Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Chapter three, we're gonna hit two big ideas, alright? Verse 20 and verse 19. The first big idea is this verse 20. Now, to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us. So here's the thing. I talked to my grandpa this week, all right? My grandfather called me up on the phone. He's 91 years old. He's. He's been married for 67 years, all right? To the same person.
Mark Clark [00:00:32]:
Just to clarify that. Not like married to multiple people.
Mark Clark [00:00:35]:
He add them all up.
Mark Clark [00:00:35]:
67, all right? To the same woman. All right, for 67 years. And we talked on the phone and we talked about some things. Then he hung up. And I started reflecting that the only
Mark Clark [00:00:48]:
reason I'm here, the only reason I'm a Christian, is because of my grandfather. See, what happened with my grandfather is
Mark Clark [00:00:55]:
he didn't walk with Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:00:56]:
He didn't know anything about Christianity. And in the 1960s, Billy Graham came
Mark Clark [00:01:01]:
to town and he did a crusade
Mark Clark [00:01:02]:
in Toronto, all right?
Mark Clark [00:01:04]:
And my grandfather went to this crusade. I don't think they called him that anymore.
Mark Clark [00:01:07]:
Because the Muslims get nervous when a Christian crusade comes down.
Mark Clark [00:01:11]:
Like, hey, want to come to this crusade? What? No.
Mark Clark [00:01:13]:
If you don't understand that, go Wikipedia. Christian crusades.
Mark Clark [00:01:17]:
So but he came and did this crusade and he went forward and Billy Graham got up and he preached and he said, listen, what Jesus says is that you can gain the whole world and you can forfeit your soul. Meaning you can live a life where you pile up on a scale, a whole bunch of things that in our culture we do that you pile up money and you pile up success and you pile up relationships and you pile up reputation and you do all these things. And when you do that, you. You can trade out eternal life, you can trade out your soul. And so what you need to do is come to a place where you're willing to give all of that up, that all of that needs to die. You need to die to yourself and believe in the gospel. And then you're given eternal life. And my grandfather went forward and he gave his life to Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:02:06]:
And in that moment, he started to pray for his family because his wife didn't know Jesus, kids didn't know Jesus. And then we came along, we were his grandkids and I, and he started praying for us that we would come to know Jesus. And then when I was 17 years old, I was living a life. I was doing drugs and stealing from cars and just doing all the things that you would imagine a 17 year old kid does. And then I met a drug dealer who had met Jesus and he shared the gospel with me. And God in that moment lit me up. I don't know what happened, all right, it just. In a moment, in the blink of an eye, something changed about my heart and my mind and my life.
Mark Clark [00:02:42]:
Now, for some of you, it doesn't work that way. For some of you, it's like I've been grinding this thing out for years. I get that, and there's some reasons that is. But for me, it lit me up on the spot and I just became this. I would go around my town and I would walk around at 2 o' clock in the morning and I walk up to people sitting on their porch, I'd say, hey, can I pray for you? Can I get into your life? What's going on in your life? And we would talk and I would go to parks full of like 25 year olds just getting hammered. I preach the gospel and they go, hey, what's going on? And they'd cry. I was like, Barney from the Simpsons right there. And they were like, hey, you know, I'll believe in Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:03:15]:
And we baptized people in Lake Ontario at 2 o' clock in the morning, which is gross. And there was this God just lit up something in me. I became friends with all the jocks and all the witches. It was good. I had this relationship with this witch named Heather and she would sit and read her Wicca books. Black hair, black, clothes, black, makeup, white. And I would be sitting there, we'd both be smoking, I'd be reading the Sermon on the Mount, she'd be reading the Wicca book and, and we'd be comparing religions and we would preach, we'd tell everybody about Jesus. That's what God did in my life.
Mark Clark [00:03:45]:
And then I was going to art school and I wanted to go into film and editing and tell stories and write scripts and that's what I want to do with my life. And one day my three best friends sat me down around a campfire and they said, mark, I think you're being called to lead and be a pastor in a church and you're supposed to go into ministry. I was like, no, I want to go and do art. And my best friend at the time, him and I would edit films. We've been shooting movies together since we were eight. And he went on to work at mtv and I ended up here. And so, and so I began kind of this journey of, am I supposed to do this? So then I Went to Bible college and I started, you know, studying in Bible college and I went into youth ministry because that's what you did, all right? And so that's all I knew. And so, I mean, all I wanted to do was I wanted to talk about the eschatological realities of Israel's history, all right? And kids were like, I want to play Chubby Bunny and put Twizzlers up my nose.
