Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Open to 1 Corinthians, chapter three and we'll get into some of the stuff that Paul talks about as we talk about the master class of life and you're exploring and you're wondering about spirituality and God and humanity and love and marriage and sex and work and all of the things that we wonder about in normal life. And this whole series is talking about all of those things because Paul talks about all those things in this book of First Corinthians. My name is Mark. I'm the senior pastor of our church. We have lead pastors across all of our sites. We have Chris in Zurich, we have Cliff in Langley south, we have Jordan in Langley North. We have Vin in Calgary, and soon to be Marco in Coquitlam. That is kind of a snapshot of what we do in Stretch to Court.
Mark Clark [00:00:36]:
We started out, we weren't always a multi site church. And as you can tell, unless you're at the live service in Surrey, which we have one of, then you're watching this on video and some people, they come and they wonder and they explore village church and they're like, oh, you know, it's hard sometimes because there's so many people and it's hard to connect and there's so many different sites and so many different people. And I, you know, and I get that that's some of the challenges. And some of you show up and you're used to having a live preacher, you know, in the. And here we have video. And yes, I know some of you, you're like, what? You're not real. It's like, yes, all right, so. But you can still say nice things and I hear you and be encouraged like amen once in a while.
Mark Clark [00:01:13]:
I know some of you are Presbyterians and you never say that, but it's so good to do. But the reality is it is video. And the reason we do that is because when we started, we were in just 16 of us in my house and started talking about Jesus and started talking about people meeting Jesus, have a vision to help change the city and then maybe the country in some way. And then people started to meet Jes and get baptized and get transformed and we couldn't fit anymore in this elementary school gym. And so we went to two services and then that got full and then went to three services and then that got full and people were driving from different places and then we moved venues and that opened up a whole bunch more seats and then those got full and so we decided we had a heart for planting, but obviously I couldn't be everywhere at one time. And so when we started planting and also I started to get really tired. I started preaching five or six services. I remember one Christmas actually did eight services.
Mark Clark [00:02:05]:
And by the end of it, I didn't even know my kids names. I didn't know my name, I didn't know who was what and where was how. And I didn't know how to, you know. And so if you do that, if you're traveling a lot and you're preaching live, you get tired. And I'm not as sharp as I could be to think through the strategy of the church. I'm not there for my family. I don't have personal help. I wanna do this for the next 30 or 40 years of my life, if God wills it.
Mark Clark [00:02:27]:
And at the pace we were going, I'd be doing it for like another five or ten and then I'd be done and burnt out. And so for those of you who say, oh, I wish he was live in the room, I get that maybe, you know, it's not necessarily a church that's for everybody. But so if you already know Jesus, understand that there's a missional reason that people are meeting Jesus. Because it's video, because we're able to take it and exponentially grow it and multiply it out in ways that we never would be able to do if it was based on simply myself being live, preaching in a room and so on. So we as a church have embraced it because it's a missional heart that goes, we wanna reach more people for Jesus. With the little bit of time we've been given on this earth, we wanna leverage technology, leverage the ability for people to actually hear about Jesus and then be shepherd. Those lead pastors at all those sites who are amazing guys, and you should at those sites be loving on them, slipping them little Christmas envelopes, loving their families and praying for them, and really serve them like be when they get up and they say, we need kids, people, we need parking people, we need community group leaders. As we move into 2019, really be thinking about how you can actually do the mission.
Mark Clark [00:03:39]:
And not just as we talk about all the time, just and consume the mission from other people. You are the church. The way that we're gonna reach more people for Jesus in 2019 is if you do the mission, not your lead pastor or the people who do professional ministry. Which is partly what Paul talks about. Good segue into what Paul talks about in this passage. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3. Here's what Paul says starts in verse 8, actually, I'll show you here. Last time I was here, I was talking about verse 8.
Mark Clark [00:04:08]:
It ended on verse 8 that he who plants and he who waters are one and each one. So there's this of idea of this unity reality of the person who plants. Paul planted and then he went on and Apollos was their pastor. And then he says, they're one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. So this idea that these leaders are one, there's a unity and then there's this idea of fellow workers. And so what you and I have to understand in our life is that some of you are exploring different spirituality, you're exploring Christianity and you're wondering to yourself, how does this actually work? Is one church right? Is one church wrong? And then he says, and I'll come back to that in a second. And each will receive his wages. This is a key word according to his labor.
