Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Hey, everyone. Mark here.
Mark Clark [00:00:04]:
Welcome to the Mark Clark Podcast. Hopefully you were doing well as part of the Thrive Podcast Network. Super excited that we are starting a brand new series today in the Book of Ephesians. Now, before we jump in, quick context. This sermon comes from the early days of Village Church. The church I started up in Vancouver recorded way back in 2012, the ancient days. They had just invented audio equipment back then. And you're going to hear a version of me in the audio reflects that season, but the content here is timeless.
Mark Clark [00:00:30]:
Today we're opening the book of Ephesians and talking about the will of God, fundamentalism, and how religion can sometimes distort what God actually wants for our lives. If you've ever felt pressure to get God's will right or worried you might mess it up, this passage reframes everything. Let's get into it.
Mark Clark [00:00:50]:
Okay, Ephesians, chapter one. We're starting finally into the actual book of Ephesians. So we've been doing. We did a three week series on Paul, planting the church in Ephesus. And that's kind of what we're about, planting new works, new venues, you know, gathering these people here, Gathering these people here so that more people meet Jesus. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul did. He arrived in Ephesus, said, let me plant a church here. Let me advance the gospel here.
Mark Clark [00:01:16]:
Let me train up leaders. And so that's what he did. And so the book of Ephesians starts this way. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Jesus Christ. So we're just going to basically cover that one verse this morning. All right? So, Paul, stop. Who's the Apostle Paul? Some of you, brand new to church, you don't know who Paul is.
Mark Clark [00:01:42]:
Here's who Paul was. He was in the ancient world, part of an extremist right wing Pharisee sect that was extremely zealous and violent. All right? He was what we would call today a terrorist. He hated Christians. They didn't agree with him and so he murdered them and killed them. That's who the Apostle Paul was. The story is told in Acts, chapter 7 and 8 of A Man named Stephen who loved Jesus and came in front of people and preached Jesus to them. And then a bunch of guys got really angry and they stoned him to death.
Mark Clark [00:02:19]:
And. And the text says that they laid their jackets at the feet of a man named Saul. That was the Apostle Paul. He murdered Christians. He was against Christians. He hated them. Like many of you, he was an enemy of God, an enemy of Jesus. He laughed at them, he mocked them.
Mark Clark [00:02:37]:
They were blasphemous. He thought Christianity was silly, and so he went against it. That's many of your story. I mean, Paul's story is our story in many ways. There are many of you here, you don't know Jesus. You think Christianity is a joke. That's many of our story. That was my story before I came to know Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:02:56]:
I didn't care about any of this. Growing up, the only thing that mattered was me. The only thing that mattered was the next 15 minutes. The only thing that mattered was living for the weekends. That's it. That's all I cared about. That was Paul. And then on the other hand, some of you would connect with this side of it, that he was a religious fundamentalist, and that religious fundamentalism hurt people.
Mark Clark [00:03:21]:
And so the church is full of religious fundamentalists. All right? That's the reality, is churches are just full of people who are like, look, here's how Paul grew up as a Pharisee. He had lists of things that he would do and lists of things that he would not do. He was the Bible scholar. He memorized the Bible. He did devos every day. He taught every Sunday school class, every. All right? He protested when Amy Grant went secular.
Mark Clark [00:03:47]:
All right, all right. Some of you are like, who's Amy Grant? Like, good. All right, don't worry about it. All right? But that was Paul. Like, he was super right wing, just zealous, religious fundamentalist, my buddy. So I gathered all the youth leaders and the young adult leaders at my house the other day. Just thank them and hear what God was doing in their youth ministry at Village. And.
Mark Clark [00:04:13]:
And one guy told a story. He said he walked into a church. And I actually challenged him on this. Cause I didn't believe it. But he said it was absolutely true. He walked into a church one day and he's got a big tattoo on his arm. And the lady at the front said, oh, welcome to church. Say, oh, thank you very much.
Mark Clark [00:04:27]:
And she said, you have a tattoo on your arm? Yes, I do. Okay, so just so you know, the Bible says you will be going to hell. Like, worst greeters ever. You gotta scream. These morons. What is that? Jesus had a tattoo, all right? Revelation 19. And on his thigh he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's a tattoo.
