Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Hey everyone, Mark here.
Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Mark Clark Podcast. Hopefully you are doing well. We are super excited to be in this series, just going verse by verse through this amazing letter, this book of Ephesians. And in Ephesians 1, the writer Paul connects God's glory with the work of the Holy Spirit, not as something like abstract, but as something that shapes real life, tangible life. And this message actually comes from the early days of Village Church in Vancouver when we planted the church up there, uh, and, and it speaks to, to what the Spirit does in believers' lives here and now. So if you've ever wondered about the Spirit's role, this passage brings clarity for you. Let's get into it.
Mark Clark [00:00:41]:
All right, Ephesians chapter 1. And here's what's great about this text this morning, um, because really right up front, if you're new, this text is going to force us to look at what we're about as a church. All right, that, that Paul really just pulls out what we're about and what we're not about. All right, so we've been in Ephesians 1 for a few months, and so we're excited to be coming up to the second half of verse 13 and right into 14. Ha! Holla! All right, so here's what Paul says, okay? Look at verse 12 so we can set the framework of verse 13 and 14. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. So we're gonna hit that.
Mark Clark [00:01:33]:
Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. Meaning, you know, we're gonna go to heaven when we die, we're gonna go be with Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is the now experience, the kind of, here's a piece of what heaven is in the now, in the present, —until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. So we've got to kind of take that last phrase, to the praise of his glory, and we've got to go, okay, what is he talking about? So let's start there. To the praise of his glory. What does he mean? He has come back continuously in this passage to tell us that everything about our lives is not about our lives. All right, you tracking with that? Meaning it's all about him and his glory, that our entire life, that your money, that your job, that your kids, that your aspiration is to the praise of his glory. And so he— go up to verse 6, to the praise of his glorious grace. Verse 12, that we might be to the praise of his glory.
Mark Clark [00:02:36]:
Verse 14, that we might be into the praise of his glory, that everything is about the glory of God. That's the point that Paul's trying to make. Everything about our lives. And that's what we want to say this morning, that what we're about is the glory of God, not the glory of you, not the glory of me. There are thousands of churches that close their doors every year in Canada and the United States, and the reason is, is because the story and the glory of the church become more important than the story and the glory of God. Alright, so they're all about their programs, their ministries, their buildings, and that becomes the story, what everyone celebrates. Bricks in. And so we're celebrating with this building.
Mark Clark [00:03:20]:
Awesome. We're excited. But here's the thing. This is brick and mortar. The church are the people of God. Listen, this place is gonna burn. Not today, all right? Don't worry about it. You're good.
Mark Clark [00:03:35]:
You're good. Some of you are like, what the? Get out of here, man. You're gonna burn us up. All right, no. But ultimately when the new creation of God comes, this place— I mean, the church is the people of God. Living to the praise of his glory. And so what do we do with the time that's given to us on this earth? Whether you got 80 years, whether you got 30 years, you gotta live for the glory of God and not the glory of self. And we gotta constantly come back and go, man, we just, we can never get in the mentality where we ever settle.
Mark Clark [00:04:05]:
And so some of our hearts are gonna shift now. You know, we've got 1,000 seats, we've got this nice building, got a foyer. You can actually meet some people. It's gonna be beautiful. The kids are just rocking it back there. They got a big gym. They're going to be doing worship. It's just crazy.
Mark Clark [00:04:16]:
And we're praising God for it. But our hearts are going to gravitate toward a space where, all right, now we settle. We've arrived. We're in the promised land. And this text is going, you haven't arrived anywhere. You rent this place. All right? And they could go, hmm, we don't like you. You're gone.
Mark Clark [00:04:38]:
This is a tool, this is a vehicle that God uses so we can gather and worship to the praise of his glory. It's not us that got us in here. It's God that did. And so we live to the praise of his glory. And so really what this text is saying is what is uppermost in God's affection is God, that he loves his own glory more than anything. And for us, it's very difficult because we're constantly told the story that we're the center of everything. Right? And so you turn on your television, you sit back on your couch, you watch commercials, and it's like, "You know what? I do deserve that third trip to Mexico this year. I deserve that.
