Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Open us for First Corinthians. We're gonna end off chapter one, pivot into chapter two. And I don't know if you guys have ever had a day where you go into. You're kind of tired and you go into work and you're just kind of like, oh, man, I'm, you know, I didn't get enough sleep and I'm a little loopy in the brain. And. And you go into work and you can kind of. You know, if you work in an office, you can kind of just go to your desk and drink a cup of coffee and hang out. If you're a farmer, you can just kind of go hang out with the cows and stuff.
Mark Clark [00:00:29]:
Unfortunately, when that is the case in my job, I'm in front of all of you, and that's the case right now. We just went and did a marriage retreat this week, and it was awesome. We had 220 people up for the marriage retreat. And so my wife and I were hosting it and doing some teaching. And so in between those sessions, I opened up my Bible and said, okay, Lord, what do you wanna say to these people? And jotted down some notes and then Woke up at 3 o' clock in the morning and drove down here from Whistler and just got here and threw a microphone on. And so I literally don't know how this is gonna go, but we're gonna see. And that's the way of it. But it's actually applicable to what Paul says in this text because as he pivots into chapter two, he says in verse one, when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
Mark Clark [00:01:20]:
And so he says, hey, I actually came and I didn't really have good words for you. I just kinda said some st. And God used it to do some stuff. And so that will literally, that's the epitome of what today is. So praise God for that. All right, so we will see what happens. And don't hold me accountable for anything that might derail. Okay, so First Corinthians, chapter one, he ends it, he builds up to chapter two, and he says those things, but he ended last week with chapter one.
Mark Clark [00:01:51]:
I'm just gonna kinda do an on ramp here. Into chapter two, he says, Verse 28, God chose. And we talked about that. What is low and despised in the even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And then he says this in verse 30 we didn't get to this verse yet, but he says, and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus. And so that's a fascinating idea because we oftentimes think that it's because of us that we are in Christ Jesus. And Paul says it's actually because of him that you were in Christ Jesus. There's all kinds of passages through the Bible that talk about that.
Mark Clark [00:02:28]:
In John, chapter 10, Jesus says this very interesting thing. He's teaching. And he says in verse 26, but you do not believe. He's speaking to people who haven't believed in him yet. You do not believe because you are not among my sheep. Very interesting. Because he doesn't say, you are not among my sheep because you don't believe. He says, you're not actually among my sheep.
Mark Clark [00:02:52]:
You don't recognize my voice. You don't believe yet because you're not actually my sheep. And what we begin to understand as we think through our own selves, as we think through who is actually sovereign in the world, we tend to think that it's us. We tend to think, okay, if you look at my life, and I've shared this a couple years ago with you, but if you look at my life and how I became a Christian, you might go, okay, I might on this level say, you know what I did? I went through my life. And then I heard about Jesus at summer camp a little bit when I was 9. And then when I was 17, a guy told me in woodworking class, Chris Watt told me about Christ. And I did some evidential thinking and looked into the evidence of Christ Christianity. And then I believed in Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:03:35]:
And then that's what happened. And on one level, if you can think about your own testimony, that is what happened. But. But what we gotta understand is, is behind the veil, something else was going on because we aren't the ones who get. We're not the ones who move first, who are sovereign over all things. And so you look back and you can think about this for your life. What are the things that brought the great godly things about your life. What are the things that actually led to.
Mark Clark [00:03:59]:
I'm not talking about you thinking. And of course, he's doing a critique of Pure Reason the last two weeks where he's saying, you think, you think you're so smart, you think, you evaluate, but what was actually happening behind the scenes is you were in Christ because of him. And so think. I think about my past. And I think that 50 years ago, my dad had lived in Ottawa and his sister was schizophrenic and at 16 or 17 years old, she tried to take her own life. And so there wasn't enough care. So they moved to Toronto. And when my dad, when he was a kid, moved to Toronto, that set them up so that a few years down the road, he met my mom.
Mark Clark [00:04:35]:
And then my mom and him started dating, and they got married, and then they had me. And then they got divorced when I was nine years old. And when they got divorced, that set up a scenario where my grandfather sent me to summer camp because of that divorce, said we should get the kid out of the house a little bit. And so my mom was like, okay. And so they sent me to summer camp or every summer for three weeks. It was just like, get this kid out of my life. And it started with two weeks, and then it was like, let's just do three. All right? It's just, you know, nicer for Him.
Mark Clark [00:05:05]:
For Him. So then I'm at summer camp and I hear about Jesus, but I don't really care. And so I go on in my life. And then when I'm 17 years old, Chris Rock comes in. And I had to choose a school. I had to choose a high school. My brother had gone to this high school, and I decided to go to this high school instead, which was kind of weird. And then I tried to get into English class, but it was full.
