Equipping Classes

-We’ve seen the importance of discipleship, the nonnegotiables for us to grow (Scripture, Sunday, Serve)

-Those are essential, vital elements for every Christian to grow more like Jesus! But then what’s the role of the church in discipleship? How can we be a part of helping people take 1 step closer to Jesus? 

-Different series than normal, VERY different sermon than normal! 

-Trying to cram lots of learning into 1 message, today’s message is more philosophical and educational (the way we learn)

-As I’ve shared before, I’ve read LOTS of books over my life that try to answer this question! They’ll say things like: the best way to do discipleship is small groups. We need that accountability. Or the best way to do discipleship is Sunday Schools where we’re able to instruct people the truths of the Bible. Or the best way to do discipleship is ABF where we’re in community together with similar aged people.

-The hard part is this is going beyond what Scripture commands. There are some things that are explicit: meeting together, learning from the Bible, leadership in a body, teaching, using your gifts, but the Bible says very little about the practical and specific ways we should do that, and it gets even more tricky when we start taking steps outside of the corporate gathering (what Heb. 10 was talking about last week).

-In order to accomplish what God has commanded there are probably an infinite amount of ways we could do that! But we have to choose something. Paralysis by analysis is a real thing. And every option we choose is at least somewhat culturally conditioned.

-We place a high value on education in our culture. Such a high value that we demand every child growing up get an education. We pay taxes towards it, track children as they grow up to ensure they’re being educated in the ways we want. Don’t you think that’s going to have an influence on the way we view training in the church too? And one of the biggest drivers for education in our Western world was the church.

-Did you know that the reason Sunday school was started was to teach children how to read so they could read and understand the Bible? Many children were forced to work to provide for their families, but Sunday off, so churches started schools as a way to provide education for them. 

-I had an overseer at the previous church I served buy me a book titled ‘The Search for God and Guinness’ which was the story of Arthur Guinness who founded Guinness Brewing in 1759. Arthur was a strong believer, who used his gifts and talents to combat alcoholism (his beer had much lower alcohol content and was more filling than alternatives) and used the proceeds from his beer sales to bring Sunday School to Ireland. Some of you may have even read books by his great-great-great grandson, well known apologist Os Guinness. The Guinness family has carried on the legacy of Arthur in both ministry and business

-With all that background, I have wrestled with what is the best way for us to provide a framework (trellis) to help as many of us grow 1 step closer to Christ as we can, and as I’ve read and studied I came across a passage in 1 Tim. That I think summarizes what we all need: life & doctrine. Both need to be growing together to become a mature Christian. Because of that, what we offer to help people grow should correlate to Life and Doctrine.

-This is what led to the name change from small groups to life groups, and the change to classes to being more focused on teaching specific doctrines than correlating to life stage.

-As many of you know (and are very grateful for!) we also have various ministries and community groups that do work to provide opportunities for relational connections or focus on a specific group of people, but the focus is toward the Life Groups and Equipping Classes. If you only have time to spend in 1 area, let it be one of those.

-In an ideal world, we would all be involved in as many areas as we could! And if you have the time and the bandwidth, please do look for more areas to get involved in and grow! But don’t forget, we’re also called to go into the whole world. The church doesn’t exist for herself nor should we be living our whole lives removed from the world around us. At the same time, some of these discipleship classes are great places to invite your friends and neighbors to so they can hear the truths that we believe.

-Today we’re going to be focusing on the right side of the trellis: the equipping classes.

READ/PRAY (Matt. 22 – pg. 483)

1. Love God With Your Mind (Matt. 22:37)

-What do you think it means to love the Lord your God with all your mind?

-Do we just work our hardest to keep any thought not about God at bay? How do I provide for my family if I’m just supposed to think about God all the time?

-Remember that a way of summarizing what Jesus is saying here is everything we have and are is meant to be used to love God. Another way you could think about this is in connection to worship – we are supposed to worship God 24/7. Worship isn’t just music (although music can be used to worship), worship is living a life that is fully surrender to God and doing our best to honor Him with everything we do.

-Piper: Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Me: discipleship exists because worship doesn’t. If we are going to worship God correctly, we need to know and understand who He is.

–Rom. 12:1-2: connection between worship and living, goal is transformation but how? By the renewal of your mind, thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

-If I told you that I love my wife (which I do!) and went on to tell you that she’s a 6’ blonde woman who loves swimming and McDonalds you should have some questions.

-Similarly, if we claim to love God (I hope you do!) then you need to know some things about Him. What is He like? What does He enjoy? What does a relationship with Him look like? 

-God has revealed Himself to everyone in the world in more ways than we’ll ever fully understand. There’s a beautiful picture of this in The Lion King where Timon and Pumba are star gazing: “Timon, ever wonder what those sparkling dots are up there?” “Puh. I don’t wonder, I know” “Oh, what are they?” “They’re fireflies. Fireflies that uh, got stuck up in the big blueish black thing.” “Oh, gee, I always thought they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.” “Pumba, with you everything’s gas.” 

-When you look up at the stars it creates a sense of wonder and insignificance. In the big scheme of things, we’re tiny! And God made it that way! The seemingly infinity of space is a constant reminder at how little we actually know.

-But that doesn’t mean that God keeps things hidden from us. My college had a motto that said “All truth is God’s truth.” (which as I got older I found out they stole from some guy name Augustine who lived in the 300s)

-What this means is Christians should be all about the truth (or a helpful way to say it in today’s age is “true truth.”) What that means is: worshipping God with our minds means looking for everything that is true, celebrating that it is true, and then making those connections back to God (worship)

-The reality is there are going to be people that aren’t Christians that we can learn from! Celebrate God’s gift in that person (common grace), and look for opportunities to share with them how that points them to God!

–Evangelism in a Skeptical World is a great way to learn about that! It’s a different way of approaching evangelism than many of us had been taught before.

-But another implication in this is that we need more “Christian” thinking – we need more Christians involved in every area of life

-Politics, businesses, trades, health care, teaching, science all of these areas help humans to be obedient to God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” which involves creating and sustaining culture. 

-So loving God with your mind means using your gifts to the best of your ability and using them as a tool to worship God, recognizing that He is the one who has gifted you and sharing with others how God your gifting points to God. But how do we make those connections?

