Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
So First Corinthians, chapter two is where we are. And. And let me start out by saying this. Have you guys ever. I realized this about myself this week. I was walking to my car in, like, a.
Mark Clark [00:00:13]:
Like, a parking garage, and it was dark, and.
Mark Clark [00:00:16]:
And my mind immediately jumped into. Like, I'm part of a horror movie.
Mark Clark [00:00:19]:
Have you ever said just me?
Mark Clark [00:00:22]:
Like, literally, I feel like.
Mark Clark [00:00:23]:
Like I'm just, like, going along in.
Mark Clark [00:00:25]:
Life, kind of doing things normal. And all of a sudden it's like.
Mark Clark [00:00:28]:
Oh, man, it's dark around me, and I'm waiting. I'm trying to find my key, and.
Mark Clark [00:00:32]:
It'S like in my. And I can't get the right key. And it's like all I can hear.
Mark Clark [00:00:35]:
My brain is like. I'm like, oh, my goodness. And I'm waiting for, like, a dude with a mask and these big claws to just come on and go, what's up, playa?
Mark Clark [00:00:43]:
All right. Just from around the corner. I don't know. Does that happen to you? What? You guys are nuts.
Mark Clark [00:00:49]:
All right.
Mark Clark [00:00:49]:
So all of a sudden, I'm in a horn. Now, obviously, that's all in our head. And the reality, we're wrong. It's not actually reality. And that is really kind of how most people have come to the passage we're gonna look at today. Meaning the way they take it is actually not really what the text is about. And it's in their head, and they've kind of made it in. The history of the Church has actually shown.
Mark Clark [00:01:13]:
They tried to make this text into something that it's really not. It's kind of imaginary in their brain, actually. One scholar puts it this way. Gordon Fee says this passage has endured a most unfortunate history of application in the Church. Almost every form of spiritual elitism, deeper life movement, second blessing, hyper charismatic doctrine, has appealed to this text, even though it is nearly 180 degrees, the opposite of Paul's intent. And so what I mean is, I'll read the text for you, and then we'll begin to see what that might be talking about. So first Corinthians, chapter two. Start in verse six.
Mark Clark [00:01:48]:
I'll just read the whole text, and then I'll work through it with you. He says in verse six, yet among the mature, we do not impart wisdom. We do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this Age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
Mark Clark [00:02:27]:
For who knows a person's thoughts except the Spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. So the idea here is there's a whole world and movement that has taken a passage like this and said that we are because we know God, because we're spiritual, because we have the Spirit, because we do this, that there go I'm more spiritual. And so I have these experiences.
Mark Clark [00:03:18]:
I speak in these languages. I see these miracles, I see these things among us. Ergo, among the saints, among Christians, I'm actually special. I'm different than you. I have a different experience. You lack these experiences from the Spirit or whatever it is. And so you're worse off than me. And then, of course, people have also taken the spiritual elitism and say, well, my church grows faster than yours, or we have cool lights or better music, or we do the.
Mark Clark [00:03:43]:
And we create this kind of elitism among the church. We have this judgment, categories of people who are further along than those people based on experience. And the reality is, Paul now comes along, and from everything he said, from chapter two, verse one on, he's been focusing on the reality of the cross and trying to say the ground is totally level at the foot of the cross. And so all of you need to be humble, because if you actually even know God, it has nothing to do with you. It has to do with him. And that's what I've been pounding the last three or four weeks, because that's what he's been talking about. And so he comes at this now, and his application should be, listen, you Pentecostals, you Baptists, you Charismatics, you reformed, you liberals, you conservatives, shut Up. That's his application.
Mark Clark [00:04:27]:
All right, good night. So. So the reality is he's saying, if the ground is totally level at the foot of the cross, then how dare you have a spiritual elitism and say we're right and they're wrong. We have this further expression of, I have this greater experience than you and ergo, you're worse off than me. He says, listen, we need to be humble. We need to actually understand what God has done for us and be humble. Similar to, like, I look at my dog walking around, I've had a dog for about a year and a half and here's the thing, man, I serve this dog, but he still walks around like he owns a place. And it kind of ticks me off.
Mark Clark [00:05:08]:
Look, like, we have this. We have this. I don't know how you guys. We don't have a dog door in our back door going outside. So we have this. My wife came up with this. It's like a ribbon and it's got these bells on the bottom of it. And so this dog just rings some stinking bells to let me know, like, I'm further up the creation food chain than this thing.
Mark Clark [00:05:28]:
All right? Like, I know I'm a man, all right? You're a dog. You were bred in complete, you know, cold hearted reality. And now you walk around my house, everyone likes you more than me. And you, you just walk up to these bells. I'm telling you, the look on her face and she just rings these, just ding, ding, ding, ding. You hear it anywhere at all times, ding, ding, ding, ding. And that means. And then she just sits there and looks at me.
Mark Clark [00:05:58]:
I'm like, what do you want, man? So I have to go, I have to open the door and she just saunters out, takes her time, kind of.
Mark Clark [00:06:05]:
Puts her bum up at me in.