Mark Clark [00:05:26]:
So the only class that was left was woodworking classes. So I went to woodworking class. And that's where I met Chris Watt. And that's where he kept and told me about Jesus. And so the reality is, if you've ever been blessed by anything I've ever said in your life, if you've ever been blessed by anything village has ever done, if you've ever, it's because 50 years ago, a schizophrenic teenager tried to kill herself in Ottawa. Think about that. That's how much he's in control and you're not. That's how he's directing things.
Mark Clark [00:05:58]:
That's how sovereign he is. And what we're gonna see is there's massive freedom in that reality, and there's massive burden in the other kind of story, which is that you are in Christ because of you. And that's not what he says. He says, verse 30, and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus. That's his point. And so what that does is it's massively humbling. It humbles us in two massive ways. In the first way, it has to humble you in the sense of your own worldview.
Mark Clark [00:06:28]:
If you are here, all right, we're 10 weeks in and you're in the masterclass of life, and you're exploring spirituality and Christianity. We're glad you're here. Maybe a friend brought you and you're like, man, what is God about? And maybe in your worldview, you haven't posited God yet. You're an atheist, you're an agnostic, you're a Buddhist, whatever. And what I would challenge you in is the first thing that tells you is you should be very humble in your worldview if you haven't posited God in yet, because the evidence leads and actually points to the existence of God rather than away from him. And what you gotta start to understand is don't do the thing, don't. Paul is basically saying, don't be so naive as to think, oh, I'm gonna use my five senses and I'm gonna deduce that this is what I did growing up. This is what my family and friends do, is they say, well, I haven't seen God and I've never heard from God, and I've never touched God.
Mark Clark [00:07:18]:
Ergo, God doesn't exist. That's silly thinking. That's 17th century, pre enlightenment thinking, where you look at evidential realities of the modern scientific method and you say, if I can't put it through a test, it must not be true. That's ancient man. That's Newtonian physics. You gotta understand that in the new world, science is discovering all kinds of crazy stuff. And what we're beginning to realize is the universe is way more complex than we ever thought it was. There's dark matter, there's quantum physics, there's.
Mark Clark [00:07:46]:
I was sharing with you a bit ago about one scientist actually started playing music to water, and he saw that the water would actually dance and change color based on the kind of music that they play. And so this is a Japanese scientist who did this. And he'd play it like classical Mozart. And, like, the water would, like, come alive and be like, ah, I'm birthing into new life. And then he'd play it like hardcore, like raw music. And it would go black, right? Which doesn't surprise any of us. It was like Ra, and the water's like, me. I don't like myself.
Mark Clark [00:08:22]:
All right, so. And so the reality has been the universe is crazy. There's crazy stuff going on way beyond all the old kind of thinking. If I can't touch it, if I can't feel it, if I'm evidently thinking, that must mean it's not true. No, no, no. We got. Listen, this week. I don't know if you guys read this article this week that there was.
Mark Clark [00:08:41]:
There's an object that we found floating around in space. I don't know if any of you freak out about this stuff, but I do. We have cameras, like, looking into deep space, and there was an object found that everyone's saying, look, it's not behaving like a normal thing should behave. I got a picture of it for you. And two Harvard scientists have looked at this object and they've said this might actually be an alien messenger, a probe from another civilization that they've sent to actually hear us and explore us and study us. Because they're looking at it and they're like, man, this isn't acting the way a comet rock should act. It's 1 millimeter thick, but it's half. You know, all of these.
Mark Clark [00:09:25]:
They're like. They're watching and how it's moving and how things are. And there's nothing. No other rock we've ever seen. This isn't a comet. It doesn't make sense. And they're like this, literally. Two Harvard scientists are saying this could literally be a probe.
Mark Clark [00:09:37]:
It's actually named in a Hawaiian word for scout or messenger, which gives me the creeps. All right, guys, there's aliens. I just said it's crazy. All right, so. So I'm saying. Oh, I don't. You're. You're such a.
Mark Clark [00:09:54]:
You're such an ancient thinker that you think that if you haven't seen him and touched him and tasted of him and felt him and heard him, that he doesn't exist. Don't be so naive that such ancient thinking. We can. Now, there's quarks that are moving through quantum physics where it moves on this side of the world and things are shifting over here in a different side, and we can't even see the connections. There's protons and neutrons. There's all kinds of stuff going on. It's crazy. All right? The universe is way more complex than we ever thought it was.
Mark Clark [00:10:27]:
So don't be so naive to. Well, I don't believe in God that it's. You got to go. Okay. Actually, I got to give a bit of mystery here. I got to give a bit of room. I got to give a bit of margin because I don't wanna be cornering myself. If you're a pure naturalist, for instance, even from a philosophical or psychological.