• Loving God Requires Teaching (Matt. 28:20, Acts 18:24-28)

-If you can remember back to the Spring, one of the things that came out in our study of Mark is that Jesus came to teach. We have so many accounts of the different things He addressed during His time on earth! Heaven and hell, marriage, divorce, death, money, love, neighboring. Nothing was off limits!

-Additionally, one of the things Jesus commanded in the great commission was teaching. What kind of teaching? Teaching that helps obey what Jesus commanded. What did Jesus command? A whole bunch of things! How do we know what those things are? It requires teaching.

-Micah: we don’t know what we don’t know. If we ever arrive at the place of thinking we’ve learned all there possibly is to know we’re either deluded or liars.

-Prince Caspian: “Aslan, you’re bigger!” “No, but each time you come back you’ll find me a little bigger.” 

-That is ESPECIALLY true of God! Think if you’ve ever had a conversation with a child and they ask things like “Why is the sky blue?” or “Is God big enough to pick up our house?” You become a much better theologian very quickly in those conversations!

-Think of the way God describes this in Isaiah 55: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We’ll never completely understand God, but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand Him truly. 

-Teaching didn’t stop with Jesus. The Apostles throughout Acts are shown to be teaching the crowds, in homes, and one on one.

-My favorite picture of this is in Acts 18. A guy named Apollos is a sharp dude, and knew the Bible really well! He had been taught really well, so he continues that tradition of teaching others. He had natural gifts and supernatural gifts. Yet what happens? He needs to be taught! He had all this understanding, but it wasn’t complete (missing the baptism of HS)

-Look at the way this teaching is described here: “explained to him the way of God more accurately.” That’s a great summary of what we’re aiming to do in our classes! Every person in this room, whether we realize it or not, believe some erroneous things about God.

-“He used to believe this, but now that he’s in heaven he knows better” We’ll all know better!

-Kelly’s story

-This trend has continued throughout history. Remember that the reason we’re here is because of a line of teachers over the past 2,000 years who have poured into us and culminated in where we are today. Now what is one of the best ways for us to communicate something to a large group of people? Offer a class that many people can attend! Which gets us to the final point:

• Loving God Requires Maturity (Heb. 5:11-14, 1 Cor. 3:1-9)

-Put our thinking caps on: if we’re supposed to pursue maturity, what does that look like? What things would we need to know about in order to be “mature”?

-Money, marriage, parenting, grandparenting, prayer, Bible study, work, politics, sickness, health

-In order for us to address issues like that, there must be teaching so we can know how to faithfully engage the world we live in. There’s a few examples of this in the Bible:

–Hebrews

-The writer here is assuming that people will continue growing.

-Think of how children grow (I’m reminded of this every day!) It’s good for babies to drink milk! If you give them anything else you’ll make them very sick. But there’s something weird about a 3 year old nursing, right? Or even a worse a 30-year-old! Yet how many times are people content to spiritually be a 30-year-old infant who can’t eat milk? Not a call for everyone to go to seminary, but a call to never stop learning and growing.

-Look how he defines mature: constant practice to distinguish good from evil, being given training in how to engage our world.

-Recovering youth pastor, one of the most disheartening things was the sheltering that would take place. Don’t dump things on kids, but don’t shelter them forever! Help them work on their “powers of discernment.” Provide avenues for them to be exposed to the way the world works.

1 Corinthians 3:

-Paul picks up the same idea as before. 

-Notice this time the connection to maturity: jealousy and strife. Competition. Teachers aren’t meant to be in the place of God. In the day of “celebrity” preachers don’t forget that they’re only servants.

End on Eph. 4

-Maturity involves growing in knowledge and understanding of who God is. 

-In order to help us we will offer classes on a wide assortment of topics to get to the aim of presenting everyone mature

-One of the things we need to realize is that we’ll never stop learning, even in heaven

-I remember trying to contemplate eternity as I was growing up. I would lay awake in bed and try to wrap my head around it (I realize I was a weird kid). What was hard for me is I confess it sounds almost boring. At some point I get tired of doing whatever hobbies or activities I enjoy, so how would heaven be better? Here’s the thing: in heaven everything will be as it should be, and we’ll have the opportunity to continue learning everything we could ever want. I attended conference onetime where one of the speakers said he was so excited for heaven because he wanted to learn Mandarin, and in heaven, even if it takes him 10,000 years to learn it, that’s fine, because he’s got eternity to go!

-Gregory the Great: “Scripture is like a river again, broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.”

-While we’ll never master the God, or the Bible, we should never stop digging in.

-What Jesus invites us into when we are saved is a journey of growth. Day by day learning and growing more like Him.

-Bob did such a good job last week! Thanks to him for being willing to try something new! I did find it funny that I’ve been here for 3 years and never once mentioned where I went to college, like a typical Wheaton alum, he only needed 1 Sunday to make sure everyone knew exactly where he went to college! I do need to offer 1 corrective too – there’s only like 3 podcasts that I listen to at 3x speed, the rest are only 2x.

-Thanks to Bob, I got next year’s sermon series planned! Mark your calendars, we’ll be spending most of the year walking through Revelation.

-One of the things my parents are absolutely terrible at is house repair, which means that if I wanted to learn how to do it, I needed to look somewhere else. Thankfully, my Senior year of high school I met a youth leader who had started his own remodeling company and needed summer help to keep up with all the work he had. 

-I learned how to paint, install toilets, drywall, use a saw, AND he made me start listening to sermons all morning and then talk about them in the afternoon. Alistair Begg, John Piper, Dave Ramsey

-For the summer, I essentially became his apprentice in the trades. He took what he had learned from his career in the trades and taught me. Since then, I’ve gotten to use those skills to do some light remodeling on all 3 of the houses I’ve owned! But I’ve also been given the tools I need to have the confidence tackle new projects that I have no previous experience with. 

-Contrast to the way I was certified in CPR. 1 afternoon class (where I rushed “Stayin Alive”) and I had a certificate that labeled me CPR certified. 

-Why do we need to keep talking about being a disciple, discipleship?

-I did a whole series on this idea last year, but I think it’s important enough for us to be regularly and repeatedly reminded of this idea because it’s the one thing that is supposed to set the church apart from every other earthly organization.

-Think about that: what other earthly organization has been tasked by God to make disciples? None! That’s must be the primary focus of the church! Out of that disciple-making purpose flows other things (care for the widow and orphan, concern for the poor and marginalized, and other societal concerns) but those cannot replace the primary focus of making disciples, those need to flow out of the disciple-making.