Mark Clark [00:05:25]:
I can't afford it. I'll just get that credit card that was on the commercial before that one." Be perfect. Because I deserve it. I work hard. I'm the center of the story. All of life is about the praise of the glory of me. And the Scriptures are constantly challenging us to try to get away from that mentality. That we come then into the church and try to escape a me culture We walk into the church and what we get is we start singing songs, all right, where we're singing about ourselves instead of God.
Mark Clark [00:06:05]:
And so, like a rose trampled on a thorn, you took the fall and you thought of me above all. Scriptures go, no, you didn't. I mean, he loves you. You're very prominent in his affections. But here's what he cares about more, his own glory. And some of us are like, ah, this is crazy. I'm looking for the door. All right, so let me show you from the Scriptures, all right? Go to Psalm 23, all right, 'cause we all know Psalm 23, so this one's a safe one for you.
Mark Clark [00:06:35]:
Psalm 23, and this just is all over the Bible. We could go to hundreds of passages where God's going, "Here's what I love, here's what I love, I love me." Do you know who the most focused, God-centered creature in the universe is? God. What? Sounds crazy. So write Psalm 23. We read this one at funerals and stuff like that, so we're familiar with it. The Lord is my shepherd, verse 1, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
Mark Clark [00:07:05]:
He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness. To this point, it seems very me-centered. If we stop the verse right there, we might say to ourselves, "Oh, God is really about me. He likes me. He wants to take care of me. I'm uppermost in His affections. I'm the focus." That's what we tend to think about.
Mark Clark [00:07:24]:
And then it says this in verse, the end of verse 3, for his name's sake. So why does he lie you down in green pastures? Why does he restore your soul? Why does he do these things with you? Why does he love you, shepherd you, care for you? It's for the sake of his name. That's why he does these things. So, so we're constantly trying to make the story about us, but the motivation behind everything is him. All right, Ezekiel 36. Again, we can just hit about— I know a lot of you had your devotions right here in Ezekiel 36 this morning, so you'll know this passage, right? Ezekiel 36. All right, big prophet preaching to Israel. Here's what he says in verse 22.
Mark Clark [00:08:09]:
Thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my My holy name. But I thought He always acted. I thought He moved and flexed for me. Isn't that what He does? It's not for you. I'm moving for the sake of My holy name, to the praise of My glorious grace, which you have profaned, actually, He reminds them. It's awesome. I'm moving for my name, by the way. You profane my name every day.
Mark Clark [00:08:50]:
Me. To which you came, and I will vindicate the holiness of my great name. That that's what I'm about. That he loves himself more than any individual in this room. And actually, that becomes the foundation for how he does love us. This is similar to Jesus when He's going in the Gospels and He says, "Will you believe in the Gospel, lay down your life for the sake of the Gospel, that those who would give their life for the sake of the Gospel will be saved?" What's He saying? He's saying that it's more important to God that the Gospel goes forward than that any individual in this room lives till tomorrow. That that's what's most important to God. This is Philippians 1 where Paul's going, "I'm in prison, I'm suffering, I'm probably gonna die soon, but the reason this is all happening to me is for the advancement of the gospel." The Bible constantly is calling you to something bigger than yourself, and it's very difficult for us to get outside even of our worldview.
Mark Clark [00:10:08]:
Some of you have a worldview where you just believe in this idea, this kind of watered-down idea of karma, all right? People love this. So these guys brought a blind guy to Jesus in John 9, and they said, "Why is this guy blind? Is it because of his sin or the sin of his parents?" These guys are thinking karma, all right? I talk to people, they're like, "Man, Bible? Man, Bible's so old school. I don't like Bible." But here's what I do believe in. I believe in karma because it's such a merciful doctrine, karma. We get what we deserve, right? We throw it out to the universe and then the universe returns. And so when I go to a cafe and it's got a tip jar, it says karma jar. I'm like, oh, I gotta give money. 'Cause if I give money, then it's gonna come back to me.
