Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Hey everyone, Mark here.
Mark Clark [00:00:04]:
Hopefully you're doing well. This is episode 99 of the podcast. That's a big number for a Canadian.
Mark Clark [00:00:10]:
All right.
Mark Clark [00:00:10]:
That's Wayne Gretzky level for those of you who know anything about hockey.
Mark Clark [00:00:13]:
Okay.
Mark Clark [00:00:14]:
We're glad you're here at the Mark Clark Podcast. Hopefully you are doing well as we finish Ephesians chapter 2, an amazing chapter in the Bible. Paul shows us what access to God actually does. It reshapes our identity. We are citizens, we're family members and builders. And it leads to a challenge. Are we living like cruise ship Christians or battleship Christians? This one's going to be spicy for you. Share with a friend.
Mark Clark [00:00:39]:
Hopefully enjoy it. Let's get into episode 99. Let's go.
Mark Clark [00:00:44]:
All right. Good morning. How you doing? All right. Good stuff. Thanks for being here. Good to be here. For those of you who missed the announcement, you can open up your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2 if you're new. My name is Mark, and I'm one of the pastors here.
Mark Clark [00:00:57]:
Really good to have you. If you're joining us at the Rosemary Heights campus as well, good to have you. We are a church that meets in two places, and so we're excited about that as a way to expand. And we can see kind of a picture of that here this morning. We did church in a gym like this for 2.5 years before we got the nice comfy seats, all right, at the Bell Centre Auditorium. So this is to help some of you guys kind of get into that mode. All right, that it hasn't always been comfortable and easy. This is what church planting's about.
Mark Clark [00:01:25]:
This is about what planting campuses is about. And they, a few times a year because of events that they have, we're going to have to come in here and set up. And so thanks for being patient. Thanks for kind of rolling with that. And that's what it is to be the church. We know that as we're going to be talking about today, God doesn't dwell in buildings made with human hands anyway. All right, so we can gather as his people. Filled with His Spirit.
Mark Clark [00:01:50]:
That's where His presence resides. And so we come together and do that. So when we come to church, when we gather as the people of God, here's something that happens. There is a collision that takes place, a collision of when the Bible's preached and it lands. The collision is against all of the myths that we live our life believing. All of the things that we believe, the narratives that are written for us, what we believe about our lives, what we believe about God, what we believe about the world, and then the Bible comes at us and it challenges those things. It wants to deconstruct all of the kind of the worldview that we've built for ourselves, the things that we've convinced ourselves about, and then the Gospel comes at us and says, "Let me challenge you in that," and it creates kind of a crisis of faith in us. When the Gospel comes out, when the Bible comes out, what is it? We're living with these kind of assumptions about the world, and then the Gospel comes in and challenges us, creates a crisis of faith, and the question is, what do we end up doing with that crisis? Do we go along with our lives like some of you, when the Scriptures have hit you, when the Gospel has come out to you, you have chosen to continue on the path that you're in, or do we let that crisis of faith kind of build something in us? Alright, so these are the myths that constantly the Scriptures are challenging us.
Mark Clark [00:03:17]:
Let me give you a big one in the Western world. I was raised in public school. Holla? Alright, so I was raised in public school. So in public school, this is the basic narrative, the myth that they build into you. And we get this all over the place. We watch the news, we read books, we read magazines, and it's that the world's a mess, it's in crisis, and the great solution is humankind. Alright, so it's the kind of— it's the vision, it's the gospel of humanism that the way we're going to solve all of our problems is by more education, more technology. We're going to advance as a civilization and then what will happen is religion will completely die out.
Mark Clark [00:03:56]:
We've been preaching this for 100 years, alright, as a culture. That we will stop believing in fairies, stop believing in God, we won't need religious answers to questions anymore because we'll become civilized, educated, technologically advanced, and religion will die. All right, now here's the reality. The last 20 or 30 years has shown us that this is a complete myth. All right, a guy named Leslie Newbigin, who's a missiologist, really smart guy back in the day, in the '80s, he saw that this myth wasn't true, and he wrote this: The myth is that the process of secularization would inevitably lead to the gradual disappearance of religious belief, that secularization is an irreversible process, and that the farther society moves along the road of rationalization, industrialization, and urbanization, the more certain it is that religion will have a receding role in that society. All of this is a myth. It is quite simply untrue. In the face of statistical evidence of the survival and vigor of religion in the most secularized societies, sociologists no longer accept the theory because the data demonstrates the continuing and often greatly increased vigor of religious belief in the very societies which have proceeded farthest along the road of rationalism, industrialization, and urbanization.