Mark Clark [00:04:55]:
Now right there we begin to go, wait, wait, wait. I thought Christianity was about grace. And you get saved by grace through faith. And that means it's not about you and it's not about works and it's not about labor and it's not about what you do. And that's kind of Christianity. That's what some people. That's of course the foundation of Christianity in many ways. I was just.
Mark Clark [00:05:16]:
My wife and I went on our 15 year. We've been together 20 years. We've been married 15 years. So our 15 year anniversary last week, we went on a trip, spent seven days together just remembering what it was like to be functional before children for seven days together, our 15 year anniversary. So we went away for seven days and it was amazing because I was sitting beside the pool where we were just relaxing and reading. And I started talking to this woman and she was there and my wife wasn't down there yet and she was sitting there and I'm like, we're sitting in the pool and you know, we just get chatting. And she's like, well, what do you do? And I'm a pastor. And what does that mean? What kind? She.
Mark Clark [00:05:55]:
I come from a Catholic church and. So are you a priest? And I'm like, do I look like a priest? All right. I'm like sitting here floating, you know, without a shirt on, just like, what's up, players? All right. So she's like, yeah, you don't really look like a priest. So I don't really guess. So she said, what's the difference? I started talking about Protestantism and Martin luther in the 15th, the 16th century. And how the 95 theses on the wall, the witness Wittenberg door in Germany where he said, here's the 95 things where literally Protestant protest that Martin Luther protested the Catholic Church. And he broke off from it.
Mark Clark [00:06:24]:
He said, it's not gonna be by works. It's gonna be by grace through faith and reading Romans and reading Ephesians and reading Galatians. And she's like, oh, my goodness, I wanna be part of your church. Because your church sounds like it's not about rules. And I really like that. And I said, yeah, no, no, no, you're misunderstanding me. It's not less rules. It's.
Mark Clark [00:06:40]:
Yes, we get relationship with God, but that relationship doesn't mean less obedience. It actually means more is. Jesus comes along, if you think about the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, it was really. I know the Old Testament tells you that you're not supposed to murder, but I tell you that if you hate your brother, you're already guilty of murder. I know the Old Testament told you that you're not supposed to commit adultery, but I tell you if you lust after a woman, you've already committed adultery in your heart. And so the reality is, it ratchets up in the New Testament. It ratchets up under grace. And there becomes this emphasis of actually what we do with our whole life.
Mark Clark [00:07:18]:
Because he's saying you can. Can no longer compartmentalize your life into what you believe and then what you do with your life, your labor. You can't just say, I doctrinally believe these things you actually have to do. And some of you actually live your faith out like that, where you compartmentalize things out. And if I was to take the analogy of us being on vacation even further, it would be like, so obviously, Aaron and I are parents. We've been parents since 2006. And when our first daughter was born and we got three daughters, and so it would be. And so then we went on this vacation.
Mark Clark [00:07:47]:
Well, the reality is, when you go on a vacation without your kid, you really do. Like, it was like, if you've traveled with kids, it's a disaster, right? You've got car seats, you hate your life. You have more luggage than you could ever. You're like, how do we have this many kids? And they're on a plane and they're crying and they're making noises, and everyone. When you come on a plane with three kids, everyone looks at you and they immediately hate you. All right? They immediately judge you. They say, what are you doing here? Why did you have all these kids. I got on the plane to read my book.
Mark Clark [00:08:15]:
They're gonna be whining and complaining, all right? You know, if you've traveled with kids, you hate things. You hate your. So then when we went away, we went away, and it was like, for six days, we were single again. We were just like. Just us. Just like we were. I mean, we got on that plane and it was like we went right back to when it was just her and I, just newly married, just newlyweds. And it was like.
Mark Clark [00:08:39]:
It was unreal. All right, we get on the plane, everything's just. There's no kids, there's no crying, just these little bags. And it was like. We went on. It was like Dancing Queen. It was like, this is gonna be unreal. There's no crying.
Mark Clark [00:08:54]:
There's no math problems. There's no discipline in the room. There's no dinner planned. Nothing. There's none of the issues. And so we went to this place and we sat for seven days. There was none of that. We didn't have to teach a math class.
Mark Clark [00:09:07]:
We didn't have to do anything. It was beautiful. All of life was back here, and we were here. Now, some of you actually functionally do this in life. Your faith is over here. All right? You believe in Jesus, you have doctrine, you have stuff. You believe, you have church life. But then your money, your money is back over here in this world.
Mark Clark [00:09:28]:
Your sex life is over here. The way you do your job, your marriage, Jesus, never the two shall touch. Your faith is over here. You're on. It's vacation time, and you tap into it a few times a year, and then your real life is over here. And the two. That's called compartmentalization. And what Paul says is, that's not actually gonna work, because at the end of the day, here's the problem.
