Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
All right, so here's what Paul says.
Mark Clark [00:00:04]:
We're gonna deal with one verse today, all right? So we're rolling.
Mark Clark [00:00:07]:
It's beautiful.
Mark Clark [00:00:08]:
It's not just half a verse, the whole verse. All right, Chapter three, verse ten. And here's what Paul says in verse nine.
Mark Clark [00:00:16]:
He said this to bring to light for everyone.
Mark Clark [00:00:18]:
What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things?
Mark Clark [00:00:23]:
So what he's been doing is he's saying the plan, the thing that God has been doing all through history is the plan in Jesus. And so in that culture, they had a lot of gods and a lot of ideas where if you wanted to really appease the gods, then you would sacrifice your animals or your grain or sometimes to the gods, you'd have to sacrifice your kids. And what's beautiful about Christianity is that Paul comes along and he says, the beautiful thing about the gospel is that in Jesus Christ, God doesn't ask you for the blood of your kid to put everything right in your life that he gave his own kid. He gave the blood of his own child, Jesus, to pay the price for you to appease his own wrath. And so in that day, that idea would have been crazy. They would have just thrown everything upside down and said, the good news about Jesus is that in him, God has come, paid the price for sin on the cross, lived a perfect life in your place, rose from the dead, defeating Satan's sin and death. And so our life now, that plan is for us to repent and align ourselves with that. And so he's challenging all these people living in Ephesus at the time, who would have heard this other kind of gospel where you're constantly trying to appease the gods through this.
Mark Clark [00:01:38]:
And through this, he's going, that's been done for you in Jesus. And what you need to do is respond to that plan, that mystery, that thing that has been hidden but has now been made, revealed. And then he says this in verse 10, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church. All right, that's the frame I want you to grasp.
Mark Clark [00:02:03]:
All right?
Mark Clark [00:02:03]:
So if you got a pen, underline that. If you got your iPhone, like, double click that thing, so a couple dotted lines go under it. Whatever. It's through the church. All right? If I was a preacher who told people to turn to your person next to you and say something, then I would be saying that right now. All right? I decided years ago I'd never turn
Mark Clark [00:02:21]:
to anyone beside me and say anything.
Mark Clark [00:02:24]:
But if I did that it would be at this moment through the church. That's the point. That's the big point. Meaning this. We constantly think in our life about how God is gonna affect people. And we constantly think that it's vertical. And so we spend time with the Lord, we trust God. If someone needs encouragement, we pray, say God, encourage him if we need.
Mark Clark [00:02:47]:
And we're kind of in this vertical relationship. And what Paul is saying is, yes, God does do that. God reveals his own glory. God moves in the world. God does things. But he's saying, the emphasis here is he does those things through the chur that constantly. It's horizontal, not necessarily vertical. And so when we pray for healing, we often say, God, you know, heal.
Mark Clark [00:03:09]:
Heal this person, Heal this. But what Constantly Paul is saying, you read Romans 12, you read Ephesians 4, which we'll get to in a few months. You read First Corinthians 12 to 14. Maybe you read these passages and Paul's listing these gifts, and he's saying, God, yes, he'll heal you, but he's given people the gift of healing. All right? So sometimes I think that we're not really kind of we gather, we pray for healing. We're saying, God heal. God heal. But he's given the church people who have the gift of healing to pray.
Mark Clark [00:03:43]:
Or maybe in that moment, you need to be praying for the gift of healing, for the gift of faith for a person, rather than just, hey, God, I hope you do this. Or if people need encouragement, we say, you know, God encouraged them, or God encouraged me. But what Paul says is God has given people the gift of encouragement to literally to be people. All right? Unlike many Canadians, all right? Who are just skeptical and negative and critical. And who, in Psalm 1 language, sit in the seat of mockers and are wicked because it's cooler to be critical than to be encouraging to people. It's more powerful to be critical and negative. And constantly Paul's going, what does it mean to encourage, to build up to love? And that God has actually given people the gift of encouragement when people need money. God has given people the gift of generosity and the ability to go, hey, I'm sitting in community group.
Mark Clark [00:04:40]:
A guy can't pay his mortgage. Well, let's not just pray for him. Let's put a hat around, all right? Let's raise some money for this guy. Cause he's broke. Look at him. Let's help him out. This is what he's saying through the church. I have given your neighbors you.
Mark Clark [00:05:00]:
I have given the world you I have given your family, your friends, you. And so, yes, pray, but get up off your knees after praying and do something for the kingdom of God. Bless other people. Show them what it means to love Jesus. Show them what it means to bless other people. And that's constantly why he's saying. And look what he says when we do that, when we're the church, it shows the manifold wisdom of God. So the way that I ended up ever becoming a pastor was because I didn't know what I.
Mark Clark [00:05:33]:
Like some of you, like many of you, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.
Mark Clark [00:05:36]:
After I was done high school, I
Mark Clark [00:05:37]:
was planning on going into the film world, all right? That was my passion. And so I interned.
Mark Clark [00:05:43]:
I was behind a camera.
Mark Clark [00:05:44]:
I was in editing suites. I'd made movies since I was 8
Mark Clark [00:05:46]:
years old with my best friend.
Mark Clark [00:05:48]:
We would shoot movies. I would always be in front of the camera, acting.
Mark Clark [00:05:50]:
I was like Eddie Murphy.
