Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Open it up. First Corinthians, chapter four is where we are. And this week's very interesting because this text really messed me up and actually bothered me to the point this week where I was actually. I sat in my office, and I have this glass wall in my office where I sketch out notes and meetings. And I. And I was so disturbed by this text, so shaken. I was actually crying while I was studying it, which might not kind of come across as you get into it because it's cognitive, it's ideas. But there was something about it that shook me so bad that I sat there for two hours, like, sketching it out.
Mark Clark [00:00:41]:
I actually called two other staff members in and said, help me sketch out this text to make it say what I don't think it's saying. And then they came in, and we worked on it and tried to make it say what I thought it was saying that was bugging me to try to make it say something else so that you wouldn't be disturbed by it. And then we realized it just was saying, and there's no way around it. And the problem with it is, is that if this text is true, what bugged me about it is I don't know that I actually know a Christian. That's crazy. I just like, if this text is true. I just don't know whether any of you are actually Christians. All right? So welcome to Village Church.
Mark Clark [00:01:19]:
Glad you're here. Okay, here's the thing. This is what Paul says, and this is why at the end of it, in verse 14. So I'm just gonna go to the end of the text before you get mad at me, all right? So don't get mad at me. I'm just a messenger. Okay? So Paul, even after. Cause what I'm gonna go through is everything from verse six down, hopefully, to verse 13, we'll see how much time we have. But at the end of it, he says this.
Mark Clark [00:01:40]:
So I'm just giving this up to you up front so you don't get mad as we go. He says, I do not write these things to make you ashamed, all right? Meaning I'm your pastor and I love you. And everything I just said, that gonna make you feel bad about your life and gonna make you go, my gosh, what am I doing? I didn't do it to shame you. I. But to admonish you, to inspire you, to hopefully you will do something with your life that's different than when you came in here. Hopefully this is not just another Sunday for you, but there's gonna be Something that you actually hear that changes you at a heart level and a soul level, a mind level and an action level that will change your life. That's the hope I'm coming with right off the top. So before we get there, though, we need to go back to the other verses.
Mark Clark [00:02:24]:
So start in verse six. Now let me set the stage this way. Sometimes when we're trying to go through life, we come up with a bad answer to a legit question, all right? That happens to us. So sometimes we come up with a bad solution to a legit question that we need to figure out. So, for instance, culturally speaking, there's a lot of discussion about gender. And what we started to do as a culture is dissolve gender so that there is no genders anymore. And we're gonna be talking about this more and more as we get into chapter five and six of First Corinthians, which will be interesting part of the cultural conversation that our culture is having right now. Cause Paul deals with it in chapter five and six when he starts to get into it.
Mark Clark [00:03:11]:
So we'll save that for that. But there's an interesting thing where we don't have genders anymore. We're trying to absolve it. We're trying to make everything to the point where I'm. I read a story this week of a guy in Calgary who recognized that women actually have. They pay less car insurance, right? Because monthly car insurance bills are usually less for women. Because insurance is based on statistical data on risk. And if you take higher risks, you pay higher.
Mark Clark [00:03:37]:
That's how insurance works. Men tend to be far worse drivers in regard to aggression. They get most fatalities on the road, statistically, are men. They drive drunk more, they go after faster cars more. So men tend to pay higher insurance. And so he recognized that and he said, well, culturally, we don't really. We don't really kind of question whether someone wants to change their gender anymore. So I'll just change my gender to female, and then I'll pay less car insurance and they can't question me.
Mark Clark [00:04:13]:
And so that's what he did. And so now he's paying less car insurance because the insurance company can't really say, well, you're not a woman. You've decided. So he says, hey, I just came in. I want to change my gender to a woman. And they said, why? Because I want to pay less per month. And they said, okay, sir. All right.
Mark Clark [00:04:29]:
So that's what's happening. And so what now what's starting to then take place is insurance companies across the Us are getting ahead of this, and they're starting to recognize this. So now what they're doing is they're actually stopping evaluating anything based on gender. And now everything's going to be flattened. And so life insurance, for instance, women tend to pay less in life insurance because they live longer and they live less risky lives. That's just statistical probability. That's the way insurance works. But now what they're saying is, let's stop asking all of those questions.
Mark Clark [00:05:04]:
We're not gonna make any insurance decisions based on gender anymore. So, ladies, what you get is you get to come up and pay the same as men. Congratulations. You've arrived. So the reality is, that's where insurance companies are going. They're not gonna bother doing any kind of gender data anymore, even though math is math this way. Math doesn't have an agenda. Math is just math.
Mark Clark [00:05:27]:
Stats are just stats about the real world. And yet we've started to take math and we started to invest it with philosophy, and we've started to say, well, now it kicks out. So my point is, that's a really silly answer to a really legit question. Now, that happens in life. We answer things wrongly and sillily based on a legit question. Now, sometimes, though, what happens is we will misdiagnose a problem to begin with. That's another problem we face in life. So instead of giving a bad answer to a good question, we sometimes misdiagnose a problem.
