Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Mark Clark Podcast. Hopefully you are doing well today. We are asking an honest question on the podcast: are we actually amazed by God anymore, or have we made him so familiar, so manageable, so small that we're not in awe of him anymore? Well, in Ephesians 1, Paul is overwhelmed by the greatness and glory of God, and his goal isn't information, it's actually awe and Transformation. We're super excited about this one. Let's get into it from Ephesians chapter 1. Okay, so last week in chapter 1, verse 11, we hit this: in him we have obtained an inheritance. And what we said was that that's about the exclusivity of Jesus, that it's only in Jesus that you could ever obtain an inheritance. And it's not in any other god, it's not in any other religion, it's only in Jesus that you could ever obtain an inheritance from God be saved, be justified, ultimately be with Jesus both in this life and the next.
Mark Clark [00:00:58]:
And so this is what he says now. Having been predestined according to the purpose— so remember a few weeks ago we dealt with this predestined issue where what we said was that God, because of chapter 1:4, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him, in love He predestined us for adoption. So we said we don't ultimately choose God. God chose us before the foundation of the world who would believe in Him. And we talked about how many people struggle with that, but the reality is we all deserve not to be saved, but we all start with the assumption that everybody deserves it. The reality is everybody deserves the wrath of God, and by His grace and by His mercy, He chooses some to live for His glory. And so, having been predestined, meaning predetermined before anything happened, according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. Okay, so this is a huge verse.
Mark Clark [00:01:59]:
We could honestly unpack this verse for 5, 6, 7 weeks. All right, there's so much theology here, and so much theologizing has happened around this verse throughout history. What does He mean? What is He talking about? That all things, that He works all things according to the counsel of His will. What does that actually mean? And the reality is, is as much debate has happened around this verse, what it's saying is that every single event that occurs in your life and in history, everything that occurs happens because it was predestined in some capacity, and God uses it, and it falls underneath the counsel of His will. So everything that happens. So this is similar to Hebrews chapter 1 where it says that Jesus upholds the universe by the word of His power. And what that literally means, He upholds the universe, is the Greek word that's used is it's a word that says He takes it from one place and He brings it and He lands it on another. So it's used all over the New Testament, that word upholds.
Mark Clark [00:03:06]:
It's used of the guys who picked up their friend on a mat who was paralyzed and brought him to Jesus so that Jesus could heal him. They brought him from one place to another. They upheld him. It's used of the guy who brings the wine. Remember when Jesus is at that party? All right, the wine runs out and Jesus wants to keep the party going, and so He turns a whole bunch of wine— water into wine, right? All right, He wants to celebrate, all right? And so He turns all that water into wine, and then the guy brings the wine to the master of the feast to figure out if it's good. And the master of the feast says, "Man, usually what happens is it starts with good wine, and then when everyone's hammered, we move to bad wine because nobody knows it." All right, so we move from the bottles to the boxes. That tends to be what happens at parties. But what— man, this stuff tastes better than the stuff we started with.
Mark Clark [00:03:58]:
Who touched this? Who made this wine? This is the greatest wine I've ever had. All right, so Jesus has come in and he's turned this. We're not at the boxes, we're at the better bottles. What's going on here? And so the issue is, is that he carried it to the master of the feast. He brought it from one place and set it down to another place. Same idea here, that Jesus upholds the universe by the word of His power. He brings the universe from one place, holds it in His hand, and lands it in another. Therefore, everything that happens is according to the counsel of His will.
Mark Clark [00:04:28]:
And so the Bible is saying, listen, how many things happen in your life according to the counsel of the will of God? How many things? All things. Right? That's what the text says. All things. Him who works all things, good or bad. All things that happen come under the counsel of His will. How many things in history happen according to the counsel of His will? All things. That's the point of this text. Not saying that God, when evil things happen in history, that God causes those evil things to happen.
Mark Clark [00:05:02]:
That's not the case. But He does oversee and therefore sanctions the things that actually take place. It's all under the counsel of His will. It's all pointing to the fact that He is sovereign and that He uses it ultimately to His good purpose. That's the point. And that's why he says in verse 11, "Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." So He'll take a situation and He'll use it to His glory. Constantly, there's so many examples of this through Scripture. Take a guy like Joseph.
Mark Clark [00:05:32]:
He's kind of a classic example of this, alright? Joseph, all of his brothers— many of you who have lots of siblings, you can identify with Joseph. He was the youngest. His daddy loved him. Made him a Technicolor dreamcoat, and he loved to sing. Alright, that's not true about the singing part, but he loved— he had a Technicolor dreamcoat and he'd walk around and his brothers, he just said, hey man, I got a Technicolor dreamcoat, Daddy loves me more than you, and by the way, I keep having these dreams where you guys are all bowing down to me one day and worshiping me. Awesome, eh? And his brothers are like, yeah, we hate you. Alright, so they're walking along one day and they're like, let's kill Joseph because we don't like him. So they beat on him, they throw him in a well, and he's sitting down there with his little coat and All right, singing songs, trying to get redeemed, and his brothers are like, what's up? Then all these people from Egypt come by, they're like, let's sell our brother into slavery.