Mark Clark [00:05:52]:
I'd do, like four parts. And then we take that back to the editing suite and we edit that thing, all right? And that was my life. He went on My Best Friend to work at mtv, and I work here. So anyway, so that was my passion. That's what I wanted to do with my life. And then I finished college, and I kind of said, ah, I'm not gonna end up being successful now. I don't know. So I showed up to college and I went, and I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Mark Clark [00:06:15]:
So I went and met with the counselor, and she said, okay, well, tell me about yourself. And I told her my passions and all these things. She spent 20 minutes with me, and
Mark Clark [00:06:23]:
she said, I know what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to go into public relations. And I was like, yes, what is that again? Did I write that down?
Mark Clark [00:06:31]:
And so that became my new passion. I would go to my friends.
Mark Clark [00:06:35]:
I'm going to public relations. That's my passion. That's what I want to do. They'd be, what is that? I'm not sure, but I'm gonna find out.
Mark Clark [00:06:42]:
And then during that time, I was two weeks into class, and I wasn't liking any of it. And I went away with a couple buddies to a cabin and. And we were sitting around the fire.
Mark Clark [00:06:50]:
I remember it like it was yesterday. And these three guys looked into my eyes and they said, listen, we think that you're called to go into ministry, man. We think that with your gifting and your calling, we just believe that you're supposed to be a pastor.
Mark Clark [00:07:03]:
And God in that moment spoke to me. Not through some divine, not through some voice out of heaven, out of nowhere.
Mark Clark [00:07:10]:
All right, go into ministry. It wasn't like that.
Mark Clark [00:07:15]:
And some of you await that. You think that that's how his will comes about. You'll sit and wait, who am I supposed to marry? Tom or Chris? Cause they're both good looking, they both like me. And you'll sit in silence and go on a prayer retreat. And you think God's gonna say, Here's the thing. He's not going to tell you that.
Mark Clark [00:07:51]:
Here's what God tells you. Whether you marry Chris. What was the other guy's name?
Mark Clark [00:07:57]:
Tom.
Mark Clark [00:08:00]:
Whether you marry Chris, whether you marry Tom, you serve and respect him like
Mark Clark [00:08:07]:
Christ does the church.
Mark Clark [00:08:10]:
See, we go, man, I'm waiting for some divine voice out of nowhere. And God goes, talk to people, ask them, what do you think about Tom? What do you think about Chris? What do you think about them for me?
Mark Clark [00:08:25]:
Let people speak. In your life, God has given you the church, the people of God, the people who have given their lives to Jesus. And following Jesus, he has given you them. And he says here in all of those things, when. What happens is we show the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, that when the church is the church, we declare to the world, we literally, we show the world what it is to trust God in the midst of really good things and in the midst of bad things. And when he says the manifold wisdom, that's the word, the many, the many splendored, the many. Actually, it means many colored. It's the same word that is used in Genesis of Joseph's coat.
Mark Clark [00:09:18]:
Right, the Technicolor dream coat. Right, the coat of many.
Mark Clark [00:09:22]:
Coat of many colors. No, in another one.
Mark Clark [00:09:27]:
Okay, so that's the idea. You got a coat of many colors. The many colored wisdom of God is shown through the church and it's shown in the really good times. Like when everything's going well, your marriage is going well, you're alone with God, your mortgage is getting paid, you're on the beach in Hawaii and you're just spending alone time with him. And you've got your phone off and the emails are off, and the, the criticism and awe is off. And the people who look in your face and say, someone should tell. I gotta shut up. That's all off.
Mark Clark [00:09:58]:
And you're alone on the beach and you're just trusting God. And in the midst of that moment when you show that he's all satisfying Then you proclaim to the world what is felt by the world, the manifold wisdom of God. And then in the really difficult times,
Mark Clark [00:10:11]:
when life sucks, all right, when you find a lump or you lose a
Mark Clark [00:10:17]:
job,
Mark Clark [00:10:19]:
and you show in that moment that God is all satisfying, even in the difficult times, even when my life didn't turn out the way that I had planned, that I trust him. Because he never promised my best life now. He never promised that I would never drown.
Mark Clark [00:10:38]:
What he did say is, when you drown, and we will all drown when you drown. I'll be with you. I will get you through that. And so in the good times, you show the manifold wisdom of God to the world. And that's how it's felt through the church and how we react. And then in the difficult times, in the times when we feel alone, in the times where there's difficulty, we still show that he's all satisfying. Now, that does not mean that we pretend and we put on a face and we're like, woo, I got a disease. Praise the Lord.
Mark Clark [00:11:11]:
It doesn't mean that. It still means that we wrestle, that we might yell at God like the psalms, like David, and say, in this moment, I feel like you hate me. I feel like you're absolutely against me. But still I believe and trust in you. Still I believe through this that you're good. And in those moments, that's when the church
Mark Clark [00:11:37]:
is echoing out from itself the manifold wisdom of God.
Mark Clark [00:11:42]:
That's when the people around us will feel it. Because if all you say is no, I really believe that God is fully satisfying. But you are defined by jumping from this to this to this to satisfy you. Your friends won't believe you for a second because talk is cheap. But when you show it through who you are. So he's saying through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known. And then he says this to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Mark Clark [00:12:16]:
Now, there's two angles on this that
Mark Clark [00:12:18]:
we gotta talk about. The first one is the rulers and
Mark Clark [00:12:23]:
the authorities, meaning the political institutions.