Mark Clark [00:06:03]:
And so, for instance, my wife, I learned over the years, after preaching many, many times and watching her in an audience, I started to realize I don't like to look at my wife while I'm preaching, okay? Because she's very distracting person to look at as a husband, all right? So I look at her, and she'll do this with her face or, like, disapprovingly look at me. Like a wife's look of shame. Like, how could you do that? How could you even say, like, that? Look. And I can't deal with that, all right? I don't wanna look at my wife shaming me as I'm doing my job, all right? I don't come to her job and do that to her, all right? So we created this rule, and I said, you have to be totally out of my eyesight if you're in the room, all right? And there's 5,000 people in the room, or 300, find a dark corner and get there. Cause I don't wanna look at you, all right? While I'm preaching. Now, that felt unhealthy. That felt like maybe our marriage actually isn't very good. Like, maybe ministry isn't for us.
Mark Clark [00:07:07]:
Because these other pastors, I see their wives dote on them, and they're like, oh, they're sitting front row and they're taking notes, and they're like, oh, my husband's so. Oh, yes. And so maybe, like, maybe our marriage actually is not very healthy. Maybe we're not legit. Maybe we should be like other pastors, how they function, because they seem to be functional. Like, every third day, there's a picture of them and their wife, and the wife's praying for them before they go out and preach. And it's all like, man was doing levity. And it's like, I look at my wife, she's like.
Mark Clark [00:07:39]:
I'm like, can you sit in the dark? Like, this whole thing just seems to be off. So yesterday, I got the great privilege of going and sitting at the feet of a man named Dr. James Houston. And. And Dr. Houston is a brilliant man. He's 96 years old. He founded Regent College.
Mark Clark [00:07:57]:
He went to Oxford with CS Lewis and JR Tolkien. And so I got to sit and hear stories about Lewis and Tolkien and have conversa. And I would just, like, touch him, because maybe, like, maybe he touched them at some. That's not at all. Anyways, the point is this guy. So I got to sit with this man of great wisdom. And so I was like, man, like, this legit. And I was sitting there, and.
Mark Clark [00:08:19]:
And he made me feel better about myself because he said, you know, we'll have people over. And his wife, who passed away four years ago, they would sit in the room, and someone would say. They'd be talking about, like, one of his books, and his wife would yell from the kitchen, james, stop talking. No one reads your books. All right? And I was like, oh, good, someone else has a wife like this, too. This is so great. The only person I know who hasn't read my book is my wife. So here's the thing.
Mark Clark [00:08:51]:
So then he said, sometimes I'll become a consultant for an unhealthy church. And he goes, I remember one time a church hired me to become a consultant because things were a mess, and the pastor and people were wondering about all these things. And so I went in and I said, here's all I need to know. Put me in an audience. Let me watch him preach, and just give me a view of his wife, because I'll watch her. And I'm like, oh, no. Because now he's gonna evaluate, does she have a Bag over her head like my wife. That's gonna be bad for the church if she.
Mark Clark [00:09:25]:
And he said. And I said, why do you wanna look at the wife? He said, cause if she's sitting front row, doting on him, taking notes, leaning into his brilliance, something's wrong in that marriage, and that's a disaster. And I was like, woo. Praise Jesus. All right, now here's the point. Sometimes we misdiagnose a problem. I misdiagnosed a problem. I thought that the fact that I make my wife sit in the dark was something bad about our marriage.
Mark Clark [00:09:55]:
And Dr. James Houston says, that's the healthiest marriage you can get. If your wife doesn't like your sermon, you're in a good place. And all of that came about because I remember there was days. I remember we were at a camp one time, and I got up to preach and she was in the audience, and I'd been stuck outside talking with someone, pastoring them, and the worship was happening inside, and I didn't get a chance to get in and listen to it. And then I walked in and I started preaching, but I didn't hear any of the music. And part of my sermon was critiquing worship music. And so I started listing these songs and these lyrics that were silly and sounded more like Buddhism than Christianity and that we're losing, you know, and she's sitting in the front row and she starts to do this, and I'm like, oh, no, I must be reading lyrics to songs they just sang before I came in here.
Mark Clark [00:10:44]:
This is a disaster. So for 35 minutes, I'm like, I can't even pre. I don't even know what I talked about. I'm like, you know what? And then I get to the end, I'm like, babe, oh my gosh, Did I like, criticize the songs they just sung before I ever came in? She's like, no, your sermon was fine. I'm like, what was all the. She's like, I wasn't doing that. I'm like, okay, back of the room forever. I can't even deal with you.