Mark Clark [00:05:01]:
You can't get a name written on your thigh without having a tattoo. That's Jesus. The church is full of these people. And they scare away anybody who's not perfect, anybody who doesn't jump through the religious hoops. They scare them away. They cause them to run. I remember when I first started coming to church. I was 19 years old, and I came into this church.
Mark Clark [00:05:28]:
I didn't really know the protocol, and I started kind of feeling a stir and a call to be a preacher. And I was like, what's going on here? This is really weird. So I snuck into the sanctuary one day and all the lights were off. And I got in behind the pulpit. All right, it's the sacred desk, all right. And I got in behind the pulpit, and I was like, you're all sinners. You all need to repent, right? And I was like, practicing. I'm like, what's up? This is, you know, this is grooving.
Mark Clark [00:05:56]:
I'm feeling this a little bit. And then this old man walked through the door, and he saw me, and he flicked on all the lights. And I was like. He's like, what are you doing up there? I said, I'm just preaching. He's like, you're making a mockery of the sacred pulpit. Don't you know this is the house of God? I was like, dude, read the Book of Acts. God does not dwell in houses made with human hands. Repent.
Mark Clark [00:06:24]:
No, I didn't. I didn't say any of that, but I wish I did. I didn't say that, but I wish I would have known to. That's what the Bible says. All right, so this guy just scaring me off makes me. I don't want to come back to this. Just judgment. The church is full of these people.
Mark Clark [00:06:48]:
And if you're new to the church, you'll bump into them. That was Paul. Religious zeal Village church is made up of these people. Paul's all right. Who either were enemies of God and who have now met God and are becoming more like him, or religious fundamentalists who are going, man, I grew up with the lists. I grew up with the rules. I didn't really walk with the God of the universe. Serve the God of the universe.
Mark Clark [00:07:20]:
Know the God of the universe. All I knew was what I was supposed to do and what I wasn't supposed to do via these lists that people had given me. I didn't know him. And what Paul is going to unpack in the book of Ephesians, what becomes really core is, listen, there are different kinds of people. And when it comes to justification before God, here's the reality. Your dad could have been a deacon. You could have been Your mom could have given birth to you on a Sunday morning in church. All right, well, teaching Sunday school and continue teaching it.
Mark Clark [00:07:59]:
You could have grown up, all right, Never had a drop of alcohol, never touched a drug, been a virgin when you got married, never watched. The only movies you watch is PG 13 and under, except Disney movies. You kept it clean. And that's your list where you go, man, I am righteous before God because. And what Paul's gonna say is, when it comes to justification, listen, you're the same as the guy who grew up and never knew his dad was born into an alleyway, who's known nothing but drinking and promiscuity his entire life. And he cusses like a sailor. I don't mean like guys with sailboats. I mean like Navy sailors.
Mark Clark [00:08:45]:
All right, Cuss is like one of those. And he's going to go, listen, your morality, what you think you have done for God in the face of God, in the throne room of God is nothing. Both of you are the same. The ground is level at the foot of the cross because your goodness doesn't bring you to heaven. Jesus goodness brings you to heaven. All right, so you can go through all of these lists and as we've talked about here multiple times, get married in the church, serve in the church, die in the church, be buried in the church, and wake up in hell. Because you didn't know Jesus personally. You were trusting in a list of things that you thought saved you.
Mark Clark [00:09:29]:
We got a church full of people who were saying, man, I'm meeting Jesus for the first time. I trusted in a list. And then a bunch of people who are like, I'm so messed up. I didn't know God. I was an enemy of God. I don't think God could do anything good with me. Take the apostle Paul. He murdered people.
Mark Clark [00:09:48]:
But God couldn't do anything good with me. He murdered people. You done that? He uses people like you and me. And we go, well, God can never use me. And I don't know, I'm too messed up. The church is full of messed up, sinful people. That's the reality. And if you find a church that isn't really ridiculous and it's perfect, don't go there because you will absolutely ruin it.
Mark Clark [00:10:24]:
Because you're a disaster. You're selfish, you hide things, you manipulate. I mean, you're. That. That's how you function. And. And if you're looking for the perfect church, you're gonna go in and you're gonna kill it. This is the kinds of people when the gospel's dropping, changing people.
Mark Clark [00:10:41]:
People are coming to know Jesus. That's what we've seen over and over again. That when it comes to your justification before God, it's based on his righteousness, not yours. And so some of you who are going, man, I just don't have it. You don't know what I've done. And I've shared this here before. I'm the poster boy for God could never use me to do anything, especially this. I mean, like, I've shared a bunch.