Mark Clark [00:06:21]:
So they sell him into slavery. Worst brothers ever. So then he goes to Egypt and he's in prison for a lot of years. But then what happens is God is working behind the scenes because there's going to be a famine. He's ultimately, he's got this ability to interpret dreams. The king of Egypt needs a dream interpreted, uses Joseph. Gains trust, and then makes Joseph the vice president of Egypt so that one day, years later, when his brothers have nothing to eat, they come before him groveling, not knowing it's Joseph, and saying, "We need food. Give me food." And he uses all of his newfound power to feed and save and liberate the very brothers who sold him out and sold him into slavery and beat him up.
Mark Clark [00:07:06]:
And so, God uses— and I mean, we can kind of come and look at this and go, okay, We understand when things are going bad in our life, we might be able to last 1 year by going, okay, God, I know you're going to use this to the counsel of your will. All right, maybe 2. But here's Joseph. You know how many years Joseph was in prison before there was any hope at all? 13. All right, so here he is in prison. What is he thinking on year 6, year 7, year 8, year 9, year 10, year 11? You're 12. What are you doing? I'm useless for the Kingdom of God. I'm sitting in a well.
Mark Clark [00:07:44]:
I can't reach anyone. I can't love anyone. I can't serve anyone. What is Your plan here? There must not be a God. He must have abandoned me. He must be distant. He must not have any power to save me. That's where our hearts constantly go.
Mark Clark [00:08:02]:
And meanwhile, here's God using him ultimately to save all of these brothers, one of whom was the line through which Jesus would be born. And so, you have this constant— I mean, Jesus is a great example of this too. What about the bad things? What about Jesus being beat on? Nothing good can come of that. Nothing good can come of my suffering. My suffering must not be under the counsel of His will. Jesus is getting beat on. Jesus is getting betrayed. By who? Just like Joseph by his brothers.
Mark Clark [00:08:34]:
You and me. We beat on Him, we killed Him, our sin piled up on Him, we're the reason He died. And yet, then He rises to power, rises from the dead, and uses all His newfound power to set us free, to liberate us, to feed us. Right? Remember, when you read the Gospels, when you read the Bible, you're not the good guys. Right? You're the reason Jesus had to die. So you're not— you read the Joseph story where you're like, hey, I'm one of— I'm Joseph. I got my Technicolor coat. God loves me.
Mark Clark [00:09:04]:
I'm awesome. I'll use— no, you're one of the brothers who beats on Joseph and throws him in a well. You're not Jesus when you read the Gospels. You're the people beating on Jesus, causing Jesus to go to the cross to save you. And so everything, even bad things, get used to the counsel of his will. That's what Paul is saying. And the point of it is not to say, let's just theologize about this so everybody ends up in a padded room trying to figure out how the Holocaust could possibly be used under the counsel of His will. That's not the point of Paul saying this.
Mark Clark [00:09:37]:
The point is very practical. He is saying, look, all things that happen, He uses for the counsel— under the counsel of His will. All things. Meaning, in contrast to the gods that existed back then, who were self-serving, who had no power. He's saying this God has power. This God is sovereign. This God— and in contrast to much of the air that we breathe, much of the agnostic, atheistic air that is our culture, that says we're just in a universe kind of tumbling through the universe, it's a cold, dark universe where nothing actually is out there. He is saying there's a plan.
Mark Clark [00:10:16]:
There's a God. With a plan. All things work to the counsel of His will. So in the midst of your pain, in the midst of your suffering, He's saying right up front, all things are working to the counsel of His will. He's working this. He's moving this. I'm sitting there just— I mean, I didn't even know we were singing that song, but we're singing that song, and I'm almost just crying my eyes out because that's the song we sang at my dad's funeral. And so I remember when I did my dad's funeral, they sang that song, and I got up, I was like— I couldn't even talk! And I tried to do his eulogy.
Mark Clark [00:10:51]:
I tried to preach the gospel. I'm like, "Bibbibbib, Jesus." Right? Because I was in such pain and my heart was aching so much. Here's what Paul's doing in the midst of that. "God, how can You use this for good? How can You use this for good? What about my pain? What about my suffering?" He's going right up front. Here's what you've got to understand. All things are working according to the counsel of His will. There's a plan. And some of you need to hear that, because every time I turn on the news, every time I read the newspaper, right, it's these people got murdered, these people got raped, all this pain, all this suffering.
Mark Clark [00:11:25]:
Is there a God? We continuously come under that question, right? People who don't know Jesus, even people who do, this is the number one reason why we question whether there is a will of God, whether there's a God at all, whether anything functions under the counsel of His will. Because of evil and suffering and pain. That's the reason that we go, "Yeah, I understand God's in control. Yeah, I understand that God is sovereign, but here's what I struggle with. There's suffering, there's pain, there's evil. I can't really believe there's a plan. I can't really believe that all things, everything happens underneath the counsel of His will." That is a huge struggle for many people. And it's always been, even biblically.