Mark Clark [00:11:11]:
All right. Anyways, all this to say we sometimes look to our life and we say to ourself the thing that's lacking, the reason I don't have power, the reason I can't fix my marriage, the reason I can't fix my fight, the reason I can't live in fullness. The. The reason I'm not happy, all of these things is because here I know what I should do. And we misdiagnose the problem, or we come up with a bad answer to the question, which is, and here's what the Corinthians started to do and why Paul writes what we're about to unpack. The solution they came up with was, we need to believe that we have everything in the now. We need to name it and claim it. We need to believe that heaven is now.
Mark Clark [00:11:51]:
We're not gonna wait. We got power. We should walk in it. We should be legit. We should. We should be victorious. We should be conquerors. Everything's in the now, and so we should go after it.
Mark Clark [00:12:00]:
And the Apostle Paul comes at them and he says, you're giving a really bad answer to a legit problem, and you're misdiagnosing your actual problem. Then he comes at them and he does what we're about to unpack, which is he lays out for them why they should stop that, because it's gonna destroy their life. Okay? So here's what he does. Take a running start. All of that was intro, verse six. He says, I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos. So it's talking about a local church leader. Apollos and Paul planted this church.
Mark Clark [00:12:29]:
We're pastoring this church. We're teaching at this church. And he says, for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. Here's what was happening. They were critiquing Paul and Apollos. They started making fun of them. They started to get puffed up. They started to get arrogant.
Mark Clark [00:12:49]:
They started to deal with pride. They started to go, you know, the Apostle Paul, he's. Remember when he planted our church? I know he did a bunch of sacrifice. I know he was a good teacher. I know most of us in Corinth came to Christ under his ministry. I know he was a good guy, but I haven't seen him in a while. And you know what? He was kind of short, wasn't he? And he was kind of ugly. And he keeps getting arrested.
Mark Clark [00:13:11]:
His blog's kind of boring lately. I didn't really like. Did you like how he dressed? You know what? I think? I think we're fine. I think we're fine without him. I know he started this church, but I don't really. I didn't like his tone. He was a bit of a jerk. He never, you know, he never made any time for me to meet with me.
Mark Clark [00:13:30]:
You know, the church started to grow beyond a few, and it was like, I Couldn't even get a meeting with him. You know, I think we're fine without him. I think we're just good. I think we're living in power. I think we should just teach each other. I think we're fine without Apollos and Paul and leaders. I think we're all good. And Paul starts to come at them and say, be very careful.
Mark Clark [00:13:47]:
Now it's very funny because the world doesn't really change that much. I hear this about me, right? I hear critique about everything from who I listen. It's very funny. I go for meetings with people and they'll sit across from me, go. You know, I've been thinking about who you hang out with. Really? You have been. Tell me about it. And I've been thinking about what you do with your time.
Mark Clark [00:14:12]:
And I'm thinking about what your family. You know, I was watching your wife on Instagram and what she was wearing. It just didn't really hit me the right way. Really. Tell me about that. You know, and the fact that you, you know, you do and you talk about this and you, you know, you know, I don't really, you know, I think you, you really go after power. I think you really like power. Really? Okay.
Mark Clark [00:14:31]:
And I think, you know, actually it was great. We got an email one day about the fact that we were selling my books, the Problem of God in the foyers of our sights during the Problem of God series. And they said, how dare is this? Is he trying to get rich off Village Church? Ah, let's talk. Okay, you figured me out. You guys have exposed me because here was my plan from the beginning. See, when I was a 19 year old kid, here's what I did. I was in the film industry and I said, you know what? Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna detach myself from that.
Mark Clark [00:15:10]:
I'm gonna defy my entire family and I'm gonna go to Bible college, okay? And I'm gonna go totally broke in Bible college. I'm gonna work at Michael's arts and craft store for 685 an hour to put myself through Bible college. And when the systematic theology teacher assigns me three books, I'm gonna read seven and then I'm gonna write papers and I'm gonna go after every theological nuance of every biblical text for seven straight years of my life. I'm gonna study Greek hardcore for three years. I'm gonna become a teaching assistant, do lectures, work with students. I'm gonna move from Toronto. Everybody I've ever known, every comfort I'VE ever known. Say goodbye to my family and move across to Vancouver with my wife.
Mark Clark [00:15:49]:
And we're gonna be dead broke. I'm gonna spend 20 grand a year on school, even though we only bring in 30. I'm gonna live in a basement apartment. I'm gonna put tons of pressure on my marriage. I'm gonna walk away from my kids every single Saturday at 5 o', clock, say, I love you, I love you, goodbye as you go live your life. And I'm gonna do my best under Jesus to labor every week to become a philosopher and a theologian and a good leader. Oh, but then I gotta be a good staff person and a good marriage counselor. I gotta do all of these things for 15 years.
