him, and he helps us. And you're invited to bring everything to God. In prayer, Dallas Willard says God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.
To say it another way, God meets us where we actually are, not where we pretend to be. And so if you want to meet God today, it comes with just being really honest about what you're thinking, what you're going through, what you have going on in your life. And so if we bring everything that Mark is teaching us together today as best we can, we have seen the irony of a blind person seeing that Jesus is the savior when the religious leaders absolutely miss it, when they're blind to it. We have seen Jesus triumphantly enter the city to overthrow darkness, but it doesn't happen through violent opposition, but it comes by him giving his life. We have seen Jesus correct the religious system that had their eyes on the wrong things.
And we've seen Jesus invite us into relationship where we can hold the tensions of life and open conversation with God as we continually ask for his help and his guidance. And so if we could summarize it in just a quick statement, it's all about experiencing God's presence through prayer, and we need to do that continually, daily experiencing God's presence through prayer. And so let's just open our heart to what that might be, even now, in this moment. I just want you to take a moment just to breathe wherever you're at with these things. And I want you to think about maybe what the Holy Spirit brings to the surface as we think through these questions.
Where do you need God's help? Where do you need God's help? Seeing his presence in your life? Where do you need God's help seeing his movement in your life? Where do you need God's help?
Laying down distractions so that you can refocus on the things that matter most. And what tensions in your life do you need God's help with today? Because the journey with Jesus is beautiful and profound. But it's. It's hard.
It's hard at times, but in the midst of the complexity of life, we remember Jesus, who triumphantly enters, who's overthrowing the power of darkness. And he might do that in ways that we never imagined we might not want him to, but yet he does what is best, and we need to trust that he does what is best. So in the midst of all the tensions, we continue to recognize and honor that Jesus is king by coming to him. We don't have to be fearful about approaching who Jesus is. Actually, writers of the Bible say that we can approach the throne of the king with confidence because of all that he's done for us.
And he invites us into the room to have that conversation. And we can continually bring through prayer these tensions to God, saying, God, I need your help to sort it out. I need your wisdom. I need your help to be more like you, a little bit more each and every day. I want to be marked by your presence.
And that happens only when you continually make time to be with the king. And you can bring your prayers to him, where you sit in his presence and enjoy all that he's doing in your life. When you release the ability to need to control everything yourself and you get to release the control back to him, that's a beautiful place to be. And so that's an invitation for you today. And I would invite you whatever that looks like.
If you've never made that step, like, why don't you just put something on your calendar in the morning, even like five or ten minutes to be with God, to start with, gratitude, God, I'm thankful for where you've been doing these things in my life, bringing those requests to God, those tensions that might be there, and then simply sitting and enjoying his presence. And if you make that a habit, guess what? You'll become more and more marked by his presence. Presence and his spirit as you bring that to other people. Remember, we get to be the temple of God filled with his presence.
That gets to carry that out to other people so that they can get caught up in a new kingdom because they need that gospel, they need that good news, because so many of us are living in worlds that will never satisfy and only bring about depression, anxiety and darkness. But there's peace that's available through Jesus. We get to carry that presence to all kinds of other people. And if you've had consistently have that morning prayer time for just a bit, and then the invitations, maybe you extend that prayer time, or maybe you do something like a daily office prayer, or you have set times to pray throughout the day, and so you set a reminder on your phone, like maybe it's first thing in the morning, maybe it's midday, maybe it's evening before you come home and, you know, or with your kids the rest of the night, maybe it's one more time before you go to bed. So there's three or four opportunities right there to reconnect with God, who's always available to us, to bring the tensions to God, to be mindful about how God is moving in our life.
And we respond with gratitude when he's so gracious to us. So I just want to pray for you. I just want to thank you for engaging in this conversation. Thank you for listening. If you think this could be helpful for someone else, would you please share that and would you know that Jesus deeply loves you, wherever you might be at, with whatever questions, concerns or thoughts that you have in your life?
Good. And he's faithful. He'll meet you right where you're at. The invitation is on the table to engage with him in the midst of these tensions. So, Jesus, would you be with each and every one of us?
Would you mark us with your presence and your spirit? I pray that we have consistent times throughout our day, every day, where we get to reconnect with you. And out of that, that we would bring your presence to other people, and that would be a blessing to everyone else around us. So would you help us to consistently experience your presence as we engage with you in prayer every day? We need you.
We don't want to have to rely on ourself. So whatever is on our heart, we bring to you in this moment, we lay that at your feet, we get to breathe out anxiety and we get to breathe in your peace. So help us to even do that this moment, to lay down the thing that we're most anxious about and just to breathe deep in the presence of the spirit of God. Help us to carry that wherever we might be going, to, whoever we might be going to. In your name we pray.
Amen. I just appreciate you partnering with us, helping us, you know, in our journey, the mission that God has given us. Here in Bend, Oregon, if you need some resources to help you practice, to help practice the way, you have an app that you can download, the Pine Hills church Bend app. Just kind of search that in the app store. It'll come up, you'll see our black and white logo.
You can actually just go to pinehillschurch.org and there's a link in our homepage for you to find that. To download that inside that app, there's a few different tabs. One is the basics, where you get to look at the big story of God, where you get to learn more about how to have an encounter with God, where you get to start to learn what does it look like to live in relationship with Jesus. And then there's a practicing the way to add which will actually help you to go through a few conversations to help you to get rolling out. What does it look like to live this life connected with God, to be present to him.
And so we want to help partner with you and whatever that might be at you might be just exploring the faith, you might beginning to want to practice the faith or you might be all in to wanting to live like Jesus. And so wherever you might be in a journey. We want to partner with you. We want to be help to you because that's what God has called us to do. And if you feel called to maybe support that in any given way, would you pray for us?
Would you pray that God would continue to provide all that we need to do what God has called us here in the city? And God would continue to open that vision up before us as we see the opportunities that he's inviting us into. And then also, if you want to financially support us so we could continue to have these type of conversations, put those out for you online or for other people, or to even support what God is calling us to do here in the south end of Bend, Oregon. I'd be so grateful if you go to pineheartschurch.org, comma click the give tab and just give anything that God might put on your heart. But if that's not the call for you, we want to continue to challenge you to live the way of Jesus with the local community or with us.
If you're here in bend but can't wait to see you in the next conversation, have a great day. Bye.
Summary
In this teaching Pastor Aaron goes through a few stories in Mark chapter 10 helping people to see if there is something that they are wrapped up in that is keeping them from being the loving presence that God is calling them to be as they serve others. Life is Jesus is always other-oriented and Jesus empowers us to lay down the things that keep us from living into this.
Discussion Questions
- Where have you experienced freedom in laying something down?
- What might God be inviting you to lay down to receive something better from Him?
- Who is God calling you to love and serve this week?
Transcript
Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are gathering with us wherever you might be, catching the conversation. So grateful you're tuning in and hopefully you're reading through the Gospel of Mark with us. If not, that's the invitation.
Pick it up and begin to read it. If you've read through it, read through it again. Maybe do it at a different pace because you can always notice new and different things every time you step in and read scripture. Because the Holy Spirit is working to illuminate the word of God to us, meaning we'll notice new things each and every time. And then we're always different when we step into the scriptures again.
And so every day that invitation is on the table for us to come to the word of God, to interact with God through his word, through the scriptures, to learn deeply about who God is and how this changes our life and it shapes who we're becoming, and it helps us to step into all that God has for us. So be reading with us. And as I was looking through the different stories that we're going to hear today and mark, it made me really think about when I was a kid. I think I had a greater capacity for excitement than I actually have today. I remember the first time I got to go to a Texas Ranger baseball game when I was young.
I grew up in the Dallas area, so of course I should be a Texas Ranger fan for all of you haters. Like, that's okay. This is where I, this is my home city, Dallas, Texas. This is where I did life, where I was shaped for a long time. And so naturally, I like the teams around there.
And so I remember going to the game for the first time with my family and going up to the upper level seats because that's what we could afford. And that's okay because that was a sacrifice for my family. So I'm really grateful that they sacrificed for us to be able to create those memories. And I remember coming kind of through the tunnel and then kind of the stadium opening up and being able to see down the stadium, to see the field and to see how big the stadium was. From my perspective as a young kid, seeing all of these fans kind of starting to pile in to essentially watch the Rangers lose because it was the nineties and early two thousands, they weren't going to win.
That was okay. I was young. I was still pumped just to be there. It didn't matter if they won or lost because this was a gift to be able to actually get to go. And I know, as I've grown into adulthood, that ability to get excited on that level is kind of waned a bit.
Things that once were just so amazing have become more commonplace. I don't know if you felt that in your life, but excitement isn't the only emotion that I struggle to feel as an adult. Sometimes I struggle to wonder. Sometimes I struggle to hold the ability to have mystery in my life. Sometimes I struggle trusting people outside of myself because I've.
I've grown a little hardened by life or by other people's choices or when I've been disappointed or when I've made very disappointing choices myself. And so all of that in nature may be to protect myself a bit. I've lost the ability to do that. And I kind of wonder if God can help with that. I wonder as we turn to God and bring our emotions and bring everything to God and just begin to learn to receive God for who God is, whatever that might be in our life, and begin to respond in gratitude, I wonder if we get to pick up some of this again to recapture that excitement from when we were a kid.
And as we go to Mark, as we turn to that, we'll be in Mark, chapter ten. We're going to turn to a few different stories that continue to challenge our view of who Jesus is and Jesus's place in our lives. And if we're open to new possibilities, maybe we can see that Mark shows us a way back to something that was so easy for us earlier in life. But because of all the stresses of adulting, maybe we've lost that bit. Maybe there's a path back through Jesus.
So let's pick up the first story. It's about Jesus in Kid ministry, mark 1013 16. Just to summarize the story, parents brought their kids to Jesus, wanting Jesus to lay hands on them and to bless them. And the disciples, as they saw that the kids coming, the disciples actually began to scold the parents. And jesus sees this playing out, and he actually gets really upset at the disciples.
He says, no, allow the kids to come. I want you to stop stopping them. I want you to allow them to come to me. And he says, anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God like them, will never enter it. Jesus again.
He makes the children the examples, which I think is profound and beautiful. Remember a few weeks ago, we looked at what children, how they were viewed in their culture, which were more viewed as kind of a problem or a nuisance and not a blessing at times. And so Jesus is like, no. Like, we need to welcome the kids in. We need to treat them well.
In this story, he's making them examples. We need to receive the kingdom of God like them, and if we don't, we can't actually enter it. And what does that mean when you think about how children actually receive things? Like, last weekend, my family, we got to go up to do some apple picking a few hours north in northern Oregon. It was really amazing.
Time to go pick fruit. And so we wanted to do the full fall thing to go enjoy some time away as a family, just for a night, this super small getaway. So we knew we were going to go apple picking. We were going to go hang out in hood river for a bit, hit the. Hit the river there, make sure that we get some ice cream because it was a bit warmer, and then hit a few more spots on the way back.
And so we, we booked because we didn't want to come all the way back that same day. So we just got a pretty inexpensive hotel near Mount Hood. And so what was amazing is we told the kids what was going to happen. And so weeks leading up, they're really pumped about going to pick fruit and to stay at a really expensive hotel. It's not a resort by any means, right?
It was just a really small getaway trip, pretty inexpensive for us. And so I remember them being so excited, and I'm just thinking, like, this is, it's, you know, staying at a. Not the greatest hotel, like just a normal kind of thing, but their ability to get so excited about that, so pumped about that. And it makes me want to recapture that again. And it makes me want to just receive the gifts that I get from God.
Because sometimes I think as an adult, like, all this has become so commonplace, and a lot of these good gifts that we get, we treat as commonplace. And so when it happens, we lose our ability to actually have gratitude, which means we lose a lot of that excitement, the wonder, the mystery, all of that stuff, because it's all suppressed by our ungratefulness, if I could be really honest, maybe our spoiledness. And so if we're going to receive the kingdom of God like children, we need to receive the kingdom of God like, we see children receiving gifts, we need to just be pumped about it, excited that God would bless us with anything, excited that God would look down and give us just whatever that might be. And so we need to recover that a bit, like, with gratitude, like children. Because Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God belongs to people who receive him like children instead of, like, people who maybe put expectations on God that are just kind of maybe unfair.
Maybe they're unspoken expectations where we're always disappointed by God because we not actually sat down and thought about, what is it that I'm actually expecting of God? And begin to name those things and begin to process with God. If that's a fair expectation that we have on him, if we even trust that maybe he's saying no to certain things for a specific reason, it's actually an act of love and grace in our life, whatever that might be. And so the first question that the story is going to ask us is, how are you openly receiving what God has for you, whether that's big things or small things? Oftentimes we really want the big things from God, and we really look over all the small things that God is doing.
And so next story is a man gripped with lesser things. From Mark, chapter ten, verses 17 through 22, Jesus is traveling towards Jerusalem because the narrative has been building that Jesus has been doing all this ministry, and all of a sudden there's that movement towards Jerusalem where Jesus is going to go give his life in Jerusalem. And so Jesus on his way there is approached by this man who asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Verse 17. Jesus answers, you must not commit adultery.
You must not murder, you must not steal, you must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone, honor your father and mother. Jesus rattles off a few of the ten Commandments that you can go find in Exodus, chapter 20, given to the family of God to live into their identity as children of God. And so this is a list that's just kind of abbreviated by Jesus and the man saying, okay, no problem. Like, I have not struggled with this, right?
I've not murdered people, not committed adultery, not stolen, not testifying falsely. I'm being honest. I'm not cheating anyone. Like, I'm honoring my father and mother in whatever capacity that he was able. So he's like, no big deal.
Like, I completely get this. I got it. Mark, chapter ten, verse 21. Looking at the Mandev, Jesus felt genuine love for him. There is still one thing you haven't done.
He told them, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. We need to be really clear, because this is a hard message, even to us in our culture. Jesus isn't advocating that everyone needs to do this. Jesus is simply putting his finger on the one thing that is ultimate in this man's life, money and possessions.
And the man was ultimately motivated by these things. He couldn't imagine life without these things. Money and possessions were essentially his God, which is problematic because there is only one true God. It isn't money. It isn't possessions.
God is the thing behind everything. And every other so called God is just something created by the things that God has actually given us. And so Exodus chapter 20 is where we find all these different commandments. And some of the commandments that Jesus left off the list you can find there, but two that are really important. Commandment number one, you must have no other gods but me.
Commandment two, you must not worship created things or what the Bible calls idols. So the first commandment, you must have no other God but me. Commandment two, you must not worship created things. Exodus 20 describes God as a jealous God who will not tolerate sharing affections with other things. I want to ask you, how do you feel when someone else gets the credit for something?
Maybe you've been at work, you've been busting your tail, going above and beyond, doing all these different things, and then someone who just seemingly is barely trying, they're the one who gets all the kudos in the staff meeting when it happens. What do you think? You're like, man, like, I'm the one doing all those things, and yet they're the ones getting the credit. So imagine you have created all of humanity and given them everything to sustain life, and they in turn, take something you have given them and form something with the creativity you have actually embedded in them, and they begin to give all the credit to that created thing. How would you feel?
I think God has every right to be jealous and frustrated in that situation. And so this is what Jesus is pointing out, that this idol, money and possessions he's actually worshipping created things over the creator. And so he puts his finger lovingly on that idol. We need to give up the idol so that you can experience the trueness of God, and then you can follow after Jesus, who leads us to goddess. Exodus 22, it says, I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.
In Exodus 20, before God gives the ten base level ways of living together in community, he reminds them of who he is. He is the God that has led his people out of slavery, and he is the one that has gifted them freedom. Their response is to live in recognition of what he has done and to live under his authority of the one who has given them this new life. Right? Like, he should get all the credit.
He's done all this amazing stuff. He's brought us out. He's brought us freedom. We should then live under his reign. And true freedom only comes when we recognize that he is the only God and that life and freedom are only found in living life under his way of doing things.
Everything else is slavery. Everything else is bondage, and yet he's offering true freedom. Who else can lead us out of slavery? No one. Only God.
How can money and possessions lead us out of slavery? It can't. It can only further enslave us. Only God can lead us out of that. You might be thinking, well, Aaron, that's a pretty profound story.
It's inspiring. But I wasn't a slave in Egypt. So what are you talking about? Well, you're kind of right, and you're also kind of wrong. See, Egypt is a metaphor in the Bible that represents spiritual slavery.
And Mark has been showing us Jesus as this new Moses. In the Old Testament, Moses was the one used by God to help lead the people out of slavery, to Egypt, into this new life and into freedom. And Mark has been portraying Jesus as this new Moses, this new person sent by God to lead us out of spiritual slavery, that we might enjoy life in relationship with God, that we might find freedom from the oppressive slavery, that we find ourselves under slavery to sin, slavery to other things that just can't suffice. They're never going to fulfill. They're never going to accomplish the things in our life that we think they're going to accomplish.
Only God can fulfill. Only God can sustain. And so Jesus is inviting this man to give that stuff up that will never sustain and define new life, to find freedom in God. See, God alone frees us and gives us this new life, which is why God alone reserves the right to be the only God in our life, which is why God alone reserves the right to define how life should be. And Jesus had lovingly identified that idol in the man's life that doesn't have the capacity to fulfill this in this life, doesn't have the capacity to actually buy his way into right relationship with God.
And Jesus is inviting that Mandev to lay down the thing that can't fulfill for the only thing that actually can. Money and possessions end up being the thing that has just too much of a hold on this man's heart. He ends up not being able to walk away from it, to give it up, to actually find freedom in God. Maybe he feels safer and more in control with this God of money and things, and he can't see that God will offer him more security and that God will provide for all of his needs, the option is money and possessions now or a life fulfill, a fulfilled life now and life eternal. Like, what are the options to have immediate gratification now for with this money that you think is going to buy you happiness?
And we see that story play out for thousands of years. It just never does. Or to lay it down and find life in Goddesse and find that he actually fulfills. And the man, he takes the money and the things, he takes immediate gratification, he walks away. And this breaks the heart of Jesus.
See, regardless of the idol, only those who recognize God as the only God are the ones who will inherit the kingdom of God and the benefits of the kingdom of God. God will give us over to the things that we ultimately value. He won't force you to follow him or recognize him as God, but he also won't be content with sharing God's status with anything else in your life. Like he's God and he's God alone and he deserves that recognition. Why?
Because he's provided everything that we have in life. He's offering the ability to leave whatever slavery we might be under to experience him. He is the thing that's on offer, freedom from slavery, from the oppressive things in our lives. And he's going to give us power and direction, wisdom, encouragement for the journey. Meaning, not one day will we walk alone because we'll get to be with him every step of the way.
We have to receive that gift as a child would for whatever that might be, with all the goodness, for however that shows up in our life and whatever season we're walking through, we need to receive it like a kid. God, I know you're in this moment and I know you're providing for me and I know you're with me. And so whatever you have for me today, I know you're going to provide for my need to get through whatever I might be going through. So I'm going to receive you as a child would. And the disciples begin to think, we have all this stuff.
We have a lot of stuff that just grips our heart, like how in the world can any of us actually be saved? We all struggle with this stuff. And in Mark, chapter ten, verse 27, Jesus looked at them intently and said, humanly speaking, it's a, yeah, possible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God. I should be words of life to you.
Everything is possible with God. But it requires that we trust God above all things, that we trust him above money and possessions. Now, we trust him beyond whatever thing in life we're ultimately trying to go after thinking it's going to provide security or peace or fulfillment or happiness or whatever that might be. We need to trust that only God can provide that. And the beautiful thing is, when we allow God to do that and we get to trust him and we get to just receive all that he has for us, he frees us to actually enjoy all the other good stuff that he's going to bring about in our lives.
And we get to enjoy the people and we get to enjoy the moment instead of always stressing for the next better thing that we think is going to come along. That's just a rat race. We'll never win. It never works. And so we need to trust in his way of doing life.
We need to trust in his values. We need to trust in how he defines that we should live. And so the question we need to ask, is there something you need to lay down to receive God as the greatest gift? Maybe you've been trusting in money and possessions, and you need to lay that trust down to begin to trust God as your God, as the source of your provision and everything that you might need or whatever that idol might be for your life. And that's not a small thing.
It's actually a really big sacrifice. In Mark 1028 through 31, it talks about these big sacrifices. The disciples started thinking, oh, I've given up so much to follow you, Jesus. I've made sacrifices in my life. I've recognized that you're God, and I'm going to give everything to begin to follow you and recognize that you'll provide everything that I might need.
But we've actually given up jobs, we've given up our home, we've given up our relationships, we've given up everything to follow in your footsteps, Jesus. And Jesus tells them that whatever they think that they're sacrificing is actually nothing compared to what you're going to gain by actually following him. We always receive way more than we could ever give, which might be a good reminder for you, because maybe you've been living life, like, going a particular way and thinking, man, I just want to find, like, just joy in that, maybe even going after good things. But you just need to remember that whatever you're sacrificing that Jesus might be asking you to sacrifice, you'll always get more. You always receive more than you could ever give.
This man could not understand. The rich man could not understand that, like money and possessions, like, I give all of that up. He thought, it's just this massive sacrifice. And clearly a businessman. So he's thinking return on investment.
If I sacrifice that, he did not see the return of God as the bigger investment. And so we need to recognize that whatever we give up for God that God might be leading us into, we'll always get more from him, that he's always the better thing, that Jesus is always the thing that's going to satisfy the thing that we're looking for anyway. And when we find life within the kingdom of God, under his reign and under him, we get to find that we get to truly enjoy everything else. That's the gift. So we can never out sacrifice Jesus.
Jesus is always given more. He's given us his life. Mark, chapter 1032 through 34. He begins to continue to talk about how he's going to give his life for us. He's going to sacrifice and that's going to be the key to unlocking the potential redemption of the world.
Can you imagine that one sacrifice is potentially going to unlock redemption that's going to be made available to the world? Whoever would receive Jesus to recognize we can lay down this stuff that's oppressing. We can lay down all this other stuff and find life and freedom in Jesus and he's the better thing. And we can't actually out sacrifice Jesus because he's given his life for each and every one of us. What do you think the sacrifices Jesus leads you through has the potential to do in our world?
Don't you imagine that Jesus asked you to sacrifice something? If Jesus's life, him laying that down, like opens up the potential redemption of the whole world, like, what does that mean when we give Jesus whatever thing that he might be asking us to lay down, like, what does that have the potential to do in other people's life or even our life? Because I'm so convinced that whatever Jesus asks of us is actually always for our good and always for the better. My money and possessions has its way of just working in our life and our heart and like working as a toxic poison in our life and poisoning us to other things and other people. And when we actually live life following him, like, we're freed from that and that's such a better life and it's so much more enjoyable.
And when we lay down things, we actually get to become a better person. Like maybe in laying down the money and possessions, this man would have been a much better person. Maybe he still would have had wealth, but he would have had the ability to be generous at that point with so many other people because he didn't value money and possessions. As the God, he knew where the, he knew where all the provision came from anyway, from God himself, and so he could freely give to everyone else. You see how, like, that sacrifice ends up working to bless so many other people?
Like, what thing is Jesus asking you to set down? And how could that be a potential blessing not only for you, but for a lot of other people? Because to follow Jesus is to lead a life of sacrifice for others, to truly love them. Mark 1035 through 45. What's amazing is verse 42 begins like this.
So Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those underneath them. But among you, it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.
And so Jesus, who very well, like, should have had all the authority. Jesus is king, and, like, he deserves all the praise and all the glory and all the honor. And yet he comes, and he lays that all down to show you the way to truly do life with God and to give his life as a ransom for all of us. Because each and every one of us, man, we just deserve the different faith than Jesus is actually offering us. We actually deserve the death that he took for us, but yet he gives us life, the thing that we don't deserve.
And he invites us into the family, and we get to live completely free. Like, he buys our slavery, like, he buys us back. And he has the power to actually, like, break the chains of slavery off of us, whatever they might be, because he rose from the grave. And so we have power from the past to walk into a completely new life. This is the ransom that Jesus was willing to pay for us, the sacrifice that he was willing to give, because he didn't view his life as something to, like, hold on to, but he was going to invest it in everyone else.
And so that's what we need to be able to do as well. If we're captured by the way of Jesus, we live the way Jesus lived, and we do the things that Jesus did, and we can do that because we trust that God is a good father, that he's going to provide for his kids. And so we freely give to other people. We're super generous because we know he's going to provide for us. We don't need the world's affirmation because we, the affirmation of God, like his words, matter more.
We don't need the world's things, because we know that goddess is so much better than anything this world can actually offer us. And that frees us from having to focus on ourselves and frees us to truly love and to serve other people. And I think that's the thing that a lot of us are wanting anyway. We want freedom from ourselves. We want freedom to be able to focus on other people, to love other people, to serve, to care for, to live a life of purpose and meaning that's so much bigger than us.
I think a lot of us want that in our life. It's only truly found through Jesus. So my last question is, who is the one, the one person that as you follow God, he's calling you to love and to serve? Who's your one? Who's that one person that even the Holy Spirit's bringing to mind?
Now that you're free to love and to care for other people, because God is freeing you from your ability to have to focus on yourself, from your ability to try to earn it all yourself, he's going to provide for you. You get to live just free. Let that settle in for a second. You could just breathe because God's with you, and God loves you, and God affirms you, and God's walking with you in this journey. And anything that he might ever ask you to set down, like it's a, it's a sacrifice that might feel big, but you get so much more in return.
And when that happens, we get to live life the way God has created us to live, which is outwardly focused. Care to love other people so that other people can get to come to know him, too, so other people can experience the goodness of the kingdom of God. That more and more people, when they're around you, they're like, taken aback, like, why you're a Christian. Like, you're a follow of God. I thought followers of God acted like this or did this, but around you like you're a breath of fresh air.
Like, I love being around you. I want to be around you. I want to spend time with you because you're living the way that God designed you to actually live. And so who's the one that God is calling you to love and to serve? And so just to summarize, because it's a few different stories that we blitz through all along the way, but Jesus has given his life for you to find freedom from the things that feel like they enslave you.
And he fulfills you unlike anything earthly. And he enables you to live outwardly, focused on loving and serving other people. And all you have to do is to say, jesus, I want that life. Wherever you might be in your Jesus journey, maybe you're still exploring the way of Jesus. Maybe you begin to practice his ways.
Maybe you partnered with him on mission, whatever that might look like, wherever you might be, there's an opportunity to continue to say, jesus, man, I want you. You're my person. I want you to define life. I want you to be my God. I want to lay down every other idol, every other lesser thing, thing, whatever thing has gripped my heart, whatever thing is defining my life, whatever I thought has been ultimate.
That's not ultimate. Jesus, would you be ultimate in my life? Would you lead me? Would you guide me? Would you help me in every day here forward?
And he's going to be with you. And if you've not ever prayed that prayer, you still have a lot of questions about what does it look like to follow Jesus. I want you to go to pinehillschurch.org, reach out to the connect tab, send us an email, let us know. Like, hey, I made a decision to follow Jesus today because we've got some other conversations to send you, to help guide you into what this looks like and to celebrate with you and just to be a partner in the spiritual journey with you. But for everyone else, just to recap those questions that we look through throughout the teaching, how are you openly receiving what God has for you today?
Is there something you need to lay down to receive God as the greatest gift and who is your one that God is calling you to love and serve? And so you might be thinking, okay, that's helping me to process a little bit. Like, I need God's help to recognize his work in my life. I need to lay these things down that have been viewing as God and they're actually not God. And I want to recognize Goddesse as the true thing in my life, to define my king, all of those things.
And as I do that, Jesus is going to ask me to love and to serve other people. Guess what? Even if you made that decision for the first time today, he's going to invite you to love someone else. Like, go read story after story. There's this story even in Mark about this man who's filled up with all of these demons.
And Jesus sets him in his right state of mind and heart, and his very next thing he tells him to do is to go tell other people about what God has done in their life. He doesn't say, hey, continue to go to church until you have it all figured out. He doesn't say, hey, go get a Bible degree or whatever that might be. He says, hey, go and tell people what I just did for you. And so that's the same thing with who's your one?
Wherever you might be with Jesus, go tell other people to love, to care for them, to deepen the relationship, and just to say, hey, here's what Jesus is doing in my life. I don't have all the answers, but this has been profound and amazing for us. So all of us, we can apply what Mark's telling to our life. Bye. Recognizing that we all need Jesus to orient life around his practices, specifically sacrificially serving and loving other people, trusting God with all that he provides in the moment that he's providing whatever it is today, and to remember that we always receive more than we could ever give.
And so Jesus, I just pray for whoever's listening or watching on YouTube that you be with them. Help them to lay down every other lesser thing, to pick up the greatest thing ever, help them to receive your provision and to see your provision in their life. Even if it's just small things getting through the next thing, a little bit, encouragement along the way until they get to the next big thing. When you profoundly move in a way that only you can in the midst of whatever that might be, it might be trial or hardship. Help us to stay outwardly focused, to love and to care other people to represent you really well, that other people could come, come to know you as God and find life in your kingdom, because that's the only way to life and freedom.
In your name we pray. Amen. Well, just thank you for engaging in conversation with us today. Can't wait to see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Bye.
Pick it up and begin to read it. If you've read through it, read through it again. Maybe do it at a different pace because you can always notice new and different things every time you step in and read scripture. Because the Holy Spirit is working to illuminate the word of God to us, meaning we'll notice new things each and every time. And then we're always different when we step into the scriptures again.
And so every day that invitation is on the table for us to come to the word of God, to interact with God through his word, through the scriptures, to learn deeply about who God is and how this changes our life and it shapes who we're becoming, and it helps us to step into all that God has for us. So be reading with us. And as I was looking through the different stories that we're going to hear today and mark, it made me really think about when I was a kid. I think I had a greater capacity for excitement than I actually have today. I remember the first time I got to go to a Texas Ranger baseball game when I was young.
I grew up in the Dallas area, so of course I should be a Texas Ranger fan for all of you haters. Like, that's okay. This is where I, this is my home city, Dallas, Texas. This is where I did life, where I was shaped for a long time. And so naturally, I like the teams around there.
And so I remember going to the game for the first time with my family and going up to the upper level seats because that's what we could afford. And that's okay because that was a sacrifice for my family. So I'm really grateful that they sacrificed for us to be able to create those memories. And I remember coming kind of through the tunnel and then kind of the stadium opening up and being able to see down the stadium, to see the field and to see how big the stadium was. From my perspective as a young kid, seeing all of these fans kind of starting to pile in to essentially watch the Rangers lose because it was the nineties and early two thousands, they weren't going to win.
That was okay. I was young. I was still pumped just to be there. It didn't matter if they won or lost because this was a gift to be able to actually get to go. And I know, as I've grown into adulthood, that ability to get excited on that level is kind of waned a bit.
Things that once were just so amazing have become more commonplace. I don't know if you felt that in your life, but excitement isn't the only emotion that I struggle to feel as an adult. Sometimes I struggle to wonder. Sometimes I struggle to hold the ability to have mystery in my life. Sometimes I struggle trusting people outside of myself because I've.
I've grown a little hardened by life or by other people's choices or when I've been disappointed or when I've made very disappointing choices myself. And so all of that in nature may be to protect myself a bit. I've lost the ability to do that. And I kind of wonder if God can help with that. I wonder as we turn to God and bring our emotions and bring everything to God and just begin to learn to receive God for who God is, whatever that might be in our life, and begin to respond in gratitude, I wonder if we get to pick up some of this again to recapture that excitement from when we were a kid.
And as we go to Mark, as we turn to that, we'll be in Mark, chapter ten. We're going to turn to a few different stories that continue to challenge our view of who Jesus is and Jesus's place in our lives. And if we're open to new possibilities, maybe we can see that Mark shows us a way back to something that was so easy for us earlier in life. But because of all the stresses of adulting, maybe we've lost that bit. Maybe there's a path back through Jesus.
So let's pick up the first story. It's about Jesus in Kid ministry, mark 1013 16. Just to summarize the story, parents brought their kids to Jesus, wanting Jesus to lay hands on them and to bless them. And the disciples, as they saw that the kids coming, the disciples actually began to scold the parents. And jesus sees this playing out, and he actually gets really upset at the disciples.
He says, no, allow the kids to come. I want you to stop stopping them. I want you to allow them to come to me. And he says, anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God like them, will never enter it. Jesus again.
He makes the children the examples, which I think is profound and beautiful. Remember a few weeks ago, we looked at what children, how they were viewed in their culture, which were more viewed as kind of a problem or a nuisance and not a blessing at times. And so Jesus is like, no. Like, we need to welcome the kids in. We need to treat them well.
In this story, he's making them examples. We need to receive the kingdom of God like them, and if we don't, we can't actually enter it. And what does that mean when you think about how children actually receive things? Like, last weekend, my family, we got to go up to do some apple picking a few hours north in northern Oregon. It was really amazing.
Time to go pick fruit. And so we wanted to do the full fall thing to go enjoy some time away as a family, just for a night, this super small getaway. So we knew we were going to go apple picking. We were going to go hang out in hood river for a bit, hit the. Hit the river there, make sure that we get some ice cream because it was a bit warmer, and then hit a few more spots on the way back.
And so we, we booked because we didn't want to come all the way back that same day. So we just got a pretty inexpensive hotel near Mount Hood. And so what was amazing is we told the kids what was going to happen. And so weeks leading up, they're really pumped about going to pick fruit and to stay at a really expensive hotel. It's not a resort by any means, right?
It was just a really small getaway trip, pretty inexpensive for us. And so I remember them being so excited, and I'm just thinking, like, this is, it's, you know, staying at a. Not the greatest hotel, like just a normal kind of thing, but their ability to get so excited about that, so pumped about that. And it makes me want to recapture that again. And it makes me want to just receive the gifts that I get from God.
Because sometimes I think as an adult, like, all this has become so commonplace, and a lot of these good gifts that we get, we treat as commonplace. And so when it happens, we lose our ability to actually have gratitude, which means we lose a lot of that excitement, the wonder, the mystery, all of that stuff, because it's all suppressed by our ungratefulness, if I could be really honest, maybe our spoiledness. And so if we're going to receive the kingdom of God like children, we need to receive the kingdom of God like, we see children receiving gifts, we need to just be pumped about it, excited that God would bless us with anything, excited that God would look down and give us just whatever that might be. And so we need to recover that a bit, like, with gratitude, like children. Because Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God belongs to people who receive him like children instead of, like, people who maybe put expectations on God that are just kind of maybe unfair.
Maybe they're unspoken expectations where we're always disappointed by God because we not actually sat down and thought about, what is it that I'm actually expecting of God? And begin to name those things and begin to process with God. If that's a fair expectation that we have on him, if we even trust that maybe he's saying no to certain things for a specific reason, it's actually an act of love and grace in our life, whatever that might be. And so the first question that the story is going to ask us is, how are you openly receiving what God has for you, whether that's big things or small things? Oftentimes we really want the big things from God, and we really look over all the small things that God is doing.
And so next story is a man gripped with lesser things. From Mark, chapter ten, verses 17 through 22, Jesus is traveling towards Jerusalem because the narrative has been building that Jesus has been doing all this ministry, and all of a sudden there's that movement towards Jerusalem where Jesus is going to go give his life in Jerusalem. And so Jesus on his way there is approached by this man who asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Verse 17. Jesus answers, you must not commit adultery.
You must not murder, you must not steal, you must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone, honor your father and mother. Jesus rattles off a few of the ten Commandments that you can go find in Exodus, chapter 20, given to the family of God to live into their identity as children of God. And so this is a list that's just kind of abbreviated by Jesus and the man saying, okay, no problem. Like, I have not struggled with this, right?
I've not murdered people, not committed adultery, not stolen, not testifying falsely. I'm being honest. I'm not cheating anyone. Like, I'm honoring my father and mother in whatever capacity that he was able. So he's like, no big deal.
Like, I completely get this. I got it. Mark, chapter ten, verse 21. Looking at the Mandev, Jesus felt genuine love for him. There is still one thing you haven't done.
He told them, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. We need to be really clear, because this is a hard message, even to us in our culture. Jesus isn't advocating that everyone needs to do this. Jesus is simply putting his finger on the one thing that is ultimate in this man's life, money and possessions.
And the man was ultimately motivated by these things. He couldn't imagine life without these things. Money and possessions were essentially his God, which is problematic because there is only one true God. It isn't money. It isn't possessions.
God is the thing behind everything. And every other so called God is just something created by the things that God has actually given us. And so Exodus chapter 20 is where we find all these different commandments. And some of the commandments that Jesus left off the list you can find there, but two that are really important. Commandment number one, you must have no other gods but me.
Commandment two, you must not worship created things or what the Bible calls idols. So the first commandment, you must have no other God but me. Commandment two, you must not worship created things. Exodus 20 describes God as a jealous God who will not tolerate sharing affections with other things. I want to ask you, how do you feel when someone else gets the credit for something?
Maybe you've been at work, you've been busting your tail, going above and beyond, doing all these different things, and then someone who just seemingly is barely trying, they're the one who gets all the kudos in the staff meeting when it happens. What do you think? You're like, man, like, I'm the one doing all those things, and yet they're the ones getting the credit. So imagine you have created all of humanity and given them everything to sustain life, and they in turn, take something you have given them and form something with the creativity you have actually embedded in them, and they begin to give all the credit to that created thing. How would you feel?
I think God has every right to be jealous and frustrated in that situation. And so this is what Jesus is pointing out, that this idol, money and possessions he's actually worshipping created things over the creator. And so he puts his finger lovingly on that idol. We need to give up the idol so that you can experience the trueness of God, and then you can follow after Jesus, who leads us to goddess. Exodus 22, it says, I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.
In Exodus 20, before God gives the ten base level ways of living together in community, he reminds them of who he is. He is the God that has led his people out of slavery, and he is the one that has gifted them freedom. Their response is to live in recognition of what he has done and to live under his authority of the one who has given them this new life. Right? Like, he should get all the credit.
He's done all this amazing stuff. He's brought us out. He's brought us freedom. We should then live under his reign. And true freedom only comes when we recognize that he is the only God and that life and freedom are only found in living life under his way of doing things.
Everything else is slavery. Everything else is bondage, and yet he's offering true freedom. Who else can lead us out of slavery? No one. Only God.
How can money and possessions lead us out of slavery? It can't. It can only further enslave us. Only God can lead us out of that. You might be thinking, well, Aaron, that's a pretty profound story.
It's inspiring. But I wasn't a slave in Egypt. So what are you talking about? Well, you're kind of right, and you're also kind of wrong. See, Egypt is a metaphor in the Bible that represents spiritual slavery.
And Mark has been showing us Jesus as this new Moses. In the Old Testament, Moses was the one used by God to help lead the people out of slavery, to Egypt, into this new life and into freedom. And Mark has been portraying Jesus as this new Moses, this new person sent by God to lead us out of spiritual slavery, that we might enjoy life in relationship with God, that we might find freedom from the oppressive slavery, that we find ourselves under slavery to sin, slavery to other things that just can't suffice. They're never going to fulfill. They're never going to accomplish the things in our life that we think they're going to accomplish.
Only God can fulfill. Only God can sustain. And so Jesus is inviting this man to give that stuff up that will never sustain and define new life, to find freedom in God. See, God alone frees us and gives us this new life, which is why God alone reserves the right to be the only God in our life, which is why God alone reserves the right to define how life should be. And Jesus had lovingly identified that idol in the man's life that doesn't have the capacity to fulfill this in this life, doesn't have the capacity to actually buy his way into right relationship with God.
And Jesus is inviting that Mandev to lay down the thing that can't fulfill for the only thing that actually can. Money and possessions end up being the thing that has just too much of a hold on this man's heart. He ends up not being able to walk away from it, to give it up, to actually find freedom in God. Maybe he feels safer and more in control with this God of money and things, and he can't see that God will offer him more security and that God will provide for all of his needs, the option is money and possessions now or a life fulfill, a fulfilled life now and life eternal. Like, what are the options to have immediate gratification now for with this money that you think is going to buy you happiness?
And we see that story play out for thousands of years. It just never does. Or to lay it down and find life in Goddesse and find that he actually fulfills. And the man, he takes the money and the things, he takes immediate gratification, he walks away. And this breaks the heart of Jesus.
See, regardless of the idol, only those who recognize God as the only God are the ones who will inherit the kingdom of God and the benefits of the kingdom of God. God will give us over to the things that we ultimately value. He won't force you to follow him or recognize him as God, but he also won't be content with sharing God's status with anything else in your life. Like he's God and he's God alone and he deserves that recognition. Why?
Because he's provided everything that we have in life. He's offering the ability to leave whatever slavery we might be under to experience him. He is the thing that's on offer, freedom from slavery, from the oppressive things in our lives. And he's going to give us power and direction, wisdom, encouragement for the journey. Meaning, not one day will we walk alone because we'll get to be with him every step of the way.
We have to receive that gift as a child would for whatever that might be, with all the goodness, for however that shows up in our life and whatever season we're walking through, we need to receive it like a kid. God, I know you're in this moment and I know you're providing for me and I know you're with me. And so whatever you have for me today, I know you're going to provide for my need to get through whatever I might be going through. So I'm going to receive you as a child would. And the disciples begin to think, we have all this stuff.
We have a lot of stuff that just grips our heart, like how in the world can any of us actually be saved? We all struggle with this stuff. And in Mark, chapter ten, verse 27, Jesus looked at them intently and said, humanly speaking, it's a, yeah, possible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God. I should be words of life to you.
Everything is possible with God. But it requires that we trust God above all things, that we trust him above money and possessions. Now, we trust him beyond whatever thing in life we're ultimately trying to go after thinking it's going to provide security or peace or fulfillment or happiness or whatever that might be. We need to trust that only God can provide that. And the beautiful thing is, when we allow God to do that and we get to trust him and we get to just receive all that he has for us, he frees us to actually enjoy all the other good stuff that he's going to bring about in our lives.
And we get to enjoy the people and we get to enjoy the moment instead of always stressing for the next better thing that we think is going to come along. That's just a rat race. We'll never win. It never works. And so we need to trust in his way of doing life.
We need to trust in his values. We need to trust in how he defines that we should live. And so the question we need to ask, is there something you need to lay down to receive God as the greatest gift? Maybe you've been trusting in money and possessions, and you need to lay that trust down to begin to trust God as your God, as the source of your provision and everything that you might need or whatever that idol might be for your life. And that's not a small thing.
It's actually a really big sacrifice. In Mark 1028 through 31, it talks about these big sacrifices. The disciples started thinking, oh, I've given up so much to follow you, Jesus. I've made sacrifices in my life. I've recognized that you're God, and I'm going to give everything to begin to follow you and recognize that you'll provide everything that I might need.
But we've actually given up jobs, we've given up our home, we've given up our relationships, we've given up everything to follow in your footsteps, Jesus. And Jesus tells them that whatever they think that they're sacrificing is actually nothing compared to what you're going to gain by actually following him. We always receive way more than we could ever give, which might be a good reminder for you, because maybe you've been living life, like, going a particular way and thinking, man, I just want to find, like, just joy in that, maybe even going after good things. But you just need to remember that whatever you're sacrificing that Jesus might be asking you to sacrifice, you'll always get more. You always receive more than you could ever give.
This man could not understand. The rich man could not understand that, like money and possessions, like, I give all of that up. He thought, it's just this massive sacrifice. And clearly a businessman. So he's thinking return on investment.
If I sacrifice that, he did not see the return of God as the bigger investment. And so we need to recognize that whatever we give up for God that God might be leading us into, we'll always get more from him, that he's always the better thing, that Jesus is always the thing that's going to satisfy the thing that we're looking for anyway. And when we find life within the kingdom of God, under his reign and under him, we get to find that we get to truly enjoy everything else. That's the gift. So we can never out sacrifice Jesus.
Jesus is always given more. He's given us his life. Mark, chapter 1032 through 34. He begins to continue to talk about how he's going to give his life for us. He's going to sacrifice and that's going to be the key to unlocking the potential redemption of the world.
Can you imagine that one sacrifice is potentially going to unlock redemption that's going to be made available to the world? Whoever would receive Jesus to recognize we can lay down this stuff that's oppressing. We can lay down all this other stuff and find life and freedom in Jesus and he's the better thing. And we can't actually out sacrifice Jesus because he's given his life for each and every one of us. What do you think the sacrifices Jesus leads you through has the potential to do in our world?
Don't you imagine that Jesus asked you to sacrifice something? If Jesus's life, him laying that down, like opens up the potential redemption of the whole world, like, what does that mean when we give Jesus whatever thing that he might be asking us to lay down, like, what does that have the potential to do in other people's life or even our life? Because I'm so convinced that whatever Jesus asks of us is actually always for our good and always for the better. My money and possessions has its way of just working in our life and our heart and like working as a toxic poison in our life and poisoning us to other things and other people. And when we actually live life following him, like, we're freed from that and that's such a better life and it's so much more enjoyable.
And when we lay down things, we actually get to become a better person. Like maybe in laying down the money and possessions, this man would have been a much better person. Maybe he still would have had wealth, but he would have had the ability to be generous at that point with so many other people because he didn't value money and possessions. As the God, he knew where the, he knew where all the provision came from anyway, from God himself, and so he could freely give to everyone else. You see how, like, that sacrifice ends up working to bless so many other people?
Like, what thing is Jesus asking you to set down? And how could that be a potential blessing not only for you, but for a lot of other people? Because to follow Jesus is to lead a life of sacrifice for others, to truly love them. Mark 1035 through 45. What's amazing is verse 42 begins like this.
So Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those underneath them. But among you, it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.
And so Jesus, who very well, like, should have had all the authority. Jesus is king, and, like, he deserves all the praise and all the glory and all the honor. And yet he comes, and he lays that all down to show you the way to truly do life with God and to give his life as a ransom for all of us. Because each and every one of us, man, we just deserve the different faith than Jesus is actually offering us. We actually deserve the death that he took for us, but yet he gives us life, the thing that we don't deserve.
And he invites us into the family, and we get to live completely free. Like, he buys our slavery, like, he buys us back. And he has the power to actually, like, break the chains of slavery off of us, whatever they might be, because he rose from the grave. And so we have power from the past to walk into a completely new life. This is the ransom that Jesus was willing to pay for us, the sacrifice that he was willing to give, because he didn't view his life as something to, like, hold on to, but he was going to invest it in everyone else.
And so that's what we need to be able to do as well. If we're captured by the way of Jesus, we live the way Jesus lived, and we do the things that Jesus did, and we can do that because we trust that God is a good father, that he's going to provide for his kids. And so we freely give to other people. We're super generous because we know he's going to provide for us. We don't need the world's affirmation because we, the affirmation of God, like his words, matter more.
We don't need the world's things, because we know that goddess is so much better than anything this world can actually offer us. And that frees us from having to focus on ourselves and frees us to truly love and to serve other people. And I think that's the thing that a lot of us are wanting anyway. We want freedom from ourselves. We want freedom to be able to focus on other people, to love other people, to serve, to care for, to live a life of purpose and meaning that's so much bigger than us.
I think a lot of us want that in our life. It's only truly found through Jesus. So my last question is, who is the one, the one person that as you follow God, he's calling you to love and to serve? Who's your one? Who's that one person that even the Holy Spirit's bringing to mind?
Now that you're free to love and to care for other people, because God is freeing you from your ability to have to focus on yourself, from your ability to try to earn it all yourself, he's going to provide for you. You get to live just free. Let that settle in for a second. You could just breathe because God's with you, and God loves you, and God affirms you, and God's walking with you in this journey. And anything that he might ever ask you to set down, like it's a, it's a sacrifice that might feel big, but you get so much more in return.
And when that happens, we get to live life the way God has created us to live, which is outwardly focused. Care to love other people so that other people can get to come to know him, too, so other people can experience the goodness of the kingdom of God. That more and more people, when they're around you, they're like, taken aback, like, why you're a Christian. Like, you're a follow of God. I thought followers of God acted like this or did this, but around you like you're a breath of fresh air.
Like, I love being around you. I want to be around you. I want to spend time with you because you're living the way that God designed you to actually live. And so who's the one that God is calling you to love and to serve? And so just to summarize, because it's a few different stories that we blitz through all along the way, but Jesus has given his life for you to find freedom from the things that feel like they enslave you.
And he fulfills you unlike anything earthly. And he enables you to live outwardly, focused on loving and serving other people. And all you have to do is to say, jesus, I want that life. Wherever you might be in your Jesus journey, maybe you're still exploring the way of Jesus. Maybe you begin to practice his ways.
Maybe you partnered with him on mission, whatever that might look like, wherever you might be, there's an opportunity to continue to say, jesus, man, I want you. You're my person. I want you to define life. I want you to be my God. I want to lay down every other idol, every other lesser thing, thing, whatever thing has gripped my heart, whatever thing is defining my life, whatever I thought has been ultimate.
That's not ultimate. Jesus, would you be ultimate in my life? Would you lead me? Would you guide me? Would you help me in every day here forward?
And he's going to be with you. And if you've not ever prayed that prayer, you still have a lot of questions about what does it look like to follow Jesus. I want you to go to pinehillschurch.org, reach out to the connect tab, send us an email, let us know. Like, hey, I made a decision to follow Jesus today because we've got some other conversations to send you, to help guide you into what this looks like and to celebrate with you and just to be a partner in the spiritual journey with you. But for everyone else, just to recap those questions that we look through throughout the teaching, how are you openly receiving what God has for you today?
Is there something you need to lay down to receive God as the greatest gift and who is your one that God is calling you to love and serve? And so you might be thinking, okay, that's helping me to process a little bit. Like, I need God's help to recognize his work in my life. I need to lay these things down that have been viewing as God and they're actually not God. And I want to recognize Goddesse as the true thing in my life, to define my king, all of those things.
And as I do that, Jesus is going to ask me to love and to serve other people. Guess what? Even if you made that decision for the first time today, he's going to invite you to love someone else. Like, go read story after story. There's this story even in Mark about this man who's filled up with all of these demons.
And Jesus sets him in his right state of mind and heart, and his very next thing he tells him to do is to go tell other people about what God has done in their life. He doesn't say, hey, continue to go to church until you have it all figured out. He doesn't say, hey, go get a Bible degree or whatever that might be. He says, hey, go and tell people what I just did for you. And so that's the same thing with who's your one?
Wherever you might be with Jesus, go tell other people to love, to care for them, to deepen the relationship, and just to say, hey, here's what Jesus is doing in my life. I don't have all the answers, but this has been profound and amazing for us. So all of us, we can apply what Mark's telling to our life. Bye. Recognizing that we all need Jesus to orient life around his practices, specifically sacrificially serving and loving other people, trusting God with all that he provides in the moment that he's providing whatever it is today, and to remember that we always receive more than we could ever give.
And so Jesus, I just pray for whoever's listening or watching on YouTube that you be with them. Help them to lay down every other lesser thing, to pick up the greatest thing ever, help them to receive your provision and to see your provision in their life. Even if it's just small things getting through the next thing, a little bit, encouragement along the way until they get to the next big thing. When you profoundly move in a way that only you can in the midst of whatever that might be, it might be trial or hardship. Help us to stay outwardly focused, to love and to care other people to represent you really well, that other people could come, come to know you as God and find life in your kingdom, because that's the only way to life and freedom.
In your name we pray. Amen. Well, just thank you for engaging in conversation with us today. Can't wait to see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Bye.
Summary
Pastor Aaron encourages the congregation to engage actively with the Gospel of Mark, suggesting different reading approaches to discover the deeper meanings within the text. He emphasizes that Jesus, as the Messiah, embodies a new kind of authority, offering healing and salvation, while challenging the oppressive systems of their time. The sermon highlights how Jesus seeks a relationship with each person, inviting them into His kingdom, and offers transformative power over sin, suffering, and darkness. Pastor Aaron concludes by urging listeners to intentionally integrate practices of faith into their daily lives, helping them to grow closer to Jesus and live out His teachings.
Discussion Questions
- Who do you believe Jesus to be and how does that affect the way you live your DAILY life?
- How do you connect with Jesus daily/weekly?
- How is the Holy Spirit inviting you to practice the way of Jesus in this season?
Transcript
Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are in the conversation with us this week as we pick up our series called this, I believe, going through the gospel of Mark together. And I want to invite you, if you've been reading along in Mark, to continue to stay in Mark. And so if whatever cadence you've been reading out, if you've been going kind of slowly through that, then maybe set aside some bigger blocks of time where you can read bigger chunks of Mark or maybe even kind of breezing through Mark, well, then go back and read a little bit slower.
Change the way that you're reading, because the Holy Spirit will bring out new things. You'll notice new things as you read things just a bit different. And so that's the invitation. As we continue in Mark. We want you to be in this text, be reading, getting everything that the Holy Spirit has for you as Mark strives to tell this beautiful, subversive, wonderful story about who Jesus is.
And so we want to invite you into that. But also this week, we want to jump back into the conversation because a week ago, we talked about our anniversary gathering. We celebrated. So grateful for all the people that came out and supported that in any capacity. Just really amazing to share stories about what God has been doing and looking forward to what God will be doing.
But we want to set up the conversation today by just kind of catching you up in the conversation. Which reminds me of being a nineties kid of Friday night being pizza night and sitting down watching TGIF, where we watch boy meets world and family matters and all kinds of other amazing shows. I don't know what your favorite show might have been. If you remember that time period, and if you have no idea what that is, go to YouTube or Google TGIF. What was that in the nineties?
And look up some of these shows on YouTube, full house, step by step, family matters. Watch some of these episodes just because they're pretty awesome. And so I remember watching these shows and getting to the end of the show, and all of a sudden this dreaded word pops up on the screen. To be continued. And just feeling like, oh, no.
Because sometimes it would happen and it would just be another week until you found out what would happen next. Because it's not like Netflix, where they just drop it all at once and you can binge watch your way through it. You had to wait an entire week. Sometimes you had to wait and an entire year because they left you on a cliffhanger right at the end of the season. And you would not pick it up until the next season.
And so you had to wait with all the questions that you had and trying to figure out where things were going to go and all the different details with that. And so with that, that's kind of what we're doing today, because as you needed to remember all the details that happened in that story, they would quickly do a let's catch you up type thing in the conversation, and they would just go through story after story after story just to reorienting you back into the storyline before they gave you new material. So that's what we want to attempt to do today as best we can. So please give me lots of grace, because we just want to recap where we've been in Mark to this point and then set the scene for what we're doing in the following weeks as we continue in the gospel of Mark together. So let's start off none other just by remembering how Mark started this story, which is a gospel, a good news of who Jesus is, telling us just all kinds of different things about who Jesus is.
But Mark one leads off, this is the good news about Jesus, the messiah, the son of God. And I want to recover the politically charged language that Mark is opening his gospel letter with. Mark is stating from the jump that a new conquering king had arrived on the scene, and he is more powerful than any ruling king here on earth, more powerful than any spiritual darkness that rules over people's lives. And this man, Jesus, was sent from heaven to push back the curtain of darkness over people's lives so that they could find freedom from the oppression that they were living under. And in Jesus, heaven was invading earth.
A new king had inaugurated his reign right here, right now, and it was an uprising that wasn't going to use violence to free further the cause. Instead of calling people to take up arms, it was calling people to get caught up in the undeserved, unmerited love and favor of God for all of us. And it was also a call to extend the kingdom of God through our loving presence and service to the world so that others can know to care for people at the margins, people we might not normally like, people we might rather hate. We get caught up in the love of God, and all of a sudden we found ourselves empowered to go out to those type of people and to follow in the footsteps of our conquering king and to live under his authority is good news. And so I want to ask you, have you heard the good news of this king?
This is what Mark is asking us. Have you heard the good news of this king? And this was enough to disrupt the political and religious powers in their cultural moment. Remember, this culture did not enjoy freedom of speech like we do in our western context. So even making this claim that someone else is king other than the emperor of Rome would get you tortured on a cross or get you tortured in some other capacity, because they would invent new and better ways to prolong suffering, to show you you do not mess with the powers that be.
And what was surprising in the story isn't that Rome wants to execute Jesus in some regard because they executed tons of people. What was surprising, it was. It was a religious powers that would leverage an evil and corrupt political system to get rid of the very one that they had been waiting and hopeful anticipation for. And to understand that, you have to understand the larger story. And just to catch you up in this story, the story of the Bible.
The Bible is one unified story of God redeeming the world. And so it starts with creation. We're all created good and perfect, and yet something goes wrong when humanity rejects the authority of God. We try to be like God, without relationship with God, and then invites sin into our world. It invites death.
For the first time. There's a fracture. And you feel this fracture, you feel that things aren't right. They're not the way that God intended, they're not the way God created. And God did not want to leave us in this state.
He wanted to come and heal the world. And so he begins to work through a family. Old Testament calls that Israel, the family of God, that was meant to reveal who God was to the rest of the world, to be God's missionary people. But they had let that down. They started thinking about only themselves and did not care about the outsider, didn't care about the people at the margins.
And so Jesus comes along, the messiah, the savior, the one that they had been waiting for. Everyone up to that point was pointing to something better is coming. Every prophet who was speaking on God's behalf, trying to guide the community, was speaking to the fact that God was going to bring a messiah as savior. And then Jesus arrives on the scene to be the one who would save us, to live a life we couldn't live, to go to the cross to pay the debt that we all honestly deserve, because we have rejected God and we've created sin in our own life, death in our own life. We've even wounded other people and how we've operated here on earth.
And so we all need a savior. We need saving and then Jesus, as we'll see, will eventually work through the church as the new family of God. And eventually he will come back and restore all things, defeat evil once and for all. And so this is the larger story of the Bible. But all of those scenes, creation, fall, Israel, waiting for the Messiah, would have been in their cultural moment.
And so Mark saying that the gospel is good, there's good news that Jesus has come, who is the Messiah? This would have triggered a lot of their thinking, their day that Jesus had come, the one that they were waiting on. And Mark had compiled all of these stories to prove that Jesus is the long awaited savior of the world, that Jesus is in fact, king. And Mark had compiled short after short to convince us of this. He frames us by striving to answer, who is Jesus?
What was Jesus like? And why does this matter for our life? So who is Jesus? Well, Mark tells us that Jesus was sent from God. He leaves all the privileges of heaven.
He comes to earth to take on flesh, being fully God, yet fully human, which is profound and amazing, that God would come and live among us, he would come and take on flesh, meaning he can relate to us in every way, he relates to all of our temptations, but yet he doesn't succumb to them, because he leads us away from them. And we needed a leader who did not fall, who could rise above all of this. And that one leader is Jesus. In the words of Eugene Peterson, Jesus takes on flesh and moves into the neighborhood. It's a beautiful reality that Jesus is relational, God is relational.
God wants to have a relationship with each and every one of us. And the messiah has come, and he is our savior. And our savior wants to have relationship with you. He wants to meet you right where you're at and lead you to a different way to live. He wants you to help you to understand what will actually bring you life.
And so Jesus is our hope. And as God has begun to reveal himself through a people group to the world, he had sent many prophets to keep the people moving in the right direction, also telling them that Jesus, this Jesus we have been waiting for, had come. And in Mark's story, God affirms that Jesus is greater than all these other prophets, that Jesus is actually king, that God anoints Jesus as being king. In the Transfiguration, Mark, chapter nine. And we see throughout the narrative that Jesus has come to show us what God was actually like and what life within the kingdom could be like.
If we get caught up in his kingdom, if we live under his authority and then he also begins to allude to another purpose. He had come to predict his coming death, but he would also rise again, because again, if Jesus comes and he dies and he lives so subversively that it was going to get him killed, but if he just dies, he's just another inspirational figure from history. But again, he rises from the dead, which means he has something different in him. He has power over everything that might kill us. He has power over death itself.
He is the hope of the world, the thing that we're ultimately longing for. So then what was Jesus like? Well, remember, heaven is invading earth in Jesus to instill a new kingdom, which means you have to carry a certain level of authority. In their day, if a new power was coming to be, they would roll into a city and they would literally smash everything to the ground. They would build a new kingdom on top of that.
And what did that look like? If you even go do archaeology today, where they dig into the dirt, they can see these layers of civilization because everything had been flattened and rebuilt upon. And so in their mind they thought, okay, new Jesus would come in and he would defeat everyone else and establish this one particular family. And they had missed out on remembering that God wanted them to be signs to the entire world, not to rule with violence, but to revolt with rule with God's saving grace, with his love and his mercy. And so Jesus begins to show us that by showing us it has this authority not to come and fight the way that we think he would fight, but to come in a completely different way.
And jesus shows that he has authority over sickness. We see him heal a paralyzed man. He heals a man with a deformed hand. He heals a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, spending all of her money on doctors who could not at all help her. And yet she says, man, if I could just get and touch the edge of Jesus cloak, maybe something beautiful happened.
And when that happens, she's completely healed. Like imagine this is the edge of his cloak is enough power and authority to heal something she had been suffering from for twelve years. And then Jesus one ups that he goes beyond that. He goes and he heals a girl who had been dead. He brings her back to life.
And so this shows that jesus has the power to heal physical, physical things, but also things that feel dead inside of us. He can bring that back to life, things that we've been suffering from for a long time. Jesus can heal all of those different things. And then we even see Jesus progressively heal this blind man. He lays hands on him once and he can somewhat see.
And then he lays his hands on him again and he can see again, showing that Jesus, at times, even though he has the authority, can heal immediately, sometimes progressively and sometimes eventually. But as we get caught up in the story of Jesus, Jesus will always bring the grace that we need each and every day, which is why we should come to, to him to live under his authority and say, Jesus, would you bring your ways into my life? Would you help me with what I'm struggling with? And would you lead me with what I need today? And then Jesus shows that he has authority over dark things.
Jesus takes on Satan in the midst of the desert, right? Every other leader who had come before that had failed when tempted by Satan. We're just, we just all fail, right? Every one of us. There's no leader on the face of the planet.
That is the thing that we're ultimately hoping for. Jesus is only the only thing because he goes to the desert, he takes on Satan, and he actually wins. He overcomes temptations, which means he faced that. Imagine God in flesh, felt temptation, and yet doesn't succumb to it. He overcomes it, meaning that as we follow him, he shows us how to overcome the temptations in our own life.
He helps us to overcome what Satan is trying to do in our life. He gives us the power, the power he has in his life to help us to be overcomers, to get past the things that we struggle with, to get past the things that we have failed at so we can find freedom for our future. That Jesus is the stronger man, stronger than Satan, stronger than anything dark or anything evil in our world. And I know at times when you look at life, it feels like Satan is stronger than God. Jesus will always win.
He is a stronger man. He's working behind the scenes. And I think that there's no greater example of that than the fact that we have good in our world still, that there's moments of goodness breaking in each and every day. And you don't get that when you follow the new cycle, because they're making money on having a negative outlook in life and sharing just terrible story after terrible story to keep us watching, to keep us hooked in. Why?
Because people always want to stand around and watch a building burn, and yet there's always good that's breaking out that we just don't see. So open your eyes to the goodness of what God might be doing around you and what God might be wanting to do through you, because Jesus is always working to redeem all things, to push back this curtain of darkness. And then we even see Jesus heal. A man who had been so demon possessed. Everyone thought he was so far gone, he's actually out roaming the burial grounds.
They tried to chain him up at one point, but he broke through all of these chains. And yet he has an encounter with Jesus, someone filled with so many demons. And Jesus sets them right in his mind. And not only that, this man wants to follow after Jesus to be his disciple. And Jesus says, go back to the ones who had rejected you, who attempted to deal with the things that you were walking through by trying to chain you up on the outside of town.
And I want you to share all that I have done for them because I have redemption for them too. Jesus sends them out. This is amazing. So Jesus has authority over things that make us sick. Jesus has authority over dark things.
Jesus has authority over sin. There's this story in mark where Jesus is in this small house. So many people are packed in. These friends bring their body to get healed and they can't get in. And so they cut a hole in the roof.
They lower this man down to Jesus. And all these religious leaders are around and Jesus sets the scene by saying, hey, you know what? Like your sins are forgiven. All of a sudden the religious leaders are like, wait a second. Only God has the power to forgive sin.
And Jesus is saying, exactly. Because I'm also God. I'm God and I can forgive sin. And I will prove it to you by healing this man. He says, pick up your mat and walk.
And all of a sudden this man springs up. This demonstrates that Jesus has the power, power to forgive sin. He has authority over all that, meaning that the stuff that holds you back, he has the power to help erase that forgive, that, give you a completely new start and help you to walk into a completely new life. And we can see that Jesus has authority over the elements. Jesus takes 5000.
Jesus feeds 5000 by taking five loaves and two fishes. And we see that he breaks, blesses and use it. All of a sudden he feeds with a lunchable 5000 people. And there's these twelve baskets left over for his disciples. And then another scene.
Jesus has 4000 people that he feeds with seven loaves and a few small fish. And there's seven baskets left over. And this was in a really, really gentile area, meaning people who are, they viewed as being far from God. And Jesus says, you know what? What I have is perfectly good enough.
Seven was a number for perfect. I have what will overflow for these gentiles. I didn't come just for the people of Israel. I came for the world, and I'm extending salvation to everyone, especially those people who are on the margins. Then we even see at one point that Jesus calms the storm, the wind and the waves they had all kicked up.
And all of a sudden, the word of Jesus, things calm. That's beautiful. And we see Jesus extending the gospel again to people at the margins, people who are far from God. Why is that good news? Because a lot of times we feel like we're too far gone from the saving grace of Jesus.
And so mark gives us extreme examples to show us. If Jesus can save people like this, that seem so far gone, that seem very at the margins, that seem unsavable, and yet Jesus still saves them. He can save each and every one of us if we will believe. And then we see how Jesus is consistently misunderstood, eventually to the point that false accusations lead him to his death. But you, to imagine his family, those closest to him, thought that he was out of his mind.
The religious leaders thought he was filled by demons. And we even see slowly more and more that these religious leaders who should have been waiting in hopeful anticipation of Jesus coming, they should have recognized him. They closed their minds off to Jesus because Jesus offends them. He does things that they don't want him to. They love people that they don't want Jesus to love.
He extends the, the offer to be part of the family to people that they don't want to be part of the family. And so eventually they close their hearts to the point that they're willing to be caught up in a plan to kill Jesus. And Jesus willingly takes that on because he thinks that everyone is worth him coming and living so radically, showing the way to God that he'd be willing to give his life for you. That's the beautiful hope of the gospel, is that wherever you're at, Jesus offers you a relationship. You might be at the margin.
You might have all kinds of physical things going on, spiritual things going on. You might, your life might be so just in chaos that you might be thinking, man, I'm just filled up with all kinds of things that just aren't good. Jesus can come and he can restore you physically, spiritually, emotionally. He can set you back to a right state of mind. He can forgive your past and walk you to a new way to live.
This is the gospel of Jesus. This is living life under his kingship. And remember, we all live under the authority of something, or we attempt to live, be our own authority, and make everyone else live under our own authority. But if you just evaluate what is the gospel that I'm really believing, what authority do I submit to? Is that leading to life or is it not?
And if not, maybe a new king is the thing that you need to place over your life, and maybe you need to live under that authority, because Jesus is offering that to take all of the anxiety of trying to live life your own way, having freedom to live his way, the way you are intentionally designed anyway. And so you might be thinking, okay, Jesus is pretty compelling. Like, I get who Jesus is and what he's like, but why does that ultimately matter for my life? See, look at this. Jesus is extending the kingdom to you.
That offer is available, as I was just talking about. He has the authority to heal. The things in your life might happen immediately, might happen progressively over time as you, as you step more into what that might be. It might leverage the medical community to help you to walk towards healing. It might be things in your life that are just being practiced.
Like, you have habits that are leading to death and not life. And maybe God wants to progressively heal you by helping you learn new habits. And it might just be eventually, where eventually we are in heaven, that he will completely heal us. But in between this time, he will always give you the grace that you need to walk through whatever you might be going through. So bring all that to Jesus.
The invitation to live under his kingship, to allow him to have authority over your life, which is actually a freeing thing, the thing we're ultimately looking for, that will be the thing that begins to heal us. And not only that, he's a king that doesn't rule with an iron fist. He doesn't want to exploit us. He doesn't want to take advantage of us or any of that stuff. He simply wants to begin to be with you, to spend time with you each and every day, to help you to live into your true identity as son and daughter of God.
What a reality. Whatever broken thing someone has said over you is a lie. The truth is, in Jesus, you could be a son and daughter of goddess. And when we start to understand that, we get to become more and more like him, to daily be with him, become more like him, and eventually we get empowered to do more and more the things that he would have us to do. And it starts to come so naturally when before we were just so bitter and angry towards a lot of people, we suddenly see that we can extend grace and forgiveness when we never thought that might have been possible.
Why? Because we get caught up in the kingdom of God, we experienced his love that fulfills us. We slowly spend time with him each and every day. We slowly become more and more like him. And all of a sudden, we can then do the things that we thought were impossible.
And so this is why it matters, because the life that maybe you're living isn't the life that you have to live. And maybe you're just under all this oppression and not experiencing joy and peace. And in Jesus, the offer is on the table to experience true joy and peace, experience love that's fully extended to you, to experience acceptance and grace, to help free the load of life and to help you to live under his unforced rhythms of grace, which are amazing and life giving. That's a better vision for life. That's the vision I want to go after.
But again, we all have to answer, who do we believe Jesus to actually be? Because what you believe is what you'll actually live out. And your beliefs are formed every day by the things that you do each and every day through your habits and practices. And so a lot of us, if we claim, hey, we believe in the way of Jesus, but we actually don't put this stuff into practice in our daily lives, then we probably don't actually believe that Jesus way is actually good enough to put into the rest of our life, to overcome all these other different habits and to replace those with better life giving habits. And so we need to be intentional about watching the things that we put into our daily lives each and every day, because they form who we're becoming.