Mark Clark [00:05:24]:
Basically this, our gospel was, get more technology, get some more websites, go into counseling, and we're gonna solve all of our problems by ourself, and religion will die out. And here's the reality in 2012. Orthodox religious faith all over the world, Christian, Islam, Hinduism, is not dying but exploding. 3,000 people in Latin America become Christians every day. South Korea is 65% Christian in 100 years. All right, 100 years ago was zero. China in the '30s and the '40s had maybe a couple hundred thousand Christians, maybe. Under persecution, it grew to tens of millions, maybe 100 million, maybe more.
Mark Clark [00:06:10]:
People say if that continues, it will change the course of history forever because what we see happening is that these myths, as we go down the road of science and technology and education, they start raising the questions of the existence of God rather than moving us toward a deep secularization. So here's these myths that just get blown up, alright, when the Scriptures come to us. Now, in this passage in Ephesians 2, alright, these few verses we're going to unpack this morning, Paul blows up some myths, alright? And the first one he blows up is the question of all questions. The question of how do you, if God exists, and we believe that he does, we believe there are solid evidences and reasons when you look at the universe, when you look at the design, when you look at Big Bang, nobody, it doesn't make sense. Nobody times nothing equals everything. We couldn't write that on a test and people go, "That's 100% right there. You're brilliant." You're dumb. So nobody times nothing equals everything is not an equation that I'm going to live my life by.
Mark Clark [00:07:10]:
There's evidence, there's design, there's DNA, there's— you look at the astronomy, all of these things. This is what Immanuel Kant, who was a philosopher back in the day, said. The reason I believe in God is because the starry hosts above and the moral law within. And so we look at the— we hate justice, or we love justice. We have an angst against evil. We don't like when things are broken. We have a desire for justice to be seen. Why? We love love, we love beauty.
Mark Clark [00:07:38]:
Why is this so? And so we believe that the evidence points toward the existence of God, right? And so Paul is gonna say, if God exists, how do we actually get access to him? How do we get on his side, right? Question of all questions. Some of you in this room, you've never given your life to Jesus, you're not a Christian, you're exploring Christianity. We're glad you're here. That's what we're here for, all right? So part of it is we believe that it's rational, reasonable to believe in God. So now the question becomes, How do you actually connect to the Father? And Paul says, verse 18, all right, pick it up in verse 18. "For through Him," meaning Jesus, that's who he's been talking about for 2 and a half chapters, meaning Jesus, the person of Jesus, the work of Jesus on the cross, in the resurrection. "Through Him, we both," meaning Jews and Gentiles, "have access in one Spirit to the Father." So how do you get access to God? This is the image back in the day, there was a king, There was an emperor, and you would have to come into his court. How would you get into the court of the emperor? If you were in the temple, how are you going to get into the court of God in the temple? It's— you have to get access.
Mark Clark [00:08:49]:
How are you going to get access? What he's saying is, you get access through the death, the resurrection, the person, the work of Jesus. Now, this interacts with all of the different options that we tend to have as a culture. And he challenges the myths. That we create as a culture. One myth, West Coast secular myth. How do you get access to God? There is no God. Alright, that's one myth that we're pushing against. Paul comes in and he says, "No, there is a Father that you need access to." The other piece of that kind of West Coast religious myth is, if there is a God, don't worry about it because you're already on His side.
Mark Clark [00:09:30]:
All right, because he's insecure, all right, and he just wants anybody on his team. And so he's really down, and so he just wants you to be part of it. So he's just kind of, he's that guy on Facebook, all right, who just becomes friends with everybody, all right. And if anybody makes a bad negative comment on his Facebook, he's in his closet for a week in the fetal position, all right. It's because he wants everybody to like him. All right, and that's God. He doesn't have enough fans, and so He just wants, He'll do anything. And the reason we think about God like that is because instead of God making us in His own image, we create God in our own image.
Mark Clark [00:10:09]:
We think He's insecure, we think all He wants is friends. We don't recognize that in the Trinity, He's got full community. He doesn't need us. He's not dying for relationship with us. He has full relationship in and of himself. But we think that because we're insecure. We want more friends. We want everybody to like us.