Mark Clark [00:04:35]:
And so I was like preaching the gospel to them. And they were like, hey, how far is too far? And I'm like, wha. Aren't you asking any other questions? All right, then this. And so I started. And then I had a couple of mentors at college that took me under their wing and they started saying, mark, I think you need to be a ta. And so I started lecturing at the school. My first lecture at the Bible College was to fellow classmates that all had written the same paper as me. But my teacher asked me to get up and tell them what the real meaning of the text was, which was all right, So I got to tell everybody you wrote these papers, they stunk.
Mark Clark [00:05:10]:
Let me tell you what it's really about.
Mark Clark [00:05:11]:
And then I would do a three hour lecture. And then I got this heart for scholarship. And so I moved to BC in 2004 to pursue a PhD. I was gonna be here for two and a half years and then I was gonna move overseas and do a PhD. And I came here, all right? And it was like, man, God kept me here. He gave me this vision to plant a church and I didn't want that because man, every day it rains here and it's miserable. And God reminds me of my depravity. Every day when I wake up he goes, baaaa.
Mark Clark [00:05:40]:
Rain, darkness. I'm gonna get a little lamp with some vitamin D action on my face just so I'm not so depressed all the time. And so, but he kept me here and he said, I want you to plant the church. This is 2007. And so we planted in 2010 and we just started working hard and praying and we started to grow. And here's you, alright? Your lives are getting changed, you're giving your life to Jesus, you're getting baptized, you're following the vision and the mission of Village Church. You're growing, you're getting into the scriptures, your marriages are getting healed. And here's the thing, listen.
Mark Clark [00:06:11]:
My grandfather never prayed for any of those things. What he prayed for was that I would come to know Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:06:24]:
Here's what Paul says to him, who is Able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think
Mark Clark [00:06:36]:
way more than you pray for, way more than you ask for. You come at God with these prayers, with these small little prayers because your vision of God is so shriveled. The biggest prayers that you pray for your kids are, I hope my kids don't end up weird. I hope my kids don't end up as outcasts. I hope they get a good job when they grow up. I hope they can get a mortgage. I hope they marry someone really nice.
Mark Clark [00:07:08]:
That's the biggest vision you have. God's going, where's your prayers?
Mark Clark [00:07:13]:
What do you ask me about? Your prayers are so small. I can do abundantly more than you ask. Think, imagine. I can do more than you could ever dream of. And you come at me with these small things. Why? Listen, here's why. Because you lack faith. Because I lack faith.
Mark Clark [00:07:34]:
Your version of God is too small. It's too tiny. You dream too small. You don't really believe that God can do abundantly more than you think, ask, or imagine. You believe that you can think up something that's too big for God to do. And this text is coming against you and saying, you're wrong. I know now this is a tension in all of our lives. I know this tension.
Mark Clark [00:07:59]:
I used to work at Michael's arts and crafts store. I've told you about that. I was working there one day. I had my red apron on with
Mark Clark [00:08:05]:
my little name tag with my smiley
Mark Clark [00:08:06]:
face, and I'm walking around, all right? I worked at crafts. I had no idea what crafts were about, all right? People would ask me a question. I'd go, aisle five, and then I'd disappear for 15 minutes to go for a smoke break. I knew nothing about crafts. But here's the thing. Very vivid day. I remember I was standing in an
Mark Clark [00:08:24]:
aisle, and a mom pushed a young girl in a wheelchair around the corner. And she came and she was looking at googly eyes and feathers and all the nonsense. There's this girl in a wheelchair, and I heard a voice say, walk up to her and tell her to stand, that you are healed in the name of Jesus. And I was like, what's that? So I walked up to her. How you doing? Good.
Mark Clark [00:09:07]:
Hi, mom.
Mark Clark [00:09:08]:
Hi. Can I help you with some googly eyes? No, I'm fine. Okay, thank you. And I walked away. Why? Why? Why what? Because I didn't want God to look bad.