Mark Clark [00:10:55]:
People love this. This is the West Coast, man. It's the West Coast. Everyone loves karma. I do good, I get it back. I don't do good, I don't get it back. Interesting. Jesus says, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" Let me tell you about my Father.
Mark Clark [00:11:14]:
Let me tell you about God because that's gonna dismantle all of your karma theology because here's the thing about karma. I went to India and walking around India, here's what you see, alright? You see people who are in poverty, who are sick, and they got pieces of their body that are just dismembered and they're sitting in their own filth begging for money and we're going there hanging out ministering to these people. And you know what the entire worldview of karma says? Don't help them. Because if you help them, then in the next life they'll have to live this pain out again. So just leave them where they are. That's where karma gets you. Here's what the gospel comes along and says. In Jesus, you don't get what you deserve.
Mark Clark [00:12:02]:
You get what you don't deserve. See, Jesus got what you deserved. What do you deserve? The wrath, the judgment of God. But Jesus took that on for you. This isn't Santa Claus, right? Santa Claus. With Santa Claus, you get, you're just hoping you can get what you deserve. I was a good boy, I helped Grandma, I call my mom twice a week, oh boy, I'm gonna get something good. But if you're a bad boy or girl, Santa's like, here's some coal, what's up? The gospel's the opposite to Santa Claus.
Mark Clark [00:12:46]:
It goes, man, in Jesus you get what you don't deserve. And so Jesus comes along and He goes, Hey, it's not about what this man did, this man's sin, this man's parents. He says, "This man is blind so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." Meaning what? He's blind because of the glory of God. Have you ever thought of your problems, as your suffering, of your pain, as something that ultimately might point to the glory of God and get you off of the glory of self? 'Cause that's what Jesus says it's all about. It's about pointing to God, constantly pointing to God. So for some of us, this whole idea that the Bible's laying out, that it's all about him, is difficult for us and it's gonna make worship of God harder. For others of us, it makes it deeper. This is the difference between, I've talked about this before, This is the difference between a cat theology of life and a dog theology of life.
Mark Clark [00:13:50]:
All right, so here's what it is. Cats function in a way where if you come along as their owner and you feed them and you clean up after them and you're all for them, you're leading them beside still water, you're loving on them, you're picking up their litter, all right, here's what they begin to think. Hmm, I'm God. Dogs, on the other hand, you serve them, you love them, you clean up for them. Here's what they begin to think: you're God. Right? That's why when you come home, your dog is all over you, and your cat doesn't care! Your cat's over there licking himself, saying, "Clean up my litter, man!" What's wrong with you? So many human beings function as felines. God is for me, God loves me, God woke me up this morning. That must mean I'm God.
Mark Clark [00:14:57]:
And the Scriptures are going, man, you gotta become a dog. God is for me, God loves me, God leads me beside still waters. He must be God. I want to praise him. I want to sit in his lap. And so here's why this is the best news in the world. Because what this means is if the universe is not about you, check this, you don't have to be perfect. You, in your marriages, don't have to win that fight.
Mark Clark [00:15:34]:
What? 'Cause the story's not about you. So now you're freed up. You don't have to win every fight, ladies! Why? Because the story's not about you. You don't have to win every fight. You don't have to be the perfect mom. And there's a lot of pressure on you to be the perfect mom. You don't have to be the perfect father. You don't have to be the perfect son.
Mark Clark [00:16:14]:
In fact, you can just— you have the freedom, if the story is not about you, to be able to make mistakes. And you live in a culture that doesn't let you make mistakes very easily. Man, as a pastor, I'm not allowed to make mistakes. But here's the beauty. If this is true and it's all to the praise and the glory of God instead of the praise and the glory of me, I can make mistakes. That just frees me up. I can be a bad pastor. And I am.
Mark Clark [00:16:48]:
I am. I make mistakes all the time. The other day, I shouldn't share this with you, but the other day I did a wedding and I forgot the guy's last name. Alright, so I'm sitting there doing this wedding, everyone's pumped, alright, we're at the climax, everybody's in their beautiful clothes, we're up there, hey, you know, let God, what God has joined together, let man not separate. Separate them, and this is so-and-so and so-and-so, and this is Mr. and Mrs. Mizzemin. I was just kind of looking out.