-Another reason we’ll keep talking about it is because of Jesus’ last words to us before He ascended to heaven. This disciple making idea is the last thing He left with His first disciples, and the reason you’re all here today is because those disciples continued making more disciples, meaning if you trace your spiritual lineage far enough back, we could all find ourselves gathered on a hill outside Jerusalem watching Jesus ascend to the clouds.

-READ/PRAY

1. The Great Commandment (Matt. 22:34-40)

-If you were asked what the most important command or rule in all the Bible was, how would you do it? 

-“One rabbi quoted Proverbs 3:6 as the heart of the Law: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Another rabbi quoted Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous shall live by his faith.””

-Today it may be John 3:16 or Matt. 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged”

-Jesus went a slightly different direction.

-If you remember back to before we studied the Psalms we were walking through Mark’s Gospel. The 2 primary Jewish leaders were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Pharisees were the conservatives, Sadducees were the liberals, but where they were united was in their opposition to Jesus. Throughout all the Gospels we see each group posing various theological or philosophical questions to Jesus to test Him or trap Him with some question they viewed as unanswerable. They were out to prove that Jesus wasn’t the great teacher many people thought. Sadducees (who didn’t believe in the resurrection) had just asked Jesus their philosophical conundrum: if someone is married, spouse dies, and this happens 7 times, who will they be married to in the resurrection? There isn’t marriage in the resurrection! This stuns them, so the Pharisees think its’ their turn: they ask a common debate of the day: which commandments were light, and which were weighty? The law was described as held up by hundreds of nails (613), and various religious experts had proposed various solutions to the best way of summarizing.

-It’s important to note who is thrust forward to ask the question. Lit. “expert in the law” which at the time had both religious and social aspects to it. This expert had been mulling over this question, scheming about the best time to spring it on Jesus. Only 2 options: either he would argue for 1 that would be viewed as crazy, or he would have refused to answer demonstrating that Jesus didn’t have enough understanding of the law.

-Remember what I said a few minutes ago about what people viewed as the most important aspect? Acknowledge God, or live by faith. Jesus doesn’t go there, though.

-Instead, Jesus used the most used known and used verse of the day. Written on the foreheads and hands, spoken by every faithful Jew each morning and evening. Deut. 6 the Shema (hear) Heart, soul, “muchness” 

-Command to teach them diligently (indoctrinate them in your children), they should come up throughout our lives.

-Bind them on hands and frontlets between eyes: even your hands should be used to love God, and the way you view the world (like glasses) should be loving God. Not just individually: doorposts (when you leave the house), gates (marketplace should be a place of loving God)

-Look at the command we’re given, it starts with love. Why love, why not obedience?

-We are all far more driven by our emotions/desires than we will ever admit. Think of Paul in Rom. 7who is complaining that he can’t stop sinning! He knows the right thing to do, but his can’t stop pursuing the wrong thing! It’s because deep down our loves aren’t right. We love ourselves, we love our stuff, we don’t love God first. 

-Additionally, Jesus invites us into a relationship. We’re not robots or automatons built to carry out a specific function to make God’s life better (as many other religions argue). We’re designed to be in a relationship with God: we love because He first loved us.

-Notice as well the repeated “all” What’s left out? Nothing!

-Heart, soul, mind this time. Slightly different wording, same meaning behind it. We’re supposed to love God with everything we have and are! But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Almost as if He’s playing a trick on this lawyer, He goes on to show the way God’s love is demonstrated in our lives. 

-These 2 commands had never before been connected to each other. The first quote was from Deut. This second one is from Lev. 19:18 in a section that talks about the ways God’s people are to care for their neighbors. Things like: leave some of your field unharvested for the poor, pay your employees well, pursue justice in legal matters. Or you could summarize it by saying love your neighbors like your love yourself. The way we demonstrate our love of God is by loving our neighbors.

-“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love…If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfect in us.” 1 John 4:8, 11-12)

-Anti-mysticism because God actually cares how we treat other people.

-anti-selfish because we need to care about others just as much as we care about ourselves.

-anti-worldly because it requires giving up something of yourself for the sake of those around you. Instead of continually trying to get more and better things, it demands that you give away.

-This also summarizes the 10 commandments: Ex. 20: No other gods, carven images, name of the Lord in vain, Sabbath, honor parents, no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no false witness against a neighbor, no coveting what others have

-God’s law is summarized as loving God, and loving others. If you want to live a full life, be satisfied in what you have and are, it means love God first and foremost, and then demonstrate that love by loving others. How do we do that? I’m glad you asked! Jesus talks about that:

• The Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20)

-Begin with “all authority”

-Jesus is sitting on His throne whether or not we want to admit it. That means that everyone is a part of His kingdom and everyone will someday have to acknowledge that reality. Some will join with Him in furthering and working that Kingdom in heaven, and others will be forever separated from Him and will bear the just penalty for their treason against the King. This is why it’s important to understand and live according to God’s law! If you want to find success in the world He made, it means ordering your life as He says we should.

-Salvation isn’t the end goal, that’s just the starting point. That’s why He commands us to make disciples, not converts. If conversion were the end goal that would be far too easy (as Muhammad did, surround a city, threaten death if they don’t convert, and then move on).

-How do we make disciples? 

-Whose job is it, ours or Gods? Yes! Ultimately, we can’t save anyone, it’s only when the HS brings someone from death to live that the journey as a disciple begins. Not only that, but it’s us working in conjunction with the HS to continue growing as a disciple. We’re commanded to work out our own salvation, but at the same time remember that it is God who works in us.

-That doesn’t mean we’re completely passive in this whole endeavor. Even in this commission, we baptize (Trinitarian God), we teach, and we live as citizens of heaven. We don’t have the eyes to see the way God’s kingdom advances. It’s not on power or might or persuasion or intellect, it’s through the Word & our lives.

-What is a disciple? Literally: a pupil, learner, to be intentionally taught.

-As the OSB has been chatting, 3 words came to my mind: love, learn, and live. Love God and others, learn the things that Jesus taught, and live out the loving and learning that you’re doing. This is a daily occurrence, in Luke 9:23, Jesus said if anyone wants to follow after Him, they must take up their cross daily. This means bringing intentionality to your every decision. Unlike signing up for an 8 week class and getting a certificate that says now you’re a disciple, it’s instead an entire lifetime pursuit. We’ll take a look next week at the foundation of that growth. 

