Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Hey everyone, Mark here. Welcome to the Mark Clark Podcast. Hopefully you are doing well. Make sure that you share this podcast on social media. Tell people to subscribe to it. Let's get the word out because we're just exploring the Bible verse by verse through the Bible and seeing how it changes our lives. And in this passage, it's no different. Paul challenges us to be vertical people, people whose lives are oriented toward God before anything else.
Mark Clark [00:00:28]:
When God becomes secondary in life, everything gets messed up, everything gets distorted. So this episode presses us to ask where we're really looking for joy and meaning and where to really find it. Let's get into it. Hopefully you enjoy it.
Mark Clark [00:00:44]:
When I got up and the rain was falling, I got depressed, but How many of you at 4 o'clock this afternoon are getting on a plane to go to Hawaii? Just me? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. All right. So anyway, we're glad that you're here. If you're new, a special welcome to you. My name is Mark. Welcome to the Rosemary Heights campus as well.
Mark Clark [00:01:14]:
We are very excited now on the other side of Skeptics Forum to be jumping right back into the book of Ephesians, all right? So what we tend to do here, we stop once in a while and do series like Skeptics Forum, but we tend to stop for, you know, little short periods of time to do that. But the majority of our time we're preaching through biblical books. So if you have a Bible, open it up to Ephesians chapter 2. If you don't own a Bible, you can grab one on your way in. There's always Bibles out there and you can grab those and come on in and you can take those home with you if you don't own one, it's our gift to you, 'cause we want you to be kind of working through these verses with us when we work through a text. So as you turn to Ephesians chapter 2, let me just set up what this text is about and what it's really going to do for us this morning if your heart and your mind is willing to go there, all right? This is a foundational text, not only in the book of Ephesians, but all throughout history, because in it, Paul is going to do something extremely important. He is going to cut at our pride. He's going to cut at our proclivity and our tendency to make life about us, to make salvation about us, and he's going to say, "Here's what I want to do.
Mark Clark [00:02:28]:
I want to elevate God, alright, and humble you." Alright, so that's what he's going to do, which is tough for us, and it feels kind of like a kick because We have a tendency in our life to want to take the credit, want to take the glory for the things that happen in our life. So our company starts doing well and we kind of say, "Well, that was me." All right, our family, our marriage starts doing well and we take the credit. Our kids start doing well and we take the credit. And what Paul is going to do is say when it comes to salvation, and this is going to kick some of you if you were raised in the church, like some of you who who got saved when you were 4 years old, alright, you were just kind of born into it, you were born into a pew, right, and they held you up as a baby and they spanked you and you went, "Christology!" or whatever, alright, you were born into this, you were kind of living and breathing Christianity your whole life, this is going to kick you because in the back of your mind somewhere, you believe that you did something in order to be saved and walk with the God of the universe. You believe that you did something that you should get credit for it, and God should be extremely happy that you're on his team. Alright, because God is just not winning today, and so he'll just take anyone. Hey, I'll take you, you come on my team. Mmm, I'm so happy, thank you for being on my team.
Mark Clark [00:03:53]:
We're like, yeah, yeah, alright. So that tends to be what our heart is. Here's what Paul's gonna do. He's gonna come in and cut at us and say, "This has nothing to do with you." Listen, that the only thing you bring to the table is the sin that necessitated your salvation. Wow, that's encouraging. Glad we're starting the day off there. All right, so here we go. Chapter 2, all right, we've already preached through verses 1 to 3, but I gotta set up the rest of the passage that we're gonna hit 4 to 10, and we're going to jump around in a bunch of different texts today to show that the Bible just kind of constantly gets us to focus on this.
Mark Clark [00:04:31]:
And so you have to be ready to kind of jump. We usually lodge ourselves in 1 or 2 texts. Today we're going to hit 4 or 5. So, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked." And so he starts off by saying, "You were dead." All right, you were dead. You were a corpse. Alright, so corpses don't make decisions to believe in God. Corpses don't seek after God. Corpses don't say, "I love God." Corpses do nothing.
Mark Clark [00:04:58]:
And he says, "You were dead." And he doesn't mean, of course, you were actually literally dead because, you know, you got up this morning, you're breathing, you ate breakfast, you put a shirt on, thank goodness, and you came to church. Alright? So you did those things. So he's not saying you're literally dead. He's saying spiritually you were dead. In any way that really matters, in any way that has eternal significance, you were dead. That was your state. Deadness. Alright? You weren't alive to God.
Mark Clark [00:05:27]:
You weren't loving God. Now, here's the thing. It doesn't necessarily mean that you felt dead. Alright? You were feeling fine. Alright? Some people say, "Oh, you know, people without Jesus, they just sit around depressed." Alright? Just, "Mrrr." You know, it's not the case. You could live your life without Jesus. You'll be perfectly happy. You'll be perfectly fine.
Mark Clark [00:05:45]:
You could live your 80 years on this planet and you could be totally happy and fine and die of happiness. And still, Paul would say, the reality behind the reality is you are dead. You are spiritually dead. You could be walking in it, like, you're dead like Bruce Willis is dead in The Sixth Sense. All right, harken back to the '90s. All right, you're dead in the way where he's walking around and he thinks he's alive, and then at the end of the movie you find out, my goodness, he's been dead the whole movie. Sorry, I just saved you 2 hours. My goodness, Bruce Willis has been dead the entire movie and nobody knew it! That's you.