Mark Clark [00:17:25]:
Anyone catch that? Anyone caught that? Mr. and Mrs. Mizzemin. And they're kind of, what's wrong with this guy? Worst pastor ever. And there's people who give testimonies, right? We show videos of people who tell testimonies about how Jesus saved their miserable lives and how they made wrecks of themselves and they made mistakes and they cheated and they did this and they're a failure here, but then Jesus took me in my sin and he did something with me. Man, why do they have the freedom to be able to tell those stories? They don't know you. There's 1,000 of you. They don't know you.
Mark Clark [00:18:05]:
What are they telling you for? The reason is because at some point they stop caring what you think. And once you stop caring what people think, man, you're freed up. I don't care about my reputation. I can talk about my own sin. I can talk about my own mistakes because all of that mess gets turned into a glory, gets turned into something that actually makes God look all satisfying, and then you get freed up If people don't exist to serve and make much of you, you get freed up to serve and make much of them. To the praise of the glory of God. Everything is about the glory of God. So you don't have to build that empire, man.
Mark Clark [00:18:52]:
You don't have to get more money than your neighbor. You're freed up to use everything to the glory of God. Okay, here's what Paul says next, verse 13. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. So let me just unpack the gospel for you for a minute because it's really important that we understand the center of everything that Christianity is because there's a lot of confusion around what the gospel is today. So let me unpack it for you this way, from 3 angles: revelation, response, and result. All right, so first, revelation, meaning what has God done? The Scriptures tell us what God has done, all right? And you hear me talk about this every week because this is what the Scriptures constantly come back to. And so you don't— the truth doesn't change, right? So you're a sinner.
Mark Clark [00:19:51]:
God came down as Jesus Christ. Lived a perfect life in your place, went to the cross, shed his blood for your sins, and then rose again from the dead and said, "I will give you new life. I am victorious over your sin. I'm victorious over Satan. I'm victorious over death. I'm victorious over all of these things that constantly pound you in your life, and I'm gonna offer you new life and transformation in the now." That, in a nutshell, is what the gospel is. So listen, you don't have to agree with everything that I say up here, alright? You don't have to agree with every point about the meticulousness of the sovereignty of God, or election, or the end times. You don't have to agree with all that.
Mark Clark [00:20:33]:
That's my best— that's my best approach to teaching you the Scriptures. Here's what you gotta agree with, and here's what Paul's saying. The gospel is the gospel is the gospel is the gospel is the gospel. And the response to the gospel is something extremely profound. Here's what he says: that you would believe in him. Okay, so, so that's really important. Christianity, for those of you who are new, is not a system of doctrines that you have to believe in. It's believing in a person.
Mark Clark [00:21:15]:
So some of you grew up outside of the church and you think that the church is a place where you're supposed to tuck in your shirt, say all the right things, do all the right things. That's behavior modification. Some of you grew up in other religions and it was all about what you could do to please God. What can I do to show God that I love Him, that I'm worthy? And the gospel goes, you can't do anything. That's why God had to come down to you. Listen, you have nothing to barter with. You come into the presence of a holy God, hey, look at me! I did these nice things. I bought that guy groceries.
Mark Clark [00:21:58]:
I was nice to my neighbor. You've got nothing to barter with. That's why you need to come into the Kingdom of God completely empty-handed. That's why Jesus said, "The road that leads to life is very narrow." You know what He means by that? It's that you've got a whole bunch of stuff you're trying to bring through. You're going, "Hey God, I'm going to show you this, man! Awesome!" Duff! Can't get through, man. Drop that bag. Drop that bag. "But what about, what about, what about?" No, because you're gonna get in front of God and he's gonna look at you in the righteousness of Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:22:36]:
That's what you need. And that's why he says the response is to believe in him. See, here's what happens. In Christianity, we love religion and we love to create rules and hoops for people to jump through so that they can please God. And we love to come up with it and it's a point of control. You have to believe in this system. You have to believe in this. You have to believe in my— So I was reading a story this week of a guy.