Mark Clark [00:11:05]:
I have Tourette's. All right? So when you see me, like, do weird stuff with my face up here, and you're like, what is wrong with that, dude? It's. Cause I have Tourette's. What this used to look like? I used to, like, throw F bombs down like every 30 seconds. Bam. Which would be the craziest church ever. All right, all right. But I grew up having to.
Mark Clark [00:11:29]:
I'd have all these wacky things. I mean, the last thing God would ever do with a guy like that is get him up in front of people every week. He might harm people. Distracting. What's wrong with this guy? So I was in that mode. I mean, I come from a home, a broken home. My dad left my mom when I was seven. We're talking about a guy who couldn't keep a job, who was an absolute alcoholic, and.
Mark Clark [00:11:54]:
And who. Who really. He didn't even have the guts to come and tell me. And my brother, he was dying of lung cancer. And so the first time we saw him in five years was in a coffin. God could never do. So I just got into drugs and partying and the whole stealing and thieving from cars and the whole thing, just running from him. I didn't want anything to do with God.
Mark Clark [00:12:19]:
And God chased me down. Made a wretch his treasure. That's what the songs talk about. He makes wretches like you and me treasure through Jesus. And some of you just have to realize, all right, he's pursuing me like he did the apostle Paul. So here's the other thing. Paul says, I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. And so the word apostle.
Mark Clark [00:12:49]:
There's a big A apostle in the Bible, which means someone who says, seen the resurrected Jesus has the authority to actually write scripture. All of them are dead. So scripture is done being written. There's no authority anymore. Big A apostle. But there's this idea of small a apostle, which means sent out one. And in a sense, that's all of us. We all come to know Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:13:06]:
We gather together and then we're sent out to be on mission, to reach the people around us. That's what a sent out one is. And so when Jesus called the disciples together, he said, listen, I want you to come follow me. I want you to come and follow me. And it says that they left their nets and they came and they followed him, right? They were sent. This is all they knew. They were part of their daddy's business, all right? Throwing the nets out, getting fish. That's all they knew.
Mark Clark [00:13:37]:
They were small town suburban kids. And Jesus walks up and he's like, I want you to walk away from your dad. I want you to walk away from your little fishing business that you've got going here. I want you to leave your nets. Christianity, it's about leaving stuff. And so God's moving, shaking right now. He's stirring us up a little bit. Christianity, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:14:00]:
What are you leaving? I'm leaving my comfort. I'm leaving my identity in sin. I'm leaving the things that my idols over here. And he's saying, come on, let's go. Leave the nets because you're called to be sent. That's the work he does. And so he says, I am an apostle and I'm gonna. I'm gonna leave.
Mark Clark [00:14:20]:
What I know the reality is this. Paul could have sat around for the next 40 years and just gone to Pharisee class, taught people, been really comfortable and really safe, and done nothing for the kingdom of God. But what he's saying here is, I'm an apostle by the will of God, meaning God has called me to do something else by his will. He has called me to do something bigger than this. And what he's saying, this phrase, by the will of God, it's a really important phrase because what he's saying is, I didn't sign up for this. I didn't volunteer for this. This is. I had a will, and then God had a will.
Mark Clark [00:15:09]:
And at some point, I shifted away from being a Pharisee, sitting around teaching people, to now shifting over here to being apostle, a church planter, a missionary, raising up leaders, telling people about Jesus. That's the will of God versus my will. So in my life, this is how it played out. I had a will, all right? I had a direction. I had a trajectory that I was going in. My life. My life was laid out for me very clearly in. In grade nine.
Mark Clark [00:15:35]:
I knew I wanted to go into the film industry. Post production, acting, directing. I'd written scripts. All right, listen, I wrote Titanic 2 by the time I was 17, I had written Titanic 2. It was awesome. Jack had these handcuffs and they got caught on this life vest. And then they got to New York City and Cal started coming and trying to kill them. It was just amazing story.
Mark Clark [00:16:03]:
Listen, I walked away from billions. That thing was going billions. Why? Because there was Mark's will and then there was the will of God. And here's how that played out for me. So I'm going down. I'm working at a television station, I'm using cameras, I'm interning, I'm learning all of the craft of post production and video. I'm just going in this direction, writing my script. And three separate people who did not know each other at three separate times in the course of two weeks sat me down and said, I think God's calling you something else.