Mark Clark [00:06:22]:
You were walking dead like a zombie. You were the walking dead spiritually, not alive to God at all. And so what had to happen in this state? And even your heart wasn't necessarily seeking after God. You were content being dead. This is what the Bible says. Human beings will choose the wrong direction and they'll skip there with a smile on the entire time. It's not that they say, "Oh, I feel like I'm going in the wrong direction." It feels right. They're confident.
Mark Clark [00:07:00]:
They're smiling in going in the wrong direction. The Bible comes back and goes, "Where are you going?" So there's— I was watching, so my wife left to Hawaii on Friday. So I've been a bachelor for 2 days, and then I'm going to join them this afternoon. And I forgot what— I don't know what a bachelor does. All right, so I turned on the television, which I haven't done in 8 months, but I turned on the TV, and I'm like, what's on? Okay, 20/20. All right, yeah, awesome. So watching 20/20, and there's this Chinese billionaire, all right, and he's just loving it. He's loving life.
Mark Clark [00:07:32]:
He's got billions of dollars. He's got this beautiful home, and and he's got this daughter who he wants to marry off, and he's offered the man who can marry his daughter $65 million. Alright, so Aaron and I are trying to work on whether I could try to pull that off and make that happen. But, so he has offered this, and the thing is, is the guy's sitting in his house, he's loving life, and he boasts that, "I have slept with over 10,000 women." Right, 10,000 women. He's loving life. If you went up and asked him, he would say, "I'm alive!" And Paul goes, "You are very dead, sir." "But I'm living the dream! I got money, I got a house, I got women, I got cars, I got money, and I got more women, and I got more cars, and I got money!" That tends to be the idol of our heart. I'm living the dream. And Paul goes, you're dead, man.
Mark Clark [00:08:37]:
You're spiritually dead. You might not know it, but this was your state. You, listen, if you don't know Jesus and you're here, alright, I don't want to offend you, but I do. Because the gospel has to be an offense for it to shock you out of your entitlement life and your pampered, diapered life that you have grown up in where everyone said things like this: "You're really smart." And that's not true. But we grew up in that, right? We get to kindergarten and preschool and you're the man and you're the center of the universe and don't you know you deserve all of these wonderful things and you deserve this and you deserve that and we grow up thinking, "I do deserve that!" I am the man, I am the center of the universe, and I am really smart, unique like a snowflake. And Paul comes at you and says, "Make a decision. You are either alive and whistling, or you are dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the air, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh." flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature because of those things children of wrath like the rest of mankind. That's the diagnosis from the Apostle Paul on who we were.
Mark Clark [00:10:05]:
And so that's our state. So what does God have to do in order to save us from this dead state? Pick it up in verse 4. But God— starts with God. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us— some of you need to hear that, alright? Many of us grow up in homes where our parents love us, our families love us, people around us love us, but there are many people in this room who don't feel a sense of love and need to hear that in the gospel you get a Father who loves you, who proclaims down on you, you are beloved. Even though you haven't done anything yet, like he did with Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, where he proclaims down on him in his baptism, "You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased." And we've pointed out often here, it's interesting that Jesus hadn't even done anything yet. He hadn't healed anybody yet. He hadn't preached yet.
Mark Clark [00:11:01]:
He had done nothing. And yet the Father was proclaiming down on him that you're beloved and you're loved. And some of you just need to hear that. You are loved. God was motivated by love when He came and moved to save you in the person and work of Jesus. You are loved. And then he says this, verse 5: "Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved." Grace is undeserved favor.
Mark Clark [00:11:32]:
You didn't deserve it. God lavished it anyway. And raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ. So God moved on us in Christ in order to make us alive, raise us up, and seat us with Christ. That's the identity shift. That's the hope. That is what has been done in the present. It's not some future time you're going to get power to change your life.
Mark Clark [00:11:57]:
It's not some future time where you're going to go to heaven when you die only. It's in the present. In this moment, this is what God has done for you. He's not talking about Jesus here. He's talking about you. These are 3 things he did to Jesus: made him alive, raised him up, seated him at the right hand of God. But these are 3 things he does with you if your identity is in Christ. And then he says, verse 8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.
Mark Clark [00:12:26]:
It is the gift of God." So we tend sometimes to go, well, grace is God's job. Faith is our job, and he's going, "Da, da, da, da, da, I don't want you to get proud. I wanna cut you off so you never take credit for this. So let me tell you, even the faith that you mustered to believe in Jesus was a gift to you by God." And some of you, man, that makes you end up in a padded room. But that's not the point of what Paul's doing. He's just trying to get you to be humble. He's trying to get you to go, let's get you to a place where you don't even give yourself credit for your own salvation, because ultimately it was God who gifted this to you. And so what? Here's the point.