Mark Clark [00:23:03]:
He went to a Christian private school. Here was his story. Boys had to part their hair from right to left because parting it from left to right was rebellious. I love Christians. They even had pictures in the school handbook with "Christian Boy" and "Rebellious Boy" written under the specified hairstyles. Part your hair wrongly and you got detention, and detention involved copying out entire chapters of the Bible. Trousers could not have outside seams or patch pockets. Wear the wrong trousers and you had an hour of copying Psalm 119.
Mark Clark [00:23:51]:
Right? Which is the longest chapter in the Bible. Awesome. In class, you weren't allowed to make eye contact with other students because that was considered communication. And yep, you got Psalm 119 in detention. No chewing gum, no eating candy, no sitting with girls. Boys and girls had separate stairways and walkways. Break any of these and the psalmist would be waiting for you. These rules drove me mad.
Mark Clark [00:24:23]:
I tried to break as many as I could. In the 8 months I was there, I had detention 32 times. They were supposed to mold my character, and they did all right, into the most rebellious kid possible. They made me angry, bitter, rebellious, and rude, though I did know the Psalms well in the end. Alright, so the point of this is Christians love this. Just create the schools, create the systems, create the religion. Believe in my system. And the gospel just comes with this profound, crazy reality that you need to trust and believe in Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:25:09]:
That it's not about what you have accomplished. It's about what He's accomplished. See, here's what happens. I met with a guy the other day. He'd been coming to Village for about 3 or 4 months, gave his life to Jesus, and we're meeting in my office and he said, "You know, I just can't, you know, I've trusted Christ, I've repented of sin, I've given my life to Jesus, but I just feel like there's this thing like I have to do, like I can't really believe that this is the beginning of a relationship with God. Like, isn't there something else I can do?" kind of manipulate? And isn't there— I just feel like— and this is how the mathematics of grace work, right? It feels like there should be more. And this is what happens is Satan will come at you, those of you who are new believers, those of you who've trusted grace, undeserved favor, mathematically doesn't make sense. And so what we're going to do in our heart is go, this can't make sense.
Mark Clark [00:26:04]:
It can't be that my Acceptance is based on someone else, so here's what I want to try to do. I want to try to earn it. And Satan will tell you, you better try to earn this. This is not enough. You've seen Saving Private Ryan. If you haven't, I'm going to ruin it, but it's your fault because it came out in 1998. At the end of Saving Private Ryan, He's sitting there, all these men have given their lives to save Private Ryan, and all of them are dead. And he's standing in front of his captain, Tom Hanks, as he's laying on the ground dying, and he looks up and he preaches the worst gospel message in the history of time.
Mark Clark [00:26:49]:
He says this, "Earn this." Cut to old man, 80 years old, sitting in a graveyard at all of these dead guys who gave their life for him, and he's weeping and sobbing under the burden, and he looks to his wife and he says, "Tell me I've been a good man. Tell me I've earned this." See, that's what we constantly do. "Let me earn it. Let me earn it. Let me earn it. There's no way that the weak faith in this guy who's so immature could save me." Here's what the gospel says. It's not about the depth and the strength of your faith. It's about the depth and the strength and the character and the accomplishment of the one you put your faith in.
Mark Clark [00:27:39]:
It's not about you. It's about what he's done for you. And our hearts have a hard time coming off that world, 'cause here's what we'd rather do. Get detention. Write out Psalm 119, and then we feel good. 'Cause who's in control? We are. So there's revelation, what God has done. There's response, we believe in Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:28:07]:
We don't believe in systems of religion. We don't believe in doctrines. We believe in Jesus. That's foundational, that's what saves us. And then you can start doing the doctrine and doing the teachings and doing everything, great. And then finally, there's the result, and this is beautiful. He says this: We were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. The word seal, it's where a guy who owned a slave would put it on a slave and it said, I belong to God.