Mark Clark [00:10:31]:
In my family, I got 3 daughters, and I'm constantly pushing them against, up against their depravity, up against their own desire to have everybody like them. So I'll be out with my daughter, and she'll say, she'll be buying something, a nice shirt or something, and, "Oh, I like this, but I'm not gonna buy it." "Why not?" "Well, 'cause so-and-so won't like it." "It doesn't matter what so-and-so thinks." See, here's the thing. It doesn't matter what people think about you. If all you do is care about what people think of you, if you live out of a point of insecurity, you will never accomplish anything. And so constantly coming to my daughters, constantly coming to us and saying, "What does it mean?" Don't care about what— Listen, if you're in high school, If you're in college, this is an epidemic that you care. There's this dichotomy between cool people and uncool people. And we kind of live in that, and we strive to be cool, and we can't do it. Listen, uncool people.
Mark Clark [00:11:33]:
The reality is this. In a few years, all of that is going to be flipped. Here's what happens. The uncool guys end up being the ones who own and run companies, and the cool guys work for them. All right? That's what happens. Every single time. All right? I go back to Toronto. All right? I go back to my hometown, and all the cool guys, all right, the guys on the rugby team, all right, those guys were awesome.
Mark Clark [00:12:03]:
I wanted to be one of those. And then there's the guys we used to stick in lockers with a flashlight and a magazine. And you know what? All those guys in the lockers, none of them are in Ajax anymore. They're all gone. They have an MA. They're running businesses. And all the cool guys are still sitting sitting in the same bar talking about how high school was awesome. It happens every time.
Mark Clark [00:12:27]:
So listen, you don't care about what other people— and the Bible's constantly coming at us saying, forget it, who cares. Here's what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians. Galatians chapter 1. Am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. I would not be a servant of Christ if I was trying to please people. Why? Because you can't do both. And so if you're insecure, some of you are afraid, some of you who are here, you've never given your life to Jesus, you're afraid, and what's holding you back is what you think your family, your friends, the people around you are gonna say about you. And what Paul is saying to you is listen, I don't want you to care what other people think about you.
Mark Clark [00:13:13]:
This is about having access to God through the Son and be living that out, that devotion out without a care in the world what other people may say, think, tweet about you at all. And so we have this kind of insecure reality and we project that on God and we think, "Well, He just doesn't care. He wants everybody to be His friend, so that's what it's going to be in the end." And the gospel comes along and says, "No, no, you don't understand. People without Jesus don't have access to the Father." The other way that we— the other myth that we push to have access to the Father is through earning it, alright? Through really just kind of mustering up enough religion that God will be impressed with you and like you, alright? We preach against this all the time, but the reality is If I was to say to you, because reading your Bible is really important, but if I was to say to you, reading your Bible is the way that you connect and get access to the Father, reading your Bible is the way you get saved, that would not be true. Because the way you get saved is through the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. That's it. So the minute we start to go cross plus, we've lost it. Alright, cross plus who I vote for, cross plus what I do with my— no.
Mark Clark [00:14:29]:
In Jesus alone. And what happens is we try to earn it, we try to work our way and be a good boy or girl and earn favor in front of God, and what it does is it turns us into wicked people. It turns us into the— okay, so my daughter, alright? Let me give you this illustration and never mention it to her, okay? She's 6 years old, and so we're hoping that when she grows up we'll just delete all these sermons from the website so that she'll never be able to see them. 'Cause I don't want to mess her up. Actually, today she was down. I came down this morning and she was already on the iPad, so she might have been watching it already, I don't know. But the point is, okay, so my daughter, she's in grade 1, she does a test this week. Does a spelling test.
Mark Clark [00:15:13]:
So we go in, oh, Sienna, you got perfect. Yes, not a mark on it, beautiful. 100%, 10 out of 10, beautiful. And then of course we looked at the other kids because we want to compare. We saw that these kids over here, there's a ton of red markings and 50%, and you know, so my— Santa's brilliant. We're good. And— what? So, anyway, so we get in the car and we're driving home. Hey, Santa, great, 100%.
Mark Clark [00:15:44]:
And she's like, yeah, she's like, you know, there was one word that I wasn't sure about. So I looked on the sheet of the person next to me as they were doing it, and I saw that they had written it different, and so I erased it and did that. That's cheating! Alright, now the reason she did that is because she wants to try to earn favor with her daddy. She wants to be perfect, and so it makes her do wicked things. And this is what happens if we try to earn our favor in front of the God of the universe. He's going to save me based on what I do, then that's when we end up killing people in the name of Christ. That's when we end up marginalizing people in the name of Jesus and doing things because we think this is the way God is going to love us. And so what we start to do is we start to try to perform We start to play games with God, alright, where God will say, "Hey, I'm trying to get devotion out of you, I'm trying to get discipleship out of you," and you'll play the distraction game because you want to be perfect.