Mark Clark [00:12:04]:
And Peter dealt with this question, 2 Peter chapter 3. Here's Peter talking to these believers who were under persecution, who were experiencing suffering, and here's how Peter deals with it. 2 Peter 3 says this, verse 3: Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. Here's what he's saying. There will be many people all throughout history, alright, because Peter has gotten up already in Acts chapter 2 and preached, hey, we're already in the last days, the Holy Spirit's come, we're in the last days, we've been in the last days for 2,000 years. There will always be scoffers who come and they mock God. They look at the circumstances, they look at evil, they look at suffering, and they say, therefore God does not exist.
Mark Clark [00:12:57]:
They sit at home, they blog in their PJs while their mom's making them dinner, and they say, God doesn't exist. I don't like God. Doesn't God see the evil? Doesn't He see the problems in the universe? And there's constant criticism. And we can understand this if we're honest, what Peter's saying. People have said, look, the world is the same since the beginning of creation. How could there be a God? That doesn't make any sense. We can understand this. I got a friend who's 31 years old.
Mark Clark [00:13:26]:
He's going through radiation treatment right now for testicular cancer. Where's your coming? Right? Look what he says. They will say, where is the promise of his coming? Jesus said he was coming back. So my buddy's going through radiation treatment. Where are you? You said you've got this kingdom of love and peace and joy. Don't you feel the angst sometimes and go, okay, I vote yes. Where is it? Where is it? Why aren't you here yet? Is this not bad enough for you? I vote no more prisons. You with me? All right, I vote no more war, no more cancer.
Mark Clark [00:14:18]:
Jesus, when are you coming? You going to bring this? 'Cause I'm dying for it. He's going, yeah, there'll always be people who will deduce, look at the world, it's been the same since the beginning, therefore God does not exist. There will always be scoffers. What's his response? Verse 8. I mean, Peter is writing to a crowd who dealt— Jesus died and resurrected and ascended into heaven a few decades before Peter's writing. Now it's been thousands of years for you and me. Still the same question. Where is His coming? Verse 8, Peter's going to do two things.
Mark Clark [00:15:02]:
"Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day." Here's what he's doing. First thing he's doing, he's not setting up a mathematical equation so you can figure out how old the earth is. Okay? That's not what He's doing. "Well, if a day's 1,000 years, the world must be 7,000 years." That's not what He's doing. Okay? He's speaking metaphorically, okay? It's not shrink it down to exactly 1,000. He's going, okay, 1 day to God is like 1,000 years. 1,000 years to us is like 1 day to God, meaning we're human, God is not. You have to contrast your life, how finite and small you are compared to God, because 1 of your days is like He's outside of time.
Mark Clark [00:15:48]:
He's infinite. Here's what Peter's trying to do. He's trying to say, be very humble before you put God on trial. Be very humble before you put God on trial. Be very humble before you come at Him and say, there's so much evil, there's no way the world could function under the counsel of Your will, because look at all the evil around. He's going, be very careful before you scoff at God, because recognize who you are. You have to be humble. This is constant throughout the Scriptures.
Mark Clark [00:16:13]:
You read the prophet. Go Old Testament, read the book of Habakkuk. The prophet Habakkuk is constantly grilling God and putting Him on trial, saying, God, You don't know what You're doing. Here's why You don't know what You're doing. You have this people, Israel, and You're using these pagans to judge Your own people, but I don't know, I need to tell You this, God, they're more evil than Your people are. So You're using more evil people to judge less evil people. So let me give You an education. That's not right.
Mark Clark [00:16:46]:
That's not just. And here's what God does continuously. He comes down and He rubs Habakkuk's head, all right? And He goes, "Hey, Habakkuk, you're dumb. And here's why. You're putting Me on trial, but here's what you don't know. You don't know what's going on on the other side of the globe. In fact, check this, you don't know you're on a globe." You're Habakkuk. You think you're the only galaxy in the universe.
Mark Clark [00:17:15]:
In fact, you think the sun revolves around the earth, man. Habakkuk, I need to learn from you. You tell me how to run the universe. I mean, look at us. We're the same. We've been to the moon. Man, we're the rulers of the universe. We went to the moon.
Mark Clark [00:17:36]:
Have you looked through a Hubble telescope recently? The moon's a joke! Do you know how vast the universe is? We are very small. One day to us is like a thousand years to God. Be humble. Be finite. Recognize who you are. This is why, over and over again, the book of Isaiah, God says, "My ways are so above your ways." I don't think like you think. I don't act like you act. As high as the heavens are above the earth are my ways above your ways.
Mark Clark [00:18:17]:
So when you begin to put God on trial and think, I would never believe in a God who would blank, be very careful. Who would what? Think like you? Act like you act? There's a lot of things in Scripture where I go, You know, I would never do it that way. But we got to continuously come back. This is what Peter's saying. Maybe he's got a deeper, more developed sense of justice than you do. That's what he's trying to say. Be humble. All right, there's lots of things.