Mark Clark [00:28:36]:
Right? Some of you wear wedding rings. All right? What does that wedding ring say? It reverberates out to the world, right? I got a woman! Right? So this saves me many, many times. This just goes out to all the ladies, leave me alone. I'm telling you, man, in the grocery store, I'm like, hey, what's up? I'm taken. That's what that sealed is, you're sealed, you belong to Him, you belong to your Master like a slave. That's had a seal put on them. And the Holy Spirit is in you and it fills you. Verse 14, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.
Mark Clark [00:29:24]:
Here's the issue. Here's where some of us need to be challenged this morning, all right? Because some of us live the kind of Christian life where we go, man, I've given my life to Jesus and now transformation can wait until I go to heaven when I die one day. And so now you're just waiting to die and go to heaven. And then you just continue on your life as if you're a Christianized version of what you already are and what you're absolutely determined to remain. All right, so, hey, I'm a stripper. Now I'm a Christian stripper. What's up? Till I go to heaven with a bunch of ones in my underwear. I don't need to change now because what's my version of salvation? I believed in Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:30:07]:
Now I just wait to go to heaven when I die. Is that not how most of us function? And this text is going, hold on, there's something far more profound that happens when you give your life to Jesus. You get the Spirit now. Meaning you start getting transformed now. That's the expectation. Some of us approach Christianity As if it's just, you know, God doesn't resource me though. I can't— I read the Scriptures and they're totally difficult. I can't actually change my life because everything on here is impossible for me to do.
Mark Clark [00:30:51]:
I do a lot of pastoral counseling, and a lot of the questions that come in, it's a huge part of— I love my job. Meeting with you, as we talk about, "Okay, I'm a new Christian. What does this mean for me?" And one of the major questions is, "How do I change? How do I actually change my life?" And religion's going to tell you, "Work on the outside. Change your behavior." And so you have to sit and you have to chant. You have to, like, pump yourself up. "I've got to stop doing this. I've got to start doing that. I've got to stop doing this." And all that that's doing is changing the outside, the outside, the outside.
Mark Clark [00:31:23]:
It's like shearing off the in front of a mountain. What you need is something to get inside of you, and Paul says that's the Holy Spirit, and it changes your will, it changes your volition. See, the only way you're gonna change what you do is by changing what you want to do. The stuff that you love to take, the stuff you take pleasure in has to change, or you won't change. You'll be filling out Psalm 119 and hating your life and becoming rude. Because you won't change. It's not changing what you want to do, it's just changing what you're doing. That's never gonna change you.
Mark Clark [00:31:58]:
What you love, what you take pleasure in has to change. That's the work of the Holy Spirit as it gets into your life and actually changes you from the inside, changes your will, changes your volition. Alright, go back a book or two to Galatians 3. Here's what Paul's addressing in Galatians. A whole group of people just like us who've believed something but aren't living in the power of what God provides in His Spirit to actually walk in it. And so what they do is they start shifting back toward behavior modification, religion, stuff that they can tangibly touch and feel. So here's what Paul says to them. "Oh, foolish Galatians." In chapter 3, pick it up in verse 1.
Mark Clark [00:32:55]:
"Oh, foolish Galatians." I love this. This is very pastoral. "Fools!" Right? This is where I learn. It's emphatic. Exclamation mark. Fools! You foolish village church people! That's what he's saying. Who has bewitched you? Who's fooled you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: did you receive the Spirit.
Mark Clark [00:33:38]:
Just stop there for a second. Here's what he's saying. You want to define Christianity by all of these different things, all right? You want to create your tribe. You want to know— hey, I define whether you're a Christian on who you vote for. Hey, who do you vote for? I define whether you're a Christian— are you young earth or old earth? Paul goes, "I don't care!" Here's my question. Here's the question on the table. Some of you, you don't know if you're Christians. You doubt.