Mark Clark [00:12:31]:
In Paul's day, this looked like the Roman Empire. The rulers and the authorities that the Roman Empire was existing was preaching a narrative to the people who were living in Ephesus, saying, caesar is Lord, therefore Jesus Christ is not. And Paul in the New Testament constantly come and say, you have to put your heart and your mind with, Jesus is Lord, and therefore Caesar is not in. Even if it goes against the rulers and authorities, even if what it means for your life is you get eaten by lions, that what is constantly preached at you, at the culture you exist within, is that everything else is God except Jesus. That is what you in your house, that is what the TV is preaching at you every day. That's what Netflix is preaching at you every day. That's what every billboard, every radio, every conversation, every classroom is preaching about who is Lord, who's your full satisfaction. And what Paul is saying is, in the midst of that kind of empire that wants the allegiance of your mind and your heart, that you give your life to Jesus even when the rulers and the authorities and the principalities and the powers want your allegiance and they're putting pressure on you to act in a particular way, to function in a particular way,
Mark Clark [00:13:52]:
that your allegiance is to Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:13:55]:
That it might.
Mark Clark [00:13:57]:
I'll give you a couple of examples of this. Like in. We believe as a church that we're supposed to obey the government, all right? The rulers and the authorities, that we're to be good citizens, all right? So pay your taxes, don't speed, don't kill people. Just, you know, be a good citizen,
Mark Clark [00:14:15]:
pray for your leaders, all that stuff. That's ruler and authority stuff. But we also believe that if the government at any time comes in and starts to force us to do things that are against the scriptures, that are against what God has called us to do, that we go with the scriptures every time, that we go with the will of God, even if that ends us in jail, all right? That we. It's called civil disobedience. The church has a long history of it, that sometimes not doing what you're told is what the church is called to do. It's why Bonhoeffer died. It's why William Tyndale was burned at the stake. And there are times when the church is called to do it, that if the government comes in and tries to take our guns.
Mark Clark [00:14:58]:
No, I'm just playing about that one. That was for our American friends.
Mark Clark [00:15:03]:
All right? Shout out. If the government. Let me give you a realistic example.
Mark Clark [00:15:16]:
If the government was to say to us at village church, you can't read
Mark Clark [00:15:22]:
Romans 1 publicly because it says that
Mark Clark [00:15:25]:
homosexuality is a sin, all right?
Mark Clark [00:15:29]:
That is now a hate crime. You have read hate literature now before, which is true, which is explicitly clear, all right? Now, some of you might be like, hey, yeah, I'm getting haughty now. Homosexuality, that's a sin. In the same passage, he also says, anybody who has ever disobeyed their parents, ever been proud, ever been greedy or ever gossiped, who in the house has never done any of those things Raise your hands right now.
Mark Clark [00:15:55]:
All right.
Mark Clark [00:15:55]:
We could turn the house lights up, it wouldn't matter. See, you're in the same boat. So before your heart starts to get hot, you go, yeah, homosexuality, yeah. Okay, it is. But you're in the same boat. Now, if they say, you can't read Romans 1, it's illegal. You will go to jail if you read it. Here's what we do.
Mark Clark [00:16:15]:
We start popping it open three, four, five weeks in a row, right? We read that. I mean, I don't read it. I'll get one of you to do the scripture reading. But. I need to pass. I need to continue doing this. But we'll just. That's the image.
Mark Clark [00:16:36]:
If the government comes and says, you need to put your allegiance here. We constantly put our allegiance to Jesus. If they said, you can no longer get tax receipts for giving. So when we give money to the church, it's charitable, get 30, 40% back. It's this idea of, I can give to a charity and get a tax receipt. If the government removed that, we still give money to the cause of Christ. We organize our budget around giving money to the cause of Christ because we don't give. Because we get a tax receipt from the government.
Mark Clark [00:17:06]:
We give out of obedience to Jesus. And what Paul is saying is, even when the government comes down, the rulers, the authorities, put pressure on you. You belong to a bigger story. Your allegiance is to a God that transcends all of that and sometimes calls you to do things that the government. And even if you're put to death
Mark Clark [00:17:26]:
for it, you take Jesus every time.
Mark Clark [00:17:29]:
That's the image that there are constantly times in our life where we need to preach against the norm, when we need to live against the grain, when we need to do the opposite of what is constantly preached at us. And so every time a man or a woman says, I am not gonna live my life like, work a 9 to 5 for 35 years, then retire, go Palm Springs and sit by a pool and get a tan for the rest of my days. Every time somebody says, and people have spent billions of dollars to pitch to you, that that's what human existence is about, that is full life.
Mark Clark [00:18:11]:
And every time someone goes, I refuse to believe that narrative, and I'm gonna give my entire life to my dying breath to see people come to know Jesus and love God every time that happens, the manifold wisdom of God is proclaimed. Every time we go, man does not live on bread alone that anybody makes or provides for me, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Every Time we function like that and people see how we function.
Mark Clark [00:18:44]:
Not what we say, what we do.
Mark Clark [00:18:48]:
Like some parenting advice for those of you who are parents. Your kids, they don't do what you tell them, they do what you do.