-But that gets us to the next step in this, which is discipleship: a few key things to point out: 

-Intentionally: You need to own this. Being a disciple doesn’t just happen, it takes a daily decision to follow Christ today. And tomorrow, it takes intentional effort to decide to get up and follow Jesus then. And you can’t do it by yourself! You need to look for ways to disciple others as you grow, otherwise you’re not obeying Jesus’ commission!

-Formally and informally: think of what we saw in the Shema, training happens when you go about your regular life. Yes, there will be and should be times where you’re intentionally growing in a certain area, or you’re training someone else in a specific area, but it should also take place as you’re shopping for groceries, or going on a walk, or playing video games. Everything you do can be used as a tool to encourage others in their walk with Jesus, even if the Holy Spirit hasn’t yet saved them.

-Cheri’s story

-1 step closer: this has become the refrain that many of the OSB and staff have latched onto as a way of summarizing this whole idea. Our aim in life is to daily take 1 step closer to Jesus (or loving God better with all our heart, soul, mind, strength), and not just ourselves, but to be looking at the interactions we have with others as an opportunity to have them take 1 step closer to Jesus. One easy way of doing this is just take time to pray with someone after a meeting! Or if someone’s sharing a need stop right there and pray for them!

-As he often does, C.S. Lewis summarizes this idea really well in The Weight of Glory

• The Great Need (1 Tim. 4:11-16, Gal. 5:22-26)

-How do we intentionally disciple others, how do we help them, and ourselves, take 1 step closer to Jesus through our interactions? 

-Paul’s letter to the younger Timothy, and one of the verses people spoke regularly into my life when I first started here. Notice the 5-fold command Paul gives to Timothy (we focus on the first half of that verse and tend to stop there.)

-Speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. I don’t think any of those words are accidental or incidental. Speech: who tends to be slightly flippant in their speech, or speak authoritatively without experience and humility to temper it. The young! Conduct: who tends to be up too late, eat too much junk food, spend too much money? The young! Love: who tends to focus on themselves instead of others? Young! Faith: who often struggles in their faith? The young! Purity: who struggles remaining chaste and completely pure in their interactions with each other? Paul is telling Timothy to put childish ways behind, set an example that looks like Jesus to those around Him.

-Devote yourself to: public reading of Scripture (which is preaching and teaching), and use your gift!

-Be diligent (intentionally practice, don’t give up! Remain faithful in them!)

-So others will see. 2 extremes to avoid: pride and hiding. 

-Pride: insisting on your own way, judging others for your perceived lack of their gifts. Looking to be served because of your giftings. None of us is better than the other, we ALL need each other to function as God intends this body to function.

-The other extreme is hiding your gifts and growth. We feel like we’re bragging when we share about how God is using us. It’s not you, it’s Christ IN you that these things happen! We need to get better at sharing the ways we’re seeing God working.

-There’s something specific that Timothy needs to watch closely: Life and doctrine.

-Where do people fall away from God’s grace? Life or doctrine.

-We’ve all read the stories of pastors who didn’t watch their life closely and disqualified themselves from ministry (money, affairs, bullying)

-But what about failing to watch their doctrine? There’s a lot of churches who should stop using the title of “church” because they’re not preaching the faith that has can be traced back to the first 12 disciples. 

-We need to be taking steps in both our life and our doctrine on a regular basis.

-What measurement do I use to see if I’m taking 1 step closer to Jesus? Gal. 5, or use love as the metric (which is in the fruit list!)

-As you think through the life piece, think of these 9 evidences of the Spirit at work in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

-Keep in step with the spirit:

 -Ever taken dancing lessons? It’s SUPER painful if your dance partner doesn’t know the steps, or if you’re out of sync. Our job is to be following the HS’s lead.

“One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” Carson

-What do you want in your life? Grace-driven effort, that leads toward holiness (1 step closer), or drifting away from what God has commanded you to do and be?

PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

-One of Cara’s and my favorite genre of movie to watch is sports movies. Generally leave you inspired, feeling like you can take over the world! One of the best is Remember the Titans. It follows a football team from a recently unsegregated school in Virginia. While tensions are high at the beginning and racial biases are repeatedly brought to the forefront, by the end of the season the guys are all best friends. One of the pivotal scenes in the movie is when one of the white players gets in a pretty serious car accident. His best friend from the team (who happens to be black) comes to visit him. As he walks into the room, the nurse says: “Only kins allowed in here” The player lying on the bed says: “Alice, are you blind? Don’t you see the family resemblance? That’s my brother.”

-In today’s text, we’re going to look at what it means to be family. You may have heard the church referred to as “the family of God,” but what is that? Why would we want to be a part of family that’s as broken and messed up as the church?

READ/PRAY (489)

1. Family Opposition, Part 1 (20-21)

-Last week we saw Jesus call the 12 disciples/apostles. He’s constituting a new Israel, a new people of God to represent Him to the world. Remember that they’re represented by: time with, sent by Him, and preaching with authority to fight against the devil. 

-Those are the markers of faithful ministry even down to today. We’re supposed to be marked by time with Jesus, if we’re a disciple we have been sent by Jesus, and our role as being sent is to preach/share the gospel message far and wide! (we’ll look at that idea in more detail next week)

-But what do you think happens if someone misses what it means to follow after God? We’ve seen increasing opposition to Jesus’ ministry throughout the Gospel, but it takes a unique turn in today’s passage, as you should have heard as we read it, because who adds to the opposition today? Let’s look and see:

-Home: back to Capernaum at Peter’s house.

 -Last week Jesus went up to the mountains to get away from the crowds and began his specific ministry to the 12 disciples. Lots of options for where those mountains could have been, Capernaum is basically in the middle of a mountainous region (think more CO than MN)

-I said this a few weeks ago, but keep in mind that Jesus’ early ministry is VERY localized! He hasn’t gone too far outside of Capernaum yet, but the surrounding areas keep flocking to Him, as we see by the return of the character:

-The crowd: once again, getting in Jesus’ way. The crowd keeps showing up again and again and keeps interfering with Jesus’ ministry. A couple notes on this:

-Size does not equal success. Size can be measured a few different ways: ABCs (adults, buildings, cash), today it can by YouTube views (or Insta likes, depending on your social of choice). People I’ve talked to today have tried building a “platform” to expand their following, I talked to some friends at a recent conference who were complaining about someone wanting to plug their book to them (and then someone at the conference told me he wanted to send me his new book!). 