Mark Clark [00:16:58]:
Alright, so when Jesus came, he would come to the Pharisees and he would say, "I want you to follow me," and the Pharisees would go, "That sounds really hard. Let's just come up with a theological question. Are we supposed to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" And Jesus is like, "I'm trying to call you out." All right, so this is how this works in our life. We'll go to our accountability partner, we'll go to community group, and we'll have sin, all right? And people will try to work with us. "Hey, look at that sin you do. Look at that, you know, how's the porn problem going?" And you'll be like, "Mm, you know, I was just thinking about the eschatological reality, the soteriological thing of the eschaton. What do you think about that?" It's like, "Sorry, what? How's your porn problem? What's that birdie?" Distract everybody over here. Raise a question nobody's got an answer to so that your life is messed up, But you don't want anybody to know that, and so you move them to a question that has nothing to do with anything.
Mark Clark [00:17:47]:
So Jesus comes and he says, "Follow me," and the Pharisees go, "Okay, um, there was this woman, alright, and she had this husband, and he died, so she married the brother, then he died, then she married the brother, then he died, then she married the other brother, and she married 7 brothers because she was a serial killer. Now, what?" In the end, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? And Jesus is like, I'm coming at you trying to draw your sin out, and you're raising questions to distract me. This is what we do, we play games with God. God goes, hey, stop dating that non-Christian, and we go, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee! Look over here, look at this question over here, I'll be really faithful to you over here. 'If you just let me do this. Oh, by the way, I don't want you running your business like that anymore. Hey, I'm going to call you to go and move your whole family and do this.' 'Oh, that sounds very hard. What if I serve at VBS instead? What if I go left harder than I ever would have gone right?' And then God gets together with the church and He goes, 'Hey, he's offering.
Mark Clark [00:18:56]:
I know we said Africa, but he's saying VBS. You good with that?' 'Yeah, I'm good with that.' 'Okay, okay, we got a deal.' That's not the way this works. That's all in the structure of religion. That's all in the structure of how can we play this game with God, how can we try to do this perfection thing. And every time we do that, listen, we're saying God loves us based on our performance rather than what He has done, how He has already performed for us. All right, you see that subtle shift? See, when I became a Christian, the gospel that was given to me was, "Here's the list of things you have to stop doing, Mark. You gotta stop cussing, you gotta stop smoking, and you gotta stop chasing girls. And if you do those 3 things, God will love you." And so that was repentance for me.
Mark Clark [00:19:47]:
That's what I just— it's behavior modification. How do I earn it? And then over time I started to meet these Christians who were like, man, these guys were heroes. And I began to have an identity crisis. They would come to me and say, what time do you wake up in the morning? You get up at 5 o'clock? What do you do at 5 o'clock? You pray? For how long? An hour and a half. What? Who do you pray for? Everybody I know that come to church. Goodness. Whew, okay. So then I start trying to do that.
Mark Clark [00:20:21]:
Alright, because clearly God loves this guy. Listen, here's what happens. You know you all think like this. You meet someone who gets up at 5, prays for an hour and a half. The immediate thought you think is, God loves this guy more than me. He loves him more than me. Here's what you've done. Behavior modification, performance, rather than, He loves me in His Son.
Mark Clark [00:20:46]:
As much as He could ever love me. And you're not preaching the Gospel, you're not even understanding the Gospel. And so I would get up, alright, I'd set my alarm, get me up! Get up at 5 AM, alright, hour and a half, here we go. Father, Father. And I'd start praying, and man, I would labor for what felt like an hour. And I would kind of open my eyes, it was 12 minutes. Ah! Every time it's like that! Because, now listen, but then I started understanding the Gospel, I started understanding, wait, access to the Father comes through the work of the Son, comes through the work of the Spirit. I don't need to be burdened down with your 5 o'clock prayer meeting anymore.
Mark Clark [00:21:39]:
I'm not burdened with that anymore because God has freed me up. Paul in the book of Galatians says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Freedom. What are you in bondage to? I met a girl this week. Her and her boyfriend came in and we were doing some premarital counseling and she told me this story about Her life, she was raised in a very religious home, a home where you had access to the Father through what you did, and you ate this, and you didn't work on these days, and you did this, and it was all structured and perfect, and in the youth group and everything was going great. But she realized one day, I don't love God. I don't walk with Jesus. I don't care about any of this stuff.