Mark Clark [00:18:57]:
Talk is cheap. And the world around us says, show
Mark Clark [00:19:01]:
me that he's all satisfying. And in those moments, the manifold wisdom of God is proclaimed. There's another angle to this, which is a little heavier. He says, to make known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Now, here's what he means by that. He means literally, satan demonstration. Evil spirits in the heavenly places. Now, some of you are like, whoa, what did I just walk into right there? All right? Because you're part of, you know, 21st century skeptical culture.
Mark Clark [00:19:50]:
You don't believe in any of that stuff, all right? You were born and bred on David Suzuki, all right? You're a naturalist, all right? So if you can't hear it, if
Mark Clark [00:20:01]:
you can't taste it, if you can't touch it, if you can't smell it, it's not. The only world is the world that I can see, feel, taste, touch. That's the world we're kind of born and bred in.
Mark Clark [00:20:10]:
And what Paul is saying is it's not true that these things are very real. Satan, demons, there are angelic realities in
Mark Clark [00:20:22]:
the heavenlies, rulers and authorities that actually impact life. That's what he's saying. And for some of us, we're like, man, this is just hard to swallow. I don't understand. But it's not actually that logically hard to grasp. If we believe that the good things of the world point to God. Like, if we believe that we have morality because there's a God and sex and art and all these beautiful things because there's a good God behind them. And we are very moral people, all right? Even on the west coast, we love morality, all right? We watched Oprah this week.
Mark Clark [00:20:56]:
We. We were like, you, Lance Armstrong, you're evil. How dare you ever dope. And the gospel would say, who are you?
Mark Clark [00:21:05]:
You think Lance Armstrong owes you something because you bought a bracelet five years ago?
Mark Clark [00:21:11]:
You think he owes you to apologize to you? As if he's different than you, man. If the evolutionary story is true, who cares? You don't have a right and wrong category to put Lance Armstrong on trial. There is no absolute moral category that said what he did was wrong. He was just doing what everybody else in the sport does and trying to keep up. That's what he would. So who cares? Unless there's a moral law Giver who said, by the way, this is right and this is wrong, well now you're at the existence of God. And if that's easy to believe, if that makes sense, like 80, 90% of generally people would say, then when we
Mark Clark [00:21:51]:
look at evil and we look at pain and we look at brokenness and we look at suffering, there's a personage behind it. And what Paul is saying is this is very real and there is a war, that we are in the midst of the principalities and the powers and the rulers and the authorities and Satan and demons, they're legit. Now here's what happens when we get confronted with this. We do one of two crazy things. On the one hand, we become obsessed with this kind of stuff. All right, so there's a lot of people who just over spiritualize everything. All right?
Mark Clark [00:22:33]:
So they couldn't get to community group that night and they come and say, oh my goodness, my tire was popped. A demon came with a nail and popped my tire. I couldn't get to community group.
Mark Clark [00:22:42]:
It's like, no, you need to clean your garage.
Mark Clark [00:22:47]:
I lock my keys in the car. I can't believe I locked my keys in the car. Satan locked my keys in the car. I couldn't get them out. No, it's because you were dragging a
Mark Clark [00:22:53]:
three year old and you're dumb.
Mark Clark [00:22:56]:
It's just life. Don't blame demons and Satan for every sneeze and every bad thing that happens to you.
Mark Clark [00:23:06]:
On the other hand, the other extreme is what most people in our culture do, but not every culture. It's to say, this stuff doesn't exist at all. It's not real, it's not to be believed. I don't like it. And it's fairytale. And to that Paul would say, this is very real and you have to be aware of it and you have to understand. See when he planted. Flip over in your Bibles a couple books to Acts chapter 19.
Mark Clark [00:23:36]:
When Paul planted the church in Ephesus, he was a church planter. He spent three years in Ephesus. This is where we get our heart. This is actually the three year anniversary this morning of Village Church. So we launched three years ago this Sunday today, with 50 people in a gymnasium preaching the gospel, wanted people to meet Jesus three years ago today. And what Paul did was plant churches.
Mark Clark [00:24:02]:
And so he would go around to
Mark Clark [00:24:03]:
these cities and he would plant churches. And so the city that he writes to Ephesus, he planted a church in. And In Acts chapter 19, this story is told and it's probably in his mind, as he tells these people, be very careful of the rulers and the
Mark Clark [00:24:18]:
authorities in the heavenly places.
Mark Clark [00:24:20]:
Says this, chapter 19.
Mark Clark [00:24:21]:
Pick it up in verse 11. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.
Mark Clark [00:24:27]:
So right there, by the hands of Paul. How are the miracles happening? Was God just doing it in a vacuum? No, it was by the hands of Paul. Paul was blessing. Paul was healing. Paul was caring for people through the church. Through the church. That's the anthem that's supposed to be running in your head. By the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.
Mark Clark [00:24:58]:
Now, don't take that and start a ministry on TV where you're selling your Kleenex.
Mark Clark [00:25:02]:
All right? That's not.
Mark Clark [00:25:03]:
This is the Apostle Paul.
Mark Clark [00:25:05]:
So he's a little different than you
Mark Clark [00:25:06]:
and me, all right? This is the Apostle Paul. Don't start here, sell that. All right? It's him.
Mark Clark [00:25:12]:
He's a little different than you and me. He's got this apostolic authority.
Mark Clark [00:25:15]:
So even his Kleenex is healing people.
Mark Clark [00:25:19]:
Verse 13.
Mark Clark [00:25:20]:
Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke this.