-But there’s also a flip side to this that is just as much a problem in the church: viewing decline as the biggest pursuit because you’re being “persecuted.” Or you see it with someone being antagonistic on the socials actively looking to stir up division. Both of these are over emphasizing numbers and missing what Jesus has actually called us to: faithfulness & fruitfulness (are you a little fruity?) 

-Faithful to the faith once for all delivered to the saints, fruitful in having an eternal impact on those around you. Once again, we have this point of tension that we need to be comfortable in! Speaking the truth in love is hard! 

-This crowd, as we’ve seen multiple times so far want something from Jesus. They’ve seen the miracles, they’ve witnessed the exorcisms, maybe some people are just around for the show! They’ve heard Jesus best the smartest people of the day and they’re hoping for another showdown. But it forces us to ask the question: what do you want from Jesus? Do you just come for the show? Are you expecting Him to magically fix all your problems and you’ll stick around until those are solved? Or do you want Jesus and nothing else? Think of the old spiritual ‘Give Me Jesus’ that said “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” And to be honest, Jesus won’t stop pushing at you until He’s all you have left! 

-Fame continues to spread, even those in Nazareth are hearing about what Jesus has been doing, which includes His family.

-“seize him” is overly passive, better translation would be “arrest” or “coerce”, one translation put “restrain him.” This wasn’t a friendly visit! 

-What were they saying about Jesus? Out of his mind! But then Mark moves quickly on, leaving us hanging: 

-Markan sandwich, connects another story to it. Throughout this book, Mark will begin one story, stick a different story in the middle of it that is connected thematically, then return to the original story, so we’ll take a look at a similar idea from a different perspective. Not only was His family opposed to Him:

• Legal Opposition (22-30)

-Scribes from Jerusalem

-Up until this point he would have been a bit of a local nuisance, but as His fame spreads, the news eventually gets to the main office in Jerusalem. This would signify that the highest people would have started seeing it as a legitimate threat to their authority. So not only were regular people coming all the way from Jerusalem, now the authorities are getting involved!

-They’ve seen Jesus’ miracles, the exorcisms, the healings (or at the very least word has reached them) and have come up with a solution: possessed by Beelzebul. No one’s sure where this name came from, could have been a way of referring to the prince of demons (which connects it to the rest of the phrase). A literal translation is the “prince of dung.” Not a kind way of referring to Jesus!

-Once again, Jesus knows exactly what’s going on so He invites them in and welcomes the conversation. 

-I think this is one of those areas we would do well to take note of! Is Jesus too scared to bring up or talk about any issue? Not that I’ve found yet, and I’ve been reading the Bible through for a while at this point! Why do we have a tendency to act like some topics are off limits for the church to talk about? If we believe Jesus is THE way THE truth and THE life, that means that He is the source of all truth, meaning no topic is too taboo, no issue is disconnected, and nothing is too trivial to address and bring it back to the ultimate source of that truth. 

-When I was growing up that issue was sex. As long as it wasn’t brought up kids wouldn’t find out about it, or as long as our kids were sheltered enough they wouldn’t have to deal with certain sins. Hate to break it to you, but I first learned about sex in the church with other kids my age! Whether or not we wanted to admit it, kids were going to be kids and talk about it! Today we’ve got more things we’re not supposed to talk about: race issues (better: ethnic issues), money, and politics. Once again, let me ask: do you think Jesus had any problem talking about any of those issues? In just a couple chapters, Jesus is going to break all sorts of ethnic barriers down and begin ministering to Gentiles. He talks about money more than He talks about heaven, and as I mentioned last week, He intentionally chose 2 of His 12 disciples from the polar opposite ends of the political spectrum (imagine the conversations/debates they had as they walked everywhere!) 

-So if Jesus is willing to engage any and every topic imaginable, what do you think His disciples should be willing to do? Probably engage every issue that comes our way! The reality is: if we’re careful and pay attention to what issue is being address, we’ll find some way it connects to the truth, and use that as a bridge to point someone to Jesus. It’s not hard, it just takes a little bit of intentionality and paying careful attention to what someone is saying! 

-Now, Jesus was a master of this! He knew how to provide the solutions that no one else was anticipating, and how to get to the underlying issues that were actually going on. Which means, the scribes should have brought their A-game to interact with Him! Instead, they just picked 1 dumb argument (as we’ll see) and stuck with it! Made the most sense to them, but didn’t actually make a lick of sense!

-What are parables? We often think of them as connected to the Sermon on the Mount, or short stories that drive home a point, but the original word contains a much wider range of interpretations, from stories, to pithy sayings, to riddles or even illustrations! Almost anything to make a point.

-Jesus basically tells 3 stories, 1 that communicates the absurdity of the logic, the second that communicates what Jesus is ACTUALLY doing, and then lands on what the scribes are doing, which is important to understand what is being said about the unforgivable sin!

-First stories connect to the absurdity of what the scribes are saying. Those who are demon possessed are out of their minds! No control, lashing out at others, and when Jesus comes, He brings compassion, self-control, understanding, and holistic healing. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy. He’s the ultimate author or leprosy, of a man having a lame hand, of a cripple being unable to walk! Why in the world would Satan fight against himself? It’s a terrible argument! It’s the same thing with a kingdom divided against itself, and a house, and then again back to Satan. I’ve seen this happen before with sports! Think of the iconic play where Chris Webber is playing for Michigan in the national championship against North Carolina. With seconds left, he called a timeout when the team was out of timeouts, leading to him receiving a technical foul and giving the other team 2 free throws. Or other times where someone completely forgot which basket they were supposed to be shooting at and shoot in the wrong hoop and score for the other team. They’re only hurting themselves, and that’s the exact point Jesus is making in this section! If Jesus is really the “prince of demons” wouldn’t He just be fighting against Himself? It’s a terrible argument! Now I don’t have time to dig into this today, but there are all sorts of examples of this in the world around us today! People using terrible logic to try to argue against Christianity, I’ll be talking about some of them in Sermon Scraps tomorrow, but I’d also be interested in some of the reasons you’ve heard! Email me if you think of some!