Mark Clark [00:13:10]:
This is not of your doing, it's the gift of God, verse 9, for this very practical reason: not a result of works, so that no one may boast. You didn't earn it, you didn't work for it. Why? So that you'll never boast. You'll never say, I did this. This is contrary to every form of religion and every form of humankind trying to connect with God that we've ever come up with. Humankind has a natural tendency toward religion, toward earning it, toward boasting about it, and wanting to do things to impress God. That's what we do. I've been to India, all right? I've been to the Taj Mahal.
Mark Clark [00:13:48]:
I've seen people trying to earn it. I've been to Israel. I've been to the Wailing Wall. I've seen people trying to earn it. I've been to Turkey and the Blue Mosque, and I have seen people trying to earn it. "I want to earn it. It's through what I do. It's through going to Mecca.
Mark Clark [00:14:08]:
It's through being nice to old ladies." Forget that. Christian! I've been to Canada. And I've spoken with you in the church and I've seen people go, "How am I gonna earn this?" "Well, I'm gonna earn this by, ooh, I memorized the book of Philippians, I've never missed a church service, I pledge allegiance to the Iwana flag every night before bed, and I've never said a swear word except made-up Christian swear words like fudge muffin." And therefore, and therefore, God loves me, God saves me, God gifts me, God wants to bring me in and make me one in Christ. And this is going, no, you're starting at the wrong place. It's by grace, undeserved favor, that he loves you, saves you, wants to change you. And religion doesn't do that. Flip over. This is all over the Bible.
Mark Clark [00:15:05]:
We could go to a bunch of places. Flip over to John chapter 2. John chapter 2, most of you know this, even if you're unchurched and this is your first time in church, welcome. You might know this story as well. Jesus is at a wedding, right? What John does is he wants to put in clues that the entire New Testament is about grace, that the entire New Testament is trying to get us away from earning it toward just being recipients of a grace that we don't deserve through the person and work of Jesus. And so, John chapter 2. Here's the story. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
Mark Clark [00:15:40]:
Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman!" I love that. Right? He just starts out like, young people, don't get any ideas about how to talk to your mom, all right, from Jesus. Here. You're different. Alright? You're different. So he goes, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come." Don't like download that and go, "You know what? Yeah, Tommy, get up out of bed." "Woman, my time has not yet come. What does this have to do with me?" Alright, that's just one piece of following Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:16:25]:
He's different than you. You. All right, so, woman, what does this have to do with me? And spouses don't do that either, right? The guy's like, hey honey, time for dinner. Woman. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. I love that. So she says, Jesus, I want you to turn water into wine. He goes, woman, forget that.
Mark Clark [00:16:48]:
She goes, don't worry, he'll do it. All right, this is a Jewish mother we're talking about. All right. The Son is going to listen. So, verse 6, now there were 6 stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. There's a hint, there's a clue. He's embedded it in the story. That's not just detail.
Mark Clark [00:17:08]:
He wants to make a theological point out of the narrative. All right, so He puts that there. What were these stone water jars for? They were for the Old Testament, the law, the work. You're going to earn it by washing your hands in these 6 stone water jars. Of purification. That's as you're trying to earn it, as you're trying to work for it. Now what does Jesus do? Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it.
Mark Clark [00:17:33]:
When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first." And when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. So usually you're at a party, they put out the good stuff first. They're like, look at all my beautiful wine. And then when everybody's half hammered, they go, wheel out the boxes. All right, and they bring them out. All right, because no one can taste it and nobody cares. That's what he's saying. Usually what happens is we move from the bottle to the boxes.
Mark Clark [00:18:06]:
But in this case, you have kept the good wine until now. I mean, can you imagine how wine that Jesus made tastes? Just, bam! It's like, oh my goodness, this is the best thing I've ever tasted in my life. He says, what's up? Jesus makes wine. Now, here's the whole point of this. He's turning this Old Testament image of earning it into, he's saying this, I am superseding it. I am the new wine. I am the new wine. I have come to supersede everything that these 6 stone water jugs actually stand for, and I'm giving you new life in me.
Mark Clark [00:18:49]:
I'm superseding the entire Old Testament way of earning it, and I'm saying it's now by grace. It's now by faith in me. I'm the good wine. And we know that he's trying to do this because the very next story is Jesus walking up and cleansing the temple. He does the same thing. Here's an Old Testament imagery of earning it. We have to go to the temple. We have to connect with God in the temple.
Mark Clark [00:19:11]:
We have to give sacrifice to the temple. He walks up and he says, "Clean the temple." He walks up and he condemns the people for the way that they're being religious. It's the exact same point he's making, right? So look at verse 13. The story continues. The Passover of the Jews was at hand. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove— that's awesome! He made a whip! What? That's crazy! He didn't, like, go in and, "Can I buy that?" He made it! Like, just put that together.
Mark Clark [00:19:51]:
And he starts whipping animals and kicking tails. This is awesome! But we get, in Sunday school, we get Jesus meek and mild, right? He's like, "Zzz." Looks like a Swedish Man, robot, android, walking around, totally sedated. Here's Jesus, He's fired up. He's fired up. He makes a whip, He starts whipping animals. This is Jesus superseding all of these Old Testament images, all of these things that this is how we get connected to God, this is how we worship God, this is how we get saved. And Jesus superseding them all, He says, "I'm the new wine. I'm the new temple." I mean, that's ultimately what He goes on to say.