Mark Clark [00:09:35]:
Because I don't believe in that moment that he could have got her to stand up. That was a faith issue for me. And we come at God all the time like this. Our visions of him are so small. When I spent time in Turkey with these Christian leaders, I remember we were praying for the country, praying that people would meet Jesus. And it was this text that came to me as I was praying, and I just prayed it over. These leaders that you have to know that God can do abundantly, more than you ask. Think or imagine.
Mark Clark [00:10:09]:
Think about your lives, think about your leadership, think about who you are. And they said, listen, this is what we needed to hear. Because our vision of ourselves isn't too small. That's not the issue. It's our vision of God is too small. We really don't believe he can do this, work like this, act like this, do these kinds of miracles. So we pray small. And so when I meet with, with, with Christian leaders and we talk about vision, a lot of the time their vision is just.
Mark Clark [00:10:36]:
They got this vision to have a church of 100, and it's like, okay, great, if that's what God in his sovereignty does for you, he gives you a church of 100, then love it and shepherd it and lead it well. But don't make that your vision, as if you're supposed to end there. And some of you have this for your life. Your biggest vision is just to get a job, get a mortgage, get a wife. It ends there. And God's going, do you know how powerful I am? Do you have any idea that I can do far more abundantly than you could think, imagine, or dream about? And you have this shriveled up vision of me. The original vision we laid out when we started Village Church, we put before
Mark Clark [00:11:15]:
us as a leadership team.
Mark Clark [00:11:16]:
How many people you want to have after two years? If we just fight and pray? How many people you want to have after two years?
Mark Clark [00:11:22]:
After two years of ministry, we started with 50. We said, we want 200. And so we started fighting and praying, and we had 900. Why? Because we dream too small. New York City, most influential city in the world. How could God ever work in the secular, cold, hard minds of New York City? You know, in the 1980s, New York City was one of the most dangerous cities in the world. In 1990, there were 2,262 murders and 600,000 felonies in New York. In 1990, people thought New York City was just gonna be a disaster, right?
Mark Clark [00:12:04]:
You picture New York, you picture Manhattan,
Mark Clark [00:12:05]:
you picture kind of that 80s, you
Mark Clark [00:12:07]:
know, the big kid with the spiky purple hair, and there's graffiti everywhere, and everyone's stabbing each other and stealing each
Mark Clark [00:12:12]:
other's purses and getting the subway.
Mark Clark [00:12:14]:
And it's all dark and disgusting like
Mark Clark [00:12:16]:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Mark Clark [00:12:17]:
Manhattan.
Mark Clark [00:12:18]:
All right, that's a shout out to all you 32 year olds.
Mark Clark [00:12:19]:
What's up? All right.
Mark Clark [00:12:22]:
You younger guys are like, what?
Mark Clark [00:12:23]:
There was a movie about that.
Mark Clark [00:12:24]:
That's crazy.
Mark Clark [00:12:25]:
That's what you picture when you picture Manhattan, when you picture New York, this kind of dark place where everyone's getting murdered and getting stolen from all this stuff. And that's the vision and that's what it was in the 80s. Then something weird happened in the 90s. In the 90s, it began to turn. And by the 2005, in a one year span, there were 562 murders. It went from almost 3,000 murders, just over 2,000 murders in a year, to 500 in 15 years.
Mark Clark [00:12:59]:
How did that happen? There's a whole bunch of people who studied it. Sociologists, economists.
Mark Clark [00:13:04]:
They try to figure out what happened
Mark Clark [00:13:05]:
in New York City. There's a bunch of theories. Some people talk about the booming economy of the 90s. Some people talk about Malcolm Gladwell's book, the Tipping Point. He talks about the innovative police strategies
Mark Clark [00:13:15]:
where they would clean up all the
Mark Clark [00:13:17]:
graffiti on the subways and it was broken windows theory that kind of said to the New York culture, someone's in control here. If a window gets broken, the government fixes it. If a subway gets graffitied on, we clean it. And then that sends a message.
Mark Clark [00:13:30]:
All right, Stephen Dubner, in his book
Mark Clark [00:13:32]:
Freakonomics, talks about the idea that he got in a lot of trouble for this. There's tension here because he says in 1973, Roe v. Wade, that abortion became legalized.