And so we get opportunity to in Jesus, if we get to say, you know what? Jesus is actually my king and Jesus is my savior, I want to live life in his kingdom. Then you get to slowly unlearn all of these false beliefs, false values, false ways of doing life that honestly, guys, come on, they don't lead to life anyway. If they did, we would have the highest levels of flourishing that we've ever experienced on earth. And it's just not the case.
If we're honest, it's the highest levels of anxiety that maybe has ever been present in our world. And I don't know. That's a bold claim. But still, we can't argue against the fact that there's sky high levels of anxiety and depression because we're trying to push God to the margins. And the more that happens, the more anxiety we feel, because that's not the way we were intended to live.
And so the more that we recognize God, invite him into our life, he's not going to force himself. It's a free choice. And we get to just simply begin to do life in his kingdom daily striving to be with him, to become more like him, and then to do the things that he would have us to do. And he'll help you step by step overcome the things that you don't think you can ever overcome, to help you to become a new person that you think is impossible to actually become. Because I want you to remember, Jesus is a strong man.
You might think, I've got all this dark stuff that's just clouding my life. I want you to remember the scriptures. Mark 323 27. And Jesus says, you know what? Who's the one who can, like, go into a strong man's house and plunder his goods?
Only someone stronger. Jesus is making the claim that Jesus is stronger than Satan, that Jesus is stronger than any evil thing, that Jesus is stronger than whatever sin you think you're struggling with, whatever past that you think holds you back. Jesus is stronger, and Jesus will give you a new and better life. And so you can practice your way into this through a rhythm of life. And so you can go to our website, pinehillschurch.org.
go to towards the bottom, there's a rhythm of life worksheet. You can download it, you can print it out, has instructed instructions for it, and it's got a few pages on it, one that explains just kind of some base practices that you can put into your life. And then the next page helps you to visualize what it looks like to practice the way of Jesus daily or even weekly. And so what are these things that you want to commit to in this season from September to December that you can say, hey, I'm going to commit to these things. I'm going to be intentional about living the way of Jesus.
I'm not going to try to accidentally walk my way into this because it'll never happen. And if we can all be honest, anyway, we all have some type of rhythm of life anyway, some thing that guards our time, that guards our lives and fills our days and all kinds of stuff. And so sometimes, for not intentional about it, we allow other people to fill up our rhythm of life that shapes us into the people we don't want to become. And so be intentional. And so download this worksheet and think through.
What does it look like daily to be with him? What does that look like? What does that look like for scripture, prayer, or Sabbath? What are these different practices that I can put into my life? And so if you've never done this at all.
I want you to first pick up one of the base practices for all of us is scripture and prayer. And so if you've never done it at all, I want you to download electio 365 app. And I want you just to do that every day, because it's going to teach you how to pray through the scriptures. It's going to invite you to think about what Jesus might be telling you through the power of your spirit. It's going to teach you how to listen to the voice of God in your life.
It's going to lead you in a really good way. So download the like Theo 365 app ten minutes a day. Start doing that each and every day and see who you become over the next few months. Or maybe you're like, you know what? I've been.
I've been doing that for a while. Well, then go through the gospel of mark with us and then make intentional time to pray on the backside or front side of that. Just making space to listen to God. But there's all kinds of different practices that you can plan into your days or your weeks just to make sure that you're taking intentional time to be who God wants you to become. And I want you to think about that.
Not only your spiritual life, but your physical, your relational, your communal life, like through your finances, whatever that might be. And so I want you to think about what are the invitations through the spirit that God is inviting you into. Maybe it's starting the first couple steps of those devotional scripture and prayer. Maybe it's adding in intentional time to be in community, maybe even coming to a larger Sunday gathering. That's great.
Maybe God in this season is asking you to step into a weekly community group where you can be more known and work through some of the things in your life, or be part of a book study or whatever that might be, maybe go. God is asking you to practice generosity by giving to your local church or giving to a local nonprofit, and so committing to what that looks like, by establishing a budget, by establishing that number that God wants you to give. And so he'll lead you in that. We're not going to pressure you into what that might look like, but that could be a rhythm for you. It could be a rhythm of intentionally, like showing up at a park with your family on a particular day of the week so you can meet new people and you can develop relationships with.
That's living the way of Jesus, that could be in your rhythm of life. And so if you got any questions about what that looks like, if it doesn't quite make sense, like, please allow us to continue the conversation with us by reaching out pinehillschurch.org. we would love to connect you with that. Just talk about where you at in life and what practices might be helpful for you in this season of life. If you want to go deeper about what each of the practices are on that worksheet, you can actually download the Pine Hills church app.
And in that, there's a tab that's practicing the way that will take you through each of these conversations and teach you from the scriptures. What does it look like to pray? What does it look like to read the scripture? What does it look like to be in community, your generosity, or beginning to tell the story through witness? Like, whatever those practices might be, it teaches you all of that.
It's available for you 24/7 through the app. Go through it at your pace. But please help us to know how it's a value, how it's a helpful to you because we want to help you to grow in your life with Jesus because we believe that's what leads to life and freedom and joy. And so we just thank you for being part of this mark conversation. Can't wait to see you in the next episode.
But I just want to pray for you. I just want you to take a moment not to have anxiety about this, not to, like, overthink it. Just. Just respond to the invitation of the Holy Spirit. And so right now, wherever you're at, I just want you to open your hands and a posture of receiving, like, just open your hands and say, holy spirit, would you come?
And would you show us what you have for us in this new season, this new invitation, to be intentional about how we're living our life. And just using a little worksheet just to help us to visualize how we're spending our time, how we're spending our day, and help us to see how these things can fit into our life in a way that's not taxing or overburdening us, but is actually freeing and show us what you want us to do with that. So would you come, Holy Spirit? Would you speak that? Would you show us, and would you help us to reach out if we have additional questions or need to talk about it more so we can get going in the right way?
But would you just fill your people with your presence? Would you lead them? Would you guide them? We thank you that you're always with us.
Help us to live the lives that you have inviting us into in your name. We pray. Amen. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. Again, if you have any questions, reach out pinehillschurch.org.
we would love to continue the conversation. If you want to partner with our community, this stuff is bringing value to you. You want to financially just partner with us to help us to continue to be able to operate as a community, to be present in the south side of Bend, to reaching our neighborhood with the goodness of Jesus, or even support these ongoing conversations because they've been a value to you, whether you're local or far whatever that might be. Go to pineheartchurch.org. would love just for you to partner with us in that capacity, but just so deeply grateful for you.
Share this conversation with a friend if you think think it'd be valuable. Can't wait to see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
Change the way that you're reading, because the Holy Spirit will bring out new things. You'll notice new things as you read things just a bit different. And so that's the invitation. As we continue in Mark. We want you to be in this text, be reading, getting everything that the Holy Spirit has for you as Mark strives to tell this beautiful, subversive, wonderful story about who Jesus is.
And so we want to invite you into that. But also this week, we want to jump back into the conversation because a week ago, we talked about our anniversary gathering. We celebrated. So grateful for all the people that came out and supported that in any capacity. Just really amazing to share stories about what God has been doing and looking forward to what God will be doing.
But we want to set up the conversation today by just kind of catching you up in the conversation. Which reminds me of being a nineties kid of Friday night being pizza night and sitting down watching TGIF, where we watch boy meets world and family matters and all kinds of other amazing shows. I don't know what your favorite show might have been. If you remember that time period, and if you have no idea what that is, go to YouTube or Google TGIF. What was that in the nineties?
And look up some of these shows on YouTube, full house, step by step, family matters. Watch some of these episodes just because they're pretty awesome. And so I remember watching these shows and getting to the end of the show, and all of a sudden this dreaded word pops up on the screen. To be continued. And just feeling like, oh, no.
Because sometimes it would happen and it would just be another week until you found out what would happen next. Because it's not like Netflix, where they just drop it all at once and you can binge watch your way through it. You had to wait an entire week. Sometimes you had to wait and an entire year because they left you on a cliffhanger right at the end of the season. And you would not pick it up until the next season.
And so you had to wait with all the questions that you had and trying to figure out where things were going to go and all the different details with that. And so with that, that's kind of what we're doing today, because as you needed to remember all the details that happened in that story, they would quickly do a let's catch you up type thing in the conversation, and they would just go through story after story after story just to reorienting you back into the storyline before they gave you new material. So that's what we want to attempt to do today as best we can. So please give me lots of grace, because we just want to recap where we've been in Mark to this point and then set the scene for what we're doing in the following weeks as we continue in the gospel of Mark together. So let's start off none other just by remembering how Mark started this story, which is a gospel, a good news of who Jesus is, telling us just all kinds of different things about who Jesus is.
But Mark one leads off, this is the good news about Jesus, the messiah, the son of God. And I want to recover the politically charged language that Mark is opening his gospel letter with. Mark is stating from the jump that a new conquering king had arrived on the scene, and he is more powerful than any ruling king here on earth, more powerful than any spiritual darkness that rules over people's lives. And this man, Jesus, was sent from heaven to push back the curtain of darkness over people's lives so that they could find freedom from the oppression that they were living under. And in Jesus, heaven was invading earth.
A new king had inaugurated his reign right here, right now, and it was an uprising that wasn't going to use violence to free further the cause. Instead of calling people to take up arms, it was calling people to get caught up in the undeserved, unmerited love and favor of God for all of us. And it was also a call to extend the kingdom of God through our loving presence and service to the world so that others can know to care for people at the margins, people we might not normally like, people we might rather hate. We get caught up in the love of God, and all of a sudden we found ourselves empowered to go out to those type of people and to follow in the footsteps of our conquering king and to live under his authority is good news. And so I want to ask you, have you heard the good news of this king?
This is what Mark is asking us. Have you heard the good news of this king? And this was enough to disrupt the political and religious powers in their cultural moment. Remember, this culture did not enjoy freedom of speech like we do in our western context. So even making this claim that someone else is king other than the emperor of Rome would get you tortured on a cross or get you tortured in some other capacity, because they would invent new and better ways to prolong suffering, to show you you do not mess with the powers that be.
And what was surprising in the story isn't that Rome wants to execute Jesus in some regard because they executed tons of people. What was surprising, it was. It was a religious powers that would leverage an evil and corrupt political system to get rid of the very one that they had been waiting and hopeful anticipation for. And to understand that, you have to understand the larger story. And just to catch you up in this story, the story of the Bible.
The Bible is one unified story of God redeeming the world. And so it starts with creation. We're all created good and perfect, and yet something goes wrong when humanity rejects the authority of God. We try to be like God, without relationship with God, and then invites sin into our world. It invites death.
For the first time. There's a fracture. And you feel this fracture, you feel that things aren't right. They're not the way that God intended, they're not the way God created. And God did not want to leave us in this state.
He wanted to come and heal the world. And so he begins to work through a family. Old Testament calls that Israel, the family of God, that was meant to reveal who God was to the rest of the world, to be God's missionary people. But they had let that down. They started thinking about only themselves and did not care about the outsider, didn't care about the people at the margins.
And so Jesus comes along, the messiah, the savior, the one that they had been waiting for. Everyone up to that point was pointing to something better is coming. Every prophet who was speaking on God's behalf, trying to guide the community, was speaking to the fact that God was going to bring a messiah as savior. And then Jesus arrives on the scene to be the one who would save us, to live a life we couldn't live, to go to the cross to pay the debt that we all honestly deserve, because we have rejected God and we've created sin in our own life, death in our own life. We've even wounded other people and how we've operated here on earth.
And so we all need a savior. We need saving and then Jesus, as we'll see, will eventually work through the church as the new family of God. And eventually he will come back and restore all things, defeat evil once and for all. And so this is the larger story of the Bible. But all of those scenes, creation, fall, Israel, waiting for the Messiah, would have been in their cultural moment.
And so Mark saying that the gospel is good, there's good news that Jesus has come, who is the Messiah? This would have triggered a lot of their thinking, their day that Jesus had come, the one that they were waiting on. And Mark had compiled all of these stories to prove that Jesus is the long awaited savior of the world, that Jesus is in fact, king. And Mark had compiled short after short to convince us of this. He frames us by striving to answer, who is Jesus?
What was Jesus like? And why does this matter for our life? So who is Jesus? Well, Mark tells us that Jesus was sent from God. He leaves all the privileges of heaven.
He comes to earth to take on flesh, being fully God, yet fully human, which is profound and amazing, that God would come and live among us, he would come and take on flesh, meaning he can relate to us in every way, he relates to all of our temptations, but yet he doesn't succumb to them, because he leads us away from them. And we needed a leader who did not fall, who could rise above all of this. And that one leader is Jesus. In the words of Eugene Peterson, Jesus takes on flesh and moves into the neighborhood. It's a beautiful reality that Jesus is relational, God is relational.
God wants to have a relationship with each and every one of us. And the messiah has come, and he is our savior. And our savior wants to have relationship with you. He wants to meet you right where you're at and lead you to a different way to live. He wants you to help you to understand what will actually bring you life.
And so Jesus is our hope. And as God has begun to reveal himself through a people group to the world, he had sent many prophets to keep the people moving in the right direction, also telling them that Jesus, this Jesus we have been waiting for, had come. And in Mark's story, God affirms that Jesus is greater than all these other prophets, that Jesus is actually king, that God anoints Jesus as being king. In the Transfiguration, Mark, chapter nine. And we see throughout the narrative that Jesus has come to show us what God was actually like and what life within the kingdom could be like.
If we get caught up in his kingdom, if we live under his authority and then he also begins to allude to another purpose. He had come to predict his coming death, but he would also rise again, because again, if Jesus comes and he dies and he lives so subversively that it was going to get him killed, but if he just dies, he's just another inspirational figure from history. But again, he rises from the dead, which means he has something different in him. He has power over everything that might kill us. He has power over death itself.
He is the hope of the world, the thing that we're ultimately longing for. So then what was Jesus like? Well, remember, heaven is invading earth in Jesus to instill a new kingdom, which means you have to carry a certain level of authority. In their day, if a new power was coming to be, they would roll into a city and they would literally smash everything to the ground. They would build a new kingdom on top of that.
And what did that look like? If you even go do archaeology today, where they dig into the dirt, they can see these layers of civilization because everything had been flattened and rebuilt upon. And so in their mind they thought, okay, new Jesus would come in and he would defeat everyone else and establish this one particular family. And they had missed out on remembering that God wanted them to be signs to the entire world, not to rule with violence, but to revolt with rule with God's saving grace, with his love and his mercy. And so Jesus begins to show us that by showing us it has this authority not to come and fight the way that we think he would fight, but to come in a completely different way.
And jesus shows that he has authority over sickness. We see him heal a paralyzed man. He heals a man with a deformed hand. He heals a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, spending all of her money on doctors who could not at all help her. And yet she says, man, if I could just get and touch the edge of Jesus cloak, maybe something beautiful happened.
And when that happens, she's completely healed. Like imagine this is the edge of his cloak is enough power and authority to heal something she had been suffering from for twelve years. And then Jesus one ups that he goes beyond that. He goes and he heals a girl who had been dead. He brings her back to life.
And so this shows that jesus has the power to heal physical, physical things, but also things that feel dead inside of us. He can bring that back to life, things that we've been suffering from for a long time. Jesus can heal all of those different things. And then we even see Jesus progressively heal this blind man. He lays hands on him once and he can somewhat see.
And then he lays his hands on him again and he can see again, showing that Jesus, at times, even though he has the authority, can heal immediately, sometimes progressively and sometimes eventually. But as we get caught up in the story of Jesus, Jesus will always bring the grace that we need each and every day, which is why we should come to, to him to live under his authority and say, Jesus, would you bring your ways into my life? Would you help me with what I'm struggling with? And would you lead me with what I need today? And then Jesus shows that he has authority over dark things.
Jesus takes on Satan in the midst of the desert, right? Every other leader who had come before that had failed when tempted by Satan. We're just, we just all fail, right? Every one of us. There's no leader on the face of the planet.
That is the thing that we're ultimately hoping for. Jesus is only the only thing because he goes to the desert, he takes on Satan, and he actually wins. He overcomes temptations, which means he faced that. Imagine God in flesh, felt temptation, and yet doesn't succumb to it. He overcomes it, meaning that as we follow him, he shows us how to overcome the temptations in our own life.
He helps us to overcome what Satan is trying to do in our life. He gives us the power, the power he has in his life to help us to be overcomers, to get past the things that we struggle with, to get past the things that we have failed at so we can find freedom for our future. That Jesus is the stronger man, stronger than Satan, stronger than anything dark or anything evil in our world. And I know at times when you look at life, it feels like Satan is stronger than God. Jesus will always win.
He is a stronger man. He's working behind the scenes. And I think that there's no greater example of that than the fact that we have good in our world still, that there's moments of goodness breaking in each and every day. And you don't get that when you follow the new cycle, because they're making money on having a negative outlook in life and sharing just terrible story after terrible story to keep us watching, to keep us hooked in. Why?
Because people always want to stand around and watch a building burn, and yet there's always good that's breaking out that we just don't see. So open your eyes to the goodness of what God might be doing around you and what God might be wanting to do through you, because Jesus is always working to redeem all things, to push back this curtain of darkness. And then we even see Jesus heal. A man who had been so demon possessed. Everyone thought he was so far gone, he's actually out roaming the burial grounds.
They tried to chain him up at one point, but he broke through all of these chains. And yet he has an encounter with Jesus, someone filled with so many demons. And Jesus sets them right in his mind. And not only that, this man wants to follow after Jesus to be his disciple. And Jesus says, go back to the ones who had rejected you, who attempted to deal with the things that you were walking through by trying to chain you up on the outside of town.
And I want you to share all that I have done for them because I have redemption for them too. Jesus sends them out. This is amazing. So Jesus has authority over things that make us sick. Jesus has authority over dark things.
Jesus has authority over sin. There's this story in mark where Jesus is in this small house. So many people are packed in. These friends bring their body to get healed and they can't get in. And so they cut a hole in the roof.
They lower this man down to Jesus. And all these religious leaders are around and Jesus sets the scene by saying, hey, you know what? Like your sins are forgiven. All of a sudden the religious leaders are like, wait a second. Only God has the power to forgive sin.
And Jesus is saying, exactly. Because I'm also God. I'm God and I can forgive sin. And I will prove it to you by healing this man. He says, pick up your mat and walk.
And all of a sudden this man springs up. This demonstrates that Jesus has the power, power to forgive sin. He has authority over all that, meaning that the stuff that holds you back, he has the power to help erase that forgive, that, give you a completely new start and help you to walk into a completely new life. And we can see that Jesus has authority over the elements. Jesus takes 5000.
Jesus feeds 5000 by taking five loaves and two fishes. And we see that he breaks, blesses and use it. All of a sudden he feeds with a lunchable 5000 people. And there's these twelve baskets left over for his disciples. And then another scene.
Jesus has 4000 people that he feeds with seven loaves and a few small fish. And there's seven baskets left over. And this was in a really, really gentile area, meaning people who are, they viewed as being far from God. And Jesus says, you know what? What I have is perfectly good enough.
Seven was a number for perfect. I have what will overflow for these gentiles. I didn't come just for the people of Israel. I came for the world, and I'm extending salvation to everyone, especially those people who are on the margins. Then we even see at one point that Jesus calms the storm, the wind and the waves they had all kicked up.
And all of a sudden, the word of Jesus, things calm. That's beautiful. And we see Jesus extending the gospel again to people at the margins, people who are far from God. Why is that good news? Because a lot of times we feel like we're too far gone from the saving grace of Jesus.
And so mark gives us extreme examples to show us. If Jesus can save people like this, that seem so far gone, that seem very at the margins, that seem unsavable, and yet Jesus still saves them. He can save each and every one of us if we will believe. And then we see how Jesus is consistently misunderstood, eventually to the point that false accusations lead him to his death. But you, to imagine his family, those closest to him, thought that he was out of his mind.
The religious leaders thought he was filled by demons. And we even see slowly more and more that these religious leaders who should have been waiting in hopeful anticipation of Jesus coming, they should have recognized him. They closed their minds off to Jesus because Jesus offends them. He does things that they don't want him to. They love people that they don't want Jesus to love.
He extends the, the offer to be part of the family to people that they don't want to be part of the family. And so eventually they close their hearts to the point that they're willing to be caught up in a plan to kill Jesus. And Jesus willingly takes that on because he thinks that everyone is worth him coming and living so radically, showing the way to God that he'd be willing to give his life for you. That's the beautiful hope of the gospel, is that wherever you're at, Jesus offers you a relationship. You might be at the margin.
You might have all kinds of physical things going on, spiritual things going on. You might, your life might be so just in chaos that you might be thinking, man, I'm just filled up with all kinds of things that just aren't good. Jesus can come and he can restore you physically, spiritually, emotionally. He can set you back to a right state of mind. He can forgive your past and walk you to a new way to live.
This is the gospel of Jesus. This is living life under his kingship. And remember, we all live under the authority of something, or we attempt to live, be our own authority, and make everyone else live under our own authority. But if you just evaluate what is the gospel that I'm really believing, what authority do I submit to? Is that leading to life or is it not?
And if not, maybe a new king is the thing that you need to place over your life, and maybe you need to live under that authority, because Jesus is offering that to take all of the anxiety of trying to live life your own way, having freedom to live his way, the way you are intentionally designed anyway. And so you might be thinking, okay, Jesus is pretty compelling. Like, I get who Jesus is and what he's like, but why does that ultimately matter for my life? See, look at this. Jesus is extending the kingdom to you.
That offer is available, as I was just talking about. He has the authority to heal. The things in your life might happen immediately, might happen progressively over time as you, as you step more into what that might be. It might leverage the medical community to help you to walk towards healing. It might be things in your life that are just being practiced.
Like, you have habits that are leading to death and not life. And maybe God wants to progressively heal you by helping you learn new habits. And it might just be eventually, where eventually we are in heaven, that he will completely heal us. But in between this time, he will always give you the grace that you need to walk through whatever you might be going through. So bring all that to Jesus.
The invitation to live under his kingship, to allow him to have authority over your life, which is actually a freeing thing, the thing we're ultimately looking for, that will be the thing that begins to heal us. And not only that, he's a king that doesn't rule with an iron fist. He doesn't want to exploit us. He doesn't want to take advantage of us or any of that stuff. He simply wants to begin to be with you, to spend time with you each and every day, to help you to live into your true identity as son and daughter of God.
What a reality. Whatever broken thing someone has said over you is a lie. The truth is, in Jesus, you could be a son and daughter of goddess. And when we start to understand that, we get to become more and more like him, to daily be with him, become more like him, and eventually we get empowered to do more and more the things that he would have us to do. And it starts to come so naturally when before we were just so bitter and angry towards a lot of people, we suddenly see that we can extend grace and forgiveness when we never thought that might have been possible.
Why? Because we get caught up in the kingdom of God, we experienced his love that fulfills us. We slowly spend time with him each and every day. We slowly become more and more like him. And all of a sudden, we can then do the things that we thought were impossible.
And so this is why it matters, because the life that maybe you're living isn't the life that you have to live. And maybe you're just under all this oppression and not experiencing joy and peace. And in Jesus, the offer is on the table to experience true joy and peace, experience love that's fully extended to you, to experience acceptance and grace, to help free the load of life and to help you to live under his unforced rhythms of grace, which are amazing and life giving. That's a better vision for life. That's the vision I want to go after.
But again, we all have to answer, who do we believe Jesus to actually be? Because what you believe is what you'll actually live out. And your beliefs are formed every day by the things that you do each and every day through your habits and practices. And so a lot of us, if we claim, hey, we believe in the way of Jesus, but we actually don't put this stuff into practice in our daily lives, then we probably don't actually believe that Jesus way is actually good enough to put into the rest of our life, to overcome all these other different habits and to replace those with better life giving habits. And so we need to be intentional about watching the things that we put into our daily lives each and every day, because they form who we're becoming.
And so we get opportunity to in Jesus, if we get to say, you know what? Jesus is actually my king and Jesus is my savior, I want to live life in his kingdom. Then you get to slowly unlearn all of these false beliefs, false values, false ways of doing life that honestly, guys, come on, they don't lead to life anyway. If they did, we would have the highest levels of flourishing that we've ever experienced on earth. And it's just not the case.
If we're honest, it's the highest levels of anxiety that maybe has ever been present in our world. And I don't know. That's a bold claim. But still, we can't argue against the fact that there's sky high levels of anxiety and depression because we're trying to push God to the margins. And the more that happens, the more anxiety we feel, because that's not the way we were intended to live.
And so the more that we recognize God, invite him into our life, he's not going to force himself. It's a free choice. And we get to just simply begin to do life in his kingdom daily striving to be with him, to become more like him, and then to do the things that he would have us to do. And he'll help you step by step overcome the things that you don't think you can ever overcome, to help you to become a new person that you think is impossible to actually become. Because I want you to remember, Jesus is a strong man.
You might think, I've got all this dark stuff that's just clouding my life. I want you to remember the scriptures. Mark 323 27. And Jesus says, you know what? Who's the one who can, like, go into a strong man's house and plunder his goods?
Only someone stronger. Jesus is making the claim that Jesus is stronger than Satan, that Jesus is stronger than any evil thing, that Jesus is stronger than whatever sin you think you're struggling with, whatever past that you think holds you back. Jesus is stronger, and Jesus will give you a new and better life. And so you can practice your way into this through a rhythm of life. And so you can go to our website, pinehillschurch.org.
go to towards the bottom, there's a rhythm of life worksheet. You can download it, you can print it out, has instructed instructions for it, and it's got a few pages on it, one that explains just kind of some base practices that you can put into your life. And then the next page helps you to visualize what it looks like to practice the way of Jesus daily or even weekly. And so what are these things that you want to commit to in this season from September to December that you can say, hey, I'm going to commit to these things. I'm going to be intentional about living the way of Jesus.
I'm not going to try to accidentally walk my way into this because it'll never happen. And if we can all be honest, anyway, we all have some type of rhythm of life anyway, some thing that guards our time, that guards our lives and fills our days and all kinds of stuff. And so sometimes, for not intentional about it, we allow other people to fill up our rhythm of life that shapes us into the people we don't want to become. And so be intentional. And so download this worksheet and think through.
What does it look like daily to be with him? What does that look like? What does that look like for scripture, prayer, or Sabbath? What are these different practices that I can put into my life? And so if you've never done this at all.
I want you to first pick up one of the base practices for all of us is scripture and prayer. And so if you've never done it at all, I want you to download electio 365 app. And I want you just to do that every day, because it's going to teach you how to pray through the scriptures. It's going to invite you to think about what Jesus might be telling you through the power of your spirit. It's going to teach you how to listen to the voice of God in your life.
It's going to lead you in a really good way. So download the like Theo 365 app ten minutes a day. Start doing that each and every day and see who you become over the next few months. Or maybe you're like, you know what? I've been.
I've been doing that for a while. Well, then go through the gospel of mark with us and then make intentional time to pray on the backside or front side of that. Just making space to listen to God. But there's all kinds of different practices that you can plan into your days or your weeks just to make sure that you're taking intentional time to be who God wants you to become. And I want you to think about that.
Not only your spiritual life, but your physical, your relational, your communal life, like through your finances, whatever that might be. And so I want you to think about what are the invitations through the spirit that God is inviting you into. Maybe it's starting the first couple steps of those devotional scripture and prayer. Maybe it's adding in intentional time to be in community, maybe even coming to a larger Sunday gathering. That's great.
Maybe God in this season is asking you to step into a weekly community group where you can be more known and work through some of the things in your life, or be part of a book study or whatever that might be, maybe go. God is asking you to practice generosity by giving to your local church or giving to a local nonprofit, and so committing to what that looks like, by establishing a budget, by establishing that number that God wants you to give. And so he'll lead you in that. We're not going to pressure you into what that might look like, but that could be a rhythm for you. It could be a rhythm of intentionally, like showing up at a park with your family on a particular day of the week so you can meet new people and you can develop relationships with.
That's living the way of Jesus, that could be in your rhythm of life. And so if you got any questions about what that looks like, if it doesn't quite make sense, like, please allow us to continue the conversation with us by reaching out pinehillschurch.org. we would love to connect you with that. Just talk about where you at in life and what practices might be helpful for you in this season of life. If you want to go deeper about what each of the practices are on that worksheet, you can actually download the Pine Hills church app.
And in that, there's a tab that's practicing the way that will take you through each of these conversations and teach you from the scriptures. What does it look like to pray? What does it look like to read the scripture? What does it look like to be in community, your generosity, or beginning to tell the story through witness? Like, whatever those practices might be, it teaches you all of that.
It's available for you 24/7 through the app. Go through it at your pace. But please help us to know how it's a value, how it's a helpful to you because we want to help you to grow in your life with Jesus because we believe that's what leads to life and freedom and joy. And so we just thank you for being part of this mark conversation. Can't wait to see you in the next episode.
But I just want to pray for you. I just want you to take a moment not to have anxiety about this, not to, like, overthink it. Just. Just respond to the invitation of the Holy Spirit. And so right now, wherever you're at, I just want you to open your hands and a posture of receiving, like, just open your hands and say, holy spirit, would you come?
And would you show us what you have for us in this new season, this new invitation, to be intentional about how we're living our life. And just using a little worksheet just to help us to visualize how we're spending our time, how we're spending our day, and help us to see how these things can fit into our life in a way that's not taxing or overburdening us, but is actually freeing and show us what you want us to do with that. So would you come, Holy Spirit? Would you speak that? Would you show us, and would you help us to reach out if we have additional questions or need to talk about it more so we can get going in the right way?
But would you just fill your people with your presence? Would you lead them? Would you guide them? We thank you that you're always with us.
Help us to live the lives that you have inviting us into in your name. We pray. Amen. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. Again, if you have any questions, reach out pinehillschurch.org.
we would love to continue the conversation. If you want to partner with our community, this stuff is bringing value to you. You want to financially just partner with us to help us to continue to be able to operate as a community, to be present in the south side of Bend, to reaching our neighborhood with the goodness of Jesus, or even support these ongoing conversations because they've been a value to you, whether you're local or far whatever that might be. Go to pineheartchurch.org. would love just for you to partner with us in that capacity, but just so deeply grateful for you.
Share this conversation with a friend if you think think it'd be valuable. Can't wait to see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
Summary
Pastor Aaron Contreras reflects on the one-year anniversary of Pine Hills Church and highlights the growth of the community over the past year, noting how individuals have moved from hurt and trauma to actively practicing their faith. He emphasizes the importance of reflecting on one's spiritual journey and maintaining connections within the community, especially during difficult times. He encourages the congregation to engage in prayer and to support one another in their collective mission to live out the way of Jesus through loving deeds and enduring hope. Lastly, Pastor invites everyone to actively participate in the church's mission by deepening their relationships and sharing the impact of the community on their lives.
Discussion Questions
- How have you grow in your journey with Jesus over the past year?
- Are you feeling encouraged or discouraged in the work God has put before you?
- What loving deed can you do for someone this week?
- How does hoping the the bigger story of Jesus bring encouragement to you today?
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are gathering with us on the podcast. And we just celebrated our one year anniversary of Sunday gatherings as a church plant.
And I'm so proud of that. I'm so pumped about that. So proud of our community, how we've been doing life together over the past couple of years, but especially this past year of putting, putting on a weekly Sunday gathering with setup and tear down and all the work that goes into that, to supporting financially so that way we could have finances to be able to rent a space at a local elementary school. And knowing that that income is also a blessing for them to, you know, developing these relationships in our community groups, to seeing God bring people into the family and just so many amazing things that have happened. And we'll reflect on that more here in a second.
But just so amazed at all that God has done and is doing as we lead into our next year and all that God will invite us into. And as I was thinking about the gathering, it just kind of got to a moment of just reminiscing. I think we should just have these intentional moments on our calendar throughout our year. Sometimes these holidays can be natural moments where you sit back and reflect a little bit, but sometimes it's good just to have that date on a calendar, to block it off for a few hours, go set up at a coffee shop with just a good journal and just think about the last year and everything that has happened and the good with that, the challenges with that and everything in between, and just kind of reflect about where you've been, what God has been leading you in and through, and where God could be leading you in the future. And so this is just a good exercise for all of us.
But this is what I did this past week of just reflecting back on our community and just remembering all the different families that have joined and come along. And I don't want to name specifics just to kind of give away people's stories, but just to kind of, on a broad level, just to share. There's so many people in our community that have experienced hurt and trauma. And I knew we were going to be a community for people who did not know Jesus, people who maybe went to church for a bit and never connected with the practices of Jesus. We were also called to people who have and has since been hurt by church or just carrying some wounds and trauma and need space to grieve and to heal.
And so there's a level of people who've come along who just carry trauma and pain from their past and just hearing their stories over the past year and just hearing how God has brought them from where they were to people who did not at all believe in God because of traumas that they faced and walked through to. Now they're practicing the way of Jesus, and they're growing in their faith, and they're stepping into prayer and reading scripture and just seen so much growth in their life in that regard. And that just really excites me, knowing what they've gone through, like, knowing, and if I went through that, that would be a struggle for me to believe in God, too. And just seeing them come over those different barriers as God is bringing them along, revealing himself to them, that's amazing. We've got people who.
Who maybe kind of knew God a bit, but have never read the scriptures before. And so it's just been a profound opportunity to teach our community what it looks like to read the scriptures and to read the scriptures really well, knowing that there's a lot of confusing parts in there. And so we should intentionally just get in the scriptures as deep as we can to understand what it meant in their day and what it could mean for our day, and just to ask the questions that come up in community. There's no question off limits, because we want to wrestle through this stuff together. And seeing people who never have read the Bible, all of a sudden they're reading and sharing stories and discussing it with each other and encouraging each other through it.
And so that has been really amazing. We've seen people just walk through really difficult stuff. We've experienced loss and death this year, but we've also celebrated new life. We've had two births in our community, new babies, and we have a third on the way. And we're super excited about that.
And we've also seen people step into leadership giftings within our church that before, they have never known that they might have had it or didn't know that they were put there by God as a blessing from him, to be a blessing to our community. So to see so many people who are far from God now walking in an active relationship with God, people who are not practicing the way now reading the scriptures and practicing prayer and Sabbath silence and solitude of just, you know, even like daily practice prayer, we set rhythm times throughout our day, morning, midday, and evening, just to pray and make space to recognize that God is with us. And oftentimes we're out of sync and we're out of tune with him. And I. This just allows us to realign our lives with him.
So just all these different ways of seeing people grow and seeing people grow missionally, as they've invited neighbors, as they've loved, on what we call who's your one, the person that you're praying for, the person that you are building relationships with, the one that you are deepening a relationship with and having spiritual conversation. So there's been so many amazing things that have happened in our community. I just want to ask if you've been part of our community, you've been listening to podcasts from afar, wherever you might be in that, what has our community meant to you and how you seen some change in your life because of being attached to our community in some way. And so if you could send us a text message or go to pinehillschurch.org comma Connect with us through the Connect tab, send us an email and just let us know what this community has meant for you. It's meant so much for me.
For me, it's helped me to grow more in my relationship with Jesus, but also my, my giftings. As I'm learning how to plant a church and to be in a lead pastoral position and all different stuff that comes with that, there's a lot I still have to learn. And so I'm just deeply grateful for our community who's been helping me and has also been patient with me and helping me learn as we go as well. But our heart to plant a church was to be a community where we can be known and be known by other people. Where people could encounter and respond to goddess, where people could learn what it looks like to live the way of Jesus every day, where people could see the God given gifts that he has placed in them to make our city just a bit more like the qualities of the kingdom of God, which are love, hope and peace.
Where we can see that reign more fully in our cities and our neighborhoods, because we do life there and because we invest ourselves in the city. And so that's been the heart of what we've wanted to do. Planting Pine Hills church, to be a church that practices the way of Jesus for the renewal of bend, because we want to partner in with what God is doing and what God is inviting us into. And so I'm really excited that so much of that has been happening. And so we're just seeing that people are now stepping more into their leadership and we've all accomplished all these things.
We look forward to seeing more people step into this missional call of God on their lives as they get more of this who's your one in there bloodstream as they live this stuff out more, as they develop these relationships that they already have just a bit deeper, and begin to have more of these spiritual conversations that are happening with so many people in our neighborhood and our workspaces that just aren't ready to step into a church community yet. But they're asking questions about Jesus and not as amazing thing. And we want to see more of our people come to know that they're filled up by God to be a source of love, hope, and peace to people around them each and every day, their spheres of influence. We want people and Ben to come to know Jesus through our community, through every church that's around our city, yes, but especially through the work that we're doing, because we don't want to be apathetic about just kind of being our own little community. We want to be outwardly focused, always looking for the next person who doesn't yet know God, because we want to actively be part of pushing the curtain of darkness back in our city so that people can experience more and more of who God is through us.
Because we get to be an outpost to the kingdom of God, an expression of heaven on earth. We get to be a source of light for people who are walking in darkness or whatever metaphor you want to put in there to help you to really understand what you're called to do as followers of Jesus in our city. Because God's heart is to light up our city more and more with people who are being brought from that space of darkness into light. He wants to light it up, and we want to actively be a part of that, which means we're praying into that, which means we're actively focused on other people and not just our lives. We're caring for our neighbors, our co workers, those people God has put around us.
That's who we've been as Pine Hills church. That's who we want to continue to be and continue, want to lean more into that, into the future, into what God asked us over the next year. The missional invitations to partner with different nonprofits in our city or the school that we meet in each and every week, to our neighborhood, to loving it really well. And so we want to continue to make sure that we're in tune with what God wants us to be doing as a community. And so invitations for you, too, to actively be part of that in some way, whatever that might look like for you.
But we know to be part of God's mission, to actively serve in our city. To push back the kingdom of darkness is actually really hard, because there's a war that we don't often see or often recognize, but it pushes back against the kingdom of light, pushes back against the ways of Jesus. It seeks to tear it down. And so to live into what God wants us all to live into, because our purpose is always to live our lives in such a way that we draw other people to who Jesus is, and we start to teach them what it looks like to follow the ways of Jesus as we do, that there's opposition and there's pushback that can be really hard and discouraging at times. And so we need to lean into each other as a community.
And if you're just like a podcaster with us, leaning to your local church community with other people, to make sure that you've got a small group of people that you can be known and they can know you, that they could pray for you, they could challenge you, they can speak words of encouragement, but they can also help you to become all that God wants you to become as you continue to grow in his ways. And so, as we look at the scriptures today, I want you to know that the fight for community is actually worth having. It's actually worth having, because being a community is hard and difficult. Why? Because it's led by broken people.
Like, I'm leading a community, and I very much need Jesus probably more than anyone else in my community. And so I make mistakes and I have to apologize, and I've got to continue to grow. And all the same way, there's people who are going to hurt your feelings at times, and there's gonna be all kinds of stuff in life that creeps up, and you're gonna get busy, and you're gonna get overwhelmed, and life is gonna be hard, and you're gonna just say, you know what? I got a lot going on. Maybe I don't go to church.
And that's not the step we wanna take, because the way of Jesus is to be actively part of community. And so carving out that space where you can consistently be with people who can know you and you can know them, and this is what we need in our lives. So be sure that you're fighting for that community. As we look at first Thessalonians today, we're going to look at this letter that was written by Paul to a small church plant in the city of Thessalonica. It's northern Greece.
If you want to catch up on the story, you can go to acts, chapter 17. The people in the area had responded to the gospel, the good news that Jesus had come to live a life they couldn't live. He goes to a cross to ultimately, like, you know, pay the price for our sins, our mistakes, our disobedience, us, trying to do everything our own way, rejecting the authority of God, all of that stuff. He says, hey, hey, like, I'll take what you deserve, and I'll give you what I have. I'll give you life when you deserve death.
And not only that, he actually, because he rises again from the dead, he's got the power to help us to overcome the stuff in the past that holds us back. And we get to lean into this new future and this new identity. That's the gospel. And these people had responded to that. And when people begin to respond to the gospel, community begins to form around that as people want to live out this together.
So this community had formed. But again, if you're living as people of God in a city, that city is going to push against that. It's going to fight against that. And so they faced some persecution, but ultimately, like a lot of social ostracization, people thought they were weird for being followers of God, of being monotheist, that they're going to serve God alone and not serve just all the other different gods that were happening and going on around them. Kind of like in our culture, a lot of people are like, well, you can follow God, but don't tell me that's ultimate.
Everyone else picks up all these different ways of doing their spirituality, and they just kind of, like, tack it on like it's just another badge to put on their backpack. And so they carry all this stuff with them, all these different hodgepodges of spirituality that really just uplifts how they want to be doing life. It's not the way of God. It's not the way of life. There's one way to God.
There's one way to life. It's through Jesus. And when we live that out, man, the culture wants to fight us. And so Paul wrote this letter to encourage them, and he anchors it in prayer. And so there's three different prayer movements throughout the letter.
I want to encourage you to go read the entire letter. I just want to pull a few pieces out that could be encouraging for us as a community as we continue to lean into all that God has for us. But first, Thessalonians, chapter one, verses two through three. It says, we always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly as we pray to our God and father about you. We think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and your enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus.
Paul starts a letter of encouraging his people by praying. Like, why? Why would Paul start with prayer? Why wouldn't he just kind of get to the point? And why do we even pray?
And we pray because prayer actually changes things and we don't even recognize that or verbalize it that way. We all believe that. In a sense. We all pray in a sense. We just don't often pray to the same thing or pray to the thing that actually has the power to answer our prayers.
Often we vent prayers in an overly long Facebook post to a bunch of other people who might or might not even see our post or might not even care that we posted that we share story on our Instagram feed or whatever it might be. Letting out how we're feeling, venting in that way. We send out text, we send out journals. We write in our journals. We offer up prayer at times by attempting to speak out into the universe, hoping that the universe responds and gives us the things that we're asking for.
A lot of people in culture are praying in this way. Ultimately, a lot of sources don't have the power to do anything. Only God has the power to answer these prayers. We continue to pray out. We continue to offer it up because we all recognize we need something outside of ourselves.
We just don't always connect that with the truth, that we're ultimately looking for God, that we're looking for Jesus. And the christian faith believes that the only one who actually has the power to respond to our prayers is a living, active God that actually cares and notices you. God wants to hear what's on your heart. God wants to actively hear what you're stressing about and worrying about the challenges that are going on in your life. He wants to talk to you about the decisions that you're making and all kinds of other stuff because he cares for you and he longs to guide you in that.
But he's not going to force his way on you. He wants you to come to him to bring it. And he's more than willing to answer and to intervene and to guide and to be present with you or to give you the grace to get through difficult things as he journeys with you. And Paul knew for this little community to continue to do the ministry that God had called him to do in the city that they were placed in at a particular time in history, they were going to need something outside of themselves. That ministry being not just being a people who receive the peace of God, but actually carry that peace to other people around them and their spheres of influence in their city and their jobs, to their families.
And so he prayed for their faithful work, their loving deeds, their enduring hope in Jesus. And so even when things are difficult, oftentimes you want to pull back when things are hard. And Paul is praying when things are hard, continue to push into the faithful work that he has called you to do and to do it for the glory of God, because that's going to draw people to who God is. Oftentimes it's through our difficulties and how we live our faith in the midst of that that will draw so many people to who he is, because that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where things get real, that's where people can say, oh, there's something about this.
It's not just some feel good spirituality. It's not just some self help book. It's something that actually carries power because it's lived out even in the midst of difficulty. So when things are hard, continue your faithful work in the power of God. Continue your loving deeds, loving and serving all the people around you, especially those who still want to try to hurt you or persecute you.
The word. And Jesus challenges us at times to love our enemies, which I think is the greatest spiritual gift that is out there. We cannot do that in our own power. We have to only do that in his power, but to make it a marker of our life to strive every day. God, help me to experience your love so I can give you love to other people.
And then our enduring hope in Jesus, because the gospel is from Genesis, that God is trying to correct a world that had rejected him and started going wrong, and he wants to bring healing and hope. He does that through Jesus, because Jesus has the power to bring healing and hope again because he comes back alive. He defeats the power of death, he defeats the power of sin, he defeats the power of sickness, all this different stuff over our lives, he crushes all of that, his victorious rising from the grave. But not only that, he's empowered his people to go be agents of healing, to be agents of peace, to help bring people to the saving knowledge of who God is. Until Jesus comes again and restores all things, reunites heaven and earth together again, rids the world of all that is corrupt and unjust and wrong.
And so we have enduring hope, because in the midst of difficulty, we have our eyes that Jesus is present with us right now and that he will forever be present with us. But he's coming again, and he will be victorious and rule today. And so it's kind of like being watching a football game, right? You know the outcome, but you're still watching through that football game. You're not as pressured or as worried because you know the outcome.
You know what happens in the end. And so you're not all tied up in knots because you know where things are going. We can live like this in our current lives. We don't have to get all knotted up because we know where things are going. We can trust that Jesus is working through our stories first.
Thessalonians one, four, five, Paul continues. We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. For when we brought you the good news, it was not only with words, but also with power. For the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. This is part of the gospel, that you are loved and chosen by God to be his people.
Now for a second, wherever you're at, I just want you to close your eyes. I want you to picture Jesus or to attempt to picture God. And I want you to think about when Jesus thinks about you. What do you think he thinks?
And what do you think when you hear that you are loved and chosen by God? Compare that to the first thing you just thought. When Jesus draws you to mind, what does he think about you?
And what do you think about when you hear that you're loved and chosen by God? Are those things in conflict because maybe one's true and one's a lie? Maybe this truth that you're loved and chosen by God needs to crush the lies that we often believe. What do you think when you hear you're invited to be his people, to be part of his family? And maybe that truth needs to crush the lie that you're rejected, you're isolated, you're alone, whatever that might be.
This is part of encountering the gospel. This is what we need to get deep in our hearts because we just subconsciously, out of habit, react, living out lies, that God doesn't care about us, that Jesus doesn't want to do life with us, that we're not loved, that we're not chosen, that we're not cared for, that we're not noticed. All of that is lies. That you're deeply loved and chosen by God, that you are his people, his family, he's working in your life. There's power.
When we understand the gospel in this way. This is part of what we call the good news to our ears that doesn't sound like much, but to the hearers in this world, in this world, in this letter, they would have recognized this as politically charged language. They would have heard when Paul said, this is the good news of the gospel. They would have heard when a king wins a battle, there's this announcement that this victory is heralded throughout the city. The good news, the stronger person has won the day.
The new authority that has placed here. And the scriptures make it very clear that while the people in their day thought Rome was the power at b, scriptures make it clear Jesus is the better king. The good news of being loved and chosen by God was powerful enough for the people to lay down this former allegiance to old habits and old things and old idols and old ways of understanding life and doing life, to follow after a stronger and better thing. Why? Because the way of God is so compelling that you don't have to have all the right beliefs in order to be accepted and loved by God, that he might meet you right where you're at, that you're fully loved and you're fully chosen, you're welcomed into the family, that you can work this stuff out in the journey with Jesus.
That's a powerful thing. It helps you to turn from something into something else. And news was breaking out all across the community and all across the area as these people in thessalonica who are responding to the gospel, all of a sudden their lives dramatically look a lot different. Lots of whispers of, have you heard in the best possible way of life change and hope is people picking up the better, truer, stronger thing. And I hope that's true of our community, that people are seeing.
People used to be broken and used to cope doing terrible things and doing things that hurt them and hurt other people. And all of a sudden, they're turning from that and they're turning to something better. And their lives are being dramatically changed as they're no longer living in the kingdom of darkness, but living in the kingdom of light, that stories are circulating, that people are saying, have you heard this person has changed. That's the power of the gospel. It's the power of gospel to change all of our lives, to give us a fresh start, to give us something different.
Not to just, like, motivate us to try to figure it out on our own, but to give us true power, to have complete freedom, to walk into a completely new life. Hopefully there's stories, because there's stories in Thessalonica of how people turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. You might be thinking, well, what's an idol? Idols are anything that we think are ultimately turning away from these false ways of living. See, the gospel is any idealized future.
So we're all driven by some version of the gospel. Often it's a myth that has been handed to us. Like, if you just pursue the right type of education, you get the right kind of job, you get to have the right kind of money in the bank account, right? Whatever it is, it's the gospel of consumerism. Or if I could be really honest, our gospel in America is typically the gospel.
Like, I can define life around my terms, my way of doing life, who I am, how other people respond to me. The problem is, none of those things actually have the power to actually do something in our life in a good way. So I'm just not powerful enough to have it all figured out, to do things that I ultimately want to see done in my world. Like, I'm just not powerful enough. And the freeing thing about the gospel and to lay down that idol itself, I don't have to be that.
I have a source that I can rely on that knows better than I know, that loves and cares for me and guides me in the right direction, that answers prayers in ways that are so beyond me. And so that's what I want to get caught up in. You might be thinking, well, you know what? Like, that's. We're so progressive now.
We're rationalistic. We're formed by enlightenment thought and thinking of any type of, like, God or deity. It just seems so ridiculous and antiquated. But when you really look at things without all the mask in the front, you realize that every one of us are worshipping creatures. We just worship different things.
The thing we worship is the thing that we think is ultimate, the thing we give the most time for. We develop goals around, we hope for, we dream, and we are willing to sacrifice for. This is our God. This is our idol, whether we verbalize that or not. Just the sad part is oftentimes we serve gods without actually realizing we do that.
Because we don't sit back and think about what is it that I ultimately believe? And how am I forming my life that's in the direction of that thing? And is that gospel even good news? Or do I need to lay that down to turn from that, to turn to something better? I'm not asking you to believe in what I'm saying for the sake of believing in what I'm saying.
I'm asking you to evaluate your current way of living, your current gospel, your idealized future. Is that even hopeful or good? And then to consider the ways of Jesus, is that ultimately hopeful or good? For me, I experienced something like, this isn't the way I want to lay that down. I want to turn to God.
And I found a more fulfilling and better thing. And we believe as followers of Jesus, anything short of God is just a lesser thing. It doesn't deliver. Like, how long have you been following that version of the gospel? For, like 20 years.
What has that produced in your life? Is it produced the thing you want it to produce? Like, I'm so convinced that if the world has a true form of the gospel, we would be much happier than we currently are. But we're not happy. And we're experiencing record levels of anxiety and depression and suicide because our current way of living out the gospel does not work.
We need to lay that down to pick up a better and truer thing. And to follow Jesus is to get to experience turning from all these things that don't deliver and turning to the one that's actually powerful enough to bring about love and peace in our lives, which we're ultimately hoping for. To be sure, we don't lay down one consumeristic way to live, to pick up another way, even the way of Jesus, just as something else, to consume. We lay all that down. We don't need to consume another thing.
We don't need to add anything on. We get to just simply receive Jesus and walk in his ways and trust in him, even when things aren't going our way. Because following Jesus recognizes that consumerism is just another idol in our culture. It doesn't have the power to bring about peace, but Jesus always has the ability to bring about peace. And we lay down these things to discover him, to experience love, acceptance, of being chosen, being given this gift of community, of not having to do life alone, but to be in this place where you can be known and other people, you can know other people, and it's this beautiful thing.
We discover peace in him. We discover a God that is present, active in our lives, and we get to experience life in him, often through other people. We get to live into a completely new way to live. But it requires unlearning some of this old way of doing stuff, of turning from the idols to turn to God. This is a constant kind of thing we need to do because we've all picked up cultural myths at some point, some vision of the good life, some code of ethics, some value system, and oftentimes those things don't work out.
We don't need them. So we need to lay them down and pick up a better thing to learn into this new reality. Because oftentimes there's some things that are just so sunk so deeply into our DNA. Takes a season of unlearning. But you know what?
God is gracious, and he's patient, and he helps us along the way, helps us to become a more loving and gracious presence, a more non anxious presence, because we know where things are going. We know the end of the story, and so we can live in our current moment just in a different way. And so this vision right here of being a follower of Jesus and getting fully caught up in him, of being fully loved, fully accepted, not having to, like, earn that, not having to have everything figured out, not having to know the way forward to a better life, but getting to trust that Jesus is the better way forward. Because I've experienced life in him, and you get to experience life in him first. Thessalonians 511 says, to encourage each other and build each other up just as you already doing.
We get to encourage one another when we're feeling down. We encourage each other to live into the good things that we're starting to notice from each other's lives. We get to encourage each other to lay down lies, to live into God's truth. We get to remind each other all the time that God is present with us, even in the worst of things, even when some of our anxieties actually happen, right? Those, like, if this happens, oh, my gosh, my world's gonna fall apart.
Even when those things happen. When you're a follower of Jesus, you notice that your world doesn't fall apart because he holds you in his hand. And we get to trust that God is working behind the scenes, and we don't always notice he's working to heal the sick, to repair all that's broken, to bring about peace in the midst of chaos. And that's not just a future reality. That's a reality we get to tap into right now.
And followers of Jesus get to live as people of peace and here and now. That isn't some false sense of peace the scriptures communicate. When we bring what doesn't feel like peace in prayer to God and even confess to a trusted follower, Jesus, we get to then experience his peace. That transcends our ability to understand. So it's not a fake sense of peace, of trying to front it.
We get to just live into what that all looks like. And so we get to trust God in the midst of all these things. And reflecting on Paul in 5111, he says, when people are saying everything is peaceful and secure, again, that's a false sense of reality. Because ultimately that comes crumbling down. It makes way for a restored reality.
The way of Jesus actually brings about peace and security. And Paul is poking fun at Rome, who thinks that their way actually brings about peace and security. Like even the way of our world, our culture, what people are constantly advocating for, just doesn't bring about peace or security, which is why we're so anxious in the first place. But we get to live into this non coercive way of trusting Jesus. He's not going to force his way in that we get to trust that he's good because we get to experience that.
And why that's so different than a way of a world. Because our world says, if you don't believe in this way, that we actually like socially shame you actually leading to maybe even more violence. And if you have to use violence to propagate your way of living, it's not good news and it's not peace, and it's not security for any of us. And the way of Jesus is not that way. It's not violent, it doesn't shame, it doesn't degrade.
It offers a better vision of the way forward with the power to actually bring about peace and security. It promises, and it's a free gift, free reality for us to all live into. So I want to ask, what do you need to turn from and what do you need to turn to? And as a pine Hills church community, that's what we constantly want to be asking ourselves and even lovingly asking other people as we pray for our one, as we deepen the relationship, so we have these spiritual conversation of, like, how's things going in life? Is it leading the right direction?
Or maybe is it time to consider something different? Is it time to turn from something, to learn a new way to do life? Which is why Paul can say first, Thessalonians 516 18 always be joyful, never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ. We can be joyful because God gives us joy in the midst of things going wrong.
And we can always bring everything we're feeling to God, to never stop praying and bring our honest feelings to God. And we'll experience peace when we do that. We can be thankful in all circumstances because we know where things are going. Even when we don't get what we want in the here and now, we trust that God will bring about good and even if our lives, we lose our lives. And even as his body dies away, we go to be with God forever.
And that's a reality no one can take away. And hopefully that brings about peace. But Paul started with these three things, faithful work, loving deeds, enduring hope. So wherever you're at, whatever you're experiencing, you're probably experiencing some level of difficulty. I want to remind you, despite the difficulty, don't become lethargic or apathetic.
Continue to push into the faithful work that God has set before you. Continue to strive to do loving deeds, loving and serving other people as best you can, and all the strength that you can muster in his power, not in your own. And having enduring hope in Jesus that whatever happens, whatever comes, you're in his hands, that he's going to work all things out. So continue to trust him with whatever that might look like. And God is calling us to remember these things of Pinehost church, collectively encourage each other, stay faithful to the word, continue to love, continue to have enduring hope in Jesus.
And then Paul's final few prayers, I just want to pray over us. As he prayed this over this church plant, he says through these prayers, may God give you grace and peace. We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. As we pray to our God and father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people.
For when we brought you the good news, it was not only with words, but also with power, for the holy spirit gave you full assurance. May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow just as our love for you overflows. May he, as a result, make your heart strong, blameless and holy as you stand before God our father. When our Lord Jesus comes again with his holy people. Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way.
And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. And so I just want to ask you to continue to pray for the work that God has called us to through Pine Hills church, of being an outpost to the kingdom of God on the south part of. And so pray for us, because the world's going to push against that, Satan's going to push against that, and so be praying. This is hard and difficult work.
It's discouraging at times. But other times it's amazing and beautiful and wonderful. And the beautiful part of walking with Jesus is it's all kind of the same thing, right? It's all a little bit difficult and beautiful all at the same time. Those are two realities that we have to hold present inside of us and find a way to make peace by allowing God to bring about that peace in our lives.
So be praying for us if you want to support us as we need to continue to financially get into our second year, to have capacity, to be able to make space, that rent a space, to make that space for people to encounter God and to grow in community, to lovingly serve our community. Would you help partner with us? And so would you go to pinehillschurch.org? would you just pray about a gift that you can make to help continue to sponsor what God is doing? Doing, continue to invest in this calling that God has put into our community that would deeply bless us, also pray for us.
That's such a gift as well. And so we need both of those different things, but just appreciate you helping and being part of the conversation. Hopefully this adds value to your relationship with Jesus. Hopefully these conversations are helpful for you again. If our community has made an impact in your life, please email us pinehomeschurch.org connect with us through the email.
Let us know. Share a story with us that would be deeply beneficial and encouraging for us as we continue to do all that God has called us to do. We hope to see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
And I'm so proud of that. I'm so pumped about that. So proud of our community, how we've been doing life together over the past couple of years, but especially this past year of putting, putting on a weekly Sunday gathering with setup and tear down and all the work that goes into that, to supporting financially so that way we could have finances to be able to rent a space at a local elementary school. And knowing that that income is also a blessing for them to, you know, developing these relationships in our community groups, to seeing God bring people into the family and just so many amazing things that have happened. And we'll reflect on that more here in a second.
But just so amazed at all that God has done and is doing as we lead into our next year and all that God will invite us into. And as I was thinking about the gathering, it just kind of got to a moment of just reminiscing. I think we should just have these intentional moments on our calendar throughout our year. Sometimes these holidays can be natural moments where you sit back and reflect a little bit, but sometimes it's good just to have that date on a calendar, to block it off for a few hours, go set up at a coffee shop with just a good journal and just think about the last year and everything that has happened and the good with that, the challenges with that and everything in between, and just kind of reflect about where you've been, what God has been leading you in and through, and where God could be leading you in the future. And so this is just a good exercise for all of us.
But this is what I did this past week of just reflecting back on our community and just remembering all the different families that have joined and come along. And I don't want to name specifics just to kind of give away people's stories, but just to kind of, on a broad level, just to share. There's so many people in our community that have experienced hurt and trauma. And I knew we were going to be a community for people who did not know Jesus, people who maybe went to church for a bit and never connected with the practices of Jesus. We were also called to people who have and has since been hurt by church or just carrying some wounds and trauma and need space to grieve and to heal.
And so there's a level of people who've come along who just carry trauma and pain from their past and just hearing their stories over the past year and just hearing how God has brought them from where they were to people who did not at all believe in God because of traumas that they faced and walked through to. Now they're practicing the way of Jesus, and they're growing in their faith, and they're stepping into prayer and reading scripture and just seen so much growth in their life in that regard. And that just really excites me, knowing what they've gone through, like, knowing, and if I went through that, that would be a struggle for me to believe in God, too. And just seeing them come over those different barriers as God is bringing them along, revealing himself to them, that's amazing. We've got people who.
Who maybe kind of knew God a bit, but have never read the scriptures before. And so it's just been a profound opportunity to teach our community what it looks like to read the scriptures and to read the scriptures really well, knowing that there's a lot of confusing parts in there. And so we should intentionally just get in the scriptures as deep as we can to understand what it meant in their day and what it could mean for our day, and just to ask the questions that come up in community. There's no question off limits, because we want to wrestle through this stuff together. And seeing people who never have read the Bible, all of a sudden they're reading and sharing stories and discussing it with each other and encouraging each other through it.
And so that has been really amazing. We've seen people just walk through really difficult stuff. We've experienced loss and death this year, but we've also celebrated new life. We've had two births in our community, new babies, and we have a third on the way. And we're super excited about that.
And we've also seen people step into leadership giftings within our church that before, they have never known that they might have had it or didn't know that they were put there by God as a blessing from him, to be a blessing to our community. So to see so many people who are far from God now walking in an active relationship with God, people who are not practicing the way now reading the scriptures and practicing prayer and Sabbath silence and solitude of just, you know, even like daily practice prayer, we set rhythm times throughout our day, morning, midday, and evening, just to pray and make space to recognize that God is with us. And oftentimes we're out of sync and we're out of tune with him. And I. This just allows us to realign our lives with him.
So just all these different ways of seeing people grow and seeing people grow missionally, as they've invited neighbors, as they've loved, on what we call who's your one, the person that you're praying for, the person that you are building relationships with, the one that you are deepening a relationship with and having spiritual conversation. So there's been so many amazing things that have happened in our community. I just want to ask if you've been part of our community, you've been listening to podcasts from afar, wherever you might be in that, what has our community meant to you and how you seen some change in your life because of being attached to our community in some way. And so if you could send us a text message or go to pinehillschurch.org comma Connect with us through the Connect tab, send us an email and just let us know what this community has meant for you. It's meant so much for me.
For me, it's helped me to grow more in my relationship with Jesus, but also my, my giftings. As I'm learning how to plant a church and to be in a lead pastoral position and all different stuff that comes with that, there's a lot I still have to learn. And so I'm just deeply grateful for our community who's been helping me and has also been patient with me and helping me learn as we go as well. But our heart to plant a church was to be a community where we can be known and be known by other people. Where people could encounter and respond to goddess, where people could learn what it looks like to live the way of Jesus every day, where people could see the God given gifts that he has placed in them to make our city just a bit more like the qualities of the kingdom of God, which are love, hope and peace.
Where we can see that reign more fully in our cities and our neighborhoods, because we do life there and because we invest ourselves in the city. And so that's been the heart of what we've wanted to do. Planting Pine Hills church, to be a church that practices the way of Jesus for the renewal of bend, because we want to partner in with what God is doing and what God is inviting us into. And so I'm really excited that so much of that has been happening. And so we're just seeing that people are now stepping more into their leadership and we've all accomplished all these things.
We look forward to seeing more people step into this missional call of God on their lives as they get more of this who's your one in there bloodstream as they live this stuff out more, as they develop these relationships that they already have just a bit deeper, and begin to have more of these spiritual conversations that are happening with so many people in our neighborhood and our workspaces that just aren't ready to step into a church community yet. But they're asking questions about Jesus and not as amazing thing. And we want to see more of our people come to know that they're filled up by God to be a source of love, hope, and peace to people around them each and every day, their spheres of influence. We want people and Ben to come to know Jesus through our community, through every church that's around our city, yes, but especially through the work that we're doing, because we don't want to be apathetic about just kind of being our own little community. We want to be outwardly focused, always looking for the next person who doesn't yet know God, because we want to actively be part of pushing the curtain of darkness back in our city so that people can experience more and more of who God is through us.
Because we get to be an outpost to the kingdom of God, an expression of heaven on earth. We get to be a source of light for people who are walking in darkness or whatever metaphor you want to put in there to help you to really understand what you're called to do as followers of Jesus in our city. Because God's heart is to light up our city more and more with people who are being brought from that space of darkness into light. He wants to light it up, and we want to actively be a part of that, which means we're praying into that, which means we're actively focused on other people and not just our lives. We're caring for our neighbors, our co workers, those people God has put around us.
That's who we've been as Pine Hills church. That's who we want to continue to be and continue, want to lean more into that, into the future, into what God asked us over the next year. The missional invitations to partner with different nonprofits in our city or the school that we meet in each and every week, to our neighborhood, to loving it really well. And so we want to continue to make sure that we're in tune with what God wants us to be doing as a community. And so invitations for you, too, to actively be part of that in some way, whatever that might look like for you.
But we know to be part of God's mission, to actively serve in our city. To push back the kingdom of darkness is actually really hard, because there's a war that we don't often see or often recognize, but it pushes back against the kingdom of light, pushes back against the ways of Jesus. It seeks to tear it down. And so to live into what God wants us all to live into, because our purpose is always to live our lives in such a way that we draw other people to who Jesus is, and we start to teach them what it looks like to follow the ways of Jesus as we do, that there's opposition and there's pushback that can be really hard and discouraging at times. And so we need to lean into each other as a community.
And if you're just like a podcaster with us, leaning to your local church community with other people, to make sure that you've got a small group of people that you can be known and they can know you, that they could pray for you, they could challenge you, they can speak words of encouragement, but they can also help you to become all that God wants you to become as you continue to grow in his ways. And so, as we look at the scriptures today, I want you to know that the fight for community is actually worth having. It's actually worth having, because being a community is hard and difficult. Why? Because it's led by broken people.
Like, I'm leading a community, and I very much need Jesus probably more than anyone else in my community. And so I make mistakes and I have to apologize, and I've got to continue to grow. And all the same way, there's people who are going to hurt your feelings at times, and there's gonna be all kinds of stuff in life that creeps up, and you're gonna get busy, and you're gonna get overwhelmed, and life is gonna be hard, and you're gonna just say, you know what? I got a lot going on. Maybe I don't go to church.
And that's not the step we wanna take, because the way of Jesus is to be actively part of community. And so carving out that space where you can consistently be with people who can know you and you can know them, and this is what we need in our lives. So be sure that you're fighting for that community. As we look at first Thessalonians today, we're going to look at this letter that was written by Paul to a small church plant in the city of Thessalonica. It's northern Greece.
If you want to catch up on the story, you can go to acts, chapter 17. The people in the area had responded to the gospel, the good news that Jesus had come to live a life they couldn't live. He goes to a cross to ultimately, like, you know, pay the price for our sins, our mistakes, our disobedience, us, trying to do everything our own way, rejecting the authority of God, all of that stuff. He says, hey, hey, like, I'll take what you deserve, and I'll give you what I have. I'll give you life when you deserve death.
And not only that, he actually, because he rises again from the dead, he's got the power to help us to overcome the stuff in the past that holds us back. And we get to lean into this new future and this new identity. That's the gospel. And these people had responded to that. And when people begin to respond to the gospel, community begins to form around that as people want to live out this together.
So this community had formed. But again, if you're living as people of God in a city, that city is going to push against that. It's going to fight against that. And so they faced some persecution, but ultimately, like a lot of social ostracization, people thought they were weird for being followers of God, of being monotheist, that they're going to serve God alone and not serve just all the other different gods that were happening and going on around them. Kind of like in our culture, a lot of people are like, well, you can follow God, but don't tell me that's ultimate.
Everyone else picks up all these different ways of doing their spirituality, and they just kind of, like, tack it on like it's just another badge to put on their backpack. And so they carry all this stuff with them, all these different hodgepodges of spirituality that really just uplifts how they want to be doing life. It's not the way of God. It's not the way of life. There's one way to God.
There's one way to life. It's through Jesus. And when we live that out, man, the culture wants to fight us. And so Paul wrote this letter to encourage them, and he anchors it in prayer. And so there's three different prayer movements throughout the letter.
I want to encourage you to go read the entire letter. I just want to pull a few pieces out that could be encouraging for us as a community as we continue to lean into all that God has for us. But first, Thessalonians, chapter one, verses two through three. It says, we always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly as we pray to our God and father about you. We think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and your enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus.
Paul starts a letter of encouraging his people by praying. Like, why? Why would Paul start with prayer? Why wouldn't he just kind of get to the point? And why do we even pray?
And we pray because prayer actually changes things and we don't even recognize that or verbalize it that way. We all believe that. In a sense. We all pray in a sense. We just don't often pray to the same thing or pray to the thing that actually has the power to answer our prayers.
Often we vent prayers in an overly long Facebook post to a bunch of other people who might or might not even see our post or might not even care that we posted that we share story on our Instagram feed or whatever it might be. Letting out how we're feeling, venting in that way. We send out text, we send out journals. We write in our journals. We offer up prayer at times by attempting to speak out into the universe, hoping that the universe responds and gives us the things that we're asking for.
A lot of people in culture are praying in this way. Ultimately, a lot of sources don't have the power to do anything. Only God has the power to answer these prayers. We continue to pray out. We continue to offer it up because we all recognize we need something outside of ourselves.
We just don't always connect that with the truth, that we're ultimately looking for God, that we're looking for Jesus. And the christian faith believes that the only one who actually has the power to respond to our prayers is a living, active God that actually cares and notices you. God wants to hear what's on your heart. God wants to actively hear what you're stressing about and worrying about the challenges that are going on in your life. He wants to talk to you about the decisions that you're making and all kinds of other stuff because he cares for you and he longs to guide you in that.
But he's not going to force his way on you. He wants you to come to him to bring it. And he's more than willing to answer and to intervene and to guide and to be present with you or to give you the grace to get through difficult things as he journeys with you. And Paul knew for this little community to continue to do the ministry that God had called him to do in the city that they were placed in at a particular time in history, they were going to need something outside of themselves. That ministry being not just being a people who receive the peace of God, but actually carry that peace to other people around them and their spheres of influence in their city and their jobs, to their families.
And so he prayed for their faithful work, their loving deeds, their enduring hope in Jesus. And so even when things are difficult, oftentimes you want to pull back when things are hard. And Paul is praying when things are hard, continue to push into the faithful work that he has called you to do and to do it for the glory of God, because that's going to draw people to who God is. Oftentimes it's through our difficulties and how we live our faith in the midst of that that will draw so many people to who he is, because that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where things get real, that's where people can say, oh, there's something about this.