Mark Clark [00:20:27]:
"You destroyed this temple, 3 days later I will rise it." And they go, "How can you destroy this temple 3 days later?" They didn't realize he was talking about the temple of his body, saying, "I'm the new wine, I'm the new temple. I'm the new way you connect to God. The Old Testament way is over. Religion is over." And so, this is the point Paul's trying to make. He's trying to get us to be vertical people instead of horizontal people. He's trying to say, "Listen, the most important thing is that you think about God. The most important thing is that you give praise and and you give glory to God instead of yourself, even when you're talking about your own salvation. And I know this is difficult for us because we're kind of raised in a setting where we love to think horizontally.
Mark Clark [00:21:10]:
Big idea this morning: what Paul is trying to undercut is stop thinking and living horizontally and start living vertically, meaning that that needs to be your priority. God first, then you can start thinking about people. God first, I figure him out, I relate to him, I love him, then I start to think about people. 'Cause if you get that wrong, you're gonna get everything else wrong. You gotta get God right. Now here's why this is a challenge for us. Because we grow up in situations where everything is just about you immediately, and so you don't have the patience to kinda come along when we're talking about God. That sounds like, let me tell you something, I've been preaching for a long time, alright? When a preacher gets up to preach and he talks about God, here's how you look.
Mark Clark [00:22:00]:
And you know when you wake up? When he starts talking about you. And so what do we tend to do? We tend to build churches, worship, sermons, ministries all about you first. All about the person. Where's the application? I mean, that's why we have, hey, Come out to church and we're gonna talk about you. We're gonna do a 10-week series on how you can figure out your finances. Then right at the end, go, Jesus. Okay, go home. Boy, 'cause if you talked about Jesus more than 2 or 3 minutes, I just get sleepy and start wondering, ooh, what's going on in my life? Imagine we did a 10-week series on the attributes of God.
Mark Clark [00:22:38]:
This place would empty out in a week. Today we're going to talk about omnipotence for 50 minutes. I'm bringing my friend to that. So we're born in this system where we can't talk about God for too long. We gotta keep it, we gotta keep applying it, keep talking about me, keep talking about me. That's because we're horizontal thinkers. We're horizontal livers. And so we don't sing about God, we sing about ourselves.
Mark Clark [00:23:09]:
We don't preach about God, we preach about ourselves. We don't do ministries that point people to the glory and the person of God, we point people toward each other. And so what we need to start to be able to do is function in a way where we're vertical first, where we're constantly thinking, "How do I get more of God? How do I push into God?" And God as the answer to my deepest longings, not necessarily I come at God because he can solve some problem. So I know people who come and they want to know Jesus because they got a problem in their marriage. Or they want to know Jesus because they want him to fix their finances. And what that says is, listen, God is not enough for you. What if all you get was God? Would that be enough for you? The way many of us live, it's like, well, no, I kind of came so he'd fix my finances. What if he doesn't? And you get him, though? See, the Scriptures are constantly working through this, constantly trying to figure out how do we live in such a way where we're satisfied with God.
Mark Clark [00:24:12]:
If all we get is God, we'll be satisfied in that. Go over to Psalm 73. It's a classic passage on this tension and this struggle. Psalm 73. It's a big book right in the— close to the middle of your Bible. Go to the table of contents if you need it. Psalm 73, the writer is struggling with this idea of, "I see people around me, I see evil around me, I see all these things, I have this horizontal mindset." And he begins to struggle because he thinks horizontally. Listen, if you live your life horizontally, you will always struggle.
Mark Clark [00:24:50]:
You will always be frustrated. You will always be down. You will never have enough. And what this psalm is going to do is it's going to work you from the place of horizontal to the place of vertical and say, if you go to vertical life, that's the only way you're ever going to be satisfied. And so he says this at the beginning, Psalm 73: Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death.
Mark Clark [00:25:25]:
Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Here's what he's saying. I try to do really good at work. I try to be a faithful worker. I try to do things honestly. And I got fired.
Mark Clark [00:25:41]:
And Mike, who's a jerk, alright, who never does his business clean, he got a promotion. Why does that happen? And see, this view of God is horizontal. I'm doing certain things and I figure if I put money in and I pull it, God's gotta give me some stuff. That's why I came to him in the first place. This is classic. This is the way we function. And so this is his struggle, his tension. He says this in verse 12, behold, these are the wicked, 'Always at ease, they increase in riches.
Mark Clark [00:26:22]:
All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.' See, I thought God was like Santa Claus. I thought if I put in things that he would give me good things back, right? When I was a kid, my parents used to scare me at night and say, 'If you're a bad boy this year, Santa's gonna put coal in your stocking.' That's horrible parenting. That scarred me for life. I always pictured this big chunk of coal hanging out of the stocking. And that's how we function with God. If I'm a good boy, man, I'm gonna get My Little Pony in my stocking, I'm gonna get Teddy Ruxpin in my stocking, I'm gonna get a bunch of nice things. But if I'm a bad boy, if I'm a bad girl, then God's gonna give me coal. It's a way of viewing the world.