Mark Clark [00:18:49]:
I come to the Scriptures, I'm like, man, I wouldn't have done Adam and Eve that way. I would have created Adam and Eve, yeah, naked, okay, that's cool. They're running around with all the animals, that's a good idea. And then they sin, I would have gone, "Ha! Bam! Start over!" And maybe my second crew will work better. Adam and Eve, now it's, I don't know, Steve and Janice. Alright, Steve and Janice, we're going to try this again. Be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth, fill it, go, go, go, Adamic mandate, garden, be good to the animals. Rock it.
Mark Clark [00:19:32]:
That's how I would have done. I would have started over. What does he do? All right, I'll put a curse on you. I'll put a curse on you. I'll put a curse on the serpent. Recognize Adam, constant classic male before God. God puts him on trial. Why did you sin? You made me sin.
Mark Clark [00:19:52]:
You did this. It was the woman that you gave me. That's what he says. It was the woman that you gave me. So whose fault is it? Ding, ding. Right here. Classic. Scoff God, put him on trial.
Mark Clark [00:20:12]:
You don't know what you're doing. So God curses them all and just sends them out of the garden, sets up a way they can't get back into the garden, sends them out into the wild. Ultimately, that story moves toward Jesus. Man, what a silly way to do it. Why not just kill them and start over? Steve and Janice. Genesis chapter 2.0 or whatever. 2.B, 2B. I would have never done Job the way God did Job.
Mark Clark [00:20:42]:
I mean, do you ever go into the text and go, "I just— that's not the right way to do it!" Job, righteous guy, loves God. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let Satan go at you, give you a whole bunch of boils, make you sick, kill all your kids, take all your money, take all your cattle. Go! What? Do you know what you're doing? I would have never done it that way. And then all through my life, I talked to people who suffer. I know a girl fell in love with a guy in high school. They were engaged to get married. They were the love of each other's lives.
Mark Clark [00:21:17]:
They got in a car accident. He died, she got all scarred up on her face. She looked at me, she said, "All I have is Job." How many people have you met like that? Just millions throughout history. All they have is Job, 'cause he suffered, and he was righteous, and he didn't understand why he suffered. But now this story just echoes through, just all through history, encouraging, comforting, encouraging, comforting. I would've never done it that way. The story of Job never would've existed. No one would have got comfort from the stories I wrote, the way I would have done history.
Mark Clark [00:21:54]:
The cross of Jesus, that's messed up. Beloved Son, perfect Son comes. God comes into the world, dies for us. I never would have done it that way. You never would have done it that way. And God goes, maybe I know something you don't. So be humble. One day to a God is like a thousand years, a thousand years like a day.
Mark Clark [00:22:12]:
Be humble. And then this is what he says. Here's the second reason. He hasn't come back yet. The second reason He hasn't wrapped up history, the second reason where we all say, "There's so much evil! It can't be under the counsel of Your will!" He says this, v. 9, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." Why hasn't Jesus come back yet? Why hasn't He wrapped up history? Why did He do Adam and Eve the way He did Adam and Eve? Why did He do Job? Why did He do the cross? He's saying, because I want all people to reach repentance, I don't want any to perish. The reason the world will continue to spin is because God has given us time. Those of you who don't know Jesus, when you wake up tomorrow morning and your feet hit the floor and you hit your alarm and it's 7 AM or whatever time you get up— my alarm is my children screaming at me, usually at 7 AM.
Mark Clark [00:23:13]:
When that happens for you, if that happens for you, the reason is, is because God has said, "I've given you another day because I want you to repent. I want you to believe in Me." And so therefore, those people who say, "Well, You gotta come, You gotta come, You gotta come now, You gotta come now, let's wrap it up," were being a little bit selfish and narrow-minded and saying, "Well, You should come, Lord, because I know You." I'm glad Jesus didn't come in 1996 when I was 16 and didn't know Him. So he's saying, be very careful what you wish for. The reason I haven't come is because I want many, many people to know Jesus. If you don't know him, you're the reason that history has not been wrapped up yet. That's what this text is saying. He's given you another day. Doesn't mean you got the rest of your life.
Mark Clark [00:24:04]:
I did a funeral a few months back for a 56-year-old woman. Who went to bed perfectly healthy and woke up in eternity. He's saying, I want you to repent. I want you to give your life to Jesus. Some of you are like, wait a minute, I'm new to church, are you trying to convert me? Yes! Yes! Let's just be straight up about that right up front. We want you to meet Jesus. We want you to have eternal life. We want you to go to heaven when you die.
Mark Clark [00:24:37]:
We don't want you to go to hell. Forever is a long time. We want you to get your life transformed right now. New creation. Right now. Alright, back to Ephesians 1. This is exactly what Paul talks about, what we just landed on. Coming to know Jesus, verse 12, he says, "So that we who were the first to hope in Christ..." We want you to hope in Christ.