Mark Clark [00:13:41]:
And so the people who abort the most amount of babies are inner city poor moms. And so what happened in the 90s was a of lot. All of the kids that would have been committing the crimes were aborted already in the 1970s. So they weren't around to commit the crimes. That's why people weren't dying. All right, and you can see why that might be a dangerous philosophy to go down. Let's use abortion to kill crime.
Mark Clark [00:14:06]:
But there's another group of people who said, let's look behind the veil here at what was really going on. A group of pastors started to meet in the 90s and pray and intercede on behalf of the city and cry out to God and stand in the gap. And it started to pick up momentum to the point where there are still a thousand, more than a thousand Pastors that gather weekly to pray for the renewal of New York City. 60,000 regular Joe Christians in the city pray every single day that God would redeem New York, the most influential city in the world.
Mark Clark [00:14:46]:
And then you have churches like Redeemer Presbyterian Church, thousands of people.
Mark Clark [00:14:51]:
Brooklyn Tabernacle, thousands of people.
Mark Clark [00:14:53]:
Hillsong, thousands of people. Times Square Church, thousands of people. Why? People are meeting Jesus in this place and the city is being renewed because of it. See, you never pray that, you never think that. And God's going, your version of me
Mark Clark [00:15:09]:
is so small, I could do far
Mark Clark [00:15:11]:
more than you could ever dream of.
Mark Clark [00:15:16]:
Now, what motivates God to do all of those wonderful things? Paul tells us in verse 19, text we looked at last week, what motivates God to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think? You come in here, you got ideas about what you ask for. They they're not big enough. You get ideas about what you think they're not big enough. You can't even fathom what God wants to do in your life. You're settling, you're settling, you're settling. Remember we talked about this a few weeks ago? That you should rather die of thirst than drink from the cup of mediocrity. Why? Because God wants to do something big in your life. He wants to use you for big things.
Mark Clark [00:15:59]:
Don't settle. What's the motivation behind why God wants to move like this? Why he wants to blow up your heart and do a new thing in your life? Verse 19 already told us to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Here's what we gotta hit on for the rest of our time. What does this mean, the love of Christ? Because here's the thing, we tend to come at this and dump our own meaning into it. We dump our own meaning into the idea of love. We talked about this last week where
Mark Clark [00:16:34]:
we come at love and we say, well, of course God loves us. That's a no brainer.
Mark Clark [00:16:38]:
Look at us, right?
Mark Clark [00:16:39]:
In our generation, we're like, I'm cute. Why shouldn't God like me? Why shouldn't God love me? I'm a good person. It's the wrath of God that I have issues with. Right, You're a West Coast Canadian. Love. That's the attributes. See, the Bible comes at us and says, there's a whole bunch of attributes of God that you have to hold all at the same time. His justice, his wrath, his love.
Mark Clark [00:17:03]:
We tend to elevate love up here. We say we can't have wrath at the same Time. So. So let's just choose love, elevate it above the other one and throw it out. You know, the only reason you can do that, because the only tough decisions you have to make in your life
Mark Clark [00:17:16]:
is, should I go to Starbucks, should I go to Tim Hortons, should I get a latte? And you sip your latte and you look out in the world and you say, man, life is so good. God is love. You go anywhere around the world, you go to past generations, they would have difficulty believing God is love. What they didn't have a problem with
Mark Clark [00:17:38]:
and what they don't have a problem
Mark Clark [00:17:38]:
with presently is that God is made of wrath. And he's furious and he's angry. Why? Because you go to a village in
Mark Clark [00:17:43]:
Africa, they just killed and raped our kids and our women. He better be a God of wrath. He better be furious. No, it's all love.
Mark Clark [00:17:53]:
God is love. I'm love, you're love. Everyone's gonna be in heaven when we die, right? I was watching a very famous preacher and teacher. He's got a new book coming out. He's got this video. He's like, hey, you know, God is
Mark Clark [00:18:06]:
like this Oldsmobile, and if we keep talking about God, like this wrathful God and this angry God, he's gonna become
Mark Clark [00:18:13]:
outdated and nobody's gonna like him anymore. Thank you for making God relevant to us. He's gonna be like an Oldsmobile. If you continue to believe he's wrathful, false. You go anywhere else in the world, it's the love of God that they struggle with. That's not a given. Because they're reading the Bible and they're seeing that God is jacked up.