Mark Clark [00:27:10]:
The beautiful thing about the gospel is it comes in and goes, with God you don't get what you deserve, you get what you don't deserve in Jesus. He's the opposite to Santa Claus. Jesus took on what you deserve, 'cause you all deserve coal. See, this is the point. We all view ourselves as deserving My Little Pony, 'cause we were told we deserved My Little Pony since we were little guys and little girls. And the Bible's going, you don't deserve My Little Pony. Do you understand you pick yourself over Jesus every single day? Do you understand that you're enslaved to the devil and the world and the flesh? Do you understand that you are by nature a child of wrath and you have the wrath of God remaining? Do you understand that about your identity and that you need saving from that place? We all deserve to wake up every Christmas morning, "Eee, coal, coal, coal, coal! Santa's dead, coal!" That's weird right there. Sorry, I'm going to Hawaii.
Mark Clark [00:28:04]:
I'm kind of already in Hawaii mode. Kind of mailing this in. Alright. Verse 13, "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence, for all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning." Every morning. This is how I feel, alright, in Vancouver. Alright, since I moved to Vancouver. Every morning I feel stricken and rebuked 'cause I wake up and it's raining, right? And I say, "I deserve sunshine," and I wake up and God goes, "Pfft, rain, this is what you deserve." So every day, listen, it's a beautiful city to live because it reminds you of your depravity every day. You walk around, it's just pouring rain, you're like, "Ah, this is what I deserve.
Mark Clark [00:28:49]:
It's what I deserve." 'If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would have betrayed the generation of your children.' Now, all of this struggle, all of this pain, it's all horizontal, horizontal, horizontal. But then listen to his solution. 'But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end.' Truly, you set them in slippery places. Who's them? All the people who are making all the money, all the people who are unrighteous who seem to not have any problems in their life. You put them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin. You know what he's saying? He's saying there's all these people that value all of these things in their heart. And I came to realize when I went into the sanctuary of God, I came to realize when I pressed into Jesus that this is fire.
Mark Clark [00:29:50]:
Far more satisfying than any of that money and any of those women and any of those cars and any of that worldly success. I went into the sanctuary of God and I realized the only thing that was going to happen was all of those things were going to tie them in and make them ultimately slip and fall, and I treasure You more than I do money. So that he says in verse 25, "Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You." Here's the challenge for all of us in this room. There are constantly things on this earth that we desire besides him. We can't even agree with this psalm. He's saying there's nothing I desire besides you. What is the ultimate priority? That we would glorify God, that people would come to meet Jesus. Listen, if that was the ultimate priority of your life and that was more than talking, then we would want to be on mission.
Mark Clark [00:30:46]:
We would want to be part of a church on mission, giving money, giving of your resources, serving, being in community, loving people, serving other people outside of yourself, rather than walking in, doing an hour and a half, and then walking out and doing nothing with it. You know why we do that? Because we have a lot of things in our life that we desire more than we desire him. And so what we want to do is we want to hold on to our treasure. So, for instance, you're loving Jesus, you're coming to the sanctuary of God, but it's not translating into, hey, this needs to be a priority in my life. So, for instance, last week, great offering last week. Every week we really need to hit our budget about $18,000 a week. That was something we set back in June when we were 1,200 people. In order to minister and serve you well, we need about $18,000 a week.
Mark Clark [00:31:36]:
Okay, so here's what happened. We've been hitting that. You guys have been giving awesome. Praise God. Last week, 27. Now, here's the thing. Since the fall, since we launched in the fall, since we moved here, we did Skeptics' Corner, we grew by 500 people in 2 weeks. All right? So, all of that became irrelevant, and now, in order to serve you well, in order to serve your families, do the ministries, hire the staff that we need, which there's 2 of us, all right? We need to hire more pastors.
Mark Clark [00:32:01]:
We're out looking for pastors, ministries, technology. All of these things we wanna do. We got God moving us toward to serve you well. That budget needs to increase. And so last week, $27,000 offering, praise God, awesome. Do you know how many people gave that $27,000? 200 of you. You know what that means? I mean, there's more people than that that give total to the church because maybe you didn't give last week but you give once a month and all that. That's not the point.
Mark Clark [00:32:34]:
It means that though there's many of you that have gone, "Man, there's nothing I desire on this earth besides you, Lord," there's a whole whack of you who aren't functioning like that at all, at least when it comes to your pocketbook. Now, some of you, you're not even Christians, I'm not talking to you. All right, we want you to meet Jesus. But those of you who do know Jesus, are you gonna move from crowd to church when? That's gonna be a movement. Now, I'm not saying this because we need your money, alright? We don't need your money. God will move in the hearts and minds of people who have money, and God will always provide. My point is this: I have a responsibility to you to not let you become the kinds of people in verse 18 who value the things of this world so much so that it causes them to sin slip. And that's why Jesus was never afraid to get up and call out the idols.
Mark Clark [00:33:34]:
You want to know the number one idol among us? Money, comfort, ease. All of us are trying to go toward those things. And when the rich young ruler walked up to Jesus, he looked at him and he said, "Hey, how do I get eternal life?" And Jesus said, "Hmm, what should I say to you? You like money. Why don't you give away all your money to the poor?" And he went, "Sorry?" Anything else? Nope. Because Jesus just looked right through him and said, "I know what your idol is. I'm going to put my finger on it. I'm going to rip it out. And if you're not willing to go there, then you don't know this." And the guy walked away.