Mark Clark [00:09:51]:
See, here's what some of you. Here's why you do that. Here's why you do that. If I was to really try to get into the psychology of why we function in a compartmentalization, it's because you think that in the last day. And here's what Paul's about to blow up for all of us if we get to the passage, all right, here's what Paul's about to blow up for all of us. You think your underlying assumption in this kind of compartmentalization is you think that on the last day, all that God is gonna ask you when you stand before him in judgment is, what did you believe? What did you believe about Jesus Christ? Did you believe in him. Did you cognitively assent to the fact that he was the son of God and what he did? And then you think, so that's all the question's gonna be. The problem is, is Paul goes, no, no, no.
Mark Clark [00:10:37]:
There's gonna be other questions about. There's gonna be wages given out according to your labor. There's going to. Your whole. I'm not gonna scare you here. Paul's gonna scare you, meaning this. Your whole life is gonna be evaluated at judgment. Your whole life, not just what you believed about some stuff.
Mark Clark [00:11:02]:
What did you do with your money, your sex life, your work life, your family life, your coworker? What did you do with your time and your neighbors? What did you do your whole life? And God's gonna lay it out and he's gonna about say this. He's gonna say, man, the day is gonna come and it's all gonna be exposed and evaluated. So. Okay, before we get to that, though, there's other things. Okay, so he who plants, he who waters, each will receive his wages according to his labor. So he's gonna. This whole passage is literally about that concept. The next bunch of verses.
Mark Clark [00:11:35]:
But so now he starts into this. What kind of labor? What are we talking about? What kind of. So he says, for we're God's fellow workers. And so there's this concept of we're in this together. All right? So there's multiple layers here in regard to fellow workers. The first one is that we're on the same team, right? Churches, pastors, Christians, we're all on the same team. We're all on the kingdom team, right? So you don't get to go. My church is better than your church.
Mark Clark [00:12:06]:
You don't get to go. We set. Because we're so stupid, we set up these little tribes and we say, well, my church is this and my leader is that. And Apollos is better than Paul, and this pastor's better than that one. And I do this and you do this, and we set up these crazy teams that go against each other. And we think that this is. And God's looking down at us and he's, you know, the emoji, the face slap emoji. That's literally what God does.
Mark Clark [00:12:31]:
Every time that you in your heart of hearts start working against another church or another pastor or another Christian or whatever. In regarding, you say, I'm on one team, you're. He goes, we are fellow workers. Me. He's saying, me and Apollos, we do that. One plants, one waters, we all churches of different emphasis. Some of you are like, yeah, but that church is this and that church is that. Listen, it is this goddess face slapping.
Mark Clark [00:12:56]:
He's saying, are you guys. It's like when you watch sports and you see those kids and it's a team sport and they're all supposed to be going in the same direction, but there's a kid who thinks he's LeBron or whatever, and he's trying to show everybody up, and he's like, let me just take the ball. And then he's going. And he's, you know, our soccer, whatever. And they end up scoring on their own net or going the opposite direction. Everyone's like, no, it's this way. He's like, no, players. Look at me, I'm the man.
Mark Clark [00:13:20]:
It's like, no, you're actually doing something counterproductive. And so there's people who are like, yeah, but that church and this church. Listen, when we're talking about the local church, which is local churches here, there's people like, okay, but what about that church? And what about Peace Portal and what about Grace Point and what about CLA and White Rock Baptist and that church in Calgary and that church in Coquitlam? And that was. Oh, that. And then this. It's like, shut up. It's the same team. I'm literally friends with all those guys.
Mark Clark [00:13:51]:
I actually do consulting for local churches. Not that I have all the answers to help them grow, like churches, like, in our own city. I'll go out and be like, here's what you should do to reach more people. It's like, what if we steal yours? I don't care. Why? Because it's kingdom. That's all I care about. That's all I can. Yeah, you can clap to that.
Mark Clark [00:14:19]:
You need to clap to that, to your own soul. Hercules. Hercules. All right. I don't know what that was. Nutty Professor. Check it out. So the idea is we all.
Mark Clark [00:14:35]:
We're all one team. We're all moving in the same direction. And there's literally moments. I mean, you go back into church history and you see the silliness of people. People. John Wesley and George Whitfield, these guys were enemies in the kingdom. They wrote against each other. John Wesley was an Arminian.