Mark Clark [00:22:22]:
And so when she hit 18, she was out. She left like many of you. She just walked away from all of this. It was a burden. And then she was cutting some hair and somebody came in and said, "Hey, you should really come to Village Church." And she was like, "Yeah, whatever." And then a second person came in and said, "Hey, you should really come to Village Church." She's like, "Well, that's just two." And then a third person came in and said, "Hey, you should come to Village Church." She's like, "All right." Alright, so then her and her boyfriend, this is back when we were at Rosemary Heights, so they drive up in the truck and there's all these cars everywhere, they can't find a parking spot, they say, "Ah, let's just leave this place." "No, no, no, come on." Jumps out, walks in, and listen, hears the Gospel of freedom and goes, "Yes! 10 years! Yes! I'll take that!" Why? Not because of me, not because of the music, not because of you, but because the gospel went out and goes, "It is for freedom that Christ set you free." Freed up not to go into sin licentiously, freed up to do what he's calling you to do to bring him glory now with joy. That's what we get freed up to do. And so he's saying the way you get access to the Father is not through what you do, it's through what he has done for you. And so here's what we gotta understand.
Mark Clark [00:23:52]:
The story of the Bible is the story of the presence of God. And we gotta think how powerful that is, 'cause that might seem weird and abstract to us. The story of the Bible is the story of the presence of God, that you get access to the Father. How? Through the work of the Son, through the work of the Holy Spirit. What's the big deal? Presence is everything. Ask someone who has lost a loved one recently. What they miss the most, and what they will tell you is, "I miss their voice, I miss their laughter, I miss who they are, but above everything, I miss their presence. I miss the fact that they're in the bed beside me.
Mark Clark [00:24:30]:
I miss the fact that they're at the kitchen table. I miss the fact that when I come home, they're just there. It's them, it's their presence." Now, just magnify that out of what that's like with God. The story of the Bible becomes a story of how do we get back into the presence of God. Adam and Eve in the garden, God's there, they're walking in the cool of the day, they're both naked, they're walking with God. That gets broken. He calls Abraham, He says, "Abraham, through you all the people of the world are going to be blessed. All the people of the world can come into my presence." How's that going to happen? It's a mystery.
Mark Clark [00:25:03]:
And then He goes with Moses and He does the law and He sets up— here's the reality. He's got the tabernacle, He's got the temple, How is all the world gonna actually come in? Are they gonna come to the temple? What's gonna happen? How's the presence of God gonna be everywhere? And then Jesus comes. He fulfills the Old Testament law, dies on the cross, the veil gets torn, He resurrects from the dead, and then that crazy thing in Acts chapter 2 happens. The Holy Spirit drops. And then we begin to realize, my goodness, the story is this. We don't all have to flock to a temple in order to come into the presence of God. The presence of God through Jesus is now available to come to all of us and drop on every head, and then we go out. Listen.
Mark Clark [00:25:42]:
This space right here, this is not sacred space, alright? This is a high school gym, alright? It's not that you come here and you can experience God in some crazy other way than you can get anywhere else. That's not the way it works. God does not dwell in buildings made with human hands. Alright, listen. Right over there behind that bleacher, girls and boys make out, right there. Right there. Rosemary Heights, little kids play badminton. Right where you're sitting, lady.
Mark Clark [00:26:11]:
Yeah, you. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Alright. Badminton there, sweaty little kids. Right, this is not sacred space. This is a high school. The sacred space becomes your life. The sacred space becomes God.
Mark Clark [00:26:31]:
Listen to what he's saying, the Holy Spirit, in verse 22. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. You're the dwelling place now. You believe in Jesus, you give your life to Jesus, you repent of sin, He, by His Spirit, comes and fills you. This afternoon, there's gonna be a dog and pony show here where owners of dogs dance with their dogs. Sorry, I tried to get that out without— alright? And then there's gonna be kites involved. I don't know what that means. Now, I might just be upset because we got kicked in here being all negative.
Mark Clark [00:27:30]:
But that's what's going to go on here after we leave. Alright, God doesn't— this is not sacred space anymore. That's not how it works anymore. The people of God become the sacred space. We don't build altars. And here's what he says in verse 18, "We both have access." What he means by that is that Jews and Gentiles together have access to God, which was crazy at that time. Because it was only Jews that were the people of God, and then it became Gentiles. And the first Gentile to give his life to Jesus was a guy named Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.