Mark Clark [00:34:13]:
And the text says he walked away sad. Why? Because he wasn't willing to part with his money. Why? Because he desired a million things on this planet more than he desired God. And this psalm is going, what does it look like to have a heart and a soul totally sold out so that you— I don't care who you are, if you're a university student, I don't care— that you organize your budget and you go, how could I give to the mission of the church that I belong to? How could I be a part of that? See, I'm not saying this because we need your money. I'm saying this because you need to become sacrificial in your life so that you can grow into the image of Jesus. And it might mean you don't get coffee 7 days a week, but you have it 5 because you made a sacrifice. We all want to live on resurrection time, but we're not willing to go through cross time. Christianity has sacrifice.
Mark Clark [00:35:13]:
I thought it was all just puppy dogs and ice cream. And he's going, I don't want to leave you in that state because if I leave you in that state, you're going to slip. And so what does it look like for us as people to go, man, I honor, I treasure God above everything. And so Paul constantly trying to get us to a place where we love and we cherish God, where we are vertical first above anything else. He says in verse 26, "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." This is what Ephesians 2 is about. Go back to Ephesians 2. Trying to get us away from our idols, trying to get us away from just looking at ourself as the reason for it. Go, actually, don't go to Ephesians, go to 1 Corinthians 3.
Mark Clark [00:36:13]:
There's a great example of this where Paul's addressing the growth of a church in Corinthians, just like Village Church where people are like, what are the reasons, you know, it's growing? What are the reasons people are coming to know Jesus? What are the reasons we get to baptize you? All of these amazing things that God's pouring out His blessing. But what are the reasons? Who are we supposed to give the credit to? And Paul's dealing with that exact question in 1 Corinthians because he's planted a church of a whole bunch of messed up people. They're all coming out of crazy pagan backgrounds. They're coming to know Jesus. They're getting their life cleaned up. And everyone's like, well, who do we give the credit to? Well, I know Paul planted the church, so let's give the credit to him. Well, Apollos is our pastor, so let's give the credit to him. And Paul comes in 1 Corinthians 3 and he says this, verse 4: For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
Mark Clark [00:37:07]:
I planted, Apollos watered, but listen, God gave the growth. Vertical! So, we think horizontal. Who's the person? Who can we give the credit to? Who's in my purview? And Paul's going, knock it off! Vertical! It's God who gave the growth. And then he says in verse 7, "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything." That's bad for my self-esteem, by the way. Come on, can I get a little something? You're nothing. Wee! "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything." But am I something? You're nothing. Something? Nothing. But only God who gives the growth.
Mark Clark [00:37:53]:
So think about your parenting. My kid's getting raised in the ways of Jesus. Who gets the credit? He goes, Mommy plants, Daddy waters, neither of you are anything. It's God who gives the growth. Vertical. Vertical life. Right, I think about my own kids, right? 6, 3, and 1. I don't know if they know Jesus yet.
Mark Clark [00:38:18]:
I mean, they pray to Jesus, they love Jesus, they sing to Jesus. I don't know if they're walking with him as a personal, you know, kind of, I mean, they would love the Marshmallow Man if we put that in front of them too. So we gotta figure that out and kind of work through them. But here's what we do with them. We don't save them. We gather kindling so that God can move on their heart to save them. All right, so we as parents, our job is to not shake our kids into submission. Say this! Say this! Say this! It's to gather kindling so they experience the grace of God themselves.
Mark Clark [00:38:53]:
Alright, so we pray at night, we pray during the day, an ambulance goes by, we pray for the people, we open up our Bible, we read our Bible, we sing songs to Jesus. Alright, this is all gathering kindling. But we can't make it happen. Our prayer is that God sets down the fire to make them alive, to make them trust Him. And see, this is what Paul's trying to do. Back to Ephesians 2. He's not trying to get you to go into some padded room as you debate, "Oh, who saves me? Who moves first? Calvinism?" He's not doing any of that. He's saying, "I want to humble you.
Mark Clark [00:39:31]:
I want you to know where your salvation comes from, that it's not on you, it's on Him." He's the one who gives it to you. It's by His grace that we get saved. Now, here's one of the things that it does. The beautiful thing about this whole passage and the reason Paul's writing it, and the reason I think it's very relevant to us, is because one of the things that it counters is pride. And in this room, there's a lot of proud hearts. There's a lot of people who walk with a swagger. In our city because we think we're self-made. We think we've got every— we just walk with a pride.
Mark Clark [00:40:09]:
And so we're not humble enough to include other people, to love other people, to serve other people. We tend to have pride in our life. And so what Paul's trying to do is he's trying to cut down the pride and say, isn't it weird that in the church there would be pride? That a place where the God that you follow literally got down and washed people's feet that your salvation is dependent on Him, that we are to boast in nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and yet we walk around with this air. There's this pride in us where it's hard for newcomers to actually get in if they don't know all the lingo and all the pieces. So when I first came into the church, all right, there was so much pride in that youth group that they just totally kept me out. I came in, I was 19 years old, And I didn't look like the nice-looking, well-put-together man in front of you right now. That wasn't a joke. I wasn't that.