Mark Clark [00:25:25]:
So these are Jewish exorcists. They're not converts. They haven't believed in Jesus yet. Undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest
Mark Clark [00:25:42]:
named Sceva were doing this.
Mark Clark [00:25:44]:
And so here's a warning to you. If you're in this room and you use the name of Jesus as a title, but you don't actually know him, you're on very dangerous ground. And you're gonna see why in a second. If this is just a game, if you're playing a game, if you've used this title, if you're pretending this thing, you use the name of Jesus, but you don't actually have relationship with him. You're not walking with him. It's a very dangerous place to be, and this is why. But the evil spirit answered them. Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered all of them.
Mark Clark [00:26:22]:
One guy on seven overpowered them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. They're buck naked. The demons just shame them. This is what they do. They want to shame you. They wanna strip your clothes off and embarrass you. So that you run out of the house. And naked, not literally, maybe emotionally, spiritually, metaphorically, whatever it is they want you to feel.
Mark Clark [00:26:54]:
And you feel some of you are here, you feel the shame because you listen to the voices of the rulers and the authorities and the principalities and the powers instead of the voice of Jesus. And they wanna strip you naked. They wanna shame you publicly. They want you running scared. Verse 17. And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, because they were like, hey, did you see those guys? They're all naked and they're all talking
Mark Clark [00:27:23]:
about it, taking pictures. Boom. Look at this. Put this on Instagram.
Mark Clark [00:27:29]:
It became known. Everybody knew about it. They put it on Facebook. They wanted to shame these guys, both Jews. And fear fell upon them all.
Mark Clark [00:27:40]:
And the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also, many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices. Listen, here's what I want some of you to get in this room right now. This verse and a number of those who had practiced magic arts, all right? Now, I'm not saying a lot of
Mark Clark [00:28:00]:
you are into that.
Mark Clark [00:28:01]:
Maybe you are. I'm not saying you're explicitly witches, cats tails, cauldrons, all this stuff.
Mark Clark [00:28:05]:
Not saying that.
Mark Clark [00:28:06]:
It might be other things, right?
Mark Clark [00:28:08]:
But you're involved in things that invite these things. You're involved in habitual sin that nobody knows about that, as Paul says, you invite Satan to have a foothold in your life. You're living a particular kind of life that invites these kinds of things. And this is telling you, look what happens. Had practiced magic arts, brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver, which is about 30, $40,000, which was a lot of money back then. So the word of the Lord continued
Mark Clark [00:28:44]:
to increase and prevail mightily. What these guys do is they're involved in all of this kind of life and they bring it all forward and they burn it. Because what they say is, I've given my life to Jesus and now everything I do has to change.
Mark Clark [00:28:59]:
All right, so some of you, this is a moment where today God confronts your greed and you understand the gospel and it takes root in your heart. So much so that you just get freed up to have. You don't live in scarcity anymore. You freed up to give, to be generous. Some of you are absolutely addicted to pornography, and nobody knows about it in this room, but you just can't get over it. You can't beat it. You can't have triumph over it, victory over it. You just can't.
Mark Clark [00:29:27]:
You're stuck. Stuck.
Mark Clark [00:29:30]:
What does it look like to burn the stuff that's killing you? Some of you, you're young people and you look. You're dating, and it looks like everything's holy and righteous, but you're sleeping together. Cause you just can't wait until you're married.
Mark Clark [00:29:53]:
You can't. You love Jesus, but you can't do it. The temptation's too great. I want today to be the day where that changes. I want today to be the day where you look at a text like that and you go, I can't go on opening myself to this kind of evil. I've gotta repent of it and go public with it. I gotta burn it. Burn the thing that is tempting me now.
Mark Clark [00:30:22]:
I don't mean, like, burn the person.
Mark Clark [00:30:24]:
All right, girl, you're tempting me. Flame that up.
Mark Clark [00:30:29]:
I don't mean. What does it mean to burn this? To leave it behind? To go, you know what? I gotta go public with this. I gotta stop being so private. Canadian. Where I get up in the morning and I get in my car and the garage door opens and I go to work and I sit in a cubicle, and then I get in my car and I drive home and I pull in the garage and the garage closes.
Mark Clark [00:30:47]:
Ah, perfect community.
Mark Clark [00:30:53]:
That's how we are as Canadians. It's like someone rings the doorbell, it's like, did you invite somebody over? Who's at the door? I don't know. Somebody.
Mark Clark [00:30:58]:
I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:30:59]:
You invite them? I don't know. I don't know them. Keep it close. I think they can hear us.
Mark Clark [00:31:03]:
Doesn't matter.
Mark Clark [00:31:06]:
These are private. You don't want to let anybody in.
Mark Clark [00:31:12]:
You know what Paul's saying. You can't be the church that way. You gotta go public with this. Some of you are sitting here and you're cheating on your spouse. They don't know it, or you're thinking about it. Today's a day where you go home, you take communion, you repent of sin, you take the blood, you take the body, you dip it in the blood. You believe what Jesus has done for you.
Mark Clark [00:31:40]:
And then you go home and you
Mark Clark [00:31:42]:
confess and you say, today's the day I burn this,
Mark Clark [00:31:46]:
that Today's the day
Mark Clark [00:31:47]:
where I can actually be transformed. I've seen.