Mark Clark [00:16:17]:
Then I'm gonna start a church out of nothing with no guarantees I'm gonna actually have any money to be able to feed my family. I'm gonna start that with 16 people in my room and labor every day, hours and hours and hours, doing my best to plant a church. You, you know why I gotta do all that? So I can make a buck 20 from you in the foyer. That's the plan. You got me. That was a great. It was a long term plan, I admit. And maybe per hour, not worth the money.
Mark Clark [00:16:49]:
Knock it off. What do you do? You got the time to talk about what I do with my life, so much so that you're gonna talk about what I wear, what my kids say. So here's my decision as a leader. I can let you destroy me and derail my life. And I could start caring that you want me to sit me down and talk about what I'm gonna do with my friends and who I hang out with and what I do. Or I could say to myself, before the Lord, this is who I am and I'm not gonna let it destroy me. Do not put that curse on me, Ricky Bobby. Because the reality is this.
Mark Clark [00:17:31]:
Most of those critiques, and of course, I go inside my heart and I go, are any of them true before me and the Lord, I'll walk in that. But the reality is this. It says more about you than it does about me. He's saying to the Corinthians, do not project your problems, your weaknesses on me as the leader. That is way too easy. But because it is very true that those who you idolize, one day you will come to demonize. So don't idolize me. Don't look to me for the vicarious faith that you need.
Mark Clark [00:18:03]:
Figure it out yourself. I had young adults coming up to me when I was Doing young adult ministry for six years, Mark, you saved my faith. You gave me everything I needed to eat you. I was dependent. Oh, you fed me. I was like, I fed. What do you know? Think about that image for a second. I fed you what parents feed babies, like with a spoon.
Mark Clark [00:18:27]:
You go, okay, thanks for feeding me. Feed yourself. One person liked that and then realized they didn't have it. You have a Bible. The Protestant Reformation gave you a Bible. You got more translations than history's ever seen. All right, you got an army Bible, a woman's Bible, a post pregnancy woman's Bible, a women who don't like those post pregnancy woman's Bibles. You got men's Bibles.
Mark Clark [00:19:03]:
You got men who don't like men's Bibles, Bibles. You got more Bibles to go to books than you got any Bible you want. Feed yourself. Read it. Understand what your faith is, understand who you're following, understand your get that in yourself. Because then you won't look to a leader to define your life to such a point that you'll start to turn on them. And Paul goes, don't do that, because there's a massive weakness in your life if you do that. I don't like what you drive, mark.
Mark Clark [00:19:37]:
It's a Mazda 3, by the way. Slaying it. All right, all right. Zoom, zoom. What's his point? His point is he wants to humble them. He wants to humble them and he does it in three ways, which we probably are not gonna have any time for. Okay? He comes to them like this. He says, here's how I wanna humble you.
Mark Clark [00:20:00]:
He says this first, for who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? What do you have that wasn't given to you as a. You did. You are not a self made man or woman. You didn't. You got breath in your lung. We talked about this last week. You got God decided. You can live today.
Mark Clark [00:20:19]:
He gave you. Every good thing you have was given to you as a gift. That's the reality. It's weird to me. It's like, why do we take credit for stuff that is. It's like taking. He's saying if you wake up and you think that you did something great with your life, that's like taking the credit for having brown eyes or being left handed. You were given those things as a gift by God.
Mark Clark [00:20:38]:
You were a recipient of grace. It's weird to me when people walk up to me and you know this as a parent and they say, oh, Mark, is this your daughter? Yes. Well, she's beautiful. What do we usually say when someone says, you daughter's beautiful as a parent? Thank you. Do you know how weird that is? Thank you. Like I had anything to do. I mean. I mean, I had something to do with it, but I didn't.
Mark Clark [00:21:01]:
I didn't craft her cheeks in the womb. I didn't give her eyes and strain her hair out. That was God that did that. What am I taking? What am I. Thank you. I crafted that in the womb myself. I knitted her together. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, worth $150 billion.
Mark Clark [00:21:25]:
Well, now he's worth half of that. He's getting a divorce. $66 billion divorce. Here's what he said, 2010 to graduate students in Princeton University. He got up in front of them and he called his talk, what matters more than your talents? And he tells them the story of his grandmother and how she was a chain smoker and how him as a nine year old, Jeff Bezos, was very good with numbers. And he thought he was witty and smart. And so she was driving and he'd read an article that every cigarette you have takes off 30 seconds of your life. And so he did the math on her life and how long she'd been smoking.
Mark Clark [00:22:05]:
And he said, he was in the backseat and he said, grandma, do you know statistically you've taken nine years off your entire life because of all your smoking. Boy, I'm witty. That's what he thought. And she turned around and looked at him and started to weep in the front seat. And his grandfather pulled the car over and he got out. He said, jeff, get out of the car now. His grandfather had never been mean to him before. He was like, oh, my gosh, he's gonna beat me.