Mark Clark [00:41:12]:
I was baggy pants, smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, had a big chain around my— you know, rolled my scape. I was that guy. And I came into the church and everyone judged me. All right, no one would let me in. Everyone would whisper and make, "Eee, eee, eee." You know, and because I wasn't everyone in the youth group. I mean, they were born into a pew, all right? It was like, right, hey, pew. All right, all they knew was DC Talk and Petra. And I came in like, what is this? And they put it on, I go, ah, sounds like cats dying, shut that off.
Mark Clark [00:41:47]:
And so I didn't know any of the Christian culture, I didn't know any of the lingo. So there was this haughtiness and they were convinced I was from the dark side. Right, 'cause I came in and I started dating Erin. Now if you know Erin, she's a gem. She was the gem of the youth group, right? Beautiful, you know, would sing in the worship team, never dated a guy before. You know, who's gonna get Erin? And all the guys were fighting, "I gotta get her, I gotta get her." And I walk in, "What's up? Hey!" Right? I come in. I'm not even trying. And she and I connect and we start hanging out and all the guys are like, "What is going on?" The dark side.
Mark Clark [00:42:34]:
Now, it probably didn't help that one day, and I've told this story before, I had lent out my backpack to my friend who was certainly not a Christian. He was a very promiscuous guy. And he had gone on a weekend. And a couple weeks later, I had brought my backpack to church, all right, to the youth group. And so we're all sitting in the youth group, we have this, like, praise night, and I'm right up front with Erin. We're standing up front, we're kind of worshiping God, and I open up this pocket and I grabbed a pen out and I'm writing notes. And kind of we're up front worshiping and everyone's behind us, and I feel this kind of tap on my shoulder. I'm like, "What's wrong, woman? I'm trying to, you know, focus on Jesus." And all the leaders and all the people are kind of looking at us.
Mark Clark [00:43:14]:
I'm like, "What's wrong with you?" And she's like, "Da da da." And I turned around and my feet are covered in condoms. And I kinda, "Ahh!" Not mine? So there was a meeting, all right, all the leaders got together with the pastor and he kind of ruled on the whole thing. What am I hearing, carnals? What's going on? Pride. Is that what I was talking about? Pride. People will exclude you. People will push you out because they don't understand that deep within themselves, they've come from a place of sin. They've come from a place in chapter 2, verse 2, where they once walked according to the flesh and Satan and the world, where we all once walked. We all once We have a story.
Mark Clark [00:44:33]:
Some of you, that story is, "The worst sin I ever did was showed up late to the worship team." Others of you, it's, "Business trips are not business trips." Others of you, you slept with men for money. And that's not out there, that's in here. I don't have a problem with the doctrine of depravity because I hear your stories. And some of us have no appreciation for where people have come from, so we don't understand how grace works to move wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked people who don't know Jesus through a process that for some people takes years to get them here. We just look at them here, and if they're not everything we are, then we judge them. And so for me, it was a guy walking up to Erin and saying, "Hey, I think you're unequally yoked because look at your boyfriend. I saw him smoking." No appreciation where I came from. She said, "What was he smoking?" Cigarettes.
Mark Clark [00:45:34]:
Well, praise God. I have people come up to me at church, "Did you see what that girl was wearing? Did you see what that girl was wearing?" Did she have clothes on? Yes, praise God. She didn't have clear heels? No. Praise Jesus. Sanctification. Grace! You don't know where people were. And so it's grace that begins to then work in us to transform us to the kinds of people God is making us into. This is what the whole point of these three beautiful things are.
Mark Clark [00:46:18]:
That he made us alive, that he raised us up, and that he seated us. That's how the identity shifts. That's how we ever change. And so some of you are here and you don't know Jesus and you're still up in verse 1 to 3. But the hope— and you're saying, "Hey, man, I don't know God. I don't walk with him." That's good. God is wooing you in this moment to say, here's what I would love you to do. I would love you to stop trying to earn it.
Mark Clark [00:46:55]:
I'd love you to stop trying to identify and justify your life on everything that you've tried to this point. And I want you to put your— what does he say in verse 8? By grace through faith. Your faith in Jesus, your trust in Jesus, your reliance on Jesus, that you would pray to him and say, I want to trust in what you've done for me. And some of you are like, well, how do you know that God's trying to woo me? You know how I know that God's trying to woo me? Because you're here. What? Can we just check for a second? Alright, why are you here? What are you doing here? It's a beautiful Vancouver Sunday morning. You could be eating breakfast, doing something. You know there's people probably liking your Facebook status right now. You could be checking that.
Mark Clark [00:47:47]:
There's probably people double-clicking your Instagram photo of your pizza last night that you took and you posted that and everyone's, "Oh, double-click it." You could be doing all that, you could be checking that, that's important stuff, but you're not, you're here. Why? Because He wanted you here. He wanted you to hear that your life has been spent living vertical and that's why you're hurt And that's why you're confused, and that's why you're burdened, and he wants you— excuse me, horizontal— he wants you to live vertically, to focus on him, to focus your eyes on Jesus so he becomes your portion and you give your life to him and he becomes the center of everything. And because someone brought you who wanted you to hear that there's more to life than living for the weekends. And there's more to life than getting another paycheck. And there's more to life than fixing your kitchen. And there's more to life than your next pleasure encounter. There is a vision for your life which is about giving everything up for the sake of Jesus and the glory and the fame of His name.