Mark Clark [00:10:42]:
Not only a scientific standpoint, from a psychological standpoint. A lot of psychologists have actually said that the classic modernistic framework around naturalism doesn't even work. There's one lady, her name is Marilyn Schlitz, and she says this because the question of humanity is that we have consciousness. We don't just think like instinctual animalistic beings. And that's a problem. We are self aware. We contemplate our place in the universe. We contemplate the meaning of things.
Mark Clark [00:11:12]:
Animals don't do that. And so there's always been a philosophical problem for a naturalist to say, why do we know about our own awareness? Why are we, what is consciousness? And the naturalistic response has been there is no difference between your brain and your mind. Mind. And modern psychology has come along and go, no, no, no, that doesn't actually work because your mind is different than your brain. The brain is pure matter and matter cannot create mind. And so Marilyn Schlitz says this, the data I see tell me that there are ways in which people's experiences refutes the naturalist position that the mind is the brain and nothing more. There are solid, concrete data that suggests that our consciousness, our mind may surpass the boundaries of the brain. No matter how many atoms you line up, you cannot get a wholly different thing.
Mark Clark [00:12:06]:
Thought, consciousness, reason, self awareness from mere bits of matter, awareness of the material universe. Listen to this is not one more part of that universe. The knowledge of a thing is not one of the things parts. It is transcendent to the thing. It is an addition from without. And so you've gotta, on the first hand, from a worldview perspective, be humble enough to go, you might be wrong. If you're a pure agnostic, atheistic naturalist who says, I just think there's matter. Because from a philosophical, from a scientific, from a psychological perspective, all of that stuff's being challenged and saying, we gotta understand there's more to the universe than we ever thought.
Mark Clark [00:12:44]:
The other thing, you gotta be humble and is, you gotta go. I mean, what he's saying here is there's this assumption that God exists and you gotta be humble before that creation. And you gotta understand that's gonna change your perspective in the way you actually live your life. I don't know if you guys have seen that Jim Carrey clip where he gets up at the Golden Globes and he's got this room full of people waiting to see if they have their best actor award. And you got Leo there, you got Denzel there, and you got Meryl Streep there, you got everybody there and they're dressed up and they're waiting to hear whether they're the best actor. And Jim Carrey comes out and the awards guy's like, hey, this is two time golden globe winner Jim Carrey. And he comes out and he says, yes, I am two time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey. I'm not just any regular Joe.
Mark Clark [00:13:34]:
When I go to sleep at night, I don't dream just normal dreams. I dream the dreams of two time award winner Jim Carrey. And I dream about becoming three time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey. Because then I'd be enough. Then all this searching and the emptiness in me would totally be fulfilled. I mean, it's no big deal, right? That if you took a picture of just our solar system alone and you moved the camera back, that you couldn't see us or any moment in human history at all. But from our perspective, these awards are huge. And he's critiquing the room because their whole existence is based on can I get a stupid golden thing to define my existence and give me meaning? And he's like, you put yourself in the perspective of the cosmos.
Mark Clark [00:14:41]:
Golden Globes mean nothing. And it's sad that you define your whole existence based on this meaning. And the room's laughing and he's laughing at them because the reality is you can't get. You start to see the bigness of God, who he is rather than who you are. And your humility starts to give you perspective on life. And everything becomes different because you begin to realize there's a God behind all of it. And in the master class of life, if you don't get that, you will come undone. My buddy lives on a street and everybody on the street are multimillionaires.
Mark Clark [00:15:17]:
On the cliffs, on the Bluffs, $40 million homes, $70 million homes. They drive the nicest cars. And we were sitting out on his porch a couple weeks ago and we went down the line of the houses and you know what it was? Drug addiction, Divorce. Loneliness, Isolation, destruction. Family fell apart because you could get everything you want. And in the end it crushes you because you are God. And in your secular worldview, you have nothing to put that weight on. And so we become very humble when we start to realize it's God moves.
Mark Clark [00:16:01]:
Now the second beautiful thing about it, not only humility, second beautiful thing about it is salvation works so much better when it's because of God, because then you can't lose it. There was a great theologian, he once said this, if I could lose my salvation, I would. And that's true about you. You're a disaster. You're narcissistic and selfish. And if your salvation was based on. If you lost your salvation every time you cheated on your taxes and every time you looked at porn and every time you raised your kids wrong, and every time you did something with your life that God did not set out, and all of a sudden it was there and then it was lost, and it was there and it was lost, you would be. Salvation itself would be schizophrenic and God would be schizophrenic and there'd be no security and there'd be nothing but shame and burden and religion in your life.