Mark Clark [00:22:29]:
And he gets out of the car and he says this. My grandfather looked at me and he said this, Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever. What I want to talk to you about today, Bezos says, is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift. Kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy. They're given. After all, choices can be hard.
Mark Clark [00:22:55]:
You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful. And if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices. Hear what he's saying? He's saying you're given talents. You didn't even do that. Some of you, all you've done is said, I'm beautiful. And then that's it. You're just running on that, that your goal in life is to be beautiful. But what was your contribution to that you didn't make yourself? You've built a life on, like, look at me, I'm beautiful.
Mark Clark [00:23:23]:
Look at my face. It's like, you didn't construct your face. So bring something to the table. That's what he's saying. Do something other than just have talents. Be kind. That's what he's saying. It's gonna be more important, but it's harder.
Mark Clark [00:23:38]:
And so the apostle Paul says, yeah, you've got some stuff, but the reality is you were given those things. And he says, realize why do you boast if you did not receive it? Like, you don't be entitled. Don't go through life not recognizing the things that God gave you. At every moment. You should be like, oh, I appreciate this. It's when you become entitled and you start expecting it that you become a disaster. Listen, so at Christmas time, we go down to Palm Springs for two weeks. Because my family lives in Toronto and nobody wants to go to Toronto at Christmas time.
Mark Clark [00:24:12]:
And so we go. Now, don't worry, we don't spend a lot of money. All right? I know you're tracking. We stay in my buddy's 200 square foot casita and we eat Mac and cheese every day. Okay? If you care. I know you do because you're talking about it at lunch every day. Okay? So now we go down there and we stay out. Now, this past year, we were leaving on a Wednesday.
Mark Clark [00:24:33]:
Cause my wife had to go to something on a Thursday. So we're sitting there and the kids are in the pool and. Pool. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, it's like 12 noon. We gotta leave it in half an hour. And my wife's packing up the car and she's coming to get us. And I look at my kids, I'm like, I wanna stay here. I don't have to be at work until Saturday.
Mark Clark [00:24:52]:
And so here's the thing. Why don't we just stay till Saturday, kids? Yeah, your mom can go. We'll hang out here in Palm Springs. It's gonna be 75 degrees tomorrow and sunny. Do you wanna see what it's like in Vancouver right now? Kids? So I pulled them all to the side of the pool. I said, your mom's gonna be here in 20 minutes. I wanna stay. Let's stay.
Mark Clark [00:25:09]:
And I show the kids a picture of the weather. Look at Vancouver right now. And what do you think it was doing? Dreadful. Pouring rain, dark, right? God. Just going, this is what you Deserve, right? So it's just like, this is what it was like. So I'm like, ah, this is terrible. I'm like, kids, gather around here. Your mom's gonna be here in 20 minutes.
Mark Clark [00:25:27]:
You have to. We have to all be unified here together. We can say, mom, we're gonna stay here with dad for three more days of sunshine. You go ahead. We love you. Go. Let's do it, kids, let's do it. And the three of them looked at me go, no, I wanna go home.
Mark Clark [00:25:41]:
I'm like, shut up. Listen, if she hears you say that, this whole plan's over. If we leave. We gotta leave in five minutes. You gotta go to the pool. But. But if we stay, then we got three more days of this. We can say goodbye to mom.
Mark Clark [00:25:54]:
She can go to the airport, we can hang out. Please, kids, please. And they're like, we wanna go home. I'm like, what? So she shows up, hey, kids. I'm like, okay, Here we go. 1, 2, 3. Unified together. This is actually what they say from the pool.
Mark Clark [00:26:10]:
Dad was trying to get us to all stay here. What the. She looked at me. She goes, did you do? I said, what, what, what? She goes, let's go out of the pool. I'm like, great. Drive to the airport, we fly home. Now here's the crazy thing. I remember growing up, never one time did my father beg me poolside to stay on vacation for three days longer.
Mark Clark [00:26:40]:
And I said, father, I reject this. I should go back to the rain. Not one time did that ever happen. These are entitled girls. They don't know how good they have it in me. They don't know how blessed. They don't know how blessed they are, man. And they are just gonna live their life.
Mark Clark [00:27:00]:
And one day they'll wake up and go, remember when dad was awesome? Remember how he's so good and he tried to convince us to be in the sun, but we rejected it. We didn't know how good we had it. That's what Paul's trying to say, something like that. You recognize what you have. You have a God who loves you so much. He gave you talents, he gave you dreams. He gave you great experiences. He gives you breath in your lungs.
Mark Clark [00:27:24]:
Don't think you are a self made person. You have to be humble or you will lose your life. Now, the second strategy toward their humility says this already, you have all you want. Already you've become rich. Without us, you have become kings. Now, here's what took me a while. You. I was trying to figure out what's he talking about here and wood that you did rain? I was like, what's he doing? And here's where we get complicated.