-The second story is about a strong man (27). Spent a whole week studying this verse in college! Who is the strong man? Why does he need to be bound up? In context, the strong man is Satan, and Jesus coming to earth has bound Satan for this season. So instead of Satan fighting against Satan, Jesus is the stronger man who came to earth to bind Satan for a season by bringing healings, exorcisms and preaching the good news of the kingdom of heaven. That’s what Jesus is accomplishing through His ministry! He’s not in cahoots with Satan, He’s actively fighting against Him! 

-This brings us to the final story, and a passage that has brought no small amount of debate over the centuries: the unpardonable or unforgiveable sin. Jesus even says every other sin will be forgive EXCEPT this one. And why is it worse to blaspheme the HS than Jesus?

-First time we’ve seen Jesus begin a statement with the word “Truly” (lit. Amen) This word is used all over the OT to give validity to what was said, but it’s always at the end of a statement. Jesus beginning a phrase with it signifies that Jesus is speaking with His own authority, and can almost be thought of as saying “Thus says the Lord” 

-As for the unforgiveable sin, notice that Mark adds a descriptive piece in vs. 30. This tells us that this unforgiveable sin is connected to seeing Jesus’ works (which are done by the HS, remember we saw Jesus submit Himself to the Spirit right after His baptism), and attributing them to the devil. One author summarized it by saying “It is deliberately repudiating the truth about Jesus.” (Andy Naselli) 

-What about someone who is antagonizing over whether that inadvertently said something that they’re convinced was this sin? I’ve talked to multiple people in my time in ministry who have worried about this! Yet here’s the reality: if you are at all worried you have committed this sin, I can almost guarantee you haven’t committed it. Those who have committed this sin don’t care. They remain callous and hard hearted toward the works of the Lord. So instead of living in fear of future condemnation, we need to remember that there is NO condemnation for anyone who is in Christ Jesus. So: do you trust Jesus today? And do you trust Him today more than you did yesterday? Great! You haven’t committed this sin!

Yet at the same time, we would do well to view this as a warning: keep short accounts. Keep living a life of repentance and keep in step with the Spirit. 

-As for why it’s worse to blaspheme the HS and not the Father or the Son, I think John Piper has a helpful summary:

-The Holy Spirit is the one who softens our hearts, who awakens our hearts to the realities of the gospel message, and if we refuse to acknowledge Him, we will be condemned.

-Jesus doesn’t say these scribes have committed it, but He’s warning them of the implications of what they’re saying! Be careful of what you say and who you’re accusing of being in league with the devil!

-All that just served to signify the opposition Jesus faces, because then Mark shifts right back to where we cut in vs. 21:

• Family Opposition, Part 2 (31-35)

-Jesus dealt with the opposition of the scribes, no surprise there, the family tension is much more difficult and acute.

-Notice who’s described here: mother and brothers. Think back to December where we studied Jesus’ birth. How long would it take you to forget the arrival of the angels, the miraculous inception, the crazy shepherds showing up, the Magi from the East? How long does it take you to forget what God has done in your life? 

-Not just Mary, Jesus’ brothers come too! (anti-Catholic idea of perpetual virginity of Mary) Jesus had at least 4 brothers, and an unknown number of sisters (Mark 6:3). Now, I don’t know about you, but I would have struggled with my brother claiming to be God! On top of that, imagine what growing up with Him would have been like!

-Once again, the crowd is playing a role: this time they serve as a buffer between Jesus and His biological family. Just as the crowd wanted something from Him, His family isn’t trying to figure out Jesus’ ultimate aim, they’re trying to save face. Remember, we saw at the beginning of the chapter that Jesus didn’t even have time to eat, the crowd was so thick. So the word would have started in the back, slowly traveled person by person until they reach Jesus, who once again would have been doing what He’d been sent to earth to do: preach! 

-Not completely dismissing of family, but redirects the conversation. This would have been completely unthinkable in the 1^st century context! We’re so individualized here today that we can’t fathom this, but in this time family was EVERYTHING. We saw in chapter 6 that people knew His whole family! The Jews were especially conscientious of family lineage. And Jesus wants to take that good idea, and put a new spin on it.

-Just as He was creating a new Israel with the 12 apostles, now He’s creating a new lineage, a new genealogy defined by a spiritual reality instead of a physical reality. God’s family is no longer comprised of ethnic distinctions, but spiritual distinctions, that’s what God wanted at the beginning anyway! Transformed lives, not just external obedience! 

-I shared at the beginning an illustration from Remember the Titans: Jesus is telling us here that our primary allegiances today need to change! If we’re a part of God’s family, our allegiance is to our brothers and sister in the church. Honestly, I don’t know how people survive without the church! We had people come help us clean our house when we moved in, paint every wall, replace toilets, flooring. Even this past week: our van died and next thing I know, Eric Zaske is offering one of his vehicles for me to use and Chris and Ian Wolfgram came over to help me replace the starter on the van!

-Those are small things, but they mean the world to me! But think about what it means that we’re a part of God’s family:

-What religion would allow you to approach God (creator and sustainer of everything that exists) as a family member? Keller tweet. Do you know that Jesus is your perfect Heavenly Father who cares more about you than you could ever realize? That nothing is too trivial to ask, and nothing is left out of His oversight?

-The reality is: we’re all a part of a family, the question is which family are you a part of? The scribes today demonstrated that they’re a part of the wrong family, and joining the right family is so simply a child can do it. Yet it takes a choice, so the question in front of us all today is: do you want to be a part of God’s family? It’s easy! As we saw in today’s text, it’s whoever does the will of God. So repent of your sin, believe in Jesus and you will be saved! 

The Famous One

Mark 3:7-19

-Think back to your friend group from High School. What kinds of nicknames did you have? I never had anything that stuck with me (apart from “Mike the Spike” from my aunt that stopped when I was about 5)

-I love giving people nicknames! It was an especially helpful gift when I was a youth pastor, and it drove the High School students NUTS! Maddy became Maddy-line, Clay became Clayton, and I stuck with it until they graduated. But something funny happened after they graduated: every student who claimed they hated their nicknames suddenly started using them as their social media handles TO THIS DAY!

-Our friends help provide a sense of identity and purpose to our lives, yet they also have the potential to hurt us in ways we never would have thought we could be! The same was true of Jesus and his friends. 

READ/PRAY (489)

-Before we dive into today’s text, I want to take some time to highlight some big picture ideas that we’ve already been seeing in Mark’s Gospel. I’m intentionally going through big sections so we can get through it in a timely manner, but this week’s text gives us a little breathing room and time to contemplate some of the bigger focuses Mark is bringing.