It's not just some feel good spirituality. It's not just some self help book. It's something that actually carries power because it's lived out even in the midst of difficulty. So when things are hard, continue your faithful work in the power of God. Continue your loving deeds, loving and serving all the people around you, especially those who still want to try to hurt you or persecute you.
The word. And Jesus challenges us at times to love our enemies, which I think is the greatest spiritual gift that is out there. We cannot do that in our own power. We have to only do that in his power, but to make it a marker of our life to strive every day. God, help me to experience your love so I can give you love to other people.
And then our enduring hope in Jesus, because the gospel is from Genesis, that God is trying to correct a world that had rejected him and started going wrong, and he wants to bring healing and hope. He does that through Jesus, because Jesus has the power to bring healing and hope again because he comes back alive. He defeats the power of death, he defeats the power of sin, he defeats the power of sickness, all this different stuff over our lives, he crushes all of that, his victorious rising from the grave. But not only that, he's empowered his people to go be agents of healing, to be agents of peace, to help bring people to the saving knowledge of who God is. Until Jesus comes again and restores all things, reunites heaven and earth together again, rids the world of all that is corrupt and unjust and wrong.
And so we have enduring hope, because in the midst of difficulty, we have our eyes that Jesus is present with us right now and that he will forever be present with us. But he's coming again, and he will be victorious and rule today. And so it's kind of like being watching a football game, right? You know the outcome, but you're still watching through that football game. You're not as pressured or as worried because you know the outcome.
You know what happens in the end. And so you're not all tied up in knots because you know where things are going. We can live like this in our current lives. We don't have to get all knotted up because we know where things are going. We can trust that Jesus is working through our stories first.
Thessalonians one, four, five, Paul continues. We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. For when we brought you the good news, it was not only with words, but also with power. For the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. This is part of the gospel, that you are loved and chosen by God to be his people.
Now for a second, wherever you're at, I just want you to close your eyes. I want you to picture Jesus or to attempt to picture God. And I want you to think about when Jesus thinks about you. What do you think he thinks?
And what do you think when you hear that you are loved and chosen by God? Compare that to the first thing you just thought. When Jesus draws you to mind, what does he think about you?
And what do you think about when you hear that you're loved and chosen by God? Are those things in conflict because maybe one's true and one's a lie? Maybe this truth that you're loved and chosen by God needs to crush the lies that we often believe. What do you think when you hear you're invited to be his people, to be part of his family? And maybe that truth needs to crush the lie that you're rejected, you're isolated, you're alone, whatever that might be.
This is part of encountering the gospel. This is what we need to get deep in our hearts because we just subconsciously, out of habit, react, living out lies, that God doesn't care about us, that Jesus doesn't want to do life with us, that we're not loved, that we're not chosen, that we're not cared for, that we're not noticed. All of that is lies. That you're deeply loved and chosen by God, that you are his people, his family, he's working in your life. There's power.
When we understand the gospel in this way. This is part of what we call the good news to our ears that doesn't sound like much, but to the hearers in this world, in this world, in this letter, they would have recognized this as politically charged language. They would have heard when Paul said, this is the good news of the gospel. They would have heard when a king wins a battle, there's this announcement that this victory is heralded throughout the city. The good news, the stronger person has won the day.
The new authority that has placed here. And the scriptures make it very clear that while the people in their day thought Rome was the power at b, scriptures make it clear Jesus is the better king. The good news of being loved and chosen by God was powerful enough for the people to lay down this former allegiance to old habits and old things and old idols and old ways of understanding life and doing life, to follow after a stronger and better thing. Why? Because the way of God is so compelling that you don't have to have all the right beliefs in order to be accepted and loved by God, that he might meet you right where you're at, that you're fully loved and you're fully chosen, you're welcomed into the family, that you can work this stuff out in the journey with Jesus.
That's a powerful thing. It helps you to turn from something into something else. And news was breaking out all across the community and all across the area as these people in thessalonica who are responding to the gospel, all of a sudden their lives dramatically look a lot different. Lots of whispers of, have you heard in the best possible way of life change and hope is people picking up the better, truer, stronger thing. And I hope that's true of our community, that people are seeing.
People used to be broken and used to cope doing terrible things and doing things that hurt them and hurt other people. And all of a sudden, they're turning from that and they're turning to something better. And their lives are being dramatically changed as they're no longer living in the kingdom of darkness, but living in the kingdom of light, that stories are circulating, that people are saying, have you heard this person has changed. That's the power of the gospel. It's the power of gospel to change all of our lives, to give us a fresh start, to give us something different.
Not to just, like, motivate us to try to figure it out on our own, but to give us true power, to have complete freedom, to walk into a completely new life. Hopefully there's stories, because there's stories in Thessalonica of how people turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. You might be thinking, well, what's an idol? Idols are anything that we think are ultimately turning away from these false ways of living. See, the gospel is any idealized future.
So we're all driven by some version of the gospel. Often it's a myth that has been handed to us. Like, if you just pursue the right type of education, you get the right kind of job, you get to have the right kind of money in the bank account, right? Whatever it is, it's the gospel of consumerism. Or if I could be really honest, our gospel in America is typically the gospel.
Like, I can define life around my terms, my way of doing life, who I am, how other people respond to me. The problem is, none of those things actually have the power to actually do something in our life in a good way. So I'm just not powerful enough to have it all figured out, to do things that I ultimately want to see done in my world. Like, I'm just not powerful enough. And the freeing thing about the gospel and to lay down that idol itself, I don't have to be that.
I have a source that I can rely on that knows better than I know, that loves and cares for me and guides me in the right direction, that answers prayers in ways that are so beyond me. And so that's what I want to get caught up in. You might be thinking, well, you know what? Like, that's. We're so progressive now.
We're rationalistic. We're formed by enlightenment thought and thinking of any type of, like, God or deity. It just seems so ridiculous and antiquated. But when you really look at things without all the mask in the front, you realize that every one of us are worshipping creatures. We just worship different things.
The thing we worship is the thing that we think is ultimate, the thing we give the most time for. We develop goals around, we hope for, we dream, and we are willing to sacrifice for. This is our God. This is our idol, whether we verbalize that or not. Just the sad part is oftentimes we serve gods without actually realizing we do that.
Because we don't sit back and think about what is it that I ultimately believe? And how am I forming my life that's in the direction of that thing? And is that gospel even good news? Or do I need to lay that down to turn from that, to turn to something better? I'm not asking you to believe in what I'm saying for the sake of believing in what I'm saying.
I'm asking you to evaluate your current way of living, your current gospel, your idealized future. Is that even hopeful or good? And then to consider the ways of Jesus, is that ultimately hopeful or good? For me, I experienced something like, this isn't the way I want to lay that down. I want to turn to God.
And I found a more fulfilling and better thing. And we believe as followers of Jesus, anything short of God is just a lesser thing. It doesn't deliver. Like, how long have you been following that version of the gospel? For, like 20 years.
What has that produced in your life? Is it produced the thing you want it to produce? Like, I'm so convinced that if the world has a true form of the gospel, we would be much happier than we currently are. But we're not happy. And we're experiencing record levels of anxiety and depression and suicide because our current way of living out the gospel does not work.
We need to lay that down to pick up a better and truer thing. And to follow Jesus is to get to experience turning from all these things that don't deliver and turning to the one that's actually powerful enough to bring about love and peace in our lives, which we're ultimately hoping for. To be sure, we don't lay down one consumeristic way to live, to pick up another way, even the way of Jesus, just as something else, to consume. We lay all that down. We don't need to consume another thing.
We don't need to add anything on. We get to just simply receive Jesus and walk in his ways and trust in him, even when things aren't going our way. Because following Jesus recognizes that consumerism is just another idol in our culture. It doesn't have the power to bring about peace, but Jesus always has the ability to bring about peace. And we lay down these things to discover him, to experience love, acceptance, of being chosen, being given this gift of community, of not having to do life alone, but to be in this place where you can be known and other people, you can know other people, and it's this beautiful thing.
We discover peace in him. We discover a God that is present, active in our lives, and we get to experience life in him, often through other people. We get to live into a completely new way to live. But it requires unlearning some of this old way of doing stuff, of turning from the idols to turn to God. This is a constant kind of thing we need to do because we've all picked up cultural myths at some point, some vision of the good life, some code of ethics, some value system, and oftentimes those things don't work out.
We don't need them. So we need to lay them down and pick up a better thing to learn into this new reality. Because oftentimes there's some things that are just so sunk so deeply into our DNA. Takes a season of unlearning. But you know what?
God is gracious, and he's patient, and he helps us along the way, helps us to become a more loving and gracious presence, a more non anxious presence, because we know where things are going. We know the end of the story, and so we can live in our current moment just in a different way. And so this vision right here of being a follower of Jesus and getting fully caught up in him, of being fully loved, fully accepted, not having to, like, earn that, not having to have everything figured out, not having to know the way forward to a better life, but getting to trust that Jesus is the better way forward. Because I've experienced life in him, and you get to experience life in him first. Thessalonians 511 says, to encourage each other and build each other up just as you already doing.
We get to encourage one another when we're feeling down. We encourage each other to live into the good things that we're starting to notice from each other's lives. We get to encourage each other to lay down lies, to live into God's truth. We get to remind each other all the time that God is present with us, even in the worst of things, even when some of our anxieties actually happen, right? Those, like, if this happens, oh, my gosh, my world's gonna fall apart.
Even when those things happen. When you're a follower of Jesus, you notice that your world doesn't fall apart because he holds you in his hand. And we get to trust that God is working behind the scenes, and we don't always notice he's working to heal the sick, to repair all that's broken, to bring about peace in the midst of chaos. And that's not just a future reality. That's a reality we get to tap into right now.
And followers of Jesus get to live as people of peace and here and now. That isn't some false sense of peace the scriptures communicate. When we bring what doesn't feel like peace in prayer to God and even confess to a trusted follower, Jesus, we get to then experience his peace. That transcends our ability to understand. So it's not a fake sense of peace, of trying to front it.
We get to just live into what that all looks like. And so we get to trust God in the midst of all these things. And reflecting on Paul in 5111, he says, when people are saying everything is peaceful and secure, again, that's a false sense of reality. Because ultimately that comes crumbling down. It makes way for a restored reality.
The way of Jesus actually brings about peace and security. And Paul is poking fun at Rome, who thinks that their way actually brings about peace and security. Like even the way of our world, our culture, what people are constantly advocating for, just doesn't bring about peace or security, which is why we're so anxious in the first place. But we get to live into this non coercive way of trusting Jesus. He's not going to force his way in that we get to trust that he's good because we get to experience that.
And why that's so different than a way of a world. Because our world says, if you don't believe in this way, that we actually like socially shame you actually leading to maybe even more violence. And if you have to use violence to propagate your way of living, it's not good news and it's not peace, and it's not security for any of us. And the way of Jesus is not that way. It's not violent, it doesn't shame, it doesn't degrade.
It offers a better vision of the way forward with the power to actually bring about peace and security. It promises, and it's a free gift, free reality for us to all live into. So I want to ask, what do you need to turn from and what do you need to turn to? And as a pine Hills church community, that's what we constantly want to be asking ourselves and even lovingly asking other people as we pray for our one, as we deepen the relationship, so we have these spiritual conversation of, like, how's things going in life? Is it leading the right direction?
Or maybe is it time to consider something different? Is it time to turn from something, to learn a new way to do life? Which is why Paul can say first, Thessalonians 516 18 always be joyful, never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ. We can be joyful because God gives us joy in the midst of things going wrong.
And we can always bring everything we're feeling to God, to never stop praying and bring our honest feelings to God. And we'll experience peace when we do that. We can be thankful in all circumstances because we know where things are going. Even when we don't get what we want in the here and now, we trust that God will bring about good and even if our lives, we lose our lives. And even as his body dies away, we go to be with God forever.
And that's a reality no one can take away. And hopefully that brings about peace. But Paul started with these three things, faithful work, loving deeds, enduring hope. So wherever you're at, whatever you're experiencing, you're probably experiencing some level of difficulty. I want to remind you, despite the difficulty, don't become lethargic or apathetic.
Continue to push into the faithful work that God has set before you. Continue to strive to do loving deeds, loving and serving other people as best you can, and all the strength that you can muster in his power, not in your own. And having enduring hope in Jesus that whatever happens, whatever comes, you're in his hands, that he's going to work all things out. So continue to trust him with whatever that might look like. And God is calling us to remember these things of Pinehost church, collectively encourage each other, stay faithful to the word, continue to love, continue to have enduring hope in Jesus.
And then Paul's final few prayers, I just want to pray over us. As he prayed this over this church plant, he says through these prayers, may God give you grace and peace. We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. As we pray to our God and father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people.
For when we brought you the good news, it was not only with words, but also with power, for the holy spirit gave you full assurance. May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow just as our love for you overflows. May he, as a result, make your heart strong, blameless and holy as you stand before God our father. When our Lord Jesus comes again with his holy people. Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way.
And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. And so I just want to ask you to continue to pray for the work that God has called us to through Pine Hills church, of being an outpost to the kingdom of God on the south part of. And so pray for us, because the world's going to push against that, Satan's going to push against that, and so be praying. This is hard and difficult work.
It's discouraging at times. But other times it's amazing and beautiful and wonderful. And the beautiful part of walking with Jesus is it's all kind of the same thing, right? It's all a little bit difficult and beautiful all at the same time. Those are two realities that we have to hold present inside of us and find a way to make peace by allowing God to bring about that peace in our lives.
So be praying for us if you want to support us as we need to continue to financially get into our second year, to have capacity, to be able to make space, that rent a space, to make that space for people to encounter God and to grow in community, to lovingly serve our community. Would you help partner with us? And so would you go to pinehillschurch.org? would you just pray about a gift that you can make to help continue to sponsor what God is doing? Doing, continue to invest in this calling that God has put into our community that would deeply bless us, also pray for us.
That's such a gift as well. And so we need both of those different things, but just appreciate you helping and being part of the conversation. Hopefully this adds value to your relationship with Jesus. Hopefully these conversations are helpful for you again. If our community has made an impact in your life, please email us pinehomeschurch.org connect with us through the email.
Let us know. Share a story with us that would be deeply beneficial and encouraging for us as we continue to do all that God has called us to do. We hope to see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
Summary
In this episode, we talk about heaven and hell and really focus on how Jesus wants us to be mindful of the practices that we allow into our lives as they will not only form us into who we are becoming but have the power to influence others toward the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of hell. For more information about our community visit us online.
Tim Mackie: Compelled: Speaking and Living the Gospel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwNfH_SOWKA&t=2445s
Preston Sprinkle-3 Christian Views of Hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-DfzRSLFP8
Tim Mackie: Compelled: Speaking and Living the Gospel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwNfH_SOWKA&t=2445s
Preston Sprinkle-3 Christian Views of Hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-DfzRSLFP8
Discussion Questions
- What have you believed about heaven and hell up to this point?
- Why is it important to understand the bigger story of how God is redeeming our world so that people don’t go to hell?
- What habits do you need to stop or start this week in order to better be an expression of heaven in your sphere of influence?
Transcript
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are tuning in with us as we continue our series in Mark, looking at who was Jesus, what was Jesus like and why that matters for our lives. And this week we have a pretty interesting conversation, but it's also a very difficult conversation. And so at the forefront I just want to and humility to let you know that what we're talking about today has all kinds of different views around it.
And so we've just kind of made a general kind of guideline for us as a community there. We want to make clear what the scriptures make clear and we want to gather around Jesus and we want to hold space in our community for people who have different views around secondary topics. And so this is one of those ones, as we'll get into in a little bit, I'll make clear kind of what is secondary and what should be primary. But just to let you know, there's just humility in this conversation as I'm continuing to learn and continuing to strive to communicate what it is that I believe the scriptures are teaching and the different views that are available to us as followers of Jesus. But also to be honest about some ambiguity that is in there.
And we need to bring that to Jesus because just because there's some ambiguity doesn't mean everything falls apart, but it should allow us to search the scriptures for ourself and determine what it is that we believe the scriptures is teaching, and to be guided by good interpretive practices and to read really well, and to make sure that we're doing our work, not just to simply pull out passages or to treat the Bible as if we're trying to use it to argue for our particular position, but just to humbly come before the scriptures and say, what is it teaching us about life and the way of Jesus and how we should live our lives today. And so with that, humility is a hard thing to learn. I know. For me, one of the things that I'm learning is I don't know everything sometimes that I think I know. And so nothing is proving that to be more true than to step in and to begin to do be a soccer coach for my daughter's team.
She's six, she's in first grade. And so there are twelve kids on this team who are looking to me to kind of coach them in soccer, maybe. I think mainly the parents are looking to me to coach soccer and to teach their kids stuff and to allow their kids to have fun and to do all the things that come with that. But I grew up playing soccer, and I've played soccer in high school. I got to play a little bit in the navy when we stopped at different ports and got to play teams that were local there.
And so I really love playing soccer. And I know quite a bit about the sport. Not as much as I wish I knew. I was never as good as I wanted to be. But I know a bit.
I know enough to probably help out for first grade, six year old soccer. But what is difficult is I get the concepts and I understand it from a broad perspective, but trying to communicate it in such a way that makes sense, even for a six year old is really difficult. And it's difficult to get them to sit, to hear and to help me to get across the things I'm trying to get across and all the different things that come with that. And so with that, it just requires humility on my part that sometimes maybe I think I know something, but I'm still learning myself how to communicate those things. And so this is what's happening in this week's talk, too, is that I'm trying to make things as simple as they can be for a pretty complex thing.
But at the same time, I'm also still learning how to communicate these truths because I can explain them on a pretty broad scale. But when we get to differing views about how this stuff works out, that's where I'm still learning a bit. And so hopefully there's a lot of grace for you and for me. Hopefully, as a community, we can continue to center ourselves around the way of Jesus and to make sure that that's what we're holding as a central piece to all, all of this. And so with that, let's get into Jesus's words that we're basing our community around in the first place.
So to catch you up on last week's conversation, last week really focused on Jesus correcting the desire for greatness that was present in the disciples, that mirrored the thinking of the world and the nature of the kingdom of God. And Jesus taught that the pathway to greatness is actually through service, motivated by love for everyone, especially those who have no ability to further your social status or to give you anything in return. Jesus drove home the point by calling over a child. And mark 936 through 37. It says, then he put a little child among them.
Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me. And anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my father who sent me. Remember, in their culture, children were tolerated. They were not welcomed. And to welcome someone was to offer this warm hospitality, like you'd be welcoming a guest into your home.
See, good hospitality helps strangers feel like family. And what would you do if you had a revered guest coming to your house? You probably make sure that everything was really cleaned up well, that you're serving really good food and all of the, the different things that come with that. And this is what the spirit of God is saying, that those people, that he prompts you to love, to care, to serve, to offer hospitality, to make them feel like family, that's what we need to be doing, going above and beyond for those people, even when we can't get anything out of that. And Jesus, in the context of the scripture we read last week, in a reading this week, again, Jesus is advocating for those who've been on the margins of society, the ones who are typically neglected, abused, or forgotten.
And as you continue to read, Jesus takes it a bit further. And so to our ears, as western thinkers, this might be really offensive in our culture. And we need to do the work of understanding what Jesus is saying here and then to do our best to apply that to what that means in our world today. So with that, let's get into mark, chapter nine, verse 42 through 48. It says, but if you cause one of these little ones who trust in me to follow fall into sin against sin, it's really, you know, big concept.
But to kind of boil it down, there's God's ways and the ways of the world. And so God ways are perfect. They're full of peace and life, and they're good. And sin is to do anything that's counter to God's ways to do things our own, to take authority onto ourselves, for us to define good and bad according to our own standards, all of that different stuff is what the bible will call sin. To miss the mark, to miss God's mark.
And so all of us have been guilty in that regard. We all have sin in our life, and it's important that we name sin so that we know what's sick, so we can actually get healing for that thing. But to get back to it, he says, but if you cause one of the little ones who trust in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fire of hell with two hands.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter eternal life with only 1ft, to meet the throne into hell with 2ft. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It's better to enter the kingdom of God with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out. And so this is a pretty hard scripture that we read.
And so we need to know that what's happening in the context and what Jesus is getting at, he's really advocating to make sure that as we live our lives, that we're not leading other people into sin, especially people who don't know God, who are vulnerable, who are on the margins of society, who need good news. We need to be careful as people who are striving for greatness, of loving and serving other people, that we live lives that point others to the kingdom of God and not away from the kingdom of God. And so Jesus cares about the vulnerable, especially those who have no power or no position to have any type of power. They're typically the ones that are exploited. Jesus cares for these people, and it's controversial the way he loves.
In fact, if you read through mark, he begins to have people plot how to kill him because of how he's extending the invitation to be part of the family of God to people on the outside the margins of society, those who are sick, those who are full of sin, those who we think are unlovable, those who have all kinds of terrible stuff in their lives. Jesus continues to offer grace and life to each of these people. And Jesus is drawing from cultural punishments in their day. To cut off your hand was a punishment for someone who stole from someone. Plucking out someone's eye was a consequence for voyeurism.
Cutting off the hand was what you would do to a runaway slide to keep them from running away. And the culture even took it a step further. In fact, the government in their day would actually nail people to a wooden cross until they grew so weak that eventually they would suffocate under the weight of their own body just to show you don't mess with the powers that be. And so I say all that to say that they lived in a cultural moment that wasn't. That wasn't, you know, afraid of some violence for us.
We look at this, we're like, oh, my gosh, what in the world are they advocating for? What is happening here. And so we need to understand in their culture, like, they wouldn't have flinched at this. In fact, Jesus is making a connection that to sin is to actually be guilty of something that would have these consequences. And so sin is to commit a crime.
It's to commit a crime against God. And so in order for us to continue to live that way, we're encouraging other people to commit crimes and to commit crimes against God. And so this is what Jesus is getting at. And so let's be really clear about what Jesus is and isn't saying. Jesus is not condoning any of these as punishments for, for today, for people who are followers of Jesus.
This is not what Jesus is saying. He is merely pointing out accepted means of punishing guilty people in their day. And Jesus is saying that these extreme things would be far better than what might happen if you lead a vulnerable person into sin. Which means we need to be careful about how we're living our lives. Sometimes, even in our culture, we think it doesn't matter.
You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect someone else. But the problem is, the more times that you sin, that you invite this death into your life, you make a way of practicing things that don't lead to the kingdom of God, but actually lead away from the kingdom of God, the more likely you're inflicting these wounds upon yourself and eventually begin to inflict those wounds upon other people as well. Stuff that started out as just means of, like, coping with pain or just trying to get by or just trying to get to the next day or whatever it might be. If you track that thing for 20 years, what does your life ultimately look like and who are you becoming? This is what Jesus is warning about.
Watch out for the things that you allow into your life, especially if you're going to follow after the ways of Jesus, and especially if you want to be great and love and serve other people, you've got to be mindful about your life. And Jesus is also not saying here that we should literally do these things. In fact, if we read the scriptures that way, that's a terrible way to actually read the Bible. We need to read the Bible literarily. There's parts in the Bible that, yeah, there's things that we need to take very literal at a face value.
And there's other times that the authors are using different devices to get across a point here. Jesus is using metaphor that they would have understood in their day to made all the connections that we have to work really hard for. And so it's our job to read the Bible well, not to skim it, to make assumptions, but to go deep and to try to understand what did this mean in their day? And what might this mean for our day? And what are some truths that we can apply to our life, all while being humble and all while allowing the spirit to lead us into all of this.
And so we can explain this as simply as we can to other people to help them in their walks with Jesus as well. And so Jesus isn't saying that we need to literally cut off our hand or cut off our feet, but Jesus is saying that you should be mindful over the practices that you fill your life with, because you will practice your way into living a great life where you will love and serve other people who are even the most vulnerable, or you will practice your way into what he calls hell. And so you might be thinking, well, what is hell? That's a big concept. And a lot of us have views on what heaven and hell is.
And a lot of people assume that the Bible is communicating a particular thing about each of these two realities. And what we need to learn is that the primary task of the Bible is not to communicate about heaven and hell. It's actually to tell a unified story about what's gone wrong in our world and how God is working to redeem all things, including you and me. And so hell is a concept that's actually not featured a lot in the Bible. In fact, even in the New Testament, hell is only used twelve times, twelve different places that it uses to talk about it each time.
In the New Testament, they're using this word gehenna, which is actually in the Hinnom valley. It's actually a physical place where trash and carcasses and things like that, everything you could think of that you would not want in your home would be thrown and it would be burned. And so I want you to get that image in your mind, something that's disgusting, that smells terrible, that is burning all day and all night, where people would go and rob the trash, and that evil and terrible practices would happen out at these places. This is Geanna. This is a very particular image that would come to mind for the people who heard Jesus's words.
And they would think about this terrible place that no one would ever want to have to go out to or show up to. They would not want to make their home in, surely. And so Jesus is saying he's using this word gehenna to refer to the spiritual reality. Because while it's this physical place, it's also this metaphor Jesus is making use of to communicate what happens spiritually when we allow sin into our life, when we choose death, when we allow hell to fill our hearts, to fill our lives, and when we allow hell to be the thing that we start to pass on to the rest of the world. See, there's a guy named Tim Mackey who is just a phenomenal teacher.
If you go to the show notes, you'll see a couple links to a couple different talks that I use to help prepare for this message that I'm talking about right now. And so Tim Mackey is one of them. And I'm about to go through some graphics. So if you're on the podcast, that'd be great if you go check out the YouTube video just to see some of these graphics that I'm referencing. But I'm building a lot of it upon Tim Mackey's work.
And Tim Mackey really communicates that a lot of this stuff that's happening is, like, in different dimensions, that heaven's not this space that we kind of get to eventually, and hell is this space we get to eventually. They all kind of overlap a bit, and they're in different dimensions of what's happening. And so hell is this place that's happening here on earth and eventually will be another place as we get into it. But Tim Mackey, he refers to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis, chapter one. If you open the beginning book of your Bible, that tells you about how God is redeeming all things, including redeeming our world, it says that God created heavens, and the earth created heaven, and he created the earth.
And so the heaven is a space where God's will is done all of the time. Right? This is where shalom is peace, and earth is this place where God's will is not done all the time. But when God created everything, he created it good. And there were no.
There was no death, there was no disease, there was no sin, any of that there. And so he lived in harmony with God. And we got to walk with God in the cool of the day. And this is a beautiful picture of what peace is. And what God is working towards is we live in a world that doesn't feel like that.
Why don't we live in a world that feels like that? Well, if you keep reading until Genesis three, you see that there's this. This temptation to reject the authority of God and to define good and evil for ourselves and to take that upon ourselves to be our own gods. And so when that happens, we invite sin. We're rejecting the authority of God, which means we're rejecting life, and we're accepting death.
And when that happens, that fills our hearts and our lives with sin or with death, or, to say it another way, with hell. And so, as humanity continued to reject God more and more and more. If you look at the graphic that's coming up, I want you to picture two different spheres where there's heaven and earth, and we're the space where heaven and earth kind of come together, right? But there's this sin that's red sin that's breaking out. And so it happens in Genesis three, we have the first initial step into that.
But you see, if you begin to continue to read that narrative, that more and more sin and death happens, more atrocious ways of doing life that bring hell into other people's lives. And so you see these pockets of sin and death and hell breaking out here on earth, and yet God's not satisfied with leaving us in a state of hell. He doesn't want to leave us in a state of brokenness. And so Jesus comes along into the picture, right? And so at the very center where these two circles are overlapping, there's now this cross where Jesus has come to live a life we could not live, to point us to how to live connected with God, to be empowered by him, to be regenerated by him, to be forgiven all the different sin that's in our life, to be forgiven of the hell that we've allowed into our lives or we've inflicted upon other people.
We can find a completely new start from many of that, we could be redeemed. And so because of that, our hearts now get filled up by the presence and power of Jesus. And now there's this pocket of heaven that is beginning to break out. Or we get to be expressions of the kingdom of God. We get to be empowered by Jesus to carry on the works that he did when he was here on earth, to show people what the kingdom of God is like, to love and serve other people who we'd otherwise might not normally want to do that, to love and serve people who will give us no social collateral.
Like, that's the pocket of heaven. That's what you get to bring to your job each and every day. That's what you get to bring to your family, your city, your neighborhood, when you're just going about getting a soda at the gas station, whatever it might be. You're a pocket of heaven in a world filled with pockets of hell. And to put that in the context of Mark, Mark has been teaching that Jesus has come to push back the curtain of darkness, to bring the kingdom of God, to ushere it in, to say it another way, Jesus has come to push back the kingdom of hell and to bring more and more pockets of heaven, of Shalom, peace here on earth.
And we get to be part of that. Isn't that the good news? Like, we don't have to remain in a state of death or hell. We get to be redeemed because of Jesus. We get to be filled up by his spirit, and then we also get to be empowered to carry on the mission of God.
That's a powerful thing. And so pockets of heaven are now breaking in to earth, and it's going to war. And so if you don't believe me about the dimension thing, I want you to think about when the scripture says that there's a spiritual war that's happening, and we often don't see it between principalities and power. There's not a flesh with other people, like, we're not in a fight with other people who are in the flesh. But in this, the spiritual realm, there's all these different war that's happening in this different dimension.
And so that's the same thing. The things that we're experiencing here, there's this war going on between Satan and hell and God and heaven. And so there's this cosmic thing that's happening even in your own soul, where you're fighting to believe the right things and to go after the right things. And so if you continue to read the big story of God and you begin to understand it, the end goal for goddess is to completely heal the world through Jesus of all the different sin and death, to heal us of hell and to reunite heaven and earth together until they're one again, Genesis one. So if you see the graphic, you see that these two circles have now been joined together.
They're filled with gold because it's the redemption of God. But with that, sin has to go somewhere. And so to put it in the words of Tim Mackey, who I'm really relying on, Tim Mackey says God wants to get the hell out of you. In fact, Jesus was so committed to getting the hell out of the world and out of you that he lived for you, he died for you, and he was raised for you. See, Jesus came to heal the world, to rid the world of hell, but he will not force this healing on you.
For those who reject healing, God will honor your choice, but he will not allow hell to eternally ravage our world. And so the last graphic is hell has to have a place to go. And so it can't stay here on earth, as God is working to redeem in all things, right? So we pray, when we pray the Lord's prayer, that we want God's kingdom to come here on earth as it is in heaven. We want this uniting of heaven and earth to come, and we want evil to be done away with and to be gotten rid of.
And so that is the choice for each and every one of us to pattern our lives in such a way that it leads towards the kingdom of God or towards the kingdom of hell. And there is no middle ground in that. And we get the choice because God isn't going to force himself on each and every one of us. He's just not. We have a choice.
We have a choice to make. And so, as God is working to heal the world, eventually he will bring complete healing to the world, which means he's got to get rid of the virus, the hell that is here on earth, and that goes a particular place. And so, remember, there's not a lot of references to hell in the Bible. And so there's a lot of different debate about what that might or might not look like. But what is crystal clear is that the main story of the Bible is that God is working to keep everyone out of hell.
He doesn't want anyone to perish. He wants everyone to have life. He wants everyone to experience life in him. And a lot of times, the pushback is, well, if God is so loving and great, how could God send people to hell? In my way of reading the scriptures, I don't think God sends anyone to hell.
I think we have the free gift of salvation that's available to each and every one of us to make that choice. And it's us that makes that choice to either accept the offer to find the cure for the thing inside of us that is killing, killing us, or to reject that cure and to remain in a state that will eventually kill us, that will send us to hell, whatever that might or might not look like. And so the choice is us. It's like we go to the hospital and we've got sickness that's happening inside of us. And the doctor has this amazing news.
I have the cure for you. You're going to be okay. And then you end up saying, you know what? Like, I'm really happy in my sickness. Like, I think I'm going to just get discharged and I'll be okay if that happens, and that person dies, is it the fault of that physician, or is it the fault of the person that rejected the treatment?
So that's the same thing that's happening here on earth, is God's not condemning anyone to go to hell. God is extending the offer to be part of the family and to find redemption and hope and healing in the family of God by accepting Jesus, who is the only way to God, to life. He's the only way. Why? Because he's the only one who came and gave his life on a cross for us.
And to say anything less is really insulting. And so we need to be very careful with that, because Jesus is the only one who came and gave his life for us. He's the only one who came back to life. And so I say it all the time in our community that if Jesus came and he died, he's just another inspirational figure. But the fact that he came back to life means he's something different.
He also has the power to rid our lives of all this sin and death and disease and hell that's inside of us. And we don't have to continue that current trend of, like, continuing to be proponents and perpetuate hell. We don't have to do that.
And so we've just kind of made a general kind of guideline for us as a community there. We want to make clear what the scriptures make clear and we want to gather around Jesus and we want to hold space in our community for people who have different views around secondary topics. And so this is one of those ones, as we'll get into in a little bit, I'll make clear kind of what is secondary and what should be primary. But just to let you know, there's just humility in this conversation as I'm continuing to learn and continuing to strive to communicate what it is that I believe the scriptures are teaching and the different views that are available to us as followers of Jesus. But also to be honest about some ambiguity that is in there.
And we need to bring that to Jesus because just because there's some ambiguity doesn't mean everything falls apart, but it should allow us to search the scriptures for ourself and determine what it is that we believe the scriptures is teaching, and to be guided by good interpretive practices and to read really well, and to make sure that we're doing our work, not just to simply pull out passages or to treat the Bible as if we're trying to use it to argue for our particular position, but just to humbly come before the scriptures and say, what is it teaching us about life and the way of Jesus and how we should live our lives today. And so with that, humility is a hard thing to learn. I know. For me, one of the things that I'm learning is I don't know everything sometimes that I think I know. And so nothing is proving that to be more true than to step in and to begin to do be a soccer coach for my daughter's team.
She's six, she's in first grade. And so there are twelve kids on this team who are looking to me to kind of coach them in soccer, maybe. I think mainly the parents are looking to me to coach soccer and to teach their kids stuff and to allow their kids to have fun and to do all the things that come with that. But I grew up playing soccer, and I've played soccer in high school. I got to play a little bit in the navy when we stopped at different ports and got to play teams that were local there.
And so I really love playing soccer. And I know quite a bit about the sport. Not as much as I wish I knew. I was never as good as I wanted to be. But I know a bit.
I know enough to probably help out for first grade, six year old soccer. But what is difficult is I get the concepts and I understand it from a broad perspective, but trying to communicate it in such a way that makes sense, even for a six year old is really difficult. And it's difficult to get them to sit, to hear and to help me to get across the things I'm trying to get across and all the different things that come with that. And so with that, it just requires humility on my part that sometimes maybe I think I know something, but I'm still learning myself how to communicate those things. And so this is what's happening in this week's talk, too, is that I'm trying to make things as simple as they can be for a pretty complex thing.
But at the same time, I'm also still learning how to communicate these truths because I can explain them on a pretty broad scale. But when we get to differing views about how this stuff works out, that's where I'm still learning a bit. And so hopefully there's a lot of grace for you and for me. Hopefully, as a community, we can continue to center ourselves around the way of Jesus and to make sure that that's what we're holding as a central piece to all, all of this. And so with that, let's get into Jesus's words that we're basing our community around in the first place.
So to catch you up on last week's conversation, last week really focused on Jesus correcting the desire for greatness that was present in the disciples, that mirrored the thinking of the world and the nature of the kingdom of God. And Jesus taught that the pathway to greatness is actually through service, motivated by love for everyone, especially those who have no ability to further your social status or to give you anything in return. Jesus drove home the point by calling over a child. And mark 936 through 37. It says, then he put a little child among them.
Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me. And anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my father who sent me. Remember, in their culture, children were tolerated. They were not welcomed. And to welcome someone was to offer this warm hospitality, like you'd be welcoming a guest into your home.
See, good hospitality helps strangers feel like family. And what would you do if you had a revered guest coming to your house? You probably make sure that everything was really cleaned up well, that you're serving really good food and all of the, the different things that come with that. And this is what the spirit of God is saying, that those people, that he prompts you to love, to care, to serve, to offer hospitality, to make them feel like family, that's what we need to be doing, going above and beyond for those people, even when we can't get anything out of that. And Jesus, in the context of the scripture we read last week, in a reading this week, again, Jesus is advocating for those who've been on the margins of society, the ones who are typically neglected, abused, or forgotten.
And as you continue to read, Jesus takes it a bit further. And so to our ears, as western thinkers, this might be really offensive in our culture. And we need to do the work of understanding what Jesus is saying here and then to do our best to apply that to what that means in our world today. So with that, let's get into mark, chapter nine, verse 42 through 48. It says, but if you cause one of these little ones who trust in me to follow fall into sin against sin, it's really, you know, big concept.
But to kind of boil it down, there's God's ways and the ways of the world. And so God ways are perfect. They're full of peace and life, and they're good. And sin is to do anything that's counter to God's ways to do things our own, to take authority onto ourselves, for us to define good and bad according to our own standards, all of that different stuff is what the bible will call sin. To miss the mark, to miss God's mark.
And so all of us have been guilty in that regard. We all have sin in our life, and it's important that we name sin so that we know what's sick, so we can actually get healing for that thing. But to get back to it, he says, but if you cause one of the little ones who trust in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fire of hell with two hands.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter eternal life with only 1ft, to meet the throne into hell with 2ft. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It's better to enter the kingdom of God with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out. And so this is a pretty hard scripture that we read.
And so we need to know that what's happening in the context and what Jesus is getting at, he's really advocating to make sure that as we live our lives, that we're not leading other people into sin, especially people who don't know God, who are vulnerable, who are on the margins of society, who need good news. We need to be careful as people who are striving for greatness, of loving and serving other people, that we live lives that point others to the kingdom of God and not away from the kingdom of God. And so Jesus cares about the vulnerable, especially those who have no power or no position to have any type of power. They're typically the ones that are exploited. Jesus cares for these people, and it's controversial the way he loves.
In fact, if you read through mark, he begins to have people plot how to kill him because of how he's extending the invitation to be part of the family of God to people on the outside the margins of society, those who are sick, those who are full of sin, those who we think are unlovable, those who have all kinds of terrible stuff in their lives. Jesus continues to offer grace and life to each of these people. And Jesus is drawing from cultural punishments in their day. To cut off your hand was a punishment for someone who stole from someone. Plucking out someone's eye was a consequence for voyeurism.
Cutting off the hand was what you would do to a runaway slide to keep them from running away. And the culture even took it a step further. In fact, the government in their day would actually nail people to a wooden cross until they grew so weak that eventually they would suffocate under the weight of their own body just to show you don't mess with the powers that be. And so I say all that to say that they lived in a cultural moment that wasn't. That wasn't, you know, afraid of some violence for us.
We look at this, we're like, oh, my gosh, what in the world are they advocating for? What is happening here. And so we need to understand in their culture, like, they wouldn't have flinched at this. In fact, Jesus is making a connection that to sin is to actually be guilty of something that would have these consequences. And so sin is to commit a crime.
It's to commit a crime against God. And so in order for us to continue to live that way, we're encouraging other people to commit crimes and to commit crimes against God. And so this is what Jesus is getting at. And so let's be really clear about what Jesus is and isn't saying. Jesus is not condoning any of these as punishments for, for today, for people who are followers of Jesus.
This is not what Jesus is saying. He is merely pointing out accepted means of punishing guilty people in their day. And Jesus is saying that these extreme things would be far better than what might happen if you lead a vulnerable person into sin. Which means we need to be careful about how we're living our lives. Sometimes, even in our culture, we think it doesn't matter.
You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect someone else. But the problem is, the more times that you sin, that you invite this death into your life, you make a way of practicing things that don't lead to the kingdom of God, but actually lead away from the kingdom of God, the more likely you're inflicting these wounds upon yourself and eventually begin to inflict those wounds upon other people as well. Stuff that started out as just means of, like, coping with pain or just trying to get by or just trying to get to the next day or whatever it might be. If you track that thing for 20 years, what does your life ultimately look like and who are you becoming? This is what Jesus is warning about.
Watch out for the things that you allow into your life, especially if you're going to follow after the ways of Jesus, and especially if you want to be great and love and serve other people, you've got to be mindful about your life. And Jesus is also not saying here that we should literally do these things. In fact, if we read the scriptures that way, that's a terrible way to actually read the Bible. We need to read the Bible literarily. There's parts in the Bible that, yeah, there's things that we need to take very literal at a face value.
And there's other times that the authors are using different devices to get across a point here. Jesus is using metaphor that they would have understood in their day to made all the connections that we have to work really hard for. And so it's our job to read the Bible well, not to skim it, to make assumptions, but to go deep and to try to understand what did this mean in their day? And what might this mean for our day? And what are some truths that we can apply to our life, all while being humble and all while allowing the spirit to lead us into all of this.
And so we can explain this as simply as we can to other people to help them in their walks with Jesus as well. And so Jesus isn't saying that we need to literally cut off our hand or cut off our feet, but Jesus is saying that you should be mindful over the practices that you fill your life with, because you will practice your way into living a great life where you will love and serve other people who are even the most vulnerable, or you will practice your way into what he calls hell. And so you might be thinking, well, what is hell? That's a big concept. And a lot of us have views on what heaven and hell is.
And a lot of people assume that the Bible is communicating a particular thing about each of these two realities. And what we need to learn is that the primary task of the Bible is not to communicate about heaven and hell. It's actually to tell a unified story about what's gone wrong in our world and how God is working to redeem all things, including you and me. And so hell is a concept that's actually not featured a lot in the Bible. In fact, even in the New Testament, hell is only used twelve times, twelve different places that it uses to talk about it each time.
In the New Testament, they're using this word gehenna, which is actually in the Hinnom valley. It's actually a physical place where trash and carcasses and things like that, everything you could think of that you would not want in your home would be thrown and it would be burned. And so I want you to get that image in your mind, something that's disgusting, that smells terrible, that is burning all day and all night, where people would go and rob the trash, and that evil and terrible practices would happen out at these places. This is Geanna. This is a very particular image that would come to mind for the people who heard Jesus's words.
And they would think about this terrible place that no one would ever want to have to go out to or show up to. They would not want to make their home in, surely. And so Jesus is saying he's using this word gehenna to refer to the spiritual reality. Because while it's this physical place, it's also this metaphor Jesus is making use of to communicate what happens spiritually when we allow sin into our life, when we choose death, when we allow hell to fill our hearts, to fill our lives, and when we allow hell to be the thing that we start to pass on to the rest of the world. See, there's a guy named Tim Mackey who is just a phenomenal teacher.
If you go to the show notes, you'll see a couple links to a couple different talks that I use to help prepare for this message that I'm talking about right now. And so Tim Mackey is one of them. And I'm about to go through some graphics. So if you're on the podcast, that'd be great if you go check out the YouTube video just to see some of these graphics that I'm referencing. But I'm building a lot of it upon Tim Mackey's work.
And Tim Mackey really communicates that a lot of this stuff that's happening is, like, in different dimensions, that heaven's not this space that we kind of get to eventually, and hell is this space we get to eventually. They all kind of overlap a bit, and they're in different dimensions of what's happening. And so hell is this place that's happening here on earth and eventually will be another place as we get into it. But Tim Mackey, he refers to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis, chapter one. If you open the beginning book of your Bible, that tells you about how God is redeeming all things, including redeeming our world, it says that God created heavens, and the earth created heaven, and he created the earth.
And so the heaven is a space where God's will is done all of the time. Right? This is where shalom is peace, and earth is this place where God's will is not done all the time. But when God created everything, he created it good. And there were no.
There was no death, there was no disease, there was no sin, any of that there. And so he lived in harmony with God. And we got to walk with God in the cool of the day. And this is a beautiful picture of what peace is. And what God is working towards is we live in a world that doesn't feel like that.
Why don't we live in a world that feels like that? Well, if you keep reading until Genesis three, you see that there's this. This temptation to reject the authority of God and to define good and evil for ourselves and to take that upon ourselves to be our own gods. And so when that happens, we invite sin. We're rejecting the authority of God, which means we're rejecting life, and we're accepting death.
And when that happens, that fills our hearts and our lives with sin or with death, or, to say it another way, with hell. And so, as humanity continued to reject God more and more and more. If you look at the graphic that's coming up, I want you to picture two different spheres where there's heaven and earth, and we're the space where heaven and earth kind of come together, right? But there's this sin that's red sin that's breaking out. And so it happens in Genesis three, we have the first initial step into that.
But you see, if you begin to continue to read that narrative, that more and more sin and death happens, more atrocious ways of doing life that bring hell into other people's lives. And so you see these pockets of sin and death and hell breaking out here on earth, and yet God's not satisfied with leaving us in a state of hell. He doesn't want to leave us in a state of brokenness. And so Jesus comes along into the picture, right? And so at the very center where these two circles are overlapping, there's now this cross where Jesus has come to live a life we could not live, to point us to how to live connected with God, to be empowered by him, to be regenerated by him, to be forgiven all the different sin that's in our life, to be forgiven of the hell that we've allowed into our lives or we've inflicted upon other people.
We can find a completely new start from many of that, we could be redeemed. And so because of that, our hearts now get filled up by the presence and power of Jesus. And now there's this pocket of heaven that is beginning to break out. Or we get to be expressions of the kingdom of God. We get to be empowered by Jesus to carry on the works that he did when he was here on earth, to show people what the kingdom of God is like, to love and serve other people who we'd otherwise might not normally want to do that, to love and serve people who will give us no social collateral.
Like, that's the pocket of heaven. That's what you get to bring to your job each and every day. That's what you get to bring to your family, your city, your neighborhood, when you're just going about getting a soda at the gas station, whatever it might be. You're a pocket of heaven in a world filled with pockets of hell. And to put that in the context of Mark, Mark has been teaching that Jesus has come to push back the curtain of darkness, to bring the kingdom of God, to ushere it in, to say it another way, Jesus has come to push back the kingdom of hell and to bring more and more pockets of heaven, of Shalom, peace here on earth.
And we get to be part of that. Isn't that the good news? Like, we don't have to remain in a state of death or hell. We get to be redeemed because of Jesus. We get to be filled up by his spirit, and then we also get to be empowered to carry on the mission of God.
That's a powerful thing. And so pockets of heaven are now breaking in to earth, and it's going to war. And so if you don't believe me about the dimension thing, I want you to think about when the scripture says that there's a spiritual war that's happening, and we often don't see it between principalities and power. There's not a flesh with other people, like, we're not in a fight with other people who are in the flesh. But in this, the spiritual realm, there's all these different war that's happening in this different dimension.
And so that's the same thing. The things that we're experiencing here, there's this war going on between Satan and hell and God and heaven. And so there's this cosmic thing that's happening even in your own soul, where you're fighting to believe the right things and to go after the right things. And so if you continue to read the big story of God and you begin to understand it, the end goal for goddess is to completely heal the world through Jesus of all the different sin and death, to heal us of hell and to reunite heaven and earth together until they're one again, Genesis one. So if you see the graphic, you see that these two circles have now been joined together.
They're filled with gold because it's the redemption of God. But with that, sin has to go somewhere. And so to put it in the words of Tim Mackey, who I'm really relying on, Tim Mackey says God wants to get the hell out of you. In fact, Jesus was so committed to getting the hell out of the world and out of you that he lived for you, he died for you, and he was raised for you. See, Jesus came to heal the world, to rid the world of hell, but he will not force this healing on you.
For those who reject healing, God will honor your choice, but he will not allow hell to eternally ravage our world. And so the last graphic is hell has to have a place to go. And so it can't stay here on earth, as God is working to redeem in all things, right? So we pray, when we pray the Lord's prayer, that we want God's kingdom to come here on earth as it is in heaven. We want this uniting of heaven and earth to come, and we want evil to be done away with and to be gotten rid of.
And so that is the choice for each and every one of us to pattern our lives in such a way that it leads towards the kingdom of God or towards the kingdom of hell. And there is no middle ground in that. And we get the choice because God isn't going to force himself on each and every one of us. He's just not. We have a choice.
We have a choice to make. And so, as God is working to heal the world, eventually he will bring complete healing to the world, which means he's got to get rid of the virus, the hell that is here on earth, and that goes a particular place. And so, remember, there's not a lot of references to hell in the Bible. And so there's a lot of different debate about what that might or might not look like. But what is crystal clear is that the main story of the Bible is that God is working to keep everyone out of hell.
He doesn't want anyone to perish. He wants everyone to have life. He wants everyone to experience life in him. And a lot of times, the pushback is, well, if God is so loving and great, how could God send people to hell? In my way of reading the scriptures, I don't think God sends anyone to hell.
I think we have the free gift of salvation that's available to each and every one of us to make that choice. And it's us that makes that choice to either accept the offer to find the cure for the thing inside of us that is killing, killing us, or to reject that cure and to remain in a state that will eventually kill us, that will send us to hell, whatever that might or might not look like. And so the choice is us. It's like we go to the hospital and we've got sickness that's happening inside of us. And the doctor has this amazing news.
I have the cure for you. You're going to be okay. And then you end up saying, you know what? Like, I'm really happy in my sickness. Like, I think I'm going to just get discharged and I'll be okay if that happens, and that person dies, is it the fault of that physician, or is it the fault of the person that rejected the treatment?
So that's the same thing that's happening here on earth, is God's not condemning anyone to go to hell. God is extending the offer to be part of the family and to find redemption and hope and healing in the family of God by accepting Jesus, who is the only way to God, to life. He's the only way. Why? Because he's the only one who came and gave his life on a cross for us.
And to say anything less is really insulting. And so we need to be very careful with that, because Jesus is the only one who came and gave his life for us. He's the only one who came back to life. And so I say it all the time in our community that if Jesus came and he died, he's just another inspirational figure. But the fact that he came back to life means he's something different.
He also has the power to rid our lives of all this sin and death and disease and hell that's inside of us. And we don't have to continue that current trend of, like, continuing to be proponents and perpetuate hell. We don't have to do that.
Summary
In his sermon, Pastor Aaron Contreras began by emphasizing the value of being present and connecting with God and oneself prior to diving into the heart of his message - a new series titled "This I Believe". Drawing from the book of Mark, Aaron explored Jesus' teachings and actions, using the stories of how Jesus fed crowds of 5,000 and 4,000 as central examples. Despite the disciples having seen such miracles before, they doubted how such a feat could be achieved again, displaying a tendency to let doubt overshadow past instances of God's faithfulness.Aaron used the stories to highlight the significance of the leftover baskets - the twelve from the first feeding, representing Jesus' care for his disciples, and the seven from the second feeding, symbolizing the extension of his grace to all people, particularly the outsiders and individuals feeling distance from God. The inclusive nature of the act reiterates the openness of God's family.Upon encountering religious leaders demanding miraculous proof for Jesus' authority, Pastor Aaron discussed the misplaced focus of these leaders, who favored outward signs over genuine relationships with Jesus. He stressed the importance of prioritizing God's kingdom and righteous living, a value which he believed these leaders lacked.Warning the congregation about the potentially negative influence of the Pharisees and Herod, Aaron advised them to guard their hearts and be conscientious of the small things that could inadvertently shape their lives. Recommending a thorough evaluation of practices and habits, Aaron urged the congregation to ensure these align with the values of God's kingdom. Wrapping up his sermon, Pastor Aaron prompted his listeners to identify their resemblances with the story's characters and evaluate whether they need any course corrections. As he asserted, it's never too late to repent, receive God's grace and make intentional choices that reflect the values of God's kingdom. The sermon concluded with an invitation to reach out for further dialogue and guidance.
Discussion Questions
- Can you identify any negative influences in your life that are impacting your spiritual growth? How can you address them?
- What areas of your life do you struggle with doubt, and how can you remind yourself of God's faithfulness in those situations?
- What habits or practices in your life might need reevaluation, and what changes can you make to better align with God's values?
- What habits and practices do you need to commit to doing more of?
Transcript
Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are gathering with us today, whether on YouTube or on your podcast feed. Hopefully the summer has been going pretty well for you. I know it's a mixed bag for a lot of different people, but hopefully, even in the midst of things maybe being stressful, things you're anxious about, hopefully you can sneak out and just kind of enjoy the moment.
Just be grounded for a bit. Kind of push that stuff out that can be causing anxiety and stress and just, just kind of connect with God and connect with yourself. Maybe get out on the lake and kayak, maybe go on a small hike, whatever that might be. Just get a couple more of those things in before the summer's over, before things start to get a bit cooler as we move from summer into fall and then winter. And so I know for us, with our different seasons, it's just really important to make sure that we're soaking up the beauty of what that season is.
But as you gather with us today, we're continuing our series called this. I believe we've been going through Mark together, where Mark has been teaching us who Jesus is, what Jesus was like, and why that matters for our lives today. And today we're going to have more moments of tension, and that is exciting. And so I just kind of wondered, have you ever had a friend who just kind of hangs around? As long as you're willing to foot the bill for dinner, as long as you're willing to let them use your kayaks, as long as you are willing to buy the tickets to the baseball game or to get drinks.
But the moment that things are no longer good, the moment things get difficult, those people are kind of missing in action. Have you ever had that experience or you ever had a break in a relationship because of that? Now, this happens because people tend to value things over relationships. And I wonder, how do you feel about those type of people when that happens? See, today we're going to see an interaction between people clearly showing that they cared more about the things that Jesus could do than by Jesus himself.
And we all know how we feel about those kind of people. So let's see how this thing plays out. Starting in Mark, chapter eleven, we come across another amazing feeding story. Now, the first one happened in Mark 630 through 43, where Jesus takes a really small bento box and he breaks and blesses it, and he uses it to just feed so many different people. It started with five loaves, two fish.
What was left over was twelve small baskets of food. And then in mark eight, one through ten, we see kind of a really similar thing, except Jesus is feeding 4000 people. He's got seven loaves and a few small fish, and then there's seven large baskets that are left over. Now, what's similar from these different stories? See, in both stories, the disciples, they don't know how in the world they're going to feed all these people the moment that they figure out that Jesus actually wants them to do something about their hunger.
And even in the second story, we would assume that the disciples would have been leaning on past experience, that Jesus has been here before. We have seen everything that Jesus like. We don't need to doubt any of that. We get to just trust and see jesus do amazing things again. But that's not how things play out.
And maybe that's because maybe we doubt that Jesus will do something again, even if he's done it in the past. But again in the story, we see Jesus does it again, and it reminds us that he can do it again. So wherever you might be, maybe you're doubting in your present circumstances Jesus movement in your life. And as you remember back, you've clearly seen how he has worked, but that's not led to you being inspired to how he might live, how you might work in your life going into the future. And so I just wanna remind you, don't let dictate, don't let feelings dictate that for you.
Like, remind yourself of truth. There's sometimes where our brain needs to tell our heart what truth is. There's sometimes where we gotta remind our feelings. Hey, I know I'm anxious in this moment, and I'm going to do everything I can to give this to God. But I'm also going to remember the past faithfulness and trust that he's going to be faithful going into the future.
And so Jesus does this again, as he's been faithful in this past miracle. Again. He takes this small bento sized box lunch and he breaks it again and he blesses it again. He uses it to feed so many, we can't even count. These numbers are a bit arbitrary, right?
5004 thousand, really just counting men. And I know those are really clean numbers, and so there's way more than that because they're not counting women and children. So basically, getting at Jesus is feeding more than you could imagine. He's feeding a multitude. Now, what's different in these stories?
See a small difference in the size of that bento box, but it's basically a really similar miracle in the first feeding there's twelve personal sized baskets left over, presumably signaling that there was enough left over for the twelve disciples. As Jesus worked through them to bless all of these different people, Jesus still cared for their needs, that they had leftovers for the next day to continue to receive the goodness and the blessing of all the work that they had done. And then the second feeding, there's seven large baskets that are left over. And these baskets were large enough that you could actually put a human being inside. Which again, there's all these different things that are playing out in that.
One of the things is that in jewish culture, the number seven had meaning representing the gentile people. See, in the Old Testament, there were seven tribes of gentiles that stood between God's people and God's promise that would be fulfilled to his people. So that number is kind of seen when referred to the Gentiles as people who are getting in the way of God's work. But the number seven and positive connotations refer to completeness. And those are fun facts, but it kind of ties in to another key difference.
See, the first feeding primarily occurred amongst jewish people, and the second one is primarily amongst the gentile people. With all of this bigger kind of things left over. These amazing large baskets, seven different baskets that are left over. Large enough that you can fit a human in it. See, if we put it in context of what Jesus had already been doing in this gentile areas, he further seems to be showing that he is completely extending grace of the kingdom of God to gentiles and to all people.
That they don't stand between God's people and God's promise anymore. Because the promise of salvation is being fulfilled in Jesus. And it's Jesus that is extending it to all people. The invitation to be part of the family of God, to receive all the benefits of being part of the family of God. And this is good news not only for them, but also for us.
For anyone who feels like an outsider, for anyone who feels like they're too far gone beyond the grace of God, that you're nothing, that the grace of God is scandalous. And it goes out to all people. And this is such big and exciting things that are beginning to unfold. And after this, Jesus and his crew again get back into a boat and they head back into a distinctly jewish area. And as they land back in this more jewish territory, they are approached by religious leaders, which at this point, you know that there's been this growing tension and controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders, or even planning on how to kill Jesus and to be done with him.
Now, have you ever had anyone in your life that every time you kind of saw them across town, or they showed up on your social media stream, or they randomly text you or call you, all of a sudden there's just that building anxiety in you because, you know, tension is coming. Mark 811 through twelve. When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him, testing him. They demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. And when he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign?
I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign. Now, again, the religious leaders are being argumentative, not wanting to believe in Jesus or actually just wanting to test him, demanding a sign from heaven to prove his authority. Now they hear about all that he is doing. The blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing. Dead are coming back to life.
Bento boxes are feeding the masses. They're hearing about all of that. It's going out all across the region. But again, that's not enough. And they say, prove yourself.
Prove yourself. The response? Jesus just deeply sighs. I can only imagine the frustration, the sadness, and maybe even a little bit of anger that's rising up in him. Remember that he had just come from an area where people were thought of as being too far gone, being beyond the grace of God, and yet they were believing in him, and they were content with whatever he might actually bless them with.
But being back among the jewish people, the people who were waiting for the coming of the messiah were waiting for him to arrive. They held back belief until jesus somehow proved himself according to whatever standard they had in their own mental maps. And Mark continues to affirm through his gospel story that miracle signs and wonders. Often they don't prompt us to believe jesus is who he says he is. It usually just creates a thirst for more things, and people end up wanting more of the things that jesus can do than of Jesus himself, which is really sad.
And I could see why Jesus is frustrated. I could see why he'd be angry. I would be angry and frustrated as well. Mark 813 21, as we pick the story back up, says, so he got back into the boat, frustrated with him, gets back into the boat. He leaves them.
He crosses to the other side of the lake. But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. And as they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, watch out. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.
At this, they began to argue with each other because they hadn't brought any bread and jesus knew that they were saying. So he said, why are you arguing about having no bread? Don't you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in your eyes? Can't you see you have ears?
Can't you hear? Don't you remember anything at all? When I fed the 5000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets were left over? Twelve, they said. And when I fed the 4000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?
Seven, they said, don't you understand yet? He asked them, are your hearts too hard to understand?
Jesus thoughts in this moment as he has been doing this ministry, kind of gone from gentile area to jewish area and then kind of got back in the boat because the jewish people weren't recognizing he is who he says he is. His thoughts in this moment are probably contemplative. They're on the larger picture. Jesus is attempting to proclaim the kingdom of God. This is what he's primarily come for.
He's come to teach people that the kingdom of God had come near in him. Or as Eugene Peterson says, that Jesus moved into the neighborhood and made his home among us. And his primary mission was to actually to proclaim this gospel, to proclaim that they could receive forgiveness of their sins, that they could be adopted into the family of God, that they could have a completely new future, that they can live empowered by the Holy Spirit, by the spirit that Jesus gives us to go out to proclaim the goodness to other people, because we get to be involved in God's rescue plan of all of the world. This is what Jesus had come to help us to understand, to help us to learn how to live this out.
And yet people aren't getting it. Those who should be most excited about the message are actually just demanding bigger and bigger proofs of Christ legitimacy while outsiders are receiving and responding to Jesus. Jesus must have been both excited and sad at the same time. Excited that man, the gospel is breaking out. It's taking roots in all these different areas where so many people in his cultural moment would have said, man, the gospel can't exist there.
Like, who cares about going to those places? They did everything they could to avoid those places, and yet Jesus would intentionally go to those places. And then wherever he went, man, the truth was breaking out. The outsiders are being welcomed into the family of God, and yet Jesus is still at the same time sad, because the people that he had come for, that it would originally start with the jewish people. And then as they began to get it, as they begin to relive, as the missional people of God meant to be a blessing to the world, as they reclaimed the purpose that God had instilled in this people group long ago that would begin to break out to the rest of the world.
But the very people that he had first come for, they weren't getting it. This is breaking his heart. These are his people, and yet they don't get it. And so it must have been this mixed bag of emotions that are happening within Jesus. And the same time, while he's contemplating all these different things, those closest to him, the twelve handpicked ones that Jesus saying, hey, you're going to change the world, that I'm going to work through you, who ended up just being a bunch of ragtag type people, right?
People who would take up arms for political purposes, people who would cheat their very own people for their own monetary gain, for people who'd eventually deny him, people who would doubt him. Even these twelve closest to him, they weren't getting it. When they're in the boat with all this different stuff going on, with the bigger picture in mind for Jesus of, of God's gospel going out, the kingdom of God, breaking in here on earth, they're worried about having enough food because they only brought along one loaf of bread and one teaching that's not present in this particular text. But I think it applies because I'm going to assume that as Jesus lived with these guys and walked and talked with these guys, a lot of these common stories and things that happen pretty often. And so I'm convinced that this would have been something that Jesus had taught and probably consistently taught over and over and over, because the disciples, like us, are slow to get things.
They're slow learners. I could be a bit like that, too. But one thing that Jesus teaches that shows up in Matthew 625 34 is about birds and flowers. See, birds and flowers. Jesus teaches that we don't have to worry about what we eat and what will we wear.
He says, look at the birds. Look at the birds of the air. Like they don't store up food and yet, like they have enough, like they don't have to go to grocery stores. They're not anxious. They're not worried.
Like, where is the next meal coming from? They simply get to be and enjoy life, and yet God still takes care of them. And Jesus says, if he takes care of the birds, how much more will he take care of you? And then there's the flowers of the field. He says, why are you so worried about having the newest threads, the newest clothes, the newest things going on?
Why are you worried about being trendy? Why are you worried about what others think about what you are wearing, all the outwardly appearances and stuff like that? She says, don't worry about that. Look at the fields. Look at when they break out in flowers and when they bloom and everything is beautiful.
He says, even the greatest kings aren't dressed as beautiful as that. And if God were to take care of the hills that are full of flowers, how much more will he take care of his kids? That he's going to provide food, he's going to provide clothing? These things dominate the minds and the thoughts of unbelievers. But it should not be that way among the believers.
See, God will take care of all of your needs. And sometimes what? I forget things. I even tell my six and four year old that needs are different than wants. Those are two completely different things.
Because so many times I get taught up, I get caught up complaining to God about things I just want while he's taking care of all my needs. And so I just need to make sure that I'm seeing what God is providing in my life to not being afraid of bringing my request to God, saying, God, hey, I need these things in my life, but laying those before him and nothing. Just being so caught up with that, that I'm overly stressing about that because there's something bigger that I should have my mind and I should have my attention on, especially if you're followers of Jesus. If you're a follower of Jesus, you know that the story that we're currently living in isn't the larger story. Oftentimes we're so caught up in our own little stories, but we need to remember the larger one.
That God is working to break into our world, to push back the kingdom of darkness, that the gospel would break out in new and new places, that more people would be invited into the family of God. And God is working through his people. So every day we should be living with the mind on God. Where are you wanting me to respond to what you're doing around me? God, if it's true that you are breaking into our world, if it's your heart to redeem my neighbors and my family, my coworkers, or whatever that might be, and if it's true that you wanna use your people, then I need to daily be praying to God, where are you breaking out and how can I partner with what you're doing?
How do I stop worrying about all the different stuff that gets me down? And if I could be honest, it gets me down. Quite often I get anxious about God. How are you going to provide for this particular need? How are you going to come through in this way?
And so I get so caught up and blinded by the things that are just right in front of my feet that I often trip on those things instead of getting my eyes up and seeing everything that God is doing around me. See, Jesus says, Matthew 632 33, seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and he will give you everything you need. Maybe he won't give you everything you want, but he's going to give you everything you need. And Jesus is telling them to get their minds on the bigger picture. Seek first the kingdom of God.
Above all else. Seek it first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Every day. Every day getting up, God, you're working in my world and I get to be in partnership with you.
That's such an honor. How do you want me to spend my day? Who do I need to maybe go above and beyond for? What things can I name before you that I am worried about? But how can I leave my worry?
And how can I go about doing the larger work that you have for me today? How do I seek first the kingdom of God? Holy spirit, teach us what that looks like. Will you show us, show us how to live rightly, to live from a place of good, from a place of having a good heart, trusting that you're going to take care of all of our different needs as you've been in the past, you'll continue to be in the future. We need to get our minds on the bigger thing.
In mark eight he's saying, didn't you see me feed the 5000? Didn't you see me feed the 4000? And yet you're worried about a loaf of bread. And if you're going to have enough, stop worrying about basic things instead. Seek first the kingdom of God.
Maybe that's a challenge for each and every one of us today. Stop worrying about basic things. Seek first the kingdom of God. God will take care of you even when it seems bleak, even when things seem anxious and even when we don't get the result that we want. God is so forever faithful that even this journey that we have in the body is such a temporary journey.
And even when our journeys do end and they do come to death, we trust that our spirit gets to go to be with God and to reside with him, to abide with him forever. And that's ultimately where our truest home is. But in the meantime, we live every day bringing those needs to God. Trusting with whatever he does with it, guarding our hearts, guarding our lives, looking for the things that are above and not the things that are just right in front of us. Jesus goes on to warn them, watch out.
Beware of the yeast, of the Pharisees and of Herod. It's essentially saying, guard your heart and guard your life. Be intentional about that. That's not a passive thing. There's so many things we do each and every day that are pretty passive.
We just passively scroll things on our social media. We passively take things in. We passively allow different habits and things into our life, being unaware of how those things are actually shaping and forming our hearts. See, the Pharisees that Jesus is warning about. The Pharisees demanded more and more things.
Withholding belief in Jesus. And Jesus isn't here. Jesus isn't here to meet our demands. He's here to save our souls. He wants to have a relationship with you.
Not to be your vending machine, like he loves you. He wants to do life with you. And the Pharisees, in this moment, they're not getting it. They're withholding belief because they're demanding bigger and bigger things. And Jesus is saying, you're missing out on a relationship with me.
See, the Pharisees had this outward appearance of being followers of God. But their hearts were actually very far from him. They cared more about all this other stuff than they cared about the one who could change their heart. See, Jesus wants your heart. And he will take care of all the outer things.
But seek first the kingdom of God. And then there's Herodore, this guy who had killed someone, who Jesus deeply cared about, was one of his cousins, John the Baptist. The guy who was preparing the way for Jesus coming. He was announcing that the conquering king was coming in that Jesus is bringing a completely new gospel, which is political language in their day, saying, this is the conquering hero. This is the one that is in charge.
It's Jesus. And yet, John the Baptist gets in trouble, as we've seen in previous weeks. Because John starts calling out the powers that be. Because they start doing things that are actually evil. That the king, right, not really the king, but the self proclaimed king.
He was put there by the king to oversee the area, to keep things in line for him. Had actually married his brother's wife. Imagine the family drama that that created and that wasn't right. And John the Baptist is calling it out. You're causing trauma in your own family.
You're causing pain in your own family. You're destroying things. And he's standing up for what's true and what's good. And it gets John the Baptist locked up in prison. And what's crazy is that Herod's willing just to hold John the Baptist in jail because John the Baptist is pretty interesting to talk to.
Even though the things that he say bother him, there's something that's attracting Herod to him. And so John the Baptist is sitting in jail until Herod throws this big party for himself. And he invites all the who's who of his day. And then in response to his stepdaughter or daughter, who comes in and does a really provocative and nasty dance, he says, hey, you can have up to half my kingdom. He makes a stupid promise in front of all of his friends, thinking that she probably just take some money, she will probably just go on a trip.
She will probably do all this other stuff. But when she came to collect on the promise and says, no, I actually want John the Baptist killed, Herod didn't know what to do. He didn't want to kill John the Baptist. He actually liked John the Baptist, but he cared more about what it would look like to go back on his promise in front of all his friends. So instead of doing the right thing, of not going through with that, he takes the life of John the Baptist.
For Herod, outward appearances mattered. More traumatic action flowed from a heart formed away from the ways of Goddesse. And it's interesting that Jesus links the religious leaders with this evil political leader. But both of them are showing that these outward things, to them mattered more than the inner condition of their heart. See, Jesus is showing that heart matters.
Jesus wants your heart. So beware. He's telling his disciples, don't just focus on the things that are so temporal, like, get your mind on the bigger things. And to beware of the religious leaders of their day and religious and the political powers of their day. Like, beware of all of those different things.
And he says, beware of the yeast. Watch. Watch out for the yeast. This is an illustration that shows that harmful, small things that seem insignificant when left unchecked actually begin to bring destruction into our lives and lives of other people. Because men, the habits, the things that we do each and every day, those things that sometimes we passively allow into our lives, start to actually form us in a good way or bad way.