Mark Clark [00:18:32]:
Up ticked against sin, against depravity, against the brutalization of women and kids, other people. Oh, but everybody goes to heaven. All religions are true. Let me just put together a religious idea. Kind of potpourri it out like a buffet table. These people are in the. So everybody said all religions lead to the same place. Really? Does that include the Amorites, the ancient Amorites who used to beat a drum so they couldn't hear the babies that they were sacrificing in the back room crying? Well, no.
Mark Clark [00:19:07]:
No, of course it doesn't include them.
Mark Clark [00:19:09]:
Oh, does it include David Koresh, who killed a cult where he took all these women for himself and they all killed? Well, no, I mean, it doesn't include them. Oh, so you mean just the white collar religions? Well, yeah, the white collar religions.
Mark Clark [00:19:21]:
They're all in heaven, really?
Mark Clark [00:19:22]:
So everyone's in heaven? Yeah. Hitler hey, what's going on, buddy?
Mark Clark [00:19:27]:
And then you read the Bible, Ezekiel 5.
Mark Clark [00:19:33]:
Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the Lord, that I have spoken in my jealousy when I spend my fury upon them. Moreover, I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you. In the sight of all who pass by you shall be a reproach and a taunt and a warning and a horror to the nations all around you when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury and with furious rebukes. I am the Lord. I have spoken. When I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction which I will send to destroy you. And when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread, I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children and pestilence and blood.
Mark Clark [00:20:26]:
You're going? What's going on? I brought my friend. Bro, what are you reading this for? This is crazy. We're gonna have to talk after. I'm gonna have to explain everything. It's March break. Chill.
Mark Clark [00:20:43]:
See, here's why this is important. I say all of that because this. You cannot understand the height and depth and width and height of the love of God until you understand the honesty of his wrath.
Mark Clark [00:21:03]:
It makes what Jesus did spectacular. Otherwise, Jesus just died to be an example, like other guys who've given their life as an example. And that's not what the Bible says. It's not about Jesus as example. It's about this. God was jacked up, mad at you, and somebody had to take his wrath. And so when the Bible uses this old school word, propitiation. All right, when we go, oh, my goodness, I need a new translation.
Mark Clark [00:21:33]:
I think the Bible just swore at me. All right, you don't know what that means. All right, so you go and you find the message. And the message is, oh, God likes people, all right? And so what does that word mean? It means the sacrifice of atonement.
Mark Clark [00:21:44]:
But it also means that he, satisfied,
Mark Clark [00:21:47]:
he absorbed the wrath of God for
Mark Clark [00:21:51]:
you,
Mark Clark [00:21:56]:
That what you deserved, Jesus took
Mark Clark [00:22:01]:
for you so that you might become the righteousness of God. That's how much he loved you.
Mark Clark [00:22:09]:
And so we tend to come and go, well, you know, I don't really
Mark Clark [00:22:13]:
understand the depth of the love.
Mark Clark [00:22:16]:
It's because you don't understand the reality
Mark Clark [00:22:18]:
of what you deserved, the punishment you deserved.
Mark Clark [00:22:22]:
And so Jesus comes in. Now, listen, for some of you, I Say all of this. We sing about this and we preach these texts so that your heart gets melted. And you say, I can't believe that God did these things for me. And. And some of you are in a place right now where you're like, man, I don't want to give my life to Jesus. Because your heart hasn't been melted by the extreme love that he showed you.
Mark Clark [00:22:46]:
John 3:16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
Mark Clark [00:22:50]:
The word there is agape. It's this covenant love. It's not an erotic love.
Mark Clark [00:22:56]:
It's not a friendship love.
Mark Clark [00:22:57]:
It's this covenant love. It's like a love of a bride and a groom.
Mark Clark [00:23:02]:
I did a wedding yesterday, and I
Mark Clark [00:23:04]:
talked to them about love. Culturally, we tend to use this word
Mark Clark [00:23:09]:
as if it's a consumerist word, that
Mark Clark [00:23:11]:
if you don't give me what I deserve, if you don't give me happiness, if you don't give me joy, then I'm gonna walk away from you. See, that's a modern understanding of love, and it's a consumeristic love. But covenant love doesn't work like that. Covenant love is a love about. When we say vows to one another in the context of a wedding, we're not declaring present love to each other. We're not saying, boy, I love you so much. We know that. That's why we've gathered at your wedding.