Mark Clark [00:31:52]:
This is. Be the church. This is practical. I gotta let you in. I gotta let people into my life. I gotta get some accountability here. I have called people I have met with, couples that have loved Jesus and said, we're sleeping together and we can't wait till we're married. And I have called them every day from that day until the day that they were married and said, hey, how's it going? I hope my voice isn't turning you on.
Mark Clark [00:32:19]:
Stay away from her. Stay away from her. Stay away from her. I will beat you for the cause of Christ if you touch her every day account. And listen, if some of you need that talk to me. I'll call you every day. I will call you every day until the day that you're, hopefully, you're engaged. Cause I don't want to be calling you for the next 12 years.
Mark Clark [00:32:52]:
You gotta be the church. You have to let people in. You have to go public. You have to walk up with those books and go, this is the thing. This is the computer. This is the whatever, and I gotta burn it. I gotta walk away from that person who causes me to get into all of this trouble. This is what it means to be transformed.
Mark Clark [00:33:12]:
This is what it means to actually grow and walk with Jesus. This is what Paul's talking about when
Mark Clark [00:33:17]:
he says, you gotta fight against the rulers and the authorities. Because we constantly say to ourselves, oh, that's just a physical issue. That's just an emotional issue.
Mark Clark [00:33:29]:
And what Paul's going is the world,
Mark Clark [00:33:31]:
the universe is far more complex than you think it is. You can't compartmentalize your life into physical decisions and emotional decisions and spiritual decisions. That's not how it works. It's all integrated. Everything is spiritual. This is why Jesus, when he's preaching to the churches in the Book of
Mark Clark [00:33:54]:
revelation, in Revelation 1:3, he takes them to task for the weirdest thing. He says, here's what you need to repent of.
Mark Clark [00:34:00]:
You have been eating food, sacrificed to idols.
Mark Clark [00:34:03]:
Now they might go, what do you care?
Mark Clark [00:34:05]:
It's a sandwich. I don't follow the God that it was sacrificed to.
Mark Clark [00:34:09]:
I bought it from the marketplace.
Mark Clark [00:34:10]:
It was sacrificed to some God made of wood or stone or.
Mark Clark [00:34:13]:
I don't care about that God.
Mark Clark [00:34:14]:
I'm just eating a sandwich. And Jesus says, here's what you fail to understand. There's something spiritual going on behind that idol that is affecting you. That behind every decision we make in life, it is either toward God or away from him. And this does not always look like the exorcism of Emily Rose. All right, I've seen that. All right, that's been in my office.
Mark Clark [00:34:41]:
A woman writhing, calling out, different face, different eyes. Different voice and having to preach Jesus to see her set for free. And I've seen it in India as people worship Shiva and Vishnu and their eyes are free and they're foaming. I've seen that, and I've seen it in some of you driving an Escalade around South Surrey, worshiping at that altar,
Mark Clark [00:35:04]:
and you think it's different. And it's not. Because what's behind that Escalade? Not that Escalades are inherently evil. Enjoy your Escalade if you. I would like one if you got an extra.
Mark Clark [00:35:22]:
But if you worship at the idol
Mark Clark [00:35:25]:
of that thing, there is spiritual reality.
Mark Clark [00:35:27]:
Here's what Paul's saying. Things are not as they seem. The world is vastly more complex than you think it is. And if you think it's just a hundred dollar bill or just an Escalade, or just this or just that, realize
Mark Clark [00:35:40]:
there's spiritual power behind what you're talking about, what you're lodging your heart and your mind into. There is spiritual power behind it. And he's saying you have to be very careful. Jesus wants to save you from that, to burn it. Don't be naive. Don't think that the only thing on this planet is the physical decisions you make or the emotional decisions you make. And this doesn't have to look foaming. And this looks so white collar.
Mark Clark [00:36:23]:
This looks so normal. CS Lewis said that the road to hell is the gradual one, without any sudden turnings or milestones or signposts. It's. It's the principalities and the powers, the rulers and authorities, they affect us through the normal, everyday stuff of life. And so you just need to be emphasizing the victory rather than that evil and understanding what Jesus has done and applying that to every area of your life. And that's why when you're looking at your. When your kids have a nightmare, all right, don't go in there and go,
Mark Clark [00:36:54]:
you're being attacked by a demon, Tommy. Just wake up. Rosary. It's way more normal than that.
Mark Clark [00:37:04]:
It's praying with Tommy and emphasizing Jesus and what he's done and how he's victorious. But Paul's point is this is a war and you're in it. If you're a follower of Jesus, you're in it. See, here's what's amazing about verse 10.
Mark Clark [00:37:24]:
It's a call to the church. It's this foundational call about what is the purpose and the mission of the church. And here's the thing.
Mark Clark [00:37:32]:
I've read a lot of church books in my life.
Mark Clark [00:37:35]:
I've read A lot of books about church mission and church purpose and church growth and church leadership.
Mark Clark [00:37:40]:
I've read all of those books, and I have never once seen a chapter on this of what Paul says in verse 10. He says, this one of the foundational
Mark Clark [00:37:52]:
reasons the church exists in the world. One of the purposes why we exist is to what? To make known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God, that the purpose and the mission of the church is to actually confront and challenge Satan, sin, death, and evil. That's the mission, that. This is why Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. What is the image of gates? Gates are a defensive image. The gates of hell. Hell sitting there, they're on defense. In the ancient world, you didn't pick up the gates of your city and march out to attack people.