See, inside each and every one of us is a propensity towards good and evil. We're all a little bit of both of those things. We're not fully one or the other. But what we need to recognize is we're also not morally neutral either. Every one of us is being formed into the image of something.
So over time, through our daily practices and habits, the choices that we consistently make is forming us into who we are becoming. Put in language of James clear and atomic habits, I really like this analogy. Every day you're casting a vote for who you want to become. And so there's days where we have off days where we throw ballots the wrong way, but we need to not let that be the norm. We need to keep casting ballots in the right direction, keep casting votes in the way that we do want to go by putting positive practices and habits in our life.
When we have one bad day, not making it two or three bad days, making sure that we're intentional over time. This is what Jesus is getting at. Like when we live our life, it requires constant evaluation of the things that we're allowing into our life, how we're spending our time, the things that are forming and shaping our hearts. We have to be intentional about all that. One example of this was when I was in the Navy.
I worked as an operational specialist, which meant one of my jobs was to continuously compare our current location on the map to our projected course to our destination. And there were times where we were veering off course and I would need to communicate to the bridge who are the people driving the ships, to adjust the course. And it mattered because you could just be off a few degrees and that, over time, would lead you to a completely wrong destination. And so there were times where that was spread out a bit more. And so we didn't need to check in on that as much.
There were times where they were in a really tight spot, or we just needed to check it more often. And so we always needed to make sure, are we on course? Are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? And do we need to adjust at any point, too? And so that's the same thing for our lives.
We need that consistent check in point. Maybe we're in a good season where we don't need to kind of check in as much because some of those rhythms are just working really well. But maybe we get into a season where things are really tough and hard and more anxious. And so maybe we need more of those check in points to see what are the things flowing from my heart. And do I need to change things?
Do I need to eliminate things, say no to things? Make sure that I am just intentional about how I'm spending my time and my life with my family, with my work, with my spiritual rhythms, like all of that stuff? Because we recognize that small things have big impacts over time. Time. And so as a review, as we kind of bring everything together, we want to view our life through the story that we just read.
And so in that, what character might you your life, most resemble today? Does it resemble the one who makes demands for Jesus to prove himself? Are you the one who cares more about what Jesus could do for you than about being in relationship with Jesus? Are you the one who has a lack of trust in God's provision for your life? Are you the one who struggles to believe that as Jesus has been faithful in the past, maybe he's not going to be faithful somehow in the future?
Are you the one who's more concerned with outward things instead of the inward condition of your heart? Are you the one who just isn't mindful about the negative habits that you're allowing into your life, not realizing how that forms and shapes your life, even when they seem small and insecure, insequential or insignificant? Or either one who doesn't trust that the small things leading in the right way will actually lead your life in the right direction. So let's film all that again. We, as followers of Jesus, recognize that small things have big impacts.
So, as a review, I want you to put yourself in the story. Which character most resembles your life? Is it the one who's making demands of Jesus to prove himself? The one who cares more about the things that Jesus can do than about Jesus himself? Is it the one who has a lack of trust in God's provision for his life, not remembering God's past faithfulness as you look to what he might be doing in the future?
Are you the one who is more concerned with outward things than the inward condition of your heart? Are you the one who doesn't realize all these small things that seem insignificant can actually have a drastic impact on your life? And on the flip side, are you realizing that the small things that do seem super insignificant as well? You realize that they can have really positive impacts on your life? So to kind of summarize that, are you the one who is just making demands of Jesus?
Are you the one who just has your mind on very temporal things? Are you the one who's just not mindful about what your habits are actually doing for your life and you might be thinking, man, I'm convicted by some of that. Like, Jesus is putting his finger on a few of those things. Like, I don't want you to feel shame about that. That's actually a grace thing.
Jesus wants to come along and let you know that grace is on top. He wants you to bring these things before him to name him. So that way we can course correct, we can change things and get you back where you need to be. And part of that is just coming before Jesus and naming that. The scriptures say that that's repenting to change our mind about that thing, to receive the grace of God, that's on tap for us to drink deep from it, so much so that his grace is what we're filled up by each and every day.
And his grace is what we pour out to everyone else around us. And so with that, hopefully this was a blessing for you. I want you just to think about that this week to kind of evaluate where are you at in life? What are the things that are flowing out of your life? Do you need to course correct at any point?
Have you been making demands of Jesus? Have you been having your eyes just on very temporal things? Are you not being mindful about how you're spending your time and you're kind of just being more passive? Just think about those things with the holy spirit, course correct. Be intentional about how you're spending your days Monday through next Sunday.
And just what are you allowing in or do you have time, good work, life balance? Do you have right spiritual practice in place? Do you have the right physical things in place? Going to the gym, going on walks, doing that kind of thing? Are you taking care of your body, the right kind of diet?
Are you having moments where you just have quiet and solitude or just getting away? What are those things that you just need to make sure you're adding in? What things do you need to make sure you taking out some of that over scrolling, paying too much attention to news, getting caught up too much in the political cycle, whatever that might be, just be careful about the things that you are allowing in because that stuff really matters. And again, if you have any questions, please out. Please reach out to us.
Start the conversation@pinehillschurch.org. would love to just partner with you and kind of guide you through some of this as well. And so if, if that's you, please reach out. And if not, we'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Bye.
Just be grounded for a bit. Kind of push that stuff out that can be causing anxiety and stress and just, just kind of connect with God and connect with yourself. Maybe get out on the lake and kayak, maybe go on a small hike, whatever that might be. Just get a couple more of those things in before the summer's over, before things start to get a bit cooler as we move from summer into fall and then winter. And so I know for us, with our different seasons, it's just really important to make sure that we're soaking up the beauty of what that season is.
But as you gather with us today, we're continuing our series called this. I believe we've been going through Mark together, where Mark has been teaching us who Jesus is, what Jesus was like, and why that matters for our lives today. And today we're going to have more moments of tension, and that is exciting. And so I just kind of wondered, have you ever had a friend who just kind of hangs around? As long as you're willing to foot the bill for dinner, as long as you're willing to let them use your kayaks, as long as you are willing to buy the tickets to the baseball game or to get drinks.
But the moment that things are no longer good, the moment things get difficult, those people are kind of missing in action. Have you ever had that experience or you ever had a break in a relationship because of that? Now, this happens because people tend to value things over relationships. And I wonder, how do you feel about those type of people when that happens? See, today we're going to see an interaction between people clearly showing that they cared more about the things that Jesus could do than by Jesus himself.
And we all know how we feel about those kind of people. So let's see how this thing plays out. Starting in Mark, chapter eleven, we come across another amazing feeding story. Now, the first one happened in Mark 630 through 43, where Jesus takes a really small bento box and he breaks and blesses it, and he uses it to just feed so many different people. It started with five loaves, two fish.
What was left over was twelve small baskets of food. And then in mark eight, one through ten, we see kind of a really similar thing, except Jesus is feeding 4000 people. He's got seven loaves and a few small fish, and then there's seven large baskets that are left over. Now, what's similar from these different stories? See, in both stories, the disciples, they don't know how in the world they're going to feed all these people the moment that they figure out that Jesus actually wants them to do something about their hunger.
And even in the second story, we would assume that the disciples would have been leaning on past experience, that Jesus has been here before. We have seen everything that Jesus like. We don't need to doubt any of that. We get to just trust and see jesus do amazing things again. But that's not how things play out.
And maybe that's because maybe we doubt that Jesus will do something again, even if he's done it in the past. But again in the story, we see Jesus does it again, and it reminds us that he can do it again. So wherever you might be, maybe you're doubting in your present circumstances Jesus movement in your life. And as you remember back, you've clearly seen how he has worked, but that's not led to you being inspired to how he might live, how you might work in your life going into the future. And so I just wanna remind you, don't let dictate, don't let feelings dictate that for you.
Like, remind yourself of truth. There's sometimes where our brain needs to tell our heart what truth is. There's sometimes where we gotta remind our feelings. Hey, I know I'm anxious in this moment, and I'm going to do everything I can to give this to God. But I'm also going to remember the past faithfulness and trust that he's going to be faithful going into the future.
And so Jesus does this again, as he's been faithful in this past miracle. Again. He takes this small bento sized box lunch and he breaks it again and he blesses it again. He uses it to feed so many, we can't even count. These numbers are a bit arbitrary, right?
5004 thousand, really just counting men. And I know those are really clean numbers, and so there's way more than that because they're not counting women and children. So basically, getting at Jesus is feeding more than you could imagine. He's feeding a multitude. Now, what's different in these stories?
See a small difference in the size of that bento box, but it's basically a really similar miracle in the first feeding there's twelve personal sized baskets left over, presumably signaling that there was enough left over for the twelve disciples. As Jesus worked through them to bless all of these different people, Jesus still cared for their needs, that they had leftovers for the next day to continue to receive the goodness and the blessing of all the work that they had done. And then the second feeding, there's seven large baskets that are left over. And these baskets were large enough that you could actually put a human being inside. Which again, there's all these different things that are playing out in that.
One of the things is that in jewish culture, the number seven had meaning representing the gentile people. See, in the Old Testament, there were seven tribes of gentiles that stood between God's people and God's promise that would be fulfilled to his people. So that number is kind of seen when referred to the Gentiles as people who are getting in the way of God's work. But the number seven and positive connotations refer to completeness. And those are fun facts, but it kind of ties in to another key difference.
See, the first feeding primarily occurred amongst jewish people, and the second one is primarily amongst the gentile people. With all of this bigger kind of things left over. These amazing large baskets, seven different baskets that are left over. Large enough that you can fit a human in it. See, if we put it in context of what Jesus had already been doing in this gentile areas, he further seems to be showing that he is completely extending grace of the kingdom of God to gentiles and to all people.
That they don't stand between God's people and God's promise anymore. Because the promise of salvation is being fulfilled in Jesus. And it's Jesus that is extending it to all people. The invitation to be part of the family of God, to receive all the benefits of being part of the family of God. And this is good news not only for them, but also for us.
For anyone who feels like an outsider, for anyone who feels like they're too far gone beyond the grace of God, that you're nothing, that the grace of God is scandalous. And it goes out to all people. And this is such big and exciting things that are beginning to unfold. And after this, Jesus and his crew again get back into a boat and they head back into a distinctly jewish area. And as they land back in this more jewish territory, they are approached by religious leaders, which at this point, you know that there's been this growing tension and controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders, or even planning on how to kill Jesus and to be done with him.
Now, have you ever had anyone in your life that every time you kind of saw them across town, or they showed up on your social media stream, or they randomly text you or call you, all of a sudden there's just that building anxiety in you because, you know, tension is coming. Mark 811 through twelve. When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him, testing him. They demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. And when he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign?
I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign. Now, again, the religious leaders are being argumentative, not wanting to believe in Jesus or actually just wanting to test him, demanding a sign from heaven to prove his authority. Now they hear about all that he is doing. The blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing. Dead are coming back to life.
Bento boxes are feeding the masses. They're hearing about all of that. It's going out all across the region. But again, that's not enough. And they say, prove yourself.
Prove yourself. The response? Jesus just deeply sighs. I can only imagine the frustration, the sadness, and maybe even a little bit of anger that's rising up in him. Remember that he had just come from an area where people were thought of as being too far gone, being beyond the grace of God, and yet they were believing in him, and they were content with whatever he might actually bless them with.
But being back among the jewish people, the people who were waiting for the coming of the messiah were waiting for him to arrive. They held back belief until jesus somehow proved himself according to whatever standard they had in their own mental maps. And Mark continues to affirm through his gospel story that miracle signs and wonders. Often they don't prompt us to believe jesus is who he says he is. It usually just creates a thirst for more things, and people end up wanting more of the things that jesus can do than of Jesus himself, which is really sad.
And I could see why Jesus is frustrated. I could see why he'd be angry. I would be angry and frustrated as well. Mark 813 21, as we pick the story back up, says, so he got back into the boat, frustrated with him, gets back into the boat. He leaves them.
He crosses to the other side of the lake. But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. And as they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, watch out. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.
At this, they began to argue with each other because they hadn't brought any bread and jesus knew that they were saying. So he said, why are you arguing about having no bread? Don't you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in your eyes? Can't you see you have ears?
Can't you hear? Don't you remember anything at all? When I fed the 5000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets were left over? Twelve, they said. And when I fed the 4000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?
Seven, they said, don't you understand yet? He asked them, are your hearts too hard to understand?
Jesus thoughts in this moment as he has been doing this ministry, kind of gone from gentile area to jewish area and then kind of got back in the boat because the jewish people weren't recognizing he is who he says he is. His thoughts in this moment are probably contemplative. They're on the larger picture. Jesus is attempting to proclaim the kingdom of God. This is what he's primarily come for.
He's come to teach people that the kingdom of God had come near in him. Or as Eugene Peterson says, that Jesus moved into the neighborhood and made his home among us. And his primary mission was to actually to proclaim this gospel, to proclaim that they could receive forgiveness of their sins, that they could be adopted into the family of God, that they could have a completely new future, that they can live empowered by the Holy Spirit, by the spirit that Jesus gives us to go out to proclaim the goodness to other people, because we get to be involved in God's rescue plan of all of the world. This is what Jesus had come to help us to understand, to help us to learn how to live this out.
And yet people aren't getting it. Those who should be most excited about the message are actually just demanding bigger and bigger proofs of Christ legitimacy while outsiders are receiving and responding to Jesus. Jesus must have been both excited and sad at the same time. Excited that man, the gospel is breaking out. It's taking roots in all these different areas where so many people in his cultural moment would have said, man, the gospel can't exist there.
Like, who cares about going to those places? They did everything they could to avoid those places, and yet Jesus would intentionally go to those places. And then wherever he went, man, the truth was breaking out. The outsiders are being welcomed into the family of God, and yet Jesus is still at the same time sad, because the people that he had come for, that it would originally start with the jewish people. And then as they began to get it, as they begin to relive, as the missional people of God meant to be a blessing to the world, as they reclaimed the purpose that God had instilled in this people group long ago that would begin to break out to the rest of the world.
But the very people that he had first come for, they weren't getting it. This is breaking his heart. These are his people, and yet they don't get it. And so it must have been this mixed bag of emotions that are happening within Jesus. And the same time, while he's contemplating all these different things, those closest to him, the twelve handpicked ones that Jesus saying, hey, you're going to change the world, that I'm going to work through you, who ended up just being a bunch of ragtag type people, right?
People who would take up arms for political purposes, people who would cheat their very own people for their own monetary gain, for people who'd eventually deny him, people who would doubt him. Even these twelve closest to him, they weren't getting it. When they're in the boat with all this different stuff going on, with the bigger picture in mind for Jesus of, of God's gospel going out, the kingdom of God, breaking in here on earth, they're worried about having enough food because they only brought along one loaf of bread and one teaching that's not present in this particular text. But I think it applies because I'm going to assume that as Jesus lived with these guys and walked and talked with these guys, a lot of these common stories and things that happen pretty often. And so I'm convinced that this would have been something that Jesus had taught and probably consistently taught over and over and over, because the disciples, like us, are slow to get things.
They're slow learners. I could be a bit like that, too. But one thing that Jesus teaches that shows up in Matthew 625 34 is about birds and flowers. See, birds and flowers. Jesus teaches that we don't have to worry about what we eat and what will we wear.
He says, look at the birds. Look at the birds of the air. Like they don't store up food and yet, like they have enough, like they don't have to go to grocery stores. They're not anxious. They're not worried.
Like, where is the next meal coming from? They simply get to be and enjoy life, and yet God still takes care of them. And Jesus says, if he takes care of the birds, how much more will he take care of you? And then there's the flowers of the field. He says, why are you so worried about having the newest threads, the newest clothes, the newest things going on?
Why are you worried about being trendy? Why are you worried about what others think about what you are wearing, all the outwardly appearances and stuff like that? She says, don't worry about that. Look at the fields. Look at when they break out in flowers and when they bloom and everything is beautiful.
He says, even the greatest kings aren't dressed as beautiful as that. And if God were to take care of the hills that are full of flowers, how much more will he take care of his kids? That he's going to provide food, he's going to provide clothing? These things dominate the minds and the thoughts of unbelievers. But it should not be that way among the believers.
See, God will take care of all of your needs. And sometimes what? I forget things. I even tell my six and four year old that needs are different than wants. Those are two completely different things.
Because so many times I get taught up, I get caught up complaining to God about things I just want while he's taking care of all my needs. And so I just need to make sure that I'm seeing what God is providing in my life to not being afraid of bringing my request to God, saying, God, hey, I need these things in my life, but laying those before him and nothing. Just being so caught up with that, that I'm overly stressing about that because there's something bigger that I should have my mind and I should have my attention on, especially if you're followers of Jesus. If you're a follower of Jesus, you know that the story that we're currently living in isn't the larger story. Oftentimes we're so caught up in our own little stories, but we need to remember the larger one.
That God is working to break into our world, to push back the kingdom of darkness, that the gospel would break out in new and new places, that more people would be invited into the family of God. And God is working through his people. So every day we should be living with the mind on God. Where are you wanting me to respond to what you're doing around me? God, if it's true that you are breaking into our world, if it's your heart to redeem my neighbors and my family, my coworkers, or whatever that might be, and if it's true that you wanna use your people, then I need to daily be praying to God, where are you breaking out and how can I partner with what you're doing?
How do I stop worrying about all the different stuff that gets me down? And if I could be honest, it gets me down. Quite often I get anxious about God. How are you going to provide for this particular need? How are you going to come through in this way?
And so I get so caught up and blinded by the things that are just right in front of my feet that I often trip on those things instead of getting my eyes up and seeing everything that God is doing around me. See, Jesus says, Matthew 632 33, seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and he will give you everything you need. Maybe he won't give you everything you want, but he's going to give you everything you need. And Jesus is telling them to get their minds on the bigger picture. Seek first the kingdom of God.
Above all else. Seek it first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Every day. Every day getting up, God, you're working in my world and I get to be in partnership with you.
That's such an honor. How do you want me to spend my day? Who do I need to maybe go above and beyond for? What things can I name before you that I am worried about? But how can I leave my worry?
And how can I go about doing the larger work that you have for me today? How do I seek first the kingdom of God? Holy spirit, teach us what that looks like. Will you show us, show us how to live rightly, to live from a place of good, from a place of having a good heart, trusting that you're going to take care of all of our different needs as you've been in the past, you'll continue to be in the future. We need to get our minds on the bigger thing.
In mark eight he's saying, didn't you see me feed the 5000? Didn't you see me feed the 4000? And yet you're worried about a loaf of bread. And if you're going to have enough, stop worrying about basic things instead. Seek first the kingdom of God.
Maybe that's a challenge for each and every one of us today. Stop worrying about basic things. Seek first the kingdom of God. God will take care of you even when it seems bleak, even when things seem anxious and even when we don't get the result that we want. God is so forever faithful that even this journey that we have in the body is such a temporary journey.
And even when our journeys do end and they do come to death, we trust that our spirit gets to go to be with God and to reside with him, to abide with him forever. And that's ultimately where our truest home is. But in the meantime, we live every day bringing those needs to God. Trusting with whatever he does with it, guarding our hearts, guarding our lives, looking for the things that are above and not the things that are just right in front of us. Jesus goes on to warn them, watch out.
Beware of the yeast, of the Pharisees and of Herod. It's essentially saying, guard your heart and guard your life. Be intentional about that. That's not a passive thing. There's so many things we do each and every day that are pretty passive.
We just passively scroll things on our social media. We passively take things in. We passively allow different habits and things into our life, being unaware of how those things are actually shaping and forming our hearts. See, the Pharisees that Jesus is warning about. The Pharisees demanded more and more things.
Withholding belief in Jesus. And Jesus isn't here. Jesus isn't here to meet our demands. He's here to save our souls. He wants to have a relationship with you.
Not to be your vending machine, like he loves you. He wants to do life with you. And the Pharisees, in this moment, they're not getting it. They're withholding belief because they're demanding bigger and bigger things. And Jesus is saying, you're missing out on a relationship with me.
See, the Pharisees had this outward appearance of being followers of God. But their hearts were actually very far from him. They cared more about all this other stuff than they cared about the one who could change their heart. See, Jesus wants your heart. And he will take care of all the outer things.
But seek first the kingdom of God. And then there's Herodore, this guy who had killed someone, who Jesus deeply cared about, was one of his cousins, John the Baptist. The guy who was preparing the way for Jesus coming. He was announcing that the conquering king was coming in that Jesus is bringing a completely new gospel, which is political language in their day, saying, this is the conquering hero. This is the one that is in charge.
It's Jesus. And yet, John the Baptist gets in trouble, as we've seen in previous weeks. Because John starts calling out the powers that be. Because they start doing things that are actually evil. That the king, right, not really the king, but the self proclaimed king.
He was put there by the king to oversee the area, to keep things in line for him. Had actually married his brother's wife. Imagine the family drama that that created and that wasn't right. And John the Baptist is calling it out. You're causing trauma in your own family.
You're causing pain in your own family. You're destroying things. And he's standing up for what's true and what's good. And it gets John the Baptist locked up in prison. And what's crazy is that Herod's willing just to hold John the Baptist in jail because John the Baptist is pretty interesting to talk to.
Even though the things that he say bother him, there's something that's attracting Herod to him. And so John the Baptist is sitting in jail until Herod throws this big party for himself. And he invites all the who's who of his day. And then in response to his stepdaughter or daughter, who comes in and does a really provocative and nasty dance, he says, hey, you can have up to half my kingdom. He makes a stupid promise in front of all of his friends, thinking that she probably just take some money, she will probably just go on a trip.
She will probably do all this other stuff. But when she came to collect on the promise and says, no, I actually want John the Baptist killed, Herod didn't know what to do. He didn't want to kill John the Baptist. He actually liked John the Baptist, but he cared more about what it would look like to go back on his promise in front of all his friends. So instead of doing the right thing, of not going through with that, he takes the life of John the Baptist.
For Herod, outward appearances mattered. More traumatic action flowed from a heart formed away from the ways of Goddesse. And it's interesting that Jesus links the religious leaders with this evil political leader. But both of them are showing that these outward things, to them mattered more than the inner condition of their heart. See, Jesus is showing that heart matters.
Jesus wants your heart. So beware. He's telling his disciples, don't just focus on the things that are so temporal, like, get your mind on the bigger things. And to beware of the religious leaders of their day and religious and the political powers of their day. Like, beware of all of those different things.
And he says, beware of the yeast. Watch. Watch out for the yeast. This is an illustration that shows that harmful, small things that seem insignificant when left unchecked actually begin to bring destruction into our lives and lives of other people. Because men, the habits, the things that we do each and every day, those things that sometimes we passively allow into our lives, start to actually form us in a good way or bad way.
See, inside each and every one of us is a propensity towards good and evil. We're all a little bit of both of those things. We're not fully one or the other. But what we need to recognize is we're also not morally neutral either. Every one of us is being formed into the image of something.
So over time, through our daily practices and habits, the choices that we consistently make is forming us into who we are becoming. Put in language of James clear and atomic habits, I really like this analogy. Every day you're casting a vote for who you want to become. And so there's days where we have off days where we throw ballots the wrong way, but we need to not let that be the norm. We need to keep casting ballots in the right direction, keep casting votes in the way that we do want to go by putting positive practices and habits in our life.
When we have one bad day, not making it two or three bad days, making sure that we're intentional over time. This is what Jesus is getting at. Like when we live our life, it requires constant evaluation of the things that we're allowing into our life, how we're spending our time, the things that are forming and shaping our hearts. We have to be intentional about all that. One example of this was when I was in the Navy.
I worked as an operational specialist, which meant one of my jobs was to continuously compare our current location on the map to our projected course to our destination. And there were times where we were veering off course and I would need to communicate to the bridge who are the people driving the ships, to adjust the course. And it mattered because you could just be off a few degrees and that, over time, would lead you to a completely wrong destination. And so there were times where that was spread out a bit more. And so we didn't need to check in on that as much.
There were times where they were in a really tight spot, or we just needed to check it more often. And so we always needed to make sure, are we on course? Are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? And do we need to adjust at any point, too? And so that's the same thing for our lives.
We need that consistent check in point. Maybe we're in a good season where we don't need to kind of check in as much because some of those rhythms are just working really well. But maybe we get into a season where things are really tough and hard and more anxious. And so maybe we need more of those check in points to see what are the things flowing from my heart. And do I need to change things?
Do I need to eliminate things, say no to things? Make sure that I am just intentional about how I'm spending my time and my life with my family, with my work, with my spiritual rhythms, like all of that stuff? Because we recognize that small things have big impacts over time. Time. And so as a review, as we kind of bring everything together, we want to view our life through the story that we just read.
And so in that, what character might you your life, most resemble today? Does it resemble the one who makes demands for Jesus to prove himself? Are you the one who cares more about what Jesus could do for you than about being in relationship with Jesus? Are you the one who has a lack of trust in God's provision for your life? Are you the one who struggles to believe that as Jesus has been faithful in the past, maybe he's not going to be faithful somehow in the future?
Are you the one who's more concerned with outward things instead of the inward condition of your heart? Are you the one who just isn't mindful about the negative habits that you're allowing into your life, not realizing how that forms and shapes your life, even when they seem small and insecure, insequential or insignificant? Or either one who doesn't trust that the small things leading in the right way will actually lead your life in the right direction. So let's film all that again. We, as followers of Jesus, recognize that small things have big impacts.
So, as a review, I want you to put yourself in the story. Which character most resembles your life? Is it the one who's making demands of Jesus to prove himself? The one who cares more about the things that Jesus can do than about Jesus himself? Is it the one who has a lack of trust in God's provision for his life, not remembering God's past faithfulness as you look to what he might be doing in the future?
Are you the one who is more concerned with outward things than the inward condition of your heart? Are you the one who doesn't realize all these small things that seem insignificant can actually have a drastic impact on your life? And on the flip side, are you realizing that the small things that do seem super insignificant as well? You realize that they can have really positive impacts on your life? So to kind of summarize that, are you the one who is just making demands of Jesus?
Are you the one who just has your mind on very temporal things? Are you the one who's just not mindful about what your habits are actually doing for your life and you might be thinking, man, I'm convicted by some of that. Like, Jesus is putting his finger on a few of those things. Like, I don't want you to feel shame about that. That's actually a grace thing.
Jesus wants to come along and let you know that grace is on top. He wants you to bring these things before him to name him. So that way we can course correct, we can change things and get you back where you need to be. And part of that is just coming before Jesus and naming that. The scriptures say that that's repenting to change our mind about that thing, to receive the grace of God, that's on tap for us to drink deep from it, so much so that his grace is what we're filled up by each and every day.
And his grace is what we pour out to everyone else around us. And so with that, hopefully this was a blessing for you. I want you just to think about that this week to kind of evaluate where are you at in life? What are the things that are flowing out of your life? Do you need to course correct at any point?
Have you been making demands of Jesus? Have you been having your eyes just on very temporal things? Are you not being mindful about how you're spending your time and you're kind of just being more passive? Just think about those things with the holy spirit, course correct. Be intentional about how you're spending your days Monday through next Sunday.
And just what are you allowing in or do you have time, good work, life balance? Do you have right spiritual practice in place? Do you have the right physical things in place? Going to the gym, going on walks, doing that kind of thing? Are you taking care of your body, the right kind of diet?
Are you having moments where you just have quiet and solitude or just getting away? What are those things that you just need to make sure you're adding in? What things do you need to make sure you taking out some of that over scrolling, paying too much attention to news, getting caught up too much in the political cycle, whatever that might be, just be careful about the things that you are allowing in because that stuff really matters. And again, if you have any questions, please out. Please reach out to us.
Start the conversation@pinehillschurch.org. would love to just partner with you and kind of guide you through some of this as well. And so if, if that's you, please reach out. And if not, we'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Bye.
Summary
Pastor Aaron Contreras' sermon "Keep Pressing In" from the This I Believe Week 17 series delves into two stories from the book of Mark, showcasing the unexpected places where the kingdom of God emerges. By reflecting on a Gentile mother's persistence and a man's healing with a speech impediment, Pastor Aaron urges listeners to deepen their faith in Jesus, inviting them to challenge cultural norms and embrace true healing. The sermon stresses Jesus' transformative power, the significance of persistent faith, and the ongoing journey of unlearning false beliefs to follow Jesus faithfully. Pastor Aaron wraps up by encouraging engagement with spiritual resources to foster continued growth and discipleship.
Discussion Questions
- How does the story of the desperate Gentile mother in Mark chapter 7 show the importance of persistence and faith?
- Why is it important to confront and unlearn false beliefs and cultural patterns that hinder our journey with Jesus?
- How does Jesus bringing the kingdom of God to unexpected places encourage us in our daily lives?
- What are some practical ways we can practice the way of Jesus and bring renewal to others and the city we live in?
Transcript
Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills of church podcast. My name is Aaron, one of the pastors around our community, which is a community committed to practicing the way of Jesus, because we believe that that brings renewal for our lives. And as we live that out in our vocation and our families, in our neighborhoods and our spheres of influence, we believe that we actually get to partner with God in helping bring renewal to other people and to our city. City. And so we've been walking as a community through the book of Mark together.
So hopefully you've been reading along. If not, there's an invitation to pick up the gospel of Mark and just kind of start at the beginning and work your way through it. If you missed some of the conversations, they're kind of backlogged for you on YouTube or your podcast channel of choice. And so catch any of those. I hope they're a benefit to you.
Hopefully they're a blessing. And if you think someone specifically could benefit from any one of the conversations, please share those. So that way we could just be a blessing to more and more people. And so today we're looking at the 17th week in the gospel of Mark. So getting into Mark, chapter seven here in just a bit.
And so as we get started in the conversation, I grew up in Texas, and a lot of people know that I talk about that pretty frequently. And so my high school, our school mascot was the Longhorns. And so we had just a symbol like hook them horns. We probably copted it from the University of Texas, same fight song and all of that stuff as well. Football culture is really big, so we're just throwing up hook em horns all the time, cheering on our team.
But I remember in high school, I got to go on a mission trip with my youth group to Scotland to help out at a plant church, of all things. So you could already see how God was working in my story in that regard. And so we got to get on the ground in Scotland and help really get just some of the word out and kind of partner with some of the beginning, pre launch stuff of that church. But what was crazy is as we're walking down the streets, we're kind of throwing up these hook and horn kind of signs, just talking about different stuff in conversation. All of a sudden, the missionaries are like, hey, we can't be throwing those kind of symbols up around town because they mean something completely different here than they do back where you come from.
See, it's not just a hook em horn Longhorn here. It can actually be misconstrued as something demonic and something not good. And so obviously something you don't want to be associated with when you're trying to help out. A church in a different country that responds differently to some of these symbols that are pretty normal for us. And even looking what this symbol means in all kinds of different places in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Colombia, it can mean that someone speaks spouse is actually being unfaithful.
I guess it's just a signal to kind of like, tell your buddy that something scandalous is going on and they need to look into it. But I also came across another crazy story about some people who travel to the Vatican, and they're outside of the Vatican, and they throw up these symbols, and they're actually arrested because of it. Five students arrested in front of the Vatican for displaying hook em horn sign because of demonic connotations. And so if you're traveling, I just want to encourage you, especially in a day of Internet and accessibility, do your research, because more than likely someone else has already been offensive for you, and they've made a YouTube video about it. So travel freely, go to a bunch of different places, have adventures, but be sure, you know, like, what's offensive and what's not offensive.
But this helps us to remember this idea. Now, something can seem so normal in one particular culture, but in another culture, it means something completely different. It could be strange, it could be offensive, and it can even be gross in other cultures. And so today, we're going to look at a couple of stories in the Bible. They're going to seem a bit strange to our western ears and sensibilities, but if we understand the implications for their culture, what it meant for them, we could then map that onto our culture and find these nuggets of truth to continue to help guide our walks as we continue to journey with Jesus.
And so before we get into Mark, chapter seven, let's set the scene just a little bit. There's two different stories that we're going to go through today, but there's this common thread through both of them. And that common thread is the kingdom of God is breaking out in places and among people that it's least expected. And as Jesus travels, he pushes more and more into these outer areas that have higher concentration of gentile people. Remember, he's a first century jewish male, and so he's leaving areas that aren't predominantly jewish anymore.
He's moving into new cultures, new regions, new areas. And so, just to recap some of the past conversations, Jesus has primarily been doing ministry among jewish people who were his own people. A common thought from the jewish people in his day was that the gentile people were unclean, that they're actually far from God, beyond the reach of God's saving grace. So not a lot of great qualities when you're thinking about how they perceived an entire people group. They would go miles and miles out of their way not to go into a gentile area, and they would not eat a meal with a gentile.
And when they came back from the market, they would wash themselves because they might have come into contact with someone who was a gentile, who they viewed as unclean. And so they kind of went these crazy links to avoid them, to not be around them, to clean if they came into contact. And Jesus made it clear in last week's message in the previous passage that that's not acceptable for people following the way of Jesus, that we should not view any people group as unclean, as being too far from God's saving grace, that the gospel of Jesus actually invades new regions, it invades new cultures. That's why we're still talking about Jesus 2000 years later, because the gospel of Jesus is actually good news for every culture on the planet. And so that's an important thing, and that's a beautiful truth, that we see the kingdom of God not only breaking out in one particular region, but we're seeing that spread out into other regions as well.
So we should not view people and people groups is unclean. We should instead model the missional heart of God. And we should be people who are willing to go to people who don't think like us or believe like us, who probably make us a bit uncomfortable. And we should not only share meals with them, but share our lives with people like that. Say it another way.
We should make sure we're not just self isolating to our own little communities where people talk, talk like us, dress like us, think like us, believe like us, don't make us uncomfortable. That's not what God is calling us into. That's not the missional heart of God. The missional heart of God is one kingdom invading another kingdom. When we pray, Jesus, bring your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, is actually this language that's push out the culture and the kingdoms of this world so that your reign and rule can come here on earth.
And we want to be a part of that. When we're people who get that in our bones and our hearts, God sends us to the fault line of that. And so with that there's tension and it's difficulty and it's hard because he's pushing us into new cultures and we see Jesus going into new cultures. And so with that, we challenged us last week to text someone who maybe you should have coffee with or get a meal with or share an activity with, someone who you need to develop that relationship just a bit better. In our community, we called that who is your one?
And so who's your one? Who is the one that God is putting on your heart to pray for consistently? He's putting on your heart even now. Maybe you ignored that challenge last week, and now it's that like, hey, I'm hearing it again, so I need to do that. And so just a bit of it.
Low level accountability here. Maybe it's time just to pause the message, pause this thing that's happening right now, and maybe it's time to just text them and say, hey, over the next week or two, do you have space for us to meet up, get our families together, maybe get coffee, maybe to go on a hike or a kayak trip or whatever it might be, just to get together? And so go do that now if the Holy Spirit's putting that on your heart. But let's start with the first story. The first story is about a desperate gentile mother.
And so Jesus is traveling into this gentile region. And it was apparently Jesus's heart not to want to really be around a lot other people. He's been doing a lot of ministry. He's probably tired. And we see Jesus frequently taking his friends and getting away to kind of recover and recuperate, to get alone with each other, but also to get alone with the father.
And so apparently that's his heart is just to travel into the area to get away where maybe people don't quite know him in that place. Maybe he's just rented in our culture what it looks like to rent an Airbnb with your friends. And probably he's just wanting to take a few days to rest and to recoup from all that had been going on. But word gets out, even though Jesus is trying to just be low key. And then we have this woman who comes on the scene and she lives in this town.
She's ethnically and politically different from Jesus. And remember that a jewish teacher would not associate with a gentile, much less a gentile woman in their day. And we don't know what the woman thinks about God or thinks about Jesus. All we know is that she is so desperate for something to happen for her daughter, who in the text says is being filled with evil, is filled with the demonic. And you can imagine this just completely controlling her life.
The emotional and spiritual state of this family, the darkness that has invaded their lives, is hard, and it's difficult. And so, and this is what is prompting her to push beyond her comfortability to go and to knock on the door, because maybe she's heard rumors that Jesus is in the area and he's been doing all this amazing, awesome stuff. And so it prompts her to go knock on the door to disturb Jesus to get something done for her daughter. And so this is an interruption. And I want to ask, how do you deal with interruptions?
These are important to pay attention to because special stuff happens in the interruptions throughout scripture. And I'm convinced that more beautiful things can happen in the midst of the interruptions in our lives if we're open to what God is doing around us and might be inviting us into as we partner with him. And just to be clear, I'm not great with interruptions. I really like my plan and for things to go according to how I planned. And so that's something I'm growing in as well, is that when there's an interruption, instead of, like, panicking in that moment, instead of getting upset, learning to step back with all of those feelings and just say, Jesus, is there something in this moment you'd rather me doing, or is there someone that you want me to be interacting with, whatever that might be.
Maybe you went out to coffee with someone and they kind of stood you up, and instead of, like, huffing and puffing, maybe looking around the coffee shop, because maybe God is wanting you to interact with someone else, and so he's setting up the scene for something else to happen. And so this is the interruption that Jesus is experiencing. And what's interesting is he has this dialogue that on the surface level seems pretty, pretty difficult to work through. And so let's get into it. Mark 727 through 28.
It says, Jesus told her after she had come and asked for Jesus to heal her daughter, Jesus says, first I should feed the children, my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. And she replied, that's true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children's plates. Now, how offensive does Jesus's response seem to your ears? Because this seems pretty offensive to my ears.
And remember, we've got to do that cultural work. What did this mean in their culture? If we could have only just been there to see all the nonverbal interactions that are here, that would really help us to grapple with the text because there's so much that's happening that we just don't see. We don't see if Jesus is being intentionally offensive, and we also don't see if he's being a bit playful in his response. We simply just don't know.
We do know that the gentiles were often thought of as dogs, which isn't a good term. That is offensive even in their culture, which in their day, dogs were thought of as different. They're not our cuddly fur babies that we have today. So cue in your mind those dogs that you love and that you appreciate. That's not how they viewed dogs in that day.
Think of the kind of nastiest, grossest dog that you've seen on the street that you don't want to be around. That was how they referred to people in their day. And so Jesus is saying, hey, we're not going to take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs. But the word that he uses here is just a bit different. It's a play on the word for dog.
But commentators are kind of trying to figure out what exactly this word means because we're not sure translating into the English isn't always apples to apples. And so you kind of got to work around what is this word? If it's a bit different, how is it functioning within the context of what's happening? All the great stuff that we learned in english class, if you weren't sleeping through class, like someone like me. But the commentators think that a good guess is that Jesus is probably calling her a small dog or maybe even a puppy.
And so it's not just a dog that's on the street that's scavenging for food. It's this little puppy that's around the table with all the kids, and the kids are eating right. And so she's saying, like, hey, like, you'll see her response here in a second. But either way, it could be taken somewhat offensively, if not completely offensive. And so when this happens, and there's debatable things, I want to go to really good sources, and a great thinker for me is Trumper Longman III.
If you've never read any of his stuff, go read it. It's phenomenal. And he's pretty helpful here. He says Jesus is being intentionally provocative in order to elicit the correct response from the woman. He is testing her to see whether she will claim what is rightfully hers, namely the opportunity to receive God's blessing in a new age of salvation.
That's beautiful. Like, Jesus is intentionally kind of laying on language that would have made sense in their cultural moment, which would have been offensive. And maybe she's like, walks away. Like, in our culture, someone probably explodes and huffs and puffs and does all kinds of other stuff. And so maybe Jesus is just laying that term out there to see how she responds, to see, are you going to be offended by me?
Are you going to push a bit deeper? And so how do you respond when you don't get the answer from Jesus that you're actually looking for and that you want? Do you get offended and do you disengage or do you press in a bit deeper? And so I think that's a great question that comes out of the text because Jesus, at some point in your journey with him, is going to offend you. He's going to allow you to go through something that you would otherwise not want to have gone through.
Or there's things that's going to happen in your life that you're like, Jesus, why could this not just been taken away from me? How did you not just bring protection around me or any of this stuff? And so we bring all of these huge questions to Jesus and try to make the world a bit simpler than it actually is because it's a lot more complex than we can imagine. And so a lot of times when things happen, we get upset at Jesus. And so when it happens, we're offended when Jesus says no, when we don't get our way, when things don't go the way that we want them to, do we get offended and disengaged from Jesus?
Or do we press in? Do we go deeper, claiming whatever blessing that Jesus might actually offer you? And even if it feels like crumbs falling from the table, it will feel like enough when it comes from Jesus. Remember just a few weeks ago, we looked at a story about how Jesus took a personal lunch. Think of a sack lunch that someone brings to work.
Imagine Jesus taking that and breaking it and blessing it and using it to feed thousands of people. That's the Jesus that we follow. That's the Jesus that we serve. Even if we feel like we're getting crumbs in the hands of Jesus, it's a. Yeah, it's enough.
This is what this lady understands, so let's get at it. Mark, chapter 729 30.
Jesus says, good answer, right? Because she says, man, even the crumbs that fall from the kids plates like, that's enough. That's what I need. And Jesus says, good answer. Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.
And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed and the demon was gone. So this chaotic, dark, demonic home, this terrible scene that she leaves to go knock on Jesus's airbnb, to interrupt and disturb his friends and to break every cultural rule that was in place, that gentiles should not talk to jews, that she as a woman should not talk to a man, that she doesn't even exactly know who Jesus is. We don't even know what she believes about God, but she so desperate and so motivated that she goes and she asks anyway. And so that's important for a lot of our lives. Like, ask anyway.
Continue to ask Jesus. In fact, Jesus, when teaching about prayer, almost tells us to say, hey, we need to annoy God with our request. We need to continue to labor before him, to bring them to his attention over and over and over again. And even when we get something back from Jesus that seems offensive, maybe instead of just being offended or walking away, we pressed deeper because maybe Jesus is just testing us a bit to see if we're willing to go a bit deeper. And so what are we doing in the midst of that?
Are we disengaging from him? Are we pushing deeper? See, the kingdom of God is breaking out new regions and new people groups. And among the unexpected and least likely, this is the heart of Jesus, who is revealing the heart of God. It started first among Jesus people and his spreading out to more and more regions, with the end goal being that the entire world would come to know who God and Jesus is.
The plan of salvation, the good news, all of these things, and until all hear the good news of the kingdom of God that is available to them, like he's going to keep sending people out with this message, carrying on what he first inaugurated, what he first brought about, until as many people as possible can respond in faith. And so just to recap the story, the challenge for us is to continue to believe in Jesus even when he offends you. And so I don't know where that lands in your heart or your spirit, if that sounds like a bit of a challenge in a good way or a challenge in a bad way, I just want you to press deeper in that. Where in your life are you feeling like you're a bit offended by Jesus?
And maybe in the response is Jesus, man, I've not responded in the best way and I've kind of run from you instead of running to you, and so would you help me to run to you in this moment, bringing you all of my feelings, all of my honest feelings, all of my dark feelings, all of my bad feelings. I'm just going to bring it all to you, and I'm going to lay it at your feet, and I'm going to say, jesus, even in the midst of that, will you break, will you bless me? In the midst of this brokenness, would you help me? And would you take whatever you put in my hands? Would you break, bless it and use it for your glory?
That would be blessing for me and even other people in my life. And so with that, let's go to story number two, which is about a man with a speech impediment. And I'm going to warn you from the get go, this story is a bit gross. And so I kind of wish that we could just skip it. But we're going through Mark.
We don't have that option. And so you could skip forward if you want. You'll miss some pretty important and interesting stuff. So I hope that you don't do that, but I want to give you that option. And so this is a new story in a completely different location than what we just read, but it's still in this region with a high concentration of gentiles.
And a group of people hear Jesus again, the rumors have gotten out, and they bring their friend to Jesus, who has a speech impediment, who can't speak clearly, and it's really difficult for him. Obviously, it's causing such difficulty that they bring him to Jesus. And so they go to Jesus, and they beg Jesus to lay his hands on them to heal their friend against something common in their culture. Mark 733 is where we pick up the story. Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone.
He put his fingers into the man's ears and then spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man's tongue. Now, what is happening here? I know for us, like, in our western mindset, we're just kind of freaking out a bit, especially if you hate germs. And I'm not even so much on that spectrum, but I can imagine, like, someone else's spit kind of getting put into my mouth and on my tongue. But again, I'm not in this situation.
But we also need to remember when offended, right? Because this is kind of an offensive story, especially for westerners. We need to make sure that we're not turning from Jesus but pressing in. What could this story mean? What did it mean, in their culture, what is something that could speak to me even 2000 years later?
And we also need to remember, this is not our culture. This is a completely different culture. This gospel is even written to people in a completely different culture. And so while it's written to them, it's also a blessing to us. But to wrap your brain around this just a bit, have you ever watched a show like the late Anthony Bourdain, who made a career traveling around the world, going to different cultures and studying them, and kind of bringing these really great videos about what cultures are like and what different foods made up their eating habits within that culture.
And so he showed us foods and rituals and all kinds of different things. And sometimes when we watched it, we got pretty grossed out by some of the rituals and customs and cultures and food that they did within these different places. And so we need to remember, just because it's foreign to us doesn't mean that it's foreign to them. And so food, rituals, longhorn, hand signals, all of that. It might look one way in our culture and might be completely different in someone else's culture.
So what is happening here, what's happening in their culture with someone using saliva as a way to heal someone was, while it was rare in the gospels that we read through today, was actually very common and highly regarded in the ancient world, especially among jews and gentiles, which means everyone who's reading this letter from Mark would not have been grossed out the way that we're grossed out. And so they view this as someone laying their hands on them, of someone almost being someone powerful and famous. It's like when they lay their hands or they have spittle that is on them, it's actually, they feel like it's a transference of power and greatness that is coming onto them and has the potential to heal them and to bless them. And again, it's an ancient view, and it's an ancient way of. Of seeing life and trying to make sense of stuff.
But what's interesting is that Jesus is using something that's common in their day by laying hands on them and by using his spit on his finger to kind of touch the tongue of this man. And so we kind of wonder, why in the world is Jesus even doing this? Like, we know laying on the hands is pretty common. We see that all throughout the scriptures. But to go above and beyond and do something that we don't see in really any other parts of scripture, what is going on, again, we gotta press in.
Instead of disengaging mark 734. It says, looking up to heaven, he sighed. So he puts his fingers in this dude's ears, and then he spits on his finger and he puts it on the man's tongue, and then he looks up to heaven and he lets out this deep sigh. And then he says in a completely different language than what we're reading, right? He says, be opened instantly.
The man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so that he could speak plainly. So the man's healed and he's able to hear completely for the first time, right? Or maybe it was something that affected him later in life. Maybe at one point he could hear because all of a sudden, when his tongue is freed, he's able to speak. So either he either had this his entire life and the miracles, not just hearing, but also being able to speak when before he had never spoken a word.
Or it could be that he lost his hearing and lost his ability to speak at some other point in life. And regardless of that, this is a crazy miracle done by Jesus. And so I love how Jesus looks up to heaven. It's almost this signal. He just done what was common in their culture, and then he looks up to heaven, which would have been different.
It's almost like saying, hey, this way of doing things, like, that's not where it comes from. It actually comes from above, from God. And so that's where healing power comes from, and it's in Jesus. And then he lets out this great sigh, almost this puff of emotion, like coming out. Maybe it's frustration like that people are suffering.
Like when we see, when Lazarus dies, we see Jesus moved with emotion. Jesus cries before bringing him back to life, rising him from the dead, which is amazing. And so, but you see Jesus in this moment, he's frustrated. And I think even in that moment, he's frustrated that this is where sickness leads humanity, that we die. And I think in this moment, there's the possibility him being frustrated that things are not in accordance with God's will, that things aren't shalom the way that God actually intended them to be, that humanity actually suffers under brokenness.
And this actually breaks the heart of Jesus, too. And so this is what I think is what's happening. He's letting out this frustration, letting out the frustration, maybe even that in their culture, they think laying on of hands and, and the spittle and all that stuff is going to do something when really it's, it's goddesse. And so even as followers of Jesus, when we lay hands on people, it's to unify with them. But to pray God, would you, as we unify where two or three are gathered together, would you be here and would you heal and would you do something?
And so I think Jesus is doing so many more things that we can even comprehend or imagine. But what I love is that he's giving us, like, credit to God, but it's at his word that this person is healed. And it's almost like Jesus could be deconstructing beliefs right in front of them. You ever had someone do that? Someone who shows you something just to show you that this isn't the way, only to show you what the real way actually is?
This is what I think Jesus is doing in this moment, that he's a source of healing and that he has authority and power over even this brokenness. Remember, Mark's all about showing how Jesus is pushing back the curtain of darkness, that the kingdom of heaven is invading earth. It's pushing back all that is not right about what is here on earth. And so this is even a bit of what's coming in here. Jesus is broken hearted about these things that are happening, and he's willing to heal to show the way of the kingdom.
There's something different available in him. And everyone that sees this, they respond to. They respond in amazement. They say he even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak, which is interesting because it's actually prophecy that's told from the Old Testament almost verbatim in those words spoken many, many, many years before that actually comes to pass through Jesus. Why is that important?
Because when something spoken hundreds of years before, before Jesus comes on the scene, it just continues to give more and more credit that Jesus is everything that he said that he was. And so what's crazy is we could dispute a lot of different things, but Jesus, man, it's really hard to dispute how amazing he was and is. It's hard to dispute that he is different than anything else. And what Jesus is ultimately getting at is that he has the power and the authority. Overdose, darkness.
And that we should continue to find life in him and begin to follow after him bit by bit, even when we're offended, to bring that to Jesus, even when Jesus needs to deconstruct some ways that we've picked up, even in our own culture, of how to do things that aren't the right way, we need to trust Jesus in the midst of the deconstruction. And so with that, let's recap just a bit, because that's a lot. It's two different stories. Let's bring it all together and have some reflection. The big point of the whole thread that's running through here is the kingdom of God is breaking out in new places, places least expected.
So that's good news, hopefully for you, because maybe you feel like maybe you're someone who's the least expected, that everyone else has counted you as being unclean and not lovable and broken and far off. The gospel of Jesus is for you, so that you know that you're never too far for Jesus's saving touch to heal you and to mend you, to bring you into the family of God and to show you the proper way to live with him. That's life giving good. So the kingdom of God is breaking out in places least expected, and it breaks out into new people groups and new cultures, which is amazing, because this isn't just good news for one particular group of people at one particular moment in history, but God's plan has always been. And you see this from all of the line of story of scripture, his heart is a missional heart, that all people would come to know who he is.
And he wants to bring more and more people into the family of God. And when that happens, we come into the family of God or into the kingdom of God. We start to model the values of the kingdom. We carry on what Jesus is doing of going into these new regions by his power and praying for people and seeing people healed, but ultimately sharing the good news that Jesus is the way, that he's the only way to life, and that as people accept him, that they're truly going to come alive again, they're going to have a rebirth, a new story. And all of this is what's so inspiring about these stories.
And we heard two different stories. One where I, a woman who is thought of as being too far for God, pushes past every barrier that you can imagine just to get to Jesus. And even when Jesus does something offensive, maybe in her cultural moment, she pushes deeper. She doesn't walk away. She still believes.
Jesus, if you've done all this, you can do this for us. And even if you give me just the smallest thing, it will be enough to change my world. And maybe that's what you need to hear today. Maybe just Jesus comes in and just settles your emotion for a moment. It doesn't feel like much, but maybe it's just enough to keep you going.
And so continue to press into Jesus each and every day to come before him. Jesus. And saying, Jesus, I need the bread today. I need bread of life. I need what you will give me and bless me and what to sustain me to get through today.
And then we had another story of a Mandev who's healed completely different than what he has ever seen in his culture. And he sees Jesus deconstruct common beliefs in his day to say, hey, that isn't the way, that something different is the way. And so maybe we even need a bit of that, because maybe we've put our trust in things that don't actually lead to life. And we need to trust God in the midst of deconstructing the things in our life that aren't right for us so that he can reconstruct things that are right for us. And I know there's a big movement around the topic of deconstructing.
It's a lot of people, honestly, deconstructing christian belief and things like that. But what's harmful about that movement is, more often than not, it deconstructs to the point that you actually don't have anything to work with, and that's not healthy or good for anyone. You need to reconstruct some type of worldview to actually operate and live life for. And so we should deconstruct false beliefs and wrong beliefs, but we should also do that, even with anything that has been given us by the culture, to deconstruct it, to hold it up to the light as we biopsy just a bit of it off and say, hey, you know, what is this life giving? And is it good?
And is it leading me in the right direction? Is it fulfilling, or is it just simply not? And when it's not, we need to allow Jesus to come along in his loving, patient grace and just deconstruct that so that he can reconstruct something that is life giving and good. So both stories show that the kingdom of God is breaking out in places least expected. We also need to remember, when the kingdom of God does break out, that things are different.
It's a completely different culture. And so even maybe things within the kingdom of God which are good and right, maybe even in our culture, they seem a bit offensive. And so we just need to be a bit careful of saying even when we're offended, to push into that just a bit more. And so where are the times that you've been offended by Jesus? Maybe that's been a test from Jesus to see if you'll push deeper or will you turn away?
And so where is that at in your life today? Where have you been offended by Jesus? Maybe even in the middle of this teaching some of these scriptures we've talked about has offended you. And so I want to challenge you not to push away from Jesus and to walk away, not to push away from the conversation, to shut it down, to go to some other video and start watching shorts until you waste another 2 hours of life, but to go deeper, to continue to have deeper conversation, to go back to this text and read it over again. Read through mark, chapter seven.
Read through all of Mark. See how this chapter sits in the whole story and see who is Jesus? What was Jesus like and why the heck that matters for our life? And the second question is that at times as we journey with Jesus, every one of us is going to have to unlearn some things, to relearn the right. And so where in life are you sensing the Holy Spirit and his grace is saying, hey, this is the thing that we need to unlearn because it's not good and it's not leading you in the direction that you should go.
So let's unlearn that so we can learn something different. And so with that, I just want to pray for you, Lord, would you help us? Help us as we believe, but we still have a lot of parts of us that maybe there's a lot of unbelief there. Would you help us in the midst of that? And I know that you honor faith, even the smallest amount of faith.
You do profound things with it. Would you help us to go to you that when we are offended by you and we're offended by other things, whatever it is, help us to bring it all to you. Help us to dig deeper. Help us to trust. Help us to unlearn things from our culture that we've picked up along the way that are actually unhelpful and not good.
Help us to learn your ways. We just appreciate you. We just breathe deep your presence, your affirmation and your spirit. And we trust that you're leading us and you're guiding us and that you'll be with us along the way. And we just thank you for that.
That you'll never leave us nor forsake us, even in the midst of our doubts and our questions, our fears, our anxiety, all of it along the way. You're so patient that your mercies are new every day and that grace is on offer from you. And so we just receive your grace in this moment. We just receive your grace in your name we pray. Amen.
And so you might be thinking, Aaron, man, it's a great conversation. I really got something from it. I want to process just a bit more to go through those questions. When I'm offended by Jesus, do I pull away or do I dig deeper? Or when I have to unlearn something, do I just continue to do the thing that I've always known that's actually not good?
Or do I relearn new habits? And you might be thinking, how do I relearn things? Well, here's two different steps that you could take. The first one is just simply go through the gospel of Mark. You download the youversion Bible app for free, you can begin to go through Mark just little bits at a time, discovering who Jesus is, what he was like, and what that means for your life.
You might be thinking, okay, well, I also want to take some steps deeper beyond that. Well, you can download the Pine Hills app, and you can find that by going to pinehillschurch.org, comma. Just scroll a bit down the page, and you're going to see a prompt to download the app. And when you download the app and you put it on your phone, what's amazing with that is that there's actually a tab on there. That one.
It talks about the basics of faith. So what's the big story of God? What does it look like to encounter God and just to begin to discover some of the first conversations that you need to have. And then the next step for you is the practicing the way tab. We get to talk about, what does it actually look like to practice the way of Jesus each and every day?
And there's a conversation there, a lot of them loaded up, and then there's a form at the bottom. And after you've gone through a few of those conversations or all those conversations, please fill out the form so we could follow up with you and just say, hey, what's helpful in that process? How do we partner with you? How do we answer any of your questions? Because we want to be a blessing and a resource for you.
So with that, I just appreciate you listening to this video, being part of our community in any way, and so just want to send you out and know that you are blessed by God, called to live on mission, to be a source of blessing and love and non anxious presence for other people. So if you're following along with us and you're not just a one off or just watching one episode randomly, but you're someone who's part of our community in any particular way, remember, our goal is to be a community that practices the way of Jesus for our personal renewal, but also the renewal of the city that we live in. Have a great day. See you in the next episode. Bye.
So hopefully you've been reading along. If not, there's an invitation to pick up the gospel of Mark and just kind of start at the beginning and work your way through it. If you missed some of the conversations, they're kind of backlogged for you on YouTube or your podcast channel of choice. And so catch any of those. I hope they're a benefit to you.
Hopefully they're a blessing. And if you think someone specifically could benefit from any one of the conversations, please share those. So that way we could just be a blessing to more and more people. And so today we're looking at the 17th week in the gospel of Mark. So getting into Mark, chapter seven here in just a bit.
And so as we get started in the conversation, I grew up in Texas, and a lot of people know that I talk about that pretty frequently. And so my high school, our school mascot was the Longhorns. And so we had just a symbol like hook them horns. We probably copted it from the University of Texas, same fight song and all of that stuff as well. Football culture is really big, so we're just throwing up hook em horns all the time, cheering on our team.
But I remember in high school, I got to go on a mission trip with my youth group to Scotland to help out at a plant church, of all things. So you could already see how God was working in my story in that regard. And so we got to get on the ground in Scotland and help really get just some of the word out and kind of partner with some of the beginning, pre launch stuff of that church. But what was crazy is as we're walking down the streets, we're kind of throwing up these hook and horn kind of signs, just talking about different stuff in conversation. All of a sudden, the missionaries are like, hey, we can't be throwing those kind of symbols up around town because they mean something completely different here than they do back where you come from.
See, it's not just a hook em horn Longhorn here. It can actually be misconstrued as something demonic and something not good. And so obviously something you don't want to be associated with when you're trying to help out. A church in a different country that responds differently to some of these symbols that are pretty normal for us. And even looking what this symbol means in all kinds of different places in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Colombia, it can mean that someone speaks spouse is actually being unfaithful.
I guess it's just a signal to kind of like, tell your buddy that something scandalous is going on and they need to look into it. But I also came across another crazy story about some people who travel to the Vatican, and they're outside of the Vatican, and they throw up these symbols, and they're actually arrested because of it. Five students arrested in front of the Vatican for displaying hook em horn sign because of demonic connotations. And so if you're traveling, I just want to encourage you, especially in a day of Internet and accessibility, do your research, because more than likely someone else has already been offensive for you, and they've made a YouTube video about it. So travel freely, go to a bunch of different places, have adventures, but be sure, you know, like, what's offensive and what's not offensive.
But this helps us to remember this idea. Now, something can seem so normal in one particular culture, but in another culture, it means something completely different. It could be strange, it could be offensive, and it can even be gross in other cultures. And so today, we're going to look at a couple of stories in the Bible. They're going to seem a bit strange to our western ears and sensibilities, but if we understand the implications for their culture, what it meant for them, we could then map that onto our culture and find these nuggets of truth to continue to help guide our walks as we continue to journey with Jesus.
And so before we get into Mark, chapter seven, let's set the scene just a little bit. There's two different stories that we're going to go through today, but there's this common thread through both of them. And that common thread is the kingdom of God is breaking out in places and among people that it's least expected. And as Jesus travels, he pushes more and more into these outer areas that have higher concentration of gentile people. Remember, he's a first century jewish male, and so he's leaving areas that aren't predominantly jewish anymore.
He's moving into new cultures, new regions, new areas. And so, just to recap some of the past conversations, Jesus has primarily been doing ministry among jewish people who were his own people. A common thought from the jewish people in his day was that the gentile people were unclean, that they're actually far from God, beyond the reach of God's saving grace. So not a lot of great qualities when you're thinking about how they perceived an entire people group. They would go miles and miles out of their way not to go into a gentile area, and they would not eat a meal with a gentile.
And when they came back from the market, they would wash themselves because they might have come into contact with someone who was a gentile, who they viewed as unclean. And so they kind of went these crazy links to avoid them, to not be around them, to clean if they came into contact. And Jesus made it clear in last week's message in the previous passage that that's not acceptable for people following the way of Jesus, that we should not view any people group as unclean, as being too far from God's saving grace, that the gospel of Jesus actually invades new regions, it invades new cultures. That's why we're still talking about Jesus 2000 years later, because the gospel of Jesus is actually good news for every culture on the planet. And so that's an important thing, and that's a beautiful truth, that we see the kingdom of God not only breaking out in one particular region, but we're seeing that spread out into other regions as well.
So we should not view people and people groups is unclean. We should instead model the missional heart of God. And we should be people who are willing to go to people who don't think like us or believe like us, who probably make us a bit uncomfortable. And we should not only share meals with them, but share our lives with people like that. Say it another way.
We should make sure we're not just self isolating to our own little communities where people talk, talk like us, dress like us, think like us, believe like us, don't make us uncomfortable. That's not what God is calling us into. That's not the missional heart of God. The missional heart of God is one kingdom invading another kingdom. When we pray, Jesus, bring your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, is actually this language that's push out the culture and the kingdoms of this world so that your reign and rule can come here on earth.
And we want to be a part of that. When we're people who get that in our bones and our hearts, God sends us to the fault line of that. And so with that there's tension and it's difficulty and it's hard because he's pushing us into new cultures and we see Jesus going into new cultures. And so with that, we challenged us last week to text someone who maybe you should have coffee with or get a meal with or share an activity with, someone who you need to develop that relationship just a bit better. In our community, we called that who is your one?
And so who's your one? Who is the one that God is putting on your heart to pray for consistently? He's putting on your heart even now. Maybe you ignored that challenge last week, and now it's that like, hey, I'm hearing it again, so I need to do that. And so just a bit of it.
Low level accountability here. Maybe it's time just to pause the message, pause this thing that's happening right now, and maybe it's time to just text them and say, hey, over the next week or two, do you have space for us to meet up, get our families together, maybe get coffee, maybe to go on a hike or a kayak trip or whatever it might be, just to get together? And so go do that now if the Holy Spirit's putting that on your heart. But let's start with the first story. The first story is about a desperate gentile mother.
And so Jesus is traveling into this gentile region. And it was apparently Jesus's heart not to want to really be around a lot other people. He's been doing a lot of ministry. He's probably tired. And we see Jesus frequently taking his friends and getting away to kind of recover and recuperate, to get alone with each other, but also to get alone with the father.
And so apparently that's his heart is just to travel into the area to get away where maybe people don't quite know him in that place. Maybe he's just rented in our culture what it looks like to rent an Airbnb with your friends. And probably he's just wanting to take a few days to rest and to recoup from all that had been going on. But word gets out, even though Jesus is trying to just be low key. And then we have this woman who comes on the scene and she lives in this town.
She's ethnically and politically different from Jesus. And remember that a jewish teacher would not associate with a gentile, much less a gentile woman in their day. And we don't know what the woman thinks about God or thinks about Jesus. All we know is that she is so desperate for something to happen for her daughter, who in the text says is being filled with evil, is filled with the demonic. And you can imagine this just completely controlling her life.
The emotional and spiritual state of this family, the darkness that has invaded their lives, is hard, and it's difficult. And so, and this is what is prompting her to push beyond her comfortability to go and to knock on the door, because maybe she's heard rumors that Jesus is in the area and he's been doing all this amazing, awesome stuff. And so it prompts her to go knock on the door to disturb Jesus to get something done for her daughter. And so this is an interruption. And I want to ask, how do you deal with interruptions?
These are important to pay attention to because special stuff happens in the interruptions throughout scripture. And I'm convinced that more beautiful things can happen in the midst of the interruptions in our lives if we're open to what God is doing around us and might be inviting us into as we partner with him. And just to be clear, I'm not great with interruptions. I really like my plan and for things to go according to how I planned. And so that's something I'm growing in as well, is that when there's an interruption, instead of, like, panicking in that moment, instead of getting upset, learning to step back with all of those feelings and just say, Jesus, is there something in this moment you'd rather me doing, or is there someone that you want me to be interacting with, whatever that might be.
Maybe you went out to coffee with someone and they kind of stood you up, and instead of, like, huffing and puffing, maybe looking around the coffee shop, because maybe God is wanting you to interact with someone else, and so he's setting up the scene for something else to happen. And so this is the interruption that Jesus is experiencing. And what's interesting is he has this dialogue that on the surface level seems pretty, pretty difficult to work through. And so let's get into it. Mark 727 through 28.
It says, Jesus told her after she had come and asked for Jesus to heal her daughter, Jesus says, first I should feed the children, my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. And she replied, that's true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children's plates. Now, how offensive does Jesus's response seem to your ears? Because this seems pretty offensive to my ears.
And remember, we've got to do that cultural work. What did this mean in their culture? If we could have only just been there to see all the nonverbal interactions that are here, that would really help us to grapple with the text because there's so much that's happening that we just don't see. We don't see if Jesus is being intentionally offensive, and we also don't see if he's being a bit playful in his response. We simply just don't know.
We do know that the gentiles were often thought of as dogs, which isn't a good term. That is offensive even in their culture, which in their day, dogs were thought of as different. They're not our cuddly fur babies that we have today. So cue in your mind those dogs that you love and that you appreciate. That's not how they viewed dogs in that day.
Think of the kind of nastiest, grossest dog that you've seen on the street that you don't want to be around. That was how they referred to people in their day. And so Jesus is saying, hey, we're not going to take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs. But the word that he uses here is just a bit different. It's a play on the word for dog.
But commentators are kind of trying to figure out what exactly this word means because we're not sure translating into the English isn't always apples to apples. And so you kind of got to work around what is this word? If it's a bit different, how is it functioning within the context of what's happening? All the great stuff that we learned in english class, if you weren't sleeping through class, like someone like me. But the commentators think that a good guess is that Jesus is probably calling her a small dog or maybe even a puppy.
And so it's not just a dog that's on the street that's scavenging for food. It's this little puppy that's around the table with all the kids, and the kids are eating right. And so she's saying, like, hey, like, you'll see her response here in a second. But either way, it could be taken somewhat offensively, if not completely offensive. And so when this happens, and there's debatable things, I want to go to really good sources, and a great thinker for me is Trumper Longman III.
If you've never read any of his stuff, go read it. It's phenomenal. And he's pretty helpful here. He says Jesus is being intentionally provocative in order to elicit the correct response from the woman. He is testing her to see whether she will claim what is rightfully hers, namely the opportunity to receive God's blessing in a new age of salvation.
That's beautiful. Like, Jesus is intentionally kind of laying on language that would have made sense in their cultural moment, which would have been offensive. And maybe she's like, walks away. Like, in our culture, someone probably explodes and huffs and puffs and does all kinds of other stuff. And so maybe Jesus is just laying that term out there to see how she responds, to see, are you going to be offended by me?
Are you going to push a bit deeper? And so how do you respond when you don't get the answer from Jesus that you're actually looking for and that you want? Do you get offended and do you disengage or do you press in a bit deeper? And so I think that's a great question that comes out of the text because Jesus, at some point in your journey with him, is going to offend you. He's going to allow you to go through something that you would otherwise not want to have gone through.
Or there's things that's going to happen in your life that you're like, Jesus, why could this not just been taken away from me? How did you not just bring protection around me or any of this stuff? And so we bring all of these huge questions to Jesus and try to make the world a bit simpler than it actually is because it's a lot more complex than we can imagine. And so a lot of times when things happen, we get upset at Jesus. And so when it happens, we're offended when Jesus says no, when we don't get our way, when things don't go the way that we want them to, do we get offended and disengaged from Jesus?
Or do we press in? Do we go deeper, claiming whatever blessing that Jesus might actually offer you? And even if it feels like crumbs falling from the table, it will feel like enough when it comes from Jesus. Remember just a few weeks ago, we looked at a story about how Jesus took a personal lunch. Think of a sack lunch that someone brings to work.
Imagine Jesus taking that and breaking it and blessing it and using it to feed thousands of people. That's the Jesus that we follow. That's the Jesus that we serve. Even if we feel like we're getting crumbs in the hands of Jesus, it's a. Yeah, it's enough.
This is what this lady understands, so let's get at it. Mark, chapter 729 30.
Jesus says, good answer, right? Because she says, man, even the crumbs that fall from the kids plates like, that's enough. That's what I need. And Jesus says, good answer. Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.
And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed and the demon was gone. So this chaotic, dark, demonic home, this terrible scene that she leaves to go knock on Jesus's airbnb, to interrupt and disturb his friends and to break every cultural rule that was in place, that gentiles should not talk to jews, that she as a woman should not talk to a man, that she doesn't even exactly know who Jesus is. We don't even know what she believes about God, but she so desperate and so motivated that she goes and she asks anyway. And so that's important for a lot of our lives. Like, ask anyway.
Continue to ask Jesus. In fact, Jesus, when teaching about prayer, almost tells us to say, hey, we need to annoy God with our request. We need to continue to labor before him, to bring them to his attention over and over and over again. And even when we get something back from Jesus that seems offensive, maybe instead of just being offended or walking away, we pressed deeper because maybe Jesus is just testing us a bit to see if we're willing to go a bit deeper. And so what are we doing in the midst of that?
Are we disengaging from him? Are we pushing deeper? See, the kingdom of God is breaking out new regions and new people groups. And among the unexpected and least likely, this is the heart of Jesus, who is revealing the heart of God. It started first among Jesus people and his spreading out to more and more regions, with the end goal being that the entire world would come to know who God and Jesus is.