Mark Clark [00:23:41]:
We assume you like each other in this moment. You don't need to tell us, I love you, honey.
Mark Clark [00:23:47]:
I love you, honey.
Mark Clark [00:23:49]:
Yes. That's why I'm here. That's why you spend $80 on the plate. I'm gonna eat later. If I don't eat pizza in between the ceremony and the reception, then I might actually enjoy it. But that's why we're here. Of course you like each other, right? Now.
Mark Clark [00:24:07]:
See, historically, wedding vows were never that. Historically, wedding vows are a declaration of future love that says, listen, I'm gonna love you, and it's not gonna be based on your performance. I'm gonna love you and be true
Mark Clark [00:24:23]:
to you and be faithful to you even.
Mark Clark [00:24:25]:
Even though you're a wretch, even though you're going to wrong me every single day of my life. And this is what I said to them, and they were very encouraged. I said, this woman. This woman is going to forget to take out the garbage week in and
Mark Clark [00:24:43]:
week out, that this man, he's not always going to look this beautiful, that some days, because he was the one
Mark Clark [00:24:53]:
who cooks, that someday she's gonna come home and she's gonna say, this is
Mark Clark [00:24:56]:
the best meal you've ever made. And you're gonna interpret that as, oh, my goodness, she thinks I'm a bad cook. Every single meal up until this day. She's just trying to tell you she loved the meal.
Mark Clark [00:25:06]:
And you're like, dee, I hate you. I'm offended by you.
Mark Clark [00:25:10]:
See, this is the kind of thing that begins to happen and then based on that performance, we fall out of love with someone and we leave them. Because we use the word love and it's the word Paul's using here, the love of Christ, the agape of Christ. It's a covenant love, not based on how good you are. It's like this. A parent child relationship, even in modern times is seen as a covenant relationship, right? Like I'm raising a six year old, four year old and a two year old. I got infants, three girls. I don't tend to get emotional joy from them all the time. All right, all right.
Mark Clark [00:25:48]:
When an infant is crying their face off, I'm not getting emotional joy from them at that moment. All right? I just wanna. Yeah. Hey, can I leave you somewhere? All right. In this moment. Cause that's how it feels.
Mark Clark [00:26:01]:
And for those of you who don't believe me, I recorded a bit. This is what my child sounds like sometimes.
Mark Clark [00:26:25]:
That's last night.
Mark Clark [00:26:26]:
All right?
Mark Clark [00:26:32]:
It's not child, like abuse to do that, right?
Mark Clark [00:26:35]:
Like for the sake of a sermon,
Mark Clark [00:26:37]:
I just let her cry just so I can get the record on there. All right, so here's the thing. When my kid. All right, Is doing that, when it sounds like that, all right, day in and day out, I'm not going, yes, I'm loving this. I'm soaring emotionally. But listen, if I just left them at some curb and I walked away from them, society would say, how dare you? Why?
Mark Clark [00:27:07]:
Because society still sees the parent child relationship as a covenantal one.
Mark Clark [00:27:11]:
But they've moved on marriage and they've
Mark Clark [00:27:13]:
said, it's a consumer one. The Bible goes, marriage isn't like that.
Mark Clark [00:27:21]:
It's a gappe covenant love. This is it. You marry that person, you say, I'm
Mark Clark [00:27:27]:
dying before I leave you. God says, this is the kind of love I love you with. Jesus came and he stood in your place. Agape love. It's not based on your performance, it's based on his. Doesn't that melt your heart? Some of you are like, I don't want to be baptized. Oh. Because people might see me, Jesus died for you.
Mark Clark [00:27:53]:
Some of you are like, well, I don't like to raise my hands in church. I don't care if you raise your hands in church, but if the Holy Spirit's going, hey, raise your hands in church, well, I don't want my buddy to see me raise my hands in church. You're a coward. He died for you.
Mark Clark [00:28:05]:
What do you care for?