Mark Clark [00:14:52]:
He believed that there was free will and that we just choose God. And George Whitfield was a Calvinist, and he believed God chose you. And they both preached in the Great Awakening and they had thousands of people come to know Jesus. Two of the greatest communicators ever in the history of time fighting it out Writing letters to each other. Everyone's like, I'm about Wesley, and these guys are. But I'm about Whitfield. And they had thousands of followers each. And they went along and they did their ministry.
Mark Clark [00:15:17]:
And people say, well, I believe in this guy. I go to that, and I like that guy. And they would fight against each other, and they'd critique each other's theology. And you know what happened in the end? Whitfield dies. And you know what he does? Wesley. He requests Wesley to come preach at his own funeral. And Wesley shows up and he preaches at his funeral and critiques all of his theology. No, I didn't.
Mark Clark [00:15:42]:
No. He got up and he preached Whitefield's funeral. And Whitefield said, I want all my thousands of followers to follow him. Now I'm dying, and if I'm gonna put you. And, you know, one day, somebody came up to John Wesley. The story is told, and it's actually in many books. It's historically true. And a woman came up.
Mark Clark [00:16:04]:
She said, I'm profoundly nervous to ask this question, Mr. Wesley, but will you see George Whitefield in heaven? And Wesley said, oh, I can understand your profound question, why you're nervous to ask it. The reality is, I will not see George Whitefield in heaven. And the reason is, is because he'll be far too close to the throne, that I won't even get a view of them. You and I start fighting ghosts and ridiculousness. The reality is, Paul goes, we're fellow workers. Not just now, not just like, church ministry stuff. Okay, let's bring it down to you and me, okay? There's two or three layers in the fellow workers.
Mark Clark [00:16:49]:
You're together. Fellow workers. So this isn't like pastors in church. Forget that corporate stuff for a sec. This is about you as. What do you do for a living? Doctor, lawyer, soccer mom, entrepreneur, farmer, whatever. Whatever your work is. We are fellow workers together in the work of the kingdom.
Mark Clark [00:17:11]:
That's our role. Right? That's actually our job, is to work together, to recognize that we're in our individual realities. We are actually moving forward together in a kind of unity. Now, here's part of the problem. If you just individualize everything and you think to yourself, well, I'm so unique. I was reading a bunch of tweets about marriage the other day, so see if you can. I read them, and I was like, okay, this guy's been reading my mail. My wife bought a rice cooker today.
Mark Clark [00:17:43]:
I guess we're gonna eat a ton of rice over the next few days. And Then never again. My husband declared Sunday as a technology free day. So naturally, this has led to a closer bond between my children and I as we sneak off to look at my phone. Wife, don't forget to pick the kids up from school. Me, Saturday, they're both upstairs. Wife, it's Wednesday and we have three kids. Marriage is mostly about knowing which hand towels you can use and which ones are for the better people who visit your wife's home.
Mark Clark [00:18:43]:
Let's get married so we can argue about whether or not to throw away a 13 year old plate. If your wife says the cord in the vacuum cleaner is too short, it doesn't mean she's asking for an extension cord for her birthday. Or husband, last one. Marriage is equal parts. I would die without you. And for the love of God, do you have to sneeze like that? Now, the reason we laugh at that stuff is because that's literally our life, right? Meaning you're not. You're not actually that unique. You've had those fights before, right? I remember when I got married, I had.
Mark Clark [00:19:38]:
My wife was getting all this wedding stuff and she got these. Literally, it's 2003, she gets these plates, what I found out to be called chargers. They're not even plates. You can't eat on them. They're just a plate for a plate to go on top of the. Well, I'm 23 years old. We have not a dime, not a nickel to our name. We're about to travel across the country and try to eat.
Mark Clark [00:20:08]:
We're gonna try to put two. This is before smartphones. Like the way we went from Toronto to Vancouver. We did. What was that called? Travel ticks or where you have the map and CAA maps it all out for you. What was that called? Triptychs or whatever. Yeah, yeah, trip. Whatever we had.
Mark Clark [00:20:27]:
That's how we got out here. All right? Not Google. There was no Google Maps. We didn't know if we were gonna eat, but we had a truckload of chargers. What? What? This is insanity. And then of course, we fight. You know, 13 years later when we gotta throw them out, it's like, what are we gonna. This is marriage.
Mark Clark [00:20:52]:
You're not actually that unique. That's why we all need each other, right? That's why we're fellow workers. That's why I need you as a lawyer or a doctor or entrepreneur or a nurse or a teacher. I need you in the field to be doing the work of ministry. Cause I can't do it. I can't get into the incarnational reality of your life. And he says, you are God's field. He gives these images.