Mark Clark [00:28:06]:
And what happened is, he's sitting around, he's a God-fearer like many of you, he was Italian. Is that rain? Holy smokes! Dog and— kites and ponies. Alright, so Cornelius gives his life to Jesus and they said, "Oh, you know, you should do all these religious things," and he was like, "I don't want to do that. I'm a grown man. I don't want to get circumcised. Are you crazy?" So he didn't. And then Peter preached to him and he said, "Yeah, I'll take the gospel. I'll take Jesus." And then the church has a total freakout and says, "How is it possible that a Gentile would come to know Christ? How is this even possible?" And they all get together in Acts 15 and say, "Is it possible for a Gentile to become a Christian?" Peter's like, "Yes, I just saw one become a Christian." And here's what begins.
Mark Clark [00:28:54]:
He's a God-fearer like many of you, alright? He believes in God, but if you ask him to unpack that, he doesn't know what that means. He's generically, vaguely spiritual, like many of you in this room. You believe in a God, but talk about what does that mean? Does it mean Jesus? Does it mean, "Well, He's a genie, He's got a beard. He's the one I talk to when there's a lot of turbulence on the plane." Alright? That's a God-fearer. Alright, you're not a Christian, you haven't trusted in Jesus yet, you believe in some kind of idea. That's Cornelius. And he comes to know Jesus, the Holy Spirit drops on him, and he has a complete life change. And the point of this is, what Paul is saying here, which is powerful, is that this is the exclusivity of Christ.
Mark Clark [00:29:34]:
This is that only through Jesus can people have access to God. As uncomfortable as that becomes for us. People both in the church and outside the church are uncomfortable with the idea of the exclusivity of Christ, that only through Jesus can a person be saved. You can't change the message of the Bible. You can't change the message of the New Testament. And this is why people give their lives to this. This is why missionaries all over the world, all through history, have died for the name of Jesus. Because if you could get access to the Father, listen, if you could get access to God through any religion you want, through any that you want, alright, then don't worry about giving, being on mission, ever talking to your neighbors, ever becoming a missionary.
Mark Clark [00:30:21]:
Who cares? Just stay home, run your business, and tweet about X Factor. That's it. Who cares? You have no bigger calling. It doesn't matter. And then I meet with a couple this week, And they're sitting in my office crying. They go to our Rosemary Heights campus because God has called them to uproot their family, move to South America, and do mission in the slums, plant churches, preach, counsel, love people with the gospel. They don't know how long they're going, but God has moved on them and just ruined them for South America. And they're going down there, they don't speak a lick, of Spanish, alright? They're going down to love on people.
Mark Clark [00:31:10]:
And there's some people that say, you know, we got to make sure that our missionaries that are out in the field, these people who give up their life and go, we got to make sure they're emotionally healthy and stable, and we got to do psychological exams on them and make sure— I'm like, dude, no, don't do that. You're talking about a family that's going to uproot their kids in their comfortable lifestyle of Canada, move to a country they don't know a lick of the language, They're gonna preach the gospel, plant churches, and love people so that people can meet Jesus, and you wanna make sure that they're mentally stable. They're not. And if you go down there to make sure that they're mentally stable, they'll be back in a month. They're not mentally stable because here's the thing, they have realized They don't care about the things that we care about. They don't value the things we value. What has grabbed their heart is there are millions of people in South America that don't know Jesus, and without Him, they will die and go to hell forever. And I'm willing to give up my Lululemon pants and my Starbucks to go and tell them about Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:32:32]:
That's the true story, that's serious. What are you doing? If access to the Father only comes through Jesus, what are you doing to make sure everybody knows that? Have you given your life to that? See, here's the image. Paul gives us 3 images for what this looks like. Verse 19 is the first one. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints. Here's what he means by that. Citizenship language in that culture If I was a citizen of Rome, I would give allegiance to Rome, I would give money to Rome, I would function in a way that basically— what happened when Paul writes to the Philippians and he says, "Your citizenship is in heaven," the way that citizenship worked is if I lived in Philippi and I was a citizen of Rome, it wasn't that one day I'm going to die and retire and go back to Rome. Alright, your citizenship is in heaven.
Mark Clark [00:33:43]:
It's not one day you're going to— die and go to heaven. It's that your job, because Philippi is a colony of Rome, is to bring the culture of Rome to Philippi. And what the Bible's saying is, if your citizenship is in heaven, it's your job to bring the culture of heaven down to earth, to love people, the people around you, to love them, to serve them, to bring justice. The gospel's not pie in the sky, just kind of wait till you die. Wow, I'm rhyming now. It's not that. It's, man, if your life's been changed by Jesus, how can you relieve suffering now? How can you help now? And so we talked about, a couple years ago, we wanted to be about global mission, and so we did this Uttar Pradesh project with India, and we're building a school, a Christian school, so the Dalit kids, 250 million of the poorest of the poor, who get sold into sex trafficking at young ages. We said, how can they meet Jesus? How can they get an education and actually get out of this poverty? So we took on a project, raised over $50,000, and this morning we had the opportunity to roll out kids that we can sponsor, and they all got taken at the 9 o'clock.