Mark Clark [00:28:09]:
Doesn't that melt your heart?
Mark Clark [00:28:10]:
Doesn't that make you want to go
Mark Clark [00:28:11]:
home and live for that? In college, my best friend was struggling to write a particular paper, and he asked me if he could borrow mine. So I lent him my paper, and he said, thanks, I'll take a look at it. So he wrote his paper, he handed it, and he came to me a few weeks later. He said, hey, just so you know, I copied your paper word for word. I said, what? What do you mean? We're in university, man. This isn't kindergarten. We're gonna get kicked out. I know, I know.
Mark Clark [00:28:40]:
Here's the problem. I really felt convicted about it. So I went and told the teacher. Oh, okay. Now all of a sudden you're righteous? Three weeks later over here, you're a thief. Now you're righteous. Yeah, I know. So anyway, I told them, and they're holding a little bit of a tribunal for me.
Mark Clark [00:29:02]:
There's five teachers and a chair, and I gotta answer their questions.
Mark Clark [00:29:09]:
What?
Mark Clark [00:29:09]:
What are you talking about? Chill out. The last thing I will ever do is tell them who gave me the paper. I said, okay. So he went to the tribunal and he called me. I said, how'd it go? He said, it went good. I told him your name.
Mark Clark [00:29:28]:
I thought you were dying for this. What happened? Well, they asked me. The only thing they wanted to know was the name. They just went at the name. Who gave you the paper? Who gave you the paper? Who gave you the paper? And I thought I was going to be able to. And I sat and I stared at the ground, Mark, for a good seven minutes. It probably 11 seconds knowing this guy. A good five minutes.
Mark Clark [00:29:51]:
I didn't do it. And finally I said, I'm never going to tell you his name. And they said, now we know it's a guy. How long do you think it's going to take us to figure out which guy in that class last semester hangs out with you a lot?
Mark Clark [00:30:03]:
And he said, fine.
Mark Clark [00:30:04]:
His name's Mark Clark. And they all shut their books up
Mark Clark [00:30:06]:
and they said, thank you. And so I awaited a phone call. I'm going to get suspended. Phone call never came. And the reason it didn't, I found out later, was because the head of the New Testament department who was my mentor. He had taken me under his wing. We'd worked a lot together and sitting in his office at 6:00 in the morning, reading the text and working through books together. He found out about the tribunal and he went and he stood before all those five teachers and he said, let me tell you something, if you even call Mark Clark, I'm going to raise more problems for you in this school than you know about.
Mark Clark [00:30:44]:
This is ungracious, it's not gospel.
Mark Clark [00:30:48]:
You have lost yourself.
Mark Clark [00:30:51]:
Now he never told me that I found out about it and my heart for him soared. Not like that. I'm talking about man, my love for this guy, my respect for this guy, man, I wanted to do anything for him, man, I would die for this guy. Why? Because he went and he stood in my place. He went to bat for me
Mark Clark [00:31:22]:
and because he went to bat for me, man, that made my heart sore. I'll do anything for you.
Mark Clark [00:31:27]:
Now some of you got no heart melt for this.
Mark Clark [00:31:31]:
The cross of Christ, the resurrection just bounces off you because you're cold hearted.
Mark Clark [00:31:42]:
What does it mean to let the love of Christ actually change you? Paul uses a very important word. If you flip over a couple Pages to Ephesians 5, he says this in verse 23, Christ is the head of the church. Here's what he means. There's lots of ways in the Bible that it talks about the love of God toward us. Paul's concern, which is often lost in modern Christianity is that you would feel the love of Christ in your life as he's the head of you. He's the boss, he's the senior pastor, he's the leader. Some of you reject Christianity not because you don't want a savior to save you from hell. I mean you'll take that.
Mark Clark [00:32:31]:
It's not because you don't want a God. I mean you like the concept of God. You've kind of constructed God in your mind and say yeah, I like God. It's not for any of those reasons that you reject Christianity. It's because you don't want a leader. You don't want a head to tell you you're going to submit to me. You don't want to give up control, you're afraid. But that's the beginning of life change.