Mark Clark [00:21:22]:
You are God's building. Some of you are architects, Some of you lay the land. Some of you put up studs, Some of you paint whatever. We all have our different roles in the context of the mission that Jesus has given to us. And some of you aren't doing anything with it. There's no difference. I remember when I was sitting with the lady when we were away, and she said, well, aren't you the one who does the work of ministry? And I said, no, no, no. She's like, yeah, but you're a pastor.
Mark Clark [00:21:49]:
I'm like, no, no, no. I wanna push all that back to my people. I wanna push that back to their world because they're the ones who are gonna actually reach their friends. Martin Luther actually said this when he was fighting against the reality of bishops and people who would say, well, we're the religious elite and we get to define what reality is. And Martin Luther said this. It is pure invention that popes, bishops, priests and monks are to be called the spiritual estate, while princes, lords, artists and farmers are to be called the temporal estate, which is what the church was teaching at the time. This is indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy. All Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is among them no difference at all but that of office.
Mark Clark [00:22:35]:
To make it clear, if a little group of pious Christian people were taken captive and set down in a wilderness and had among them no priests consecrated by a bishop, and if there, in the wilderness, they would agree in choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and were to charge them with the office of baptizing, saying mass, absolving and preaching, such a man would be as truly a priest as though all bishops and popes had consecrated him. There really is no difference between a layman and priests, princes and bishops, spirituals and temporals, as they call them, except. Except that of office and work. A cobbler, a smith, a farmer, each has the work and office of his trade. And yet they are all alike, consecrated priests and bishops. And everyone, by means of his own work or office, must benefit and serve every other. That in this way, many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, even as all the members of the body serve one another. That's his point.
Mark Clark [00:23:32]:
His point is we need one another. The point is, it's your actual job to do the functional ministry of the church. We need some of you. It's we're together in this verse. 10 according to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder. Like, I mean, he's being humble here. I'm a skilled master builder. Anyways, I'm just saying, he goes, I laid a foundation like a skilled master builder.
Mark Clark [00:24:00]:
I. The Apostle Paul. And then someone else came along, and they're building upon it. I don't care. That's great. That's what I need. Because I'm the Apostle Paul, and I'm traveling all over. I'm planting churches in Philippi and Thessalonica and Rome, and I spent 18 months in Corinth.
Mark Clark [00:24:17]:
And as I talked to you about before, what was his urgency? It was like, okay, he did the best he could. He grabbed 40 people. He's like, hey, are you. You know. How long have you stopped sleeping with your stepmom? I'm there. I'm four weeks in. Okay, good. Elder.
Mark Clark [00:24:29]:
All right. Cause I gotta go. That was his urgency. And he sets up Apollos and these other pastors because they're gonna actually build upon his work. We all need one another. That's the point. Some of you are great builders. Some of you take the.
Mark Clark [00:24:41]:
Some of you are pioneers. Some of you are settlers. Some of you have these gifts. And others of you, this thing needs to be a team effort. When I did, I did marriage counseling about two months ago. And I'm sitting with this couple, and they're talking, and I'm being me, which is, I have strength. Yes, I do. But I have weaknesses.
Mark Clark [00:24:59]:
And sometimes I function in those weaknesses. And I was sitting there, and I was just about to give them my wise counsel, which was, how are you guys even functional? But then I heard my wife slash the voice of the Holy Spirit. I can never sometimes delineate those two. And I heard my wife and what she would say if she was in the room. And I looked at them and I said, how do we get you to a place where you are functional? That was better. But I needed my wife's voice to help me. Cause left to my own, I would have just, just, just, just destroyed them and said, what do you do? I don't understand how you even got your pan. How did you even get here? I don't get it.
Mark Clark [00:25:45]:
How are you this dysfunctional? That's what I. In my sinful. But I needed my wife. See, you need me in your life. You know that, and I need you in my life. You know, this is how the church functions. One builds another. He's saying, this is a team effort.
Mark Clark [00:26:04]:
This is something we all do together. We move forward together. Some of you are just different than others. And you need to stop. Stop trying. You need to be you. He talks about. He's gonna later talk about in 12, 13, 14.
Mark Clark [00:26:19]:
Some of you are mouths, some of you are ears, some of you are arms, some of your feet. But don't try to be a foot if you're an arm, because it's gonna go really bad. Don't try to be. Don't look around you and say, I'm gonna be like that person. I'm gonna be like. You are who you are. Different personalities do different things. Some of you.