Mark Clark [00:25:07]:
Paul's saying, "Man, I'm going back to my testimony. I'm remembering what it was like to first hope in Christ. This whole group of us, we were Jews, we were religious, we were traveling along, and then Jesus met us. We recognized the beauty of the cross and the resurrection, and we hoped in Christ. We gave our lives to Him." And Paul's saying, my heart, my mission, the reason I plant churches, the reason I write this letter is because I want you to hope in Christ. I want you, your family, your friends to hope in Christ, to trust in Him instead of yourself, to give your life to Him. So some people have said wrongly, okay, I believe in election or I believe in predestination— what he's just said in v. 11— and therefore, I don't need to share Jesus with my friends, I don't need to be missional, I don't need to be evangelistic because God's got it all figured out and people are just going to come to know Jesus somehow.
Mark Clark [00:25:57]:
Here's what you have to understand about the doctrine of election within Christianity. It says not only that God chooses who would be saved, it says that he chooses the means by which they will be saved. And the means by which people will be saved is by the sharing of the gospel. It's by you telling your family and telling your friends and serving and loving people, by planting churches, by being on mission. All right. This is why the most election-oriented chapter in all of the scriptures, Romans chapter 9, all right, where God's going, I chose Jacob, not Esau. I harden hearts. I do this, I do that.
Mark Clark [00:26:35]:
I move on people. It's not based on works. It's based on my choice. All of that. We're all like, oh, I don't understand. It's followed up because people go, okay, well, if that's true, I'm just going to sit on my lawn chair, make as much money as I can, and everybody who's elect is going to get saved. That's not what the doctrine is saying. Because Romans 9 is followed up with Romans 10, the most missional evangelistic chapter in the scriptures.
Mark Clark [00:26:56]:
It's preached at every missional conference that you'll go to. And it's this: how are they going to hear? How are they going to believe unless they hear? How are they going to hear unless we preach? How are we going to preach unless we go? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? Romans chapter 10 follows Romans chapter 9. Why? Yes, God chooses, but we're supposed to live our lives in such a way we're reaching as many as possible, serving people, planting churches, giving our time and our money and our lives. For some of you, the means by which you were saved is that your parents were Christian, you were raised in a Christian home, like my wife. Great. Some of you, like me, you were in high school and someone came to you with the gospel, told you about Jesus. Great, you gave your life to Jesus. That's the means by which you were saved.
Mark Clark [00:27:43]:
Some of you, You're sitting here today because you're going to meet Him. He has you here today so that you would meet Jesus. That's the point. That's the means by which He wants to save you. Like the guy I talked to last week, the week before, came up to me and said, "I've been here 3 weeks. I gave my life to Jesus today." Beautiful! Praise God! Why? Because I came here for 3 weeks, I heard about Jesus, I didn't know anything about Him before I came here. That was the means. Some of you know, I was writing on the blog a couple weeks ago, one of the ladies who got saved here about a year ago, she goes up to the Yukon to do work up there every summer for a few months, and she's gone up there now and she's been reaching people for Jesus up there.
Mark Clark [00:28:28]:
Alright, people have been coming to Christ because she's a crazy evangelist, so she just goes and tells everybody about Jesus, and people are coming to Jesus and there's no church in town. So she walks up to this old church building. She's like, what's this old church building? It's been turned into a library. There's a cross on top of the library. Awesome. And so she goes, what's this? They say, oh, it's some old church. Anybody preach here? No. She goes, perfect.
Mark Clark [00:28:49]:
My pastor preaches on video. So she's getting a TV. The mayor's bought in. He's behind it. She's setting up a TV on Sunday mornings and starting to gather people so they hear about Jesus. She's planting a church. And Keno City, Yukon. Village Church campus, Keno City.
Mark Clark [00:29:13]:
All right, that's how those people are going to get saved. He predestines not only who, but how. And the how is you. The how is you sharing. The how is you telling. He's hunting them down. He hunts us down. All right, verse 12, "So that we who were the first to hope in Christ," we who were the first to believe, to give our life to Jesus, "might be to the praise of His glory." We do mission, and sometimes we do it in such a way where we try to think of every hip, cool, relevant, modern angle.
Mark Clark [00:29:56]:
To reach people for Jesus. Here's what he's saying. Your job is to make God look great to the praise of His glory. You want to know how to reach your friends, your family? Make God look great. Show them that He satisfies more than anything else. That He is all-satisfying for you. More than money. More than sex.
Mark Clark [00:30:22]:
More than relationships, more than good grades, more than your kids. He is all-satisfying. That's what he's saying, to the praise of his glory. Now, there are many people— let me, let me try to bring both of these ideas together. There are many people who talk to me about they have a passion to reach their friends, they have a passion to reach their family for Jesus, but they don't know how, and they need practical help. So I had a woman come up to me after last week She was saying, "Okay, God convicted me. Yes, I believe in Him, but I'm not serious about Him, and I'm absolutely useless." And she was sobbing. "I'm absolutely useless when it comes to sharing Christ with anybody." And some of you might be in that boat, alright? That sharing Jesus, telling people about Christ is like kissing your sister.