Mark Clark [00:34:58]:
So, sorry. Another reason to attend the 9, alright? Now, these are kids that we want to sponsor. Now, there's a ton more kids that we can get, and so if you're interested in that, just go to the table. There's a big sign there, and just put your name down. It's like $30 a month to make sure the kids are resourced well and all that. But the point is, is that we believe that bringing the kingdom of God— this is what citizenship is about— bringing heaven to earth is part of what we are called to do. To make these changes in the world around us. And here's the point.
Mark Clark [00:35:36]:
When it comes to citizenship, it comes to our identity as a church, Paul's trying to get us to go, look, this is bigger than this room. This is bigger than what's going on in this room. That we gotta think globally. That, so there's, There's a university in New Brunswick, some of you might have seen this on our Facebook page, that was trying to reach some of the students around them and they couldn't really reach the students very well. They didn't feel anyone was being effective. And so tonight, we need to pray for them, there's a bunch of people getting together to do a church service and show the Village Church sermons in the school. They've rented out a lecture hall, starting with Skeptics Forum, to start gathering the university students to watch these things and then do Q&A. That's a piece of how God can use— this is the big vision of what we're talking about, that we want— this is bigger than us.
Mark Clark [00:36:34]:
This is about citizenship in another place that we're to bring the kingdom of God. Alright, a piece of us in 2013, we're going to roll out a plan. We've got to get our own space so that we can, yes, do services and not be kicked out every time there's a dog and pony show, But also midweek to do youth ministries and kids ministries, develop leaders. Here's what we found. Right now we're looking to hire about 3 or 4 pastors to serve you well, to take care of you, to go forward in the mission that God's got for us that we're excited about. And what we're realizing is Canada is not developing good Christian leaders. No one is out there developing leaders. We're networking with Emerson.
Mark Clark [00:37:18]:
Bring us good guys. What's going on? We don't have any. What do you mean you don't have any? Haven't you been developing anybody? No. So part of our vision is, man, we gotta get a space. We gotta develop leaders from all across the country. Bring them together, train them. What does that look like? Even with our own church, we need to develop— when we develop community group leaders, right, we pull them together for what we call boot camps. We just, right now, we don't have a facility.
Mark Clark [00:37:42]:
We go to your house. We'll just call someone up. Can we come to your house? Yeah, 60 people show up. They're spilling into your kitchen. Alright, this was the last one. We're all sitting in a kitchen going, "How do I be a good community group leader?" I don't know, watch the sink. We're trying to develop leaders, we're trying to expand. How are we going to do that? And so we're going to be— this is all part of what it means to be a citizen, and this is all about— this has nothing to do with anything except bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.
Mark Clark [00:38:14]:
As we live it. Alright, second image he gives is this. He gives the image of a family. Verse 20: Built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, meaning the Bible, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. Sorry, verse 19, halfway up verse 19: But you are fellow citizens with the saints, this is the second name, and members of the household of God. Here's what he's saying. Village Church is a family. Alright, this is where some of our myths about what a church is are gonna get blown up.
Mark Clark [00:38:49]:
There's a difference between a family and a business. Village Church is not a business, it's a family. Now, here's the difference. You walk into a store, alright, you walk into Chapters, alright, you're there as a customer. There's all these, you know, young kids and they have these cute little vests on and they run around and they serve you. And then you buy something and you're always right, because you're in a business, and then you leave. You're a customer. A family doesn't function like that.
Mark Clark [00:39:23]:
Imagine you came home. Does your brother come out and say, "Hello, how can I serve you today? Thank you for coming home." Your mom and dad come out entertaining you so you'll come back. Hee hee hee hee hee hee. No! You're in a family! You have chores! You gotta work! You gotta step up and be! You gotta help pay the mortgage! You have to participate! You don't get to just consume and walk out. You're family now. This is how this functions. If I just came home and kicked my feet up and watched my mom and dad cook dinner, what are you doing? I'm just watching you cook dinner and then I'll eat it and then I'm gonna judge it out of 10 and leave. My dad would beat me and then he'd bring a friend over who was frustrated at his kid and let him take a couple shots.