Mark Clark [00:32:59]:
Let me show you what I mean. I'll end with this. We went away on the men's retreat and I prayed, this was a couple weeks ago and I prayed that life change would happen in guys lives and build community and all that, but I didn't pray big enough. Here's an email I got when we got back. What did you do with my husband? Is he missing? He went away with you guys for two nights and it's like I don't even know him anymore. Thanks for your heart and your passion to name and challenge this cultural crisis. She's talking about the cultural crisis of men. The demise of guys that we just let them sit in all their immaturity and addicted to a whole bunch of stuff.
Mark Clark [00:33:49]:
And we never called them to do anything, we never called them to lead, we never called them to grow up. And they turn up 31 years old sitting in their parents basement playing video games. A cultural crisis. My husband of eight years came home and wept and wept in front of me. He admitted to never taking responsibility for our marriage, to never fighting for or protecting or truly loving me, to never having ever tried to live for Christ. He prayed for me for the first time in three years. He also went straight to work today and told his colleagues about the weekend in Jesus and village church. I've never in my life seen such a transformation nor expected it in my husband.
Mark Clark [00:34:35]:
To be honest, I didn't actually know anymore if he was saved. I know that this is the work of the Holy Spirit and the hard cutting truth of encountering Christ. Here's to a brand new life for us and hopefully 200 other families and relationships out there. Why did a guy's life get changed when he went away to a retreat? Because on that weekend he said, I'm going to take Jesus as the head, as the Lord, as the leader, as the boss, and I'm going to submit to him and let him do with me whatever he chooses to do with me. This is not an equal partnership. I do what he commands me to do. I want you to close your eyes and I want to ask you in this moment a couple of questions. With the background of verse 20 in our minds that God can do immeasurably more than we ask or think, what might God want to do in your life? I'm talking about today.
Mark Clark [00:35:36]:
I'm talking about in this moment. I'm not talking three weeks from now. I'm talking. Is your heart and mind ready to make a change? Now, some of you on this day, why continue having a bad marriage? He can do immeasurably more than you ask or think. Do you believe that he can change your marriage?
Mark Clark [00:36:08]:
I'm not talking about him changing your spouse. I'm talking about him changing you.
Mark Clark [00:36:17]:
Why continue being addicted to drugs, porn, drinking. He can do immeasurably more than you can ask or think. Why continue to live in depression? Why continue to live in absolute fear of everybody and everything? A lot of you, ladies and gentlemen, defined by anxiety. He can do immeasurably more than you ask or think. Some of you are being called to leave that job, to go into ministry, to be generous with your money in a way that you've never even dreamed of and you're scared. Or get called to a country that you've never been to. What does this look like for you? He can do immeasurably more. Some of you are running from that because your vision of him is too safe.
Mark Clark [00:37:33]:
Father, it's my prayer that in this moment, those of us who know you, who are being called to something bigger, to walk away from the mediocrity and throw ourself in trust into the hands of a God who can do immeasurably more than we could even dream of, that you would catch them and do something amazing with their life. I pray for those in this room who've never believed in you, whose hearts pound at the thought of accepting you into their life, even though your scriptures say that those who receive him are given eternal life. I pray that all that cowardice
Mark Clark [00:38:26]:
would
Mark Clark [00:38:27]:
be killed by the Spirit and you would give new life and they would receive it in this moment. And that as we take communion, which is for people who've trusted Jesus and we take the body and we dip it in the blood, that those of us who are Christians would repent of sin and remember your sacrifice for us in that moment. And those who aren't Christians, that they would not even stand up to partake of communion unless in this moment they say, okay, I receive. I received the resurrection of Jesus on my behalf.
Mark Clark [00:39:00]:
Then they stand and they partake for the first time.
Mark Clark [00:39:03]:
And you say, in that moment, heaven rejoices over one sinner that repents, one sinner that the love of God melts them. And I pray that in this room
Mark Clark [00:39:13]:
that you would give each of those
Mark Clark [00:39:15]:
people courage to stand up, partake of
Mark Clark [00:39:17]:
communion, fill out a connect card and
Mark Clark [00:39:19]:
say, I believed in Jesus today. And even walk into the waters of baptism, as some people did, even at the 9 o' clock and said, alright, I'm in. This is between you and God. Do your work, Jesus. Let the cross and the resurrection so melt our hearts that nothing's off the table. In Jesus great name we pray. Amen.