Mark Clark [00:27:48]:
We think that he's actually teaching this, but actually what he's doing is he's being ironical. He's quoting cynics and stoics, who would say these things? And he's saying, you guys are acting like you're kings. You're acting like you have everything. It's what theologians call over realized eschatology. You're overshooting what you actually have. Because the reality is. He says, what, you think you're kings? Okay, but. And would that you did reign, meaning you don't actually reign.
Mark Clark [00:28:20]:
You think you're kings, but you're not actually kings. You're playing. You've got a facade, you have a fantasy in your brain. You think you have everything. But I wish you actually could reign because then I'd come reign with you. But you don't reign because your life's a wreck. If you were a king, your marriage would be perfect, but it's not. If you were a king, your finances would work, your kids wouldn't kick back against you.
Mark Clark [00:28:43]:
See, here's what he's trying to say. He's trying to say we give this facade, everything's fine. I'm a Christian now. Everything's fine. I'm victorious. I'm the man. I'm a conqueror. I can do anything.
Mark Clark [00:28:53]:
And he goes, be very careful when you start to claim to be a king, to have arrived, because look at your life. Creation's kicking back against you, isn't it? See, it's like this. Think about it this way. The people who know you the best probably are the least impressed by you. True. Think about that for a second. Why is that? I mean, so I go to conferences and I speak, okay? So I'll show up on stage and I'll walk up and I'll preach this sermon that I've crafted for hours. And people walk away.
Mark Clark [00:29:24]:
They go, brilliant. He's brilliant. He's so smart. He's so articulate. He's got his life together. Oh, man, I'm telling you. And for that 45 minute, well crafted sermon that I rehearsed for 10 hours, that thing was brilliant. Yes.
Mark Clark [00:29:38]:
Look at me. I am Mark Clark. Fortunately, my name rhymes. I have no idea why my parents did that to me, but little embarrassing, but I am Mark Clark and I shall leave now. Thank you for coming. Oh, yes. I'll sign your book. Oh, yes.
Mark Clark [00:29:52]:
I'll shake your hand. Okay, great. Awesome Kings. Monday night, I'm sitting in my kitchen and the doorbell rings. Waiting for dinner. Ding dong. I walk out, there's a guy out there. He's a badge.
Mark Clark [00:30:08]:
That's official. I shut my door, he's like, hey, I'm here to deal with your gas bill. Okay. Can you go get me a bill for what you paid last time? Sure. Didn't check his badge. Sure. Go inside, get a bill. Don't worry, honey.
Mark Clark [00:30:22]:
What are you doing out there? Don't worry. Walk out. Boom. He looks and he goes, okay, here's what I want you to do. You're gonna. I'm gonna sign you up for this program. Just a few minutes, and then you're gonna pay this rate, and it'll never fluctuate for the next five years. Okay? Perfect.
Mark Clark [00:30:33]:
That's great. Yeah, sign me up. So what are you up to? I don't know. What are you up to? Sign me up. Hey, I'm gonna make a phone call. Hey, what's your credit card number? Blah, blah, blah. Give him all this info. We're out there for 20 minutes.
Mark Clark [00:30:43]:
We're best buds. I just download it. Will my social insurance number? Sure. Hey, you look official. You got a badge. So I walk back inside, hey, honey, what was that? I don't know. Boom. Oh.
Mark Clark [00:30:53]:
I'm like, oh, don't worry about it. We just got some fixed good gas rates now. Don't worry about it. She goes, what do you mean? Who was it? I'm like, I don't know, some guy from the gas company. Well, do you have a badge number? No. She looks at it, she goes, this is a scam. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? She goes, you are so dumb. What do you mean? What do you mean? This is not a scam.
Mark Clark [00:31:15]:
Look, it's a fixed rate. She's like, a fixed rate for $2 more than we're paying right now, fool. But it's fixed. I open my door, I'm like, I'm going to kill this guy. All right? He's scammed. I don't get scammed, all right? Now all my daughters are watching, right? Daddy got scammed. My wife's so gracious, I went out an hour later. She goes, you got duped, right? But I'll fix it.
Mark Clark [00:31:43]:
Ah, see, my wife needs to save me sometimes. How brilliant. It could have a child. It doesn't take a guy who took Greek for three years and wrote a master's thesis that only three people understand. It doesn't take a guy that smart to Figure this out. My kids could have opened the door and go, scammer. I walk out, I'm like, hey, what's going on, Tom? Sure, I'll sign that. So my wife gets on the phone.
Mark Clark [00:32:13]:
She solved it, man. You see, the people who know me the best know I'm a disaster. That's scary, because I like to perceive myself as a king. I have it all together. I have it good. And. And he goes, you think you've arrived. You think you're okay? You think you're kings? Are you a joke? Look at your kids.