Mark Clark [00:40:36]:
Man, in our culture, we start to think of church like chapters where you can walk in, complain, get other people to sing and dance for you, and walk out as a consumer. It is our vision to not let you be consumers. To never let that happen. To let you be people who say, "I'm part of a family. I have chores to do. I have work to do. If I want to see this family be healthy, I have a particular role." That's our vision. Alright, third image he gives.
Mark Clark [00:41:15]:
Final one. Built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together. Here's the third image he's gonna give. First, citizens. Second, family. Third, builders. Says this: In whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Mark Clark [00:41:41]:
Love this image. We're builders. Listen. We have a church to build. We have a city to reach. Men, we have a church to build and a city to reach so that the gates of hell don't win. Women, we have a church to build so the gates of hell never win in our city. That's what we're called to do.
Mark Clark [00:42:20]:
Roll up your sleeves and build something. Don't float. We can't float. There's no time to float. There's no time to hoard. There's no time for your idols to be more important than the mission that Jesus has us on. There is no time. We have 15 minutes.
Mark Clark [00:42:40]:
That's it. So I was in Hawaii, in case you forgot. A couple weeks ago, and I'm gonna steal this illustration from a guy named Wayne Cordero who wrote a book called Doing Church as a Team, because I saw this in Hawaii. There were two kinds of boats that I saw when I was in Hawaii. One was a big battleship. It was sunken in Pearl Harbor. And I thought through the image of a battleship. Battleship, every sailor is a warrior.
Mark Clark [00:43:15]:
He knows what his position is so that when they're out there and the alarm goes off and it's time to win a war, he knows his position, he knows where he's going, and he goes and he does it exactly as he's trained to do it. Knows his position, knows where to go. That's how you win a war. Then as I was driving around Waikiki Beach, I saw cruise liners. Right? Big Mickey Mouse ears. My kids would go, "Mickey Mouse!" Big movie screens. And you know what happens when you get on a cruise liner? You see a bunch of lazy, sun-ripened people getting served by hundreds of other people. "How can I get you a drink, sir?" And they're getting served and they're just chilling.
Mark Clark [00:44:04]:
They're doing nothing. They're on vacation, man! I'm on a cruise liner! And here's the image that struck me when I was in Hawaii. Village, we cannot be a cruise liner. We must be a battleship. Every single one of you has to know where you're gonna serve, what you're gonna do, what is your job here, what is your role. So the bell's ringing, alright? People are dying and going to hell every single day. If you're cruising, you're out. Listen, if you're cruising at Village Church and you're not willing to convert to be a soldier on mission in a battleship, you're just weight.
Mark Clark [00:44:46]:
And you're burdening us down. You're a fan. Fans burden the boat down. Imagine you're at war and the guy's like shooting the cannons and you're just sitting there, "Hey, you got some suntan lotion? What's going on?" The guy would be like, "What's up with you? Get him off the ship! He's just weight!" Jesus has a lot of fans. He's got a lot of people going, "I like Jesus, he was a great teacher." And maybe if I get close enough to him and I cheer, maybe I'll get some of that blessing and it'll just kind of rub off on me. But the high cost of discipleship and what it means to serve and to give of our resources and our time and our energy and our spiritual gifts and find out where we're supposed to be, that sounds like a lot of work. I'm busy. I'm so busy.
Mark Clark [00:45:49]:
That's a cruise liner. And if we're gonna accomplish what God is calling us to do, we all gotta know where our position is and have war mentality. This is wartime. This isn't peacetime. And one of the myths that you tell yourself every day when you wake up is it's peacetime. Everything's okay. Everything's fine. And you pull the veil back and it's chaos and it's sin and it's death.
Mark Clark [00:46:25]:
And the world is going on without you and Satan keeps winning little battles. And so my prayer is that we, if we're in that fan position instead of the follower position, if we're in a position where we're just loving the cruise that your heart would change. Father, it is my prayer that we adopt the vision, the mission of being citizens of a different place than this, and that we would not allow the cares of this world to choke us that we would embrace our identity as a family member instead of a consumer, and thirdly and most powerfully, that we would view ourselves as building, building the church so the gates of hell will not prevail. That the pieces of my life that I'm keeping to myself, the idols that are driving what I do from 9 to 5, the safety, the security, the comfort, that you could deconstruct all of that in my heart. Reprogram me. Reprogram every person in here to listen to your spirit. What are you calling us to do? How can we build? How can we be at war for the glory of God, for the fame of the name of Jesus? Amen.