The plan of salvation, the good news, all of these things, and until all hear the good news of the kingdom of God that is available to them, like he's going to keep sending people out with this message, carrying on what he first inaugurated, what he first brought about, until as many people as possible can respond in faith. And so just to recap the story, the challenge for us is to continue to believe in Jesus even when he offends you. And so I don't know where that lands in your heart or your spirit, if that sounds like a bit of a challenge in a good way or a challenge in a bad way, I just want you to press deeper in that. Where in your life are you feeling like you're a bit offended by Jesus?
And maybe in the response is Jesus, man, I've not responded in the best way and I've kind of run from you instead of running to you, and so would you help me to run to you in this moment, bringing you all of my feelings, all of my honest feelings, all of my dark feelings, all of my bad feelings. I'm just going to bring it all to you, and I'm going to lay it at your feet, and I'm going to say, jesus, even in the midst of that, will you break, will you bless me? In the midst of this brokenness, would you help me? And would you take whatever you put in my hands? Would you break, bless it and use it for your glory?
That would be blessing for me and even other people in my life. And so with that, let's go to story number two, which is about a man with a speech impediment. And I'm going to warn you from the get go, this story is a bit gross. And so I kind of wish that we could just skip it. But we're going through Mark.
We don't have that option. And so you could skip forward if you want. You'll miss some pretty important and interesting stuff. So I hope that you don't do that, but I want to give you that option. And so this is a new story in a completely different location than what we just read, but it's still in this region with a high concentration of gentiles.
And a group of people hear Jesus again, the rumors have gotten out, and they bring their friend to Jesus, who has a speech impediment, who can't speak clearly, and it's really difficult for him. Obviously, it's causing such difficulty that they bring him to Jesus. And so they go to Jesus, and they beg Jesus to lay his hands on them to heal their friend against something common in their culture. Mark 733 is where we pick up the story. Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone.
He put his fingers into the man's ears and then spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man's tongue. Now, what is happening here? I know for us, like, in our western mindset, we're just kind of freaking out a bit, especially if you hate germs. And I'm not even so much on that spectrum, but I can imagine, like, someone else's spit kind of getting put into my mouth and on my tongue. But again, I'm not in this situation.
But we also need to remember when offended, right? Because this is kind of an offensive story, especially for westerners. We need to make sure that we're not turning from Jesus but pressing in. What could this story mean? What did it mean, in their culture, what is something that could speak to me even 2000 years later?
And we also need to remember, this is not our culture. This is a completely different culture. This gospel is even written to people in a completely different culture. And so while it's written to them, it's also a blessing to us. But to wrap your brain around this just a bit, have you ever watched a show like the late Anthony Bourdain, who made a career traveling around the world, going to different cultures and studying them, and kind of bringing these really great videos about what cultures are like and what different foods made up their eating habits within that culture.
And so he showed us foods and rituals and all kinds of different things. And sometimes when we watched it, we got pretty grossed out by some of the rituals and customs and cultures and food that they did within these different places. And so we need to remember, just because it's foreign to us doesn't mean that it's foreign to them. And so food, rituals, longhorn, hand signals, all of that. It might look one way in our culture and might be completely different in someone else's culture.
So what is happening here, what's happening in their culture with someone using saliva as a way to heal someone was, while it was rare in the gospels that we read through today, was actually very common and highly regarded in the ancient world, especially among jews and gentiles, which means everyone who's reading this letter from Mark would not have been grossed out the way that we're grossed out. And so they view this as someone laying their hands on them, of someone almost being someone powerful and famous. It's like when they lay their hands or they have spittle that is on them, it's actually, they feel like it's a transference of power and greatness that is coming onto them and has the potential to heal them and to bless them. And again, it's an ancient view, and it's an ancient way of. Of seeing life and trying to make sense of stuff.
But what's interesting is that Jesus is using something that's common in their day by laying hands on them and by using his spit on his finger to kind of touch the tongue of this man. And so we kind of wonder, why in the world is Jesus even doing this? Like, we know laying on the hands is pretty common. We see that all throughout the scriptures. But to go above and beyond and do something that we don't see in really any other parts of scripture, what is going on, again, we gotta press in.
Instead of disengaging mark 734. It says, looking up to heaven, he sighed. So he puts his fingers in this dude's ears, and then he spits on his finger and he puts it on the man's tongue, and then he looks up to heaven and he lets out this deep sigh. And then he says in a completely different language than what we're reading, right? He says, be opened instantly.
The man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so that he could speak plainly. So the man's healed and he's able to hear completely for the first time, right? Or maybe it was something that affected him later in life. Maybe at one point he could hear because all of a sudden, when his tongue is freed, he's able to speak. So either he either had this his entire life and the miracles, not just hearing, but also being able to speak when before he had never spoken a word.
Or it could be that he lost his hearing and lost his ability to speak at some other point in life. And regardless of that, this is a crazy miracle done by Jesus. And so I love how Jesus looks up to heaven. It's almost this signal. He just done what was common in their culture, and then he looks up to heaven, which would have been different.
It's almost like saying, hey, this way of doing things, like, that's not where it comes from. It actually comes from above, from God. And so that's where healing power comes from, and it's in Jesus. And then he lets out this great sigh, almost this puff of emotion, like coming out. Maybe it's frustration like that people are suffering.
Like when we see, when Lazarus dies, we see Jesus moved with emotion. Jesus cries before bringing him back to life, rising him from the dead, which is amazing. And so, but you see Jesus in this moment, he's frustrated. And I think even in that moment, he's frustrated that this is where sickness leads humanity, that we die. And I think in this moment, there's the possibility him being frustrated that things are not in accordance with God's will, that things aren't shalom the way that God actually intended them to be, that humanity actually suffers under brokenness.
And this actually breaks the heart of Jesus, too. And so this is what I think is what's happening. He's letting out this frustration, letting out the frustration, maybe even that in their culture, they think laying on of hands and, and the spittle and all that stuff is going to do something when really it's, it's goddesse. And so even as followers of Jesus, when we lay hands on people, it's to unify with them. But to pray God, would you, as we unify where two or three are gathered together, would you be here and would you heal and would you do something?
And so I think Jesus is doing so many more things that we can even comprehend or imagine. But what I love is that he's giving us, like, credit to God, but it's at his word that this person is healed. And it's almost like Jesus could be deconstructing beliefs right in front of them. You ever had someone do that? Someone who shows you something just to show you that this isn't the way, only to show you what the real way actually is?
This is what I think Jesus is doing in this moment, that he's a source of healing and that he has authority and power over even this brokenness. Remember, Mark's all about showing how Jesus is pushing back the curtain of darkness, that the kingdom of heaven is invading earth. It's pushing back all that is not right about what is here on earth. And so this is even a bit of what's coming in here. Jesus is broken hearted about these things that are happening, and he's willing to heal to show the way of the kingdom.
There's something different available in him. And everyone that sees this, they respond to. They respond in amazement. They say he even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak, which is interesting because it's actually prophecy that's told from the Old Testament almost verbatim in those words spoken many, many, many years before that actually comes to pass through Jesus. Why is that important?
Because when something spoken hundreds of years before, before Jesus comes on the scene, it just continues to give more and more credit that Jesus is everything that he said that he was. And so what's crazy is we could dispute a lot of different things, but Jesus, man, it's really hard to dispute how amazing he was and is. It's hard to dispute that he is different than anything else. And what Jesus is ultimately getting at is that he has the power and the authority. Overdose, darkness.
And that we should continue to find life in him and begin to follow after him bit by bit, even when we're offended, to bring that to Jesus, even when Jesus needs to deconstruct some ways that we've picked up, even in our own culture, of how to do things that aren't the right way, we need to trust Jesus in the midst of the deconstruction. And so with that, let's recap just a bit, because that's a lot. It's two different stories. Let's bring it all together and have some reflection. The big point of the whole thread that's running through here is the kingdom of God is breaking out in new places, places least expected.
So that's good news, hopefully for you, because maybe you feel like maybe you're someone who's the least expected, that everyone else has counted you as being unclean and not lovable and broken and far off. The gospel of Jesus is for you, so that you know that you're never too far for Jesus's saving touch to heal you and to mend you, to bring you into the family of God and to show you the proper way to live with him. That's life giving good. So the kingdom of God is breaking out in places least expected, and it breaks out into new people groups and new cultures, which is amazing, because this isn't just good news for one particular group of people at one particular moment in history, but God's plan has always been. And you see this from all of the line of story of scripture, his heart is a missional heart, that all people would come to know who he is.
And he wants to bring more and more people into the family of God. And when that happens, we come into the family of God or into the kingdom of God. We start to model the values of the kingdom. We carry on what Jesus is doing of going into these new regions by his power and praying for people and seeing people healed, but ultimately sharing the good news that Jesus is the way, that he's the only way to life, and that as people accept him, that they're truly going to come alive again, they're going to have a rebirth, a new story. And all of this is what's so inspiring about these stories.
And we heard two different stories. One where I, a woman who is thought of as being too far for God, pushes past every barrier that you can imagine just to get to Jesus. And even when Jesus does something offensive, maybe in her cultural moment, she pushes deeper. She doesn't walk away. She still believes.
Jesus, if you've done all this, you can do this for us. And even if you give me just the smallest thing, it will be enough to change my world. And maybe that's what you need to hear today. Maybe just Jesus comes in and just settles your emotion for a moment. It doesn't feel like much, but maybe it's just enough to keep you going.
And so continue to press into Jesus each and every day to come before him. Jesus. And saying, Jesus, I need the bread today. I need bread of life. I need what you will give me and bless me and what to sustain me to get through today.
And then we had another story of a Mandev who's healed completely different than what he has ever seen in his culture. And he sees Jesus deconstruct common beliefs in his day to say, hey, that isn't the way, that something different is the way. And so maybe we even need a bit of that, because maybe we've put our trust in things that don't actually lead to life. And we need to trust God in the midst of deconstructing the things in our life that aren't right for us so that he can reconstruct things that are right for us. And I know there's a big movement around the topic of deconstructing.
It's a lot of people, honestly, deconstructing christian belief and things like that. But what's harmful about that movement is, more often than not, it deconstructs to the point that you actually don't have anything to work with, and that's not healthy or good for anyone. You need to reconstruct some type of worldview to actually operate and live life for. And so we should deconstruct false beliefs and wrong beliefs, but we should also do that, even with anything that has been given us by the culture, to deconstruct it, to hold it up to the light as we biopsy just a bit of it off and say, hey, you know, what is this life giving? And is it good?
And is it leading me in the right direction? Is it fulfilling, or is it just simply not? And when it's not, we need to allow Jesus to come along in his loving, patient grace and just deconstruct that so that he can reconstruct something that is life giving and good. So both stories show that the kingdom of God is breaking out in places least expected. We also need to remember, when the kingdom of God does break out, that things are different.
It's a completely different culture. And so even maybe things within the kingdom of God which are good and right, maybe even in our culture, they seem a bit offensive. And so we just need to be a bit careful of saying even when we're offended, to push into that just a bit more. And so where are the times that you've been offended by Jesus? Maybe that's been a test from Jesus to see if you'll push deeper or will you turn away?
And so where is that at in your life today? Where have you been offended by Jesus? Maybe even in the middle of this teaching some of these scriptures we've talked about has offended you. And so I want to challenge you not to push away from Jesus and to walk away, not to push away from the conversation, to shut it down, to go to some other video and start watching shorts until you waste another 2 hours of life, but to go deeper, to continue to have deeper conversation, to go back to this text and read it over again. Read through mark, chapter seven.
Read through all of Mark. See how this chapter sits in the whole story and see who is Jesus? What was Jesus like and why the heck that matters for our life? And the second question is that at times as we journey with Jesus, every one of us is going to have to unlearn some things, to relearn the right. And so where in life are you sensing the Holy Spirit and his grace is saying, hey, this is the thing that we need to unlearn because it's not good and it's not leading you in the direction that you should go.
So let's unlearn that so we can learn something different. And so with that, I just want to pray for you, Lord, would you help us? Help us as we believe, but we still have a lot of parts of us that maybe there's a lot of unbelief there. Would you help us in the midst of that? And I know that you honor faith, even the smallest amount of faith.
You do profound things with it. Would you help us to go to you that when we are offended by you and we're offended by other things, whatever it is, help us to bring it all to you. Help us to dig deeper. Help us to trust. Help us to unlearn things from our culture that we've picked up along the way that are actually unhelpful and not good.
Help us to learn your ways. We just appreciate you. We just breathe deep your presence, your affirmation and your spirit. And we trust that you're leading us and you're guiding us and that you'll be with us along the way. And we just thank you for that.
That you'll never leave us nor forsake us, even in the midst of our doubts and our questions, our fears, our anxiety, all of it along the way. You're so patient that your mercies are new every day and that grace is on offer from you. And so we just receive your grace in this moment. We just receive your grace in your name we pray. Amen.
And so you might be thinking, Aaron, man, it's a great conversation. I really got something from it. I want to process just a bit more to go through those questions. When I'm offended by Jesus, do I pull away or do I dig deeper? Or when I have to unlearn something, do I just continue to do the thing that I've always known that's actually not good?
Or do I relearn new habits? And you might be thinking, how do I relearn things? Well, here's two different steps that you could take. The first one is just simply go through the gospel of Mark. You download the youversion Bible app for free, you can begin to go through Mark just little bits at a time, discovering who Jesus is, what he was like, and what that means for your life.
You might be thinking, okay, well, I also want to take some steps deeper beyond that. Well, you can download the Pine Hills app, and you can find that by going to pinehillschurch.org, comma. Just scroll a bit down the page, and you're going to see a prompt to download the app. And when you download the app and you put it on your phone, what's amazing with that is that there's actually a tab on there. That one.
It talks about the basics of faith. So what's the big story of God? What does it look like to encounter God and just to begin to discover some of the first conversations that you need to have. And then the next step for you is the practicing the way tab. We get to talk about, what does it actually look like to practice the way of Jesus each and every day?
And there's a conversation there, a lot of them loaded up, and then there's a form at the bottom. And after you've gone through a few of those conversations or all those conversations, please fill out the form so we could follow up with you and just say, hey, what's helpful in that process? How do we partner with you? How do we answer any of your questions? Because we want to be a blessing and a resource for you.
So with that, I just appreciate you listening to this video, being part of our community in any way, and so just want to send you out and know that you are blessed by God, called to live on mission, to be a source of blessing and love and non anxious presence for other people. So if you're following along with us and you're not just a one off or just watching one episode randomly, but you're someone who's part of our community in any particular way, remember, our goal is to be a community that practices the way of Jesus for our personal renewal, but also the renewal of the city that we live in. Have a great day. See you in the next episode. Bye.
Summary
In the sermon "Reflecting God's Heart" by Pastor Aaron, the importance of aligning our hearts with God's and living in a way that reflects His character is emphasized. Pastor Aaron uses examples to illustrate how misplaced devotion and judgmental attitudes can hinder our relationship with God and others. Through the encounter between Jesus and religious leaders, he teaches that true devotion comes from the heart, not outward appearances or traditions. The sermon challenges listeners to examine their hearts, love others despite differences, and seek transformation in order to truly reflect God's heart.
Discussion Questions
- How can we ensure we are aligning our hearts with God's heart and not falling into the trap of focusing on external practices or traditions?
- How would living in a way that genuinely reflects God's heart impact our relationships and interactions with others?
- What are some examples of modern-day divisions or prejudices that might prevent us from fully reflecting God's heart?
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills at Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So thankful that you are with us today, taking in the conversation, hopefully allowing the Holy Spirit to teach you what he wants to teach you through this week's topic. And it's a bit of a challenging one.
And so I want to encourage you to hang in there and to really just open up your heart just to see maybe what's in there and what is it that the Holy Spirit wants to illuminate and maybe just kind of put a finger on and in grace to say, hey, these things we need to lay down so that way we can continue to form you in the ways of God, which are the most life giving and good ways for your life. Anyway. And as I was thinking about the conversation today, it reminded me of a movie that I used to watch with Nicole. We started watching it when we first started dating, and we returned to it every so often to watch it again. But this movie called Fever Pitch, which has Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon in it.
And it's this couple who kind of finds each other and they start dating. And some of these initial things when they're dating are kind of cute. But as she continues to deepen the relationship, she finds that these things that used to be so cute aren't so cute anymore because they're kind of affecting all of life in kind of a negative way. See, Jimmy Fallon is a Red Sox fan in the movie. And so he's not just a Red Sox fan.
He has season tickets that he inherited from an uncle, and he just goes over the top with it. He feels like he needs to be at every home game. He goes to spring training down in Florida with all his friends where they talk about all the different players and what decisions the Red Sox need to make and all of these different things. And Drew Barrymore at one point is like, oh, they actually ask you questions and take your opinion. And Jimmy Fallon's like, well, no, they don't.
This is just what we do to kind of belong to this thing. And so they kind of get this false appearance that they're really belonging to the right thing when they're really not. And, and really, Jimmy Fallon kind of defines. Like, this is what a sports fan should be like. They should be at every game.
They should be overly wrapped up in everything. Their schedule should completely depend upon the Red Sox schedule. And Drew Barrymore, even at one point says, man, your, your apartment looks like a memorabilia shop. There's just a Red Sox stuff everywhere except for the toilet paper, which is Yankee toilet paper. And I'll let you put two and two together about why that might be.
But really, it's this idea that Jimmy Fallon is saying, if you're going to be a fan, it's got to be to this level, and anything lesser than that is not a fan at all. And so that's what we're looking at today, because the religious leaders are showing up on the scene with Jesus, and they're saying, hey, if you, if you're part of this, then it's got to look this way. And if it doesn't meet our tradition and our values, then there's something wrong with that. And they get in this kind of debate with Jesus. And ultimately, Jesus points out what's flawed in their thinking, what's flawed in their perception of the kingdom of God.
And he actually says, hey, you've got all this appearances, you've got all this Red Sox gear kind of on, but you're not really devoted to that, he says. And you've got the outward appearances of religion and following the way of God, but your heart is actually far from God. And so with that, let's continue the conversation. These delegates, they roll in from Jerusalem, which, again, is this religious epicenter in their day, and they have to leave that center to go out in the outer towns, which they didn't really want to do. But Jesus is out there performing miracles, inviting people into the kingdom of God, doing all of this stuff that is complicating their idea of who God is and who God invites into the family of God.
And so there's been this brewing controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders. Jesus didn't meet their expectations and frequently revealed that they were getting so much wrong about the kingdom of God, even though they had devoted all of their life to theologically studying and understanding who God is. I want you to try to tell someone with a waffle diplomas that they really don't know what they're talking about and see how that conversation goes for us. And as we have seen in Mark, Jesus has consistently offended them over and over again until their hearts had closed off and hardened to the point that they were willing to be involved in a plot to have Jesus killed. Now they were back again.
And maybe it's not the same people, but this controversy had spread all throughout Jerusalem. And there's a lot of people in on this, trying to make sure we get rid rid of Jesus because of how much controversy that he's causing. So with that, let's go to mark seven two. It says they which is the religious leaders noticed that some of the disciples failed to follow the jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. Again, they rolled in the scene, and they're just looking to nitpick and find anything that's ultimately wrong with what Jesus is doing.
And they bring this thing about jewish ritual of handwashing, which sounds kind of weird, but we need to ask a few questions with that. We need to ask, what were they not following that these people found offense in it? Was the jewish rituals of hand washing? Were they breaking God's laws? No.
So what was the problem? To be clear, this wasn't an issue of the disciples not washing their hands. They just didn't do it in the way that the jewish leaders expected them to. Now, again, in this, this is their culture, not our culture. You might be thinking, what's the big deal?
What does it matter? And their culture, it's a big deal. And the religious leaders are making an even bigger deal. So if you could bear with me, I can give you some of the cultural background, and then we can look at how this might touch and speak to points in our very own culture. Because that's what's amazing about the Bible, is that sometimes we read service level.
You're like, this really doesn't make sense, because it was so. It's so far removed from our culture because it's written to a completely different culture. But if you sit in the text for just a little bit and you allow what it meant in their day, what it spoke to, their cultural moment, you can start to see how it still speaks our cultural moment today, which gives testament that the Bible is living and active and good. And so with that, let's do the work of sitting through some of this, of pulling out some of this historical understanding, this cultural understanding, so that way we can breathe life into how we approach even our culture today. So get back to them.
These religious leaders had devoted their lives to reflect the heart of God, to people, to teach the people God's ways, and to help the community to live in ways that were healthy and good with God. And God had given so many good and beautiful commandments or rules to help govern the people. No matter how much you hate certain rules, deep down, we all need a basic standard of rules to abide by so that we don't slip into utter chaos where nothing really matters. That's the slide of our culture. But in their culture, these religious leaders had taken these good rules given by God in an effort to not break them.
They created fences further out in order to ensure that no one would break these central rules. For example, it would be like someone in your city really, you know, coming along and saying, hey, this road, there's a speed limit. It's only 45 miles an hour, but everyone tries to drive 60 plus on that particular road. We have one of these in Benda. And so in order to keep everyone kind of reined in, these people who govern the city, who really had a lot of clout and a lot of authority, they could come along and say, hey, everyone's going to drive 40 because we want to make sure we don't break the law of driving more than 45.
So how would you feel about that person? Is that a person you would want to go to dinner with that's trying to, like, suppress or put a governor on everyone else, so that way everyone doesn't come close to breaking whatever particular rule they had in mind? That's what's kind of happening here now that you kind of feel what's going on. Let's get to the actual bone that the religious leaders decided to pick with Jesus. They accused Jesus of not abiding by ceremonial cleaning rituals.
And the problem was that the actual law that they were quoting was only meant for actual priests that would go in before God to offer sacrifices on the behalf of the people. They would literally repent of all their sins, try to get as clean as they possibly could, to wash themselves as a representation of purifying themselves before they entered God's presence, because God's presence is holy. Like, we can't enter God's presence on our own because he is holy, and we're a sinful people, and we have all of this stuff that should hold us back from God. And so they would, before Jesus had come and. And made the sacrifice for us.
That way we could all enter into God's presence and to be washed clean and to have no sin before that happened, they would have to do all of these mandated things by God, that these religious leaders would go in a couple times a year, they would offer sacrifices, and that they would repent on behalf of the people, to cleanse the nation, to cleanse the people of all the different things that they had done wrong, where they didn't get it right, where they were doing things that were wounding themselves and wounding other people. And so they developed God had given them this custom of, this is the way you enter my presence, because entering God's presence matters. And if they didn't do it right, it would cost them their lives. And so this is very serious. And so these religious leaders had, in an effort not to break that particular rule, said, you know what?
Let's apply this to everyone and not just the religious priests who are going into God's presence. Let's apply this before we, we sit down and we eat a meal. Let's apply this. When we come back from the market and we have food, we need to make sure that we're washing our bodies and washing the utensils that we carry the food with or are going to eat the food with. We need to wash the food itself so that everything is purified before God, just in case we came into contact with something that would.
That would make us unclean. Then we'll get more into what that looks like in a minute. And it's actually a little darker than what it seems on the surface. So continue to hang with me. Let's go.
Mark seven, five, eight says. So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked them, why don't your disciples follow our age old tradition? They eat without first performing the handwashing ceremony. Jesus replied, you hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.
For he wrote, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach manmade ideas as commands from God. So you're starting to see how this is working out. The religious leaders had rolled in, found something silly to nitpick Jesus on. And Jesus is saying, hey, you're upholding this kind of really silly thing.
You're not applying it right, you're not getting the ways of God right. And actually, you've got all this outward example of how you think life within the kingdom of God should look like you're doing all this stuff that's puffing yourself up, but really, your hearts are far from goddesse. That's like us in our day of doing all of these religious practices. And for us, this is the slide of our community. So we need to be careful that even the practices that lead us into the presence of God, that help us to encounter God, that we don't make those more than God himself.
There's times where we can do the practice of Jesus. We do silence and solitude. We can do meditating on scripture. We can do prayer, we do scripture reading. We can do fast.
We do all of these different things, and we can make ourselves feel like we're a little bit better than we are when we're not really addressing the heart. See, the actions matter, but the heart has to follow. And both of those things have to be there together. We can't substitute just the practices without the heart. All of it has to come together.
And the religious leaders have forgot that. See, they were really, honestly just putting out their false self, trying to look good for the whole community. Look at how religious I am. Look at how amazing I am. But really, their heart was deeply far from God.
See, they had this, this projection of their false self, but they're actually elevating man made ideas over God. And it's crazy that they were going to bring something like, so silly to Jesus like this. And Jesus calls them out, which is where things really heat up just a bit more. Jesus responds to, to their accusation by quoting a scripture that they all really understand. And man, when he quotes it, it's home.
But he says, you're being hypocrites. Which means in that language, it means to play act. It's to be a false self, to pretend like you really belong when you don't really belong. To pretend like you're really being religious, but you're not at all representing the heart of God. And that's the problem.
They were doing all of the right things in the name of being devoted to God, but their hearts weren't actually of the nature of someone who lived a life devoted to God. And that was the problem, because what is in our heart naturally comes out anyway. And sometimes we're so worried about all the external things. If I just get the external things right, I'm going to be a better person. And Jesus cares about the heart, because if you get the heart right, everything else flows from that, and that's where it leads to the right action in the right way.
But the religious leaders had taken their eyes off of it and needed Jesus to correct them a bit, because they had made up a massive amount of these laws. Remember the fences that they were putting around these core laws, these core commandments that God had given them just to make sure everyone didn't break them. And so they had made a massive amount of other laws and started elevating their ideas above God. God said, this thing here in the center, we put up this big fence, hey, we shouldn't do that. But really, like, this is just a man made idea in order not to get to that.
And God doesn't so much care about the man made idea. God cares about the heart of what he actually said, because when he gives a law, it's actually for good. When God says no, it's actually for our benefit. What, did God actually direct it? Well, he gave ten base commandments and we see that exodus 21 through 17, go read it for yourself.
But to summarize it, those ten things are living for God and no other false gods. Not worshiping created things as God, not misusing the name of God, but honoring it with reverence and adoration, taking a Sabbath day of rest, meaning only working six days a week, honoring your father and mother, not committing murder, not being unfaithful to your spouse, not stealing, not falsely testifying against your neighbor, or coveting what your neighbor has. These are ten basic things. And remember, these are ten base things, not like something you should aspire to. God is saying as he's forming.
Remember, he brought people out of slavery, began to form a people group that would represent him to the rest of the world. And they were forgetting that, that they were meant to be missional people of God. They were. They closed themselves in and said, hey, it's about us. It's about our ways.
And if you don't abide by our ways, we want nothing to do with you because you're unclean and you're not worth anything. And so God had given these rules just to help the community to. To function well, because we all need, again, those base rules that help us to. To make sure that we're having a healthy society, unlike our culture, which says we need to throw everything out and that's how we're going to somehow find happiness. That never works.
And so God had given these ten base things. The religious leaders had made up hundreds and hundreds of all these other laws and started saying, hey, these are ultimately better than what God had said. That's what problematic. And Jesus begins to just say, hey, you're actually not getting the heart of God right. You're not getting his ways right, although you're supposed to be experts and supposed to be leading people into this type of life, but you're actually taking God's laws and using your laws in order to sidestep it or find a loophole.
And so one of the ways that happened with this was Jesus quotes that they're not actually honoring their father and mother, which looks different in our culture than it looked in their culture, but in their culture, they're responsible for, as their parents got elderly, to care for them. We should be doing that in our culture as well, to care for them as much as we can. But I know we got broken relationships and family. So that's a much bigger conversation that we have time for right now. But in their day, they should have financially provided for their family when they can no longer work.
And so what they were doing was taking the money that they normally helped their family with and earmarking it for God, even though they might not necessarily use it for goddess. And so God was saying, man, I don't actually want that money. I don't need that money. I don't want your sacrifice. I want you to have the right heart, which is the heart to actually care for and love people, to love people not only in your own family, but people even outside of your community.
And so this stuff starts to build as Jesus is kind of laying plane like you're at your heart, you're not caring for people. And God's heart is to care for people and to love people. And Jesus is the very nature and character of God. And he's loving people on the outside, inviting people who are prostitutes, people who are broken down, people who are diseased, and he's healing them and restoring them and mending them and inviting them into the family of God. And he expects that followers of God should represent all of that stuff, too, and not just find loopholes and trying to say, what can I get away with instead of God?
How do I live a life before you that's holy, that's pleasing to you? Let's keep going. And Jesus called the crowd to him and he said, come in here. All listen, he said, and try to understand, it's not what goes into your body that defiles you. You are defiled by what comes out of your heart.
And remember again, it's about this washing ceremony before eating. So don't go too far and say, hey, you know what? It's not about all these other things like music and movies and things like that. We need to discern the things that we do allow into our minds, into our hearts, into our spirit. Does it help form us into the right character, into the who we should be, into the ways of God?
Or does it form us away from it? He's talking about food in this instance, like your ceremonial man made idea doesn't ultimately matter. And he doubles down in the next couple verses. And Jesus went to the house to get away from the crowd. So he had kind of taught him all this stuff.
And the disciples get him to alone and said, what is this? What does it mean? We don't understand. Can't you see? Jesus says, you put food into your body, cannot defile you.
Food doesn't go into your heart, which is the epicenter of who they were, their character, nature, their personality, all that came from the epicenter of who they were, their heart. And jewish language doesn't go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer, which is a nasty example. But he's kind of just saying, hey, what they're really trying to, like, quote here, like, doesn't matter. That stuff that what they're trying to do, what they're trying to practice, doesn't actually lead the heart in a good direction or bad direction. It's just meaningless.
But what's behind it is actually the thing that matters. And then Mark puts this editorial note in there, in these parentheses, if you go look at it in the Bible, there's these parentheses. And Mark jumps in and says, by saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God's eyes, which is something that Mark really wants you to understand, which is why he throws that in. He doesn't do that very often. In jewish, people had rules around the types of food that they could eat and not eat.
And so if you've been kind of caught up in all the cultural stuff, I want you to tune in here, because we have a people group who say, if you want to belong to us, you got to eat food in our way, abide by our dietary customs. And if you're not part of us, we're not going to eat with you. We don't want to be around you. We're going to determine that you're unclean, going to do everything we can to avoid you, which is to miss the nature and character of God, to miss God's heart, essentially. Anyone who didn't live like them, they wouldn't have relationship with.
And those people were viewed as despicable, terrible human beings. Every negative thing that you can think of, that's how they thought of all these other groups. They only cared for themselves, which is missing, like, massive portions of the scripture. When God says, care for the outsider, invite them in, help them to understand who God is and to be part of the family. They're missing it.
And even when they go to the market and to buy food, they come home and they wash the food. They wash all the stuff they carried it with. They washed their bodies because they might come into contact with gentiles, which is people in their mind, that they thought were unclean. Which brings up a bigger issue. Jesus is saying, and you're.
You're doing all of these stuff, this ceremonial cleaning things you're doing, all these religious practices anchor forming you in the way that you should go, but your heart is wrong. The heart is wrong because you're not caring for the people that God actually cares about. You're not being the missional people of God that he's challenging you to be. And what's controversial is we can't be like that. If we're going to follow in the way of Jesus, we need to live like Jesus, which means we love people we otherwise might not want to love and care for.
We need to serve them. We need to help them. We need to go to them. We need to be in conversation with them. We need to share the table with them.
To share meals is to not be afraid of that, to break bread with people, because deeply spiritual stuff happens over meals. Meals matter. And so that's something we could be even doing in our culture of inviting people, our neighbors, into our homes to have dinner with us or fill a cooler full of drinks and invite them to your lawn and say, hey, let's just hang out, get to know each other more. Invite them to a brewery, invite them to a float or a bike ride or whatever that might be. Start being more open and not closed off.
Sometimes we can even do that with our own families, just closing ourselves off, not responding to the people we work with, the people we live with, the people that are in our own neighborhoods, the people in their spheres of influence, that God has specifically put us there for a reason. And we need to be careful. This is the way we should be going. This is the character and nature of God. This is where we get the heart right, and Jesus will continue to show us the things that we get wrong that flow from a bad heart.
But let's just stop in a moment, because you might be thinking, well, this doesn't matter for our culture. Yes, it does, because the jewish religious leaders were saying this about gentiles, a whole group of people. Like, I don't want anything to do with them. I won't have meals with them. I won't have anything to do with that.
There's another religion in our day, which is our political system, which means if you align with any one particular party or culture says, if you don't align with this party, if you don't have these values and these beliefs, if you don't nod in the right direction, then we can't have relationship. We can't share meals together. We can't be Facebook friends. We can't be any of that. Like, I'm gonna not talk to you.
I'm like, ignore your existence. I don't want anything to do with you. So that's. That's happening in our culture. It's happening across socioeconomic lines.
Like, if you don't, if you're not in the same kind of like system as I am, where you live in the right part of town, you, I'll do all the right things. Like, I don't want anything to do with you. All of that is wrong and not the way of Jesus. If we abide by that, it's a abiding by the ways of the world and not the ways of God. God wants us to have him as ultimate and primary everything.
He's king above all other kings. And yes, we care about our country. We want to invest ourselves in our city really well, because as it prospers, we get to prosper. But we don't want to make it religion, like the rest of our culture is doing. We're not making it ultimate, because we know in the end, every political system breaks down.
Every political system is flawed. Every political system does not work out the way that we hope it would work, work out. God is the only one who works out. So as we go into a political climate, if you're a follower of Jesus, your challenge isn't to be like culture. Your challenge is to love across political lines, across whatever other socio lines that are there.
Like, we're going to break them all down. And that's what was controversial even in the early churches. They gathered in one place despite how much money someone did or didn't make, despite any kind of other political lines, whether you were roman or not. Well, any of this, like, they broke it all down. And he said, we're gathering around Jesus.
We might disagree about a lot, but we're going to keep him central. And the church grew by thousands. What would that look like if we did that in our own city? And Jesus shows us something different by how he lives his life. Jesus shows us that cultural differences shouldn't keep us from gathering with other people, getting to know other people's stories and caring for them, showing them the character and nature of God through our life.
But in order to do that, we've got to guard our hearts. Proverbs 423, guard your hearts above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Jesus says to beware of these other things because they flow from a negative heart. So let's check our hearts. Are we demonstrating love of God to people we otherwise might not normally love?
Are we demonstrating some of these other things? He added, this is what comes from your heart that defiles you. For from within, out of a person's heart, come evil thought. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All of these vile things come from within you.
They are what defile you. And he's essentially saying, guard your heart. Watch your heart. What are the things that come out when you're overly stressed? What are the things that come out when you're overly worried?
Where do you go to find comfort when you. When you're having a bad day? Where do you go to find comfort when things are anxious and you're worried? Like, who's the source? Is that.
Is it all these other things is, you know, is it these things that come out when. When you're under pressure? Because that really kind of reveals what's really in there. And that's not always a negative thing because Jesus wants to expose that so he can help say, hey, let's. Let's rethink these things.
Let's pattern your heart in the right way so that these things don't become the things that continue to come of your heart for a lifetime. These things matter. Why? Because these things will form our hearts away from God's intentions for our lives if we're not careful.
So, who are you being formed into? Jesus desires for all followers of him to progressively live out the character and nature of God through our lives to people that we might not naturally want to hang out with or even share a meal with. So, to recap, because that's a lot, and I get it. It is a lot. It's a challenging scripture to teach.
It's a challenging scripture to live out. Jesus reminds us that we can't just have all this outwardly expression of religion. We've got to mind our heart. We got to take care of that first. So invite the Holy Spirit into your heart to begin to fix the things that need to be fixed.
If he brings something to mind of saying, hey, this anger thing, this lust thing, this pride, this depending upon yourself thing, this buying into, like, a political party and making that ultimate above God thing. We need to repent of all that stuff so that way our hearts can be formed in the right way. We need to, over time, as he forms our heart, to demonstrate more and more the character and nature of God. And when we fall short of that, we just need to ask God every day for our help opening ourselves up before we go into our workplace. Starting your day with a family, God, help me to reveal your character and nature to everyone else around me.
Help me to love the people that you had had me to come across. Last one to care and love for people we normally might not want to, people different than us have different values, cheer for the wrong sport, teams have different political parties, whatever it might be. Like all that stuff we're keeping on the peripheral and we're caring for people that Jesus would inspire us to go meet, to learn the stories, to learn the name, to begin to pray for, to love really well. And hopefully over time, as we do relationship with them, we reveal who God is to them, that they might be drawn to that and come into the kingdom of God as well. And so some hard questions we can ask.
Who do you view as unclean? Like what people groups, what neighbors? What types of people do you tend to avoid? And what things in your own character do you need God's help with? And so with that, let's just pray.
God, I just pray you come and you help us, Holy Spirit, as you've been revealing stuff in our own culture that we can slide into and that we can even allow within the church. And so would you come and would you help us? Would you guide us and lead us in a way that's healthy and good for our lives? Would you help us to know that we're deeply loved and cared for? And from that place of receiving your grace, we can go live out grace with other people.
And so even when you reveal something that's kind of negative in your heart, it's not for us to feel judged. It's for us to feel empowered to live differently. So help us to be empowered to live differently, to not live in the ways of the world, but to live into your ways which are healthy and good and right. Teach us how to do that in your name we pray. Amen.
If you got any questions, please reach out to us. Pinthill church.org dot would love to get in conversation with us so you can initiate it there. Just go to the website, click on the connect tab, and just begin to follow the prompts and we'll get back into contact with you. If you're not local to bend, please find a faith community that you can consistently show up in that helps challenge you to live out the ways of Jesus. If you are in Benda, come check us out at 04:00 p.m.
on this on the south side of Bend or many other great churches. If you need help connecting with any church, please just reach out and we'll kind of find one that you might match up with, line up with, and might be a great time in your schedule to meet at that time. So we're one family and we want to hopefully represent that even in our own city. But much grace to you. Love you.
See you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
And so I want to encourage you to hang in there and to really just open up your heart just to see maybe what's in there and what is it that the Holy Spirit wants to illuminate and maybe just kind of put a finger on and in grace to say, hey, these things we need to lay down so that way we can continue to form you in the ways of God, which are the most life giving and good ways for your life. Anyway. And as I was thinking about the conversation today, it reminded me of a movie that I used to watch with Nicole. We started watching it when we first started dating, and we returned to it every so often to watch it again. But this movie called Fever Pitch, which has Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon in it.
And it's this couple who kind of finds each other and they start dating. And some of these initial things when they're dating are kind of cute. But as she continues to deepen the relationship, she finds that these things that used to be so cute aren't so cute anymore because they're kind of affecting all of life in kind of a negative way. See, Jimmy Fallon is a Red Sox fan in the movie. And so he's not just a Red Sox fan.
He has season tickets that he inherited from an uncle, and he just goes over the top with it. He feels like he needs to be at every home game. He goes to spring training down in Florida with all his friends where they talk about all the different players and what decisions the Red Sox need to make and all of these different things. And Drew Barrymore at one point is like, oh, they actually ask you questions and take your opinion. And Jimmy Fallon's like, well, no, they don't.
This is just what we do to kind of belong to this thing. And so they kind of get this false appearance that they're really belonging to the right thing when they're really not. And, and really, Jimmy Fallon kind of defines. Like, this is what a sports fan should be like. They should be at every game.
They should be overly wrapped up in everything. Their schedule should completely depend upon the Red Sox schedule. And Drew Barrymore, even at one point says, man, your, your apartment looks like a memorabilia shop. There's just a Red Sox stuff everywhere except for the toilet paper, which is Yankee toilet paper. And I'll let you put two and two together about why that might be.
But really, it's this idea that Jimmy Fallon is saying, if you're going to be a fan, it's got to be to this level, and anything lesser than that is not a fan at all. And so that's what we're looking at today, because the religious leaders are showing up on the scene with Jesus, and they're saying, hey, if you, if you're part of this, then it's got to look this way. And if it doesn't meet our tradition and our values, then there's something wrong with that. And they get in this kind of debate with Jesus. And ultimately, Jesus points out what's flawed in their thinking, what's flawed in their perception of the kingdom of God.
And he actually says, hey, you've got all this appearances, you've got all this Red Sox gear kind of on, but you're not really devoted to that, he says. And you've got the outward appearances of religion and following the way of God, but your heart is actually far from God. And so with that, let's continue the conversation. These delegates, they roll in from Jerusalem, which, again, is this religious epicenter in their day, and they have to leave that center to go out in the outer towns, which they didn't really want to do. But Jesus is out there performing miracles, inviting people into the kingdom of God, doing all of this stuff that is complicating their idea of who God is and who God invites into the family of God.
And so there's been this brewing controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders. Jesus didn't meet their expectations and frequently revealed that they were getting so much wrong about the kingdom of God, even though they had devoted all of their life to theologically studying and understanding who God is. I want you to try to tell someone with a waffle diplomas that they really don't know what they're talking about and see how that conversation goes for us. And as we have seen in Mark, Jesus has consistently offended them over and over again until their hearts had closed off and hardened to the point that they were willing to be involved in a plot to have Jesus killed. Now they were back again.
And maybe it's not the same people, but this controversy had spread all throughout Jerusalem. And there's a lot of people in on this, trying to make sure we get rid rid of Jesus because of how much controversy that he's causing. So with that, let's go to mark seven two. It says they which is the religious leaders noticed that some of the disciples failed to follow the jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. Again, they rolled in the scene, and they're just looking to nitpick and find anything that's ultimately wrong with what Jesus is doing.
And they bring this thing about jewish ritual of handwashing, which sounds kind of weird, but we need to ask a few questions with that. We need to ask, what were they not following that these people found offense in it? Was the jewish rituals of hand washing? Were they breaking God's laws? No.
So what was the problem? To be clear, this wasn't an issue of the disciples not washing their hands. They just didn't do it in the way that the jewish leaders expected them to. Now, again, in this, this is their culture, not our culture. You might be thinking, what's the big deal?
What does it matter? And their culture, it's a big deal. And the religious leaders are making an even bigger deal. So if you could bear with me, I can give you some of the cultural background, and then we can look at how this might touch and speak to points in our very own culture. Because that's what's amazing about the Bible, is that sometimes we read service level.
You're like, this really doesn't make sense, because it was so. It's so far removed from our culture because it's written to a completely different culture. But if you sit in the text for just a little bit and you allow what it meant in their day, what it spoke to, their cultural moment, you can start to see how it still speaks our cultural moment today, which gives testament that the Bible is living and active and good. And so with that, let's do the work of sitting through some of this, of pulling out some of this historical understanding, this cultural understanding, so that way we can breathe life into how we approach even our culture today. So get back to them.
These religious leaders had devoted their lives to reflect the heart of God, to people, to teach the people God's ways, and to help the community to live in ways that were healthy and good with God. And God had given so many good and beautiful commandments or rules to help govern the people. No matter how much you hate certain rules, deep down, we all need a basic standard of rules to abide by so that we don't slip into utter chaos where nothing really matters. That's the slide of our culture. But in their culture, these religious leaders had taken these good rules given by God in an effort to not break them.
They created fences further out in order to ensure that no one would break these central rules. For example, it would be like someone in your city really, you know, coming along and saying, hey, this road, there's a speed limit. It's only 45 miles an hour, but everyone tries to drive 60 plus on that particular road. We have one of these in Benda. And so in order to keep everyone kind of reined in, these people who govern the city, who really had a lot of clout and a lot of authority, they could come along and say, hey, everyone's going to drive 40 because we want to make sure we don't break the law of driving more than 45.
So how would you feel about that person? Is that a person you would want to go to dinner with that's trying to, like, suppress or put a governor on everyone else, so that way everyone doesn't come close to breaking whatever particular rule they had in mind? That's what's kind of happening here now that you kind of feel what's going on. Let's get to the actual bone that the religious leaders decided to pick with Jesus. They accused Jesus of not abiding by ceremonial cleaning rituals.
And the problem was that the actual law that they were quoting was only meant for actual priests that would go in before God to offer sacrifices on the behalf of the people. They would literally repent of all their sins, try to get as clean as they possibly could, to wash themselves as a representation of purifying themselves before they entered God's presence, because God's presence is holy. Like, we can't enter God's presence on our own because he is holy, and we're a sinful people, and we have all of this stuff that should hold us back from God. And so they would, before Jesus had come and. And made the sacrifice for us.
That way we could all enter into God's presence and to be washed clean and to have no sin before that happened, they would have to do all of these mandated things by God, that these religious leaders would go in a couple times a year, they would offer sacrifices, and that they would repent on behalf of the people, to cleanse the nation, to cleanse the people of all the different things that they had done wrong, where they didn't get it right, where they were doing things that were wounding themselves and wounding other people. And so they developed God had given them this custom of, this is the way you enter my presence, because entering God's presence matters. And if they didn't do it right, it would cost them their lives. And so this is very serious. And so these religious leaders had, in an effort not to break that particular rule, said, you know what?
Let's apply this to everyone and not just the religious priests who are going into God's presence. Let's apply this before we, we sit down and we eat a meal. Let's apply this. When we come back from the market and we have food, we need to make sure that we're washing our bodies and washing the utensils that we carry the food with or are going to eat the food with. We need to wash the food itself so that everything is purified before God, just in case we came into contact with something that would.
That would make us unclean. Then we'll get more into what that looks like in a minute. And it's actually a little darker than what it seems on the surface. So continue to hang with me. Let's go.
Mark seven, five, eight says. So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked them, why don't your disciples follow our age old tradition? They eat without first performing the handwashing ceremony. Jesus replied, you hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.
For he wrote, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach manmade ideas as commands from God. So you're starting to see how this is working out. The religious leaders had rolled in, found something silly to nitpick Jesus on. And Jesus is saying, hey, you're upholding this kind of really silly thing.
You're not applying it right, you're not getting the ways of God right. And actually, you've got all this outward example of how you think life within the kingdom of God should look like you're doing all this stuff that's puffing yourself up, but really, your hearts are far from goddesse. That's like us in our day of doing all of these religious practices. And for us, this is the slide of our community. So we need to be careful that even the practices that lead us into the presence of God, that help us to encounter God, that we don't make those more than God himself.
There's times where we can do the practice of Jesus. We do silence and solitude. We can do meditating on scripture. We can do prayer, we do scripture reading. We can do fast.
We do all of these different things, and we can make ourselves feel like we're a little bit better than we are when we're not really addressing the heart. See, the actions matter, but the heart has to follow. And both of those things have to be there together. We can't substitute just the practices without the heart. All of it has to come together.
And the religious leaders have forgot that. See, they were really, honestly just putting out their false self, trying to look good for the whole community. Look at how religious I am. Look at how amazing I am. But really, their heart was deeply far from God.
See, they had this, this projection of their false self, but they're actually elevating man made ideas over God. And it's crazy that they were going to bring something like, so silly to Jesus like this. And Jesus calls them out, which is where things really heat up just a bit more. Jesus responds to, to their accusation by quoting a scripture that they all really understand. And man, when he quotes it, it's home.
But he says, you're being hypocrites. Which means in that language, it means to play act. It's to be a false self, to pretend like you really belong when you don't really belong. To pretend like you're really being religious, but you're not at all representing the heart of God. And that's the problem.
They were doing all of the right things in the name of being devoted to God, but their hearts weren't actually of the nature of someone who lived a life devoted to God. And that was the problem, because what is in our heart naturally comes out anyway. And sometimes we're so worried about all the external things. If I just get the external things right, I'm going to be a better person. And Jesus cares about the heart, because if you get the heart right, everything else flows from that, and that's where it leads to the right action in the right way.
But the religious leaders had taken their eyes off of it and needed Jesus to correct them a bit, because they had made up a massive amount of these laws. Remember the fences that they were putting around these core laws, these core commandments that God had given them just to make sure everyone didn't break them. And so they had made a massive amount of other laws and started elevating their ideas above God. God said, this thing here in the center, we put up this big fence, hey, we shouldn't do that. But really, like, this is just a man made idea in order not to get to that.
And God doesn't so much care about the man made idea. God cares about the heart of what he actually said, because when he gives a law, it's actually for good. When God says no, it's actually for our benefit. What, did God actually direct it? Well, he gave ten base commandments and we see that exodus 21 through 17, go read it for yourself.
But to summarize it, those ten things are living for God and no other false gods. Not worshiping created things as God, not misusing the name of God, but honoring it with reverence and adoration, taking a Sabbath day of rest, meaning only working six days a week, honoring your father and mother, not committing murder, not being unfaithful to your spouse, not stealing, not falsely testifying against your neighbor, or coveting what your neighbor has. These are ten basic things. And remember, these are ten base things, not like something you should aspire to. God is saying as he's forming.
Remember, he brought people out of slavery, began to form a people group that would represent him to the rest of the world. And they were forgetting that, that they were meant to be missional people of God. They were. They closed themselves in and said, hey, it's about us. It's about our ways.
And if you don't abide by our ways, we want nothing to do with you because you're unclean and you're not worth anything. And so God had given these rules just to help the community to. To function well, because we all need, again, those base rules that help us to. To make sure that we're having a healthy society, unlike our culture, which says we need to throw everything out and that's how we're going to somehow find happiness. That never works.
And so God had given these ten base things. The religious leaders had made up hundreds and hundreds of all these other laws and started saying, hey, these are ultimately better than what God had said. That's what problematic. And Jesus begins to just say, hey, you're actually not getting the heart of God right. You're not getting his ways right, although you're supposed to be experts and supposed to be leading people into this type of life, but you're actually taking God's laws and using your laws in order to sidestep it or find a loophole.
And so one of the ways that happened with this was Jesus quotes that they're not actually honoring their father and mother, which looks different in our culture than it looked in their culture, but in their culture, they're responsible for, as their parents got elderly, to care for them. We should be doing that in our culture as well, to care for them as much as we can. But I know we got broken relationships and family. So that's a much bigger conversation that we have time for right now. But in their day, they should have financially provided for their family when they can no longer work.
And so what they were doing was taking the money that they normally helped their family with and earmarking it for God, even though they might not necessarily use it for goddess. And so God was saying, man, I don't actually want that money. I don't need that money. I don't want your sacrifice. I want you to have the right heart, which is the heart to actually care for and love people, to love people not only in your own family, but people even outside of your community.
And so this stuff starts to build as Jesus is kind of laying plane like you're at your heart, you're not caring for people. And God's heart is to care for people and to love people. And Jesus is the very nature and character of God. And he's loving people on the outside, inviting people who are prostitutes, people who are broken down, people who are diseased, and he's healing them and restoring them and mending them and inviting them into the family of God. And he expects that followers of God should represent all of that stuff, too, and not just find loopholes and trying to say, what can I get away with instead of God?
How do I live a life before you that's holy, that's pleasing to you? Let's keep going. And Jesus called the crowd to him and he said, come in here. All listen, he said, and try to understand, it's not what goes into your body that defiles you. You are defiled by what comes out of your heart.
And remember again, it's about this washing ceremony before eating. So don't go too far and say, hey, you know what? It's not about all these other things like music and movies and things like that. We need to discern the things that we do allow into our minds, into our hearts, into our spirit. Does it help form us into the right character, into the who we should be, into the ways of God?
Or does it form us away from it? He's talking about food in this instance, like your ceremonial man made idea doesn't ultimately matter. And he doubles down in the next couple verses. And Jesus went to the house to get away from the crowd. So he had kind of taught him all this stuff.
And the disciples get him to alone and said, what is this? What does it mean? We don't understand. Can't you see? Jesus says, you put food into your body, cannot defile you.
Food doesn't go into your heart, which is the epicenter of who they were, their character, nature, their personality, all that came from the epicenter of who they were, their heart. And jewish language doesn't go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer, which is a nasty example. But he's kind of just saying, hey, what they're really trying to, like, quote here, like, doesn't matter. That stuff that what they're trying to do, what they're trying to practice, doesn't actually lead the heart in a good direction or bad direction. It's just meaningless.
But what's behind it is actually the thing that matters. And then Mark puts this editorial note in there, in these parentheses, if you go look at it in the Bible, there's these parentheses. And Mark jumps in and says, by saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God's eyes, which is something that Mark really wants you to understand, which is why he throws that in. He doesn't do that very often. In jewish, people had rules around the types of food that they could eat and not eat.
And so if you've been kind of caught up in all the cultural stuff, I want you to tune in here, because we have a people group who say, if you want to belong to us, you got to eat food in our way, abide by our dietary customs. And if you're not part of us, we're not going to eat with you. We don't want to be around you. We're going to determine that you're unclean, going to do everything we can to avoid you, which is to miss the nature and character of God, to miss God's heart, essentially. Anyone who didn't live like them, they wouldn't have relationship with.
And those people were viewed as despicable, terrible human beings. Every negative thing that you can think of, that's how they thought of all these other groups. They only cared for themselves, which is missing, like, massive portions of the scripture. When God says, care for the outsider, invite them in, help them to understand who God is and to be part of the family. They're missing it.
And even when they go to the market and to buy food, they come home and they wash the food. They wash all the stuff they carried it with. They washed their bodies because they might come into contact with gentiles, which is people in their mind, that they thought were unclean. Which brings up a bigger issue. Jesus is saying, and you're.
You're doing all of these stuff, this ceremonial cleaning things you're doing, all these religious practices anchor forming you in the way that you should go, but your heart is wrong. The heart is wrong because you're not caring for the people that God actually cares about. You're not being the missional people of God that he's challenging you to be. And what's controversial is we can't be like that. If we're going to follow in the way of Jesus, we need to live like Jesus, which means we love people we otherwise might not want to love and care for.
We need to serve them. We need to help them. We need to go to them. We need to be in conversation with them. We need to share the table with them.
To share meals is to not be afraid of that, to break bread with people, because deeply spiritual stuff happens over meals. Meals matter. And so that's something we could be even doing in our culture of inviting people, our neighbors, into our homes to have dinner with us or fill a cooler full of drinks and invite them to your lawn and say, hey, let's just hang out, get to know each other more. Invite them to a brewery, invite them to a float or a bike ride or whatever that might be. Start being more open and not closed off.
Sometimes we can even do that with our own families, just closing ourselves off, not responding to the people we work with, the people we live with, the people that are in our own neighborhoods, the people in their spheres of influence, that God has specifically put us there for a reason. And we need to be careful. This is the way we should be going. This is the character and nature of God. This is where we get the heart right, and Jesus will continue to show us the things that we get wrong that flow from a bad heart.
But let's just stop in a moment, because you might be thinking, well, this doesn't matter for our culture. Yes, it does, because the jewish religious leaders were saying this about gentiles, a whole group of people. Like, I don't want anything to do with them. I won't have meals with them. I won't have anything to do with that.
There's another religion in our day, which is our political system, which means if you align with any one particular party or culture says, if you don't align with this party, if you don't have these values and these beliefs, if you don't nod in the right direction, then we can't have relationship. We can't share meals together. We can't be Facebook friends. We can't be any of that. Like, I'm gonna not talk to you.
I'm like, ignore your existence. I don't want anything to do with you. So that's. That's happening in our culture. It's happening across socioeconomic lines.
Like, if you don't, if you're not in the same kind of like system as I am, where you live in the right part of town, you, I'll do all the right things. Like, I don't want anything to do with you. All of that is wrong and not the way of Jesus. If we abide by that, it's a abiding by the ways of the world and not the ways of God. God wants us to have him as ultimate and primary everything.
He's king above all other kings. And yes, we care about our country. We want to invest ourselves in our city really well, because as it prospers, we get to prosper. But we don't want to make it religion, like the rest of our culture is doing. We're not making it ultimate, because we know in the end, every political system breaks down.
Every political system is flawed. Every political system does not work out the way that we hope it would work, work out. God is the only one who works out. So as we go into a political climate, if you're a follower of Jesus, your challenge isn't to be like culture. Your challenge is to love across political lines, across whatever other socio lines that are there.
Like, we're going to break them all down. And that's what was controversial even in the early churches. They gathered in one place despite how much money someone did or didn't make, despite any kind of other political lines, whether you were roman or not. Well, any of this, like, they broke it all down. And he said, we're gathering around Jesus.
We might disagree about a lot, but we're going to keep him central. And the church grew by thousands. What would that look like if we did that in our own city? And Jesus shows us something different by how he lives his life. Jesus shows us that cultural differences shouldn't keep us from gathering with other people, getting to know other people's stories and caring for them, showing them the character and nature of God through our life.
But in order to do that, we've got to guard our hearts. Proverbs 423, guard your hearts above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Jesus says to beware of these other things because they flow from a negative heart. So let's check our hearts. Are we demonstrating love of God to people we otherwise might not normally love?
Are we demonstrating some of these other things? He added, this is what comes from your heart that defiles you. For from within, out of a person's heart, come evil thought. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All of these vile things come from within you.
They are what defile you. And he's essentially saying, guard your heart. Watch your heart. What are the things that come out when you're overly stressed? What are the things that come out when you're overly worried?
Where do you go to find comfort when you. When you're having a bad day? Where do you go to find comfort when things are anxious and you're worried? Like, who's the source? Is that.
Is it all these other things is, you know, is it these things that come out when. When you're under pressure? Because that really kind of reveals what's really in there. And that's not always a negative thing because Jesus wants to expose that so he can help say, hey, let's. Let's rethink these things.
Let's pattern your heart in the right way so that these things don't become the things that continue to come of your heart for a lifetime. These things matter. Why? Because these things will form our hearts away from God's intentions for our lives if we're not careful.
So, who are you being formed into? Jesus desires for all followers of him to progressively live out the character and nature of God through our lives to people that we might not naturally want to hang out with or even share a meal with. So, to recap, because that's a lot, and I get it. It is a lot. It's a challenging scripture to teach.
It's a challenging scripture to live out. Jesus reminds us that we can't just have all this outwardly expression of religion. We've got to mind our heart. We got to take care of that first. So invite the Holy Spirit into your heart to begin to fix the things that need to be fixed.
If he brings something to mind of saying, hey, this anger thing, this lust thing, this pride, this depending upon yourself thing, this buying into, like, a political party and making that ultimate above God thing. We need to repent of all that stuff so that way our hearts can be formed in the right way. We need to, over time, as he forms our heart, to demonstrate more and more the character and nature of God. And when we fall short of that, we just need to ask God every day for our help opening ourselves up before we go into our workplace. Starting your day with a family, God, help me to reveal your character and nature to everyone else around me.
Help me to love the people that you had had me to come across. Last one to care and love for people we normally might not want to, people different than us have different values, cheer for the wrong sport, teams have different political parties, whatever it might be. Like all that stuff we're keeping on the peripheral and we're caring for people that Jesus would inspire us to go meet, to learn the stories, to learn the name, to begin to pray for, to love really well. And hopefully over time, as we do relationship with them, we reveal who God is to them, that they might be drawn to that and come into the kingdom of God as well. And so some hard questions we can ask.
Who do you view as unclean? Like what people groups, what neighbors? What types of people do you tend to avoid? And what things in your own character do you need God's help with? And so with that, let's just pray.
God, I just pray you come and you help us, Holy Spirit, as you've been revealing stuff in our own culture that we can slide into and that we can even allow within the church. And so would you come and would you help us? Would you guide us and lead us in a way that's healthy and good for our lives? Would you help us to know that we're deeply loved and cared for? And from that place of receiving your grace, we can go live out grace with other people.
And so even when you reveal something that's kind of negative in your heart, it's not for us to feel judged. It's for us to feel empowered to live differently. So help us to be empowered to live differently, to not live in the ways of the world, but to live into your ways which are healthy and good and right. Teach us how to do that in your name we pray. Amen.
If you got any questions, please reach out to us. Pinthill church.org dot would love to get in conversation with us so you can initiate it there. Just go to the website, click on the connect tab, and just begin to follow the prompts and we'll get back into contact with you. If you're not local to bend, please find a faith community that you can consistently show up in that helps challenge you to live out the ways of Jesus. If you are in Benda, come check us out at 04:00 p.m.
on this on the south side of Bend or many other great churches. If you need help connecting with any church, please just reach out and we'll kind of find one that you might match up with, line up with, and might be a great time in your schedule to meet at that time. So we're one family and we want to hopefully represent that even in our own city. But much grace to you. Love you.
See you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
Summary
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.
Discussion Questions
- Who is someone from history that has inspired you by their example, and why?
- What are some practical ways you can make a positive impact in the world and live for something greater than yourself?
- How can followers of Jesus find solace in the promise of eternal life during times of suffering and rejection?
- Have you found something worth giving your life for?
Transcript
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.
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.
Summary
In "Embracing the Mystery and the Bigger Picture," Pastor Aaron Contreras discusses finding joy in embracing uncertainty and God's mysteries, contrasting to our preference for predictability. He emphasizes not hiding our light as followers of Jesus but letting it shine to reveal God's kingdom and invite others to follow Jesus. While acknowledging the challenges of understanding evil and God's plan, he points to moments of beauty as evidence of God's ongoing work in the world. The sermon concludes with practical steps to navigate uncertainty by focusing on Jesus, surrendering the need for control, trusting in God's faithfulness, and finding support in community.
Discussion Questions
- How do. these stories bring hope for your life?
- How have the practices of Jesus helped you to cope with the anxieties you experience?
- How does the life described in Matthew 11:28-30 make you feel?