Mark Clark [00:16:59]:
But luckily, he says, and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus. There is solidity. There is the reality that you have a kind of security in Jesus Christ, which means that the consequences around you cannot affect you ultimately, that the circumstances of your life can't crush you, can't take away what God has given you as a gift. In him, the Father doesn't lose sheep. And so you gotta understand when circumstances come against your life, you're like that movie Twister, where the twister's coming and you take the bell to and you wrap it around that. Remember that scene and the big church are coming and they wrap it around that big post, and the post runs deep down into the ground and they just wrap a belt around themselves and they hold onto that post and everything. There's cows flying around, there's barns, there's cars. But they're connected to this thing that runs deep because your salvation isn't based on what you have done for him.
Mark Clark [00:18:04]:
It's based on what he has done for you. And that runs so deep, nothing can touch it. And if it could, you'd be a psychological disaster. And here's what I mean. My friend, he's about 10 years older than me. He was telling me his story the other day. He's a pastor for 30 years. He said his father was a pastor.
Mark Clark [00:18:23]:
He was a pastor's kid growing up. And when he was a teenager, his father's church was going through a really difficult time. There was tons of emotional stuff. People were fighting, people were yelling and screaming about nonsense. And he had gone into this church membership meeting and the deacons were there, and everyone was in fighting and they were having all these massive meetings and. And his father came home, he sat down on the couch just to try to get some free, you know, headspace. And he turned on the TV and he watched the TV for a bit, and they turned off the tv. He just Sat on the couch and he died of a heart attack.
Mark Clark [00:18:57]:
And issa, as a 15 year old kid, you know what my perspective was? The church killed my dad. The church killed him. Now imagine his faith was based on that circumstance of the world. He would never walk into a church again. But his salvation, his faith was not based on what the church had done for him, what this moment had done for him, what this pain and suffering and this. It was based on Christ and what he had done. And so he could go, okay, I have a perspective on reality because my salvation doesn't come and go like that. How the church treated me, whether I got a disease, whether my bank account's full, whether my marriage is a wreck, it's not the consequences of life that are gonna see if we view our relationship with God like we do our marriages sometimes.
Mark Clark [00:19:46]:
I was listening to the speaker of the marriage retreat and he was talking about the idea that when he got married, and I don't know if this was some of you, at his honeymoon, he was up and down all over the place emotionally because he said that he got married so finally, you know, they could be together in every way that mattered. And so when that was going well and they were connected emotionally and physically, he was like, this is the great marriage is the greatest thing I've ever in my life. This is the crazy. I'm in Hawaii. This is the great. I'm on the beach. This is the greatest woman on the planet. And then like a couple days later, they'd fight about something and he'd just go, boom.
Mark Clark [00:20:18]:
And he'd dip way down. He'd go, I can't believe this woman. Like, I made a massive mistake. I made a massive mistake. I gotta find someone else. I gotta get out of this. I can't believe it. And then by dinner time, it was peak and it was, this is the greatest thing ever.
Mark Clark [00:20:30]:
I gotta be with this woman forever. She's gonna be the mother of my children. It's gonna be great. And then by the time they went to bed, I can't believe she denied me. What's her problem? Da, da, da, da. Up, down, up, down. He said the only way that solved it is he went out on the beach one day and God spoke to him and said, here's the thing. Nothing lasts forever.
Mark Clark [00:20:48]:
Meaning the highs, there comes an end to them. But don't worry. Cause the lows, there comes an end of those too. There's an end to all of this emotional moment that you're in right now, whether it's good or really bad. And you get that perspective. Then you're like, okay, I got a bigger perspective than that. So Paul says it's actually, you're in Christ because God, it's really important that you understand that. It's pretty foundational.
Mark Clark [00:21:15]:
And he said it over and over and over again the last couple weeks. Okay. Then he says this, verse 30, rest of verse 30. Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He says, once you have all of that stuff in place, he says, then these three things happen. Righteousness. Circle that in your Bible. Righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Mark Clark [00:21:41]:
He says, basically, once you know what I've just said, as much as you might love your intelligence and as much as you might love your wisdom and your smarts, he says, here is what actually matters. Righteousness, holiness, and redemption. That's what you should be focused on. That. When you hang out at a party, what do you talk about? My kids are doing this. My school's doing this. My work's doing that. This is the car I want to get.
Mark Clark [00:22:08]:
It's got this many horsepowers or whatever. It's got this many engines. No, no, I'm not a car guy. It's got this much trunk space. We're going out of Palm Springs for the weekend. All my kids are doing this in school. Like, think about what you talk about in life. And what he just said is, imagine you shifted your conversation and priority to righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Mark Clark [00:22:41]:
Imagine when you're sitting around at the cocktail party, instead of talking about nonsense, you were talking about how Jesus spoke to you this week and how you killed that sin this week. Because you're becoming more holy. You're becoming more sanctified. You've recognized there's been a redemption from this addiction you had and this habit you had and this psychological reality you have, and Jesus has set you free, and you're holier this week than you were last week, and you're redeemed in a beautiful way because what Jesus did, and you're sanctified and you're moving toward him, and you're ransomed and you're bought back. Imagine the nature of your life and heart and mind and conversation actually functioned around those three things rather than the things of the world. This is why scholars look. And you know what they criticize when they look at the Western church? It's so suburban. And actually what one scholar says is, he says there's been a suburban captivity of the church, meaning the Church has become so safe, so normal.