Mark Clark [00:06:07]:
My face, and then goes out and hangs. And then I shut the door and I get into work and I'm in the zone again. And then it's ding, ding, ding from the outside. I'm like. And I open the door and she just walks in and then gets up on the couch and just sits there.
Mark Clark [00:06:19]:
And looks at me and I'm like, you think you own this place?
Mark Clark [00:06:21]:
And I started to resent her over time. But the point is, is if I have served her and helped her and done this thing, why is she acting all proud? She should be humble, right? And this is the reality that Paul's trying to say, if God has saved you, if God has done everything for you, you shouldn't be walking around like you own the place. Shut up. Be humble. Realize it's the cross that brought you to your heart. And so here's the irony that Paul's trying to say. He's trying to look at the church and go, here's the crazy thing. You guys have thought that you're.
Mark Clark [00:06:52]:
There's a special group within the church that's more elite and better off, and you're special within the church. And what he's going to say now and what he's been trying to say is there is no special special group within the church. What you are is you are special out from the world, not in among the church. You are special among the world because God has saved you through his spirit. And now we know he's gonna say in the past, who the covenant people of God are. We can look in the presence, say, who are they? So it's not about being special in regard to one another. It's about being special and called out from among the world. So here's verse six.
Mark Clark [00:07:28]:
So all of that background, the corporation, the cross is there. It totally humbles you. And now he says this, okay, verse six, yet among the mature. All right, that word mature. It's literally he's about to say, there's a whole bunch of people who thought they were so smart and intelligent, they were gonna reason their way to God. And of course, he's critiqued all of that. And now he's saying, but I'm the Apostle Paul, and I'm not just here to critique reason. I'm not just here to tell you science isn't gonna get you the answer.
Mark Clark [00:07:57]:
Art's not gonna get you the answer. Technology is not gonna give you. I'm actually here to give you some really good ideas of what does work. There is a group of people who I'm gonna call mature. And they've actually understand the wisdom of God, even though it's upside down and backwards. And they're now mature. Now here's what he's gonna say, though. Okay? So last summer, my wife and I went to New York for some meetings and we went to the Met.
Mark Clark [00:08:21]:
All right, have you guys been to the Met before? Okay, the music. And so the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And so we went there. There's all this beautiful artwork. And here's the thing, man. Like, my wife and I, we don't have, like, our appetite. Our palette for art is not mature. Let's just put it that way.
Mark Clark [00:08:40]:
All right, so we go there, and we're standing in front of Rembrandts And Van Gogh's all right. And my wife's like, just like checking her Instagram, like, oh, look at so and so went to the beach today. And it's like, it's lost on us. All right? I'm standing in front of these, like, these ancient Greek statues, right? That, like, people are like, my gosh. Then they study them and I'm like, I'm embarrassed because the guy's naked in the statue and I'm like doing the selfies, like covering up his stuff and going, ah. You know. So when we got back to the hotel, I was kind of like, you know, that might have been wasted on us. I'm not gonna lie.
Mark Clark [00:09:21]:
Like, something about the beauty of that art. Our palette for art is not very mature. This is wasted on us, probably. And here's what Paul's about to say. When it comes to the cross, this is what he's talked about in the first five verses. When it comes to the cross of Christ, there's a group of. The world is basically divided between two types of people. The people who aren't mature enough to.
Mark Clark [00:09:45]:
To grasp the beauty and the foolishness and the upside down reality of the cross and those that are. And so there's a group of people who. When it comes to the cross of Christ, and this might be some of you as you sit here right now, taking the master class of life, trying to figure your life out, trying to explore spirituality. We're glad you're here. You might come from a different. You're an atheist, you're an agnostic, you're a Buddhist, you're a Muslim, you're Jewish or whatever it is, and you're exploring Christianity. And what Paul says is, look, there's people who are going to look at the cross and their palate is never going to understand it. They're never going to appreciate it.
Mark Clark [00:10:19]:
So what are they doing? They're going to walk right by it. They're going to look at their phones, they're going to laugh at it, they're going to think it's silly and they're going to move on. But then there's going to be a group of people and the world is divided between these two people who get it, who are mature, who grasp the wisdom, who looked at the Van Gogh and said, my gosh, this is my. Who look at the cross and say, this is life changing. This defines everything about my life. Literally, the world is divided between those two people. And the question of this text is, which one are you? He goes on to verse 14 to define it spiritual and natural. There are spiritual people that are natural people, people who just live according to the world and live the way that they were born and they've never done anything else with that.
Mark Clark [00:10:57]:
And then there are people who actually have what he calls the spirit of God. And he says those people, they get it, they understand a kind of wisdom. They. There is something that is true and something that is real. There is real maturity. But the reality of everything he says is the way you get real maturity is by being humble. The way you get real maturity is by coming at God, not saying, I'm so smart, I'm so wonderful. I use.
Mark Clark [00:11:21]:
It's like Jesus in Matthew 18 when he says, in order to get into the kingdom, you have to become like a what? Like a child. Which always fascinates me because children are dumb, right? Some kid is, mama, take me to a different church, right? Because like, I literally, like, I literally. My kids. Yesterday my daughter was going to do a. She was going into the studio to record this music thing. So it's really important and great moment for her. So I gathered all the kids up. I got my 12 year old going to the studio.