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful that you are gathering with us, whether through the YouTube channel or wherever you might be listening to this on the podcast. And so we've been walking through a series called this. I believe we're going through the gospel of Mark together. And so we have been just slowly looking at what Mark is trying to tell us through the story about who Jesus is, what he was like, and what that means for our life. And today, we're going to look and see how Jesus can step into the midst of our anxiety and how he brings about peace in those situations. And so I want you to think about an anxious situation from your life. For me, one of the stories that comes to mind right away is a flight that we had from Seattle to Redmond. And so it's a little hopper flight. That's where we fly into. He can get down to bend. When I'm traveling with my wife, Nicole, who's already pretty anxious about flying, she does not enjoy it at all. And my two daughters and I remember as soon as we took off, man, we started experiencing turbulence right away. And I've been through a lot of turbulence before, so that normally doesn't shake me at all. But as we were bumping around, I remember the plane started pitching, like, side to side. And that was different because then you're. Your stomach's reacting. You're kind of going up and then kind of sideways, and everything is just a bit scary. And I know for me, when I. When I fly, I don't typically think a lot about that, but when I'm flying with my girls, that's a whole different situation. I want them to be safe. I don't want anything bad to happen. And I remember getting anxious in that situation. I was trying to play it cool with my wife, so that way I didn't add to her anxiety that she was feeling. But inside, I was internally starting to struggle. Seemed to kind of come out of nowhere, and I began to pray, God, would you show up and do something? Keep us safe. Don't let this plane go down and all of that. And so we ended up getting through it. We got down to bend pretty safely. But I remember my wife saying, I don't ever want to fly again after that. And so, thank goodness she has taken more flights since then. But I don't know if you've been through a situation like this, maybe you come to mind and there's something where you've had a physical injury or sickness or maybe something emotional has happened in your life, or maybe it's been spiritual or financially or relational. And so whatever it might have been, it just seemed to kind of come out of nowhere, and it caused all of this internal anxiety within you. And maybe it led you to question life, and maybe you began to play, like, question where you place your faith. Maybe there's a lot of external pressures that were happening that were affecting you internally, and maybe you felt like you had kind of lost control even over your reactions. And I want you to imagine if you're going through all that, maybe this is where you're at. But your entire life story up to that situation had led you to believe that you were the only one who could kind of deal with this. I know our culture tends to say this all the time. Like, you kind of are put in the position of having to get it all figured out, having the power to get through all of these things. And so when you go through those anxious situations like that where everything's disorienting, you don't know what to do next. You don't know how you're going to navigate through that when you don't have someone that you can turn to that's pretty difficult to go through. That can get pretty dark pretty quickly, and it can get very hopeless. But praise God, there's a different story that's happening. And so today we're going to look at two anxious stories and see how Jesus steps into each of them and what that might mean for our stories today. So let's start with the story number one, about an anxious boat ride. The story picks up in Mark, chapter four, verses 35 through 41. If you want to follow along with the story, I'm going to summarize a little bit of it, and then we'll read some specific passages. But in the story, the disciples who had been following along with Jesus and doing the work of ministry, of proclaiming the gospel, seeing all of these miracles begin to happen. They get into a boat at Jesus's instruction to go across a lake. And Jesus, tired from the work of teaching, showing people the power of the kingdom through these miracles, goes to the back of the boat, and he lays down and he does what we all really want to do is to take a nap. And sometime after he had began taking this nap, this mighty storm sweeps in, and these waves start rocking this boat. And these guys are fishermen. They were lifetime fishermen. They had seen it all. They had navigated through it all. They spent their life on this lake fishing. And so nothing normally catches them by surprise. But this storm was so sudden and so massive that it got them nervous, picking it up. In verse 38, it says, jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him, shouting, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown? And when Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, silence. Be still. Suddenly, the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? The disciples were absolutely terrified. Who is this man? They asked each other. Even the wind and the waves obey him. See, the miracle in this situation is that the wind, not just that the wind stops, but at Jesus's word, not only the wind stops, but then the water calms. That's a pretty difficult thing. Like, the wind starts and stops whenever the wind really wants to. But for some time after wind blowing, even those waves are still riding. Kind of what had happened after that. But can you imagine Jesus just taking authority over this situation, everything going calm? According to Ben Witherington III, he says ancient mythology believed that the sea was seen as sometimes a malevolent deity. But in jewish ways of thinking, it was seen as a natural dwelling place for demons and spirits. And so water was really important for both of those different cultures. But I like that no matter what your view was or your ingrained way of thinking, Jesus was demonstrating that he had authority over the natural elements, the natural environment. And Jesus didn't have to pray that God would call him the storm. Jesus gets up, kind of frustrated with his disciples, that they would worry that Jesus would not take care of them. And Jesus gets up, and he commands the wind and the waves to stop. And the Jews believe that only God could control the sea, which is, again, Jesus demonstrating that he is both man. He's with them in the flesh, but he's also somehow God in both of these situations. And then story number two, it's about a man who lost all control from mark 5120. The story is that as soon as he calms the waves, they get across to the other side of the boat. Jesus and his disciples are safe, and they're getting into a region that was a pagan territory. It was thought to be evil and full of evil spirits. And upon landing on the shore, a man possessed by an evil spirit just so happened to be coming down from the burial tombs where he lived among the dead. This man was so controlled by demonic forces that the people in the area attempted to restrain him by putting chains on him. But he was too strong for them and he would snap them off and he roamed about in the wilderness and in the hills, and he would howl and he would cut himself with stones. So obviously someone who's not in the right state of mind, not someone that you want to be around, someone who's a bit terrifying and scary. And Ben Witherington the third says the very function of the unclean spirit was to distort and destroy the image of God in a person, which was accomplished by reducing the man to an animal like status. And so we're all born in the image of God. We all have it deep down inside of us. But this man had been so filled with things that were controlling him completely, keeping his eyes darkened as to who God was and darkened to who he was. And he was living in this terrible experience of living among the caves and howling and cutting himself and doing all of this stuff. I want you to imagine putting yourself even in his shoes. What must he be feeling and thinking of? Just having absolutely no control and this existence, which is really no existence at all until he encounters Jesus. Let's get to mark 5610. It says when Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him and ran to meet him and bow low before him. And with a shriek he screamed, why are you interfering with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, in the name of God, I beg you, don't torture me. For Jesus had already said to the spirit, come out of the man, you evil spirit. So Jesus had already taken authority over him, and now the spirit is interacting with Jesus. Verse nine. Jesus demanded, what is your name? Talking to the man filled with spirits. And he replied, the evil spirits replied, my name is legion because there are many of us inside this man. Evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distance place. See, the demons wanted to be able to stay in that region at that time. A lot of people think, and maybe even is reality, even today, that spirits will inhabit a particular geographic area. And part of that is probably true because demons and the spiritual forces in the world, they're not all powerful. They can't be in all places at one time. They have to be in a particular place, because only God has that level of power. And so there's demonic forces in the area, and it was probably favorable in the region towards them as to why they wanted to stay there, or they had done such a good work of terrorizing the place that they didn't want to give that up. And there happened to be this herd of pigs nearby. And so the demons wanted to be sent into the pigs. And so they're in this pagan area, in jewish culture, one, they would not even eat pork, much less be pig farmers. And so this is something that was only really done in pagan areas somewhere that was outside of God's will in that particular day. And so in this area, they want to go into the pigs. They don't want to leave. They want to be able to do something else. And so Jesus grants that authority and he says, okay, go ahead. And upon the evil spirits entering the herd of pigs, about 2000 of them, what happened next was crazy. The entire herd of pigs plunged themselves into the lake and drowned. And so pretty terrible story. Yeah, like it's in the Bible and there's no getting around it, which is why I kind of like going through Mark verse by verse because there's stuff that we just can't avoid. We need to have the conversation and talk about it. And so what was offensive to us is still offensive even to them in their day. Mark 514 17 says the herdsmen fled to the nearby town and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news as they ran about this pretty despicable, crazy, terrible thing that happened. And people rushed out to see what had happened. Just like in any small town, word gets out really quickly and everyone flocks to come see that thing. Verse 15. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed, perfectly sane, and they were all afraid. And those who had seen what had happened told the others about the demon possessed man and the pigs. And the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and to leave them alone. Can you imagine? Jesus heals this man that's possessed by an evil spirit. All of these evil spirits, imagine if they were just one of them, right? I think we can get a lot, we can do a lot of work around legion and what legion means, and it's really just getting out. There's a lot of evil spirits that has possessed this man, so many, so that there's enough evil spirits to possess 2000 pigs. This man was completely consumed. And yet Jesus heals and he restores him. But the people are offended by the death of these pigs. They're offended by what had happened. And the story is offensive. We're probably offended reading it. And the people in the area are especially offended. And so they're probably asking man, who's to blame? Who's to blame for this situation? It's terrible. Who's to blame? They blame Jesus. It makes us ask a few questions. Because why do we just so quickly jump to blaming Jesus? I think we do this all the time, too. We need to think and we need to process who was terrorizing the area. It was the demons who possessed this man and controlled him and had him doing harmful things like cutting himself. It was the demons who wanted to enter the pigs. The demonstration. Now, who ultimately was responsible for killing the pigs. It wasn't Jesus. It was the demons. Now, the objection from some will be, well, Jesus probably knew what would have happened. He's the one who kind of gave permission for the demons to enter the pigs. So, yeah, you're right about that. But maybe there is a difference between knowing something is going to happen and being the source of that thing. And maybe, and this is just my thought as I've been thinking about and sitting in the story, maybe this is a messy and gross visualization of the work of demonic and dark spiritual forces that inhabit our world and work to bring death and destruction. See, they missed the miracle because of the offense, and they devalued the miracle of the man being free of a legion of demons because it affected their means of making money. And I wonder in our culture if we would be more offended by something that would cause us not to be able to make money instead of celebrating the miracles that Jesus does. I wonder if we do that even in our culture. And that's what happened in their culture. They didn't care so much about the man who was healed. Everyone knew of this person, yet they're offended because Jesus affected the way that they were able to make money. So how did they respond? They asked Jesus to leave the area. They asked Jesus to leave the area. Jesus does this amazing thing of restoring this man, and yet they say, we want you to leave. We don't want you around, around here. Mark 518 20. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. But Jesus said, no, go home to your family and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been. So the man started off to visit the ten towns of the region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed at what he told them. We don't necessarily know if they believed or they didn't believe, but they were amazed at the work of Jesus. And maybe there's more profound work of Jesus in that area later, but there's just this interesting thing that's happening in the story. So you have this man who's been filled up by demons. And then you have the crowd. And yet it's the man who wants to give his life to following after Jesus. And it's the crowd who's so offended that they just want Jesus to leave. And so I think we even see this reaction to Jesus, because Jesus is going to have a reaction with all of us. We all have an internal reaction of how we respond to Jesus. We're either offended by him and want him to leave, or we open ourselves up and begin to become changed by Jesus, maybe so much so that we're willing to give our lives to sharing him with other people. And so we've had these two different stories. Story number one, where Jesus calms the sea, and story number two, where Jesus heals a man filled with demons, restoring calm and peace in his life. And what do these stories have to do with our lives today? You might be asking that, and I get it. These are two kind of obscure stories about a particular thing in a particular time. Does that affect me today? Well, both stories tell of the authority of Jesus. Remember, Mark is striving to tell us who Jesus is, what Jesus was like, and why that matters for our lives today. And maybe you aren't on a boat and the waves aren't crashing in and flooding the boat, but maybe you have some things that are going on around you that have made you anxious and made you question even the goodness of God. I think sometimes we picture God like humans. Humans have the capacity to be good for a while, but then they slide towards something bad. And maybe we project that understanding onto God. God has been good in the past, and he's brought, brought us from one place to another, providing for us all along the way. But we encounter new pressures, new waves, new situations. We default to thinking that God, who's been faithful in the past, won't continue to be good and faithful into the future. And when we get caught up in the scripture, the story of God, a story that's been around much longer than us, it's been around thousands of years, we discover that that's actually flawed thinking. See, God through the scriptures tell us that he's unchanging. He has been faithful and good, and he will continue to be faithful and good, and he will always be faithful and good. That's good news for us today in a world that goes after a bunch of new ways of thinking and new ways of doing things that don't end up working out really well. Maybe the good news for us is to go back to what's ancient and what's good what has been good and what will continue to always be good. And that's where we can place our trust, not in ourselves, because we can't figure it out on our own, but we can put our faith in something different. And when it's even hard to believe in the present, when things are difficult and things where you can't quite see God in the midst of everything, I want to encourage you just to continue to hold on to him until he proves himself to be true again. And maybe you aren't like the unnamed man who is filled with the legion of demons, roaming the hills, living in burial caves, howling out, cutting yourselves with stone. I hope that's not your story. But maybe you feel like you are controlled by something that has distorted your view of yourself or even of God. Maybe you have attempted to cope with very real pains and anxieties in your life with practices that only inflict more harm on yourself. See, the Bible gives us extreme examples. You might be looking at this guy filled with demons. You might kind of like, say, man, I don't. I don't really need that story. It's weird. Like, why are we going into that? See, I think that the example is good for this reason. If God can save someone that far down the spectrum, then he can surely save me with what I'm going through. The good news of the inbreaking of God's kingdom here on earth is that Jesus has drawn near, that he has authority. He has authority to bring to peace the things that are raging around you. He has the authority over fear and anxieties that you currently feel. And he has authority over darkness and the world, or maybe even darkness within your own heart. And he has authority over the things that feel like they control you and control your actions. I want to read another verse for you. Matthew 11 28 30. It says, and Jesus said, come to me, all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke or take my way of doing life upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Maybe that feels like such good news to you today. Let me read it one more time out of a paraphrased version called the message. It says, are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me, and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. And I love that. And so I don't know where you're at in your story. I don't know what's happening in your life. Could be storms happening around you that are causing all kinds of anxiety internally within you. Maybe you're questioning yourself. Maybe you're questioning what you believe. Maybe you're questioning whether God's real or God's not real. Maybe you're questioning his goodness. Or maybe that you've given your life to try to cope with pains and difficulties and things, and you have seemingly lost control over different parts of your life. Or maybe the way you're reacting to situations feels like you don't have any control and you feel like things are kind of hopeless, like you're never going to change, that things won't ever be different. I want to share with you the story of Jesus that he's drawn near and he's drawing near right now in this moment, that he has authority to calm all of these things and to bring about peace. And not only that, there's an invitation to follow after him. He says, come take my way of doing things upon your life. Let me show you how to do it. Let me walk with you. Let me journey with you through what's good and what's bad. Let me help you to discover and practice your way into a new kind of living. Let me let you have freedom, and let me allow you to walk into freedom. That's the good news. And that's so much better than culture, where it says it's all about you, that you're the center of the world, that you have to have it all figured out, that you've got to have your own power, and you've got to work through this all on your own. See, that's not good news. Why? Because I'm not powerful enough to get through different things. I'm not powerful enough to calm my anxiety. I'm not powerful enough to change things or to work through things or to even to continue to move forward at times. Like, I'm pretty helpless and I need something different. Maybe you need something different today. And maybe it's time for you to consider Jesus. Whatever you're thinking, whatever you're feeling, whatever you're going through, I want you to bring it to Jesus. I want you just to name it Jesus. This thing that's going on in my life, hard, and it's difficult. And I want you to bring it, to name it, and then to begin to receive from him. Because if we give something to Jesus, he's going to help us. He's going to help us to carry that thing and to walk through that thing with us, that we'll never be isolated or alone. And so when we bring it to Jesus, we then get to walk in his authority. And remember, he's the one who can calm the wind and the waves. He's the one who can cast out evil spirits. He's the one who can help us have freedom over the things that are controlling us and hurting us and not leading us in the way that we should go. We can walk in his authority because the same authority God has given him, he then gives to those who follow after him. And then as we do that, he has a mission for us. Just like this man who's possessed by evil spirits. God has a mission for him. God sent him out to proclaim the goodness of God to everyone else in the town. And not only that, like in the midst of the crazy sea, Jesus had a mission for his disciples. Even though they questioned his goodness, he still said, hey, we're going to get to the other side of the lake. He's going to calm things, and he still has work for them to do. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Even when we question God, he still is with us and available to us, and he still has things for us to do. Even when we're possessed by things or we feel like, man, we're oppressed by things or things, a default way of trying to cope with our reality or cope with our problems. Jesus meets us in the midst of those things, and he gives us freedom. See, you don't have a mission when this stuff is just, how do I say this better? You don't have a mission. Just when you think you have everything figured out, you can be used by Jesus on mission, even with your very next step. What does that mean? Oftentimes when we feel like I'm gonna come to Jesus or begin to be changed, like you don't, you don't think that he's able to use you until you clean yourself up enough or you get enough figured out or you distance yourself enough from questioning God or being filled with things that aren't of God. But you know what? Your very next step, go to Jesus, walk in his authority, and then continue in the work that he's going to give you in your very next step. And so with that, I just want to focus on a few prayer things for us today. So wherever you're at, if you could take some time just to settle your heart, settle your mind, I just want to invite the holy spirit in. Jesus, would you come? You promised to be with us and be close to us. Would you come? And would you settle the storms that are around us? I just want you to take a moment. Name that storm that feels chaotic and crazy and terrifying. Name what that is right now. Jesus, come help us with that. What are you fearing and what doubts maybe do you have? How are you doubting the goodness of God? I just want you to name that Jesus, would you settle the storm? Would you help calm our fears, calm our anxieties, get our eyes on you? Where do you need freedom? Name it. Maybe it's freedom over anxiety. Maybe it's finding new patterns for anxiety. Maybe it's freedom of anger, jealousy, freedom of defaulting to patterns that are actually killing you and not bringing you life. Where do you need freedom? Jesus has the authority to bring freedom. Name it. Ask for his help. And maybe you need to pray for someone, you know, where they feel like they need peace for the things that are around them or peace within them. Why don't you name them before God? Say, God, would you help this person? They're going through this. They're walking through that. Here's how they're reacting. Here's what they're going through. Would you comment, would you love on them in such a specific way that they know that you're good and with them and that you're true? Okay, well, that's what I have for you. I hope that these stories were meaningful for you. I want you to continue to go back to them, read the end of mark four, beginning of chapter five, and just let this stuff resonate and to sit with you as you continue to have conversations with God. But maybe you're wanting to begin to practice your way into the way of Jesus. And so maybe Jesus has brought a level of freedom, even now with where you're at, whether it's through the YouTube channel or through the podcast, whatever that might be, you might be thinking, what is my next step? What do I do next? Don't just leave it there. There's no point in finding freedom if you don't begin to walk in freedom. And so Jesus brings freedom, but let's begin to walk through that. And the first thing you can do is download a app called Lectio 365. Make ten minutes of space in your day every day, and just allow that to guide you through scriptures and prayer and how to interact with God. That's a beautiful place to start. And then your next step after that will be to download the Pine Hills church app because there's a tab in there called practicing away, where you begin to walk slowly through these conversations about what does it mean to find freedom in Jesus to learn your new identity and who he is, and to begin to practice your way into his way of doing life. Remember, he said, take my yoke upon you, for my burden is easy, right? The burden is easy and it's light. And so because of him, we can practice our way into that. So go to Pine Hills church app, start going through those practicing the way conversations. Maybe you're a book reader and so you can go read practicing the way by John Mark Comer or a book that is phenomenal called live no lies by John Mark Comer as well. Both of those are phenomenal resources for you. And then if you're local to the bend area, you're part of our community. Maybe you've not attended a larger gathering. I want you to come hang out and to attend it and to meet new people. Or maybe you want to join a smaller group. Then reach out through pinehillschurch.org, tell us you're interested in a community group. We can get you plugged in. Because here's the deal. The more you attempt to do this stuff on the your own, the less likely you are to actually be in to walk in that freedom. We were not created to do life alone. We're created to do life in community together and then also continue on mission. So who's that next one that God's putting on your heart and your mind that you can reach out to? You can tell them about this amazing experience that you have had even today, where Jesus has settled some things around you or settled some stuff in your heart or has begun to give you freedom over some things and you want to let someone else know about that man. You don't have to have it all figured out. You can just have had this experience with him. And then you begin to go tell other people about it, and you'll be amazed about what Jesus will do around you and through you. And it will be a beautiful thing. So again, your next steps are download the lectio 365 app, the Pine Hills church app, read John Markomer's practicing away or live no lies. Join a community group. Come hang out with us for a Sunday gathering on the south side of Bend. And then, as always, continue with your next step, being guided by the spirit to go tell that next person, to encourage the next person to love on that next person. And so God will do amazing things through that. Well, I hope you found value in this conversation today. If you did share this with someone that you think might, it might be helpful for and they might find value in for their walk as well. And just let, we just want you to know that we appreciate you. We care about you. If you need any more information about our community, go to pinthillschurch.org. you can begin a conversation through there as well. And so we hope to see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
Summary
In "Embracing the Mystery and the Bigger Picture," Pastor Aaron Contreras discusses finding joy in embracing uncertainty and God's mysteries, contrasting to our preference for predictability. He emphasizes not hiding our light as followers of Jesus but letting it shine to reveal God's kingdom and invite others to follow Jesus. While acknowledging the challenges of understanding evil and God's plan, he points to moments of beauty as evidence of God's ongoing work in the world. The sermon concludes with practical steps to navigate uncertainty by focusing on Jesus, surrendering the need for control, trusting in God's faithfulness, and finding support in community.
Discussion Questions
- How can embracing the mystery of God and our journey with Jesus lead to a deeper sense of joy and fulfillment?
- What are some challenges you face in accepting the mystery of Jesus and his purpose?
- Why do you think it is important to regularly immerse ourselves in the story of God through scripture reading and prayer?
- How can being a part of a supportive community of believers help us embrace the mystery of God?
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills of Church podcast. So grateful that you would gather with us wherever you may be today. We're continuing our conversation as we go through the book of Mark together, called this I believe. And I just wanted to ask you a question, kind of from the top.
What was the last book that you have read? I want you to think about what that might be, and if you're not a reader, that's okay. What was the last show or movie that you watched that really captured your attention, kind of kept you turning the pages or kind of helped you to sit on the edge of the couch and was just exciting, and you were just like, wrapped up in the storyline for me. I recently read a book called the Ferryman by Justin Cronin, and this book was a dystopian thriller. It's pretty exciting.
But what I loved about the book was I wasn't quite sure about what was going to happen next. I had some guesses, but it was still a bit of a mystery. And even after a few hundred pages of reading the book and thinking I had some things figured out, it took one chapter for Justin to completely reverse everything I thought I knew, and it was amazing. But it was that mystery that kept me flipping page after page after pager. Sometimes if I've watched a Netflix series, it's that mystery that kind of keeps me clicking that next episode button, wanting to watch the next thing.
But what's interesting about the mystery, what's interesting about the thing that keeps you moving forward in that was if I knew everything that was going to happen next in the show, or if I knew everything that was going to happen in that story, that I would just not want to invest in reading more. But everything I loved about reading this book is not what I often love about life. Like, I really want to know what's going to happen next. I really don't want there to be a lot of mystery. And I really struggle when I have to embrace mystery of life.
And if we're honest, we probably all struggle with a bit of that. Some of us are pretty good about handling the unknown, but many people that I talk with struggle about mystery. We're just not that comfortable with what's unknown and with what's unpredictable. And sometimes we collectively struggle with God because he is more mysterious than we're probably comfortable with at times. If things were a little bit more known, maybe we would wouldn't feel so uncomfortable fielding questions from our friends about faith and Jesus and life and what draws us to all of this.
And maybe far more of us are comfortable building our lives on things that feel more known or just feel more comfortable, even when difficult moments tear all of that down and show it's all fabrications anyway. Maybe there's more joy to be found if we embrace the mystery not only in our personal lives, but also in our journey with wrestling through who Jesus is and what that might mean for our lives. And I kind of wonder what God might say about embracing mystery, especially when it comes to what he's doing in our world and when it comes to who Jesus is. And so with that, let's go to mark, chapter 421 23. It says, then Jesus asked them, would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed?
Of course not. A lamp is placed on a stand where its light will shine, for everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and everything secret will be brought to the light. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Sometimes the implications of the scripture are taken to mean that as followers of Jesus, we should not hide our light, but we should share that openly with other people. So cue the children's song.
This little light of mine I'm going to let it shine this little light of mine I'm going to let it shine let it shine, let it shine, let it shine I don't know if you've known that song, but the song has a great moral truth behind it. And I love teaching this song to my little girls. It's a song that I grew up singing, and I liked passing that down to them and that they're carrying this on as well. Being a light to others in darkness is the hope of my life. It's the hope for my kids lives.
It's the hope for this community that is Pine Hills church. And I pray that God would help us to be more empowered with boldness to share the goodness of Jesus with others. Yes, and amen. To share our light, to not let it be hidden, but to let it shine out. But to be clear, this isn't the central point of the passage.
And you might be thinking, well, if that's not, then what is? And that's a great question, and we'll get there, but not quite yet. First, to catch you up on the building conversation that we've been having over the past two months of going through the book of Mark together, we have learned that the entire point of the story is to convince you that Jesus really was sent from God to show people what the kingdom of God was like and how he lived. And he wanted to invite people inside the kingdom of God by following in his footsteps and beginning to practice his ways. And Mark is doing this by sharing story after story, showing you who Jesus is, what Jesus was like, and what the heck this all means for our lives.
And we've seen Jesus teach with power and even perform miracle after miracle to teach people that God's kingdom was invading earth, that Jesus is pushing back the kingdom of darkness. And he's recruiting people into the kingdom of God to join the mission of continuing to push back the kingdom of darkness and how we live our lives every day. And in that sense, we are bearers of his light. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. But again, what is the central point of the passage?
It's Jesus. We are in this section where Jesus is teaching crowds about the realities of the kingdom of God by using stories that contain little nuggets of truth in them. But the key to understanding them all is him. He's the filter for all of life, because without him, you can't understand the greater story of how God is working to mend our broken world. World.
And through this ongoing plan of redeeming and healing, he has sent Jesus to push back everything that's not right, everything that he did not intend with our world. It's this light that's slowly exposing and pushing back darkness, which is a process, a process much longer than any of us are comfortable with and much bigger than any of us can even imagine. But to get back to the parable, Jesus in this story that he's the lamp, that at the time of him sharing the story, was somewhat hidden from the perceptions of everyone else. It was kind of like having a light and putting a basket over it where you could not see the light. See, Jesus had come, and he's starting to lift that basket up, and the light is starting to creep out, but it's still a bit of a mystery.
And what was secret or what was mysterious would soon be even more uncovered for the world to see, because as the story continues to unfold, we see in the last half of mark, and we'll get there as we're coming. But to kind of give away a bit of the story that the war against darkness would eventually lead jesus up a lonely hill as the kingdom of darkness would attempt to snuff out the light that had come in Jesus. And so darkness evil brutally uses people to attack Jesus, and they mock him and everything that he stood for, they tore down, eventually nailing him to a wooden cross where he would painfully hang until he breathed his last breath. And as his lifeless body was quickly taken down from the cross, it was put into a tomb, sealed with a huge boulder and guarded by soldiers. The savior of the world was hidden in death, was hidden in darkness, because death, for even us, as we understand, is the greatest symbol of darkness.
But what was hidden would be brought into the light for all to see. Because while Jesus died on a Friday, on Sunday morning, that stone was rolled away that the greatest darkness could not contain Jesus. Jesus came back to life, and Jesus was going to war against darkness through the redemption of people. And this is part of that story. And there are more implications to the resurrection of Jesus than we could even capture here.
And we'll spend the rest of our lives wrestling through the implications of what the resurrection meant and continues to mean for all of our lives. But we should know that Jesus was beginning to bring healing to a broken world, and he alone has the power to heal the world, to heal people, and to heal the things that feel dead in their lives and feel broken in their lives. Because he's the only one who's come back to life. He's the only one who's demonstrated that power over those things, to be able to change things and to be able to give us a future we otherwise would not have, that he's the key to everything. And then Jesus continues.
Mark 424 through 25. Then he added, pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding will be given, and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from him.
Jesus desires to give you more and more understanding. That's his heart. That's why he came to the world, to show the light to everyone, to push back the darkness. But you need to take the truths so deeply into your light that they begin to become the things that you live out and you model for other people. Because those who don't waste the knowledge of God, because those who don't waste the knowledge of God will be given even more.
Remember last week? Jesus message is that the kingdom of God is kind of like the seed that Jesus is spreading out, and that seed is the message of who he is and all that he's come to do, and that there's this miraculous growth that happens when that seed falls into good soil. But oftentimes we are so hardened by life or offended by Jesus that we harden our hearts toward him. And sometimes the worries and the lowers of life pull us away from the growth into the things of God. And sometimes we don't take seriously the steps that allow the truth of Jesus to get fully rooted into our lives by practicing the way of Jesus daily.
And when that happens, that's when the seed, the knowledge of God gets taken from us. We don't want to get the context twisted. It's not God taking back what he has given. It's either Satan, the brokenness of the world, or our inability to take our personal growth seriously. That robs us of understanding more and more about God, because it's God's desire to give more and more and more and more to those who will diligently seek him.
But what keeps us from doing this? Why do we grow weary of this over time? Maybe because even after the resurrection of Jesus, things are only still partially known. There is still so much that is mysterious about God and what God is doing and how God is continuing to redeem the world. And people in Jesus day struggled with God's plan because they thought that Jesus should have come to destroy all the evil around them and the evil that was oppressing them.
The conquering king, the hero. But a conquering king, according to their mental maps, would exert any force imaginable to kill off anything that opposed them. And this is not how Jesus came about to do things. Jesus, instead of killing others, allowed himself to be killed. The army that Jesus began to recruit would not fight with evil means against the things of the world.
But they would fight evil by loving their enemies, by caring for people they otherwise would rather hate, by small acts of service, by showing the light that has been birthed in their life for all to see. And we struggle today because we are 2000 years removed from Jesus walking on earth. And things today still continue to feel evil in our day. We, like many people in Jesus day, are all for him. If he would just destroy anyone who doesn't think like we think or believe like we believe.
But our ways are not his ways, thank goodness, because the world is a reflection of our collective attempts of trying to do things our own way. And I just want to ask, is that going well? I don't think it is. I think if we're honest, it's going pretty terribly. There's so much that is just unclear about Jesus and how Jesus is redeeming all things and how he's mending what's broken and how he's healing things.
There's a lot of mystery around that. But what is clear is that light continues to break into people's darkness and continues to redeem, to transform, and to heal. Oftentimes there's this question, if God exists, why is there so much evil in our world? And I think if we just look around, look at humans propensity to make good choices or bad choices, we can pretty easily come up with why our world seems to be so evil. But in the midst of that, I'm kind of wondering that if God doesn't exist, why do we have moments where light continues to break out against darkness?
Why do we see beauty come from ashes? Why do we see transformation begin to happen? Why do we see that we haven't just all kind of killed each other at this point? Because God continues to work in the bigger story. He's working even when we don't notice it, even when we don't see it.
He's working to help draw more people into his kingdom, to invite more people into the family, to begin to help heal things in people's lives and collectively, like heal us as a people. God continues to use people who follow in the footsteps of Jesus to carry on the mission to bring light to other people. See this little light of mine? We need to let it shine. What is also clear is that Jesus teaches that this will continue until he comes again, to let light shine where everything will be fully known.
Like John, chapter 14, that Jesus is going to be with the Father and that he's preparing a place for us, a place that's massive, a place that has space for all that would come and be part of God's kingdom. But he's also going to come again where what is secret, what is hidden right now will be fully known. And so you can find hope in this story today by remembering that Jesus is with you and is working in and through your life. But also things in life are still a bit of a mystery because everything is still not fully known until he comes again. And so in the meantime, what do we do in the midst of that?
In the meantime, how do we live in this tension between the already and the not yet that Jesus has come, and Jesus has done amazing things and he's performed this miraculous works and these amazing things that we're still reading about in the Bible that we're captured by, but that Jesus is still going to come again someday where he's going to get rid of all the injustices in our world. He's going to do away with that which is evil. But in the meantime, we as christians have to live in this tension. We as people who are followers of Jesus, or even people who are contemplating who Jesus is and what he was like and what that might mean for their life have to come to grips with the fact that we can't quite know everything that Jesus reveals himself in part, that there's light that's there, but there's still so much that we don't quite know. And in the meantime, as we follow Jesus with questions, with doubts, in the midst of tension, we can do that by focusing on Jesus, by embracing the tension of the mystery, by remembering that God is still working, by partnering with Jesus on mission.
So what does this look like for our life today? You might be thinking, okay, that's a great list, Aaron, but what does this actually look like for our life? So if we focus on Jesus, we can do this by continually, every day, immersing ourselves in the story of God. This is why scripture reading really matters. Or meditating on the word of God, of getting his word in us, because it helps us to see this larger picture of what's going on going on.
It reminds us that while the world is still evil and broken, there's this greater thing that God is doing. And that God's moving us to the place where he's recreating that garden like place where we get to walk with him and be with him. We're not held down with the brokenness of our world or the brokenness even within our own hearts. So we need to continuously immerse ourselves in the story of God through the reading of scripture. Even start, if you've never done that, begin to read Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Like, begin to read through those stories about who Jesus is and what this might mean for their lives. And then as you read, process the implications of what you're reading as Jesus shows you who God was. Like, invite God to show you what this means for your life and how you apply these things to your life. So if Jesus is good, how do you follow after him? And how do you begin to do good?
As Jesus serves and loves outsiders. And as you follow after Jesus, you begin to remember, okay, Jesus, my goal is to spend time with you through the scriptures, to become more like you. So then I can then carry on your mission to be with you, to do good for other people. So we process the implications through prayer, ongoing conversation with God, and then we talk about these things in community. This is why not just coming to a larger gathering matters, but being intimately involved in a small gathering around a coffee table, with some coffee with friends, or around a dinner table having a meal together, talking about, hey, this stuff that we're talking about, like how is this working out in our lives?
And we get to encourage each other and uplift each other by helping us to focus on Jesus. The next one is embracing the tension of the mystery. And this one's hard because remember, what I love about reading through a good story is something that's difficult for me to walk out in my life. And so I need to remember when I'm going through difficult stuff that the story is still being written, that I don't know everything and that has to be okay. And I've got to get more and more comfortable with embracing that.
See, when problems arise, I need to just remember that this is just a twist in the story, that when things are difficult or hard or when things aren't going quite the way that I want them to go, I get to come to God. And that's a good thing. I don't have to do life alone. I get to come to God and I get to partner with other people who are on mission of God with us. And we get to embrace the tension of the mystery.
We get to bring these concerns to Jesus. And then we need to surrender the need to know everything right now, to release the need to try to attempt to control things by saying, you know what, God like. Ultimately, I know that you're going to work your plans out in my life. And so I surrender the need to attempt to try to control everything or the attempt to have everything figured out. And I get to just sit in the midst of that tension and that mystery, knowing that you're with me, you're guiding me, you're leading me, you're comforting me.
Maybe just a simple way of embracing the tension of mystery when things are overwhelming and hard is you could just take a walk around your neighborhood to ground yourself to the moment, to feel your feet taking those steps, to seeing the trees and the wind blow through the trees, to feel the warmth of the sun on your cheeks, to noticing the sounds of what's happening around you, notice the people that are going about their days. Grounding yourself to this moment and remembering that today is a gift and that some of the things that I'm worried about, anxious about are just unknown. And I'm not going to have that figured out. But you know what? God's willing me and God's going to guide me.
And I could be okay with the mystery because I don't have to have it all figured out. I don't have to rely on my own power. I can rely on the power of God. So I ground myself to the moment I receive this as a gift. And I remember that life would be boring if I knew everything, and that's not even close to how life works anyway.
And so the more that I can just release that, not need to hold all of. Of that to myself, the more I can experience the joy that God has on offer for me. And so we want to focus on Jesus. We want to embrace the tension of the mystery, and we want to remember that God is still working, even when we don't quite see it. Now we can pray, God, would you open my eyes to the things that you're doing around me?
And even when you feel frustrated, use that as a cue not to run to Netflix, just to entertain the problems away, not to just run to someone and just kind of, like, vent out on them, but to use that as a cue to bring that to God, saying, God, I'm frustrated by this thing that's happening in my life or happening in the world around me. And so, God, would you help me in the midst of that? And maybe God wants to use that point of frustration for you as an invitation from him to step into that, to be a blessing to whoever that other person might be or whatever that thing might be. Or you see something that's going wrong, you can step in and actually bring a bit of light to that situation. You can remember that God's working, and God wants to use you in this grander story of bringing redemption, extending that offer to all people.
And then you can also remind yourself of God's past faithfulness in your life. As God has been faithful in the past, he's going to continue to be faithful in the future. And so sometimes we just need to remember, God, you've done this before. You've not failed me. And so this thing right now that I'm anxious and I'm worried about is still a mystery for me.
I'm gonna trust that you're working and that you care for me and that you're still with me. And so we're gonna continue to work together, focus on Jesus, embracing the tension of the mystery. We're gonna remember that God's still working. And then, as we do that, we're gonna partner with Jesus on mission to remember, oftentimes, that we're here to care for all of those people that God has placed around us, whether that's our immediate family, whether that's our neighborhood, whether that's the places that we go to work every day or the places that we go to school the people we study with, like, the people we interact with, our friends, all of this, we remember that we're here to be a light to those people. So we need to choose to reflect light and not maybe to add darkness to other people.
Sometimes, like when, you know, when I'm going about my day or driving in traffic, like, I can choose to be patient with other people, or I could choose just to help try to ruin someone else's day more by leaning on the horn and honking at them or throwing my hands up and yelling at them or whatever that might be, or going across someone that's already having a bad day and just making their day a little bit worse by not being kind to them or even when they're being kind unkind to me. I can remember, man, there's something going on in their life. And so I'm going to choose to respond, not the way that they responded to me, but I'm going to be kind. I'm going to show compassion, show grace. We can serve and add value to other people.
We can even just volunteer for a nonprofit in our city to help make our city a bit a better place. So find that cause that's deeply, like, resonates in your heart that you're passionate about, and that you can volunteer to help serve that need, even in our own city. And so that's just a few ways just to get, again, your thoughts kind of moving. But I want you to invite you again after we kind of talked about this. What is Jesus leading you into today?
What's the thing that jumps out at you? Where in your life, in this moment do you need to focus more on Jesus? Where you need to embrace the tension of the mystery that's happening in life around you? Where do you need to remember that God is still working in your life, that he's not done with you? And where is God inviting you to partner with Jesus on the mission to help bring renewal to other people?
And so I want you to just imagine if we would be a community. Whether you listen to podcasts, whether you gather with us in person on the south side of Bend, whether you're gathering in one of our small groups that scattered across the cities, imagine if we could be a community that lived a little less anxious and a little bit more joyfully because we could embrace the tension of the mystery as we trust that Jesus continues to work in us and through our lives and to the larger world as a whole. So I just want to pray for you and just encourage you wherever you might be. Maybe you're in a moment where you've really struggled to keep your eyes on Jesus, where the mystery of life has become too much and where you've not really been stepping into the things God wants you to step into because your eyes are so fixated on, on the thing that is hard and is difficult and you probably do wish was different. I just want to encourage you.
Jesus is with you and Jesus loves you. And we could just be honest about what it is that you're feeling. He's not afraid of that. He actually wants you to invite him into that so that he could be part of the conversation, so that he can lead you in that. And so I just want to pray for you, wherever you might be, that whatever you needed to hear today, you will grab onto.
And that would be good news for your journey. And I just want to encourage you this week to get your eyes on Jesus as much as you can, to get in the story of God through reading of scripture and to begin to think about the larger story and what God is doing in the world, but also in your life, to embracing a bit of the tension and the mystery and then stepping into those invitations that God might be nudging you to partner with him and doing good and spreading some of that light to the rest of the world. But I just want to pray for you. God, thank you so much. For everyone that's listening, would you guide them in this life?
You promised that you would not leave us nor forsake us, that you're with us even to the end of the age. And so would you help us with our conflicting feelings of maybe not wanting to embrace mystery in our own life and struggling to embrace mystery when it comes to you? Because we just want really clear cut answers, and that doesn't always happen, and that rarely happens. And so if we're going to follow after you, it's a faith journey, just like everything is a faith journey. But would you help us to be guided in that by you?
Lead us to your truth, be with us in your name we pray. Amen. I just want to encourage you to reach out to us if you want to connect@pinehellschurch.org. dot if not, we'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Bye.
What was the last book that you have read? I want you to think about what that might be, and if you're not a reader, that's okay. What was the last show or movie that you watched that really captured your attention, kind of kept you turning the pages or kind of helped you to sit on the edge of the couch and was just exciting, and you were just like, wrapped up in the storyline for me. I recently read a book called the Ferryman by Justin Cronin, and this book was a dystopian thriller. It's pretty exciting.
But what I loved about the book was I wasn't quite sure about what was going to happen next. I had some guesses, but it was still a bit of a mystery. And even after a few hundred pages of reading the book and thinking I had some things figured out, it took one chapter for Justin to completely reverse everything I thought I knew, and it was amazing. But it was that mystery that kept me flipping page after page after pager. Sometimes if I've watched a Netflix series, it's that mystery that kind of keeps me clicking that next episode button, wanting to watch the next thing.
But what's interesting about the mystery, what's interesting about the thing that keeps you moving forward in that was if I knew everything that was going to happen next in the show, or if I knew everything that was going to happen in that story, that I would just not want to invest in reading more. But everything I loved about reading this book is not what I often love about life. Like, I really want to know what's going to happen next. I really don't want there to be a lot of mystery. And I really struggle when I have to embrace mystery of life.
And if we're honest, we probably all struggle with a bit of that. Some of us are pretty good about handling the unknown, but many people that I talk with struggle about mystery. We're just not that comfortable with what's unknown and with what's unpredictable. And sometimes we collectively struggle with God because he is more mysterious than we're probably comfortable with at times. If things were a little bit more known, maybe we would wouldn't feel so uncomfortable fielding questions from our friends about faith and Jesus and life and what draws us to all of this.
And maybe far more of us are comfortable building our lives on things that feel more known or just feel more comfortable, even when difficult moments tear all of that down and show it's all fabrications anyway. Maybe there's more joy to be found if we embrace the mystery not only in our personal lives, but also in our journey with wrestling through who Jesus is and what that might mean for our lives. And I kind of wonder what God might say about embracing mystery, especially when it comes to what he's doing in our world and when it comes to who Jesus is. And so with that, let's go to mark, chapter 421 23. It says, then Jesus asked them, would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed?
Of course not. A lamp is placed on a stand where its light will shine, for everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and everything secret will be brought to the light. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Sometimes the implications of the scripture are taken to mean that as followers of Jesus, we should not hide our light, but we should share that openly with other people. So cue the children's song.
This little light of mine I'm going to let it shine this little light of mine I'm going to let it shine let it shine, let it shine, let it shine I don't know if you've known that song, but the song has a great moral truth behind it. And I love teaching this song to my little girls. It's a song that I grew up singing, and I liked passing that down to them and that they're carrying this on as well. Being a light to others in darkness is the hope of my life. It's the hope for my kids lives.
It's the hope for this community that is Pine Hills church. And I pray that God would help us to be more empowered with boldness to share the goodness of Jesus with others. Yes, and amen. To share our light, to not let it be hidden, but to let it shine out. But to be clear, this isn't the central point of the passage.
And you might be thinking, well, if that's not, then what is? And that's a great question, and we'll get there, but not quite yet. First, to catch you up on the building conversation that we've been having over the past two months of going through the book of Mark together, we have learned that the entire point of the story is to convince you that Jesus really was sent from God to show people what the kingdom of God was like and how he lived. And he wanted to invite people inside the kingdom of God by following in his footsteps and beginning to practice his ways. And Mark is doing this by sharing story after story, showing you who Jesus is, what Jesus was like, and what the heck this all means for our lives.
And we've seen Jesus teach with power and even perform miracle after miracle to teach people that God's kingdom was invading earth, that Jesus is pushing back the kingdom of darkness. And he's recruiting people into the kingdom of God to join the mission of continuing to push back the kingdom of darkness and how we live our lives every day. And in that sense, we are bearers of his light. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. But again, what is the central point of the passage?
It's Jesus. We are in this section where Jesus is teaching crowds about the realities of the kingdom of God by using stories that contain little nuggets of truth in them. But the key to understanding them all is him. He's the filter for all of life, because without him, you can't understand the greater story of how God is working to mend our broken world. World.
And through this ongoing plan of redeeming and healing, he has sent Jesus to push back everything that's not right, everything that he did not intend with our world. It's this light that's slowly exposing and pushing back darkness, which is a process, a process much longer than any of us are comfortable with and much bigger than any of us can even imagine. But to get back to the parable, Jesus in this story that he's the lamp, that at the time of him sharing the story, was somewhat hidden from the perceptions of everyone else. It was kind of like having a light and putting a basket over it where you could not see the light. See, Jesus had come, and he's starting to lift that basket up, and the light is starting to creep out, but it's still a bit of a mystery.
And what was secret or what was mysterious would soon be even more uncovered for the world to see, because as the story continues to unfold, we see in the last half of mark, and we'll get there as we're coming. But to kind of give away a bit of the story that the war against darkness would eventually lead jesus up a lonely hill as the kingdom of darkness would attempt to snuff out the light that had come in Jesus. And so darkness evil brutally uses people to attack Jesus, and they mock him and everything that he stood for, they tore down, eventually nailing him to a wooden cross where he would painfully hang until he breathed his last breath. And as his lifeless body was quickly taken down from the cross, it was put into a tomb, sealed with a huge boulder and guarded by soldiers. The savior of the world was hidden in death, was hidden in darkness, because death, for even us, as we understand, is the greatest symbol of darkness.
But what was hidden would be brought into the light for all to see. Because while Jesus died on a Friday, on Sunday morning, that stone was rolled away that the greatest darkness could not contain Jesus. Jesus came back to life, and Jesus was going to war against darkness through the redemption of people. And this is part of that story. And there are more implications to the resurrection of Jesus than we could even capture here.
And we'll spend the rest of our lives wrestling through the implications of what the resurrection meant and continues to mean for all of our lives. But we should know that Jesus was beginning to bring healing to a broken world, and he alone has the power to heal the world, to heal people, and to heal the things that feel dead in their lives and feel broken in their lives. Because he's the only one who's come back to life. He's the only one who's demonstrated that power over those things, to be able to change things and to be able to give us a future we otherwise would not have, that he's the key to everything. And then Jesus continues.
Mark 424 through 25. Then he added, pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding will be given, and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from him.
Jesus desires to give you more and more understanding. That's his heart. That's why he came to the world, to show the light to everyone, to push back the darkness. But you need to take the truths so deeply into your light that they begin to become the things that you live out and you model for other people. Because those who don't waste the knowledge of God, because those who don't waste the knowledge of God will be given even more.
Remember last week? Jesus message is that the kingdom of God is kind of like the seed that Jesus is spreading out, and that seed is the message of who he is and all that he's come to do, and that there's this miraculous growth that happens when that seed falls into good soil. But oftentimes we are so hardened by life or offended by Jesus that we harden our hearts toward him. And sometimes the worries and the lowers of life pull us away from the growth into the things of God. And sometimes we don't take seriously the steps that allow the truth of Jesus to get fully rooted into our lives by practicing the way of Jesus daily.
And when that happens, that's when the seed, the knowledge of God gets taken from us. We don't want to get the context twisted. It's not God taking back what he has given. It's either Satan, the brokenness of the world, or our inability to take our personal growth seriously. That robs us of understanding more and more about God, because it's God's desire to give more and more and more and more to those who will diligently seek him.
But what keeps us from doing this? Why do we grow weary of this over time? Maybe because even after the resurrection of Jesus, things are only still partially known. There is still so much that is mysterious about God and what God is doing and how God is continuing to redeem the world. And people in Jesus day struggled with God's plan because they thought that Jesus should have come to destroy all the evil around them and the evil that was oppressing them.
The conquering king, the hero. But a conquering king, according to their mental maps, would exert any force imaginable to kill off anything that opposed them. And this is not how Jesus came about to do things. Jesus, instead of killing others, allowed himself to be killed. The army that Jesus began to recruit would not fight with evil means against the things of the world.
But they would fight evil by loving their enemies, by caring for people they otherwise would rather hate, by small acts of service, by showing the light that has been birthed in their life for all to see. And we struggle today because we are 2000 years removed from Jesus walking on earth. And things today still continue to feel evil in our day. We, like many people in Jesus day, are all for him. If he would just destroy anyone who doesn't think like we think or believe like we believe.
But our ways are not his ways, thank goodness, because the world is a reflection of our collective attempts of trying to do things our own way. And I just want to ask, is that going well? I don't think it is. I think if we're honest, it's going pretty terribly. There's so much that is just unclear about Jesus and how Jesus is redeeming all things and how he's mending what's broken and how he's healing things.
There's a lot of mystery around that. But what is clear is that light continues to break into people's darkness and continues to redeem, to transform, and to heal. Oftentimes there's this question, if God exists, why is there so much evil in our world? And I think if we just look around, look at humans propensity to make good choices or bad choices, we can pretty easily come up with why our world seems to be so evil. But in the midst of that, I'm kind of wondering that if God doesn't exist, why do we have moments where light continues to break out against darkness?
Why do we see beauty come from ashes? Why do we see transformation begin to happen? Why do we see that we haven't just all kind of killed each other at this point? Because God continues to work in the bigger story. He's working even when we don't notice it, even when we don't see it.
He's working to help draw more people into his kingdom, to invite more people into the family, to begin to help heal things in people's lives and collectively, like heal us as a people. God continues to use people who follow in the footsteps of Jesus to carry on the mission to bring light to other people. See this little light of mine? We need to let it shine. What is also clear is that Jesus teaches that this will continue until he comes again, to let light shine where everything will be fully known.
Like John, chapter 14, that Jesus is going to be with the Father and that he's preparing a place for us, a place that's massive, a place that has space for all that would come and be part of God's kingdom. But he's also going to come again where what is secret, what is hidden right now will be fully known. And so you can find hope in this story today by remembering that Jesus is with you and is working in and through your life. But also things in life are still a bit of a mystery because everything is still not fully known until he comes again. And so in the meantime, what do we do in the midst of that?
In the meantime, how do we live in this tension between the already and the not yet that Jesus has come, and Jesus has done amazing things and he's performed this miraculous works and these amazing things that we're still reading about in the Bible that we're captured by, but that Jesus is still going to come again someday where he's going to get rid of all the injustices in our world. He's going to do away with that which is evil. But in the meantime, we as christians have to live in this tension. We as people who are followers of Jesus, or even people who are contemplating who Jesus is and what he was like and what that might mean for their life have to come to grips with the fact that we can't quite know everything that Jesus reveals himself in part, that there's light that's there, but there's still so much that we don't quite know. And in the meantime, as we follow Jesus with questions, with doubts, in the midst of tension, we can do that by focusing on Jesus, by embracing the tension of the mystery, by remembering that God is still working, by partnering with Jesus on mission.
So what does this look like for our life today? You might be thinking, okay, that's a great list, Aaron, but what does this actually look like for our life? So if we focus on Jesus, we can do this by continually, every day, immersing ourselves in the story of God. This is why scripture reading really matters. Or meditating on the word of God, of getting his word in us, because it helps us to see this larger picture of what's going on going on.
It reminds us that while the world is still evil and broken, there's this greater thing that God is doing. And that God's moving us to the place where he's recreating that garden like place where we get to walk with him and be with him. We're not held down with the brokenness of our world or the brokenness even within our own hearts. So we need to continuously immerse ourselves in the story of God through the reading of scripture. Even start, if you've never done that, begin to read Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Like, begin to read through those stories about who Jesus is and what this might mean for their lives. And then as you read, process the implications of what you're reading as Jesus shows you who God was. Like, invite God to show you what this means for your life and how you apply these things to your life. So if Jesus is good, how do you follow after him? And how do you begin to do good?
As Jesus serves and loves outsiders. And as you follow after Jesus, you begin to remember, okay, Jesus, my goal is to spend time with you through the scriptures, to become more like you. So then I can then carry on your mission to be with you, to do good for other people. So we process the implications through prayer, ongoing conversation with God, and then we talk about these things in community. This is why not just coming to a larger gathering matters, but being intimately involved in a small gathering around a coffee table, with some coffee with friends, or around a dinner table having a meal together, talking about, hey, this stuff that we're talking about, like how is this working out in our lives?
And we get to encourage each other and uplift each other by helping us to focus on Jesus. The next one is embracing the tension of the mystery. And this one's hard because remember, what I love about reading through a good story is something that's difficult for me to walk out in my life. And so I need to remember when I'm going through difficult stuff that the story is still being written, that I don't know everything and that has to be okay. And I've got to get more and more comfortable with embracing that.
See, when problems arise, I need to just remember that this is just a twist in the story, that when things are difficult or hard or when things aren't going quite the way that I want them to go, I get to come to God. And that's a good thing. I don't have to do life alone. I get to come to God and I get to partner with other people who are on mission of God with us. And we get to embrace the tension of the mystery.
We get to bring these concerns to Jesus. And then we need to surrender the need to know everything right now, to release the need to try to attempt to control things by saying, you know what, God like. Ultimately, I know that you're going to work your plans out in my life. And so I surrender the need to attempt to try to control everything or the attempt to have everything figured out. And I get to just sit in the midst of that tension and that mystery, knowing that you're with me, you're guiding me, you're leading me, you're comforting me.
Maybe just a simple way of embracing the tension of mystery when things are overwhelming and hard is you could just take a walk around your neighborhood to ground yourself to the moment, to feel your feet taking those steps, to seeing the trees and the wind blow through the trees, to feel the warmth of the sun on your cheeks, to noticing the sounds of what's happening around you, notice the people that are going about their days. Grounding yourself to this moment and remembering that today is a gift and that some of the things that I'm worried about, anxious about are just unknown. And I'm not going to have that figured out. But you know what? God's willing me and God's going to guide me.
And I could be okay with the mystery because I don't have to have it all figured out. I don't have to rely on my own power. I can rely on the power of God. So I ground myself to the moment I receive this as a gift. And I remember that life would be boring if I knew everything, and that's not even close to how life works anyway.
And so the more that I can just release that, not need to hold all of. Of that to myself, the more I can experience the joy that God has on offer for me. And so we want to focus on Jesus. We want to embrace the tension of the mystery, and we want to remember that God is still working, even when we don't quite see it. Now we can pray, God, would you open my eyes to the things that you're doing around me?
And even when you feel frustrated, use that as a cue not to run to Netflix, just to entertain the problems away, not to just run to someone and just kind of, like, vent out on them, but to use that as a cue to bring that to God, saying, God, I'm frustrated by this thing that's happening in my life or happening in the world around me. And so, God, would you help me in the midst of that? And maybe God wants to use that point of frustration for you as an invitation from him to step into that, to be a blessing to whoever that other person might be or whatever that thing might be. Or you see something that's going wrong, you can step in and actually bring a bit of light to that situation. You can remember that God's working, and God wants to use you in this grander story of bringing redemption, extending that offer to all people.
And then you can also remind yourself of God's past faithfulness in your life. As God has been faithful in the past, he's going to continue to be faithful in the future. And so sometimes we just need to remember, God, you've done this before. You've not failed me. And so this thing right now that I'm anxious and I'm worried about is still a mystery for me.
I'm gonna trust that you're working and that you care for me and that you're still with me. And so we're gonna continue to work together, focus on Jesus, embracing the tension of the mystery. We're gonna remember that God's still working. And then, as we do that, we're gonna partner with Jesus on mission to remember, oftentimes, that we're here to care for all of those people that God has placed around us, whether that's our immediate family, whether that's our neighborhood, whether that's the places that we go to work every day or the places that we go to school the people we study with, like, the people we interact with, our friends, all of this, we remember that we're here to be a light to those people. So we need to choose to reflect light and not maybe to add darkness to other people.
Sometimes, like when, you know, when I'm going about my day or driving in traffic, like, I can choose to be patient with other people, or I could choose just to help try to ruin someone else's day more by leaning on the horn and honking at them or throwing my hands up and yelling at them or whatever that might be, or going across someone that's already having a bad day and just making their day a little bit worse by not being kind to them or even when they're being kind unkind to me. I can remember, man, there's something going on in their life. And so I'm going to choose to respond, not the way that they responded to me, but I'm going to be kind. I'm going to show compassion, show grace. We can serve and add value to other people.
We can even just volunteer for a nonprofit in our city to help make our city a bit a better place. So find that cause that's deeply, like, resonates in your heart that you're passionate about, and that you can volunteer to help serve that need, even in our own city. And so that's just a few ways just to get, again, your thoughts kind of moving. But I want you to invite you again after we kind of talked about this. What is Jesus leading you into today?
What's the thing that jumps out at you? Where in your life, in this moment do you need to focus more on Jesus? Where you need to embrace the tension of the mystery that's happening in life around you? Where do you need to remember that God is still working in your life, that he's not done with you? And where is God inviting you to partner with Jesus on the mission to help bring renewal to other people?
And so I want you to just imagine if we would be a community. Whether you listen to podcasts, whether you gather with us in person on the south side of Bend, whether you're gathering in one of our small groups that scattered across the cities, imagine if we could be a community that lived a little less anxious and a little bit more joyfully because we could embrace the tension of the mystery as we trust that Jesus continues to work in us and through our lives and to the larger world as a whole. So I just want to pray for you and just encourage you wherever you might be. Maybe you're in a moment where you've really struggled to keep your eyes on Jesus, where the mystery of life has become too much and where you've not really been stepping into the things God wants you to step into because your eyes are so fixated on, on the thing that is hard and is difficult and you probably do wish was different. I just want to encourage you.
Jesus is with you and Jesus loves you. And we could just be honest about what it is that you're feeling. He's not afraid of that. He actually wants you to invite him into that so that he could be part of the conversation, so that he can lead you in that. And so I just want to pray for you, wherever you might be, that whatever you needed to hear today, you will grab onto.
And that would be good news for your journey. And I just want to encourage you this week to get your eyes on Jesus as much as you can, to get in the story of God through reading of scripture and to begin to think about the larger story and what God is doing in the world, but also in your life, to embracing a bit of the tension and the mystery and then stepping into those invitations that God might be nudging you to partner with him and doing good and spreading some of that light to the rest of the world. But I just want to pray for you. God, thank you so much. For everyone that's listening, would you guide them in this life?
You promised that you would not leave us nor forsake us, that you're with us even to the end of the age. And so would you help us with our conflicting feelings of maybe not wanting to embrace mystery in our own life and struggling to embrace mystery when it comes to you? Because we just want really clear cut answers, and that doesn't always happen, and that rarely happens. And so if we're going to follow after you, it's a faith journey, just like everything is a faith journey. But would you help us to be guided in that by you?
Lead us to your truth, be with us in your name we pray. Amen. I just want to encourage you to reach out to us if you want to connect@pinehellschurch.org. dot if not, we'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
Bye.
Summary
In Week 7 of the "This I Believe" series, the focus is on Mark 4:1-20, where Jesus teaches the parable of the sower. The parable describes a farmer scattering seeds on different types of soil, representing various responses to the gospel. The seeds fall on the footpath, rocky soil, among thorns, and good soil, illustrating how some people hear and accept God's word while others do not due to hardened hearts, shallow faith, or being preoccupied with worldly concerns. The parable emphasizes the importance of being receptive to God's teachings and the need for faith in Jesus to truly understand and grow spiritually. The sermon encourages listeners to reflect on their own openness to God and to help others become more receptive to the gospel.
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
- Self-Reflection on Soil Types: Considering the different types of soil in the parable, which type do you feel most accurately represents your current spiritual state, and why? How can you cultivate a more receptive heart towards God's word?
- Impact of Worldly Concerns: In what ways do the "worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things" impact your faith journey? What steps can you take to prevent these concerns from crowding out your spiritual growth?
- Role of Community in Faith: How can your community of faith help you deepen your roots and grow stronger in your relationship with God? What practices or habits can you adopt to ensure that your faith remains strong and fruitful even in challenging times?
Transcript
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful that you are gathering with us as we continue our conversation and this, I believe we're even walking through Mark together. Hopefully you've been enjoying and learning more about who Jesus is, what he was like, and why that matters for our lives today.
But today we're going into Mark chapter four. So let's get into the reading text for today. Mark. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 9, it says, He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one. Listen, a farmer went out to plant some seed as he scattered it across his field. Some of the seed fell on the footpath and the birds came and ate it.
Other seed fell on the shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprout seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon withered under the hot sun. And since it didn't have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among the thorns and grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain.
Still other seeds fell on the fertile soil and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even 100 times as much as had been planted. Then he said anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. See, Mark has been writing this story about Jesus to communicate who Jesus was, what he was like, why it matters for us.
As we get into chapter 4, Mark finally gets to share with us a few parables that Jesus used to teach about the kingdom of God. Now you might be asking, what are parables? Parables were used would use common imagery or word pictures to persuade the audience of a spiritual truth. Parables were used It's an inductive way of communicating a truth instead of just coming out and saying it.
It's a way of connecting dots, and Jesus was a really creative teacher in this regard. It was like finding a reference point in culture, and then drawing the line to how things worked within the kingdom of God. And the purpose of the parables, according to Ben Witherington III, was to communicate in a way that would elicit whether one was responding in faith or not.
And Ben goes on to say, Mark shows that listening intently is closely associated, if not equated, with understanding and knowing. It's not enough that you hear the information, but that you actually understand and begin to know what it is saying. It requires open ears and an open mind. So we all have to ask ourselves the question, are we listening to understand and to know?
Are we open to what God might want to teach, or are we closed to that? And maybe even ask yourself right now, with wherever you're at, however you're listening, Maybe just to take a self evaluation, am I open to what God might want to say to me? Because there's some thinkers out there that even if God audibly spoke to them, they still would not believe in God.
I think knowing our motives actually matter because it affects the way that we listen and interpret. And so if we want to come to the Word of God, if we want to hear the Word of God, hear what Jesus has to say, hear what this parable means, we need to evaluate, are we open to what Jesus might want to teach us through this parable?
Are we open to the implications of what that might mean for our lives?
With that, Mark shares this parable that Jesus used to teach. It was a story about seeds and soils. Which is an agrarian society, so they would have picked up on that and what he was doing. But in the story, Jesus is contrasting three failed seeds with three productive ones. So I want you to imagine like having an herb garden in your backyard, right?
Cause you're that urban farmer in Oregon and you're trying to produce just enough to put some stuff on the table for your family or just to enjoy doing that as self care, whatever that might be. You spread out a lot of these different seeds and some of them take and they're productive, but other seeds don't quite.
Take and they're not productive. And this is what Jesus is essentially getting at. There's these three seeds that are productive and yielded a crop, but then there's these three other ones that did not, we need to understand why those didn't, and we need to note that regardless of the situation in the story, the seeds stay the same.
It's the outcome of the soil, the outcome of the receptivity that is really in question here, because the seeds the same. And this story, the gospel is the same. But it's not always received by the same people in the same way. And so it yields a different outcome for people. So a lot of times maybe we even can't compare how this person is responding compared to that person, because it's not about the seed.
It's about the soils, what's happening in people's lives. How are they hearing? How are they striving to understand? Is their mind open? Is their mind closed? So with that, let's pick back up the story as we see behind the scenes conversation between the disciples and Jesus as they ask some questions around the meaning behind the parables that Jesus was sharing.
Mark chapter 4 verse 10 It says, later when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around they asked him what the parable meant. Essentially, this is like a church gathering being over and you walk away wondering, what the heck did the speaker actually talk about today?
Then I find comfort in knowing that this happened to Jesus as well. It just doesn't happen to us today. It doesn't happen even at the end of this podcast when you're like, what in the world did I just listen to? And so. Yeah, even Jesus sharing things in creative ways, leaves people asking questions. And maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe having people responding questions and strive to understand, maybe that's a really good thing. Maybe sometimes. We get it wrong where we strive to like give everyone everything right there. And we don't require that people kind of do the work on their own with the Holy Spirit of hearing the word of God and asking those questions.
What does this mean? What does this mean for my life? How can I apply this in a way that's, that's good and helpful. And so maybe we do need to do it amid of that may, maybe Jesus is on purpose. Leaving things ambiguous for reason that people would strive to understand at a deeper level. Let's keep going.
Mark chapter 4 verse 11. He replied to these disciples, You are permitted to understand the secret of the kingdom of God, but I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that scriptures might be fulfilled. When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand.
Otherwise they will turn to me and be forgiven. They'll turn to me and be forgiven. We need to remember that it is difficult to translate one language into another. We see this all the time. Even in Spanish, we, that's one of the common languages in our country. Like even words that are said in Spanish, don't.
Quite translate into English really well. And so you have someone who's an interpreter trying to like translate one for one, what that might mean. And they get to a point where they get a word that doesn't make sense in our culture, or maybe we have a word that doesn't make sense in their culture. And so there's gotta be a little bit of work around that.
Like, what does that mean in our language? They've got to use a lot more words to describe one particular word. That's what could be happening here because we got this word. Here for secret, right? That's what we hear, and we hear the word secret. We think God's somehow holding back on people. God's not making his way plain, and that's not fair, and we have all kinds of objections to all of that stuff.
But here the word that we're translating secret in English is actually closer to a word maybe like mystery. See, God isn't interested in keeping any secret knowledge from people. So that only a select group of people will know things. In fact, people who like go to the Bible and some kind of trying to be on a treasure hunt to find the secret knowledge of things, you should probably be aware of those type of readers because God is making things plain.
He's making it plain. Like. If it's not obvious, he's calling people to follow after him who, who aren't the brightest, not the cream of the crop, but he's saying, Hey, come follow after me and I'll show you my ways. And the scriptures are being communicated and in a particular language that was like street language for their day.
So he's not interested in all like keeping things hidden from people. But everything is a bit of a mystery until you understand that everything about God. Hinges on Jesus. He's the, he's the thing that puts everything else together. I don't know if you've ever done a puzzle and you get to a point where you kind of stuck and you're like, you can't quite make the, all the next connections.
You don't know quite what to do. You've kind of put together what you could. And all of a sudden that one particular puzzle piece is like the hinge piece almost, and everything just comes together after that. See, Jesus is that hinge piece. He's the filter to all of life and understanding things of God requires faith in Jesus because even the scriptures say Jesus is the the image of the invisible God.
So if you want to know what God looks like, if you want to know what God sounds like, if you want to know what God does, then we look at Jesus. That's why we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is why we gather our community around Jesus because in Jesus we see who God is, but if we don't receive Jesus.
If we just see him quite like a, he's a good teacher. We just don't quite understand that he's actually Messiah. He sent by God to be the savior of the world. Until we begin to understand all of those things, we won't understand anything else. He's the filter for everything. And the people that Jesus is teaching isn't, they aren't getting it.
The religious leaders don't get it. And if we're not careful, we won't get it either. But to those who turn to Jesus. As their great teacher, as their Messiah, as their savior, as they dedicate their lives to apprenticing under a rabbi, Jesus, the great teacher, then under his leadership by daily being with him, becoming like him and doing the things that he would ask us to do.
We get to grow more and more into our knowledge of God. Knowledge just isn't about information. Knowledge is. A relational thing. The more we live in relationship with God, the more that we truly understand and in our bones. See, even my spouse, there's things on paper that I can know about her. Like if it were a baseball trading card, like there's statistics I could put on the back about my wife, but then there's a way of living life every day with her with the highs and the lows and the stresses and all the different things that are going on that I truly get to know her.
This is why relationship with Jesus matters, because the more we live in relationship with Him, the more we get to know Him, and to know God, and to know what life within God actually looks like. But is your mind open? Is your heart open? Or is it closed? And when Jesus says as he's teaching his people, as he's explaining the parables, he says when they see what I do, they will learn nothing.
We see this in the people who are, just after a miraculous meal or a miracle, we see that the religious leaders miss it when they would have memorized every sign that pointed to Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. And they see all of these things as proof that Jesus is who he says that he is. And they learn nothing.
They're confused by all the things that he does. And so for us who pray all the time, God, if you would do this one particular thing, God, I'll believe in you. Let me tell you, even if he does that thing, you probably won't believe in him. You probably won't. There's people who saw miracle after miracle after miracle, people who are fed from a Lunchable.
5, 000 people fed from a Lunchable still walk away from Jesus confused about who he is, because if we don't understand him, we don't understand the things that he does. And so that's why Jesus is saying they're going to see all this stuff I'm doing, but they won't understand. And instead of leaning in and learning, they lean away and they slowly harden their hearts more and more to who Jesus is because these type of people are just after what can Jesus do for me.
Then Jesus says, when they hear what I say, they will not understand. They don't understand because Jesus doesn't fit their mental maps. They're stuck in their ways of thinking that are not leading them in a good direction Jesus says otherwise they would turn to me and be forgiven now the last few verses jesus has been quoting isaiah 6 9 through 10 Which is great because he's speaking to people who would have had these things memorized as these are the signposts to the messiah coming And jesus just even quoting that would have been saying i'm the one that you've been looking for I'm the one you've been looking for but you're not You You're not understanding.
You don't see me and see that I came from God. And then he even changes the last word that happens in Isaiah 6, 9 through 10. Isaiah says, turn to me and be healed. And Jesus swaps it for forgiven. It's like us, if we drop like a really famous quote, or if we dropped a really famous lyric from a song, and then all of a sudden we just changed a word in that, all of a sudden people who had been so keen on hearing in a specific way would tune in to what that different word was.
That was what Jesus was doing. He was saying, probably, that if they saw all the miracles, and they saw that if it pointed to the truth of the kingdom of God, and they actually drew close to Jesus. And they repented and they turned to him that they would actually be forgiven, that they would find healing through forgiveness.
What they really needed to be healed of was a spiritual condition of accumulated sin that formed a rift in their relationship with God. But healing was on offer for that rift through forgiveness in Jesus alone. And maybe some of us have been looking for one thing to happen. And Jesus is most concerned with healing the thing behind the thing first.
Maybe we're so inclined to know, God, if you just did all of these things for me. And Jesus is just most interested in your heart, having a relationship with you. And he wants to provide these things in your life, and he wants to come through in particular ways, or to lead you into things that are probably better for you anyway.
But he wants to heal that spiritual condition. And when we respond to Jesus by living a life of faith, following after him, We get to have help from the Holy Spirit to understand what Jesus is doing, what Jesus is saying, what these scriptures mean, and what that mean in our life today. And God's Word says that if you lack wisdom, you can actually ask the Heavenly Father, who is more than generous to give it to you, to guide you through the power of His Spirit.
Now let's pick up on the explanation because again you have Jesus teach his parable to the crowd you have the disciples getting alone with Jesus the behind the scenes stuff is there like Jesus Can you please explain this stuff because we don't even understand and Jesus says yeah, because you're following after me You put your faith in me Repented like you've you've been following the way you're permitted to know this the stuff that's Remaining a mystery to other people That's a bit cloaked and veiled and people quite don't understand because they're not putting on the lens of Jesus and they won't be able to clearly see it until they put on those Jesus lenses and then all of a sudden everything is dialed in and people's minds get to be open and their hearts get to be open because they come to Jesus in faith.
Remember the hinge point is Jesus coming to him in faith. Mark chapter 4. There's 13 through 14 it says, then Jesus said to them, if you can't understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables? The father plants seed by taking God's word to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message only to have Satan come at once and to take it away.
Jesus says, if you can't understand this parable, you can't understand the others. The truth behind this parable really actually matters. And he's probably giving us a clue that Jesus taught many more parables than the ones recorded in the scriptures. But this one is the one that Jesus cherry picks to explain as the base for everything else.
In the story, Jesus is the sower of the seed of the gospel, the sower of the gospel of the kingdom of God. And that seed falls on all different types of soil, representing our reception to the gospel. Doesn't say anything about the seed. The seed is always good. The seed will always deliver. But when it falls on particular soils, it might not take it.
In a way that's actually productive. Jesus explaining why some people respond to God and why some people do not. The focus isn't on that seat. As we said, it's not on the gospel. It's it's on how the hearers respond to the gospel. The seed first falls on the footpath or the path that is hardened by being walked over constantly.
So I don't know if you ever go walk on trails around bend. Like if you go on a path that is well hiked, it's, it's really hard that people have just padded it down. It's actually. A nice path though to walk on, but there's nothing getting below that top soil because it's been so packed down. And some might ask why in the world would you throw a seed on a footpath?
Well, for one, I'm no farmer, so you might have to cut me a break if I get this wrong a bit. But being the book nerd that I am, I spent my Tuesday morning reading about first century farming practices just for you. And over coffee in my warm office, I had learned that farmers would actually get up and they would just scatter seed everywhere.
And after scattering the seed kind of indiscriminately over this entire area, they would then go plow the field and in plowing the field, it would then sow the seed into the soil. They clearly would plow up all the stuff leading up to the footpath, or they would plow along those footpaths, but they would not plow the footpath.
for having us. And so to see that happened to fall on or alongside beside these footpaths would ultimately just feed the birds. And again, don't miss the point for all the details in the story. The point Jesus was making was that some people do not respond to the gospel because when they hear the message, Satan immediately comes and snatches away the truth, giving a nod to this cosmic battle between good and evil, that some people have been so hardened by life.
That their hearts are so closed off to Jesus, their ears are so closed off to Jesus, that even when Jesus continues to show up in their story time and time and time again, they're so closed off to it and so open to what Satan wants to do in their life that, that Satan actually takes away the goodness of this truth, because Satan doesn't want us to go after things that bring us life.
Satan's job is to steal away anything that's good, to kill off life. That ultimately leads us to death. So Mark chapter 4 verses 16 through 17. It's the second type of soil. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they, it don't last long.
They fall away as soon as they have problems and are persecuted for believing God's words. These type of people hear the gospel, But they don't begin to orient their life around the ways of Jesus. They don't begin to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to guide them into unlearning, ingrained habits that have been forming us away from Jesus by replacing them with habits that will actually form us towards the way of Jesus.
Remember, John Mark Comer teaches, formation is not optional. All of us are being formed by something, but it would be intentional about the things and the forces that are actually forming us. Are we intentional about who that's making us become? Formation's not optional. So as you're following Jesus, are you unlearning ways that are forming you away from who God wants you to be?
Are you intentionally allowing habits to show up in your daily practice that form you more into who Jesus wants you to be? See, we have to grow deep in our faith. I said earlier that it can't just be someone just kind of spoon feeding you all of this stuff. You've got to get a mind of curiosity. You've got to begin to go to God's word.
You've got to begin to get deep into it. What is the story of God? What is God doing? You've got to bring your questions to the scriptures and, and listen to what the scriptures say, and then respond to what the scriptures say. Remember, we just don't want information. I don't want to. Community of people that just know their Bibles really well.
I want a community of people that have listened to their Bible and responded to the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit's asking of their lives. People who hear and people who do these habits of, of devotion that show up. And our life, it's, it looks like reading scripture, prayer, gratitude, listening to God, these things matter because these help our roots to grow down into something substantive that will help us in all of life.
This is why weekly community connection matters, whether it's a large group or a smaller group. These help our roots to grow with others, helping us to be stronger together, because we can't do life alone. The moment that you buy into that lie, you buy into. The lie of the enemy, which begins to form you away from Jesus.
This is why being watchful over all of the things that you allow into your life that are formative matter formative for your family formative for you, because this will help you and the next generation become rooted in things that are life giving instead of being washed away by the confusion of our day.
So the question I want to ask is what are you doing each day to be rooted in the stuff that matters? What are you doing each day to be rude in the stuff that matters? Mark chapter 4 verse 18 through 19. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God's Word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of life, the lure of wealth, the desire for other things.
So no fruit is produced. This is when we are so preoccupied by the worries and the drives of the world instead of the things of God. Maybe we've responded to the gospel and begin to grow deeper in our faith, but then these other things begin to grow unchecked in our hearts, minds, and spirits. It is those things that don't seem like such a big deal, but over time these things become the things that kill you.
The lure of wealth, so you continue to grind to make even more money, neglecting family rhythms and spiritual rhythms to the neglect of all of that. And eventually you find yourself with as much money as you could ever imagine, but you don't have anyone around you who authentically actually wants to be with you.
You don't have that relationship with God because you've shut that out in order to cut corners, to go after what was ultimately in your heart anyway, which was money, serving money, going after money, making that the idol or whatever this thing might be for you. The worries, the desires for things that we see other people have, the bigger house, the bigger car and bend.
It's like the more toys, the more bikes, the more paddle boards, the more kayaks, the more skis, the more, whatever you can imagine, like the more stuff that I can do, the better, or maybe it's. It's the lore of having the job where I could just be a nomad and be everywhere. And so we go after those things, neglecting relationships, neglecting our spiritual life, maybe neglecting some other parts of our life.
And that ends up shipwrecking us. This is what Jesus is getting at. These things will shipwreck our faith if we're not careful. So just to review, there's three types of seeds that fell on unpredicted, Unproductive soil. And that was the hard path, the shallow soil and among the thorns and an attempt to translate it more for our culture, maybe it looks like.
Having a closed heart and mind. Having a closed heart and mind that Satan steals away these things. Maybe it's having shallow faith. So we don't actually put into practice God's ways. Or we don't work to actually deepen our faith. We allow it to be shallow. So we don't grow or maybe it's being preoccupied with worldly things like greed or unhealthy desires or just things that the world is driven by thinking it's going to make them happy and it will never deliver.
So where are you at? And that mixes or anything in your own life that you've not been receptive to maybe what God wants to do. It's closing you off to him. Let's just evaluate our hearts. Even now, wherever we might be at, are we closed? Is our mind closed? Is our heart closed? Have we been so hardened by life?