Mark Clark [00:16:58]:
I think God wants you to be a pastor. I was like, a what? A pastor. And I think you should go to school. They have schools for this stuff. Yes. Will of God began to move. And so what Paul is laying out right up front is he's going, listen, I'm an apostle by the will of God, not by the will of man. And my identity is in the will of God.
Mark Clark [00:17:22]:
Meaning, listen, you're a stay at home mom, you own a business, you're a missionary. Whatever your job and situation is, you got to feel that you are called there by the will of God. And out of that identity you're going to be able to do that better. Especially in difficult times. Meaning, man, I know church planters who are like, nothing's going well, the church is dying, everyone hates me. At the end of the day, what do they have when they wake up in the morning? They have the call. That's it. When life stinks, when it falls apart, whether you're stay at home, mom, student, whatever you are, you have a call of God.
Mark Clark [00:18:05]:
This is the will of God. And in all the difficult times when everything's falling apart, I just go back to the call. What does God call me to do? What does God say about me? And because it's his will I'm trying to accomplish, not my own. And so when people start telling you, man, you're a bad leader, I'm like, well, I'm not leading for you, I'm leading for him. Or, hey, you're a bad community group leader. Don't listen to those voices. You're bad at this, you're bad at that. I'm trying to do the will of God.
Mark Clark [00:18:32]:
I'm not. I was in college One time. And our teacher prayed before this, before the lecture, and a guy actually put up his hand and said, I didn't like your prayer. What? And the teacher's like, good, I'm not praying to you and I'm not praying for you. I'm working toward the will of God in my life. And then out of that place, you work and you live and you move and you have your being. Understanding your identity is what God is calling you to do. It's hugely, hugely liberating.
Mark Clark [00:19:13]:
All right, check out this last phrase. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, saints is not like a super disciple. Saints is just a Christian. And he's saying, you're Christians and you're in Ephesus. And I'm writing this to you and I want you to understand the importance. And this is going to be a huge theme throughout the Importance of the will of God as the overarching theme of everything I'm about to tell you. Because some of us wrestle with and we're going to feel this tension as we go through this book. Well, where's the will of God and where's my will? How do those two things connect with? Where does the one end and the other begins? I'm trying to wrestle through this.
Mark Clark [00:20:03]:
And then we see stuff happen in our life and our tendency is to say, well, if something bad happens, let's shrink God down and make him not responsible. But what this book is gonna tell us is, listen, the solution to the tension of the will of God and the responsibility of man is never to shrink God down, but to shrink who down? Yes, us. Because who are you to tell God? I mean, we spend so much of our time. Well, I got into a difficult situation. I saw this thing happen. I wouldn't have done it that way. God, what's your problem? Paul's going, hey, the will of God, meaning everything that happens and every person that exists ultimately is going to function for the glory of God, doing the will of God, whether you like it or not and whether you recognize it or not. So, okay, I'm in my car with my 5 year old in the backseat and I'm driving her to school the other day and she starts telling me, daddy, where you're going? And I'm like, well, I'm taking you to school.
Mark Clark [00:21:05]:
And she goes, no, I think you're lost. I'm like, you can't spell your name. So there's that. What do you mean, I'm lost? You don't know where you're going, I drive you here every day. I know where I'm going. You get lost in our house, you have no sense of direction, and you're telling me where I'm going? Listen, how much of our life are we 5 year olds in the backseat telling God he's lost? I would have never done it this way. I would have never ordained suffering. I would have never overseen things in my life to play out this way.
Mark Clark [00:22:00]:
What's your problem? Don't you know what you're doing? And so instead of saying man, God must be sovereign over all things, we shift over here and go, he must not know, he must be distant. He must have created the world, just backed off and go, let's see what's going to happen. And the Bible just pushes us and goes, that's Bette Midler's theology. All right? From a distance, he's watching us as an absentee landlord trying to, hey, what's going on? That's not the biblical idea at all. He's intimately involved in this thing and everything that happens. And every person that lives will in the end accomplish his will for his glory and not our own. That's what Paul's about to unpack. It's this cosmic, massive, epic story in which we are players.