Mark Clark [00:23:36]:
So they don't. It doesn't cost you anything. You don't want to die for it if it costs you a little bit of money. You're like, oh, why? Why isn't anything free? All right? And you just become religious, good consumer of religious goods and services, and you show up to services late, and you leave early, and someone sat in your seat, and why is the parking such a disaster? And why is this? And why is that? And you become the kind of person that's become. The church has become suburban. It's just become, you know, it's very interesting. I know guys who have churches down in the States, and some of their campuses are in the suburbs, and some of their campuses are in urban centers. And they said every single time, the people who complain the most, the most fighting in the parking lots, people who just won't serve, won't do anything.
Mark Clark [00:24:22]:
It's the campuses in the burbs. It's just easy life, man. And the problem is, is that's become the captivity of the church. It's become this safe place, this nice place, this comfortable place. Here's my vision for village church, for the sights of ours that are in the suburbs. Let's actually kick back, against the statistics. All right? Yeah, that's you. I'm talking to you.
Mark Clark [00:24:50]:
All right. Like, stop being so safe captive, because the mission will go nowhere if you're just a safe, nice, suburban joke. Jesus, like, the church has been held captive by suburban nonsense. And to set it free, looks like we take our redemption and our sanctification and our righteousness seriously. And then he says, verse 31, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boasts in the Lord. That's the reality. And then he says to one and I. All right, now we're in chapter two.
Mark Clark [00:25:31]:
It only took us 10 weeks. We're. We're blazing. This is gonna be. This book's gonna go by so fast. You're gonna be like, I thought we were Matt. We were Matthew for, you know, my whole child's childhood. And now we're in Corinthians, and it's just blazing.
Mark Clark [00:25:44]:
We're. Chapter two. We're gonna be like. Like five verses in. Say. It's gonna be crazy. Okay, maybe chapter two, verse one. And I.
Mark Clark [00:25:53]:
When I came to you, brothers. Oh, stop underline that. When I came to you. Look at what he expects. See what you expect. What I expect is that people who don't know Jesus are gonna come to us. Come and see. Let us.
Mark Clark [00:26:09]:
Wow. You. And what he just said is, I came to you. I came to you. You study the life of the apostle Paul. You know what he did? He was born in Tarsus. He ends up planting churches. And if you look at a map, his missionary journeys.
Mark Clark [00:26:26]:
He went on three missionary journeys. He ain't going from here up the road, 20 minutes. And we're not talking about cars. We're talking horse time and ship time, right? He. You know how far Corinth, the church that we're talking about in this book that he planted, he planted on a missionary journey. He showed up at Corinth, this jacked up, ridiculous port city people. Sexually, a disaster, monetarily a disaster, Entrepreneurial a disaster. And he shows up there and he preaches Jesus and he plants a church and he finds some leaders and he puts them in place and he's there for maybe a year.
Mark Clark [00:27:03]:
And he says, kay, I gotta get outta here. And when you think of church, don't think of like. Like, it's probably a house church. It's probably 50 people in Corinth. And he says, this is what Jesus wants you to do. This is now go affect your city. Go change Corinth. And he planted in Philippi and Thessalonica and Rome and did all these churches.
Mark Clark [00:27:19]:
You know how far away Corinth is away from where he was born in Tarsus? 2,000 kilometers that he got there. And this ain't a 15 minute drive. This is a ship. He gets shipwrecked. At one point he dies. At one point, he gets bit by a snake. Everyone's like, what's going on? You're dead. He's like, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:27:37]:
Listen to me about Jesus. Suck out the poison. Listen, right? They stone him to death. At one point he died. And he's like, shut up. Listen to me. This guy's legit. He starts a church 2,000.
Mark Clark [00:27:54]:
He starts a church 2,000 kilometers away from where he was born. That's like from Vancouver to la. He started a church in Los Angeles and then wrote this letter to them and said, look, I can't come back again, but I heard you guys are jacked up. I heard people are sleeping with their stepmoms. I heard people are speaking in tongues, all wacky, and no one knows what's going on. People aren't screaming different things. And he's gonna hit that in a second. People are.
Mark Clark [00:28:20]:
They're getting drunk during communion, all right? They're like, hey, what's going get. The more wine. The more wine, the more wine. He's like, dude, we're here to remember Jesus, not get hammered. Everyone just. That was their life. So they just brought it in, and they became a Christianized version of what they already were and what they were determined to remain. Like most of you like me when I look in the mirror.