-First, remember how Mark begins, his prologue to the story: The gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

-This was very intentional! Shows his whole hand before anyone else has been dealt. The reason Mark wrote this book was to tell people about Jesus, to spread the gospel message as far as he possibly could! 

-This signifies to us us that everything Mark is telling in this story is to communicate to us that specific reality: Jesus is unique among all human history. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. He’s the one that all the law and prophets pointed to, and the only person who perfectly obeyed them all. But He didn’t stop there, He also fulfilled every prophecy God had made, He divides human history (and the human heart!). Everyone will bow the knee to Him, either willingly or by force, and He invites us to join with Him in His mission to seek and save the lost.

-As Jesus’ ministry starts, John the Baptist prepares the way for Him, points to Him, and even sends at least 1 disciple over to Jesus! After this preparation has taken place, Jesus is commissioned by the HS to go into the wilderness to be tempted. Not a fair fight! Not equal in power or authority, but as we’ll see in today’s text, Jesus is making a new Israel. Where the first Israel (and our first parents) failed, Jesus survives temptation, time in the wilderness, and then comes back to begin His ministry

-However, His ministry doesn’t look how people expect it to! Remember the tagline I shared from ‘The Chosen’ (kinda cheesy) “Get used to different”

-Changes expectations about rituals, He heals with a word, and people can’t get enough of it!

1. Expanding Fame (7-12)

-After the showdown between the Pharisees and Jesus, He runs away. Remember last week we saw the final of 5 confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees. First was the forgiving of the paralytic’s sins (who was lowered into Peter’s home from 4 friends), then hanging out with “scum” like Matthew/Levi, then Jesus is confronted for not fasting on the regular, then His disciples are found picking grain as they walked through a field, and the final straw was the healing of a man with a withered hand at the synagogue on the Sabbath.

-Need to admit: this wasn’t a fair fight to begin with, but Jesus still soundly defeated them. Jesus confronts their hard hearts at each step of the discussion. He calls out their sinful thoughts, He engages their sinful questions, and then is angered over their lack of compassion toward the poor and marginalized.

-As we’ve been working through these various stories, I hope you have been thinking through who these people would be today! Part of the point of these stories is to help us be drawn to someone and repulsed by someone else. That’s really the point of every story! They’re trying to make a bigger point than just an entertaining story (at least good stories!). What ideas has Jesus turned upside down in your life? We so often want to tack Jesus onto what we already want to do instead of submitting everything we have and are to His Lordship in our life. Our aim (assuming you have put your faith in Him), is now to do everything we can to bring Him honor and glory. Part of the way we do that is by working to imitate Him. The reason we’re called “Christians” is because we’re supposed to be “little Christs” (within reason, none of us will be called to atone for the sins of the world!) But we are commissioned, sent by Him to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations. This is the greatest adventure anyone could ever be called into! God wants to use you to accomplish an eternal mission! This isn’t just a Sunday morning affair, this is an entire life encompassing journey where God can use normal ordinary people like you and me.

-Back to the text: we are starting to see a pattern emerging for Jesus: major event happens, He isolates Himself. He’s not trying to create a following or build a big crowd, that’s not why He was sent to Earth. His aim is to accomplish His Father’s will, to seek and save the lost. Or as he said in 1:15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Despite regular distractions or shifts from his primary focus, He continues to go back to His primary ministry: preaching. But He can’t do it indefinitely, He needs time to recharge and pray.

-But those crowds once again serve as a foil to Jesus’ plans, He can’t escape them!

-These crowds are coming from all over now. It’s not just Capernaum trying to get to Jesus. Look at all the various places that are listed: Galilee (been there) Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond Jordan, Tyre, and Sidon isn’t even on the map! Jesus thought it was bad after the leper, but it just got worse! Can’t hide, can’t get a moment to Himself (next week we’ll see He doesn’t even have time to eat!), the crowd keeps following Him everywhere He goes.

-What draws them to Jesus? “Heard all that he was doing” (8)

-What does that look like? So desperate to get something from Him that they’re on the verge of crushing Him. This is people who are just using Jesus to achieve their purposes. Not interested in hearing what He has to say, not interested in learning from Him, just want their interests met. 

-The crowd grows so large that He has his disciples create an escape route for Him, but even that may not be enough to get away! People can still swim, at least a little distance. 

-Remember, we’ve already seen that Jesus doesn’t get sidetracked or give into demands, but He still heals many people, such that anyone who was sick is desperate to get to Him.

-Imagine if you had a debilitating disease and had it for years. What would you do to take care of it? How desperate do you think you’d become? Think of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years (we’ll get there in a bit, in Mark 5). The Bible tells us she had been to as many Physicians as she could, to the point that she had spent every penny she had on trying to be healed, but it only got worse. As she hears about the unbelievable number of healings that were taking place because of Jesus how desperate do you think she would have been? How desperate would YOU have been? Imagine if you were struck deaf right now. What would you give to hear again? 

-Every so often there’s a new video that goes viral of something like a child  getting cochlear implantsturned on for the first time. They tug at the heart strings, don’t they? Or maybe you’ve seen similar videos where someone who was colorblind gets special glasses to see color?

-“You guys can see this everyday?” And that’s just with color! Imagine not being able to see, or hear, or walk, and in an instant you’re healed.

-The reason I share a video like that is because it’s easy to leave these stories as text on a page and forget that it’s referring to real people. If you’d been blind your whole life wouldn’t you stop at nothing to get to the healer?

-The difficulty is that everyone needs healing of some sort, but some people are better able to hide it than others. And the spiritual healing everyone needs is often viewed as less important than the physical healing. However, Scripture tells us that the angels in heaven throw a party, get more excited than this guy who saw color for the first time, whenever someone puts their faith in Jesus. 

-But sick people aren’t the only ones taking notice of Jesus. There’s a certain level of irony in vs. 10. Everyone wants something from Jesus EXCEPT the unclean spirits who just want to be left alone.

-Each story we’ve been studying serves to validate Mark’s first verse and is meant to force the reader to answer the question: who is Jesus? The evil spirits already know the answer to that, but they hate it! People have ideas about who Jesus is, but he keeps subverting their expectations, turning them on their head! People are hoping, they’d been anxiously waiting, but is this really Him? The demons don’t question it, but they’re upset about it!