Mark Clark [00:22:46]:
So you start living in the tension. Shrink yourself, magnetize him, magnify him, don't magnetize him. All right. In Christ. The last phrase we'll look at in Christ. This is the phrase of the entire book as it relates to us as people, because it's about our identity. He will constantly, through this book, talk about what it means for people to be in Christ versus being in ourselves. Some of you who are sitting here, you don't know Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:23:26]:
You think you're a saint because of the things that you've done because you're not Adolf Hitler and because you're a good person and you think that will get you into heaven, you think you're what he calls a saint. The, the Bible says you're made in the image of God, but if you are outside of Christ, you are not saved, you aren't going to heaven. The identity shift that needs to take place is you need to come to a place where you believe that God became a human being in Jesus, went to the cross on your behalf, shed his blood, rose again from the dead and offers you eternal life by turning from your sin and trusting in his work for you instead of your work for him. And the Bible says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that then you will be saved. And so to some of you walking in here, you're not in Christ. You're in yourself. But you think you're a saint. The Bible says you're not.
Mark Clark [00:24:27]:
And you need to repent and give your life to Him. There are others of you who are in Christ, but you don't live like it, you don't think like it, and you don't really believe it about yourself. You are still defined by your sin. I'm a cheater. I'm a liar. I'm a manipulator. That's how you think about yourself. You grovel about yourself.
Mark Clark [00:24:45]:
You put yourself down. This book is gonna just start pushing on you to go realize your identity. You are no longer, if you are in Christ, a liar. By definition, you are a saint who lies. There's a world of difference between those two things because one of them has hope that sooner or later you will lie less and less and less and less and less as you become more like Jesus. The other one you are liar by definition. Some of you need to hear over your life. But the Father preaches over Jesus at his baptism.
Mark Clark [00:25:29]:
I remember sitting in college one time, and the teacher was doing a lecture on Mark, chapter one, and she read the passage of Jesus being baptized. And it said, a voice came out of heaven and proclaimed over Jesus, you are my beloved son. And then she stopped and she got choked up and she started to cry and cry. She trying to read it, and she couldn't. It was like three minutes of pregnant silence. And then she said this. When she finally pulled herself together, and some of you need to hear this. She said, look at what the Father is saying about Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:26:02]:
And then she said this. He hadn't even done anything yet. He hadn't even started his ministry yet. This is the. This is chapter one. He hasn't even talked. Because, listen, God proclaims over you that you're beloved. Not based on what you've done, based on what Jesus has done for you.
Mark Clark [00:26:26]:
It's not. Well, you haven't even done anything yet of value, of eternal value and worth. But in Jesus, he will say, you're my beloved son, you're my beloved daughter because of what he's done for you. And some of you need to live that out. Some of you need to embrace us. Some of you need to leave this place knowing, all right, I'm in Him. That's my only hope, that I would stand in the righteousness and the clothes of Jesus. Because, listen, if you're standing in the righteousness, in the clothes of Jesus, are you going to call him a liar? If he is your righteousness, if that's your reality, if you're clothed in Christ, as Paul constantly talks about through the book of Colossians, you're going to call Jesus a liar, you're going to call him a manipulator, you're going to call him a cheater, you're going to call him.
Mark Clark [00:27:10]:
Your identity is in him, not yourself anymore. And my prayer is that we would live that out. So we're gonna take communion. Those of you who know Jesus are in Jesus. Communion is about taking the body of Jesus, dipping it in the blood of Jesus symbolically and partaking it, repenting of sin, doing it with focus on what Jesus has done for you. If you are not a Christian, communion's not for you. However, if you want to give your life to Jesus today, then the table is open to you. As the first time of saying, I want to partake of the body and the blood of Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:27:43]:
I want to begin a relationship with Christ. Praise God. Father, we are a people who desperately, desperately need you. We walk in our own power. We try to impress people, we try to impress you by what we do and what we say and what we don't do and what we don't say. And now when we come to these elements, all of that just goes away. Because the cross is the proclamation to us that none of that worked, so you had to come down and do this for us. So I pray as we partake and as we continue in worship, That we would be connecting with you in a very real way in a way that transforms us, that we would leave this place different than when we came.
Mark Clark [00:28:45]:
We thank you that the brutal death of your son was your will, That he died so we wouldn't have to, that he suffered hell so that we wouldn't have to. So as we partake, we do so, recognizing that reality, and ask that you help to change and transform us with the power that comes from that. In your good name, amen.