Mark Clark [00:38:37]:
You stayed behind the gates and you said, they're coming. They're coming. The church is coming to what? To claim people who are on the out and say, I want to save you from the brokenness and sin and death and hell. My job, the purpose of why I
Mark Clark [00:38:56]:
exist, is to make known to the
Mark Clark [00:38:58]:
rulers and the principalities and the powers. That's a dangerous mission. And some of us are too terrified. Because here's the thing. Some of you are investigating Christianity. You're wondering about the cost. Here's the cost.
Mark Clark [00:39:12]:
Jesus says this. If you're gonna get involved in this, this is the war you're in. And it means your money, it means your time, it means your family, it means your kids. And some of you are like, no way.
Mark Clark [00:39:23]:
I can't.
Mark Clark [00:39:23]:
That cost is too high. Saying, this is the church.
Mark Clark [00:39:32]:
This is what you're called. Are you ready for that? When I sit in my community group and people go around the circle, I get terrified because a while ago, I was sitting in community group, and I'm like, okay, there's 20 people in my house. And one guy goes, yeah, you know,
Mark Clark [00:39:46]:
I gave my life to Jesus through village church.
Mark Clark [00:39:47]:
I gave my life to Jesus through village church. I got my life transformed through village church. My marriage got healed through village church. And I'm like, oh, my. I'm scared.
Mark Clark [00:39:56]:
Why?
Mark Clark [00:39:58]:
Cause Satan hates us when we go down and we baptize 55 people down at the ocean at once, and 1,000 people go down and watch at any moment, proclaiming to any stranger that walks by, here's Jesus. The principalities and the powers and the rulers and the authorities want to kill this church. They hate you. They Hate your family? They hate me. They hate the preaching of the Gospel. They hate it and they want to kill it. That's why Jesus said in John 10, Satan is a murderer, a liar, a thief, and he wants to destroy you and your family. From the beginning.
Mark Clark [00:40:40]:
From the beginning, he hates us. And we have to understand this. We have to understand this is a war. These are the costs. This is the fight.
Mark Clark [00:40:54]:
How does how we live make known to those powers that we're working for? The one who has had victory? Paul says in Colossians two came and in the cross he disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them. Some of us get scared of this and shrivel up because we have a reduced, shriveled down view of God. And we're not sure God is strong enough or willing enough to fight for us. And in Jesus, God says, don't you get it? I fought for you already. Of course I'm willing to fight for you.
Mark Clark [00:41:35]:
I came in Jesus. I went to the cross for you.
Mark Clark [00:41:37]:
I rose again from death, defeating Satan.
Mark Clark [00:41:41]:
Sin and death for you. I will fight for you. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Go, don't be afraid. Don't fear it, fight it. That's what he's saying. The job and the purpose and the mission of the church is this is Jesus coming down from the mountain in
Mark Clark [00:42:00]:
Mark 9 and walking down. And there's a demonized kid. And the disciples have tried to cast these demons out of him and they can't. And Jesus says, this kind only comes out through prayer. Here's the crazy thing about that story. He doesn't even pray. He just says that and then casts the demon out. Why he doesn't need to stop and pray at that moment.
Mark Clark [00:42:26]:
Cause he's so filled from what he did on the mountain. He's got this life and this rhythm of prayer and discipline and depth with God, where he's reading the scriptures. He's engaged with God. So much so that in that moment, some of you, you're like, my marriage stinks.
Mark Clark [00:42:42]:
My community group's stale. I stink at evangelism.
Mark Clark [00:42:46]:
I don't love my neighbors well. And you wonder why.
Mark Clark [00:42:50]:
It's because you don't have a spiritual life. You don't have disciplines. You don't pray. You don't read the text. You don't live on the mountain for a season so that you can come down and live in power. You just try to function in your own power constantly.
Mark Clark [00:43:01]:
You'll never be able to defeat the rulers and authorities that way. And Jesus lays out, this is the mission, the purpose of the church. The cost is high. That part of our job, listen, part of our job is to show evil demons, Satan, sin and death how good God is, That that's actually our mission, That even though they're trying to break up your marriage and ruin your kids and discourage you, that they don't win, that they don't get to win. In closing, I want to give you a practical example of this,
Mark Clark [00:44:10]:
of how
Mark Clark [00:44:11]:
you deal with the good, how you deal with the pain in a way that says, I'm so rooted in Jesus Christ that even when Satan and sin and death wreak havoc on my life, I am able to show them the manifold wisdom of God. I am willing to make it known even to. To sin and death and evil and the mess around me, the brokenness around me. There's a guy by the name of Brit Merrick. He pastors a church in Los Angeles and his wife Kate. A few years ago, they have a daughter named Daisy. She was five years old. She was at kindergarten and she tripped and fell.
Mark Clark [00:44:54]:
And they realized that something was wrong with her at school and so they brought her to the hospital and they diagnosed her with cancer. And she went through chemo and it didn't work. And they prayed and prayed and prayed and they actually took her to Israel so that she could get special treatment. And just. He left his church and said, look, I gotta just go care for my daughter. And that's been a couple years now, Daisy. And they blog about this experience and it just hasn't worked. They've come back from Israel and this was the latest blog post I wanted to share with you from Daisy's mom named Kate the other day.