Mark Clark [00:31:10]:
Alright, it's just awkward. And weird. And disgusting. Alright? That's how evangelism feels. You're sitting there having a conversation with your neighbor and you're just trying to look for some in. You're cutting the lawn, you're talking, "Hey, look at— oh yeah, you know, Jesus is like a lawnmower. What? What's going on?" So you're just looking for an in. It's awkward.
Mark Clark [00:31:41]:
It's intimidating. You don't know what you're doing. So let me give you 5 helps. All right, 5 helps. I was reading a great article this week by a guy named Kevin DeYoung, and he talked about 5 things that work. He was specifically speaking about next generation, but I think this works whether you're 16 or whether you're 85. 5 things. All right, you got your notes out? Here we go.
Mark Clark [00:32:04]:
First, grab them with passion. In our culture, there is no culture of churchgoing. All right, a couple generations ago, everyone went to church unless you were a pagan. Now in Canada, we live in a post-Christian culture. All right, what C.S. Lewis said, it's similar to, um, people who've gone through marriage and come out the other side and are divorced. Versus a virgin. A virgin culture is one that's never heard the gospel.
Mark Clark [00:32:43]:
They've never heard about Jesus. They've never had the Bible preached to them. They've never been to a church. Their parents have never been to a church. That's a virgin. They hear Jesus, they hear the gospel, they hear the Bible through virgin ears, and they respond. But our culture is what's called a post-Christian culture. We've been through Christianity.
Mark Clark [00:33:02]:
We've been through marriage. We've come out the other side. We're now divorced, and we're like, I hate that! I know all about marriage. I'm not getting into that again. All right, we've been burned culturally. We've been burned. The people you talk to have been burned by church, or their parents have. And so there's no, I go to church as a natural outworking of who I am.
Mark Clark [00:33:28]:
And part of the reason is because when they gather in church communities, it's boring, and there's no passion. There's nothing. There's just nice people sitting around. And so he says, you got to grab people with passion. The only cultural person that they might know, at least my generation knows, when it comes to Christianity is Ned Flanders, right? That's how they view Christianity. All right, Ned Flanders, whose kids, all right, play video games, Christian subculture video games where they throw Bibles at demons and, you know, get 30 points. And that's how they view Christians. Boring, always have their shirts tucked in, just nice, good people.
Mark Clark [00:34:22]:
And it doesn't inspire them. And they come and they hear the songs that we sing and they think, man, the content's crazy. They hear the Bible and they think, wow, that's insane. I see this stuff as very countercultural, but it's not blowing anybody up that I see. I don't see people with a passion. Here's what Paul says, Romans 12. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit. I love that.
Mark Clark [00:34:50]:
Do not be slothful in zeal. That's a, that's a biblical way of saying, be zealous, be fervent in spirit, be passionate. Do you have passion or are you boring when you talk about God, when you live your life? This is why Paul's gonna say in chapter 5, Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead. Some of you are asleep, totally asleep at the wheel. Years ago, uh, the story is told of Benjamin Franklin. All right, he was anything but a Christian. George Whitefield came to town. He was this fiery preacher.
Mark Clark [00:35:35]:
He was preaching the gospel. Thousands of people gathered, and Benjamin Franklin was like, I'm on my way to go see George Whitefield. And some guy walked up, he said, why would you go see George Whitefield? I don't understand, you don't believe anything that he says. And Franklin said, yeah, but he does. And I love to sit and watch him because he's so passionate about what he believes. I could just watch him all day. See, he believes what he's saying. And then I begin to ask the question, why? Why does he believe what he's saying? So, win them— no, grab them with passion.
Mark Clark [00:36:16]:
Secondly, win them with love. The church has spent so much time trying to be hip, cool, relevant, and modern, I think sometimes just because we're trying to make up for the fact that we're bad at loving people. We're just not very good at it sometimes. Loving people who don't know Jesus. And so the problem with trying to be hip, cool, and relevant all the time is that usually the church is at least 10 years behind what's cool, and so by the time we actually figure out what's cool, it's not cool anymore. All right, so like a couple months ago, I went into a church in Toronto. I was visiting my mom, and they handed me their bulletin, and it was like this was made on clipart. Right from 1989.
Mark Clark [00:37:07]:
And they were pumped. Right? And the guy preaching had his phone in a leather case clipped outside of his pocket. And I was like, wow, that was cool in 1995. For guys who own their own construction companies. Now, I'm not trying to be mean. The guy loves the Lord. He's a pastor. He's a great guy.