-Why does he continue to silence them? Remember Jesus’ primary mission is to preach, and everything else serves to validate the preaching. It’s not the right time for His glory and identity to be revealed. Not that it’s stopping the news from traveling (once again, a bit of irony here). His fame keeps spreading, there’s nothing He can do to stop it! Which leads Him to this repeated pattern of withdrawing, spending time alone. Well, not always alone, as we see in the next section:

• Shrinking Focus (13-19)

-Mountains have a special place in God’s story.

-Abraham went up to a mountain to offer Isaac (same mountain where Solomon’s temple would eventually be built)

-Moses goes up to a mountain to meet with the Lord and establish the rules for relationship between God and His people (Exodus)

-Mark is signifying that God through Jesus is re-establishing His people here

-It’s important to note how this is taking place. All God’s work, nothing the people did “called to him those whom he desired” and 14 literally states “he made 12” Not great English (and most of this isn’t great Greek writing either) but Mark is making a point that this is Jesus’ doing, not the apostles.

-Where the first Israel failed, this new Israel will not! Where the first Israel was meant to be a light to the nations (Isa. 49:6), this new Israel will go out into all the nations. Where the first Israel was meant to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6), this new Israel are all priests and a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). 

-Mark makes an additional note about these 12: Jesus calls them apostles. Not used many times in the Bible, but denotes the idea that these are meant to be messengers or representatives. Which makes sense when you look at their mission:

-3 fold mission: be with, sent, preach and have authority (preach with authority like Jesus did)

-Be with: marked by time being close to Jesus. Following His ways, learning His methods, becoming a student of Him. Same call for us today! One author I’ve read states that we are to apprentice ourselves to Jesus.

-Sent. We aren’t meant to live in isolation, Jesus has commissioned us and sent us out to be His ambassadors to the world, representing and pointing to Him. This is why at the end of our service, instead of dismissing, we are sent to go out and represent Jesus to the best of our ability to the world.

-Preach and have authority: we can’t represent Jesus without preaching! “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary use words” doesn’t fit with what Jesus sends His disciples to do! The authority comes from all the previous things: being with, sent as his representatives, and preaching. One note – in this context it’s not preaching as referring to what I’m doing now. All of us are called to preach the gospel at all times, and it’s necessary to use words! Brothers and sisters, our words are meant to point people to God. Do yours?

-Same 12 throughout all the Gospels. Not everyone who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry (otherwise there would have been no Matthias to replace Judas)

-Simon first, Peter translation of Cephas “rock” Have you ever been given a nickname? That’s what Jesus apparently does with his friends too! Rock is a bit of a misnomer here, because we all know what happens to Peter during the rest of Jesus’ ministry! Denies Jesus 3 times, tends to be the most outspoken one, hardly tempting to call him a “rock.” But Jesus sees something the world doesn’t see in Peter, and he winds up preaching what is probably the most impactful sermon ever done. Just so happened to be his first sermon too, 3,000 people are saved because of his first sermon! It’s all downhill from there.

-James and John, brothers whose nicknames were “sons of Thunder” Either strong reaction, maybe they were big dudes, did something that when we get to heaven we can find out about that got them referred to as “sons of thunder.”

-Peter’s brother Andrew (not sure why Mark has them split up, but Peter, James, and John serve as Jesus’ “inner 3” so that may be why) 

-Don’t know much about the rest of the disciples with the exception of 3: Matthew/Levi, the second Simon and Judas Iscariot.  

-Remember what Levi/Matthew’s occupation was before Jesus called him? Tax collector. The second Simon is described as what? Zealot, actively working to overthrow the Roman rule. How do you think those 2 guys got along? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these 2 men were brought together as part of Jesus’ reformation of the people of God. You couldn’t have 2 more politically diverging groups. And they lived and ministered together for 3+ years! 

-The church offers friendship based on alien standards. The world tries to copy the sense of comradery and depth that Christians have, but it’s built on a fault line and won’t endure the realities of the world. We in the church in America have too closely wedded politics and our faith for too long, and we need to reassess our priorities to remain faithful to the Bible. Dear friends, we need to evaluate people according to God’s standards, not political standards (I’m grateful it’s not another election year!). Politics have become many people’s religion and litmus test for orthodoxy, but it provides overly simplistic solutions to a much bigger and deeper problem. That’s why we need the gospel.

-Keller: “The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” 

-Politics only vilifies one side and only commends their side. What happens if you question or doubt? You’re cast aside! Jesus not only welcomes people in, He brings on their questions and draws near when you feel furthest away. Not only that, He doesn’t allow you to continue operating by the worldly standards you used when you first came to Him. All worldly standards fall short in some way, only the gospel is strong enough to endure under the weight of reality. It takes the messiness and brokenness of people and instead of blaming others, it deals with all of it on a cross. And that cross needs to remain true of us today. Jesus says we’re supposed to take up our cross DAILY and follow Him. Do you think it’s supposed to be easy? It’s not easy, but God gives us Himself to help us work through it. But it’s not just Himself, He brings us into a community.

-One of the difficulties in our world today is finding community. The hardest transition point in my life was college to post-college. How do you make friends? And then people add expectations and desires that no group can meet! Enter: the church!

-Tweet from a number of years ago.

-One of the things I’ve learned in ministry is people tend to complain about not being “connected” to a church in August and January. What’s the lead up to those months? And then when you ask: what have you been putting into the church? Oh nothing, people are supposed to pursue me! Yes, up to a point. But if you don’t engage, if you don’t let others in, if you don’t reach out no one is going to engage with you. All relationships are 2 sided (except God towards us, we can’t contribute anything to that)

-And the church is supposed to be a supernatural community that gets along where the world can’t. Where people from different ethnic backgrounds, different generations, different economic realities can gather together because we’re a part of something much bigger than the world we live in. And Jesus has the audacity to use us as his messengers. Isn’t that crazy?

-Friends, even when we get to lists of names in the Bible, they’re important for us to slow and contemplate exactly what’s being said! Jesus intentionally modeled for us what relationships in the church are supposed to look like. They’re not easy, there will be betrayal, we’ll need to get over some of our preferences and ideals, and all of this is good because it’s a reminder that it’s not about us! We’re not supposed to come to church to BE served, we’re supposed to come to church to serve, and everything we do is meant to represent Jesus to those we rub shoulders with.