Mark Clark [00:32:35]:
Are your kids perfect? No. Let your kids remind you you're not a king. Oh, that you would reign. Oh, that your kids would do whatever you say. This week, I put my kids to bed. I went upstairs, I said, I'll do it tonight, honey. Literally Tuesday night. Cause I had the bad Monday.
Mark Clark [00:32:50]:
So I'm gonna make up for it on the Tuesday. I'll put the kids to bed. I bring the girls upstairs. It's time to pray. Well, they're all fighting. That's like. And then you do this. I'm praying, which is Yahweh.
Mark Clark [00:33:00]:
We're addressing. Shut up. Trinitarian God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we come to you in this theologically correct manner. Ah, get off the horse. They have this little horse, and there's. All three of them are sitting on this horse while I'm praying. And they're hitting each other.
Mark Clark [00:33:21]:
I'm like, kate, done. Off the horse. We always sit on the horse. No, not anymore. There's no more horse. It's gone. And you, to your bedroom. I'll pray with you later.
Mark Clark [00:33:33]:
And then I hear the stairs. What are you doing? What? I'm taking charge. I'm a king. I'll put these kids in order. Come back here, all of you, on the horse. Heavenly Father, we just come to you now. And I'm like, what? And she just done. And I go downstairs.
Mark Clark [00:33:54]:
I said, you know what they're doing? They're playing us off against each other. They want to destroy our marriage. I know it. They wake up in the morning and they're like, how will I destroy Father today? That is literally what my kids do. I'm convinced of it. Anyway, point being, when creation kicks against you, when your work kicks against you, when your marriage grinds against you, when your kids don't do what you say, that's gospel. Because he's saying, you're not a king. You haven't arrived.
Mark Clark [00:34:25]:
Do you know how bad you need Jesus? Do you know how bad you needed Jesus to die for you. You see, kings, they succeed. Kings accomplish stuff. Kings rule, kings reign. Kings are legit. Kings can climb the mountain and get to God. And he goes, no, no, you needed the king to come down the mountain. You needed the king to come and die for you precisely because you're not kings and you don't reign.
Mark Clark [00:34:50]:
So have some humility in your life. That's his point. Then third thing, he says, and this is the one that made me cry. This is the one that got me all riled up. Because it's dangerous, he says, for I think that God has exhibited as apostles, as last of all. So he starts talking about himself. You, Corinthians, you've arrived. You're so great.
Mark Clark [00:35:11]:
But here's the thing about apostles like me. We're last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. Here's what he's talking about. In the Roman Empire, The Roman Empire would go out of a war, and they would bring back all of the POWs. And all the Romans would go first in this big parade and a procession. But all the POWs would be chained up at the back. And what the apostle Paul's doing is. And then they would take them and they'd bring them into the gladiatorial arena, and they'd fight each other and they'd get eaten by lions.
Mark Clark [00:35:41]:
And here's what the apostle Paul says. He says, listen, you guys are kings, you Corinthian Christians. Amazing. Great job. Good job. You're honored. You do well. You're awesome.
Mark Clark [00:35:52]:
You figured out a way to be Christian and cool Christian and successful Christian and comfortable. The problem is, let me tell you about my life. You know who I am. I'm at the end of the line. I'm getting thrown to the lions. And so there's two options for you. He starts to give this list. See, we, we're fools, for Christ's sake.
Mark Clark [00:36:14]:
But you're wise. Good for you. We, we're weak. But, man, you're strong. Good for you. See, you're held in honor. But we in disrepute. He starts to give a list.
Mark Clark [00:36:26]:
He starts to draw a T bar to the present hour. We hunger, we thirst. We're poorly dressed, we're buffeted, we're homeless. And we labor, working with our hands. When reviled, we're persecuted, we get slandered. He's not even done yet. He's just getting warmed up. We have become and are still like the scum of the world.
Mark Clark [00:36:49]:
The Refuse, of all things. That's a bad word, by the way. I'd not write these things to you to make you ashamed. I. I wanna inspire you. I wanna inspire you. How do you wanna inspire us? I wanna give you a list of what an actual Christian looks like. You see, what an actual Christian looks like is the list I just gave you.
Mark Clark [00:37:06]:
The problem is you have figured out a way to be a Christian, and yet the opposite of those things. You're not the refuse of all things. You're not the scum of the world. You're actually honored. You're not homeless. You have a nice home. You're not hunger and thirst. You're not poorly dressed.
Mark Clark [00:37:21]:
You're well dressed. Here's what. Here's. Here's what landed with me. You know what he's saying? He's saying Corinthians. Do you know how you have figured out the balance of being Christian and honored? Do you know how you figured out how to be Christian and not homeless and not persecuted and not buffeted and not in the arena getting killed by lions? Do you know how you've done that? Because you might not be Christians, that's how. You see, there are only two types of people. This is what I mean.