Mark Clark [00:28:43]:
Cause all I want to do is add Jesus to my already established rhythm and pattern in life. You know that I was down at this leadership meeting last week, eight leaders talking with my mentor, Larry Osborne. And we were talking about people. And he just goes, you know, people don't really change after 40, right? Like, people are pretty sad. Like, think about the people. You know, 40. Like, people tweak a little bit about. I'm talking about their habits.
Mark Clark [00:29:09]:
I'm not talking about what God can do. I'm talking about just the habits, the way they function. You can try to get in and tweak someone around, but they're not gonna change that much. After 40, your rhythms are pretty set. And the reality is, some of us come to know Jesus. We're like, well, we just want to stay the same and tweak it a little bit. And he comes into our life. And so Paul plants these, and total transformation happens.
Mark Clark [00:29:28]:
And that's what Paul did in Corinth. This was his life. He said, I came to you. Do you go to people? Do you have neighbors and friends and family that don't know Jesus? And you don't expect them to change their life and become moral before you lean into them? That's what some of us do. I'll let you hang out with me, but, man, you gotta knock that swearing off. I can't have you around my kids. Bro, you swear too much. I remember that we lived in a house, a little townhouse a few years ago.
Mark Clark [00:30:02]:
And the people right beside us, they would just F bombs every two seconds, all right? And they just talk to each other like that on the front porch. And my little kids are running around. I'm like, earmuffs, earmuffs. And Aaron's like, should we have them over? I'm like, have them over? What are you talking about? My kids are gonna learn words. Mommy, I'm not gonna go. I'm tired. I should not go down that road. Things could get really weird.
Mark Clark [00:30:27]:
Jesus doesn't do that. Read John 4. He's hanging out with the woman at the well. Hey, you've had five husbands. And I came here at a time when only. I mean, he shows up at that story. I mean, some of you know this biblical history, but he shows up in John 4 with the woman at the well. The reason she's there when she's there is because she's a woman of ill repute.
Mark Clark [00:30:47]:
She's a woman who has five husbands. She's a sexual disaster. And she shows up there after all the other women have gone home. They would come to the well early in the morning. It's in the afternoon, so she goes by herself. And Jesus, that's when he chooses to go. And he shows up and he stands there. He's like, what's up, Leia? What are you doing? What are you doing? Talking about water.
Mark Clark [00:31:08]:
Oh, water. I'll give you the water of life. You want water? I'll give you water. And they start talking. He doesn't say, hey. And then they have the conversation, hey. And he goes, hey, are you married? Like he's just chatting, right? Like he doesn't know he made her, right? And he's like, hey, are you married? No, I'm not married right now. That's right, you're not.
Mark Clark [00:31:26]:
You've been married five times, and the man you live with right now ain't your husband. How did you know this? What's going on? Because I don't wait for you to clean up your life before you can be in my proximity. And then he shows up in John, chapter eight, and it's a woman who's committed adultery. And he starts hanging out with her, caught in the middle of it. And he looks and he says, hey, listen, I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more. Notice the order, religious order would say, go and sin no more, and I won't condemn you. That's how many of us think we were raised in a kind of Christianity like that, in a religious version.
Mark Clark [00:32:00]:
Obey me. Then I won't condemn you and send you to hell. The gospel says order matters. Hey, listen. Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more. Cause you've actually got some power to do it. I'm not leaving you to yourself.
Mark Clark [00:32:16]:
It's fascinating who Jesus hangs out with. He leans in, he goes to them, he shows up in our nonsense. That needs to be the rhythm of your life. You need to lean into people before they're ready. And so Paul says, I came to you. And then he says, I did not come. The rest of verse one, proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. He says, I didn't come to give you PhD lectures.
Mark Clark [00:32:43]:
I didn't come to you to sound smart. I came to you with nonsense. And for some reason, God took my nonsense. My not lofty Speech, my not intelligence. And you got saved anyway, that's how good he is. I mean, it's exactly how I'm feeling right now. I'm just like, I'm so tired. It's like I don't have anything to say.
Mark Clark [00:33:02]:
It's like I got no lofty words. I just got words. I mean, I'll always have words. They always like to put up the timer. They're like, are you gonna, you know, need more time? I'm like, never. I've never like ran out of things to say. But he says, look what he says. He says, I didn't come to you with lofty speech.
Mark Clark [00:33:21]:
Look at, look at verse two. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and crucified. That's ridiculous. Messed up cross. I didn't come with lofty speech and the most beautiful lights and the most beautiful music and the most. I just, I came to you, I talked about Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. And my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom.
Mark Clark [00:33:47]:
Why is he saying that? Because if they were how you reach somebody is what you reach them to. And so if I reach you with wow, then you're gonna expect wow your whole life. Have you ever heard of. This might be a really bad analogy. And I don't mean it to be offensive and let's just blame it on me being tired. Have you ever heard of the crazy. The hot crazy Matrix? All right, there was a video that went around a bunch of years ago where a guy did the hot crazy Matrix. And you have, you know, he's talking about like women, girls.