Mark Clark [00:45:36]:
Oh, friends, I don't know what to say. Updating has seemed a task of daunting and impossible as our girl lay in
Mark Clark [00:45:42]:
her bed intermittently crying out in pain, sleeping and dreamily remarking about the shadows
Mark Clark [00:45:48]:
of the birds on the wall.
Mark Clark [00:45:51]:
January 13th marked one month in the hospital. She received two weeks of chemo within a couple of days of going in with abdominal pain and finding two new tumors. She came home for three nights after that and went back in with severe dehydration. The chemo had a much more radical effect on her, showing how fragile she really is. We're awaiting her body to retain nourishment. Needless to say, we're devastated. We had hoped our journey across the world would have cured our baby, but it is not. So we're discussing a few Options with our doctor, none of which we can make a decision on until we peek inside Daisy's belly again to see how it responded.
Mark Clark [00:46:31]:
Until then, we wait and pray and hope.
Mark Clark [00:46:33]:
And as our hearts are ripped out
Mark Clark [00:46:35]:
and our very insides sear with pain. The principles of life haven't changed parenthood. No, being human is still an opportunity to love. Every time I rub Daisy's swollen feet, cool her burning once again bald head, every time I listen to her speak tiny words in the dark of the night or wash more soiled bed clothes, my opportunity remains to love.
Mark Clark [00:46:54]:
This month is not a month I expected.
Mark Clark [00:46:56]:
Not a month I wish upon any mama.
Mark Clark [00:46:59]:
Yet my opportunities to love her abound.
Mark Clark [00:47:01]:
And it's my pleasure to serve her in all the deep pain. I don't know what the future brings. Today we were able to leave the hospital and continue her care at home. But we need a miracle more than ever before. Well, we yet remain. We choose to enjoy our girl because she's incredibly enjoyable. Please pray for us as we make agonizing decisions never intended for parents to make. Pray for a miracle.
Mark Clark [00:47:24]:
Pray for relief of our girl's physical pain and for stamina and for the rest of us to go forward in strength and courage. Daisy is as encouraging as ever, full of grace and maturity as she voices her needs without ever whining or being rude. She once again is saving her downy hair from for the birds by her house, hoping as they have bring babies, spring babies that can enjoy her softness.
Mark Clark [00:47:48]:
One last thought.
Mark Clark [00:47:49]:
As a parent and as a human being, opportunities to love surround us. When we take those opportunities, time seems to stop. In that timelessness is where memories are made and beauty is beheld. We'll never regret rising to the occasion. I believe it has something to do with the fact that God is love and we're made in his image. Suffering isn't what we are made for, but it can be fruitful in ways we could never imagine. We love because he first loved us. I appreciate the ways so many of you have loved and served us through the shadows.
Mark Clark [00:48:29]:
Prayer dinner, financial help for treatment, letters, teddy bears. You have helped ease our suffering in many ways. Love Kate.
Mark Clark [00:48:41]:
When we, in those moments of the deepest possible pain, proclaim love of God and love of human beings, we proclaim to the world
Mark Clark [00:48:59]:
that it won't change
Mark Clark [00:49:00]:
us,
Mark Clark [00:49:03]:
that we will change it.
Mark Clark [00:49:07]:
We say to Satan and sin and death and pain that there's something more
Mark Clark [00:49:16]:
that even in the deepest possible pain we can say God is enough.
Mark Clark [00:49:23]:
That's why Jesus, when he's standing in front of Lazarus Tomb. He's about to raise him from the dead. The text says he was deeply moved. Literally, in the Greek, it's that he snorted like a bull.
Mark Clark [00:49:38]:
Jesus is standing in front of death, snorting at it, saying, you, you are a ruler and you are an authority,
Mark Clark [00:49:47]:
and you're my enemy.
Mark Clark [00:49:51]:
I hate you,
Mark Clark [00:49:55]:
and I have come to defeat you. And he wants to raise her just like he did that little boy in Mark 9. Freed him. And he wants to do it with you, and he wants to do it with me. So we're gonna take communion. And when you come forward, I want you to think and pray something maybe different than you ever have, as you take the body and you dip it in the blood. That in that moment, what you are saying to the rulers and to the authorities is he wins, not you. That what needs to be made known to you is that he has already made a public display of you.
Mark Clark [00:50:43]:
And he wins. And some of you, maybe this is the first time you'll ever take communion. Because right now, in this moment, you're gonna repent of sin and give your life to Jesus. Then the table is open to you to say what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross and in the resurrection. I can't earn my favor in front of God, so I'm gonna put it all in his hands so that when I face death, pain, suffering, he wins for me, and I'm in him, made alive, raised up, seated with him in Christ. That's what Paul's been saying. And in this moment, I'm gonna give my life to him, maybe for the first time. And the Bible says even one of you in this room does that.
Mark Clark [00:51:25]:
Angels rejoice and the table is open for you. Father, it's my prayer that as we partake of your body, as we reflect on what you have done in Jesus to defeat sin, sickness, pain, evil, Satan, tragedy, that the way that we respond to all of it would be making known how good you are, ultimately expressed in the person and the work of Jesus. And that all of us sitting here with our sin and our mess, whatever it is we're attached to, whether it's greed or image or the relationship we're in that needs to be cleaned up, put back on the rails for your glory, that this would be a day where that would happen, Let us be open to that. Take the hardness of our hearts which kicks against you and change us to your glory. In Jesus name, amen.