Mark Clark [00:37:57]:
Verse 16. Here's what he says. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you're not of many fathers, for I became your father in Christ. And then he says this. I urge you, be imitators of me. What do you mean? Here's what I want you to do. Here's your problem. There's only two types of people in the world.
Mark Clark [00:38:15]:
There's people who are sitting up with Caesar in the crowd, watching people get ripped apart by lions. And then there's the people in the arena, and you are up with Caesar, and I'm getting mauled to death. And my request, my call, is that you come down into the arena, you be imitators of me. You wanna know what Christianity looks like? Look at the list before. Not the second list, the first list. Buffeted, reviled, persecuted, homeless, with nothing, no reputation. Scum of the earth. Refuse.
Mark Clark [00:38:55]:
The only way you figured out how to try to balance both is because you might not actually be a Christian. You might not actually know him. You might not be actually listening to what he's asking of your life at all. See, here's what you want this sermon to be about. You want this sermon to be about your beliefs, because that's why we come to church. Just tell me what to believe theologically. Don't talk about, like, what I gotta do, just talk about what I believe. And he doesn't talk anything about your theology.
Mark Clark [00:39:36]:
He didn't say anything about. Now, here's the solution to your problem. Let's talk about your trinitarian ideas. Let's talk about the deity of Christ. Cause he's saying this. I already know that you believe the right stuff. That's too easy. Here's what I'm actually after.
Mark Clark [00:39:52]:
Your praxis. Your life. What you do with your time and your money and your family and your house and your clothing and your cars. What you do. That's what I'm after. Be imitators of me, he says. And he doesn't name one theological thing. He says.
Mark Clark [00:40:10]:
This is what my life looks like on the outside. I'm persecuted, I'm buffeted. I'm a loser. I'm not honored. See, here's the problem. You're either kings or you're getting persecuted and sentenced to death in his list. But you can't be both. Close your eyes across all the sites.
Mark Clark [00:40:43]:
Feel the weight of that for a second. Feel the weight of the burden, of the fact that your life may not reflect the list Paul just laid out for an apostle Christian. But before you start to jump right into, well, you know, that was just the first century. Just feel it for a second and ask the Lord what he's asking you to change about yourself. Because some of you need to come down from being in the crowd and actually enter the arena. You do not suffer enough. You don't. You don't feel it enough.
Mark Clark [00:41:19]:
You don't sacrifice enough. You do not. You are very comfortable. And you come to church to be told what to believe, but not how to live. That is a very dangerous place to be in the presence of this text. Because the last thing I would want for your life is for you to come to the throne room of God. And he said, you got first Corinthians 4 right? And then you stood up and you meandered in the foyer and laughed and joked and great, and went on and got into your car and drove to Cactus Club and had lunch and forgot to the diminishing of your soul. I read an article this week, and the first sentence in it was this.
Mark Clark [00:42:01]:
The Gospel teaches us how to live a certain way. I want us to grab that. It's not just about what we believe. It's about how to live in a certain way. And some of you need to adjust. I don't want to make this easy on you too quickly. I want you to feel that way the Gospel teaches us a way to live, not just what to believe. It teaches us a way to live.
Mark Clark [00:42:19]:
It teaches us a way to live. And some of us need to adjust some stuff today, right now, Monday morning, this needs to change. You go back and you read the list and you go, how does my life reflect that? Am I in the crowd or am I in the arena? Am I sitting beside Caesar, or am I down with the apostle Paul getting lit up for the sake of the Gospel? Which one is me? The Gospel teaches how to live. Now, now, before I pray for you, listen to the second half of the sentence of the article I read. Before you get too weighted down, the second half of the sentence says this. Yes, the Gospel teaches us how to live a certain way. And then the article said this. But it also rescues us when we fail to live the way we're supposed to.
Mark Clark [00:43:06]:
The Gospel also rescues you when you fail to live the way you're supposed to, the way the apostle Paul just laid out. Jesus said, if you follow me in this world, you will have tribulation. But when you've couched your life so much so that you feel no persecution, no sacrifice, no pain, I came to the cross, died for you, rose again to rescue you from your own failure so that you might start doing that tomorrow. Father, I don't say these things to burden us. I preach unto myself the beauty of the gospel, of a God who came, the King who gave it all up and died in my place is the beauty of a story that tells me how to live, but also rescues me when I fail. And I do fail every week. Let us be a people and a church, marked by the list Paul laid out and then said. Be imitators of this.
Mark Clark [00:44:17]:
You want to know what it means to follow Jesus in the modern world? Be imitators of the list I just laid out. And where it's not true about us in heart or praxis in real life, highlight it. Teach us, show us, and let us have the courage to actually live in it. Break our heart, but let us then stand up and go, okay, Jesus rose again. He will give us the power to succeed in this. In Jesus good name we pray. Amen.