Mark Clark [00:26:33]:
I haven't. Listen, I'm not a crier, right? The only thing that makes me cry is, like, I watch et cetera with my oldest daughter two nights ago, and I'm bawling, all right? Phone. Ouch, right? He's. I don't know. All of a sudden, it's Yoda, but. And I'm bawling. And Sienna kind of looks over. She's like, what's that? I'm like, what do you mean? What? Look, look, He's.
Mark Clark [00:26:56]:
ET Is ouch. Ouchie, right? That's Elliot. Elliot, right? That makes me cry. But like, nothing else does. Like, nothing. Like, my wife and I. I realized this the other day. We have.
Mark Clark [00:27:14]:
We do not have a perfect marriage, all right? We have fought. We've gone through difficult seasons of life, no doubt, But I don't think her and I have ever sat in a room together and cried in each other's presence about our marriage, right? Now, some of you are like, how is that possible? That's like a weekly occurrence, right? That's beautiful. I'm not. We're no better. We will. We won't cry, but we'll elevate our vocal cords, all right? We won't cry. I'll never like her, and I never cry. I can't believe the money.
Mark Clark [00:27:49]:
It's just not working. Like, we don't do that, but we'll say, the money's not working. And then she'll say, no, the money's not working, all right? Not happy. Neither mine. Slam door, shut the thing. Get some space. We do that, but we just don't cry about it. Now, some of you cry all the time, all right? You come home, you're like, I just.
Mark Clark [00:28:08]:
This is just looking at you just making me cry. I just cry. But as we talked about in the marriage series, not wrong. Just. What? Different. Don't try to be. Like, don't try to judge someone else's work and Say, I gotta try to be a. I gotta try to be a master founder.
Mark Clark [00:28:26]:
I gotta try to be an arm. I gotta try to be a mouth. Figure out who you are and be that. I remember when I first started at the church that we planted out of, they had this great preaching ministry, but the way they did it was different. And then they said, you have to do it this way. And so I was like, okay. So my first few sermons, it was like, the guy at the time was brilliant at being able to teach and do, like, fill in the blanks. And they all start with the same letter.
Mark Clark [00:28:50]:
And he would tell us, like a joke at the beginning that go get everyone. So I was like, okay. So they're like, you have to do that. Cause he was away. And he's like, this is your first sermon. I'm like, okay. So I was like, fill in the blanks. Like, fill in the blanks.
Mark Clark [00:29:03]:
They all have to start with the okay. Same letter. Okay? And it was a joke at the beginning. It was all forced, right? I'm like, so two Jews walk into a bar. No. Okay. No. And then I'm like, okay.
Mark Clark [00:29:21]:
So, like, okay, there's a blank. So it's. The first one is fun. Everybody should have fun. And then the second one is family. Everyone should have family. And then there's faith. Everyone should have faith.
Mark Clark [00:29:35]:
And then there's food. Everyone should have food. I was just running out of F words. It didn't work. I was like, this is. I can't do this. And so they said, okay, stop it. And the first time I got to just do what I do, a guy walked up to me and he's like, what do you want to do with your life? I remember it was in the.
Mark Clark [00:29:55]:
In the little fellowship room after, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, I want to become a professor, and I want to just study, and then I want to write, and I want to teach students, and I want to sit in the library for eight hours a day and read. Because footnotes don't cheat on their spouse, and they don't send you stupid emails. And he said, don't do that. Preach. The church needs you to preach and to give up this PhD footnote scholarly thing and be about the people. But it was when I just was me. I wasn't trying to be somebody else. I wasn't trying to do something else.
Mark Clark [00:30:41]:
Some of you, you're not being effective at all because you don't have a proper, clear diagnosis of yourself. You don't know who you Are you're trying to be this, but you just don't know. This is the way God's wired me. This is the way God's called me. This is my personality. And I don't need to be that person or function like that or do that and feel the religious burden upon my life. You are called. Some of you are master builders.
Mark Clark [00:31:07]:
Some of you are gonna build upon it. That's his point. You're just different. And then he says this. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. Verse 11 says, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Amazing. He says, you wanna know the ultimate foundation of life in any church? And any.
Mark Clark [00:31:27]:
You wanna know the reason? We could talk about a lot of things, right? He says the foundation is Jesus Christ. That's the foundation of everything. It needs to be the foundation of your life, not some churches. This is why we talk about Jesus every week. This is why we not only talk about the person of Jesus, but the work of Jesus on the cross, in the resurrection, taking on the wrath of God for your sin. It's not just tacked on. This is literally the everything of what we talk about every single week. The reason is, is because we could talk about spiritual gifts and we could talk about worship, and we could talk about global mission, and we could talk about local mission, and we could try to emphasize all of these different things, but he says, the foundation of everything is actually Jesus Christ.