Mark Clark [00:34:15]:
And he says, you know, there's the x axis and the y axis and one of them's hot and one of them's crazy. And the hotter you get, the crazier you get, all right? And so you gotta be careful because the hotter you climb, the crazier you go. And so he's talking to young guys, like, you gotta make your decisions because you have this really hot apex over here. And. But it's a really, it's really on the far right of the crazy as well. And so he says, usually that's redheads and girls named Tiffany. Anyway, so. So he, he says, you gotta be careful, all right? And he says if you find that perfect scenario where they hit that center, the hot crazy, he says what you need to do is you need to capture them because we need to do some tests to figure out how they could be the hot and the not crazy.
Mark Clark [00:35:05]:
All right? So we can duplicate them and get some DNA. Now, listen, the same thing's true about Christianity. If you come to Jesus because he's hot, stay with me here. If you come to Jesus because what he can do for you and the wow and all. My pastor is so cute. And. And the girls are so cute and the boys are so cute, and it's fun and it's flashy, and it's this and it's that and it's this. And you come in, what you're gonna get is you're gonna end up with crazy.
Mark Clark [00:35:36]:
You're gonna end up with not. Deep, untruth, Wrong. Christianity. You have to realize what Paul's saying is, if I just came and wowed you with magical words and I looked my best and I was hot for you, what you'd end up doing is coming to something that wasn't true, which is the messiness, the brutalness of a crucified Lord who calls you to something, who calls you to get bloody, too, to sacrifice. This ain't hot, so be careful what you get wooed with is what he's saying, check your heart. Your heart is a consumer. And then he says, I was weak and I was trembling. Look at him.
Mark Clark [00:36:17]:
I connect. This is me my whole life. He says, if God has touched you in any way, spoken in any way, you gotta realize I didn't come with lofty speech. I'm a regular Joe. I actually came with fear and trembling. I didn't even know what was going on. I've been scared. The Apostle Paul saying, I've been scared the whole time I came to you, freaking out.
Mark Clark [00:36:36]:
I'm like, corinth, I don't know what to do with you. I just want. This was. This has been me. My whole. This is me now when I was. Look, you guys know how imperfect in a disaster I am. The fact that God would use me to reach one person is a miracle of miracles.
Mark Clark [00:36:49]:
Because I'm a. I listen. So I go down this week to this leaders thing, okay? Larry Osborne, 15,000 people say to. He calls a summit. It was like a council of Elrond. All right? It was like, we shall bring the great leaders from the world gather. And for two and a half days. So everyone shows up.
Mark Clark [00:37:13]:
It's like, boom. And everyone's smart, and everyone's like, hey, articulate in the room. Everyone's like, oh, I shall share with you my ideas. I have 20,000. I have 40,000. You know, all these people are talking about and missiological strategies. So Larry says, I have a really good friend, closest friend of mine, and he owns seven. He's the owner of seven hotels.
Mark Clark [00:37:33]:
And I will take you to the. And he will show you what to do with hotels. So we all show up, and everyone's on their best behavior. And Tim, the hotel owner of seven Westin hotels in San Diego and 65 acres and brand new. And he's got. He's basically like the Ritz Carlton. He's like, I'm gonna show you. And he does this presentation.
Mark Clark [00:37:50]:
He's one of these, like, really type A, like, everything. And he's like, here's what we do. Here's what we do. And everyone's asking all these questions, like, what do you do with real estate? And I'm, like, bored out of my mind. So finally, I'm like, hey, Tim, let me ask you a question. Sometimes I walk up to the front desk of a hotel, and I wrap a 20 around a credit card, and I hand it to the person at the front desk and ask for a better room. How much control does that person at the front desk actually have? To which I thought I might as well have said, I murdered someone 20 minutes ago, and I'm wondering where I should bury them on your property. He was.
Mark Clark [00:38:26]:
He. His whole face turned. He's like. And the whole. All the guys looked at me and Larry. And Larry looks at me, and he's like, oh, my gosh. And I'm like, oh. He's like, well, Mark, that's a.
Mark Clark [00:38:46]:
Do you mean your propositioning? I said, whoa, whoa. That's a very strong word. I'm just talking about a room upgrade, bro. All right? And he's like, well, that would not be right. Mark, I'm a little offended that you. You asked this. And I'm like, why? I do it all the time. I'm like, tim, let me tell you this crazy story.
Mark Clark [00:39:06]:
I walk into this hotel, all right, a while ago, and I wrapped a 20 around this bill, and I went from this one room, and the guy said, oh, I can't take care of you tonight, but tomorrow you can go for two or three days in the corner lot. And I looked up the price of this room that the guy gave me, and it was $2,500 a night. He gave me a room on a corner. Tim, I got all that for 20 bucks. Can you believe it? It's crazy. And he's like. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Maybe from his perspective, this is wrong.