Mark Clark [00:34:14]:
You're not sure. Here's the question on the table. Did you receive the Spirit? Do you have the Spirit? That's the question that the Bible wants to ask. Because some of us are living the kind of life— I mean, Jesus says when he's ascending into heaven, all right, Acts chapter 1, he's ascending into heaven, I love it, he's floating, and at the end of Matthew, it says that some still doubted. I'm just saying, trust the guy floating. He's floating! It's like, "Yeah, I got a brother who could do that." No, you don't! So he's floating, some are doubting, and he says to them in Acts chapter 1, "The Spirit is going to come on you and empower you out to mission." So here's the problem, some of us don't live in the power, in the resource that God actually gives us to live our life. We view Christianity as if God called us to live out of this book but never resourced us to do anything. Some of our versions of Christianity are like me on a Christmas morning, all right? When I— you've probably experienced this.
Mark Clark [00:35:37]:
You get a gift and I would open it up and it'd be sitting there and it's like a brand new Teddy Ruxpin and I'm ready to go. And I open it up and I'm hitting stuff and there's no batteries. And I look to my mom and dad, I'm like, "What's going on?" They're like, "Oh, sorry, I thought they'd have batteries in there." I'm like, "Yeah, it says on the box, batteries not included. So do we have any?" And they're walking around the house and going, "Oh, sorry, man, you'll have to wait until Boxing Day." Boxing Day? Some of us, that's how we view Christianity. I mean, God gave us all this stuff to do, didn't empower us, batteries not included. His fault. Why aren't you living in power? Why aren't you seeing people come to know Jesus? Why aren't you telling your neighbors? Why aren't you growing? Why aren't you being sanctified? He did it. No power, no batteries.
Mark Clark [00:36:32]:
You're reading the Bible and you start giving yourself excuses. See, here's what many of us are gonna do with this information. The question on the table is, do you have the Spirit? Are you empowered by the Spirit of God? Many of us read the Scriptures, we read the book of Acts, we're like, holy smokes, these guys are killing it! They're healing, people are raising from the dead, craziness is going on! Here's what we do. Hmm, I think there's a gap between that and me. So what am I gonna do with that gap? I know. I'll say this, God doesn't work like that anymore. "But what about Africa?" Oh no, He works like that over Africa, but not here. "Oh, so that's the reason for the gap between your life and what's coming out of the Scriptures and life in the Spirit?" Yeah, His fault, no batteries.
Mark Clark [00:37:29]:
And the Bible's going, "I've empowered you. My question to you is, do you have the Spirit?" That's what he wants to know. Do you have the Spirit? So you go over one more chapter, and I want to close by giving you this big, broad picture, because here's the question to the Apostle Paul about the Spirit. Are you a spirit person or not? The options are you're on one side of the ledger or the other. So he says this in chapter 5 of Galatians, verse 16, "I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." The desires of the flesh are those things about ourself that just suck on, the spirit of this world. We just love it. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.
Mark Clark [00:38:36]:
Now the works of the flesh are evident. So now he's going to explain them, and we're supposed to think about our own lives and read into this. First, he said there's a category called sexuality. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality. There's a category in the world of the flesh. How do you do sexuality? Do you do it like flesh person, or do you do it like a spirit person? That's the question on the table. Sexual immorality. He says, hey, I made creation.
Mark Clark [00:39:06]:
I made man. I made woman. It's supposed to— they're supposed to flourish and have sex in the context of marriage, and anything outside of that is sexual immorality. Our culture does one of three things with sex. Either we view it as a gift and we believe in Jesus and a man and a woman get married and they use it in the context of marriage and they flourish and they love it and they read Song of Solomon and they have sex for the glory of God. It's awesome. Other people view it as gross, right? So that's the classic youth group version. Sex is sinful, vile, and disgusting, so save it for the one you love.
Mark Clark [00:39:55]:
Or, like our culture, sex is God. Sex is God, meaning sex is everything. Sex gives me my identity, sex gives me my pleasure, sex gives me my personhood, and the problem with that is it can never deliver what it promises. Right? Never. And you've got to keep going back to that well. Oh, that this Holy Spirit would just totally deconstruct our silly, romantic, Cupid versions of love and sexuality because here's the problem. He continues with the list: idolatry, sorcery, Those are religious things. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.