Mark Clark [00:37:34]:
I love him. But the point is, is when we try to be cool and try to be hip and try to be modern, we just end up looking like we're sucking the tailpipe of culture because we're not cool. And we're 10 years behind what's cool. Alright, so we sing worship songs on overheads still. Right, hey, look at this overhead! Cool technology from 1857, right? Should we think about getting a website? I don't know. And so now we, we, what we do is, is we focus on that. We try to reach people only through those things because we lack love. And what Jesus said is the best apologetic, the best defense of the faith is to love one another, right? John 13, they will know you by this, that you love one another.
Mark Clark [00:38:24]:
That will echo out. That— so when people come in here, all right, do you love your neighbors well? When people come in here, do you love one another well? Like, is this a community for you, or you just show up and leave early? Do you love one another well? Are you inviting? I know this is crazy, but in some cities, people go out for lunch with people after church that aren't their family. What? No. You mean you'll invite a new person to lunch with you? But what if you don't know them? What if they murder you over lunch? I'm afraid. I have to protect my children. Do you love anybody? Do you love people well? Grab them with passion, win them with love. We moved to the Bell Centre. We're praying, we want to reach tons of people for Jesus in that whole Sullivan Heights area.
Mark Clark [00:39:21]:
Are you going to be inviting? Are you going to be loving everybody and anybody? Who shows up. I'm praying that over the course of years we become a multicultural church, because you're all so white, right? Like, let's— let's— I had the great privilege before I moved out here, I worked years in the most multicultural church in North America. It was called Churchill Heights Baptist Church in Scarborough. There was 58 different nations in the church. It's beautiful. It's like Somalian guys, Trinidadians, Indians, Chileans. We're all like worshiping the Lord. It's like Revelation 5.
Mark Clark [00:40:06]:
Every tongue, every tribe, every nation before the Lamb worshiping. Now, it was fun to watch because all these cultures would then collide, right? All these cultures that time isn't an issue, they'd roll into the service halfway through, man. Hey, what's going on? It's like I'm preaching, man. But it's beautiful watching all these different cultures collide. I'm praying that's what happens. Do we love everybody? Straight, gay, Good person, ex-con, rich, poor. Do you love? Grab them with passion. Win them with love.
Mark Clark [00:40:53]:
The world will know you by this, that you love one another, that you journey with people, that you serve. The guy I was talking about earlier who said, hey, I've been here 3 times, I gave my life to Jesus— you know how he ended up here? Because a guy made a connection with them, built a relationship with them because their kids played soccer together. It was on the soccer field. They weren't sitting around talking about, hey, what do you think the deeper questions of life are? I don't know, why don't you come to my church and find out? Right? They're sitting around playing soccer, right? Their kids are playing soccer. All right, grab them in passion, win them with love. Thirdly, hold them with holiness. We need to be holy before we be smart. We need to be holy before we need to be smart.
Mark Clark [00:41:48]:
The way we stick to Jesus, the way we continue to walk with Jesus, the way that we love Jesus, the way that we have a fulfilling, joyful, content life is when we become holy. Not that we stop with, I went forward and said a prayer, but I'm becoming more like Jesus every day. My heart, my emotions, Everything is, is getting filtered down to how I live. I'm becoming more like him. That's how anyone sticks. You wonder why churches and we in our lives with family and friends have a wide open door where people will come in and then they'll disappear. We don't know where they went is because we're not calling them to holiness and they're not becoming holy. They're staying very surface level.
Mark Clark [00:42:23]:
And when you stay surface level, you're a consumer of all things church and Christianity, and you're not going to die for anybody. You don't have commitment to anybody. And at the first sign of trouble, You scram, you disappear, you run out the back door because you're not holy. That's why some of you gave up on your churches too easy. You get one sign of trouble, I'm out. Why? Because you're not holy enough. You haven't been conformed to the image of Jesus enough. The way you stick, the way you stick to a mission, to a church, to a people, to a wife, to your kids.
Mark Clark [00:43:02]:
Is because you're becoming more like Jesus, who has unrelenting commitment to us. That's what unconditional love is. It's not based on performance, it's not based on how well you do, it's based on my love, unconditional. And so, I mean, I talked to a guy a couple weeks ago, he moved here from a city, he has no friends here, no family here, And now he's— he doesn't like his job, he doesn't have any connections in this city, and so he's got this great job offer waiting for him back home, and everything about him says we need to go back. But he says, here's the one problem. Since we came here, we came to Village, we never went to church before, we came to Village, my wife's given her life to Jesus, we got baptized, we are growing spiritually, and now all of these other things— family, friends, job come under this priority of our spiritual lives, and that is now driving the decision. If I wasn't getting changed, if I wasn't becoming holy, all right, this decision would be easy. The money, the job, the family, the friends, the social life, it's all back there.
Mark Clark [00:44:12]:
The only thing here is Christian community, and that is playing out so much in my life, my heart, my emotions, my mind, that I'm thinking about staying. Why? Because their entire hearts, their entire lives, their entire minds are just being weaned off sucking the things of this world. The things that define them, the things that give them joy, the things that give them contentment, they're continuously coming off of that and realizing, man, the priority in my life is loving God. The priority in my life is growing in Jesus. That becomes more important than my immediate happiness, as shallow as that is. See, sometimes we make these decisions out of, I want happiness, I want happiness, I want momentary happiness, because all we can see is the next 3 months. All we can see is the next 3 weeks. We're so limited in the decision-making that we make.