Mark Clark [00:11:53]:
I got 10 year old, seven and a half year old. And I got said, we're gonna pray for my oldest. We're just gonna pray for her. She has a great day. And my two youngest are like, oh, can I go upstairs? I'm like, what do you mean we're gonna pray? Like, oh, this is so boring. Prayer. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I gotta watch out for this. All right? You're pastor's kids.
Mark Clark [00:12:10]:
You're gonna enjoy prayer and cherish it at every moment, all right? And so the reality is, I'm like, man, Jesus wants us to become like them. That's crazy. But the reality is he says, you gotta become like a child. You gotta actually become humble. Because. Because then and only then, you're gonna understand true wisdom. And then he says this, although it is not a wisdom of this age, right? Meaning you have the world and the wisdom of the cross. The wisdom of Christ is actually different than the wisdom of this age.
Mark Clark [00:12:43]:
And the reality is, some of you are defined by the wisdom of this age. You would basically say to yourself, look, I've studied philosophy, I've studied. I only believe things. This was my family growing up, right?
Mark Clark [00:12:55]:
This is most of my friends, that.
Mark Clark [00:12:57]:
I only believe things according to evidence. I'm not a person of faith. Maybe you're somebody who says that you're an agnostic, you're an Atheist, you're a naturalist, you think that you don't believe things by faith. There are people of faith in there and there are people who actually study science and objective reality and that's who you are. And the reality is, every time I sit down with those people, I want to point out to them the naivety and the blind spot of their own life. Because so much about your life and is reason that you've actually come to based on prior faith commitments, that you have a whole bunch of prior faith commitments that actually cause you to do certain things, but you don't even recognize those faith commitments. For instance, one example of this would be the reason that depends on faith. That our cognitive senses are seeing our hearing, our memory, our mind.
Mark Clark [00:13:45]:
That those things are, are not playing tricks on us, that those things are actually giving us input into reality. That's a faith commitment. There's actually now we're gonna do a bit of a philosophy thing here, so don't freak out. Make sure you got your coffee and.
Mark Clark [00:13:59]:
Don'T, you know, don't go into it.
Mark Clark [00:14:00]:
Like a existential crisis. But the point is there is really no way, and I don't mean to sound like you're a first year philosophy 101 professor at university, but there really is no way for, for you to prove that you haven't lived a life at all. That you were born yesterday and you were downloaded with all the memories that you've had of your entire life. And you are a brain sitting in a canister with wires coming out of your brain right now. You have no way of proving that at all, that isn't non circular. So you can't actually reason your way to deduce that you, that all your memories haven't been downloaded, that you literally are a brain in a vat. There is no way for you to prove that at all. Your reason cannot prove it because the reality is your reason could have been programmed and your memory, you have no way of proving that your memory is not playing tricks on you.
Mark Clark [00:14:53]:
That's not completely non circular because you have to use your memory in order to prove that your memory is not, you know, inputted into your brain. And the reality is there are different ways to view the world. So you're a Westerner, right? So you're a Westerner and you believe that the universe is part of a closed system. You believe that everything is a deduction of naturalistic processes. You believe that matter created mind, all of these things. You believe because you're reading the prompter of the western culture you were born in. They give you education, they put it on the news, they give you all these things. You read the prompter, you buy into it, and you move on with your life.
Mark Clark [00:15:27]:
The reality is, most of the world doesn't believe those kind of things. A Hindu philosophy would say that we're. The universe was born out of an absolute spirit. And most of it's an illusion, and you can't actually trust it. And the only way to ever understand it is through meditation and contemplation. You literally have no way of proving which one of those is actually true. You have prior faith commitments that cause you to go into those things. But you can't actually prove that the Hindu philosophy's not right.
Mark Clark [00:15:53]:
Because, of course, if most of life is an illusion, if you could say, well, look, the data doesn't say that way. It's like God. The data's an illusion. Just like pain, It's. Maya, it's an illusion in your brain. You actually have all kind. My point is this. You have all kinds of faith commitments that are actually deduced not through your pure, objective, rational reason, because you're just so smart.
Mark Clark [00:16:14]:
You were just born into a reality. You have no agenda in life. You just walk through as a blank slate and collect data because you're so intelligent. And Paul just went, no, you don't. Your whole life is a faith commitment. The question is, are you willing to maybe take on the conclusion that you're not the smartest one in the universe and God actually exists and he came down and died for you? As messed up and backward and silly as that idea is, as foolish as it is, it is actually the true wisdom. That's his argument. What looks like it's wrong is actually right now, the cross looks bad.
Mark Clark [00:16:52]:
It looks silly, it looks dumb. But in reality, what's true is that it's the most important. It's like, okay, so if I just said to you. I read this article this week, okay.
Mark Clark [00:17:01]:
I was trying to figure out a way to illustrate this.
Mark Clark [00:17:03]:
I read an article this week that talked about a flight attendant breastfeeding a child on a flight, all right? So if you read that, you go, oh, it's disgusting. What? That's disgusting. That's like, who wants to breastfeed another person's child on a. This gut's crazy, all right? Not her own child. They can't take them to work.
Mark Clark [00:17:24]:
You know that, right?
Mark Clark [00:17:25]:
And so they're like, what's wrong with breastfeeding? No. So a passenger's kid. Now, I had a buddy who actually when he was young and he was in church, this, you know, this was.
Mark Clark [00:17:33]:
The 80s, so those are crazy times.
Mark Clark [00:17:37]:
He got dropped off in the nursery and his mom got called a couple times and she didn't see the call. And so the person just taking care of the nursery just breastfed him. All right, Just some random, you know, kids worker. All right, so, you know, lesson, if.
Mark Clark [00:17:52]:
Your number comes up, go get your kids because you're gonna find someone breastfeeding them.
Mark Clark [00:17:57]:
So this. So that's gross. That's disgusting. Why would you ever do. And so I read this story. I'm like, oh my goodness, it's gross. And then I went and actually read the story and it actually is a beautiful story.
Mark Clark [00:18:11]:
It's a story about a mom who's.
Mark Clark [00:18:12]:
Delayed like 10 hours.
Mark Clark [00:18:13]:
She totally ran out of breast milk. She's on the plane, the kid's crying.
Mark Clark [00:18:16]:
It's like a seven hour flight. There's nothing that can be done. And the flight attendant had a baby.
Mark Clark [00:18:21]:
At home and she said, hey, look.
Mark Clark [00:18:23]:
I know it's a disaster, but do.
Mark Clark [00:18:25]:
You want me to do this for you? And the mom was like, over the.
Mark Clark [00:18:27]:
Moon and like, thank you.
Mark Clark [00:18:28]:
And then she did it and the kid fell asleep. And now the kid's been crying out for that woman.
Mark Clark [00:18:33]:
But where's Janet? Janet. All right, so anyway, the point is, the point is, and this is the last time you'll ever hear me compare the cross to breastfeeding. But what looked like a really messed up thing and a backward thing and an upside down is actually a beautiful life giving thing. All right? And so what happens is you either get the brain at some point in your life where you mature and you take on the cross and say, it's wisdom, it's beautiful, it's life, or you continuously look at it as foolishness and dumb. And so there are, there's the people who take the actual wisdom of God, or there's the people who live according to the wisdom of this age and they think, but the reality is you gotta be humble, you gotta actually go, I might be actually wrong about these things. And Paul is saying, I'm gonna give you a critique of pure reason. And I'm gonna say the reality of, you know, post modernity has come along and said, well, we don't know anything, we should just all just smoke weed and sleep around and go to burning man and there is no such thing as truth. And Paul says, no, no, no, reason can be deceptive.
Mark Clark [00:19:39]:
But I'm not just gonna leave you in the world of post Modernity, I'm actually give you an answer. There is truth, there is reality. It is the cross. You need to organize your life around it. That's the reality. And so he says, if though you decide not to be the person of maturity and you decide to live by the wisdom of this age, here's what's gonna happen. The rulers of this age who are doomed.
Mark Clark [00:20:04]:
To pass away, here's the reality. Every artist, every technician, every great idea, every political solution to the world has died.
Mark Clark [00:20:18]:
Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar, he's not, he's a God. You know, Julius Caesar died in his mid-50s. Steve Jobs, we thought that guy was invincible. This guy's gonna invent the world. It's gonna be. Can you ever rewind the clock, you know, seven, eight years ago? Can you ever see Steve Jobs? Just like the world without Steve Jobs. Not gonna happen.
Mark Clark [00:20:42]:
He's in his 50s. He's, he's killing it. He's in his prime.
Mark Clark [00:20:45]:
Dies, pancreatic cancer, in his 50s. Christopher Hitchens, one of the great philosophers.
Mark Clark [00:20:51]:
Not even an atheist, an anti theist, hated Christianity, would debate the smartest Christians in the world and destroy them. British guy, the best debater. Go watch him on. I mean, don't believe any of his ideas. His ideas are terrible, but just from.
Mark Clark [00:21:04]:
A debating standpoint, he'd make you look foolish.
Mark Clark [00:21:07]:
He'd get up there and he'd quote.
Mark Clark [00:21:08]:
TS Eliot and Chaucer and he just, with his English accent, make you look so stupid. And he just had this like way of. And he'd use words in such a beautiful way. And you were like, dude, Christopher Hitchens.
Mark Clark [00:21:19]:
This guy is a star. He's in his prime, late 50s, flips over to 60, 61.
Mark Clark [00:21:29]:
And then gets esophagus cancer. Irony of irony. A man defined by his voice gets cancer that takes his voice away. And he wrote for Vanity Fair a couple months before he died. It's a few paragraphs, so just bear with me. But I want to read it to you. He says, on the less good days. I feel like that wooden legged piglet belonging to a sadistically sentimental family that could bear to eat him only a chunk at a time.
Mark Clark [00:21:58]:
Except that cancer isn't so considerate. Most despondentucing and alarming of all so far was the moment when my voice suddenly rose to a childish squeak, then began to register all over the place.
Mark Clark [00:22:12]:
From a gruff and a husky whisper.
Mark Clark [00:22:14]:
To a papery plaintive bleat. And at times it threatened and now threatens daily to disappear altogether.
Mark Clark [00:22:21]:
I had just returned from giving A couple of speeches in California, where, with.
Mark Clark [00:22:24]:
The help of morphine and adrenaline, I could still successfully project my utterances. When I made an attempt to hail a taxi outside my home and nothing happened, I stood frozen like a silly.
Mark Clark [00:22:34]:
Cat that had abruptly lost its meow. I used to be able to stop a New York cab at 30 paces. I could also, without the help of a microphone, reach the back row and gallery of a crowded debating hall. Like health itself, the loss of such.
Mark Clark [00:22:47]:
A thing can't be imagined until it occurs.
Mark Clark [00:22:50]:
In common with everybody else, I have played versions of the youthful game which would you rather? In which most usually it's debated whether blindness or deafness would be the most oppressive. But I don't ever recall speculating much about being struck dumb. Losing a voice, deprivation of the ability to speak is more like an attack of impotence or the amputation of part of a personality. To a great degree, in public and private, I was my voice. All the rituals and etiquette of conversation, from clearing the throat in preparation for the telling of an extremely long and taxing joke to trying to make my.
Mark Clark [00:23:29]:
Proposals more persuasive as I sank the tone of a strategic octave of shame were innate and essential to me. I have never been able to sing, but I once recited poetry and could quote prose and was sometimes even asked to do so. And timing is everything. The exquisite moment when one can break in and cap a story or tune a line for a laugh or ridicule an opponent. I lived for moments like that. Now if I want to enter a conversation, I have to attract attention in some other way and live with the awful fact that people are then listening sympathetically. Well, at least they don't have to pay attention for long. I can't keep it up, and anyway, can't stand to the most pompous, brilliant debater, maybe, of our time, lost his own voice, became weak, and died in his early 60s of esophagus cancer.
Mark Clark [00:24:30]:
Why? Because every great idea and wisdom of this age is going to pass away. It is doomed. It is inevitable. No matter how smart you think you are, no matter how inevitable you think your life is just going to be, that you are going to be here tomorrow. You ask the families in our church that over and over and over again have recognized that that just isn't true, that you can't count on tomorrow at all. And so the point is, he's saying, ultimately, all the wisdom of this age.
Mark Clark [00:25:01]:
No matter what it is, no matter how long you think it's going to be around, it will Ultimately bow before God in awe. And the very fact that it actually disappears is a testimony shouting to the world to be humble and to be careful with what you actually think is reality.
Mark Clark [00:25:18]:
That's what he says.
Mark Clark [00:25:19]:
And so he says, here's what we.
Mark Clark [00:25:21]:
Need to be able to do, verse seven.
Mark Clark [00:25:24]:
But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages. This is beautiful. Listen to this. You. You want to know what Christianity is about? You might have a version of God that he's mad and he's nasty and he's against you and he's not for you. Why did he do all of this? He had this decree. He did it all. Listen to what he did it for before the ages.
Mark Clark [00:25:50]:
For what? Our glory. That's beautiful. That the reason he unfolded all of this salvation story was for our glory. Because here's the thing.
Mark Clark [00:26:05]:
What do you and I want in the end?
Mark Clark [00:26:07]:
What do you and I live for? We live for pleasure. That's the biggest motivating factor of your life. Delight, goodness, love, joy, awe. These are the things we pine after. That's why you married who you married. That's why you. You try to make as much money as you can. That's why you have the house.
Mark Clark [00:26:27]:
You have. That's why you set up. Who's got the Christmas lights up already? Across the sides. Don't be shy. Raise them up. Raise them up. Yeah, I see you in Langley South. Yeah.
Mark Clark [00:26:37]:
In the red.
Mark Clark [00:26:38]:
You.
Mark Clark [00:26:39]:
Yeah, I see you. Okay, listen. I'm judging silently. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Why do you put up those Christmas lights and sit and make everything perfect? And every year we're gonna get the turkey. We're gonna get everybody out of the fire. I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna read my books and drink my tea.
Mark Clark [00:26:57]:
Cause it's dark by four. Why do we do all that?
Mark Clark [00:27:02]:
Sorry?
Mark Clark [00:27:03]:
Why do we. Why do we do all that?
Mark Clark [00:27:07]:
It's because we're. There's something innate in us that pines for a kind of pleasure and joy.
Mark Clark [00:27:13]:
And delight that this world has no offer for you at all. So we take these moments and we call them nostalgia, or we call them adolescence, or we call them romanticism. But C.S. lewis, in his servant way to glory, said, don't call them that, man.
Mark Clark [00:27:26]:
What they are is they're a song from some country.
Mark Clark [00:27:29]:
They're an echo from a song you've never heard. It's news from a country you've never been to. It's a scent of a flower that you're trying to find. It's built into you. Yeah, it's nostalgia because you've been there in the garden, and God has moved in Jesus Christ so he can take you from the pain and the suffering and the agony and the awfulness and the anguish and the loneliness of your present situation. Some of you lost loved ones is the first Christmas you're gonna face without them. Some of you have got a diagnosis even this week, or will get one next week. And he says there is a world.
Mark Clark [00:27:59]:
Romans chapter 8, Revelation 21 and 22.
Mark Clark [00:28:01]:
Where there's no more pain, there's no.
Mark Clark [00:28:03]:
More crying, there's no more disease. It is absolute delight, pleasure and perfection in all things. I don't have time to get into it, but the reality is he has created this new creation that people who believe in Jesus actually go there and they experience the kind of crazy pleasure and delight that we can't. I mean, look at what he. He quotes in verse nine. As it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined. He's created a reality that you and I have never been able to imagine. Something.
Mark Clark [00:28:35]:
Something as glorious. Think about that. Because you and I have imagined a lot of crazy, glorious stuff. We created Dubai. Have you ever been to Dubai? Dubai, that's like. It's in the middle of nothing. All right? There's just a desert. And all of a sudden, boom.
Mark Clark [00:28:49]:
And they created these. These houses that live out in an island shaped like a palm tree in the middle of water. We just created that right off the top. We're like, I should live in a home on a palm in the middle of the ocean. Let's do that. And we just did it. We imagined that. We imagined some.
Mark Clark [00:29:10]:
We have yachts. You ever been on a yacht?
Mark Clark [00:29:12]:
Like, and just like coasting on a yacht, just like, what's up, players? Drinking like a. Like some grape juice and eating some crack.
Mark Clark [00:29:21]:
Eating some crackers. Just be like, I'm on an ocean freaking yacht. Have you been to Hawaii? Right, Listen, whoever goes to Hawaii wants to come back. When you go, it's over. You know, you've changed flights coming back from Hawaii, guaranteed. You've got. I'm supposed to go back Friday. That sucks.
Mark Clark [00:29:44]:
I'm going to go back next Thursday. Honey, can we change our flights? Why do you do that? Because mankind created Hawaii. Well, I mean, it was there, but we did some cool stuff with it. We created hotels on the thing and swimming with dolphins. We've imagined a lot. And that picture the greatest thing you can imagine. The Greatest pleasure, the greatest joy, the greatest retreat, the greatest delight, the greatest awe. We've created it.
Mark Clark [00:30:13]:
And he says, you don't even know what he's got for you. What he has in the new creation, what the Bible oftentimes calls heaven, which is vastly different than you think it is. And you've heard me rant on this before, so we don't have time to get into it. But it's not a disembodied spirit world where everything's stark white like a big glass apple store. And we're all just wearing, you know, long choir robes and singing forever and ever and ever and ever. Because some of you are like, ah, I got a bad voice. And that sounds boring. I can't understand.
Mark Clark [00:30:44]:
I don't like clouds. I don't like babies. I don't like harps. I don't like diapers. Nothing about heaven seems legit. You've been cast this terrible vision of heaven, and he just said, you don't even understand, man, what is waiting for people who believed in Jesus. You can't even imagine how good it is, how beautiful it is. There's no more pain.
Mark Clark [00:31:01]:
There's no more crying. There's no more tears. There's nothing. And we have these pointers in this life now where we're like, okay, how do I. So yesterday I woke up and I'm doing some work on my island. My kids were watching Hook. I don't know if you've seen the movie. Hook seems to be over back in the day, you know, it's about old Peter Pan.
Mark Clark [00:31:20]:
How he's, you know. And then he goes to Neverland and the whole thing. He's like, okay, you're Never Land and you're not supposed to have kids because you're never supposed to grow old. And you gotta fly, Peter. You gotta fly, Peter. You know, Peter fly. And Julie Roberts is like, peter fly, Peter fly. And she's like the little Tinkerbell.
Mark Clark [00:31:34]:
And he kisses these three mermaids, which my kids were like, what's going on? I don't understand. And so there's all these, like, crazy things, and it's this adventure. It's this great. Now I'm sitting there listening to Peter Pan unfold. And my kids hearts are kind of getting welled up in the adventure. And I'm writing a sermon on this verse, and I begin to realize, listen, you know what's stitched into you? Do you know why you love those stories? Because you want them to be true. You want to be able to never grow old. You want to be able to fly.
Mark Clark [00:32:04]:
You want the beast to be turned by the love of somebody who has unconditional love for them, even though they don't deserve it. You want that about. You want these things to be true. And listen to me, here are your two options. If you aren't the mature man in the analogy, if you are someone who says, I don't believe in God, I don't believe in Christianity, I don't believe in heaven, I don't believe in the life of the Spirit, I don't believe in any of those things, then here's what Peter Pan is, man. It's a cold joke that says, hey, listen, none of this is true, but you can have an adventure. And it's escapism by definition. But if Christianity is true, here's what's crazy.
Mark Clark [00:32:40]:
If Christianity is true, then it says, no, no, no. The reason you want that is because there is a place where you will never grow old.
Mark Clark [00:32:48]:
There is a place where you can fly. There is a place where the beast gets turned over by some. That's part of that's built into you because that's your glory. That's what he's designed you for. That's a world that you can't even imagine right now how good it is. And he's created that for who?
Mark Clark [00:33:08]:
For everybody who's believed in Jesus. That's the point. For people who what? Look at what he says. None of the rulers of this age understand this. For if they had, they would not.
Mark Clark [00:33:19]:
Have crucified the Lord of Glory.
Mark Clark [00:33:22]:
And then he says, as is written.
Mark Clark [00:33:23]:
What no eyes see nor ear is heard, nor the heart of man imagined. What. What God has prepared, this beautiful preparation, this beautiful place of new creation. But who's it for? Is it for the smartest? Is it for the doctrinally sound? Is it for the people who don't smoke and don't wouldn't. My grandfather used to say, don't smoke, don't chew, and don't go with girls who do. No idea what that means. But anyways, is it for all these moral people, these religious people, these righteous people, all of them, they get to go to the glory. They get to go to the place that God prepared beforehand for them.
Mark Clark [00:33:59]:
No, it's for what. For those who. What.
Mark Clark [00:34:05]:
Love him?
Mark Clark [00:34:06]:
Do you.
Mark Clark [00:34:07]:
No, I'm not talking about. Do you just know him?
Mark Clark [00:34:10]:
I'm not talking about.
Mark Clark [00:34:11]:
Do you know about him?
Mark Clark [00:34:12]:
I'm not talking. Do you love him? Like actually have affection and delight for him? Cause that's who this glory is prepared for. Only people who love God through Jesus Christ go to this place. Like, love him. Like, actually delight in him, not just duty. And you can think about your own marriage if you want to understand the difference. Some of you, you're married out of duty. I will stay with this woman because that's a covenant before the Lord.
Mark Clark [00:34:38]:
And then some of you are like, you actually delight. And I gotta be honest with you, Aaron and I. Listen, we're not per. I know. I mean, I'm close. She's not perfect. And so the reality is this, man. What? We have had struggles in our marriage before.
Mark Clark [00:34:56]:
She doesn't understand certain things. So we've had battles, all right? We go through seasons. Don't look up at me and say, not that any of you will. Oh, I wish I had his marriage or whatever. Listen, our marriage has been through it. My wife is sick for a while. We had to wear. Done a lot of things.
Mark Clark [00:35:12]:
I'm not easy to live with. All right? You're talking about someone who literally has, like, diagnosed Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder. What do you think that's like. Like. I know. Listen, I know a lot of you.
Mark Clark [00:35:24]:
People probably fantasize my life a lot, all right? You're like, I wish I had his life.
Mark Clark [00:35:33]:
But when you're sleeping at night and.
Mark Clark [00:35:36]:
You'Re already in bed and I come in.
Mark Clark [00:35:40]:
Bang, knock things over. Can you shut up? I'm trying to sleep. Sorry. Right? That's what she deals with.
Mark Clark [00:35:48]:
I literally have obsessive compulsive. This is what this means when I'm.
Mark Clark [00:35:51]:
When I listen. Okay? Last week. Last week I got into bed, I lay down. I'm sitting there, I got my book. She's already been there for a while, you know? Course I turned the light on. Ding. All right. What are you sleeping?
Mark Clark [00:36:04]:
Didn't know.
Mark Clark [00:36:06]:
It's 11 o' clock at night and I have a craving for chips. So what do I do now? Most normal people can just bury that nonsense. Just like, I feel like chips. Well, this is not rational. It's 11pm And I'm in bed, buried. Move on with your life. That's what normal people do. Me, I'm up, putting my pants on.
Mark Clark [00:36:30]:
Car keys, jacket. Where are you going? Going to get chips. Now? After being. After being together for 20 years, she ain't even balk at it anymore.
Mark Clark [00:36:39]:
She's like, yep, right?
Mark Clark [00:36:43]:
And I drive. I drive 15 minutes to the closest store. The guy, it's so late, he won't even open. We have a relationship. Now he won't even open his door. Cause it's locked down. He just does this, like. It's like he's Hannibal Lecter in there.
Mark Clark [00:36:59]:
And you gotta hand him stuff through, like the. Like there's this metal drawer, and you, like, put stuff in it. And then he. And he shunks it. And so he's like, what do you want? I'm like, chips. Oh, yes. And he knows what chips I want. And he goes.
Mark Clark [00:37:14]:
He gets them and he stuffs them into this drawer. And he hands it back to me. And then I hand him my debit card. And he types it all in. And then I think I'm in a horror movie and someone's gonna murder me. He can't help me, right? Cause he's behind the glass and he's already freaking me out. Cause he's. You know, he's doing the Hannibal Lecter thing.
Mark Clark [00:37:32]:
And I'm like, ah. And so just hurry up. And then I drive 15 minutes home. It's 11:30 at night. Before I sit back down.
Mark Clark [00:37:39]:
And I pour out the chips in a bowl. And I get into bed. Crunch, crunch.
Mark Clark [00:37:50]:
What are you. She doesn't even bother anymore.
Mark Clark [00:37:52]:
Cause she just knows I messed up. What was I talking about?
Mark Clark [00:37:56]:
Oh, yeah. So. So. So yeah, what? Yeah, so I'm messed up. And my marriage isn't perfect. And some of you are like, man, all I have, though. All I have is duty. Like, all I have is that moment where she says, you know what? It's 11:30 and he chomping at chips.
Mark Clark [00:38:21]:
But I'll stay married to him. Not out of delight in that moment, but out of duty, out of. I have to. It's covenant.
Mark Clark [00:38:31]:
But then there's moments once in a while where she actually delights in me. She likes it. Being married to me. Some of you, you only have the duty. And some of you forget all that. Some of you have that relationship to God. You only have duty, man.
Mark Clark [00:38:46]:
You have duty. I'm gonna obey him. Cause if I don't obey him, he's gonna give me cancer. Don't tell me you haven't thought like that before. You have.
Mark Clark [00:38:55]:
He's not good. He's not good. So you obey him, but you don't love him. But the new creation is designed to prepare it for those who love him. And how do you know you love him? Because your heart has detached itself from the things of the world. And so put yourself. Listen. This isn't some sentimental romanticism.
Mark Clark [00:39:17]:
Like, hey, I want you to love him. Because love, it's so Nice love. Doesn't everybody love each other? It's so great.
Mark Clark [00:39:22]:
That's not what he's talking about.
Mark Clark [00:39:24]:
This is a kind of. And I've cited this before. Thomas Chalmers, years ago, wrote a beautiful sermon, probably the most influential sermon on me and my life other than the.
Mark Clark [00:39:33]:
Weight of Glory, by C.S.
Mark Clark [00:39:34]:
Lewis. And Thomas Chalmers talks about the expulsive power of a new affection.
Mark Clark [00:39:37]:
That the reason.
Mark Clark [00:39:38]:
The reason that when they approach Jesus and they say, what's the greatest commandment?
Mark Clark [00:39:42]:
He says, you have to love God.
Mark Clark [00:39:44]:
With your whole heart, soul, mind, strength. You've heard that before. You got to love God. That's not just sentimental romanticism. He's saying the only way to dispossess your heart off this thing over here and loving it. The only way you can ever get.
Mark Clark [00:39:58]:
Rid of a sin is by loving something else more than you love the sin. You can't just dispossess a heart of an idol. You have to replace it with something more powerful. And so when he says the only. Listen, I've told you. Why did I move out to Vancouver? I was gonna go to Oxford. You know what my love is? Oxford. I want to be at Oxford.
Mark Clark [00:40:15]:
I want to study in the. In the dusty, smelly old libraries where C.S. lewis and Tolkien hung out. I want to go there. Then at night, you know, on my screensaver at work, it's a picture of Oxford still. It's the campus of Oxford. That's my dream. That's why I moved out here, man, 15 years ago.
Mark Clark [00:40:33]:
Two years of masters, go to Oxford, hang out with Lewis.
Mark Clark [00:40:40]:
But then what happened?
Mark Clark [00:40:42]:
You did.
Mark Clark [00:40:45]:
And I fell in love with you. More than Oxford. It's the only thing that keeps me here. You have to love something more than you love the other object. And why Jesus tells you to love God is because if you don't love him more than you love money, then you will never be dispossessed of the idol of money. And it will destroy you. It will ruin you. Or your sexual exploitations.
Mark Clark [00:41:14]:
You can try to beat yourself into submission. I shall stop doing this. I shall stop doing this. I shall stop doing this.
Mark Clark [00:41:22]:
That's not the solution, man. You gotta love Jesus more than you love promiscuity. Your materialism, your natural.
Mark Clark [00:41:30]:
Whatever it is. This is the solution.
Mark Clark [00:41:34]:
And when you do this, well, he's prepared something for you. And the beauty of it is this. All that power from the new creation. We'll talk about this next week. All that. That beautiful reality that's there, that pleasure, that delight. What Paul is doing is he's saying the crazy thing is it's already come from there down into the present in the spirit. Now go live in it.
Mark Clark [00:42:04]:
You don't have to wait for the power and the beauty and, and the joy. Because the spirit has been given in the present as a deposit in your life to bring about love, joy, obedience, commitment, total flourishing. Father, my prayer is that as we gather as a church, we would begin to understand more and more the reality of how important it is that we don't just obey you, but that we love you. And there are hearts in here that are really good at obeying you, but they don't love you. They have no affection for you. They do not cherish you above everything else. They do not cherish the cross above everything else. They do not cherish Jesus above everything else.
Mark Clark [00:42:48]:
In fact, there's a pride about them and elitism about them because they haven't understood the humility the cross brings. And Paul just keeps coming back over and over.
Mark Clark [00:42:58]:
He did this for our glory.
Mark Clark [00:43:01]:
Let that humble you rather than make you feel like you're special among the people of God. You are special among the world. But it's only because what he did, it's not because you're smart, it's not because you're advanced. It's not because you're beautiful. Jesus, humble us. The reality of the cross, let it pierce our heart and our and our minds and let us actually live right now for the future glory that we are going to experience. Because everything we do now is going to echo out every time. We are not idolatrous, not greedy, that we discipline ourselves in the areas of our life.
Mark Clark [00:43:43]:
That stuff is going to impact how we experience glory. Let that motivate us in the present to honor you in of honor. Things change us on the spot. And let us draw all those among us into this beautiful reality. In Jesus good name we pray.