We're frustrated with why God didn't come through in a certain way, why God didn't do this. And we just slowly start closing our hearts and our minds off instead of just bringing that to God and saying, God, I'm not happy about this. But I trust that you're good and I trust that you'll bring me through this.
And I just want to bring that to you. And I want to open my heart to you and open my mind to you. I want you to help me to, to get through this. Remember God's, God's not going to answer all your whys, but he's always going to show up to your whys with his presence and his goodness. Maybe your faith has been a bit shallow.
You've just been kind of showing up in community or listen to a podcast here or there. You're listening to like the you version, like. Verse of the day. And that's kind of just where faith has remained for you. Which isn't a bad thing on the surface. Remember that's an entry point, but at some point you've got to start deepening your faith.
Maybe the call for you is to begin to pursue God on a deeper level, to apply more spiritual disciplines in your life, to get other things out of your life, to make space for God. Maybe it's getting in the scriptures to learning at a deeper level or getting in community where you can talk about scriptures in a deeper level.
What is that step that God. Want you to make today and get to the last type of soil, the type that has a productive result. Remember, we've got to evaluate these things for our lives. And so whatever the Holy Spirit brings up, just begin to say, God, would you help me with those? Things. So with that, as we prepared our hearts, we've prepared our minds.
We're open ourself to him. We've realized these things that could lead us away from Jesus that close us off. What are those things that would help us to be productive? Mark chapter four, verse 20. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God's word and produce a harvest 30, 60, and even a hundred times as much as has been planted.
See, the gospel heard by a receptive heart, by people who are open to God, not hardened by life, to people who are willing to go deeper in their faith, to ask better questions, to seek after God. Remember, Jesus has seek first the kingdom of God. Everything else in life will be added to you. People who are like going to say, Hey, I'm not going to get preoccupied with all these other worries and things of life, these things of the world.
Like I realized that they actually don't deliver. And I'm going to go after Jesus and take them up on his offer. If he delivers, I'm going to go full in on it and see if he does deliver. And those are the people that have the gospel that's put into good soil. And that, that's, that's, that's, that's what I'm That seed's going to eventually start sprouting just a bit.
You're going to see more beautiful things coming through the soil. It's going to start growing into this beautiful plant and eventually it's going to produce fruit that has the capacity to produce more fruit in the lives of other people. And this is the amazing thing. This is what happens in the hands of Jesus as we trust his loving touch and his loving guidance to help us through the hard stuff of life, it will consistently and faithfully produce in good seasons and in bad seasons.
And we remember in their day, a tenfold harvest would have been a really, really good year. So Jesus, to say a harvest that produces 30, 60, or even a hundred times as much has been planted would have been a miraculous thing. See, faith is a journey. And we need to be aware that every day the Holy Spirit is on offer to help lead us and our families in the right direction.
But we also need to be aware of the forces that would attempt to pull us away from God. The world is not a neutral place. There's a war that's happening and we need to be aware of that and recognize evil for evil. Sometimes evil things happen in our life and we confuse that with God thinking God somehow did that or allowed that to happen and No, we just need to recognize we live in a broken and evil world and call evil What is evil?
but also to recognize the good in the world and what God is doing and recognize that there's this Big war that's happening the war of wills all this different stuff taking place. It can be confusing It can be hard but take heart. You are not alone. Jesus is with you And so this week is you Begin to open your life to God, of having good soil, of making those conditions right, for God to plant that in your life and begin to grow.
What does that look like? Maybe it looks like listening to God through the scriptures with an open mind and an open heart. Thinking through, what is the scripture saying? What does it say about life and what do I need to apply to my life today? How do I need to practice this out? Second one, put into practice the things that you see in His word so that you will grow deeper in your faith.
Put into practice. Don't be just hearers of God's Word, but be people who hear and do God's Word. And then continue to keep your eyes on the things that matter most and be content with whatever God actually provides you. Today's actually the gift. You don't need more. You don't need more. You need God. So be content with God.
Go find a spot in the warm sun. Like, be outside. Just get alone. Feel the warmth of the sun on you and remember that God is present with you and God is good. And be content. Maybe you're going through difficult things and hard things, but be content that God is with you in the midst of that. You don't have to do it alone.
See, the truth of our culture is that they think we can do life alone. So that way when we go through hard stuff, you have to have the power to be able to do that alone. There's no good in that. But we don't have to do it alone because God is always with us. Now the last thing we need to Do to pull all of this together in the passage is not only understand what this means for our personal heart checks, as we've thought through, like, what is the soil in my life look like?
Have I've been hardened by things in life? Have I had shallow faith? Have I been lured in by the worries of the world or. On the opposite side of that, man, have I responded and allowed God in faith to open my heart, open my mind? Have I deepened my faith by pursuing God? Have I focused on Jesus being content in him?
The last piece of this is to remember that the story is being constructed by Mark and given to a particular group of people at a particular time who are going through really difficult things. Life was tough that they were communicating the gospel, attempting to spread it. And persecution was happening because of it.
They're being socially ostracized because of it. People are not understanding any of that. So we need to remember that, that as we spend time with Jesus, we become more like, and we then began to do the things that he would have us to do, which means we then carry on his mission of spreading out that seed to other people.
And we get to partner with Jesus on the mission of being an expression of renewal to others. And this could be difficult. And we have seen in the past couple of weeks that we can be rejected by those who are close to us, that people are going to misunderstand us. They're going to judge us and maybe even do hateful things towards us.
But perhaps, perhaps as we prayerfully walk alongside with other people who might negatively respond to us, we can continue to extend that offer of relationship. Maybe we can carefully and prayerfully pray that people whose minds are closed to God would suddenly start to open more and more. That people who have shallow faith would begin to deepen their faith, to walk alongside someone to know, hey, this is exciting, they've responded here, but in relationship with them, keep challenging them.
Hey, let's grow in our faith. Maybe it's inviting someone to coffee, reading through a book together, discussing the scriptures together, or if you want a softball, Listen to these podcasts together and then go out for coffee and say, Hey, what does this look like in your life? What is God saying to you and what does God want you to do, man?
Your faith will grow so much. Or if people have been preoccupied with the world, pray God that they wouldn't fall into this trap. And as we journey with people, as we deepen the relationship with people, as we pray for people consistently by name and specifically by need, over time, there is the possibility that there will be faith that begins to sprout in their life, that will begin to grow and they'll begin to produce fruit exponentially.
And so that, that's what Mark has for us today, reflecting on the parables, and we're going to go through some more parables, but just remembering what, what, what it is that's here. Remember, like go through this text this week, read through Mark chapter four and just pray like, what has my life been looking like if I've been receptive to what God is trying to do in me, or do I need to clean something out?
And as I'm on mission, building relationships with others. Prayerfully praying for others, hanging out with people, doing the bike rides, doing the kayaks, doing all that stuff, deepening the relationship. I want to pray that the Holy Spirit helps me genuinely authentically begin to, to talk people about the deeper things of life.
And I'm telling you, it will have an exponential effect. You might get discouraged by like, Hey, the seed that fell on tough soil, like that's hard and I'm frustrated by that, but stay the course Jesus is with you because he didn't give up on you. When you were that way. So don't give up on other people.
And remember that as that seed starts to grow, it's going to have this exponential, amazing effect. And so say the course, stay on mission, partner with us or partner with a community like us, and let's continue to engage our world openly to whatever God wants to do through the power of his spirit, helping us to become more like him so we can then do the things that he would have us do.
But we're praying for you if you want any information about our community Please reach out at pinehillschurch. org. If not, I'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye
📍 Hey
everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful that you are gathering with us as we continue our conversation and this, I believe we're even walking through Mark together. Hopefully you've been enjoying and learning more about who Jesus is, what he was like, and why that matters for our lives today.
But today we're going into Mark chapter four. So let's get into the reading text for today. Mark. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 9, it says, He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one. Listen, a farmer went out to plant some seed as he scattered it across his field. Some of the seed fell on the footpath and the birds came and ate it.
Other seed fell on the shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprout seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon withered under the hot sun. And since it didn't have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among the thorns and grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain.
Still other seeds fell on the fertile soil and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even 100 times as much as had been planted. Then he said anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. See, Mark has been writing this story about Jesus to communicate who Jesus was, what he was like, why it matters for us.
As we get into chapter 4, Mark finally gets to share with us a few parables that Jesus used to teach about the kingdom of God. Now you might be asking, what are parables? Parables were used would use common imagery or word pictures to persuade the audience of a spiritual truth. Parables were used It's an inductive way of communicating a truth instead of just coming out and saying it.
It's a way of connecting dots, and Jesus was a really creative teacher in this regard. It was like finding a reference point in culture, and then drawing the line to how things worked within the kingdom of God. And the purpose of the parables, according to Ben Witherington III, was to communicate in a way that would elicit whether one was responding in faith or not.
And Ben goes on to say, Mark shows that listening intently is closely associated, if not equated, with understanding and knowing. It's not enough that you hear the information, but that you actually understand and begin to know what it is saying. It requires open ears and an open mind. So we all have to ask ourselves the question, are we listening to understand and to know?
Are we open to what God might want to teach, or are we closed to that? And maybe even ask yourself right now, with wherever you're at, however you're listening, Maybe just to take a self evaluation, am I open to what God might want to say to me? Because there's some thinkers out there that even if God audibly spoke to them, they still would not believe in God.
I think knowing our motives actually matter because it affects the way that we listen and interpret. And so if we want to come to the Word of God, if we want to hear the Word of God, hear what Jesus has to say, hear what this parable means, we need to evaluate, are we open to what Jesus might want to teach us through this parable?
Are we open to the implications of what that might mean for our lives?
With that, Mark shares this parable that Jesus used to teach. It was a story about seeds and soils. Which is an agrarian society, so they would have picked up on that and what he was doing. But in the story, Jesus is contrasting three failed seeds with three productive ones. So I want you to imagine like having an herb garden in your backyard, right?
Cause you're that urban farmer in Oregon and you're trying to produce just enough to put some stuff on the table for your family or just to enjoy doing that as self care, whatever that might be. You spread out a lot of these different seeds and some of them take and they're productive, but other seeds don't quite.
Take and they're not productive. And this is what Jesus is essentially getting at. There's these three seeds that are productive and yielded a crop, but then there's these three other ones that did not, we need to understand why those didn't, and we need to note that regardless of the situation in the story, the seeds stay the same.
It's the outcome of the soil, the outcome of the receptivity that is really in question here, because the seeds the same. And this story, the gospel is the same. But it's not always received by the same people in the same way. And so it yields a different outcome for people. So a lot of times maybe we even can't compare how this person is responding compared to that person, because it's not about the seed.
It's about the soils, what's happening in people's lives. How are they hearing? How are they striving to understand? Is their mind open? Is their mind closed? So with that, let's pick back up the story as we see behind the scenes conversation between the disciples and Jesus as they ask some questions around the meaning behind the parables that Jesus was sharing.
Mark chapter 4 verse 10 It says, later when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around they asked him what the parable meant. Essentially, this is like a church gathering being over and you walk away wondering, what the heck did the speaker actually talk about today?
Then I find comfort in knowing that this happened to Jesus as well. It just doesn't happen to us today. It doesn't happen even at the end of this podcast when you're like, what in the world did I just listen to? And so. Yeah, even Jesus sharing things in creative ways, leaves people asking questions. And maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe having people responding questions and strive to understand, maybe that's a really good thing. Maybe sometimes. We get it wrong where we strive to like give everyone everything right there. And we don't require that people kind of do the work on their own with the Holy Spirit of hearing the word of God and asking those questions.
What does this mean? What does this mean for my life? How can I apply this in a way that's, that's good and helpful. And so maybe we do need to do it amid of that may, maybe Jesus is on purpose. Leaving things ambiguous for reason that people would strive to understand at a deeper level. Let's keep going.
Mark chapter 4 verse 11. He replied to these disciples, You are permitted to understand the secret of the kingdom of God, but I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that scriptures might be fulfilled. When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand.
Otherwise they will turn to me and be forgiven. They'll turn to me and be forgiven. We need to remember that it is difficult to translate one language into another. We see this all the time. Even in Spanish, we, that's one of the common languages in our country. Like even words that are said in Spanish, don't.
Quite translate into English really well. And so you have someone who's an interpreter trying to like translate one for one, what that might mean. And they get to a point where they get a word that doesn't make sense in our culture, or maybe we have a word that doesn't make sense in their culture. And so there's gotta be a little bit of work around that.
Like, what does that mean in our language? They've got to use a lot more words to describe one particular word. That's what could be happening here because we got this word. Here for secret, right? That's what we hear, and we hear the word secret. We think God's somehow holding back on people. God's not making his way plain, and that's not fair, and we have all kinds of objections to all of that stuff.
But here the word that we're translating secret in English is actually closer to a word maybe like mystery. See, God isn't interested in keeping any secret knowledge from people. So that only a select group of people will know things. In fact, people who like go to the Bible and some kind of trying to be on a treasure hunt to find the secret knowledge of things, you should probably be aware of those type of readers because God is making things plain.
He's making it plain. Like. If it's not obvious, he's calling people to follow after him who, who aren't the brightest, not the cream of the crop, but he's saying, Hey, come follow after me and I'll show you my ways. And the scriptures are being communicated and in a particular language that was like street language for their day.
So he's not interested in all like keeping things hidden from people. But everything is a bit of a mystery until you understand that everything about God. Hinges on Jesus. He's the, he's the thing that puts everything else together. I don't know if you've ever done a puzzle and you get to a point where you kind of stuck and you're like, you can't quite make the, all the next connections.
You don't know quite what to do. You've kind of put together what you could. And all of a sudden that one particular puzzle piece is like the hinge piece almost, and everything just comes together after that. See, Jesus is that hinge piece. He's the filter to all of life and understanding things of God requires faith in Jesus because even the scriptures say Jesus is the the image of the invisible God.
So if you want to know what God looks like, if you want to know what God sounds like, if you want to know what God does, then we look at Jesus. That's why we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is why we gather our community around Jesus because in Jesus we see who God is, but if we don't receive Jesus.
If we just see him quite like a, he's a good teacher. We just don't quite understand that he's actually Messiah. He sent by God to be the savior of the world. Until we begin to understand all of those things, we won't understand anything else. He's the filter for everything. And the people that Jesus is teaching isn't, they aren't getting it.
The religious leaders don't get it. And if we're not careful, we won't get it either. But to those who turn to Jesus. As their great teacher, as their Messiah, as their savior, as they dedicate their lives to apprenticing under a rabbi, Jesus, the great teacher, then under his leadership by daily being with him, becoming like him and doing the things that he would ask us to do.
We get to grow more and more into our knowledge of God. Knowledge just isn't about information. Knowledge is. A relational thing. The more we live in relationship with God, the more that we truly understand and in our bones. See, even my spouse, there's things on paper that I can know about her. Like if it were a baseball trading card, like there's statistics I could put on the back about my wife, but then there's a way of living life every day with her with the highs and the lows and the stresses and all the different things that are going on that I truly get to know her.
This is why relationship with Jesus matters, because the more we live in relationship with Him, the more we get to know Him, and to know God, and to know what life within God actually looks like. But is your mind open? Is your heart open? Or is it closed? And when Jesus says as he's teaching his people, as he's explaining the parables, he says when they see what I do, they will learn nothing.
We see this in the people who are, just after a miraculous meal or a miracle, we see that the religious leaders miss it when they would have memorized every sign that pointed to Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. And they see all of these things as proof that Jesus is who he says that he is. And they learn nothing.
They're confused by all the things that he does. And so for us who pray all the time, God, if you would do this one particular thing, God, I'll believe in you. Let me tell you, even if he does that thing, you probably won't believe in him. You probably won't. There's people who saw miracle after miracle after miracle, people who are fed from a Lunchable.
5, 000 people fed from a Lunchable still walk away from Jesus confused about who he is, because if we don't understand him, we don't understand the things that he does. And so that's why Jesus is saying they're going to see all this stuff I'm doing, but they won't understand. And instead of leaning in and learning, they lean away and they slowly harden their hearts more and more to who Jesus is because these type of people are just after what can Jesus do for me.
Then Jesus says, when they hear what I say, they will not understand. They don't understand because Jesus doesn't fit their mental maps. They're stuck in their ways of thinking that are not leading them in a good direction Jesus says otherwise they would turn to me and be forgiven now the last few verses jesus has been quoting isaiah 6 9 through 10 Which is great because he's speaking to people who would have had these things memorized as these are the signposts to the messiah coming And jesus just even quoting that would have been saying i'm the one that you've been looking for I'm the one you've been looking for but you're not You You're not understanding.
You don't see me and see that I came from God. And then he even changes the last word that happens in Isaiah 6, 9 through 10. Isaiah says, turn to me and be healed. And Jesus swaps it for forgiven. It's like us, if we drop like a really famous quote, or if we dropped a really famous lyric from a song, and then all of a sudden we just changed a word in that, all of a sudden people who had been so keen on hearing in a specific way would tune in to what that different word was.
That was what Jesus was doing. He was saying, probably, that if they saw all the miracles, and they saw that if it pointed to the truth of the kingdom of God, and they actually drew close to Jesus. And they repented and they turned to him that they would actually be forgiven, that they would find healing through forgiveness.
What they really needed to be healed of was a spiritual condition of accumulated sin that formed a rift in their relationship with God. But healing was on offer for that rift through forgiveness in Jesus alone. And maybe some of us have been looking for one thing to happen. And Jesus is most concerned with healing the thing behind the thing first.
Maybe we're so inclined to know, God, if you just did all of these things for me. And Jesus is just most interested in your heart, having a relationship with you. And he wants to provide these things in your life, and he wants to come through in particular ways, or to lead you into things that are probably better for you anyway.
But he wants to heal that spiritual condition. And when we respond to Jesus by living a life of faith, following after him, We get to have help from the Holy Spirit to understand what Jesus is doing, what Jesus is saying, what these scriptures mean, and what that mean in our life today. And God's Word says that if you lack wisdom, you can actually ask the Heavenly Father, who is more than generous to give it to you, to guide you through the power of His Spirit.
Now let's pick up on the explanation because again you have Jesus teach his parable to the crowd you have the disciples getting alone with Jesus the behind the scenes stuff is there like Jesus Can you please explain this stuff because we don't even understand and Jesus says yeah, because you're following after me You put your faith in me Repented like you've you've been following the way you're permitted to know this the stuff that's Remaining a mystery to other people That's a bit cloaked and veiled and people quite don't understand because they're not putting on the lens of Jesus and they won't be able to clearly see it until they put on those Jesus lenses and then all of a sudden everything is dialed in and people's minds get to be open and their hearts get to be open because they come to Jesus in faith.
Remember the hinge point is Jesus coming to him in faith. Mark chapter 4. There's 13 through 14 it says, then Jesus said to them, if you can't understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables? The father plants seed by taking God's word to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message only to have Satan come at once and to take it away.
Jesus says, if you can't understand this parable, you can't understand the others. The truth behind this parable really actually matters. And he's probably giving us a clue that Jesus taught many more parables than the ones recorded in the scriptures. But this one is the one that Jesus cherry picks to explain as the base for everything else.
In the story, Jesus is the sower of the seed of the gospel, the sower of the gospel of the kingdom of God. And that seed falls on all different types of soil, representing our reception to the gospel. Doesn't say anything about the seed. The seed is always good. The seed will always deliver. But when it falls on particular soils, it might not take it.
In a way that's actually productive. Jesus explaining why some people respond to God and why some people do not. The focus isn't on that seat. As we said, it's not on the gospel. It's it's on how the hearers respond to the gospel. The seed first falls on the footpath or the path that is hardened by being walked over constantly.
So I don't know if you ever go walk on trails around bend. Like if you go on a path that is well hiked, it's, it's really hard that people have just padded it down. It's actually. A nice path though to walk on, but there's nothing getting below that top soil because it's been so packed down. And some might ask why in the world would you throw a seed on a footpath?
Well, for one, I'm no farmer, so you might have to cut me a break if I get this wrong a bit. But being the book nerd that I am, I spent my Tuesday morning reading about first century farming practices just for you. And over coffee in my warm office, I had learned that farmers would actually get up and they would just scatter seed everywhere.
And after scattering the seed kind of indiscriminately over this entire area, they would then go plow the field and in plowing the field, it would then sow the seed into the soil. They clearly would plow up all the stuff leading up to the footpath, or they would plow along those footpaths, but they would not plow the footpath.
for having us. And so to see that happened to fall on or alongside beside these footpaths would ultimately just feed the birds. And again, don't miss the point for all the details in the story. The point Jesus was making was that some people do not respond to the gospel because when they hear the message, Satan immediately comes and snatches away the truth, giving a nod to this cosmic battle between good and evil, that some people have been so hardened by life.
That their hearts are so closed off to Jesus, their ears are so closed off to Jesus, that even when Jesus continues to show up in their story time and time and time again, they're so closed off to it and so open to what Satan wants to do in their life that, that Satan actually takes away the goodness of this truth, because Satan doesn't want us to go after things that bring us life.
Satan's job is to steal away anything that's good, to kill off life. That ultimately leads us to death. So Mark chapter 4 verses 16 through 17. It's the second type of soil. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they, it don't last long.
They fall away as soon as they have problems and are persecuted for believing God's words. These type of people hear the gospel, But they don't begin to orient their life around the ways of Jesus. They don't begin to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to guide them into unlearning, ingrained habits that have been forming us away from Jesus by replacing them with habits that will actually form us towards the way of Jesus.
Remember, John Mark Comer teaches, formation is not optional. All of us are being formed by something, but it would be intentional about the things and the forces that are actually forming us. Are we intentional about who that's making us become? Formation's not optional. So as you're following Jesus, are you unlearning ways that are forming you away from who God wants you to be?
Are you intentionally allowing habits to show up in your daily practice that form you more into who Jesus wants you to be? See, we have to grow deep in our faith. I said earlier that it can't just be someone just kind of spoon feeding you all of this stuff. You've got to get a mind of curiosity. You've got to begin to go to God's word.
You've got to begin to get deep into it. What is the story of God? What is God doing? You've got to bring your questions to the scriptures and, and listen to what the scriptures say, and then respond to what the scriptures say. Remember, we just don't want information. I don't want to. Community of people that just know their Bibles really well.
I want a community of people that have listened to their Bible and responded to the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit's asking of their lives. People who hear and people who do these habits of, of devotion that show up. And our life, it's, it looks like reading scripture, prayer, gratitude, listening to God, these things matter because these help our roots to grow down into something substantive that will help us in all of life.
This is why weekly community connection matters, whether it's a large group or a smaller group. These help our roots to grow with others, helping us to be stronger together, because we can't do life alone. The moment that you buy into that lie, you buy into. The lie of the enemy, which begins to form you away from Jesus.
This is why being watchful over all of the things that you allow into your life that are formative matter formative for your family formative for you, because this will help you and the next generation become rooted in things that are life giving instead of being washed away by the confusion of our day.
So the question I want to ask is what are you doing each day to be rooted in the stuff that matters? What are you doing each day to be rude in the stuff that matters? Mark chapter 4 verse 18 through 19. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God's Word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of life, the lure of wealth, the desire for other things.
So no fruit is produced. This is when we are so preoccupied by the worries and the drives of the world instead of the things of God. Maybe we've responded to the gospel and begin to grow deeper in our faith, but then these other things begin to grow unchecked in our hearts, minds, and spirits. It is those things that don't seem like such a big deal, but over time these things become the things that kill you.
The lure of wealth, so you continue to grind to make even more money, neglecting family rhythms and spiritual rhythms to the neglect of all of that. And eventually you find yourself with as much money as you could ever imagine, but you don't have anyone around you who authentically actually wants to be with you.
You don't have that relationship with God because you've shut that out in order to cut corners, to go after what was ultimately in your heart anyway, which was money, serving money, going after money, making that the idol or whatever this thing might be for you. The worries, the desires for things that we see other people have, the bigger house, the bigger car and bend.
It's like the more toys, the more bikes, the more paddle boards, the more kayaks, the more skis, the more, whatever you can imagine, like the more stuff that I can do, the better, or maybe it's. It's the lore of having the job where I could just be a nomad and be everywhere. And so we go after those things, neglecting relationships, neglecting our spiritual life, maybe neglecting some other parts of our life.
And that ends up shipwrecking us. This is what Jesus is getting at. These things will shipwreck our faith if we're not careful. So just to review, there's three types of seeds that fell on unpredicted, Unproductive soil. And that was the hard path, the shallow soil and among the thorns and an attempt to translate it more for our culture, maybe it looks like.
Having a closed heart and mind. Having a closed heart and mind that Satan steals away these things. Maybe it's having shallow faith. So we don't actually put into practice God's ways. Or we don't work to actually deepen our faith. We allow it to be shallow. So we don't grow or maybe it's being preoccupied with worldly things like greed or unhealthy desires or just things that the world is driven by thinking it's going to make them happy and it will never deliver.
So where are you at? And that mixes or anything in your own life that you've not been receptive to maybe what God wants to do. It's closing you off to him. Let's just evaluate our hearts. Even now, wherever we might be at, are we closed? Is our mind closed? Is our heart closed? Have we been so hardened by life?
We're frustrated with why God didn't come through in a certain way, why God didn't do this. And we just slowly start closing our hearts and our minds off instead of just bringing that to God and saying, God, I'm not happy about this. But I trust that you're good and I trust that you'll bring me through this.
And I just want to bring that to you. And I want to open my heart to you and open my mind to you. I want you to help me to, to get through this. Remember God's, God's not going to answer all your whys, but he's always going to show up to your whys with his presence and his goodness. Maybe your faith has been a bit shallow.
You've just been kind of showing up in community or listen to a podcast here or there. You're listening to like the you version, like. Verse of the day. And that's kind of just where faith has remained for you. Which isn't a bad thing on the surface. Remember that's an entry point, but at some point you've got to start deepening your faith.
Maybe the call for you is to begin to pursue God on a deeper level, to apply more spiritual disciplines in your life, to get other things out of your life, to make space for God. Maybe it's getting in the scriptures to learning at a deeper level or getting in community where you can talk about scriptures in a deeper level.
What is that step that God. Want you to make today and get to the last type of soil, the type that has a productive result. Remember, we've got to evaluate these things for our lives. And so whatever the Holy Spirit brings up, just begin to say, God, would you help me with those? Things. So with that, as we prepared our hearts, we've prepared our minds.
We're open ourself to him. We've realized these things that could lead us away from Jesus that close us off. What are those things that would help us to be productive? Mark chapter four, verse 20. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God's word and produce a harvest 30, 60, and even a hundred times as much as has been planted.
See, the gospel heard by a receptive heart, by people who are open to God, not hardened by life, to people who are willing to go deeper in their faith, to ask better questions, to seek after God. Remember, Jesus has seek first the kingdom of God. Everything else in life will be added to you. People who are like going to say, Hey, I'm not going to get preoccupied with all these other worries and things of life, these things of the world.
Like I realized that they actually don't deliver. And I'm going to go after Jesus and take them up on his offer. If he delivers, I'm going to go full in on it and see if he does deliver. And those are the people that have the gospel that's put into good soil. And that, that's, that's, that's, that's what I'm That seed's going to eventually start sprouting just a bit.
You're going to see more beautiful things coming through the soil. It's going to start growing into this beautiful plant and eventually it's going to produce fruit that has the capacity to produce more fruit in the lives of other people. And this is the amazing thing. This is what happens in the hands of Jesus as we trust his loving touch and his loving guidance to help us through the hard stuff of life, it will consistently and faithfully produce in good seasons and in bad seasons.
And we remember in their day, a tenfold harvest would have been a really, really good year. So Jesus, to say a harvest that produces 30, 60, or even a hundred times as much has been planted would have been a miraculous thing. See, faith is a journey. And we need to be aware that every day the Holy Spirit is on offer to help lead us and our families in the right direction.
But we also need to be aware of the forces that would attempt to pull us away from God. The world is not a neutral place. There's a war that's happening and we need to be aware of that and recognize evil for evil. Sometimes evil things happen in our life and we confuse that with God thinking God somehow did that or allowed that to happen and No, we just need to recognize we live in a broken and evil world and call evil What is evil?
but also to recognize the good in the world and what God is doing and recognize that there's this Big war that's happening the war of wills all this different stuff taking place. It can be confusing It can be hard but take heart. You are not alone. Jesus is with you And so this week is you Begin to open your life to God, of having good soil, of making those conditions right, for God to plant that in your life and begin to grow.
What does that look like? Maybe it looks like listening to God through the scriptures with an open mind and an open heart. Thinking through, what is the scripture saying? What does it say about life and what do I need to apply to my life today? How do I need to practice this out? Second one, put into practice the things that you see in His word so that you will grow deeper in your faith.
Put into practice. Don't be just hearers of God's Word, but be people who hear and do God's Word. And then continue to keep your eyes on the things that matter most and be content with whatever God actually provides you. Today's actually the gift. You don't need more. You don't need more. You need God. So be content with God.
Go find a spot in the warm sun. Like, be outside. Just get alone. Feel the warmth of the sun on you and remember that God is present with you and God is good. And be content. Maybe you're going through difficult things and hard things, but be content that God is with you in the midst of that. You don't have to do it alone.
See, the truth of our culture is that they think we can do life alone. So that way when we go through hard stuff, you have to have the power to be able to do that alone. There's no good in that. But we don't have to do it alone because God is always with us. Now the last thing we need to Do to pull all of this together in the passage is not only understand what this means for our personal heart checks, as we've thought through, like, what is the soil in my life look like?
Have I've been hardened by things in life? Have I had shallow faith? Have I been lured in by the worries of the world or. On the opposite side of that, man, have I responded and allowed God in faith to open my heart, open my mind? Have I deepened my faith by pursuing God? Have I focused on Jesus being content in him?
The last piece of this is to remember that the story is being constructed by Mark and given to a particular group of people at a particular time who are going through really difficult things. Life was tough that they were communicating the gospel, attempting to spread it. And persecution was happening because of it.
They're being socially ostracized because of it. People are not understanding any of that. So we need to remember that, that as we spend time with Jesus, we become more like, and we then began to do the things that he would have us to do, which means we then carry on his mission of spreading out that seed to other people.
And we get to partner with Jesus on the mission of being an expression of renewal to others. And this could be difficult. And we have seen in the past couple of weeks that we can be rejected by those who are close to us, that people are going to misunderstand us. They're going to judge us and maybe even do hateful things towards us.
But perhaps, perhaps as we prayerfully walk alongside with other people who might negatively respond to us, we can continue to extend that offer of relationship. Maybe we can carefully and prayerfully pray that people whose minds are closed to God would suddenly start to open more and more. That people who have shallow faith would begin to deepen their faith, to walk alongside someone to know, hey, this is exciting, they've responded here, but in relationship with them, keep challenging them.
Hey, let's grow in our faith. Maybe it's inviting someone to coffee, reading through a book together, discussing the scriptures together, or if you want a softball, Listen to these podcasts together and then go out for coffee and say, Hey, what does this look like in your life? What is God saying to you and what does God want you to do, man?
Your faith will grow so much. Or if people have been preoccupied with the world, pray God that they wouldn't fall into this trap. And as we journey with people, as we deepen the relationship with people, as we pray for people consistently by name and specifically by need, over time, there is the possibility that there will be faith that begins to sprout in their life, that will begin to grow and they'll begin to produce fruit exponentially.
And so that, that's what Mark has for us today, reflecting on the parables, and we're going to go through some more parables, but just remembering what, what, what it is that's here. Remember, like go through this text this week, read through Mark chapter four and just pray like, what has my life been looking like if I've been receptive to what God is trying to do in me, or do I need to clean something out?
And as I'm on mission, building relationships with others. Prayerfully praying for others, hanging out with people, doing the bike rides, doing the kayaks, doing all that stuff, deepening the relationship. I want to pray that the Holy Spirit helps me genuinely authentically begin to, to talk people about the deeper things of life.
And I'm telling you, it will have an exponential effect. You might get discouraged by like, Hey, the seed that fell on tough soil, like that's hard and I'm frustrated by that, but stay the course Jesus is with you because he didn't give up on you. When you were that way. So don't give up on other people.
And remember that as that seed starts to grow, it's going to have this exponential, amazing effect. And so say the course, stay on mission, partner with us or partner with a community like us, and let's continue to engage our world openly to whatever God wants to do through the power of his spirit, helping us to become more like him so we can then do the things that he would have us do.
But we're praying for you if you want any information about our community Please reach out at pinehillschurch. org. If not, I'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye
But today we're going into Mark chapter four. So let's get into the reading text for today. Mark. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 9, it says, He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one. Listen, a farmer went out to plant some seed as he scattered it across his field. Some of the seed fell on the footpath and the birds came and ate it.
Other seed fell on the shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprout seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon withered under the hot sun. And since it didn't have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among the thorns and grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain.
Still other seeds fell on the fertile soil and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even 100 times as much as had been planted. Then he said anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. See, Mark has been writing this story about Jesus to communicate who Jesus was, what he was like, why it matters for us.
As we get into chapter 4, Mark finally gets to share with us a few parables that Jesus used to teach about the kingdom of God. Now you might be asking, what are parables? Parables were used would use common imagery or word pictures to persuade the audience of a spiritual truth. Parables were used It's an inductive way of communicating a truth instead of just coming out and saying it.
It's a way of connecting dots, and Jesus was a really creative teacher in this regard. It was like finding a reference point in culture, and then drawing the line to how things worked within the kingdom of God. And the purpose of the parables, according to Ben Witherington III, was to communicate in a way that would elicit whether one was responding in faith or not.
And Ben goes on to say, Mark shows that listening intently is closely associated, if not equated, with understanding and knowing. It's not enough that you hear the information, but that you actually understand and begin to know what it is saying. It requires open ears and an open mind. So we all have to ask ourselves the question, are we listening to understand and to know?
Are we open to what God might want to teach, or are we closed to that? And maybe even ask yourself right now, with wherever you're at, however you're listening, Maybe just to take a self evaluation, am I open to what God might want to say to me? Because there's some thinkers out there that even if God audibly spoke to them, they still would not believe in God.
I think knowing our motives actually matter because it affects the way that we listen and interpret. And so if we want to come to the Word of God, if we want to hear the Word of God, hear what Jesus has to say, hear what this parable means, we need to evaluate, are we open to what Jesus might want to teach us through this parable?
Are we open to the implications of what that might mean for our lives?
With that, Mark shares this parable that Jesus used to teach. It was a story about seeds and soils. Which is an agrarian society, so they would have picked up on that and what he was doing. But in the story, Jesus is contrasting three failed seeds with three productive ones. So I want you to imagine like having an herb garden in your backyard, right?
Cause you're that urban farmer in Oregon and you're trying to produce just enough to put some stuff on the table for your family or just to enjoy doing that as self care, whatever that might be. You spread out a lot of these different seeds and some of them take and they're productive, but other seeds don't quite.
Take and they're not productive. And this is what Jesus is essentially getting at. There's these three seeds that are productive and yielded a crop, but then there's these three other ones that did not, we need to understand why those didn't, and we need to note that regardless of the situation in the story, the seeds stay the same.
It's the outcome of the soil, the outcome of the receptivity that is really in question here, because the seeds the same. And this story, the gospel is the same. But it's not always received by the same people in the same way. And so it yields a different outcome for people. So a lot of times maybe we even can't compare how this person is responding compared to that person, because it's not about the seed.
It's about the soils, what's happening in people's lives. How are they hearing? How are they striving to understand? Is their mind open? Is their mind closed? So with that, let's pick back up the story as we see behind the scenes conversation between the disciples and Jesus as they ask some questions around the meaning behind the parables that Jesus was sharing.
Mark chapter 4 verse 10 It says, later when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around they asked him what the parable meant. Essentially, this is like a church gathering being over and you walk away wondering, what the heck did the speaker actually talk about today?
Then I find comfort in knowing that this happened to Jesus as well. It just doesn't happen to us today. It doesn't happen even at the end of this podcast when you're like, what in the world did I just listen to? And so. Yeah, even Jesus sharing things in creative ways, leaves people asking questions. And maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe having people responding questions and strive to understand, maybe that's a really good thing. Maybe sometimes. We get it wrong where we strive to like give everyone everything right there. And we don't require that people kind of do the work on their own with the Holy Spirit of hearing the word of God and asking those questions.
What does this mean? What does this mean for my life? How can I apply this in a way that's, that's good and helpful. And so maybe we do need to do it amid of that may, maybe Jesus is on purpose. Leaving things ambiguous for reason that people would strive to understand at a deeper level. Let's keep going.
Mark chapter 4 verse 11. He replied to these disciples, You are permitted to understand the secret of the kingdom of God, but I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that scriptures might be fulfilled. When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand.
Otherwise they will turn to me and be forgiven. They'll turn to me and be forgiven. We need to remember that it is difficult to translate one language into another. We see this all the time. Even in Spanish, we, that's one of the common languages in our country. Like even words that are said in Spanish, don't.
Quite translate into English really well. And so you have someone who's an interpreter trying to like translate one for one, what that might mean. And they get to a point where they get a word that doesn't make sense in our culture, or maybe we have a word that doesn't make sense in their culture. And so there's gotta be a little bit of work around that.
Like, what does that mean in our language? They've got to use a lot more words to describe one particular word. That's what could be happening here because we got this word. Here for secret, right? That's what we hear, and we hear the word secret. We think God's somehow holding back on people. God's not making his way plain, and that's not fair, and we have all kinds of objections to all of that stuff.
But here the word that we're translating secret in English is actually closer to a word maybe like mystery. See, God isn't interested in keeping any secret knowledge from people. So that only a select group of people will know things. In fact, people who like go to the Bible and some kind of trying to be on a treasure hunt to find the secret knowledge of things, you should probably be aware of those type of readers because God is making things plain.
He's making it plain. Like. If it's not obvious, he's calling people to follow after him who, who aren't the brightest, not the cream of the crop, but he's saying, Hey, come follow after me and I'll show you my ways. And the scriptures are being communicated and in a particular language that was like street language for their day.
So he's not interested in all like keeping things hidden from people. But everything is a bit of a mystery until you understand that everything about God. Hinges on Jesus. He's the, he's the thing that puts everything else together. I don't know if you've ever done a puzzle and you get to a point where you kind of stuck and you're like, you can't quite make the, all the next connections.
You don't know quite what to do. You've kind of put together what you could. And all of a sudden that one particular puzzle piece is like the hinge piece almost, and everything just comes together after that. See, Jesus is that hinge piece. He's the filter to all of life and understanding things of God requires faith in Jesus because even the scriptures say Jesus is the the image of the invisible God.
So if you want to know what God looks like, if you want to know what God sounds like, if you want to know what God does, then we look at Jesus. That's why we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is why we gather our community around Jesus because in Jesus we see who God is, but if we don't receive Jesus.
If we just see him quite like a, he's a good teacher. We just don't quite understand that he's actually Messiah. He sent by God to be the savior of the world. Until we begin to understand all of those things, we won't understand anything else. He's the filter for everything. And the people that Jesus is teaching isn't, they aren't getting it.
The religious leaders don't get it. And if we're not careful, we won't get it either. But to those who turn to Jesus. As their great teacher, as their Messiah, as their savior, as they dedicate their lives to apprenticing under a rabbi, Jesus, the great teacher, then under his leadership by daily being with him, becoming like him and doing the things that he would ask us to do.
We get to grow more and more into our knowledge of God. Knowledge just isn't about information. Knowledge is. A relational thing. The more we live in relationship with God, the more that we truly understand and in our bones. See, even my spouse, there's things on paper that I can know about her. Like if it were a baseball trading card, like there's statistics I could put on the back about my wife, but then there's a way of living life every day with her with the highs and the lows and the stresses and all the different things that are going on that I truly get to know her.
This is why relationship with Jesus matters, because the more we live in relationship with Him, the more we get to know Him, and to know God, and to know what life within God actually looks like. But is your mind open? Is your heart open? Or is it closed? And when Jesus says as he's teaching his people, as he's explaining the parables, he says when they see what I do, they will learn nothing.
We see this in the people who are, just after a miraculous meal or a miracle, we see that the religious leaders miss it when they would have memorized every sign that pointed to Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. And they see all of these things as proof that Jesus is who he says that he is. And they learn nothing.
They're confused by all the things that he does. And so for us who pray all the time, God, if you would do this one particular thing, God, I'll believe in you. Let me tell you, even if he does that thing, you probably won't believe in him. You probably won't. There's people who saw miracle after miracle after miracle, people who are fed from a Lunchable.
5, 000 people fed from a Lunchable still walk away from Jesus confused about who he is, because if we don't understand him, we don't understand the things that he does. And so that's why Jesus is saying they're going to see all this stuff I'm doing, but they won't understand. And instead of leaning in and learning, they lean away and they slowly harden their hearts more and more to who Jesus is because these type of people are just after what can Jesus do for me.
Then Jesus says, when they hear what I say, they will not understand. They don't understand because Jesus doesn't fit their mental maps. They're stuck in their ways of thinking that are not leading them in a good direction Jesus says otherwise they would turn to me and be forgiven now the last few verses jesus has been quoting isaiah 6 9 through 10 Which is great because he's speaking to people who would have had these things memorized as these are the signposts to the messiah coming And jesus just even quoting that would have been saying i'm the one that you've been looking for I'm the one you've been looking for but you're not You You're not understanding.
You don't see me and see that I came from God. And then he even changes the last word that happens in Isaiah 6, 9 through 10. Isaiah says, turn to me and be healed. And Jesus swaps it for forgiven. It's like us, if we drop like a really famous quote, or if we dropped a really famous lyric from a song, and then all of a sudden we just changed a word in that, all of a sudden people who had been so keen on hearing in a specific way would tune in to what that different word was.
That was what Jesus was doing. He was saying, probably, that if they saw all the miracles, and they saw that if it pointed to the truth of the kingdom of God, and they actually drew close to Jesus. And they repented and they turned to him that they would actually be forgiven, that they would find healing through forgiveness.
What they really needed to be healed of was a spiritual condition of accumulated sin that formed a rift in their relationship with God. But healing was on offer for that rift through forgiveness in Jesus alone. And maybe some of us have been looking for one thing to happen. And Jesus is most concerned with healing the thing behind the thing first.
Maybe we're so inclined to know, God, if you just did all of these things for me. And Jesus is just most interested in your heart, having a relationship with you. And he wants to provide these things in your life, and he wants to come through in particular ways, or to lead you into things that are probably better for you anyway.
But he wants to heal that spiritual condition. And when we respond to Jesus by living a life of faith, following after him, We get to have help from the Holy Spirit to understand what Jesus is doing, what Jesus is saying, what these scriptures mean, and what that mean in our life today. And God's Word says that if you lack wisdom, you can actually ask the Heavenly Father, who is more than generous to give it to you, to guide you through the power of His Spirit.
Now let's pick up on the explanation because again you have Jesus teach his parable to the crowd you have the disciples getting alone with Jesus the behind the scenes stuff is there like Jesus Can you please explain this stuff because we don't even understand and Jesus says yeah, because you're following after me You put your faith in me Repented like you've you've been following the way you're permitted to know this the stuff that's Remaining a mystery to other people That's a bit cloaked and veiled and people quite don't understand because they're not putting on the lens of Jesus and they won't be able to clearly see it until they put on those Jesus lenses and then all of a sudden everything is dialed in and people's minds get to be open and their hearts get to be open because they come to Jesus in faith.
Remember the hinge point is Jesus coming to him in faith. Mark chapter 4. There's 13 through 14 it says, then Jesus said to them, if you can't understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables? The father plants seed by taking God's word to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message only to have Satan come at once and to take it away.
Jesus says, if you can't understand this parable, you can't understand the others. The truth behind this parable really actually matters. And he's probably giving us a clue that Jesus taught many more parables than the ones recorded in the scriptures. But this one is the one that Jesus cherry picks to explain as the base for everything else.
In the story, Jesus is the sower of the seed of the gospel, the sower of the gospel of the kingdom of God. And that seed falls on all different types of soil, representing our reception to the gospel. Doesn't say anything about the seed. The seed is always good. The seed will always deliver. But when it falls on particular soils, it might not take it.
In a way that's actually productive. Jesus explaining why some people respond to God and why some people do not. The focus isn't on that seat. As we said, it's not on the gospel. It's it's on how the hearers respond to the gospel. The seed first falls on the footpath or the path that is hardened by being walked over constantly.
So I don't know if you ever go walk on trails around bend. Like if you go on a path that is well hiked, it's, it's really hard that people have just padded it down. It's actually. A nice path though to walk on, but there's nothing getting below that top soil because it's been so packed down. And some might ask why in the world would you throw a seed on a footpath?
Well, for one, I'm no farmer, so you might have to cut me a break if I get this wrong a bit. But being the book nerd that I am, I spent my Tuesday morning reading about first century farming practices just for you. And over coffee in my warm office, I had learned that farmers would actually get up and they would just scatter seed everywhere.
And after scattering the seed kind of indiscriminately over this entire area, they would then go plow the field and in plowing the field, it would then sow the seed into the soil. They clearly would plow up all the stuff leading up to the footpath, or they would plow along those footpaths, but they would not plow the footpath.
for having us. And so to see that happened to fall on or alongside beside these footpaths would ultimately just feed the birds. And again, don't miss the point for all the details in the story. The point Jesus was making was that some people do not respond to the gospel because when they hear the message, Satan immediately comes and snatches away the truth, giving a nod to this cosmic battle between good and evil, that some people have been so hardened by life.
That their hearts are so closed off to Jesus, their ears are so closed off to Jesus, that even when Jesus continues to show up in their story time and time and time again, they're so closed off to it and so open to what Satan wants to do in their life that, that Satan actually takes away the goodness of this truth, because Satan doesn't want us to go after things that bring us life.
Satan's job is to steal away anything that's good, to kill off life. That ultimately leads us to death. So Mark chapter 4 verses 16 through 17. It's the second type of soil. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they, it don't last long.
They fall away as soon as they have problems and are persecuted for believing God's words. These type of people hear the gospel, But they don't begin to orient their life around the ways of Jesus. They don't begin to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to guide them into unlearning, ingrained habits that have been forming us away from Jesus by replacing them with habits that will actually form us towards the way of Jesus.
Remember, John Mark Comer teaches, formation is not optional. All of us are being formed by something, but it would be intentional about the things and the forces that are actually forming us. Are we intentional about who that's making us become? Formation's not optional. So as you're following Jesus, are you unlearning ways that are forming you away from who God wants you to be?
Are you intentionally allowing habits to show up in your daily practice that form you more into who Jesus wants you to be? See, we have to grow deep in our faith. I said earlier that it can't just be someone just kind of spoon feeding you all of this stuff. You've got to get a mind of curiosity. You've got to begin to go to God's word.
You've got to begin to get deep into it. What is the story of God? What is God doing? You've got to bring your questions to the scriptures and, and listen to what the scriptures say, and then respond to what the scriptures say. Remember, we just don't want information. I don't want to. Community of people that just know their Bibles really well.
I want a community of people that have listened to their Bible and responded to the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit's asking of their lives. People who hear and people who do these habits of, of devotion that show up. And our life, it's, it looks like reading scripture, prayer, gratitude, listening to God, these things matter because these help our roots to grow down into something substantive that will help us in all of life.
This is why weekly community connection matters, whether it's a large group or a smaller group. These help our roots to grow with others, helping us to be stronger together, because we can't do life alone. The moment that you buy into that lie, you buy into. The lie of the enemy, which begins to form you away from Jesus.
This is why being watchful over all of the things that you allow into your life that are formative matter formative for your family formative for you, because this will help you and the next generation become rooted in things that are life giving instead of being washed away by the confusion of our day.
So the question I want to ask is what are you doing each day to be rooted in the stuff that matters? What are you doing each day to be rude in the stuff that matters? Mark chapter 4 verse 18 through 19. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God's Word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of life, the lure of wealth, the desire for other things.
So no fruit is produced. This is when we are so preoccupied by the worries and the drives of the world instead of the things of God. Maybe we've responded to the gospel and begin to grow deeper in our faith, but then these other things begin to grow unchecked in our hearts, minds, and spirits. It is those things that don't seem like such a big deal, but over time these things become the things that kill you.
The lure of wealth, so you continue to grind to make even more money, neglecting family rhythms and spiritual rhythms to the neglect of all of that. And eventually you find yourself with as much money as you could ever imagine, but you don't have anyone around you who authentically actually wants to be with you.
You don't have that relationship with God because you've shut that out in order to cut corners, to go after what was ultimately in your heart anyway, which was money, serving money, going after money, making that the idol or whatever this thing might be for you. The worries, the desires for things that we see other people have, the bigger house, the bigger car and bend.
It's like the more toys, the more bikes, the more paddle boards, the more kayaks, the more skis, the more, whatever you can imagine, like the more stuff that I can do, the better, or maybe it's. It's the lore of having the job where I could just be a nomad and be everywhere. And so we go after those things, neglecting relationships, neglecting our spiritual life, maybe neglecting some other parts of our life.
And that ends up shipwrecking us. This is what Jesus is getting at. These things will shipwreck our faith if we're not careful. So just to review, there's three types of seeds that fell on unpredicted, Unproductive soil. And that was the hard path, the shallow soil and among the thorns and an attempt to translate it more for our culture, maybe it looks like.
Having a closed heart and mind. Having a closed heart and mind that Satan steals away these things. Maybe it's having shallow faith. So we don't actually put into practice God's ways. Or we don't work to actually deepen our faith. We allow it to be shallow. So we don't grow or maybe it's being preoccupied with worldly things like greed or unhealthy desires or just things that the world is driven by thinking it's going to make them happy and it will never deliver.
So where are you at? And that mixes or anything in your own life that you've not been receptive to maybe what God wants to do. It's closing you off to him. Let's just evaluate our hearts. Even now, wherever we might be at, are we closed? Is our mind closed? Is our heart closed? Have we been so hardened by life?
We're frustrated with why God didn't come through in a certain way, why God didn't do this. And we just slowly start closing our hearts and our minds off instead of just bringing that to God and saying, God, I'm not happy about this. But I trust that you're good and I trust that you'll bring me through this.
And I just want to bring that to you. And I want to open my heart to you and open my mind to you. I want you to help me to, to get through this. Remember God's, God's not going to answer all your whys, but he's always going to show up to your whys with his presence and his goodness. Maybe your faith has been a bit shallow.
You've just been kind of showing up in community or listen to a podcast here or there. You're listening to like the you version, like. Verse of the day. And that's kind of just where faith has remained for you. Which isn't a bad thing on the surface. Remember that's an entry point, but at some point you've got to start deepening your faith.
Maybe the call for you is to begin to pursue God on a deeper level, to apply more spiritual disciplines in your life, to get other things out of your life, to make space for God. Maybe it's getting in the scriptures to learning at a deeper level or getting in community where you can talk about scriptures in a deeper level.
What is that step that God. Want you to make today and get to the last type of soil, the type that has a productive result. Remember, we've got to evaluate these things for our lives. And so whatever the Holy Spirit brings up, just begin to say, God, would you help me with those? Things. So with that, as we prepared our hearts, we've prepared our minds.
We're open ourself to him. We've realized these things that could lead us away from Jesus that close us off. What are those things that would help us to be productive? Mark chapter four, verse 20. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God's word and produce a harvest 30, 60, and even a hundred times as much as has been planted.
See, the gospel heard by a receptive heart, by people who are open to God, not hardened by life, to people who are willing to go deeper in their faith, to ask better questions, to seek after God. Remember, Jesus has seek first the kingdom of God. Everything else in life will be added to you. People who are like going to say, Hey, I'm not going to get preoccupied with all these other worries and things of life, these things of the world.
Like I realized that they actually don't deliver. And I'm going to go after Jesus and take them up on his offer. If he delivers, I'm going to go full in on it and see if he does deliver. And those are the people that have the gospel that's put into good soil. And that, that's, that's, that's, that's what I'm That seed's going to eventually start sprouting just a bit.
You're going to see more beautiful things coming through the soil. It's going to start growing into this beautiful plant and eventually it's going to produce fruit that has the capacity to produce more fruit in the lives of other people. And this is the amazing thing. This is what happens in the hands of Jesus as we trust his loving touch and his loving guidance to help us through the hard stuff of life, it will consistently and faithfully produce in good seasons and in bad seasons.
And we remember in their day, a tenfold harvest would have been a really, really good year. So Jesus, to say a harvest that produces 30, 60, or even a hundred times as much has been planted would have been a miraculous thing. See, faith is a journey. And we need to be aware that every day the Holy Spirit is on offer to help lead us and our families in the right direction.
But we also need to be aware of the forces that would attempt to pull us away from God. The world is not a neutral place. There's a war that's happening and we need to be aware of that and recognize evil for evil. Sometimes evil things happen in our life and we confuse that with God thinking God somehow did that or allowed that to happen and No, we just need to recognize we live in a broken and evil world and call evil What is evil?
but also to recognize the good in the world and what God is doing and recognize that there's this Big war that's happening the war of wills all this different stuff taking place. It can be confusing It can be hard but take heart. You are not alone. Jesus is with you And so this week is you Begin to open your life to God, of having good soil, of making those conditions right, for God to plant that in your life and begin to grow.
What does that look like? Maybe it looks like listening to God through the scriptures with an open mind and an open heart. Thinking through, what is the scripture saying? What does it say about life and what do I need to apply to my life today? How do I need to practice this out? Second one, put into practice the things that you see in His word so that you will grow deeper in your faith.
Put into practice. Don't be just hearers of God's Word, but be people who hear and do God's Word. And then continue to keep your eyes on the things that matter most and be content with whatever God actually provides you. Today's actually the gift. You don't need more. You don't need more. You need God. So be content with God.
Go find a spot in the warm sun. Like, be outside. Just get alone. Feel the warmth of the sun on you and remember that God is present with you and God is good. And be content. Maybe you're going through difficult things and hard things, but be content that God is with you in the midst of that. You don't have to do it alone.
See, the truth of our culture is that they think we can do life alone. So that way when we go through hard stuff, you have to have the power to be able to do that alone. There's no good in that. But we don't have to do it alone because God is always with us. Now the last thing we need to Do to pull all of this together in the passage is not only understand what this means for our personal heart checks, as we've thought through, like, what is the soil in my life look like?
Have I've been hardened by things in life? Have I had shallow faith? Have I been lured in by the worries of the world or. On the opposite side of that, man, have I responded and allowed God in faith to open my heart, open my mind? Have I deepened my faith by pursuing God? Have I focused on Jesus being content in him?
The last piece of this is to remember that the story is being constructed by Mark and given to a particular group of people at a particular time who are going through really difficult things. Life was tough that they were communicating the gospel, attempting to spread it. And persecution was happening because of it.
They're being socially ostracized because of it. People are not understanding any of that. So we need to remember that, that as we spend time with Jesus, we become more like, and we then began to do the things that he would have us to do, which means we then carry on his mission of spreading out that seed to other people.
And we get to partner with Jesus on the mission of being an expression of renewal to others. And this could be difficult. And we have seen in the past couple of weeks that we can be rejected by those who are close to us, that people are going to misunderstand us. They're going to judge us and maybe even do hateful things towards us.
But perhaps, perhaps as we prayerfully walk alongside with other people who might negatively respond to us, we can continue to extend that offer of relationship. Maybe we can carefully and prayerfully pray that people whose minds are closed to God would suddenly start to open more and more. That people who have shallow faith would begin to deepen their faith, to walk alongside someone to know, hey, this is exciting, they've responded here, but in relationship with them, keep challenging them.
Hey, let's grow in our faith. Maybe it's inviting someone to coffee, reading through a book together, discussing the scriptures together, or if you want a softball, Listen to these podcasts together and then go out for coffee and say, Hey, what does this look like in your life? What is God saying to you and what does God want you to do, man?
Your faith will grow so much. Or if people have been preoccupied with the world, pray God that they wouldn't fall into this trap. And as we journey with people, as we deepen the relationship with people, as we pray for people consistently by name and specifically by need, over time, there is the possibility that there will be faith that begins to sprout in their life, that will begin to grow and they'll begin to produce fruit exponentially.
And so that, that's what Mark has for us today, reflecting on the parables, and we're going to go through some more parables, but just remembering what, what, what it is that's here. Remember, like go through this text this week, read through Mark chapter four and just pray like, what has my life been looking like if I've been receptive to what God is trying to do in me, or do I need to clean something out?
And as I'm on mission, building relationships with others. Prayerfully praying for others, hanging out with people, doing the bike rides, doing the kayaks, doing all that stuff, deepening the relationship. I want to pray that the Holy Spirit helps me genuinely authentically begin to, to talk people about the deeper things of life.
And I'm telling you, it will have an exponential effect. You might get discouraged by like, Hey, the seed that fell on tough soil, like that's hard and I'm frustrated by that, but stay the course Jesus is with you because he didn't give up on you. When you were that way. So don't give up on other people.
And remember that as that seed starts to grow, it's going to have this exponential, amazing effect. And so say the course, stay on mission, partner with us or partner with a community like us, and let's continue to engage our world openly to whatever God wants to do through the power of his spirit, helping us to become more like him so we can then do the things that he would have us do.
But we're praying for you if you want any information about our community Please reach out at pinehillschurch. org. If not, I'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye
📍 Hey
everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful that you are gathering with us as we continue our conversation and this, I believe we're even walking through Mark together. Hopefully you've been enjoying and learning more about who Jesus is, what he was like, and why that matters for our lives today.
But today we're going into Mark chapter four. So let's get into the reading text for today. Mark. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 9, it says, He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one. Listen, a farmer went out to plant some seed as he scattered it across his field. Some of the seed fell on the footpath and the birds came and ate it.
Other seed fell on the shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprout seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon withered under the hot sun. And since it didn't have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among the thorns and grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain.
Still other seeds fell on the fertile soil and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even 100 times as much as had been planted. Then he said anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. See, Mark has been writing this story about Jesus to communicate who Jesus was, what he was like, why it matters for us.
As we get into chapter 4, Mark finally gets to share with us a few parables that Jesus used to teach about the kingdom of God. Now you might be asking, what are parables? Parables were used would use common imagery or word pictures to persuade the audience of a spiritual truth. Parables were used It's an inductive way of communicating a truth instead of just coming out and saying it.
It's a way of connecting dots, and Jesus was a really creative teacher in this regard. It was like finding a reference point in culture, and then drawing the line to how things worked within the kingdom of God. And the purpose of the parables, according to Ben Witherington III, was to communicate in a way that would elicit whether one was responding in faith or not.
And Ben goes on to say, Mark shows that listening intently is closely associated, if not equated, with understanding and knowing. It's not enough that you hear the information, but that you actually understand and begin to know what it is saying. It requires open ears and an open mind. So we all have to ask ourselves the question, are we listening to understand and to know?
Are we open to what God might want to teach, or are we closed to that? And maybe even ask yourself right now, with wherever you're at, however you're listening, Maybe just to take a self evaluation, am I open to what God might want to say to me? Because there's some thinkers out there that even if God audibly spoke to them, they still would not believe in God.
I think knowing our motives actually matter because it affects the way that we listen and interpret. And so if we want to come to the Word of God, if we want to hear the Word of God, hear what Jesus has to say, hear what this parable means, we need to evaluate, are we open to what Jesus might want to teach us through this parable?
Are we open to the implications of what that might mean for our lives?
With that, Mark shares this parable that Jesus used to teach. It was a story about seeds and soils. Which is an agrarian society, so they would have picked up on that and what he was doing. But in the story, Jesus is contrasting three failed seeds with three productive ones. So I want you to imagine like having an herb garden in your backyard, right?
Cause you're that urban farmer in Oregon and you're trying to produce just enough to put some stuff on the table for your family or just to enjoy doing that as self care, whatever that might be. You spread out a lot of these different seeds and some of them take and they're productive, but other seeds don't quite.
Take and they're not productive. And this is what Jesus is essentially getting at. There's these three seeds that are productive and yielded a crop, but then there's these three other ones that did not, we need to understand why those didn't, and we need to note that regardless of the situation in the story, the seeds stay the same.
It's the outcome of the soil, the outcome of the receptivity that is really in question here, because the seeds the same. And this story, the gospel is the same. But it's not always received by the same people in the same way. And so it yields a different outcome for people. So a lot of times maybe we even can't compare how this person is responding compared to that person, because it's not about the seed.
It's about the soils, what's happening in people's lives. How are they hearing? How are they striving to understand? Is their mind open? Is their mind closed? So with that, let's pick back up the story as we see behind the scenes conversation between the disciples and Jesus as they ask some questions around the meaning behind the parables that Jesus was sharing.
Mark chapter 4 verse 10 It says, later when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around they asked him what the parable meant. Essentially, this is like a church gathering being over and you walk away wondering, what the heck did the speaker actually talk about today?
Then I find comfort in knowing that this happened to Jesus as well. It just doesn't happen to us today. It doesn't happen even at the end of this podcast when you're like, what in the world did I just listen to? And so. Yeah, even Jesus sharing things in creative ways, leaves people asking questions. And maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe having people responding questions and strive to understand, maybe that's a really good thing. Maybe sometimes. We get it wrong where we strive to like give everyone everything right there. And we don't require that people kind of do the work on their own with the Holy Spirit of hearing the word of God and asking those questions.
What does this mean? What does this mean for my life? How can I apply this in a way that's, that's good and helpful. And so maybe we do need to do it amid of that may, maybe Jesus is on purpose. Leaving things ambiguous for reason that people would strive to understand at a deeper level. Let's keep going.
Mark chapter 4 verse 11. He replied to these disciples, You are permitted to understand the secret of the kingdom of God, but I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that scriptures might be fulfilled. When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand.
Otherwise they will turn to me and be forgiven. They'll turn to me and be forgiven. We need to remember that it is difficult to translate one language into another. We see this all the time. Even in Spanish, we, that's one of the common languages in our country. Like even words that are said in Spanish, don't.
Quite translate into English really well. And so you have someone who's an interpreter trying to like translate one for one, what that might mean. And they get to a point where they get a word that doesn't make sense in our culture, or maybe we have a word that doesn't make sense in their culture. And so there's gotta be a little bit of work around that.
Like, what does that mean in our language? They've got to use a lot more words to describe one particular word. That's what could be happening here because we got this word. Here for secret, right? That's what we hear, and we hear the word secret. We think God's somehow holding back on people. God's not making his way plain, and that's not fair, and we have all kinds of objections to all of that stuff.
But here the word that we're translating secret in English is actually closer to a word maybe like mystery. See, God isn't interested in keeping any secret knowledge from people. So that only a select group of people will know things. In fact, people who like go to the Bible and some kind of trying to be on a treasure hunt to find the secret knowledge of things, you should probably be aware of those type of readers because God is making things plain.
He's making it plain. Like. If it's not obvious, he's calling people to follow after him who, who aren't the brightest, not the cream of the crop, but he's saying, Hey, come follow after me and I'll show you my ways. And the scriptures are being communicated and in a particular language that was like street language for their day.
So he's not interested in all like keeping things hidden from people. But everything is a bit of a mystery until you understand that everything about God. Hinges on Jesus. He's the, he's the thing that puts everything else together. I don't know if you've ever done a puzzle and you get to a point where you kind of stuck and you're like, you can't quite make the, all the next connections.
You don't know quite what to do. You've kind of put together what you could. And all of a sudden that one particular puzzle piece is like the hinge piece almost, and everything just comes together after that. See, Jesus is that hinge piece. He's the filter to all of life and understanding things of God requires faith in Jesus because even the scriptures say Jesus is the the image of the invisible God.
So if you want to know what God looks like, if you want to know what God sounds like, if you want to know what God does, then we look at Jesus. That's why we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is why we gather our community around Jesus because in Jesus we see who God is, but if we don't receive Jesus.
If we just see him quite like a, he's a good teacher. We just don't quite understand that he's actually Messiah. He sent by God to be the savior of the world. Until we begin to understand all of those things, we won't understand anything else. He's the filter for everything. And the people that Jesus is teaching isn't, they aren't getting it.
The religious leaders don't get it. And if we're not careful, we won't get it either. But to those who turn to Jesus. As their great teacher, as their Messiah, as their savior, as they dedicate their lives to apprenticing under a rabbi, Jesus, the great teacher, then under his leadership by daily being with him, becoming like him and doing the things that he would ask us to do.
We get to grow more and more into our knowledge of God. Knowledge just isn't about information. Knowledge is. A relational thing. The more we live in relationship with God, the more that we truly understand and in our bones. See, even my spouse, there's things on paper that I can know about her. Like if it were a baseball trading card, like there's statistics I could put on the back about my wife, but then there's a way of living life every day with her with the highs and the lows and the stresses and all the different things that are going on that I truly get to know her.
This is why relationship with Jesus matters, because the more we live in relationship with Him, the more we get to know Him, and to know God, and to know what life within God actually looks like. But is your mind open? Is your heart open? Or is it closed? And when Jesus says as he's teaching his people, as he's explaining the parables, he says when they see what I do, they will learn nothing.
We see this in the people who are, just after a miraculous meal or a miracle, we see that the religious leaders miss it when they would have memorized every sign that pointed to Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. And they see all of these things as proof that Jesus is who he says that he is. And they learn nothing.
They're confused by all the things that he does. And so for us who pray all the time, God, if you would do this one particular thing, God, I'll believe in you. Let me tell you, even if he does that thing, you probably won't believe in him. You probably won't. There's people who saw miracle after miracle after miracle, people who are fed from a Lunchable.
5, 000 people fed from a Lunchable still walk away from Jesus confused about who he is, because if we don't understand him, we don't understand the things that he does. And so that's why Jesus is saying they're going to see all this stuff I'm doing, but they won't understand. And instead of leaning in and learning, they lean away and they slowly harden their hearts more and more to who Jesus is because these type of people are just after what can Jesus do for me.
Then Jesus says, when they hear what I say, they will not understand. They don't understand because Jesus doesn't fit their mental maps. They're stuck in their ways of thinking that are not leading them in a good direction Jesus says otherwise they would turn to me and be forgiven now the last few verses jesus has been quoting isaiah 6 9 through 10 Which is great because he's speaking to people who would have had these things memorized as these are the signposts to the messiah coming And jesus just even quoting that would have been saying i'm the one that you've been looking for I'm the one you've been looking for but you're not You You're not understanding.
You don't see me and see that I came from God. And then he even changes the last word that happens in Isaiah 6, 9 through 10. Isaiah says, turn to me and be healed. And Jesus swaps it for forgiven. It's like us, if we drop like a really famous quote, or if we dropped a really famous lyric from a song, and then all of a sudden we just changed a word in that, all of a sudden people who had been so keen on hearing in a specific way would tune in to what that different word was.
That was what Jesus was doing. He was saying, probably, that if they saw all the miracles, and they saw that if it pointed to the truth of the kingdom of God, and they actually drew close to Jesus. And they repented and they turned to him that they would actually be forgiven, that they would find healing through forgiveness.
What they really needed to be healed of was a spiritual condition of accumulated sin that formed a rift in their relationship with God. But healing was on offer for that rift through forgiveness in Jesus alone. And maybe some of us have been looking for one thing to happen. And Jesus is most concerned with healing the thing behind the thing first.
Maybe we're so inclined to know, God, if you just did all of these things for me. And Jesus is just most interested in your heart, having a relationship with you. And he wants to provide these things in your life, and he wants to come through in particular ways, or to lead you into things that are probably better for you anyway.
But he wants to heal that spiritual condition. And when we respond to Jesus by living a life of faith, following after him, We get to have help from the Holy Spirit to understand what Jesus is doing, what Jesus is saying, what these scriptures mean, and what that mean in our life today. And God's Word says that if you lack wisdom, you can actually ask the Heavenly Father, who is more than generous to give it to you, to guide you through the power of His Spirit.
Now let's pick up on the explanation because again you have Jesus teach his parable to the crowd you have the disciples getting alone with Jesus the behind the scenes stuff is there like Jesus Can you please explain this stuff because we don't even understand and Jesus says yeah, because you're following after me You put your faith in me Repented like you've you've been following the way you're permitted to know this the stuff that's Remaining a mystery to other people That's a bit cloaked and veiled and people quite don't understand because they're not putting on the lens of Jesus and they won't be able to clearly see it until they put on those Jesus lenses and then all of a sudden everything is dialed in and people's minds get to be open and their hearts get to be open because they come to Jesus in faith.
Remember the hinge point is Jesus coming to him in faith. Mark chapter 4. There's 13 through 14 it says, then Jesus said to them, if you can't understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables? The father plants seed by taking God's word to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message only to have Satan come at once and to take it away.
Jesus says, if you can't understand this parable, you can't understand the others. The truth behind this parable really actually matters. And he's probably giving us a clue that Jesus taught many more parables than the ones recorded in the scriptures. But this one is the one that Jesus cherry picks to explain as the base for everything else.
In the story, Jesus is the sower of the seed of the gospel, the sower of the gospel of the kingdom of God. And that seed falls on all different types of soil, representing our reception to the gospel. Doesn't say anything about the seed. The seed is always good. The seed will always deliver. But when it falls on particular soils, it might not take it.
In a way that's actually productive. Jesus explaining why some people respond to God and why some people do not. The focus isn't on that seat. As we said, it's not on the gospel. It's it's on how the hearers respond to the gospel. The seed first falls on the footpath or the path that is hardened by being walked over constantly.
So I don't know if you ever go walk on trails around bend. Like if you go on a path that is well hiked, it's, it's really hard that people have just padded it down. It's actually. A nice path though to walk on, but there's nothing getting below that top soil because it's been so packed down. And some might ask why in the world would you throw a seed on a footpath?