Mark Clark [00:45:02]:
And we constantly make decisions for our happiness at the expense of our joy. We constantly make decisions for our momentary happiness at the expense of our joy. Deep, eternal joy in Christ. Okay, fourthly, challenge them with truth. Your friends, your family. Back in the '90s, there was all kinds of discussion about how we reach people without watering the Bible down. How are we going to reach them? Well, my family's not going to know anything if they come to church and they use a Bible word. No one's going to know what it means, so let's just try to water everything down.
Mark Clark [00:45:41]:
And so that was kind of the movement, right? But now, the reality is, no, you reach people precisely by not watering it down, because people aren't dumb. People in West Coast Canadian post-Christian culture aren't dumb. They know they're sitting in a church. You don't have to pretend. It's not bait and switch, right? Like, hey, come to my church, learn how to be a better fisherman. Hey guys, whee! Jesus is a better fisherman. Ah! Awesome! Awesome. That's not it.
Mark Clark [00:46:16]:
It's, hey guys, Jesus calls you to lay down your life. The cost is everything. If you want some low-grade, part-time hobby, go to Chapters, pick up a Rhonda Byrne book, get into New Age pop psychology, because it won't cost you anything. You'll stay exactly who you are right now. And no one's going to care. And Jesus goes, no, you got to lay down everything. The cost is everything. So we got to help people understand true Christianity, not what they think is Christianity, not, hey, it's some God in the distance somewhere, and if I'm really good, and the only people who go to hell are murderers and rapists.
Mark Clark [00:46:55]:
That's not the kind of Christianity— we have to actually hit people with truth. And finally, and I love this, and this is what Paul's saying in this verse, Amaze them with God. Amaze them with God, meaning this. Listen, if you're here and you don't know Jesus, we don't want you to simply become a better person. That's not why we're here, okay? We're not here so that you, you know, stop smoking, start recycling, swear less, It's not why we're here. I used to think that was Christianity. When I was a kid, my testimony, I'd get up at summer camp, I'd be, "I came to know Jesus because I'm not saying the F word anymore." And everyone's like, "Oh, praise Jesus! He's come to know Jesus!" Listen, here's why we're not, that's not where we start. Because you could do all those things.
Mark Clark [00:47:49]:
You could not swear anymore, you could recycle, you could stop smoking, But if you don't know Jesus and you don't love God, it's all for nothing. If you don't live to the praise of His glory, it's all for nothing. People in heaven are not people who are simply afraid of hell. The people who are in heaven are people who love God deeply, with a passion, who want Him. That's the point of this text. To the praise of His glory, that everything is about God, that your life is about loving God, glorifying God, and you're happy and you delight to be in the Lord. That brings you joy. And so the question that I leave you with is, do you love him? Do you love him? Do you have a passion for him? Do you care about him? I'm not asking you whether you like coming to church.
Mark Clark [00:48:36]:
I'm not asking you whether you even— whether you like reading the Bible. It's not the question. Do you love God? The God behind the scriptures? The God, the reason we gather? I'm not asking you whether you like to sing worship songs. I'm not asking you whether you like to read Philip Yancey. I'm not asking you whether you like to be in Beth Moore Bible studies. I'm asking you, do you love God to the praise of his glory? Do you actually love him? Do you have a passion for him? Not his blessings, not his things, not his results. Him. That's who heaven is filled with.
Mark Clark [00:49:12]:
People who live to the praise of his glory. That's what Paul's talking about. And so my prayer is that would be all of us. Father, we are people who tend to follow you, pray to you, come to church, read your scriptures for reasons that are not about you. And so I pray for those of us in that spot that we would have a passion to amaze people with you. To show the world that you are all satisfying. And because of that, that people would want to be your followers, that people would gravitate toward you, that the thing that most satisfies us, the thing that most excites us, the thing that makes us fervent in spirit is not our money, it's not our jobs, it's not our kids, it's not our spouses, It's You. And that we would see as many people as possible come to know You as Lord, as Savior, as deep, deep, deep treasure in their lives in the coming months and years.
Mark Clark [00:50:33]:
That's why we worship You. That's why we give of tithes and offerings. As part of worship that says we want to shepherd people well, we want to resource people well, we want to see people reached and discipled for Jesus for many years to come. Going forward, we want to see and be able to support missionaries that go out globally to unreached people groups. We want to see India changed. We don't want to sit around looking at each other, talking about what if. We want to do everything down to the little minutiae of our life in a way that Paul says here, to the praise of your glory, to your glory, that your weight would be felt to the people around us instead of our weight, instead of our glory. Do your work among us.
Mark Clark [00:51:33]:
We trust you with it, and we thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen.