Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Where we're gonna be today, we got a bunch of stuff to do is First Corinthians, chapter 10. So turn there in your Bibles. We're in the masterclass series, exploring all things about life. Who is God? What are you called to do in your life? How are you supposed to organize your money and your sex life and your family life and all the massive questions that we have about even existential questions about origins and meaning and morality and destiny and church life and mission, all the things that we explored in life. Paul really hit in this book, and so that's why we call it the Masterclass. So if you're new with us, a special welcome to you. Glad that you're here. If you're seeking out Christianity, if you're seeking spirituality, really glad that you're here.
Mark Clark [00:00:41]:
We exist for you. That's kind of our story. We started nine years ago, just trying to reach people like myself. I was a skeptic growing up and so didn't walk into church. I was 19. So that might be some of you. Across all of our sites, welcome. Calgary, Langley, South Langley, North Surrey.
Mark Clark [00:00:58]:
Here, Coquitlam. Really good to have all of you guys here. So first Corinthians chapter. Now, let me just kind of give you a warning right up front that this text. I'm not really good at surprises. And so even just this past a couple weeks, I was traveling for two and a half weeks around Canada doing some speaking. And when I was in Toronto, I actually got to go to my mom's 70th birthday party, which was really cool, kind of a God thing, that the timing was organized for her to turn 70. And so for her to have me, there was like, oh, the joy of having my son back, you know? So that was kind of cool.
Mark Clark [00:01:34]:
And so we were hanging out, but it was. There was like a surprise party. So we were at her house. And then she lives in this little, like, area where they have, like, this common room. And so they had this common room booked. And there was all these old friends sitting there. She didn't know about it, so my brother and I had to keep it a surprise the whole time. And so friends had come over earlier to kind of say, hey, happy birthday to you.
Mark Clark [00:01:55]:
And they brought her a bottle of champagne, and she put it in the fridge. And so we were sitting there, and I kind of knew that these friends had brought the bottle so that we could have it at this party. And so my brother's like, hey, why don't you show us your common room? Just mark And I really care about what it looks like. And so why don't you take us down to it?
Mark Clark [00:02:11]:
And of course, all the friends are waiting there.
Mark Clark [00:02:12]:
And she's like, oh, okay. You know, doesn't know anything. So, you know, we start walking down there, and I'm like, why don't we bring the champagne? My brother's like, what? Why would we do that? That's dumb. I'm like, right, right. That is dumb, isn't it?
Mark Clark [00:02:25]:
My mom's like, what are you.
Mark Clark [00:02:26]:
Why would you bring champagne just to go see the common room? I'm not gonna surprise us. That's the bottom line. I ruin almost every one of them. So there's too much information to keep in my brain. And so the reality is. Let me just ruin the surprise up front. This text is crazy. This text that we're gonna explore really gets us to question our own salvation in many ways.
Mark Clark [00:02:46]:
There's really no better way of putting it. It's scary, it's confrontational, it's odd. But it causes us to really ask the major questions of, I might believe in Jesus, but I'm not actually living how God wants me to live. It's almost like one of those youth group talks. For those of you who grew up in church, when you would. You'd be kind of living your life in whatever way. And then you would come to church and the youth pastor would get up and he'd kind of preach these convicting sermons about whatever you were struggling with. And you were like, man, I gotta change my life.
Mark Clark [00:03:15]:
I gotta do something about it. Cause I'm not living right. And it wasn't really about doctrine. It wasn't about theology. It was about praxis. It was about behavior. It was about who you are and these massive questions. And you didn't know if you were actually a Christian by the end.
Mark Clark [00:03:27]:
And so, you know, recommit your life. You know, that kind of rhythm and pattern, you know, it's like for the fourth time that month, you go forward and accept Christ again. Cause you weren't sure this is one.
Mark Clark [00:03:37]:
Of those sermons, all right?
Mark Clark [00:03:39]:
And so the reality is, and what's powerful about it, it's kind of crazy, is really. The point of it is, is maybe you're not doing what God has called.
Mark Clark [00:03:48]:
You to do in the world.
Mark Clark [00:03:49]:
And are you willing to do the hard things to actually be where God has called you to be? And I'll illustrate it by my travel. The last couple weeks has been. I mean, you guys know, I talk about this often. There's Things about it that are hard. There's things about it that I don't want to do. I don't like to get on. And so, you know, right now I'm.
Mark Clark [00:04:07]:
Like, hey, is this a Boeing Max 8?
Mark Clark [00:04:09]:
I'm not gonna get on this plane.
Mark Clark [00:04:10]:
If it is, right? All of a sudden I'm an engineer and I'm like.
Mark Clark [00:04:13]:
And I'm getting on, you know, I don't want to travel. I don't want to be away, you know, I'm not good being alone, sitting in a hotel, eating food, literally by.
Mark Clark [00:04:23]:
Myself at 10 o' clock at night.
Mark Clark [00:04:25]:
I'm an extreme extrovert. I need people around. I like to hang out, all right?
Mark Clark [00:04:28]:
That's the reality.
Mark Clark [00:04:29]:
And so there were a couple days.
Mark Clark [00:04:31]:
Where I was just sitting there, like.
Mark Clark [00:04:32]:
Waiting for the next thing to start. I'm alone. It's not good. And I hate being away from my girls, I hate being away from the office, all of these things. But then you see. So then there's moments where I don't wanna do it. But then you see these crazy Kingdom wins. You see people coming to know Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:04:46]:
There was a woman in a.
Mark Clark [00:04:48]:
It was our server at a restaurant, and we told her to come to church while I was preaching at the church. And she came and she came up to me after and hugs and said, I gotta repent of all my sin. I'm gonna start going to this church and being in community. I gotta give my life to Jesus. All of these crazy, amazing things, leaders, church planting and Halifax, you know, all these crazy things that happen, but they're hard to do them. But when you do them, you realize that God is going. God is calling you to do something. And you can't run from what God is calling you to do just because it's hard.
Mark Clark [00:05:17]:
Of course it's hard to be away. Of course it's hard to do these things. But if God has you doing something, you gotta do the hard things. And this is what the Apostle Paul is gonna talk about. He's gonna challenge us in our life, and he's gonna say, so this is chapter 10, verse 1. He's going to come out of the gate and he says this very. Okay, so he says, four. Okay, stop.
Mark Clark [00:05:37]:
It's very important. All right, four. What does he mean by four? He's talking about the idea that I've already talked about a couple things. And those couple things have been important. And everything I'm about to say is kind of a four. And so in hermeneutics, you ask the question if you see a four or therefore you ask what it's there for, it's because he's already talked about things before this four, and now he's kind of continuing on. Remember, all the chapter divisions weren't part of your original Bibles. So he's already been talking about a couple things that now he's gonna go on and teach some stuff.
Mark Clark [00:06:08]:
And so he's already talked, when Ken talked about, in chapter nine, about the missiological reality, he said, I'll do whatever I need to do to reach more people, right? So to a Jew, I'll become a Jew. And that wasn't about theology. Like, I'm just gonna compromise theology. It was about methodology. I will become who I need to become. I will lean in. I will not expect people to come to me in order to reach people for Jesus, I will go to get them. I will give up my preferences so that more people will come to know Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:06:38]:
Is that your life? Right. Do you recognize that statistically, young adults and youth are running from the church across North America, all around the world, they're abandoning the church. They're running from it. They want nothing to do with the church, nothing to do with Jesus. And yet we're still sitting around complaining about volume in music, right? We're complaining about things that are preferences. And we're not aware of the fact that sometimes you need to sacrifice your preferences for the sake of the mission. That's the reality of life. You realize, historically speaking, there's been rhythms to the church.
Mark Clark [00:07:14]:
It used to be that the church. Cause sometimes we mess this up and we think one thing's legalistic and one thing's not. It's all about preference. It used to be that the church was the only place you could drink. All right, there was prohibition. But if you went to church, the monks were the ones. And you could actually drink communion, and you could go to church and actually drink. And then it became the church was the only place you couldn't drink.
Mark Clark [00:07:34]:
And now it's back to the church is the place you can drink. And everybody who doesn't drink, there's these rhythms that are all about preference. They're all about politics. They're all about your little thing and the way you view the world. And the reality is, Paul says, are you willing to sacrifice preference for the sake of the mission of Jesus? Because he says, I want to become a Jew, to become Jew, a Gentile, to become a Gentile in order to win some. I'll do anything so that more people can be won this is why we do video, right? People say, oh, video's bad. Videos wrong. All the.
Mark Clark [00:08:04]:
We will do anything methodologically that doesn't compromise the Bible to win more people with the short time that God has given us. That's why we do what we do. And so Paul is saying, listen, all of that's for the sake of the mission. Because when you enter into other people's lives, rather than expecting them to come to enter into yours, you actually might win someone. You might actually have someone come to know Jesus. And so every context is different. When I take the trip, when I was in Sacramento, that's California, all right? California's a weird place. And so how did I function in California? In California, everything's.
Mark Clark [00:08:38]:
Hey, is my thing shinier than yours, newer than yours, nicer than yours, everything. And then I went to Toronto, and I was in this in front of 400 Pentecostal leaders.
Mark Clark [00:08:48]:
All right?
Mark Clark [00:08:48]:
So when you get in a room with 400 Pentecostal leaders, it's different. Like, I walked in the room, and the minute I walked in, the first song was like, worship. And then all of a sudden was, tie my bow tie, Tie my bow tie should About a humda da da da da da.
Mark Clark [00:09:00]:
All right?
Mark Clark [00:09:01]:
And they're speaking in tongues. Some of you are like, what? I've never heard that before, right? Go to a Pentecostal church, man. Right? They speak another language. The minute that first song and I look over at my buddy, I'm like, I'm not even Christians. I'm like, have you ever spoken in tongues? He's like, no, I'll try it. All right, go. All right. Because the reality is, are you even a Christian if you haven't spoken in tongues? You know? So I'm sitting there, I'm watching these.
Mark Clark [00:09:23]:
So when I get up in front of a whole bunch of Pentecostal leaders here I am a Baptist pastor. I get up, I'm preaching, and they're kind of sitting there. I'm like, look, if there's any room in the world that should be alive, it's you. You guys should be talking all kinds. You guys should be amening. What's wrong with you? All right, that was Toronto. Then I go to Saint John. Saint John, New Brunswick.
Mark Clark [00:09:43]:
When's the last time you were there? All right, a lot of 90s goatees. All right, A lot of. Just like, hey, what's. I don't know how to fit here. I don't know what to say. I don't know. So I speak at this men's Conference. And they're like.
Mark Clark [00:10:00]:
They're all super, like, nice, right? It's the east, right? How many people are from the East? All right, yeah, okay, so you guys are just nice. Everything's so nice. So they want me to speak at a men's conference.
Mark Clark [00:10:11]:
I'm not gonna be nice to those guys, right?
Mark Clark [00:10:13]:
I get up and like, your life is screwed up. Figure it out.
Mark Clark [00:10:16]:
All right.
Mark Clark [00:10:16]:
They're like, all right. It took them 20 minutes to figure out what was happening. And then I went even further east to Halifax, and it was hailing on my face off the Atlantic Ocean. While I'm looking at Instagram and everyone hears 25 degrees. They're all like, oh, it's so hot down here at the beach in Vancouver.
Mark Clark [00:10:36]:
Oh, my goodness.
Mark Clark [00:10:37]:
I'm tanning in my backyard. Man, life's so perfect. Or I love all you Vancouverites. You're just like. You love to just make all of Canada jealous. It's like, look at the mountains. Look at the ocean. Look at me golfing.
Mark Clark [00:10:48]:
Look at me in my bikini. Shut up. And all I wanted to do was come home. That's all I wanted to do. But ministering in Halifax is different than.
Mark Clark [00:10:58]:
Ministering in Saint John, New Brunswick. It's different than ministering to Pentecostals in Toronto.
Mark Clark [00:11:01]:
It's different than ministering in Sacramento. And. And that's Paul's point. He's saying, you gotta figure out what.
Mark Clark [00:11:06]:
Context you're in and minister there.
Mark Clark [00:11:08]:
So what about you? Who are your friends? Who are your co workers? What did they need you to understand about them instead of you expecting them to come to you about everything? All right, so that's one thing he's come from now that's gonna make this make sense. The second thing that he comes from, which is actually more important, is in chapter nine, he's given this that Michael talked about. Every athlete exercises self control. This is gonna be important in all things. They do it to receive, all right? A wreath, this prize. And then he gives this image. And this is scary. And this is what the rest of chapter 10 is about.
Mark Clark [00:11:43]:
So I do not run aimlessly. I do not boxes beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control. Less after preaching to others. I myself should be. Here's the scary word. Disqualified. So he's saying there's moments where you can start something and not finish.
Mark Clark [00:12:00]:
You actually didn't get to the end. You didn't. What he goes on to say is, you didn't obtain the prize. You got actually disqualified. It's like, some of you, you've done athletics or sports. I remember in high school, my buddy was really into Greco Roman wrestling, right? Where you got down with a guy and you start doing crazy moves. And then the judge kind of says, okay, that moves worth two points. And so I had never wrestled in my.
Mark Clark [00:12:26]:
And I joined a Greco Roman wrestling tournament. All right. Just put myself into a tournament. I'm like, I'm gonna do amazing. Have you. This is actually a very difficult sport. I thought I could just go in and do whatever. I'd seen a couple of karate kids.
Mark Clark [00:12:39]:
I was like, okay, I'm gonna do great. And I started wrestling the guy, and the guy put me in some weird move I couldn't get out of. I just started slapping him. All right? Just slapping him in the face. I just started pulling. I just did anything. And we're actually. You disqualified.
Mark Clark [00:12:55]:
All right? That's this. I got kicked out of the tournament. I never even got to finish the tournament. And they never let me back into wrestling again. That's what this is. Disqualified. Now, here's my point. All of that.
Mark Clark [00:13:07]:
Here's the point. He's using the athletic metaphor as a metaphor for salvation. This is what's crazy about this text is he's saying, some of you have started to run, and you've had this massive assumption in your life, which is because you started to run, everything's fine, everything's good. You're gonna get to the end because you prayed a prayer and you did a thing. And that's what the Corinthians were doing. They were saying, this is Christ. They were saying, okay, I started something. I'm good.
Mark Clark [00:13:39]:
So now all that matters is I'm part of the church. I believed in Jesus once. So now here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to go to the orgies. I'm going to go to the temple, prostitutes. My sex life is over here. My belief life is over here. What I do with my money's over here.
Mark Clark [00:13:55]:
And Paul is saying, but nothing's changing about your behavior, which makes me question whether you've ever known Jesus before. And this is why he starts this metaphor about, did you actually start something? It's never affected your heart. It's never affected what you do with your life. And so now the reality is, do not escape. Assume that you are in. Do not assume that you are saved because there are people who start and they get what? Disqualified. See, you guys are so not Pentecostals. All right? Say this loud.
Mark Clark [00:14:26]:
They get what qualified crazy metaphor you're telling me there's a paradigm where I could start and not finish? And he says, yes, and now erase, white out your chapter distinction here, because there's no chapter distinctions in the Bible. He goes on now in chapter 10 to make the same point. And he says, now, some of you, this is the first time you've ever heard this, the first time you've ever thought about the idea that you might start something, but you didn't actually get to the end. I talk about this often. Any fool can get married. What matters about marriage is not the first day, but the last day. He's saying, this just should not blow your mind, because this is literally the entire history of Israel. And he starts with an old testament idea.
Mark Clark [00:15:08]:
4.
Mark Clark [00:15:09]:
So that was all this.
Mark Clark [00:15:10]:
4.
Mark Clark [00:15:12]:
I do not want you to be.
Mark Clark [00:15:13]:
Unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all.
Mark Clark [00:15:16]:
Under the cloud and all passed through the sea.
Mark Clark [00:15:19]:
So he starts here.
Mark Clark [00:15:21]:
What's he talking about? The Exodus story, right? The Exodus story was the definitive story about Israel's identity, their creation. That was salvation. That was the ultimate metaphor. They were enslaved now, in Christian terms, to sin. They were set free. How did they get set free? God led them through the pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. Led them to the Red Sea, part of the Red Sea. They went through the Red Sea, then they went out to the wilderness.
Mark Clark [00:15:48]:
God gave them ten commandments, so on and so forth. Then, of course, they wander around for 40 years because they were disobedient. And he was going to make a point. And all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food. It's fascinating. So you got water baptism, right? In the Old Testament, you have spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. Here's what's crazy about these two images.
Mark Clark [00:16:13]:
What is this? This is Israel. Those of you who know your Bibles, Exodus 14, numbers, chapter 12 to 16, here's the story. Israel gets out into the wilderness. They have nothing to eat and nothing to drink. So what does God do? He provides them bread in the wilderness. So they've come through the Red Sea. Now he gives them bread, and he calls it what? Manna. All right, literally, manna is a Hebrew word meaning, what is it? Which is beautiful.
Mark Clark [00:16:36]:
Cause they got up, and every day God would provide it for them. And then it would disappear by the afternoon. So they would get up and they looked, and they would see this bread growing on the ground. And they were hungry. And they're like, moses, what is it? And he's like, yeah, what is it? And they're like, yeah, what is it? He's like, right? What is it? All right. No, but what is it? Right? All right. What? All right. That's how Hebrews talked.
Mark Clark [00:16:57]:
All right? They would just name stuff, or you'd be born. They look at you, and you'd be like, oh, that kid's ugly. And they just go. The Hebrew word for ugly is boom. And that was your name, right? That's the reality. He's red. His name's this. He looks like this.
Mark Clark [00:17:09]:
He's hairy. Let's name him this. Crazy. So they're like, what is it? They're like, that's a good name for it. Manna. So every day would grow up, which is the background behind Jesus prayer and the Lord's Prayer saying, give us our day. Give us today our daily bread. It's an Exodus image.
Mark Clark [00:17:25]:
Because we are the people of the new Exodus. It's only daily. It's not promised tomorrow. It's promised today. And so he's saying the manna would come up, they would eat it. And then they got thirsty, and they went to a rock, and Moses hit the rock, and water poured out of the rock and they all drank the rock. These are ways God provided for Israel in the middle of the wilderness. Now, here's what's crazy.
Mark Clark [00:17:45]:
He gives them food.
Mark Clark [00:17:46]:
He gives them drink. Image. And he says this.
Mark Clark [00:17:48]:
Now, here's what the Corinthians were saying. Here's why all this is important.
Mark Clark [00:17:51]:
See, every little piece of Paul.
Mark Clark [00:17:53]:
He's brilliant.
Mark Clark [00:17:53]:
Every little piece is a hint. See, here's what he just did. Here's what the Corinthians were saying.
Mark Clark [00:17:58]:
And here's what some of you say.
Mark Clark [00:17:59]:
I'm saved because I was baptized and I do Communion. You see that?
Mark Clark [00:18:06]:
See what he just said?
Mark Clark [00:18:07]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:18:08]:
So is Israel. They went through baptism, they walked through the Red Sea, and they did Communion, too. They ate bread and they drank. But what happened to them? He says this for.
Mark Clark [00:18:21]:
They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased. Not pleased. That blows our modern perspective of God, because in modern day, God is just. Isn't God just so happy that you give him a little bit of attention? Right? You come to church, you say your prayers. Once in a while, you give a little money, and God's like, oh, thank you, Hercules. Hercules, thank you so much. You pay attention to me.
Mark Clark [00:18:52]:
You like me. I'm so happy. I'm so lonely. And we have pastors and preachers. That go, God's not angry with you. Don't worry. God's never angry. He's just happy you're around.
Mark Clark [00:19:04]:
Don't worry about God. He's fine. He's just like a daft old uncle sitting around the garden. And every time you look at them, you go, oh, hi. Hi. I'm glad you're here. And now he flips it and he goes, no, no, no. There was a group of people he wasn't pleased with.
Mark Clark [00:19:16]:
And there's a group of people in our congregations, at all of our sites that he's not pleased with.
Mark Clark [00:19:26]:
For they were overthrown in the wilderness. What do you mean? They got baptized. Day communion.
Mark Clark [00:19:32]:
They were part of a church. They read Oswald Chambers. They never swore. They never did the bad things. Now, these things took place as examples for us so that we might not desire evil as they did.
Mark Clark [00:19:47]:
Here's what he's trying to say.
Mark Clark [00:19:49]:
There were a group of people who.
Mark Clark [00:19:50]:
Get overthrown in the wilderness. They get left in the wilderness.
Mark Clark [00:19:54]:
And he says, who are they?
Mark Clark [00:19:56]:
They're people who actually went through the sea, went through the cloud, partook, and were part of the church. They were overthrown in the wilderness. They never got to the promised land. They didn't obtain the prize. In the end, they were not saved. Welcome to village church. That's a scary thing because what do we do with the fact he's saying there's proof that there has always been what Bible scholars call a remnant, a. If you go to Romans chapter 11, if you go to Galatians chapter 3, Paul gives this image.
Mark Clark [00:20:43]:
There's always been. I'm going to draw a terrible triangle here. There's always, oh, that's not bad, right? There's always been Israel, and then within Israel, there's always been what the Apostle Paul In Romans chapter 11 calls a remnant, which is true Israel.
Mark Clark [00:21:08]:
See, there's always been the people of God.
Mark Clark [00:21:11]:
There's always been the people of the church.
Mark Clark [00:21:13]:
There's always been people hanging around. There's always been people who said prayers. There's always been people who've done things.
Mark Clark [00:21:19]:
But they weren't actually part of the true people of God. They went into the wilderness, but they got overthrown and never got to the promised land. And the reality is they failed to exercise self control. They were overthrown. That's the reality. Now he starts to hone in on why they were overthrown. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. Of course, idolatry, as we've talked about, is anytime you put anything over God.
Mark Clark [00:21:47]:
As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. This is a weird phraseology, but what.
Mark Clark [00:21:53]:
He'S trying to say is, in the.
Mark Clark [00:21:55]:
Greek, it's like they were reveling.
Mark Clark [00:21:56]:
Like they would.
Mark Clark [00:21:57]:
They would. Of course, again, he's got this communion thing. They would sit down to eat and drink. They would sit down at the Lord's table. They would come to church. They would do good things. They would be part of a small group. They would sing worship songs.
Mark Clark [00:22:07]:
They would even listen to worship songs in their car. They would do really cool stuff. They would do that. But then. Then they would go out and revel. They would go out and do whatever they wanted, no matter what God called them to. And in the end, they were overthrown. In the end, they did not obtain the prize.
Mark Clark [00:22:23]:
In the end, they were disqualified. This whole thing's a warning text to us. It's going to be very careful what you do with your life. And he says this. We must not indulge again, he comes back to this.
Mark Clark [00:22:35]:
Which, of course, you know, I don't.
Mark Clark [00:22:36]:
Mean to keep coming back to it, but he keeps coming back to it because there's a massive issue both in Corinth and in Canadian culture. Because here's the thing. Now, listen, what he's trying to say.
Mark Clark [00:22:46]:
Is there's people who overthrown in the end.
Mark Clark [00:22:49]:
Use a met. Use the illustration of.
Mark Clark [00:22:51]:
Let me use the illustration of ministry.
Mark Clark [00:22:54]:
We have seen people over the last.
Mark Clark [00:22:56]:
Bunch of years, the last four or five years, guys who've run churches of 20,000 people all over the States, and they've dropped like flies in regard to ministry. They've bailed out of ministry. They've stolen money, They've become oppressive and abusive. They've committed sexual immorality, and their ministries have fallen apart.
Mark Clark [00:23:18]:
And here's the danger of what they thought. They thought, this is very important. Translate this into your own life. They thought because God had let them.
Mark Clark [00:23:28]:
Grow a church, that he was happy with them and he didn't care about their secret sin. But the reality was he was just using them to reach people, which is scary, right?
Mark Clark [00:23:40]:
Because he was like, I'll use you.
Mark Clark [00:23:41]:
As messed up as you are, sooner.
Mark Clark [00:23:44]:
Or later, I'm gonna overthrow you. Sooner or later, all that sin is gonna destroy your life and destroy your ministry. That's the reality. I'm gonna overthrow you in the wilderness. Don't mistake the fact that you're growing a church, the fact that whatever your translation into your life, the money's been good, the Health has been good, but you have those sins that nobody knows about, and you're hiding them. God says, do not mistake the fact that I have allowed blessing in your life for the fact that I'm okay with it. I'm just letting it go for a while. Before you get destroyed in the wilderness.
Mark Clark [00:24:18]:
I will overthrow you. And I'm not pleased with you. So be very careful with that sin that you've let into the camp. You have to repent and be sensitive to it, because the reality is, some of you feel like you're okay. Some of you feel like God's for you. It's terrifying, to be honest, for a guy like me, right? You have a growing church, a great staff, growing ministry. So God must not care about my sins.
Mark Clark [00:24:48]:
This text is great for a guy like me because I'm traveling around. I'm like, hey, sitting in hotel rooms by myself, and I'm prepping 1 Corinthians, 10, Lord. What's the text this week?
Mark Clark [00:25:01]:
Oh, I'll overthrow you. I'm mad at you. You better be careful. You're a sin, or I'll kill you in the desert.
Mark Clark [00:25:05]:
What?
Mark Clark [00:25:12]:
We have to be very careful. Which is why I don't have certain apps on my phone. When I travel, it's way too easy to look up naked girls. Way too easy. Some of you, you let your guard down with no plan. I was speaking at this men's retreat.
Mark Clark [00:25:31]:
I'm talking to the guys about purity. I'm calling them to actually do something with their life that defends and guards their own heart. They walked up to me.
Mark Clark [00:25:38]:
They're like, well, what do you do? And I said, well, I always travel with someone. Someone's always with me when I travel. And they're like, well, isn't that. You know, isn't that offensive to you? Like the fact that you can't just handle yourself? Like, you can't. You're not. You don't have mastery over yourself enough that someone from your staff has to travel with you. I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. It's because I don't trust myself, you fool.
Mark Clark [00:26:04]:
And you're dumb if you trust yourself, because you're.
Mark Clark [00:26:07]:
That's the point. And my wife knows it. I'll be sitting in a restaurant, and we'll be having a conversation, and a beautiful woman will come in the door of the restaurant, and I'll be having the conversation, and someone will say, oh, look at that nice lady over there. I'll be like, yeah, I know. She's There. I've known she's been there for three minutes. I knew she was there when she was coming in the parking lot. I just got this spidey sense.
Mark Clark [00:26:32]:
That's my life. And here's the thing, my wife knows it. That's the point. So of course I travel with someone because I don't trust myself. That's his whole point. He goes on in he gives this image. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer, gives this image.
Mark Clark [00:26:57]:
Now these things happen to them as.
Mark Clark [00:26:59]:
An example where they've written down for our instruction on whom the end of the age has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands. Look at this. Anyone who thinks that he stands. Oh, aren't you offended at the fact that you don't have self mastery? Take heed. He will fall. The problem is your self confidence. The problem is you are going through life with no plan to protect yourself from the sin that will overthrow you.
Mark Clark [00:27:31]:
You have no plan. And forget the sex stuff. It might be gossip.
Mark Clark [00:27:34]:
Some of you just love the gossip. You love just spreading things about people because it makes you feel good about yourself or the materialism.
Mark Clark [00:27:44]:
You can't go a week without buying new stuff. Forget apps that look up sexuality. You have to delete the apps that let you buy stuff. Your greed is shriveling your soul. And you have self confidence because you think you've got it all together. Be careful. You will fall. He will overthrow you in the wilderness and leave you there.
Mark Clark [00:28:11]:
That's the image. What are the things in your life that you actually need to be very careful?
Mark Clark [00:28:18]:
Because some of you have no plan. You have no plan at all. You think you're gonna accomplish anything of meaning in life without a plan. I got a buddy. I remember we were all 19 years old. First day we got to college, I met him, we became friends.
Mark Clark [00:28:32]:
He said, what do you want to.
Mark Clark [00:28:33]:
Do with your life? I said, I want to become a pastor. I want to try to do well. He said, cool.
Mark Clark [00:28:37]:
I said, what do you want to do with your life?
Mark Clark [00:28:39]:
He said, I want to make a million dollars. I'm like, okay.
Mark Clark [00:28:44]:
And he said, actually, I went to.
Mark Clark [00:28:45]:
The prayer wall, the wailing wall in Israel last year. And you know, you write down your little prayer, you know, in the wailing.
Mark Clark [00:28:52]:
Wall, and you go, pray, stick it in the wall.
Mark Clark [00:28:54]:
And he goes, you know what I wrote on a prayer and stuck it in the wall. I'm like, I Don't know health and people would come to know Christ in your life?
Mark Clark [00:29:01]:
No, no, no.
Mark Clark [00:29:02]:
I wrote I want a million dollars and I stuck it in the prayer wall.
Mark Clark [00:29:07]:
Now wouldn't it be really stupid if.
Mark Clark [00:29:09]:
I looked at him and said, what's the plan? And he said, I don't know. I'm just gonna saunter through life with no plan. You got big goals in your life, you better figure out a plan. He knew the exact plan. He knew certain disciplines, certain rules, certain.
Mark Clark [00:29:21]:
Things he had to do in order.
Mark Clark [00:29:22]:
To get a million dollars. He did. He got more than that, 10 times that.
Mark Clark [00:29:25]:
But the reality is he had a plan.
Mark Clark [00:29:27]:
His whole life he had a plan.
Mark Clark [00:29:29]:
He had to figure it out. He had to know. Listen, some of you are like, I gotta keep myself from sin. But you have no plan. You're just sauntering through life thinking you're strong enough. You're not strong enough, man, lest he fall. People who stand, who think they've got it all together, who think they've got it figured out, you don't.
Mark Clark [00:29:48]:
And it's actually your self confidence that's destroying you. It's your overconfidence.
Mark Clark [00:29:53]:
And so he starts to list off these things. Now these things happen to them as an example written down for your instruction in the end of the age. Therefore, let anyone thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall. So be very careful. No temptation has overcome you that is not common to man. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your own ability. By the way, this text right here, he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
Mark Clark [00:30:19]:
This has been skewed to a really bad interpretation that people have used where they have said that Paul says God won't let anything happen in your life that you can't handle. That's a really bad translation of this text. That's not what he says at all. In fact, that almost makes the suffering and pain in your life absolutely trivial. Because yes, we all know if you've been through life at all, there are things that happen in our life that we can't handle. It's the self confidence that you think you can handle it that actually destroys you. You lose a child, you can't handle that. That is not handable.
Mark Clark [00:30:54]:
That's not a word.
Mark Clark [00:30:55]:
You lose a spouse, you can't handle that.
Mark Clark [00:31:00]:
War, famine, rape, destruction. 250,000 people because of a tsunami in.
Mark Clark [00:31:06]:
A single day, you think you can handle that.
Mark Clark [00:31:08]:
Don't make horror trivial. You can't handle it.
Mark Clark [00:31:12]:
It's not what he's talking about.
Mark Clark [00:31:13]:
The Bible doesn't say God's not gonna give you anything you can't handle.
Mark Clark [00:31:16]:
Of course life happens.
Mark Clark [00:31:19]:
Life's terrible things will happen to you that you can't handle. Has nothing to do with. He's talking about. What's he talking about? Temptation. He's not gonna give. He's not gonna make you tempted by anything that you can't handle. That's his point. Now come back to this in verse.
Mark Clark [00:31:38]:
Verse 6 makes a very interesting point. He says, now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil. Now this is a problem because here's.
Mark Clark [00:31:53]:
What we tend to do. We tend to think there are evil.
Mark Clark [00:31:55]:
People and then there's you and your little sins of gossip and your little sins of materialism and your little sins of compromise here and there.
Mark Clark [00:32:04]:
That they're not evil. So you're not an adulterer. You just like to kind of cheat.
Mark Clark [00:32:09]:
Once in a while.
Mark Clark [00:32:10]:
You're not a liar.
Mark Clark [00:32:11]:
You just like to lie once in a while.
Mark Clark [00:32:12]:
You're not a gossip.
Mark Clark [00:32:14]:
You just like to talk once in a while.
Mark Clark [00:32:15]:
But the Bible looks at you.
Mark Clark [00:32:17]:
And if you're not in the perfection of God, the definitive reality for you.
Mark Clark [00:32:22]:
Is that you're evil. You desire evil. You desire things that are personal good for you. Now the problem is we don't tend to think of those sins as big. We tend to think of them as. Because we watch the news. So you turn on CNN and you make this destructive mistake. You compare yourself to the really evil people and then you feel good.
Mark Clark [00:32:45]:
So you watch on the news this week. I mean, pick your story. There was three people who took a woman and said, hey, there's baby clothes at our house. You should come and get them. She shows up at their front door, they kill her and cut the baby out of her. Because they wanted a baby. We look at those stories and we say, we're not evil. Cause there's so many more evil people.
Mark Clark [00:33:11]:
You start to feel good. You start to feel like you're gonna get to the promised land. And he says, be very careful. Because the stuff that can shrivel your soul is so subtle.
Mark Clark [00:33:20]:
And you will be overthrown and you.
Mark Clark [00:33:22]:
Will be left in the desert and.
Mark Clark [00:33:23]:
Never see the promised land.
Mark Clark [00:33:25]:
Because you never went inside your own soul and said, gossip will corrode me. It will destroy me. Here's what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said. If it were only so simple. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds. And it were necessary only to Separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.
Mark Clark [00:33:48]:
And then souls innocence says this, but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? It's all about who you compare yourself to. That's the reality. You are evil inside. And he's saying, I don't want you to be. I want you to actually deal with your sin.
Mark Clark [00:34:20]:
If you compare yourself.
Mark Clark [00:34:22]:
See, when we compare ourself, we look less. When I was in Sacramento, I went.
Mark Clark [00:34:30]:
Golfing with this guy.
Mark Clark [00:34:31]:
And the first time I met him, and he walks up, he's like, hey, my name's Jeff. I'm like, hey, my name's Mark.
Mark Clark [00:34:36]:
And we go out in the golf.
Mark Clark [00:34:37]:
Course and start playing and. And this guy was like. I started looking at him, and he's.
Mark Clark [00:34:41]:
Like, yeah, I run a Christian ministry.
Mark Clark [00:34:42]:
To golfers, and he used to be a professional golfer. And he's got like this joy. He's got like this. He just smiles and he just walks around. And I'm sitting there, and I'm like, hit a ball.
Mark Clark [00:34:51]:
And I'm like, darn it. I smack my club.
Mark Clark [00:34:53]:
I'm like, hey, what's going on? We walk through. He's just sauntering through life, you know, I shoot like an 85. He shoots a 65 without even thinking about it. And he does it with his perfect face and his never angriness and his. He's so nice. And I remember I was talking to another pastor. I'm like, I played golf with this guy Jeff.
Mark Clark [00:35:14]:
He's like, oh, is that that guy Jeff from that Christian ministry for golfers? I said, yeah. And he goes, don't you feel like when you're around him, like, he's a real Christian? This was two pastors talking. And I'm like, that's exactly what I felt. I'm like, I was in the presence of a real Christian. And he's like, right. Every time I'm with that guy, I question my salvation. I'm like, right. We insidiously compare, compare, compare.
Mark Clark [00:35:45]:
But your only comparison is to the righteousness of God.
Mark Clark [00:35:48]:
You don't have to compare yourself to.
Mark Clark [00:35:50]:
More evil people than you and then get to move on with your life.
Mark Clark [00:35:52]:
And of course, he raises this question of sexual immorality. And he raised it for you and.
Mark Clark [00:35:57]:
Me to figure out what we're gonna.
Mark Clark [00:35:58]:
Do with that in our life, because it's always attention and struggle. And so he raises this question of evil, and he says, what are you gonna do about the evil. And then he raises this question about.
Mark Clark [00:36:07]:
Sexual immorality in verse eight.
Mark Clark [00:36:10]:
And so what are you gonna do about the evil? What are you gonna do about the sexual immorality? And believe me, culturally, there's two things to think about. The first is, those of you who aren't married yet have to understand that the definition of this word is anything outside of a man and a woman.
Mark Clark [00:36:25]:
In the context of marriage is sexual immorality.
Mark Clark [00:36:28]:
And so you could go through the list, and some of you go, here's what I don't want. How many youth, how many young adults rise up through church?
Mark Clark [00:36:36]:
And they say, my church never talked about sex.
Mark Clark [00:36:39]:
And so they feel oppressed when they.
Mark Clark [00:36:40]:
Get into their 20s and they feel like, my church never talked about sex.
Mark Clark [00:36:43]:
Listen, that will never be a problem.
Mark Clark [00:36:44]:
At Village Church, all right?
Mark Clark [00:36:47]:
Because the reality is, it's a real thing. It's a core part of who we are as human beings. And so we need to lay out the proper biblical understanding of what it is. For those of you who aren't married yet, that's everything outside of the context. If you're not married, male, female, in the context of married, everything that you start to begin to go down that road, he's saying, is sexual immorality. So be very strong. Guard your life and doctrine.
Mark Clark [00:37:13]:
And then for those of you who are married, there's sexual immorality within marriage. When you're looking at things, or cheating or even if.
Mark Clark [00:37:21]:
Listen, here's the crazy thing. And this is the reality that we live in culturally, and it's very similar to the Corinthians scenario. Even if your spouse is okay with it. Here's what I mean by that. Culturally speaking, there's a lot of spouses that are okay with sexual immorality. But you have to understand when you sit. See, when I was in. When we were in.
Mark Clark [00:37:42]:
Okay. A few days before I went to Sacramento, myself and my wife and friends went to Napa Valley for two days.
Mark Clark [00:37:48]:
Okay?
Mark Clark [00:37:49]:
So we went for a couple days, and we're there before I went and spoke in Sacramento. So this is literally what happened. We go and sit at a restaurant. We're sitting at the restaurant eating, the four of us hanging out for a couple hours, and the couple beside us. This woman looked like someone that the people we were with, my wife and.
Mark Clark [00:38:05]:
Her girlfriend, thought she looked like a famous singer.
Mark Clark [00:38:08]:
So I leaned over as we were leaving, and I said to her, hey, are you this famous singer? And she's like, no, I've never had that in my life. Blah, blah, blah, But. And I said, oh, cool, you have a nice date. Cause they seemed really into each other. She was probably in her mid-40s. And she goes, yeah, yeah, we're having a nice date, actually. Our spouses are at home right now watching our children as we're out together. Sorry, what? I said, what do you mean? She's like, well, our spouses are together and we've all been sleeping with each other for 10 years.
Mark Clark [00:38:48]:
And now we've fallen in love. But it's okay because they've fallen in love too, so everything's working out. But we're not actually exclusive to each other. We just sleep around, but we always come back to one. Another.
Mark Clark [00:39:05]:
Story.
Mark Clark [00:39:05]:
What? And she goes on for 15 minutes and lays out the swinger life and starts to talk to us about whether we want to get involved. This is not a joke. And she starts to look at us to say, how can you be exclusive? How can you sleep with one person for the rest of your life? You need to sleep with lots of people. Don't you guys ever wanna sleep together? With what, 15 minutes? She pitches the Swinging Life to us and tries to argue. This is the only way to do it. And I said, hold on. So you're exclusive to one another? He looks down at his plate, says, yeah, I'm exclusive to her. She goes, I'm not exclusive to him.
Mark Clark [00:39:50]:
I like having too much fun. Life's too short. I said, how many kids you got?
Mark Clark [00:39:55]:
Three. Three year old, five year old, eight year old? They will be destroyed, woman, by your narcissism. This is easy, so easy. And so he says, be very careful in the context of your evil. Be very careful in the context of your sexual immorality. Because you get faced with temptation. Talks about the idea of temptation. What verse was that? The idolaters be.
Mark Clark [00:40:36]:
We must indulge the sexual immorality destroyed. Now these things are written. Oh, yes, verse 13. This is a very important word. When he talks about temptation. See, Israel in the wilderness failed when they were faced with temptation. And when I was at a conference three weeks ago, Chris Brown, he spoke here last year, he got up and he preached this crazy sermon. Now what you're supposed to do at a conference is you're supposed to bring like your, like your best sermon, your funniest sermon, your sermon that gets, you know, we're standing like, I had been up two, two sessions before him, and you're standing in front of 3,000 people and the energy coming off of them and you just, you know, you prep these Sermons.
Mark Clark [00:41:24]:
And you come in and you're supposed to hit them with all this, do all these fun. Everyone's supposed to big conference talk, big conference talk. And Chris Brown gets up and he goes, you know, here you guys are, 3,000 liters, and you're talking about mechanics and how to be a good leader. And he goes through these stories of Samson and how his life was destroyed because of sin and sin and sin. And he finally looked out at this crowd and he said, you know what? You can take all of the technical wizardry that we've been talking about, and you can try to become a better leader, and you can do all these things. And then he starts to cry, and he looks out at this crowd and he says, but what if the only thing you took out of this, 3,000 leaders in America, what if the only thing you took out of this was that you sinned less? That's what I'm talking to you about this sermon for. That's why this sermon isn't filled with goofy stories. I want you as your pastor to sinless.
Mark Clark [00:42:19]:
I want you to fear him. He is not an uncle walking around naive to your sin. And he is not afraid to end you wilderness. But here's the beautiful part. Even through temptation, he can bring you out the other side and use you. Some of you feel overwhelmed. Some of you feel like dirty right now. You're like, oh, my gosh, I feel in bondage.
Mark Clark [00:42:44]:
Where's the good news? Where's the good news? Well, here's the good news. The rock was Christ. Jesus Christ came into the wilderness for you, so you don't have to. Jesus Christ took the wrath of God on himself so that you don't have to have it, that you can get to the promised land. Because he got separated from the father, he actually left the promised land of heaven so you can drink, you can be baptized into him, you can eat and be satisfied in him rather than yourself. And on the other side of destruction, I give this to you as a point of hope. On the other side of destruction, God can still use you. My friend who's a pastor of a church, his name's Andrew.
Mark Clark [00:43:47]:
He years ago, he became very successful in business. He was telling me his story a few weeks ago. He became very successful in business and he started to fly around the world. And he became friends with Mark Cuban, who's a billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks and flying all over the place in Cuban's private jet. And he had a wife and kids, and he was just sleeping around, doing whatever, and he remembers the day he got in Cuban's private jet and they flew to Vegas, and they walked into a club in Vegas and it was closed, but they got to walk in the back, and in the back was Tiger woods and Charles Barkley and women everywhere. And him and Mark Cuban and Barkley and Tiger woods started partying. And there was a moment, and he wasn't a Christian, but there was a moment and he looked and some massive weight came on him that said, you better run from this or you will be destroyed and overthrown in the end. And he left, and he left all of his stuff on Mark Cuban's private jet, and he booked a Southwest Airline trip home.
Mark Clark [00:44:45]:
And he flew home and he walked in the front door and he fell to his feet and he fell to his knees in front of his wife. And he confessed everything. And the minute he confessed, they had no church background. She said, I feel like we need God in our life. Let's go to church. And they walked into church, and he found redemption and he found salvation. And now he's a pastor. God can use you on the other side of your disaster.
Mark Clark [00:45:10]:
So if you're feeling weighty, trust in the grace of what Jesus did for you, and you'll obtain it. You will not be disqualified because it's based on his work for you. Father, it is my honest prayer, my honest hope that a text like this, as weighty as it is, would actually be freeing for us, as convicting as it all is, to figure out our sin, to configure out how we can defeat temptation in our life. Your promise is that we can actually defeat temptation, and that through it, no matter how sinful we are, you can use it for your glory and for the good of people.
Mark Clark [00:45:46]:
That's the beauty of the gospel. Thank you, Jesus, that you shed your.
Mark Clark [00:45:50]:
Blood.
Mark Clark [00:45:54]:
So that we don't have to.
Mark Clark [00:45:55]:
Feel the wrath of God, so that we don't have to ultimately be overthrown. You were overthrown. You were separated from the Father.
Mark Clark [00:46:02]:
You were cast out.
Mark Clark [00:46:07]:
Jesus, let us hold on to that. You are the rock. And if we repent of sin and trust to you and the power of the Spirit in our life, we get to the promised land based on what you have done for us. Let that grace change us and empower us. In your good name we pray. Amen.