Mark Clark [00:40:47]:
Sounds like a church business meeting. Envy, drunkenness, orgies. Some of you are like, what? That's in the Bible? People live that stuff. There are people in villages, that's the life they're coming out of. And Jesus is transforming them. And then He says this, "And things like these I warn you, as I warned before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Some of you, when we're having premarital counseling and you're engaged and you're sleeping together and you're like, why are you so hard on us? And I'm trying to set up accountability and I'm threatening you, I'm like, I'm not going to marry you. You're like, what? But everyone's invited and they know you're doing it, so they might start to ask questions. Why are you being so hard on us? Why do you want to see us knock it off until we get married? We're only 3 weeks away.
Mark Clark [00:41:50]:
We're only 3 weeks away. This is why. Because he goes, By the way, those of you who are defined by sexual immorality, you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God. See, we look at this stuff lightly. We're like, "It's funny." We're struggling. Wee! He goes, "You're not in the kingdom of God." Are you tracking with that? The reason I'm so hard on you is because I'm fearful for you. And then he says this though, but the fruit of the Spirit, this is the offer, this is the offer. For those of you living for yourself, for those of you caught up in all of the stuff he just mentioned, the fruit of the Spirit is this, love.
Mark Clark [00:42:49]:
Do you have any? Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that the Spirit would produce in you. Now, here's the game we play. Well, I'm no good at love and patience, but I'm really good at faithfulness. He doesn't say fruits, he says It's holistic. It's your whole life. So are you living according to the Spirit? Are you functioning? Are you growing? Are you living in power? Or is your life just terribly average? I don't say these things to crush you. I say these things so you begin to think through, why aren't I living in the Spirit? Because here's what'll happen, you'll begin to give yourself excuses for why the life that God offers you isn't actually happening. So here's what it usually plays out like.
Mark Clark [00:44:01]:
One group of people will say, the reason that you're not really living in the Spirit is because you need the second blessing. And we go, "Yep, that's it, that's the solution to all my problems. I need the second blessing, so give me that." And then there's another group of people that'll come along and they'll say, "You don't need no second blessing. Here's what you need. You need to read more theology. You need to get—" So these are the Bible church people, all right? "So you need to get Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology and put it under your pillow at night, and you just sleep on that thing. And every morning you get up and read that thing. That's your problem." And then the worship people go, "No, no, no, man.
Mark Clark [00:44:37]:
Don't you know what God wants? God likes to be sung to. We gotta sing more. Forget all this preaching. We gotta sing! Sing!" And then the Global Mission people come and go, "No, no, no. We gotta reach the nations. That's the solution to all the problems. We gotta reach the nations." There's just this one thing that if you do this one thing, it will change everything about your life. And they're wrong, right? Because here's the thing, I read Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology.
Mark Clark [00:45:13]:
I've been to India, Turkey, Israel. I've sung, baby, for hours by myself, 2 AM, candles. Singing. I've asked for every gift that God has for me in the Holy Spirit, and still I am where I am. Still, I would love to love Jesus more. Still, I would love to understand Him more. Still, I would love to be a better husband. Still, I would love to do devos with my kids more consistently.
Mark Clark [00:45:54]:
I'd like to be home and put my kids to bed more than I do. I would like to serve my wife better. I would love to be a better pastor. But I've done all of those things. Because the question on the table is this. It's not any of those things. It's this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Do you have the Spirit.
Mark Clark [00:46:27]:
Do you walk in the Spirit? Father, it's my prayer that in this moment, those people who are coming from backgrounds that don't know you, that think that they're not good enough, that think that you would never use them, never save them, never transform them, never do anything of significance through them, that they would begin to understand that if they humble themselves, repent of sin, and give their lives to you, that you, by way of your Spirit, can actually make them into a different person. You say that in Christ we can become a new creation, that you will transform our mind and our heart, that we would live in power. And for those of us who do know you, but we're just dry, there's such a gap between what we're reading, what we're understanding, what the text is saying, and our lives. I pray that you would hit every one of us. With your Spirit, with a fresh wind, make us new. Even in this moment, transform us on the spot. We want to live for your glory. I want to stop living for the glory of self, even in the little areas of my life.