Mark Clark [00:32:04]:
You don't get this figured out, all that other stuff means nothing. This is the ultimate question. You have to figure out, do you know Jesus Christ? He is the foundation, needs to be the foundation of your entire life. Who he is, what he taught, what he did. Kaim Potok, a Jewish author. In one of his books called the Chosen, the rabbi looks at the young student. He says, this one of my favorite novels in the world. He looks at me and says, reuven, there's two things you gotta figure out in your life.
Mark Clark [00:32:29]:
Find a friend and find a teacher. Do you have it? Every one of us wants a teacher. He's saying, Jesus Christ is the teacher. He's the one who's gonna teach you about what you're supposed to do in your marriage, what you're supposed to do with your money, what you're supposed. Everything about your life. He says, here's the foundation. And then he says this. Now if anyone builds on the foundation.
Mark Clark [00:32:47]:
So now he says, we're gonna build something that's the work of your life, and you're gonna build it now what are you gonna build it with? He says, gold, silver, stones, wood, hay, straw. He gives these images of things. He says, you're gonna build this thing, and some of you are gonna build it with wood and hay and straw, and others of you are gonna build it with gold, salt. Some of you are gonna build stuff with weak stuff, and some of you are gonna build lives that are strong stones and precious jewels. So that when he says each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire. Fire is a judgment image in first century Judaism, but it's also a purification image. If you have a house and things light up and it burns down, there's gonna be some things. There's gonna be like, you know, some of you have your, like, passports and your different things in like a little safe with a key.
Mark Clark [00:33:44]:
Your whole house could burn down and that thing will still be there unburnt. And you can just open it up and there's gonna be stuff in there. He says there's going to be a day when all of your life will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test what sort of work each one has done that your life. At the end of the day, we're gonna stand before God and some of you are gonna have built your life on straw and hay and stubble. And it's gonna be about. It was about your money, it was about your reputation, it was about glossy things, it was about square footage, it was about reputation, it was about status, it was about all these things. And he says all of that will burn away because it's temporal, it's nonsense.
Mark Clark [00:34:22]:
It's wood and hay and stubble. It's gonna burn up and you'll have nothing left. But some of you are gonna build stuff that's eternal and it's gonna last. It's gonna stand on the last. It's gonna be part of. You know, if you read Narnia, you read the Last Battle, the seventh book in the Chronicles of Narnia. And the kids go through into New Creation into Narnia finally. And they look and they say, why is that thing here? I recognize that thing from Earth.
Mark Clark [00:34:52]:
And Aslan says, don't you understand There was things on Earth. The good trees, the good people, the good works. They actually made their way through into Narnia. They last, they stand. It's crazy. And the last second to last chapter of First Corinthians, chapter 15, it's the longest focused chapter on the resurrection in the whole Bible. 58 verses on the Resurrection. Paul starts dealing with the fact that you and I are gonna have these resurrection bodies, and it's gonna be new creation and it's gonna be this, it's gonna be that.
Mark Clark [00:35:22]:
And he's detailing all this out. And in the last verse, in verse 58, he has this verse that nobody really knows what it means. He basically says this, and just know this, brothers and sisters, that your labor is not in vain. And everyone's like, how is that a good application? Where does that come out of nowhere? He's dealing with spiritual bodies and physical bodies. And you're gonna be this. You're gonna sow in, and then you're gonna be, why does he end with by the way, now, here's my encouragement. All your hard work, it's not in vain. Because what he's saying is some things, when they're good work, actually are gonna last until the end.
Mark Clark [00:35:56]:
They're gonna make it into the new creation because you're gonna build them. Now, how do you know the difference? Listen, here's what's crazy. You could do a lot of amazing things with your money. All right? You could feed into Kingdom. You could do that. You could do stuff with your time, like think about your house. Your house. You could work diligently in your house, but your house is gonna burn.
Mark Clark [00:36:15]:
The question is, what did you do with your house? Did you have people in it that were broken? Did you use it for kingdom? You could have all the money in the world. Did you? The question is not how much money. It's what did you do with your money? If you had lots of it, did you use it for Kingdom? Stuff that's gonna last, stuff that's gonna stand when the fire purifies your soul on the great day? What are the things that are gonna. Is that how you live your life right now? Now the question is, here's what I was thinking about. Everyone's gonna have a different judgment before the Lord, right? Everyone's gonna have their own reality. And I was thinking about that. But, okay, what if you're married? Some of you might be going, okay, my wife and I decided what we're gonna do with our house together. My wife and I decided what we're gonna do with our money together.