Mark Clark [00:39:45]:
I'd never dawned on me so Then we sit down for dinner, and Tim and I fought for a full 40 minutes about this. And I'm like, tim, come on. This can't be the first time you've ever heard of this idea. And I'm like, you're telling me you've never cut one little angle? He's like, mark, I can't believe what you're asking me right now. I said, you got 65 acres here. You telling me not one little real estate loophole. Come on, Tim. Tim.
Mark Clark [00:40:13]:
And there he's at the end going, what's happening? To the point where one of the guys said, I apologize to you for my friend. All right, so. So that's me, man. I'm a wreck. I'm a disaster. God shouldn't use me. Imperfect. Weak, trembling.
Mark Clark [00:40:38]:
That's what Paul's saying. And when he uses weak, trembling, stupid nonsense to do anything good, man, he looks good, right? He looks so good. And he says, that was me as a leader. And then he says, my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom. And then he says this. And this is my hope and prayer for you as I pray, but in demonstrations of the spirit and of power. You want power in your life to fix your life, to fix your habits, to fix your marriage, to fix your. Whatever you need fixing, it ain't gonna come from you.
Mark Clark [00:41:25]:
He says it comes from the Spirit. He has given us the Holy Spirit. That comes in power not through lofty words, not through cool ideas, not through being cool or being smart. You want power in your life, and you wonder why you don't have it. Because you sit and watch Netflix for 40 hours a week. That's why you don't have it. You got no spiritual life where you lean into the power of the spirit. When is.
Mark Clark [00:41:47]:
Let me ask you this question. When is the last time? Now, I understand there's all kinds of nonsense that goes on in uber hyper charismatic movements. We talked about that a couple weeks ago. And stuff that's bad and stuff that I would say, no, no, don't do that. We have a whole bunch of new Christians in our church, and there are some things that just aren't a thing. And I need to teach you about that doctrinally so that you don't get led astray. Because there are wolves, and not everybody's subjective experience is actually true. Sometimes people ate a bad hot dog and they think they saw stuff, and it ain't biblical.
Mark Clark [00:42:16]:
That's actually a thing. People go, oh, you can't question someone's experience. I know, it's a little slippery, and I rarely do it, but sometimes you have to draw a line and go, no, no. That actually is not a biblical thing. And the reality is. So that happens. It's happened here all the time. It happens to me.
Mark Clark [00:42:31]:
There's a guy here a couple years ago, and he was in the balcony, and he just starts, like, preaching from the balcony while I'm preaching, right? He's like, I am a. And I go. I went him out in the foyer later. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, I'm a prophet. I'm like, oh, here we go. And I don't think you should be the only one preaching. God has a word from me to the people in this church that they need to repent. I'm like, shut up.
Mark Clark [00:42:54]:
Go plant your own church then, and you can preach to them. These are my people. I want to. I don't want you talking about. I don't get people with the gift of helps just running up here, shifting chairs around. So shut up. Well, you don't know. It's gonna be a curse on both your houses.
Mark Clark [00:43:20]:
See, it's always those you notice. You notice when you're ever talking to someone and they're like, I saw a ufo. And you're like, you know what? I would totally believe it if it wasn't you. That happens within Christianity, right? There's like, oh, man, I would totally be down with this prophetic word if I just didn't know everything else about you and the fact that you probably haven't been under spiritual authority for years and nobody lives up to your level of righteousness, and you're the only one who's right, and you probably don't have many friends. The reality is, all of that is factual and all of it is something to be careful of. But that's not what Paul's talking about. What he's talking about is some of you. And this is my fear.
Mark Clark [00:44:06]:
It's been a long time since you've heard from him and felt him. And he says, you want power, it's gonna come by the Spirit, not by your own strength. Ask yourself this question, Do I have the Spirit? Do I have the Holy Spirit of Christ living in me? If not receive him. Father, I pray that you would humble us, that you would empower us by the word, that you would empower us by what the Spirit animates in us for life and mission and holiness and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That you do that work among us, change us live in us, and let us actually experience you in beautiful and amazing and powerful ways. Change us, solve us, heal us. And let us, when we speak words of salvation to people around us, let them actually work to bring about new life, because they're actually empowered by your spirit, and they're not just in our own strength. We pray that we would see a movement of the spirit across our church, across all of our sites, in our people.
Mark Clark [00:45:03]:
We would see miracles. We would see healing. We would see redemption. We would see you speak and change lives. We ask you to do it. We're open to it. We humbly come to you, Lord Jesus. Pour out your spirit.
Mark Clark [00:45:21]:
Let us walk in power rather than in our own strength. In your good name we pray. Amen.