Well, for one, I'm no farmer, so you might have to cut me a break if I get this wrong a bit. But being the book nerd that I am, I spent my Tuesday morning reading about first century farming practices just for you. And over coffee in my warm office, I had learned that farmers would actually get up and they would just scatter seed everywhere.
And after scattering the seed kind of indiscriminately over this entire area, they would then go plow the field and in plowing the field, it would then sow the seed into the soil. They clearly would plow up all the stuff leading up to the footpath, or they would plow along those footpaths, but they would not plow the footpath.
for having us. And so to see that happened to fall on or alongside beside these footpaths would ultimately just feed the birds. And again, don't miss the point for all the details in the story. The point Jesus was making was that some people do not respond to the gospel because when they hear the message, Satan immediately comes and snatches away the truth, giving a nod to this cosmic battle between good and evil, that some people have been so hardened by life.
That their hearts are so closed off to Jesus, their ears are so closed off to Jesus, that even when Jesus continues to show up in their story time and time and time again, they're so closed off to it and so open to what Satan wants to do in their life that, that Satan actually takes away the goodness of this truth, because Satan doesn't want us to go after things that bring us life.
Satan's job is to steal away anything that's good, to kill off life. That ultimately leads us to death. So Mark chapter 4 verses 16 through 17. It's the second type of soil. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they, it don't last long.
They fall away as soon as they have problems and are persecuted for believing God's words. These type of people hear the gospel, But they don't begin to orient their life around the ways of Jesus. They don't begin to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to guide them into unlearning, ingrained habits that have been forming us away from Jesus by replacing them with habits that will actually form us towards the way of Jesus.
Remember, John Mark Comer teaches, formation is not optional. All of us are being formed by something, but it would be intentional about the things and the forces that are actually forming us. Are we intentional about who that's making us become? Formation's not optional. So as you're following Jesus, are you unlearning ways that are forming you away from who God wants you to be?
Are you intentionally allowing habits to show up in your daily practice that form you more into who Jesus wants you to be? See, we have to grow deep in our faith. I said earlier that it can't just be someone just kind of spoon feeding you all of this stuff. You've got to get a mind of curiosity. You've got to begin to go to God's word.
You've got to begin to get deep into it. What is the story of God? What is God doing? You've got to bring your questions to the scriptures and, and listen to what the scriptures say, and then respond to what the scriptures say. Remember, we just don't want information. I don't want to. Community of people that just know their Bibles really well.
I want a community of people that have listened to their Bible and responded to the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit's asking of their lives. People who hear and people who do these habits of, of devotion that show up. And our life, it's, it looks like reading scripture, prayer, gratitude, listening to God, these things matter because these help our roots to grow down into something substantive that will help us in all of life.
This is why weekly community connection matters, whether it's a large group or a smaller group. These help our roots to grow with others, helping us to be stronger together, because we can't do life alone. The moment that you buy into that lie, you buy into. The lie of the enemy, which begins to form you away from Jesus.
This is why being watchful over all of the things that you allow into your life that are formative matter formative for your family formative for you, because this will help you and the next generation become rooted in things that are life giving instead of being washed away by the confusion of our day.
So the question I want to ask is what are you doing each day to be rooted in the stuff that matters? What are you doing each day to be rude in the stuff that matters? Mark chapter 4 verse 18 through 19. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God's Word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of life, the lure of wealth, the desire for other things.
So no fruit is produced. This is when we are so preoccupied by the worries and the drives of the world instead of the things of God. Maybe we've responded to the gospel and begin to grow deeper in our faith, but then these other things begin to grow unchecked in our hearts, minds, and spirits. It is those things that don't seem like such a big deal, but over time these things become the things that kill you.
The lure of wealth, so you continue to grind to make even more money, neglecting family rhythms and spiritual rhythms to the neglect of all of that. And eventually you find yourself with as much money as you could ever imagine, but you don't have anyone around you who authentically actually wants to be with you.
You don't have that relationship with God because you've shut that out in order to cut corners, to go after what was ultimately in your heart anyway, which was money, serving money, going after money, making that the idol or whatever this thing might be for you. The worries, the desires for things that we see other people have, the bigger house, the bigger car and bend.
It's like the more toys, the more bikes, the more paddle boards, the more kayaks, the more skis, the more, whatever you can imagine, like the more stuff that I can do, the better, or maybe it's. It's the lore of having the job where I could just be a nomad and be everywhere. And so we go after those things, neglecting relationships, neglecting our spiritual life, maybe neglecting some other parts of our life.
And that ends up shipwrecking us. This is what Jesus is getting at. These things will shipwreck our faith if we're not careful. So just to review, there's three types of seeds that fell on unpredicted, Unproductive soil. And that was the hard path, the shallow soil and among the thorns and an attempt to translate it more for our culture, maybe it looks like.
Having a closed heart and mind. Having a closed heart and mind that Satan steals away these things. Maybe it's having shallow faith. So we don't actually put into practice God's ways. Or we don't work to actually deepen our faith. We allow it to be shallow. So we don't grow or maybe it's being preoccupied with worldly things like greed or unhealthy desires or just things that the world is driven by thinking it's going to make them happy and it will never deliver.
So where are you at? And that mixes or anything in your own life that you've not been receptive to maybe what God wants to do. It's closing you off to him. Let's just evaluate our hearts. Even now, wherever we might be at, are we closed? Is our mind closed? Is our heart closed? Have we been so hardened by life?
We're frustrated with why God didn't come through in a certain way, why God didn't do this. And we just slowly start closing our hearts and our minds off instead of just bringing that to God and saying, God, I'm not happy about this. But I trust that you're good and I trust that you'll bring me through this.
And I just want to bring that to you. And I want to open my heart to you and open my mind to you. I want you to help me to, to get through this. Remember God's, God's not going to answer all your whys, but he's always going to show up to your whys with his presence and his goodness. Maybe your faith has been a bit shallow.
You've just been kind of showing up in community or listen to a podcast here or there. You're listening to like the you version, like. Verse of the day. And that's kind of just where faith has remained for you. Which isn't a bad thing on the surface. Remember that's an entry point, but at some point you've got to start deepening your faith.
Maybe the call for you is to begin to pursue God on a deeper level, to apply more spiritual disciplines in your life, to get other things out of your life, to make space for God. Maybe it's getting in the scriptures to learning at a deeper level or getting in community where you can talk about scriptures in a deeper level.
What is that step that God. Want you to make today and get to the last type of soil, the type that has a productive result. Remember, we've got to evaluate these things for our lives. And so whatever the Holy Spirit brings up, just begin to say, God, would you help me with those? Things. So with that, as we prepared our hearts, we've prepared our minds.
We're open ourself to him. We've realized these things that could lead us away from Jesus that close us off. What are those things that would help us to be productive? Mark chapter four, verse 20. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God's word and produce a harvest 30, 60, and even a hundred times as much as has been planted.
See, the gospel heard by a receptive heart, by people who are open to God, not hardened by life, to people who are willing to go deeper in their faith, to ask better questions, to seek after God. Remember, Jesus has seek first the kingdom of God. Everything else in life will be added to you. People who are like going to say, Hey, I'm not going to get preoccupied with all these other worries and things of life, these things of the world.
Like I realized that they actually don't deliver. And I'm going to go after Jesus and take them up on his offer. If he delivers, I'm going to go full in on it and see if he does deliver. And those are the people that have the gospel that's put into good soil. And that, that's, that's, that's, that's what I'm That seed's going to eventually start sprouting just a bit.
You're going to see more beautiful things coming through the soil. It's going to start growing into this beautiful plant and eventually it's going to produce fruit that has the capacity to produce more fruit in the lives of other people. And this is the amazing thing. This is what happens in the hands of Jesus as we trust his loving touch and his loving guidance to help us through the hard stuff of life, it will consistently and faithfully produce in good seasons and in bad seasons.
And we remember in their day, a tenfold harvest would have been a really, really good year. So Jesus, to say a harvest that produces 30, 60, or even a hundred times as much has been planted would have been a miraculous thing. See, faith is a journey. And we need to be aware that every day the Holy Spirit is on offer to help lead us and our families in the right direction.
But we also need to be aware of the forces that would attempt to pull us away from God. The world is not a neutral place. There's a war that's happening and we need to be aware of that and recognize evil for evil. Sometimes evil things happen in our life and we confuse that with God thinking God somehow did that or allowed that to happen and No, we just need to recognize we live in a broken and evil world and call evil What is evil?
but also to recognize the good in the world and what God is doing and recognize that there's this Big war that's happening the war of wills all this different stuff taking place. It can be confusing It can be hard but take heart. You are not alone. Jesus is with you And so this week is you Begin to open your life to God, of having good soil, of making those conditions right, for God to plant that in your life and begin to grow.
What does that look like? Maybe it looks like listening to God through the scriptures with an open mind and an open heart. Thinking through, what is the scripture saying? What does it say about life and what do I need to apply to my life today? How do I need to practice this out? Second one, put into practice the things that you see in His word so that you will grow deeper in your faith.
Put into practice. Don't be just hearers of God's Word, but be people who hear and do God's Word. And then continue to keep your eyes on the things that matter most and be content with whatever God actually provides you. Today's actually the gift. You don't need more. You don't need more. You need God. So be content with God.
Go find a spot in the warm sun. Like, be outside. Just get alone. Feel the warmth of the sun on you and remember that God is present with you and God is good. And be content. Maybe you're going through difficult things and hard things, but be content that God is with you in the midst of that. You don't have to do it alone.
See, the truth of our culture is that they think we can do life alone. So that way when we go through hard stuff, you have to have the power to be able to do that alone. There's no good in that. But we don't have to do it alone because God is always with us. Now the last thing we need to Do to pull all of this together in the passage is not only understand what this means for our personal heart checks, as we've thought through, like, what is the soil in my life look like?
Have I've been hardened by things in life? Have I had shallow faith? Have I been lured in by the worries of the world or. On the opposite side of that, man, have I responded and allowed God in faith to open my heart, open my mind? Have I deepened my faith by pursuing God? Have I focused on Jesus being content in him?
The last piece of this is to remember that the story is being constructed by Mark and given to a particular group of people at a particular time who are going through really difficult things. Life was tough that they were communicating the gospel, attempting to spread it. And persecution was happening because of it.
They're being socially ostracized because of it. People are not understanding any of that. So we need to remember that, that as we spend time with Jesus, we become more like, and we then began to do the things that he would have us to do, which means we then carry on his mission of spreading out that seed to other people.
And we get to partner with Jesus on the mission of being an expression of renewal to others. And this could be difficult. And we have seen in the past couple of weeks that we can be rejected by those who are close to us, that people are going to misunderstand us. They're going to judge us and maybe even do hateful things towards us.
But perhaps, perhaps as we prayerfully walk alongside with other people who might negatively respond to us, we can continue to extend that offer of relationship. Maybe we can carefully and prayerfully pray that people whose minds are closed to God would suddenly start to open more and more. That people who have shallow faith would begin to deepen their faith, to walk alongside someone to know, hey, this is exciting, they've responded here, but in relationship with them, keep challenging them.
Hey, let's grow in our faith. Maybe it's inviting someone to coffee, reading through a book together, discussing the scriptures together, or if you want a softball, Listen to these podcasts together and then go out for coffee and say, Hey, what does this look like in your life? What is God saying to you and what does God want you to do, man?
Your faith will grow so much. Or if people have been preoccupied with the world, pray God that they wouldn't fall into this trap. And as we journey with people, as we deepen the relationship with people, as we pray for people consistently by name and specifically by need, over time, there is the possibility that there will be faith that begins to sprout in their life, that will begin to grow and they'll begin to produce fruit exponentially.
And so that, that's what Mark has for us today, reflecting on the parables, and we're going to go through some more parables, but just remembering what, what, what it is that's here. Remember, like go through this text this week, read through Mark chapter four and just pray like, what has my life been looking like if I've been receptive to what God is trying to do in me, or do I need to clean something out?
And as I'm on mission, building relationships with others. Prayerfully praying for others, hanging out with people, doing the bike rides, doing the kayaks, doing all that stuff, deepening the relationship. I want to pray that the Holy Spirit helps me genuinely authentically begin to, to talk people about the deeper things of life.
And I'm telling you, it will have an exponential effect. You might get discouraged by like, Hey, the seed that fell on tough soil, like that's hard and I'm frustrated by that, but stay the course Jesus is with you because he didn't give up on you. When you were that way. So don't give up on other people.
And remember that as that seed starts to grow, it's going to have this exponential, amazing effect. And so say the course, stay on mission, partner with us or partner with a community like us, and let's continue to engage our world openly to whatever God wants to do through the power of his spirit, helping us to become more like him so we can then do the things that he would have us do.
But we're praying for you if you want any information about our community Please reach out at pinehillschurch. org. If not, I'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye
Summary
In "This I Believe Week 9," Zabel delves into the power of parables and personal ministry experiences, emphasizing growth through patience and reliance on God's timing. The sermon explores the significance of the farmer scattering seeds, highlighting the need for good soil and the Holy Spirit's work in nurturing spiritual growth. Zabel draws parallels between the mustard seed's humble beginnings and our faith journeys, urging listeners to embrace small acts rooted in faith for transformative impact. Pastor Aaron echoes the message, urging reflection on faith priorities and offering support on the continuing journey of growth and grace.
Discussion Questions
1. How can you practice patience and trust in God's timing, even when feeling impatient or discouraged?
2. How can you incorporate small acts of faith and obedience in your daily life?
3. Why is it important to prioritize intentional time with God, and how can you do this in your daily routine?
2. How can you incorporate small acts of faith and obedience in your daily life?
3. Why is it important to prioritize intentional time with God, and how can you do this in your daily routine?
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful that you are gathering with us. Know that we're praying for you and believe in you and just appreciate your consistency and tuning into the podcast or the YouTube channel. So grateful for you today. It's a bit exciting. We have a video from our teaching in the gathering from a member in our community named Zabel. So, really hope you enjoy the word today and find some encouragement within it. It's about the process of growth and how that looks in our lives today. And again, I'm Zabel. I'm blessed to be here. Not qualified to be here, but blessed to be here nonetheless. So we're gonna dive in, and what's going on is we're looking at the parables and Jesus is speaking and he's teaching. And oftentimes crowds gather, and even skeptics will be in the crowds and they will be gathering and. And they'll be listening to this Jesus figure and they're trying to figure out what the heck he's saying. And I don't know about you, but sometimes when I read these parables, I'm like, can he just speak clear? Like, does this have to be in a code? But we're going to kind of dissect it. So if you guys are with me, we're going to do that. You guys? Okay. All right. So to give you a little bit of backstory, like Aaron said, I've been in ministry for a while. I've actually been in ministry for about 17 plus years this year. And like I said, uniquely disqualified. But God keeps qualifying me for some reason. And so, for me, I've been a part of some incredible ministries. I've been part of young adults ministries. Most recently, I've been part of youth ministry ministry. I've been part of worship ministry. I've been part of celebrate recovery and God. Every time that I go into these places and these communities with people like you and me, you know, we all have a lot in common. So if you're with me, I think we're in for something good. So, for me, my encounter with Jesus looks a lot like this. And maybe you guys look like this. Maybe some of you guys, if you're honest, you guys struggled with some sin, some doubt. Sometimes the shadows that God had for you, the promises that God had for you, would shadow that, right? The transformation in your life that you were hoping for, right? We all wish that we were a little bit further ahead. Like, if we're honest, it doesn't really matter. What age you are. We all, we kind of wish that we had a little bit more. And so today we're going to look at what God's doing behind closed doors and how that unworthiness and that, you know, that you feel inadequate, you don't feel like you can do it. You might feel trapped. God's going to help us. All right? You with me? So let's actually, I want to make sure we have time, so I want to dive right into scripture. Can we do that? Cool. And so Jesus also said, the kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters the seed on the ground night and day while he's asleep or awake. So first of all, there's a lot to break down on this. And I want us to look at this right here, the meaning of the kingdom of God right here. What he's talking about, yes, of course, is eternity, but he's also talking about heaven on earth. He's talking about pine hills, community on earth. What a community pine hills could be if we could bring heaven on earth, if we could glorify God on earth. And actually the word heaven means sovereignty. Sovereignty is anything that has power, like God power, goodness, kindness, joy, love. Anytime there's circumstances or situations where you just feel that God moment, that's his sovereignty. Any time where you kind of. You kind of just. You're able to give people some love and peace that you might not else otherwise be able to. That's the Holy Spirit working inside you for me. Justice, kindness. Right. Those are evident when I'm living with the Holy Spirit. See, this text is describing situations that reflect God's character and glorify him. Let's keep going. So it says, night and day, while he's asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows. But he doesn't understand how it happens. Right. The earth just does it. Any gardeners in the house? Because I'm definitely not a gardener. How does that happen? The earth just does it. The soil just does it. If it's good soil, it works. We looked at some previous parables in the past few weeks. I think, what is this, our 10th week now? Two plus months now? We've been looking at mark, and we actually, the sower of the seed is kind of the backtrack. So if we went back, we'd look at the sower of the seed, and that's actually what's going on right here. And so let's keep going. So the verse 27 says, whether the sower sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. The Holy Spirit speaks life, right? He speaks life through the hearts of the world, through your heart. Through my heart. It's how we treat people. It's how we interact with people. It's how we go on our prayer walks, our neighborhoods. Like, I'm not the greatest person. I struggle with my neighbors. I really do. My neighbors drive me nuts. But I'm thankful that I have people like you that go knock on the doors or go pray for people and do such a good job. Like, I'm great at communicating with people and talking with them one on one. But if you get me to go talk to a stranger, I sweat bullets and I get super nervous. I just do. But God is telling us, Jesus is telling the disciples, look, the Holy Spirit's going to do it. He's equipping them, right? He's not teaching them how to preach, but he's teaching them how to communicate to the world that needs it, right? And these guys, they actually can rest, and they know that the Holy Spirit is going to do the rest. And so the earth, again. In 28. The earth produces crops on its own. First, the leaf blade pushes through. Then the heads of the weed are formed, and finally the grains rotate, ripen. How does that happen? The earth just does it. I wrote this. Isn't it amazing that changes in a plant can spontaneously happen? And I kind of look at that. Like our heart, like a soil, right? It produces grain. First the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel. A little sprout appears, and it leaves a little bit of grow, and it matures into a flower. See, I'm not a gardener, but these are the steps. It has to happen like this. You can't expect the flower to sprout when it's not mature. When it's not ready, it's going to die. It's like us. We want to be farther ahead, but when we're not ready, we're not ready. God's perfect timing. See, I think if we're honest collectively, we're impatient. I think if we're all honest collectively, we don't like to trust God, right? Our abilities. We want our own abilities. We don't want to wait for God. See, the busyness of life, the pressures of life, society, it hinders your spiritual growth. It hinders my spiritual growth. So I actually have to be intentional about my time with God. I have to prioritize my time with God. See this quote? I was looking up some quotes from this specific scripture, and there's a book I like, and an author. His name is David F. Watson. He said, we christians like to talk about building the kingdom of God. And this is specifically in mark four. He says, this language betrays the misunderstanding of how the kingdom of God rises up. See, we don't build the kingdom of God. God does. See, we can work ourselves to death. We can try to bring about his will on earth as it is in heaven. But Jesus teaches us that's not the right approach. We have a role to play in the kingdom, but it involves us cooperating with the Holy Spirit, trusting him. But he's already doing the work, right? So we can rest. You guys ready? You keep going. Okay, where are we at? If you're taking notes, I would just want to give you five things. Condensing them quickly, it does a few things for us. This parable, number one, it says it takes the pressure off you. Takes the pressure off me. I don't have to force someone to spiritually grow. That happens behind closed doors. You're the farmer. Just plant the seed. God's going to do the work. He's going to do the rest. His power is kind of automatic. It's kind of supernatural. Number two again, God is in control of this. This is his kingdom. And I got another one for you. And you've already heard me say it. You don't have to get in a hurry for someone's spiritual growth. It's going to happen, and it's going to happen based on his timing, not Zabel's timing. Right. We can pray. We can go on those walks. We can do all those things. But when it's all said and done, we get to enjoy that harvest. It tells us that we get to enjoy the harvest time. When it comes from their life, from your life, God's going to use you, and now you get to enjoy the results. Write this down. Your own spiritual growth in others is a demonstration of the power of God. Your own spiritual growth is a demonstration of the power of God's word. It's going to happen. Keep showing up for people. All right, let's keep going. Into the next parable. Jesus said, how can I describe the kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate? It's like a mustard seed planted on the ground. It's the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of all garden plants. It grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade. Jesus uses many similar stories. In fact, he often would tell these stories in his public ministry, quite often. And I don't know if you are like me. But I would be asking, just like the disciples, hey, what's the meaning behind the meaning? What does this actually mean? So let's break it down. So the parable of the mustard seed is actually contained in all three gospels. It's in Mark, it's in Matthew, and it's in Luke. And Jesus is predicting this amazing growth of the kingdom of heaven. See, back then, they were trying to describe something small, so they used a mustard seed. You and me know that mustard seeds aren't the smallest of all seeds, but they are quite small. Another thing that is something that's pretty amazing here, and this is quite big, is it talks about how even birds can take nest on these branches. That's the nations. That's you, that's me, that's the world. The Holy Spirit's going to show up. It's incredible. See, the point of the parable of the mustard seed is, and I think you'll like this, is that Jesus had small beginnings. The kingdom of God has small beginnings, and I have small beginnings. You have small beginnings. We start off small and it grows into something quite large. See, to have faith, it's a process, it's a growth. We got to trust in God's timing. Even if it's the smallest things, the smallest acts of faith, the smallest acts of obedience, it can lead to profound and transformative outcomes. Right. I actually skipped this, so write this down. I wanted to end with this, but I wanted to start with this, but it fits perfectly. Our insignificant efforts, when rooted in faith, have the potential to flourish and influence the world around us. Right. Your little efforts, you think they're small? They're huge. They're absolutely huge. I can't tell you how many people have been praying for me my whole life. I don't even know, but I'm up here because of them. And it's the same thing. I've been praying and praying for people, for God to transform lives of people in my life that might not be following him or know him. And God's doing it, and I can take rest, and I know that the Holy Spirit is going to do the rest. See, again, faith is a process. God's timing is not your timing. Right. Our role is obedience. Our role is surrender. So I have a challenge for you and me as I wrap this up and condense it down a little bit. Pine hills. Imagine if we collectively, as a community, started to trust, right? What if. Pine hills. What if. Bend central, Oregon. We started to trust God's plan. We started to trust God's timing. Right. The seed of faith that I call it the community garden. What if that flourished? What would that look like? Bend, Oregon, with joy and peace and spiritual abundance and renewal and redemption and hope. I don't know about you, but God is in the business of redemption. So how do we live out the big idea? Well, I got three. I got three. Grow through patience. If you're anything like me, you got to learn to be patient. And I have to embrace the gradual process of spiritual growth. That's the only way. We got to trust in God's plan. For you. For me. Number two, again, impacts of small. Right. Something small can lead to something big. Number three, we have to be rooted in faith. We have to cultivate a strong foundation of faith that grounds in you. Right. It starts in here. And what does that look like? How do you actually cultivate that? It's almost like I was talking with Pastor Aaron about it because you can go a lot of ways with this text. And for me, it's like we could look at it like a gym. We want to be healthy. We want to eat right. We want instant results. But how does it happen? Well, we have to cultivate such a strong foundation of eating healthy and sleeping and doing the right things to get those results. It's the same thing with God. We need to put time and energy and effort into him and the Holy Spirit is going to do the rest. Our insignificant efforts, when rooted, have faith to potential. Have the faith and the potential to flourish and influence the world around us. And welcome back, everybody. So grateful for Zabel, for bringing that word. And just an encouragement just to kind of recap for you some takeaways is to focus on growth through patience. That God's work in our life is a gradual process. And thank goodness that he's more patient and kind with us than we're often gracious and kind with ourselves. And so just know, stay the path, make space to be with Jesus and slowly become more and more like him as he works this stuff out in your life. And then as we do that, we'll do more and more of the things that he wants us to do in our life. That little small acts like that little small act of being with Jesus every day will have a profound impact in our life. And the impacts of others and those small acts of love and grace towards other people. The cup of coffee, the going out with someone, the inviting someone along to a hike, those things can have a tremendous impact in other people's lives. And then being rooted in our faith, allowing our faith to go strong and to grow down deep. And so part of that is taking our faith seriously. We've got to schedule in the things that actually matter. So schedule in that time to be with Jesus. And that's where that space is that we slowly become more and more like him, not white knuckling it, but doing things in his power. And so this week, I want you to think about that. Where are those areas that you need to take faith seriously and need to schedule in some things that would help you to grow? Maybe that is going through the Pine Hills church app and going through the conversations in there under the practicing the way tab. Maybe it's reading a new book. There's practicing the way by John Mark Comer, which is just an inspirational book for our community. A lot of how we do things is adopted from his work over the past decade. Or you might be being inspired to step out and love someone through small acts. And so I want you just to step out in faith and do that this week. And then again, give yourself lots of grace and patience because God is gracious and patient with you. Hopefully this is encouraging for you. We're all in process. We're all working from where we currently are and working towards where Jesus believes that we can be. And so any way that we could be a partner with you in that, please out through pinehillschurch.org but hope to see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.
Summary
In the sermon, Pastor Aaron discusses the topic of divorce as presented in Mark 10, emphasizing the importance of approaching controversial texts with grace and humility. He points out that divorce was a contentious issue even in Jesus's time, and he encourages the congregation to frame their understanding of scripture within the context of Jesus’s cultural moment while seeking applicable truths for their own lives. Pastor Aaron highlights that Jesus’s conversation about divorce reflects God’s original intentions for marriage as a covenant that promotes human flourishing and stability, asserting that both men and women should commit to supporting and loving each other equally.Throughout the sermon, Pastor Aaron stresses that Jesus calls for radical commitment in marriages, urging listeners to move away from culturally accepted norms that may undermine family dynamics. He provides historical context to the complexities surrounding divorce in first-century Judaism, particularly how the practice often left women vulnerable and without support. He underscores that God’s grace is available for healing and transformation, even in light of past relationships or divorce. Pastor Aaron concludes by encouraging both singles and couples to seek personal growth and understanding of how past patterns may affect their future relationships, reminding everyone that living out God’s vision through everyday choices can lead to transformative life experiences.
Discussion Questions
- How does Jesus help us walk to God's intentions for our lives?
- How can I use my singleness to love and serve others?
- How can I radically commit to serving my spouse, kids, or someone else that Jesus is inviting me to serve?
- How can I step into Jesus invitation to grow in my character or nature to be more like Him?
Transcript
Everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church podcast. My name is Aaron. I'm one of the pastors around this community. So grateful you are tuning in today, wherever you might be. Hopefully your fall has started really well.
You're enjoying football, you're doing some of the typical fall things for us. It's going apple picking and enjoying the pumpkin patches and just making space to enjoy that moment as a gift for what it is. But today we're continuing our conversation in Mark in our series called this, I believe, just going through the gospel of Mark together. And today is another one of those controversial texts that has lots of debate around it, lots of disagreement, even in Jesus's day, but all the way out through church history, too. So let's approach the conversation with as much grace for each other as we can.
Remembering as Pine Hills Church, we're wanting to create a community where we gather around the person and work of Jesus, where we disagree around secondary things really well, knowing that we don't always have to agree on everything because that vision for a community actually doesn't exist. And it's not helpful for any of us because that will just lead to isolation, which I think is a plan of the enemy, not a plan of God. And so anytime you hear that, if you hear, oh, I can't, you know, hang out with them, I can't be in relationship with them because they have different views. They just think differently. That's actually not the way of Jesus.
The way of Jesus is us with our different views, continue to gather around him, continue to keep him centered, and continue to let him guide the conversation with just as much humility as we possibly can, because we're all somewhat getting, especially this conversation, wrong. And so we need to just offer grace to each other and just to receive that grace from Jesus, too. So let's start before we begin the conversation, just praying that God would guide our conversation today, guide our emotions as we hear different things that might be upsetting to us, that might make us want to take a step back, we might disagree, and so we want to pray that he guides us in that Jesus, would you be with us in our conversation today? Would you help us to get our eyes on truth, to help us to know that you have a plan for us to get to God's intention for our lives, because God's intentions lead to human flourishing. And so that's the vision that we're going after of knowing that you meet us in grace and that you walk us to a better way of living.
And so with that, would you guide our conversation. Guide us. Guide whoever's listening today with any emotion that might come up because of our past history, because of experiences that we might have, because of things that we might have gone through. And so would you help us to receive that grace, knowing that you love us and you care for us, that you don't reject us and that you're with us? In your name we pray.
Amen. So with that, let's just read the text that we're going through today. Starting in Mark, chapter ten, verses one through twelve, it says, then Jesus left Carpentium, went down to the region of Judea and into the area east of the Jordan river. Once again, crowds gathered around him, and as usual, he was teaching them. Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question, should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?
Jesus answered them with a question. What does Moses say in the law about divorce? Well, he permitted it, they replied. He said, a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away. But Jesus responded, he wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts, but God made them male and female from the beginning of creation.
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two, but one. Let no one split apart what God has joined together. Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else, commits adultery against her.
And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery. And so, cue whatever feelings are probably coming up in your heart and your mind. And so we need to be careful when reading text like these, that good biblical reading always first attempts to start with Jesus's context, with his cultural moment, and then look for the nuggets of truth that are applicable for our cultural moment. In a sense, we're trying to build a bridge between what was happening in that culture to what is happening in our culture and help us to bring that understanding over, which takes a lot of work, and it takes working this out in community, and it takes humility, it takes grace, it takes us feeling, you know, laying down the feeling like we have to know it all in order to pick up God's advice for our life, that God wants to get us to this, this vision of flourishing. And so with that, we also need to make sure that we aren't just offended and lean away from the things that can help us in our walk with Jesus in our relationships.
As we push through the difficult emotions that might arise and all of our questions that we might bring to the table, maybe we can uncover God's heart for us and strive to go after his vision for our lives or help create a pathway toward a vision for the generation after us if we suspend some of that offense as we lean into Jesus, as we see what he might have for us. Because remember, Jesus is always going to meet you with grace. He's going to walk you to that vision that God has for our lives. So your choice today is to be offended and to tune out. To tune out the conversation even now, to stop the video if you're on YouTube, to stop the podcast if you're in one of our gatherings, like on the weekend, like the temptation for them is just to stop listening or to leave the gathering altogether.
The other option is to bring the offense to Jesus as we are in conversation about this difficult passage in scripture. You're saying, Jesus, I'm offended, and I want to acknowledge that. But I also want to hear your heart in this. I want to hear what you would have to say about this, because I think you're actually compelling and I want to live life following you. And at times I know that when I follow you, I'm going to be offended because you are going to push against things in my cultural imagination, values that have been implanted in me.
And so there's going to be tension as I work out my salvation with you. Not that I'm saved or not saved. I'm saved because of my faith in you. But the same time, like the work of discipleship, the work of growing more like you, is worked out intention. But there's also so much grace there.
And so with that, let's start the conversation as best we can. In Jesus's cultural moment, what divorce looked like in his moment was more like this. Mark, we need to understand this first, that the letter is being written to a jewish and gentile audience, meaning it's mixed, like culturally diverse, different views altogether, people who've grown up knowing the scriptures, the way of God, with people who don't know the scriptures of the way of God. And so there's lots of room for disagreement on this topic, even to who Mark is writing to. But in their cultural moment, the question being asked to Jesus was this first century jewish man Jesus, by some first century jewish religious leaders.
And so the question involves two God believing people in first century Judaism, like, what does this look like? And what's interesting is that the people bringing the question actually aren't asking Jesus about the validity of divorce. They're actually, like, conversating about the merits of how one can be divorced because it was accepted as a common practice that you could be divorced. There was just so many debate. Even in his day, there was not a consensus about what.
What things, what factors played into that divorce being legitimate or not, and how divorce was commonly viewed from a jewish perspective. Because, again, the conversation is happening between two jewish people in first century. Well, the jewish perspective was that menta, or in most cases, the only party that could initiate a divorce because they lived in this patriarchal society, women had virtually no rights at all. And there are limited examples of female initiating a divorce. And this is only when there's just high affluence.
She has a lot of money. She is high in her, her city. She has a position of power or something like that. There's some examples there of a woman initiating a divorce. But nearly every other divorce was always initiated by men.
And when men divorced women, it essentially, in their day, would cut them off economically and sometimes even the kids, meaning that the women, primarily in their culture, took care of the home and operated, caring for the kids and caring for all the things that happened with that. She didn't typically have a job outside. And so what happened was when the male cut her off, he's cutting her off from her resources, essentially leaving her without provision, leaving her without a way of having a means of living, of leaving these kids without the ability to have food and all this. And this would put her in a very tight spot. You can even imagine in our culture, someone's cut off and they don't have the ability to actually make it.
What things are they often driven towards in order to try to find money just to care for their kids. Oftentimes it's pretty terrible things. Just attempting to love their kids and to care for their kids as best they can. And that creates all kinds of trauma, and it creates hurt, and it creates pain in the family. And so, same thing in their culture.
This would drive women to do things that she should not be doing and that Jesus didn't want her doing. Jesus didn't create her to go, to step into a lot of those professions and things like that. And so Jesus is calling this out. In a minute, he's going to call us out. But we need to understand this background that this was divorce.
Right. This conversation is primarily about men divorcing women, about them, cutting them off from the things that they needed. Even then, men at times could find something just better that came along and just say, hey, you know what? Like, I don't want this family anymore. I'm going to go and start building a life with this person.
And so there's all kinds of pain and heartache and trauma. That's happening all around this conversation that we don't typically pick up in. Because we typically just hone in on a word like divorce. And so with that bit of cultural background in mind, let's look at the interaction between the religious leaders and Jesus by picking mark, chapter ten, verse two through four. Back up.
Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question. Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife? Jesus answered them with a question. I love how he does that question with a question. This is typical Jesus.
What did Moses say in the law about divorce? I think he's testing what's behind the thing. You're asking about divorce, what's the thing behind the thing? And Jesus is asking more questions to figure that out. The people respond, well, he permitted it.
They replied. He said, a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away. And to be clear, the motivation is not for them to gain knowledge. It's actually to trap Jesus. Tremper Longman III says the question posed by the Pharisees was not a sincere one.
They were not honestly seeking information from Jesus about divorce. They were testing him, trying to catch him in some statement about a subject on which they themselves had no agreement, and then use it against him. So there's a lot of debate around the subject. And we need to also remember that John the Baptist. Remember back in Mark, pick the story back up if you've not read it.
At one point, John the Baptist is killed by Herod and Tippis. And so Herod the leader, right, he was over the area, placed there by the emperor in Rome to oversee this jewish area. And so he was to keep the peace, to make sure that there wasn't rioting, to make sure people were following the way of Rome. And so what happened was that Herod had married his brother's wife. And John called this out as wrong, even in his day.
To people in political power, John the Baptist is like, this is wrong. This is not okay. And it ended up costing John his life. So let's be honest. The religious leaders are looking to find out more things to accuse Jesus.
Is it just simply to have him killed? Are they wanting knowledge? Are they wanting just to find more things to have him killed? We know the religious leaders are already plotting to kill Jesus. Because they need to get rid of him.
He's saying controversial things. He's loving people they don't want to have loved. He's defining the way of God a lot different than they imagined. He's defining relationships differently here, even in this conversation that would have made them mad. And so I wonder what's happening.
I think they're just looking for more things to have Jesus killed, which Jesus doesn't actually care much about. He knows that's coming. He's already saying, hey, I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to give my life, but I'm going to come back to life. And don't worry. This is the plan.
This is what I've come here for. What he does care about is that the religious cultural practices of his day were letting women and children be exploited and uncared for. And this is what Jesus is calling out. Mark, chapter ten, verses five through eight. But Jesus responded.
He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard heart. So divorce is permitted by Moses, but it's a command that's a concession to the hard hearts of the people. But God made them male and female. Jesus has taken them back to the original intentions of God. He's taking them all the way back in the story to Genesis one, that this is God's creative mandate for us.
He's created us to live in partnership, male and female, together. In this covenant of marriage between one man and one female, which I know is even controversial in our day, but this God's intention for our life. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. The two are united into one since they are no longer two, but one. Let no man split apart what God has joined together.
And so Jesus is calling them out by taking them back to God's intentions and showing them where they are off course, that is negatively impacting the vulnerable in their own community. And God's view of marriage is a covenant between man and wife who become one. And God doesn't want that separated because it is in his eyes, like tearing two things or one thing into two. Like imagine, like, the imagery is ripping a person in half. Like, this is messy and traumatic and disgusting.
And this is why Jesus is advocating, we don't want marriages ripped apart. It causes trauma for generations. It's a terrible thing. And God also views that marriage covenant is between equals, not, not one over the other. Actually, the two co laboring together, co laboring with God to bring redemptive purposes to the world.
This is God's vision for marriage. And these people are distinctly male, distinctly female. God gets his, he puts his own characteristics in both of them. And so when they come together in this marriage covenant, we have this really beautiful, profound picture of God. Each part is to love and care for, to support each other as they both strive to keep God as the anchor of their life and their relationship.
This is God's vision for relationship, for marriage, for flourishing. And Jesus says that Moses had given this law because of the stubbornness of humans. Also remember that God had began to work through a family called Israel to reveal his nature to the world. Moses had led these people out of slavery from Egypt and was now trying to make sense of how to organize a new people group on the backside of a desert. And the religious leaders had taken this concession that Moses had given this new people group, trying to figure life out with all kinds of different beliefs that were happening in isla bit of Egypt.
In their heart, they had other religious practices in their heart. And Moses is trying to help them understand this is God who has brought them out of slavery. God gets to define life, God gets to define relationships. And so there's always this. God meets us in this moment, walks us to a different vision, and this is what's happening in their history.
But the religious leaders had taken this concession and they had just continued it and gone too far. My friend Casey Donnelly says concession is a temporary, is a temporary thing with a redemptive trajectory, meaning God at this point with Moses, was meeting people at a particular moment in time with this concession to keep them moving in the right direction. But his path of redemption was to redefine marriage and relationships, to define it around his original intention. In the beginning of the story of man and wife together, co laboring, doing God's work together, to bring about God's redemptive purposes on earth, to reign like God would here on earth. And that's not just one person reigning, that's not man over woman, that's co reigning together as we live life with God.
The people weren't on this redemptive trajectory when the religious leaders brought this question to Jesus. In fact, they were on a trajectory that was causing way more harm. While the religious leaders were using this whole issue as a means to trap Jesus, to have him killed, Jesus was answering their question by taking them back to the heart of God, pushing them back to a redemptive trajectory. Healthy family is this controlling image in the Bible. We see it over and over and over again.
God is in himself a family, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He's a community in himself, supporting, loving, caring for each other. And then he calls us to be a part of his family. We get invited into that community of God, into the Trinity, and he wants to heal our wounds so that we can be healthy expression of what family should be to the rest of the world, so that more people can choose to get adopted into God's family. It brings up a really good question.
How can this happen when men were bailing on their covenants with their wives and kids, when something seemingly, quote unquote better came along? How can God's people live in a healthy and safe way when all of this trauma was being permitted? No, like, that's not possible. That doesn't drive us towards flourishing, and Jesus drives us away from the concessions back to the heart and will of God. And the conversation was uncomfortable and controversial even in their day.
And the disciples needed to get some more clarification about what's happening. So in Mark 1010 through twelve, it says later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband, which, again, was pretty odd, pretty rare in their day, but did happen with very high people and political power. So Jesus is even calling out political power in his day.
And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery. Jesus takes the uncomfortable conversation radically further than any rabbi or teacher in his day would have by saying that it is actually possible for the man to be guilty of adultery as well. We need to understand in their cultural moment, typically, it was the woman, the woman who was the adulterous one, not the man, which is really interesting. Men could only be accused of adultery if they slept with another man's wife. And again, that sin was against that other man, wasn't against the woman, was against the man.
But if he was simply sleeping with another woman outside of his marriage, only the woman would be the adulterer, not the man. You see the incongruency in that line of thinking. Jesus is pushing the conversation forward, and he's saying, Jesus is, he's advocating for this radical commitment to your spouse in marriage, but Jesus is pushing that conversation forward, advocating for radical commitment to your spouse in marriage. And Jesus tends to up the pressure on how he defines rightful living, what we call orthopraxy. So we have orthodoxy, right belief, orthopraxy, right living.
And so Jesus says, Matthew, chapter 527 through 28, if you look at a woman lustfully, you are guilty of adultery. That's difficult, right? Jesus says in Matthew 521 through 22, if you harbor anger in your heart, you are guilty as if, as if you had committed murder. All of these things and many more destroy relationships. And Jesus is all about restoring right relationship between us and God and relationships with others as far as that is possible, because, again, we have free will.
Humans have the ability to make wrong choices and to do harmful things. They also have the ability to choose right things by putting their hope and trust in Jesus and allowing God to define vision for relationships and marriage and human flourishing. And so right that choice is laid before us. What will we choose? Will we choose blessings or curses?
Will we choose the way of God or the way of the world? And Jesus is pushing us back to the heart of God. And this might seem impossible. I know for me at times there's so many things in my life that Jesus is pushing me back to God's intentions. And at times it feels so impossible because it feels like this stuff is so deeply ingrained in me.
Maybe you feel like that in your own life as well. The disciples were feeling that building pressure in this interaction we'll look at next week, but it's just after this passage. Mark 1026 through 27. The disciples were astounded then. Who in the world can be saved?
They ask. Jesus looked at them intently and said, humanly speaking, it is impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God. And I love that everything is possible with God. Because of Jesus, we can not live rightly enough to earn our way into right relationship with God or earn your way into salvation.
And the good news is Jesus frees you from having to earn your way into right relationship. That's not the gospel. Jesus is offering restored relationship with God because he is offering up the inheritance of his life while taking the consequences of all of our sin, sin that harms our lives or other people's lives, especially when the conversation about divorce and relationships outside of God's vision for relationships or sexuality, outside of God's vision of sexuality, that hurts our lives and the lives of other people. But even in the midst of that, there's grace that's on offer from Jesus. In meeting with a woman at the well in the middle of a day because of a string of failed relationships, Jesus offers her a new start.
He says this fulfillment, the stuff you've been actually looking for in the arms of other people, will never be fulfilled in those people. It's only found in him, in Jesus, and he sets her on this new trajectory, this new path that she's able to go to the people that she was avoiding in the middle of the day that had rejected her. All of a sudden, she's testifying about the grace and goodness of Jesus, despite her sketchy past and failed relationships and all things that came with that. In another instance, when a woman had been caught in adultery and all these men are ready to stone her because they were going to carry out the punishments of that type of crime in their day, Jesus says, fine, throw the first stone. But it's the person that does not have sin that's able to throw at the first one.
One at a time. You see these stones just falling to the ground. Jesus is the only one who's able to throw it, and yet he chooses to give her mercy and not judgment. And this is the heart of God. He doesn't want to judge us.
He wants to offer mercy so we can find healing for our life and be set on a new trajectory. The point is that we all fall short and need something outside of ourselves. And Jesus is the only one without sin who has a right to condemn us. Yet he chooses to continually offer us grace time and time again. And while Jesus offers us grace in the mess, he empowers us by spirit to walk out of the mess onto a redemptive path back to God's intentions for our life.
And when we feel like we've come up short, the grace of Jesus is on offer. The grace of Jesus will always outpace the weight of our sin. And we can live empowered to not have to settle for a lesser vision of human flourishing because we can live into God's intentions for our lives. And remember, I advocated for us, doing our best to understand what Jesus was saying in his context that he was living in, and apply these nuggets to our context. Well, in his day, he was essentially advocating for the love, safety, and support of the most vulnerable.
Jesus was advocating for radical commitment to your spouse in marriage, even when culture had a different opinion about what that looked like, even when religious culture had something different, with a look at that, to radically commit to loving and safety and support of the most vulnerable, advocating for the radical commitment of your spouse and marriage. And we also need to see, what is this text teaching us about Jesus? Well, it teaches us that Jesus cares for the explorer and the helpless. And Jesus has a really high view for family and relationships, much higher than our culture. Jesus wraps the family of God around people who have missing relationships in their life when they've gone through a divorce, God wraps people to come and love and help support and care for them when we don't have whatever important figure in our life.
Jesus brings that to us within the body of Christ. Jesus offers us grace for every shortcoming in our lives, but also calls us to a higher vision of living because he's going to empower us to do that. He's going to empower us to get as close to God's intentions for our lives as possible over time, because it's a journey. It's that path of redemption. And this brings up lots of questions.
See other followers of Jesus, who wrote some of the Bible, still had lots of questions. We see Matthew when writing the same story. Matthew 19 nine says, and I tell you this, whoever divorces is wife and marries someone else, commits adultery unless his wife has been unfaithful. See how he added that little bit at the end? And Paul, in one corinthians seven, struggled to answer specific questions for the church community around marriage and relationships.
The context was that new people were coming to know Jesus for the first time, and their spouse ended up not wanting to be married to them anymore because of this newfound faith. Because coming to know Christ in their day might have meant a loss of relationship, job, or security. And it's interesting that Paul offers advice that he is very clear in saying, I do not have a command from God, but in doing his best to filter every question through scripture and prayer and conversation in community, gives his advice as best he can. And Paul actually advocates for a different way of living, for singleness and celibacy, because you are able to serve out more on the mission of goddess if you don't have these relationships in your life. But maybe because also there's just so much grayness in some of these answers that Jesus was only around for a three year period at a particular moment in time and has not been able to speak on every issue that has come up, every question that has come up for humanity everywhere.
But knowing the struggles even in those communities, Paul says, maybe singleness is not the option for you, especially if you're going to be controlled by lust or sex outside of marriage, it does more harm than good. And Paul says, for the vast majority of us, it's actually better to marry than to stay single. And I can think of a ton of questions from our culture that we might ask of the scriptures, and I'm not here to answer all of those questions in this context. If you do have more questions, the invitation is for you to bring those to leaders in the community to dialogue to search the scriptures, because controversial questions are best wrestled out by discussing the scriptures deeply in prayer and always in community. And we don't always get all of our questions answered, because the whole point of the Bible isn't to answer every question that every human would ask for all the time, but it does reveal enough of God who wants to have a relationship with you, who has given you enough grace through the scriptures to lead a healthy life.
And he's also given us the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. And we do that as we wrestle through this stuff in community. But most people pursue controversial answers in solitude or only look for the voices that might affirm what they want to hear. And they settle for soundbites instead of reading deeply, praying at length and discussing it in community. And I want to be clear that that doesn't lead to the life that God is actually inviting you into.
So what does this mean for our lives? We need to let Jesus empower us towards God's will and intentions for our lives, allow the grace of Jesus to cover over our shortcomings, to drive us to God's vision of marriage and relationship, to allow God to define how that best works, and allow Jesus when we have brokenness in our past story, because maybe we've been affected by divorce in our history. Maybe that's been part of our story. Maybe we've even been following God and that relationship just didn't work and it broke apartheid. So when that happens, I want you to continually bring that to Jesus and to allow Jesus to heal and to bring grace and love, because he's not here to judge.
He's here to help push us all back to the best vision of God's life for our lives. So that way we can have communities of health. And part of that starts with the family. And so some more specific ways we can apply this is if you're single, like, you're not left out of the conversation. If you're single, you should be radically committing to giving your life for others, to using that time to serve, to care for other people, and then the time devoted to yourself.
I want you to radically pursue who Jesus is inviting you to become. And I meet so many people, it's like, I want to spouse someday. I want to date this person that's just like this. And they've got this huge list. And I usually ask, well, what's your list of what you're becoming so that you're ready for that type of person when they do come along so radically commit to what Jesus is inviting you to become, to work on negative patterns, bad habits, or maybe even understanding your family history of origin so you don't carry those patterns into that relationship when you get there.
And maybe Jesus has called you to a life of singleness. That's a very high calling. It's not a lesser vision. And when you are single, you can be used by God so much more. Jesus was single.
Paul, one of the greatest theologians and church planners, was single, which enabled him to travel, to preach the gospel in new places.
You're enjoying football, you're doing some of the typical fall things for us. It's going apple picking and enjoying the pumpkin patches and just making space to enjoy that moment as a gift for what it is. But today we're continuing our conversation in Mark in our series called this, I believe, just going through the gospel of Mark together. And today is another one of those controversial texts that has lots of debate around it, lots of disagreement, even in Jesus's day, but all the way out through church history, too. So let's approach the conversation with as much grace for each other as we can.
Remembering as Pine Hills Church, we're wanting to create a community where we gather around the person and work of Jesus, where we disagree around secondary things really well, knowing that we don't always have to agree on everything because that vision for a community actually doesn't exist. And it's not helpful for any of us because that will just lead to isolation, which I think is a plan of the enemy, not a plan of God. And so anytime you hear that, if you hear, oh, I can't, you know, hang out with them, I can't be in relationship with them because they have different views. They just think differently. That's actually not the way of Jesus.
The way of Jesus is us with our different views, continue to gather around him, continue to keep him centered, and continue to let him guide the conversation with just as much humility as we possibly can, because we're all somewhat getting, especially this conversation, wrong. And so we need to just offer grace to each other and just to receive that grace from Jesus, too. So let's start before we begin the conversation, just praying that God would guide our conversation today, guide our emotions as we hear different things that might be upsetting to us, that might make us want to take a step back, we might disagree, and so we want to pray that he guides us in that Jesus, would you be with us in our conversation today? Would you help us to get our eyes on truth, to help us to know that you have a plan for us to get to God's intention for our lives, because God's intentions lead to human flourishing. And so that's the vision that we're going after of knowing that you meet us in grace and that you walk us to a better way of living.
And so with that, would you guide our conversation. Guide us. Guide whoever's listening today with any emotion that might come up because of our past history, because of experiences that we might have, because of things that we might have gone through. And so would you help us to receive that grace, knowing that you love us and you care for us, that you don't reject us and that you're with us? In your name we pray.
Amen. So with that, let's just read the text that we're going through today. Starting in Mark, chapter ten, verses one through twelve, it says, then Jesus left Carpentium, went down to the region of Judea and into the area east of the Jordan river. Once again, crowds gathered around him, and as usual, he was teaching them. Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question, should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?
Jesus answered them with a question. What does Moses say in the law about divorce? Well, he permitted it, they replied. He said, a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away. But Jesus responded, he wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts, but God made them male and female from the beginning of creation.
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two, but one. Let no one split apart what God has joined together. Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else, commits adultery against her.
And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery. And so, cue whatever feelings are probably coming up in your heart and your mind. And so we need to be careful when reading text like these, that good biblical reading always first attempts to start with Jesus's context, with his cultural moment, and then look for the nuggets of truth that are applicable for our cultural moment. In a sense, we're trying to build a bridge between what was happening in that culture to what is happening in our culture and help us to bring that understanding over, which takes a lot of work, and it takes working this out in community, and it takes humility, it takes grace, it takes us feeling, you know, laying down the feeling like we have to know it all in order to pick up God's advice for our life, that God wants to get us to this, this vision of flourishing. And so with that, we also need to make sure that we aren't just offended and lean away from the things that can help us in our walk with Jesus in our relationships.
As we push through the difficult emotions that might arise and all of our questions that we might bring to the table, maybe we can uncover God's heart for us and strive to go after his vision for our lives or help create a pathway toward a vision for the generation after us if we suspend some of that offense as we lean into Jesus, as we see what he might have for us. Because remember, Jesus is always going to meet you with grace. He's going to walk you to that vision that God has for our lives. So your choice today is to be offended and to tune out. To tune out the conversation even now, to stop the video if you're on YouTube, to stop the podcast if you're in one of our gatherings, like on the weekend, like the temptation for them is just to stop listening or to leave the gathering altogether.
The other option is to bring the offense to Jesus as we are in conversation about this difficult passage in scripture. You're saying, Jesus, I'm offended, and I want to acknowledge that. But I also want to hear your heart in this. I want to hear what you would have to say about this, because I think you're actually compelling and I want to live life following you. And at times I know that when I follow you, I'm going to be offended because you are going to push against things in my cultural imagination, values that have been implanted in me.
And so there's going to be tension as I work out my salvation with you. Not that I'm saved or not saved. I'm saved because of my faith in you. But the same time, like the work of discipleship, the work of growing more like you, is worked out intention. But there's also so much grace there.
And so with that, let's start the conversation as best we can. In Jesus's cultural moment, what divorce looked like in his moment was more like this. Mark, we need to understand this first, that the letter is being written to a jewish and gentile audience, meaning it's mixed, like culturally diverse, different views altogether, people who've grown up knowing the scriptures, the way of God, with people who don't know the scriptures of the way of God. And so there's lots of room for disagreement on this topic, even to who Mark is writing to. But in their cultural moment, the question being asked to Jesus was this first century jewish man Jesus, by some first century jewish religious leaders.
And so the question involves two God believing people in first century Judaism, like, what does this look like? And what's interesting is that the people bringing the question actually aren't asking Jesus about the validity of divorce. They're actually, like, conversating about the merits of how one can be divorced because it was accepted as a common practice that you could be divorced. There was just so many debate. Even in his day, there was not a consensus about what.
What things, what factors played into that divorce being legitimate or not, and how divorce was commonly viewed from a jewish perspective. Because, again, the conversation is happening between two jewish people in first century. Well, the jewish perspective was that menta, or in most cases, the only party that could initiate a divorce because they lived in this patriarchal society, women had virtually no rights at all. And there are limited examples of female initiating a divorce. And this is only when there's just high affluence.
She has a lot of money. She is high in her, her city. She has a position of power or something like that. There's some examples there of a woman initiating a divorce. But nearly every other divorce was always initiated by men.
And when men divorced women, it essentially, in their day, would cut them off economically and sometimes even the kids, meaning that the women, primarily in their culture, took care of the home and operated, caring for the kids and caring for all the things that happened with that. She didn't typically have a job outside. And so what happened was when the male cut her off, he's cutting her off from her resources, essentially leaving her without provision, leaving her without a way of having a means of living, of leaving these kids without the ability to have food and all this. And this would put her in a very tight spot. You can even imagine in our culture, someone's cut off and they don't have the ability to actually make it.
What things are they often driven towards in order to try to find money just to care for their kids. Oftentimes it's pretty terrible things. Just attempting to love their kids and to care for their kids as best they can. And that creates all kinds of trauma, and it creates hurt, and it creates pain in the family. And so, same thing in their culture.
This would drive women to do things that she should not be doing and that Jesus didn't want her doing. Jesus didn't create her to go, to step into a lot of those professions and things like that. And so Jesus is calling this out. In a minute, he's going to call us out. But we need to understand this background that this was divorce.
Right. This conversation is primarily about men divorcing women, about them, cutting them off from the things that they needed. Even then, men at times could find something just better that came along and just say, hey, you know what? Like, I don't want this family anymore. I'm going to go and start building a life with this person.
And so there's all kinds of pain and heartache and trauma. That's happening all around this conversation that we don't typically pick up in. Because we typically just hone in on a word like divorce. And so with that bit of cultural background in mind, let's look at the interaction between the religious leaders and Jesus by picking mark, chapter ten, verse two through four. Back up.
Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question. Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife? Jesus answered them with a question. I love how he does that question with a question. This is typical Jesus.
What did Moses say in the law about divorce? I think he's testing what's behind the thing. You're asking about divorce, what's the thing behind the thing? And Jesus is asking more questions to figure that out. The people respond, well, he permitted it.
They replied. He said, a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away. And to be clear, the motivation is not for them to gain knowledge. It's actually to trap Jesus. Tremper Longman III says the question posed by the Pharisees was not a sincere one.
They were not honestly seeking information from Jesus about divorce. They were testing him, trying to catch him in some statement about a subject on which they themselves had no agreement, and then use it against him. So there's a lot of debate around the subject. And we need to also remember that John the Baptist. Remember back in Mark, pick the story back up if you've not read it.
At one point, John the Baptist is killed by Herod and Tippis. And so Herod the leader, right, he was over the area, placed there by the emperor in Rome to oversee this jewish area. And so he was to keep the peace, to make sure that there wasn't rioting, to make sure people were following the way of Rome. And so what happened was that Herod had married his brother's wife. And John called this out as wrong, even in his day.
To people in political power, John the Baptist is like, this is wrong. This is not okay. And it ended up costing John his life. So let's be honest. The religious leaders are looking to find out more things to accuse Jesus.
Is it just simply to have him killed? Are they wanting knowledge? Are they wanting just to find more things to have him killed? We know the religious leaders are already plotting to kill Jesus. Because they need to get rid of him.
He's saying controversial things. He's loving people they don't want to have loved. He's defining the way of God a lot different than they imagined. He's defining relationships differently here, even in this conversation that would have made them mad. And so I wonder what's happening.
I think they're just looking for more things to have Jesus killed, which Jesus doesn't actually care much about. He knows that's coming. He's already saying, hey, I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to give my life, but I'm going to come back to life. And don't worry. This is the plan.
This is what I've come here for. What he does care about is that the religious cultural practices of his day were letting women and children be exploited and uncared for. And this is what Jesus is calling out. Mark, chapter ten, verses five through eight. But Jesus responded.
He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard heart. So divorce is permitted by Moses, but it's a command that's a concession to the hard hearts of the people. But God made them male and female. Jesus has taken them back to the original intentions of God. He's taking them all the way back in the story to Genesis one, that this is God's creative mandate for us.
He's created us to live in partnership, male and female, together. In this covenant of marriage between one man and one female, which I know is even controversial in our day, but this God's intention for our life. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. The two are united into one since they are no longer two, but one. Let no man split apart what God has joined together.
And so Jesus is calling them out by taking them back to God's intentions and showing them where they are off course, that is negatively impacting the vulnerable in their own community. And God's view of marriage is a covenant between man and wife who become one. And God doesn't want that separated because it is in his eyes, like tearing two things or one thing into two. Like imagine, like, the imagery is ripping a person in half. Like, this is messy and traumatic and disgusting.
And this is why Jesus is advocating, we don't want marriages ripped apart. It causes trauma for generations. It's a terrible thing. And God also views that marriage covenant is between equals, not, not one over the other. Actually, the two co laboring together, co laboring with God to bring redemptive purposes to the world.
This is God's vision for marriage. And these people are distinctly male, distinctly female. God gets his, he puts his own characteristics in both of them. And so when they come together in this marriage covenant, we have this really beautiful, profound picture of God. Each part is to love and care for, to support each other as they both strive to keep God as the anchor of their life and their relationship.
This is God's vision for relationship, for marriage, for flourishing. And Jesus says that Moses had given this law because of the stubbornness of humans. Also remember that God had began to work through a family called Israel to reveal his nature to the world. Moses had led these people out of slavery from Egypt and was now trying to make sense of how to organize a new people group on the backside of a desert. And the religious leaders had taken this concession that Moses had given this new people group, trying to figure life out with all kinds of different beliefs that were happening in isla bit of Egypt.
In their heart, they had other religious practices in their heart. And Moses is trying to help them understand this is God who has brought them out of slavery. God gets to define life, God gets to define relationships. And so there's always this. God meets us in this moment, walks us to a different vision, and this is what's happening in their history.
But the religious leaders had taken this concession and they had just continued it and gone too far. My friend Casey Donnelly says concession is a temporary, is a temporary thing with a redemptive trajectory, meaning God at this point with Moses, was meeting people at a particular moment in time with this concession to keep them moving in the right direction. But his path of redemption was to redefine marriage and relationships, to define it around his original intention. In the beginning of the story of man and wife together, co laboring, doing God's work together, to bring about God's redemptive purposes on earth, to reign like God would here on earth. And that's not just one person reigning, that's not man over woman, that's co reigning together as we live life with God.
The people weren't on this redemptive trajectory when the religious leaders brought this question to Jesus. In fact, they were on a trajectory that was causing way more harm. While the religious leaders were using this whole issue as a means to trap Jesus, to have him killed, Jesus was answering their question by taking them back to the heart of God, pushing them back to a redemptive trajectory. Healthy family is this controlling image in the Bible. We see it over and over and over again.
God is in himself a family, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He's a community in himself, supporting, loving, caring for each other. And then he calls us to be a part of his family. We get invited into that community of God, into the Trinity, and he wants to heal our wounds so that we can be healthy expression of what family should be to the rest of the world, so that more people can choose to get adopted into God's family. It brings up a really good question.
How can this happen when men were bailing on their covenants with their wives and kids, when something seemingly, quote unquote better came along? How can God's people live in a healthy and safe way when all of this trauma was being permitted? No, like, that's not possible. That doesn't drive us towards flourishing, and Jesus drives us away from the concessions back to the heart and will of God. And the conversation was uncomfortable and controversial even in their day.
And the disciples needed to get some more clarification about what's happening. So in Mark 1010 through twelve, it says later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband, which, again, was pretty odd, pretty rare in their day, but did happen with very high people and political power. So Jesus is even calling out political power in his day.
And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery. Jesus takes the uncomfortable conversation radically further than any rabbi or teacher in his day would have by saying that it is actually possible for the man to be guilty of adultery as well. We need to understand in their cultural moment, typically, it was the woman, the woman who was the adulterous one, not the man, which is really interesting. Men could only be accused of adultery if they slept with another man's wife. And again, that sin was against that other man, wasn't against the woman, was against the man.
But if he was simply sleeping with another woman outside of his marriage, only the woman would be the adulterer, not the man. You see the incongruency in that line of thinking. Jesus is pushing the conversation forward, and he's saying, Jesus is, he's advocating for this radical commitment to your spouse in marriage, but Jesus is pushing that conversation forward, advocating for radical commitment to your spouse in marriage. And Jesus tends to up the pressure on how he defines rightful living, what we call orthopraxy. So we have orthodoxy, right belief, orthopraxy, right living.
And so Jesus says, Matthew, chapter 527 through 28, if you look at a woman lustfully, you are guilty of adultery. That's difficult, right? Jesus says in Matthew 521 through 22, if you harbor anger in your heart, you are guilty as if, as if you had committed murder. All of these things and many more destroy relationships. And Jesus is all about restoring right relationship between us and God and relationships with others as far as that is possible, because, again, we have free will.
Humans have the ability to make wrong choices and to do harmful things. They also have the ability to choose right things by putting their hope and trust in Jesus and allowing God to define vision for relationships and marriage and human flourishing. And so right that choice is laid before us. What will we choose? Will we choose blessings or curses?
Will we choose the way of God or the way of the world? And Jesus is pushing us back to the heart of God. And this might seem impossible. I know for me at times there's so many things in my life that Jesus is pushing me back to God's intentions. And at times it feels so impossible because it feels like this stuff is so deeply ingrained in me.
Maybe you feel like that in your own life as well. The disciples were feeling that building pressure in this interaction we'll look at next week, but it's just after this passage. Mark 1026 through 27. The disciples were astounded then. Who in the world can be saved?
They ask. Jesus looked at them intently and said, humanly speaking, it is impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God. And I love that everything is possible with God. Because of Jesus, we can not live rightly enough to earn our way into right relationship with God or earn your way into salvation.
And the good news is Jesus frees you from having to earn your way into right relationship. That's not the gospel. Jesus is offering restored relationship with God because he is offering up the inheritance of his life while taking the consequences of all of our sin, sin that harms our lives or other people's lives, especially when the conversation about divorce and relationships outside of God's vision for relationships or sexuality, outside of God's vision of sexuality, that hurts our lives and the lives of other people. But even in the midst of that, there's grace that's on offer from Jesus. In meeting with a woman at the well in the middle of a day because of a string of failed relationships, Jesus offers her a new start.
He says this fulfillment, the stuff you've been actually looking for in the arms of other people, will never be fulfilled in those people. It's only found in him, in Jesus, and he sets her on this new trajectory, this new path that she's able to go to the people that she was avoiding in the middle of the day that had rejected her. All of a sudden, she's testifying about the grace and goodness of Jesus, despite her sketchy past and failed relationships and all things that came with that. In another instance, when a woman had been caught in adultery and all these men are ready to stone her because they were going to carry out the punishments of that type of crime in their day, Jesus says, fine, throw the first stone. But it's the person that does not have sin that's able to throw at the first one.
One at a time. You see these stones just falling to the ground. Jesus is the only one who's able to throw it, and yet he chooses to give her mercy and not judgment. And this is the heart of God. He doesn't want to judge us.
He wants to offer mercy so we can find healing for our life and be set on a new trajectory. The point is that we all fall short and need something outside of ourselves. And Jesus is the only one without sin who has a right to condemn us. Yet he chooses to continually offer us grace time and time again. And while Jesus offers us grace in the mess, he empowers us by spirit to walk out of the mess onto a redemptive path back to God's intentions for our life.
And when we feel like we've come up short, the grace of Jesus is on offer. The grace of Jesus will always outpace the weight of our sin. And we can live empowered to not have to settle for a lesser vision of human flourishing because we can live into God's intentions for our lives. And remember, I advocated for us, doing our best to understand what Jesus was saying in his context that he was living in, and apply these nuggets to our context. Well, in his day, he was essentially advocating for the love, safety, and support of the most vulnerable.
Jesus was advocating for radical commitment to your spouse in marriage, even when culture had a different opinion about what that looked like, even when religious culture had something different, with a look at that, to radically commit to loving and safety and support of the most vulnerable, advocating for the radical commitment of your spouse and marriage. And we also need to see, what is this text teaching us about Jesus? Well, it teaches us that Jesus cares for the explorer and the helpless. And Jesus has a really high view for family and relationships, much higher than our culture. Jesus wraps the family of God around people who have missing relationships in their life when they've gone through a divorce, God wraps people to come and love and help support and care for them when we don't have whatever important figure in our life.
Jesus brings that to us within the body of Christ. Jesus offers us grace for every shortcoming in our lives, but also calls us to a higher vision of living because he's going to empower us to do that. He's going to empower us to get as close to God's intentions for our lives as possible over time, because it's a journey. It's that path of redemption. And this brings up lots of questions.
See other followers of Jesus, who wrote some of the Bible, still had lots of questions. We see Matthew when writing the same story. Matthew 19 nine says, and I tell you this, whoever divorces is wife and marries someone else, commits adultery unless his wife has been unfaithful. See how he added that little bit at the end? And Paul, in one corinthians seven, struggled to answer specific questions for the church community around marriage and relationships.
The context was that new people were coming to know Jesus for the first time, and their spouse ended up not wanting to be married to them anymore because of this newfound faith. Because coming to know Christ in their day might have meant a loss of relationship, job, or security. And it's interesting that Paul offers advice that he is very clear in saying, I do not have a command from God, but in doing his best to filter every question through scripture and prayer and conversation in community, gives his advice as best he can. And Paul actually advocates for a different way of living, for singleness and celibacy, because you are able to serve out more on the mission of goddess if you don't have these relationships in your life. But maybe because also there's just so much grayness in some of these answers that Jesus was only around for a three year period at a particular moment in time and has not been able to speak on every issue that has come up, every question that has come up for humanity everywhere.
But knowing the struggles even in those communities, Paul says, maybe singleness is not the option for you, especially if you're going to be controlled by lust or sex outside of marriage, it does more harm than good. And Paul says, for the vast majority of us, it's actually better to marry than to stay single. And I can think of a ton of questions from our culture that we might ask of the scriptures, and I'm not here to answer all of those questions in this context. If you do have more questions, the invitation is for you to bring those to leaders in the community to dialogue to search the scriptures, because controversial questions are best wrestled out by discussing the scriptures deeply in prayer and always in community. And we don't always get all of our questions answered, because the whole point of the Bible isn't to answer every question that every human would ask for all the time, but it does reveal enough of God who wants to have a relationship with you, who has given you enough grace through the scriptures to lead a healthy life.
And he's also given us the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. And we do that as we wrestle through this stuff in community. But most people pursue controversial answers in solitude or only look for the voices that might affirm what they want to hear. And they settle for soundbites instead of reading deeply, praying at length and discussing it in community. And I want to be clear that that doesn't lead to the life that God is actually inviting you into.
So what does this mean for our lives? We need to let Jesus empower us towards God's will and intentions for our lives, allow the grace of Jesus to cover over our shortcomings, to drive us to God's vision of marriage and relationship, to allow God to define how that best works, and allow Jesus when we have brokenness in our past story, because maybe we've been affected by divorce in our history. Maybe that's been part of our story. Maybe we've even been following God and that relationship just didn't work and it broke apartheid. So when that happens, I want you to continually bring that to Jesus and to allow Jesus to heal and to bring grace and love, because he's not here to judge.
He's here to help push us all back to the best vision of God's life for our lives. So that way we can have communities of health. And part of that starts with the family. And so some more specific ways we can apply this is if you're single, like, you're not left out of the conversation. If you're single, you should be radically committing to giving your life for others, to using that time to serve, to care for other people, and then the time devoted to yourself.
I want you to radically pursue who Jesus is inviting you to become. And I meet so many people, it's like, I want to spouse someday. I want to date this person that's just like this. And they've got this huge list. And I usually ask, well, what's your list of what you're becoming so that you're ready for that type of person when they do come along so radically commit to what Jesus is inviting you to become, to work on negative patterns, bad habits, or maybe even understanding your family history of origin so you don't carry those patterns into that relationship when you get there.
And maybe Jesus has called you to a life of singleness. That's a very high calling. It's not a lesser vision. And when you are single, you can be used by God so much more. Jesus was single.
Paul, one of the greatest theologians and church planners, was single, which enabled him to travel, to preach the gospel in new places.