Mark Clark [00:37:00]:
My wife and I decided how we're gonna raise our kids together. Ergo, we're going to have the same reality on the last day. That's not true. Everyone's gonna have a different degree of reward, a different degree of reality when it comes to the last day. Paul goes on to Say if that work that anyone has built in the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. Everyone's gonna have different levels of reward in heaven in the new creation. Treasure. This is why Jesus talks about Sermon on the Mount.
Mark Clark [00:37:28]:
You have a treasure that this build up treasures, this. So the question is, okay, we got the same reward because we're one flesh, we're married. So we did the same thing with our time, the same thing with our house, the same thing with our kids, the same thing with our money. But the reality is gonna be vastly different. One of you could have far greater glory and degree of pleasure and delight in the new creation than the other one. Based on what? Here's the crazy thing. You pull it all back. You did the same things, but there was a thing behind the thing.
Mark Clark [00:37:56]:
There was the heart, there was the motivation behind what you did with your life. And the reality is, you go through the gospels, this great story. James and John walk up to Jesus in Mark, chapter 10. They say, can we sit on your left and your right in your kingdom? And Jesus is like, no, it's not for me to decide. And the next story, there's a blind guy and he says, can I see? And Jesus actually asks him the same. He says to James and John, what do you want me to do for you? We wanna sit in your left and right. Next story, blind guy, what do you want me to do for you? Same nine words, I wanna see, I wanna receive your mercy. And he gets healed.
Mark Clark [00:38:26]:
And the reality of the story is this. You and I tend to really applaud any interest in Jesus Christ at all. If someone shows any interest at all, we're like, woo hoo, awesome. We're applauding you. We're great, we're excited about it. Jesus actually asks a different question. Not just are you interested in me? Not just do you believe? Are you gonna raise your hand? Are you gonna say a prayer? The question to Jesus is not just, are you gonna believe me? It's this. Why? Why? What's the motivation? What's the thing behind what's the hidden thing in your life of the reality? What are the reasons you have done good work versus another work? He says if anyone's work is burned up, he'll suffer loss.
Mark Clark [00:39:08]:
I love this though he himself will be saved. The question is not about going to heaven or not going to heaven. That's by grace, through faith. The question is, some of you are gonna get, you're gonna get to heaven, you're gonna get skin in your teeth. You're just gonna like Just. He goes, yeah, yeah, you'll be saved. Like, you won't go to hell. But that's not my question.
Mark Clark [00:39:30]:
See, that's your question. If you're dating a girl, you know what's going through your mind. If I do this with her, do I still get to go to heaven? You know why I know that? Because that's how I think. I mean, not now. Some of you are like, really? You still think about, no, no. When I was dating, how deceiving can I be on this tax return and still go to heaven when I die? Wicked. I mean, human, real, honest. Paul goes, you have to be saved.
Mark Clark [00:40:15]:
It's not my question. What about the work of your life? Is it gonna stand? Is it gonna last? Because you're gonna have a degree of delight. Do not just invest your life in the 80 years you have on Earth. Invest it in the 80 million and the 80 million after that with the kind of pleasure and delight you're going to experience in the new creation before the Lord. That's what this whole passage is about. It's about the end of the world and what you did with your life. Now some of you are completely discouraged. You're like, oh, my gosh, I've done nothing with my life.
Mark Clark [00:40:45]:
My wife's going to be so far ahead. Will be motivated by competition. Baby, just destroy her. For the sake of the kingdom. Father, I do pray that each of us is inspired by a text like this that says the end is gonna be like this. And that we would then retrofit our life to say in the present, the work we do, we are going to be paid back for our labor. We're gonna get wages for our labor before you. So yes, it's about your grace, and yes, it's about our faith.
Mark Clark [00:41:20]:
But then there's this whole life now that we gotta live. And I just pray for us, for me, for my kids, for my wife, for us as a church, that we would use our years in every aspect, the hundred things that make up the pie chart of our life, that we would use them for kingdom and not just temporal purposes. So that on that last day when we stand before you, our work makes it in, our work lasts and your fire doesn't burn it away. Because it was all about temporal, shallowed out, narcissistic, motivated action belabor. Done selflessly for the sake of the kingdom, make that our life. In Jesus great name we pray. Amen.