Mark Clark [00:48:56]:
See, this is where this leads. It leads to life change. It leads to transformation. And your friends and your family and the people around you have watched you try to get a transformed life, try to get a new life through all the different avenues that our culture preaches at you how to do it. How do you do it? How do you do it? How do you change your life? How do you get transformed? Well, you gotta get more education, right? As a culture, we've been preaching this for 70 years. Education will be the solution to all things. Technology will be the solution to all things. You wanna solve all the problems of humanity? It's more information.
Mark Clark [00:49:32]:
More technology. That's how we advance. And you know what Paul's saying? He's saying the solution is not information. It's power. You don't need information. You need power. You need to be risen up, made alive, and seated unified with Christ in order to live a new life. That's how you change your life.
Mark Clark [00:50:00]:
That's how you get transformed. And so the church tends to go, "Hey, how do we transform people's lives? Well, let's offer another Bible study. Well, no one's changing. Well, we'll offer another one. We'll offer another one. But no one's repenting of sin. Everybody's life is falling apart. No marriages can stay together.
Mark Clark [00:50:14]:
Everybody's cheating on each other. Everybody's lying. Okay, we'll offer an end times course with the book of Daniel. That should solve it." More information! Information! Give them more information! And Paul's going, "No, no, no, it's, you need power. And that power comes from your identity shifting to being made alive, raised up, and seated with Him." I had a woman come into my office a little bit ago and she said, "You're my number 5, my step 5 in AA, where I need to come to a spiritual advisor and leader." and dump all of my stuff. And I just— listen, I don't believe in any of this stuff. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:50:58]:
And I don't want you to preach at me. I'm like, okay. And so she told about her life. She told about all the drugs she had done, all the drinking, all the married men she had slept with., and I'm sitting there picturing all these families falling apart, all the relationships, all the people she hates, all the division, all the people she can't forgive, and I'm just— this stuff's getting piled on me, and I'm sitting there looking at this person thinking, man, she views herself as this is how she walks. I'm viewing herself as, man, if she believes in Jesus, this is the way she that she once walked. That her identity can shift from, "I once walked, I once did this, I once did that, I once lived this way," to, "Now I am saved, made alive, risen, and seated with Christ." So I'm seeing that, she's downloading all this stuff, and I said, "Tell me about your life." She said, "I was raised in a home, my dad was abusive, I got raped when I was 17 years old." And I said, listen, I don't want to preach at you, but I can't let you leave this office without telling you about Jesus because I don't want you to walk out with the burden and the weight that you walked in here with. I said, here's the beautiful thing about the gospel, and I'm saying this to all of you because you got secrets in this room that nobody knows about. You got stuff that happened to you whether you're kids, whether you were adults, that your spouse doesn't know about.
Mark Clark [00:52:46]:
And the beautiful thing about the Gospel that I said to her was, listen, there's an idea in theology called expiation where Jesus not only died for the sins that you do, He died for the sins the sins that are done against you. He died for the things that people have done against you. And 1 John says He will purify you and wash you clean from the sins of others. And I said, you want transformation? You want new life? I can't give you more information. I'll tell you about Jesus. You want transformation? You trust in Him. And she wept and she wept and she said, I want that transformation. 'Cause of course we do! You want to be changed? You want to be transformed? You want to live a new life? You have to live a life of power.
Mark Clark [00:53:46]:
And so for some of you, here's a crisis day. Do you continue living your life trying to earn it? Or do you say, okay, my heart, my mind is willing to go to Jesus, to the sanctuary of God, to get full contentment? Because ultimately all of that contentment is eternal versus the contentment that all of these things in this world that I have gone after to give me joy and pleasure. They dissipate. I need something that transcends. I need an identity that can't be taken away. Listen, there's people in this room, all of your joy is wrapped up in your wife or your husband, and the Bible says, guess what, one day they will die. Then what? Who is going to rescue and minister to your broken heart when you're standing over the casket of the thing that gave you joy. Go back to Psalm 73.
Mark Clark [00:54:56]:
He's going, God is my portion even above my spouse, even above my money which can disappear quickly, even above my kids that will disappoint me over and over and over again. So let's pray. Father, it is my heart That every person in this room comes to a place where they are able to be humbled by the gospel, by the grace of God that cuts us off at the knees and says, we are fully dependent on your move toward us first, in your undeserved favor, in your relentless pursuit of us who died for us when we were your enemy. And that even in this moment, we would begin to wonder about a God who would do all of that. And we begin to press into You. And we begin to find in ourselves that You— not the things You provide, You yourself can be our portion forever, and that every heart in here would be contented on getting you, not getting your stuff, not elevating gift above giver, but that we get the giver. And that we now, when we worship and we give, we do all of that from a place of an appreciation for your grace and the gift of faith faith that you have given that we might live vertical lives, bringing glory and honor to you in all things, instead of trying to wrestle that away for ourself every moment. In Jesus' powerful name we pray.
Mark Clark [00:56:47]:
Amen.